Ivan dropped to his knees in the grass and crawled along the edge of the chasm, reaching out with his left arm to try to feel the invisible bridge.

"What are you doing?" she said.

"Going home," he said.

She sighed. "You won't find it."

He stopped probing for the bridge. "Yes I will."

"You've already put your hand through it several times," she said. "It isn't there for you."

"You mean it only exists when you're holding my hand?"

"It exists all the time," she said. "For me."

"So I can't get back home without your help."

"Why would you want to leave, anyway?" she said. "When you marry me, you'll be a prince. Heir to the throne. Someday you'll be king of Taina."

"I've never even heard of Taina," he said. "I don't want to be king of anything. I want a doctorate and tenure at a university and a wife and children who love me." Of course he used the modern Russian words for doctorate and university and the English word for tenure, since he'd never had to say it in Russian and wasn't sure how.

She was baffled by the strange vocabulary, of course, but tried to make sense of it. "So you're on a quest?" she said. "To find this... tenure?"

"Yes, exactly," said Ivan. "So if you'll be so kind as to help me back over the bridge, I'll find my own way home from there."

"No," she said.

"Listen, you owe me. I woke you up."

"Yes," she said, "and because of that there's no one else I can marry. After the wedding you can go search for your tenure."

"Listen," he said. "I'm betrothed to someone else."

"No you're not," she said coldly.

"I assure you that I am," he said.

"You are betrothed to me," she said. "If you were betrothed to someone else, I would not have woken up when you kissed me. The bear would not have gone away when I agreed to marry you."

"And how would the bear know?"

"The bear didn't know. The spell knew. The universe knows when an oath is being made, and when an oath is broken."

"Well, the universe just slipped up, because I was engaged to Ruth before I—" He heard his own words and stopped.

Before? What did before mean now? He was in her world—had been in her world since he reached the pedestal in the middle of the chasm. And by her clothing and her speech he was pretty sure her world was medieval, maybe 900 C.E., maybe earlier. So at the moment in time when he kissed her, he and Ruth hadn't even been born yet.

But that was ludicrous. Because he was there, as a man in his twenties who had definitely given his word, earlier in his life, to marry Ruth. Therefore it was a betrothed man who kissed the princess.

But he kissed her centuries before his betrothal.

Round and round it went. What good were the rules of time when the rules of magic contradicted them?

Mother had told him that there was something wrong, some impediment to his marriage with Ruth. Was it this? Even though he hadn't yet come here and fought his way to the princess, had this moment already happened centuries before? Did objective time—the flow of centuries—override subjective time, the flow of his own life?

There was no way he could even begin to discuss such concepts with Katerina. Even if he had enough Old Church Slavonic to speak these thoughts, he doubted she'd have the philosophical background to understand them. Just as he didn't have the background to grasp the way things worked here. Bridges that existed for one person and not for another. Bears that lived for centuries in leaf-filled pits. Witches who put spells on princesses. It was great to read about these things, but living with them wasn't half so entertaining. And he had a feeling that before he was done with all this, he'd like it even less.

"So I'm trapped," he said.

"Yes," she said coldly. "Poor you, a peasant boy trapped into marrying a princess so you can become a king."

"I don't want to be a king," he said. "And I'm not a peasant. Or a boy."

"You're certainly not a knight."

"I must be a knight," he said. "Or else how could I get past the bear?"

"You're too weak and soft and young to be a knight."

No one had ever called him weak and soft, and he was older than she was. Almost by reflex he tensed his muscles, feeling them bulge and move under his skin. "How can you call me weak?"

In reply she took hold of his right forearm between her hands. Her fingers overlapped considerably. "This arm has never raised a sword." She gripped his left upper arm. "Could this arm hold a shield for more than five minutes?"

"I've never needed to," said Ivan. "But I'm hardly a..." He struggled to think of a word that would mean weakling.

"Smridu," she said. Peasant.

"I'm not a smridu. I've never farmed in my life. I don't even know what farmers do."

"No, I can see that," she said. "You have the manners of a peasant, but those thighs would never get you through a plowing season. They'd break like twigs."

Her cold assessment of his naked body infuriated and shamed him. He had never tried to bulk up like a Schwarzenegger, he had tried for genuine all-around athleticism. Her scorn was so unfair, so culturally myopic—and yet he knew it would be pathetic to defend himself. "In my country I'm considered strong enough."

"Then your country will soon be conquered, when real men see their opportunity. What are you, a merchant?" She glanced down at his crotch, continuing her assessment of his body. And then, suddenly, her eyes grew wide.

"What?" he said, fighting the urge to cover himself or turn away.

"I heard about this. The Jews do this."

"Yes, that's right," he said. "I'm a Jew."

Her gaze grew stony and she muttered an epithet that he didn't understand.

Great, that was all he needed. Anti-Semitism, too.

"If you think you can sell the daughter of a king into slavery, think again," she said. "My father will ransom me, and then he'll come and hunt you down and kill you anyway."

"Slavery!" he cried. "What does my being a Jew have to do with slavery?"

Her fear eased. "If you're not a peasant and you're not a knight, then I thought you might be a trader, and then I thought of the Jews who traffic in slaves, carrying people west to sell them to the Franks."

Ivan remembered his history. In this era all the traders dealt in slaves.

"Traders don't steal slaves, they buy them. War captives. Debtors."

"But the bishop says that—"

Of course. No sooner are these people converted to Christianity than the Church starts in with the calumnies against Jews. "The only thing the bishop knows about Jews is the lies the Christians made up about us."

Her face flushed. "How dare you say that Christians are liars. I'm a Christian and I never lie."

"Well, I'm a Jew and I never captured a slave in my life. Or bought or sold one either. And I never met a Jew who did."

She glared at him. "What a lie," she said. "I have watched my father buy slaves from Jews himself!"

"Well, if you buy the slaves, what right do you have to criticize a Jew for selling them?"

"In my father's kingdom, Christian slaves earn their freedom by fifteen years of work."

"Oh, but Jewish slaves would stay slaves forever?"

"All our slaves convert to Christianity."

"Of course they do!" cried Ivan, exasperated. "If Christians are the only ones you set free!"

"But Jews sell Christians into slavery," she said.

"And who do you think they sell them to?" he demanded. "Christians like your father. I can't believe we're even having this conversation. Dealing in slaves is evil when Jews do it, but perfectly all right when Christians do it, is that the rule?"

"Why should I argue with a boy?" she said.

"You shouldn't argue. You should listen and learn the truth. I'm a Jew and I'm not a prince and I don't want to marry you, I want to go home and marry Ruth. According to you I also wore women's clothing. Nobody's going to want me to be king, so let's forget the whole thing. Let me go back across that bridge."