Troika

Dvrov sat on the edge of the bed, hunched and heavy in the silence. The scent of bitter almonds lingered in the air with a bitter taste like the metallic tang of cold rain. He knew that Armas was awake, still as a watchful bird under his blankets. He felt that their little rooms had become the pivot point of their lives, upon which this hour hung and wobbled restlessly, pulled and tipped by what waited outside. They hadn’t spoken of it, even when their voices returned. It would have to be spoken of, what was done, and said and not said. Not now, when it still prowled and ticked its tail so close.

Lassitude gripped him, weighed down his spine until he bent to rest his elbows on his knees and hang his head. There would be so many words, marching in disordered rows, like ants disrupted from their course, and he couldn’t pick out the threads of what to say and what to keep. He hefted himself up and stoked the fire with one more bole of fir and let his skirts and breeks drop where he stood in front of the fire. There was a cold in his bones he hadn’t felt since that first day, seven years ago.

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Serebryany Teavane Veidrodis got off the train at a quiet cluster of buildings of weathered wood and neat white-wash that shone in that clear grey Northern sun that seems always to carry a memory of snow in it.

He’d passed through a sea of forest on his way through Dukzhemli, trees like the columns of an endless balustrade blurred into a corridor through the cold-warped glass of the train window as they went. Quicksilver Rivers wound between the orchards and the evergreens in the distance, dark as tea when the carriages went silently over them.

He’d sat in the front car and watched the Thaumaturges sweat out the silent sway and shush of the caravan cars. The navigator, a short, stolid woman woman of middle age, was his study for the last leg of the trip.

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Serebryany Teavane Veidrodis got off the train at a quiet cluster of buildings of weathered log and neat white-washed clapboard that shone in that clear grey Northern sun that seems always to carry a memory of snow in it.

He’d passed through a sea of trees on his way into this forest country, trees like the columns of an endless balustrade blurred into a corridor out the cold warped glass of the train window as they passed.  Rivers wound between the orchards and the evergreens, quicksilver in the distance, dark as tea when it snapped by beneath the carriage. He’d sat at the front of the carriage and watched the Thaumaturges sweat out the silent sway and shush of the caravan cars. The navigator, a short, stolid woman woman of middle age, was his study for the last leg of the trip.
He watched the proprietary way her fingertips rested on the runners, and tried to work out some sense of their secret, of how the pressure of her hands could sound the pitch and roll of the land and shift the car through them— if there was some clairvoyance to it, he couldn’t work it out, couldn’t catch the language that wound beneath the verdant green velvet of her tunic where it gathered in gentle folds over a lambskin belt. The knuckles of her hands showed more wear than they should have.

Messages sent through the infinitesimally small cracks of joint bones seemed fantastic and impossible to copy, so he gave it up for a bad job and stretched out his legs. Every navigator did it differently, they said. Maybe that was part of the secret too, or maybe it wasn’t a secret at all, just another magic he couldn’t see the roots of. Something bothersome wriggled at the back of his mind, and he let it, let his knees sway with the carriage, but not enough to bump the portly old man the next seat over, or roust him awake.  

He felt the tug of a spring breeze along the tails of his traveling coat as he stepped down, felt the silver around his wrist grow cold with the last yawn of winter in the air. He followed the runners, a couple of broad shouldered boys with close cropped dark hair and sweat drenched backs, the thew of them showing where their brightly dyed shirts clung, toward a squat building near the station.

It was warm and well lit, and nobody was friendly. There was a pointed contempt in the deliberateness of how they ignored him. He didn’t mind them ignoring him, except for the woman behind the bar, her fox-red hair cut at daring angles along the planes of her broad cheekbones, set off by elaborately worked copper hoops that hung nearly to her shoulders, and almost touched her elaborately embroidered cerulean dress.

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Tura staggered to the road and looked down at the lights among the trees of Kiengrod. Her arm and hand were all searing ache, and she tried not to remember the woman she’d seen trampled by cattle when she was young. Her pulse pounded in her throat and she felt the heat of her blood ebb away on her skin. She grunted and choked down a sob, and focused herself on the rage that burnt in her and kept her on her feet as she slid and limped down toward the distant docks. The bonfires were still alight at every crossroads, and the snow was coming back, heavier than before, to damp the lanterns and obfuscate her path. She fell on the slick stones of the city streets as she found them, landed hard on her knees and caught herself with her good arm. Even that impact made her howl out a curse. Someone poked their head out of their doorway. She tried to hide her ruined arm, heaved herself to her feet and walked on.

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Tura staggered to the road, and looked down at the lights of Kiengrod. She tried not to remember the woman she’d seen trampled by spooked kine when she was young. Her pulse pounded in her throat, and she gave out a deep noise somewhere between a snarl and a moan. Rage kept her on her feet as she slid and limped down toward the distant pier. The bonfires were still alight at every crossroads, and the snow was coming back, heavier than before, dampening the lanterns and obfuscating her path. She fell on the slick stones of the city streets as she found them, landed hard on her knees and caught herself with her good arm. Even that impact made her howl out a curse. Someone poked their head out of their doorway and gave her a sharp look. She tried to hide her ruined arm, heaved herself to her feet and walked on.

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Dvrov buried his nose in Armas’ hair where it was still a little damp from the bath and held him from behind with his thumbs hooked in his belt so that his fingertips rested light on the brocade of his formal tunic. The room was warm and drowsy and made him wish that they had nowhere to go in the cold, that they could stay in the safety of the stone and fragrant cedar and watch the spring snow kick up in comfortable silence. Kienviory wasn’t luxurious in the way of the other five pillars, but there was something to be said for the homely simplicity of the novice’s chambers, for the high arched windows and soft lambswool blankets. It was the library he had come for, the keeping of the long memory, and he hadn’t finished working his way through the oldest archives, couldn’t get enough of the dry animal scent of vellum and the glue of book bindings, the little asides from scholar to scholar, quirks of language and observation that sounded down the years.  Armas threaded a silver hoop through his earlobe and leaned his shoulders against Dvrov’s chest and the pulsebeat in his throat fluttered like a startled bird.

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Dvrov buried his nose in Armas’ hair, still a little damp from the bath, holding him from behind, thumbs hooked in his belt, fingers tracing the brocade of his formal coat. The room was warm and drowsy and made him wish that they had nowhere to go in the cold, that they could stay in the safety of the stone and fragrant cedar and watch the spring snow kick up in comfortable silence.

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            Dvrov buried his nose in Armas’ hair, still a little damp from the bath, holding him from behind, thumbs hooked in his belt, fingers tracing the embroidery of his formal tunic. The room was warm and drowsy and made him wish that they had nowhere to go in the cold, no reason to leave the little stone and wood cell. Kienviory was hardly luxurious, compared to the other five pillars, but there was something to be said for the homely simplicity of the novice’s chambers, for the high arched windows and soft wool blankets. It was the library he had come for, those many years ago, and he still hadn’t finished working his way through the oldest archives, even after so long. Armas threaded a silver hoop through his earlobe, leaning easily against Dvrov, his pulsebeat as quick and nervous as a startled bird.
    “Worried?” Dvrov leaned forward and kissed Armas’ temple gently.
    “I’m not worried.” Armas tensed in his arms, tugging his hair back from his forehead irritably. “I just don’t like this, Orlaveta  passing me off to the new Charodeytsa.” His voice had taken on the monotone huskiness of anxious abstraction, the way it did when he was retreating into his mind and turning something over and over until it began to wear away and wound him.
   “Ah, It’s not like that. It’s a favor, a gesture of goodwill to Zenaida and the house of Igaveni. Raudkvi hasn’t exactly been one of the great spiritual centers of the world.”
   “You’re not helping.”
   “This will make it easier.” Dvrov circled around to stand in front of him and dip his fingertip into a pot of kohl powder on the table. He held Armas’ chin lightly and smoothed the pigment over his eyelids softly, with a kiss to the forehead. He looked the part of a senior novice now, the shadows around his eyes a screen over the last traces of boyhood in his face. “She doesn’t know you, hasn’t trained you. She’ll be impressed with your abilities.”  
   “I think we’re meant to be more impressed with hers. She’s run the ranks damned fast for someone from a backwater like Kamenna.” Armas kissed him on the cheek, his eyes far away, burnished like polished walnut as he redid the laces at his cuffs.
   “Allying with the Veidrodis and the Resviyu has been to her advantage.”
   “Speaking of whom—Selya gives me a feeling in the pit of my gut like I swallowed a stone.” He watched Armas dig through an untidy box of gold and copper torques and rings, some of them crude and heavy, more showing signs of competent and then exquisite craftwork, inscribed with flowing trees and vines, temple hounds rampant against twisting dragons among small jewels. A messy record of his sister’s work, wrapped in rabbit fur and stuck in a rough birch box. He slipped a beautiful cuff of gold and elk teeth over his sleeve, and fixed a copper band around his throat. It was so like them, Dvrov thought, to keep small pieces of each other in unkempt bundles and boxes, careful in their carelessness.
   “You’ve only just met them, give it time.”
   “To get worse?” Armas eyed the room biliously, his nervousness tapped out in a toe heel rhythm as he watched the snow fall through the lead crystal of the window.
   “Ah, just think. Zenaida will be too distracted with thoughts of her Serebryany’s arrival to care overmuch about us. I’ve heard only fine things about him, Tura excepted.” Dvrov leaned against Armas, heavily enough to force him to focus, to come back out of the tangled deerpaths of his mind. “And that he’s beautiful enough to make the gods envy.”
  “Do not add jealousy to my list of woes,” Armas flashed a grin that started in his eyes and worked its way down to a quick kiss, “and thank you for not mentioning the pretty bit in front of her.”
 “Let’s go pray for your success while there’s still time.”
 “My success,”  Armas rolled his eyes and sighed, “should not lie in the talons of a bunch of inbred, politic soaked temple hounds. My only hope lies in divine intervention, doesn’t it?”
 “I’m not sure I shouldn’t take those comments personally, given that one marriage between first cousins last year.”
Armas smiled up at him in earnest, and winked. “Ah, love, you’re like a great curious cat, who likes to drape himself all over warm things. You only get sharp-eyed for dusty old books.”  They walked arm in arm out of the room, feet in practiced rhythm, years worth of knowing the sway of each other’s hips and the set of each other’s shoulders.
  “I have my ambitions.”
  “Writing the definitive historiography of every family in the Empire is hardly a political ambition.”
Dvrov padded beside him through the warm wood and stone halls of the inner chamber, watching the light glint off Armas’ hair, and fall on the black and gold brocade he wore, the garnets in the leather of the belt around his narrow waist.
  “You’d be surprised.”
  “You’ve got that thing in your voice, Dvrov.”
  “What thing?”
  “That Tura thing. She’d twist money out of the Troika themselves for the sheer pleasure of it, and drag you into it.”
  “Killjoy. But the highest council is a bit much. Have to start small.”
  “Or don’t. Don’t would be best.”

Chapter 1

       Tura lay under the dappled shade of a spreading pine, hands linked under her neck, eyes narrowed to watch the scudding cloud wisps burn off in the thin spring sun, scenting the pitch and pine bark, and her brother’s particular mix of ink and clean cotton, and magic below that, magic that was like their fathers but not, a sweet old magic like dried grain and honey. The damp stones of the temple wall mingled with a soft wind from the bay and the first flowers, so that the air was salt and sweet as a kiss.

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