The stallion did not exactly freeze, but she felt all his muscles go rigid. It does not need plaiting, he said, tossing the mane in question. The heavy black curtain waved like a woman’s hair, and fell well past his neck. It was impractical and ridiculously beautiful.
“But you’ll like it,” Vasya coaxed. “Won’t you like not having it in your eyes?”
No, said Solovey, very definitely.
The girl tried again. “You will look the prince of all horses. Your neck is so fine, it should not be hidden.”
Solovey tossed his head at this question of looks. But he was a little vain; all stallions are. She felt him waver. She sighed and drooped on his back. “Please.”
Oh, very well, said the horse.
That night, as soon as the horse was clean and combed, Vasya appropriated a stool and began to plait his mane. With a qualm for the stallion’s outraged sensibilities, she abandoned plans for looping braids, curls, or fretworks. Instead she gathered his long mane into one great feathery plait along his crest, so that his neck seemed to arch more mightily than ever. She was delighted. Surreptitiously, she tried to take a few of the snowdrops that still stood, unwithered, on the table and braid them in. The stallion pinned his ears. What are you doing?
“Adding flowers,” said Vasya, guiltily.
Solovey stamped. No flowers.
Vasya, after a struggle with herself, laid them aside with a sigh.
Tying off the last trailing end, she paused and stepped back. The braid emphasized the proud arch of the dark neck and the graceful bones of his head. Encouraged, Vasya hauled her stool around to start on the tail.
The horse heaved a forlorn sigh. My tail, too?
“You will look the lord of horses when I’m finished,” Vasya promised.
Solovey peered about in a futile attempt to see what she was doing. If you say so. He seemed to be reconsidering the advantages of grooming. Vasya ignored him, humming to herself, and began to weave the shorter hairs over his tailbone.
Suddenly a cold breeze stirred the tapestries, and the fire leaped in the oven. Solovey pricked his ears. Vasya turned just as the door opened. Morozko passed the threshold, and the white mare nudged her way in after him. The warmth of the house struck steam from her coat. Solovey flicked his tail out of Vasya’s grip, nodded in a dignified manner, and ignored his mother. She pointed her ears at his braided mane.
“Good evening, Vasilisa Petrovna,” said Morozko.
“Good evening,” said Vasya.
Morozko stripped off his blue outer robe. It slid off his fingertips and disappeared in a puff of powder. He took off his boots, which slid apart and left a damp patch on the floor. Barefoot, he went to the oven. The white mare followed. He picked up a twist of straw and began to rub her down. In the space of a blink, the twist of straw became a brush of boar’s hair. The mare stood with her ears flopping, loose-lipped with enjoyment.
Vasya went nearer, fascinated. “Did you change the straw? Was that magic?”
“As you see.” He went on with his grooming.
“Can you tell me how you do it?” She came up beside him and peered eagerly at the brush in his hand.
“You are too attached to things as they are,” said Morozko, combing the mare’s withers. He glanced down idly. “You must allow things to be what best suits your purpose. And then they will.”
Vasya, puzzled, made no reply. Solovey snorted, not about to be left out. Vasya picked up her own straw and started on the horse’s neck. No matter how hard she stared at it, though, it remained straw.
“You can’t change it to a brush,” said Morozko, seeing her. “Because that would be to believe it is now straw. Just allow it, now, to be a brush.”
Disgruntled, Vasya glowered into Solovey’s flank. “I don’t understand.”
“Nothing changes, Vasya. Things are, or they are not. Magic is forgetting that something ever was other than as you willed it.”
“I still do not understand.”
“That does not mean you cannot learn.”
“I think you are making a game of me.”
“As you like,” said Morozko. But he smiled when he said it.
That night, when the food had gone and the fire burned red, Vasya said, “You once promised me a tale.”
Morozko drank deep of his cup before replying. “Which tale, Vasilisa Petrovna? I know many.”
“You know which. The tale of your brother and your enemy.”
“I did promise you that tale,” said Morozko, reluctantly.
“Twice I have seen the twisted oak-tree,” said Vasya. “Four times since childhood have I seen the one-eyed man, and I have seen the dead walking. Did you think I’d ask for any other tale?”
“Drink, then, Vasilisa Petrovna.” Morozko’s soft voice slid through her veins with the wine. “And listen.” He poured out the mead, and she drank. He looked older and stranger and very far away.
“I am Death,” said Morozko slowly. “Now, as in the beginning. Long ago, I was born of the minds of men. But I was not born alone. When first I looked upon the stars, my brother stood beside me. My twin. And when first I saw the stars, so did he.”
The quiet, crystalline words dropped into Vasya’s mind and she saw the heavens making wheels of fire, in shapes she did not know, and a snowy plain that kissed a bitter horizon, blue on black. “I had the face of a man,” said Morozko. “But my brother had the face of a bear, for to men a bear is very fearsome. That is my brother’s part; he makes men afraid. He eats their fear, gorges himself, and sleeps until he hungers again. Disorder he loves above all; war and plague and fire in the night. But in the long-ago I bound him. I am Death, and guardian of the order of things. All passes before me; that is how it is.”
“If you bound him, then how—?”
“I bound my brother,” said Morozko, not raising his voice. “I am his warden, his guardian, his jailer. Sometimes he wakes and sometimes he sleeps. He is a bear, after all. But now he is awake, and stronger than he has ever been. So strong that he is breaking free. He cannot leave the forest. Not yet. But already he has left the shadow of the oak-tree, which he has not done for a hundred lives of men. Your people grew afraid; they abandoned the chyerti and now your house is unprotected. Already he satisfies his hunger with you. He kills your people in the night. He makes the dead walk.”
Vasya was silent a moment, absorbing this. “How may he be defeated?”
“By trickery sometimes,” Morozko said. “Long ago I defeated him with strength, but I had others to help me then. Now I am alone, and I have faded.” There was a small silence. “But he is not free yet. To break free entirely he needs lives—several lives—and the fear of the tormented dead. The lives of those who can see him are the strongest of all. If he had taken you in the woods the night we met, then he would have been free, though all the powers of the world were ranged against him.”
“How may he be bound anew?” said Vasya with a touch of impatience.
Morozko half-smiled. “I have one last trick.” Was it her imagination, or did his eyes linger on her face? Her talisman hung heavy on her throat. “I will bind him at midwinter, when I am strongest.”
“I can help you.”
“Can you?” Morozko said, with faint amusement. “A girl-child, half-blooded and untrained? You know nothing of lore, or battle, or magic. How exactly can you help me, Vasilisa Petrovna?”