The Centurion. Grasshopper

What Mikhail Ratnikov couldn’t possibly foresee was that a frightened little Christian boy from the swamp would set him up with such a “sow.” Or maybe it turns out to be a gift of fate—that’s for you to decide. However, at first no one in the fortress could even imagine what “unknown creature” the scouts had brought from the forest.

A wet, hungry, little orphan—what could be special about him? And in general, what’s so extraordinary—Christians fleeing pagan lands, even if they’re craftsmen from a far-off settlement? The grandfather has been bothered by a boar—you can’t ask him anything. The boy hasn’t even grown into being an apprentice yet, and besides, he doesn’t know anything—where from? There’s neither danger nor use for now. They didn’t cast him out out of pity, and thank goodness for that.

So Timka never made it to Mishyka for a conversation. At first the nobleman just wasn’t up to it, and then—almost immediately—an attack by the Poles hit the fortress, and Mikhail Ratnikov had to go on a campaign, never finding out what kind of delayed-action “mine” the swamp left in his fortress. And how it would “detonate” without proper supervision. Clearing all of that fell to the village elder Aristarkh—something that promised the young noble even more headaches after returning: answering difficult questions and unraveling knotted knots that would inevitably get tangled not only in Timka’s active role, but also in the minds and destinies of the fortress’s inhabitants.