Enchantment

10

Old Gods

There is always a symmetry in magical things, a balance, so Katerina well knew what to expect when she stepped off the invisible bridge into the land of Ivan's birth. Nothing could be carried across the bridge; only what you already had would be restored to you. So yes, of course, the fire-holed priestly robe disappeared from Ivan's body and was replaced by the clothing he had been wearing on that fateful day when he fought his way to the place of her enchantment and kissed her awake. And yes, she felt the cool breeze of evening all over her body, for her own clothing had vanished, to be replaced by nothing, for she had never been in this place and had no vestment here.

The shame of it made her breathless for a moment. True, Ivan was her husband; but since he did not love her and would never come to her as husband now, she felt no stirring of anticipation to soften the shock of being exposed before a man. A woman's nakedness was a precious thing, to be protected until it was given as a gift to her husband. Or, in this case, to her people, for was it not for their sake that she had done all these things? Made a vow to this stranger, and crossed this bridge, and now exposed herself to any eye?

Ivan laughed.

In that moment she hated him, that he would laugh at her.

"Oh, you're angry?" he said.

She did not like the taunting tone of his voice, and turned her back on him.

"I wasn't laughing at you," said Ivan, "I was laughing at fate. The—" He searched for a word. "—malice of fate."

No, she was not going to hide from him, as if she had cause for shame. She turned to face him, though she could not stop herself from covering her breasts with her arms. "I'm naked and you're laughing," she said.

"I'm not laughing now," he said. "But it's childish of you to be angry at me. You laughed at my nakedness."

"I did not," she said. Though the moment she said it, she could not remember if she had or not. But why shouldn't she? "You're a man. Men are naked whenever they want."

"Not in my world," said Ivan. "In my world, it's women who are more often naked. But I'm sorry that I laughed."

He began unfastening his shirt. What, did he think she'd feel better if he joined her in nakedness? Or did he think this was a good moment to consummate their marriage vows?

Neither. He shrugged the shirt off his shoulders, pulled the sleeves over his wrists, and then offered the thing to her.

"And what would I do with this?"

"Wear it," he said.

Was he insane? Had he learned nothing? "I'm a Christian woman," she said. "What you suggest is too wicked to imagine."

He rolled his eyes, as if she were an annoying child. "In your world, you were right, and I was wrong to wear women's clothing. It was better to be naked."

"Then why are you offering me this?"

"Because this isn't your world. And here, it's no sin for a woman to wear men's clothing. In fact, it's done all the time, and it means nothing. Christian women do it and no one thinks ill of them. A woman puts on her husband's shirt and we think it's charming. That it shows love and intimacy between them."

She was horrified to think that Christianity had come to such a pass. "And does the husband put on his wife's dress?"

He looked embarrassed. "Well, actually, no. I mean, some do, but we think of that as... strange."

"The world may be insane, but I am not," she said. She turned her back on him again. "Wherever we're going, let's go. The day is late, and I'll be cold if I spend the night in the forest."

"Katerina," he said. His tone of voice was one she hadn't heard from him before. Angry. No, masterful.

"What?" she said.

"Look at me," he said.

She turned to face him, letting her own anger show. "What is this? Are you claiming the right of a husband? Or do you forget that even as your wife, I'm the princess of Taina?"

"I'm forgetting nothing. I'm claiming nothing." But his tone did not become meek again. "You're the one forgetting something. This is not your world. There is no Taina here, and no princesses. Only a naked woman and a man with clothing on. And in this world, people will suspect only two possible explanations. One is that he has raped her. The other is that she's a whore."

The insult was unbearable. Without even thinking, she slapped him.

"Oh, good," he said, not even seeming to register the sting of the slap, though his cheek turned red. "So you've decided to make them think I've raped you. What will happen, of course, is that I'll be taken to... I'll be taken away and punished. And since you don't speak the language here, and can't prove who you are, and if they do understand you you'll have these wild stories about being an enchanted princess, I can bet you'll be put in a... pen for crazy people. And that's the end of the story."

She had no idea what he was talking about. A pen for crazy people? A man taken away for rape? Either he married the woman or was killed for it by the woman's family.

She hadn't really thought of it before—though she should have, she saw that now. His bizarre behavior when he arrived in Taina wasn't a private madness of his own. He came from a mad world, and by crossing the bridge, she had entered into madness. The rules were different here; that's why he came to Taina with strange expectations.

But how much did a Christian woman have to compromise just because she was in a strange place? Her first instinct was: Compromise nothing. God's law is not changed, just because a woman travels from one place to another. It is still a shame for a woman to be naked, still a worse shame for her to put a man's clothing upon her.

And yet... if he told the truth, what then? She was not a whore; should she behave in a way that made people think that she was? That was a kind of lying, wasn't it? And he had not raped her—indeed, he could not rape her, for the vows had been said, and it was his right to use her body as he saw fit. So he was the opposite of a rapist, he was a kind husband who had not forced his reluctant wife, and he even now respected her decency by not eyeing her naked body even though it was on plain display for him. Instead, he was offering her a way to cover herself.

"Adam and Eve covered themselves with leaves," said Ivan.

"That would keep us warm for a night," she said. "But we couldn't walk far."

"They covered themselves to hide their nakedness," said Ivan. "They covered themselves with whatever they had available. Here is a piece of cloth with sleeves for your arms and a way to fasten it closed across your body. It may once have been used as clothing by another person, but that person renounces it. It is not his clothing. It is not clothing at all. Here... it's garbage." He dropped the shirt on the ground. "Look!" he said. "A piece of cloth! I wonder what it could be? Look, Katerina, maybe you could use it as a kind of gown."

Was he mocking her with this childish pretense? "Do you think I'm so stupid as to be deceived?"

His face flashed again with anger, but he controlled it, kept his voice calm and measured. "Listen, Katerina. To me, the idea of walking naked into your village was the most shameful, humiliating thing I could imagine. You could not have found a better way of debasing me, in my own eyes. But you told me that this is how it had to be done, in your world, and I obeyed, no matter how hard it was for me. I trusted you."

"This is how the devil talks," she said coldly. "I didn't tell you that you couldn't wear my hoose 'in my world,' I said a decent man wouldn't even try to wear a hoose at all!"

"In your world," he said again, insisting, his voice angrier. "In my world, a decent man would not let his wife—no, any woman that he respected—stand naked before others. It would be the most shameful thing you could do to me—again. Again, because you're always right and nobody else knows anything, again you are determined to shame me."

The vehemence of his tone shook her. "Do you, as my husband, command me to defile myself by wearing this shirt?"

He seemed to despair at this. "In my world a man doesn't command his wife, he persuades her. If he can."

"Then why are you raising your voice to me, if not to command?"

"I obeyed you, when you told me what to do in your world," he said. His voice was soft now, but no less intense.

"Of course you did. I'm the princess of Taina."

"In my world, princesses can stamp their pretty little feet and issue commands to their heart's content, but the only people who obey them are their paid servants. Common people like me pay no attention at all."

These words frightened her even more than his immoral claims about women wearing men's clothing. "Is the world turned upside down, then?"

"At least in our world we don't have witches threatening to take over a kingdom unless the princess marries a complete stranger who fights a bear and jumps a moat and kisses her awake."

She didn't understand how a world could even exist where people had no respect for authority, where women wore men's clothing and husbands did not command their wives. And she was cold. The sun was behind the trees now, and in the shade the breeze began to have teeth to it.

She bent over and picked up the shirt. She tried not to weep, but could not contain the tears of shame that came to her eyes. She put it on like a hoose. The sleeves hung longer than her arms. She did not know how to fasten the big heavy buttons, and couldn't keep the sleeves from falling over her fingers as she tried.

He came to her then and buttoned the shirt, his hands awkward between her breasts, at her belly; but he was gentle, and he seemed genuinely sorry for her tears. He tried once to wipe them away with his hand, but by reflex she shied away from him. He withdrew his hand at once, as if she had slapped him again.

"It's all right," she said. "You can touch me. It's your right."

"It's my right," he said, "to touch a woman who loves me and trusts me and gives herself to me freely, and not just because of some ancient witch's curse or her duty to her country."

She could not help thinking: This is not the way Dimitri would have acted, if he were my husband. She honored Ivan for the difference.

He fastened the last button, his hands brushing against her groin, but only incidentally, without any intimate intent; but that very detachment on his part, that lack of interest, made his touch all the more disturbing. She shuddered.

"Sorry," he murmured. "I've never dressed a woman before."

When he stood up, he was blushing. Now she saw that it wasn't weakness in him, to be so sensitive to shame. It was kindness. He cared about her, about how she was feeling. Just as he had cared for Lybed. Just as he had tried his best to do his duty and become a soldier for her sake. Katerina tried to imagine a druzhinnik blushing for any reason. The only time their faces turned red was when they were full of drink, or when they had worked themselves into a sweat on the practice field.

Ivan began to roll up her sleeves. He did this more deftly than he had done the buttoning. Soon her hands were free.

"If you had done this first," she said, "I could have—"

"I know," he said. "But I didn't think of it till after. Let's just add it to the long list of stupid mistakes I've made."

The job done, he stepped away from her. He looked at her face for a moment, but what he saw there must have displeased him, for he turned his back and walked to the edge of the pit and looked down.

What had he seen in her face? All she felt was fear, uncertainty. She was wearing a shameful thing and trying not to act ashamed. Was that what made him turn away?

She could see that Ivan was trying to be a good man. He was not a devil, nor a servant of Satan. She had seen his actions long enough to know that he was almost priestlike in his gentleness. He had never used a sword. He was peaceable as a lamb. Wasn't that more Christian than to be a druzhinnik, spending his days preparing to kill other men?

How could she, a Christian, have failed to see such Christlike attributes in this stranger? Jesus said to judge not, lest ye be judged. How unjustly have I judged him, again and again?

"Ivan," she said softly.

He did not turn to face her. "What," he said, his voice dispirited.

She had to know if he really was the man of peace she had just imagined him to be. "When you fought the bear—had you ever fought an enemy before?"

He did not answer.

She asked again. "Was it the first time you ever used a weapon, when you flung that stone and put out the bear's eye?"

He turned on her, and to her shock there were tears on his cheeks. He made no effort to brush them away, and he sounded, not sad, but angry when he answered her. "You're right," he said, "I'm a contemptible weakling, I'm not strong and brave like the men in your father's druzhina, you're right to despise me."

She would have interrupted him, told him that her question had not implied criticism of him; but he gave her no chance to speak.

"I never fought an enemy," he said. "I never held a weapon in my hands, and I never intended to, and I still never intend to, now that I'm not in Taina anymore. And if, for some reason, I ever did have to take up a weapon and use it against an enemy, there is one thing I can promise: I would not be doing it to impress you with how manly I am, because I don't give a rat's ass what you think of me."

She had never heard anyone curse by referring to the anus of a rat before. It was a loathsome thought, and her face showed her disgust.

"Whatever you may think of me," he said, "and however you may hate wearing that shirt, I know where there's a warm house and a clean bed, and plenty of food and water, so I'd suggest you follow me. Princess."

And to think that for a moment there, I was actually imagining him to be a little bit like Jesus.

But he knew the way to the house and the fire, to the food and the drink. And he was her husband, and she knew her duty. He had dressed her in rags of shame, and now she would come and bear her shame among his people. She stepped toward him. He turned his back on her and strode off into the woods. She followed him. Only now and then did he glance back to make sure she was with him. She always was.

Katerina's nakedness might be somewhat covered, but her appearance would certainly excite comment if she were seen. Besides, her feet were bare, and the road, so smooth to the tires of a car or the soles of Ivan's American running shoes, would be rough to feet more accustomed to meadows or the leafmeal forest floor. So they stayed in the woods, within sight of the road, except where they had to cross a stream or avoid a steep hill.

Katerina said nothing—never asked for help, and her breath never grew labored—so he had to glance back to be sure she was still with him. Only now, when her body was covered, did he allow himself to think of the sight of her body, of the electric moments when his hand brushed against her. My wife, he thought. By right, the woman whose body I should know, the woman who should know me. Each glance at her, dressed loosely in his shirt, the cloth sliding across her skin as she moved, filled his imagination and fed his desire for her.

It also fed the bitterness in his heart. Of course she was being unfair to him. What difference did that make? In games of love there is no umpire to call foul. By twentieth-century standards he wasn't a bad guy, but Katerina had no way of knowing that. He could see her beauty and wit and nobility, while easily forgiving the flaws that came from her culture; but she could see only his flaws and forgave nothing, and that was that.

He had no business loving her in the first place. It was Ruth he was engaged to, Ruth he should have married. How was he going to explain this to Ruth? Something came up when I was vacationing in the ninth century, and I married this girl who hates me. In 1992 we'll celebrate our eleven-hundred-and-second anniversary. Oh, and she doesn't speak any language now spoken on earth, and I had to become a Christian to marry her, and... you understand, don't you, Ruth?

The marriage hadn't been consummated. It could still be annulled, couldn't it?

Of course it couldn't. Baba Yaga still threatened Taina, and was held at bay only by the fact that Ivan was married to Katerina.

Only now, walking alongside this modern road, Taina already seemed less real. How could something he did now in the twentieth century have any effect on the distant past?

He glanced back again. She was still behind him. Still beautiful. Still the woman whom he had come to admire and love. Without him, whom would she speak to? Where would she go? The only merciful thing would be to annul the marriage and take her back to the pedestal and leave her where he found her. You cross your bridge, baby, and I'll cross mine. Status quo ante. Have a nice life.

Only it wouldn't be a nice life, if she went back to Taina without a husband.

I'm stuck.

He heard a truck engine, the indescribable rattling noises that can only be produced by Soviet-made vehicles. It was coming up the road toward them, the wrong direction for him to ask for a lift.

He glanced back again and, for the first time since he had known her, saw Katerina frozen with fear.

"She's coming for us," said Katerina.

"What?"

"The Pretender," she said.

"She can't make a noise like that. It's only a... truck." He had no choice but to use the modern Russian word, gruzovik; there was no proto-Slavonic equivalent.

His use of a strange word didn't help much, but his utter lack of apprehension did seem to have a calming affect. He took her shoulder and led her off into the brush by the side of the road. By the time the truck came along, they were invisible to the driver. Ivan kept his arm around Katerina, and she stayed close to him. It was sweet to have her body beside his, to feel her—well, technically, his—shirt pressed against his bare chest. He wondered fleetingly if Dimitri would stand so calmly in the face of the hideous monster now coming up the road. But that was a cheap thought, and he despised himself for thinking it. He was not brave to face the coming of the truck. He knew there was no danger. But a druzhinnik showed courage in the face of enemies that Ivan could never dream of fighting off.

When the truck rattled by, she put an arm around his waist and retreated deeper into the crook of his arm. Let there be a hundred such trucks, he thought.

"You saw the man inside," he said. "It's like a wagon, but instead of horses or oxen to pull it, there's a... fire inside. An oven. Not for cooking. An oven that makes the wagon roll."

"It was rolling uphill, and nothing pulled," she said. "Why did you lie to me?"

"Lie? When did I lie?"

"You said there was no magic in your world."

"This isn't magic. This is... a tool. Like a scythe or a basket. A tool for doing work. The truck carries the man and whatever load he needs to bear. Just like a wagon. Only faster, and bigger loads, and the truck doesn't need to rest as often as a horse."

She put her free hand to her face, the fingers touching her forehead. Not covering her eyes, really. Just... hiding.

"It's gone now," he said. "There's nothing to fear."

She shook her head. "I'm ashamed," she said.

"Of what?"

"You were so foolish in our world," she said. "But now I see that I'm a fool in yours."

Well. This is progress. "Not a fool," he answered. "I learned as quickly as I could, and you'll do the same."

"I know of no spell to make a wagon move by itself. It would take the Widow herself to do such a thing."

"The Widow wouldn't want to make a truck like that" he said, even though he knew she wouldn't understand the joke.

"Gruzovik," she said, using the Russian word he had used for the truck.

"That's good," he said. "A new word."

"How many new words are there?" she asked.

"A lot," he answered.

"A hundred?"

Let's see, he thought. Toilet, vaccine, magazine, movie, television, bank, automatic teller machine—a triple threat!—hamburger, ice cream, pizza, shampoo, tampon... No, it was not his job to explain that to her.

Whose job was it, then? What woman who spoke proto-Slavonic would be able to instruct her on how to unwrap it and insert it and...

If he had to explain it, she was going to learn about sanitary napkins. It's not like she was going to wear a bikini anytime soon.

What am I doing? What am I in for?

She stirred under his arm. "We should go on before it gets dark," she said.

"Yes, of course," he replied. "I'm sorry, I... I don't know how to begin teaching you the new words. I'm not even sure I should try, because if you go home with me to my family's house, most people don't speak Russian."

She snorted at the mention of the Scandinavian Rus'.

"I mean the language of the word gruzovik. They speak another language there, and a gruzovik is called 'truck.' "

"Truck," she said. She could not shape the English word very well.

"Never mind," he said. "Plenty of time."

But as they continued to walk toward Cousin Marek's house, he began to realize how impossible everything was going to be. He couldn't take her to America for the simple reason that she had no passport and no way to get one. There were no birth certificates in the ninth century, and it wouldn't matter if there were, no one would believe the date on it anyway. She did not exist, in fact. And the moment she opened her mouth, she would be branded as foreign, from some unidentifiable Slavic country, definitely in Ukraine illegally. However people in Taina might have regarded him with suspicion, they didn't assume he was a criminal because he talked strangely and arrived naked. It helped that it was the daughter of the head of state who led him into the village, of course, but... modern life was complicated.

If she couldn't go to America, neither could he stay here. His visa was not forever.

His visa.

How long had he been in Taina? Weeks, anyway. But when Katerina was asleep on that pedestal, a few months in Taina were eleven hundred years on this side of the chasm. Had he just pulled a Rip van Winkle stunt? Gone for a walk in the woods, and when he came back, twenty years had passed? A hundred?

No way could a Soviet-made gruzovik still be running after twenty years, let alone a hundred.

But even if he had disappeared for only the weeks that he was aware of having lived through, it must have caused terrible consternation here. Cousin Marek would have become alarmed by nightfall, and the next day there would have been a search. By now the search would be over, everyone convinced that he was dead somewhere in the forest. Mother and Father must be grieving, and Ruth. Would Ruth grieve? Of course she would, what a thing to doubt!

I have to explain. Gone for weeks, and when I come back, I have a girl with me who happens to be wearing nothing but my shirt.

Don't borrow trouble, he told himself. We have no choice but to go to Cousin Marek's house, and once we're there, with clothing, food, shelter, we'll figure out what to do next.

The sun was setting red behind them when they made the last turn and Cousin Marek's farm spread out before them like a Grant Wood painting. Ivan stopped for a moment, drinking in the familiar view. It had not been twenty years, that was certain, for nothing was changed.

"Taina," whispered Katerina.

She misses her home, thought Ivan.

"What have they done to Taina?"

"Taina is another time and place," he started to explain.

Then he looked again, as if with her eyes, and realized what had never crossed his mind until now: Cousin Marek's farm was on exactly the site of the village of Taina. His house was on the same spot as King Matfei's house.

In fact, estimating the positions of the two houses, Ivan realized that he had slept in about the same place in both. How could that happen? Mere coincidence? No one in Taina could have known where he slept in Cousin Marek's house. And yet they led him to the very spot.

It could not be. Impossible. And even if it was true, it was meaningless.

Ivan looked around for the high ground where the fort had been, with the practice field where he had been trained—or was it tortured?—by Dimitri. No building stood there now; it was a stand of trees, newish growth with lots of underbrush. But amid the clutter, were the outlines of the walls still there?

"Taina is gone," she said. "We failed. My people are destroyed." She was weeping.

"No, no," he said, pulling her to him and comforting her like a child, letting her cry against his chest. "Eleven centuries have passed. Cities rise and fall, and villages come and go, but it doesn't mean that the Pretender defeated your father, I promise you. If we went back and crossed the bridges, we'd see that nothing was changed. When I went to Taina, all of this disappeared and was replaced by your village. But it was still here when I crossed the bridge. Do you understand?"

She nodded, pulled away from him. "You understand these things," she said. "But to see the land with my father's house gone, replaced by this great castle."

"It's not a castle, it's just a house. We build taller houses in our time. Warmer ones, too. Let's go inside."

"This is your house?"

"My cousin's house. But Marek and Sophia have always made me as welcome as if I had been born here."

"Where is the village?"

"A long way from here, if you're walking. But not far by gruzovik."

"The servants live there?" She pointed.

"No, they keep birds there." Chicken wasn't part of the regular diet in Taina, and Ivan had never learned the word, if they even had one. "Like geese, only they don't roam free."

"To keep them safe from the foxes?"

"Yes," said Ivan. It occurred to him that the new henhouse Marek had shown him so proudly stood exactly where the church had been until it burned down yesterday.

No, it wasn't yesterday, it was this morning. His wedding morning. All of this in a single day? No wonder he was tired and hungry.

They came to the door and Ivan knocked.

The door was flung open so immediately that Ivan was momentarily frightened. Had Marek been watching at the window?

No, it was Sophia. "Vanya's back!" she called over her shoulder. Then she turned back to face Ivan, radiant with joy at seeing him. She opened her arms and was about to embrace him when she saw Katerina.

"What's this? What are you wearing? You must be freezing! And Itzak, you foolish boy, where is your—oh, she's wearing it. What was she wearing before she was wearing your—never mind, come in, get warm, get warm, time for stories in the kitchen, are you hungry? I have a big soup, I made plenty of borscht today, as if I knew you were coming, and cold, come in, don't dawdle."

Laughing, relieved at the welcome, Ivan ushered Katerina into the house. How much of Sophia's torrent of words did Katerina understand? She stayed close to him, her arm around him, as she looked around her at the wonders of the house.

He tried to see the room through her eyes. Dimly lighted by the setting sun through the windows, it was a mass of shadowy shapes, hummocky furniture, and vaguely reflective frames on the walls. A fireplace. A rug on the wooden floor. How did that feel on her bare feet, the varnished wood? Or maybe she was merely looking for the fire that was keeping this room so warm.

They came into the kitchen, and Katerina blinked against the brightness of the electric light.

"You keep a fire on the air," she said in awe.

Sophia stopped cold. "What accent is that?" she asked. "I can't place it."

"It's not an accent," said Ivan. "It's another language... you understood her?"

Sophia ignored his question. "It's not a fire, child, it's an electric light," she said to Katerina.

The word made no sense to the princess. She reached up toward the dangling light.

"Don't touch it," said Ivan. "It can burn your hand."

"But it's not a fire," said Katerina. "It's like a single drop of water, alive with light, and larger than any water droplet ever was."

Ivan could not resist impressing her further. He reached for the light switch, toggled it off. The room went almost fully dark, for the kitchen window faced east, the direction of darkness in the evening.

"Turn it on, foolish boy," said Sophia.

Ivan obeyed.

Katerina turned to him, her eyes full of wonder and consternation. "Why did you not do this in Taina, if you had this power?"

"I told you," said Ivan, "it's not my power. It's a tool." He showed her the switch, made her touch it, then turn the light off and on again.

"So the magic is here on the wall, for anyone to use," she said. "Who ever heard of witches sharing their power so readily?"

Ivan might have tried to explain more, though he was acutely aware of Sophia watching them, her eyes sharp with curiosity; but the conversation was interrupted by the arrival of Cousin Marek, freshly bathed after the day's work. "Vanya, you young fool, do you know how worried Sophia and I have been these three days since you went off in the woods and didn't come home?"

So it was only three days that he was gone?

He might have pondered more about the differing flow of time between Taina and the modern world, but he was distracted by Katerina. For upon seeing Cousin Marek's face, she sank to her knees and hid her face in her hands. "What's wrong?" Ivan asked her.

"You have brought me to the land of the gods," she said. "Are you a god yourself?"

"Gods?" asked Ivan. "What do you mean?"

"Does Jesus live here, too," she asked, "or is there another land where Christ and Mary live?"

"This is my cousin Marek," Ivan said. "He has a big voice and a big heart, and he's strong as an ox, but that doesn't make a god of him."

She looked at him as if he were an idiot. "You are his cousin? Why didn't you tell me?"

Ivan looked from Marek to Sophia. "She's saying that she thinks Cousin Marek is a god. I have no idea why she—"

But neither Marek nor Sophia was looking at Ivan or listening to his explanation. Instead they were looking at each other, with a very serious look on their faces. Without letting her gaze leave her husband's face, Sophia said, "Where did you find this girl, Vanya?"

"Lying asleep on a stone in the woods," Ivan said, not sure whether this was a good moment to tell the whole story.

"What's your name, child?" Cousin Marek asked Katerina. It took a moment for Ivan to realize that he was speaking to her in fluent, unaccented proto-Slavonic.

"Katerina," she said. "Daughter of King Matfei of Taina."

"Taina," said Marek. His face grew wistful. "I loved that place. But I stayed away too long." He took a step toward Katerina, reached out a hand to her. She took it, let him raise her up. "Matfei had a daughter. I saw her last when she was two years old, clinging to her father's leg when she met me. But she let go of him, and did me a courtesy such as the one you offer now, and I raised her up like this."

"I was the little girl," said Katerina. "I remember. My earliest memory, the sight of you. When you reached out to me, I stopped being afraid."

"Of course," said Marek. "I didn't want you to be afraid of me. I'm no enemy to such a one as you, Princess."

Ivan could hardly grasp what they were saying. "You've met each other? You knew her as a child?" Ivan laughed. "She was a child a thousand years ago, Cousin Marek."

At his words, Marek again looked at Sophia; one of them was asking something with a look, and the other answering, but Ivan had no idea what the question was, or who was questioning.

It was Katerina who answered him, after his words hung unanswered through a long silence. "Ivan, is it possible that you don't know?"

"Know what?"

"You call him Cousin Marek," she said, "but in Taina every child knows his name." She turned to face Marek. "Mikola Mozhaiski," she said. "You said you were my father's friend. Where were you when he needed you? And now you live where his house used to be, and he is gone, and the whole village, and only I am here." She burst into tears.

Ivan moved to comfort her, but Sophia was nearer and quicker. So Ivan watched as Cousin Marek strode to Sophia and also put his arms around the weeping girl. Ivan saw that, and yet he also saw quite another thing: He saw Mikola Mozhaiski, protector of sailors, ancient but unforgotten god, enfold the enchanted princess of Taina in his arms. It was the stuff of great legends; it was a charming farmhouse scene.

One thing was obvious: When Ivan told Katerina that there was no magic in his world, he had no idea what he was talking about.

Esther had never been much for reading, especially in English, a language which could not be spelled correctly even if you managed to remember that when you see R it means P and not backwards R, P means ∏, B means 6, C sometimes means K, and never mind about Y and H and N. Hopeless. But she had to do something to pass the time. Piotr didn't want her to interrupt him; he didn't take it seriously, her worry about Vanya. "If something was wrong, you think Cousin Marek wouldn't call us?"

She had no answer for that. Cousin Marek should have called. The fact that he hadn't meant that he thought everything was all right. Certainly Esther knew that Vanya was alive, wherever he was. She would bide her time.

But how was time supposed to be bided, when every moment was filled with urgency for which there was no action? So she opened books and magazines. She looked at the faces in People and didn't recognize anybody, even though she had known all the faces only last week. It was as if all the time she had been in America was a mistake. If she had stayed in Kiev, then Vanya would not have been without her, she might have been able to follow him into this place, whatever it was.

Can't think about that. Close American Heritage and open National Geographic. More pictures of people who mean nothing to her. Find a book on the shelf. One in Cyrillic this time. The letters string across the page like kites, bobbing here and there in random patterns. Very pretty. Close the book, find another. Hebrew. Dots like measles surrounding the letters. Nothing held her.

She got up and went outside, touched the basin where it sat on its pedestal, already covered with the dander of the sky—dust, a feather, tiny twigs, several leaves, and dead insects, enough to portend a massacre if she were doing omens, which she was definitely not, there was nothing to read in this thing. She tipped the bowl to spill a little, then picked it up and dashed the fouled water onto the lawn. Then she put the basin back onto its pedestal and looked down into the blackness. A few insect bodies clung to the inner surface; one was alive, beginning to dry out, moving a frail wing. She thought of crushing it to vent her fury. Instead she blew lightly, drying it faster. In moments, it began to crawl along the basin. Then it flew, or rather staggered, into the air. Some bird would eat the sluggish thing before too long. It had survived the basin only to die in the air. There was no tragedy in that, only cliché. Each day every man and woman and child on earth either died or didn't, and if they didn't, then they'd die another day.

Yet it made all the difference to her, if it was her husband or her child. For that moment's flight out of the basin, she would give her life.

Or take someone else's. That, too, in case anyone cared. If once she got Vanya safely home again, then whatever enchanter wanted him would have to reckon with her. After leaving Kiev, she had thought never to use the wardings and curses that she learned from Baba Tila, for now there was no danger, no more KGB, no more gulag, no more fear of someone getting rousted in the night.

The trouble was, what Baba Tila taught her was for use against those with no such powers of their own. The old lady had said that Esther had a talent for it, that there must be some Hebrew magic of her own that she was adding to the spells. But would that be enough, if she had to have it out with an enemy who knew as much as Baba Tila, or more?

If only she knew who her enemy was.

O God of Israel, wilt thou not suffer a witch's son to live? I've never called on Satan, or spoken to the dead like the cursed witch of Endor. I've sought to use this power for the good of good people, and if it's a sin, then let the sin be upon my head, but not my child, not my son.

Can't think like this. There's no point in praying. I long since chose another road, consigned myself to Sheol, there's no looking back from that, Baba Tila was plain about it, you can have what your grandmother had, but only if you choose what your grandmother chose.

Esther picked up the basin and started back to the house.

Then gasped and dropped the basin, caring not a bit if it chipped or broke, for she had felt him step back into the world, just as she had felt him go; as, before, she had lost the sense of him and felt desolation in its place, so now she felt the desolation leave her like a toothache suddenly cured. The world was right again. Vanya was in it.

Didst thou, O God, save him?

She hesitated before bending over to pick up the basin. If God did it, would he then see it as a repudiation of his gift, if she tried to save a tool of her witchery?

It might as easily be that God cares not at all whether I do spells or not, that the rabbis are all wrong about it, and...

And it might also be that God had nothing to do with it, that it was just the moment that it would have happened anyway, whether she prayed or not.

Indeed, over the past three days, when might it have happened that would not have been within an hour of a prayer?

She reached down; the sore place in her back pained her, but she felt no fresh pull of muscle, there was no new stab of pain. Her fingers went under the basin rim, for it had fallen facedown; when she pulled it up, torn grass came with it. Small deaths, for one life saved.

If I offend thee, O God, forgive me, but I know not whether it was thy hand that brought him back, or not, and if not, I can't take the chance of giving up what small powers I have to protect my family. If thou wouldst have me cease this work, then speak, or show me by some simple sign, and I'll obey, and trust in thee, O God of Israel.

She waited. She looked around her, searching for something that might have been sent from God to speak to her. She listened in her own mind, for the still small voice that Elijah heard. But all was silent, except for that sweet presence of Vanya in her heart.

Cousin Marek tried to be gentle in answering Katerina's questions, and when he grew impatient, Sophia shushed him, calmed him down. Finally the princess seemed to see that Mikola Mozhaiski was not omnipotent, like the Christians claimed their God to be, nor omniscient either, and he was away on business. In one of his testier moments, he snapped, "It wasn't my job to look out for Taina, you know, it was your father's. And yours!" But that set Katerina to crying again, and Sophia gave Cousin Marek such a look as would freeze the heart of a mortal man.

Ivan watched and listened, waiting with his own set of questions, but also ready for sleep. It had been a long day, full of surprise but also of disappointment. He had thought Katerina would need him in the modern world, but no, she comes straight to a place where everyone speaks proto-Slavonic better than Ivan. Well, maybe this would let Ivan off the hook. Now that Mikola Mozhaiski was in the picture, Ivan was free to move on. Deus ex machina. The god had just popped out of the sky—the second-story bedroom, actually—and he'd take care of the damsel in distress. Ivan's whole purpose had been nothing more than to bring Katerina here. That was done. He was ready to sleep.

No sooner thought of than done. He woke to Sophia shaking his shoulder. "Wake up so you can sleep in your bed," she said to him. "Poor boy, so many centuries, all in a few days."

Sleepily he asked her, as he might have in a dream, "Are you a goddess?"

"Oh my no," she said. "Immortal by association."

It sounded like a dream answer, too. But then she tousled his hair and he decided he was awake after all. Katerina and Cousin Marek were gone. Well, of course. Maybe they already went back to Taina. Ivan was too tired to care. He walked up the stairs to his room and barely remembered to take his shoes and pants off before sliding under the covers.

My wedding night, he thought. You lucky bridegroom, you. Got away from the people who wanted you dead, didn't you? Greedy to wish for more.

In the morning, though, waking at first light of dawn, he had a different attitude. He'd been jerked around by fate, and every decent impulse had led him into ever deeper trouble. Now the game had finally moved to the part of the field where the referees were standing around having coffee. Time to get them back on the job. Put Baba Yaga in her place, get this marriage annulled, send Katerina back home, and let me get on the plane to America. I've got a dissertation to write, parents who miss me, and a wedding—a real one this time, with a bride who doesn't think I'm a geek.

When he came downstairs, Katerina was learning the workings of a modern stove—well, what passed for one in rural Ukraine. She was wearing an old dress of Sophia's—a very old one, apparently, because, though it fit her loosely, it wasn't as voluminous as it ought to be. Sophia greeted Ivan with a cheery smile, but Katerina didn't look up. True, she was involved with the complicated business of cooking, which was pretty unfamiliar to her even without the modern conveniences. But to Ivan, it was just one more reminder that she was no wife of his, and never would be.

"Where's Cousin Marek?" asked Ivan.

Thoughtlessly, he had spoken in modern Ukrainian, but the question wasn't hard to grasp for Katerina, and before Sophia could answer, she laughed rather nastily and said, "You still call him that?"

Ivan didn't want a fight with her, though he thought it might have been more appropriate if she had remembered just a little of how she clung to him yesterday as the truck passed by.

"Don't be annoyed, Vanya," said Sophia—could she read his mind? "The princess is angry with my husband, not with you."

"What good does it do to be angry with an immortal?" asked Katerina.

"None at all," said Sophia cheerfully. "But there's no accounting for tempers. I'm surprised you slept through all the shouting last night, Vanya."

"Nobody was shouting at me, I figure, so I didn't care," said Ivan. "Still don't."

"Well, you will," said Sophia.

"No he won't," said Katerina. "He never cared about anything. Long ago he wished he had never fought the bear and kissed me awake."

Well, that was true enough. Though there had also been moments where he was glad of it, too. No need to mention that right now, however.

"That business with the bear," said Sophia. "We always wondered how that happened, and we weren't about to ask."

"What happened?"

"How Bear lost his eye, of course. Never would have imagined it was our little Vanya."

"That bear is still around?"

"He's not laying for you, if that's what you're wondering. He stays well to the north and east of here these last few centuries. It's Moscow where he has his den, where the winter still is his. But he mostly lies low. Came out to give a hard blow to Napoleon, and again to stop Hitler. Armies wake him up, but otherwise, he doesn't much care about the doings of human beings."

"So her bear is still alive," said Ivan. "Does that mean she is, too?"

"Thank you for not saying her name in this house," said Sophia. "And I have no idea where the old bat might be. Not a trace of her in many a year. But my husband has some idea that she might have followed you here. That's why he's out looking over the land."

"Did he do that when I disappeared?" asked Ivan.

"He knew where you were going—into the enchanted place where he couldn't see."

Ivan snorted. "Are all the immortals around here half-blind?"

Sophia looked at him sharply. Katerina seemed not to breathe.

"Oh, I see, now that I know who he really is, I can't tease."

Sophia laughed. "Marek sees as well as ever. But into a strange place like that, no one sees."

"Except me."

"You walked in there."

"So what stops him?"

"He can't, that's all. He walks straight toward it, then finds he's walked past it, and his path was straight, but still it bent."

Ivan shook his head. "And yet I walked in as easy as could be."

"You walked in because wherever you ran, it was always nearby," said Sophia. "It was calling to you."

"It," echoed Ivan. "What is the it that was calling me?"

"The place."

"Someone made the place. Or made it what it is. Didn't they?"

Katerina spoke up. "Maybe no one made the place, Ivan. It follows no plan. The enemy cursed me to die; my aunts cast spells to leave me somewhere short of death, and set rules by which I could be saved again, but where the place was, they couldn't choose and didn't know."

"And the Widow, she didn't choose, either?"

"Maybe she did," said Sophia. "But she didn't make the place. She only used it."

"So who made the chasm? Who built the bridges?"

"The chasm is how the Widow's curse expressed itself," said Sophia. "Bear ended up trapped in it, because it was by his power that her original curse of killing was made. By her plan, Bear was supposed to appear and tear Katerina cruelly apart. But instead he went round and round under the leaves. Katerina and Marek and I talked this out this morning, before you were awake."

"I see I wasn't important enough to include," said Ivan, unable to keep a nasty edge out of his voice.

"What did you know about it?" asked Katerina. Perhaps she meant no insult by it, but all he heard was scorn.

"We're including you now," said Sophia, soothingly.

"Look, I've never had any power," said Ivan, "so I don't even want to know. Cousin Marek can fix things now, have it out with the old witch. Then Katerina can have the marriage annulled and go back and marry somebody appropriate. And I can go home and marry Ruthie."

It was Katerina's turn to recoil as if slapped. "You repudiate me?"

"We aren't really married," said Ivan. "You never wanted me, and I'm engaged to someone else, so it'll all work out nicely for everyone."

Katerina looked to Sophia, but the older woman simply looked away. She was not going to be part of this.

So Katerina looked at Ivan. For a long time she looked, till he squirmed like a first-grader caught in a lie. "There is no divorce in Christ," she finally said.

"There's no marriage until I've bedded you," he answered, using a harsh proto-Slavonic term for it.

"Aren't we the polite one," said Sophia.

"Did I use too crude a word?" asked Ivan. "It's the one used by the men out in the practice field."

"It's not the word," said Sophia, "it's the heartlessness of what you said."

"Heartless?" said Ivan. "My supposed wife has never felt anything but contempt for me. How tender am I supposed to feel in return? My supposed father-in-law plotted to kill me. Exactly how seriously should I take their religion?"

"He didn't plot," said Katerina.

"You said yourself that Dimitri would never have attempted my murder if he didn't have your father's consent."

"If he didn't think he had my father's—"

"Don't hurt each other any more, children," said Sophia.

"How could I hurt her?" said Ivan. "She'd have to love me before I could do that. All I am to her or anybody in Taina is either a tool or an obstacle. I was the tool that woke her from her enchantment and got her home safely. Of course, I can't claim credit for that, either, since you tell me I was forced into it."

"Led up to it." Then Sophia switched to modern Ukrainian. "Don't you love her? This beauty, this bright and powerful woman?"

"She understands Ukrainian well enough," said Ivan, "so this won't let us have a private conversation in front of her."

True enough, Katerina was blushing at Sophia's praise—or perhaps at the bluntness of her question.

"What does it matter what language I speak, then?" said Sophia. "Everybody understands everything, and nobody understands anything."

"I think it's all very clear," said Ivan.

"So do I," said Katerina. She looked Ivan in the eye. "I release you now. We'll get the annulment. You were already betrothed to another woman, so you could not enter into the vow."

"He wasn't engaged to anyone," said Sophia. "He married you a thousand years before he ever met Ruthie."

"It's his own life that he'll be judged by, and, in his life, before he said he'd marry me, he said he'd marry her." Katerina looked at Ivan scornfully. "Not much of a king you'd make after all, to be so easily forsworn."

"It was agree to marry you or get killed by a bear," said Ivan.

"I'd rather die than break an oath."

"That always seems to be my choice," said Ivan, "but where would you be if I had chosen your way?"

"Still enchanted," she said, "waiting for a man of honor."

"Stop it!" shouted Sophia. "Enough, you two! These are terrible things that you'll be a long time wishing you could unsay."

She was right. Ivan already wished it. When he offered to annul the marriage, he realized now, he had been half-hoping that she'd refuse, that she'd insist that she wanted to be his wife. That she loved him, or might love him, or wanted to love him. Instead, he had provoked this outburst, in which she had exposed the full measure of her contempt for him. Because of his engagement to Ruthie, Katerina didn't even regard herself as sworn to him now. So his last hope with her was gone—if there had ever been a hope.

"What a shame you didn't let Dimitri kill me," said Ivan. "Having me alive is inconvenient to everyone. Me not least." He got up and left the table. No one said anything to call him back.

Katerina was so angry she could hardly eat, though the food was good and she didn't wish to offend Sophia.

Sophia, for her part, ate with gusto, while smiling in amusement at Katerina's lack of appetite. "He really makes you angry, doesn't he."

"I hate a man whose oath is worthless."

"Men and women these days break off engagements whenever they want. No one thinks of it as oath breaking."

"And you approve of this?"

"Approve or not, that's the world in which Ivan and his Ruthie agreed to marry. Either one of them is free to break the engagement, without cause. So you can give up this nonsense about despising him for breaking his engagement with her."

"So was his engagement to me just as worthless?"

"He married you, didn't he?"

"And annulled it the first chance he had."

"He offered to annul it, if that's what you wanted."

"When did he give me any choice? When a man says he wants to annul—"

"You have to understand, Katerina, customs have changed. A woman in this world is as free to make choices as a man is. So maybe when he offered to annul the marriage, he thought he was giving you what you wanted."

"Why would I want to be shamed in such a way?"

Sophia sighed. "Katerina, are you trying to be slow of understanding?"

Katerina flushed with anger, but she contained it. Sophia was the wife of a god.

"Vanya—your Ivan—is a good man," said Sophia. "And he was a good boy, when he first came here. I don't know why he was drawn to you, when even my husband couldn't enter your prison in the woods. Was it someone's plan? I don't think so. I think that the spell that bound you could only be opened by one who was... extraordinary in some way."

Since Katerina had already thought of this, she was a little resentful at the reminder. "You think I haven't tried to think of something praiseworthy about him?"

"Oh, and you're going to tell me now that you haven't ever seen anything to honor in this man?"

Katerina shook her head. "I won't tell you that. He seemed to be trying, back in Taina, to be a decent man. My father said that Ivan seemed to have a king's heart. But the moment he crossed the bridge into this place, he began acting foully. Making me wear his shirt!"

"He was correct and you were wrong."

Katerina was stunned. "You! Does the wife of Mikola—"

"No names, no names," said Sophia. "Call him Marek, now, please, as all do in this place."

"Does the wife of such a man as Marek think that it's right for a woman to wear a man's clothing?"

"No one would have mistaken you for a man. Men generally wear pants with their shirts."

"It's not about being mistaken, it's about—"

"About being decent," said Sophia. "And I tell you that decency changes from year to year, from land to land, and you have to learn the customs of the place you're in. Vanya did things for your sake that felt shameful to him—and you, for his sake, did things that were shameful to you. I think that's a good beginning to your marriage."

"Shame?"

"Bending."

"It's hardly a beginning to our marriage, is it, when he's about to annul it?"

"Do you want him to? Is there a man back in Taina that you love?"

Katerina wasn't sure what she meant. "Whom would I have loved? It was not for me to choose." She thought of Dimitri. She certainly didn't love him, nor he her.

"There you have it," said Sophia. "In Vanya's world, young people marry for their own reasons—usually for love, or desire that they think is love. The parents barely get a chance to give advice. Vanya's mother thought his engagement to Ruth was deeply wrong, but he hardly listened to her."

"So everyone marries like peasants? A wink and a nod and a hop over the broom?"

"Vanya keeps looking for a sign that you love him."

Katerina was completely flustered by this. "How would I love him? I barely know him."

"Nonsense," said Sophia. "You've had ample opportunity to see the kind of man he is. But all you ever show him is your disapproval."

"Because I disapprove of what he does!"

"Yes, you're honest enough, child. But he has, quite logically, come to the conclusion that you find him loathsome and, being a decent man, he has offered you your freedom from your marriage vow, so you don't have to be married to someone you find so distasteful."

"What does any of that matter? I married him to save my kingdom. My kingdom still needs saving."

"He thinks my husband can save it. So with that reason gone..."

It was a strange way of looking at the situation. Katerina tried to understand. "So he would give up the right to be my father's heir, because he thinks it would make me..."

"Happy? Yes."

Katerina tried to digest this thought. In all her life, she had never been aware of a man doing something solely because it would make a woman happy. Well, not true; she knew several henpecked peasants who watched every word they said, so as to avoid getting a tongue-lashing or worse from a shrewish wife. But such men were despised, and... and Ivan was nothing like them. "Why does he care whether I'm happy?"

"That's a very good question," said Sophia. "And it's one you need to answer, because he's been trying to make you happy for quite a while. From what you told me this morning, he walked naked through the woods, getting whipped by branches, because he wanted to make you happy."

Her memory of this event now looked different to her. She thought of the shrewish peasant wives and realized that this might well be the reason Ivan had complied with her. Having betrothed himself to her, he found himself subject to a woman who spoke scornfully and he meekly bowed to her will.

She was not such a woman. He was not such a man. "I don't understand it," she said. "I thought he had simply come to see what was right and wrong, and chose the right."

"Maybe that was it," said Sophia, but amusement still played around the corners of her lips. Katerina would have probed more, for the conversation was teaching her to see events in a new way, and she felt herself to be on the verge of acquiring a bit of wisdom, but at that moment the door opened and Mikola Mozhaiski—no, Marek—strode into the room, the floor booming like a drum under his bold steps.

"I'm hungry," he announced as he came into the kitchen. "What, is Vanya still asleep?"

"He isn't hungry," said Sophia dryly.

Apparently some communication passed between them without words, for now Katerina saw the same half-hidden smile lurking on Marek's face. Sophia laid a plate before him, and piled it with bread and lard, cheese and fruit. He ate with such gusto that the food seemed to melt from the plate like fog. Marek saw the wonder on her face and misunderstood her thoughts. "Of course I eat. I'm immortal, but my body still wants food. I wouldn't die if I never ate—but I'd get very, very hungry."

"What did you find on your search?" asked Sophia.

"She's here," said Marek simply.

Katerina felt her heart begin to race. "She followed us!"

"She didn't come through in the same place," he said. "If she had, I wouldn't have seen her spoor. But there was a trace of stink in the rocky hills south of the road, overlooking that Armenian fellow's farm."

"The Arkanians," said Sophia. "And his father bought the farm before he was born. You act as if he were a recent immigrant."

"I just don't bother learning the family name till they've been here for a few centuries." Marek grinned.

"You seem cheerful enough, with her here."

"She didn't bring Bear with her," said Marek, "or much of his power, if any. There was no scent of him at all."

"Without him, she could never have made such a crossing," said Sophia. "So she does have his power."

"Not ready to hand," Marek insisted. "I know what I'm talking about. She left footprints, that's what I mean."

Everyone knew that Baba Yaga did not leave footprints on the ground or reflections in water. Katerina was astonished. "Is she weak, then? Is this our chance to kill her?"

"Don't even think of that," said Marek. "Even at a quarter of her normal strength, she's more than a match for any weapon in this world or yours. No, you must avoid her."

"I meant you could stop her... permanently."

Marek shook his head. "Don't you understand? That's not how my powers run. Sailors call on me because I have an affinity for wind and rain. Snow in the north. Sometimes a little lightning. Drought, if I'm angry enough, though it takes constant vigilance to maintain a good long one, and I rarely have the temper for it. I'm not much for war. And assassination is out of my league entirely. That's a matter for Petun, and those who put their trust in him are usually sorry, I can promise that. He's not good at clean killings. There are always some unintended targets that fall whenever he tries to bring down an enemy."

Katerina sank back in her chair. "So Ivan doesn't get his wish," she said.

"What wish?" asked Marek, looking from Katerina to Sophia and back again.

Sophia finally answered. "Vanya offered to annul the marriage as soon as you finish off the old bat."

"Why would he do something as stupid as that?" asked Marek.

Katerina felt a moment's triumph.

Then Marek rolled his eyes knowingly. "Being noble, wasn't he. You know he cares for the girl."

"Everyone knows it but him," said Sophia. "And the girl, of course."

Marek thought that Ivan cared for her? He seemed to say it as if it mattered, too. But why would it? Did even an immortal change to fit the world he lived in? She had always thought that one of the attributes of the immortals was their changelessness. Didn't Father Lukas say that God was the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow? Was there anything that she had believed in before that was still true now?

"What should we do?" asked Katerina. "Go back to Taina?"

"Oh, what a clever idea, you lure the most dangerous woman I've ever heard of into this world, and then you want to go right back and leave her here for other people to deal with. People who are singularly ill-equipped, I might add. You have your bits of spells, I assume, even if your mother didn't live long enough to teach you. But there are precious few here like Vanya's mother, seeking out the old lore and putting it into practice. What every woman used to know, hardly any even imagine in these benighted times. No, she'd create havoc here."

"How am I to prevent that?"

"I don't know if you can. She knows this land too well. Your best hope is for her to lose you here, and then give up and go home without finding you."

"Can we hide here?" asked Katerina.

"If I stayed in the house with you, yes. If I left all my lands unwatched-over, yes, you could stay. But I think it's better if you go somewhere else entirely. To a land where she doesn't speak the language, where she'll constantly be getting into trouble with the authorities." Marek grinned. "I'd love to see her come up against an American assault force. I wonder if they'd beat her as easily as they beat the vast military of Grenada."

Katerina had no idea what he was talking about, but Sophia chuckled. "Don't have much use for America, do you?"

"Arrogant newcomers who think they're smarter than everybody just because they can make a machine that washes dishes."

"In other words, no one there remembers your name."

Marek's temper flashed across his face. But he calmed himself. Katerina wondered what would happen to Sophia if Marek ever grew uncontrollably angry at her. But then she dismissed the thought—Marek wasn't the kind of man to lose control.

Man? How did she know what kind of man a god might be?

"This America you speak of—this is Ivan's birthplace?"

"No, no, he first went there when he was a child. But his parents live there. It's his home now."

"And we'll be safe there?"

"How should I know?" said Marek. "Safer than here, though, I imagine."

At that moment Ivan spoke up from the doorway leading to the stairs. "Safer, but I can't get her out of the country without a passport."

Katerina had no idea what a passport was, nor was she wondering. What occupied her mind was a different question: When did Ivan come back down the stairs? For that matter, had she ever heard him go up the stairs? Had he stood outside the kitchen door, listening to her entire conversation with Sophia? Monstrous thought!

"Passport," said Marek dismissively. "I'll have one of those drawn up, of course."

"You can't fight the witch, but you can conjure a passport?" asked Ivan.

"I won't conjure anything. I have a few friends left in this world. I can get her a legitimate legal passport. And an American entry visa—false ones are expensive on the black market, but we can probably get you a real one, since you're Ivan's wife. We'll get a certificate drawn up for that, too."

"You're taking me with you?" she asked Ivan.

"I took an oath, didn't I?" said Ivan. "That I'd protect you, right? I'm not a fighter, but I'm famous for running away."

His tone was so bitter and ironic that she ordinarily would have thought he was furious at her, that he hated her. But thinking of what Sophia had said, Katerina heard something different now. His ironic nastiness was because he thought that she scorned him.

Well, he wasn't a fighter. She couldn't help that, could she? And she didn't scorn him. She needed him. Taina needed him. And if it took pretending to love him, as Sophia had suggested, then she'd try to act as if she did. Nobody could expect more of her than that.

"Whither thou goest, I will go," she said, quoting a passage she had learned from the Book of Ruth—an unfortunate name indeed, she realized as she spoke. "Where thou lodgest, I will lodge. Thy people shall be my people, and thy God..."

Her voice trailed off. He seemed not to recognize the words.

"Your family aren't Christian, are they?" she asked.

"If you refer to the Christian habit of plotting to murder their in-laws, then no, they don't qualify as Christian."

"Vanya," said Sophia sharply.

He did not apologize, though he did wither under her stare.

And why should he apologize, thought Katerina. His complaint was not unjustified.

"I'll follow you to your parents' home," said Katerina. "As you followed me to mine."

"Naked?" asked Ivan.

"Young man!" cried Sophia.

But Katerina only laughed. "I thought you told me I didn't have that option."

"I'll take you," said Ivan. "It's up to you whether I introduce you as a friend of mine, or as my wife."

"As you choose," said Katerina.

"That's not my decision," said Ivan.

"Yes it is," said Katerina.

"No it isn't," he said in a firmer voice. "If you are only calling yourself my wife out of duty to Taina, then I don't want to make such a claim. My parents will see at once how you feel about me, or, more to the point, how you don't feel about me. It will worry my mother. So you can only come as my wife if you promise to pretend to my parents that you think I'm a good catch."

"A good what?" asked Katerina.

"A good husband," he explained. "That you think you did well to choose to be my wife. If you can't pretend to believe that, then it's better to introduce you as nothing more than a friend of mine."

"Coward," said Sophia softly.

"Taina still needs us married, as much as ever," said Katerina. Beyond that, she did not know what to say, or even what he wanted her to say.

Ivan searched her face—for what, she didn't know. Nor did he find what he was looking for. She knew this because of the way he sagged a little, then nodded. "All right then. I'll tell them you're my wife. Let them believe what they believe."

I hurt him again, thought Katerina. I meant to pretend to love him, but in the moment I simply told the truth, which is my habit. And I don't know that I want to change that habit. You can tell a lie now and then, but what happens to you when you try to live your whole life inside a lie?

Still, he had chosen to keep her, even though he clearly wasn't all that happy about it. Could Sophia be right? Did he truly care for her? Or was he agreeing to stay married solely out of duty?

More to the point, Katerina wondered, am I?

Baba Yaga

Long ago she had found this still pool in the darkness of the cave, deep in a subterranean chamber. By torchlight she had come here from time to time, to draw upon the majesty of the place. But she had never used the water to travel, for until now there was nowhere she wanted to go that she could not reach more easily another way.

The surface of the water was absolutely still. That was important; unfortunately, it meant that she could not douse the torch in the water, for then she could not see when the surface became still again. She tried stubbing it out in the dirt, but that did nothing; she beat it on the ground, but it only burned more hotly. Finally, she smothered it with her own skirts, singeing them badly but what did she care? People would see her as she chose to be seen.

In the darkness, she was momentarily disoriented. She had to find the water by the smell of it, and by feeling forward with one dainty foot until she was near the brink. Then, in a loud voice, she proclaimed the words of the spell that would turn this vast empty mirror into a gateway. She could not see, but she could feel the surface trembling with her voice—that was the only disturbance that could be permitted here.

Last of all she proclaimed the name of the princess, which had been stated so openly at her baptism, so that all comers knew the name by which the gods knew her. Fool. She could never hide from Baba Yaga once her name was known.

The name still echoed in the chamber as Baba Yaga leaned forward, toppling off the brink like a cup off a table. The spell worked: She never touched water. Instead, the surface carried her like strong hands into the place she asked for.

She found herself lying on something hard and rough.

A loud, roaring, rattling sound was getting louder and louder. What could it be?

She raised her head from the ground, opening her eyes into the twilight.

A new noise at once was added, something screeching, metal on metal. She rose to her feet, looking for the source of the noise.

A big, awkward-looking house made all of tin sat on four black feet, like a crippled animal, in the middle of the hard surface where she had been lying. The surface itself was of miraculous smoothness, as if someone had scythed the earth itself. Then she realized—this was a road, like the ones the Romans built, only wider and less finished on the top. And this house must be capable of movement.

A man leaned out the window of the house, shouting at her in some barbarous dialect. She only caught a few words of what he said, and didn't care. She waved him to silence.

It didn't work. He didn't even pause.

Terror thrilled through her. Had she taken herself to a place where her powers didn't work?

She tried a much stronger spell of silence, murmuring the words and making the signs behind her back—no need to anger him, if she turned out to be utterly powerless.

This spell should have silenced him for weeks; instead, it merely calmed him down. He mumbled a little more—unthinkable that he should have a voice at all!—and then, without so much as making a single pass through the air or dusting his house with powder, he caused it to move forward, moving around her and passing her, leaving her behind in a cloud of dust.

She couldn't be sure it was her spell that calmed him down or simply that he had run out of wrath. This was an urgent question that had to be settled right away.

She sniffed the air, turning in all directions. Her sense of power was weakened, but it was not gone. She caught faint traces of the princess—she had walked near this very road, and not long ago—but her smell was all but lost in another one that left her stunned. Mikola Mozhaiski! After all her pains to cast spells to make him neglect his beloved land of Taina and his friends there, she had ended up coming to the very place that was now the center of his power. No wonder her powers were so sharply suppressed here! And no wonder that awful boy had caused her so many problems—he came from Mikola Mozhaiski, and when he led the princess out of this world, of course he brought her back to his master.

Well, there are more gods in this world. She had the power of Bear, didn't she? And Bear was more than a match for Mozhaiski.

Except that the source of her power was far off, and she had to draw on it across time and space, while Mozhaiski was powerful here, in the present moment.

She sniffed the air more deeply. Yes, masked by the heavy scent of Mozhaiski's benign, summery air, there was still a trace of winter in the air. Bear was still in this world.

She raised her hand to summon him, but then caught herself in time: In this world, Bear was not necessarily under her spell. The Bear whose power she controlled was the Bear of another time and place; here he might well be free, or under the power of a great wizard with whom she dared not do battle in her weakened state.

Tread softly, she told herself. Plenty of time to watch and wait, see how the land lies here, find out who makes the magic of tin houses on rolling feet. Not Mozhaiski—this was not the sort of thing he did, generally confining himself to meddlesome rescues of sailors and gifts of rain to farmers' fields. No, a greater wizardry was at work in the world, or some god only just now coming into his own.

Let the princess lead her through this world. Baba Yaga could afford to wait. Though she was bound not to lay hands on the princess directly, that boy was still with her. She'd find some way to kill him through some other hand, or at least rend them apart, breaking the spell.

She thought back to yesterday's burning of the church. Such a fine idea! She raised no hand against the princess, but rather simply ignited the dried wood of that ugly magicless sanctuary for the untalented devotees of a distant and disinterested god. Of course the princess got out—whether because of a spell or simply because she was a clever and lucky woman, Baba Yaga could not guess. But even if the church-burning failed to kill the girl and solve Baba Yaga's problems all in one blow, the thing had been worth doing for its own sake.

She'd find other ways in this world; there would be other tools to use. Even if her powers were weaker here, even if there were strong rivals that she dared not provoke, she'd make do, she'd find a way to win.

Or if she couldn't, or if her life was in danger, she'd simply cover herself with the cloth she had soaked with the oil from Bear's fur, speak a single word, and all that was encompassed by the cloth would be carried back home in a moment. If that included the princess or her lackey ur-husband, or both, so much the better. For them to come back to Baba Yaga's house under her power would be sweet indeed.