I spent the rest of my time in Khorizova surreptitiously gathering supplies and information.
Alyoshka was tight-lipped about the bodies I’d seen hanging outside the city, saying only that Aksana was keeping every citizen safe rooting out treachery where it bred. This was a totally unsatisfactory answer. Dasha was the only member of my immediate family I had any reliable access to, but this was a touchy subject between us, and I didn’t dare risk crossing the line at which she’d feel obligated to tell Aksana about my inappropriate curiosity. I tested the waters with Reskov, but it was clear the topic turned his stomach, and he asked me to please spare him.
Well, I could take an educated guess as to what they’d done, and how ill-equipped they had been to defend themselves.
What I was doing was not revenge, I told myself. It wasn’t to hurt Aksana or Semchik. It was just to make things fair. It was just to give people a chance to help themselves. To defend themselves.
The evening before I was to leave, I went down to the pier, ostensibly to fish. Mostly I sat there with my pole wedged between the boards and a bottle of yasno in my lap, staring out at the ocean as the sky purpled and the sun set on my back.
I didn’t know if I’d ever see this sea again, not from this pier, from this angle, with the twinkle of the palace lanterns popping on one by one in my peripheral vision, the din of the city just a soft thrum under the velvet roar of the waves. Nowhere did the world seem bigger than staring at that widest, flattest horizon. As the lights twinkled to life on the fishing vessels, it seemed more stars ignited in the sky, the horizon disappeared. What lay beyond that illusory border, what might I find if I sailed out east and kept going, past the fishing vessels, past the rocky barrier islands that dotted Khorizova’s coast, deeper into the darkness whence the sun had lately fled? Maybe something new, maybe something innocent and artless and horizontal, maybe a place where people stood next to instead of on top of one another, where there weren’t concepts like volshebnik or miryanin or knyaz or bastard.
I snorted and took a long pull from the bottle.
The plains of Veliko were near as flat as that spot where the ocean met the sky, and the grain rolled like waves in the wind. I guessed that was as good as I was going to get.
I was sitting there feeling lonely and sorry for myself when one of those twinkling lantern lights behind me began to grow brighter in my peripheral vision.
I turned to see Alyoshka, lantern held high, moving gracefully down the pier.
“It’s not time to come in yet,” I said.
“This servant would never presume to tell his lord what time it was unsolicited,” he said, but he didn’t turn around.
“Do you want any yasno?” I asked as he slowly made his way to me, robes skirting the ground as though he were gliding. I didn’t know what else to say.
To my surprise, he set the lantern down and perched on the end of the pier next to me. As I watched, he hitched his robes up, pulled his slippers off, rolled his pant legs up, and dangled his feet in the ocean spray. I’d never seen him do anything so undignified.
I passed him the bottle, and he took a dainty sip, covering his mouth with his hand while he swallowed. “My lord is ready to leave tomorrow?” he said, handing the bottle back to me, supporting it both at its base and neck.
“Guess so,” I said. “Where will you be assigned?”
“This servant will assist Chinovnik Reskov.”
“That’s good. Is Reskov good to work for?”
“Chinovnik Reskov is very kind and fair.”
I nodded, though I knew he would’ve said that even if Reskov beat him every day. I wanted to believe him, because Reskov had always been kind to me, and I wanted to believe in someone.
“Of course,” Alyoshka continued, seeming to surprise himself, “that will only be temporary. This servant imagines that eventually, he will need to find a more permanent position.”
I looked back out at the ocean, leaning into the spray. “Why would you need that?”
“My lord isn’t coming back, is he?”
“Why wouldn’t I come back? This is my home.”
“Yes, my lord. Perhaps this servant is wrong.”
Finally, I settled my expression enough to turn back to him. “Why do you think I’m not coming back?”
“Forgive this servant’s impertinence, my lord,” he said, but he didn’t look like he felt sorry at all.
“No, I want to know.”
“This servant spends much of his time in my lord’s rooms. This servant cannot help but notice the appearance of lobelia and mariweed drying in the closet, as well as bottles of a black substance. Food suitable for travel.”
“You’ve been snooping.”
“This servant has been performing his duties.”
I leaned back on my hands and sighed, looking up at the sky. When I turned my head that way, the chattering noise from the city grew louder, the lights felt warmer.
“I’m not going to tell anyone, Iyu.”
That got me to look back at him.
He picked up the yasno bottle and took a drink—still dainty, but no covering his mouth this time. “It does put me in an awkward position, though. Reskov will want to know why I didn’t see any signs. He’ll know there ought to have been signs.”
“Sorry,” I said dumbly.
“So you are going.”
“Why won’t you tell them?”
“What would happen if I did?” He grimaced and folded his hands in his lap. “This servant has been with his lord for many years.” I suppose the casual address pained him too much to continue. “This servant does not wish to see his lord suffer.”
“Thank you. Neither do I.”
“This servant has always kept his lord’s secrets. This shall be the last time.”
“I should say, for both our sakes, that you’re being silly. Of course I’m coming home.”
“Of course, my lord. You asked me, a long time ago, what I would do if I were a volshebnik.”
I nodded.
“I lied, then. I said I never thought about it. It’s hard not to think about such things when you’ve been surrounded by volshebniks since you were a child. Primarily, I’ve thought of all the ways it could make my life easier. How quickly I could run errands, how easily I could lift that copper tub. Perhaps I would not be so exhausted at the end of each day. Is that what my lord wants to do? Make miryanins’ lives easier?”
“Do you want to come with me?” I asked suddenly. “I mean, if I were going, would you want to?”
His brow furrowed, and he looked down at his lap. “Thank you, my lord. But no. I imagine how Tajna could make my daily life easier. I do not wish to imagine what would need to be done for it to change my life entirely.”
***
His answer was no.
I hadn’t even thought to ask him (though maybe I should have) before that moment, but the rejection bothered me. Not that I thought Alyoshka should want to go with me, but that he’d come to me, all but said directly that he wanted what I was trying to do, and still came to the conclusion that it wasn’t worth it. Wasn’t enough. How many miryanins would decide the same thing? What if I went to Veliko and no one wanted to learn? Even with Pavel Viktorovich’s group, Antosha had been the only interested party. Some, like Irisha, had been downright hostile to the idea. What if what I had wasn’t what they wanted?
I didn’t think Alyoshka would tell anyone. He’d had ample opportunities to get me in trouble over the years, and he never took them.
That night, he walked back to my rooms with me, lantern in hand, and the only time he slipped back into anything resembling the way he’d spoken to me at the pier was when he suggested I take a bath, adding that it might be my last chance for a while.
***
In the morning, Aksana and Semchik even made time to send me off. Dasha, too, but her time was a lot cheaper these days. Even Aksana’s husband, Matvej, with whom I interacted so infrequently and who sat so still at dinner I often forgot he wasn’t just an elaborately dressed statue, showed up, looking like he was sleeping with his eyes open.
Aksana pressed sweet buns into my hand like she was an actual tyotka.
I found myself trying to memorize their faces: Aksana’s eyes crinkled at the corners, Semchik’s brow soft and worried, Dasha’s cheeks red and eyes mischievous. I didn’t want to struggle to remember them like I did my mother.
From Whitecap, the road to Gorakino was also the road to Veliko, so the subterfuge didn’t have to start with my first steps towards the west gate.
But I hadn’t been long on that road before I veered off to the north.
I’d never had my own time before, never was in charge of where I was going, and as I discovered, I was prone to changing plans quickly and without warning. If there were anyone else available, I would have insisted on a change in leadership.
I didn’t know how long it would take for Gorakino and Khorizova to piece together that I was in neither place, but it would be a few days at least. That was long enough if I went quickly. I just wanted to see if I could find it. See if she was still there.
So long as I was doing things that would make Aksana want to kill me.
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