The Constant Queen (6 page)

‘That we have,’ Ulf agreed, ‘and that is why, Elizaveta, I am before you now. May I rise?’

Elizaveta flushed again.

‘Oh yes, yes of course.’

Ulf stood and rummaged in the big leather pocket attached to his plaited leather belt. Carefully he drew out a small package wrapped in costly cream silk.

‘A gift, Princess, from Prince Harald. He personally entrusted its delivery to me and promises there will be more – many more. Please . . .’

He held it out and, with a glance to her father, Elizaveta rose and took it. The fabric was soft and so smooth it almost slipped through her fingers. She hastily sat down again, nestling it in
her lap to undo the binding-ribbon as her sisters leaned eagerly in to see. Her fingers were shaking ridiculously but she finally freed the knot and the silk opened out like a miniature flag to
reveal, shining out of its folds, a thick neck chain of the softest rose gold.

‘Oh,’ she cried, ‘it’s beautiful.’

She lifted it up and the sunlight criss-crossing the room from the opposing windows caught in it, sending a thousand stars around the whitewashed walls.

‘I am glad you like it, Princess,’ Ulf said. ‘Harald asked me to tell you that it is but the beginning. He sends these too.’

Now he produced another parcel. Elizaveta could feel Anastasia’s eyes boring into her and rose to take this second gift more slowly, relishing the moment.

‘Thank you, Count Ulf.’

‘Just Ulf, Princess.’

‘Nay,’ Yaroslav put in, ‘you shall be a count for this honour you do my daughter, as your friend Halldor is for his tales.’

‘How does Count Halldor?’ Elizaveta asked.

‘Well, thank you. Very well. He has fought valiantly and won himself great riches.’

Ulf’s brown eyes were sparkling and Elizaveta looked at him quizzically.

‘Something special?’ she asked.

‘To him, Princess, yes. A slave girl called Elsa whom he prizes greatly and who seems very fond of him in return.’

‘Of Halldor?’ Anastasia asked incredulously.

‘Anastasia!’ Ingrid snapped. ‘Why should she not love the Count Halldor?’

‘He’s just so . . . unusual-looking.’

‘Maybe,’ Ulf said smoothly, ‘he has hidden talents.’

Ingrid spluttered and quickly turned it into a cough.

‘He brings a story to life like no other,’ she said quickly. ‘I am sure a woman could fall for a man with such a tongue.’

‘Indeed, my lady,’ Ulf agreed, dipping his head and again Ingrid coughed.

Elizaveta looked from one to the other, puzzled, but her parcel was burning a hole in her fingers and she turned thankfully from the adults’ strange jests to open it.

Inside was a small charm – a beautiful clear ruby in a woven gold setting with a clasp to fit it to the neck chain – and alongside it a golden key, also with a clasp. Elizaveta held
it up, intrigued, and Ulf waved to his two companions who had lingered at the door. They shuffled forward, backs bent over a large casket which they brought to Elizaveta’s feet. It was
clasped shut with a fine gold buckle and Elizaveta looked down at it and then back to her key.

‘Try it,’ Ulf urged.

She glanced to her mother who looked a little bemused but nodded her forward all the same. Elizaveta handed the ruby to Anastasia who turned it over and over in her hands, looking wonderfully
tearful at the sight of such a jewel that didn’t belong to her. Elizaveta knelt before the casket. The little key fitted neatly into the lock and turned with a satisfying click.

Slowly she raised the lid and there, before them all, lay a mass of treasure – silver dirhams from Arabia, gilded cups and platters, jewel-studded knives and little ivory-carved boxes and
game pieces. For a long time no one spoke and then Anastasia said: ‘Is that all for her?’

Elizaveta was first to respond.

‘Of course not, Stasia. It is Prince Harald’s wealth. He sends it to me for safekeeping until he is ready to spend it on troops to reclaim Norway.’

‘He is too good,’ Magnus exclaimed from behind Yaroslav.

Elizaveta resisted the urge to contradict him. She wasn’t sure what part Harald intended his nephew to play in the fight for their Norwegian inheritance but doubted it was a large one
– and why should it be? Did Harald not have every bit as good a claim to the throne as Magnus? The boy might be Olaf’s son, but only by a concubine. Harald was Olaf’s half-brother
and a descendant of the ancient Norwegian dynasty of the Ynglings in his own right and she knew which of them would make the better king.

‘He has clearly worked hard,’ she said, shutting the treasures away and locking the casket. ‘Thank you, Anastasia.’

Elizaveta held out a hand for the ruby which her sister, with all eyes upon her, furiously returned. Then she carefully clipped both the charm and the key to the neck chain before fastening
either end to her shoulder brooches. It dipped elegantly across her chest and gleamed against the blue of her gown.

‘It becomes you well,’ Ingrid said, then looked to Ulf, ‘but what does it purport?’

‘Nothing,’ Elizaveta said crossly. ‘It “purports” nothing, Mother, save that I promised Prince Harald I would see his treasure securely stored whilst he is out in
my father’s service.’ She turned to Yaroslav. ‘Can we use one of your vaults in Novgorod, Father, please?’

‘
We
?’ Yaroslav asked, raising an eyebrow and smiling across at Ingrid.

‘I, then. Please, Father, I ask it of you as a matter of state.’

‘Of state?’

He was smiling still; it infuriated Elizaveta.

‘Just because I am but thirteen, Father, does not mean I cannot understand matters of state.’

He bowed.

‘I apologise, daughter. So tell me, is marriage a matter of state?’

‘Father!’

Anastasia leaped up.

‘Is Elizaveta to be married, Father? Already? To Prince Harald?’

‘Stasia!’ Elizaveta all but shouted. ‘Be silent.’ Everyone stared. ‘This is not about marriage,’ she snapped, biting back tears.

She felt as if all the lovely treasure was suddenly raining down on her, crushing her. If Harald heard of this he would be mortified. He would take back his treasure and entrust it to someone
who did not wish to make stupid claims on him.

‘It’s not like that,’ she insisted. ‘This is not about marriage or any such foolishness.’ Her parents were looking at each other in that supercilious way again,
laughing at her supposed foolish innocence, but maybe they were the fools here. ‘Prince Harald trusts me as his treasure-keeper, no more, no less, and I value that trust and would appreciate
it if you did too.’

She glowered at them all and now her mother rose.

‘Elizaveta is right,’ she said softly, looking to Ulf. ‘No proposal comes with these gifts?’

The Varangian bowed low.

‘No, my lady. I am sure, were the prince to seek such a weighty alliance, he would come direct to the Grand Prince himself, and on his knees. He appreciates all that you have done for us
poor exiles, Sire, and seeks only the favour of your treasury. It is as your daughter says – their arrangement is between states people, not lovers.’

‘See,’ Elizaveta blurted, though this truth, put so baldly by Harald’s right-hand man, sounded less reassuring than it should have done. She looked again to her father.
‘May I have your leave, please, Father, to go and see this treasure safely stored until it can be escorted to Novgorod?’

Yaroslav hesitated a moment but then, at a look from his wife, moved over and dropped a kiss on Elizaveta’s forehead.

‘Of course, daughter. I am pleased to see you taking this trust responsibly, though I am sure Count Ulf will see the casket safe to my treasury here in Kiev until you can make your
arrangements.’ He leaned over, lifting the neck chain and running it softly through his fingers. ‘You will need to look after this gift, daughter. There are many links on this beautiful
chain and I suspect our Varangian prince intends to fill them all with keys.’

Elizaveta pressed her hand over her father’s.

‘I shall take the greatest care,’ she assured him, drawing back.

Her heart was pounding beneath the ruby charm and she had to escape. Bowing low, she crossed the receiving room, moving as slowly as she dared, then grabbed at the door. Springing free, she
picked up her skirts and, new chain jangling excitedly with her frantic steps, darted for the north gate, seeking out the fresh, uncomplicated air beyond the kremlin and drawing it into her lungs
as if they might burst for the want of it.

The banks of the Ros, June 1032

‘D
ignity,’ Elizaveta reminded herself.

It was a lesson her mother had drummed into her in the preparations for this royal progress south but not, truthfully, something that came naturally to Elizaveta. Anastasia, riding to her left,
was dripping with it, sitting erect in the saddle, her riding gown immaculately spread out around her and her wretched blonde hair flowing loose, so long now that she could almost trap it between
her prim bottom and her saddle. Prince Andrew, riding at the rear of the procession with Prince Edward, had taken to paying her ridiculous compliments and Anastasia, sadly, had taken to believing
them, making her even more insufferable than before. Elizaveta forced herself to sit up a little straighter and felt for her own hair.

Hedda and little Greta had insisted on winding the front sections into two plaits this morning to keep it back from her face, for which she was grateful, but the nursemaid had also threaded them
with meadow flowers and although Ingrid had pronounced the results to be ‘perfect’ Elizaveta wasn’t so sure. She felt awkward with the fragile stems clipped in with little wires
and worried that she looked silly, but it was too late to pull them out now. They were approaching their destination – Yaroslav’s new southern settlements – and she must prepare
to ride though the crowds that had gathered to see the royal family pass through.

The whole family was out today. Vladimir and Ivan rode behind Yaroslav with Elizaveta and Anastasia in their wake and then Stefan, Anne, Viktor and Igor all following on their own mounts. Ingrid
was bringing up the rear in a richly dressed wagon with Hedda and Greta, a fidgeting Agatha, and baby Yuri. Although Yuri was nearly a year old and growing big and fit on Hedda’s ready milk,
Ingrid had struggled to regain her usual good health and Elizaveta was worried. Today, though, with a hot sun shining across the fertile plains south of Kiev, her mother was smiling brightly and
waving to the crowd. Elizaveta swallowed and did the same.

The procession wound its way slowly along the hammered dirt track and up through the rough gates onto the wooden streets of the first of Yaroslav’s new villages. Concerned at the lack of
an agricultural population around the ever-growing city, the Grand Prince had been steadily ‘encouraging’ his poorer subjects to move into the lands between Kiev and the great run of
protective Snake Ramparts. These triple earthworks, topped with viciously sharpened palisades, were designed to halt the vicious Pecheneg horsemen of the Steppe tribes who threatened Rus trade down
the Dnieper and sometimes sought to advance on the city itself. Elizaveta had heard much about the Snake Ramparts and was eager to see for herself but first they must visit the new settlements.

These ran mainly along the banks of the Ros, an east-to-west tributary of the Dnieper and a natural extension of the ramparts. They provided both a border post for guards and a rich farming
community to grow grain and raise livestock for Kievan tables and Yaroslav was fiercely proud of them. They were populated with forest people from the north and, more recently, prisoners from a war
with Poland that had broken out earlier in the year and had been won, thanks in great part to Prince Harald and his fearsome Varangians.

Word had it that the prince’s personal troops had grown to over two hundred men as ambitious soldiers flocked to his leadership and, with the war over, Yaroslav had put Harald in personal
charge of establishing the mass of civilian prisoners in his new villages. He was waiting, they’d been told, to welcome them to the area and Elizaveta was keen to see him and assure him his
treasure was secure.

Harald had scarcely been back to Kiev in his first year of service for Yaroslav, moving from the northern wars into the harsh round of winter tribute-collecting along the frozen rivers of
Yaroslav’s kingdom, not even joining the
druzhina
for Christ’s mass. He had returned with the first thaw, though, and Elizaveta had hoped to see him ride the rapids but news of
the Polish attacks had come days before the event and he had been gone almost immediately, his Varangians with him. It had been a poor race in their absence, though Vladimir had won and been so
delighted that Elizaveta had almost forgotten her chagrin at being stuck on the bank.

Now, though, she would see Harald again and she prayed he would notice that, at fourteen, she was a woman at last. She had grown so fast that her mother had twice had to set the seamstresses to
sew extra trim to the bottom of her skirts and, praise the Lord, she was taller than Anastasia again. Her breasts had also grown full, though her hips remained as slim as Vlad’s – slim
enough, were she only allowed, to fit in a canoe.