“I hate nights like this,” said Darinka. She clutched her robe about her and scratched a scab on her nose. Her eyes darted from candle to shadow and back. “She comes on nights like this.”
“She?” asked Eudokhia sourly. “Who is she?”
“Who is she?” repeated Darinka. “You mean you don’t know?” Darinka looked superior. “She is the ghost.”
Olga’s two children, who had been arguing beside the oven, stopped screeching. Eudokhia sniffed. From her place by the window, Olga frowned.
“There is no ghost,” Eudokhia said. She reached for a plum preserved in honey, bit and chewed daintily, then licked the sweetness from her fingers. Her tone implied that this palace was not quite worthy of a ghost.
“I have seen her!” protested Darinka, stung. “Last time I slept here, I saw her.”
Highborn women, who must live and die in towers, were much given to visiting. Now and again, they stayed overnight for company, when their husbands were away. Olga’s palace—clean, orderly, prosperous—was a favorite; the more so as Olga was eight months gone with child and did not go out.
Hearing, Olga frowned, but Darinka, eager for attention, hurried on. “It was just after midnight. Some days ago. A little before Midwinter.” She leaned forward, and her headdress tipped precariously. “I was awakened—I cannot remember what awakened me. A noise…”
Olga made the faintest sound of derision. Darinka scowled. “I cannot remember,” she repeated. “I awakened and all was still. Cold moonlight seeped around the shutters. I thought I heard something in the corner. A rat, perhaps, scritching.” Darinka’s voice dropped. “I lay still, with the blankets drawn about me. But I could not fall asleep. Then I heard someone whimper. I opened my eyes and shook Nastka, who slept next to me. ‘Nastka,’ I told her, ‘Nastka, light a lamp. Someone is crying.’ But Nastka did not stir.”
Darinka paused. The room had fallen silent.
“Then,” Darinka went on, “I saw a gleam of light. It was an unchristian glow, colder than moonlight, nothing like good firelight. This glow came nearer and nearer…”
Darinka paused again. “And then I saw her,” she finished in a hushed voice.
“Her? Who? What did she look like?” cried a dozen voices.
“White as bone,” Darinka whispered. “Mouth fallen in, eyes dark pits to swallow the world. She stared at me, lipless as she was, and I tried to scream but I could not.”
One of the listeners squealed; others were clutching hands.
“Enough,” snapped Olga, turning from her place by the window. The word cut through their half-serious hysteria, and the women fell uneasily silent. Olga added, “You are frightening my children.”
This was not entirely true. The elder, Marya, sat upright and blazing-eyed. But Olga’s boy, Daniil, clutched his sister, quivering.
“And then she disappeared,” Darinka finished, trying for nonchalance and failing. “I said my prayers and went back to sleep.”
She lifted her wine-cup to her lips. The two children stared.
“A good story,” Olga said, with a very fine edge on her voice. “But it is done now. Let us tell other tales.”
She went to her place by the oven and sat. The firelight played on her double-plaited hair. Outside, the snow was falling fast. Olga did not look toward the window again, though her shoulders stiffened when the slaves closed the shutters.
More logs were heaped on the fire; the room warmed and filled with a mellow glow.
“Will you tell a tale, Mother?” cried Olga’s daughter, Marya. “Will you tell a story of magic?”
A muffled sound of approval stirred the room. Eudokhia glared. Olga smiled. Though she was the Princess of Serpukhov, Olga had grown up far from Moscow, at the edge of the haunted wilderness. She told strange stories from the north. Highborn women, who lived their lives between chapel and bakehouse and tower, treasured the novelty.
The princess considered her audience. Whatever grief she had felt standing alone by the window was now quite absent from her expression. The waiting-women put down their needles and curled up eagerly on their cushions.
Outside, the hiss of the wind mixed with the silence of the snowstorm that is itself a noise. With a flurry of shouting below, the last of the stock was driven into barns, to shelter from the frost. From the snow-filled alleys, beggars crept into the naves of churches, praying to live until morning. The men on the kremlin-wall huddled near their braziers and drew their caps around their ears. But the princess’s tower was warm and filled with expectant silence.