The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden
What foolishness, thought Konstantin. Annoyed with himself, he rose, intending to blow out the candle. But as he crossed the room, he heard the distinct click of a door closing. Without thinking, he veered to the window.
A woman darted across the space before the house, muffled in a heavy shawl. Plump she looked, and shapeless under the wrapper. Father Konstantin could not tell who she might be. The figure came to the church door and paused. She set a hand on the bronze ring, dragged the door open, and disappeared inside.
Konstantin stared at the place where she’d vanished. Of course there was nothing to prevent someone going to pray in the dead of night, but the house had its own icons. One might easily pray before them without braving the dark and the damp night air. And there had been something furtive—almost guilty—in the woman’s manner.
Growing more curious and irritated—and wakeful—by the moment, Konstantin turned from the window and drew on his dark robe. His room had its own outer door. He slid noiselessly through, not bothering with shoes, and made his way across the grass to the church.
ANNA IVANOVNA KNELT IN the dark before the icon-screen and tried to think of nothing. The scent of dust and paint, beeswax and old wood, wrapped around her like a balm, while the sweat of yet another nightmare dried in the chill. She had been walking in the midnight woods this time, black shadows on all sides. Strange voices had risen around her.
“Mistress,” they cried. “Mistress, please. See us. Know us, lest your hearth go undefended. Please, Mistress.” But she would not look. She walked on and on while the voices tore at her. At last, desperate, she began to run, hurting her feet on rocks and roots. A great cry of lamentation rose up. Suddenly her path ended. She ran on into nothingness and fell back into her skin, gasping and dripping sweat.
A dream, nothing more. But her face and feet stung, and even awake, Anna could hear those voices. At last she bolted for the church and huddled at the foot of the icon-screen. She could stay in the church and creep back at first light. She had done it before. Her husband was a tolerant man, though all-night disappearances were awkward to explain.
The soft creak of hinges slipped thieflike to her ears. Anna lurched upright and spun around. A black-robed figure, silhouetted by the risen moon, passed softly through the doorway and came toward her. Anna was too frightened to move. She stood frozen until the shadow came close enough for her to catch the gleam of old-gold hair.
“Anna Ivanovna,” Konstantin said. “Is all well with you?”
She gaped at the priest. All her life, folk had asked her angry questions and exasperated questions. “What are you doing?” they said, and “What is wrong with you?” But no one had ever asked her how she did in that tone of mild inquiry. The moonlight played over the hollows of his face.
Anna stuttered into speech: “I—of course, Batyushka, I am well, I just—forgive me, I…” The sob in her throat choked her. Shaking, unable to meet his eyes, she turned away, crossed herself, and knelt again before the icon-screen. Father Konstantin stood over her for a moment, wordless, then turned, very precisely, to cross himself and kneel at the other end of the iconostasis, before the tranquil face of the Mother of God. His voice as he prayed came faintly to Anna’s ears: a slow, resonant murmur, though she could not catch the words. At last the whine of her breathing quieted.
She kissed the icon of Christ and slanted a glance at Father Konstantin. He was contemplating the dim images before him, hands clasped. His voice, when it came, was deep and quiet and unexpected.
“Tell me,” he said, “what brings you to seek solace at such an hour.”
“They have not told you that I am mad?” Anna replied bitterly, surprising herself.
“No,” the priest said. “Are you?”
Her chin dipped in the barest fraction of a nod.
“Why?”
Her eyes flew up to meet his. “Why am I mad?” Her voice came out a hoarse whisper.
“No,” Konstantin answered patiently. “Why do you believe that you are?”
“I see—things. Demons, devils. Everywhere. All the time.” She felt as though she stood beyond herself. Something had taken control of her tongue and was shaping her answers. She’d never told anyone before. Half the time she refused to admit it to herself, even when she muttered at corners and the women whispered behind their hands. Even kind, drunk, clumsy Father Semyon, who had prayed with her more times than she could count, had never wrung this confession from her.
“But why should that mean you are mad? The Church teaches that demons walk among us. Do you deny the teachings of the Church?”
“No! But…” Anna felt hot and cold at once. She wanted to look into his face again but did not dare. She looked at the floor instead and saw the faint shadow of his foot, incongruously bare beneath the heavy robe. At last she managed a whisper:
“But they aren’t—can’t—be real. No one else sees…I am mad; I know I am mad.” She trailed off, then added slowly: “Except sometimes I think—my stepdaughter Vasilisa. But she’s only a child who hears too many stories.”
Father Konstantin’s gaze sharpened.
“She speaks of it, does she?”
“Not—not recently. But when she was a little girl sometimes I thought…Her eyes…”
“And you did nothing?” Konstantin’s voice was supple as a snake and well-tuned as any singer’s. Anna quailed under his tone of incredulous contempt.
“I beat her when I could and forbade her to talk of it. I thought, maybe, that if I caught her young enough, the madness wouldn’t take hold.”
“Is that all you thought? Madness? Did you never fear for her soul?”
Anna opened her mouth, closed it again, and stared at the priest, bewildered. He stalked toward the center of the iconostasis where a second Christ sat enthroned, surrounded by apostles. The moonlight turned his gold hair to gray-silver, and his shadow crawled black across the floor.
“Demons can be exorcised, Anna Ivanovna,” he said, not taking his eyes from the icon.
“Ex—exorcised?” she squeaked.
“Naturally.”
“How?” She felt as though she were thinking through mud. All her life she had borne her curse. That it might just go away—her mind wouldn’t compass the notion.
“Rites of the Church. And much prayer.”
There was a small silence.
“Oh,” Anna breathed. “Oh please. Make it go away. Make them go away.”
He might have smiled, but she couldn’t be sure in the moonlight.
“I will pray and think on it. Go back and go to sleep, Anna Ivanovna.” She stared at him with big stunned eyes, then whirled and blundered toward the door, feet clumsy on the bare wood.
Father Konstantin prostrated himself before the iconostasis. He did not sleep at all the rest of the night.
The next day was Sunday. In the green-gray dawn, Konstantin returned to his own room. Heavy-eyed, he flung cold water over his head and washed his hands. Soon he must give service. He was weary, but calm. During the long hours of his vigil, God had given him the answer. He knew what evil lay upon this land. It was in the sun-symbols on the nurse’s apron, in that stupid woman’s terror, in the fey, feral eyes of Pyotr’s elder daughter. The place was infested with demons: the chyerti of the old religion. These foolish, wild people worshipped God by day and the old gods in secret; they tried to walk both paths at once and made themselves base in the sight of the Father. No wonder evil had come to work its mischief.
Excitement rolled through his veins. He’d thought to molder here, in the back of beyond. But here was battle indeed, a battle for mastery of the souls of men and women, with evil on one side and him as God’s messenger on the other.
The people were gathering. He could almost feel their eager curiosity. It was not yet like Moscow, where people snatched hungrily at his words and loved him with their frightened eyes. Not yet.
But it would be.
VASYA TWITCHED A SHOULDER and wished she could take off her
Women stood on the left of the nave, before the Virgin, while men stood on the right, in front of the Christ. Vasya had always wished she could stand next to Alyosha so they could poke and fidget during the service; Irina was so small and sweet that poking was not rewarding, and anyway Anna always saw. Vasya locked her fingers behind her back.
The doors at the center of the iconostasis opened, and the priest came out. The murmurs of the assembled village drifted into silence, punctuated by a girl’s giggle.
The church was small, and Father Konstantin seemed to fill it. His golden hair drew the eye as even Anna’s jewels could not. His blue gaze pierced the throng like knives, one at a time. He did not speak at once. A breathless hush spread like sound among the people, so that Vasya found herself straining to hear their soft, eager breathing.
“Blessed is the kingdom,” said Konstantin at last, his voice washing over them, “of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit now and ever and unto ages of ages.”
He didn’t sound like Father Semyon, thought Vasya, though the words of the liturgy were the same. His voice was like thunder, yet he placed each syllable like Dunya setting stitches. Under his touch, the words came alive. His voice was deep as rivers in spring. He spoke to them of life and death, of God and of sin. He spoke of things they did not know, of devils and torments and temptation. He called it up before their eyes so that they saw themselves submitting to the judgment of God, and saw themselves damned and flung down.
As he chanted, Konstantin pulled the crowd to him until they echoed his words in a daze of fascinated terror. He drove them on and on with the supple lash of his voice until their answering voices broke and they listened like children frightened during a thunderstorm. Just as they were on the verge of panic—or rapture—his voice gentled.
“Have mercy on us and save us, for He is good and the Lover of mankind.”
A heavy silence fell. In the stillness, Konstantin raised his right hand and blessed the crowd.
They trickled out of the church like sleepwalkers, clutching one another. Anna had a look of exalted terror that Vasya couldn’t understand. The others looked dazed, even exhausted, the trailing ends of fearful rapture in their eyes.
“Lyoshka!” Vasya called, darting over to her brother. But when he turned to her, he was pale like the others, and his gaze seemed to meet hers from a long way away. She slapped him, frightened to see his eyes blank. Abruptly Alyosha came back to himself and gave her a shove that should have put her in the dust, but she was quick as a squirrel and wearing a new gown. So she writhed backward and kept her feet, and then the two were glaring at each other, chests heaving and fists clenched.
They both recovered their senses at the same time. They laughed, and Alyosha said, “Is it true then, Vasya? Demons among us and torments in store if we do not cast them out? But the chyerti—is he talking about the chyerti? The women have always left bread for the domovoi. What care has God for that?”
“Stories or no, why should we cast out the household-spirits on the word of some old priest from Moscow?” snapped Vasya. “We have always left them bread and salt and water, and God was not angry.”
“We have not starved,” said Alyosha hesitantly. “And there have been no fires or sickness. But perhaps God is waiting for us to die so that our punishment might never end.”
“For heaven’s sake, Lyoshka,” Vasya began, but she was interrupted by Dunya calling. Anna had decreed a meal of special magnificence, and Vasya must roll dumplings and stir the soup.
They dined outside, on eggs and kasha and summer greens, bread and cheese and honey. The usual cheerful muddle was subdued. The young peasant women stood in knots and whispered.
Konstantin, chewing meditatively, wore a glow of satisfaction. Pyotr, frowning, swung his head here and there like the bull that scents danger but has not yet seen the wolves in the grass. Father understands wild beasts and raiders, thought Vasya. But sin and damnation cannot be fought.
The others gazed at the priest with terror and a hungry admiration. Anna Ivanovna glowed with a kind of hesitant joy. Their fervor seemed to lift Konstantin and carry him, like a galloping horse. Vasya did not know it, but in the silence of the nave after all the people had gone, the priest had thrown that feeling into his exorcism, thrown it all, until even a man without the sight would swear he could hear devils crying out and running for their lives, out of Pyotr’s walls and far away.
THAT SUMMER, KONSTANTIN WENT among the people and listened to their woes. He blessed the dying and he blessed the newborn. He listened when spoken to, and when his deep voice rang out, the people fell silent to hear him. “Repent,” he told them, “lest you burn. The fire is very near. It is waiting for you and for your children, each time you lie down to sleep. Give your fruits to God and God alone. It is your only salvation.”
The people murmured together, and their murmurs grew more and more fearful.
Konstantin ate at Pyotr’s table every night. His voice set their honey-wine rippling and rattled their wooden spoons. Irina took to putting her spoon against her cup, giggling to hear them click together. Vasya abetted her in this; the child’s gaiety was a relief. Talk of damnation did not frighten Irina; she was too young.
But Vasya was frightened.
Not of the priest, and not of devils, nor of pits of fire. She had seen their devils. She saw them every day. Some were wicked, and some were kind, and some were mischievous. All were as human in their way as the folk they guarded.
No, Vasya was frightened of her own people. They did not joke on the way to church anymore; they listened to Father Konstantin in heavy, hungry silence. And even when they were not in church, the people made excuses to visit his room.
Konstantin had begged beeswax from Pyotr, which he would melt and mix with his pigments. When the daylight shone into his cell, he would take up brushes and open phials of crushed powders. And then he would paint. Saint Peter took form under his brush. The saint’s beard was curly, his robe yellow and umber, his strange, long-fingered hand raised in benediction.
Lesnaya Zemlya could talk of nothing else.
One Sunday, desperate, Vasya smuggled a handful of crickets into the church and dropped them among the worshippers. Their chirping made an amusing counterpoint to Father Konstantin’s deep voice. But no one laughed; they cringed and whispered of evil omens. Anna Ivanovna had not seen, but she did suspect who was behind it. After the service, she called Vasya to her.
Vasya came unwillingly to her stepmother’s chamber. A length of willow lay ready in Anna’s hand. The priest sat by the open window, grinding a scrap of blue stone to powder. He did not seem to listen while Anna questioned her stepdaughter, but Vasya knew the questions were for the priest’s benefit, to show her stepmother righteous and mistress in her own house.
The questioning went on and on.
“I would do it again,” snapped Vasya at last, exasperated beyond caution. “Did not God make all creatures? Why should we alone be allowed to raise our voices in praise? Crickets worship with songs as much as we.”
Konstantin’s blue glance flicked toward her, though she could not read his expression.
“Insolence!” shrieked Anna. “Sacrilege!”
Vasya, chin high, kept silence even as her stepmother’s willow switch whistled down. Konstantin watched, grave and inscrutable. Vasya met his eyes and refused to look away.
Anna saw the girl and the priest, their steady mutual regard, and her furious face turned redder than ever. She put all the strength of her arm into the
Behind Anna, Konstantin watched, wordless.
Vasya cried out once toward the end, as much in humiliation as in pain. But then it was over; Alyosha, white-lipped, had gone to find their father. Pyotr saw the blood and his daughter’s white face and seized Anna’s arm.
Vasya said no word to her father or to anyone else; she stumbled away at once, though her brother tried to call her back, and hid in the wood like a wounded thing. If she wept, only the rusalka heard.
“That will teach her the price of sin,” said Anna proudly, when Pyotr reproved her for brutality. “Better she learn now than burn later, Pyotr Vladimirovich.”
Konstantin said nothing. What he thought he did not say.
After her cuts healed, Vasya walked more softly and held her tongue more readily. She spent more time with the horses, and concocted wild plans to dress as a boy and go to join Sasha in his monastery, or send a secret messenger to Olga.
Alyosha, though he did not tell her, began to mark her comings and goings, so that she was never alone with their stepmother.
All this while, Konstantin condemned the people’s offerings—bread or honey-wine—that they made to their hearth-spirits. “Give it to God,” he said. “Forget your demons, lest you burn.” The people listened. Even Dunya was half convinced; she muttered to herself, shook her old head, and picked the sun-symbols from aprons and kerchiefs.
Vasya did not see it; she hid in the wood or in the stable. But the domovoi regretted her absence more than anyone else, because for him now there was nothing but crumbs.
Fall came in a burst of glory that quickly faded to gray. The silence of the waning year lay like a haze over the lands of Pyotr Vladimirovich while the icons multiplied under Father Konstantin’s hand. The men of the village labored over a new icon-screen to hold them: Saint Peter and Saint Paul, the Virgin and the Christ. The people lingered about Konstantin’s room and gazed with awe at the finished icons, at their shapes and shining faces. Konstantin was making a whole iconostasis, one image at a time.