The Constant Queen (17 page)

Yes, Elizaveta was definitely jealous. She was the eldest daughter and she had been betrothed for nearly two years but her groom was off fighting Saracens and Anastasia had delightedly stolen
her moment from under her. As Vladimir and Yaroslav followed the bridal couple down the aisle, Elizaveta took her place with her mother whilst Ivan, Stefan, Anne, Viktor, Igor, Agatha, Yuri and
three-year-old Boris slid smoothly into the princely procession behind them. They all began to move slowly through the church and Elizaveta smiled at the assembled guests, then froze as, at the
back near the great doors towards which Anastasia was now tugging Andrew, she spotted a familiar armoured figure. Ulf! Her eyes cast eagerly past him but she could see no blonde hair topping the
Sunday crowd; no groom come to claim her whilst the guests and the choir and the Metropolitan were all in place to wed them.

‘Smile, Elizaveta.’ Elizaveta glanced at her mother and plastered a false grin across her face. ‘It will be your turn soon, my sweet, I am sure.’

‘Are you? I am not, Mother. I am not sure at all. I swear with every year he spends in the south Harald thinks less and less of Norway. It has become a land of trolls to him, no
more.’

‘That’s not true, Lily.’ Ingrid was smiling and nodding to important figures in the crowd, but still kept up her quiet conversation with Elizaveta. ‘I have spoken to him
myself and he is passionate about his homeland.’

‘You have? When?’

Ingrid smiled.

‘He does not spend all his time in Kiev kissing you, Lily.’

‘Mother! He does not kiss me – well, barely.’

‘I am not blind, daughter. I know it is hard for you, especially today. Your sister is not the most tactful of brides.’

Elizaveta groaned in assent; Anastasia had been unbearable for weeks. Even patient Anne had snapped at her when she’d turned the conversation yet again to the richness of her bridal gown
and Agatha had learned to make herself scarce whenever seamstresses were near. Now nine years old, Agatha was a striking child, with curls to match Ulf’s all the way down her long back, but
she was far happier on a horse than in the bower. Elizaveta didn’t blame her.

‘I just don’t see,’ she said now, ‘why Harald and I cannot be wed whether we travel to Norway or no?’

Ingrid patted her hand.

‘Your father is just protecting you. He does not want you shackled to an adventurer.’

‘Why not? It sounds like fun.’

‘Elizaveta – try and be sensible. You are a Princess of Kiev. You have your dignity to maintain, and that of your family.’

‘Always dignity,’ Elizaveta muttered and her mother leaned in to kiss her cheek.

‘Besides,’ she whispered, ‘your father may have other plans for Harald.’

‘What?’

Elizaveta stopped, stunned, but her mother nudged her forward.

‘I am just saying, try and be patient.’

‘I hate being patient. What do you mean, Mother? What plans?’ Ingrid glanced nervously around. ‘Mother,’ Elizaveta begged. ‘I will be twenty-one next year. I am not
a child and this affects me – surely I have a right to know.’

Ingrid nodded tautly.

‘Miklegard is weak, Lily. The emperor is wasting away and the empress is old and has no children. They are much preoccupied by securing Italy and Sicily. There may be a chance . .
.’

‘Father as . . . ?’

‘Hush, Lily. Your father seeks to further the prosperity of the Rus peoples in whatever way he can. His borders are ever extending and he sees no reason to limit that process. If we can
aid Andrew to take back Hungary that will extend our influence west. Magnus already owes us a debt of gratitude in the north and, who knows, maybe one day we will see gentle Edward in England, but
for now we look south.’

Elizaveta could hardly believe what she was hearing. Truly she had underestimated Yaroslav but now it all made sense.

‘And that is why Harald lingers in the service of the Byzantine Empire?’

‘He is working with your father to . . . investigate matters.’

‘But Norway?’

Ingrid shook her head.

‘I have filled your head with tales of the north, Lily. Too much perhaps. Norway is a wonderful country but Byzantium is an
empire
. And your father would not, of course, wish to
leave Kiev . . .’

‘Harald? And, and . . . me?’

Ingrid kissed her.

‘It is in the hands of God, daughter, of God and of men. But hush – this is not the time and nothing is settled. Please just try and enjoy life. Whatever his other plans, your father
is working wonders here in Kiev. The city grows daily. Is that not exciting?’

They were nearly at the door now and the roar of the crowd was intense. Yaroslav’s plans for his extended city included a network of paved streets, elegantly fenced plots and any number of
public buildings, not just churches but oven-houses, a library and a monastic school. The people would benefit greatly and as their Grand Prince stood at the top of the marble steps and held his
arms wide to them, they hailed him as, if Elizaveta was hearing right, the ‘Emperor of the Rus’.

‘Emperor?’ she muttered, testing the word nervously but now Yaroslav was looking round for his wife and instantly Ingrid slipped from Elizaveta’s side.

Elizaveta stood and watched her parents’ joined figures alongside the bridal couple acknowledging the accolades of the crowd and felt suddenly very, very lonely. If Harald was plotting all
sorts of wonders with her father why was he not here? Why was he not at her side?

‘Princess?’

Elizaveta swung round to see Ulf, his hair as wild as ever and his big brown eyes trained upon her. She stepped aside to join him in the shadows of a column, gratefully letting the other guests
surge past.

‘Count Ulf, greetings. You travel alone?’

‘Alas, Princess, yes. Prince Harald has led great victories in Sicily. We have taken Messina and are even now marching on Syracuse. He cannot be spared, for the infidel is strong in
opposition and the Normans on our own side need fierce control, but he sent me in his stead to honour your sister and to bring you this gift.’

The package was silken again, a rich blue this time, but Elizaveta did not take it.

‘I do not need your silk, Ulf, thank you.’ Ulf blinked and shifted the parcel awkwardly from one calloused hand to the other. ‘Is Halldor not with you either?’

‘He is with Harald.’

‘Aksel will be disappointed.’

Elizaveta looked around for the child, now five years old and ever in scrapes, and was grateful to see him playing tag around the columns with Yuri and Boris. Aksel was always asking about his
colourful father and would be sad not to see him. She did her best to tell him tales of Halldor’s grand warrior life but she had not his skill and although the boy was devoted to her and had
touchingly proclaimed himself her squire on his fifth birthday, she often caught him looking longingly over the city’s south wall. But then, she was often doing the same herself.

‘I am sorry,’ Ulf said. ‘Halldor longed to come too but we did not wish to leave Harald unprotected.’

Elizaveta raised an eyebrow.

‘You two are the only men in Harald’s troop of renowned soldiers who can keep him safe?’

Ulf did not even hesitate.

‘Yes, we are. Please accept the gift, Princess. I have travelled many days to bring it here.’

‘I did not ask that of you.’

‘You did not,’ Ulf acknowledged, ‘but all the same I ask
this
of you.’

He held the package out again and reluctantly she took it. The myriad guests were flocking out of the Hagia Sophia and only sharp-eyed Agatha, her arm on Edward’s like a true princess,
noticed them behind the half-built pillars. Slowly Elizaveta undid the ribbon and looked at the now familiar keys, two this time. Between them, though, was an object tied up in an exotically
embroidered bag. Her curiosity piqued, Elizaveta handed the keys carefully to Ulf and opened the tiny bag. Turning it over she let its contents tip into the palm of her hand and looked down,
stunned.

It was a finger ring, melded of gold and inlaid with a tiny, intricate mosaic of ruby, sapphire and emerald. Written around it in runes was the conceit: ‘Mine is Yours is . . .’
Round and round forever, eternally binding.

‘It’s beautiful,’ she breathed.

‘Harald had it made especially in Miklegard.’

Miklegard! The word, once so magical, grated against Elizaveta’s heart. Always it was about Miklegard. Miklegard was even, thanks to her father’s building work, come to Kiev –
but Harald was not. No plans, however grand, seemed worth his absence.

‘It’s beautiful,’ she repeated, ‘but empty.’

Elizaveta held it up and regarded Ulf through the hole at the centre.

‘But Princess, that is for . . .’

‘I know what it is for, Ulf, but tell your precious master this – I will never wear this ring upon my finger until he is come to place it there himself. Take it.’

She shoved it at him but he put up a hand in protest and it caught her own, sending the priceless ring pinging across the darker reaches of Yaroslav’s freshly cut marble flooring.
Elizaveta bit her lip but stood her ground as Ulf scrabbled for – and thankfully found – the ring up against a pillar.

‘Princess,’ he protested, his eyes as hurt as if she had spurned him and not his far-off master, ‘Harald does you great honour with this ring.’

‘Harald,’ she corrected him, her heart aching, ‘will do me honour when he stands at the altar with me, as Prince Andrew has stood with my sister today. I will keep his treasure
safe, as I have sworn to do, but until he leaves his southern seas and comes north himself he has no claim on me.’ Ulf’s eyes hardened. She hated to see it but she could do nothing
else. ‘I love him, Ulf,’ she said simply and then spun away and buried herself in the crowd, fumbling for her linen square as hot tears fell.

She had started this journey as Harald’s treasure-keeper and it seemed she was that again – no more, no less. It had been a long, hard way to come for so little.

Miklegard, April 1042

H
arald kicked at the wall. A tiny scrap of mortar flaked off but these walls, he knew, were almost as thick as a man lying on his side. He could
kick all century without getting through and he might have to.

‘We stayed too long,’ he growled, pacing the tiny cell for the hundredth time that morning.

It was hot and the stench of his own piss assailed his nostrils from the rough bucket in the corner. It was foul. He’d not had a bath since he’d been thrown in here and the crust of
sweat and dirt was itching at his skin. The guards had even taken his comb. He’d been momentarily pleased that they considered him so dangerous they could not even leave him with those tiny
ivory teeth but three weeks in, with his hair birds-nesting, he was no longer amused. It wasn’t that he was vain but his hair was his mark; his men looked for it in battle. How could he
expect them to follow this mop?

‘We should not have returned here from Sicily,’ he raged. ‘We should have taken passage north with those Normans.’

‘The ones heading back to try and assassinate their own duke?’ Ulf said scornfully.

Harald laughed bitterly.

‘It does seem to be their favourite sport. Young William must be enchanted to have avoided so many swords – but ’tis not his fate that need concern us now. We should have fled
to Kiev whilst we had the chance.’

‘The emperor had just died,’ Ulf grunted and Harald looked round. His friend was sat in a corner whittling at a stick with a nail he’d found on the floor just beyond the bars.
Surely guards who took combs from their prisoners should watch for such things? ‘We needed to be here, remember, to . . . what was it, Halldor?’

‘Hammer whilst the blade is hot,’ Halldor supplied gloomily.

The older man was sat in the opposite corner, staring into space. He’d done a lot of that recently and Harald sometimes wondered what he saw. Whatever it was, it had to be better than
this.

It had all been going so well. With the poor young Emperor Michael fading into a cripple before everyone’s eyes, Miklegard – or Constantinople as they were learning to call it
– had become a viper’s nest of factions and plots. Empress Zoe, the direct ruler in the imperial line, would remain in place but there must be an emperor too. The dead Michael’s
nephew had been named as Michael V but he was weak and unpopular and there were plenty keen to challenge his frail rule.

The empire was, as Harald had reported hopefully to Yaroslav last year, ready to crack wide open and Yaroslav had been preparing a fleet to do just that. Harald had seen the ships safe in
Vitichev, away from the prying eyes of the Kievan gossips. He had inspected them with the Grand Prince last Yule, discussing where Miklegard was weakest and what it would take to steal her but now
things had gone wrong. Young Michael, perhaps sensing trouble, had sent his generals to throw Harald and his men into this rat-hole where they could aid no one against him, least of all
themselves.

Harald rattled at the great bars of his cell in frustration. It was he who should be holding the power, he and Yaroslav together, but the imperial faction had moved too fast for them. If he were
not stuck celebrating Christ’s resurrection in a five paces square hole in the depths of the old palace they would have been there, in Vitichev, preparing to attack. Yaroslav would be
emperor, they had agreed as much, but Harald would have first right of succession and would rule as the sub-Imperatrix in the golden city itself, Elizaveta with him. They would ride under her
beautiful raven banner, currently tied uselessly around his waist like a Greek fashion trifle. She would like that, he’d been sure. She would agree, once she came here, that Constantinople
was a worthy place to rule and she would forget Norway as he had forgotten Norway. Or nearly forgotten.