"Katerina, you're smarter than ten sons. You're right, though. You can't lead men into battle. You will stay home and have babies—lots of them, mostly sons, so our kingdom will never be left without a male heir again!"
"Ivan's sons," said Katerina.
"Your sons," said Father. "Maybe we'll be lucky. Maybe he'll marry you, get you pregnant with a boy, then take sick and die."
Katerina gripped her father's arm. "How can you say such a thing?" she whispered harshly. "It's the sin of David, to wish for the death of a loyal man."
"Get Father Lukas to read you the story again, Katerina."
"I can read it myself."
"King David's sin wasn't wishing, it was doing."
"Would you wish my child fatherless?"
"I would raise the baby as my own, if this Ivan were to die. But have no fear—the Pretender will probably use every spell she knows to keep him healthy. He's too useful to her and too destructive of all our hopes for her to let him come to harm."
"Don't despise him, Father," she said. "Teach him. Make a man of him."
"Of course I'll teach him," he said impatiently. "And I don't despise him, I told you that. I admire his heart. But those weak arms—what were his parents thinking?"
"I think they were raising him to be a cleric."
"Good for them. They should have taught him that when clerics see princesses lying enchanted in a place of power, with a huge bear as guardian, they should go away and let her be until a real man arrives to have a go at the task!"
"He is a real man, Father. In his heart."
Father put his arm around her, held her close. "Who am I to stand in the way of love?"
Katerina grimaced. Father kissed her forehead, then led her into the fort. In the yard, some of the older men were training boys with wooden practice swords. Katerina came up beside her father and added a parting shot to their argument. "If they can teach boys, they can teach Ivan."
Father rolled his eyes, but she knew he would try to make this betrothal work. He would do it because that was the only hope for the kingdom.
At the verge of the forest, Nadya was returning to her hut to get back to her weaving—so much work left to do, and never enough time, now that the days were getting so short. She had tried weaving in the dark, once, but nobody would have worn the cloth that resulted, so she pulled it out and did it over and never tried such a mad experiment again. Everything had to be done in the precious hours of daylight. Everything except make babies. Another reason to get done with her work as early as she could. Even though all but one of their babies had died after only a few days, it didn't stop her husband from trying. And with each pregnancy, Nadya had new hope.
But she was getting on in years now. More than thirty years old, and her body wearied of more pregnancies. Their only living child, a son, was a cripple, deformed from birth and then the same leg injured in childhood, so what was already withered became even more twisted and stumpy. Others muttered sometimes that there was a curse on Nadya and her family, but Nadya paid them no mind. She did no harm to anyone—who would put a curse on her? She did not want to start thinking of her neighbors that way.
Not even the strange little old lady who stood leaning against the wall of Nadya's hut. She came in from some distant, lonely forest hut. Nadya always shared food with her and treated her civilly, because you never knew who had the power to curse and because if her husband died before her, Nadya herself might be left on her own, hungry and alone, since her only living child was not likely to earn much bread—still less any to share with her, since her boy had given himself to the Christians and spent all his time with Father Lukas.
"Good evening to you," said Nadya.
"New and news!" cackled the crone.
"You have tales from abroad?" asked Nadya. "Come in, and I'll give you bread and cheese."
The old woman followed her into her hut. "News from Taina!" said the old lady. "The princess is back!"
"I know it," said Nadya. "I was there in the village when she returned with that naked fellow."
The old lady sniffed, clearly offended that Nadya didn't need her gossip.
"But I'm sure you know more about it than I do," said Nadya.
The old lady softened. She took a bite of dry black bread with a nibble of cheese. "I hope you have a bit of mead to keep my throat open."
Nadya handed her a pot of mead. The old lady quaffed it off like a man, then giggled in a way that made Nadya think of some chattering animal.
"He's not much of a fellow, this man she brought back to marry," said the old lady.
"He saved her from the Widow's evil trap. Isn't that enough?"
"You think so?" asked the old lady. "You really think that's all that matters?"
"He saved Lybed, too, they say. Though Dimitri beat him for it afterward. Isn't that a mean trick?"
The old lady smiled mysteriously. "He might have deserved the beating after all. For another reason."
"Why? What do you know about him?"
"I know he was wearing this," said the old lady. She reached into her bag and pulled out a tattered, stained hoose. Nadya recognized it at once as being of fine weave, with a delicate pattern woven into it. Her own work. She had given this hoose as a gift to the princess, and Katerina had been wearing it when she pricked her finger on the spindle and was carried away in her sleep.
"He wore it?"
"He demanded it from her. So he wouldn't get scratched up walking through the forest. But the cloth had no comfort for him—see how the fabric tore to let the branches through so they could scratch him anyway? That's why he cast it away. Because a Christian woman's clothing will not bear the insult."
"But—he put it on? He dressed in it?"
"Ask him. Ask Katerina if he had this girded about his loins, playing at being a girl. Ask them both, and see if they tell you the truth."
"How do you know this?"
"Didn't they walk right past me, not seeing me, overlooking me as folks always do?"
"I don't," Nadya reminded her.
"He cast it away, and I picked it up and brought it here. Because I think the people of Taina should know what kind of wickedness is in the heart of the man who thinks he can marry the dear princess."
"But... she wouldn't marry him if he were that kind of man," said Nadya.
"She would, if she thought that's what it took to keep Taina free of the great and powerful Pretender."
"May I—may I keep this? To show?"
"Go ahead," said the old woman. "I have no use for it." Her supper finished, she arose to go. "But I fear the vengeance of this stranger, if it's known who told his secret."
"I don't fear him," said Nadya. "He doesn't look strong enough to lead a dog on a leash."
"You're a brave one indeed," said the old lady. "You think that because you're virtuous and kind, and your son is a priest, and your husband a—"
"Sergei's only a scribe, not a priest," Nadya said.
"As if it matters."
"You were saying?"
"I was just telling you that you're not as safe as you think," said the old lady. "There are some people so malicious, so delighted in evildoing, that even when you treat them kindly, they answer with a curse."
"I hope I never meet such a wicked person." But Nadya entertained a moment's concern that perhaps the old lady was telling a secret about herself. Could this woman possibly have been the cause of the death of each of her babies? Of Sergei's crooked leg? Of the fall from a tree that ruined it further?