Red Stefan (9 page)

“That's not the end of the story,” said Stephen. His piece of wood had taken a rough animal shape. There was the outline of a head and paws.

“The end?” said Akulina as she scraped her bowl. “Where should I be if that had been the end of my father? No, praise God!” She let go of the spoon to cross herself.

“What happened?” said Elizabeth.

“You may well ask. The prince was in great anger, and if my father had come home that night, anything might have happened. But he didn't come home that night, nor the next, nor the next, nor the one after that. They sent out men to search for him, but they couldn't find him, and what's more, they couldn't find that clearing where the raspberries grew. So then the prince left off being angry, because he thought his foster-brother had been torn in pieces and devoured by some wild beast of the woods.

“A month went by—yes, it was a whole month—and the prince went hunting with his cousin who had come there to visit him. They were separated from the men who were with them.… No, I don't know what they were hunting. The forest was full of beasts, and they could hunt what they liked. My father said it was the finest place for hunting he had ever seen. Well then, all of a sudden they came out into a clearing, those two, and in a minute the prince knew the place. There was the raspberry brake, only there was no more fruit in it and the leaves had begun to wither. And there was the bush where he had lost my father. He called out to his cousin to tell him that this was the place. And he had no sooner done that than the bush stirred and out from behind it came my father. He came pushing through the brake, and the prince's cousin slashed at him with his whip and gave him every bad name he could think of. But the prince never spoke a word until my father had come up close to him, and then he said, very cold and stern, ‘Where have you been, Ivan?' My father stared at him as if his eyes would drop out of his head. ‘You sent me to fetch her, little brother,' he said. ‘I didn't tell you to take a month over it,' said the prince. And the prince's cousin said, ‘Why do you talk to the fellow? Tie him to your stirrup and gallop him home. That's how I'd deal with a runaway.' The prince didn't take any notice of him. He was looking at my father. ‘Why did you do it?' he said. ‘And where have you been all this month that we've thought you dead?'

“My father said that when he heard that word it was like a brand of hot iron on the top of his head. He put his hand on the horse's shoulder to keep himself from falling down. ‘A month, little brother?' he said. ‘It was just now—and you sent me, and I came back again. And where did
he
come from?' said my father, looking at the prince's cousin, a big man, very strong and ugly, sitting up on his horse and scowling like the devil. ‘Look at the raspberry brake,' said the prince. He took my father by the shoulder and turned him round. And there were the leaves withering and the fruit all gone. When my father saw that, he became very much afraid. ‘The leaves!' he said. And the prince said, ‘It's a full month, Ivan. Where have you been?' Well, to the last day of his life that was just what my father couldn't tell. He went after the girl, and when they were behind the bush she smiled at him and took one of the raspberries out of her basket and set it against his mouth, and from that moment he didn't know anything that happened until he heard the prince's voice calling out, ‘This is the place.' And when he heard that, he came out from behind the bush just as I've told you. There were people in our village said that he had run away with the girl and stayed with her as long as she would have him, but that is not true, and a wise woman told my father that it was a lucky thing for him that it was only the one raspberry he tasted, for if he had had more, the devil would have had him, and no chance of his ever coming back.”

“Did he get into trouble?” said Elizabeth.

“Oh no,” said Akulina cheerfully. “The prince was his foster-brother and very fond of him, you see. But my father would never eat a raspberry to the day of his death.”

“It's a good story,” said Stephen. He looked across at Elizabeth and his eyes twinkled. He seemed very strong and merry, sitting there carving his bit of wood.

“It's a
true
story!” said Akulina with a toss of the head. “And it's black shame on you, Stefan, to sit there and doubt your own great-grandfather's word. Where would you have been if he had stayed with the raspberry witch, I should like to know.”

“Not in this room,” said Stephen. “And that would have been a pity—wouldn't it?”

He looked again at Elizabeth, and Elizabeth looked down into her lap. “He looks at every woman like that,” she said to herself. But she didn't mean every woman, she meant Irina.

Akulina's scolding voice broke in.

“No good comes of despising one's parents, I can tell you that, unless they should be evil-doers and witches—and praise God that's a thing we've never had in our family, unless it was my father's cousin that married a woman from over the Lapp border, and then it was only his mother-in-law, and that doesn't count for any kin to us.”

“Was she a witch?” said Stephen.

“Was she!” Akulina's tone became very shrill indeed. “Everyone knows there are a lot of witches in Lapland, and only a man that was looking for trouble would have gone there for a wife.”

“Tell us about it, little grandmother,” said Stephen. “I don't know that story.”

“What's the good of telling stories to people who don't believe them?” said Akulina. But when she had had a look at her baking, she came and sat down on one of the stools and went on talking. “An unbelieving lot—that's what this generation is. And what the next will be like, the Lord knows. Praise God, I shan't be here to see it.”

“Varvara will believe every word you say,” said Stephen—“and so will I.”

Akulina snapped her fingers.

“Do you think I believe you? But this is the story, and the man it happened to was your great-grandfather's own cousin, the son of his father's brother. Mikhail was his name, and he was a forester on that estate I told you of up in the north.”

“Prince Darensky's estate?”

Akulina nodded.

“He was a forester and he lived in a hut in the forest, and that's where he brought his Lapp wife and her mother. The girl was well enough, as I've heard, but the old woman had witch written all over her. Mikhail would have gone to her funeral with a light heart, I can tell you. Not one hand's turn did she do to earn her keep. In summer she'd sit in the open door muttering to herself, and in winter she'd lie on the stove and sleep. Well, one summer's night Mikhail woke up, and when he put out his hand to find his wife, she wasn't there. He called out, but there wasn't any answer at all. He unfastened the door, and as soon as he did that, something ran over his foot. There was a gust of wind that pulled the door out of his hand and slammed it, and when he turned round, there was the old woman looking at him with eyes like a snake. ‘What is it?' she said. ‘Where's my wife?' said Mikhail. ‘Where are your eyes?' said the old woman. And with that he looked again, and there was his wife lying down in her usual place. He went up close, and for all he could tell, she was asleep, but when he put his hand on her, he could feel that she was breathing quickly, as if she had been running. He looked at the old woman again, and she had her hand at her mouth. There was a sight of something green between her fingers like a fresh-plucked leaf, and he could see her jaws working as she mumbled it, and all the time she kept her eyes on him.

“Well, Mikhail didn't say anything, but he thought a good deal, and he took notice that the moon was full that night.

“A month went by and the moon was full again. The old woman, who had seemed to have new life in her after the last full moon, had come to be so feeble that Mikhail was in great hopes that she wouldn't last much longer. On the night of the full moon his wife made him a stew with savoury herbs. He was just thinking how good it was, when he remembered that she had given him just such a stew on the night of the last full moon, and after that he didn't eat any more of it. They all lay down to sleep, but Mikhail set himself to stay awake. Well then, he couldn't do it. He was so drowsy that his eyelids wouldn't stay open, and when he pinched himself he couldn't feel the pinches. He heard the old woman say, ‘Run, honey-mouse, run!' and with that he fell into a deeper sleep than he'd ever been in in his life.

“He couldn't say how long he'd been asleep, when something waked him. He didn't know what it was, but he felt afraid. He jumped up and got a light. His wife was lying there asleep, but the old woman had her head up looking at him as she had done before, and between her lips there was the end of a green leaf. ‘Where did you get that leaf?' said Mikhail. ‘You're dreaming,' said the old woman, and the leaf was gone, because she'd swallowed it. And when he put his hand on his wife, her breath was coming so fast that it frightened him.”

“Where had she been?” said Elizabeth.

Akulina got up, opened the oven door, turned her cakes, and came back again.

“Well may you ask,” she said. “Yes indeed—where had she been? That was what Mikhail was asking himself every minute of the day. At one time he was ready to drag his young wife by the hair and hit her head with a stone until she told him, and at another he could have taken his axe to the old woman. He told my father it was like a dozen devils talking in his head. In the end he ran away from them and went to the priest in the next village, who was a very holy man, which is more than you can say about all of them. The priest listened to what Mikhail had to say, and when he had finished, he told him what he must do. So Mikhail went home again, and when his wife came out to meet him, he spoke kindly to her, and that night he praised her cooking and they were merry together. So things went on towards the next full moon. The old woman had been brisk and spry enough the first part of the month, but come to the end of it, she began to pine and dwine again. So they came to the night of the full moon. The young wife cooked such a supper as would make any man's mouth water, but Mikhail restrained himself. He made believe to eat, but neither bite nor sup of that cooking passed his lips. When the time came to sleep, he lay down in his place with his wife beside him. He closed his eyes, but this time there was no drowsiness in him, he was broad awake. He said over and over to himself the words which the priest had taught him, and every now and then he put out his hand to feel if his wife was there. It must have been about midnight when he heard the old woman stir. She put up her head and began to mutter like someone talking in her sleep. Then all at once she called out clear and shrill, ‘Run, honey-mouse, run!' and with that something ran over Mikhail in the dark. He stared at the door. It did not fit quite close, and the moon shone in along the sill two fingers wide. He saw something small and black run through the crack, and when he put out his hand to feel for his wife, she wasn't there.

“Well then he knew what he had to do, because the priest had told him. He went out of the house in haste and barred the door on the outside with the bar of wood which he had made ready, and when he had done that, he filled all the crack between the door and the door-sill with the clay which he had kneaded and mixed with the holy water which the priest had given him. And after that he took in his hand a bowl with the rest of the holy water in it and waited for what would happen next. It was very bright moonlight. The hut stood in a clearing, and the moon was over the trees. There was a bush beside the door, and Mikhail stood behind the bush with the bowl of holy water in his hand. Whether the old witch inside got the smell of it or not, he couldn't say, but presently he heard her get up and move about. She came to the door and tried it, and found it fast. He heard her go dragging back to her place again. He might have been waiting an hour, or maybe two, when a wind came blowing between the trees. It made the sort of sound that you don't like to hear when you are out alone, and it was colder than a summer wind ought to have been. It came in three gusts and died away again. And the first thing Mikhail heard after that was a little scratching sound like a dry leaf moving on the ground. He looked round the bush, and there was the smallest, prettiest mouse he had ever seen trying to get in under the door. It had pale honey-coloured fur and black eyes, and it held in its mouth a fresh green leaf. Mikhail saw it run to and fro along the sill scratching with its paws, and every time it touched the clay he had kneaded with the holy water, it let out a squeak and ran backwards. From inside the house Mikhail could hear that the old woman was moving again. He heard her move, and he heard her claw at the door to get it open, and he heard her call ‘Come, honey-mouse, come!' And with that he threw the holy water which he had in his bowl, souse on to the creature that was scrabbling there at the sill.”

Akulina paused and looked round her with an air of triumph.

“Souse,” she said—“right onto the door-sill and onto that honey-mouse creature. And what happened then? Mikhail told my father that his heart turned right over inside him with fright. He heard his wife scream as if she was being murdered, and he heard the old woman screech like a lost soul, which is just what she was. He heard her fall down inside the door, but he stood where he was and couldn't move, because there was his wife stretched out as if she was dead, with her forehead on the door-sill and her two hands catching at the posts. After a while he stooped down and turned her over. She looked as if she was dead, and in her mouth, clenched fast between her teeth, there was a fresh green leaf. He had a great work to get it from her, and it wasn't a job he'd any fancy for, but in the end he managed it. Then he unbarred the door and went into the hut. The old witch lay dead upon the threshold. He stepped over her and went to the hearth and burned the leaf to a white ash before he did anything else. When he had finished doing that, he turned round, and there was his wife smiling at him, and yawning. ‘I feel as if I had run a hundred versts,' she said. ‘You may have run five hundred for all I know,' said Mikhail, watching her. And that was all she ever said about the matter. She didn't shed any tears for her mother, and you may be sure that Mikhail didn't. And she made him a good enough wife after that—at least Mikhail made no complaints. But witchcraft will out, and it was a daughter of hers who bewitched the monk Boris.”