The Dreaming Land I: The Challenge Read online

  “Come, little princess, into the next room and I’ll fix your hair,” said one of the maids, once Mirochka was dressed. But at that Mirochka’s face fell. From somewhere—possibly from Darya Krasnoslavovna, who was said to have had wildly curly hair—she had inherited thick, springy curls that resisted all attempts to tame them, and hurt her when they were brushed.

  “Perhaps I should do it,” I said. “Her hair can be difficult to manage, and her head is tender.”

  “Don’t you worry, little princess,” said the younger of the two maids. “Look: my hair is just like yours!” And indeed, curly ringlets had fallen out of her braid and all around her face. Or, I thought after giving her a second look, had been arranged to appear to have fallen free, but were in fact artfully placed to frame her round smiling face.

  “Go with her, my love,” I told Mirochka. “No doubt she will be able to dress your hair better than I could.”

  “You’re my mother,” Mirochka pointed out. “How could she be better at it than you are?”

  “True, sweetheart, but I don’t have curly hair, and I’m not a trained maid, either. I only know how to braid horses’ manes, and horses don’t have curly manes, now do they?”

  This led to some giggling and some speculation on what curly-maned horses would look like, but soon enough I was able to lead the conversation back to the matter at hand and convince her to go off with the maid into the next room, which she did after observing that I smelled funny, like a guard at a feast. Apparently my efforts to wash off the smell of my outing today had been less successful than I’d thought.

  “Do I really smell that bad?” I asked the older maid, once Mirochka and the younger maid had left. I poured myself some more water and nibbled on some bread.

  “No, Valeriya Dariyevna, of course not, but a change in attire, and, if I may dare suggest it, some perfume might not go amiss. I have brought you a selection of both items, at the Tsarina’s kind suggestion.”

  “Excellent. Show me.” She laid out an armful of ornate gowns and several tiny stoppered bottles, even the glass of which looked outrageously expensive. I opened the stoppers one by one and sniffed. All were sickeningly sweet. I examined the gowns. It was good to see that cloth-of-gold had not gone out of fashion since I had last been in Krasnograd. There was a nice supply of matching headdresses that made my temples throb just to look at them.

  “This won’t do at all,” I announced. “Don’t mistake me, ah, I beg your pardon, but you are..?”

  “Mariya, Valeriya Dariyevna, Mariya.”

  “Thank you, Mariya. And it’s all lovely, but it won’t do for what I have in mind at all. We shall have to come up with something else.”

  “I humbly beg your forgiveness, Valeriya Dariyevna, but the Tsarina gave me to understand that you were to be courting at the feast…”

  “Yes, and so will half the women there, all of them drenched in perfume and decked out in cloth-of-gold. If I am going to go courting as heir to Stepnoye as well as a Zerkalitsa, I should look the part. Besides, I have a headache, and those headdresses will make me retch before the night is out.”

  “In that case, Valeriya Dariyevna, if I may be so bold…” said Mariya hesitantly.

  “By all means.”

  “Have you any of your own fine things with you? Things that a steppe princess would wear, I mean, if she were…going into battle, perhaps.”

  “I see you will rise high in the Tsarina’s service, Mariya.”

  “Thank you, Valeriya Dariyevna, but if you will permit to say so, I already am high in the Tsarina’s service.”

  “Well, let’s hope you will rise higher, then. As it happens, I do have some of my best battle-gear with me. You never know when you might need it, especially in Krasnograd.”

  “Oh, we are not so uncivilized as all that, Valeriya Dariyevna,” said Mariya with a slight smile.

  “No, you’re civilized, which is ten times worse. Here we go. Battle silks, embroidered with the Stepnaya family’s spells of protection.”

  “It is true, then, Valeriya Dariyevna, that steppe warriors do not wear armor into battle? I had heard so, but I had never believed it.”

  “We wear some armor,” I told her. “But not enough to slow us down. The loose silks, you see, let us move freely, and entangle swords. And if we should be so unfortunate as to get hit by an arrow, the silk will go in with the point and allow us to draw it out again more easily. Or so it is claimed. Frankly, Mariya, an arrow is an arrow, and nothing allows it to be drawn out easily.”

  She shuddered. “Do you speak from personal experience, Valeriya Dariyevna?”

  “Unfortunately, yes.”

  “Then—forgive me for asking, Valeriya Dariyevna, but is there a scar? And if so, where is it?”

  I drew up my sleeve and showed her the scar that stood out halfway down my right arm, like a star of shiny, puckered flesh. “Horde raiders,” I said. “Some of them are still foolish enough to venture into Stepnoye. Don’t worry, Mariya: it wasn’t that bad.”

  She shuddered again. “If you say so, Valeriya Dariyevna. May I make a suggestion?”

  “By all means.”

  “Let us push up your sleeves, so that the scar is visible. We can fasten them with an elegant ribbon. It will add to your exoticness and your…air of danger.”

  “No doubt you are right, Mariya.”

  “And is that sword-oil, there in your pack?”

  “It is.”

  “If you will permit me, Valeriya Dariyevna…” She took the bottle of sword-oil, poured out a few drops into her palm, mixed it with a drop of the spiciest of the perfumes Sera had sent down for me, and dabbed the mixture around my neck. “Again, it will be exotic, Valeriya Dariyevna,” she explained. “Exotic and exciting.” She sniffed at my hair. “Up close I can tell that you do still bear a faint trace of the tavern on you, Valeriya Dariyevna, but that will be all to the good as well. It is not enough to be objectionable, and it will be exotic and exciting too.”

  In short order I was dressed in my battle silks, although with some (non-permanent) alterations that Mariya thought would reveal my figure to better advantage.

  “And you have the legs to wear trousers, Valeriya Dariyevna,” she said approvingly, surveying her handiwork. “Most women don’t, but I declare, you look better in trousers than in a gown.”

  “We all have our talents,” I said. I opened my weapons chest. Mariya gave a faint gasp.

  “You’re not thinking of wearing a weapon to the feast, Valeriya Dariyevna!” she exclaimed.

  “Only a small one,” I assured her. “Not a sword, of course. Just a little knife. To cut my food with, you know.”

  She gave the knife I had chosen an unhappy look. “That’s very large for a knife, Valeriya Dariyevna. Are you sure it’s not a sword?”

  “Yes,” I told her. I pulled out one of my swords. “You see the difference?”

  She shuddered yet again and backed away. “I do, Valeriya Dariyevna, but I still think that the Tsarina…”

  “I wore this knife to feasts the last time I was here, and the time before that as well,” I assured her. “The Tsarina won’t object. I’m her sister, after all. Besides, I might need it. Not for cutting people,” I hastened to add, seeing the look on her face. “Just for a little bout of bladework, should the occasion call for it. The prince I am courting is said to enjoy swordfighting.”

  “Really, Valeriya Dariyevna, in the Hall of Feasts…”

  “Which is why we might have to slip away and practice a little more privately, Mariya.”

  Her face cleared. “A brilliant plan, Valeriya Dariyevna.”

  “Yes, well, there may not be an opportunity, but if there is, I intend to be ready. And I dare say I will be the only princess there with a real blade at her side, which will be all to the good in any case. Now, Mariya, if you would be so kind and fasten back my hair, I will be ready for battle.”

  “Battle is all very well, Valeriya Dariyevna, but what about courting?”


  “Battle, courting…it’s all the same. Just smooth back my hair as best you can. I hate it when it falls in my face while I’m eating. If I were really going into battle, I’d cut it off, but you see how long it’s grown. The steppe has been peaceful of late. Not that I’m not grateful, of course.”

  “Of course, Valeriya Dariyevna,” she said, giving me another slight smile. “Have no fear, your hair will not trouble you as you dine. I am a trained maid, after all.”

  “And very grateful I am for that, too.”

  Mariya began pulling back my hair with remarkable dexterity, and it was soon fastened in some clever knot that, she swore, would not come undone unless I wanted it to.

  “Does it please you, Valeriya Dariyevna?” she asked, showing me myself in the mirror.

  “Very much,” I said, trying to sound as if I were speaking the truth. The fact was that looking in the mirror made me uneasy. There was always the unnerving sensation that what I was looking at was not the real me, and that somewhere, somehow, something had gone dreadfully wrong in my development. I could never put my finger on what it was, as I was the picture of a steppe princess: tall and lithe, with large gray slanted eyes, high cheekbones, skin the color of honey, strong thick hair that was neither blond nor brown…and the expression of someone with blood on her hands, of course, and few qualms about getting them even bloodier. Everything was just as it should be, just as one would expect it to be, just what others admired in me, just as I myself wanted it to be, and yet I could never contemplate myself without having to force myself not to cringe away from the image the mirror threw back at me, as if I were a cripple or a misborn freak. In fact, I had known cripples and misborn freaks—back home we often offered such people a safe place to overwinter, and I made it a point, as the future and de facto current ruler of Stepnoye, to befriend those who sought shelter with us—who looked upon their flaws with greater equanimity than I looked upon my perfections.

  “You look every inch a Princess Stepnaya, Valeriya Dariyevna,” said Mariya, sounding justifiably pleased with her handiwork.

  I was rescued from having to admire myself more by Mirochka’s return to the room to show me herself and what had been done with her hair, and to say goodbye before setting off for the splendors of the children’s table and extract a promise that I would indeed come by and see her while she was there. The sight of me in my battle silks caused a small scene, as it did ever since I had returned from battle with an arrow in my arm. It took several rounds of questions and answers and promises before I was able to convince her that I was not about to leave her to go fight, and that I most certainly was not about to get shot again, but once that had been accomplished she set off light-heartedly in the direction of the feast. I followed, equally jaunty on the outside but rather less light-hearted on the inside.

  Chapter Seven

  Despite the bold face I had put on for Mariya, and my genuine faith that our plan for my appearance was the best it could possibly be, the thought of facing an entire hall full of noblewomen, many of whom would not be well disposed towards me, and even worse, going courting under their sententious gaze, was weighing heavily on me as I made my way down the corridors of the kremlin. My relations with most of the other princesses of Zem’ were prickly at best, and all my attempts at courting had always ended in disaster, or at least something other than marriage. Besides, I was still feeling less than at my full strength after spending my first day off a two-week journey in summer walking around in the heat and drinking beer. No doubt I felt better than Aleksey Aleksandrovich, I consoled myself. I wondered if he would be there. Better if he weren’t, but I had already done my best to incapacitate him for the day, and would have to trust to that. At least Mirochka would be in another room, and would be spared whatever scene was sure to greet me this evening.

  The Hall of Feasts was more than half-full when I walked in, and buzzing with that pre-feast conversation that takes place when people are still sober and looking forward to the festivities of the night ahead. I told myself I was only imagining that a hush fell on the room when I entered. Probably most of the people here didn’t even recognize me.

  “Valeriya Dariyevna?” said a thin, sharp-faced woman of middle years who was standing by the door. “Is that you?”

  “Yes, Tatyana Marfovna,” I said. The current Princess Malolesnaya, my head told me after my tongue had already spit out her name.

  “Back in Krasnograd at last, I see,” she said, not sounding pleased about it.

  “The Tsarina was kind enough to deign to summon me.”

  “I see.” She gave me a sour look. “Don’t you think you did enough damage the last time you were here…and the time before that?”

  “I serve the Tsarina,” I said.

  “I know what you did last time. Vyacheslav Irinovich is my second-brother, and I take an interest in everything that goes on in his household, you know.”

  I smiled politely and told myself to suggest to Sera that she have all of Vyacheslav Irinovich’s servants dismissed, or, if she preferred, kept on for the purpose of spreading false information.

  “If you hadn’t interfered last time, the Tsarina would have an heir by now!”

  “If I hadn’t stepped in then, she would be dead by now.”

  “And so conveniently, in order to ‘save’ her, you got rid of the only obstacle to you and your own ill-gotten daughter inheriting the throne!”

  “I’m disappointed, Tatyana Marfovna,” I said. “I thought you had a better opinion of me. Surely you would expect that, were I in truth to decide to get rid of all obstacles between me and the throne, I wouldn’t have saved the life of the person currently occupying it. Had I really wanted the throne for myself, all I would have had to do would have been to stand by and do nothing. Which is what everyone else was doing. But since I see you are under a misapprehension about me and my motives, let me make myself clear. If I never set foot in Krasnograd again, it will be too soon. And if duty would permit me to disguise my daughter as a peasant and hide her away from the throne forever, I would. I…” I realized by Princess Malolesnaya’s expression that I had been speaking much too vehemently, and forced myself to stop and take a deep breath. This gave her time to mutter something to herself.

  “I beg your pardon?” I asked.

  “I said, Valeriya Dariyevna, that you can protest all you want, but until the Tsarina bears an heir, you and your disgrace-born daughter stand next in line, and nothing you say about your motives and intentions is going to change the way your actions appear.”

  I wondered how many people knew of Sera’s current condition. Not many, it seemed. I also wondered what would happen if I called Princess Malolesnaya out and made her face me herself, blade in hand, in recompense for her words. Nothing good, I was sure.

  “If you wish to accuse me of treason, Tatyana Marfovna, I suggest you do so to my sister’s face,” I said, stepping just a little bit closer to her. Like almost every other woman in the hall, she was more than a head shorter than I was. “But I would think carefully before doing so, if I were you. Leveling such an accusation against someone of Imperial blood would also be considered treason, you know, were it to be proven false.”

  “You misunderstand me, Valeriya Dariyevna,” she said, giving me a supercilious look but also backing away slightly. “As usual.”

  “Oh good,” I said with a pleasant smile. “I’m glad that it is now clear to both of us that I have only the Tsarina’s best interests at heart, as I’m sure you do as well, Tatyana Marfovna. Enjoy the feast.” I turned and did my best to saunter off boldly. My evening had already started off more briskly than I would have hoped.

  I walked around a bit, surveying the hall. No sign of Ivan Marinovich yet. Also no sign of any friendly faces. At least most of the people here were ignoring me. The hall was growing ever more crowded and close, and Sera had not yet made her appearance. I ducked down into a side corridor, intending to find the children’s table and check in on Mirochka, and ca
me face-to-face with Ivan Marinovich.

  “Nadezhda Marislavovna!” he exclaimed in surprise. “What are you doing here?”

  “Helping you collect on the bet you’ve just won,” I told him.

  “Bet? What bet?” he asked

  “Ivan! How do you know this person!” demanded the woman walking behind him, whom I recognized with irritation to be Princess Srednekrasnova. No sign of Aleksey Aleksandrovich or Denis Praskovyevich, at least.

  “I beg your pardon, Princess Srednekrasnova. This is Nadezhda Marislavovna, whom I met while Aleksey Aleksandrovich and I were…at the market this afternoon. Nadezhda Marislavovna is an Imperial messenger.”

  Princess Srednekrasnova gave me a look that made Princess Malolesnaya’s seem warm and welcoming. “Ivan! I’m ashamed of you. This is why I told you and Aleksey not to go out by yourselves. This is no messenger.”

  Ivan Marinovich looked at me in confusion.

  “This is Valeriya Dariyevna.”

  He still looked at me in confusion.

  “Stepnaya,” Princess Srednekrasnova clarified.

  Ivan Marinovich gave me a look in which shock, confusion, and hurt were all equally mixed. I felt surprisingly bad about it.

  “I believe the Tsarina has just entered the hall,” I interjected. “If you will permit me, Princess Srednekrasnova, I must introduce Ivan Marinovich to her and help him collect on his bet.”

  She opened her mouth to object, but before she could get the words out, I took Ivan Marinovich by the arm and led him away. He offered no resistance, I was pleased to note.