When Besson exited outside, he had to stop and shield his sensitive eyes against the sunlight.
The monastery's vegetable garden nestled between the curtain wall and the guesthouse. Two laymen, their sleeves rolled up their sunburned arms, bent over the rows. They turned soil with their spades, and my eyes feasted on the rich assortment of shades. Ochre, coal, rust... The smell, even tinged with cow manure, promised new life.
"You came out to taste the foodstuffs, lad?" a gardener said and waved a bunch of parsley at Besson. "Worry not. On this side of the river, nobody wants to quarrel with Moscow. If your uncle falls ill, it's not any poison, it's the cook!"
The joke was dumb, but Besson joined the merriment. Luckily, the gardeners' hearty, outdoorsy laughter covered up his weedy chuckles.
"Ah... thank you for your toils. And goodbye."
His knees wobbled as he walked between the garden's rows to shortcut to the monastery's gates. His gut roiled. Poison! I spent three days dodging fists and knives, and I hadn't even thought of poison!
You think someone might want to poison you?
He clicked his tongue. Me? Nay. Those who itch to punish me for Dmitrii's murder—
He stammered to a stop, even in his thoughts. I didn't kill him!
Chill, I know you didn't. You were saying you won't be poisoned? Then why are you stressing out?
Because the tempers are settling down, but hatred doesn't. The Tsar sent uncle Vasilii from Moscow with a regiment of the musketeers and knowing Nikola... Nikola is running roughshod over the locals. Someone might slip arsenic to my uncle in retaliation.
He has it coming, if you ask me.
Besson sighed. How can you not be a demon if you whisper such evil things to me?
I tried an incorporeal shrug. Look, I trust you when you say you didn't kill Dmitrii. Can you trust me?
Demons speak with lying tongues. Besson's pointy shoulders rose in an expressive shrug—sure, rub it in, Mr. I-have-a-body!—Besides, if not a demon, who are you to whisper things in my mind?
A witness. When I said the word, it rang true. This was, apparently, what I was, a witness.
Luckily, Besson didn't ask me what I was here to witness, because I would fumble for an explanation. There was a reason I was here, even if I couldn't articulate it yet.
My friend or host perked up—for the whole of a second—before hanging his head again. I'm better off fasting, for I'll be eating at my uncle's table from now on, not at Dmitrii's.
My gaze swept the wooden lacework of the bell-tower and the crenelated walls of the monastery. The craftsmanship was amazing. Above the creations of men, heaven spread, the expanse of a thousand shades of blue. So pure compared to the shabby housing projects where I grew up. Even the air felt more alive without the car exhaust and the tar of the train yard.
Besson's paranoia seemed misplaced in this peaceful setting, but he knew better what was brewing under the pristine surface of his age.
Strangely, he fed on my wonder to take in a fulsome breath. His chest eased, and a trickle of gratitude reached me.
Before I could tell him he was welcome, Besson remembered his uncle's temper.
He galloped to do Vasilii's bidding, only stopping once, to be let out of the monastery's gates by the guards.
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.
Besson stopped again, turned and crouched by the madman who'd heeled him. "I have no more to give, holy man."
The madman smiled, showing rotten stumps of his teeth and sang.
Blood melts the ice, hot like summer, drip, drip, drip.
Ice in the river.
Men go a-swimming, swim, swim, swim.
wenches go-swimming, swim, swim, swim.
Ice in the river.
His voice erupted from his belly, barely touching his throat on its way out. It sounded too powerful to be hosted by such a shriveled body.
Besson couldn't help but to lean closer and closer, drawn to the man's mad gaze. Behind the cross-hatch of matted bangs, those liquid, perturbed eyes turned into a turbid, churning river.
Its current threatened to drown him, drag him to some place else. Or some other timeline.
Besson! Stay with me! Stay here!
He was too sick to hear me. Mercy, Gracious God, have mercy on my soul!
As if in response to Besson's silent prayer, the blessed man pointed a shaking finger at him. However, he broke into cackles instead of a blessing.
Shoo! Begone! I lashed at him. It was the best I could do to defend my poor friend from harassment.
The blessed madman slouched, wrapped his shackled arms around himself—in an uncanny imitation of Besson—and crawled back to his corner. The entire episode took no more than two minutes, but it left Besson barely alive.
Am I damned for my sins? He wondered, looking around with wide, blind eyes.
No. Let's just keep going. Ah... Uncle Vasilii is waiting!
Besson dry-swallowed his fright and waddled to the dock. Gradually, numbness left his legs, and he broke into a stumbling run. For him, this was hard running, as his feet ached and breath broke in his side before he went too far. Ground wouldn't stop tilting under him either.
If only some saint took pity on me and interceded with the Virgin! Let the past four days unravel to be woven anew! He rubbed tears out of his eyes and the drip from his nose.
I assumed that in this new tapestry, the boy-prince Dmitrii would still be alive and well, and the City of Uglich bask in peace on the banks of the Volga River. Besson and his teenage comrades—miraculously alive—would babysit the little prince. They would whine about being stuck with this boring job in a small town, when the world offered so much to their peers elsewhere. Never doubt that they would, for such is human nature.
Wistful tears stung my eyes. We don't value peace until it is lost, but burden our days with complaints. Only to miss its trivialities once it's replaced by upheaval and loss.
Even my native Reutovo and the stinking train yard seemed dearer to me in absentia. I could have found beauty in it instead of wrinkling my nose! I could have... I didn't. What a fool I was!
Our Lord wills what He wills, Besson stepped in with a calming word. His compassion was so unexpected, I snapped out of my sulk.
Besson stood in the corner of the docks, his gaze searching for a boatman least likely to drown him for his alleged crimes. Once he found the guy, they haggled for the price of the crossing. Their discussion of the fare that used to be in effect before the Muscovite-arrival-special mark-up bore even an incorporeal consciousness to tears! So, I spaced out.
When I tuned in again, Besson's boat was half-way across the river. He slumped on one wooden bench and rested his feet on an empty one opposite to him. His face seemed resigned to his fate: he's left his sanctuary and the unfriendly shore was looming. Alas, we all have to leave our safe space sometime.
Look who's back, he greeted me.
Oh, cheer up, Bess. The madman's song wasn't about you. Even if it was, men who fixate on prophecies end up badly.
The madman's verses leapt into his memory at this tiny provocation. Long, frustrated exhales drifted out of him. So mighty, I grew concerned they'd rock the boat or hyperventilate.
Oops, I said. Sorry.
He tried to avoid a phantom eye-contact with me. His gaze skimmed past the approaching bank dotted with the golden dandelions and the red-coated musketeers. The sight of his uncle's troops gave him little solace, and he focused on the river water by the boat's side instead. Even dropped his fingers in to feel the flow. The reflections—both dandelions and musketeers—broke into thousands of puzzle-like pieces to float between the dapples of sunshine. These ripples would make a stronger guy queasy, but Besson ignored the nausea. He looked into the water.
Stop it! In folklore, looking too deeply into the water was a bad idea. Its depth concealed secrets better left hidden. Looking into the water was also a byword for clairvoyance, and in ancient times, tetrachromacy could well have been mistaken for it. If it also predisposed Besson to time-travel with his mind... oh, shit. I was in trouble.
Hey! Turn back! Hello!
Besson didn't heed my warnings. He looked into the water so intently that the cheerful, springtime Volga melted away, replaced by the fog full of frosty needles. What he saw wasn't in Uglich, and the spring was no longer in the air.
Where was this? When? Why?
I didn't know.
I'd lost everything—my body, my breath, my thoughts, my heartbeat, my timeline—and now Besson, who'd caught my consciousness during my plunge, was departing on a similar trip. I wasn't ready!
However, if I was to be a witness, and not a demon, I had to follow along. Besides, without him to latch on, what would happen to me? Would I spread in the ever-thinning out strings of smoke across centuries until I ceased to exist?
I shivered. Wait up!
Besson dropped into the darkening twilight of yet another era, and I trailed after him.