| |
As they drank their tea, Vasily explained how he and Pallavi had come to be staying at this camp. Pallavi, it seemed, was something of an itinerant physician, and often visited the summer camps of the various clans. They had met up here, at the camp of King Fyodor, after all the other clans and sub-clans had chased them away. Stasya found this fact somewhat comforting, and told them that the same thing had happened to her. She hadn’t exactly taken it personally when she had been driven off from the other camps, but it was still nice to hear that she wasn’t the only hillichmagnar who had experienced this treatment.
“It is truly a shame,” said Vasily, “because we have been able to do so much good here. King Fyodor is a wiser man than many other clan chiefs, and he has allowed us to impose new rules about hygiene and quarantine of any visitors. We know that people have caught the pestilence after using the blankets of those who died, or after riding the horses of the deceased. So we have instituted strict new rules about burning the clothes and tent of any victim, and Pallavi has been helping the women make new wool fabric to replace as many of the old clothes as we can.”
“We burned the clothes of the victims at Tendria, too,” said Stasya. “But it didn’t seem to help stop the spread of the disease.” She looked down into her teacup, thinking of how all of those beautiful velvet and silk dresses that Evika had loved so much were now ash.
“Then perhaps you can help us find new measures that will work better,” said Vasily brightly. “There is a place for you here, Stasya, if you would like. The king and his family have ridden off to visit a neighboring camp, but when they return, I am sure his majesty will be pleased to invite you to stay here.”
“That’s very kind,” said Stasya. She had met King Fyodor once in her life—nine years ago when Vasily had declared that she was a hillichmagnar. The king had given a little speech about the blessings of Earstien, and the friendship of Earstien’s angels, and then his wife, Queen Oksana, had given Stasya a tunic that she had embroidered with her own hands. The girls at Atherton had mocked the tunic when they saw it, and so Stasya had learned to keep it hidden at the back of her wardrobe, but she still remembered the royal family fondly.
Pallavi, who had been quiet for some minutes, spoke up. “When the king returns, he will want to discuss the duke’s summons again.”
“Which duke?” asked Stasya. “And what summons is this?”
Vasily’s smile faded. “The Duke of Leornian.” This was one of the richest, most important nobles of the neighboring country of Myrcia. The Dukes of Leornian were related to the Kings of Myrcia, and from what Stasya had heard, they never let anyone forget it. “His grace has sent out messages to every corner of the earth,” Vasily went on, “requesting that hillichmagnars come to his palace at the Bocburg to consult with him on what to do about the plague.”
“And you’re thinking about going?” asked Stasya.
“I was not,” answered Pallavi, even though the question had not been addressed to her. “As Vasily and I have told King Fyodor, we believe our place is here in Loshadnarod. Myrcia is—forgive me my dear girl—a much wealthier country. Rich men have resources to deal with sickness that the poor people of this land do not.”
Stasya would have challenged this assertion that her country was poor. Loshadnarod had famous silver mines. But she had been to Atherton, in Myrcia, and she knew what real wealth looked like.
Vasily said, “King Fyodor is very worried that we will abandon him and go to Leornian. But I would never do that.” His placid face darkened in a scowl. “And there are reasons—historical reasons—why we hillichmagnars of Diernemynster do not trust Myrcian nobles.”
Stasya had a vague sense that Diernemynster was at odds with the Myrcian royal family, but she had tended to nod off during Evika’s history lectures, so she was not quite sure what had happened to cause the rift. Once, the hillichmagnars of Diernemynster, which was technically within the borders of Myrcia, had been advisors and allies of the Kings of Myrcia. But that had all ended long ago, and Stasya couldn’t remember why. She was about to ask, when three long, high blasts from a hunting horn echoed through the camp.
“Ah, that will be the king now,” cried Vasily, and his pleasant smile returned.
The king and his family were just as warm and friendly as Stasya remembered. Queen Oksana gave her a hug. And upon hearing that Stasya had lost all her clothes, her majesty quite literally took the coat off her own back and offered it as a gift. Stasya was touched, and she knew she had no choice but to accept, even though the coat was embroidered with gold and silver thread, and must have cost more money than Stasya had ever seen in her life.
That night, the king insisted on holding a welcome feast for Stasya. She and Pallavi and Vasily were given the best seats, on thick, embroidered cushions near the roaring fire. In truth, Stasya would have preferred to be sitting a bit farther back. It was a warm night already, and the added heat of the flames was making everyone sweat. Even so, she knew she couldn’t leave without causing offense. So she stayed and talked to the queen and to Gregory, oldest of the three royal princes. Unfortunately, talk soon shifted, and she was left at the mercy of the annoying Sahasran woman.
“It is not a bad life here,” said Pallavi. “I lived here before, you know, oh, goodness, four hundred years ago, around the time of the war with Myrcia. You could do worse than staying here.” Then she grinned and said in a whisper, “Unless you have a young man somewhere waiting for you. Because I’ve been in that boat before, too. It’s never good to keep a fellow waiting.” She sighed. “Trust me.”
“I..er...,” Stasya wasn’t quite sure what to say. Hillichmagnars of Diernemynster were not supposed to marry or have any sort of romantic attachments.
“Of course,” laughed Pallavi. “The rules. How could I forget? I won’t press you on that matter, my dear. Tell me, how did you find Atherton? Did you enjoy studying there?”
The honest answer was “No.” Stasya had loved taking lessons from Evika (even the lessons that bored her), but she had not liked the school. The noble girls at Queen Freyda House had been dreadful, and the boys...well, the less said about the boys, the better. Really, if the students she had met at Atherton were typical of the Myrcian nobility, it was no wonder Diernemynster didn’t want anything to do with them. Stasya could have talked all night about the casual slights and nastiness she had suffered from those people, but she didn’t feel comfortable confiding in Pallavi, especially since the older woman seemed to practically beg for confidences and intimate details. So in answer to her question, Stasya shrugged and said that Atherton had been, “Fine, in its way.”
Pallavi laughed as if Stasya had said something devastatingly funny. “‘Fine, in its way.’ Oh, that is just too good!”
Stasya was starting to wonder how on earth she could get away from this woman without causing a scene that would embarrass Vasily and the royal family, when the king came to her rescue. He stood and pointed at the royal herald, a thickset, red-faced woman, who blew a long, low blast on her ram’s horn and bellowed out a demand that all those at the feast, “Mark well the words of our blessed King, Fyodor of the Clan Rotislav, of the line anointed by Valamir and chosen by Earstien.” It was time for a speech. And after that, as Stasya remembered from many such formal feasts in her childhood, there would be songs and dancing, and that would be the perfect excuse to slip away from Pallavi and find someone more agreeable to talk to.
The king, his face glistening red with sweat, stood up and began with a traditional prayer of the Blessed Daryna Matushka, as was customary. He took out his Ptitska—a little carved bird on a chain—and kissed it, and around the fire, nearly everyone did the same with their own Ptitskas. Stasya, who had lost hers to the fire in Tendria, felt a little self-conscious. But the moment passed quickly, and the king was talking again.
He spoke for a while about the camp of the Arkadi clan, where he and his family had visited. Finally he turned to Stasya and said, “We are truly blessed to have with us another of Earstien’s angels. Already we were blessed to have Vasily Sergeyevich Radomirovich and Pallavi Ratnam as our guests. But now our dearest child, Stasya Kirovna Nikonovna, the flower of all our hearts, if I may say so, has returned to us, and returned to us as such a beautiful lady, too!”
The members of his household, from the wizened elders to the youngest serving girl, all clapped, even as Stasya blushed and shook her head. The king, who had just finished his third cup of wine, slapped his eldest son on the back and said, “Isn’t she pretty, Gregory? Yes, Gregory thinks so!” There was much laughter, and Stasya did her best to laugh along, too.
Once the laughter had died away, though, the king cleared his throat and said, in a much less jocular tone, “I am reminded of a story from the Pravilnih Slova. It is said....” He paused, frowning. “It is said,” he repeated, his voice faltering. There was a long pause, as he wiped the rivers of sweat from his forehead, and people all around the fire turned and exchanged knowing glances with their neighbors. The king had apparently had more wine than was good for him, and it wasn’t the first time. He tried again. “The story I am thinking of involves another young hillichmagnar....” But that was as far as he got. His eyes rolled back, his knees buckled, and he dropped to the ground as suddenly as if he had been shot through the heart with an arrow.
Pandemonium ensued. Someone—Stasya thought it must have been one of the serving girls—shouted, “The plague! The plague!” The party-goers scrambled away, pushing and shoving each other in their haste, knocking over the plates of candied duck and salt pork, upsetting the silver pitchers of wine. Stasya and Pallavi, without a word between them, acted as one, slipping upstream against the surging crowd and converging on Vasily, who was tending to the stricken king. The three princes were supporting their mother, who had also fainted, and who seemed to be going into convulsions.
With a few expert cutting and levitation spells, Vasily stripped away the king’s tunic. The fact that he did not want to touch the unfortunate monarch told Stasya that her own fears, and the fears of the panicked partygoers, were not unfounded. And sure enough, when Vasily levitated the king’s arm, they could see a single bubo there—black and glistening smooth like polished ebony.
The youngest prince, Nikita, saw the mark and wailed, “Oh, Earstien help us!” There was little they could do for the king, except to use a levitation spell to take him inside a tent. He never woke, though for a time he shook with seizures and coughed up thick, black bile. More buboes broke out on his neck, and then on his face.
The queen followed the same path as him, and then the princes, too. Before the night was half gone, the entire royal family was lying in their tent, stricken with the painful black boils and being sick all over their silk bed sheets in every possible way. When Stasya was inside the tent with them, the scent took her back to the hospital in Nivia—it was the same mix of sweat, blood, vomit, and shit. The pestilence did not take royalty any more gently than it took common laborers.
The oldest prince, Gregory, died first. And then Nikita. Then the king himself died, preceding his wife by only a few minutes. The last to succumb was the second-oldest prince, Fedir. And just like that, the entire royal family was gone. The sudden stillness in the tent was terrifying. There was a kind of dark, heavy, malevolent presence there, now that they were all dead. It was a like a voracious predator, lurking in the dark shadows beyond the candlelight. It was watching her, still searching, still not sated. She left the tent for the fresher air outside.
Vasily joined her a moment later. In the dim moonlight, she could see he was crying openly. “News of this tragedy must be taken to Chief Yakov of the clan Illarion. He is sister-son to the king, and the next in line to the throne now that the three princes are dead. He is the king now, and he must be told.”
Pallavi was sitting nearby, cleaning a set of boil lances with blue magysk flame. “Wait, Vasily,” she said. “We were all in that tent. Any of us could have the pestilence. We can’t spread the contagion to the new king and have him die like Fyodor did.”
“I will go,” said Stasya. “I recovered from the plague, and they say you cannot catch it twice.”
“Perhaps,” said Vasily, “but Yakov knows me. He may not believe the news if it comes from someone he does not know. He might send messengers here to investigate, and then they could bring the contagion back with them.” He paced around the fire several times, lost in thought. At last, he said, “I will go, but I will camp on my own, in the open wild, for three days. If I have not come down with the pestilence in that time, then I will know I am safe, and I will continue on to Yakov’s camp.”
Pallavi packed him a leather knapsack of food, while Stasya saddled his horse for him. And Vasily, as his last act of friendship for the old king, dug a burial pit with magy and laid the royal family there, together in death. Then he covered them with earth and set the king’s sword and the queen’s hunting bow in the earth there as a marker. When Stasya led the horse over to him, she asked, “Can I please come with you?”
He shook his head. “If one of us is sick, then he would infect the other, and Earstien would lose two of his angels, instead of one. No, Stasya. Stay here, please, and help Pallavi. We do not know how many of Fyodor’s household will come down with the plague. Pallavi will need you.”
So he rode off, and Stasya was left alone, under the stars.