The Shining Falcon

Horrified, she dropped to his side. Was he… Thank the Lord, he was still breathing. There was an angry red mark on his forehead, a round pebble on the ground—a sling, someone had struck him down with a sling!

But who—why—

And then they strolled into view: four rough men, roughly clad, one of them still swinging his sling casually in one hand, and all of them with hard, predatory smiles.

And here I am, thought Maria desperately, a young woman alone, dressed in what's obviously an expensive caftan—oh, wonderful!

Trying to buy time, she snapped, «What do you want?»

They chuckled. «What do you think?»

While they were wasting those few seconds in swagger, Maria had the chance to palm Sasha's knife and quietly slip it into her wide sleeve. Now what? No point in wasting breath in screaming—not with only blank walls to hear her, and everybody probably at the market anyway, the market with all its noise. And she was no warrior-woman out of the ballads, to defeat all these scum. That left only…

Maria burst up and away without warning, hearing startled curses behind her as she ran with all her might. If only she could find her way back through this maze to the market's safety!

Of course the men weren't going to let her go so easily. Maria heard footsteps pounding loudly in her ears. But when a rough hand snatched at her sleeve, she slashed out wildly with the knife. There was a yelp of pain and her sleeve was abruptly released, and Maria ran on, grinning in a way that rather shocked herself. Now, if only she could somehow manage to lose the rest of the men-No, oh no! There were more of them, coming at her from a new direction! This can't be a casual attack! she thought in terror. It can't be. This has to have been planned!

No time to worry about it. She was being herded, no doubt about it, herded into this one passageway—that ended in a blank wall. Trapped, Maria whirled to face her hunters, knife in hand, fierce with rage and fear.

But she was no trained fighter, and there were just too many of them. They were being overtly careful not to hurt her, and that care added to her terror. She lunged, but then the knife was being jerked out of her grasp, and strong arms were pinning her against the wall for all her frantic scratching and biting and kicking.

Even in the heat of that desperate struggle, some cool, sane part of her mind was noting, They're wearing boots. Under those rags are fine leather boots!

What good did that do her? In a moment they'd have her down, and then—

And then, amazingly, the rough arms were falling away from her. Amazingly, her attackers were running in all directions, pursued by someone's servants—Alexei! Here he was in all his dark-bearded handsomeness, asking her earnestly:

«Are you all right? My dear, are you all right?»

Only sheer pride kept her from bursting into tears. Lost in helpless shudderings, Maria could only nod.

«My home is nearby," Alexei was continuing in a solicitous tone. «You remember, I have a house in the city. Come, you'll be safe there.»

She was too shaken not to go with him. He must have spoken to her, but Maria didn't hear a word. Indeed, she didn't really begin to come back to herself till she was in the boyar's small hall, seated across a table from him, holding a cup of wine that she needed both hands to steady lest she spill it all over herself. God, that had been a narrow escape!

No; if she kept thinking about it, she'd collapse. And still that cool, sane little voice in her mind was insisting, Something's not right.

Maria let her gaze wander about the small room, noting signs of barely concealed poverty in threadbare rugs, worn furnishings. The walls had once been painted in bright, old-fashioned style, stiff, archaic figures against a sky-blue background, but now the paint was sadly faded, so stained and peeling that it was difficult to tell if the images were holy men or heroes. One figure, so worn that only its eyes remained, seemed to stare at her, pleading or pitying, till Maria, fighting down a shudder, looked down at her winecup instead, noting for the first time that it was of cheap, common pewter, not silver. It was true then: Alexei was at the point of bancruptcy, too proud to soil his hands with work, too drawn by the love of gambling to save himself.

But why was he studying her like this? Why did his eyes glitter with passion? All at once Maria began to wonder very much about that so obviously planned attack, and the fine leather boots on men in rags, and the perfectly timed rescue.

«Alexei," she began slowly, «I'm very grateful for your help. But how is it you chanced to be there just at that very moment?»