The Shining Falcon

And for all the cold fear sickening him, Alexei managed a thin smile. «A threat, Danilo?» he said aloud, so softly it was a whisper. «No threat. A promise.»

It was market day in Stargorod, the great open square at the city's heart crowded with booths set up on cobblestones worn smooth over the generations. The air was heavy with musk and lavender, cumin and cooking oil, and fairly rang with laughter, song, the squealing of frightened pigs and the singsong chants of the merchants. Colors flashed, red, blue, gold, as pennants, cloaks, and wide-sleeved caftans caught the shifting breeze. Those city folk not actively engaged in buying or selling furs or gems or cabbages and carrots were busy watching the dancing bear or the jugglers or the minstrel with his sweet-stringed gusla. For this one day, boyars and commons swirled together in a wild, happy wave.

Only Maria Danilovna stood motionless, Maria of the long brown braids and worried brown eyes, barely aware of the servant‑loyal, stocky Sasha—standing protectively by her side. The young woman bit her lip, trying to keep her face impassive all the while her heart was pounding wildly as other servants hunted all that large, crowded square for her sister.

Where can she be?

They'd come to the great market together, Maria and Vasilissa, with the retinue of servants no noblewoman went without. Vasilissa, as ever, had been lecturing her younger sister on the decorum proper to a boyar's daughter. No, Maria mustn't stop to listen to a mere peasant storyteller, love the old tales though she might, and no, Maria mustn't think of buying some mere peasant-woven ribbons, pretty though they might be. And, as ever, Maria had been letting the lecturing drift by her, interjecting a docile «Yes, Lissa," or «Of course, Lissa.» She'd learned from sad experience that it was the easiest way to keep the peace.

But then the running monologue had stopped, a fact that had taken Maria, her thoughts for away, a moment to realize. When she'd looked up in surprise, she'd found to her shock that Vasilissa was gone. Somehow, despite all that entourage of servants, she'd managed to slip away, to simply‑disappear.

Maria fought down images of her beautiful, elegant, naive sister in the hands of ruffians, slavers. Surely Lissa had more sense than to get snared by such as those! And yet, behind the lecturing and the facade of stern propriety was a certain… fragility of mind, a fragility their father simply refused to see, sheltering the young woman as he would some rare, delicate flower. Lissa saw things sometimes, ghosts or spirits or visions from the past: things that just weren't there. The aftermath of one of these sightings or wide-awake dreams or whatever they were (Maria flinched away from that all-too-easy word, «madness») tended to leave her almost morbidly depressed. But she was, Maria knew, capable of the most incredibly swift shifts of mood, of action taken without a thought to the consequences.

«It'll be all right," Sasha soothed roughly. «You'll see, young mistress, it'll be all right.»

Maybe it would, at that. Maybe Lissa had wanted some time alone… No, with her betrothed, of course! There was no denying that Vasilissa had fallen madly in love with her handsome husband-to-be, while he… At least he was in love with the idea of being in love, thought Maria, wishing her father had picked a man of strong enough character to give Lissa the strength she lacked. But Afron was every bit as flighty as Vasilissa, and if the two of them had decided it would be daring and romantic to snatch some unchaperoned kisses, they would have conveniently forgotten the tongues eager to gossip.

«Akh, Lissa, I'm not against the idea of love, I'm not. But I only wish you wouldn't—Lissa!»

That last was a shout, because she'd caught a sudden glimpse of her sister. And that had almost certainly been Afron with her, the two of them running guiltily down that alley.

But—had there been a third person with them, beckoning them on?

«Boyarevna Vasilissa!» cried Sasha. «Boyarevna, wait!»

Of course she didn't wait. Maria gave a sharp little sigh. Much as she'd like to simply let the two have their fun, her father would be the first to suffer if the ridiculous laws of propriety weren't observed. «We can't wait for the others. Sasha, hurry!»

The alley, little more than a space between houses, twisted its convoluted way between windowless, wooden back walls, splitting off again and again into a maze of paths. It was so abruptly quiet back here after the noise of the market that Maria's ears rang.

«I don't see her," she said over her shoulder to Sasha. «There are so many ways — "

A sharp whistle of air cut into her words, a crack of a blow. Maria whirled just in time to see the man crumpling to the ground.

«Sasha!»