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Marya Morevna

DUSK AT THE END OF winter, and two men crossed the dooryard of a palace scarred by fire The dooryard was a snowless waste of water and trampled earth; theintently, heads close together, and did not heed the wet Behind them lay a palace full of broken furniture, smoke-stained; the screen-work smashed on the staircases Before them lay a charred ruin that had been a stable

“Chelubey disappeared in the confusion,” said the firstour own skins” A smear of soot blackened his cheek, blood crusted in his beard Weary hollows, like blue thuray eyes He was barrel-chested, young, with the fey energy of a man who has driven himself past exhaustion to a surreal and persistent wakefulness Every eye in the dooryard followed him He was the Grand Prince of Moscow

“Our skins, and a little riainst all hope, the city was ht before, the Grand Prince had coh few people knew that His city had nearly burned to ash; only a miraculous snowstorashed the heart of the city, as though the hand of God had fallen in the night, dripping fire from its nails

“It was not enough,” said the Grand Prince “We may have saved ourselves, but we made no answer for the treachery” All that bitter day, the prince had reassuring words for everyhis surviving horses and hauling away the charred beams of the stable But the e just beneath the surface “I a out myself, tomorroith all that can be spared,” the prince said “We will find the Tatars and ill kill them”

“Leave Mosco, Dmitrii Ivanovich?” asked the monk, with a touch of disquiet

A night and a day without sleep had done nothing for D to tell me otherwise, Brother Aleksandr?” he asked, in a voice that made his attendants flinch

“The city cannot do without you,” said the ranaries lost, and anieance, Dmitrii Ivanovich” The monk had no more slept than the Grand Prince; he could not quite e in his own voice His left arone into the ain

“The Tatars attacked ood faith,” retorted De from his reply “They conspired with a usurper, they fired ed, Brother?”

The Tatars had not, in fact, fired the city But Brother Aleksandr did not say so Let that—otten; it could not be mended now

Coldly, the Grand Prince added, “Did not your own sister give birth to a dead child in the chaos? A royal infant dead, a swath of the city in ashes—the people will cry out if there is not justice”

“No a back my sister’s child,” said Sasha, sharper than he , worse than any weeping

Dmitrii’s hand was on the hilt of his sword “Will you lecture me now, priest?”

Sasha heard the breach between them, scabbed over but unhealed, in the prince’s voice “I will not,” said Sasha

D serpents of his sword-hilt