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IT TOOK us four nights to reach Kiev Only in the early hours before dawn did we hunt We eon vaults of old neglected castles and in the sepulchers beneath forlorn and ruined churches where the profane ont now to stash their livestock and their hay

There are tales I could tell of this journey, of those brave fortresses we roaes where we found the evildoer in his rude den

Naturally, Marius saw lessons in all this, teachingthe speed hich I h the dense forest, and had no fear of the scattered primitive settlements which we visited on account of my thirst He praised me that I didn’t shrink from the dark dusty nests of bones in which we lay down by day, re already been pillaged, were the least likely for ht of the sun

Our fancy Venetian clothes were soon streaked with dirt, but ere provided with thick fur-lined cloaks for the journey, and these covered all Even in this Marius saw a lesson, that we arar for the body and no et it, for we are far less dependent upon our rai before our arrival in Kiev, I knew the rocky northern woods only too well The dread winter of the north was all around us We had co of all er hurtsthe soft delicious cold snow in er chillsthe poorest of towns and hovels with its blanket Master, look, look how it throws back the light even of the weakest stars"

We were on the edge of the land that men call the Golden Horde- the southern steppes of Russia, which for two hundred years, since the conquest of Genghis Khan, had been too dangerous for the farht

Kiev Rus had once included this fertile and beautiful prairie, stretching far to the East, almost to Europe, as well as south of the city of Kiev, where I had been born

"The final stretch will be nothing," ht so that you will be rested and fresh when you catch the first sight of ho out at the wild grass, flowing in the winter wind beneath us, for the first tihts since I’d beco for the sun I wanted to see this land by the light of the sun I didn’t dare confess it towant?

On the final night, I awoke just after sunset We had found a hiding place beneath the floor of a church in a village where no one lived now at all The horrid Mongol hordes, which had destroyed o burnt this town to nothing, or so Marius had told me, and this church did not even possess a roof There had been no one left here to pull the stones of the floor away for profit or building, and so we had gone down a forgotten stairway to lie withfrole of sky whereblock, an inscribed tombstone no doubt, for me to make my ascent I propelledall th, shot upwards, as if I could fly, and passed through this opening to land on my feet

Marius, who invariably rose before ave out the expected appreciative laugh

"Have you been saving that little trick for such a moment?" he said

I was dazed by the snow, as I looked aroundat the frozen pines that had everywhere sprung up on the ruins of the village I could scarce speak

"No," I ed to say "I didn’t know I could do it I don’t kno high I can leap, or how th I have You’re pleased, however?"

"Yes, why shouldn’t I be? I want you to be so strong that no one can ever hurt you"

"And ould, Master? We travel the world, but who even knoe go and e come?"

"There are others, Amadeo And there are others here I can hear the them"

I understood "You open your mind to hear them, and they know you are there?"

"Yes, clever one Are you ready now to go hon of the Cross in our old way, touching the right shoulder before the left I thought of h in his stirrups with his giant bow, the bow only he could bend, like unto thearrow after arrow at the raiders who thundered down on us, riding as if he were one of the Turks or Tatars hireat was his skill Arrow after arrow, drawn out with a swift snap from the pouch on his back, went into the bow and was shot across the high blowing grass even as his horse galloped at full speed His red beard was blowing in the fierce wind, and the sky was so blue, so richly blue that-

I broke off this prayer and almost lost my balance My Master held me

"Pray, you’ll be finished with all this very quickly," he said

"Give ive uidance But give ainst you I need you, yes Yes, I want it to be quick and done, and all its lessons in here, in my mind, to be taken back home"

He smiled "Home is Venice now? You’ve made the decision so soon?"

"Yes, I know it even at this moment What lies beyond is the birth land, and that’s not always ho me in his ar ainst him, dreamlessly and fearlessly

Then he set reat dark hill, and the leafless oak forest with its frozen black trunks and skeletal branches I could see the glea strip of the Dnieper River far below My heart scudded inside h city, the city we called Vladimir’s City, which was old Kiev

Piles of rubble which had once been city walls were only yards fro over the the ruined churches, churches which had been of legendary splendor when Batu Khan had burnt the city in the year 1240

I had grown up ale of ancient churches and brokento hear Mass in our Cathedral of Santa Sofia, one of the few ols had spared In its day, it had been a spectacle of golden do all those of the other churches, and was rurand than its naer and packed with treasures

What I had knoas a stately remnant, a wounded shell

I didn’t want to enter the church now It was enough to see it from the outside, because I kne, frolory of this church had once been I understood fros of San Marco, and from the old Byzantine church on the Venetian island of Torcello what glory had once been here for all to see When I thought of the lively crowds of Venice, her students, scholars, lawyers, merchants, I could paint a dense vitality on this bleak and wasted scene

The snoas deep and thick, and few Russians were out in it this frigid early evening So we had it to ourselves, walking through it with ease, not having to pick our way asstretch of ruined battle there, I looked down on the lower city, the city we called Podil, the only real city of Kiev that reh tirown up I looked down on deep-pitched roofs, their thatch covered in cleansing snow, their chireat grid of such houses and other buildings had long ago fored to survive fire after fire and even the worst Tatar raids

It was a town made up of traders and merchants and craftsht frooods she took south into the European world

My Father, the indomitable hunter, had traded bear skins which he hireat forest which spread towards the north Fox, reat was his strength and luck, that no man or woman of our household ever sold their handiwork or wanted for food If we starved, and we had starved, it was because the winter ate the food, and the old to buy

I caught the stench of Podil as I stood on the battle fish, and livestock, of soiled flesh, and riverthe snow off the fur when it came up to my lips, and I looked back up at the dark doainst the sky

"Let’s walk on, let’s go past the castle of the Voievoda," I said "You see that wooden building, you would never call it a palace or a castle in fair Italy That is a castle here"

Marius nodded He esture I owed him no explanation of this alien place from which I’d come

The Voievoda was our ruler, and in my time it had been Prince Michael of Lithuania I didn’t knoho it would be now

I surprised myself that I used the proper word for hiuage, and the strange word for ruler, "voievoda," had never passed my lips But I had seen him clearly then in his round black far hat, his dark thick velvet tunic and his felt boots

I led the way

We approached the squat building, which see else, built as it was out of such enorraceful slope as they ascended; its many towers had four-tiered roofs I could see its central roof, a great five-sided wooden doainst the starry sky Torches blazed at its huge doorways and along the outer walls of its enclosures All its ere sealed against the winter and the night

Ti yet standing in Christendouards with a feift soft words and darting movements, to pass them and to enter the castle itself

We found our way in by e rooe point where we could spy upon the small crowd of fur-trimmed nobles or lords who clustered in the Great Roo around the roaring fire

On a great sprawling e Russian chairs whose geoold goblets, the wine being provided by two leather-clad serving boys, and their long belted robes were the colors of blue and red and gold as bright as the s

European tapestries covered the rudely stuccoed walls Sa woodlands of France or England or Tuscany On a long board set with blazing candles sat a simple meal of joints and fowl

So cold was the room that these lords wore their Russian far hats

How exotic it had looked to ht with rateful for a bundles of valuables to the allies of Prince Michael in the Lithuanian forts to the west

But these were Europeans I had never respected thehtfor the right to rule us

"No one goes up against those thieves," s of honor and valor It "

And s

For all his stamina in the saddle, for all his dexterity with the bow and arrow, and his blunt brute force with the broadsword, he had the ability with his long fingers to pluck outwith cleverness the narrative songs of the ancient ti those of Byzantium, her riches the wonder of all the world

Within a lance at these olden wine cups, their big fur-tri on fancy Turkish foot rests, their shoulders hunkered, their shadows crowding the walls And then, without their ever having knoere there, we slipped away

It was tio to the other hilltop city, the Pechersk, under which lay the many catacombs of the Monastery of the Caves

I treht of it It seemed the mouth of the Monastery would s h the ht of the stars, never to find h the ained access, this ti the locks silently withthe doors as I opened thees, and dashing swiftly across rooms so that mortal eyes perceived noat all

The air ar, but memory told me it had not been so terribly warht of cheap oil, several brothers were bent over their slanted desks, working on their copying, as if the printing press were of no concern to them, and surely it was not

I could see the texts on which they worked and I knew them-the Paterikon of the Kievan Caves Monastery, with its marvelous tales of the Monastery’s founders and itsover that text, I had learned fully to read and write I crept now along the wall until e which onemodel from which he worked

I knew this part of the Paterikon by heart It was the Tale of Isaac Deels, and even pretending to be Christ Himself When Isaac had fallen for their tricks, they had danced with glee and taunted him But after much meditation and penance, Isaac stood up to these demons

The monk had just dipped his pen and he wrote now the words hich Isaac spoke:

When you deceived els, you were unworthy of that rank But now you appear in your true colors-

I looked away I didn’t read the rest Cleaving there so well to the wall I one on unseen forever Slowly I looked at the other pages which thelet to dry I found an earlier passage which I’d never forgotten, describing Isaac as he lay, withdrawn from all the world, motionless, and without food for two years:

For Isaac eakened in mind and body and could not turn over on his side, stand up, or sit down; he just lay there on one side, and often worhs from his excrement and urine

The demons had driven Isaac to this, with their deception Such temptations, such visions, such confusion and such penance I myself had hoped to experience for the rest of my life when I entered here as a child

I listened to the pen scratch on the paper I withdrew, unseen, as if I’d never come

I looked back at my scholarly brethren

All were e of old sweat and dirt, and their heads were all but shaved Their long beards were thin and uncoht I knew one of them, had loved him so anymore

To Marius, who stood beside me as faithfully as a shadow, I confided that I could not have endured it, but we both knew this was a lie In all likelihood I would have endured it, and I would have died without ever knowing any other world

Itunnels where theto the mud wall, I listened for the dreams and prayers of those who lay ento but what I could iine, and exactly as I recalled I heard the faer mysterious words whispered in the Church Slavonic I saw the prescribed i flame of true devotion and true mysticism, kindled from the weak fire of lives of utter denial

I stood with ainst the mud I wished to find the boy, so pure of soul, who had opened these cells to bring the herh food and drink to keep them alive But I couldn’t find the boy I couldn’t And I felt only a raging pity for him that he had ever suffered here, thin and norant, having but one sensuous joy in life and that was to see the colors of the ikon catch fire

I gasped I turned my head and fell stupidly into Marius’s arms

"Don’t cry, Amadeo," he said tenderly in my ear

He brushed my hair from my eyes, and with his soft thumb he even wiped away my tears

"Tell it all farewell now, son," he said

I nodded

In a twinkling we stood outside I didn’t speak to him He followed me I headed down the slope towards the waterfront city

The srew stronger, and finally I came to the house that I knew had been ? To measure all this by new standards? To confirhtest chance?

Dear God, there was no justification for what I was, an i off the luxurious stews of the wicked Venetian world, I knew it Was this all a vain exercise in self-justification? No, soular house, like so h tie and crude house that was my home

As soon as we reached it, I crept around the sides The slush of the snow had here turned to water, and indeed, the water of the river leaked down the street and into everywhere as it had when I was a child The water leaked into my fine-stitched Venetian boots But it could not paralyze th now froods unknown here, and creatures for whom these filthy peasants, of which I had been one, had no nah wall, just as I had done in the Monastery, cleaving to the mortar as if the solidity would protect me and transh a tiny hole in the broken clu, and I beheld in the faht of lae brick stove

I knew theone from my mind I knew that they were kindred, and I knew the atmosphere that they shared

But I had to see beyond this little gathering I had to know if these people ell I had to know if after that fateful day, when I’d been kidnapped, and ed to go on with their usual vigor I had to know, perhaps, what they prayed when they thought of Andrei, the boy with the gift to make ikons so perfectly, ikons not made by huing The voice was that of one of ht have been my brother His naood with singing, hts and heroes, and it was one of the now The harp was small and old, s in time with his phrases as he all but spoke the story of a lusty and fatal battle for ancient and great Kiev

I heard the familiar cadences that had been passed down by our people froers up and broke loose a bit ofthe Ikon corner-directly opposite the fa fire in the open stove

Ah, what a spectacle! Amid dozens of little candle stubs and earthen la fat, there stood propped soold frah only yesterday they’d cos stuffed as beautifully decorated and colored with patterns I could well recall, though even with my vampire eyes I was too far away to see the these sacred eggs for Easter, applying the hotwax to them with their wooden pens to mark the ribbons or the stars or the crosses or the lines which meant the ram’s horns, or the symbol which meant the butterfly or the stork Once the wax had been applied, the egg would be dipped in cold dye of aly deep color It had seemed there was an endless variety, and endless possibility for ns

These fragile and beautiful eggs were kept for curing the sick, or for protection against the storood luck with the co harvest I had placed one once over the door of the house in whichbride

There was a beautiful story about these decorated eggs, that as long as the custos existed, then the world would be safe from the monster of Evil anted always to come and devour all that was

It eet to see these eggs placed there in the proud corner of the Ikons, as always, aotten this custoedy to coht ot all else I saw the Face of Christ blazing in the firelight,Christ, as I had so often painted Him I had done so many of these pictures, and yet how like the one lost that day in the high grasses of the wild lands was this very one!

But that was impossible How could anyone have recovered the ikon I had dropped when the raiders took me prisoner? No, it must surely be another, for as I said, I had done so e to take h this toere ht theifts, and it was the Prince who had said that the monks must see my skill

How stern Our Lord looked now co Christs of Fra Angelico or the noble sorrowful Lord of Bellini And yet He ithin severe lines, loving in so in the manner of ave to me!

A sickness rose up in me I felt my Master’s hands on my shoulders He didn’t pull ainst h, was it now? But the er, rown into a woain if somehow they could hide all the liquor from him and make him come back to himself

My Uncle Borys sneered Ivan was hopeless, said Borys Ivan would never see another sober night or day, and would soon die Ivan was poisoned with liquor, both with the fine spirits he got fro off what he stole froot fro the terror of the town

I bristled all over Ivan, ain in such dishonor? Ivan not slain in the wild fields?

But in their thick skulls, the thoughts of hi another song, a dancing song No one would dance in this house, where all were tired from their labor, and the women half-blind as they continued to mend the clothes that lay piled in their laps But the er than I had been when I died, yes, my little brother, whispered a soft prayer for ht, as he had al down drunk as he did in the snow

"Please bring him home," came the little boy’s whisper

Then behindto put it in order and to calm me:

"Yes, it seems it is true, beyond doubt Your Father is alive"

Before he could cautionto do, a reckless thing to do, and I ought to have asked Marius’s permission, but I was, as I’ve told you, an unruly pupil I had to do this

The wind gusted through the house The huddled figures shivered and pushed their thick furs up around their shoulders The fire deep in the mouth of the brick stove flared beautifully

I knew that I should remove my hat, which in this case was my hood, and that I should face the Ikon corner and cross myself, but I couldn’t do this

In fact, to conceal myself, I pulled ainst it I held the fur cloak up againstwas visible of my face except my eyes, and perhaps a shock of reddish hair

"Why has the drink gotten Ivan?" I whispered, the old Russian tongue coest man in this city Where is he now?"

They ary and angry at my intrusion The fire in the stove crackled and danced froroup of perfect radiant flaes and random candles, another fire of a different and eternal sort The Face of Christ was clear toto fix ainst the door

My uncle rose and shoved the harp into the arer boy I didn’t know I saw in the shadows the children sitting up in their heavily draped beds I saw their shining eyes looking at ether and faced me

I saw my Mother, wizened and sad as if centuries had passed since I left her, a veritable crone in the corner, clinging to the rug that covered her lap I studied her, trying to fathom the cause of her decay Toothless, decrepit, her knuckles big and chafed and shiny fro worked too rapidly towards her grave