Ivan dropped his blade and raised his cross. “In the name of the Holy Trinity, and St. Martin whose banner St. Stefan bore into battle, go.”
The vilja whirled about and ran into the wood. She left less mark by far in the hoarfrost than a woman would have done. They heard her sobbing, then that turned into laughter, then there was no more trace of her.
Bells pealed rejoicing till all Skradin rang. No person worked, save to prepare a festival that began in the afternoon and continued past sunset.
The sight had been awesome for those who were awake before dawn, when the vodianoi passed by under guard of the mermen. It was as if, for a moment, the world—castle, church, town, houses, fields, ordered hours and the cycle that went measured from Easter to Easter-had parted like a veil, men glimpsed what it had hidden from them, and that was no snug Heaven but ancient, unending wildness.
By early daylight, when Vanimen’s hunters returned with the zhupan and his band, fright was forgotten. Talk aroused of starting fishery. True, the deep forest was still a chancy place to enter, and would not be cleared away for generations. Yet logging proceeded, year by year; plowland stretched outward, homes multiplied; cultivation had tamed a sizeable arc of the lakeside. The monster gone, it should be safe to launch boats from that part, if one did not row too near the wooded marge.
The zhupan confirmed the good news. He had seen the vodianoi leave his conquerors and make a slow way on upstream, panting, sometimes able to swim, sometimes groping over rocks that bruised, till lost from sight. The creature moved brokenly. Belike doom would overtake him long before Judgment; hopelessness might well make him lay down his bones to rest.
Father Petar conducted a Mass of thanksgiving, with a somewhat sour face. Thereafter, merriment began. Presently the nearest meadow surged with folk in their holiday garb, embroidered vests, flowing blouses, wide-sweeping skirts for the revealing of an ankle in the dance. An ox roasted over a bonfire, kettles steamed forth savory smells above lesser flames, barrels gurgled out beer, mead, wine. Bagpipes, flutes, horns, drums, single-stringed fiddles resounded through the babble.
Freely among the peasants moved the Liri folk. Ivan Subitj had taken it on himself to release them. He had no fret about their breaking parole and fleeing. Friendship laved them today and their morrow looked full of hope. For decency’s sake he had arranged that they be clad, though this must for the most part be in borrowed clothes that were old and fitted poorly. That meant little to them, especially in their happiness at being back together. Anyhow, garments were readily shed when male and female had left the village and found a bush or a tree-screened riverbank.
The noisiest, cheeriest celebrant was Father Tomislav. He had come hither with Vanimen after Ivan approved the merman’s idea, and only with difficulty had he been restrained from joining the expedition. Now, when men linked hands around a cauldron to dance the kolo, his vigor sent whipcracks through their circle. “Hai, hop! Swing a leg! Leap like David before the Lord! Ah, there, my dears,”-to pretty girls as he whirled by them—“just you wait till we and you make a line!”
Vanimen and Meiiva had repaid long separation. They entered the meadow when the kolo was ending. Luka, son of Ivan, pushed through the crowd to greet them. He was a slender lad, whose bright outfit was in scant accord with his thoughtful mien. From the beginning he had been greatly taken by the merfolk, eager to learn about them, ever arguing for their better treatment. After Vanimen’s exploit, he approached them with adoration.
“Hail,” he said through the racket around. “You look somber. You should be joyous. Can I help you in any way?”
“Thank you, but I think not,” The Liri king replied.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’ll speak of it later with your father. Let me not shadow your pleasure.”
“No, I pray you, tell me. Maybe I can do something.”
“Well—” Vanimen decided. Meiiva, who spoke no Hrvatskan as yet, slipped quietly into the background. “Well, since you’ll have it so, Luka. Have you heard that we met a rousalka by the lake?”
The stripling blinked. “What said you?”
“Rousalka. The revenant of a maiden that haunts the water where she drowned.”
“Oh.” Luka’s eyes widened; he caught his breath. “The vilja. You saw her?” He paused. “No, I’ve not heard. It’s a thing that men would avoid talk of.”
“Is ‘vilja’ your word?” Vanimen spoke stiffly. “I had to do with one of the kind once, afar in the North. Thus I recognized this for what it was. Terror overwhelmed me and I fled. The shame of that is a gnawing in my breast. Your father drove it off, but when afterward I sought to explain why courage had left me, he said he’d liefer not hear.”
Luka nodded. “Yes, he has his reasons. However, I think he’ll yield if you press him. The matter’s no secret-woeful, but not disgraceful.”
“Such a. . . vilja. . . mocks our triumph,” Vanimen said. “I hear men bleat about fishing, my tribe for helpers. Are they witless? The vodianoi could merely devour them. How can they fail to dread what the vilja will do?”
“Why, what might that be?” Luka asked in surprise. “Minor mischief, as the Leshy inflict—a wind to blow somebody’s washing off the grass, a nursling taken from its mother when she isn’t looking, but always soon given back—and a sprig of wormwood will keep her at a distance. No doubt a man who let her beguile him would be in mortal sin. But surely none will, nor does it seem she’s even tried. After all, a ghost is terrifying in itself. I know that, sir, I know it better than I wish I did.”
The merman gave the lad a close look. “How?”
Luka shivered in the sunlight, the noise and music and smoke. “I was with my brother on that hunt where she found him, two years agone. I too saw her face, the face of Nada who drowned herself the year before—”
A hand grabbed him by the neck, flung him to the ground. “You lie!” Father Tomislav screamed. He had wandered up, unnoticed, and overheard. “Like the rest of them, you lie!”
Standing over the sprawled boy, amidst a stillness that spread outward, amidst eyes that stared inward, the priest mastered his fit. “No, you don’t, I’ll believe you don’t,” he said thickly. “A chance likeness or a sleight of Satan deceived you. I’m sorry, Luka. Forgive my foul temper.” He looked from person to person. The tears broke out of him. “My daughter was not a suicide,” he croaked. “She is not a condemned shade. She rests in Shibenik, in holy earth. Her, her soul... in... Paradise—” He stumbled off. The gathering parted to let him go.
Rain dashed against castle walls, in a night that howled. Cold crept out of the stone, past the tapestries, and darkness laid siege to lamps. Ivan Subitj sat across a board from Vanimen of Liri. He had dismissed his servants, keeping his wife awake. She sat in a comer, warming herself as best she could at a brazier, till he signaled for more wine.
“Yes,” he said, “I’d better give you the whole tale. Else you might shun the lake; and I do have hopes of your settling down amongst us, enriching us by your fisher skills. Besides, there’s no shame for my family in what happened-not really. Grief—” He gusted a sigh. “No, disappointment; and I’m well aware I do wrong to feel thus.”
He stroked the scar that puckered his countenance. “No shame to you either, Vanimen, that you recoiled from her: not if such beings are as fearsome in the North as you’ve related. I could tell you of horrors I’ll bear inside me to the grave, and I reckon myself a brave man. But—I know not why; maybe we’re different from the Rus in some way that endures after death itself-whatever the cause, a vilja is not the grisly sort of thing that you say a rousalka is. Oh, a man would be unwise to follow her. . . but he’d have a soul to lose. You—” Ivan chopped his words off short.