woman wears is women's clothing while she's wearing it. Do you understand?"
Sergei thought for a moment, then shook his head. "You mean that this is a man's hoose?" His tone was scornful.
"I mean that it's nothing but a piece of cloth, stitched in certain ways, and now torn. Though it wasn't torn at all when I last saw it."
Sergei said nothing.
"Sergei," said Ivan, "if I reached out and tore that cross from your neck, that would be theft, wouldn't it? Stealing a cross! What kind of wicked fool would I have to be, to commit such a sin as that?"
Sergei waited, listening but not willing to concede anything.
"But what if I came upon the cross in the forest. Or under a stone. Then to find a cross would be... what, wouldn't it be a miracle? A gift from God?"
"Are you saying you found this hoose and didn't know what it was?" asked Sergei.
"I'm saying that if a man doesn't know something's a sin, and does it, and as soon as he finds out it's a sin, he stops doing it, then is he a sinner?"
Sergei leaned back against the timbered wall. "I'll have to think about that," said Brother Sergei. "I'll have to ask Father Lukas."
Ivan leaned down and wrote his own name in the dirt, in Cyrillic characters. Then he wrote: "never wanted to be king."
Sergei studied the writing for a moment. Then he rubbed out the name and wrote his own in its place, and erased "king" and replaced it with the word "scribe." He looked up at Ivan, and when he was sure Ivan was looking back at him, he touched his own crippled leg. "When the things you want are taken from you, then you do the things that are left for you to do."
"If you tell this story, of my wearing women's clothing, will it change things so I don't have to marry Katerina?"
Sergei shrugged. "If Jesus came tomorrow, would he heal my leg?"
"I think he would," said Ivan, "if he could."
"But I think he's not coming," said Sergei.
So, what did that mean? That Sergei wasn't going to tell about the hoose?
"Come with me," said Sergei. "Father Lukas wants to teach you in preparation for your baptism."
Ivan reached down and erased Sergei's name and the word "scribe," and replaced them with "Ivan" and the word "Christian."
Sergei grinned, erased "Ivan" yet again, and again replaced it with his own name. But he let the word "Christian" stand.
Ivan shook his head ruefully. "We don't get to choose the world we live in, do we?" he said to the scribe. Only later did he realize what a stupid thing he had said. For he had chosen this world. Not knowing the consequences, it's true, but still he took Katerina's hand and followed her across the invisible bridge to Taina, instead of returning home over the bridge that he alone could see. That was more choice than Sergei ever got. But this young man was making the best of it.
"Will you help me learn what you have learned?" asked Ivan.
"You already read and write," said Sergei. "Though you make some of the letters oddly."
There was no point in explaining further. "Take me to Father Lukas, then." He stood up to leave and only then remembered that his only clothing was the king's cloak. "Except that I'm naked," he said.
Sergei pointed to a pile of cloth at the foot of the bed. "They must have brought it in while you slept."
Ivan pulled the robe of a monk over his head. Not how he would have expected them to dress a future king, or the fiance of a princess. But just right, if they thought of him as a cleric. Was the clothing an insult? Or merely the only thing they had that they could be sure would fit a man so much taller than any of the others in this place?
Father Lukas's church was not large, but it was solidly built, and there was room enough inside it for at least a hundred villagers - standing, for no space was wasted on benches in Orthodox churches - and a tiring-room behind and to the right of the altar. There were two old women kneeling before an icon on a side wall, but whether they were praying or whispering to each other Ivan could not begin to guess. Another thick peasant woman was lighting a candle before another icon. She was not the first - the place was aglow with the