“Mother of God,” she breathed. “Ded Grib—he said that magic makes men mad. But I didn’t really understand…”

Morozko’s eyes searched hers, and then some indefinable tension seemed to go out of him. “Why do you think so few people do magic?” he asked, getting hold of himself, stepping back. She could still feel the impress of his fingers, realized how hard he had been gripping her. As hard as she’d held him.

“Chyerti do,” she said.

“Chyerti do tricks,” he said. “Men and women are far stronger.” He paused. “Or they go mad.” He knelt beside the chest she had opened. “And it is easier to fall prey to fear and madness, when the Bear is abroad.”

She drew a deep breath, and knelt beside him before the open chest. In it lay the golden bridle.

Twice before she had seen it, once in daylight on Pozhar’s head and once again in a dark stable, where the gold paled to nothing beside the mare’s brilliance. But this time it lay on a fine cushion, glimmering with an unpleasant sheen.

Morozko took the thing in his hands, so that the pieces of it spilled like water across his fingers. “No chyert could have made this,” he said, turning it over. “I do not know how Kaschei did it.” He sounded torn between admiration and horror. “But it would, I think, bind anything it was put on, flesh or spirit.”

She reached down flinching hands. The gold was heavy, supple, the bit a horrible, spiked thing. Vasya shuddered in sympathy, thinking of the scars on Pozhar’s face. Hastily she undid the straps and buckles, reins and headstall, so that she was left with two golden ropes. The bit she flung to the floor. The other pieces lay in her hands like quiescent snakes. “Can you use these?” she asked, offering them to Morozko.

He put a hand to the gold, hesitated. “No,” he said. “It is a magic made by mortals, and for them.”

“All right,” said Vasya. She wound the golden ropes one about each wrist, making sure she could snap them loose quickly, at need. “Then let’s go find him.”

Outside there came another crack of thunder.

23.

Faith and Fear

KONSTANTIN FINISHED QUIETING THE CROWD at the Grand Prince of Moscow’s gates. The Princess of Serpukhov’s carriage was being unharnessed; the woman herself had already disappeared, with her attendant, up the terem-steps.

One day, Konstantin thought grimly, he wasn’t going to soothe the people of Moscow anymore but rouse them to savagery once again. He remembered the power of that night: all those thousands receptive to his softest word.

He craved that power.

Soon the devil had promised. Soon. But now he must go back to the Grand Prince, and make sure that Dmitrii gave no hearing to Aleksandr Peresvet.

He turned to cross the dooryard, and saw a little, wispy creature blocking his way.

“Poor dupe,” said Olga’s dvorovoi.

Konstantin ignored him, lips set thin, and strode across the dooryard.