The Midnight Land: Part Two: The Gift (The Zemnian Trilogy Book 2) Read online

  “I don’t know,” said Slava.

  “And now the sorceresses is gone off, and everything’s fallen apart, and we don’t know what will happen to us, Tsarinovna! Tell me true, Tsarinovna: are you here because of treason? Are you here to bring down the family?” And the maid wrung her hands and stared down at Slava desperately.

  “You have no reason to fear, I promise you that,” Slava told her. “Whatever happens, the servants are certainly in no danger.”

  “Really, Tsarinovna?” The girl blushed with relief. “Really? Everyone in the kitchen’s so afraid! We talk of nothing else! We drew lots over who had to serve you, and I lost, and now the other girls are all saying I won’t last the day! They’re teasing, of course, but we’re all so afraid! When we heard from one of the sorceresses the Princess was plotting treason, we all got so afraid, and we’ve been afraid ever since!”

  “You have no reason to fear,” Slava repeated. “What did the sorceress tell you? Perhaps you misunderstood.”

  “Oh no, Tsarinovna, she said straight out it was treason,” said Dasha. “She came down right after the Princess had her attack, she was second-sister to one of the under-cooks, and she said this was what you got when you tried to plot treason, and they were going to declare a curse on the Princess but we should all be afraid, if the Empress sent someone it would be the end of us all, and now here you are!”

  “Oh, certainly not,” said Slava. “I have no intention of punishing anyone, let alone servants. But you would be doing me a great favor by introducing me to the under-cook who is second-sister to the sorceress. You see, Dasha, I came here in search of sorceresses, not traitors. I mean no one any harm; I only want knowledge.”

  Slava’s powers of persuasion were evidently growing by the hour, for Dasha promptly helped her into her clothes and led her down to the kitchen, where, even though breakfast preparations were in full swing, one of the under-cooks broke away from her duties and went with Slava into a quiet storeroom.

  “You’re really a Tsarinovna?” she asked Slava, staring at her in fascination. She was a short, round, lively woman of about Slava’s age, although her curiosity and energy gave her a much younger appearance.

  “Really a Tsarinovna,” said Slava, smiling brightly. “They say you can tell by my eyes.”

  The under-cook smiled brightly back. “And they’re fine eyes, Tsarinovna, fine and sharp, slanted like a wolf’s, but forgive me—you don’t have the manner I’d have expected. Not so high and mighty. And you just came down to the kitchen to talk to me, no guards or nothing! Most noblewomen can’t take two steps without a whole herd of guards and maids following them around and fussing over them.”

  “In Krasnograd they dog my every step, but up here I’ve finally managed to shake them off,” said Slava.

  The under-cook laughed heartily over that, and said with great alacrity that her name was Sonya, although what her mother had been thinking she didn’t know, as a name meaning “sleepy” certainly didn’t suit her, since she had always been lively as a young horse, and twice as disobedient, which was why she was an under-cook—none of the noblewomen could stand her sass, so she had been hidden away in the kitchen, where she got to run things as she pleased.

  “Dasha said you were second-sister to a sorceress,” said Slava. “She said that after the Princess’s attack, this sorceress came down and told you of it, and warned you to watch out.”

  “That’s true enough, Tsarinovna,” agreed Sonya readily.

  “Do you think you could arrange a meeting for me?” asked Slava.

  This, unlike anything else, stilled the flow of Sonya’s words for a moment, as she drew back and cocked her head to the side, considering Slava as a bird might consider something that might be dangerous, or might be tasty.

  “Why do you want to meet my sister, Tsarinovna?” she asked finally.

  “I have questions,” Slava told her. “Questions about my gifts, and I thought perhaps a sorceress could answer them.” When Olga had first proposed it, Slava had not given her plan to talk to the Lesnograd sorceresses much importance, but now that she was in Lesnograd and there were no sorceresses to be found, Slava was, somewhat to her own amusement, determined to flush them out no matter how much trouble it took.

  “Surely you have sorceresses in Krasnogorod, Tsarinovna,” said Sonya.

  “But right now I am in Lesnograd,” Slava pointed out.

  This made Sonya laugh quite a lot, which seemed to be what tipped the scales and caused her to tell Slava that she would attempt to send her second-sister word and see if she would meet with Slava. Slava thanked her as profusely as she knew how for this, which sent Sonya off into another peal of laughter at the experience of being thanked by a real live Tsarinovna.

  “And they say you made Vasilisa Vasilisovna, Olga Vasilisovna, and Andrey Vladislavovich all act like friends last night, Tsarinovna,” she said when she had finished laughing. “You must really have gifts then, I suppose.”

  “Or perhaps I am merely a smooth talker,” suggested Slava.

  “You must be as smooth as silk then, Tsarinovna,” said Sonya cheerfully. “Those three have been squabbling for half their lives, and don’t seem like to stop as long as they have the breath to quarrel. Do you think Olga Vasilisovna will stay?”

  “I can’t say,” Slava answered.

  “Probably not, now that I think about it,” said Sonya, “and maybe she shouldn’t. I can’t see Olga Vasilisovna staying in one place for long, can you? Or making a good ruler. I mean, she’ll get things done, but then she’ll get bored and go running off on another adventure. We’re probably better off with what we already have.”

  “Probably,” said Slava. She thanked Sonya again, and, disentangling herself from her chattiness as gracefully as she could, she let Dasha lead her off to where the others were already breakfasting.

  Once again, it was only Olga, Vasilisa Vasilisovna, Andrey Vladislavovich, and Vladislava at the table when she arrived. Slava was about to ask where Oleg Svetoslavovich was, at least, but some inner voice told her that would be a bad idea to remind the others of Olga’s party, so she only wished them a good morning, and allowed the maid to serve her porridge as she examined the party for signs that the reconciliation was going to be permanent, or, on the other hand, that it was already over and everything had gone to being even more bitter than before.

  Olga looked as hale and hearty as ever. When she asked where Slava had been, and heard that she had been down in the kitchens, speaking with an under-cook, she burst into a laughter that made Sonya’s seem small by comparison, and said that perhaps the thing she loved most about Slava was that she never failed to surprise. Vasilisa Vasilisovna and Andrey Vladislavovich both smiled in a strained way at this. As far as Slava could tell, neither of them knew what to do, now that they weren’t quarreling, but were too afraid to break their fragile peace to say anything. She could also tell that they were dying to ask her why she had been down in the kitchen, talking to an under-cook, but they didn’t know how to ask it. Vladislava, though, straightened up from the tense pose she had been hunched in over her breakfast, and said, “The kitchen is very nice, isn’t it, Tsarinovna?”

  “Very nice,” said Slava.

  “And all the maids and the cooks are very nice, aren’t they, Tsarinovna?” She sounded even more like a child than she had the day before, and Slava could see how she really was still just a little girl, with no training in how to be a woman, let alone a princess. Someone needed to do something about that, thought Slava, and that someone should be her.

  “Very nice,” she agreed. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Vasilisa Vasilisovna open her mouth to reprimand Vladislava for going down into the kitchen and befriending the servants, but then, after a tense internal struggle, she closed it. Slava wished she could pat Vasilisa Vasilisovna’s shoulder without appearing patronizing.

  “Sonya’s my favorite,” said Vladislava. “Did you meet her?”

  “I did,” said Slava. “S
he was very kind to me.”

  “I’ll have to meet her, then,” Olga interjected affably. “But do tell me, Tsarinovna, since I’m dying of curiosity: what were you doing in the kitchens?”

  “Looking for sorceresses,” Slava told her.

  “In the kitchen?” asked Olga, grinning. “Surely a library would be better?”

  “I thought I needed to search farther afield, seeing as how they’ve all run off,” Slava told her, smiling back.

  “So you went to Sonya, didn’t you, Tsarinovna!” cried Vladislava, excited. “Because her sister is a sorceress! I went to her a few days ago, but she couldn’t promise me anything. Did she tell you she would try to find her?”

  “She did,” said Slava.

  “Oh good!” Vladislava actually clapped her hands in delight.

  “I thought my first order of business today would be to start the search for the sorceresses, but I see you’ve cut ahead of me, and rightly so,” said Olga. “Let’s move on to my next order of business, then. My mother’s condition: who’s responsible? I mean, what healer is in charge of her care? Since as usual she had no one to blame but herself for the mess she’s ended up in.”

  Andrey Vladislavovich and Vasilisa Vasilisovna, after both giving Olga a look of reproach for speaking ill of her mother, both answered at once. Unfortunately, they both answered with different names. A tense silence reigned over the breakfast-table for several breaths, broken only when Olga said, with forced calm, “Good: I can see that she is being well cared for. Now, the state of the kremlin guard and the public square…”

  Slava watched sadly as Vasilisa Vasilisovna and Andrey Vladislavovich both stared at Olga’s brisk manner with silent resentment. She wanted to say something to stop what was unfolding, but she must have spent all her strength the night before, for at the moment she seemed even more paralyzed than the others. Her state of chained immobility was broken only when Vladislava slipped her hand in Slava’s and whispered, “Let’s go.”

  They both rose and bowed, but the others were too caught up in trying not to shout at each other to pay attention to them, and so they left the room unnoticed.

  “There’s nothing you could have done, Tsarinovna,” said Vadislava, once they were out of earshot of the others.

  “How did you…?” asked Slava, surprised that Vladislava had guessed her thoughts.

  “You looked so sad and guilty, and I would have felt the same way,” said Vladislava. “But there’s nothing of use anyone could do. They just can’t stop quarreling. Would you like to go see Oleg Svetoslavovich and the others? We’ll have to sneak out.”

  “Where are they?” asked Slava. “And I don’t think we should sneak out.”

  “Oh, no one will care,” said Vladislava. “The only person who cares where I am is Mother, and she’s too busy right now to notice what I’m up to—as usual. We’ll be back before they know we’re gone. They’re all in an inn near the kremlin. Oleg Svetoslavovich decided they needed to leave the kremlin in order to keep the peace, even though Aunty Olya said she wouldn’t hear of it. But he convinced her—well, there was a big fight, only with more laughing than usual—and so they’re staying there. I think it would be nice to visit them, don’t you? It must be very lonely and boring for them, stuck in an inn in a strange town. Do you know Oleg Svetoslavovich very well? He seems nice, doesn’t he? And so does Dunya. And so does Dima. I want to meet him. My mother hates him, but I think he sounds very nice.”

  “They’re all very nice,” Slava told her.

  “Oh good, let’s go then,” said Vladislava, and somehow Slava found herself being led by a girl of ten off on yet another illicit venture out of the kremlin. If she thought it really was dangerous, she would have stopped them, Slava told herself, and followed Vladislava willingly enough.

  Chapter Three

  This time Vladislava went straight out the front entrance and across the square. The few guards that Slava saw paid them absolutely no attention. Although this was presently convenient, it still made Slava uneasy, and she hoped Olga would be able to get the guards into shape quite soon.

  Vladislava led her confidently out of the square and down a side street. “How do you know where to find them?” Slava asked her. “How do you know where the inn is?”

  “Oh, I’ve been to it before,” Vladislava told her. “It’s not hard to find.”

  “Does the family visit it often?” Slava asked, picturing something rich and lavish, with, perhaps, private rooms for the ruling family.

  “Oh no, just me,” said Vladislava cheerfully. “I used to be friends with the innkeeper’s daughter, and I would sneak out and play with her. We had a disagreement.” She stopped and stared sadly down at the street, lost in thoughts that seemed much too serious for such a small face.

  “That’s too bad,” said Slava, once it became clear that Vladislava wasn’t going to say anything more. “It’s always sad to fall out with a friend. Perhaps you’ll be friends again someday.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Vladislava. “She said she didn’t want to have anything to do with any princesses, that princesses were all bad and dangerous, and that I was going to be a princess someday and I’d be bad too, and the Empress would find out about what we’d done and we’d get in trouble, and she wanted me to stay as far away from her as possible.” Slava could hear the tears creeping into Vladislava’s voice.

  “That was unkind of her,” she said. “Probably she was upset about something else, and didn’t mean it.”

  “But princesses are bad,” objected Vladislava. “At least, all the ones I know.”

  “They don’t have to be,” Slava told her. “Just because you’re a princess doesn’t mean that you have to be bad.”

  “I suppose,” said Vladislava doubtfully. “I wish I were an innkeeper anyway, though. I still go to visit Aunty Shurya sometimes, since she’s so much nicer than anyone else I know. Well, except for Alina Marinovna. My mother hates that I go there because she thinks it’s too poor and run-down and I shouldn’t be associating with people like that. Masha—my friend—well, she used to be my friend—she’s kind of silly, but I still think it’s silly that my mother doesn’t want me associating with people like that, don’t you? After all, I’ll have to rule them someday, won’t I? I should know who they are. I said this to my mother, but she got upset. She doesn’t like to think of me ruling someday. Do you think that’s because she doesn’t like the thought of me being grown up some day, or the fact that that means she’ll be dead?”

  “Probably both,” said Slava.

  “But they’re both true,” said Vladislava. “There’s nothing I can do to stop either of them from happening. I wish I could make her understand that.”

  “Yes,” said Slava. “Sometimes it’s difficult. Some people have a harder time facing the truth than others. Sometimes truths are very painful. Sometimes all you can do is tell it to them as kindly as possible, and hope that they’ll listen.”

  “But what if they don’t?” asked Vladislava, her small face suddenly twisting up in childish anguish, so that she looked much younger than ten. “What if they don’t, and I have to suffer because of it?”

  “Yes, it’s very bad,” said Slava. “I wish I could tell you something better, but all I can say is: you won’t be a little girl forever. Someday you’ll be grown up, as you said, and—I won’t say that you won’t suffer because of it, but the suffering will be less. Someday you’ll be a woman grown, and—just remember what it was like to be a little girl, and to suffer because others wouldn’t listen to what you had to say, and be sure to listen when others have something to say to you. Even if they’re wrong, listen to them anyway, and think about what you can do to help them be right.”

  Vladislava nodded thoughtfully and slipped her hand into Slava’s. “I wish you were my mother, Tsarinovna,” she said. “Oh look! There’s the inn! Isn’t it pretty?”

  “Very pretty,” said Slava. Vladislava’s words, and the feel of her hand in Slava’s,
made tears prickle in Slava’s eyes, and she had to shake her head to pull herself back together.

  “Is something the matter, Tsarinovna?” asked Vladislava.

  “You’re very nice, did you know that?” Slava told her. “Who carved the decorations?” As they drew near the inn, she could see that the door and window frames were all fancifully decorated with elaborate carvings of people and animals from fairy tales.

  “Uncle Misha, the innkeeper’s husband,” said Vladislava. “Aren’t they pretty? He told me all the stories once. It’s a shame about the rest of it, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” agreed Slava. The frames were the only part of the inn that was in good repair. Everything else was shabby and faded, and when they came to the entrance, she had to open the warped door with a wrench. Slava couldn’t help but wonder what kind of a person put so much effort into the window frames, and so little effort into keeping up the rest of the inn, and if she were also that kind of person. As they stepped into the shabby interior, she had to admit to herself that, as much as she would like to spend all her time on fairy tales, her dislike of drafts would have forced her to fix the door. Probably that meant she was a very worldly person, despite all appearances to the contrary.

  “Little princess!” cried a friendly-faced woman when they came in. She rushed over and folded Vladislava into her arms. “What are you doing here? Naughty girl: you’ve been sneaking off unescorted again, haven’t you?” She drew back in order to shake her finger in Vladislava’s face, but she didn’t sound very angry about it. She was a plump, medium-sized woman with lots of hair that kept slipping out of the lazy braid she had put it in, and Slava could already guess that everything about her inn was warm and homey and not very neat.