In the year of our Lord, 1548, the armies of unified Russia, under the command of its first Tsar, Ivan called Grozny, which is to say, Terrible, won a great war against their enemy, the Khanate of Kazan. The empire of Kazan would never again return to its former glory, and the victory solidified Ivan as the greatest ruler of the East in his day.

I was there, on the sidelines, watching the history of Mother Russia unfold.. After spending my entire life as a lowly maid in the Kremlin palace, I’d come to believe loneliness to be simply part of the human condition. I’d never dreamed a person could feel anything else. That all changed when an English soldier named Taras came to the gates of the Kremlin.

With Taras as a companion, and the war won, Ivan in good spirits, an heir to the throne newly born, and all of Russia rejoicing, I knew the greatest happiness of my life. I’d never dreamed I could feel so safe. So content.  

It would not last. A crossroads I could not see loomed before me. It included a choice I did not know how to make in a world I barely understood. It came at me too fast to affect any kind of change. As Russia plunged headlong toward her destiny, it dragged all its citizens—high and low—with it. We all thought we could control the events and momentum of our lives, at least to some extent.  

We were wrong. So very wrong.