Summary

A Guest for the Waning Year – As fall begins to turn to winter, Anna and Konstantin convince Pyotr that the only thing to do with Vasya is to send her to a convent in Moscow. A short time later, Vasya brings home a young monk lost in the woods. He brings news of Sasha and of the new Grand Prince, who plan to go to war to free Moscow from the control of the Byzantine Empire. Both Kolya and Alyosha want to go, but Pyotr is reluctant. Meanwhile, Pyotr and Kolya discover the first of a series of animals, brutally killed and dismembered; and the young monk asks Konstantin for advice – he has been asked by Pyotr to make plans for Vasya to go into the convent in Moscow, but is reluctant to do so. “Wild birds,” he says, “die in cages” (190). Konstantin...