Russka (21 page)

Two of Ivanushka’s three sons served Monomakh; the third
served the prince’s half English son, who now ruled over northern Novgorod.

Ivanushka had brought a strong contingent with him. From the village of Russka came a party of Slavs under old Shchek who, despite his advancing years, had insisted on coming with his lord. From his estates in the north came a group of bowmen, some mounted, some on foot, from the Finnish tribe of Mordvinians. Quiet, surly fellows with high, mongoloid cheekbones and yellowish skins, they kept themselves to themselves and in the evenings crowded round their soothsayer, without whom they refused to travel.

Apart from two of his sons, there was one other addition to his party – a handsome young Khazar from Kiev. Ivanushka had not wanted to take him although the boy’s father, a longtime trading associate of his, had pleaded for his son. ‘He’s not trained to arms,’ he had said sternly. ‘And besides,’ Ivanushka had finally confessed, ‘I’m terrified of something happening to him.’

Only when the boy’s grandfather, Zhydovyn, had gone to see Ivanushka had he at last agreed to take the boy on.

‘Keep the Khazar boy near you,’ he gruffly ordered his two sons. ‘And now,’ he addressed all his men, ‘we’ll smash the Cumans so that they will never recover.’

The strife with the Cumans had continued throughout his life.

To the south, along the edge of the steppe, the little frontier forts had been strengthened and huge ramparts of earth and wood had been built, so that there was now an almost continuous wall to keep the raiders out. But they still either broke through, or made huge sweeps across the steppe, far over the horizon, to circumvent the defences and come down unexpectedly from the north.

Ten years ago the Rus had launched a massive attack across the steppe that had left twenty Cuman princes dead. Four years later, led by Boniak the Mangy, the Cuman warlords had struck back and even burned churches in Kiev itself. And now the Russians were going down to break them. It was God’s work: Ivanushka had no doubt of that.

‘We know their usual grazing grounds and their winter camp,’ he said to his sons. ‘We’re going to hunt them down.’ Though the business was grim, as he looked about him at his strong sons and the mighty army of the three princes, he was confident.

But even so, having at last achieved his life’s ambition to ride to
the Don, he felt melancholy. He could not help it. The main reason was his father. That at least he understood. The other reason was less clear to him: it was something vague, uneasy. And it was made worse when, on the day they entered the steppe, Monomakh turned to him and quietly remarked: ‘They say, my Ivanushka, that something is troubling your brother Sviatopolk.’

Day after day, southwards and eastwards across the steppe they rode. The grass was green, the ground draining. Across the vast, rolling plateau, for hundreds, thousands of miles, the land was drying out, from the rich steppe to the mountains and the deserts where, even now, the delicate spring flowers were being burned by the sun to vanish without trace into the sand.

Within days, the pale feather grass began breaking out – a white sheen spreading in front of them like an endless mist over the rich black earth hidden below. Horses and men hissed through the grass like myriad snakes; where the grass was short, their feet drummed upon the ground. Birds skimmed anxiously across the feather grass before this huge advancing host. Sometimes an eagle, a blue-grey speck, hung high above the moving mass.

Ivanushka rode quietly on his finest grey: Troyan. At midday, the sun overhead grew so bright that it seemed as if the whole army, his horse, the day itself, had grown dark because of it. Steadily they went on.

Monomakh was cheerful. Often he would canter ahead, a favourite falcon on his wrist, and hunt across the steppe. And in the evenings he would sit by his tent with his boyars while a minstrel strummed his lyre and sang to them:

‘Let me die, noble men of Rus,
If I do not dip my sleeve
Of beaver fur,
Or drink from my helmet filled
In the blue River Don.

Let us fly, noble men of Rus –
Faster than the grey wolf,
More swiftly than falcons –
Let the eagles feast on the Cumans’ bones
By the great River Don.’

It was after these evenings, when the fires were low and all but the men on watch were sleeping, that Ivanushka found himself most melancholy. For he was sure he would not see his father again.

He had gone to Kiev to take leave of him, and had found him almost helpless. A sudden crisis the year before had left him partly paralysed: he could smile, faintly, with one side of his mouth, but his speech was very slurred.

‘You should not be grieved,’ his mother told him. ‘He is to depart soon, and so am I. But see what years God has granted us, and be grateful.’

The old man was still handsome. His grey hair was still thick. Like others in that period of better nutrition in Russia, he had kept most of his teeth. Gazing down at his long, noble face, Ivanushka had wondered whether he should go on campaign, but Igor, guessing his thoughts, had done his best to smile and whispered: ‘Go, my son.’

He had kissed his father, long and warmly, before striding out.

Often now as he rode across the steppe with a feeling of tender sadness, his memory returned him to that morning when, as a boy of twelve, he floated down the great River Dniepr with his father, his mind full of high hopes. Like a physical presence he could feel his father’s hand on his shoulder, feel his powerful heart beating behind him, and he wondered: is he still with me, my father? Is he still alive in Kiev, perhaps remembering that very day, sharing my dream with me, his hand around my shoulder? Or has he gone into the great cold?

And around the campfire he remembered his father’s forgiveness and his mother’s healing presence.

And then there was Sviatopolk. Though he rode some distance away, with the Prince of Kiev, it was easy to pick him out by the banner carried before him that bore the three-pronged trident. It was not that his face was hard and bitter – it had always been that – but there was a new look in his eyes, a faraway gaze that Ivanushka, having known desperation himself in his youth, recognized at once. And his attitude towards his brother, though always cool, had taken on a new tension which, to those who knew him well, was a sign of danger.

On two occasions Ivanushka had gone up to him, once to ask him: ‘Have I offended you?’ The second time, with some misgivings, he had asked: ‘Is something wrong with you?’ But each
time Sviatopolk had bowed to him coldly and enquired, with sarcastic politeness, after his health.

Sviatopolk lived well in Kiev. His sons were successful. What, Ivanushka wondered, could it be?

It was when Sviatopolk was asleep that the monsters troubled him.

During his waking hours, it was only a question of calculation, even if that always brought the same conclusion. But in his sleep, the monsters came.

How had he got into debt? Even now, he could hardly believe it had happened.

If they’d let me into the inner circle, he told himself, by now I’d be rich. That was the trouble, he told himself several times a day.

Everyone in Kiev was speculating. Most of the merchants and boyars were. Even the small merchants and artisans did if they could. But the greatest speculator of all was the prince himself.

Salt, that was the key. In the good old days, when his father Igor was in his prime, they brought salt across the steppe in caravans from the Black Sea. But now, with Cumans breaking up the southern trade route, the only places to get salt safely were in the west: from the south-western province of Galicia, or from the kingdoms of Poland and Hungary. And the plan of the Prince of Kiev was to form a cartel that would get control of all the salt sold in the land of Rus.

This campaign was dearer to the prince’s heart than even the crusade against the Cumans. He had prepared the ground for years, marrying one of his daughters to the King of Hungary and another to the King of Poland.

‘Nothing will stop him,’ Sviatopolk often declared. ‘Then they’re going to force the price up, and make a fortune.’ Even now, the beauty of the scheme filled him with a kind of cold joy.

But he was not in the cartel. Though he had served the Prince of Kiev well – no one ever accused him of failing in his duty – he had never been invited into the inner circle; and as time went on, he knew that his influence was slowly waning. ‘He’s not the man his father was,’ people said. ‘Or his brother,’ they sometimes added. It was his awareness of this last comment that ate into his soul, and made him all the more determined to impress the world.

If the prince would not make him rich, he would find other ways.

So had begun the series of bad investments. There was the futile attempt to bring salt from the Black Sea. Who knew what had become of those Khazar merchants and their camels in the southern steppe? He had tried to extract iron from some marshlands he owned: and discovered after two years of obstinately pushing his men, that the little iron he found cost more to extract than he could sell it for. All his schemes had failed; yet the poorer he became, the greater the state he maintained in Kiev. I must impress them, he vowed.

He had succeeded in masking his losses. Using his reputation, and his father’s good name, he had got credit from merchants as far afield as Constantinople. And now that debt had become a mountain, the size of which no one guessed – neither his father, his brother, nor his own children.

And so the monsters came to him in his sleep.

Sometimes his debt came as an eagle – a huge, brownish bird sweeping over the Caucasus Mountains, flying swiftly over the bones of his camels in the steppe, soaring over the forest in search of him until at last, with talons outstretched, its huge wings filling the sky, the furious bird swooped and he awoke with a cry.

Another night, searching in the forest, he came upon a girl, lying naked upon the ground. Coming up to her, he saw to his excitement that she was the most beautiful creature in the world – even lovelier than the Saxon girl his brother had taken from him. But as he reached down to touch her, she had turned to solid gold.

With even more joy, he lifted her and carried her on his horse until, coming to a small hut in the forest, he decided to rest.

It was empty. He carried her in and laid her on the table by the stove. ‘I’ll carry you to Kiev and melt you down,’ he muttered, and turned round to look for water. But as he turned back the golden girl was gone.

And in her place, sitting on the table, with a leering grin on her wrinkled face, was Baba Yaga the witch.

He felt himself go pale and cold. Her hands reached out to him.

‘Let me go!’ he shrieked.

But Baba Yaga only laughed, with a cackle drier than the sound of cracking nuts. The room had filled with the acrid, stale smell of rotting mushrooms, and she replied: ‘Pay me your debt.’

Then turning to the stove and opening the oven door, her long,
bony hand had grabbed him and drawn him slowly towards the flames, while he wailed, like a frightened child, in his sleep.

But the worst dream was the third. This was the one that haunted him. It began, always, inside a building, though whether it was a church, a barn or a prince’s hall he could never be sure, since it was dark. He would be trying to find a way out, searching for some sign of a window or door in the cavernous gloom. But as far as he looked, it always seemed that the high, empty spaces stretched away without end.

And then, before long, he would hear it coming.

Its heavy footsteps crashed upon the iron floor with a terrible reverberation, that echoed in the distant roof above. If he turned and fled, he would find that the awful footsteps were suddenly coming from the direction in which he was running.

And he knew that this fearful creature was his debt. It would come closer. There was no escape.

Then he would see it. The creature was as high as a house, and as broad. It was dressed in a long dark habit, like a monk so that its feet, which were surely made of iron, could not be seen. But far more frightening than this was its face: for the creature had none. It had only a huge, grey beard where the face should have been: no eyes, no mouth. It was deaf and sightless. Yet it always knew, infallibly, exactly where he was, and as it slowly, blindly crashed forward, he would fall helplessly on to the iron floor, unable to move his legs, and awake in a cold sweat and with a scream of terror.

‘There is only one way out,’ he told himself.

The Will of his father Igor was a simple one. In line with the princely practice of inheritance, the boyar’s did not concern itself with grandchildren, but only with sons.

The wealth remaining to Igor, which was now substantial, was to be divided equally between his surviving sons, who were to take care of their mother as long as she lived. That was all. If one of the two remaining sons died before the Will was executed, then the other son would inherit both shares. It was a typical Will for those times.

Sviatopolk knew roughly what Igor’s estate was worth. Half of it would not pay his debts. All of it would leave him a modest income over.

Shchek was uneasy. He could not say exactly why.

That afternoon, the scouts had returned with good news. They had found the Cumans’ winter quarters. The main Cuman horde had already gone out to its summer pastures, where it would dwell in tents. The permanent winter quarters – a walled town – lay before them. ‘The place is half empty,’ the scouts reported. ‘There’s only a small garrison.’

‘We shall attack tomorrow,’ the princes announced.

All through the camp, there were happy faces. It seemed an eternity since the empty steppe had closed behind them and now, at last, they would take a Cuman town. With luck, the looting would be excellent. In the warm night under the stars, the sound of quiet singing could be heard round every fire.

Yet Shchek was still uneasy. Perhaps it was just the battle ahead but he had had evil dreams. As night fell on the happy camp he drew the Khazar boy aside. ‘Stick close to the Lord Ivan,’ he said. ‘Guard him well.’