Yvgenie Read online

  He thought, he could not help it: With your mother's dowry and Yurishev's money at stake, damned right your family kept their mouths shut, girl. And equally likely somebody profited getting the story to the bridegroom's family.

  But it was not Irina's delicate petulance in front of him. It was an outraged daughter with a chin desperately set, eyes brimming with tears she was struggling for pride's sake not to shed.

  He said, ‘I didn't kill Yurishev. I swear to you.’

  ‘No. Of course you didn't. Your friend did.’

  ‘Sasha was fifteen, mucking out stables and washing dishes in a tavern. He didn't even know me till after the fact. Did you grow up with the Yurishevs?''

  ‘No. They mostly died.’ A tear escaped and slid down her cheek, but fury stayed in her eyes. ‘My father's whole family mostly died—ill-wished—in Vojvoda, in Balovatz, in Kiev… The wizards wouldn't let them alone.’

  Old Yurishev dropping dead after running him through, with no mark on him—the whole town in hue and cry so quickly after wizards and Pyetr Kochevikov—

  God, he had lived so long with the misdeeds of wizards he had forgotten ordinary greed, relatives, and poisons. Yurishev had come back home unexpectedly that night, Yurishev might even have had time to drink a cup of wine before the alarm upstairs—

  ‘Wizardry, hell. All of them, you say.’

  '' What are you saying?''

  ‘Plain and ordinary murder, girl. How did they tell you it was?’

  Color flushed her cheeks. ‘That you broke into the house—that you—as-saulted—my—m-’

  God. He reached for her hand, but she snatched it out of reach. So he said, gently, lightly, ‘Girl, I do assure you— whatever you've heard of me, force was never my style.’ He settled back on his heels and met her cold stare with cool honesty. ‘It was an affair of some weeks. Someone told Yurishev, Yurishev chased me out of the house, ran me through when I tripped, and died in the street without my laying a hand on him. Leaving town seemed a good idea, right then. As simple as that. I don't blame your mother—’ An outright lie, the kindest he had in him. ‘She had to tell ‘To watch something, didn't she?’

  ‘Then why did all the other Yurishevs die?''

  Not a silly girl, no. One close to an answer that could trouble her sleep at night. ‘Good question. Wizardry, perhaps—but not likely. Let me tell you: real wizardry's not what they tell you in Vojvoda and Sasha's not the kind of wizard you'll find selling dried toads and herbs in shops. His kind won't go to towns. They can't. Towns scare them, and if you'll believe me in the least, they don't give a damn about the Yurishevs and the Medrovs and their relatives. Not to say his wishes can't go that far—but not with any purpose against the Yurishevs. There's no malice in him. None. Watering the garden—whether it's going to take rain from other people— those are his worries. They keep him very busy.’

  She was listening. The anger was a little to the background, now. Curiosity was at work, one could see it in the flicker of her tear-filmed eyes.

  She asked, scornfully, ‘So was it all accident?’

  ‘Sasha says there aren't any accidents in magic. No accident in your being here, either. Your young man—I take it he's the same you were about to marry—’

  A quick, black scowl.

  ‘Nice lad,’ he said, ‘but in serious trouble. Let me tell you a name. Kavi Chernevog.’

  ‘I never heard of him.''

  ‘Not likely you would have. He's not dealt with folk downriver in years. But things happened in Kiev because of him. Things are still happening because of him—no matter he's dead. I don't know why the leshys brought you here or what you were doing in the woods with this boy, but you haven't heard the worst trouble: Chernevog's gotten hold of him and run off with my daughter, who's not being outstandingly sensible right now.’

  ‘Gotten hold! Of Yvgenie?''

  ‘Wizards can do that. Living or dead ones.’ He saw the shiver, saw her wits start to scatter and grabbed her hand; and said, ‘Dead, in this case. Rusalka. Which means no good for your young lad, and no good for my daughter either. The way wizardry works, with three and four wizards involved, things may happen that none of the wizards precisely want, and ordinary folk like us can't do a damn thing about it. Like Sasha over there—whatever he wants, we'd do. Absolutely.’

  Her hands were clenched in his. She darted a fearful glance in Sasha's direction, back again. He said, ‘That's the way it works, girl. All he has to do is want something. No spells. Nothing. He has to be very careful what he does want. That's why he doesn't go into towns. No real wizard can. The world's far too noisy for him.’

  She was frightened. And still doubtful. She drew her hands away from him. ‘Can he stop this Chernevog?''

  ‘He has before.’

  She believed that part. He was sure of it. She looked him in the eyes and said, ‘They tell stories about you. They say you're the wizard.’

  He shook his head solemnly. ‘Not a shred of one. Not the least ability.''

  ‘You're different than they said.''

  ‘Worse or better?’

  A hesitation. And silence.

  ‘Fair answer. —How is your mother?’

  Her lips trembled. ‘She won't forgive me. None of them will forgive me.’

  '' For running off with Yvgenie? ‘

  Silence. But the eyes said it was.

  ‘So why did you?’

  The tremor grew worse. The jaw clamped. Fast. Damn you all, that look said. It might have been Irina's teaching. Or his temper. He had no idea, but he knew the hazard in it. He heard Sasha come walking over with the horses, he looked up as Sasha stopped and stood there, with the horses saddled.

  Eavesdropping, he was certain of it.

  Sasha blushed and looked at the ground and up again.

  Which said he was right. But little enough he could blame Sasha. He got up, offered Nadya his hand, and thought she would refuse it.

  She took it, at least, with grace he was not sure he would have had, with his father, who had, dammit, dropped out of his life and into it again only often enough to keep the pain constant.

  He flung their packs over the saddlebow, climbed up and offered Nadya a hand and his foot to help her. She tried to settle sideways on Volkhi's rump.

  ‘You'll fall,’ he said. ‘Not in this woods, girl. Tuck the skirts up and hold on.’

  They told stories in Vojvoda, how Pyetr Kochevikov and his sorcerer ally had shapechanged their way into birds after murdering her father in the street—Nadya had heard the dreadful stories long before she had ever heard the whispers about her parentage. Her mother had told her about all the murders, and her uncles had warned her how cruel and terrible the wizards hunting her were, and kept her close within walls.

  For fear of spells, her mother had said, spells which might find her even in the safety of her own house, in her bed at night. Who knew what mistakes the other Yurishevs had made or what careless moment had killed them?

  But one had only to look at Pyetr Kochevikov to know what her mother had really feared, the whisper that would mean she was not Yurishev's heir, the whisper that would simply say: Kochevikov's eyes, Kochevikov's face, Kochevikov's likeness. Her true father's hair was even paler than her mother's, of which she was so vain; he was incredibly handsome even years away from the event, and far, far younger than she would have ever expected, even so—all of which suggested an entirely different account of what had passed on her soon-to-be-widowed mother's bedroom that night.

  Her mother had to have known the truth from the day she was born. Her uncles must have seen it: anyone in Vojvoda must have seen it, if they had ever laid eyes on her real father—and now she knew why her uncles had never allowed her outside her garden, never allowed her to meet any children except her nearly grown cousins, never let her see the world except secretly, over the garden walls, never let her speak to anyone but the trusted servants who lived within the house—and except Yvgenie and Yvgenie's father's men, for a few bewildering
hours when they had made the betrothal, and drunk a great deal, and for those few hours made the whole house echo to voices and to strangers' laughter. She had spent her whole life afraid of spells in her drink and in her food, spells on her doorway and on the steps she walked. She had expected assassins and wizards every day of her life, and dammit, her uncles had surely known all along who she was and whose she was: that was what she could not stop thinking, clinging as she must to her father's waist, jolted and tossed on the way to finding a husband she had never had: They knew. They knew all along and they lied.

  Her new-found father frightened her: she was sure he used the sword he wore on bandits and trespassers in this woods—she earnestly hoped, on no one else. But when he had seized her hands in his, looked her straight in the eye and told her his side of things, everything he had said made clearer sense than she had ever seen or heard out of her uncles or her mother; and as for Sasha—Sasha looked nothing like the dreadful wizards of her imagining, either, except the books he carried. She had seen no skulls, no dreadful ravenous creatures, unless one counted the sullen-looking furball that suddenly turned up beside the horses, or, when they stopped to catch their breaths and got down, popped up in one blink on the black horse's rump, tugging at the pack with hands like a man's, looking askance at her with eyes round and gold as the moon.

  Pyetr said, ‘Vodka, yes,’ got the vodka jug and poured the creature a drink in mid-air.

  One never expected to see a dvorovoi with one's own eyes, since she had never seen one in her garden. Sasha lived sequestered in the woods? She had no idea of the world except her nurse's tales about talking birds and lost tsarinas and horrid wizards with long white hair and long fingernails. She had never ridden a horse before, she had never spent a night under the stars, she had never waded a brook or clung desperately to a branch to save herself from drowning—and now had done all of that, fallen asleep on the bare ground night after night and waked up one morning face to face with her true father—like the tsarevitch in her nurse's story. And of wizards—one never expected one who taking a pot of salve from his pack, spent his rest like her father, rubbing down his horse's legs and talking to the creature in fond and worried tones, more kindly than she generally heard people speak to other people. Sasha's hair was brown, his very nice nose was sunburned and she found herself recalling how, waking this morning he had looked as startled as she was. Besides, he had said please. Would a wizard who laid spells on people's doorways and winecups beg anyone's pardon? Her uncles scarcely would. Only Yvgenie—Yvgenie who had met her a moment by the stairs—

  Yvgenie who had shyly met her behind the stairs while their elders were talking and promised her Kiev and all the world—Yvgenie who had said—

  Her father nudged her arm, offering her a kind of grain cake from their packs, all wrapped in sticky leaves. He had his own mouth full. He insisted with a second offering and she took the cake doubtfully and bit into it.

  Honey. Grain and currants. It was the best sweet she had ever tasted in her life, with her hands all over dirt and the tart musty leaf sticking to the honey. Her father went on to hand one to Sasha, who after washing his hands in the spring was wiping them on his breeches. Sasha took it and made one mouthful of it while he was putting the salve back in the packs and preparing to get back on his horse, all of a rush as everything had gone. Her father took up the black horse’s reins, swung up in one sudden move and reached down u hand for her, while all she could think, trying to swallow down the sweet in a mouthful to free her hands, was how dreadfully it was going to hurt.

  He looked her in the face, looked over her head at Sasha and said, ‘God, she's sore as hell, Sasha, can you do something?’

  Her face must have gone absolutely, devastatingly red, when something odd happened, and the soreness went away. Like that. She glanced at Sasha, who looked elsewhere, and looked her father in the face, her heart pounding.

  ‘Magic,’ he said, and whisked her up by an arm and left her nothing to do but to catch hold of him and the saddle and him again, trying desperately to get her skirts arranged while the horse was starting to move.

  Her whole life seemed suddenly caught up and sped along faster than she could sort out the images. Nothing was true but the things everyone had said were false, her father just had embarrassed her beyond bearing and yet known exactly what was wrong with her, and cared, more than that, cared for someone he had no time for, in his care for his other daughter—

  In her life she had been nothing but convenient to everyone around her, when they had talked about Yvgenie's father, and her wedding, and how she was going to bring the whole family to court at Kiev, and she was to remember how to mention this uncle to Yvgenie's father, and that uncle—

  She felt cold, thinking: They needed me, god, yes, they did.

  She remembered one summer climbing up the stack of old boards by the garden shed, and up and up the last scary bit to the forbidden crest of the garden wall, where she could look out on the lane behind the house.

  There was a girl who walked by sometimes, with heavy baskets. One supposed she was a servant. But she sang as she went. And the richest girl in Vojvoda had used to wish she were that girl, able to wander the town with no fear of wizards and murderers.

  Fool! her mother had cried, when a cousin caught her at it and told. You fool! Don't you understand anything?

  Now she did. God, now she most certainly did.

  Bielitsa lagged further and further behind, and Ilyana reined Patches around and rode back along the hill, seeing Yvgenie had gotten down and walked away from Bielitsa—on private business, she supposed. She got down from Patches and waited for him, taking the chance to adjust the girth that had been slipping the last while.

  But something was wrong. It might be her mother wishing at them. It was coldness, it was demand, and need, and all those things she had felt lifelong from her mother—

  Then she thought, with a chill, No, not mother—it's him. It's him, the same as my mother feels, sometimes—

  She wanted immediately to know where he was, got a worse and worse feeling, and walked after him, leaving Bielitsa and Patches to stand.

  She found him sitting on the hillside, on a carpet of old leaves, looking out at a hillside no different than this one. She walked up to him and he said, still gazing elsewhere: ‘I need to rest. Please. Just let me rest a while.’

  She wished him well, then, but he made a furious gesture. ‘There's nothing left, Ilyana.’ He put a hand over his eyes and wanted something, but there seemed a wall between them, and a wall ahead, and a weakening of her own wishes that made her feel as if—as if her mother were wanting her again, calling her away from the river shore.

  Ilyana, Ilyana, come home now—

  And if she gave up and came home supper would be waiting on the table again and Babi would be there and Patches and Volkhi and Missy in the pen. Papa and uncle would be there safe and sound and no one would be angry with her.

  She rubbed her eyes and thought no. It was a trick and a trap, and it would not be that way again, it never could be. She was not the child she had been and she could not go back and live as if nothing had happened. But she missed her father and her uncle, and worried about them, of a sudden; and caught a muddled unhappiness, a sense of secrets and things out of place in the world…

  That was definitely her uncle, she thought: uncle was upset and thinking about her: uncle could feel that secretive and confused at once. She wanted him not to be distressed about her, she had achieved that much of calm. She said to him, Uncle, don't follow me any further. Please argue with mother. I'm all right, Yvgenie and I are all right, if you'll only not push us any more. This isn't a good time. He's so tired, uncle. We're all so tired, please don't chase us any more—please don't let mother chase us.

  —Uncle, I'm so scared…

  The mouse was there for a moment, clear as if she were standing next to him, and Sasha said, ‘Mouse?’ without even thinking—and felt an exhaustion and an anxiousne
ss that turned his blood cold.

  What you're feeling is dangerous, mouse, it's terribly dangerous, please listen to me. Stop and wait for us. We won't hurt you or him…

  But she caught some hint of wrongness, and fled him, then, wary and elusive as her namesake. Eveshka was walking near the river, he knew of a sudden, Eveshka was vastly upset, thoughts darting this way toward them and that way toward the mouse, violent and demanding—

  No! he wished her, as Pyetr, riding beside him, said, ‘Sasha? Can you hear her? Can you make her listen?’

  He was shaking of a sudden. He remembered that feeling,he remembered all too clearly, nearly twenty years ago, a wanting so nearly absolute—

  Rusalka. That was the way it felt.

  Pyetr wanted an answer, desperately wanted good news. He realized he was staring into nothing, and said, ‘She just tried to tell me she was all right.’ But he could not lie to Pyetr, not in something going so desperately, persistently wrong. ‘I didn't get that impression.’

  ‘What? That she's all right? That she's not? What does she want?’

  He looked at Pyetr, at Nadya behind him on Volkhi, two faces so like—both with reason to want an answer; and to dread it.

  ‘We've been pushing them hard,’ he said: Pyetr might understand what he was saying, Pyetr if no one else alive. They've been pushing themselves. The boy's exhausted— ‘

  ‘Yvgenie?’ Nadya asked faintly. ‘Do you know where he is?’

  ‘Ahead of us, and going further now, as fast as they can.— Pyetr, I don't like this, I'm sorry, but I'm desperately worried—’

  ‘You're worried. God. Did you ask her to wait?’

  ‘She wouldn't. She's scared now. She knew I was holding something back from her.’

  ‘Nadya,’ Pyetr said heavily.

  He knew now he should have told the mouse about Nadya. Immediately. He might have protected Nadya against the mouse's startlement, might have caught the mouse's curiosity and drawn her to them by that very means. But Eveshka had so overwhelmed him with that feeling of strength, and need—