The Girl in The Tower - Extract
Moscow, just past midwinter, and the haze of ten thousand fires rose to meet a smothering sky. To the west a little light lingered, but in the east the clouds mounded up, bruise- colored in the livid dusk, buckling with unfallen snow. Two rivers gashed the skin of the Russian forest, and Moscow lay at their joining, atop a pine- clad hill. Her squat, white walls enclosed a jumble of hovels and churches; her palaces’ ice- streaked towers splayed like desperate fingers against the sky. As the daylight faded, lights kindled in the towers’ high windows.
A woman, magnificently dressed, stood at one of these windows, watching the firelight mingle with the stormy dusk. Behind her, two other women sat beside an oven, sewing. “That is the third time Olga has gone to the window this hour,” whispered one of the women. Her ringed hands flashed in the dim light; her dazzling headdress drew the eye from boils on her nose. Waiting- women clustered nearby, nodding like blossoms. Slaves stood near the chilly walls, their lank hair wrapped in kerchiefs. “Well, of course, Darinka!” returned the second woman. “She is waiting for her brother, the madcap monk. How long has it been since Brother Aleksandr left for Sarai? My husband has been waiting for him since the first snow. Now poor Olga is pining at her window.
Well, good luck to her. Brother Aleksandr is probably dead in a snowbank.” The speaker was Eudokhia Dmitreeva, Grand Princess of Moscow. Her robe was sewn with gems; her rosebud mouth concealed the stumps of three blackened teeth. She raised her voice shrilly. “You will kill yourself standing in this wind, Olya. If Brother Aleksandr were coming, he would have been here by now.”
“As you say,” Olga replied coolly from the window. “I am glad you are here to teach me patience. Perhaps my daughter will learn from you how a princess behaves.” Eudokhia’s lips thinned. She had no children. Olga had two, and was expecting a third before Easter.
“What is that?” said Darinka suddenly. “I heard a noise. Did you hear that?”
Outside, the storm was rising. “It was the wind,” said Eudokhia.
“Only the wind. What a fool you are, Darinka.” But she shivered.
“Olga, send for more wine; it is cold in this drafty room.”
In truth, the workroom was warm— windowless, save for the single slit— heated with a stove and many bodies. But— “Very well,” said Olga. She nodded at her servant, and the woman went out, down the steps into the freezing night. “I hate nights like this,” said Darinka. She clutched her robe about her and scratched a scab on her nose. Her eyes darted from candle to shadow and back. “She comes on nights like this.” “She?” asked Eudokhia sourly. “Who is she?”
“Who is she?” repeated Darinka. “You mean you don’t know?” Darinka looked superior. “She is the ghost.” Olga’s two children, who had been arguing beside the oven, stopped screeching. Eudokhia sniffed. From her place by the window, Olga frowned. “There is no ghost,” Eudokhia said. She reached for a plum preserved in honey, bit and chewed daintily, then licked the sweetness from her fingers. Her tone implied that this palace was not quite worthy of a ghost.
“I have seen her!” protested Darinka, stung. “Last time I slept here, I saw her.” Highborn women, who must live and die in towers, were much given to visiting. Now and again, they stayed overnight for company, when their husbands were away. Olga’s palace— clean, orderly, prosperous— was a favorite; the more so as Olga was eight months gone with child and did not go out.
Hearing, Olga frowned, but Darinka, eager for attention, hurried on. “It was just after midnight. Some days ago. A little before Midwinter.” She leaned forward, and her headdress tipped precariously. “I was awakened— I cannot remember what awakened me. A noise . . .” Olga made the faintest sound of derision. Darinka scowled. “I cannot remember,” she repeated. “I awakened and all was still. Cold
moonlight seeped around the shutters. I thought I heard something in the corner. A rat, perhaps, scritching.” Darinka’s voice dropped. “I lay still, with the blankets drawn about me. But I could not fall asleep. Then I heard someone whimper. I opened my eyes and shook Nastka, who slept next to me. ‘Nastka,’ I told her, ‘Nastka, light a lamp. Someone is crying.’ But Nastka did not stir.” Darinka paused. The room had fallen silent.
“Then,” Darinka went on, “I saw a gleam of light. It was an unchristian glow, colder than moonlight, nothing like good firelight. This glow came nearer and nearer . . .” Darinka paused again. “And then I saw her,” she finished in a hushed voice.
“Her? Who? What did she look like?” cried a dozen voices.
“White as bone,” Darinka whispered. “Mouth fallen in, eyes dark pits to swallow the world. She stared at me, lipless as she was, and I tried to scream but I could not.”
One of the listeners squealed; others were clutching hands. “Enough,” snapped Olga, turning from her place by the window. The word cut through their half- serious hysteria, and the women fell uneasily silent. Olga added, “You are frightening my children.”
About the Author
The Girl in The Tower
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