The Tetrachromat (On HOLD)

Chapter 19. Shadows of Terrible: Tver', 1569 C.E.

This time my surroundings changed little after the fog of the time-travel had receded. I found myself in a monastery's cell. The place didn't look like a welcome haven of Besson's dreams.

The walls were stone, once white, now slimy with green, and weeping with moisture. It was so dark, that even my eyes barely picked out a narrow bench, of the same stone. Unlike Dmitrii's palace in Uglich, there were no carpets or cushions to ward off cold and damp.

The man who slumped on the bench must have felt all of it in his old bones. His face was so deeply lined it seemed to be carved of a piece of driftwood. Patches of yellowed hair clung to his scalp, but when he smiled, black gaped between four remaining teeth.

But he smiled, and his sunken eyes lit with forbearance as he gazed upon Andrei who knelt in front of him.

Tough old guy! I thought, testing this time-and-space for Besson's presence.

His opinion brushed past my consciousness. Not victim broken by torture, but a martyr for his faith.

"Holy Father," Andrei said. "I beg you to follow me, for I can deliver you to safety in Novgorod. You have many friends there."

"No." The old man lisped through cracked lips. "I received holy communion three days hence and placed my life into the Lord's hands. Let me celebrate Christmas in peace."

"People need your forthrightness, Philip." Hood fell down to Andrei's shoulders, revealing the familiar flush of blonde hair and beard. His eyes glittered in the semi-darkness of the cell—with tears, I guessed.

"The Holy Synod had deposed me, my son, for sorcery and dissolute living. Have you forgotten?"

Andrei shrugged. "Lies."

His gesture was so familiar, I winced. How many times in our lives did we shrug off the official story like that? Seeing a man five hundred years dead habituated to it, stoppered my throat with an unwanted question: how far down the ages do I have to travel for things to stop being so poignantly familiar?

"You were martyred because you dared to remind Ivan the words Metropolitan Makarii spoke when anointing him, a Grand Prince of Moscow, as a sovereign of Russia-in-Entire, the Tsar over all of us," Andrei said.

"Would that he remembered the words as well as I did!" Philip sighed. A smile in his ruined face had a special beauty to it.

A joy bought with suffering is dearly bought, Besson piped up in my mind, but it's as indestructible as the precious gems.

Yeah, I replied. Andrei was on a fool's errand trying to argue with this old priest.

Metropolitan Philip, Besson told me. A saintly martyr.

Thanks, Bessopedia. I'd never met a saint before, but I imagined that at some point, they had the same zeal in their gaze as Philip. Like they had passed his point of no return and only wanted their death to matter.

Animated by an inner fire, Philip's voice rose, as his index finger pointed to the low ceiling. "A Tsar who does not hold to righteousness and the truth, he becomes a tormentor of his people, and no longer their ruler."

The chill must have gotten into his throat from the effort of speaking up, and he coughed to clear the phlegm.

Andrei waited patiently on his knees.

Still hoarse, Philip grated. "Makarii was a man of deep wisdom."

"So are you, Holy Father."

"Alas, the praise is undeserved." Philip rose his hands in a gesture of surrender to the higher authority. Welts from the shackles circled his bony wrists, as if one needed iron to keep a man this old from running. "Were I Makarii's equal, Tsar Ivan wouldn't persist on this unholy course."