Red Winter

11

Lev was nervous, his hands shaking as he gathered the tools he needed, and there was sweat on his brow despite the cold. As soon as he started working on Kashtan, though, he began to relax. He lifted her leg between his knees and cleared the hoof before rasping it and clipping away any loose pieces that might catch and tear.

Anna stayed close to him, her dark eyes watching me with suspicion. She was probably no more than twelve years old, but she had a hard expression, like someone who had seen too much of life, and she stood still, passing a hoof knife from one hand to the other, moving only when Lev asked her to fetch or hold something for him.

The dog lay with his chin between his paws, his eyebrows twitching as he watched us. He behaved as if he had no particular bond to any of us and was only interested in protecting himself but, for some reason, preferred to be in our company. He wasn’t the only one who didn’t want to be alone.

‘You look like you know what you’re doing,’ I said to Lev.

‘I’ve done it before,’ he replied without looking up.

‘But you’re not a blacksmith.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘Not here.’ He passed the nippers to Anna and ran his hardened fingers round the edge of Kashtan’s hoof. ‘The damage isn’t too bad. Maybe a little bruising, but with a bit of tidying up and a new shoe, she’ll be fine.’

He put down Kashtan’s foot and went to the box of shoes beside the table, glancing at the shotgun as he passed it. Anna followed close behind him, taking her eyes off me only to check she wasn’t going to bump into something.

‘If not here, then where?’ I asked, going to the door and opening it just enough to look out. The dog followed my movements as I watched the horizon, but for now everything looked clear.

‘Different places. Nowhere.’ He took a number of shoes and went back to Kashtan, testing for a good fit.

‘No one is from anywhere now,’ I said. ‘No one is anybody.’ I closed the door and watched him return to the anvil to hammer the chosen shoe for a better fit. ‘No one wants to be anyone in case it gets them into trouble.’ The chime of the hammer reminded me of being with the other men of my unit, drinking and talking while the blacksmith prepared the horses for moving on.

‘Is that what you are?’ he asked, placing the shoe on Kashtan’s hoof and checking the fit, feeling for unevenness. ‘No one?’

‘Exactly.’

Satisfied it was right, he gestured for Anna to put out her hand. She stuffed the hoof knife into her pocket, and Lev placed a number of nails on her outstretched palm, then began to fit the shoe, hammering the first nail into place.

‘You look like a soldier to me,’ Anna said, closing her fist round the nails. ‘Is that what you are?’

‘Sh.’ Lev shook his head and spoke to her in a quiet tone. ‘Don’t ask questions.’

‘He looks like a soldier,’ she said under her breath. Then, ‘You look like a soldier.’ Staring at me. Defiant.

‘Do I?’

‘You have a gun.’

‘Anna.’ Lev cast her a sideways glance. ‘Angel, don’t—’

‘It’s all right,’ I told him, then turned to his daughter. ‘Lots of people have guns. Too many people. Your father has a gun.’

‘For shooting pheasants,’ she said. ‘And crows on the crops.’

‘But not these crops, eh?’ I said. ‘Because these ones are not yours.’

Anna shrugged. ‘They are now. No one else wants them. No one else was here apart from—’

‘We found it empty,’ Lev said, glancing up at his daughter, and I saw a connection between them as if they could communicate their thoughts to one another with just a look. ‘It was a good place to stay.’

I watched them, wondering what they were hiding from me, what they had done. Something Lev wasn’t proud of, from the look of him. ‘Empty, eh? Lucky for you,’ I said. ‘Maybe not so lucky for whoever lived here before.’

Lev nodded and tapped his daughter’s hand so she opened it for him to take another nail.

‘Are you a deserter?’ Anna asked.

‘What do you know about deserters?’

‘Nothing,’ Lev replied for her, and another look passed between them. This was one of warning, though – I could see that right away. She was outspoken and he didn’t want it to bring them trouble. ‘We don’t know anything about anything.’

‘It’s the safest way,’ I agreed, smiling at Anna to reassure her I meant no harm. I opened the door a touch and looked out again. It was almost dark now and the distant trees were little more than a dark smudge on the horizon.

‘I know they get shot,’ she said. ‘Or hanged.’

‘Anna.’ Lev shook his head at her as he tapped her hand harder than necessary and took another nail.

‘We saw someone hanged,’ she said, ignoring him.

‘Where?’ I asked, pushing the door shut and turning to face them.

‘A farm we passed.’

‘Just one person?’

She shook her head. ‘Two. And they had stars right here.’ She tapped her own forehead, right in the centre. ‘We even saw—’

‘That’s enough,’ Lev told her.

‘No, that’s not enough,’ I said, raising my voice, making both Lev and the dog look up in surprise. ‘Did you say “stars”? Here?’ I stepped closer to her and touched my forehead just like Anna had done.

The girl’s whole body tensed and she backed away from me, moving nearer to her father.

‘Did you say “stars”?’ I repeated, taking another step.

‘Yes,’ Lev said, dropping Kashtan’s hoof and moving in front of his daughter. He held the driving hammer tight in his right hand. ‘You’re frightening her.’

‘Like they were branded?’

‘What?’

‘Did it look like they had been branded? Burned? The hanged—’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I suppose so, yes.’

I made a calming gesture with my hands and tried to relax. I took a deep breath and nodded. ‘All right. Good. I’m sorry, Anna. Sorry if I scared you.’ I took a step back and spoke to the girl. ‘I’m sorry, but it’s important you and your papa tell me everything you saw.’ I tried to keep my voice even and looked at Lev. ‘Please. When was it?’

‘It was days ago.’ Lev put out his left hand to bring Anna further behind him. ‘I don’t know where it was, what the place was called.’

Lev’s chest rose and fell, his body having begun to prepare itself for defence. His brow glistened with sweat, and his eyes were wide, reflecting the lamplight, his fist tight round the driving hammer. When he spoke, saying, ‘South,’ his tongue clicked in a dry mouth.

‘Carry on working,’ I said, thinking it might help him to relax, give him something else to concentrate on. ‘Tell me when you’re ready, but I need to know.’

I moved to stand beside the door, giving him plenty of space, showing him I meant no harm, and he watched me for a long while before he crouched and put his arms around Anna. He whispered something in her ear and she nodded and hugged him in return, all the while keeping her eyes on me. When they broke apart, she stepped back and Lev picked up Kashtan’s hoof once more, gripping it between his knees as he returned to work.

He took nails from Anna, one by one, hammering the shoe in place then he nipped away the nail ends that protruded.

‘We’d been travelling a while,’ he said after some time. ‘We saw a farm much like this one but closer to the road.’ He took a rasp and filed the nail ends flat as he spoke. ‘There were men there. With horses.’

‘Soldiers?’

‘We weren’t close, but… probably.’

‘Chekists?’

‘Maybe.’

‘You didn’t see their faces?’ I wondered if it was the same men who had been in Belev. The branding was the same – the red star. I had never seen it before, never heard of anyone doing such a thing, so I was sure it was the same man. Perhaps Lev and Anna had seen Koschei.

He shook his head.

It had been too much to hope for. ‘How many were there?’

‘I don’t remember. Maybe as many as ten.’

‘What were they doing?’

‘Leaving. They were mounting up when we saw them, so we let them ride away. We thought…’ He rasped around Kashtan’s hoof, smoothing the edges to match the shoe. ‘We thought we might find something to eat there. That they might have left something.’

‘Did they have anyone with them?’ Having not found any women or children in the forest, I was hoping that he had taken them with him. Tanya said Koschei liked to drown the women, but I had to believe there was a chance for Marianna, and when villages were attacked in the way Belev had been, people were often taken away.

‘You mean prisoners?’ Lev asked.

‘Yes.’

Boys of any age could be indoctrinated and taught to fight, or they could be sent to labour camps to work. Women and girls were also forced to work and fight, but men at war had other uses for them. I could only hope my family had been taken for labour. If that were the case, I could still find them. I could still bring them home.

Lev shook his head, saying, ‘No. Nothing like that,’ and a little of my hope fell away. Maybe Koschei took no prisoners. I tried not to believe that Tanya was right, that Marianna was at the bottom of the lake, and I began to regret my flight from the woods. Koschei had taken the men into the trees beyond the village to torture and execute them. Perhaps he had done the same to the boys. I should have searched further, hunted deeper, and I despaired at the thought of my boys lying out there in the decaying leaves on the floor of the dying forest. I looked to the door, seeing through it and beyond to the forest, considering whether or not I should go back, but Koschei was ahead of me and I was growing certain that there were men following me. I had covered my tracks, but I had to consider that it might not have been enough.

There was no point going back to look for the dead. I had to go on, look for the living, and cling to the smallest hope.

‘How long ago was this?’ I asked.

‘I don’t know. A week maybe. There was nothing at the farm for us, and when I saw them hanging, we moved on.’ He returned to his work. ‘We’ve seen some strange things. One village was empty. No one there at all. After that, we kept away from the villages and towns. Until we found this place.’

‘Belev?’ I said.

‘Hmm?’

‘Was the village called Belev? The empty one?’

‘I don’t know. Is it important? Is it where you’re from?’ he asked.

I shook my head. ‘Somewhere I passed through. Did you see the bodies before or after the deserted village?’

‘Before.’

So perhaps Koschei didn’t take prisoners until Belev. It was possible, and I was willing to cling to any hope.

‘Are you all right?’ Lev asked.

‘Hmm?’

‘You look…’ He didn’t finish, and when I turned to look at him, our eyes met.

‘Have you heard of Koschei?’ I asked.

He was confused. ‘The Deathless? It’s a story, isn’t it? Wasn’t he in a place called Buyan? The island of Buyan, or… No, that’s where his soul was… Why d’you—’

‘But you haven’t heard of a man by that name?’

‘A man?’ Lev paused as he watched me and a long silence passed before he broke the spell and said, ‘No.’ He ran the rasp once more round Kashtan’s hoof, then set it down. ‘Good as new. Have a look.’

I went forward to inspect it, nodding at the cleanness of his work. ‘It’s good,’ I said in a flat tone. ‘The best I’ve seen in a long time. Thank you.’

‘I’ll do the others if you want.’ He looked at me. ‘And thank you.’

‘For what?’

‘For not killing me,’ he said.

And his words confirmed for me what a terrible country this had become, where a man thanked another for letting him live.