The words fell like a hammer.
“It might be just bluster,” Sasha said, after a pause.
“I am not sure,” said Dmitrii. He had mauled his food about more than eating it; now he put his knife aside. “Mamai has a rival in the south, I hear, a warlord called Tokhtamysh. This man is also putting forth a claimant for the throne. If Mamai must go to war to put down this rival—”
A pause. They all looked at each other. “Then Mamai must have our taxes first,” finished Vasya suddenly, surprising even herself. She’d been so caught up in the conversation that she had forgotten her shyness. “For money to fight Tokhtamysh.”
Sasha shot her a very hard look. Be silent. Vasya made her face innocent.
“Clever boy,” said Dmitrii, distractedly. He grimaced. “I have not sent tribute for two years, and no one noticed. I did not expect them to. They are too busy poisoning each other, so that they or their fat sons may have the throne. But the generals are not so foolish as the pretenders.” A pause. Dmitrii’s glance met Sasha’s. “And even if I decide to pay, where am I to get the money now? How many villages burned this winter, before Vasya tracked those bastards to their lair? How are the people to feed themselves, much less muster up a tax for another war?”
“The people have done it before,” Sasha pointed out, blackly. The atmosphere around the table made a strange counterpoint to the cheerful shrieks of the city outside.
“Yes, but with the Tatars divided between two warlords, we have a chance to worm free of the yoke—to make a stand—and every wagon that goes south weakens us. Why should our taxes go to enrich the court at Sarai?”
The monk did not speak.
“One smashing victory,” Dmitrii said, “would put an end to all this.”
It sounded to Vasya as though they were continuing an old argument.
“No,” retorted Sasha. “It wouldn’t. The Tatars could not let a defeat stand; there is still too much pride there, even if the Horde is not what it was. A victory would buy us time, but then whoever takes control of the Horde would come back for us. And they would not want to simply subdue us, but to punish.”
“If I am to raise the money,” the Grand Prince said slowly, “we will have to starve some of those peasants you rescued, Vasya. Truly, Sasha,” he added to the monk, “I value your advice. Let all know it. For I am weary of being these pagans’ dog.” The last syllable came out sharp as broken ice, and Vasya flinched. “But”—Dmitrii paused, and added, lower—“I would not leave my son a burnt city.”
“You are wise, Dmitrii Ivanovich,” said Sasha.
Vasya thought of hundreds of Katyas in villages across Muscovy, going hungry because the Grand Prince must pay a tax to the lord of the same people that had burned their homes in the first place.
She made to speak again, but Sasha shot her a vicious glance across the table and this time she bit the words back.
“Well, we must greet this ambassador in any case,” said the Grand Prince. “Let it not be said that I failed in hospitality. Finish your supper, Vasya. You are both coming with me. And our Kasyan Lutovich, with his fine looks and fine clothes. If I must placate a Tatar lord, I may as well do it properly.”
A PALACE SMALL AND FINELY MADE stood a little by itself, near the southeast corner of the kremlin. Its walls were higher than those of the other palaces, and something in its shape or situation breathed out an indefinable sense of distance.
Vasya and Sasha and Kasyan and Dmitrii, with several of the chief members of the latter’s household, all walked there from the Grand Prince’s palace, with guards to deter the curious.
“Humility,” said Dmitrii to Vasya with black humor. “Only a proud man rides. One is not proud to the lords from Sarai, or you will be dead, your city burned, your sons disinherited.”
His eyes filled with bitter memory, older than he. It was nearly two hundred years since the Great Khan’s warriors first came to Rus’， and threw down her churches, and raped and slaughtered her people into acquiescence.
Vasya could not think of a worthy reply, but perhaps her face conveyed sympathy, for the Grand Prince said gruffly, “Never mind, boy. There are worse things one must do to be Grand Prince, and worse still to be Grand Prince of a vassal-state.”
He looked uncharacteristically thoughtful. Vasya remembered his laughter during the long days, when the snow fell in the trackless wood. On sudden impulse, Vasya said, “I will serve you in any way I can, Dmitrii Ivanovich.”