The Wind of the North Read online

  Winds of the north

  Book 1 - Riverstein

  Chapter 1

  I used to hate the morning. This horrible dawn watch, when we are pulled out of our sleep and we fall out of bed, ridiculously shaking our heads, kneading a heavy body and chilly crossing barefoot. When all our gut is still resting in the sweet embrace of sleep and thoughts are turning slowly, sluggishly, and eyes are pinching, not wanting to see the miserable reality.

  In the morning, I always had amazing dreams. Lively and bright, filled with fabulous colors and a quiet sense of happiness. I dreamt of maple leaves permeated with sunlight, dancing the charming dance of autumn in the trembling silver wind. Sunset poppies were fragrant and fluttering, and icy well water was burning my laughing lips.

  I've never seen people in my dreams. But I was happy in them.

  Only that was before. Before my nights were a nightmare.

  This morning my head hurt mercilessly after a sleepless night, my throat dried up, my hands trembled. My only wish was to stick my nose in the pillow, tuck the blanket under my stomach and get some sleep, but who would let me do that?

  The Iron Harpy arose on the doorstep of the bedroom before the bell rang on the tower, and looked angrily at our sleepy faces and unbrushed heads. Of course, except for me, still in bed, the sweetest morning dreams are sung and searched.

  - Get up!!!!

  This horrible, hateful word Harpy screamed every day with smell and pleasure, why we hated her even more. Personally, I don't understand those who have no problem waking up at dawn and smiling joyfully at it. Harpy didn't smile, I don't think she knows at all that there is such a mimic absurdity as a smile, but the fact that she felt from morning to nausea (exclusively ours) cheerful is undoubtedly.

  - — !!! Wake up! !!! Stand up! Come on! You lazy bastards!

  Harpy's voice is nasty, tall, on one note, when she yells like that, I sometimes have ears. She also likes to knock on the iron lid of the pot in the morning, as if her own vile overtones weren't enough! A cacophony like that would lift the dead, but we had doubts from time to time, but we still counted ourselves alive.

  After making sure that the girls had climbed out from under the blankets and reached for the ablution room, Harpie cleaned herself up. One minute later, her screams were heard at the end of the corridor.

  - I'm not going to wash my face," said Ksenka, "it's so cold! Brr...

  I silently buttoned up my canvas shirt with my fingers unbent. We got used to the cold, we had bad heat, we saved firewood. Now it's still tolerable, even though the floor is icy, but in winter it will be quite tight. Last year we hanged the windows with hoods, plugged the cracks with hay and rags, and still by morning everything was frozen, the blown hoods were taken away with the ice. And they were still walking in them...

  My place by the window, which I (or rather Ksenka for me) hardly won back in the heat, by winter will be as attractive as an icy hermitage hermit, who want little...

  Really, I won't be here by winter.

  My longing is back, my whiskey's squeezed.

  - Why are you so pale, do they put calms in the pit? - Ksenka mercilessly used to brush her red curls, then spit and twisted a tight bundle on top. - Didn't sleep again?

  - I was asleep," I burst out, "and my head hurt.

  - Well, well," my friend looked obliquely, "she often hurts you! You should go to the equalizer, Yanka, to look at you, it's scary!

  - And don't look," I turned away, peeking at my reflection in the dark window. It's really scary to look at you. His face was pale, with his nose sharply protruding from his thin nose, his eyes circling in blue and black from sleep and fatigue, his white hair packs, and his blue and pale lips. Beauty...

  Ksenka caught my make-up.

  - Chickenpox, I mean it! Go to the herbalist, let her make you some potions! You've become like a ghost! And don't lie about sleeping, I see your eyes sticking together! We have to do something about your insomnia! Behave yourself... and scream again. Go see Danina! Otherwise, I'll go myself, you hear? I'll take her sleep drops and pour them into your tea! At least you'll get some sleep!

  I flinched. With Ksenka, she'll be determined. And you can't explain that I can't sleep! There's no way...

  I smiled through my strength and said as carefree as possible.

  - I'll go, Xenya, I'll go! I promise! After I've built it, I'll go. Get dressed soon, we'll be late for a run, Harpy will skin us three! Again we'll run five laps instead of three. Or without breakfast, which is much worse...

  Mentioning breakfast immediately made us swallow hungry saliva and in record time to get dressed and run out on the street.

  And then we were almost too late. Harpy stepped into the yard a moment later than we did. She didn't look happy. More from the fact that we still managed and deprived her of such a sweet opportunity to punish us. She loved to punish us, especially me, for some reason. I do not know what I did not please her so much, I was not a brawler and bully, I studied tolerably, of favorite entertainment - to sit in a corner, stuck his nose in the old folio. But for some reason it was from the look of my skinny figure that Harpie's face was particularly distorted, and she poured a lot of anger.

  So, as much as I could, I tried not to get caught in her eyes.

  - Line up! Run! Three laps! Move your rake, you fainting shamomahs, move!!!

  We've been saddled in a circle, I was in the middle, trying not to get out of action. The whiplash in the tail is fraught, Harpy was eloquently patting her whip on the shin of her boots, and I had no doubt that if I found myself in the end, she would not use it. And again, I didn't want to feel the sting of the whip on my skin.

  The frosty air scratched my throat, pulled my lungs, but I was grateful to him. He slipped a little bit of the faint night darkness out of his head that made his gut horrified. Thoughts turned hard in his head, like a fat slimy worm in a vial. As hard as I didn't try, it didn't occur to me. You should think about it. Soberly and sensibly, weigh the situation, think about options. And find a solution.

  Although, what solution, except for nausea and panic, bubbling up to his throat, could not come up with anything. And there was no one to consult with. Even Ksenka wouldn't tell me, she'd be scared, she'd walk away from me like I was told, then it would be very bad...

  But what do we do? What do I do?? I can't stand it, I'll fall asleep, and then it'll happen again. I can't sleep, I can't stare, I can't stand it, so I can barely move my legs. And it's only morning. The girls over there run okay, strong, cheered up in the morning cold, woke up. They're brown, their eyes are shining.

  And I'm already on the first round, wheezing like a horse, a cotton body, not listening.

  Sleep... it's good, really, not crawling in the eye, anxious breaks, as I've been sleeping for three months. I would curl up on a warm trampoline, under a fluffy blanket, a cat wrapped around a pillow, and sleep, sleep, sleep... long - long and sweet sweet, without longing, clenched throat, without fear, without Zov...

  The caviar burned with pain, and I ducked out of the muddy, tightening my nap. Still, I was behind, I was in the tail of Harpy, and I gladly took advantage. I caught a glimpse of the swing and my feet flashed again with the whip.

  Even in winter we ran in boots, and short pants, on the knee. On top, shirts and fur coats on our heads were the same black hats. But caviars, caviars are almost naked, covered only with thin cloth socks... And it was very, very painful to get whipped on them. Especially to get on wounds not yet healed and even not really healed yesterday and the day before. What can I say, lately I've been getting on my unhappy legs all the time. To be honest, I've already had a healing bloody mess on my feet.

  Besides, Harpy was soaking her whip in salt solutio
n.

  I got bored knowing I couldn't. It was the Rule. We were forbidden to cry. Punishment had to be taken with stoic and humility, and with gratitude. But today, I did not manage to do so with determination.

  Old wounds dried up, warm blood poured into my shoes. Salt from the whip corroded the skin, nausea turbid in the empty stomach, I feverishly breathed out my mouth, trying to drive it away.

  - Don't whine! - Harpy screamed joyfully, and again my legs whipped a whip. The pain seemed to have burned all over my gut, and I snapped my teeth, almost biting my tongue off and standing on my bent legs collapsed face to face on the track. I didn't even have time to group. I buried blood from my nose. I wiped it with my sleeve indifferently.

  - Get up! I told you! Run! Another lap!

  I wobbled up on all fours, got up a little bit. Palms scraped, nose broken, legs hurt unbearably.

  - Begoommm!!!

  Harpy with her eyes goggled again swung. I almost didn't feel that punch anymore, strange as it was. Shaking, shackling down the path. It's hard to call it running, of course, but at least this way. I had serious fears that if I fell again, Harpy would come off on me completely. The girls had already finished running, I caught some sympathetic looks. It's true, secretly, no one wanted to share my fate.

  I wheezed and staggered along the track, my nose dripped and I wiped it with my sleeve, leaving a red stripe on the fabric.

  And I had to wash it too. And the cold dries long... it's bad. Or should I go to class like that?

  No, you can't, priest Aristarchus has his first lesson in veneration and humility, he's not Harpy, but he's a nasty one... I'd rather go wet...

  I focused on rearranging my legs, the finish line was somewhere in the distance, and it didn't seem to be coming at all. Uh, I'm not crawling...

  We need to distract ourselves, think of something that will distract us from the pain in our legs, from the stifling tears and endless fatigue.

  The vision of a warm treadmill with a warm, fluffy blanket... soft, soft, warm... you have to shake it up again.

  "...the wind of the wings gives me, pushes me gently into the back... covers, closes, helps, helps, - I waved a child's song under my nose, - the fluffy snow will cover everything, calm down... calm down..."

  And... what's next? Oh, I forgot!

  Oh, I didn't even notice how I got to the gate behind the baby counters. Harpy looked with wild eyes, didn't expect such vitality from me, a walking corpse, even dropped a whip. And slowly, as if through force nodded to me, letting go.

  With joy, even the strength appeared to me! And I almost ran to the orphanage.

  As I entered the building, I turned around. Harpy was still standing in the middle of the yard watching me. Her gaze made my skin frosty even at a distance, oh, not good... Slowly circling and snowflakes settling around her. Wow, I didn't even notice when it snowed.

  It's the first one this year.

  * * *

  I missed breakfast. While I spun an extra lap, while I fiddled my shirt sleeve, wrinkled, washed, and wrapped up with caviar rags, breakfast was certainly over.

  My stomach was already burbling, I think, for the whole shelter, so I wanted to eat. But when I burst into the refectory, the girls were already pushing the benches and brooms under the tables.

  I almost howled from hunger.

  Avdotya's cook gently lured me into the nook with her finger.

  - You got the chicken pox again? - She asked me quietly. I nodded nicely. I see, I see. Who's gonna miss breakfast voluntarily? The cook shook her head pitifully. Of all our trustees, she was the only one who felt sorry for us, Danina.

  True, this pity was of little use, "pity and bring novices" was strictly forbidden. And the cook and the herbalist are local, village women. They lived in a poor village, but here, in the shelter, they earned at least some medyanka and therefore they did not want to quarrel with the mentors. They'll be chased away alive.

  And Avdotya is also homeless, her hut burned down in a fire two years ago, and no one wanted to put a new one for a manless woman. And no one really wanted to put a new one. In the village there are only old men and abandoned women. That's why the women's pity was expressed only in sad sighs and sorrowful looks at us, bitterling.

  - You whipped again?

  I wince and nod. The legs under the rags were whining and bleeding, the good under the brown hoodies we were wearing could not be seen. But I was limping noticeably. And my nose was swollen.

  - Oh, poor thing, why is our Gar... oh... Mrs. Karislava so mad at you!

  I giggled. Well, yes, Harpy's behind the eyes, of course, but Mrs. Karislava! Oh, fuck her!

  Avdotya giggled too, her eyes ran out of wrinkles, and I admired her good-natured, round face with eternal blush and freckles.

  I mean, she looked at me very sadly.

  - How slim are you, Vetriana, horrible... Painful, skinny... and with a nose that's a fever? Did you fall?

  - Yeah... - I drove carefree on my shoulder, greedily smelling the refectory. The porridge today seemed to be corn. Usually Avdotya made it a little burnt and liquid, but it was delicious...

  Something gurgle in my throat.

  Avdotya's bent on the dungeons. They focused on scraping the floor with brooms.

  - Here, take this - in the pocket of my hoodie's apron, a piece of bread with dried cheese and a blushing apple from one side. I swallowed it, and I could barely resist my happiness so as not to kiss it.

  - Quietly," Avdotya smiled a little, "don't make a noise. Go on, soon the class will begin. You'll be late, you'll be in trouble again.

  - Avdotya!! Thank you! Here... to marry you! To... to... I was wondering what it would be so good to say. After all, my knowledge of grooms was very poor. And where would they come from, apart from Aristarchus' naughtiness, they didn't see any men. So, once in six months the rector, a fat, plump man, who we were afraid to look at, and sometimes the messengers looked in. And the village, smelling afterwards blisters helped in the shelter for the household, that's all our experience.

  - Here's to the rich! - ...and the handsome one!

  Avdotya laughed.

  - Oh, you bastard, bastard... how rich and handsome is he? In our deafness...? There are crooked people here, and the wretched and those were grabbed, and you say... and who's going to be happy with the old woman when the young men sit? Eh... you're a fictitious woman, Vetriana. - Avdotya invited an apron and smiled slyly, - and who will I leave you on, silly? Go on, run.

  I nodded and jumped into the corridor, putting bread and cheese in my mouth. It's delicious!!! Mmm...

  * * *

  I did a little bit of class. I was always poking my nose, sleeping. From sleep deprivation, even the feeling of hunger somehow dulled. Especially since in addition to the gift of Avdotya and Xenya took care of me, dragged from the morning meal lean mat with sour cowberries. I honestly returned half of it, knowing what a girlfriend is sweet, and how rarely we get such delicacies.

  Extremely satisfied, we quietly scrambled a delicacy, divided my apple and drank all the ice, even the teeth svet, water from the wall fountain.

  Aristarchus thundered about sins and redemption, I honestly tried not to fall asleep. Ksenka poke a feather at my side a couple of times, and I flinched, pointlessly staring at the teachers.

  But my creepy appearance, even Aristarchus was permeated, and he did not touch me today, but mowed unpleasantly. Though he is basically squinting, so he mowed, maybe not at me, but at his friend. That's why we both stared carefully.

  After a meagre meal of empty rye and rusty brisket (the feast of the stomach, apparently, ended on the morning mat), we were finally released to prepare. The girls sat down to teach lessons, but I curled up on the bed without any effort. Behind the window was gray, the snow stopped and the sky tightened the usual autumn frown.

  With a deaf echo in my memory, I remembered a very different autumn: soft, iridescent, bronze-gold with bright flashes of falling maple leaves, piercing blue sky
and sharp, drunken smells of sweet grass. And happiness, carefree, calm, confident happiness, like another scent, just as natural and clear, just as necessary...

  When was that? And whether it was at all... or again my head gives wishful thinking away as a real, strange mishmash of dreams and fantasies. But how joyful it is to dive into those dreams!

  Here at the border, this autumn has never happened. Maybe it's because there were no maples? Only ate. Huge, severe, standing with a dense wall, like severe prickly guards, stuck with sharp tops in the frowning sky.

  After a cold summer, there was an autumn frown here once, without transition or preparation. The sky was lightly tightened by clouds and tedious, monotonous rain poured out to the ground in dirty, gray and yellow streams. One day the roads were being driven, turning a trampled track with clay, a slippery and impassable mess, and we sighed sadly: autumn.

  Truly, not to find a better place for education of humility and longsuffering!

  I sighed, trying not to rest my swollen nose on a rigid pillow.

  And I fell asleep as if I had fallen into a hole.

  Chapter 2

  - Don't touch me! Leave me alone!!! I don't want to!!!!!

  - Chickenpox! Come on, wake up!

  I jumped up on the bed, whining and waving my hands pointlessly. I think I even got in. Rogneda rubbed her blushing cheekbone and looked at me for good.

  - What's wrong? - Stuttering, I asked.

  - What, what? - Rogneda cried out," you screamed like a madwoman again! Why, though, she is, she is! I got sick of screaming. You wave your hands like a mill, too, and look! And I wanted to help!

  - I'm sorry, - I hung my legs from the bed, circled the eyes of frightened girls, - I just... I had a nightmare.

  - It's happening again! - Rogneda splashed her hands scornfully," she said, "you've had enough of your nightmares, you malacholite! I got it, you know? At night she screamed, now in the afternoon as well. And with your hands, why wave? Why do you have to fight? That's how you help people...

  - Shut up," Ksenka shouted and Rogneda shut up. Ksenia is strong, if anything, and maybe give in the eye, not shy, I was lucky with her. Rogneda stepped back and began, grumbling, to rub the bruise. But with foresight, she stepped away from us.