Vasya was glad to see him.
“You again,” it said, baring its teeth. “You have broken into my yard.”
“To save your master,” Vasya returned.
The dvorovoi smiled. “Perhaps I want a new master. The red sorcerer will wake the sleeper and silence the bells, and perhaps then folk will leave gifts for me again.”
The sleeper…Vasya shook her head sharply. “You do not pick and choose,” she told him. “You are bound to your people for good and for ill, and you must help them at need. I mean no harm. Will you help me now?” She reached out, gingerly, and pressed her bloody fingers to the dvorovoi’s cold, misshapen face.
“What would you have me do?” asked the dvorovoi warily, smelling of her blood. He was more flesh than snow now.
Vasya smiled at him, coldly. “Make noise,” she said. “Rouse the whole cursed palace. The time for secrets is past.”
A DRINK-SODDEN HUSH LAY over the palace of the Grand Prince, and the city outside had gone quiet. But it was not a peaceful quiet, as was proper after days of cakes and drink. A tension ran through the silence, and Vasya’s skin prickled. The dvorovoi had heard her out, narrow-eyed, then abruptly disappeared.
From childhood, Vasya had been able to walk softly, but now she crept from shadow to shadow with a robber’s care, almost afraid to breathe, keeping the wall on her left. Where was the postern-gate? She avoided the guttering pools of torchlight, watching for the door, watching for guards, listening, listening…
Suddenly from across the dooryard there came a shrieking, as though a thousand cats were having their tails pulled. The dogs in their kennels began to bay.
A torch ran along a gallery above, and a lamp was lit. Then another, and another, as the clamor grew in the dooryard. A woman shrieked. Vasya almost smiled. No room for secrecy now.
Next moment, Vasya tripped over a man’s legs and sprawled in the thick snow. Heart racing, she scrambled up and whirled round. To her right was the postern-gate, sunk in shadow. The single gate-guard sat before it with his head sunk on his breast. It was his legs she had tripped over.
Vasya crept nearer. The man did not move. She put her fingers near his face. No breath. When she shook him by the shoulder, his head lolled on his neck. His throat was cut, gashed deep, and that was not pools of shadow on the snow but blood—
The noise in the dooryard was mounting. Suddenly a rush of bodies—four—six—strong, soft-footed men, darted out of the shadows opposite her and made for the palace steps. Kasyan let them in during the revel, Vasya thought. I am too late. Gathering her strength, she dug her numb hands beneath the dead guard’s arms and dragged him away, breathing a prayer for his soul, slipping on the snow.
As soon as she opened the gate, Sasha thrust his way past her into the dooryard.
“Where is Rodion?” she demanded.
Her brother only shook his head, eyes already up on the swimming shadows, the scrum of bodies, firelight and darkness, a new and unmistakable sound of fighting. A man fell through the fine screen-work that protected the stairs and fell yelling into the dooryard. The dogs still bayed in the kennels. Vasya thought she glimpsed Kasyan, standing taut before the palace-gate, his red hair black in the darkness.
Then above it all rose a roaring battle-cry—reassuringly hale but hoarse with surprise and urgency—the voice of the Grand Prince of Moscow.
“Mitya,” Sasha breathed. Something in that childish nickname—probably not said to Dmitrii’s face since he was crowned at sixteen—held a living echo of their shared youth, and Vasya thought suddenly, That is why he did not come back. However he loved us, he loves this prince more, and Dmitrii needed him.
“Stay here, Vasya,” said Sasha. “Hide. Bar the gate.” Then he was running, sword aflame with the light from above, straight toward the melee. Guards from all over the dooryard were converging. Then a shattering crash came from the main gate. The guards’ steps faltered, and they wavered between the threat behind and the threat above. Sasha did not hesitate. He had reached the foot of the southern staircase, and bounded up into darkness.
Vasya barred the gate as Sasha had bidden her, then stood a moment in the shadows, indecisive. Her gaze went from the quivering main gate, to the bewildered palace guards, to the lights swinging wildly behind the palace’s slitted windows.
She heard her brother’s voice shouting, the ring of his sword. Vasya breathed a prayer for his life, and made for the stable. If she were to do anything for the Grand Prince besides cry warnings, she needed her horse.