of Taina would be left, to tell the tales that they already knew before the battle's start.
No, no, he could not reach any conclusion from the silence. Besides, there were more Ivan stories that were nothing like the things that he'd already done. Couldn't he live to have more adventures? Only if they had a victory today, for it was certain that in defeat there would be no escape for him.
Of course, those other Ivan stories might be more embellishments, told about a legendary figure who was dead.
Russian fairy tales were the only ones he'd read that were so grim, even the princess sometimes died.
Why couldn't I have been born a nice Protestant boy from Omaha or Sacramento? Why couldn't Katerina have been the unattainable girl that somehow agreed to let me take her to the prom? Why couldn't I have been the track star with the letters on my jacket, instead of making bombs and Molotov cocktails, and sending my wife into the air to face a dire enemy alone?
Lost in thoughts like these, Ivan let the conversation drift around him until someone called him back. Misunderstanding his inattention, Sergei whispered to him, "Don't be afraid. I believe God has chosen you for a great work."
To which Ivan, just as quietly, replied, "He chose his own son, too, and look how that turned out."
At last the councils and the conversations ended. Ivan and Katerina slept then, their first time together on the straw mattress of her bed in King Matfei's house. They did not make love, but only held each other, whispering their happiness over the time they had together, plus a few hopeful comments about the baby that yes, indeed, Katerina carried in her womb.
It was a fine morning for a war. They set out with songs and tears - the songs of men putting on a show of bravado, the tears of women mourning in advance while protesting through their sobs that they knew God would protect him - husband, son, brother, father. It was a scene that had played out ten thousand times already, and would play again ten thousand more.
They marched that day and slept that night, consuming half the food they carried with them. What more was needed? If they won. they would have Baba Yaga's lands to pillage; if they lost, there would be no need for food at all. The second half of their supply was only to feed them if by some chance the battle lasted until a second day.
Somewhere behind them, on a high hill, Katerina would be launched at dawn, the few men she had with her watching her out of sight, then rushing to bring their report. Ivan tried not to think of that, but rather to concentrate on the task at hand. A dozen match boys, including Sergei, who - though a good thrower - could not possibly dart in and out among the fighting men. Four times as many who carried a half-dozen grenades and cocktails each. The grenades, they knew, were to throw once at the start, to frighten the peasants of Baba Yaga's army, and then to hold in reserve, for they were too dangerous to use among the soldiers, where the shrapnel could kill a man of Taina as easily as his foe. For the close-in work, the cocktails would do the job, and when a boy had run out of his supply, he was to flee back behind the line of battle, to wait. If the worst came, and they lost the day, then these boys were to be the rear guard, using their grenades to cover a retreat, delaying the enemy long enough that there might be hope for some, at least, to get away.
Get away, yes, but not back to Taina, for that would be Baba Yaga's land, and the women would be given to her followers. Any man found there after a defeat would be killed or enslaved and sold far away. To Constantinople, perhaps, where they might live as Christians despite their slavery, to weep the remainder of their days, remembering their wives and daughters, now belonging to other, crueler men; remembering their sons and brothers who were lucky enough to die in battle rather than living out their lives in such despair.
None of this was said aloud. But all of them knew what lay ahead, if the day was lost. But what made it possible for them to fight was the knowledge that if they did not