Lord of Snow and Shadows (25 page)

CHAPTER 19

“Welcome, Gavril,” Lilias said, smiling. She lay on her silk-draped bed, propped up on pillows. Beside the bed was set a cradle, draped with folds of crisp white linen. A talented seamstress—Dysis?—had embroidered the Nagarian crest on the linen in threads of gold and blue.

“Congratulations, Lilias.” Gavril could not bring himself to smile back at her.

“Don’t you want to see my son? Your half-brother Artamon?”

Half-brother? Gavril approached the cradle and looked inside. He had never had a brother or sister. The pink little scrap of a thing that lay curled asleep inside did not look much of a threat. Neither, he thought, did the baby look anything like a Nagarian with its wisps of red-gold hair. Or an Arkhel. If anything, little Artamon favored Lilias’ coloring. He felt a sudden pang of pity for the sleeping child, innocent and unaware of the snake’s nest it had been born into.

“Sleeping so peacefully. And yet,” and a darkness shadowed her face, “he had such a narrow escape.”

“What do you mean?”

“A horrible thing happened. I still find myself shaking when I think of it. One of the servants tried to kill him.”

“One of the servants?” Gavril had a sudden sick feeling of apprehension; what unpleasant revelation was she leading up to? He had noticed an unusually subdued atmosphere in the kastel. “Who would want to kill a baby?”

“The girl was never right in the head. She should never have been left alone with the baby. But don’t worry, my lord, the matter is dealt with.”

“Dealt with?” Apprehension turned to dread.
“Who was it?”

“Why, Kiukiu, of course. I thought you might have guessed from my description!”

Gavril felt his heart lurch painfully in his breast. He had warned her to be careful of Lilias. But Lilias was clever. Too clever for good-hearted, loyal Kiukiu.

“Kiukiu isn’t the kind of girl to harm babies,” he began. “Are you sure you aren’t mistaken?”

“I caught her trying to smother my baby!” Lilias’ green eyes glistened with sudden tears.

“But why would she do such a thing?”

“Because she has bad blood in her! Did you know her father was an Arkhel? Not a lord, of course, but one of their shamans.”

Gavril stared at her in dismay. He did not for one moment believe that Kiukiu would have tried to harm the baby—but for now he found himself outmaneuvered.

“And where is she now?” he asked.

“Oh, she’s gone.”

“Gone!” His heart gave another lurch. “Gone where?”

“I had her thrown out. I couldn’t risk her being anywhere near my baby.”

“What right,” he said coldly, “did you have to have one of my servants dismissed without my authorization?”

“Michailo authorized it. Kostya left him in command of the kastel. There was more. An owl. She was keeping an owl—an Arkhel’s Owl—as a pet! She was lucky to be dismissed without punishment.”

Worse and worse. They had found Snowcloud.

“And when did all this happen?”

“Yesterday.”

“You sent her out into that blizzard?”

“Was it my fault the weather changed?”

“And has no one gone to look for her?” Gavril turned and went striding out of Lilias’ bedchamber, letting the door bang behind him. He didn’t care if he woke the baby. He only knew that Kiukiu had been made to suffer on his account. Lilias had found a way to rid herself of Kiukiu—a way that worked all too well to her advantage.

“Sosia!” he shouted. He was Drakhaon; the whole household would pay if Kiukiu had come to any harm.

“My lord?” Sosia came up from the kitchens; her face was wan and drawn.

“Why did you let them dismiss Kiukiu? Send her out into the snows?” He could hear his own voice, hot and rough with anger.

“I—I had no alternative, my lord.” Sosia looked frightened.

“Where did she go?”

“I told her to go to the village. To Klim. I have family there, at the tavern.”

“Michailo!” The anger was building inside him; he made an effort to contain it.
“Michailo!”

“My lord?” Michailo appeared on the balcony overhead; Gavril could see the glint of his fair hair in the gloom.

“Assemble a search party. Get blankets and aquavit.”

“Why, my lord?”

There was something in Michailo’s tone of voice that rankled, almost a hint of insolence.

“You dare question my orders?” The words rasped out. “Do as I say.”

There was a small pause.

“Very well, Lord Drakhaon.”

Gavril struck his clenched fist against the paneled wall. Fixed shields and crossed blades rattled. Suddenly the household sprang into life; orders were bellowed, men of the
druzhina
came running past, grabbing axes, buckling on sabers. Gavril watched them with a kind of grim satisfaction, following them through to the courtyard where he saw them leading their horses from the stables. The cobbles were dirty with muddied slush and hard-trodden snow.

“Who are we to search for, Lord Drakhaon?”

“For the serving girl Kiukiu. She went toward Klim.”

He saw the warriors exchanging glances.

A tow-haired stableboy tried to sidle past. Gavril recognized Ivar and caught hold of him by the shoulder.

“Saddle me a horse. I’m going too.”

He saw Michailo mutter something to his men.

“Do you have a problem with that, Michailo?”

“With respect, Lord Drakhaon,” said Michailo, looking him straight in the eye, “there must be other more important matters than searching the moors for one insignificant servant girl.”

“No one in my household,” Gavril said, returning the stare until Michailo sullenly looked away, “is insignificant, Michailo.”

The stableboy led out a black gelding. Gavril, eyes still fixed on Michailo, swung up into the saddle.

“Lead the way, Michailo.”

Gavril’s horse labored to the brow of the hill, snorting out steam from his nostrils. Below them the moors stretched away into the misted distance, a glistening sheen of white snow, white as far as Gavril could see.

“How far to the village?” he asked Michailo.

Michailo shrugged. “In good weather, an hour or so on horseback.”

“But Kiukiu was on foot.”

Michailo shrugged again and clicked his tongue to his horse. Down the stony trail they went, down toward the endless expanse of whiteness. There was not a stir among the windless branches, not even the bark of a distant rowan deer or the flutter of a bird’s wings.

So quiet. And so very cold. The lonely prospect crushed Gavril’s hopes. Had Kiukiu made it to the village before the blizzard swept across the moors? There was no shelter here, just an endless expanse of windblown snow.

They rode on, the horses stepping up to their fetlocks through the snow. The wind, sharp as a saw’s blade, whined across the moorlands. The six
druzhina
put their heads down, uncomplaining. Gavril felt unrepentant for bringing them out in such weather. They were pledged to serve him. But Michailo’s blatant show of arrogance had unsettled him; the intimate looks passing between the young man and Lilias had not escaped him. What had they been planning?

At last Gavril thought he could just make out a faint dark smudge rising above the skyline against the dazzle of the snow. Shading his eyes, he realized that the smudge was smoke rising from hidden chimneys.

They came to the brow of a slope and there, below them, lay a little compound of wooden houses nestling around a chapel. Tiny figures moved to and fro through the snowbound lanes. As they approached he could hear voices: children screaming and shouting as they played—and the lowing of cattle, herded into the barns for shelter.

“Druzhina!”
One child spotted the riders and ran down the little street, calling out.
“Druzhina!”
Other children gathered in a doorway, peering warily out at the riders from beneath shawls and close-wound woolen scarfs.

“Minushka! Danilo! Come in at once.” A woman appeared and snatched two of the children up, dragging them into the house. Gavril did not miss the look she gave them; at once fearful and resentful. The
druzhina
inspired awe, but not affection, in their neighbors.

Michailo dismounted and flung the reins of his horse to his companion.

“Landlord! Piotr!” he shouted.

The door of the nearest wooden house opened and a thickset, bearded man appeared, bowing.

“Welcome, my lords.”

Gavril caught a waft of warmth from a fire within. He longed to dismount and go inside to thaw his cold hands and feet.

“We’re looking for Sosia’s niece. Kiukirilya.”

The landlord looked blankly at them.

“I haven’t seen our little Kiukiu in over a year. Why, my lord?”

“Are you certain?” Gavril urged his horse forward.

“Would I lie to you, my lord?” Piotr stared up at him and Gavril saw a sudden look of fear shiver across his face. “You are Lord Volkh’s son,” he whispered and dropped to his knees.

“Get up, Piotr,” Michailo said irritably.

“If I’d known you were coming, Lord Drakhaon—” Piotr babbled.

“Kiukiu is missing,” Gavril cut in. “She set out to come here a day and a night ago, and you say she never arrived?”

“Never, my lord.”

“Where else could she be?”

“There is nowhere else. Nowhere between here and Azhgorod.”

“A farm, a homestead on the moors that might have given her shelter?”

Piotr shook his head.

“I’ll get a search party together,” he said. “Come in, my lords. You must be frozen to the bone. Dmitri!” Piotr whistled and a lanky, rawboned youth appeared. “Hot caraway ale for my lord and his men.”

Inside the tavern a log fire was blazing in a bright-tiled stove. Two old men were huddled close to the stove, but they hurriedly shuffled away as the warriors came in. Dmitri ladled out mugs of steaming ale from a pot on the stove for Gavril and the
druzhina
.

“All this for one foolish girl,” muttered Michailo, blowing the steam from the top of his mug. But before Gavril could remonstrate with him, a group of men came tramping in, stamping the snow off their boots. All were wrapped in furs and animal-skin cloaks, and carried sticks, axes, and clubs. To Gavril they looked more like brigands armed to go raiding than a rescue party.

“Wolves,” one of them said. “Steppe wolves from Tielen. Broke into my neighbor’s yard last night, killed half of his sheep. They haven’t ventured this far since Drakhys Marya’s time.”

“I’ve never seen snow like this,” Piotr said, blowing on his fingers. “This is the worst I can remember.”

“Steppe wolves here?” Gavril saw again the twisted, torn bodies of the women and children of Ilmin, scattered in the bloodstained snow.

“We have our own wolves up in the mountains, silver-haired snow wolves. But these vicious brutes come from the steppes of Tielen. Over the ice. Yellow-fanged, yellow-haired, they’ll tear a man to pieces if they’re hungry enough.”

Kiukiu, struggling through the snows alone . . .

“Let’s go,” Gavril said, making for the door.

Michailo gulped down the last of his ale and waved the
druzhina
to follow him.

“My lord,” Piotr said quietly to Gavril as he reached the horses, “things don’t look too good. Steppe wolves, blizzards . . . don’t raise your hopes.”

As they rode out of the village, some of the children ran alongside, waving to the search party as they trudged along behind the
druzhina
’s horses.

“Go back!” Piotr shouted to them. “Stay in the village. Stay where it’s safe!”

On the brow of the hill, the wind scythed in again, cold enough to take the breath away. Gavril gazed about him at the glittering snowfields. He wondered how anyone would know how to find their way to Klim when all landmarks except the distant jagged range of mountains were covered in snow.

“Is there anywhere she could have found shelter between Klim and the mountains?” Gavril asked, shading his eyes.

“Only the old witch’s place,” Piotr said. One of the men made a sign with his fingers and spat in the snow.

“Witch?” Gavril echoed.

“Wisewoman. Mad as a bat. Lives on her own on the edge of the Arkhel waste.”

“But still—”

“Here. Here!” shouted out one of the search party.

Gavril jumped down from his horse and went running over to look. The man was digging in the snow. Under the light surface powder, Gavril saw the sodden folds of a piece of material appear. He knelt down to help dig, all the time fearing that beneath the drift a frozen human face would appear.

But all that lay beneath the drift was a crumpled square of material, an old threadbare sheet, that spilled a few objects as they pulled it out, brushing away the snow.

Gavril picked up the contents. And as he touched them, a sick, desolate feeling numbed him. So few possessions. So little to leave behind. Thick socks darned and redarned with gypsy-bright wools, an ivory comb with broken teeth, the remains of a half-chewed piece of black bread, blue ribbons . . .

Blue, her favorite color. Gavril began to dig in the snow with gloved hands.

“These are her things. Where
is
she?” he said between gritted teeth.