Wait a minute, what was Besson's dark secret? Given how terrified he was about explaining his escape... Did I miss something?

My answer took on the form of a roar from Uncle Vasilii. "Cross-dresser!"

I only recently met the man, but I could already tell he grew red in the face proportionally to his anger. His neck darkened to rich burgundy and, from chin up, his face looked like a plum. He held back his fury to get to the end of Besson's story, so it pressure-cooked above the boiling point and erupted in yelling.

"Cross-dresser!"

Only to save my life, I swear... Besson thought and didn't dare to interject. He cowered, with tears welling in his eyes. Hunger twisted his gut on top of it, making things even worse. Ironically, he fasted to find forgiveness for all his transgressions, including this one.

Uncle Vasilii could have easily deduced all that, if only he restrained himself for a minute. Yet, he didn't. Something about Besson putting on a dress set his sixteenth century mind spinning.

He huffed, puffed and stomped around. He yelled, "Cross-dresser!" a few more times. Just as I thought the storm was blowing over, he pinched Besson's cheek and said through gritted teeth, "Don't you dare shave your beard like a sodomite again!"

"D-dmitrii got upset whenever we looked too old..." Besson hiccupped his excuses. "It... it was to humor the prince, nothing else!"

"Dmitrii is dead!" Uncle Vasilii boomed. "So don't shave! Have you heard me?"

Besson gulped mutely, looking like he would grow a knee-length beard if it pleased his uncle.

His uncle's red-knuckled fist slammed the wall, anyway. I expected the logs to explode into splinters and the world to disintegrate around me again. Fortunately, the guesthouse withstood the assault. Uncle Vasilii gripped the table-top next, breathing hard.

Matvei moved away from the table and folded his hands in his lap. Besson trembled worse than an aspen leaf during a hurricane, but he tried to emulate the clerk.

Invisible and incapable of sitting primly, I tried to cheer Besson up. Stop bellyaching over the skirts. In a few short centuries, nobody would give a damn, anyway. Or they shouldn't, since they knew better.

Besson rubbed his aching cheek. Demon. Aye, demon and sorcerer you are. For my grave sins, I have to suffer your provocative speeches in my mind! Woe is me...

A demon? For what sins? Dude, Hell won't send a horsefly after you. I think we're together because we're both—

Besson screamed internally.

Jeez, maybe you should eat something. Raise your blood sugar, you know?

Don't use our Lord's name in vain.

Besson erected a wall between us after that. It wasn't completely impenetrable, but solid. That's what I got for trying to be in his corner! All I could hope for was that Besson was exactly like his uncle and cooled down fast. Without our dialogue, the sixteenth century just wasn't the same.

Uncle Vasilii lost his choleric color before Besson stopped walling me off. He tossed a herring into his mouth, decimated it and sucked on his teeth. "Why are you sitting like a stump in a meadow? Tell again, what did this witch look like?"

Besson blinked—had his uncle forgotten what he had told him only a short while ago? His uncle was many things, but senile wasn't one of them. "Uncle, I... I saw a shadow by the wall. I can't describe the witch more than that."

"Oi, a dolt! What a dolt! I shall play it's your youth and inexperience, not your father's seed." Uncle Vasilii bit into another herring. "Though what hope do we have? Handsome to look at, head emptier than a clay whistle—so alike in every detail... Why should it surprise me?"

The comparison with his father rocked Besson so much, I felt it through everything. His family was a source of endless angst to the guy. I could relate, if you let me. Though, I probably couldn't explain most of my problems to him without raising his ire.

Matvei's mustache trembled, as if his facial hair did his thinking for him, then he guffawed, as if he shared a secret with his boss that Besson wasn't privy to. Besson shot a wounded look the clerk's way. He knew where he stood with his uncle. For all his bluster, Uncle Vasilii took Besson and his mother in after paying an exuberant pledge for his father's treason; he stood up for him with Maria Nagaya. Matvei was a weathervane.

I saw an opening to restore my tanking relationship with Besson and charged into the gap.

Uncle Vasilii means the girl in the cellar. It's her! Think, Besson, think!

Osip, Bitiagovskii, Simeon and he chased the shadow of a Tatar witch to the Eastern wall. He found a washerwoman hiding next to the eastern wall, in the only building that wasn't locked. She didn't bat an eyelash when he tumbled into that shed like a spooked grouse. With a harridan's courage, she changed him into a wench's garb as if she did it every day.

Heaviness weighed Besson's chest once he put two and two together. Yet, to admit that he hankered down with the killer's cohort turned his stomach. "No! The washerwoman in the shed couldn't have been her!"

What, too young? I needled him, remembering our earlier chat about the Tatar rider in Novgorod.

Besson forgot I was a voice in his head and replied right out. "For one, she wasn't a heathen! She was a Christian and..."

Was she? The way she dressed, he wouldn't see a cross on her even if he was staring at her neck the entire time. He wasn't, and it was dark in there.

Uncle Vasili leaned back and slurped from a wooden cup, watching Besson squirm over its rim.

"She didn't wear breeches!" Besson cried out.

"Did you check?" Matvei pretended to reach for his notes.

"No!"

"It didn't take her long to pull a dress over your head," Uncle Vasilii said.

It wouldn't be fair for him to always be right, sinful to think himself always right, for this was hubris, Besson complained to me. This was the first time I witnessed him fold his arms across his chest. "The girl who helped me wasn't Osip's witch."

Sorry to break it to you, pal, but you are going against reason.

He didn't give up. "What's the point of murdering the prince, then helping me escape? She is only a girl. What business does a girl have with an assassin?"

Uncle Vasili exchanged a glance with Matvei. "I didn't say the wench was our murderer, Lord protect us. Perhaps, a harlot, paid extra to make the three of you run amok. Maybe she saw something that made her hide."

"We need to question her, Besson." Matvei added. "Could you describe her?"

They acted so reasonable, so wise, so patient with Besson, it was sus.

His arms fell back to his sides. "Dark eyes and a rosebud mouth..." A twinkle in her eyes that he couldn't describe.

The table screeched under uncle Vasili's weight as he leaned forward to better hear Besson's mumbling. "Rosebud, hmm? Anything else?"

The question was simple, and Besson should have been able to answer it without breaking a sweat. A tetrachromat, with a neurotic sense of sight, who even now was involuntarily cataloging every embroidered stitch on his uncle's coat—it should have been easy-peasy for him.

He squeezed his eyes shut, willing his mind to bring the girl's likeness in front of him. Other faces flashed before him instead. Bitiagovskii's pancake-shaped one with full lips and a potato nose; Osip's narrow features; Simeon's freckles and a chipped tooth. Dmitrii's face, both in life and after death.

Get out of my mind! I want to see her face. The girl!

It would have been easier to catch a black cat at midnight in the darkest dungeon in Moscow. His temples throbbed with effort, and phantom sand filled his eyes. Girl's face was a blur with bright eyes and puckered lips.

"I... I don't understand what's wrong with me. I'd never forgotten a face." His voice shook with this confession. "Yet, I can't remember hers."

Hold on. Did I see the girl in Besson's memory more clearly than he did? Was that why he wasn't sure if she looked like the woman in Novgorod? I pushed the image of the girl's face to Besson like I would text a picture, but it winked out before reaching him. Or something like that. Dude, that's so weird!

Besson dropped his head into his hands and sobbed. "That's so wicked... she cast a spell on me."

"Oh, now she's a witch, Matvei!" Uncle Vasilii slapped his knee. "You're right. Men change their testimony when something thwarts them."

"Aye." Matvei bowed, then drummed his fingers on the tabletop. "A man's mind is as weak as his body and avoids challenges. So, it accepts whatever a stronger mind suggests, rather than the unpalatable truth. That's why I credit nothing reported under torture, my Prince."

"It has its uses," Uncle Vasilii grumbled, then turned back to his nephew. "Stop sulking, Besson. How many summers have you seen?"

Every time Uncle Vasilii saw Besson, he asked this question. It was probably deliberate, since Uncle Vasilii's was too sharp to forget his nephew's age. "The coming summer will be my eighteenth, Sire."

"Eighteen summers and your father's son... So, you remembered eyes, lips and tits."

"Uncle!"

Uncle Vasilii dismissed Besson's protest with a wave of a hand. A pink carnelian winked from one of his rings. "Did Father Nikifor give you a suitable penance for your godless cross-dressing?"

A flood of shame melted the resentment Besson felt for being conflated with his dad. "I'm to prostrate myself at the St. Mary Aegyptian's after the Compline hour and till the Midnight prayer."

"Good. Pray as he told you and ask for additional penance. For if Nikola finds a harlot in chalvars, you'll go with him and look at her. Maybe you'll recognize those saucy eyes."

Besson gulped, unable to swallow the suggestion that the girl could be a whore and simultaneously worried of what would happen to her if she was. "So she points at the murderer?"

Word is not a lark—once it flies its cage, there is no putting it back. However, Uncle Vasilii didn't upbraid Besson. Instead, he went to stand by the window, his hands clasped behind his back, the knobby fingers squeezing and relaxing. "If there is a murderer to point to..."

Besson opened his mouth to ask what he meant, but Matvei pushed him to the door. "Out, out, with you. The Prince wishes to think."

Once the door closed behind them, Besson slumped against the wall. His head buzzed and the rest of his body felt numb. He was exhausted.

The clerk shook his head, scanning Besson from head to toe. "Phew, you'll be prettier as a maiden and have wits to match."

After this diss, Matvei laughed and Besson flapped his mouth in a fruitless search for a comeback. When it became obvious he was fresh out of retorts, Matvei had the gall to clap him on the shoulder, as if they were comrades. "Cheer up, this calamity is nearly over. I know Prince Vasilii—he'll bring things to order in no time."

I wish Matvei wouldn't be so grievously wrong. These spring days in Uglich were only the tip of the major iceberg, the Time of Troubles. However, the last time I tried to fix history, the twenty-first century blew up. I couldn't risk the sixteenth. So, I concealed my anxiety from Besson the best I could.

Besson couldn't sense my concerns, but he still didn't perk up and went straight to the small chapel of St. Mary Aegyptian, the protector of all penitent.

In there, the smell of myrrh and melting wax coated the air. The saint's wizened face gazed at us—because she saw both of us, I was sure, and took pity on both of us. How did the painter imbue the holy image with such compassion?

Don't think of painting, Besson hissed through our connection, and prostrated himself on the chilly stone floor.

But just like me, he couldn't resist the urge to ponder another artist's secrets, though he tried that much harder. Every time his thoughts ventured to the craft rather than spiritual cleanse, he smothered it with a feverish plea for forgiveness. I didn't interfere and let the solemn beauty of the place suffuse my soul. When in Rome, do as Romans do... am I right?

Besson prostrated until the Midnight Hour service was done. He should have gone to bed with his penance complete, but his nurse nicknamed him sleepless for a reason. His legs carried him to the refectory instead of the guesthouse.

There, in a wooden gallery with arched windows, the monks were copying a local chronicle the old-fashioned way. It started during Prince Roman the Large's foundation of Uglich and already had an entry about Dmitrii's death. The deeds of the princes should stay in their people's memory, good or ill, Father Nikifor had told Besson once.

Besson lifted the candle he carried with him to illuminate the elongated room. Shadows scurried to the corners and sat behind the shelves, trembling, for they weren't used to someone coming here at night.

The copyist's desk stood empty, with the original manuscript fixed on the pulpiter next to it. The inkwell, the quills and a pen-knife laid by two stacks of paper. One was virginal. The scribe covered the second in script, and set aside to verify in the morning, so that the errors didn't creep into the text. Here and there, the tight black lettering gave way to the unmarred paper. The illuminator would paint in the leading letters there.

My heart squeezed with nostalgia—already the printing press was replacing these coveted professions, even in 1591. Printing is efficient, of course, and produces books just as beautiful. The government can push out the textbooks with whatever alterations they want in a matter of days. Great stuff, right, and I shouldn't be sad at all. Yet, I was.

Besson grabbed a rejected sheet of paper. His other hand reached for the quill. I held my breath.

I would start a drawing with a grid, with shapes. Besson's quill squiggled an oval of a face, a folded shawl edging a forehead. He dipped the quill again—and the throbbing of his temples returned.

They only wanted to ask her a few questions... Matvei didn't believe in evidence obtained under torture... it should be easy to describe her, even easier to draw her... I won't!

When his quill touched the paper again, Besson drew over his first sketch. Immediately, the pain behind his eyes eased. His hand flew back and forth, only interrupted by the dips into the inkwell.

He drew squat Northern buildings, the black river, and the flame tongues dancing above it. The martyred men, women and children paused on the icy bank, upturning their faces to us. Their tormentors smiled toothily and prodded them into the freezing water. The man with the Greek cross held the dead girl's body.

Ink stained his fingers. Draft tugged his shirt. He was ravenous. And none of it mattered.

He drew what we saw, exactly as we had seen it, but so much was missing: the man's face, the beginning of his sad tale and its ending. For it didn't end on that frigid day in the Volkhov River...

Besson's fingers tangled in his hair, massaging his throbbing temples.

If only there was a way for it to come alive, to move forward in time, tell me what had happened next...

I suppressed my knowledge of motion pictures, since it wasn't of his world. If only there was such a thing... but don't we know already? Do rebels ever live happily ever after in Russia? Do they?

Besson let go of his temples and hid his face in his palms. They found the end to their suffering in paradise and their mortal existence was a blink.

My chest ached, or maybe it was his, since I was a bodiless spirit.

We didn't hear when Father Nikifor entered the refectory, but at some point, he did.

He pulled up a low stool to sit by Besson's side. Besson startled and slid the paper to him across the desk.

"I'm sorry, Holy Father. I used paper and ink without permission, because I received a vision... this vision... and it torments me tonight. Is this the Satan's doing?"

Father Nikifor looked at the drawing for a long moment, propping his chin and cheek on his palm. The pose scrunched his lips, so when he spoke, his words drawled and dragged. Unlike Besson and me, the man suffered from the lack of sleep.

"I see compassion, not hatred or a call for violence, so I reckon our Lord's will guides your hand, not the Enemy's. We shall bring this tomorrow before your Uncle."

Besson wanted to explain more about the man with the Greek Cross, but the monk shook his head.

"Sunrise imparts more wisdom on a man than midnight. So, put it out of your mind and..." He lifted his head, freeing his hand to point at the ink stains on Besson's hands. "...and wash up by the well, lad."

Amusement glinted in his eyes when he pointed at Besson's nose next, where more ink smeared his skin. "If they didn't shut the gates for the night, I'd send you to take a dip in the river. Cleanliness is next to goodliness."

Besson shuddered. "Not the river, please."

"You are right. That was a poor joke on my part." Father Nikifor stood up and stretched, then yawned. "Wash up, lad, then sleep. I excuse you from attending the first prayer."

The river was close, but the well within the monastery's walls was indispensable in case the monastery fell under siege. Besson only needed to cross the yard for the cylindrical masonry casing of the well came into view. It also had a wooden shelter with a peaked roof, decorated with the same carvings as every building. An icon of Nikolai the Wonderworker hung under the pointy tip, with a fresh candle in front of it.

"O Father Nikolai, the Wonderworker and a fair servant of Christ, accept my present offering, and beg the Lord to deliver me from Gehenna, by your God-pleasing intercession," Besson mumbled by rote, crossed himself, then laid his back into the winch. The bucket came up overflowing with water as clear and frigid as a winter morning. He grabbed the birch ladle set on the stonework and dipped it in.

The water in the bucket rippled, wobbling the reflection of the moon.

It rippled, rippled, rippled... until the world melted away, replaced by another time, another place.