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