The boy went in; ’Mitri came out with him, and as the boy pointed to the shadows where Pyetr waited, Pyetr walked forward, feeling a weakness in his knees now that he was within reach of help, feeling the first pangs from the wound, front and back.
“You’re bleeding,” ’Mitri exclaimed.
“Old Yurishev’s men,” Pyetr said. Out of shame, he skirted around saying it had been Yurishev himself. “The lady was under compulsion, I’m sure—”
He came close to fainting then, quite of a sudden. He caught at ’Mitri.
’Mitri shoved his hands off, stepped clear of him, unwilling, perhaps, to be taken in.
“It’s not a joke, ’Mitri!”
“Is that the commotion in the streets? Yurishev’s guards? They saw you?”
The thief-bell was still ringing. One could hear it all over Vojvoda.
“They saw me, they’ve clipped me in the side, for the god’s love, ’Mitri, don’t be a prig, I need a place to stay till this settles…”
“Not with me! Go find some place, stay away from me! I can’t afford trouble like this!”
Pyetr stared at ’Mitri in shock. “Then Vasya will—”
“Not Vasya either!” ’Mitri said. “That’s the thief-bell, do you hear it? Get out of here!”
“I’ll ask him myself,” Pyetr said, about to go straight into the inn, but ’Mitri caught his shoulder and pulled him about so hard the pain of his side caught him and almost bent him double.
“No,” ’Mitri hissed, his face stark and terrified in the lantern light. “No! We have nothing to do with you in anything like this! Yurishev’s wife, my god! Dueling with Yurishev’s guards, man—His cousin is in the court!”
“Your sister is the tsarevna’s—”
“Leave my sister out of this! Mention me, mention her name, mention my father’s name to the watch and I’ll have your heart, Pyetr Kochevikov! Get away from me! Get out of here!”
’Mitri fled back for the light of The Doe’s stableyard porch, and Pyetr stood staring after him in the same shocked bewilderment in which he had looked Yurishev in the face. His knees began to shake beneath him. Perhaps it was the diminution of his confidence that began to take his strength, perhaps it was that he had taken blow after blow tonight, and he had measured his strength only to get to the inn and his friends and now he had no idea where to go.
Only he must go somewhere. The stableboy had seen him.
The boy knew that he had had business with ’Mitri, and if he brought trouble down on ’Mitri and ’Mitri’s father took a hand then he had no hope at all.
He went out the stable gate, ducked down the lane, and heard the thief-bell stop. Good, he thought, breathless and dizzy, good, maybe the furor is dying down.
Or the thieftakers had come, and a wider hunt had begun.
He walked, felt new blood leaking through his fingers, and from time to time heard no sound but the pounding in his ears. The pain in his back and his side made it hard to think at all.
But his eyes made out the street—and knew the doorway and the gate farther on, that it offered at least a hope of refuge.
He walked as far as the public well and then into the gate and inside, down the log walk, reeled off to stand in the mud of The Cockerel’s stableyard, hearing laughter behind the light-seamed shutters of the tavern, singing and dancing and the voice of Fedya Misurov himself calling out for another jug from the cellar.
His legs carried him away from that. Fedya Misurov would side with Yurishev, Yurishev would have the magistrates in his pocket; and he thought, seeking the dark of the stable, Only let me sit down a while…
… because he was not thinking clearly, and he thought that if he could lie down a while in the dark, on the straw, he could regain his breath and his wits and think what to do or where he could go, or perhaps—
—perhaps make free of the horses stabled here, and absent himself from Vojvoda a while. He had been born in Vojvoda, he had grown up in its streets, and other places were only stories he had heard from ’Mitri and Vasya and his friends; but he was sure there were places to go, he had his winning ways and his cleverness and he was sanguine about his chances—
If only the pain would stop, if only he were not bleeding his life out.
He lay down mostly on his face in the straw, heard the horses moving and snorting their alarm at his presence and the smell of blood in the dark, but the singing in the tavern would drown that, and he lay there resting, kept telling himself that the blood was not coming so hard now that he was lying still, that it hurt a little less.
But he was mortally afraid, because he knew he was lying to himself: blood was still coming and he was close to fainting when the horses moved suddenly and a voice said, “Whoa, Missy, what’s the matter?”
He thought there was a light near him. He thought that he heard someone walking in the straw, and that it was Yurishev’s men and they would kill him.
But it was a boy who held a lantern over him, it was young Sasha Misurov, who stood there with a shocked, frozen stare, and asked him, foolish question, what he was doing there.
“I’m dying,” Pyetr snapped, and tried to move, but that was a mistake. He fell down on his face in the straw, and screamed when the boy tried to pull him over.
“I’ll get my uncle,” Sasha said.
“No!” Pyetr was able to say, with the straw moving against his face, with his heart beating hard and his breath scant. His whole body was exploring the new limits of the pain and trying to discover whether lying like that was better or worse. “No—just let me rest here a while. Don’t call your uncle. I’ve got some trouble. You don’t want him involved. I’ll just rest, I’ll be on my way in an hour or so…”
“You’re bleeding,” the boy said.
“I know that,” Pyetr said between his teeth. “Have you any bandages?”
“For horses.”
“Get them!”
The boy went away. Pyetr lay on his face in the straw trying to gather the strength to get up again, perhaps to walk up the street and find a place to sit awhile. Perhaps he could get the boy to collect his horse at The Flower-No. They were searching the streets. They would have told everyone, searched his room at the inn—
The boy came back to him, the boy knelt down with a rustle of straw and said, “I’ve brought some water, and some salve—”
Pyetr bit his lip, worked at the knot of his belt as he was lying, face-down and panting in the straw. Finally, when he had the knot loose: “Do what you can, boy. I’ll owe you for this.”
The boy was careful, pulled the belt free, pushed up Pyetr’s shirt and took in his breath.
“Don’t gawk!” Pyetr said. “Bandage it!”
The horses snorted and moved, riders thumped into the muddy yard outside with a great blowing of horses and a ringing of the stableyard bell.
“Ho,” someone yelled. “Watch!”
“Wait!” Pyetr said. But the boy sprang up and left him, running, and Pyetr got up on his knees and his elbows, lost his breath to the pain, and rested bent over with his head on his arms for two or three deep breaths while he heard the boy and the riders exchange salutations, and heard the riders say,
“Have you seen Pyetr Kochevikov?”
He despaired until the boy said, faintly and distantly, “No, sir.”
“Do you know him?”