“The prince is come! The prince!” the cries rose louder and louder. “Aleksandr Peresvet!”
All was movement and bright color. Here stood scaffolding hung with cloth; there, great ovens smoking amid piles of slushy snow; and everywhere new smells: spice and sweetness, and the tang of forge-fires. Ten men were building a snow-slide, heaving blocks and dropping them, to hilarity. Tall horses and painted sledges and warmly bundled people gave way before the prince’s cavalcade. The riders passed the wooden gates of noble houses; behind them lay sprawling palaces: towers and walkways, haphazardly painted, and dark with old rain.
The riders halted at the largest of these gates, and it was flung open. They rode into a vast dooryard. The crush grew thicker still: servants and grooms and shouting hangers-on. Some boyars, too: broad men with colored kaftans, and broad smiles that did not always reach their eyes. Dmitrii was calling greetings.
The crowd pressed closer, and closer still.
Solovey rolled a wild eye and struck out with his forefeet.
“Solovey!” cried Vasya to the horse. “Easy now. Easy. You are going to kill someone.”
“Get back!” That was Kasyan, hard-handed on his gelding. “Get back, or are you all fools? That one is a stallion, and young; do you think he won’t take your heads off?”
Vasya looked her gratitude, still grappling with Solovey. Sasha appeared on her other side, pushing people away with Tuman’s brute strength.
Cursing, the crowd gave them space. Vasya found herself at the center of a ring of curious eyes, but at least Solovey began to settle.
“Thank you,” she said to both men.
“I only spoke for the grooms, Vasya,” Kasyan said lightly. “Unless you’d like to see your horse split more skulls?”
“I’d rather not,” she said. But the instant warmth was gone.
He must have seen her face change. “No,” he said. “I didn’t mean to—”
She had already dismounted, dropping down into a little pool of wary faces. Solovey had settled, but his ears still darted forward and back.
Vasya scratched the soft place beneath his jaw and murmured, “I must stay—I want to see my sister, but you—I could let you go. Take you back into the forest. You needn’t—”
I will stay here if you do, interrupted Solovey, though he was trembling, lashing his flanks with his tail.
Dmitrii flung his reins to a groom and dropped to the ground, his horse as unmoved by the crowd as he. Someone thrust a cup into his hand; he drank it off and pushed his way to Vasya. “Better than I expected,” he said. “I was sure you’d lose him the second we passed the gates.”
“You thought Solovey would bolt?” Vasya demanded indignantly.
“Of course I did,” said Dmitrii. “A stallion, bridleless and no more used to crowds than you? Take that outraged look off your face, Vasilii Petrovich; you look just like a maiden on her wedding night.”
A flush crept up her neck.
Dmitrii slapped the stallion’s flank. Solovey looked affronted. “We will put this one to my mares,” said the Grand Prince. “In three years my stable will be the envy of the Khan at Sarai. That is the best horse I have ever seen. Such a temperament—fire, but obedience.”
Solovey turned a mollified ear; he was fond of compliments. “Better a paddock for him now, though,” Dmitrii added practically. “He’ll kick my stable down otherwise.” The prince gave his orders, and then added aloud, “Come, Vasya. You will bestow the beast yourself, unless you think a groom might be able to halter him. Then you will bathe in my own palace, and wash off the grime of the road.”
Vasya felt herself turn pale. She groped for words. A groom sidled near with a rope in one hand.
The horse snapped his teeth, and the groom dropped hurriedly back.
“He doesn’t need a halter,” said Vasya, a trifle unnecessarily. “Dmitrii Ivanovich, I would like to see my sister at once. It has been so long; I was only a child when she went away to marry.”
Dmitrii frowned. Vasya wondered what she would do about bathing, if he insisted. Say she was concealing a deformity? What sort of deformity would make a boy—？
Sasha came to her rescue. “The Princess of Serpukhov will be eager to see her brother,” he said. “She will want to give thanks for his safe arrival. The horse can stay in her husband’s stable, if you permit, Dmitrii Ivanovich.”
Dmitrii frowned.
“Perhaps we should leave them to their reunion,” said Kasyan. He had handed over his reins and stood sleek as a cat in the middle of the tumult. “There will be time enough for putting the beast to mares, when he is rested.”