The Dreaming Land I: The Challenge Read online

  “They do not yet seem convinced of the truth of my tale, or the gravity of the situation,” I said.

  “Of course not, Valeriya Dariyevna. It’s not their children being taken, is it?”

  “Not yet,” I said. “So far it has only been children of common birth, from the Eastern provinces, and of late from the steppe. I did not even know of it myself until steppe children started disappearing.”

  “It’s always the same, Valeriya Dariyevna: no one cares what happens to the common folk. They can steal a hundred of our children, and like as not our princesses would never even lift a finger to stop it.”

  “That’s not true!” I banged my fist on the table without thinking, making everyone jump. “I don’t care whose children they are taking, I don’t care if they’re taking them from palaces or pigsties, but I will not stand for it! No one can be allowed to steal Zemnian children and force them into a life of slavery, no one! I have scoured the steppe looking for them, and by all the gods, I will scour Krasnograd and the rest of Zem’ as well, until they are stopped. This, this rot in our land must be cut out before it spreads any further and destroys us all. They must be stopped, do you hear, and I will be the one to stop them!”

  “Ai-da Valeriya Dariyevna!” cried people from all over the table, as I came to a halt and realized I had just made a rather bold promise in front of witnesses. Well, it was a promise that needed to be made.

  “I wouldn’t expect anything else from you, Valeriya Dariyevna,” said Alyona Vasilisovna. “And…I thank you. I have family back East, and I have also heard that children have been disappearing. More than usual. So if you need anything, anything at all, that we here can give you, all you’ll have to do is whistle, Valeriya Dariyevna, and we’ll come running to your aid. But I fear you’ll have your work cut out for you with the princesses, Valeriya Dariyevna.”

  “I thank you,” I said. “And I fear you’re right. The princesses are always a tough nut to crack.”

  “Tougher than usual, Valeriya Dariyevna,” said Alyona Vasilisovna, with a shake of her head, and started on a diatribe against the perfidy of the current crop of princesses to be inhabiting the kremlin. The rest of the kitchen soon joined in, and while I ate—thank the gods! I had thought for a moment there I was going to faint, after my long day of running around, consuming nothing but too little bread and water, and far too much beer—I listened with pricked ears, filtering out all the usual complaints—demands for fancy dishes served at odd hours, broken crockery, harassment of the serving girls and boys by spoiled princes, and so on and so forth—and capturing all the news that was odd or noteworthy.

  It seemed that those like Alyona Vasilisovna who had families in the Eastern provinces had all heard of disappearances, more than usual, over the past couple of years, although even the families themselves of the missing children could not be sure, most of the time, that they had not merely been lost in a blizzard, or taken by wolves (“Taken by wolves, indeed,” muttered some of the women. “Two-footed wolves, the worst kind!”), and when they had complained to the local noblewomen and even the provinces’ princesses, nothing had been done.

  I mentioned that I had written to the Eastern princesses myself, demanding their watchfulness and their aid, which received approval from the table, but also the verdict, delivered in a tone of angry resignation, that nothing would be done about it unless I were to go out there and shake things up myself. Children disappeared in the Eastern provinces, it was a fact of life, and as long as it was not the children of the princesses, no steps would be taken to prevent it or to return the children who had already been lost.

  It also seemed that, just as Sera had said and I had already observed, the black earth princesses were very anxious to marry off their sons and daughters, and there had been a whole flurry of betrothals and weddings up and down the Krasna and its tributaries in the past year, although the servants who related this information couldn’t fathom the choices some of the princesses had made in their sons- and daughters-in-law. People of high rank being married off to people little better than commoners, the children of sworn enemies suddenly united in marriage…one would like to think, as Alina observed, that the black earth princesses had become less proud and more forgiving of late, and had decided to heal the breaches between their families and extend alliances to those of less noble blood, but it seemed very unlikely. None of them, it was generally agreed, would ever do anything if she did not think it was to her own advantage, and the detriment of her enemies, but what advantage exactly they hoped to gain from this, no one could guess.

  There was also a great deal of talk about the disruption of trade, the poor harvest, and the rising prices of everything one could want to buy. This subject, touching as it did every person in the room very deeply, raised the most indignation, but no one seemed to have any thoughts on why it might be happening, other than bad luck and the general greediness of merchants.

  By this time I had finished all the food that had been given to me, and, after a brief period of light-headedness as energy returned to my body, I was feeling much better and able to ask a number of (artful, I hoped) questions about the problems with trade this summer and whether anyone thought it was related to any of the other problems we had discussed. Despite my own suspicions to the contrary, though, no one else seemed to think that the lack of goods in the Krasnograd markets, the sudden alliances amongst the black earth princesses, and the growing slave trade in the East, could all be connected.

  Satisfied that I had gotten all the information I was going to get from the kitchen that night, and that I had also fed myself enough not to collapse before breakfast the next morning and that I had renewed my old friendship with the serving folk of the kremlin, I thanked everyone warmly, promised to relay their concerns, particularly regarding the ridiculous prices of food in the markets, to the Tsarina, and returned to my chambers. Mirochka was still sleeping soundly when I entered, and soon I had changed into my own nightdress, slipped into the bed beside her, and fallen fast asleep.

  Chapter Nine

  At this time of year there was very little actual darkness, and when I awoke to full sunlight, it was still some time before the actual hour when most people in the kremlin rose. Back home I would have gotten up and taken a horse out for a ride, or done something useful, and then returned to rest at midday, but I knew that that was not done here in Krasnograd, and that people were expected to sleep in, even in the middle of summer, and stay up late, even in the middle of winter. So I willed myself to go back to sleep, but soon Mirochka was up as well, awakened by the sunlight, and eager to talk. I told her that it was still many hours until breakfast, and that if we got up now, we would still have to stay up all day, but, while she acknowledged the truth of my words in theory, it was so far from her own experience in practice, and she had awakened with so many things that she wanted to talk about, that she ignored all my suggestions and requests to go back to sleep, and my pointed turn away from her in the bed, and chatted on and on. I tried to pay no attention to her, but then my ears caught the words, “and Kiryusha said that my father will come to Krasnograd soon. Is that true, mama?”

  “I’m sorry?” I said, turning back to face her. “Kiryusha said what?”

  “He said that my father will be coming to Krasnograd soon,” she repeated impatiently. “Is it true, mama?”

  “I don’t know. I have heard nothing of this.”

  “How come Kiryusha knows who he is, and I don’t?”

  It was lucky for Kiryusha that he was not there at the moment, because I would have been very hard pressed to refrain from giving him a good shake, or possibly something worse. “I don’t know why his mother thought it a fit subject for conversation,” I said. “It’s certainly none of her business, or anyone else’s.”

  “But it’s my business, isn’t it, mama?”

  “Well…yes,” I had to agree. “It is your business, of course, my dove, but it’s also business for grown-ups. I didn’t want to trouble you wi
th it.”

  “Well, now I want to be troubled with it! Will I meet him, mama?”

  “Perhaps,” I said. “If he really is coming to Krasnograd. We may not be able to avoid him.”

  “Why would we want to avoid him, mama?”

  Now it was myself I wanted to shake. “When…when he chose not to come live with me, my dove, it…caused a good deal of hard feelings, both amongst our family, and amongst his.”

  “Why, mama?”

  “Some people thought it was very wrong that he…chose as he did, and some people thought it was very wrong that he and I…had ever had a connection.”

  “Why, mama?”

  To tell her or not to tell her? Lies and evasion, I knew from experience, would not get me very far with Mirochka. “Everything I tell you this morning about your father, Mirochka, must remain our secret,” I began. “You mustn’t tell anyone, not Kiryusha, not your new brothers, not anyone, do you understand?”

  “But why, mama?”

  “Because it might hurt people’s feelings for it to be talked about. It…it might hurt my feelings, my dove.”

  This argument swayed her as no other would have done, I could see by her face in the morning light. “Why, mama?” she whispered solemnly. I thought that she had probably never thought about the fact that my feelings could be hurt, just like anyone else’s.

  “I was…very sad when he…decided to do as he did,” I whispered back, swallowing against an annoying lump in my throat. After all these years! Now the long-dead embers of my burnt-out heart were flaring back to life, just when I least needed them.

  “Really? Were you…” her face filled with an awful thought, “were you sad about me, mama? Were you sad to have me?”

  “No, of course not!”

  “Are you sure, mama?” she asked anxiously.

  “Very sure, my dove. I was very, very happy to have you. Besides,” I added bluntly, “if I hadn’t wanted you, I wouldn’t have had you, or I would have given you up after you were born. The fact that you’re here with me means that I want you to be here, more than anything else in the world.”

  Another child probably would have been upset by those words, but Mirochka was, after all, my daughter first and foremost, and I could see that she found them comforting. “I’m happy you’re my mother too, mama,” she told me. “But why did my father not want to marry you and come live with us? Isn’t that what fathers normally do? And why did people not like your connection with him? Are we…are we not noble enough for him?”

  “No,” I told her, smiling in spite of myself. I was glad that she could even have that thought. “You know that grandmother, that my mother, is the old Tsarina’s younger sister, and that the current Tsarina is my second-sister, don’t you, my dove?”

  “Yes…”

  “So that means that the only people in Zem’ more noble than us are grandmother and the Tsarina.”

  “Really, mama?”

  “Really, my dove, but I wouldn’t go around bragging of it, if I were you. Everyone already knows it, and they don’t need to be reminded of it. But neither you nor I ever need to worry about not being noble enough for a marriage alliance.”

  “I see, mama,” she said thoughtfully. “So if it wasn’t that, then why?”

  “He was…he was already betrothed to another woman when we met,” I said, finding it rather more difficult to admit than I would have expected.

  “Mama! Really?!” Her eyes lit up with surprise, delight, and horror all in one. “He was? Why, then? Why did you…I mean, how…” She fell silent, unable to finish her thought. Like all children back home, where horse breeding was our lifeblood, she had been aware from an early age where foals, and by extension babies, came from, but as a child of eight, she had neither the imagination nor the vocabulary to talk about a foolish love affair. Her thoughts had always been occupied with more useful topics.

  “We were both young and in Krasnograd on our own for the first time,” I said. “And…somehow it happened. I could try to explain it to you, Mirochka, but I don’t think you’d understand. You have to be older to understand something like that.”

  “So I’ll understand when I’m older, then, mama?”

  “Maybe,” I said. “But I hope not too well, my dove. I was so happy…and then so sad…I wouldn’t want you to go through something like that. But in the end, my dove, he decided to marry the woman he was betrothed to in the first place. Many thought he did right, and perhaps he did.”

  “Does he…does he have any other daughters, mama?”

  “No, my dove. You are his only child, at least that I know of. Which is another reason some people are not very…happy about us. He never gave his lawful wife any children at all, but he gave me an heir.”

  “Oh…well, then, mama…who is he?”

  “Oh.” I swallowed. “He is Princess Vostochnokrasnova’s son, and Princess Velikokrasnova’s husband.”

  ***

  Other than a mild curiosity over whether or not she looked like her father and whether she was also a black earth princess if his mother was, Mirochka seemed unfazed by the revelation of her father’s identity, and, after promising me that she would, of course, keep everything we had discussed to herself, she dozed off for a while, awakening when we heard the maids stirring in the next room and bringing in breakfast. Then she leapt up with alacrity and devoured a large and hearty meal, turning a deaf ear to my warnings not to overeat before a bout of swordplay.

  I, feeling rather less bright and cheerful than her, ate a more moderate breakfast and dressed us both in our summer training outfits and dug our training blades out of our baggage. Thus prepared, we made our way through the many corridors and stairs of the kremlin to the training ground in front of the barracks. Although it was supposed to be for the guards and soldiers, Vitaly Mariyevich, Sera’s Captain of the Guard, had always been friendly towards me, and had allowed me to train there whenever I had been in Krasnograd before. I was slightly concerned that he might have been infected with the distrust of me that was so evident amongst the princesses, but when he saw me approach, he broke away from the group of guards he was training and came over with a grin and bow and a glad greeting for Mirochka, whom he’d never seen before.

  “The little steppe princess!” he cried. “Is she as sharp with a blade as her mother, Valeriya Dariyevna?”

  “I believe she shows great promise, but a mother’s word cannot be trusted in these matters,” I told him.

  “With any other mother that might be true, Valeriya Dariyevna, but in your case, I have no doubt she’s a threat to her enemies already. Here to join us, Valeriya Dariyevna?”

  “Actually, I have agreed to spar with a friend here, Vitaly Mariyevich, if you would be so kind as to allow us the use of your training space.”

  “Of course, Valeriya Dariyevna! Who is this friend? Another steppe princess?”

  “Actually, no,” I said. “It is Ivan Marinovich. Look, here he comes now.”

  Vitaly Mariyevich’s gaze followed mine, and for a moment his normally unflappable mouth dropped open in surprise. He shut it with a snap and turned back to look at me with a wry smile. “Do you mean to say that you are planning to spar with Princess Velikokrasnova’s only son, Valeriya Dariyevna?” he asked.

  “I do.”

  “Dare I ask why, Valeriya Dariyevna?”

  “I heard he was good with a blade, and I am in need of a good training partner,” I said.

  “Valeriya Dariyevna, you know you have only to ask, and the best blades in Krasnograd will be at your service…”

  “And I am grateful for the offer, Vitaly Mariyevich, but as it happens, Ivan Marinovich’s suits me best at the moment.”

  He pursed his lips. “Like that, is it, Valeriya Dariyevna? Ah, if I may so bold…does the Tsarina know?”

  “As it happens, it was her suggestion, Vitaly Mariyevich.”

  “Ah. Well, in that case, my training ground is yours. And…what should I tell my lads, Valeriya Dariyevna?
They are bound to gossip.”

  “If you hear them gossiping, Vitaly Mariyevich, tell them not to say anything they wouldn’t want to have said about themselves. After all, I may very well take you up on your offer, and then it would be them sparring with me.”

  “As you wish, Valeriya Dariyevna.” He bowed. “Little princess. May both of you have a fine bout. If I can serve you, you have only to call.” He left just as Ivan Marinovich came somewhat hesitantly up.

  “Was that…?” he asked.

  “Vitaly Mariyevich, Captain of the Guard,” I told him. “Would you like to be introduced?”

  “I wouldn’t want to bother him,” he said, still looking ill at ease. “Ah, good morning, Valeriya Dariyevna. And good morning, Miroslava Valeriyevna. It is an honor to spar with your mother.”

  “And with me!” Mirochka cried.

  Ivan Marinovich looked at me in helpless bewilderment.

  “Mirochka would take it as a favor if you would consent to spar with her a little,” I said. “As would I.”

  “It would be my honor, of course,” he said, trying and failing to suppress his dislike of the idea. I could see that he was afraid of hurting her, and also afraid that I had called him out here to mock him by making him train with a girl of eight.

  “Mirochka has already gained some skill with a blade, but she could always use the experience of training with more partners,” I told him. “Perhaps after you and I have sparred, you could do her this honor.”

  “Of course, Valeriya Dariyevna,” he said, looking around with embarrassment at the guards who had stopped their own training to watch us. He began to fumble awkwardly with his practice sword, which he had brought in a bag instead of wearing at his belt.

  “Ivan Marinovich!” I said, interrupting him. “Surely you have the right to travel armed in Krasnograd! There was no need for you to carry your weapons in a sack.”

  “I beg your pardon, Valeriya Dariyevna?” he said, looking up for a moment from his fumbling. I could see, clear as day, his unease about meeting me, and meeting me here, where all these strangers were watching him, and his general sense of exposure at being on his own in Krasnograd, probably for the first time. In another man it might have made me impatient, but with him I felt strangely protective.