Prince Ivan Read Free

library at a run, which was almost as astonishing as the strange young man’s appearance through the roof.
    Guard-Captain Akimov, though unsummoned by anything at all, arrived just as quickly as the rest and had still found time for a helmet and coat of mail to supplement the sword he wore in all his waking hours.
    It left very little room for the suitors, at least those of them who set curiosity above the finest table in Khorlov, but as many as could fit had squeezed their way through the doors and now filled every scrap of space. All of them looked at the young man and then at the riven ceiling, with just one exception. High Steward Strel’tsin looked first at the roof and his soft oath, either of one sorcerer recognizing another’s handiwork or of a High Steward reckoning up the cost of repairs, was clear even above the babble of many voices.
    It was Ivan who finally stepped forward. In token of peace he lowered and sheathed his knife, then bowed warily but with good grace and courtesy. The stranger bowed in turn, lower than Ivan had done to give him that much more respect. Then he smiled.
    “Health to you, Prince Ivan,” he said. “Before, I came as a guest. Now I come as a suitor, and I would wed with your sister the Tsarevna Yekaterina.”
    Ivan gathered himself together at a good speed, considering the shocks of the past few minutes. “As to that, sir, it is a matter between you and she, and then between you and my father the Tsar.” He looked more closely at the young man’s face and frowned a little. “And I confess your face is familiar, from some feast or other of the many this year. Although—” he glanced pointedly up at the hole in the kremlin roof, and the blue sky beyond, “—your previous visit to Khorlov was less dramatic than this one, or I would have remembered it.”
    “As for that, I was here. Now I am here again.”
    “And who are you, for that matter?” Ivan’s head shifted slightly sideways at the tone of Tsar Aleksandr’s voice, and he felt the little hairs lift on the nape of his neck. From the sound of it his father had recovered from his surprise, and was torn between anger that yet again he should be put to expense over his daughter’s would-be husbands, and curiosity about what had happened to his palace roof. “Your name, young sir,” he said, all icy dignity, “and your rank.”
    The young man smiled again, more broadly than before. His eyes were very bright and sharp indeed, missing nothing. It was certain he had observed what had roused the Tsar to be so brusque with his first words, for all that Aleksandr Andreyevich hadn’t demanded whether he carried sufficient wealth to pay for repairs. Ivan had seen that much, from long acquaintance with his father’s moods and ways of carrying himself.
    “Majesty,” said the stranger, and bowed the lowest that he had yet done, “I am Fenist Charodeyevich Sokolov, Prince of the High Mountains, and my bride-price is already in your coffers. If she will have me, I wish to marry your daughter.”
    “Send a servant to the treasury,” said the Tsar. “You will forgive our rude haste, Fenist the Falcon, sorcerer’s son and Prince of the High Mountains, but we are eager to learn if your silver exists. Surely your title does not. Dmitriy Vasil’yevich, have you heard of any such rank or style?”
    “Without consulting my books—” the High Steward began, then fell silent as Tsar Aleksandr raised his hand.
    “You’ve spent long enough with those books to guess,” he said. “So guess.”
    “Then I would say no, majesty. Otherwise it seems certain that this young gentleman,” he managed to make the words sound faintly insulting, “would indeed have been here as a guest. Yet Prince Ivan has already said he has no memory of seeing him in Khorlov before.”
    “And what,” said the Tsar to Prince Fenist the Falcon, “would you say about that?”
    “I would say, Majesty, wait for the servant you sent to the treasury.