"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