How much time had passed? According to Illinchaya, the Tatar troop had wandered about for more than a century. I knew better than to doubt her stories any longer. A dull twilight reigned in the forest, heralding the approach of the White Nights. The sky was mauve, like a bruise, as the shadows of the sacred oak grove drew closer. Anoushka sank to the ground, hunching down next to a stump. Darkness rose like a wave. I raised my arms in vain. It enclosed me like a fly caught beneath a cup. I was terrified. What if the Leshy had kept my soul after all?
‘What now?’ Anoushka sounded exhausted. ‘Do you know the way back?’
I sat down next to her, leaning against the same thick tree trunk, burying my head in my arms. It still rang with the Leshy’s spiteful words: You will be a mother, but you will have no child. Better rule marriage out. A husband to rein you in. And then her prophecy: In your end lies your beginning. No man shall disappoint you as woman will. An angel will speak to you. The lightest load will be your greatest burden.
What had I been thinking, seeking her out?
‘I don’t know the way back,’ I admitted.
This was all my fault. We clung to each other, forsaken amidst the towering trees. The daylight dimmed further but even when night fell at last, we stayed awake, shivering and trying to keep each other warm. Anoushka rested her head on my shoulder. I kissed her forehead. When Kolomenskoye would miss us was anyone’s guess. I prepared to look the last minutes of my life straight in the eye.
*
My limbs were stiff from the cold, and finally an uncomfortable slumber, when torchlight fell upon the forest. Flames tore into the inky blackness and a man’s voice shouted, ragged with relief: ‘There they are!’ It was Evgeni the falconer. Behind him, more and more people stepped into the clearing. They whistled, clapped and cheered; hunting horns were blown in a signal that was passed back to the palace. Anoushka stumbled to her feet and I followed. We both cried with relief, embracing each other.
‘We have found the Tsarevny!’ Evgeni rushed towards us, wrapping us in blankets. D’Acosta followed him and hot chai laced with honey and vodka was forced down my throat. I had been lifted onto a mule – a tufty reindeer skin made the wooden saddle more comfortable – when Illinchaya crashed through the thicket like a mother bear looking for her cubs, shouting: ‘Lizenka! Anoushka! Your Highnesses! My little sunshine Tsarevny!’ She smothered us in her fat arms and tears spouted from her pale eyes. ‘My doves! Never do that again. You frightened me to death. Oh, my God, this is all my fault.’
‘Are you still awake?’ Anoushka whispered when finally we lay in our beds, bellies filled with hot kasha made as each of us preferred it – mine sweetened with honey and berries while Anoushka’s was savoury with added bacon pieces.
‘How could I not be?’ I said and sat up, pulling my knees beneath my chin. ‘I don’t dare close my eyes. Come over here. Please.’ I folded back my blanket.
Anoushka tiptoed over the wooden floor and climbed into my high bedstead. We snuggled up close beneath the blankets and furs; legs, feet and fingers in a tangle, glad of each other’s warmth. All candles were carefully snuffed every evening – a fire would roar through the building’s maze of wooden corridors as through a chimney, and in every room several buckets of sand and water stood at the ready. Anoushka breathed evenly, wide awake.
Finally, I dared to ask: ‘How do you think it feels if someone takes your soul?’
‘At worst, as if someone is tearing you in a thousand pieces,’ she guessed after a while.
I sensed her chewing her lip: ‘Lonely?’
‘We will never be lonely,’ I said, pressing myself against her bony body, delighted when she embraced me back. Then she sat up. ‘But what if the Leshy has done it – taken our souls – and we haven’t noticed yet?’ Anoushka’s dark hair fell straight over the delicate broderie anglaise of her nightshirt. ‘It’s too horrible. We must never tell Mother or Father what happened today,’ she decided after thinking for a moment. ‘Never. Father would be furious. Who knows how he would punish us for our disobedience? Think what happened to Alexey. And Mother… ’ Her voice trailed off.
’You are right.’ While I felt that I could weather Father’s fury, in this case, Mother could not bear another tragedy.
Anoushka continued: ‘And we’d best not mention it to each other either. As Mother says: least said, soonest mended.’ She lay back down, seemingly relieved. I wished I could do the same. What if Father had given the Leshy his soul; would we do so as well, in due course? Lonely at best. For as long as I had lived, someone had always been by my side: Anoushka, of course, and our aunt Pasha while Mother followed Father wherever he went, and in more recent years, our parents. I stared into the dark room. One in a field is not a warrior, my father would sigh when overwhelmed by the task before him.
‘Schastye,’ I murmured: the Russian word for ‘happiness’ implied being undivided, part of something bigger.
‘Mmh? What?’ Anoushka asked drowsily, but a moment later I heard her deep, steady breathing. How could she sleep? I crossed my hands and soundlessly prayed to my patron saint, Elizabeth. Still, sleep would not come for long hours. Finally, as the first light crept into our room, the milky hue of the morning light dappling the wall, I, too, fell into an exhausted slumber.
Yet if Mother never learned of our encounter with the Leshy, someone else certainly did.