Spain, plain dark blue inside, brightly decorated on the outside. She bought it and brought it home, arriving after dark. Piotr asked her where she had been, but she answered him in one-word sentences that let him know this was not a good night for chat.
Out in the back yard, she set up the basin on a lawn table, out in the open where moonlight fell directly on it. Then she took the garden hose and filled it to the brim with water. Using blades of grass and twigs from the lawn as shims, she finally got the bowl exactly level and perfectly full, so that the water in the basin was poised to brim over, held in place all the way around by surface tension alone. The last few drops she added with an eyedropper.
The water trembled from the last drop, shimmering for a long time as if to the echo of a distant drumbeat. She sat and watched, cupping her hand over her mouth and nose lest her breath disturb the water. The night was still, but she did not trust it. She murmured words to keep breezes away from this spot, ancient words in a language she didn't really understand, and for good measure included the incantation that would keep the eager insects of spring from seeking out this pool of water for egg-laying.
At last the water was perfectly still. Carefully, she rose to her feet. Holding her clothing close to her body, so nothing would touch the basin and disturb the water, she looked directly down into the deep dark blue of the pool, the water as expressionless as night, and whispered, over and over, the true name of her only child.
Chapter 6
Newcomer
While Ivan slept, Katerina and her father took a walk up to the hill-fort. The sound of mock combat came from the yard within; because Katerina wanted to talk in privacy, she held back, and her father waited with her outside the gate.
Father knew what she wanted to talk about. "Well?" he asked. "What kind of king will he be?"
"King?" She shook her head ruefully. "He knows nothing of kingliness."
Father smiled slightly and looked off in the distance. "I'm sure you're right."
"Which means that you're not sure," she said, laughing.
"All through the dinner, I thought, the Pretender must be rejoicing to see this awful creature my daughter brought home. And then he saves a stranger from choking."
"And provokes Dimitri - "
"Oh, of course, he does everything wrong, Katerina. But he does have the heart of a king. When he sees someone in need, he does not hesitate to act. He does not measure the cost, he does not fear criticism - "
"But if there's anything you taught me, Father, it's that a king must measure the cost! And he must act in a way that will be above criticism."
"I did not say that this Ivan has the mind of a king. Only that he has the heart."
"What good is the heart without the mind?"
"Better than the mind without the heart," said Father.
"And what good are his personal qualities, if the people will not accept him? Look at him, Father. Who would follow him into battle?"
"You know, this whole idea of hereditary kingship has never sat well with me," said Father. "We always elected our kings, in the old days, to lead us in war."
"Yes, but that law of succession is the only thing holding the Widow back," said Katerina.
"No one would vote for her, either."
"If they feared her enough, they would," said Katerina. "So I have to succeed you, and my husband will be king, and I gave my word to Ivan, and he to me."
"We can fight the Widow," said Father. "Choose another man. I'm sorry for this good-hearted boy, and grateful to him for saving you from the Widow's curse, but choose another husband and we'll fight. Our men are courageous."
"One man with courage is no match for ten men with blood lust upon them."
"God will fight with us against the powers of darkness. He fought for Constantine, didn't he? 'In this sign, you will conquer!' "
"Maybe that story is true, and maybe it isn't."
Father looked at her in horror. "Do we not have the word of Father Lukas for it?"
"He wasn't there, Father."
"He wasn't at the resurrection, either."
"Father, I'm a Christian and you know it. But the armies of Rome have been defeated many times since they converted to Christianity. Maybe when God has some great purpose, like converting an