“Gosudar,” he said to Dmitrii, formal. He did not want to speak of Father Sergei, not with that cold-eyed man listening.
“Come back now, Sasha?” Dmitrii burst out. “Now, when the city is full of sickness and unrest, and all the people need is an excuse?” He stopped to listen to the rising noise outside; they were thronging the gates.
“Dmitrii Ivanovich—” Sasha began.
“No,” said Dmitrii. “I will not hear you. You will be put under lock, and pray it is enough to quiet the crowd. Father—if you would tell them?”
Konstantin said, with the perfect tone of courageous sorrow, “I will tell them.”
Sasha, hating the man, said, “Cousin, I must speak with you.”
Dmitrii’s eyes met his and Sasha could have sworn that there was something in them, a warning. Then Dmitrii’s expression iced over.
“You will be put under key,” he said. “Until I consult with holy men and decide what to do with you.”
“EUDOKHIA IS PREGNANT AGAIN and afraid,” Olga said to Vasya. “She will be glad of any diversion. I can get you past the gate.”
“It is a risk,” Vasya replied. “I had thought Varvara and I could go.
Two servants with a message. Who will notice? Or I alone, even. Or you could give me a man you trust, to boost me over the wall.” She told them briefly about the capricious invisibility she had discovered in herself, the night of the burning.
Olga crossed herself, and then, frowning, shook her head.
“Whatever strange powers you have discovered, Dmitrii still has a large guard on the gate. And what will happen to the manservant if someone sees him? Moscow is half-wild. All are afraid of plague, and they are afraid of the dead, and of curses. Indeed, Moscow has been much afraid this summer. I am the Princess of Serpukhov; I can get through the gate most easily. Dressed as my servant, you will be little remarked if someone does see you.”
“But you—”
“Tell me it is not needful,” Olga retorted. “Tell me that to leave things as they are won’t put my children in danger, and my husband, and my city. Say that, and I will gladly stay home.”
Vasya could not, in conscience, say anything of the kind.
OLGA AND VARVARA WERE EFFICIENT. With scarcely a word spoken, they found Vasya the dress of a servant. Olga bid her horses be harnessed in haste. Marya begged to be allowed to go, but Olga said, “Dear heart, the streets are full of sickness.”
“But you’re going,” said Marya, rebellious.
“Yes,” said Olga. “But you cannot be spared, my brave love.”
“Take care of her,” said Vasya to Olga’s dvorovoi, and she hugged Marya tightly.
The sisters left the palace of Serpukhov as twilight was thickening to dusk. The closed carriage was stuffy; the sun hovered red. From outside came the murmurs of unrest, the smell of putrefaction from the overcrowded city. Vasya, dressed as a serving-girl, felt more naked than she ever had in her boy’s clothes. “We must get back behind your walls before sunset,” she said to Olga, laboring to keep her voice even. The fear had begun to rise in her again, when they went back out into Moscow. “Olya, if I am delayed, you will go home without me.”
“Of course I will,” said Olga. Not for her a grand and foolish sacrifice; Vasya knew she was already taking more of a risk than she wanted. They rode a few moments in silence. Then— “I do not know what to do for Marya,” Olga admitted abruptly. “I am doing my best to protect her, but she is too like you. She speaks to things I cannot see; she is growing more elusive every week.”
“You cannot protect her from her own nature,” said Vasya. “She does not belong here.”
“Perhaps she doesn’t,” Olga said. “But in Moscow I can at least protect her from those that mean her ill. What will happen if folk find out her secret?”
Vasya said slowly, “There is a house by a lake, in a wild country.
That is where I went, after the fires in Moscow. It is where our grandmother came from, and our great-grandmother. It is in our blood. I am going to go back, when this is over. I am going to build a place that is safe for men and chyerti. If Marya came with me, she would grow up free. She could ride horses, and if she wishes to
marry, she may. Or not. Olya, she will wither here. All her life she would mourn something she did not know she’d lost.”
The lines of worry deepened about Olga’s mouth and eyes. But she didn’t answer.
A new silence fell between them. Then Olga spoke again, startling her. “Who was he, Vasya?”
Vasya’s eyes flew up.
“Credit me with a little perception at least,” said Olga, answering her look. “I have seen enough girls wed.”
“He,” said Vasya, finding herself suddenly nervous again, in a different way. “He is—” She stumbled to a halt. “He is not a man,”
she admitted. “He—is one of the unseen folk.”
She expected Olga to be shocked. But Olga only frowned. Her eyes searched her sister’s face. “Were you willing?”
Vasya did not know if Olga would be more horrified if Vasya had been willing or if she had not. But there was only truth. “I was,” she said. “He has saved my life. More than once.”
“Are you wed?”
Vasya said, “No. I do not—I do not know if we can be. What sacrament would bind him?”
Olga looked sad. “Then you are living beyond the sight of God. I fear for your soul.”
