Who Holds the Door

The Grand Steward Oleg entered the treasury as if stepping into ice. Silence died. The rustle - as if the dead had been raised again to write.

The scribes argued over the lists, their eyes hidden behind their fingers.

By the door - lay a quill. Dropped by someone, by whom - no longer mattered. It lay too close to the passage not to be seen. But no one picked it up.

In the center - Radomir.

Like the pans of a scale, frozen under the weight of the final weight. He did not tremble. But he knew which way the outcome would tip.

He folded the papers unhurriedly, as if laying down a border - line by line.

One tore. Not from haste. Not from rage.

Its time had simply come.

He did not flinch. Only placed the torn piece atop the others.

- Oleg, - he said quietly, but as if this name had long been inscribed in the rolls.

The pause between words - not a hesitation, but a postponement of the strike.

Oleg walked slowly, as if he were not moving, but the space was shrinking before him. The entire hall felt it.

One of the scribes - the youngest - suddenly dropped to one knee. He did not know why. No one understood. He rose - and the work continued as if nothing had happened.

- What is this farce, Radomir? - Oleg's voice was quiet, but within it cracked a silence like that of a tree preparing to fall.

The treasurer did not flinch.

- By the prince's order - to restructure the order in the treasury

- Restructure? - Oleg tilted his head, as if listening not to the words, but to what was hidden between them. - And what has he decided to tear out?

Radomir looked straight, without defiance - like an equal, who knows the price of silence.

- A unified account register. So that the rivers of the treasury are no longer lost in the bushes

Oleg was silent. But in that silence - not agreement, but the gathering of a blow.

Radomir added, looking at him with that weary clarity found in those long accustomed to pressure:

- Or did you truly believe that all waters flow where you point?

Oleg said nothing at once.

The scrolls on the table trembled in the draft. Or from him.

He cast his gaze across the hall. Everyone pretended to work. Everyone - except one.

In the corner, by the wall, sat a scribe drawing his quill through empty air. He had no ink. He was writing not for the paper. But for someone who might read it someday.

Oleg smirked with one corner of his mouth. It was not emotion - but a reply.

- Water does not choose. But the dam is placed by the one who knows where the bodies will lie, - he said. - Youth always thinks change is just new parchment. And not the price paid for what collapsed

He cast a glance at Radomir. Long. Not piercing - weighing.

The silence was such that if anyone sneezed now - everything would fall to dust.

Radomir did not answer at once. But not because he hesitated.

But because he let the pause speak more than words.

- The old did not collapse, Oleg. It rotted. And the new order - is not boldness. It is simply time, which you failed to stop

Oleg narrowed his eyes. In his gaze there was no ice. There was the depth beneath the ice. Where things can still drown.

- And what else has he decided?

The question was general - but Radomir did not answer at once.

He looked at the table - and at the scroll lying to the side.

Tightly rolled. Already opened. Without a new seal.

- By new decree. It came this morning

He touched it with his fingers.

Could have withheld it. Preserved the silence. Brought himself less trouble.

Oleg was not someone with whom you easily tear thin threads.

But Radomir knew: whatever Oleg might do, the scroll was no longer a stop. It was a trace.

And so he took it.

Without haste. Without hesitation. As one who knows:

the delivery of an order - is not an act of submission, but the fixation of the inevitable.

Oleg did not ask. He simply watched.

Like one who does not demand - but expects.

Radomir handed it over.

Not with a bow, not with disdain -

with the precision of a surgeon, who knows where to cut so that the pain does not come at once.

- See for yourself. Just do not say later that you were not warned

The scroll landed in Oleg's hand like a coiled snake. Not paper - intention.

Oleg read slowly.

With every word, his jaw grew heavier.

Not the eyes absorbed the order - the throat drew in lead.

His face was not of stone -

shut, like a cell door where they pray for the repose of the living.

- Shelters... - he said, as if pulling a nail from a coffin. - So now they take to caring even for children without kin or cross? Hilarion was not content with schools?

Oleg clenched the scroll.

Not as a sign of strength - but as if he wanted to press into it everything he could not say.

His face remained motionless.

But in his fingers - something cracked.

Like fine cartilage under the nail. Not from rage - from disgust.

- The prince's order, - said Radomir.

Firmly. Like one who had already seen how it ends.

Oleg raised his gaze.

His eyes - like an ice hole: below, not just darkness.

Something breathed there.

- Do you truly believe he came to this on his own?

Radomir did not look away.

- I believe that now he has someone who knows how to open locked gates. Even the ones you yourself marked with a cross

At that moment - in the corner, by the wall - the senior scribe raised his head.

He looked not at Oleg.

At his shadow.

As if waiting for it to move - and speak the truth for the master.

Oleg stepped back. Not retreated - drew the sword. Within himself.

– Hold enforcement, - briefly.

Radomir did not answer at once.

He knew he could object. Cite the deadlines. The order.

But he knew something else too: Oleg would return. Soon. And not alone.

The shadow cast on this decree did not come from Oleg. It came from deeper.

He looked at the scroll like at a stone bearing a stranger's name.

- Of course, - he said.

Not agreeing.

Accepting the inevitable. Like one who had seen how those who tried to hold the door, when it was already opening, burned.

Oleg walked toward the door.

His cloak dragged behind him like the trace of what is not yet dead.

He did not look back. Only threw into the hall -

not a voice, but a rumble from beneath the earth:

- When I return - it will be too late not only to change

It will be too late to breathe, if you failed to understand in time.

The door slammed by itself.

Not merely closed.

But decided: there is no longer an entrance.

Radomir did not move.

Only the corner of his mouth lifted -

not from malice, but like one who knew:

in chess no one argues with the hand that already moves the pieces.

And the figure - was already moving.

Oleg walked across the courtyard of the detinets as if in a dream, where everything was too clear. The stone beneath his feet echoed in his teeth like a copper bell in an empty temple.

The silence was not ordinary - as if it had been scraped out of the air.

He slowed his pace.

Not fear. Pressure.

The kind that cracks you before the floor does.

And then - he appeared.

Did not emerge. Was carved from the air.

A druzhinnik.

Helmet with a scratch - hook downward, a notch on the side. Just like the kind Oleg once used to strike out others' debts.

- Grand Steward Oleg. A letter for you

The voice was neither muffled nor ringing - as if two people had said the same thing, but with a difference in breath.

Oleg took the scroll.

It was warm. Like a palm you should not touch.

He did not ask - who had sent it.

Not because he knew. Because he did not want to know.

The druzhinnik vanished.

Did not dissolve.

Simply in the next moment - he was gone.

As if that which you were not allowed to notice, never truly was.

Oleg remained.

The air around was ordinary.

That was precisely what was strange.

He looked at the scroll.

Something cracked underfoot.

He did not feel it.

But the stone split with a crack.

One that would remain. Even if everything appeared as before.

He unsealed the letter.

The rustle - not of paper.

In the body. Inside the ear.

As if someone had not unrolled a page - but stood up.

The lines came.

Not accusations. Confirmation.

Everything he had hidden. Everything he had forgotten he remembered.

But that was not what struck him.

In the middle - a phrase.

In ink, by another's hand.

But in words that had once been only his.

"You struck out the numbers - in the cellar, where the walls held the sweat.

You whispered:

'If he never finds out - then I am right.'

We remember. The walls - too"

Oleg stood.

Not fear. Not rage. Only understanding.

The kind that does not scream - but knocks against the ribcage from within.

He remembered.

That night. The cellar. Sweat, cold.

And how his fingers trembled - not from fear, but from pleasure.

The numbers disappeared. And he remained.

Alive. Untouchable. Ruling.

He had not lied to himself then.

He did it not for the country.

He did it to prove to himself that he could.

Now it was proven to him.

He folded the letter.

Not with anger - with a tearing attentiveness. Like a testament.

Tore off a piece - swallowed it.

Without need. Without purpose. Only to keep inside himself a part of what he now knew.

He stepped forward.

Did not retreat.

Returned.

The detinets trembled beneath his feet, but he did not notice.

Because when you return - the world should tremble, not you.

He walked - and for the first time did not know why.

But his legs knew.

And so the door - did not wait. It slammed shut by itself.

Oleg burst into the treasury like a knife into a pillow - muffled, but with an inner explosion. The door slammed shut with a sound as if a speech had been cut off behind his back.

The hall shrank. Someone dropped a quill. Someone - their gaze.

And no one picked up either.

He walked toward Radomir's table like an executioner - toward firewood.

Step - exhale. Step - as if ready to strike.

Radomir raised his head.

Did not rise. Did not nod. Only looked - and did not look away.

He already understood. Oleg had not reached the prince.

He had not returned defeated.

He had returned as one who knows he has lost - but has not yet admitted it.

- Oleg, - said Radomir evenly. - All settled?

In his voice - nothing. But between the words - a blade.

Oleg stopped.

And Radomir saw - it was not anger. It was cinder, shaped like memory.

- Not your concern, - he threw. And placed the scroll down, as if shaking it out of himself.

Radomir unrolled the decree.

Slowly.

As if afraid the paper might bite.

- Of course, - he said. Without mockery. Without weight.

As if everything had already been decided. Only needed to be fixed by protocol.

Oleg did not move.

Just stared.

Too long. Too hard.

As if everything inside him was poisoned, and he was searching for who had mixed the venom.

But Radomir did not flinch.

Like a boulder. Like an enemy you respect - and therefore cannot kill.

Oleg turned sharply.

Stepped - the sound rang out as if struck against an empty coffin.

He said nothing.

Everyone already understood.

The decree - remained.

Oleg - was no longer the one who could revoke it.

The door slammed shut.

What remained in the hall was not silence - but the sense that someone had lost their voice.

Radomir did not move.

Just stood.

And felt - now there was someone in this game whom no one could see. But he had already made a move.

- Step by step, - he muttered. - And the prince... no longer has only words. He has - a shadow

As for Oleg, he stepped out into the courtyard - and everything seemed not a world, but a stage set someone had forgotten to take down.

The merchants stirred, but as if inside a glass sphere.

The servants ran, but the sound of their steps did not reach him.

He walked through - without touching.

Stopped at the gates. Looked at the domes of Sophia.

The gold reflected the sunset - not as light, but as a burn.

- He won, - he whispered. - This time

His lips trembled. Fingers tightened slightly.

Behind him a cart creaked. Horses shifted - as if not they, but the air itself had changed posture.

He turned slowly.

The cart waited at the edge of the courtyard, in the same shadow where once he had sat himself - young, trembling.

Back then he was carrying an order of execution. Watching the city drift past, unable to stop the trembling.His bladder gave way.

He wiped himself with the decree. With paper. With someone else's death.

Then - burned it.

So that not a word remained. Not a scent.

Only a trace - under the skin.

Now - the same cart. The same shadow.

He sat. But not right away.

First he stood.

Until the smell of the past had passed - the kind that doesn't reek, but clings to the skin.

He knew that stench - not from the horse, not from the dust.

From the paper.

Once burned - not completely.

On the floor - a drop of blood. Not his. But fresh.

He did not ask.

If blood flowed in the cart - it meant someone else had thought they could bargain with him. And changed their mind.

Oleg did not wipe the drop. Simply looked. It was not a threat. It was confirmation.

Outside, by the reins, stood Yaromir. Silent. Like a shield without inscription.

Behind, on the step, the Varangian Leif adjusted the strap on his axe. Without looking at him. Without checking - just knowing he might need it soon.

The cart jerked. The horse snorted. Yaromir held the reins with one hand - as if holding not an animal, but a vector.

- To Podol, - said Oleg. - Without stops

The cart moved.

He did not look back.

Did not glance at anyone.

- We will strike where no one is watching, - he said.

Not orders. Not schemes. Only a cast - like bait, not for fish, but for rumors.

And then, in a half voice - not to space, but to the motion of time:

- When they turn around - it will already be too late to see