At first, the sailors celebrated; all ill will vanished on the rising breeze. But as they drew closer to home, the men began to mutter to themselves, wondering what might happen if the boy told anyone how he had been treated aboard the ship and how his crewmates had nearly resorted to cannibalism. They began to think that perhaps the boy shouldn’t reach home at all and soon set out to make sure he didn’t. But every time they raised their knives, the winds would fall away, becalming the ship, its sails limp as wilted leaves. In this way, Nikolai survived the journey.
When the ship finally reached port, the sailors were met by disbelieving crowds. Their countrymen had assumed they had long since wrecked and perished. The crew praised their captain’s ingenuity and said that everyone among them had banded together with courage and heart—all but the young boy Nikolai, who was not to be trusted, no matter what horrible tales he told. Nikolai said nothing but hurried to the first church he could find to offer prayers of thanks.
The captain and his crew were given medals and pronounced heroes. They were invited into the best homes and celebrated with feasts and parties. Tempted by mouthwatering smells and the sumptuous banquets laid out before them, again and again, they tried to eat. But none of them could manage much more than a bite. Every morsel of food tasted of stone and ash. One by one, they withered away and perished, desperate for just one spoonful of gravy, just one mouthful of wine.
As for Nikolai, he’d kept his fine red coat and the sack he’d used to try to bring food to the crew, and now each morning he woke to find the sack stuffed full of sweets and delicacies. So he took to traveling from village to village and house to house, laying feasts before the hungry, even when the world was at its coldest, even when the wind howled and snow lay thick on the ground.
He is known as the patron saint of sailors and lost causes, and it is traditional to set a place for him at the table on the darkest night of the year.
SANKTA LIZABETA OF THE ROSES
There was a village, somewhere to the west, nestled in the shelter of a tall hill called Gorubun because of its crooked shape. From the top of this hill you could just see the blue promise of the ocean, and when the weather was right, the wind would carry the salt smell of the sea from the distant shore.
Every morning at dawn, the wise men of the village sent four scouts up the hill, and the four scouts would sit back to back, looking east, west, north, south to warn if any trouble might be headed their way. At dusk, four fresh scouts came to relieve them, and all through the night the new scouts sat, as the stars rose and black night bled away to morning again.
But the village was unremarkable, with nothing worth stealing, and attracted attention from neither thief nor marauder. And so, year after year, the scouts returned from the hill with little to report except pleasant breezes and stray sheep grazing outside their pastures.
Strong backs were needed to work the fields, and it seemed a waste to lose four good laborers each day and night, and so during one harvest, three of the scouts were permitted to remain down in the village and just one scout was sent to climb the crooked hill. When the harvest ended and there had been no trouble, the wise men of the village didn’t so much decide not to reinstate the other scouts, as they forgot to order them up the hill again. One scout still climbed the slope every morning and another replaced him every night, and if one of them occasionally fell asleep or the other spent his hours kissing Marina Trevich, the stonemason’s daughter, who was to know?
Lizabeta lived on the western outskirts of the village, far from the shadow of Gorubun. Each day she walked out to the meadows beyond her family’s home to tend to their hives. She wore no gloves or bonnet. The bees let her take their honey without a single sting. There, where wild white roses grew in clouds of blossoms so profuse they looked like mist rolling in over the fields, Lizabeta would pray and think on the great works of the Saints, for even then she was a pious and serious girl. And there she was, the summer sun hot on her bent head, the bees humming lazily around her, when a breeze came from the west carrying not the salt-soaked tang of the sea but the smell of something burning.
Lizabeta ran home to tell her father. “It’s probably nothing,” he said. “The village due west is burning their trash. This is none of our concern.”
But Lizabeta could not shake her unease, so she and her father walked to the neighboring manor house, the home of a prosperous and well-respected citizen. “Your father is right,” he assured her. “It’s probably nothing. Perhaps a roof caught fire. This is none of our concern.”
And yet still, Lizabeta could not calm her restless thoughts, and so, to appease her, the merchant and her father accompanied her all the way into the village square to see the wise men, who gathered there beneath the red elm tree. Each day they would drink kvas, eat fresh bread brought to them by their wives, and puzzle over the great mysteries of the world.
When Lizabeta spoke of the scent of smoke blowing in over the meadow, the men said, “If there were any trouble, the scout atop Gorubun would give warning. Now leave us to think on the mysteries of the world.”
All agreed with the wise men of the village. The merchant returned to his manor house, and Lizabeta’s father took her home. But when Lizabeta sat and prayed among the hives, no peace came to her. So back through town she went and up the crooked hill; alone she climbed the narrow path. On the slopes of Gorubun, there was no stink of something burning, and the pastures seemed green and peaceful. She began to feel quite silly as her legs grew weary and sweat bloomed on her brow. Surely such concerns could be left to her father and the merchant and the wise men of the village.
Still she pressed on, between rocks and boulders, feeling more foolish with every step. When she reached the top of the hill, she found the scout snoring peacefully beneath his cap with his long legs stretched out on the soft grass. The air was fresh and clean, but when Lizabeta turned to the west, she saw a terrible thing: columns of smoke like dark pillars holding up a heavy sky. And she knew that it was not just refuse she’d smelled burning or a kitchen fire. She’d caught the scent of churches set alight and bodies too.
She ran back down the hill, fast as she could without falling, and into the town square.
“An army!” Lizabeta cried. “An army is marching!” She told them she’d seen pillars of fire, one for each town between their village and the sea. “We must gather swords and arrows and go to our neighbors’ aid!”
“We will discuss it,” said the wise men of the village. “We will raise a defense.”
But when Lizabeta had gone, and they were no longer faced with the pleas of a frightened girl, the idea of a war seemed far less heroic. The wise men had all been children the last time fighting had come to the village. They had no desire to pick up blades and shields. They did not want to see their sons do that either.
“Surely the soldiers will pass us by, as they always have before,” the wise men told themselves. And they went to have dinner and to ponder the great mysteries of the world.
When dawn came, Lizabeta went out to the meadow to wait for the brave men of the village to arrive with their swords and shields. She waited as the sun drifted higher and the bees hummed around her. She waited as the roses wilted beneath the heat, their white petals browning at the edges. No one came. Until, at last, she heard marching footsteps, not from the direction of the village, but from the darkness of the woods. She heard voices raised in battle song and felt thunder through the earth. She understood then that there would be no rescue.