“I was thinking the same thing, so I brought my formal clothes.”
“Perfect!” Oksana quickly ushered them into the house. “Is this your security?” She turned to Sándor. “I’m Oksana. It is nice to meet you. I promise my wife will shoot anyone who even looks at Tatyana sideways.”
“Sándor.” He stood carefully, put a hand on his chest, and bowed slightly, the traditional greeting of Poshani men. “And I don’t think that will be necessary, but thank you.”
“Honestly, you’d have to convince her not to.” Oksana sighed. “She’s been away from the field for weeks now, and she’s getting very irritable.”
“I see.”
“You’ve met Ludmila,” Tatyana said. “The woman you often see with Mika.”
“Long beautiful braid?” Oksana offered. “Adorable frown. I used to work more closely with Mika, but I was transferred a few years ago, so now Ludmila has to put up with him.”
“I remember her.” Sándor looked distinctly uncomfortable with Oksana’s familiarity.
“Come, come.” She waved Tatyana into the foyer of the large mansion. “We built an axe-throwing range in the basement next to the firing range. You’ll love it.”
Tatyana asked, “You have a firing range in the basement?”
“Of course! But it is just for me really. Ludmila always practices in the forest because there’s no way we could build anything long enough for her rifle practice in the house.” Oksana glanced at Sándor over her shoulder. “We’d have to buy one of those tunneling machines, you know?”
“This should be fun,” Tatyana said. “I haven’t thrown axes in months.”
“Then you need the practice.”
“I’m looking forward to it.” She had a few targets she could imagine to work off some of her stress.
Chapter 21
Oleg
The old man had milky-blue cataracts over his eyes, yet Oleg remembered when he’d been a young boy, serving the altar on Sunday instead of acting as the church caretaker in his retirement.
He wore a heavy brown coat with bright red trim around the collar that his wife had probably embroidered. The coat was worn and faded, had been patched multiple times, and sat on Dymitri’s shoulders like an old friend.
“Tell me what you remember.” Oleg sat across from the boy who had become an old man under his care. “Father Izaias was praying on Friday afternoon, yes?”
“Yes, as always. I left him at the church a little bit early. I usually wait for him and lock up, but our grandchildren were visiting so…” Dymitri’s voice was reedy and full of sorrow. “I had no idea that anyone?—”
“Of course not.” Oleg patted the man’s knee. “Why would you? Why would you, Dima?”
The village on the outskirts of the citadel was a quiet hamlet; it was all that remained of a once-thriving town that had slowly contracted over centuries to be hardly more than a mountain village. The one building that had remained relatively untouchedby time was a beautiful fifteenth-century Orthodox church that was the pride of the community.
“I keep the keys, you know. I keep them safe.” Dymitri patted a small leather purse hanging around his neck.
“Of course you do.”
“But Father Izaias also keeps his own keys, so in the winter when it is cold, he sometimes tells me to go home because of my knees.”
Because of Oleg’s patronage, the church was the communal center of the village and often hosted fairs and activities that the government could not afford.
The Reverend Father Izaias was a priest Oleg had requested on the recommendation from a trusted bishop in Kyiv. Izaias and his wife had been serving the village for over twenty years and had remained in their position partly because both were fully aware of who and what Oleg was and the role he played in the village, which was unchanging after centuries of patronage.
Oleg squeezed the old man’s hand. “Father Izaias was a younger man, Dima. He was being thoughtful.”
“I know that.” Dymitri blinked his foggy eyes. There were tears in the corner. “But this horrible thing?—”
“Likely the evil of a sick mind,” Oleg was quick to reassure him. “If you had been there, Dima, your wife might be alone tonight.”
