“No,” said Kasyan, speaking now to the listening company. His voice was soft. “She came from far away. She was very beautiful.”
Vasya bit her lower lip. Kasyan usually kept to himself. He was silent more often than speaking, except that he and Dmitrii sometimes rode side by side, passing a companionable wineskin. But now everyone was listening.
“What happened to her?” asked Dmitrii. “Come, let us have the story.”
“I loved her,” said Kasyan carefully. “She loved me. But she disappeared, on the day I was to have taken her away to Bashnya Kostei, to be my own. I never saw her again.” A pause. “She is dead now,” he added, sharply. “That is all. Get me some stew, Vasilii Petrovich, before these gluttons eat it all.”
Vasya got up to do so. But she wondered very much at Kasyan’s expression. Nostalgic tenderness, when he talked of his dead lover. But—just for an instant, and right at the end—there had been such an expression of baffled rage that her blood crept. She went to eat her soup with Solovey, resolving to think no more of Kasyan Lutovich.
WINTER WAS STILL DIAMOND-HARD, full of black frosts and dead beggars, but the old, rigid snow had begun to show its age on the day Dmitrii Ivanovich rode back into Moscow beside his cousins: the monk Aleksandr Peresvet and the boy Vasilii Petrovich. With him also were Kasyan and his followers, who, at Dmitrii’s urging, had not gone home.
“Come, man—come to Moscow and be my guest for Maslenitsa,” said Dmitrii. “The girls are prettier in Moscow than in your old tower of bones.”
“I do not doubt it,” Kasyan said wryly. “Though I think you wish to secure my taxes, Gosudar.”
Dmitrii bared his teeth. “That, too,” he said. “Am I wrong?”
Kasyan only laughed.
They rose that morning in a fine spitting haze of snowflakes and rode down to Moscow along the vast sweep of the Moskva. The city was a white crown on the dark hilltop, blurred by curtains of blown snow. Her pale walls smelled of lime; her towers seemed to split the sky. Sasha could never still a leap of his heart at the sight.
Vasya was riding beside him, snow in her eyebrows. Her smile was infectious. “Today, Sashka,” she said, when the first towers came into sight, thrusting above the gray-white world. “We will see Olga today.” Solovey had caught his rider’s mood; he was almost dancing as they walked.
The role of Vasilii Petrovich had grown on Vasya like skin. If she did tricks on Solovey, they cheered her; if she picked up a spear, Dmitrii laughed at her clumsiness and promised her teaching. If she asked questions, they were answered. A hesitant happiness had begun to show in her expressive face. Sasha felt his lie the more keenly for it, and did not know what to do.
Dmitrii had taken to her. He had promised her a sword, a bow, a fine coat. “A place at court,” Dmitrii said. “You will attend my councils, and command men, when you are older.”
Vasya had nodded, flushed with pleasure, while Sasha looked on, gritting his teeth. God grant Olya knows what to do, he thought. Because I do not.
WHEN THE SHADOW OF THE GATE fell on her face, Vasya drew a wondering breath. The gates of Moscow were made of iron-bound oak, soaring to five times her height and guarded above and below. More wondrous still were the walls themselves. In that land of forests, Dmitrii had poured out his father’s gold, his people’s blood, to build Moscow’s walls of stone. Scorch marks about the base gave credit to his foresight.
“See there?” said Dmitrii, pointing at one of these places. “That is when Algirdas came with the Litovskii, three years ago, and laid siege to the city. It was a near-fought thing.”
“Will they come again?” Vasya asked, staring at the burned places.
The Grand Prince laughed. “Not if they are wise. I married the firstborn daughter of the prince of Nizhny Novgorod, barren bitch that she is. Algirdas would be a fool to try her father and me together.”
The gates groaned open; the walled city blotted out the sky. Bigger than anything Vasya had ever heard of. For a moment she wanted to flee.
“Courage, country boy,” said Kasyan.
Vasya shot him a grateful look and urged Solovey forward.
The horse went when she asked, though with an unhappy ear. They passed through the gate: a pale arch that echoed the sound of people shouting.
“The prince!”
The call was picked up and carried about the narrow ways of Moscow. “The Grand Prince of Moscow! God bless you, Dmitrii Ivanovich!” And even, “Bless us! The warrior-monk! The warrior of the light! Brother Aleksandr! Aleksandr Peresvet!”
Out and out the cry rippled, borne away and back, torn up and re-formed, whirling like leaves in a tempest. People ran through the streets, and a crowd gathered about the gates of the kremlin. Dmitrii rode in travel-stained dignity. Sasha reached down for the people’s hands and made the sign of the cross over them. Tears sparked in an old lady’s eyes; a maiden raised trembling fingers.
Beneath the shouts, Vasya caught snatches of ordinary conversation. “Look at the bay stallion there. Have you ever seen his like?”
“No bridle.”
“And that—that is a mere boy on his back. A feather, to ride such a horse.”
“Who is he?”
“Who indeed?”
“Vasilii the Brave,” Kasyan put in, half-laughing.
The people took it up. “Vasilii the Brave!”
Vasya narrowed her eyes at Kasyan. He shrugged, hiding a smile in his beard. She was grateful for the sharp breeze, which gave her an excuse to pull hood and cap closer about her face.
“You are a hero, I find, Sasha,” she said, when her brother came riding up beside her.
“I am a monk,” he replied. His eyes were bright. Tuman stepped easily beneath him, neck arched.
“Do all monks get such names? Aleksandr Lightbringer?”
He looked uncomfortable. “I would stop them if I could. It is unchristian.”
“How did you get this name?”
“Superstition,” he said, tersely.
Vasya opened her mouth to pry the tale out, but just then a troop of muffled children came capering almost under Solovey’s hooves. The stallion skidded to a halt and half-reared, trying not to maim anyone.
“Be careful!” she told them. “It’s all right,” she added to the horse, soothingly. “We’ll be through in a minute. Listen to me, listen, listen—”
The horse calmed, barely. At least he put all four feet on the ground. I do not like it here, he told her.
“You will,” she said. “Soon. Olga’s husband will have good oats in his stable, and I will bring you honeycakes.”
Solovey twitched his ears, unconvinced. I cannot smell the sky.
Vasya had no answer to that. They had just passed the huts, the smithies, the warehouses and shops that made up the outer rings of Moscow, and now they had come to the heart of the city: the cathedral of the Ascension, the monastery of the Archangel, and the palaces of princes.
Vasya stared up, and her eyes shone in the towers’ reflected light. All the bells in Moscow had burst into pealing. The sound rattled her teeth. Solovey stamped and shivered.
She put a calming hand on the stallion’s neck, but she had no words for him, no words for her delighted astonishment, as she learned all at once the beauty and the scale of things made by men.
“The prince is come! The prince!” the cries rose louder and louder. “Aleksandr Peresvet!”
All was movement and bright color. Here stood scaffolding hung with cloth; there, great ovens smoking amid piles of slushy snow; and everywhere new smells: spice and sweetness, and the tang of forge-fires. Ten men were building a snow-slide, heaving blocks and dropping them, to hilarity. Tall horses and painted sledges and warmly bundled people gave way before the prince’s cavalcade. The riders passed the wooden gates of noble houses; behind them lay sprawling palaces: towers and walkways, haphazardly painted, and dark with old rain.