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Into the house, like a beast from the desert, strode Koschei, a leather pouch slung over his shoulder. When Magog, the Neanderthal standing guard in the vestibule, stepped into his path, he shoved the brute to the side. Leaning his staff against the wall so forcefully that it left a mark on the wallpaper, the strannik turned his dark glare on Gulagsky. “You have impaled the machine-beast on a sharpened pole by the city gate and left it there to rot,” he said.“Remove that ungodly abomination and throw its body into the fields outside the city to be eaten by ravens and crows.”

Surplus gestured to Magog not to interfere. Gulagsky pushed out his chest. “I meant that to serve as a deterrent for our enemies, and I think—”

“I do not care what you mean or think. I only care that you obey.” The strannik rounded on Darger. “I will see your prince. There is a service he must do me.”

“Regrettably, that’s not possible.”

“Nor do I care what you regret. He must take me to Moscow.”

“It simply cannot be done.”

“It will be done.” Koschei’s eyes blazed. “Moscow is the second Babylon, and this city of whores and heretics must be cleansed—with the word of God if possible, but if not, then with fire!”

Surplus gestured toward the sickroom. “What my friend means is that the ambassador is not conscious. The doctors are with him now. But he is gravely ill, and I fear they can do him little good.”

“Oh?” In three strides, Koschei was in the sickroom and had pulled shut the door behind him. Two voices rose in protest, but if the wanderer made reply, Arkady could not hear it. For several minutes the voices clamored louder and more agitatedly until suddenly the strannik emerged again, hoisting the doctors up by the napes of their coats, so high that their feet struggled and failed to reach the ground. One after the other, he threw them out the front door. Then he fetched their bags and threw them after. Magog bemusedly closed the door on the two. “They are impious men,” Koschei said. “You can expect no good from them.”

“Good pilgrim, I must protest!” Surplus cried. “Those men were needed to heal the ambassador.”

“The power to heal him belongs to God alone, and from what I have seen of the ambassador, I do not think that Mighty Gentleman will deign to do so.” Koschei unslung his pouch and dropped it at his feet. “Yet I have medicines of my own, and I know much about the human body that your doctors do not. If you wish, I have every confidence that I can return this lost soul to consciousness for a time, so that he might put his affairs in order.”

Darger and Surplus looked at one another. “Yes,” said one of them. “That would be desirable.”

By now, Arkady was finding the conversation almost unbearably tedious. The Pearls required flowers! There was a girl who perhaps—he was ashamed to admit it, even to himself—still had reason to think he was romantically attached to her, and her mother grew the finest roses in town, great hedges of them. They would neither of them miss a few dozen, provided he was careful not to cut many from the same area.

As he edged out the door, he heard the strannik say, “This will take some time. I will require your patience and your silence.”

The town was much quieter when Arkady returned an hour later. So was the house. The gapers and onlookers had all retired for the night and there was only one dim lantern burning on the ground floor. On the front stoop, a small glowing coal and the smell of tobacco identified a great hulking shadow as a Neanderthal sitting guard, smoking a pipe. Yet the second floor was ablaze with oil lamps. The Pearls were apparently too excited by their release from the confines of the caravans to sleep. He could hear a sudden peel of girlish laughter, and then the screech of a heavy piece of furniture being drawn across a bare wood floor. The soft sound of bare feet ran swiftly from one side of the house to the other.

“Your papa’s staying with the neighbors, kid. The ones around to the rear,” the Neanderthal said. “You might wanna join him.”

“Thanks,