This edition published by Venture Press, an imprint of Endeavour Press Ltd in 2016. In Memory of John M. Ford “What’s life but an improvisation to the music?” “Say what you mean. Bear witness. Iterate.” Table of Contents Prologue CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FOUR CHAPTER FIVE CHAPTER SIX CHAPTER SEVEN CHAPTER EIGHT CHAPTER NINE CHAPTER TEN ПОСЛЕСЛОВИЕ Prologue The Independent Tsardom of Khorlov; June, 1243 A.D. “Papa, what are those bells?” There was a wool-stuffed leather ball arching through the air towards him, and even though the catch was an easy one, Tsar Ivan Aleksandrovich Khorlovskiy came very close to missing it. “Bells? What bells?” he said, knowing even as he spoke that he was lying. The bells were there, they’d been there for several minutes past, and not all the feigned ignorance in the wide white world would wipe them from the hearing of a child.
