From childhood, Vasya had been able to walk softly, but now she crept from shadow to shadow with a robber’s care, almost afraid to breathe, keeping the wall on her left. Where was the postern-gate? She avoided the guttering pools of torchlight, watching for the door, watching for guards, listening, listening…
Suddenly from across the dooryard there came a shrieking, as though a thousand cats were having their tails pulled. The dogs in their kennels began to bay.
A torch ran along a gallery above, and a lamp was lit. Then another, and another, as the clamor grew in the dooryard. A woman shrieked. Vasya almost smiled. No room for secrecy now.
Next moment, Vasya tripped over a man’s legs and sprawled in the thick snow. Heart racing, she scrambled up and whirled round. To her right was the postern-gate, sunk in shadow. The single gate-guard sat before it with his head sunk on his breast. It was his legs she had tripped over.
Vasya crept nearer. The man did not move. She put her fingers near his face. No breath. When she shook him by the shoulder, his head lolled on his neck. His throat was cut, gashed deep, and that was not pools of shadow on the snow but blood—
The noise in the dooryard was mounting. Suddenly a rush of bodies—four—six—strong, soft-footed men, darted out of the shadows opposite her and made for the palace steps. Kasyan let them in during the revel, Vasya thought. I am too late. Gathering her strength, she dug her numb hands beneath the dead guard’s arms and dragged him away, breathing a prayer for his soul, slipping on the snow.
As soon as she opened the gate, Sasha thrust his way past her into the dooryard.
“Where is Rodion?” she demanded.
Her brother only shook his head, eyes already up on the swimming shadows, the scrum of bodies, firelight and darkness, a new and unmistakable sound of fighting. A man fell through the fine screen-work that protected the stairs and fell yelling into the dooryard. The dogs still bayed in the kennels. Vasya thought she glimpsed Kasyan, standing taut before the palace-gate, his red hair black in the darkness.
Then above it all rose a roaring battle-cry—reassuringly hale but hoarse with surprise and urgency—the voice of the Grand Prince of Moscow.
“Mitya,” Sasha breathed. Something in that childish nickname—probably not said to Dmitrii’s face since he was crowned at sixteen—held a living echo of their shared youth, and Vasya thought suddenly, That is why he did not come back. However he loved us, he loves this prince more, and Dmitrii needed him.
“Stay here, Vasya,” said Sasha. “Hide. Bar the gate.” Then he was running, sword aflame with the light from above, straight toward the melee. Guards from all over the dooryard were converging. Then a shattering crash came from the main gate. The guards’ steps faltered, and they wavered between the threat behind and the threat above. Sasha did not hesitate. He had reached the foot of the southern staircase, and bounded up into darkness.
Vasya barred the gate as Sasha had bidden her, then stood a moment in the shadows, indecisive. Her gaze went from the quivering main gate, to the bewildered palace guards, to the lights swinging wildly behind the palace’s slitted windows.
She heard her brother’s voice shouting, the ring of his sword. Vasya breathed a prayer for his life, and made for the stable. If she were to do anything for the Grand Prince besides cry warnings, she needed her horse.
She reached the long, low stable and flattened herself once more into the shadows.
A guard in the dooryard wailed and fell, pierced by an arrow shot from over the wall. The whole dooryard was alive with shouting, full of running, bewildered men, many of them drunk. More arrows flew. More men fell. Above the noise she heard Dmitrii’s voice again, desperate now. Vasya prayed Sasha would reach him in time.
The battering redoubled at the gate. She had to get to Solovey. Was he there? Had he been killed, taken somewhere else, wounded…?
Vasya pursed her lips and whistled.
She was rewarded immediately and with a rush of relief by a familiar, furious neigh. Then a crash, as though Solovey meant to kick the stable down. The other horses began to squeal, and soon the whole building was in uproar. Another sound joined the tumult: a whistling, wailing cry unlike that of any horse Vasya had ever heard.
Vasya listened a moment to the shouts of the half-awake grooms. Then, judging her time, she darted inside.
She found chaos, nearly as bad as that in the dooryard without. Panicked horses thrashed in their stalls; the grooms did not know whether to calm them or go investigate the clamor outside. The grooms were all slaves, unarmed and frightened. The hiss and snarl of arrows was clearly audible now, and the screams.
“Do what you must and get out,” said a small voice. “The enemy is near and you are frightening us.” Vasya raised her eyes to the shadows of the hayloft and saw a pair of tiny eyes, set in a small face, scowling down at her. She lifted a hand in acknowledgment.
Chyerti fade, she thought. But they are not gone. The thought lifted her heart. Then she frowned, for the stable was lit by a strange glow.
She slipped down the row of stalls, keeping out of sight of the hurrying grooms. As she went the glow strengthened. Her soundless steps faltered.
Kasyan’s golden mare was glowing. Her mane and tail seemed to drip shards of light. She still wore the golden bridle: bit, reins, and all. She slanted one ear at Vasya and snorted a soft breath: pale mist hazed with her light.
Three stalls down from the mare stood Solovey, watching her with pitched ears, two horses standing still in the midst of the tumult. He, too, wore a bridle, fastened tight to the door of the stall, and his forefeet were hobbled. Vasya ran the last ten steps and threw her arms around the stallion’s neck.
I was afraid you would not come, Solovey said. I did not know where to go to find you. You smell of blood.
She collected herself, fumbled for the buckles of the stallion’s headstall, and with a wrench let the whole contraption fall to the floor. “I am here,” Vasya whispered. “I am here. Why is Kasyan’s horse glowing?”
Solovey snorted and shook his head, relieved of the binding. She is the greatest of us, he said. The greatest and the most dangerous. I did not know her at first—I did not believe she could be taken by force.
The mare watched them with pricked ears and a steady watchful expression in her two burning eyes. Let me loose, she said.
Horses speak mostly with their ears and bodies, but Vasya heard this voice in her bones.
“The greatest of you?” Vasya whispered to Solovey.
Set me free.
Solovey scraped the floor uneasily. Yes. Let us go, he said. Let us go into the forest—this is no place for us.
“No,” she echoed. “This is no place for us. But we must bide awhile. There are debts to pay.” She cut the hobbles from about the stallion’s feet.
Free me, said the golden mare again. Vasya rose slowly. The mare was watching them with an eye like molten gold. Power, barely contained, seemed to roil under her skin.
Vasya, said Solovey uneasily.
Vasya barely heard. She was staring into the mare’s eye, like the pale heart of a fire, and she took one step, then another. Behind her Solovey squealed. Vasya!