Russka (14 page)

Ivanushka knew about the
veche
. Even the Prince of Kiev himself was afraid of it. Usually, of course, it was tame enough and run by the leading merchants. But in times of crisis, every free man of the city had the right to attend and to vote. ‘And when the
veche
revolts, it is terrible,’ Igor had told him. ‘Even the prince and the
druzhina
can’t control them.’

‘Are the people angry now?’ he had asked.

‘They are beside themselves. You’re not to go out.’

As he made his way through the citadel, Ivanushka was so excited he almost forgot that he was disobeying his father. He hurried through the gate to the market square.

It was full. He had never seen so many people in his life. They had even come in from the outlying towns – merchants, artisans, the free traders and workers of the Russian city states – several thousand of them. On each side of the square was a church: one a stout, brick, Byzantine affair with a flat central dome, the other a smaller wooden structure with a high gabled roof and a little octagonal tower in the middle. They seemed to be overseeing the proceedings, giving them a religious sanction. In the centre was a wooden platform, upon which all eyes were fixed. A huge brown-bearded merchant in a red kaftan was standing there. In his hands was a staff, and, like some terrible Old Testament prophet he was denouncing the authorities. ‘Why is this prince here, in Kiev?’ he shouted. ‘Why do his family rule in other cities?’ He paused until he had drawn an expectant silence from the crowd. ‘They are here because we invited their ancestors to come to us.’ He hammered his staff. ‘The Varangians came from the north to us Slavs because we brought them in!’

This rewriting of history that had grown up over the generations had suited both sides – the norsemen because it gave legitimacy to their original, piratical rule, and their Slav subjects because it salvaged their pride.

‘Why did we bring them in?’ He glowered from side to side, as though challenging the churches themselves to interrupt him. ‘To fight for us. To defend our cities.
That
is why they are here!’

There was truth in this. Even now, the relationship between the princes and the cities they governed was ambiguous; the prince protected the city but he did not own it, any more than he owned the land, much of which still belonged to free peasants or communes. In the great northern city of Novgorod, the
veche
of the people had been known to reject princes, and never allowed their chosen protector or his
druzhina
to own land in their domains. So Ivanushka did not find the merchant’s words strange; indeed, he flushed with pride to hear his father and men like him called protectors of the land of Rus.

‘But they have not defended us!’ the merchant roared. ‘They have failed! The Cumans lay waste our countryside and the prince and his generals do nothing!’

‘What shall we do then?’ shouted several voices.

‘Find a new general,’ cried another.

‘Find a new prince,’ bellowed a third.

Ivanushka gasped. They were speaking of the Prince of Kiev! But the idea seemed to please the crowd.

‘Who then?’ a chorus demanded.

And now the big merchant on the platform hammered his staff again. ‘These troubles were begun by treachery,’ he roared. ‘By treachery, when the sons of Yaroslav broke their word and put the Prince of Polotsk in jail.’ He gestured towards the citadel. ‘An innocent prince lies in prison up there.’

He did not need to go on. It was clear even to Ivanushka that many in the square had been carefully prepared for this moment. ‘Polotsk!’ the crowd roared. ‘Give us the Prince of Polotsk.’

Ivanushka could never say, afterwards, exactly what followed. All he knew was that a minute later the crowd, as though it had a will of its own, was surging into the citadel; and he was being carried with it. In front of St Sophia’s cathedral, the river of people split into two streams. One half turned off to the left towards a stout brick building near the cathedral where the strange prince
with the caul over his eye was being held. The rest flowed across the narrow bridge towards the palace.

It was time to get back to his family. He must warn them of the danger. He tried to get ahead of the crowd as it surged across the narrow bridge into the old citadel, but soon realized that he was too late.

What had not occurred to him, however, was that he would be unable to get back in. But minutes later, as he found himself in the square before the tall, thick-walled block of the prince’s palace, he realized his predicament. On the left side there was a high wall; on the right, a broad flight of stone steps led to a large oak doorway that was barred. The line of windows here was twenty feet high, well out of reach. Before him, the brick palace consisted of a series of towers and slit windows, set irregularly and high above the crowd. The two doors at the base were locked and bolted. Even if he could work his way through the crowd, he was closed out.

The crowd was hurling abuse.

‘Traitors! Cowards! We’ll feed you to the Cumans!’

But the high, red wall of the palace seemed to stare back at them with blank indifference.

Minutes passed. Nearby, a bell began to ring, summoning monks to prayer. Ivanushka glanced across to his left where the golden domes of the old Church of the Tithes were gleaming. But the crowd paused in its shouting only for a moment.

It was then that Ivanushka saw, high above, in a small window of the palace, a large red face staring down at the crowd – a face he recognized at once as belonging to Izyaslav, the Prince of Kiev himself. The crowd caught sight of him too. There was a roar of rage, a surge forward. Then the face disappeared.

It suddenly occurred to Ivanushka that if the crowd realized who he was – the son of one of Izyaslav’s boyars – he might be in danger himself. I must get inside, he thought. There was only one other way in to the palace: through a courtyard that lay behind it. This would mean working his way round the complex of buildings, along a side street, and thence to the gate. He turned and began to push his way towards the back. But it was difficult. The thick crowd seemed to sway from side to side, almost knocking him off his feet each time he tried to press through and after several minutes he had only moved a few yards.

And he was still far from the exits to the square when a murmur
began somewhere in the crowd that gathered into a general hubbub, and which finally turned into a roar. ‘They’ve gone! They’ve run away!’

He looked on in astonishment as a man, climbing on the backs of others, managed to reach one of the windows and then vanished from sight. Three minutes later one of the doors of the palace in front opened and the crowd, meeting no resistance, began to burst in.

The prince and the
druzhina
had left the palace. They must have escaped through the very courtyard where he had hoped to enter. He stared, momentarily numbed. In that case, his family must have gone too. And he had been left behind!

The crowd was surging forward now, into the empty building. Figures began to appear at the windows, high above. Suddenly he saw a golden flash. Someone had thrown a goblet down to a friend in the crowd; a moment later, a sable coat followed; and with a shock he realized they were looting the prince’s palace!

Ivanushka turned. He had no idea what to do, but he knew he must get out of the square. Perhaps he could find his people somewhere in the woods below. As the crowd pushed forward towards the palace, he managed to reach a small gateway to one side and find a way out. Moments later he was in a half-deserted street.

‘Ivan! Ivan Igorevich!’ He turned. It was one of his father’s grooms, running towards him. ‘Your father sent me to find you. Come.’

Ivanushka had never been more glad to see anyone. ‘Can we ride to join him?’ he cried hopefully.

‘Impossible. They’ve gone, all of them. And the roads are being sealed off.’

As if in confirmation, at that moment a party of men came running up the street. ‘The Prince of Polotsk is free!’ they cried. ‘He is coming!’ And, indeed, as Ivanushka gazed down the street, he saw a dozen mounted men cantering in their direction. In their midst, and quite unmistakable, was the terrible figure himself – the werewolf.

He was of above average build and he was riding a black horse. It was hard to tell what he was wearing for he was wrapped in a large brown cloak that looked none too clean. His face was large, rather broad at the cheekbones, and his whole bearing exuded a
sense of power. But it was his eyes which riveted Ivanushka’s attention.

One was indeed hooded with a caul of skin; yet the effect was not monstrous, as Ivanushka had expected. The face did not look as if it had been twisted, or burnt; instead, one side had a strange stillness, a sort of blank detachment from the world such as one sometimes sees with the blind. But the other side of the face was alive, intelligent, ambitious, with a piercing blue eye that took in everything.

It was a fascinating face, half handsome, half tragic. And the good eye, he suddenly realized, was resting upon him.

‘Quickly, this way.’ The groom pulled him insistently to one side. ‘They mustn’t know who you are.’

Ivanushka let himself be dragged away. The half-blind prince and his escort clattered by. And as the werewolf passed, Ivanushka had a strange sense that the prince, like some creature with magic powers, had both noticed and identified him.

‘Where are we going?’ he asked.

‘You’ll see.’ And the groom led him hurriedly towards the
podol
.

The house of Zhydovyn the Khazar, though not as large as Igor’s, was a stout wooden affair on two storeys, with a steep wooden roof, two large rooms at the front and a courtyard behind. It stood just outside the Khazar Gate near the wall of Yaroslav’s citadel. ‘They will look after you here for a few days,’ the groom explained to him, ‘until it’s safe to smuggle you out of the city.’

Already bands of men were searching for the families of the
druzhina
who had fled.

‘What will they do if they find me?’ Ivanushka asked.

‘Lock you up.’

‘Nothing worse?’

The groom gave him a strange look. ‘Don’t ever go to prison,’ he said slowly. ‘Once you’re in prison …’ He made a gesture as if dropping a key. ‘But don’t worry now,’ he added more cheerfully. ‘Zhydovyn will take care of you.’ A moment later he was gone.

Ivanushka enjoyed being with the Khazar and his family. Zhydovyn’s wife was a dark, stout woman who seemed almost as massive as her husband. There were four children, younger than he, and Ivanushka spent much of his day playing with them
indoors. ‘For it’s not safe for you to be seen outside yet,’ the Khazar warned him.

Sometimes Ivanushka would tell them a fairy story. And once, to the Khazar’s amusement, his children helped Ivanushka to read a story from the Old Testament in Hebrew: which he then pretended to translate, since he knew it by heart in Slavic.

It was on the third day that the crisis broke. It began early in the morning, when Zhydovyn came hurrying into the house and announced to the family: ‘The Prince of Kiev has gone to Poland. He’s asking the king for help.’

Ivanushka looked up in surprise. ‘Does that mean my father has gone to Poland too?’

‘I assume he has.’

Ivanushka was silent. Poland lay far to the west. Was his family really to pass away into those distant lands? Suddenly he felt very deserted.

‘Do you think the Poles will invade?’ Zhydovyn’s wife asked anxiously.

‘Probably.’ The Khazar grimaced. ‘The Polish king and Izyaslav are cousins, you know.’ Then his eyes travelled back to Ivanushka. ‘There’s another problem as well.’ He paused. ‘There’s a rumour that someone in the Khazar quarter is hiding a child of one of the
druzhina
. And in case things get rough with Izyaslav and the Poles,’ he hesitated momentarily, ‘they’re looking for hostages. They’re searching the citadel now.’

The room seemed to have become very quiet. Ivanushka felt their eyes upon him. Clearly his presence there was becoming increasingly inconvenient to them. He started to grow pale, with an awkward embarrassment, and glancing up at the expressive face of Zhydovyn’s wife, he saw at once that if he were a threat to her comfortable existence, she would as soon be rid of him.

Yet it was she who, after a pause, remarked slowly: ‘He doesn’t look like a Khazar. But perhaps we can do something.’ Then she gazed at Ivanushka, and laughed softly.

So it was that, later that day, a new figure appeared in the household of the Khazar.

His hair, carefully dyed, was black. Juices had somewhat darkened his skin. He wore a black kaftan and a little Turkish skull cap. He even, with more coaching from Zhydovyn and his wife, mumbled a few words of Turkish.

‘He is your cousin David from Tmutarakan,’ her mother told the other children.

And the next day, it was this quiet, studious figure whom the werewolf prince’s guards saw sitting with the children when they entered the house and confronted the Khazar’s wife.

‘They say one of the Igorevichi remains in Kiev,’ they announced, ‘and your husband has dealings with Igor.’

‘My husband has dealings with many people.’

‘We shall search the house,’ the decurion leading the little troop said abruptly.

‘Please do.’

While they did so, the decurion remained in the room with her. ‘Who is that?’ he suddenly demanded, pointing at Ivanushka.

‘A young cousin from Tmutarakan,’ she replied coolly.

He stared at the Khazar boy.

‘David, come here,’ she ordered in Turkish.

But as Ivanushka rose, the decurion turned away impatiently. ‘Never mind,’ he snapped. A few moments later they were gone.

And so, in the year 1068, Ivanushka waited to face an uncertain world.

It was spring and in the little village of Russka all was quiet.

The Rus river had overflowed its banks so that below the settlement it was impossible at present to say what was marsh and what field.

On the eastern bank, the village consisted of two short, muddy streets with a third, longer one running at right angles across them. The huts were made of various combinations of wood, clay and wattle. Some of them had roofs of turf, some of thatch. Around this cluster of huts was a wooden palisade, but one that seemed designed more to keep in animals than repel any serious invader. On the north side of the village stood a small orchard of cherry and apple trees.