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Their eyes met in understanding.
“I will ask questions,” said Sergei. “And I will send Rodion with news. But in the meantime, be wary. Wherever he comes from, that Kasyan is a man who thinks.”
“A man may think and do no evil,” said Sasha.
“He may,” said Sergei only. “In any case, I am weary. God be with you, my son. Take care of your sister, and of your hotheaded cousin.”
Sasha gave Sergei a wry look. “I will try. They are damnably similar in some ways. Perhaps I should renounce the world and stay here, a holy man in the wilderness.”
“Certainly you should. It would be most pleasing to God,” said Sergei tartly. “I would beg you to do so, if ever I thought I could persuade you. Now get out. I am weary.”
Sasha kissed his master’s hand, and they parted.
13.
The Girl Who Kept a Promise
It took two days to cover the distance to the girls’ village. Vasya put all three children together on Solovey. Sometimes she rode with them; more often she walked beside the stallion, or rode one of Dmitrii’s horses. When they were in camp, Vasya told the girls, “Don’t get out of my sight. Stay near me or my brother.” She paused. “Or Solovey.” The stallion had grown fiercer since the battle, like a boy blooded.
As they ate around the fire on the first night, Vasya looked up to see Katya on a log opposite, weeping passionately.
Vasya was taken aback. “What is it?” she asked. “Do you miss your mother? Only a few more days, Katyusha.”
At the greater fire, not far off, the men were elbowing each other, and her brother looked austere, which meant he was annoyed.
“No—I heard the men’s jokes,” said Katya in a small voice. “They said that you mean to share my bed—” she choked, rallied. “That that was the price for saving us, and taking us home. I—I understand, but I am sorry, Gosudar, I am frightened.”
Vasya gaped, realized she was gaping, swallowed her stew, and said, “Mother of God.” The men were laughing.
Katya looked down, knees pressed together.
Vasya went around the fire and sat down beside the other girl, putting her back to the men around the fire. “Come,” she said low. “You have been brave; are you going to give in to nerves now? Didn’t I promise to see you safe?” She paused, and was not sure what imp prompted her to add, “We are not prizes, after all.”
Katya looked up. “We?” she breathed. Her eyes slid down Vasya’s body, shapeless in fur, and came at last to rest questioningly on her face.
Vasya smiled a little, put a finger to her lips, and said, “Come, let us sleep; the children are tired.”
They slept at last, contentedly, all four together, huddled in Vasya’s cloak and bedroll, with the two younger girls squashed and squirming in between the elder.
THE THIRD DAY—THE LAST DAY—the girls rode Solovey all four together, as they had when they first fled the downstroke of the bandit-captain’s sword. Vasya held Anyushka and Lenochka in front of her, while Katya sat behind, arms about Vasya’s waist.
As they neared the village, Katya whispered, “What is your real name?”
Vasya stiffened, so that Solovey threw his head up, and the little girls squeaked.
“Please,” added Katya doggedly, when the horse had settled. “I mean no harm, but I wish to pray for you rightly.”
Vasya sighed. “It really is Vasya,” she said. “Vasilisa Petrovna. But that is a great secret.”
Katya said nothing. The other riders had drawn a little ahead. When they were screened a moment by a stand of trees, Vasya put a hand into her saddlebag, withdrew a handful of silver, and slipped it into the girl’s sleeve.
Katya hissed. “Are you—bribing me to keep your secret? I owe you my life.”
“I—no,” said Vasya, startled. “No. Don’t look at me like that. This is your dowry, and the two little ones’, too. Keep it against need. Buy fine cloth—buy a cow.”
Katya said nothing, for a long moment. It was only when Vasya had turned back around and nudged Solovey to catch up with the others that Katya spoke, low in her ear. “I will keep it—Vasilisa Petrovna,” said Katya. “I will keep your secret, too. And I will love you forever.”
Vasya took the girl’s hand and squeezed it tightly.
They broke from the last trees, and the girls’ village lay spread before them, roofs sparkling in the late-winter sun. Its people had begun to clear away the worst of the ruin. Smoke rose from the undamaged chimneys, and the black look of utter desolation had gone.
One kerchiefed head jerked up at the sound of oncoming hoofbeats. Then another, then another. Screams split the morning, and Katya’s arms tightened. Then someone called, “Nay—hush—look at the horses. Those are no raiders.”
Folk rushed out of their houses, clustering and staring. “Vasya!” called Dmitrii. “Come, ride beside me, boy.”
Vasya had kept Solovey near the back of the cavalcade, but now she found herself smiling. “Hold on,” she told Katya. Taking a firmer grip on the children, she nudged Solovey. The horse, delighted, broke into a gallop.
So the last distance to Katya’s village was covered with Vasilisa Petrovna and the Grand Prince of Moscow galloping side by side. The cries grew louder and louder as the riders approached, and then a single woman, standing upright and alone, cried, “Anyushka!” The horses leaped the half-cleared remains of the palisade, and then they were surrounded.
Solovey stood still while the two little ones were handed down into the arms of weeping women.
Blessings rained down on the riders; screams and prayers and cries of “Dmitrii Ivanovich!” and “Aleksandr Peresvet!”
“Vasilii the Brave,” Katya told the villagers. “He saved us all.”
The villagers took up the cry. Vasya glared, and Katya smiled. Then the girl froze. A single woman had not come out to join the crowd. She stood apart from the rest, barely visible in the shadow of her izba.
“Mother,” Katya breathed, in a voice that sent a jolt of unlooked-for pain through Vasya. Then Katya slid down Solovey’s flank and was running.
The woman opened her arms and caught her daughter to her. Vasya did not see. It hurt to look. She looked instead at the door of the izba. Just in the doorway stood the small, sturdy domovoi, with ember eyes and twig-fingers and grinning face all covered with soot.
It was just a glimpse. Then the crowd surged and the domovoi disappeared. But Vasya thought she saw one small hand, raised in salute.
14.
The City Between Rivers
“Well,” said Dmitrii, with relish, when the forest had swallowed Katya’s village and they rode again on unmarked snow. “You have played the hero, Vasya; all well and good. But enough of coddling children; we must hurry on now.” A pause. “I think your horse agrees with me.”
Solovey was bucking amiably, pleased with the sun after a week of snow, and pleased to have the weight of three people off his back.
“He certainly does,” Vasya panted. “Mad thing,” she added to the horse in exasperation. “Will you attempt to walk now?”
