The Shining Falcon

Danilo, who'd come through so much, who'd seemed so invincible, so unquenchable, had plainly come at last to the end of his strength. In his despairing eyes was the sudden acceptance that this exile was real, that there wasn't going to be any word from Stargorod, any miraculous last‑minute escape. Maria felt sudden hot tears welling in her eyes… No, the last thing she dared do now was collapse. Someone had to stay strong.

Since no one else seemed about to do anything, Maria moved forward to study the debris.

It really didn't look so bad up close. Of course, the garden would have to be virtually torn up by the roots and replanted. She hoped the season was right for such things, and the soil… The outbuildings were as ramshackle as they'd looked from a distance, but there seemed to be enough good planks left to make a solid shed or two. They were going to need a shed, and some new fencing, if they were going to keep animals… They would need chickens, she supposed, and maybe a goat or two…

Greatly daring, she stepped through the gaping farmhouse doorway, then stopped, trying not to breathe too deeply. Some wild things had plainly been using the house as their den. They were gone, but their stench and mess remained. Spiderwebs muffled every corner. But the stove, of the massive, nearly room-filling sort favored by peasants, was still in place, not a crack in its tiles, and it looked quite useable. Walking warily, Maria inspected the rest of the house: three small rooms, one with the framework of a bed still intact. They'd all need a proper cleaning and airing, but after that, they might be almost comfortable…

Yes. All in all, things might be salvageable.

Maria returned to the doorway, hesitating a moment at the sight of her despairing father and sister, trying desperately to hold fast to self‑confidence and organize her thoughts.

«All right, now," she said, as firmly as she could. «Things aren't so bad, really. Father, do you suppose you could unhitch poor Brownie and see if you can find him some shelter? And Lissa, won't you come and see if you can get this stove working?»

Watching life slowly returning to her father and sister with action, she stood for a moment with hands on hips, ablaze with sudden fierce determination.

«I wonder," said Maria Danilovna, boyar's daughter, «what I can use for a broom.»

Chapter Vll Ensnared

Finist flew aimlessly through the night, circling over his sleeping city of Kirtesk, nearly invisible in the darkness, unable to sleep. His mind was too foil of thoughts of Ljuba.

Why had she done it? Why, after all these years, suddenly set out to seduce him? Oh, he'd always been aware of her beauty, he would have to have been a clod of earth not to have been aware, but till now it hadn't mattered. Till now his dislike of her had been strong enough to master any sense of true desire. He'd always been careful, so careful—

Enough. What had happened that night in the forest was over. And surely Ljuba saw as clearly as he that they'd been lucky to get out of it with nothing worse than a frenzied coupling that had little joy to it. He'd treat the whole thing as an accident, he'd find some cool, formal way to let his cousin know it would never happen again.

But if only it had been someone other than Ljuba… someone special… The plaintive thought rather embarrassed him. Yet he found himself remembering Marfa and Stefan, the youngsters so madly in love, and surprised himself with a pang of envy. Ah, God, what must it be like, feeling such tenderness for someone, being the object of such tenderness? Love—

Wasn't for royalty. So he'd been taught. And it certainly wasn't possible with Ljuba. It was all too easy to remember her as she'd been, the child‑Ljuba spelling a puppy into immobility, heedless of the little animal's terror: it was only a puppy, after all. And later, the adolescent Ljuba, already beautiful enough to catch men's breath in their throats, working practice magics on her servants, small, harmless spells to be sure, but worked quite against their wills: they were only servants, after all. Well, he had put a stop to that sort of thing as soon as he'd learned about it. But even now Ljuba hadn't changed, not really. For all her loveliness, there was still a certain emptiness at the heart of her. And, he supposed, no wonder—

Dammit, now he was going to start pitying her! That was easy enough to do; he'd realized even as a boy that her father ignored his daughter's existence, her mother all but hated her, though of course, he hadn't realized the reason, not then.

Devil take it! These mental meanderings had brought him right to her window! There Ljuba sat, alone in her bedchamber, brushing and brushing the long fall of golden hair, and Finist paused in spite of himself, perched on the windowsill, caught by the charming picture she made, there in the dim light of the single candle.