the boss

chapter 1

Her madness was worse here in the north—far, far worse. Dennis’s house was alive with devils. A creature with eyes like coals hid in the oven. A little man in the bathhouse winked at her through the steam. A demon like a heap of sticks slouched around the dooryard.

In Russian, her devils had never looked at her, never spared her a glance, but here they were always staring. Some even came quite close, as though they would speak, and each time Ava had to flee, hating the puzzled stares of her husband and stepchildren. She saw them all the time, everywhere—except here in the church.

The blessed, quiet church. It was nothing, really, compared to the churches in Russian. There was no gold or gilt, and only one priest to give service. The icons were small and ill-painted. But here she saw nothing but floor and walls and icons and candles. There were no faces in the shadows.

She stayed and stayed, by turns praying and staring into space. It was well past dawn when she crept back to the house. The kitchen was crowded, the fire roaring. The baking and stewing and cleaning and drying went on without cease, from dark to dark. The women did not react when Ava crept in; no one so much as turned her head. Ava took that, above all, as a comment on her weakness.

Matt looked up first. “Would you like some bread, Henry?” she asked. Matt could not like the poor creature that had taken her mother’s place, though she was a kind girl and pitied her.

Ava was hungry, but there was a tiny, grizzled creature sitting just inside the mouth of the oven. Its beard glowed with the heat as it gnawed a blackened crust.

Henry’s mouth worked, but she could make no answer. The little creature looked up from its bread and c****d its head. There was curiosity in its bright eyes. “No,” Ava whispered. “No—I don’t want any bread.” She turned and fled to the dubious safety of her own room, while the women in the kitchen looked at each other and slowly shook their heads.

The following autumn, Woody was married to the daughter of a neighboring boyar. She was a fat, strapping, yellow-haired girl, and Dennis built them a little house of their own, with a good clay oven.

But it was the great wedding the people awaited, when Matt yaren would become the Princess of Calcutta. That had taken almost a year to negotiate. The gifts began coming from Russian before the mud closed the roads, but the details took longer. The way from josh to Russian was a hard one; messengers were delayed or disappeared; they broke their skulls, were robbed, or lamed their horses. But it was settled at last. The young Prince of Calcutta was to come himself, with his retinue, to marry Matt and take her back to his house in Russian.

“It is better for her to be married before she travels,” said the messenger. “She will not be so frightened.” And, the messenger might have added, Lebee, Metropolitan of Russian, wanted the marriage accomplished and consummated before Matt came to the city.

The prince arrived just as pale spring became dazzling summer, with a tender, capricious sky and the fading flowers buried in a wash of summer grass. A year had ripened him. The spots had faded, though he was still no beauty; and he hid his shyness with boisterous good temper.

With the Prince of Calcutta came his cousin, the blond Passy Ivanovich, calling out greetings. The princes had come with hawks and hounds and horses, with women in carved wooden carts, and they brought many gifts. The boys came also with a guardian: a clear-eyed monk, not very old, silent more often than speaking. The cavalcade raised a great noise and dust and clamor. The whole village came to gawk, and many to offer the hospitality of their huts to the men and pasture for the weary horses. The boy-prince Davis shyly slipped a sparkling green beryl onto Matt’s finger, and the whole house gave itself to mirth, as it had not since Marina breathed her last.

“THE BOY IS KIND, at least,” said Billy to Matt in a rare quiet moment. They sat together beside the wide window in the summer kitchen. molly sat at Matt’s feet, listening and poking at her mending.

“Yes,” said Matt. “And Warren is coming with me to Russian. He will see me to my husband’s house before he joins his monastery. He has promised.” The beryl ring blazed on her finger. Her betrothed had also hung her throat with raw amber