As promised, Boris delivered Bernie the next day. Natasha had decided, again, that since the outlander was visiting today she would greet him in full court dress. Then, as they often did, things had come up.

She rushed through the last of her preparation, took a deep breath and made her entrance. Boris-as custom dictated-kissed her on the cheek. However, though Boris seemed a nice man, he was inconveniently short. The customary kiss entailed her leaning down and Boris standing on tiptoe.

Natasha had worn a gown that was mostly black. She had heard that the Protestants had the oddest notions about somber clothing being a mark of virtue of some sort and she did want the outlander to feel comfortable. By custom, her makeup was pure white with red lips and cheeks. The outlander's face was turning the oddest shade of red. Then he started to laugh uncontrollably. She thought he might be apologizing as he laughed-which just made it worse.

Bernie couldn't help it. He had been nervous all morning after the lecture Mrs. Petrov had given him on how important the Yaroslavich family was. And suddenly it was like he was in a Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon with Boris and Natasha. He cracked up. He almost had himself under control. "Where's Bullwinkle?" slipped out he lost it again.

Things were getting tense by the time Bernie got himself under control. "I'm sorry. I'm away from home and nervous about the new job. It was just that you two right then happened to look like Boris and Natasha."

Now the princess was looking confused again. "But we are Boris and Natasha?"

"I know." Bernie almost lost it again. He shook his head. "I think that's what really did it. Not like you, Boris and Natasha; like the cartoon Boris and Natasha. Natasha was tall and slinky, ah, beautiful with a very pale face and red lips, Boris was short and stocky. They were spies." Another giggle. "Spies who were constantly trying to blow up Rocky, the Flying Squirrel and Bullwinkle J. Moose. I used to watch it on Nickelodeon when I was a kid."

"What is a cartoon?" Princess Natasha was apparently much mollified by the notion that this other Natasha was beautiful. Bernie was less confident of her reaction to slinky, though you never knew.

"It's a simple drawing." Bernie tried to explain.

"Something like an icon but without the religious significance," Boris clarified. "Except the ones with Boris and Natasha moved."

"Moved how?" Natasha's forehead creased under the makeup. "Did they shake the paper?" Which lead to a discussion of moving pictures in general and how they were made. By the end of this discussion, Natasha was too interested to be offended.

"Now I see how it works." Natasha saw something else too. This was why they needed Bernie Zeppi and the dacha turned into a research center. He had not come here to introduce moving icons on a screen. It had just popped out like a chicken laying an egg. How many other eggs were buried in his head and how valuable would they be to the family? Natasha had seen mimes and clowns perform. In spite of his comments, she knew that the movies and cartoons didn't need sound to be a major draw.

Daromila, who had been fairly quiet during the visit, asked, "Berna, what is all this about the moose and squirrel?"

Bernie jerked a bit. "Berna?"

Daromila grinned a bit. "It is what we do, the names. When someone is close or well liked, we . . . do things to the names. Boris, for instance . . . I call him Boriska, usually. As he calls me Dara. The princess Natalia, you recall . . ."

"Call me Natasha," Bernie said. "Oh. I get it. Nicknames. Like Bernie is to begin with. My real name is Bernard. Always hated it. Sounds like some old grandpa dude's name."

Daromila nodded. "Exactly. Now, tell me about the moose and squirrel," Then, with emphasis, "and the spies, Boris and Natasha."

Spring, 1633 "I think we can use him," General Kabanov said. He was in charge of guns and weapons for the Russian musketeers. "He does seem to know a great deal about guns and their use."

Boris nodded. He saw no need to point out that Bernie's familiarity with the 30.06 was nothing unusual.

Bernie had just finished disa.s.sembling and rea.s.sembling his up-time rifle and then loading it and emptying it into a set of targets. Another thing Boris neglected to mention was how very slow Bernie had been in doing both those things in comparison to some of the up-timers he had seen.

"Why can't we make these repeating rifles?" General Kabanov asked Bernie but he didn't speak English, much less up-timer English, so questions were funneled through Boris. Which was probably for the best, as it allowed him to edit at need.

"Primers," Bernie said. "You can't make the primers. We went over all this in Grantville."

"In the bra.s.s cartridges," Boris translated, "are compounds of a chemical that is difficult and expensive to make in quant.i.ty-" So it went. It was the third interview that day and there were three more to go and still more tomorrow.

"Why did you have to bring us an idiot?" Filip Pavlovich Tupikov was pacing back and forth, scratching furiously at a rather weak beard. "They know how to fly. They can make materials we never dreamed of.

And you bring us this? Not a doctor, not a . . . what is the word? Engineer. Not an engineer. Instead you bring us this . . . this . . . barely a craftsman. Why, Boris Ivanovich?"

Boris Ivanovich looked at Filip Pavlovich. The man was a brilliant artisan and a skilled natural philosopher, but had no understanding of how the world worked. Besides, Boris had been getting some version of this from about half the interviewers for the last two weeks. "Ah, how foolish of me." Boris snorted. "I should, no doubt, have asked their president, Mike Stearns, to give up all he had in Grantville and come be a servant in Muscovy? Perhaps the master of machining, Ollie Reardon, would have given up his factory with its machines and the electric to run them? Better yet, I could have tried to persuade Melissa Mailey, a qualified teacher in their high school. Of course, she has been heard to say-more than once, I might point out-that they should start by executing nine out of ten of the n.o.bility of Europe. She then suggests that they go up from there. I'm sure she would have been happy to serve the czar."

Filip Pavlovich flinched a bit. Boris felt he'd gotten his point across. "I brought Berna because he was who I could get. He has graduated their high school. He is a qualified auto mechanic with tools. I should know. I had to arrange for their transport. He speaks, reads and writes their up-timer English. English which is not so similar to the English we know as Polish is to Russian. You can get by with practice but the words have changed their meaning and p.r.o.nunciation as often as not. Believe me, Filip Pavlovich, there are people I could have recruited that you would have liked less."

Bernie sighed. "Dude, when is this sh . . . ah . . . stuff going to be done with. Let me get to work, will you?"

"Soon, Bernie, soon." Boris waved at the stairs. "We have the audience today. Natasha will be down soon and we will leave."

"The makeup again?" Bernie giggled.

Boris glared at Bernie, remembering the silly business about Boris and Natasha. "I trust you will be able to control your sense of humor."

"Wish she'd hurry up." Bernie's complaint brought Boris back to the present. Then Natasha arrived, walked to Boris and said in a deep sultry voice-not her own-but which Bernie claimed was a fairly good imitation of the cartoon Natasha, "Welcome, my little Borisky. This time we will capture that naughty moose, yes?"

Bernie cracked up and Boris turned red.

Bernie tried to suppress his occasional giggles as Boris and Natasha coached him very carefully for his meeting with Mr. Big. Mr. Big, otherwise known as the Czar of all the Russias. Armed with Vladimir's gifts, as well as his own, Bernie followed their instructions carefully.

Boris whispered names and positions while they stood in the line of people waiting to be presented.

"Patriarch Filaret, the czar's father, there to the left of Czar Mikhail. On the right, Fedor IvanovichShermentev, he is in charge of the bureau of records. It is an especially powerful post, because he can cause so much trouble for the other bureaus." The list of names went on an on and Bernie quit paying that much attention. Natasha had left them, and gone off to see the czar's wife. When they got a bit closer, Bernie started looking around a bit. Good thing he was farsighted, since the room seemed to be about eighty-feet long.

Mr. Big-no, that really didn't seem to fit-was a pretty ordinary guy when you got a look at him. The czar looked to be in his mid thirties. He also looked like he didn't want to be there. Sort of bored and sad. He seemed like the kind of guy who got stuffed in his locker in gym cla.s.s. The patriarch guy, his father, was really old, but looked to be a tough old bird. And all these . . .boyars , they were called.

There was some serious money tied up in their clothes. "Dimitry Mamstriukovich Cherakasky." Boris nodded toward another man. "Not a man to cross, that one." Well, Bernie wasn't going to cross anyone if he could help it.

Finally, they got up to the front of the line. Boris did all the talking, which was just as well. Bernie hadn't had much luck figuring out the lingo, not yet. Boris gave the agreed upon signal and Bernie bowed. "Your Majesty."

Mikhail Romanov smiled at the obvious awkwardness of the outlander's attempt to bow. He knew from Vladimir Yaroslavich's letters that the people brought back in time by G.o.d's hand had no custom of bowing.

"Welcome to Moscow." Mikhail had picked up a bit of English over the years. There were several English merchants and diplomats in Muscovy. He wanted to make the outlander feel at home.To have been touched by G.o.d in such a material way. It must be a blessing.

The outlander bowed again and Boris Petrovich made a gesture. The outlander presented his gifts. Not the usual gold or silver dishes and artwork. Jewelry, perhaps? Mikhail looked at the thing.

"It is an up-time 'watch.'" Boris Petrovich spoke softly. "If you will press that b.u.t.ton there, it will light up."

Mikhail, with some trepidation, pressed the b.u.t.ton. This had been made, would be made, almost four hundred years in the future. More, G.o.d had seen fit to send it back in time to him. "Very interesting," was all he managed to say. He watched the numbers on the end change. They were a bit blurry, but that wasn't the numbers fault. Mikhail couldn't see very well, close up. The interesting thing was that they changed. Changed at regular intervals. It was a clock in a piece of jewelry worn about the wrist. He wondered for just a moment if it might be some sort of magic. Probably not, he decided. Probably the electric craft that Vladimir had written about. He had said that it often looked like magic at first acquaintance. He looked forward to showing it to Evdokia.

Evdokia gathered her ladies and signaled Natasha to walk with her. As usual, it was the younger of her ladies who accompanied her. They left the Palace of Facets to return to the Terem Palace. The Terem was the czar's private residence. She, he, the children and some cousins and servants all lived there. It was also often occupied by the wives and daughters of the great families of Muscovy.

"The outlander." Evdokia paused. "I wonder what the future was like to live in."

"I do, too," Natasha agreed. "Not the history so much. But what it was like to live in a world where theyhad so much . . . magic. In the future, Boris says, they had carriages that traveled without horses and others that would fly. Plays and music put in boxes and new clothes made in hours. And cartoons. Which sound like fun."

Evodkia refrained from running back to the terem section of the palace with some difficulty. She felt like a girl again, even if she was twenty-four with three living children. Evdokia hadn't been raised in Muscovy. She wasn't that fond of it, either. It was more restrictive than her home and required more subtlety. The cats in the capital could be nasty and had been when Mikhail had chosen her over them and their daughters. This new land of the future offered excitement. It offered new things to contemplate, which was essential. Moscow was not the den of iniquity that her mother had painted it as. At least not the parts of it that she got to see. As the mother of the next czar, her life was somewhat circ.u.mscribed.

There were parties but they were formal affairs. There were the children and Mikhail, but truth be told, she was often bored. The palace was run by the palace staff, who rarely asked her opinion of anything.

One saving grace existed in all of this. Mikhail was a gentle man. He loved his family and treated them well. He spent more time with them than the cabinet would prefer. No. That wasn't true. The cabinet liked things just the way they were. In all honesty, Evdokia had to admit that the cabinet probably listened to Mikhail less than the palace staff listened to her.

Later that afternoon, Evodkia found her husband pouring over papers. Mikhail looked depressed, even from the rear. She put her hands on his temples and rubbed them. Mikhail often had headaches and said that helped. He began to relax.

"It's getting more dangerous now." He almost whispered. "The safe course is denied us by the histories from the future." That sent a chill down Evdokia's back. She had been aware that the basic policy of the patriarch had been one of social conservatism, while at the same time trying to upgrade the army and bring in advances of the west. She had also been aware that the reason for that policy was the instability of the situation.

"The cabinet will use any change." Evdokia worried. "As will the church." A pretender to the throne could be tonsured like Mikhail's father. For Mikhail-and for her and the children-a more drastic solution would be needed. Politics in Muscovy were very personal at times.

"G.o.d has told us. Given us a miracle. " Mikhail looked at her. "A miracle . . . but what does it mean?"

"How much longer?" It was the next afternoon and they were on their way to the dacha. Bernie's voice was plaintive.

Natasha looked out the open windows of the carriage she rode in and grinned. "We have been moving for only a few moments since the last time you asked that question, Berna. A bit longer, still."

Bernie sighed. "G.o.d, I wish I had my car. I wish I had some gas. I wish . . ." His voice trailed off and he stared into the distance.

Natasha had Vladimir's request that she keep Bernie as happy as she could, within certain limitations.

"You wish you could go back? But we have only begun to become acquainted."

Bernie shook his head. "No, not back to Grantville. I wish I could go home, back to the world I came from. This place, all these places, just aren't home. Even Grantville isn't home. I used to do all right, youknow. I had enough money to do what I wanted, for the most part. I dated, I worked my hours. I got by.

Now, though, well, it's just not the same, not even in Grantville."

Natasha murmured a sympathetic sound and Bernie kept talking. Natasha could tell Bernie was lonely and feeling lost. Not much of a wonder, judging from Bernie's appearance. He had worn what he called his "best suit" to the audience, but now he was wearing something called "jeans." They were blue but faded, clearly inappropriate for a person of Bernie's station in life. Peasants wore faded clothing.

I shall have to help him with his wardrobe, Natasha thought. He needs to grow a beard, as well. Else no one will take him seriously.

Bernie looked at the girl. She seemed nice enough and she hadn't gotten p.i.s.sed at the Boris and Natasha bit. On the other hand, she was Vladimir's sister and Bernie had finally picked up on just how rich and powerful Vlad was after he had gotten to Moscow. This girl was the daughter of a great house. She was pretty, dark haired and slim. Slimmer than a lot of the Russian women, with black hair that hung down to her b . . . past her waist. She spoke some English. Funny sounding English, but English. Mostly, though, she was someone to talk to.

"So," he said, "tell me about you."

Natasha was a bit surprised. It was a fairly forward question, it seemed to her. She had little experience with men not part of her family or sworn to it. Members of her family would already know such things.

Retainers would never have the gall to ask such a question if not invited. Her aunt, Sofia, t.i.ttered a bit.

Natasha cast a glance her way and the sixty-year-old Sofia pretended innocence, staring out the windows on the other side of the carriage.

"Ah . . ." Natasha stopped. What about her? "What do you wish to know?"

"Oh. . ." Bernie hesitated a moment. "Like, what do you figure on doing with your life? Do you have any plans to become a doctor or lawyer? What's it like in the winter here? Do you like parties?" He snorted.

"What's your sign?" Natasha had no idea what that meant.

Bernie stopped suddenly. He even blushed a bit. "That's probably too many questions, isn't it?"

"Perhaps," Natasha acknowledged. "In any case, I didn't understand what all of them meant. I don't know what my sign is. Unless you mean the family crest."

"Never mind." Bernie said hastily. Then he scratched his chin. "Why do all the men wear beards?"

Natasha found herself suppressing a giggle. Didn't this outlander know anything? "Men wear beards because the church says that it is a mortal sin to shave them. G.o.d did not create men beardless, only cats and dogs."

"Not to mention rats and mice," Bernie said. "Cattle. Sheep. Well, sheep are sort of bearded all over.

Goats, though. Goats have beards."

Aunt Sofia was suppressing laughter, Natasha thought. Her shoulders were shaking, at any rate. And her black eyes sparkled a bit.

"Perhaps so." Natasha felt a grin trying to break out. "But I'm not sure the church would like hearing that. . ." She searched for the word. "Ah . . . compare?"

"Comparison," Bernie said. "Yeah. Churches up-time didn't like it when you pointed out that sort of thing, either. Whatever. So, anyway, what do you do?"

The question threw Natasha into a bit of confusion. What did she do? Did he mean how she spent her time? "I take care of the family properties while Vladimir is away. Someone must."

Bernie shook his head and shifted his weight on the saddle. Natasha envied that he was riding a horse. It had to be more comfortable than the jolting carriage. The carriage hit a rut and she bounced a bit, grabbing onto the edge of the seat. "Uff."

"That's one of the things we gotta do." Bernie made a tsking sound, staring ahead at the road. "These roads are the pits."

Yet another word she wasn't sure of, Natasha thought. Pit for hunting? Pit of h.e.l.l? Thinking about it, she wasn't sure that the latter wasn't accurate. "Pits?"

"Really bad. But that's one thing I know how to fix. Some ditches, some drainage and some gravel.

Easy."

The carriage jolted again and Natasha suppressed a groan. Fix the roads. What a good idea.