Spinning Silver

This chapter opens from Mirnatius’s point of view. He grows increasingly frustrated with his court’s reaction to Irina, upset that “everyone would love her as absolutely no one did me” (284). He soon realizes that no matter what he does, since everyone loves Irina, anything that happens to her will be considered his fault, including the lack of an heir should she take her marital rights. He reflects on his history with the demon and the promise he had garnered from him—“beauty, crown, and power” (286). Given the phrasing, the demon is perfectly able to beat and burn Mirnatius as often as he chooses, so long as he leaves no scarring that would damage Mirnatius’s beauty. Mirnatius informs the demon about the deal to kill the Staryk king. Delighted to accept, the demon says, “Oh, I will slake my thirst, I will drink so deep. Only he must be held fast! A chain of silver to bind him tight, a ring of fire to quench his might…bring him to me! Bring him to me and make ready!” (288).

Mirnatius is increasingly irked as more and more courtiers fawn over his plain bride. In an effort to understand their attraction to her, he sketches her face faithfully and asks her what it is they see instead of this. She answers that they just see her. The demon appears and offers her beauty, power, wealth, crown, castle, and magic in exchange for the Staryk king, but Irina refuses it all, asking only that he leave her and hers alone. She then tells the demon to begone until it is time for the Staryk king, and he leaves. When Mirnatius expresses surprise that she refused the demon’s offers, she answers him, “I’m not a fool, to take gifts from monsters. Where do you think its power comes from? Nothing like that comes without a price” (295).

When they stop for the night, they are forced to stay in a house too small for everyone. This means that rooms are shared, and she cannot leave for the evening as she has every night thus far. When Mirnatius seems to begrudgingly plan to consummate the marriage, Irina makes the split-second decision to fake marital relations. They bounce on the bed for the sake of the nearby servants, and the farce makes Mirnatius laugh into his pillow. The laughter soon turns to tears, and Irina finds herself surprisingly moved by his anguish. Though she has endured much suffering and sorrow, she doesn’t have such cries within herself. She empathizes, “He would have filled me with them, if he’d fed me to his demon. As he was being devoured himself, perhaps” (297).

Wanda feels out of place in Vysnia among Miryem’s relatives, but Rakhel, Miryem’s mother, is kind to her. Wanda says that there are men with wolves inside of them who want to “eat other people to fill their bellies” (308). Her father, Gorek, was such a man, but Rakhel assures her that she is safe from the wolves now. Wanda starts to believe it; as she and her brothers “held tight, tight; we made a circle together […] around the food that we had been given, and there was no wolf in the room” (309).

Irina resents that her husband’s brief touch on her thigh the previous night had aroused her. Meanwhile, Mirnatius continues showing sketches of her plain face to everyone he can, exasperated when they say how beautiful she is. Irina tells her father the whole plan to kill Mirnatius and his demon then marry Prince Casimir. They discuss preparations for where and how to bind the Staryk king—a secret tunnel under the city. The duke points out that the Staryk raids and winters have always been a problem, but that they have never stopped spring before. He reasons that Irina should try to discover why it was happening now, why their power has increased.

Miryem is waited on by her new servants as Flek, Tsop, and Shofer have been socially elevated beyond servitude by becoming her bondsmen. When she tries to thank them and give them gifts, she learns more about Staryk culture: They did not expect anything more than they had been given and cannot imagine why she wishes to give thanks, which they consider an empty word in lieu of deserved repayment. Miryem understands: “What did it matter that they didn’t speak of kindness, here; they had done me kindness with their hands. I knew which one of those I would choose” (322). Flek brings her young daughter and asks Miryem to name her. In accordance with custom, she whispers the girl’s new name—Rebekah bat Flek—which she imagines will be safely difficult for the Staryk to guess.

Miryem’s husband appears when she declares she is ready to leave for Basia’s wedding. He is strangely solicitous, bowing to her and helping her into the sledge. As they travel, she notes the heavy snow and feels her husband watching her. He announces that he will not answer her questions in exchange for her marital rights that night. Shocked, she argues that they had bargained for them. Her Staryk husband answers that they had bargained for her rights, but not for his. He admits that he had “set no value on them” before, but he has now learned to value her more highly (323). Suddenly, he asks if she requested for answers in exchange for her own rights as a means of showing her “disdain for [his] insult” (324), then laughs at the idea before kissing her hand. He tells her that the days of avoiding the marriage bed are over: “I will make amends tonight, my lady, and show you that I have learned better how to value you; I will not require another lesson beyond this one” (324). As he gestures to the snow during his vow, she realizes the alarming truth: He is not responsible for the “hundred years of winter on a summer’s day” (324) they now see before them. She is. The more gold the Staryk have, the stronger the winters, and she has given them more than they have ever known before. Furious, Miryem allows his proud smile and handholding as she fiercely commits to her plan to deliver him to the tsar’s demon, judging the act “a fair return for the gift he’d given me, the one thing I’d wanted from him after all: I’d lost even the slightest qualm about killing him” (325).

The Staryk king brings Miryem to her cousin’s wedding as planned, disrupting the revelry, but the dancing soon continues. He moves them into a clearing under the Staryk winter sky, and the attendees dance merrily. When midnight strikes, he announces that it is time to go, but Miryem’s parents will not let go of her. He is furious to hear them use her name, as he assumes they mean to bind her. Before he can force them to relinquish his bride, the tsar and tsarina arrive. The Staryk recognizes Mirnatius’s demon and addresses him as Chernobog. The two fight, but the Staryk wins by throwing Chernobog into the fire, binding and commanding him to stay there with his name. While the Staryk is distracted, Wanda throws a silver chain around him, binding him. The Mandelstams and her brothers join her, strengthening their hold on the fairy king. When he asks what Wanda wants in exchange for releasing him, she demands Miryem. He refuses each of the three times she asks, saying, “Never! I will not leave you, my queen, my golden lady; once I was a fool, twice I will not be!” (351).

Finally, he reminds them that they will soon tire and be unable to hold him—it is surely better to trade now than to face his wrath after. Wanda says no, Stepon recognizes the “no” as the same fierce, resolute “no” she had said to their father when faced with forced marriage. It is the nonnegotiable “no,” which derives resolution from the knowledge it is preventing the worst that could befall someone. To Wanda, the worst thing the Staryk could do is withhold Miryem, so there is nothing he can offer her to do so. Furious, the Staryk king tells them that once he is free, he will take Miryem away until everyone who knows her name is dead.

Soon enough, Chernobog rises from the fireplace, binding the Staryk with a circle of candles. He demands the captured Staryk tell him his name, but the Staryk gives him the same unwavering “no” as Wanda. Chernobog rages, insisting that as he has the Staryk bound, the Staryk must answer him. The Staryk sneers, “You have not bound me, Chernobog; you hold my chains, but I owe you no surrender. Neither by your hand nor by your cunning am I bound. You have not paid for this victory, false one, cheat, and I will give you nothing” (355). He swears that no matter how Chernobog feeds on him, he will not give his name. He declares, “My people will go into the flame with their names locked fast in their hearts; you will not have that of them, nor me” (356). Furious, Chernobog offers Irina whatever she wants to give him the Staryk “truly,” but she refuses. She calls for the guards to bind the Staryk with rope so the chain will hold. As they lead him away, the Staryk turns to his wife with a low bow instead of the rage she expects. After acknowledging that he did not properly value her worth, he tells Miryem she has “given fair return for insult thrice over and set your worth: higher than my life and all my kingdom and all who live therein, and though you send my people to the fire, I can claim no debt to repay. It is justly done” (358). Miryem panics, asking herself what she can do next.

Mirnatius considers the current state of affairs, finding himself at the mercy of not only Chernobog but also his wife’s schemes. He makes the guardsman who is clearly infatuated with Irina the captain of her private guard, though he expects that he will be the one to father any “heirs.” When he confronts Irina on her plans to have him killed by the Staryk and replaced with a more convenient tsar, she does not deny it, though she asks about when he made his deal with Chernobog. He states that he did no such thing, that his mother desired a crown and beauty but did not have the means to acquire them, and so “paid for them with a promissory note, and the ink on my contract was dry before I even came wet out of the womb” (367).

Magreta later confirms that not only was Mirnatius born beautiful, but Irina’s own mother, with her Staryk blood, refused to go near the infant. He has told the truth and been a victim of his mother’s ambitions and the demon’s cruel treatment since birth.

Miryem is wracked with guilt that in succeeding in her plan, she has killed not only her husband but also all the Staryk, including her friends and the innocent girl she had named. She speaks with Irina to determine if there is a way to stop the winter without harming the other Staryk, but Irina holds fast to her decision. She knows it will kill the Staryk people, but she sees it as a necessary evil to save her own people, and she is willing to pay the price. Miryem suggests that they ransom her husband back to the Staryk, but they do not know who they could make the agreement with, and even so, Irina is satisfied with the current results and unwilling to risk her people’s safety for the chance to save the Staryk as well.

When Miryem returns to her grandfather’s house, he asks her the same question as always: “He was asking if [her books] were clean and balanced and I found I couldn’t answer him” (376). As much she is soothed by the return to normalcy and her family’s warmth, Miryem cannot put her responsibilities to the Staryk out of her mind; she especially worries about Flek, Tsop, and Shofer, whose lives are bound to hers, as well as the little girl she’d “given a Jewish name like a gift” before going “away to destroy her home” (377). For all she had wished for home and the comforts of ordinary life, Miryem struggles with her sudden lack of power. She cannot undo what she has done to the Staryk or even turn silver to gold. Finally, after much consideration, Miryem has an answer for her grandfather: “I owe a debt and I have to find a way to pay it” (379).