Extra musketeers from Moscow hanged out by the white stone porch--an arched affair, likely added to the brick facade to impress the citizens—when Basson and his uncle exited the Prince's Palace. The setting sun rays colored the escort's uniforms far deeper, glowing crimson than the man-made dyes of the period.

The ringing of the church bells accompanied Uncle Vasilii's ponderous descent down the five steps. I barely paid attention, despite the sound carrying far more through the atmosphere free of traffic noise. Just a part of the sixteenth century ambiance.

Uncle Vasilli, however, lifted his chin, straightened his shoulders, even rolled his chest forward, slowing down, as if the peel was a ceremony, not a mere coincidence. Once his boots touched the ground, Besson dropped to his knees to thank his uncle for protection.

Still beaming after his grand exit, Uncle Vasilii grumbled, "Enough, enough..." and yanked Besson back to standing by his collar.

"Who this might be?" he said right after. Did he not recognize his nephew, I wondered for a split second, before following the direction of his gaze. Duh.

A woman hurried across the courtyard, hiking her dark skirts for more speed. Matvei trotted in her wake, wiping the sweat off his brow and wheezing. Funny thing was, the woman looked older than him, maybe around forty, so short and plump, she should have rolled toward us not run. If that is what it takes, the woman's determined gaze reported. She bore on the porch unerringly.

"Uncle, this is Eudoxia, Osip Volokhov's mother. Ah... Dmitrii's nanny," Besson said not a second too early.

Eudoxia sprinted the remaining yards, hit the brakes and dropped to her knees so suddenly, I was worried she had swooned and Uncle Vasilii would have to catch her.

However, her shrieks left no doubts: she was conscious. "Sire! Good Sire, the hand that feeds us, hearken to me, I beg of you!"

With a woman, Uncle Vasilii didn't use a collar as a crank. He crouched with a slight wince and a creak in his knees, to peer into Eudoxia's face. "What do you wish for me, Eudoxia?"

"Justice and righteousness, my Lord Prince." Her eyes were dry, but red and sitting shallow in their sockets. "Harlot-Tsarina had killed my son—an innocent boy!—to cover up her corruption."

"Maria's son also lays dead in the Resurrection Monastery." Uncle Vasilii grabbed his chin, pondered a second. "She cries for vengeance and accuses your Osip of killing her Dmitrii."

Eudoxia's face froze into a bitter, determined mask. "She would, wouldn't she? But the shameless harlot lies."

"Aha!" Oh, sure, Eudoxia was the first person to alert Uncle Vasilii to such a scandalous possibility! Seriously?

But Eudoxia was unskilled in reading people, or she was happy to go along. "How could she know? She was inside, and I was in the courtyard with Dmitrii. Your nephew was there as well. Ask him!"

For the second time this afternoon, a woman pointed her finger at Besson's chest. The nanny's finger didn't have rings on it, but that didn't make her digit any less regal than the Tsarina's. Perhaps all bereft mothers had this tragic power. Maybe even my mother had it, if she existed in some spacetime. Sadness tugged at my gut, making it harder to focus on who killed whom among all these long-dead people.

Mother! Besson echoed with the same wistfulness as before. The guy had a lot to unpack in his past, but for now he had an urgent problem.

"Tell you uncle the truth, Besson, or may the Lord strike you where you stand!" Eudoxia demanded. "Osip ran off when the rest of you did. No one stayed in the courtyard with the unfortunate Dmitrii."

"No one? How come?" Uncle Vasilii softened his voice to a whisper. "Dmitrii had three nannies in charge of his care according to the court's accounts. The stupid boys ran off, I accept that. But why did three women of calm temperament and exemplary behavior abandon Dmitrii?"

I didn't envy Eudoxia Prince Vasilii's scrutiny or her terrible grief, but at least Besson's uncle spoke to her more kindly than he did to his nephew. I didn't trust his out-of-character patience, however.

Eudoxia was oblivious. "I stayed! I did!"

Uncle Vasilii harrumphed, feigning a step past her. She caught the flap of his coat, pulling on it for his attention. With her other hand she crossed herself. Once, twice, thrice—a solemn oath. "As Lord is my witness, I was there."

He turned his head a fraction to meet her gaze. "Have you seen the killer then?"

"If only! That morning it was like the Tatars had descended upon the kremlin! Same hubbub and bedlam, maybe even worse." She crossed herself again. "There were three of us charged with watching Dmitrii, aye, but there was the sickness. The cooks served bad mushrooms at the servants' table the night before. By the morning, along with many others, the two other nannies couldn't stand on their feet; they were so ill."

"You have a stronger constitution, I take it?" Uncle Vasilii's gray gaze sharpened, "so you persevered and continued with your duties?"

The nanny squirmed, as if the mushrooms roiled in her stomach again. "I felt sick too, but I came outside."

"Sick how?"

"W-what?"

"Describe the illness for me. It can be important."

Her brows rose, then came together in a frown. Then a grim smile graced her features. "Aye, the illness..." She darted another glance at Uncle Vasilii's face, checking for his reaction, cleared her throat and started again.

"The poison felt like the red-hot knives tore into my belly. I sweated from every orifice. At the sight of Dmitrii, may he rest in peace, I wanted to heave."

Uncle Vasilii's eyes bulged at the last detail. "Huh?"

"It's the boys' running back and forth." Eudoxia fidgeted even now, so perhaps excessive running wasn't something she approved of. Unless she was chasing an important nobleman to fill his ear with rumors. "Made me queasy."

"I see! I thought you meant... nevermind." Uncle Vasilii waved away his guess. "Did you perchance notice unusually high color in the other servants' faces?"

"Aye. Aye. We all were red and sweaty. Praise our Heavenly Lord, everyone recovered the next day or the day after, but back then, beg your pardon, we had to relieve ourselves often." She scrunched her face remembering the unpleasant experience. "That's what I've been trying to tell you, Prince. I only turned my back on Dmitrii for a blink of an eye, to call the boys to come back from their fool chase and play with the young prince, while I go relieve myself—"

"Did you walk after them, Eudoxia? Perhaps you shook your head, yelled at Osip to stop being a dimwit?"

"Perhaps," Eudoxia agreed.

The hem of Vasilii's coat slipped out of her fingers. She pushed to her feet and folded freckled arms under her breasts. "Perhaps I did, and why wouldn't I? Dmitrii wasn't a toddler in a pigsty! We were next to the palace, with the guards and servants at every corner."

While abroad they say that it takes a village to raise a child; in Russia we say that when seven nannies are on the job, nobody watches the child... and Dmitrii's murderer used the Russian version to create havoc.

Uncle Vasilii was barely holding on to his chin and his patience. "If you shouted at the boys for a while, by your own admission, you weren't looking at Dmitrii."

"It might be so, and I will answer for it before God, but the boys weren't with him either, including my Osip. I told the harlot-tsarina the truth and swore on the holy cross. Yet, she sent her mongrel brothers to hunt the boys down, and set the whole town against us. Why would she do such a thing?"

"Why indeed?"

"If you ask me, she had her own son killed."

"Maria was inside all morning, according to you."

Her exhale was so long, she nearly blew a raspberry, though I wasn't sure if it was a thing back then. Anyway, she nanny-splained to Uncle Vasilii. "She sent her brothers!"

"Obviously, obviously! Though... have you seen Grigorii or Mikhail in the courtyard when you returned to check on the prince, Eudoxia? Maybe a glimpse?" Uncle Vasilii mumbled, resembling a TV detective more and more. "Anything? No?"

A dark expression flickered behind Eudoxia's eyes, but she released it with a sigh. "I saw no one but the prince on the ground. At first, I thought he was having a seizure, but alas... If he spasmed, it was the last of his life draining away."

"Did you look around? Above you, perhaps?"

"No. I raised a cry for help."

I could imagine her being as effective as an emergency vehicle in the perfect quiet of Uglich air.

"The boys came back, then the guards. The harlot-tsarina ran into the yard without an outer dress and with her hair uncovered. As shameless as you please!"

"What did Maria do outside?"

"Oh, she keened a little, while they carried the body inside, then cursed. How she cursed! She cursed my Osip, my innocent boy!" Eudoxia's voice broke into senseless, wet sobs.

"Did her grief seem genuine to you?" Uncle Vasilii asked.

"Grief?" Eudoxia tossed her head, hissing out a bitter laugh. "Ain't you listening? Maria wasn't sad at all, but angry. Her eyes stayed dry the whole time, and they burned like hot coals."

I found it hard to believe, since the Tsarina had startling blue eyes. No way they would be like coals. More like a gas burner. Uncle Vasilii didn't concern himself with the metaphors. "Can you repeat this for my clerk?"

The softer he talked, the more agitated the nanny became. "I shall! To the whole Christian world I'll tell my truth! Three-and-thirty times, if I must."

"Once should suffice." Uncle Vasilii smirked into his beard, probably tallying up the juicy details he had already collected—and it was before supper! I felt like I needed a cleanse.

Eudoxia's arms coiled to her chest, then flew outwards to wring more accusation. "The harlot-tsarina hadn't loved her son, nor did she love her husband, our Tsar, may he rest in peace. If you ask me, that's why Tsar Ivan set her aside."

"I'm not asking you about that," Uncle Vasilii said, but he didn't leave.

Eudoxia didn't seem to care one whit what the question was. She was telling her story, and that was that, with no concern that such extravagant accusations should be whispered into the right ear, not yelled in the street.

"The harlot looked at other men through the eyes of lust. Probably Dmitrii wasn't even Tsar Ivan's babe, but a bastard sired by a lover."

"And that's why he was killed, you reckon?"

"Who, Osip? No, Sire, no! My Osip wasn't Maria's lover. Lord no!" Eudoxia crossed herself with abandon and spat a dozen times to show how abhorrent the thought was to her. "Osip was an innocent boy and of an age with your nephew."

"No, not your Osip," Prince Vasilii said after a little teeth grinding. "Do you think Dmitrii was killed to hide the tsarina Maria's immodest behavior?"

"Aye." Eudoxia caught onto this new line of questioning with a frightening speed. "Aye. To cover up her immodesty and also her witchcraft. She fornicated with the evil Latin sorcerer, the black arts scholar, and with his English apprentice. Together, they must have cast evil spells on Tsar Ivan, then on Tsar Fedor and Tsarina Irina. Otherwise, why would her womb remain barren?"

Uncle Vasilii scratched his beard vigorously enough to prune it. "And that's why he was killed?"

The nanny goggled so hard; she stopped mid-rant. "Killed? Who, Dmitrii?"

More teeth-grinding issued from Uncle Vasilii. "No, not Dmitrii. The Latin sorcerer and poisoner."

The question brought a frown to her face, but only for the briefest moment. Once she started spinning her toxic yarn, she had to turn the wheel faster and faster. "Aye. That's why."

I didn't doubt for a second she would denounce the entire Catholic world starting with the Pope, if it damned Maria in the bargain.

"Thank you for taking me in your confidence, Eudoxia. Please, oblige me and repeat your testimony to Matvei." Uncle Vasilii waved at his loyal clerk Matvei, who bowed with his usual agility.

The ugliness of past and present blended together again. In Putin's Russia or the sixteenth century Uglich, it was all the same. Death begot death. Hatred bred more hatred. Whenever the beast of retribution was let loose on our land, the informants heeled its trampling feet.

Besson shuddered, conjoining my thoughts. Terror stirred in the corners of his mind, like a spider on his web. Tsar Ivan would uplift a man one day, then someone would denounce a real or imaginary misdeed... and the paranoid tsar would order to boil his former favorite alive. It never stopped.

I was luckier than Besson: I had never seen fiends in human clothes boil a man alive. However, a video of Navalny's agony after he was poisoned by Novichok scarred me for good.

It was like Tsar Ivan's wrathful shadow rose out of his grave, stretched far enough to project on the walls of Uglich's kremlin. Then it reached across the Volga and across the centuries. Who knew how long it could grow and upon how many lives it was yet to be cast? We couldn't even count those already lost to it, in their millions.

It was like Tsar Ivan's wrathful shadow rose out of his grave, stretched far enough to project on the walls of Uglich's kremlin. Then it reached across the Volga and across the centuries. Who knew how long it could grow and upon how many lives it was yet to be cast? We couldn't even count those already lost to it, in their millions.

It never stops, I echoed Besson, though I shielded my future memories from him the best I could. Revealing too much about things to come in the past was fraught with dire consequences. My imagination failed to picture a more screwy course of history, but I didn't want to risk it. This was Russia after all, so it could happen.

"One more thing Eudoxia," Uncle Vasilii's voice cut through Besson's and mine combined gloom. "How often did Prince Dimitrii have seizures?"

The nanny pursed her lips that still trembled after the rapture of the accusations. I could see from her expression she was trying to be accurate about things she actually knew, not speculated about.

"A week won't go without it, when he was a baby. There were less and less since we came to Uglich. Perhaps once every few weeks," she said at last.

After that, Prince Vasilii finally sent vengeful Eudoxia on her way and waved for his retinue to leave the kremlin.

Oof, am I glad to be gone from here! I said to Besson. My friend also relaxed, but since he had a body, shivers overtook his legs almost immediately. The stress release, the adrenaline, the joy of being alive... it all hit him at once. As a result, he paid more attention to staying upright, than to where Uncle Vasilii's party was heading.

Fortunately, Uglich was hard to get lost in. One dusty road led to the river docks, where the boat bobbed on the current, reserved for Uncle Vasilii and his associates. The crossing was swift, and the gates stood open, even though the ninth hour prayer bells had ceased their peeling at some point. The monks waited for their important guest to come in.

I couldn't believe that the monastery was part of the same world as the palace. Here, the apple trees filled the air with swirling petals. The monks' faces shone with serene pallor under black cowls when Besson snuck into the church mid-service.

Nobody screamed, nobody reddened from the pent-up passions, nobody threatened Besson. It was his happy place. He breathed easier during the service, as if myrrh was better for his lungs than spring air.

The relief was temporary, alas, for his uncle ordered him to move to the guest house from a novice cell he had occupied on Father Nikifor's leave. It was a tiny room, but his own, fitting him like a shell fits a snail. He knew better than to disobey, however. After standing for a moment in the middle of it, Besson sighed, gathered what he had to gather—not much, particularly for a prince—and returned to the guest house.

It was dark outside now, but Shuiskii had the lamps lit, coloring the room with a welcoming orange glow. It was much more homey here than inside the church, but Besson disagreed, particularly when his eyes lingered on Matvei. The clerk of the Clerc Office was sitting on Uncle Vasilii's right, with the discreet air of the serpent in Eden. One glance at him, and Besson who salivated at the sight of the foodstuffs, lost his appetite.

"Ah, Besson!" Uncle Vasilii rubbed his hands and plucked a tiny smoked fish by its tail from a wooden platter. "At long last, we're in private."

Private? Besson set his sorry bundle on the floor and slumped on the edge of the carpet-covered bench, as far from Matvei as possible. The only thing he wanted was to put his head down, and come what may.

Uncle Vasilii, on the contrary, overflowed with vigor. "Out with it! Tell us how and why you and your friends left Dmitrii's side?"

If I had hands, I'd applaud. Besson's tale was ridiculously overdue after everything else. Come on, just tell it as if you were telling it to me. No judgment and stuff.

He took a deep breath in, closed his eyes and the horrid day—May 15, 1591—came alive again.