no sooner seated than bread and cheese and mead were set out in front of him. Moments later, a steaming bowl of borscht was added, and, lacking a spoon, he picked up the bowl and drank from it eagerly. It was a rich broth, beety and strong.
The crowd was cheering outside and shouting the names of Katerina and Matfei, as Katerina herself made her way into the great room and took her place at the king's left.
"So," said King Matfei. "You saved my daughter!"
"Yes, sir," said Ivan. He drank again from the soup bowl. Borscht dribbled from the sides of his mouth, down his chin and onto his chest. The bright red dripping broth would look for all the world as if he had bitten into the raw, warm heart of a fresh kill in the forest and let the hot blood run. For a moment he felt like a savage indeed, who had triumphantly brought back the prize from the teeth of the bear.
"He wants you to tell him the story," said Katerina. Her tone of voice added an unspoken epithet: idiot.
"It was nothing," said Ivan. "Really."
Matfei and Katerina looked at him as if he had just peed on the table.
"Saving my daughter was nothing?" asked King Matfei.
"No, no, Father," said Katerina, glaring at Ivan. "My beloved Ivan is merely waiting until your other knights have gathered, to tell the glorious tale of his triumph over the Widow's fiendish and hideous bear."
Ivan realized his mistake at once. He knew this from his studies. Modesty wasn't valued in this culture. A man boasted about his exploits and won extra points if he told the story well. What else was he forgetting?
Ivan tried to cover his faux pas by taking another draught of borscht, draining the bowl entirely.
"Then let's gather them all," said King Matfei. He called out to the naked boys who were sweeping and strawing. "Run and summon my boyars!"
The boys dropped broom and straw where they might fall, and took off for the door.
"Won't they be cold?" asked Ivan.
Katerina rolled her eyes. "You see how compassionate my rescuer is?" she said to her father. "He even cares for the comfort of slave boys, as if he were forgetting they would stay warm by running."
"You talk funny," said King Matfei to Ivan. "Are you a foreigner, or are you simple in the head?"
"Simple in the head," said Ivan at once.
Katerina glared at him. "He jokes."
"On the contrary," said Ivan. "Your daughter has made a great effort to tell me just how stupid I am."
King Matfei turned to face the princess, and for a moment she seemed to wither under his gaze. Then he laughed and smiled and hugged her close to him. "How can I think for a moment you would be ungracious to your rescuer!" he cried. "The man is jesting!"
"You'd be amazed at all the funny things he does," said Katerina. Her smile could freeze steam.
"I speak differently," Ivan explained to the king, "because I learned another dialect of your language as a child, and there are many words I don't know. I promise to learn as quickly as I can."
"Katerina will help you," said King Matfei. "She knows all the words!" With that he roared with laughter, and hugged Katerina even tighter.
She smiled and hugged her father back. Such a happy family, thought Ivan. What the hell am I doing here?
This is the first day of happily ever after, that's what I'm doing.
And, when he made the effort to see past his own fear and his resentment at the way Katerina had disdained him, he had to admit that Katerina and her father really did seem happy. King Matfei teased her, but treated her as someone to be proud of, someone to like as a person, not just as a property to be married off. Apparently women were not so oppressed as they would become in later centuries.
"I was so afraid for you, my daughter!" said the king. "I thought I might never see you again. All my boyars went in search of you, and found no track or trace or rumor. The dogs found no scent, and the prayers of Father Lukas went unanswered. I was going to set them all again to searching - or praying - but here you are, rescued, betrothed, and sooner than I could have hoped."
"I was enchanted only a few months," said Katerina. "Though Ivan thinks it was a thousand years."