Mother with her Child, and the napkin for her tears, and the Christ Himself. Weary, bleary-eyed, I sat back. The place was intolerably cold. Oh, if there were only a little fire. And my hand, my left hand was cramped from the cold. Only my right hand was all right because of the pace at which I had done my work. I wanted to suck the fingers of my left hand, but this would not do, not here at this moment, when all gathered to coo over the ikons.
"Masterly. The Work of God."
An awful sense of time came over me, that I had traveled far from this moment, far from this the Monastery of the Caves to which I had vowed my life, far from the priests who were my brethren, far from my cursing, stupid Father, who was in spite of his ignorance so very proud.
Tears flowed from his eyes. "My son," he said. He clutched my shoulder proudly. He was beautiful in his own way, such a fine strong man, afraid of nothing, a prince himself when among his horses and his dogs and his followers, of which I, his son, had been one.
"Let me alone, you thick-skulled oaf," I said. I smiled up at him to farther outrage him. He laughed. He was too happy, too proud, to be provoked.
"Look what my son has done." His voice had a telltale thickness to it. He was going to cry. And he wasn't even drunk.
"Not by human hands," said the priest.
"No, naturally not!" boomed my Father's scornful voice. "Just by my son Andrei's hands, that's all."
A silken voice said in my ear, "Would you place the jewels into the halos yourself, Brother Andrei, or shall I perform this task?"
Behold, it was done, the paste applied, the stones set, five in the Ikon of Christ. The brush was in my hand again to stroke the brown hair of the Lord God, which was parted in the middle and brought back behind His ears, with only part of it to show on either side of His neck. The stylus appeared in my hand to thicken and darken the black letters on the open book which Christ held in His left hand. The Lord God stared, serious and severe, from the panel, His mouth red and straight beneath the horns of His brown mustache.
"Come now, the Prince is here, the Prince has come."
Outside the entrance of the Monastery, the snow fell in cruel gusts. The priests helped me with my leather vest, my jacket of shearling. They buckled my belt. It was good to smell this leather again, to breathe the fresh cold air. My Father had my sword. It was heavy, old, taken from his long-ago fighting against the Teutonic Knights in lands far to the east, the jewels long ago chipped out of its handle, but a fine, fine battle sword.
Through the snowy mist a figure appeared, on horseback. It was Prince Michael himself, in his fur hat and fur-lined cape and gloves, the great Lord who ruled Kiev for our Roman Catholic conquerors, whose faith we would not accept but who let us keep to our own. He was decked out in foreign velvet and gold, a fancy figure fit for royal Lithuanian courts, of which we heard fantastical tales. How did he endure Kiev, the ruined city?
The horse reared up on its hind legs. My Father ran to catch the reins, and threaten the animal as he threatened me.
The Ikon for Prince Feodor was wrapped thickly in wool for me to carry.
I placed my hand on the hilt of my sword.
"Ah, you will not take him on this Godless mission," cried the Elder. "Prince Michael, Your Excellency, our mighty ruler, tell this Godless man that he can not take our Andrei."
I saw the face of the Prince through the snow, square and strong, with gray eyebrows and beard and huge hard blue eyes. "Let him go, Father," he cried out to the priest. "The boy has hunted with Ivan since he was four years old. Never has anyone provided such bounty for my table, and for yours, Father. Let him go."
The horse danced backwards. My Father pulled down on the reins. Prince Michael blew the snow from off his lips.
Our horses were led to the fore, my Father's powerful stallion with the gracefully curved neck and the shorter gelding which had been mine before I had come to the Monastery of the Caves.