The Tetrachromat (On HOLD)

Chapter 4. Blessed by a Blessed Madman

Beyond its walls, I at once glimpsed the Volga River.

It flowed, oblivious to the bustle on its shores. Boats threaded the water as did swallows above it, charting unknown courses between the sandy banks. The fishermen talked up their wriggling bounty to the fishmongers. Women, with skirts tacked out of the way, washed laundry, then stretched the linens along the shore to dry. A school of boys challenged one another to jump into the still frigid water from up high and showering the passersby.

Closer to the bank, my nostrils filled with the smell of rot, smoked tar, bread and waste—in short, that of humans. It was still better than the train yard at home. The Uglich kremlin, where Dmitrii's family lived and where he was killed, crowned the other, the higher bank of the Volga.

Besson kept his head down as he went to the jetties to find a boat to take him across the river. It wasn't a romantic fancy—there was no bridge in sight. To reach the safety of the monastery if things went south on the other bank, Besson had to hitch a ride.

He also had to do that on the day of murder, with the townsfolk hunting him. You got someone to ferry you across after Dmitrii's murder? Respect! I would have died of anxiety, fearful a boatman would denounce me to the vigilantes.

Besson's thoughts got spooked by my praise. Shame, fear, guilt hit him at once, on steroids. He shoved me out of his consciousness so hard I had to hold on for dear life or disintegrate.

Whoa! Easy! I screamed, bouncing in time and space like a speck of dust inside a vacuum cleaner. Keep your damned secrets, dude!

Begone, demon. Begone!

Witness, dude, remember? Not a demon. WI-T-NESS!

Witness to my sins? Woe is me, a sinful dog, an abomination, a cad!

The turmoil of our argument was so plainly written on his face, the citizens of Uglich gave him a wide berth.

All citizens save for one.

A blessed madman stirred from a shady corner where he begged for alms. His pitifully thin limbs stuck out of a dirty blanket tied to him with a rope. Hives disfigured the right side of his face and matted hair overhang the rest of it, but neither thing reduced the intensity of the man's gaze. Rusty manacles chafed his wrists and ankles hoping to mortify the shriveled flesh left on his bones.

He fixed his blazing eyes on Besson and crawled after him. I couldn't help thinking that he only needed to point his fingers and toes to free himself. Those chains would slip right off.

But, of course, that wasn't how they thought in the sixteenth century. Waves of guilt reached tsunami height inside Besson. He stopped, searched his belt for a copper coin and pushed it into the blessed madman's calloused hand. "Pray for me, please, good man."

He couldn't look away and scoot after giving alms like a regular person, cursed as he was by the tetrachromacy. He had to commit every scale of peeling skin, every bruise and stain on the blessed madman to memory.

I did the same, for I was also a tetrachromat.

Besson's coin agitated the blessed madman. He held it up to the sun, twisting the red disk one way and the other, as if he had never seen a copper coin before. His obvious delight sent shivers through Besson.

The upheaval finally made him move from the spot. He wrapped his arms around his shaking body and nearly ran away from the blessed madman.

The rattling of the chains chased after Besson. The beggar could move, even if he never pushed to his feet and ran crab-like, on all fours.