Rosa and the Veil of Gold (34 page)

Sofya’s rooms at the convent are comfortable enough, with cushions and warm furs, many candles in gilt holders and tapestries to stop the cold from leeching out of the stone walls, but the rooms are empty of voices, of laughter and whispered promises. Sofya lives by herself here. She sees the nuns once a day for supper, but they do not converse about love or about freedom. Outside her chamber window, hung in the most advantageous
position for viewing, are ninety-five rotting corpses—the bodies of the men who dared to plot against Petr in Sofya’s name. The crows come and peck at them, bits drop off onto the stone walk below, and the ripe smell seeps through cracks under the windows to linger around her while she sleeps.

When the Secret Ambassador steals into her chambers, sunlight sends its first streaks over the horizon. The nearest body, hanging on its beam, is silhouetted by dawn. It slowly turns on its rope: north to south, south to north, creaking. The Secret Ambassador sits on the edge of a chair, elbows on his knees, while he waits for Sofya to return from Matins.

Sofya, divested of her regal splendour, appears smaller than remembered when she arrives.

“I hadn’t expected to see your kind here,” she says, closing the door firmly behind her. “Especially not in a place of holiness.” Secretly, she is glad to see somebody. Alone, she grows bitter. She has lost her freedom and somewhere along the way she has lost her spirit.

“Listen to me, Tsarevna,” the Secret Ambassador says, “not all is lost for you.”

“Don’t fill my head with your heathen nonsense.”

“Sofya, you carry in your veins the blood of Skazki, the other world you fear so much. You are its daughter.”

“I won’t listen.”

“The Golden Bear, the favoured ornament of your childhood, was made in Skazki. You treasured it because you recognised it as being of your own kind.”

A sense of familiarity resonates in Sofya. That bear: how she had loved it. “I should like to see that bear again,” she says.

“And so you shall, when you are crowned Empress of all the Russias.”

“These dreams are long since gone cold, Secret Ambassador.” She paces to the window, tries to look past the dark bodies which line her view. “What need have I for power? It won’t fill the emptiness.”

“If power doesn’t interest you, then what of love? I could bring a man to you, to implant his seed. Children, Sofya, little babies to hold and keep as your own.”

She bends her head to the window, her forehead touching the cool panes. “A man? What man?”

“Somebody tall and strong, with hot skin—”

“Golitsyn?”

The Secret Ambassador hesitates.

“He is gone,” she says. “I know. Banished to the Siberian snowfields. I will not see him again.” She turns, tilts her head to one side. Her brows are very dark and heavy. “No other man will ever touch me. My skin would die from sadness.”

The Secret Ambassador entertains a brief fantasy of forcing himself upon her, raping her, but he cannot father a child. The old gods that made him ensured he couldn’t reproduce and bring another like him into the world, as much as he likes to indulge himself in Mir flesh. He wants to weep into his palms. All is lost! Skazki blood will die with her. The worlds will forever remain apart. Skazki will fade away to watercolour pictures.

Sofya, seeing his distress, softens for a moment.

“Secret Ambassador,” she says, “I fought to change my fate. In vain. I find now that the sour taste of acceptance diminishes over time. Perhaps now is the moment to taste it for yourself.”

Ah, how the Secret Ambassador wants to crush this woman! He does not. He has a cruel streak, but his intellect can override it. He leaves Sofya, and he returns to his own world to brood and to wait.

The years pass, as years do.

What do you think he did with those years? I know, because I am well acquainted with the Secret Ambassador.

He sat in his warm cottage in Skazki, alone. He tried to prepare himself for the inevitable final sunset. But one morning, his senses prickled with knowing.

He drew a hand over his mirror, and saw Petr’s daughter, Anne. She lived in a grand new city called St Petersburg, and under her arm she carried a Golden Bear.

What a fool the Secret Ambassador had been! For what feature, if strong enough to be noted, does not occasionally skip a generation, only to return decades later.

And so he watched as Mokosha’s blood returned. Anne to little Petr, little Petr to Pavel. The Secret Ambassador visited when he
could, to watch, to make contact with Mokosha’s descendants and let them know of the heavy responsibility which hung around their shoulders. All of them dismissed him kindly but firmly.

Then, wonder of wonders, three brothers in the one brood began to fight over the Golden Bear as if it were Mir’s greatest treasure. Konstantin, Nikolai, Aleksandr.

In Aleksandr, the Secret Ambassador found one of Skazki’s greatest allies, and her greatest traitor.

But that is a story for another time.

I have spent too much of the night in telling tales. Morning rushes upon me, Totchka begins to stir in the grey of dawn. The fire has settled low, and my hands are cold. Anticipation heats my veins, though, for soon Rosa will be here. I can sense her nearby. At any moment she will spot my little cottage from the ridge and come down to visit me. I look forward to her arrival very much. Rosa and I, I’m certain, will be able to help each other.

You see, nobody knows the truth about Rosa Kovalenka. Except for me.

“Sensation take me, drown my soul,

Give me oblivion.

In the dreaming universe

Pour me, crush me,

Grant me my extinction.”

FYODOR TYUTCHEV

Daniel woke to silence.

Dazed, he opened his eyes. They were dazzled by sunlight, streaming through long grass. He turned his face away.

Not quite silence.

The throb of his head.

The gentle breeze whispering across the grass.

Em’s breathing.

She lay half on top of him, her cheek resting on his chest, fast asleep. He reached out tentatively, drew back his fingers when he realised she was strangely cold.

She must be dead.

No, she couldn’t be dead. She was breathing.

He touched her cheek again. No warmth at all in her skin. Her eyelids flickered and he withdrew his hand.

“Daniel?” she said groggily. The bear was nestled in the crook of her arm.

“I’m right here,” he said.

She took a moment, then slowly sat up, putting the bear aside. “Are you okay?” she asked.

“I’m fine,” he said, though his head ached and his eyes felt acutely sensitive to the glare of the morning sun. “You?”

“I’m sorry, I had to sleep. It was the only way to escape that monster.”

Daniel glanced around. All he could see was grass, so he stood up. The grass was green and pale yellow, waist-high, waving softly. He turned in a circle. As far as he could see, the landscape didn’t change.

He turned to Em, who was standing next to him. “Any idea where the hell we are?”

Em gazed at the landscape. The breeze lifted a strand of her hair and brushed it against her cheek. She pushed it behind her ear. “This is the middle of nowhere,” she said. “I mean, really.”

Daniel checked the ground at his feet. A damp fur, the golden bear. Nothing else.

“And we have nothing?”

“Nothing. No lighter, no food, no firewood, no water.”

“Only a golden bear and one fur.”

“Perhaps we won’t need it.” She shielded her eyes against the sun. “It’s sunny here.”

“I’m certain it will be cold at night.” Daniel measured the endless sky, blue tinged with pulsing violet. His eyeballs shivered, and other colours sprang to life. Veins of gold and throbbing green. Just as quickly the sensation fled.

“Then we’ll have to find shelter before nightfall,” Em said. But she didn’t move and neither did Daniel. Both stood, still as statues, gazing out towards the endless horizon of grassland.

Finally, Daniel said, “Which way?”

Em shrugged and Daniel noticed that she looked haggard and pale. “I have no idea. East and east and north-a-ways?”

He shook his head. “We’re somewhere else now. Another of the thrice-nine lands. Who knows which direction is right from here?”

“Okay. But it’s sunny, so we’re in the south. We could head north at least?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps we’re not in the south. Skazki is made up of stories and fairytale places. We could be anywhere.”

Em puffed out her cheeks and sighed. “It’s a start,” she said. “We can’t stand here forever.”

They headed north. Em related to Daniel what had happened while he was unconscious. He listened with an increasing sense of terrified wonder, and embarrassed guilt.

“You had to go through all that,” he said, “while I just lay there like a dead weight.”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“You were so close to a crossing…You could have gone without me.”

“I wouldn’t have made it alone. We might find another crossing.”

“What would we be looking for exactly?”

“I don’t really know. Mirra said they’re easier to see at night, or with second sight.”

Daniel frowned; some dim memory was trying to struggle to consciousness. It wouldn’t come.

“We have to count our blessings,” Em was saying. “We’ve managed to survive this far, without any deadly consequences.”

“You almost didn’t,” he said. “How is your wrist now?”

She stopped and turned to him, holding out her wrist for him to inspect. He slid his palm underneath it to support it. Again he was struck by the chill of her skin.

“It’s healed up beautifully,” he said.

“You can feel it, though, can’t you?” she said. “The cold. I’ve been like that ever since he touched me. My blood is cold. My muscles are cold. I can’t feel the sun on my cheeks, though I can see it’s blazing down.” Her voice was tight, sad.

He was unsettled by her sadness. He’d taken her emotional stability for granted. “Maybe when we get back…”

“Yeah. Sure. When we get back.”

They moved on in silence. The long grass sighed like waves around them as the sun climbed high and hot in the violet sky.

At first Rosa thought nothing had happened. Yes, she had felt the veil part, she had seen the flash of coloured light skitter across her field of vision.

This place, on the other side of the veil, looked precisely like the place she had left behind. She stood uncertainly, and the bee bumped inside her.

“Sit still,” she said, and the bee obeyed.

She glanced left and right. Her senses prickled. Faint music, a sliver of dark light over the ground. Yes, this was somewhere different. She could smell it, hear it. Grey shadows moved as the air shivered; pale stars and a quarter moon were the only light. Forty feet away, she paused near a lone birch sapling. A strand of coloured wool, tied around a branch, was flapping in the breeze.

Rosa unpicked the knot and ran it over her fingers. In the dark, the purple and red were dulled, but she still recognised it. The scarf that Daniel had been wearing when he left.

“He’s been here,” she said. “He’s left a trail.”

The bee didn’t respond.

Rosa wound the wool over her knuckles and peered into the darkness for the next marker. She moved slowly, her gaze examining every shrub and tree. The second one took her twenty minutes to find, the third one even longer. She followed them as the dark dissolved and morning was left in its wake, finally arriving at a stream just as the sun broke over the horizon.

She crouched on the bank, scooping cool water into her mouth. She tied her hair in a knot at her neck and gazed across the stream. No more coloured markers fluttering in the dawn light. Where had he gone from here?

A rustle behind her caught her attention. She stood and turned, looking back the way she had come. The woods were sparse, sun-dappled. A shadow moved in the distance, clung to a tree and waited. Up high, the wind circled in the treetops.

Her skin prickled. The moment of anticipation was intense, violently sweet. She was about to see something amazing, and she wanted to be completely alert for it.

Then it burst from cover. A grizzled man, nearly seven feet tall, skin like bark and hair like dried grass, roaring and barrelling towards her. A leshii.

Her heart started. The wind howled, sweeping everything into its brutal arms. Branches snapped and birds flapped from the trees in fear. Rosa leapt back, turned and dashed into the stream. At its deepest point it only came up to her waist. She frantically unwound a strand of coloured wool, knotting it and repeating the
zagavor.

“As I travel on the road…in the fields…shit!” She stumbled over a loose rock, steadied herself and clambered out on the opposite bank. The leshii was gaining on her. She quickly ran through the rest of the spell, tied the last knot, then turned to face her pursuer.

“Come on then, barkface,” she called, brandishing the protection knot. The wind whipped her hair loose and tugged at her clothes.

He didn’t slow, and she had a few brief moments to observe him. What a wonder! She had read of such creatures, but never hoped to see one in the flesh. Her head spun with excitement. The creature approached, was almost upon her.

She threw down the knot. “None shall come near me, my word is firm! So shall it be.”

Crash!

The creature tripped on some invisible barrier, thundered to the ground with a yell. The wind abruptly stopped, and she ran as hard as she could, over a ridge and down into open fields.

When ten minutes had passed with no return of the leshii, she slowed and caught her breath.

“Thanks, Anatoly,” she said.

The bee buzzed angrily inside her.

“Yeah, yeah. I know you’re pissed.”

She stretched her arms over her head and turned to survey the countryside. More trees, more grass, more bushes. Hills and hollows, long grass moving shadowy and bright at the behest of the wind. No houses. Dark clouds were moving in, adding a glum chill to the morning and swallowing Anatoly’s shadow.

Where was Daniel? More importantly, had he been set upon by a leshii in these woods too? If so, how had he survived?

Maybe he hadn’t survived.

“I refuse to believe he’s dead,” she muttered, pulling another strand of wool off her wrist and knotting it ready for an emergency. She spoke her spell as she walked, following her instincts to the north-east.

As she walked, she made protection knots, tying them around her wrists to use later. A drizzle started to fall, and she pulled up her hood. Before long it had turned to rain, and she hunched down inside her coat and grumbled about it. Despite the discomfort, she had a distinct feeling she was heading in the right direction, and she was happy to trust in it.

An hour passed in the rain before she discovered what was leading her. Over a ridge and down in the valley she saw it: a brightly painted cottage.

At first, she couldn’t pick why it looked different to the surrounding area. Then she realised that a bubble of brightness
clung to the building. Sunlight shone on its walls, even though rain and dark clouds engulfed the rest of the countryside. She opened her second sight and saw that the bubble extended out at least twenty feet from the walls and swirled with dazzling colours. This was powerful magic.

She hurried towards the cottage, admiring the neat blue paint, the decorated wooden shutters. A bird sat on the eaves, cleaning its feathers. Tidy garden beds lined the path. She didn’t know who lived here, but she knew without a doubt she was being invited in.

As if to confirm this, the door opened as she approached. She slipped into the bubble of brightness, out of the rain. Sunlight warmed her face as she pushed off her hood. A figure moved to the door, his face flaring into shadow as the sun hit her eyes. But his voice was friendly, even relieved.

“Welcome, Rosa,” he said. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

As the day wore on and the afternoon grew bright, Em and Daniel continued their journey across the undulating, treeless plains. Cloud shadows were the only changing feature of the landscape. Em’s feet were moving, but distance telescoped to nothing: she may as well have been walking on the spot. Each low rise was greeted by another identical vista, shimmering green-gold grass stretching away for miles. The sunlight was brilliant, and Daniel was perspiring. Em longed for some of that warmth, but it was three a.m.-cold in her blood, and her elbows were drawn close to her body to brace against it.

“You know what I hate the most?” Daniel said.

“What?”

“I can’t stop wondering if we’d headed south whether we’d have found something by now.”

“But if we turn around and go back, food or shelter, or maybe, even a crossing, may be just over the next rise.”

“Exactly. That’s exactly what I think.”

“We are nowhere. And we have no idea how close we are to anywhere.” She turned her palms up. “We just have to be decisive and keep moving, and don’t think about what might have been. We can’t slip into despair. Come on, let’s play a game to take your mind off it. List all the foreign swear words you know.”

“Nothing’s as good as English to swear in,” he said, swatting a fly from his cheek. “I’ve yet to find a word as good as ‘fuck’ to express so many emotions: fear, amazement, anger…”

“I’ve always been fond of the way Germans use ‘ass’ for everything: ass-busy, ass-cold.”

Daniel shrugged. “I don’t have the heart for word games, Em.”

“Talk to me about something else then.”

“I don’t have the heart for conversation.” He scratched the back of his head. “Sorry. I’m hungry, I’m thirsty.”

Em scanned around. “Looks like grass for dinner. And muddy puddles for aperitifs.”

They stopped while the sun sank, to rest and nibble the juicy ends of grass stalks. It was nothing like food; perhaps not even digestible, but it seemed to lift their spirits. Em’s jaw ached so she chewed cautiously. She could feel with her tongue a tender swelling where her tooth used to be. The temperature plunged and Daniel suggested they keep moving.

“Walking will warm me up, and we’re more likely to see a crossing at night,” he said.

“You’re right. We’ll rest in daylight, move in the dark.”

As they continued through the grass, Em felt the first glimmerings of a desolation so hot and real that it made her want to cry. The fields stretching on forever, the dull shadows of night, the faint glow of a quarter moon. The ache of hunger, the shudder of cold, the maddening irritation of the grass seeds which worked their way under her clothes and itched against her skin. They may as well have been wandering in outer space, tracing impossible distances from anyone or anything. Her body felt frail and skinny, her ribs ached. Night settled in, the grass whispered around them, and the stars offered their pitiful warmth grudgingly.

Then, as they were cresting a low rise, Daniel said, “I see something.”

Em’s head snapped up. She could see it too. A white figure, standing in the field in the distance.

“What is it?”

“A person?”

“It’s standing very still.”

“It looks like a statue.”

“A statue isn’t much use to us.”

“But it might mean there’s civilisation of some sort around here.”

They hurried down the slope and across the field. The white figure was still. Odd that it was just standing there in the wide, distant nowhere. Incongruous, like the out-of-place detail in an otherwise pleasant dream which adds a sinister undertone to the whole. Only starlight and summer breezes touched the figure.

“Somebody must have carved it,” she said to Daniel. “Somebody’s been here.”

“But when? It might be centuries old.”

As they drew nearer, Em could see more detail. “She,” she said. “It’s a statue of a woman.”

Down the slope they went, foot after foot, as they had done for miles already. They approached the statue, and Daniel drew a sharp gasp.