Chernevog (2 page)

Still, all they built held strong and snug through the winters and the summers, a house weathered and patched with lichen, added on to with gray, weathered logs, rustic outside— Ah, but
in
...

Inside were clean wooden floors, rugs from the Indee, cupboards and beds and tables and chairs likewise polished. There were golden cups and pewter plates. There were silk curtains and brass lamps and a wonderful samovar, besides a well-ordered cellar full of apples and nuts and dried mushrooms, bunches of herbs and pots of honey and sacks of good downriver grain—not mentioning, besides, the domovoi who was well-content there, and the shelves at the newly excavated end of the cellar, which held hundreds of well-dusted, well-marked little pots of herbs, simples, powders, and earths that a wizard or even a good householder might find useful.

Not a single mouse. The domovoi got those.

In truth, Sasha found himself so happy in this cozy house it frightened him, because nothing of the gold and the silk and the jewels had ever really seemed to belong to him: it was only a cup to drink from, was only a curtain to keep the draft away; these things had come to him in a night and they could go the same way, for all he cared. It was his welcome with Pyetr and Eveshka that mattered to him
, and Pyetr's happiness with Ev
eshka, and their willingness to put up with him, who was no longer the fifteen-year-old boy they had started with.

This spring in particular it had begun to seem to him that he was a great deal underfoot for a married couple, though Pyetr and Eveshka had willingly set a room apart for him: Pyetr had in fact built the house twice as large for his sake, so that he could have his bedroom and his own clothes press at one end of what had once been the whole house and now was only the end of the kitchen. Pyetr and Eveshka had the big new room at the back, on the other side of the opened hearth, and Eveshka's cupboards. It
was
after all Eveshka's house: of all else her father had passed on to him, Sasha had never claimed the house Eveshka had grown up in, nor ever doubted it was hers. Yet here he was, always at their breakfast table, always in the middle of their evenings when work was done.

Most of all in those late hours when a not too naive boy was very acutely aware that man and his wife would want a little privacy, they often as not put that off for his sake, so as not, Pyetr had said more than once, to leave him alone by the fireside—all of which said to Sasha that he was a nuisance to them, even if he was company for Pyetr, and even if a wizard had no choice but the solitude of this woods. The house rightfully was Eveshka's, Pyetr certainly was; and that left Sasha Misurov lately feeling all his own happiness so fragile a misaimed wish could shatter it.

It was so hard, for instance, not to wish them happy together. But a wizard generally got his wishes, in one shape or another: that was exactly the problem. He dared not wish a thing like that for Eveshka, who being a wizard herself could perfectly well feel it happening and angrily bid him mind his own business; and he dared not wish it for Pyetr, either, who would not feel it, but who certainly trusted his best friend not to meddle.

It was hard, too, not to want to be loved and wanted, despite one's inconvenience: and the knotty question of whether not-wishing could possibly be a wish in itself kept turning over and over in Sasha's mind, waking him at night and setting him for long hours to writing in his book, to which he added page after page as the months passed; it set him to reading master Uulamets' battered, rain-stained record, too—which warned him plainly that a wizard who loved anyone was in danger, and a wizard who wanted love from any creature was a thief at best.

That caution applied to Eveshka and him equally, of course; and however they tried, he was sure they were both guilty in their own ways and for their own reasons.

But Pyetr only laughed and said, when once Sasha confided to him his inmost, most terrible misgivings in his case,

“
I'm not worried.
“

Wherewith Pyetr poured another cup of water over his head— they were sitting in the newly finished bathhouse at the time, sweating in the heat of the stones.

“
I worry,
”
Sasha said, and looked about him in the dim light and the steam—one would be cautious in a bathhouse at any time one was saying something serious, because
of banniks
.
“
Pyetr, if you ever think I'm wishing something—
”

“
What I wish,
”
Pyetr said,
“
is a cup of water down my back.
”

Sasha poured it.

“
Still,
”
Sasha began again.

“
You worry too much,
”
Pyetr said, resuming th
e careful scraping of his chin.

“
You look at a clear sky, you worry it'll rain; you wish for clear weather, you worry it'll be drought across all the tsar's lands—and he'll come and burn your house down—
”

“
It might happen.
”

“
Might happen. It won't if you wish not.
”

“
If I wish not—
”

“
The tsar could fall dead. A fine reasoning. Why should you care? The damn tsar's going to burn your house down!
”

“
I never wished it to rain in the first place!
”

“
Oh, pish, you wish me up winds on the river, you wish me safe in the woods, god, some poor bear might starve to death for your sake. —Aren't you worried?
”

Sasha scowled at Pyetr. Pyetr winked at him.

“
Hush with your jokes,
”
Sasha said.
“
How will we get a bannik if you don't take it seriously?
”

“
I'll say if there's a bannik he should have a sense of humor.
”

“
Hope he doesn't!
”
Sasha said, and wished if one was listening he would be patient.
“
Bannik, excuse him. He really means well.
”

“
Probably,
”
Pyetr said,
“
he's still looking at the roof, thinking he could get a better job in Kiev.
”

“
Pyetr,-
”

“
I know, I know.
”
Pyetr gave careful attention to the spot under his lip, shaving by touch.
“
But if there's an ill-tempered bannik about we don't need him and if he's a decent fellow he won't mind a joke.
”

“
They're not a joking sort.
”

“
That's a grim idea.
”

“
What?
”

“
Seeing the future and f
inding nothing to laugh about.
”
Pyetr dipped a cloth in the bucket and wiped his face.
“
A body's always got that, wherever he is. Here in the woods, for instance—one needs that, in the long winters
...”

“
You miss Kiev, don't you?
”

“
I wouldn't know if I miss Kiev, I've never been to Kiev.
”

“
You always said you'd go.
”

“
Well, I will, when I want to.
”

“
That's the point, isn't it, I mean, if we're really wishing you to stay, and not knowing it—
”

“
I like it here. I'm fine. God, what should I complain about? We've got the house roofed, there aren't any more leaks—
”

“
You weren't a farmer. You were never made to be a farmer.
“

“
No, I was a fool on his way to a hanging, with a flock of double-crossing scoundrels I thought were my friends, to tell the truth—who'd have seen me hanged as soon as lift a finger to help me. What's Kiev to offer? More
sc
oundrels.
”

‘‘You never thought so.
”

“
Well, I think so now. I might go to Kiev someday, but I don't see doing it this year. I've no time to do it. I
like
it here.
”

“
It's not Kiev.
”

“
Well, thank the god it's not Vojvoda either, where I'd likely be hanged, if the boyars were in an especially good mood!
”

“
It's livelier.
”

“
Not if you're dead. God, why should I complain? What started this? What do you think I'd want that I haven't got?
”

Sasha tried to stop himself, but he did think of something Pyetr lacked. He thought of it so instantly and wanted it so clearly he knew it was dangerous, but for some reason he could not collect his wits to know what to do next. He felt the sweat running on his face, mopped at it, his heart thumping.

Pyetr said, flinging a dipperful of water at him:
“
Come on, out we go, we're not used to this. I think we're both getting a little light-headed.
”

Cold air did help. Sasha breathed deeply, leaned against the bathhouse wall and tried to think exactly what he should do about what he had just wanted.

That was the trap a wizard so easily fell into: if wishes worked, and if a wizard had a friend, then one wanted everything that could make his friend happy.

Of course one did—

Especially if one felt oneself constantly in the way of that happiness as it was.

That was the danger a wizard ran in having friends.

Sasha knew that absolutely—one evening a month later, when a black horse turned up in the garden, nibbling Eveshka's infant cabbages.

“
God!
”
Eveshka cried, on the porch, wiping dusty hands; while Sasha, in the doorway behind her, said with all contrition,
“
I'm sorry,
”
and wished the horse out of Eveshka's garden.

“
Sorry!
”
Eveshka said, and looked back at him in wide-eyed indignation, which only made him wish-But Sasha stopped himself in time. He said, in a very small voice,
“
I think it's Pyetr's horse.
”

2

Pyetr eased the old ferry in, not scraping the dockside buffers too hard. Townsman and landsman he might have been born, but the river ran quietly near the house, the hand at the tiller could also work the small sail they used for this stretch of the river (Eveshka's clever notion, to extend the ropes that far) and since two wizards could easily wish him up a favorable wind, he took the boat out alone now and again, when his foresting and his foraging and his sometime trading took him upriver or down.

Today was one of those days, wizards being the peculiar folk they were, inclined to long stints of reading and writing in the books they kept—or, the case in the house today, to long, laborious grinding and brewing and boiling of things some of which were delightful and most of which were not. One supposed that wizardry noses got used to it: his certainly had not.

So off he had gone on his own
this morning with pots and boxes of willow seedlings and herbs and packets of seeds of all kinds to plant upriver, where willows had once grown; and back he came gliding up to the dock in the evening, pleasantly recalling Eveshka had promised him honey-cakes in recompense.

He jumped ashore with the rope, made fast, returned aboard to gather up a bag of mushrooms he had found (Eveshka knew everything that grew in the woods, and saved them from his
fatal mistakes). He took up his empty lunch-basket, in which he had tucked sprigs of several things he did not recognize, along with an interesting double oak gall: Eveshka was always interested in curiosities, some of which became part of her recipes.

“
Babi!
”
he called out, whistled sharply, and a black furball bounded ashore after him. It might have been a dog: it scampered around his feet, panting, doglike. Then, not at all doglike, it grabbed his trouser-leg with small black hands, making a thorough nuisance of itself.

“
Go on, Babi,
”
Pyetr said, shaking the dvorovoi loose, and dropped the lunch-basket, which Babi, sitting upright, caught neatly in his hands.
“
Don't eat it, hear?
”

Babi hugged the basket in his arms and trotted on small bowed legs beside him, more basket than Babi, up the steep path to the house. Boats and riversides were not a dvorovoi's proper place, of course: a Yard-thing had an important duty in the world, keeping rabbits and birds and less common marauders out of a house's garden, and warding garden gates from going maliciously unlatched to strangers. But Eveshka and Sasha alike had wished their dvorovoi to keep an eye on him when he was off alone in the woods (they had separately confessed it) and Babi offered no objection at all: Babi seemed thoroughly to enjoy the outings, even the odd meetings with leshys, at which he growled and hissed and bristled. The leshys forgave him, even old Misighi: one had to grant Babi had the same manner with everyone.