Pyetr frowned at him, thinking thoughts he most definitely did not want to overhear. Then Pyetr said: “Does a rusalka want anything but its own way? Maybe ’Veshka did it. Maybe her father wanted you and she wished me up to spite him.”
A ridge loomed in front of them. The horses took it at a brisker pace, and after that it was a climb down again, through thin new growth, past a fallen tree. Since the forest’s re-growth, young trees had grown old and massive; and some had died.
He said, had been waiting to say, when they came side by side again, “But all along we’ve said wizards shouldn’t marry wizards. You were ever so much—” Pyetr arched an eyebrow.
—safer? Hardly flattering, to the rascal Pyetr had so studiously been. His face went hot and he mumbled instead, “I just don’t know why he was furious that she went for you.”
“What in hell are we really talking about?”
Impossible to explain. They were coming to another rough spot. “I don’t know.”
Their course took them apart again, around a tree, along a hillside, Missy dropping behind. He overtook Pyetr at the end of a stand of trees and a thorn thicket and Pyetr said, “By everything you say, ’Veshka herself being born was no accident. The old scoundrel must have loved Draga once, I’ll suppose he did—why else marry her? Or maybe—”
Missy had to drop back again, and Sasha started to eaves drop for the rest of it, but it felt too private, something about Eveshka; and when they were side by side again, Pyetr asked:
“What are you trying to say?”
“That Draga couldn’t have carried ’Veshka without wanting her—or stayed near Uulamets if Uulamets hadn’t been willing for her to—a baby’s just too fragile. He knew his wife was trying to kill him. He knew his wife wanted that baby, but he wanted Eveshka, too—not just after she was born. He had to—if a wizard-wife can wish not to have a child—so can her husband, granted he’s thinking in those terms.”
“Not a sure thing,” Pyetr muttered, “granted wizards are like the rest of us.”
“Eveshka’s told me she wasn’t even thinking about having a child, herself, before she conceived Ilyana, which—” He was sure his face was red. “—considering you both, was incredibly forgetful on her part.”
“She didn’t exactly have a mother’s kindly advice.”
A hill intervened. He rode it, trying not to overhear Pyetr’s thoughts, and Missy picked her way down at Volkhi’s tail. Babi turned up again and left by the time he overtook Pyetr on flat ground.
Pyetr said: “She’s getting more and more like her father, if you want my opinion: scared to death of magic and using as little as she can.”
“But why did Uulamets want a wizard to marry his daughter?”
“Forget marry. He wanted to kill us!”
“You were the one he specifically didn’t want and it happened anyway.”
“What are you saying? I was Draga’s choice?”
“No,” he said in consternation. “No, I don’t believe that. I’m saying I don’t know what he wanted me for. Unless he was sure I could attract his daughter into his reach, and that I could help him—”
“—Be his damn servant,” Pyetr corrected him.
“But the point is, if it’s so terrible to have a child that gifted—what in the world did he want with me?”
“Better not to ask.”
“No, it’s important to ask. Why was he so upset that she wanted you instead?”
“What are you getting at?”
“I don’t know. I absolutely don’t know. I wish I—”
He checked himself short of that precipice. He hit the saddlebow in frustration and looked at the trees, the leaves in the sunlight—anything but wish. God!
Pyetr said: “Nobody could know she was a wizard until she was born. We didn’t know—”
“But Patches’ spots were a good possibility—considering Missy. And if Uulamets didn’t argue with having a grand-child—which I don’t get the impression he did, he was for it.”
“Get to a point, for the god’s sake.”
“That I don’t believe all the danger is in Ilyana.”
“Oh, god, that’s comforting.”
He said distractedly, staring ahead into the sunlit green: “We’ve been listening to very few advisors. And doing everything we’ve done on ’Veshka’s say-so. ’Veshka’s not the most level head in the household. You have to admit that.”
“I’ll admit it. She’ll even admit it, once and twice a year. I’ll also admit the mouse is fifteen. And Chernevog’s not a moral guide, Sasha. I know him, god, I know him—”
“She’s convinced her daughter is dangerous. That someday she’d do exactly what she’s done, and go—where we know not everything’s been all right, for a very long time. But so’s ’Veshka dangerous. I’m dangerous. My misjudgments certainly are. I’m only hoping I haven’t made one.”
“In what?”
Maybe being thinner gave Pyetr that fey, remembered face. There was the tiny scar on his forehead, above the eye—he had gotten that one the year Chernevog had died. That seemed fainter today. Maybe it was the light. Maybe he was being foolish in his worry.
“Sasha?”
“I’m not sure Uulamets’ wishes are out of this game not sure ’Veshka’s right in her worries. I—”
Birds started up, ravens, rising out of the hollow ahead of them.
Death was there. That was not unusual. There was no reason to turn aside. It only cast a solemnity on them as they rode further, into a patch of younger trees, where sunlight sifted through bright leaves. Insects buzzed here.
A deer had died. Such things happened—there were wolves. The sick and the lame died.
But no four-footed creature had hacked it in pieces, leaving most.
So many things were amiss with the world. Babi turned up in Ilyana’s lap as they rode, and vanished again—with a hiss.
“Why does he do that?” Yvgenie asked.
“He’s upset,” was all she could answer. So was she. The sun showed Yvgenie so pale, so dreadfully pale—but the kiss this morning had had nothing of chill about it. She caught a furtive, troubled glance as they rode, seeing how leaf-dappled sunlight glowed on his face and shoulders, how he cast her kind and shy looks when he thought she was not watching: if her uncle Sasha were in love, she thought, he would look at someone like that; god, she wanted to help him and not to have any harm come to him. He was kind, he was shy and gentle, and thoughtful, for all her father’s bad opinion of boyars’ sons—and even if he had had a terrible father, somebody had taught him kindness. She caught sometimes the image of a fat, gentle-faced woman who had hugged him and held him and told him stories—
Not flattering stories, about wizards and magic birds; and bears that talked and wicked sorcerers who hid their hearts in acorns—she supposed one could, but acorns seemed a very dangerous place; and bears talked, but nothing like people. So she told him, now that the silence was easier, about bear in the garden, about uncle Sasha and the bees, about—
About Owl and Kavi Chernevog, and how she had known him for years and years. It was hard to remember he could not hear her pictures, not as easily as her father could. She had to tell them in words, which she was not good at—