“You cannot blame a girl for my horse’s bad temper,” said Oleg mildly, from behind her. “You brought your mare too close.”

“I am going to take her with me now,” said Chelubey. “She is dangerous.”

“The mare or the girl?” Oleg asked innocently. The men laughed again. Vasya kept her eyes on Chelubey. The Russians were edging up on either side of her, closing ranks against the Tatar. Someone had caught Chelubey’s horse. He was staring at her with a kind of enraged fascination. But then, abruptly, he turned away, saying, “Bring the girl to me at nightfall.” With that he remounted and spurred off along the dusty column.

Vasya watched him go. Oleg was shaking his head. “I thought Dmitrii Ivanovich a man of sense, at least,” he said. “But to spend his cousins like water, and for what?” Seeing her face still white and afraid, he added, with rough comfort, “Here,” and gave her a hunk of flatbread. But she couldn’t have eaten to save her life; she thrust the food in her sleeve for later.

THE AFTERNOON DRAGGED ON, and the men of Ryazan began to experience something strange. Their horses were slowing down. It wasn’t lameness, and it wasn’t sickness. But though the men kicked and spurred, their horses would only break into a lumbering gallop, then halt a few paces later, ears flattened.

Oleg and his men found themselves falling behind the fast-moving Tatar column. By nightfall, they were out of sight of the main body. Only the dust, faint against the green-yellow sky, showed the location of the rest of the army.

Vasya felt battered in every limb. Her head was throbbing with the effort of negotiating silently with a whole column’s worth of horses. Fortunately, Oleg’s mare was a sensible creature, held in awe by the others. She was a great help in creating the delay Vasya needed. If Vasya was to be dragged back to Chelubey, she wanted it to be at or near midnight.

They came to a ford, stopped to let the horses drink. Vasya, with a gasp, knelt at the riverbank herself. Gulping water, she was quite unprepared when Oleg took her by the upper arms, pulled her upright, turned her around, hands still wet. “All right,” he said grimly. “Is it you?”

“Is what me?” Vasya asked.

He shook her once, slamming her teeth together on her tongue. She tasted blood. She was reminded that, whatever small kindnesses this prince chose to show her, he would betray Dmitrii Ivanovich to keep his own people safe; he would kill her without a qualm. “I’ve protected you; do I deserve deceit?” Oleg demanded. “Chelubey said you’d ensorcelled a horse in Moscow. I had my doubts, but—” A half-ironic sweep of his hand took in the vanished column. “Here we stand. Are you doing something to the horses?”

“I haven’t been out of your sight,” she said, and did not trouble to keep the exhaustion and defeat out of her voice. “How could I have done something to the horses?”