Morozko said, “I am not noble, if that is what you are thinking. The Bear must be bound anew, and we cannot do it alone.”
Sasha was silent, turning that over. Then he said abruptly, “You are not a creature of God.”
“I am not.” His free hand, lying loose, had an unnatural stillness.
“Yet you saved my sister’s life. Why?”
The devil’s gaze was direct. “First for my own scheming. But later because I could not stand to see her slain.”
“Why do you ride with her now? It cannot be easy, a frost-demon at high summer.”
“She asked it of me. Why all these questions, Aleksandr Peresvet?”
The epithet was given half in earnest, half in mockery. Sasha had to swallow a surge of rage. “Because after Moscow,” he said, trying to keep his voice even, “she went to a—dark country. I was told I could not follow her there.”
“You could not.”
“And you could?”
“Yes.”
Sasha took this in. “If she goes into the darkness again—will you swear not to abandon her?”
If the demon was surprised, he gave no sign. His face remote, he said, “I will not abandon her. But one day she will go where even I cannot follow. I am immortal.”
“Then—if she asks—if there is a man who can warm her, and pray for her, and give her children—then let her go. Do not keep her in the dark.”
“You ought to make up your mind,” said Morozko. “Swear not to abandon her or give her up to a living man? Which shall it be?”
His tone was cutting. Sasha’s hand strayed to his sword. But he did not grasp it. “I don’t know,” he said. “I never protected her before; I do not know why I should be able to now.”
The demon said nothing.
Sasha said, “A convent would have broken her.” Reluctantly he added, “Even a marriage, no matter how kindly the man, how fair the house.”
Still Morozko did not speak.
“But I am afraid for her soul,” said Sasha, voice rising despite himself. “I am afraid for her alone in dark places, and I am afraid for her with you at her side. It is sin. And you are a fairy tale, a nightmare; you have no soul at all.”
“Perhaps not,” agreed the winter-king, but still the slender fingers tangled with Vasya’s hair.
Sasha ground his teeth. He wanted to demand promises, pledges, confessions, if only to delay the realization that there were some things he couldn’t change. But he bit back the words. He knew they wouldn’t do any good. She had survived the frost and the flame, had found a harbor, however brief. Perhaps that was all anyone could ask, in the world’s savage turning.
He stepped back. “I will pray for you both,” he said, voice clipped.
“We are going soon.”
21.
Enemy at the Gate
IT WAS EARLY EVENING, BRIGHT and still, the gray shadows long and softening to violet, by the time they made their way down the parched bank of the Moskva and found a ferry to take them across.
The ferryman only had eyes for the monks. Vasya kept her head down. With her cropped hair, her rough clothes, her gawkiness, she passed for a horse-boy. At first it was easy to forget where she was, as she busied herself getting the horses to stand quiet in the rocking boat. But she found her heart beating faster and faster and faster as they approached the far side of the river.
In her mind’s eye, the Moskva was sheeted with ice, red with firelight. Men and women seethed around a hastily built pyre.
Perhaps even now they were floating over the very spot where the last ashes of her would have sunk into the indifferent water.
She barely made it to the side of the boat, and then she was heaving into the river. The ferryman laughed. “Poor country boy, never been on a boat before?” Father Sergei, with kindly hands, held her head as she retched. “Look at the shore,” he said, “see how still it is? Here is some clean water, drink. That’s better.”
It was the icy touch on the back of her neck, cold, invisible fingers, that drew her back to herself. You are not alone, he said, in a voice no one but she could hear. Remember.
She sat up, grim-faced, and wiped her mouth. “I’m all right, Father,” she said to Sergei.
The boat ground against a dock. Vasya took hold of the pack-horse’s halter, led him ashore. The rope slid against her sweating hands. People were pushing to get into the city before the gates were shut for the night. It was not difficult to fall a little behind the three monks. Morozko’s cold presence paced invisibly beside her. Waiting.
Would anyone recognize her—the witch they thought they’d burned? There were people in front and behind; people all around.
She was afraid. The air smelled of dust and rotten fish, and sickness.
Sweat trickled between her breasts.
She kept her head down, trying to look insignificant, trying to control her racing heart. The stink of the city was calling up memories faster than she could push them back: of fire, of terror, of hands tearing at her clothes. She prayed no one would wonder why she wore a thick shirt and jacket in the heat. She had never in her life felt so hideously vulnerable.
The three monks were stopped at the gate. The gate-guards held sachets of dried herbs to mouth and nose as they prodded carts and asked questions of travelers. The river darted points of light into their eyes.
“Say your name and your business, strangers,” said the captain of the guard.
