No possibility of speech, of thought. Like horses yoked to a wagon, the mare and the stallion circled the city side by side, galloping at full stretch but neither one gaining, until they were racing again down the twisting road of the posad, down again toward the riverbank and the end of the race.
But—there—a sledge—a heedless sledge halted too soon, fouling their path. People all around it, shouting, heaving. The riders had circled the city faster than these fools had thought possible, and so the way was blocked.
Kasyan glanced at her with joyful invitation, and Vasya couldn’t help it, she grinned back at him. Down they tore to the sledge heaped high, and Vasya was counting Solovey’s strides now, a hand on his neck. Three, two, and there was not room for another. The horse heaved himself up and over, tucking his hooves. He came down lightly on the slick snow and launched himself down the final stretch of river, toward the end of the race.
The mare leaped the sledge a stride behind; she hit the ice like a bird, then they were racing along the flat with all Moscow screaming. For the first time, Vasya cried aloud to Solovey: shouted, and she felt him answer, but the mare equaled him, tearing along, wild-eyed, and the two horses ran down the ice together, their riders’ knees jostling.
Vasya did not see the hand until it was too late.
One minute Kasyan was riding, fingers urgent on the reins. The next he had reached over and seized the ties that bound her hood, seized them and wrenched them apart, so that the sheepskin cap tumbled away. Her hair tumbled out, her plait raveled, and then the black banner of her hair was flying loose for all to see.
Solovey could not have stopped even if he had wished to. He drove on heedless of everything. Vasya, her battle-madness gone cold and dead, could only cling to him, panting.
The stallion thrust his head in front, then his shoulder, and then they stormed past the finish to a stunned silence. Vasya knew that, win or lose the race, Kasyan had beaten her at a game she had not known she was playing.
SHE SAT UP. SOLOVEY SLOWED. The stallion was heaving for breath, spent. Even if she had wanted to escape, the horse could not manage it now.
Vasya dropped to the ground, getting her weight off him, and turned back to face the crowd of boyars, of bishops, and the Grand Prince himself, who stood looking at her in horrified silence.
Her hair wrapped her body, snagged on the fur of her cloak. Kasyan had already slid off his golden mare. The horse stood still, her head low, blood and foam dripping from the tender corners of her mouth, where the bit had cut deep.
Vasya, in the midst of horror, knew a sudden fury at that golden bridle. Jerkily, she set a hand on the headstall, meaning to rip it off.
But Kasyan’s gloved hand shot out, knocked her fingers away, and hauled her back.
Solovey squealed and reared, striking out, but men with ropes—Kasyan’s men—beat the exhausted horse away. Vasya was thrust onto her knees in the snow in front of the Grand Prince, her hair hanging all about her face and all Moscow watching.
Dmitrii was salt-white above his pale beard. “Who are you?” he demanded. “What is this?” All about him his boyars were staring.
“Please,” said Vasya, yanking at the hand that held her. “Let me go to Solovey.” Behind her, the horse squealed again. Men were shouting. She twisted around to look. They had flung ropes over his neck, but the stallion was fighting them.
Kasyan solved the problem. He hauled Vasya to her feet, put a knife to her throat, and said very softly, “I’ll kill her.” He spoke so low that none heard except for the girl and the keen-eared stallion.
Solovey went deathly still.
He knew everything, Vasya thought. That she was a girl, that Solovey understood men’s speech. His hand around her arm was going to leave fingermarks.
Kasyan addressed Solovey, softly. “Let them lead you to the Grand Prince’s stable,” he said. “Go quiet, and she will live and be returned to you. You have my word.”
Solovey shrilled defiance. He kicked out and a man fell gasping into the snow. Vasya. She read the word in the stallion’s wild eye. Vasya.
Kasyan’s hand tightened on her arm until she gasped and the knife beneath her jaw dug in until she felt the skin just split…
“Run!” Vasya cried to the horse desperately. “Do not be a prisoner!”
But the horse had already dropped his head in defeat. Vasya felt Kasyan let out a satisfied breath.
“Take him,” he said.
Vasya cried out in wordless protest, but now grooms were running up to put a bridle with a twisted chain on Solovey’s head. She tasted tears of rage. The stallion let himself be led away, head low, still exhausted. Kasyan’s knife disappeared, but he did not release her arm. He spun her around to face the Grand Prince, the crowd of boyars. “You should have listened this morning,” he murmured into her ear.
Sasha was still mounted; Tuman had bulled her way onto the ice, and her brother had a sword in his hand, his hood cast back from his pale face. His eyes were on the trickle of blood running down the side of her throat.
“Let her go,” Sasha said.
Dmitrii’s guards had drawn their swords; Kasyan’s men circled her brother on their fine horses. Blades dazzled in the indifferent sun.
“I’m all right, Sasha,” Vasya called to her brother. “Don’t—”
Kasyan cut her off. “I suspected,” he said in an even voice, directing his words to the Grand Prince. The half-formed brawl on the ice paused. “I only knew for sure today, Dmitrii Ivanovich.” Kasyan’s expression was grave, except for the glint in his eyes. “There is a great lie and a gross immodesty here, if not worse.” He turned to Vasya, even touched her cheek with a burning finger. “But surely it is the fault of her lying brother, who wished to dupe a prince,” he added. “I would not blame the girl, so young is she, and perhaps half-mad.”
Vasya said nothing; she was looking for a way out. Solovey gone, her brother surrounded by armed men…If any of the chyerti were there, she couldn’t see them.
“Morozko,” she whispered, reluctantly, furiously, despairingly. “Please—”
Kasyan cuffed her across the mouth. She tasted blood on a split lip; his expression had turned venomous. “None of that,” he spat.
“Bring her here,” said Dmitrii in a strangled voice.
Before Kasyan could move, Sasha sheathed his sword, slid from his mare’s back, and stepped toward the Grand Prince. A thicket of spears brought him to a halt. Sasha unbuckled his sword-belt, cast the blade into the snow, and showed his empty hands. The spears retreated a little. “Cousin,” Sasha said. At Dmitrii’s look of fury he changed it. “Dmitrii Ivanovich—”
“Did you know of this?” hissed Dmitrii. The prince’s face was naked with the shock of betrayal.
In Dmitrii’s face, for a moment, Vasya saw the plaintive phantom of a child who had loved and trusted her brother wholeheartedly, his illusions now dashed and broken. Vasya drew a breath that was almost a sob. Then the child was gone; there was only the Grand Prince of Moscow: solitary, master of his world.
“I knew,” replied Sasha, still in that calm voice. “I knew. I beg you will not punish my sister for it. She is young, she did not understand what she did.”
“Bring her here,” said Dmitrii again, gray eyes shuttered.
This time, Kasyan hauled her forward.
“Is this truly a woman?” Dmitrii demanded of Kasyan. “I will have no mistake. I cannot believe—”