He was Eveshka’s friend, dammit, he trusted her; he did not know why he had suddenly begun to fear dealing with her, or how he had ever started thinking he could not make her understand his concerns.
Of course she would give him good advice. He had just failed to listen to it, since it mostly said, Do nothing; stop worrying over things; let things take their own course. He found that very hard to do.
She said, mercifully shoving plates into his hands: “Set the table.”
He did that, while Pyetr started to turn the cakes, but Pyetr tended to miss his mark and sometimes even the griddle. Eveshka shooed him to the table and took over her fire and her hearth, thank you, bidding the two of them make tea, do something useful this morning and stay out from underfoot.
Pyetr gave him an apologetic look, a shake of his head, as glum as Sasha had seen him in months.
Which was not at all what he wanted, if he dared wish anything at all without upsetting the house.
“God,” he said to Pyetr, “it’s all right, it’s her kitchen, don’t worry about it, Pyetr. Please.”
Pyetr gave him a second distressed look.
Sasha bit his lip till it took his mind off wishing, while the domovoi made the timbers creak under the floor. He poured the tea and Eveshka slipped the cakes onto their plates. “They do smell wonderful,” she said brightly, a peace offering to one or the other of them—now that she had her way, Sasha thought; and sternly chided himself not to be so contrary-minded.
We fight about things like that, we fight about cakes, but that’s not what we really fight about, it’s never what we should fight about so we can ever really settle things. She scolds Pyetr about her kitchen, but that doesn’t matter to him—nothing like that matters to him, he really is an awful cook. It’s when she does it to me that bothers him, and she knows that, absolutely she does. Why does she do that?
Charred timbers against gray sky. Chernevog’s house. Rain washing half-burned beams…
“Sasha?”
He blinked, his heart skipping a beat, realized she had sat down and said something about the honey in front of him. “Excuse me,” he said, and pushed it into her reach.
She put honey on her cakes and passed it to Pyetr, who wondered whether it was the new pot or the old-God, Sasha thought, what’s the matter with me?
Is it my doing?
“Isn’t it?” Pyetr asked him about something, he had no idea what. He became aware of Eveshka and Pyetr both looking at him, aware of Eveshka wishing him to get his wits about him, not to upset Pyetr with his foolishness.
“Did you get any sleep last night?” Pyetr asked.
Sasha took a breath, trying to recollect what the two of them had been saying most recently, mumbled, “Some.”
“Liar. Eveshka, —” Pyetr laid his hand flat on the table. “Sasha. Both of you. Answer me, a simple question: do we send the horse back or not?”
“No,” Eveshka said firmly.
“Sasha?” Pyetr asked.
“No,” Sasha said, because it was too late for any such thing.
Pyetr just stared at one and the other of them, as if he was sure it was conspiracy.
“It’s done,” Eveshka said. “It’s all right, Pyetr. Done’s done. Nothing’s wrong. Believe me, nothing’s wrong.”
Another moment of silence. “God,” Pyetr said.
“It’s all right,” Sasha said earnestly. “It really is, Pyetr. We’ll take care of it, I promise you. There’s no chance of anybody coming after him, nobody in his right mind would come in here looking for him, would they? We’ll make a stable shed, put up a solid pen, we’ll be sure he stays out of Eveshka’s garden…”
“There’s nothing to worry about,” Eveshka said, got up, walked around the end of the table and kissed Pyetr on the forehead. Kissed him twice more—not on the forehead. “No, Babi’s just sulking, just jealous. He’ll get over it.”
Sasha saw Pyetr’s little hesitation, then, the little frown before Pyetr said, as smoothly as if he had said aloud what Eveshka had just answered, “Well, dammit, still, it’s not like him to take off this long.”
Maybe she answered Pyetr then without a word, too, pressing some point about her privileges with him. Sasha found distraction in his plate, in the reflection of firelight on gold. Their plates, spoils of Chernevog, were mostly gold, the platter silver, with jewels, but the teacups they used at breakfast were the old ones, Uulamets’ plain pottery…
His had a crack which Uulamets’ casual wish probably still kept from breaking.
All these years.
Sasha murmured, getting up as Eveshka started taking the dishes away: “I’ll help you clean up.”
Pyetr caught his arm. “Too much thinking going on here. Forget the dishes. Let’s see if there’s a carrot left, see if the rascal got out last night. Both of you. —Veshka? Come on. It’ll do everybody good.”
“I’ve notes to make,” Eveshka said, over a clatter of plates in the washing pan. “Too many changes yesterday. It’s all right, go on, go on, off with you.” Pyetr looked at Sasha.
“Later I will,” Sasha said, ducking his head, gathering up the teacups, sure that he had to pursue what he had started with Eveshka. Now. It was all getting too strange and felt too unreasonable.
“Later. Later. God. —You spend too much time with that damn book, boy.” Pyetr was put out with him: he was put out with both of them, with reason, Sasha was sure. Pyetr said, again: “Come on. Clear the cobwebs out of your thinking. Get your hands on a horse again. It’ll do you good.”
Volkhi muddled his thinking even without his touching him. “I can’t,” Sasha said unhappily, to which Pyetr flung up his hands and said to Eveshka: “You reason with him.”
Eveshka only looked back over her shoulder with a sober, enigmatic: “Don’t you know? You can’t argue with him.”
“God,” Pyetr said, “I’m going to talk to my horse. Books make you crazy, you know.” A motion at his head. “Thinking all those little crooked marks mean real things, that’s not sane, you know.” He waved the same hand toward the front door. “Out there is real. Don’t lose track of that.”
“Don’t forget your coat,” Eveshka said.
“I don’t need a coat. I plan to work. Like honest, ordinary folk. It’s sit-abouts that need coats on a day like this.” Pyetr took the bucket they had put the honeyed grain in, opened the door on daylight, went back to take a remainder of last night’s honey-cakes, and went back a third time to pick up the vodka jug from off the kitchen counter. “Bribes,” he explained. “The whole world works on sufficient bribes.”
“Don’t trample the garden!” Eveshka called out to him. Pyetr made a face, swept his cap off the peg, gathered up his bucket from beside the door, the vodka jug in the other hand, and pulled the door to behind him with his foot, Sasha started dipping water into the pan to wash the dishes. Eveshka said not a word to him, wished him nothing.
Sasha said, aloud, “I didn’t sleep at all last night. Eveshka, I keep thinking something’s wrong.”
“Let’s not talk about it. Done’s done. It’s all right.”
“It’s not about the horse. It’s about us fighting.”
“We don’t fight.”
“We’re fighting now.”
“ I’m not fighting. I don’t know what you’re doing, but I certainly don’t intend to fight.” Eveshka went back to the fireplace after the griddle, then took a cloth, got down on her hands and knees and started cleaning up the ash he had gotten on her floor.
“Let me do that.”
“ I’m perfectly fine. Everything’s perfectly fine. I’m not mad, dammit!”