Enchantment

6

Newcomer

While Ivan slept, Katerina and her father took a walk up to the hill-fort. The sound of mock combat came from the yard within; because Katerina wanted to talk in privacy, she held back, and her father waited with her outside the gate.

Father knew what she wanted to talk about. "Well?" he asked. "What kind of king will he be?"

"King?" She shook her head ruefully. "He knows nothing of kingliness."

Father smiled slightly and looked off in the distance. "I'm sure you're right."

"Which means that you're not sure," she said, laughing.

"All through the dinner, I thought, the Pretender must be rejoicing to see this awful creature my daughter brought home. And then he saves a stranger from choking."

"And provokes Dimitri—"

"Oh, of course, he does everything wrong, Katerina. But he does have the heart of a king. When he sees someone in need, he does not hesitate to act. He does not measure the cost, he does not fear criticism—"

"But if there's anything you taught me, Father, it's that a king must measure the cost! And he must act in a way that will be above criticism."

"I did not say that this Ivan has the mind of a king. Only that he has the heart."

"What good is the heart without the mind?"

"Better than the mind without the heart," said Father.

"And what good are his personal qualities, if the people will not accept him? Look at him, Father. Who would follow him into battle?"

"You know, this whole idea of hereditary kingship has never sat well with me," said Father. "We always elected our kings, in the old days, to lead us in war."

"Yes, but that law of succession is the only thing holding the Widow back," said Katerina.

"No one would vote for her, either."

"If they feared her enough, they would," said Katerina. "So I have to succeed you, and my husband will be king, and I gave my word to Ivan, and he to me."

"We can fight the Widow," said Father. "Choose another man. I'm sorry for this good-hearted boy, and grateful to him for saving you from the Widow's curse, but choose another husband and we'll fight. Our men are courageous."

"One man with courage is no match for ten men with blood lust upon them."

"God will fight with us against the powers of darkness. He fought for Constantine, didn't he? 'In this sign, you will conquer!' "

"Maybe that story is true, and maybe it isn't."

Father looked at her in horror. "Do we not have the word of Father Lukas for it?"

"He wasn't there, Father."

"He wasn't at the resurrection, either."

"Father, I'm a Christian and you know it. But the armies of Rome have been defeated many times since they converted to Christianity. Maybe when God has some great purpose, like converting an empire, he gives victory to his followers. But Christians can die. I don't want Taina to be a nation of martyrs."

"So you marry him because that's what the Widow forced us to promise in order to get you back, and then we're so weak, having this man of twigs for a king—did you see his arms? I don't know if he can even lift a sword. If he were a tree he'd fall over in the first wind."

"But he has the heart of a king, you said. If there's time enough, can't he learn all the rest?"

"So you like him," said Father.

"He freed me. You didn't see the bear. He was the god of bears, I swear it, Father. Terrifying. But Ivan faced him. Stayed with me and didn't attempt to flee even as the bear climbed the pedestal. Did what I asked him to do to save us."

"Obedience is not a quality of kings."

"He did what was needed. In the moment of danger. Afterward... I don't know, perhaps he really does come from a land where everything is crazy and the sun shines at night. But if the people would follow him, I don't think he would disappoint them. Especially if he has time to learn."

"But he may not have time. And they may not follow him."

"They would not follow him," said Katerina. "Not now. Not yet."

"Maybe this is the man God brought us," said King Matfei. "In my heart I want to have faith. Father Lukas says that Christ said that God works through the weak things of the world to achieve his great purposes. But can I bet on this boy Ivan, when my people's lives are at stake?"

"More to the point," said Katerina, "do we have any other choice?"

"If only you could lead them in battle."

"Do you think I haven't thought of that, Father? But I am no soldier. I can govern, I can hold the kingdom together and give justice to the people, but who would follow me into battle?"

"Put Dimitri in charge, in your name—"

"Then Dimitri would be king," said Katerina. "The king is the war leader. The war leader is the king."

"Not if you're the one giving them the orders. Making the plans. You will be the king, Katerina, even though you can't lead them into the fray."

"No, Father. They have to see the king putting his life at risk, fighting alongside them. They have to see the king's arm fall upon the enemy and rise up soaked in blood and gore. There's no escaping that. You're a man of peace—you would have turned away from battle if you could. But you did what your kingdom required."

"Katerina, you're smarter than ten sons. You're right, though. You can't lead men into battle. You will stay home and have babies—lots of them, mostly sons, so our kingdom will never be left without a male heir again!"

"Ivan's sons," said Katerina.

"Your sons," said Father. "Maybe we'll be lucky. Maybe he'll marry you, get you pregnant with a boy, then take sick and die."

Katerina gripped her father's arm. "How can you say such a thing?" she whispered harshly. "It's the sin of David, to wish for the death of a loyal man."

"Get Father Lukas to read you the story again, Katerina."

"I can read it myself."

"King David's sin wasn't wishing, it was doing."

"Would you wish my child fatherless?"

"I would raise the baby as my own, if this Ivan were to die. But have no fear—the Pretender will probably use every spell she knows to keep him healthy. He's too useful to her and too destructive of all our hopes for her to let him come to harm."

"Don't despise him, Father," she said. "Teach him. Make a man of him."

"Of course I'll teach him," he said impatiently. "And I don't despise him, I told you that. I admire his heart. But those weak arms—what were his parents thinking?"

"I think they were raising him to be a cleric."

"Good for them. They should have taught him that when clerics see princesses lying enchanted in a place of power, with a huge bear as guardian, they should go away and let her be until a real man arrives to have a go at the task!"

"He is a real man, Father. In his heart."

Father put his arm around her, held her close. "Who am I to stand in the way of love?"

Katerina grimaced. Father kissed her forehead, then led her into the fort. In the yard, some of the older men were training boys with wooden practice swords. Katerina came up beside her father and added a parting shot to their argument. "If they can teach boys, they can teach Ivan."

Father rolled his eyes, but she knew he would try to make this betrothal work. He would do it because that was the only hope for the kingdom.

At the verge of the forest, Nadya was returning to her hut to get back to her weaving—so much work left to do, and never enough time, now that the days were getting so short. She had tried weaving in the dark, once, but nobody would have worn the cloth that resulted, so she pulled it out and did it over and never tried such a mad experiment again. Everything had to be done in the precious hours of daylight. Everything except make babies. Another reason to get done with her work as early as she could. Even though all but one of their babies had died after only a few days, it didn't stop her husband from trying. And with each pregnancy, Nadya had new hope.

But she was getting on in years now. More than thirty years old, and her body wearied of more pregnancies. Their only living child, a son, was a cripple, deformed from birth and then the same leg injured in childhood, so what was already withered became even more twisted and stumpy. Others muttered sometimes that there was a curse on Nadya and her family, but Nadya paid them no mind. She did no harm to anyone—who would put a curse on her? She did not want to start thinking of her neighbors that way.

Not even the strange little old lady who stood leaning against the wall of Nadya's hut. She came in from some distant, lonely forest hut. Nadya always shared food with her and treated her civilly, because you never knew who had the power to curse and because if her husband died before her, Nadya herself might be left on her own, hungry and alone, since her only living child was not likely to earn much bread—still less any to share with her, since her boy had given himself to the Christians and spent all his time with Father Lukas.

"Good evening to you," said Nadya.

"New and news!" cackled the crone.

"You have tales from abroad?" asked Nadya. "Come in, and I'll give you bread and cheese."

The old woman followed her into her hut. "News from Taina!" said the old lady. "The princess is back!"

"I know it," said Nadya. "I was there in the village when she returned with that naked fellow."

The old lady sniffed, clearly offended that Nadya didn't need her gossip.

"But I'm sure you know more about it than I do," said Nadya.

The old lady softened. She took a bite of dry black bread with a nibble of cheese. "I hope you have a bit of mead to keep my throat open."

Nadya handed her a pot of mead. The old lady quaffed it off like a man, then giggled in a way that made Nadya think of some chattering animal.

"He's not much of a fellow, this man she brought back to marry," said the old lady.

"He saved her from the Widow's evil trap. Isn't that enough?"

"You think so?" asked the old lady. "You really think that's all that matters?"

"He saved Lybed, too, they say. Though Dimitri beat him for it afterward. Isn't that a mean trick?"

The old lady smiled mysteriously. "He might have deserved the beating after all. For another reason."

"Why? What do you know about him?"

"I know he was wearing this," said the old lady. She reached into her bag and pulled out a tattered, stained hoose. Nadya recognized it at once as being of fine weave, with a delicate pattern woven into it. Her own work. She had given this hoose as a gift to the princess, and Katerina had been wearing it when she pricked her finger on the spindle and was carried away in her sleep.

"He wore it?"

"He demanded it from her. So he wouldn't get scratched up walking through the forest. But the cloth had no comfort for him—see how the fabric tore to let the branches through so they could scratch him anyway? That's why he cast it away. Because a Christian woman's clothing will not bear the insult."

"But—he put it on? He dressed in it?"

"Ask him. Ask Katerina if he had this girded about his loins, playing at being a girl. Ask them both, and see if they tell you the truth."

"How do you know this?"

"Didn't they walk right past me, not seeing me, overlooking me as folks always do?"

"I don't," Nadya reminded her.

"He cast it away, and I picked it up and brought it here. Because I think the people of Taina should know what kind of wickedness is in the heart of the man who thinks he can marry the dear princess."

"But... she wouldn't marry him if he were that kind of man," said Nadya.

"She would, if she thought that's what it took to keep Taina free of the great and powerful Pretender."

"May I—may I keep this? To show?"

"Go ahead," said the old woman. "I have no use for it." Her supper finished, she arose to go. "But I fear the vengeance of this stranger, if it's known who told his secret."

"I don't fear him," said Nadya. "He doesn't look strong enough to lead a dog on a leash."

"You're a brave one indeed," said the old lady. "You think that because you're virtuous and kind, and your son is a priest, and your husband a—"

"Sergei's only a scribe, not a priest," Nadya said.

"As if it matters."

"You were saying?"

"I was just telling you that you're not as safe as you think," said the old lady. "There are some people so malicious, so delighted in evildoing, that even when you treat them kindly, they answer with a curse."

"I hope I never meet such a wicked person." But Nadya entertained a moment's concern that perhaps the old lady was telling a secret about herself. Could this woman possibly have been the cause of the death of each of her babies? Of Sergei's crooked leg? Of the fall from a tree that ruined it further?

She searched her visitor's face. The old lady looked back at her, unblinking, bearing her gaze, showing no sign of guilt or shame—nor of malice or triumph. Only a look of genuine concern. Impossible to imagine that this woman had ever done her harm. It was wicked of Nadya even to have entertained the thought.

Nadya held up the tattered hoose. "Is it wrong of me to tell of this?"

"I don't know what's wrong or right," said the old lady. "The princess seems not to mind. But what of the men who might follow this... person into battle? Will God fight on their side, with such a man as king?"

Nadya thought of her husband. Of the vicious combat that stopped Baba Yaga's army when they first attacked. How defeat looked certain, until King Matfei cried out for his men to have courage, and then plunged headlong into the thick of the battle, beating down every sword raised against him. They could not let such a king risk his life for them, not without companions fighting with equal fervor at his side. It was the king who gave them heart.

What heart would this stranger give to anyone? How many lives would be lost, with him at the front of battle? God forbid there should ever be another war, of course, but if the choice was between war now, while Matfei still ruled, or war later, when this weakling was on the throne, better to fight it now. Let there be no marriage, and let Baba Yaga come in claiming to rule by right; the swords of the men of Taina, led by King Matfei, would show them what Baba Yaga's claims were worth.

"I might tell Father Lukas," said Nadya. "I might show this to my son."

"Might?"

If she did tell, Nadya knew, it would break Matfei's heart, and would shame Katerina. After all, if the princess chose not to tell it, then there must be good reason, mustn't there? Who was Nadya, to speak when the great ones kept silent?

"Maybe," said Nadya.

"Well, do what you will with it," said the old lady. "You've always done right by me. I imagine you'll do right by the people of Taina."

"I'll try," said Nadya.

Ivan woke to see a hooded face looming over him. He cried out and shrank into a corner of his bedstead. Almost at once, though, he realized that his visitor was a young priest. Or monk. Or something.

"Father Lukas?" asked Ivan.

"What?" answered the man.

Ivan realized that he had spoken in Russian. But proto-Slavonic wasn't that different. "Are you Father Lukas?"

"No," said the man. "I'm Brother Sergei. Not a priest at all."

That would explain his native-sounding speech. "I thought all priests came from Constantinople."

"I couldn't be a fighter or a farmer, not with this leg." Sergei lifted his gown to reveal a mismatched pair of legs, the one normal—or perhaps stronger than normal—and the other wizened, twisted, and several inches shorter. "Father Lukas made me his scribe."

"So you read and write? You have the Greek for that?"

Brother Sergei nodded vigorously. "He taught me the letters. Not Greek though, I can't read that."

Can't read Greek? "You mean you read in your own language?"

"Father Lukas taught me the letters."

"What letters? Can you show me?" It was impossible—nobody was writing in Old Church Slavonic, not this far north and west. The Cyrillic alphabet had either just been invented or was about to be, far away at the borders of the Byzantine Empire, and the Glagolitic alphabet was nearly as new and was never that widely used. So what alphabet was Father Lukas teaching?

Brother Sergei collapsed into a sitting position and began to write with his finger on the earthen floor. Impossible as it was, Ivan recognized the figures immediately as the earliest known form of the Cyrillic alphabet.

"A man named Kirill invented those letters," Ivan said.

"I know," said Sergei. "Father Lukas was his scribe." Sergei grinned. "I'm the scribe to the scribe of the great missionary Father Constantine—he only took the name Kirill a little while before he died. Father Lukas says that by serving him as he served Father Constantine, I am only two steps away from holiness."

"Closer than most men, then," said Ivan. But he trembled at the thought: The priest in this place was, or at least claimed to be, personally acquainted with Saint Kirill himself. Which meant that whatever writing was done in this place would be, if Ivan could only take it away from here back to his own time, the oldest Cyrillic writing any man of the twentieth century had ever seen. Not only that, but it was the definitive answer to the historical question of whether it was Kirill himself who invented that alphabet, or his followers who did it after he was dead.

If Ivan could take it back, so many questions could be answered. That was just one more unbearable irony.

"You speak our tongue much better than Father Lukas," said Sergei. "But you still pronounce it funny."

"I grew up speaking a different form of the same language." said Ivan. "Father Lukas grew up speaking Greek."

"So where are you from?"

"Kiev," said Ivan.

Brother Sergei laughed aloud. "I've heard traders from Kiev. They don't talk like that."

"Oh?"

"Most of them are Rus' and speak North-talk anyway, nothing like our language."

"There are a lot of people in Kiev," said Ivan, "and a lot of ways of speaking."

"It must be a wonderful thing, to live in a great city."

"The wonderful thing," said Ivan, "is to be here in Taina."

"Of course it's wonderful to you," said Sergei. "You're going to be king."

Ivan grimaced. "Not much of a king. I'm a poor choice for that."

Sergei shrugged. "There's some who say so. Though one never knows who'll be a good ruler until he wears the crown."

"Well, anyone who thinks I shouldn't be king is right."

Sergei got a sick look on his face. "So it's true, then?"

"What's true?"

"About you wearing Katerina's hoose?"

Ivan could hardly believe word of that had already spread. "Does she say that?"

"She says nothing," said Sergei. "But an old woman found this tattered hoose and showed it to my mother, and my mother recognized it as one that the princess had worn. She didn't feel right about telling anyone but me, not until you had a chance to deny it or admit it." Sergei laid the stained and tattered remnant of Katerina's hoose on the bed.

Ivan didn't know what to say. A flat lie might be the best course, but for all he knew Katerina was behind the story, telling it to discredit him so she would not be forced to go through with the marriage. It wouldn't do any good to deny the story outright; no one would believe Ivan over Katerina.

"Brother Sergei," said Ivan, "I come from a faraway land. I was born in Kiev, but I lived the past ten years in a place even stranger and farther off. And in that land, when a woman takes off her clothing, then it ceases to be women's clothing or men's clothing, it's just cloth. Whatever a man wears is men's clothing while he's wearing it, and whatever a woman wears is women's clothing while she's wearing it. Do you understand?"

Sergei thought for a moment, then shook his head. "You mean that this is a man's hoose?" His tone was scornful.

"I mean that it's nothing but a piece of cloth, stitched in certain ways, and now torn. Though it wasn't torn at all when I last saw it."

Sergei said nothing.

"Sergei," said Ivan, "if I reached out and tore that cross from your neck, that would be theft, wouldn't it? Stealing a cross! What kind of wicked fool would I have to be, to commit such a sin as that?"

Sergei waited, listening but not willing to concede anything.

"But what if I came upon the cross in the forest. Or under a stone. Then to find a cross would be... what, wouldn't it be a miracle? A gift from God?"

"Are you saying you found this hoose and didn't know what it was?" asked Sergei.

"I'm saying that if a man doesn't know something's a sin, and does it, and as soon as he finds out it's a sin, he stops doing it, then is he a sinner?"

Sergei leaned back against the timbered wall. "I'll have to think about that," said Brother Sergei. "I'll have to ask Father Lukas."

Ivan leaned down and wrote his own name in the dirt, in Cyrillic characters. Then he wrote: "never wanted to be king."

Sergei studied the writing for a moment. Then he rubbed out the name and wrote his own in its place, and erased "king" and replaced it with the word "scribe." He looked up at Ivan, and when he was sure Ivan was looking back at him, he touched his own crippled leg. "When the things you want are taken from you, then you do the things that are left for you to do."

"If you tell this story, of my wearing women's clothing, will it change things so I don't have to marry Katerina?"

Sergei shrugged. "If Jesus came tomorrow, would he heal my leg?"

"I think he would," said Ivan, "if he could."

"But I think he's not coming," said Sergei.

So, what did that mean? That Sergei wasn't going to tell about the hoose?

"Come with me," said Sergei. "Father Lukas wants to teach you in preparation for your baptism."

Ivan reached down and erased Sergei's name and the word "scribe," and replaced them with "Ivan" and the word "Christian."

Sergei grinned, erased "Ivan" yet again, and again replaced it with his own name. But he let the word "Christian" stand.

Ivan shook his head ruefully. "We don't get to choose the world we live in, do we?" he said to the scribe. Only later did he realize what a stupid thing he had said. For he had chosen this world. Not knowing the consequences, it's true, but still he took Katerina's hand and followed her across the invisible bridge to Taina, instead of returning home over the bridge that he alone could see. That was more choice than Sergei ever got. But this young man was making the best of it.

"Will you help me learn what you have learned?" asked Ivan.

"You already read and write," said Sergei. "Though you make some of the letters oddly."

There was no point in explaining further. "Take me to Father Lukas, then." He stood up to leave and only then remembered that his only clothing was the king's cloak. "Except that I'm naked," he said.

Sergei pointed to a pile of cloth at the foot of the bed. "They must have brought it in while you slept."

Ivan pulled the robe of a monk over his head. Not how he would have expected them to dress a future king, or the fiancé of a princess. But just right, if they thought of him as a cleric. Was the clothing an insult? Or merely the only thing they had that they could be sure would fit a man so much taller than any of the others in this place?

Father Lukas's church was not large, but it was solidly built, and there was room enough inside it for at least a hundred villagers—standing, for no space was wasted on benches in Orthodox churches—and a tiring-room behind and to the right of the altar. There were two old women kneeling before an icon on a side wall, but whether they were praying or whispering to each other Ivan could not begin to guess. Another thick peasant woman was lighting a candle before another icon. She was not the first—the place was aglow with the flames of faith. No sign of Father Lukas.

Brother Sergei motioned for Ivan to wait while he went in search of the priest. No sooner had Sergei disappeared into the tiring-room behind the altar, however, than the thick-bodied peasant woman turned away from the candle she had been lighting, glanced up at Ivan, and immediately ducked her head and hurried away.

Just as she was leaving, a middle-aged priest with a natural tonsure entered the church, noticing her hurry with amusement. Then he saw Ivan, and instead of looking away, the priest surveyed him coolly, looking him up and down as if trying to determine what he weighed. There was no question that he knew immediately exactly who this new parishioner was.

"I understand you're supposed to teach me to be a Christian," said Ivan.

"If it can be done, Christ can do it," said Father Lukas. His accent was very thick. It was hard enough for Ivan to catch all that the native speakers said; Father Lukas butchered the pronunciation enough that Ivan had to think a moment to be sure he had understood. And even when he knew he had parsed everything Father Lukas said, Ivan still wasn't sure what he meant. Was Christ supposed to teach him? Or was he talking about something besides teaching?

Father Lukas drew him toward the tiring-room; just before they got there, Brother Sergei burst through, almost crashing into them before he realized they were there. Sergei apologized profusely as Father Lukas put on an air of patient tolerance. Ivan could almost hear him saying, "These natives. What can you do?" Father Lukas's attitude immediately increased Ivan's sympathy for Brother Sergei, who doubtless had to put up with Lukas's thinly veiled sneer all the time. But it was more than sympathy for Sergei in particular. Seeing Father Lukas look down on the local Slavs made Ivan feel a powerful surge of solidarity with the people of this village. However dirty the place may be, however primitive, it was no more primitive than anywhere else in Europe, except for Constantinople itself, and for all the airs Father Lukas might put on, Ivan knew there was a day when Slavs would put men in space before the people of any other nation. Chew on that one, you decadent Greek.

So quickly does nationalism surface in the heart of a man who thought he was above such tribalism.

"Oh, you found each other," said Brother Sergei.

"Come, sit with us," said Father Lukas. "I might need you to interpret. This future king has trouble understanding my speech, though his own language also sounds rather strange to my ears."

They went in and sat down. Almost at once, Father Lukas opened a book, leaves of vellum bound at one edge between leather-wrapped wooden covers. The handwriting was in the Cyrillic alphabet, not the Greek that Ivan had half-expected.

"A Bible?" asked Ivan. "In this language? Not Greek?"

"The Gospels only," said Father Lukas. "But you are a man of letters, I think? To know which language the book is written in?"

"What year is this?"

Father Lukas seemed not to understand the question.

"Anno Domini?" asked Ivan.

The Latin surprised Lukas even more. But he was willing to try that language. In halting Church Latin the priest asked some question that Ivan could not begin to understand.

"No, no, I don't speak Latin, I only want to know what year it is. Since the birth of Christ."

"Eight hundred and ninety years have passed since the birth of the Blessed Savior," said Father Lukas.

A book of the Gospels written in Old Church Slavonic before 900 C.E. Ivan wanted to kiss the book. He walked to the table where it lay and gently, carefully turned the leaves. He read it easily enough, despite the lack of punctuation and the early form of the letters. So many speculations and hypotheses about the orthography and the grammar of Old Slavonic were answered by this precious book; nothing this early had survived to Ivan's own time.

"So Saint Kirill died only twenty-one years ago?"

"And his brother Methodius five years ago," said Father Lukas. "But you are too young to have known Father Kirill—Father Constantine, as I knew him." Then he realized what Ivan had actually said. "Saint Kirill? You presume what no man knows yet."

Ivan waved off the temporal faux pas. Of course Saint Kirill had not been canonized yet, but from what Sergei had said earlier, Father Lukas revered the missionary to the Slavs. "You were his scribe?"

"Only in the last year of his life," said Father Lukas. "I served Father Methodius for five years after that, and then was sent forth on my own mission among these people. Father Methodius gave me this copy of the Gospels. It was the one that Father Kirill made for him with his own hand, the last copywork he did before he died."

"Not Father Kirill's first copy, then."

"Of course not," said Father Lukas. "That was long since given to the Patriarch of Constantinople for safekeeping, so that more copies could be made from it, endlessly."

So it had been in safekeeping in the Hagia Sophia—no doubt until it was taken by the Turks in 1453.

"But this was copied from it? In Father Kirill's own hand?"

"Part of it," said Father Lukas, smiling a little sheepishly at the near-deception he had almost practiced. "I should have said that from the start. He gave it to Father Methodius to finish. I think half of Saint Mark and all of Saint John are actually in the brother's hand. I served them both well. That is why I was given this precious book."

Ivan thought, uncharitably, that perhaps Father Lukas protested too much. That perhaps after he left on his own missionary journey, Father Methodius spent the rest of his life wondering what in the world ever happened to that book of the Gospels that Constantine and he had copied out.

What has happened to me? Ivan wondered. Because I dislike his attitude toward Sergei, though it is hardly a surprise given the time and place, I immediately assume him capable of all sorts of perfidy. Why shouldn't the book have been a gift?

Ivan began to read on the page where the book had chanced to open. "Whoever says to his brother, I will kill you, is in danger of judgment, and whoever says, Thou fool, is in danger of hellfire."

Brother Sergei gasped in admiration. "Father Lukas, he is already a Christian."

"Being able to read the words of Christ doesn't make one a believer in the Word," said Father Lukas. There was scorn in his voice; or at least Ivan thought he heard scorn.

"Brother Sergei has never known a man who could read and write who was not Christian," said Ivan. "So his mistake is understandable."

Ignoring Ivan's defense of the scribe, Father Lukas looked at him shrewdly. "How many of us are there who know this alphabet?" he asked. "How did you learn it?"

"My father taught me," said Ivan. Though, when he thought about it, it was much more likely that his mother had given him his letters. He had entered school already able to read and write, and had no conscious memory of ever learning; but it was impossible to believe that his father would have had the patience to teach a toddler to read and write. Never mind; it would be hard enough for them to believe he learned from his father, let alone from a woman.

"Who is your father, then? He has to have learned it from someone I know."

Why evade, when his answer cannot possibly be checked anyway? "Piotr Smetski."

"His name is Piotr?" Father Lukas leapt to the obvious conclusion. "So he was baptized Christian, and took that name upon him. And yet you are a Jew."

"Whatever I am, I'm here now, to be taught by you," said Ivan.

"And what do you expect me to teach you?"

"How to be a Christian. So I can be baptized and marry Princess Katerina so that Taina can be saved from Ba—from the Widow. I think that's the whole story, isn't it?"

"That is not a reason to become a Christian. It is only a reason to go through the empty forms of conversion, with greed in your heart, lust in your loins, and a lie on your lips." Father Lukas leaned close. "I can't stop a man from lying to God, but I can at least make sure he has every chance to be telling the truth when he confesses the name of Christ."

"So this won't be quick and easy," said Ivan.

"The only books written in this barbarian tongue are the Gospels and liturgy," said Father Lukas. "Therefore you must have learned to read from the words of the evangelists, and yet they were not sufficient to convert you. What can I say more, that they have not said?"

"And how do you know that I was not converted?" asked Ivan, getting peeved at the thought of having to go through an exceptionally rigorous course of study in the Orthodox version of Christianity. He hadn't even decided he was going to accept conversion in the first place. Though a sophistry had already arisen in his mind to excuse it. Since he wasn't circumcised until the 1970s, and he would be baptized in the 890s, clearly his circumcision took place after his supposed baptism. Therefore whatever rite he went through here to become a Christian would be obliterated nearly eleven centuries later. So it was as if he never converted at all. Wasn't it?

"Were you converted?" asked Father Lukas.

"As much as Brother Sergei here," said Ivan.

Father Lukas snorted. "Brother Sergei has as much faith in Christ as I have in Brother Sergei."

Suddenly Lukas's disdain for Sergei had to be seen in a new light. Was it possible Lukas disliked Sergei because of his hypocrisy, and not because of his barbaric culture?

"Brother Sergei has never spoken false to me," said Ivan.

"He takes communion and eats damnation to his soul," said Father Lukas. "Nevertheless, he is the only man the village can spare, and he does read and write well enough, and does passable copywork. So... I make use of what God has given me."

"As do we all," said Ivan.

"I don't know why you say these things, Father Lukas," murmured Brother Sergei. "Christ has no stronger follower than me."

After the words escaped Sergei's mouth, they all realized what he had just said—that he, a cripple, was the strongest of Christ's followers. But instead of being offended, Father Lukas merely laughed. "At least your infirmities can be seen on the surface, Brother Sergei," he said. "As can your lack of faith. How many of these women piously pray and confess their sins every day, only to turn around and practice black magic in their own homes, inviting the devil to curse their neighbors and calling on heathen gods like Mikola Mozhaiski to bless them?"

"Old ways are hard to let go of," said Ivan.

"Especially when they work," murmured Sergei.

"What?" demanded Father Lukas.

"May I return now to my work?" said Sergei. "He reads better than either of us. You won't need me to interpret."

"Go, tend to your vegetable garden, or whatever work you have found to do. But make sure I see you at vespers! Do you hear me?"

Brother Sergei nodded, smiled, crossed himself, and left.

Father Lukas sank down onto his stool. Ivan took the other and sat beside him, where both could see the book easily.

"You touched the book with reverence," said Father Lukas. "Is Sergei right? Do you already love Christ?"

"I love this book," said Ivan. "With all my heart."

"Then perhaps the job of converting you is already half done," said Father Lukas. Then he drew a deep breath, as if gathering the courage to say what must next be said. "In confession, someone has spoken of a rumor so foul that I can scarcely believe it, but I must know the truth before I go on. Are you disposed to wearing the clothing of women?"

Ivan sighed. Apparently Sergei's decision to keep silent on the matter hadn't extended to others. How many knew about the damned hoose? It's not like he wore it for more than a few seconds. But he might as well have branded a scarlet letter on his chest.

"I did not dress after the manner of women," said Ivan, "or out of the desire to appear to be a woman. I was cold, and took up what would give me warmth."

"You did not know it was women's clothing, then?" asked Father Lukas sharply.

"I knew, but my thought was that it was nothing but cloth, when a woman wasn't wearing it, and when I put it on, that made it men's clothing, for a man was wearing it.''

Father Lukas rolled his eyes. "That's the best you can come up with? Even the Pharisees did better."

"Doesn't the blood of Christ wash away sin?" asked Ivan, struggling to remember the scraps of Christian doctrine he had picked up over the years. "If I sinned, it was only the once, and I'll never do it again. Won't the water of baptism cleanse me?"

"It will," said Father Lukas. But he seemed uneasy. "But once you are baptized, you must forgo such things, or the penalty is severe."

"As I told you," said Ivan, "I did as Adam and Eve did, when they covered their nakedness."

"A hoose is not a fig leaf."

"Both hoose and fig leaf were the nearest things at hand, to cover a man who was ashamed to be naked."

"Very well," said Father Lukas. "I see that you are a man torn between humble repentance and a desire to justify his sins. The former man must be encouraged, the latter one smothered to death as quickly as possible."

Ivan didn't like the imagery, but beggars couldn't be choosers. "First, though, may I ask you a question?"

Father Lukas waited.

"Do you believe in the power of the Widow?"

"You mean Baba Yaga? Oh, don't be surprised. There is nothing to fear from speaking the name of a witch in the house of God."

"But outside this church, you do believe she has power?"

"I've seen her soldiers in action. I've seen the tortured bodies of some she's punished. Oh, yes, she has power—the power of the jackal, to tear and kill and devour."

"I spoke of the power to enchant Princess Katerina, and leave her guarded by a huge bear for a thousand years."

"It was only a few months," said Father Lukas, "and I have no idea where Baba Yaga might have hidden her, or what poisons might have been used to keep her asleep. As for magic, if Baba Yaga has enlisted the devil into her cause, she will find that Christ is more than a match for him, and he will betray her at the final moment, as he betrays all who trust in him."

From this speech Ivan decided that Father Lukas wouldn't be a good one to trust with the truth about his problems. He didn't want to imagine what would have happened had he faced the bear armed with a cross instead of a large stone or Katerina's quick-witted fulfillment of the terms of the enchantment.

Too bad. But at least, in studying with the priest, Ivan would have a chance to get his hands on the oldest Cyrillic manuscript that anyone in the twentieth century had ever seen. In fact, anything that Ivan wrote while he was here, if it survived, would automatically be the oldest surviving Cyrillic manuscript.

Ivan imagined writing an account of his life here, using local inks and parchment, and hiding it up for future generations to find. What consternation it would cause, to have such an obvious modern forgery that was undeniably written on ancient parchment, which could be carbon-dated to the ninth century.

Consternation? It would be a disaster. Even if someone else saw Ivan writing in the modern, fully developed Cyrillic alphabet and changed the shape of their letters even slightly to adapt to his style, it would falsify the archaeological record and make nonsense out of scholarship forever. With a sinking feeling Ivan realized that the one thing he could never do while he was here in Taina was write with his own hand.

"What is it, my son? I saw your face filled with pain."

"It was my keen awareness of the awfulness of my sins."

Lukas searched his face. "Are you converted so quickly?"

"To know my sin is not the same as being converted," said Ivan. "Do those who suffer the torments of hell not know their sin? And yet the atonement of Christ has no power over them, because they rejected the works of righteousness."

How easily the words came to his lips. He wasn't sure if he was aping the radio and television preachings of Protestants or dredging up some half-remembered morsel of the rumors of Orthodox preaching that one could learn here and there in a Kievan neighborhood. Or was it some question on Jeopardy? Whatever the source of his Christian theology, translated into Old Church Slavonic it apparently sounded convincing enough to Father Lukas. Ivan thought that "works of righteousness" was a nice touch, because in European history in high school he remembered that the Protestants were big on grace, the Catholics on works, and presumably the Orthodox were in the works camp, too.

Why had he dodged the seminars dealing with the Church in Russia? Irrelevant, he had thought at the time. The Church was the influence that had made the chronicles of early Russian history so utterly useless, as every chronicler twisted the record to make it seem that Orthodoxy had prevailed at every point. Now he was going to have a crash course in Christianity whether he liked it or not, ending with baptism. The Orthodox didn't do it by immersion, did they? No, surely they were sprinklers.

If only he could get home again, he'd never have second thoughts about marrying Ruth again. The hoops she made him jump through were nothing compared to this.

And yet... he remembered Katerina's beauty as she lay asleep on the pedestal. And again, later, when she entered Taina with a bold, regal bearing. None of this highfalutin royal-wave nonsense like the Queen of England, dignified and aloof. No, she was a princess who knew her people and strode among them without pretense, the first among equals. Not like a politician, desperate to be liked, either. She was as untainted by pleading as by arrogance. She was a formidable woman, and he was supposed to get a baby into her as quickly as possible. It was an intimidating thought. But not an entirely unpleasant one.

That is, as long as he had no choice anyway. And as long as he could stay persuaded that he wasn't being false to Ruth, any more than he was being false to Judaism. It still felt like sophistry to him, to claim that his engagement to Ruth was a thousand years in the future.

"Your mind wanders," said Father Lukas.

"I'm tired from the journey," said Ivan.

"Then tomorrow we'll meet again."

Do we have to?

Ivan wisely kept the thought to himself. But then he thought of a way that perhaps he could avoid spending so much time in Father Lukas's company. "I hate to keep you from your ministry," said Ivan. "Perhaps if Brother Sergei could teach me the basics, and then I could come to you for examination."

"Sergei?" asked Lukas with obvious distaste. "Shall the blind lead the blind?"

"May a man, coming out of darkness, not spend a moment blinking until he is able to bear the light of the sun?"

"I have only the vaguest notion of what you mean, and even that vague notion smacks of Plato rather than Saint Paul. Nevertheless, since Brother Sergei performs his work at best sloppily and at worst not at all, I doubt you would be doing the work of the Church serious injury if you took him from his duties."

"You are very kind, sir."

"Call me Father," said Lukas.

"Father," said Ivan.

Esther saw her son in the still water. His was the only face the water could have shown her, for what other living person was linked to her by blood and love? My Itzak, my Vanya, what is happening to you?

He was dressed in the robe of a medieval monk, and behind him loomed the figure of an old man in priests' garb. Vanya moved his lips. In Russian he said the word Father.

Then an owl flew over the water, inches from her face. Such was Esther's concentration that she did not move, did not screech, though the startlement made her heart race. Nevertheless, the flapping of the owl's wings caused a momentary breeze over the water, rippling the surface. The image disappeared.

She wanted to weep in fury that his face was gone.

In a moment, though, she calmed herself. No need for anger. She knew that he was alive. Wasn't that the purpose of her search? He was not in this world, but he was in some world, and if he was in the hands of Christians, at least it did not seem he was being mistreated. And he was asking for his father. Almost as if he knew someone was watching him, and he wished to speak. She would look again tomorrow night.