If one had time to let the mind be dazzled.
Driven by terror, the exiles prepared for the coming ordeal of winter as best they could, wasting few moments on unnecessary speech, caulking the chinks between the logs of their house with mud and moss, setting racks of meat‑deer and rabbit—to dry, piling up turnips, carrots, the grain they'd bought in the village, in every spare corner of the house and barn. There was no time to spend in soothing the fears of Vasilissa, who grew more housebound and afraid with every shortening day. But though she still sensed demons everywhere beyond the charmed ring of their palisade, she could at least be useful, pickling cabbage or beets, though at times she sobbed with fright into the mixture over Things only she could see.
Maria went on wider and wider expeditions into the forest as the days grew short, hunting nuts, fruit, anything edible, anything that might last the length of the winter, hardly aware of the forest except as a source of potential food. Akh, and of firewood, wood to keep them warm and alive… Unable to coax Vasilissa out with her, she foraged alone for dead branches and twigs, dragging them back in an old shawl, while Danilo used their one precious axe to join with the villagers in cutting down dead trees; neither he nor Maria saw anything at all incongruous in the once proud boyar coming back triumphant because he'd managed to gather a whole wagonload of wood.
They'd been putting off the matter of the pig for as long as possible. «It's no good," said Danilo at last. «We can't carry him through the winter. And we need the meat.»
«Can't we just call in the butcher?» Vasilissa asked without thinking, then added softly, «Oh.» Her eyes widened at the thought; her face paled. And suddenly, hands over mouth, she was running out to their rickety outhouse.
«So much for Lissa as pig-slayer," Maria said.
Later, she regretted that feeling of smug superiority. Neither Danilo nor she had the vaguest idea of how to kill a pig. After a long and horrifying struggle, Danilo finally managed to brain the madly squealing beast with a club, and cut its throat. Maria grimly held a basin to catch the blood, telling herself it was precious food, thinking of blood puddings, sausages. She steeled herself to watch the full basin.
And then she too was hurrying off to be sick.
Still the winter came on, tearing the last leaves from the trees, leaving the trunks and branches dour and lonely in the long twilights and chill nights. Vasilissa cried out to find the water frozen in the washbasin one morning, and she and Maria went frantically over the garden one more time, trying to glean the last turnip from the freezing soil. At last Maria straightened, shivering through thick layers of clothing.
«That's it, Lissa. There's no more any of us can do now. Except wait.»
«And pray," her sister added softly.
The forest lay quietly under the snow, bearing about it an air of tranquility and deadliness, making Maria think of some alien creature well aware of the presence of three little humans, well able to destroy them, but simply not caring enough to make the effort. Stay out in cold sharp enough to shatter a knife, she told herself, and the creature would most certainly strike to kill.
There was nothing for the three of them to do now, save see to Brownie, secure and shaggy in his dense winter fur, and to those chickens weather-wise enough to stay huddled together, safe within their coop. The days grew short and crisp, with air that froze the lungs, long nights filled with distant wolf-song. And all at once there was time, too much time, long spans of huddling before the stove and staring blankly into the fire, or mending clothes that had been mended twenty times over, or checking and rechecking the stores that were already dwindling—they were get-ting heartily sick of turnips and smoked pork, and beginning to dream about fresh fish, sweet cakes, precious salt—and conversation.
For a while Maria tried to entertain the three of them with storytelling and the music of her sweet-stringed gusla. But words seemed out of place in the heavy winter silence, and music thin and unbearably lonely.
They'd long ago lost track of the calendar, making one half-hearted attempt to celebrate what they estimated must be Yuletide, but slowly they lost interest in measuring the count of days, resigned as any animals. As the painful time dragged on, day into night, night into day, Vasilissa shrank so much into herself that Maria had nightmares of her never being able to reenter the living world. Didn't her father see what was happening?
But Danilo, reacting in his own way to the boredom and the fear, was lost in the memory of the injustice done him. The firelight made his brooding face look alien, cruel. Maria shuddered, and deliberately picked fights with Vasilissa, as much to stir her sister's blood as to help Maria hold to her own sanity, and prayed for the winter to end. But no one seemed to hear her.
Chapter XI
Awakenings
She lay full‑length and languorous in the warm spring meadow, the new grass soft and cool against her bare skin, her long hair shining golden in the sunlight, so attractive a contrast against the bright young green that she kept turning her head lazily from side to side to admire it. Birdsong and insect chirpings were dreamy and soft in the quiet air, and the sweet scents of growth were all about her. Ljuba laughed softly for sheer pleasure, and a falcon's chuckle answered her.
Finist. Finist had come swooping silently down to a landing, altering shape smoothly till he was man again, sprawled lazily beside her, his long, supple body as golden in the sunlight as her own.
«Ljuba…» Her name was a caress on his lips. «The winter was long and lonely.»
«You've forgiven me? Those candles—the enchantment‑I did it only because I love you.»
«Akh, my dear… What man could resist you? What man could fault you?»
«Finist…» She reached out an arm to encircle his neck,, pulling him, unresisting, down across her, welcoming his strength. His lips brushed her cheek, nibbled teasingly at an earlobe. But then, bewilderingly, he was murmuring:
«But there is still the little matter of Erema, and the knife.»
«I had nothing to do with any — "
«You killed him, didn't you? You destroyed him, mind and body.»
«Finist, no!»
«You killed him to get at me. You killed him to steal my throne.»
«No, oh, no!»
And with that, gasping, Ljuba awoke in her bed, with chill winter sunlight stealing through the slats of shutters closed against the cold.
«God, what a ridiculous dream.»
«Lady… ?» asked a sleepy voice, and Ljuba turned her head sharply to stare down at the form there beside her. Finist… ?
Good Lord, no. This man was dusty brown of hair, suntanned of skin… a guard, though for the life of her she couldn't remember his name. Young, handsome, and a fervent enough lover, if not subtle. She'd taken him into her bed to help combat the tedium of at least one of the long, seemingly endless winter nights…
And to combat a certain loneliness, too: Finist…
For a moment more, she felt the dream linger about her. Then, with a sudden cry of anger, Ljuba was on her feet, clutching a blanket about herself.
«Up!» she commanded. «Get up and get out!»
Then, as the bewildered guard stumbled to obey, Ljuba thought better of it, and called him back.
«Here. Drink.»
«Wine? Ah, lady, your pardon, but I really don't — "
«Drink!»
Hastily, he obeyed. Ljuba watched his eyes go dreamy and vague from the effects of the drug in the wine, and purred, «You spent the night alone. Alone, do you understand?»
«Alone," he agreed dully.
«Now—get out of here.»
Dourly, she watched him leave. Ever since the near‑disaster of Erema's death, Ljuba had realized that her only safe course of action to allay Finist's suspicion would be to lead a quiet, apparently blameless life, at least for a time. Even if it meant her lovers must be drugged to en-sure their silence. Even if at certain crucial moments she heard herself call out a royal name, longing for silvery hair against her own, amber eyes hot with passion…