him, but the smith served the king and only obeyed Dimitri out of fear for his family - he was glad to help, especially when Sergei, following instructions, let slip the news that Katerina and Ivan were back.
"Where?" asked the smith.
"In the forest, biding their time," said Sergei. "Dimitri's days are numbered. Those who are wise would do well to prepare to follow Katerina when she returns."
The smith had his doubts, though. Until Sergei laughed. "Do you think Dimitri's sword will stand against the Widow's curses? Already he has been deceived by the witch and doesn't even know it. No, it takes a woman of power to stand against the wicked one."
There it was, the seed planted. When Sergei reported on the conversation, Ivan and Katerina were well satisfied. Word would spread. Many people would stop believing that Dimitri was their only hope. How could a soldier stand against a witch?
Running a still wasn't easy, but Father Lukas took to it naturally, even after he realized that the result would be an extremely potent beverage. The problem was supplying the still with fermentable foodstuffs. After a couple of days, Katerina authorized Sergei to bring a couple of teenage boys from the village, enlisting them as the first of her own druzhina, though their labor was pilfering grain sacks and toting them miles through the forest, rather than swordplay. "Whatever my people need, I do," she said, "and my druzhina will not be too good to do the same." They knew that she spoke the truth, and so they obeyed her and felt noble for doing it - as they should.
And in the process, they began to get to know Ivan. He made it a point never to command anyone, but always to ask; nor did he teach imperiously, but rather couched everything in phrases like, "The way I was taught..." or "I think it might work better if..." And then he got along with the young men, never pretending to be one of them, but enjoying their humor and refusing to become impatient with their playfulness.
So when it was time to pour alcohol into brittle pots and put in the fuses, the young men already liked Ivan. He showed them how to light the fuses and then throw the pots into the chasm. They were impressed, of course. But Ivan pointed out that they wouldn't be throwing them at rocks. "Imagine the old hag's knights receiving a dose of this."
The boys' eyes widened. And for the first time they realized that with weapons like these, boys might bring down mounted warriors. "We are her druzhina," said one of them. "I'd like to use this on Dimitri," said another.
"No," Ivan said. "Dimitri is one of our own."
"Not after what he did to King Matfei."
"Nevertheless, these weapons don't replace swords. We need his strength on our side."
Grudgingly they agreed. And then began to practice throwing stones of about the same weight as the Molotov cocktails, working on improving their aim.
Ivan had done a good job of learning the location of historically known mineral deposits in the area, and it took very little fumbling to get what he needed for gunpowder. Now that they had seen the Molotov cocktails, they took Ivan seriously when he warned them to handle the gunpowder carefully. Soon they were loading serious quantities of gunpowder into little bronze canisters with fuses. The smith couldn't spare any iron, for Dimitri would have noticed if it went missing, but bronze grenades would do well enough, Ivan figured. What mattered was shrapnel, to turn them from cherry bombs into legitimate weapons.
Since the fuse material was different, they had to practice to get the timing right. Soon, though, the boys were learning to throw grenades as well as cocktails, though they only practiced with tiny charges of gunpowder that went off with no more than a pop, and didn't damage the canisters. To everyone's surprise, Sergei emerged as one of the better throwers, and on some days the best.
"Time to return to Taina," Katerina announced, when their supply was adequate. "We must all return together, so let's close down the still." When the fires were out, they hid the unused gunpowder and the materials used to make it, then shouldered their bags of cocktails and grenades and made their way along Sergei's path through the woods.
Sergei had been careful never to follow the same route twice, so he couldn't easily be followed, but the boys had not been so careful. Clearly the