Spinning Silver

by Naomi Novik

He held his hand out to me, and I said in desperation, “I don’t even know your name!” He glared at me in outrage as enormous as if I had demanded he cut off his own head. “My name? You think to have my name? You shall have my hand, and my crown, and content yourself therewith; how dare you demand still more of me?”

“Fine,” I said. He jerked and stared at me in sudden dismay. “What?” “Fine!” I said. “You just demanded—” “And now, for the first time, you make no effort to negotiate—” He pulled himself up short, his face glitter-flushed again, and I had a deeply sinking feeling even as he said, bitterly, “We are agreed. And may you complete as much of your task as you can.”

I leaned conspiratorially close. “My mother had enough magic to give me three blessings before she died,” I said, and he instinctively bent in to hear it. “The first was wit; the second beauty, and the third—that fools should recognize neither.” He flushed. “My court is full of fools,” he snapped. “So it seems she had it the wrong way round.”

Mirnatius spent all dinner looking at me with angry desperation, as if it was near driving him mad wondering what the rest of the world saw in me.

“What I mean—what we mean by it is—it’s like credit,” I said, suddenly thinking of my grandfather. “Gifts, and thanks—we’ll accept from someone what they can give then, and make return to them when it’s wanted, if we can. And there are some cheats, and some debts aren’t paid, but others are paid with interest to make up for it, and we can all do the more for not having to pay as we go. So I do thank you,” I added abruptly, “because you risked all you had to help me, and even if you count the return fair, I’ll still remember the chance you took and be glad to do more for you if I can.”

I could have picked up the dagger and stabbed him myself. “Chernobog still sits in that castle ready to devour all of us, you’re half dead on the ground, and you’d still lie here thinking first of your pride. Be proud after he’s gone!” But he only looked at me reproachfully. “Lady, I will be proud then,” he said, “and before also; I set no limits on my pride.”

I was trembling in all my body. I couldn’t look away from the pail, for terror, for a long time. Only after the last wisp of smoke was gone, then at last with a jerk I turned to look at my girl, my tsarina. The tsar was holding her hands against his chest, the ring on his finger gleaming pale silver like the tears running in silver lines down his cheeks; he was gazing down at her with eyes shining jewel-green, as though she were the most beautiful thing in the world.