Page 5 of The Bone Doll (The Ruthenian Chronicle #1)

Bereza

On the seventh day of travel, they reached Bereza, which lay on the very edge of Ruthenia.

Though the hamlet fell within the princedom of Rodgorod, Viktor doubted the three families here paid taxes or barshchina to any lord.

Sitting in front of her unpainted cottage, the ten-year-old girl Tsilia Aronovich spotted him and Syra and hollered for her father, the headman.

“You look worse for the wear, my friend.” The portly and balding Aron Iosifevich shook Viktor’s hand.

“I gave my supplies to the Sarnoks,” Viktor explained. “They had a hard winter.”

“It was a cold one.” Aron jerked his chin towards Syra. “Looks like you brought a companion.”

Viktor turned to introduce her. “This is–”

“Syra,” she said.

“I didn’t know Sarnoks left their tundra,” Aron said to Viktor.

“Doesn’t your Princess have an alliance with the Storm Owl clan?” Syra asked in flawless Ruthenian. “Their Pathfinder had to travel all the way to your white city to make it.”

The headman had the decency to blush. “I’m sorry, miss, I didn’t realize you spoke our language.”

Syra shrugged. “We trade with Ruthenians sometimes.”

Viktor was a fool. He hadn’t even considered that Syra would know Ruthenian.

He had spent months in Beluvod, learning Sarnok vocabulary and grammar from Parmian merchants so that he could communicate with the tundra clans.

He hadn’t even considered that Syra might know his language.

He would wager that she spoke Parmian as well, meaning she was as well-educated in languages as he was.

Just in different languages. And she had a practical reason for it.

He was just a boyar’s son, educated for the sake of it.

“Well, I hope you forgive my rudeness,” the headman said. “I am Aron Iosifovich, and welcome to Bereza. We do not have much here, but we would be happy to share a meal and our banya with you.”

“I’ll take the meal,” Syra said.

“Their banya is simple,” Viktor said, “but we both need it.”

She frowned at him. “Why would I need this … banya?”

Oh. Viktor fidgeted with the handle of his belt knife. She didn’t know that word. “A banya is a room that holds steam. It relaxes your muscles and helps your blood flow. There can be pools, too, for bathing.”

“You don’t scrub yourself with soap and snow?” She arched her eyebrows at the two men and then shook her head. “Interesting.”

Just like Viktor’s last visit, Aron invited his guests to stay in his own home.

Sensing that he was not the person to initiate her into Ruthenian banyas, Viktor sent Syra with Aron’s wife, Raisa, while he and the headman shared pine nuts and birch-flavored kvass.

When the women returned, it was Viktor’s turn in the sauna.

And then he and Syra shared a supper of cabbage soup and nut bread with the family.

They ended supper with heated kvass and then retired to bed – Aron and his family to the second room, Viktor and Syra to their bedrolls in front of the hearth. As always, the Sarnok woman pointedly faced away from him.

This time, Viktor laid on his side, his head propped up on his arm, for a long moment.

The firelight glistened in her braid, threads of blue-black and firebird-red.

When his thoughts turned indecorous, he turned over.

He didn’t need to wonder about what she might look like beneath the coat and her coveralls.

Or what her skin might feel like against his.

Syra barely deigned to speak to him. She would probably disembowel him if she ever caught him looking that way.

He was here because his father wanted magic to control the leshy. The Bone Doll did that. Viktor wasn’t here to involve himself with the woman who owned the damn thing.

The ceiling beams formed multi-point stars above his head, like a false wooden sky.

And to his right, Syra twisted and turned in her bedroll, sniffling softly.

Fisting the fabric of his bedroll, Viktor tried to stop himself.

She didn’t want his help. She would brush him off like she always did. But her distress made his teeth ache.

And so, he wriggled closer and set his hand on her shoulder. “What is wrong?”

“I miss home.”

And if I had not come for the Bone Doll… “It won’t be very long,” he lied. “And then you’ll be back home.”

Syra turned onto her back. She was not facing him, but she wasn’t facing away either. “How long will your lord keep me there, in Zoldrovya?”

For a long, long time. But he couldn’t say that, not when she wanted to return home so badly. “I don’t know.”

She took a shuddering breath and folded her arms around herself, staring at the ceiling with wet eyes. A terrible pain throbbed through Viktor’s jaw and into his skull. He hated a woman in distress, and somehow it was a hundredfold worse when he was the source of it all.

“You need to rest,” he said because he had nothing else. “We have a long way to go.” Still, red ringed her eyes and she sniffled. So Viktor tried something else. “My nursemaid used to tell me stories when I could not sleep. Let me tell you one.”

Syra’s gaze slid to him, skeptical.

Viktor took that as assent and began. “In a certain princedom, in a certain time, there lived a great warrior named Dobrynya. He traveled the princedom, saving villages from greedy zmey who stole gold and livestock. One day, he arrived in the Prince’s city, and the Prince called him into attendance.

The Prince’s daughter had been taken by Zmey Izumrudovich – an emerald-scaled dragon known for its hunt for the most beautiful jewels in the world – and the Prince, knowing Dobrynya’s prowess, demanded that the warrior rescue his daughter. ”

In soft tones, Viktor told Syra how Dobrynya sought out each Ruthenian god, lamenting that he did not have the weapons to defeat a zmey like Izumrudovich.

Rodú, the God of Fate, offered the warrior a mirror made of glass; Zorya, the Goddess of War, a spear made of hawthorn; Devana, the Goddess of the Hunt, a swift horse; and Veles, the God of the Dead, told him to pray.

Thus armed by the gods, Dobrynya set off to fight the zmey.

The former three gifts helped Dobrynya fight the zmey.

“But Izumrudovich was strong,” continued Viktor, “and so the warrior fought him for three days. By the fourth day, Dobrynya was failing and so he said his prayers to Veles. The god told him to fight for four more hours. And so Dobrynya did. And he defeated the zmey at the fourth hour on the fourth day. With his spear, he split open the ground and sent Zmey Izumrudovich deep into the earth, never to be seen again. And thus, the Prince’s daughter was rescued.

“The Prince offered his daughter in marriage to Dobrynya, but the warrior declined. He was a peasant and could not marry her, so instead Dobrynya gave her to the Grand Prince to be his bride.”

During the tale, Syra had turned to him. “Do Ruthenian men always give up their prizes?”

“Only the noblest.”

Viktor rested his head in the crook of his arm, watching her eyelids flutter closed. As her breathing deepened and steadied, he rolled onto his back. His chest hurt in a good way; and he fell asleep remembering all the stories he had loved as a boy.