Enchantment (24 page)

“What sort of conspiracy is this?” asked the princess. “I thought these parchments burned.”

Ivan unrolled them and showed her the back of one. He knew that she was literate; she had studied for her baptism far more rigorously than he had. In the ninth century it was not yet shocking for a woman to read—it was shocking for
anyone
to read.

She scanned Sergei’s writing quickly, just a few sentences. “The story of I-Know-Not-What? Why would you write this down?” Then she shook her head. “It was for
this
that you wanted parchment, Ivan?”

“These stories have all been changed in my time. No one understands how old they are, and how they used to be.”

“But they’re just stories.” Katerina shook her head. “Never mind. I have no hope of understanding you. I feel sorry for the trouble you’ll get Sergei in, when this comes out.”

“Why would it come out?” asked Ivan, looking her in the eye.

“I see,” she said. “All right, I’ll keep these in my room. The secret won’t come out.”

“Thank you,” said Sergei. He laid his hand upon the latch, ready to leave again. But Katerina’s voice stopped him.

“Not so fast,” she said. “I need something from you in return.”

“What?” asked Sergei. “Anything.”

“I need you to go fetch Father Lukas. Tell him that I wish him to come into this room, just him and you, to shrive us both again and to pray for us that we will conceive at once, and a boy child.”

“But you were already shriven in the—”

“Tell him in these words,” said Katerina. “Say that
I
say that since the fire in the church prevented me from completing my confession, I would like him to come and do it now. And then the rest, about the prayer. And Ivan wants you to come with him, Sergei. Do it.”

Sergei nodded, glancing at Ivan, who only raised his eyebrows, as if to say he had no idea what was going on, but don’t question the motives of women. Since to Sergei women were all an unplumbable mystery, most especially Katerina, whose beauty made it impossible for men to think around her, he had no intention of trying to understand anything except what his errand was supposed to be.

When Sergei returned to the room that was now Father Lukas’s, the king was still there.

“Took you long enough,” said the king.

“I was thinking that he returned rather quickly,” said Father Lukas.

“As I passed along the corridor,” said Sergei, keeping his eyes down, hoping that the appearance of humility would mask his second calculated lie of the day, “the door to the bridal chamber opened, and the princess said, ‘Go to Father Lukas, and tell him that since the fire in the church prevented him from hearing my confession this morning, I would like him to come now, and bring you with him, and shrive both me and my husband, and bless us that we will conceive a boychild from our first union.”

It took all his self-discipline, but Sergei did not look up to see how Father Lukas took this message. For Father Lukas would know at once that it was a lie. What mattered was, would he think it was Katerina’s lie or Sergei’s?

“Your Majesty,” said Father Lukas, “let me go and ease your daughter’s troubled heart. The burden of responsibility weighs on her, and perhaps with God’s help that burden can be eased on this day that should be happy for a woman.”

“Go, go,” said the king, “though it sounds like pious nonsense to me. You already blessed her during the wedding, didn’t you? And why would you need Sergei?”

“I believe,” said Sergei softly, “that it was Ivan who wanted to see me. Perhaps he, too, has an errand for me.”

“It just seems strange to me,” said the king, “that a bridegroom should ask for a young man to visit him in the bridal chamber, especially the young man with whom he has been sharing a room.”

“You must be careful about giving voice to such thoughts,” said Father Lukas. “What to you sounds like idle wondering will sound to another like an accusation.”

“Who would hear?” said the king.

“Anyone standing in the corridor would hear words spoken in this room,” said Father Lukas. “Just as anyone in this room would hear words spoken in the corridor.”

For a moment, Sergei was afraid that Father Lukas meant to tell the king what he had overheard just that morning in this very room. But to his relief, Father Lukas merely bade the king good-bye for the moment and then glided from the room, Sergei bobbing along behind him in his wake.

Father Lukas slipped into the room and, as Sergei closed the door, looked at Katerina with annoyance and amusement. “Interesting, to use a lie to send me a message. We finished your confession.”

“The message you understood was true. I needed you to come here, and needed you to have a reasonable excuse for doing it.”

“Why does a princess need an old priest in her bridal chamber?” Father Lukas looked at Ivan. “Or is it you who needs help? Surely you don’t expect me to give you lessons on this subject.”

“I need to get Ivan out of here and safely away from the house.”

“Because the marriage has been consummated? Or because it has not?”

“Let’s leave everyone wondering about that,” said Katerina.

“What’s your plan?”

“Have Sergei and Ivan trade clothes. Ivan leaves limping, his face hooded, following close behind you. Who will look at him?”

“And then what?”

“Sergei and I wait for a little while. You bring back more of his proper clothing for Sergei to wear. While Ivan runs away, Sergei and I emerge, asking what happened to Ivan, he disappeared suddenly.”

Father Lukas frowned. “Which is only slightly true.”

“They have to believe the Pretender spirited him away, or they’ll start to search too soon.”

“And you consent to this?” Father Lukas asked Ivan. “Running away on your wedding night?”

“It seems more prudent than bloodshed,” said Ivan.

“We have to hurry,” said Katerina. “You can be sure several people have cast spells to see if I am still a virgin. The longer we take, the more impatient the plotters will become.”

Father Lukas turned to Sergei. “Does that robe come off, or weren’t you listening?”

Sergei doffed his robe at once. He and Ivan exchanged a glance: What if Father Lukas had ordered this while Sergei still had the parchments tucked under the robe?

Ivan pulled it on over his head. Then he put up the hood.

“Thank you, Father,” said Katerina.

“I don’t like lying.”

“To save a life, is it a sin?” she asked.

“Perhaps just a venial one.”

Ivan turned to Katerina. “I can’t get over the bridge without you there.”

“I’ll get there as soon as I can. You simply have to hide till then.”

“I’m not sure I know the way.”

“Follow the trail of broken branches you left behind you as you came through.”

Ivan shook his head. “I’m no hunter, I don’t know how to follow signs like that.”

She seemed to make an effort to be patient. “Can you figure out where west is?”

“As long as the sun’s up.”

“And uphill, do you know that one?”

Ivan glared at her.

“I wasn’t being nasty,” she said. “You don’t always understand every word I say, I just wanted to make sure you knew. I have to be able to find you out there.”

“You have to find me, and they mustn’t find me, and it’s the same trail.”

She reached up and pulled three or four strands of her hair out of her head. “Tie these around your wrist,” she said. “I’ll find you.”

Ivan couldn’t do it one-handed. Sergei helped him.

“Now go,” said Katerina. “We have to play the scene out before dark.”

Ivan took a few steps, trying to get Sergei’s limp right.

“No, no,” said Sergei. “You look like you’re
trying
to limp. I try
not
to limp.”

Ivan tried again. It wasn’t good, but it was better.

“Come on,” said Father Lukas. “I’ll give you something heavy to carry, and that will explain the change in your gait.”

Father Lukas led the way out of the room. Ivan followed close behind. Limping, his foot twisted.

Sergei rushed to the door and latched it behind him. There he stood in his tattered linen undergarment, so full of holes it was like wearing a fishing net. Katerina was not looking at him, which meant she
had
looked at him and now was looking away so as not to cause him shame.

“Thank you for keeping the secret of the parchments,” he said to her.

“A lot of secrets are being kept tonight,” she said softly.

“I don’t belong in this room.”

“Neither of us does. But sometimes we’re put in a place and we have to do our best.”

Sergei appreciated her modesty, but knew that even if she believed it, her statement wasn’t true. “You’d be a princess no matter where you were.”

“We’ll soon see,” said Katerina.

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing,” she said. “Don’t be afraid of me. I’ve seen men bathing, I have no particular fear of seeing through the holes in your tunic.”

“I’m not afraid, I just . . . I’m not the one who should be here.”

“Oh, now I understand you. Well, Ivan didn’t belong here either. Just bad luck, him finding me.”

“Not luck, I don’t think,” said Sergei. “He’s your husband now.”

“An oath, but it can be annulled if it isn’t acted on.”

“I think,” said Sergei, “that he’s a better man than you believe he is.”

“I believe he’s a very good man,” said Katerina. “Not a king, though.”

“A bird can’t pull a plow.”

“I needed God to send me a plowhorse. I tried to make do with what he sent instead. I failed.”

“Maybe God’s message is that you don’t need plowing.” Then Sergei realized the double meaning of what he said. “Not to say he’s the plow and you’re the—I mean, I—”

“I understood you,” she said.

There was a soft knock on the door. Sergei opened it. A hand thrust another robe through the door. Sergei took it, then closed the door again. He pulled a priestly robe over his head. It had fresh burn holes on the back. Of course—Father Lukas couldn’t continue wearing a damaged garment.

“Imagine,” said Katerina. “A Slavic priest.”

“I do imagine it,” said Sergei. “But it will not be me.”

“Why not?”

“Never me.”

“And I say, why not?”

Sergei laughed bitterly. “How convincing will I be, talking about how Jesus healed all the sick and the crippled? What more proof does anyone need that I’m not a man of faith?”

“Jesus isn’t here.”

“Jesus is everywhere. And as he often said, ‘Your faith has made you whole.’ ”

“So don’t be a priest,” said Katerina. “But if you aren’t that, what are you?”

“Is that how priestly vocation comes?” asked Sergei. “Because my foot was born twisted, I must be God’s chosen servant?”

“We are all called to be servants of God in whatever way we can. Perhaps I can serve him as a princess. Perhaps you as a priest.”

“Do you think I served God when I wrote down those old stories?”

Katerina shrugged. “That’s beyond my judging.”

“I’ll tell you what I think. I think God made all men, including the people who told these stories. So these things are the creations of God. Or the creations of his creations, but it amounts to the same thing. And if God created the people who would make up these stories and tell them, then by saving them I’m also honoring God.”

“God made the murderers and adulterers, too.”

“I think these stories are good. I think they teach us to love goodness.”

“Or to wish for the power to do great deeds,” she answered. “But we’ve given them time enough. We need to give the alarm.”

Sergei winced. “You do all the talking, would you?”

“Yes,” she said. “I’m good at talking, I suppose.” Then, without warning, she gave a shriek.

They could hear the crowd outside the window fall silent, then set to murmuring. Who screeched? Was it the princess? Is he hurting her?

Katerina rushed to the window, flung open the shutters. “Did he come out here? Did you see him pass?”

“Who?” asked the people.

“My husband! We were new-shriven, Father Lukas left, Ivan and I were talking, and suddenly he wasn’t there!”

The people took only a moment to digest the tale before they reached the only conclusion that made sense. “The Widow took him! Another curse! Another spell!”

Katerina burst into tears. “Am I never to be free of the witch’s plots?”

Even as she wept, however, she was scanning the crowd, watching to see who reacted. A couple of druzhinniks started walking briskly around the crowd, heading for what? Some rendezvous. If only she could see more clearly at such a distance. Who was it? Which of the king’s knights? She would know who the plotters were by seeing who began first to search for Ivan.

“Were you bedded?” asked an elderly peasant woman.

Katerina bowed her head. “We had the blessing of the priest. How could I guess the devil could reach us through that wall of glory?”

From the walk, Katerina recognized one of them. Dimitri. A part of her said, No, not Dimitri, not the hero, the man who should be king. Another part of her said, Of course Dimitri. Who else? If he was in the plot, then it was his plot. Even if he didn’t begin it, once in he would lead it. Ivan’s danger was worse than she had feared. For in the back of her mind, she had counted on Dimitri being on the king’s side.

Unless by plotting to kill Ivan he
was
on the king’s side. Or thought he was.

Katerina began crying harder, but pretending less. She reached out and drew the shutter closed. The moment the crowd could no longer see her, her tears stopped. “I have to get out of here now, with no one following me.”

“Good luck,” said Sergei. “Dressed like that, you can hide just about as easily as you can stuff a rainbow into a pot.”

“Almost I wish I could wear your clothes.”

“
Men’s
clothing?”

“It wouldn’t work,” said Katerina. “There’s only one priest in Taina, and there’s no way I can pass for Father Lukas.”

“So what will you do?”

“Ask you to turn your back, while I change into something less becoming.”

Sergei complied, trying not to imagine what the rustling sounds he was hearing might mean, or what the sight of her might be at any given moment. Katerina was not and never could be for him; there was no point in thinking thoughts that would excite desires that could never be satisfied. It would only make his life taste more bitter, to dwell on the sweetness that could not be his.