The Betrothed Sister (37 page)

She stretched her hands towards the coals that glowed in one of the many braziers the servants had brought into her large sewing chamber earlier that afternoon. She could feel her forehead crinkle into worry folds. If there was unrest after Sviatoslav died Vladimir might send her to safety in Novgorod? If he did, she decided that she would refuse to go.

‘How can it be?' Katya broke into her thought. ‘That in Russia a prince can only become a grand prince if his father has held the throne in Kiev.'

Thea smiled, looking over at little Harold. It was an interesting thought since one day, Harold, grandson of King Harold of England, could become the Grand Prince of all Russia.

She had no love for the grossly overweight, mean-spirited Sviatoslav, nor did she like his sons. She avoided his wife, the German Oda of Trier, whose ladies included Thea's old enemy, Lady Olga. Every time she thought of Lady Olga, she felt that deadly prick in her knee again and anger seeped into her heart.

Vladimir had said that Sviatoslav had once been a great warrior and that long ago when he was a little boy, the three brothers, Sviatoslav, Iziaslav and Vsevolod, a young warrior triumvirate, had together fought off Russia's enemies, wealthy tribes called Cumans who owned enormous sweeps of territory out on the Steppes. His father and uncles were all impressive influences on him, he told Thea, as he grew up. However, as Vladimir explained to Thea, his Uncle Sviatoslav had become greedy and harsh. In truth, he had not been a good influence on Vladimir's father.

If Uncle Sviatoslav died of the sore that had caused poison to seep through his blood, there would be a terrible dispute between her father-in-law, Vsevolod, and his nephews. They would never agree over succession to Kiev's throne. Life in Kiev could become dangerous. Yes, Vladimir would think of his baby sons and send her to safety.

‘If Prince Sviatoslav dies, my father says that his sons will not inherit Kiev,' Katya was saying.

‘Prince Vsevolod will be grand prince. Sviatoslav stole his brother's throne. Find out all you can, Katya. Your father is the keeper of many secrets.' She wished that Vladimir would confide political secrets to her. If he had, she would not have to listen to the constant speculation that flew about the terem like fire racing through a wheat field.

Thea bit off a length of blue silk from a spool and rethreaded her needle. ‘He may not die,' she said as she hemmed the shirt. She smiled over at the four ladies who were embroidering close to the corner stove. ‘My ladies will soon want supper. Katya, go downstairs to the kitchens and tell the cooks that since the sewing room is warm, we shall dine here this afternoon rather than in the refectory. Take Harold with you. He might like a ginger pastry.'

Harold tottered over and took hold of Katya's hand when Thea mentioned the words ginger pastry. Not even glancing at his mama, he toddled by Katya's side to the stairway.
A listener. Intelligent child. He knows what he wants
. Thea could hear him chattering nonsense as Katya picked him up to carry him down the wooden staircase. He looks like Edmund, she thought, and Edmund looks like our father.
My father lives on through my son
. She stretched her feet towards the brazier and, as she became mesmerised by the baby's cradle rocking close by, she puzzled the first five years of her marriage. Where had those years gone?

For a time, she had thought that she could not conceive. She was glad that Vladimir never blamed her. Nor should he, she thought one night when he whispered, ‘We have time,' as they made love under her silver wolf cover. This bed was reached by steps which Vladimir claimed led him to heaven. Sighing, she remembered how at first she had lain in his arms and traced circles with her fingers amongst the curls that sprouted in a dark entanglement on his chest. All the same, she had longed for a child. Watching Gudrun fall pregnant again caused her to long for her own children with such intensity she thought she was losing her sense of herself inside this one particular longing.

Gudrun told her that it was because her husband was never with her at the right time during her moon cycle. Thea tried various remedies. She wore prayers on her girdle. She carried a small crystal ball in her belt purse as a charm to aid conception. Katya came to her with a remedy her mother swore by. ‘On the Holy Icon of St Margaret, she swears this recipe will work,' Katya declared.

‘What recipe, Katya? I have no time for spells or concoctions anymore. None work.'

Katya said with conviction, ‘This might. My lady, do try it. Take the testicles of an uncastrated pig and dry them and make a powder. If you drink this with wine after the purgation of your menses and cohabit with your lover, my mother says you will conceive.' Katya procured the powder and insisted that her mistress try it.

When Thea threw the powder away, she had not the heart to tell Katya that she had rejected her mother's help. She attended the Cathedral of St Sophia with regularity. There, in the golden light that hung as long shafts at midday Sext, Thea knelt before the jewelled icons depicting her favourite saints, St Margaret, St Cecilia, St Sophia and St Theodosia, their gilded faces illuminated by a hundred glowing candles. She prayed for a child, and as she prostrated herself in prayer she felt the saints' almond-shaped eyes looking down on her with sympathy. Surely they were listening to the longing she held within her heart?

They moved to Smolensk north of Kiev and east of Novgorod for a couple of years. She spent much time with her husband, who had been appointed governor of the region and who received tribute from tribesmen and taxes from merchants. He supervised Council decisions and administered justice. She became pregnant at last.

When she approached her mid-term Vladimir sent her to Novgorod. It would be better for her to give birth in that city where Princess Anya was in residence. There were more luxuries than in a provincial town like Smolensk which was really just a fortress. At first she had refused to transport the birthing chair that had been gifted to her in Denmark because she associated it with Ingegerd, but when she examined it more closely she saw inscribed on it a prayer to St Margaret of Antioch, saint to birthing mothers. The words,
Ease be with you in your labour and may St Margaret protect this mother
followed the curving dragon's tail that circumnavigated the chair's rim. Since her labour happened to fall in July close to St Margaret's feast day she knew that she must use it. She called for it and afterwards she considered that not only had it been right to do so, but it was just to add Ingegerd and the Danish princesses as recipients of her future prayers. Forgiveness was a noble emotion and after the safe delivery of her child, she felt blessed and her sense of forgiveness towards those who had once been unkind swelled in her proud breast.

In the bath-house of Princess Anya's terem, she gave birth to a boy. They called him Harold, but to please the boyars, his official name was Mstislav. He had slipped from her easily as the candle clock turned between daybreak and the dinner hour and she been thankful for the fortune-blessed, comfortable birthing chair for allowing her such ease.

She had not attended her son's christening. Vladimir had not visited her until ten days after the birth. This was another tradition that made her cross but then such traditions existed in England also. By this time the bath-house, where she had given birth and the terem chamber, where she slept and ate, were purified. The purification ritual took place on St Margaret's feast day. The priest stood on the threshold, muttered prayers and sprinkled holy water over everything in the chamber including herself. Afterwards she, to her great relief, was churched and permitted to move freely around the fortress.

Importantly her husband, who had travelled to Novgorod to be close to his wife and his son, returned to her bed. They did not have intercourse for another month but again Lady Fortune smiled on her. Fifteen months later, Thea gave birth to a second child, another son using the twice-blessed birthing chair. They named him Iziaslav for his banished uncle. He was two months old when she had come out of seclusion just in time for Kiev's Christmas feasts, just in time to know that her life at court was about to change. Importantly, now, she was able to talk with Padar and Earl Connor and consider their thoughts on the grand prince's illness.

Padar was often in the north buying furs or selling spices, nuts and oils from Byzantium. Edmund returned to Ireland promising to return soon. Earl Connor, who lived mostly in Novgorod, married at last. He had chosen one of the English exiles, a flaxen-headed young widow whose rich merchant husband had been executed by Bishop Odo of Bayeux in York. The merchant had been in the wrong place at the wrong time and was accused of hiding English rebels. The widow had escaped with her baby son and with as much jewellery and silver as she could secrete in her luggage. She came to Russia on a rescue ship that Vladimir had organised with Earl Connor.

Vladimir had never secured Thea's little brother Ulf's release from Normandy. Despite the secret request he had sent to King William, he was refused. Ulf was much too valuable a hostage and besides, William had his scribe write that the boy was receiving an education in Normandy. He would neither want to leave his religion nor his Norman friends. Ulf, the king's scribe wrote, was destined for the monastery.

‘I am sure that is not true,' Thea said when the letter with this response arrived in Kiev. ‘I shall write to him.'

‘Maybe so, but at least he is safe and in good health. Leave well alone. You will not write.' That was clearly a battle Thea was not going to win. Instead she had angrily fingered the swan amulet she wore about her neck. She could not find it in her heart to forgive the Bastard William, even though it was the past and no amount of ill-wishing could bring her father back. Nothing would happen to reunite her with her mother this side of heaven.

Her mother had never responded to her letter of years before. She was sure that Elditha had not received it. If she was not permitted to write to William the Bastard then she would write to her mother once more. She simply wrote that she hoped her mother was well and that she had given birth to a son whom they called Harold. She sent her letter secretly with Katya's father who had known priests whom he asked to find a way to get it to Canterbury. No reply came. She despaired and cursed William. When Iziaslav was born she wrote another letter similar to the first announcing the birth of her second son. This time she entrusted it to Earl Connor who would that spring return to his wife in Novgorod and because one of his ships was sailing to England.

Her little brother, Ulf, was lost in a dark Norman world. Against her better judgement and the teachings of her adopted Russian Church, Thea once again ill-wished William who had destroyed her family and whose family she hoped would one day destroy each other.

29

January 1078

‘Will there be a coronation?' Thea asked Vladimir as they sat on a cushioned bench in the palace hall. Her feet were freezing after having stood in the church nave all morning through Uncle Sviatoslav's long funeral service. She raised her slippered feet towards the fire, and thankfully sipped from the warming cup of kvass her husband offered her, before passing him back the cup. He drank deeply. He had not answered her question. ‘Will they crown your father?' she asked quietly.

Vladimir set the cup down on the bench between them and hunched over the blaze, his head close to hers. She felt his breath on her hair causing her veil to slightly move. ‘Unlikely,' he muttered into her ear. ‘There is much to be considered.'

She turned her head and held his dark eyes with a quizzical look. His forehead had creased. He was tense. She felt his concern. She saw it on his countenance. ‘I hope they consider soon. I dislike indecision.'

‘I do not think your likes or dislikes will be considered, my wife,' Vladimir said as he shifted along the bench slightly. His voice was kindly but firm. Women, of course, she remembered, had no place involving themselves in decisions made by men. Well one day that must change, she decided there and then. My time will come. If Vladimir ever rules this land, I shall have my say.

Soon enough, she knew that the women would retire to the terem. The men would remain in the hall where they would discuss the future. And that future, to Thea's mind, now looked extremely unsettled.

Sviatoslav's sons and Vsevolod, her father-in-law, would not agree about the succession. After all, Iziaslav was still an exile. He had sons as well. Perhaps his sons would return to Kiev from Italy, where they had sought shelter, to claim their inheritance.

Sviatoslav's coffin was to be taken by sleigh to Chernigov where it would be laid to rest in the Holy Saviour Cathedral. Prince Vsevolod would ride north with the funeral procession in the company of the Chernigov boyars. Vladimir was to remain in Kiev just in case there were the usual disputes over land and property between the nobles and merchants who sat on the town council. Thea was glad he was to stay behind and she determined to make him discuss the more interesting disputes with her. Who knows what disputes could erupt in Chernigov?
Best to stay on the margins of those.

It is still Christmas, she thought, and it is not going to end happily. There had been none of the usual festivities, great feasts or dancing and storytelling. All that had been banished because Prince Sviatoslav had lain dying in a darkened chamber. Instead, over Christmas, the court of Kiev attended endless candlelit church services praying for his recovery, but despite everyone's prayers, Sviatoslav had died anyway.

Across the room noblemen had gathered in huddles, whispering. Many nobles said that God had frowned upon this grand prince who had stolen his brother's throne. Serious-faced priests carrying tall crosses moved between groups. Vladimir glanced over at the young noblemen who were his cousins, Sviatoslav's sons, Boris, Gleb and Oleg. The princes were deep in conversation with their own boyars who had travelled in bitter weather to Kiev for the funeral. In a few days they would escort the coffin back for the interment in Holy Saviour at Chernigov. At least it was so cold the corpse would not go putrid. And when the Chernigov priests opened the coffin lid to place a relic inside to help Sviatoslav on his way to heaven his rigid body would not stink.