No stove this time, and only a single clay lamp. She had a brief impression of an austere space, a neat heap of furs, and then Oleg spoke. “Traveling to a convent, are you? Dressed so? Set upon by bandits? Then you and your brother were foolish enough to stumble on Chelubey’s fire? Am I a fool? Tell me the truth, girl.”
She tried to collect her wits. “My brother told you the truth,” she said.
“You’re no coward, I’ll give you that.” His voice quieted.
“Devushka, I can help you. But I must have the truth.”
Vasya let her eyes fill. It wasn’t difficult. Her head ached abominably. “We told you,” she whispered again.
“Fine,” said Oleg. “Just as you like. I will give you back to Chelubey tomorrow and he will get the truth out of you.” He sat down to take off his boots.
Vasya watched him a moment. “You are a man of Rus’, fighting on the enemy’s side,” she said. “Do you expect me to trust you?”
Oleg looked up. “I am fighting beside the Horde,” he said very precisely, laying a boot aside. “Because I am not eager, as Dmitrii Ivanovich seems to be, to have my city razed, my people carried off as slaves. That doesn’t mean I cannot help you. Nor does it mean that I won’t see you suffer greatly if you cross me.”
The second boot joined the first, and then he pulled his cap off, tossed it on the heap of furs. He looked her over, his glance appraising. Forget, she thought. Forget he can see you— But she couldn’t focus her mind; there was a white-hot bar of pain in her head. His feet bare, Oleg stalked over to her. Wordless, he took her bound wrists in one hand and felt her over for other weapons with the other. She was unarmed. Someone had taken her knife, after she was struck down beside Chelubey’s fire. “Well,” he said, as he ran his hands down her body, “I suppose you are a girl after all.”
She stamped on his foot. He struck her across the face.
When she came to, she found herself sprawled on the ground. He’d cut her bonds. She raised her head. He was sitting on his heap of furs, running a whetstone over the unsheathed sword across his knees.
“Awake?” he said. “Let’s start again. Tell me the truth, devushka.”
She hauled herself laboriously to her feet. “Or what? Are you going to torture me?”
A flicker of distaste crossed his face. “It might not occur to you, determined as you are to suffer nobly, but you are better off with me than with Chelubey. He was shamed in Moscow; the whole army knows the tale. He will torture you. And if he is feeling inspired, perhaps he will force you in front of your brother, to pass along a little share of the humiliation.”
“Is that my choice then? Be raped publicly there or privately here?”
He snorted. “Fortunately for you, I prefer women who look and behave like women. Tell me what I want to know, and I will protect you from Chelubey.”
Their eyes locked. Vasya took a deep breath, and gambled. “I have a message from the Grand Prince of Moscow.”
His features sharpened. “Do you? Strange choice of messenger.”
She shrugged. “I’m here, aren’t I?”
Oleg laid sword and whetstone aside. “That is true. But perhaps you are lying. Have you a token? If so, did you eat it? I’ll swear it’s not on you now.”
She didn’t know if she could do it. But she made her voice steady when she said, “I have a sign.”
“Very well. Show me.”
“I will,” she said. “If you tell me why Chelubey said that Dmitrii Ivanovich had devised a novel way to get rid of his cousins.”
Oleg shrugged. “The Prince of Serpukhov is a prisoner here as well.
Wasn’t Dmitrii wondering where he had got to?” Oleg paused. “Ah.
Messenger, are you? Or a rescue party? Either way it seems unlikely.”
Vasya didn’t reply.
“In any case it was bad planning on Dmitrii’s part,” finished Oleg.
“Now Mamai has three of his first cousins.” He crossed his arms.
“Now. What is this sign of yours?”
Ignoring her splitting headache, Vasya cupped her hands and filled them with the memory of fire.
Swearing, Oleg scrambled up and back from the fire in her fingers.
She was still kneeling on the floor; she looked up at him through the flames. “Oleg Ivanovich, Mamai is going to lose this war.”
“A ragtag army of Rus’ is going to lose to the Golden Horde?” But Oleg’s voice was thin and breathless; his eyes were on the flames. He reached out to touch, then jerked back at the heat. The fire didn’t hurt her, though she could see the hairs on her arms crisping. “A fine trick,” he said. “Has Dmitrii made alliance with devils? It won’t defeat an army. Do you know how many horses Mamai has? How many arrows, how many men? If every man in Rus’ fought on Dmitrii’s side, he’d still be outnumbered two to one.”
But Oleg did not take his eyes off Vasya’s hands.
Vasya was straining every nerve, through pain, through headache, to keep her face unruffled, to keep steady the memory of fire. Oleg had sided with the enemy to protect his people. A practical man. One she could perhaps reason with. “Tricks with fire?” she said. “Is that what you think? No. Fire and water and darkness all together; the old powers of this land are going to battle alongside the new.” She hoped it was true. “Your general is going to lose. I am the sign of it, and the proof.”
“That Dmitrii Ivanovich has sold his soul for black sorcery?” Oleg made the sign of the cross.
“Is it black sorcery to defend the soil that bore us?” She shut her hands abruptly, extinguishing the flames. “Why did you take me from Chelubey, Oleg Ivanovich?”
“Misplaced kindness,” said Oleg. “Also, I do not like Chelubey.” He reached out a flinching hand to touch her palms, which were quite cool.
“Dmitrii’s side has powers you cannot see,” she said. “We have powers you cannot see. Better to fight for your own, Oleg Ivanovich, than defend a conqueror. Will you help me?”
