R1 - Rusalka (2 page)

Only he must go somewhere. The stableboy had seen him.

The boy knew that he had had business with 'Mitri, and if he brought trouble down on 'Mitri and 'Mitri's father took a hand then he had no hope at all.

He went out the stable gate, ducked down the lane, and heard the thief-bell stop. Good, he thought, breathless and dizzy, good, maybe the furor is dying down.

Or the thieftakers had come, and a wider hunt had begun.

He walked, felt new blood leaking through his fingers, and from time to time heard no sound but the pounding in his ears. The pain in his back and his side made it hard to think at all.

But his eyes made out the street—and knew the doorway and the gate farther on, that it offered at least a hope of refuge.

He walked as far as the public well and then into the gate and inside, down the log walk, reeled off to stand in the mud of The Cockerel's stableyard, hearing laughter behind the light-seamed shutters of the tavern, singing and dancing and the voice of Fedya Misurov himself calling out for another jug from the cellar.

His legs carried him away from that. Fedya Misurov would side with Yurishev, Yurishev would have the magistrates in his pocket; and he thought, seeking the dark of the stable, Only let me sit down a while…

…
because he was not thinking clearly, and he thought that if he could lie down a while in the dark, on the straw, he could regain his breath and his wits and think what to do or where he could go, or perhaps—

—
perhaps make free of the horses stabled here, and absent himself from Vojvoda a while. He had been born in Vojvoda, he had grown up in its streets, and other places were only stories he had heard from 'Mitri and Vasya and his friends; but he was sure there were places to go, he had his winning ways and his cleverness and he was sanguine about his chances—

If only the pain would stop, if only he were not bleeding his life out.

He lay down mostly on his face in the straw, heard the horses moving and snorting their alarm at his presence and the smell of blood in the dark, but the singing in the tavern would drown that, and he lay there resting, kept telling himself that the blood was not coming so hard now that he was lying still, that it hurt a little less.

But he was mortally afraid, because he knew he was lying to himself: blood was still coming and he was close to fainting when the horses moved suddenly and a voice said, "Whoa, Missy, what's the matter?"

He thought there was a light near him. He thought that he heard someone walking in the straw, and that it was Yurishev's men and they would kill him.

But it was a boy who held a lantern over him, it was young Sasha Misurov, who stood there with a shocked, frozen stare, and asked him, foolish question, what he was doing there.

"I'm dying," Pyetr snapped, and tried to move, but that was a mistake. He fell down on his face in the straw, and screamed when the boy tried to pull him over.

"I'll get my uncle," Sasha said.

"No!" Pyetr was able to say, with the straw moving against his face, with his heart beating hard and his breath scant. His whole body was exploring the new limits of the pain and trying to discover whether lying like that was better or worse. "No—just let me rest here a while. Don't call your uncle. I've got some trouble. You don't want him involved. I'll just rest, I'll be on my way in an hour or so…"

"You're bleeding," the boy said.

"I know that," Pyetr said between his teeth. "Have you any bandages?"

"For horses."

"Get them!"

The boy went away. Pyetr lay on his face in the straw trying to gather the strength to get up again, perhaps to walk up the street and find a place to sit awhile. Perhaps he could get the boy to collect his horse at The Flower-No. They were searching the streets. They would have told everyone, searched his room at the inn—

The boy came back to him, the boy knelt down with a rustle of straw and said, "I've brought some water, and some salve—"

Pyetr bit his lip, worked at the knot of his belt as he was lying, face-down and panting in the straw. Finally, when he had the knot loose: "Do what you can, boy. I'll owe you for this."

The boy was careful, pulled the belt free, pushed up Pyetr's shirt and took in his breath.

"Don't gawk!" Pyetr said. "Bandage it!"

The horses snorted and moved, riders thumped into the muddy yard outside with a great blowing of horses and a ringing of the stableyard bell.

"Ho," someone yelled. "Watch!"

"Wait!" Pyetr said. But the boy sprang up and left him, running, and Pyetr got up on his knees and his elbows, lost his breath to the pain, and rested bent over with his head on his arms for two or three deep breaths while he heard the boy and the riders exchange salutations, and heard the riders say,

"Have you seen Pyetr Kochevikov?"

He despaired until the boy said, faintly and distantly, "No, sir."

"Do you know him?"

"Yes, sir, he was here today."

"Has anyone come around here?"

"No, sir, not except they went inside…"

"Check it out."

Pyetr drew deep breaths and told himself he had to take the pain and get up and hide himself in the shadows, that even if Sasha Misurov held to his story, they might well search the stable. He gave a heave of his arms and his back and got himself upright, stood up, reeled sidelong and fell, thinking, Fool!—before he landed on his side.

He held back the outcry. He let his breath go. He could not get another for a moment, or see anything past the haze, except he heard deeper voices in the yard, Fedya Misurov's voice saying, "What did he do?"

"Murder," came the answer. "By sorcery."

"Who?"

"The boyar Yurishev himself. Master Yurishev caught him in his upstairs hall, at his wife's door, and chased the wretch into the street before he fell dead—"

No! Pyetr thought to himself. They're lying!

"If you see him," the man said, "take no chances. There was no mark on the victim."

Men die, Pyetr thought. The fools! He was an old man!

And he waited in bitter anticipation for Sasha Misurov to speak up and say, I know where to find him—because there was no reason Sasha should not. The stakes had risen much too high for a stranger to risk for anyone.

But the riders took their leave and rode away.

God, he thought, is the boy still out there?

Perhaps Sasha was inside the tavern, perhaps it would still happen, the boy would hear and tell Fedya and Fedya would say Run after them—

But he heard the elder Misurov say, "Lock the gate tonight." and young Sasha say, not so far from the stable wall, "Yes, uncle. I will."

Pyetr let go the straw he clenched in his fists and felt his last strength leave him, so that tears leaked from his eyes. Every breath was edged with the pain in his back and his side.

He saw the boy come back into the stable, saw him break into a ran to reach him. The boy said it had been the town watch looking for him, asked him to keep still, said he would bandage the wound and take care of him—

Pyetr had no idea why.

«
^
»

P
yetr waked
with the scent of hay and horses in his nostrils, and felt the pain that came whenever he waked, but the night was past, dusty sunlight shafted through the chinks of logs and the pain, thank the god, was finally bearable. He was afraid to move and start it again. He lay there thinking about moving, he listened to sounds: the horses doing bored, horsely things, the tavern waking up, distant shouts from mistress Ilenka—
Sasha
, she was calling,
take both pails, you lazy lout
! A cock crowed somewhere in the neighborhood.

Then he began to remember why he was lying here on his face in the straw, and remembered that the tsar's law was looking for him, that old Yurishev was irrevocably and truly dead, gone from Vojvoda where he had lived all Pyetr's life, and Yurishev's fool retainers were claiming witchcraft—It was all too absurd: he remembered Yurishev's shocked face in that moment that they had scared each other, and thought it likely old Yurishev had never used a sword in his life. Probably the shock had frightened the old man into his grave, on the spot—and as for witchcraft, good god, Pyetr Illitch Kochevikov could hardly afford a two-kopek charm to ill-wish the old miser, let alone hire some foreign sorcerer powerful enough to strike a man dead on the spot—because certainly no wizard who had ever set up shop in Vojvoda could do a thing like that.

Not at least any of the local ilk, who held forth in cramped little shops and collected and dispensed the town's gossip for coin. If there
were
genuine wizards, Pyetr thought, there were certainly none in Vojvoda. What had happened was an old man dying, and Yurishev's guards protecting their reputations. Probably one man had offered that inspired excuse to the inquiring magistrates, and the rest had immediately taken up on it, that was the truth of what had happened last night. Pyetr Kochevikov believed in human weakness far more than he believed in wizards, human weakness being everywhere evident and sorcery being a matter, like the Little Old Man who should ward the stables, of people's absolute will to believe in other people's responsibility.

He had profited from it. Now that same human frailty bid fair to hang him—or give him shorter shrift than that. The watch would run him through without a beg-your-pardon, Pyetr Illitch… for fear of themselves dropping dead like old Yurishev.

He
had
to get out of Vojvoda, that was the only safety he could count on now, and to do that he had to pass the town gates—

—
where, one supposed, the drowsing gate watch occasionally did their jobs and paid attention to who came and went. With a supposed murder in town, they might very well be looking for him to leave, and there was certainly no chance of getting out in broad daylight, as it was beginning to be. So there was nothing for him to do but hide in The Cockerel's stable until dark and take his chances then—providing that he could walk, which, he discovered as he tried to sit up, was by no means certain.

And his wound hurt, god, it hurt, although nothing—
nothing
so bad as it had done last night.

"Are you all right?"

Pyetr grabbed the nearest stall rail to pull himself up. But it was only Sasha Misurov silhouetted in the doorway, buckets in hand, and he let go and sank down against the post.

"I brought you an apple," Sasha said. "And a bit of bread." He lifted one of the buckets he carried. "The water's clean. It only goes into the troughs."

"Thanks," Pyetr said, not cheerfully, regretting the breakfast table at The Flower, and his own bed and his belongings and his horse in the stables—as good as in the rnoon, all he owned. And none of his friends wanted anything to do with him—which left only The Cockerel's boy, who was, the whole town knew, odd—cursed with ill-luck from his birth, the tongue-clackers said, rumors Pyetr Illitch had afforded the same credulity as he afforded wizards, wise women, or tea leaves. The boy's parents died in a fire, the culmination of a series of disasters which everyone recalled had begun the day the boy was born—