The Ice Queen (21 page)

Our way lay across Lake Ilmen and up the river Lovat which flows into its southern end. This river has a swift current against which we had to battle. Harald, shucking his mail coat and stripping to the waist, pulled an oar with the rest of us and set a pace that we could hardly keep up with. Behind us we could hear Eilif's angry voice cursing his rowers for their sluggishness—the rivalry between the two captains now being reduced to a simple boat race. But we took the lead and never lost it.

It's discouraging how fast your rowing muscles can go soft on you. Though we worked with a will, we still made only about five and thirty versts that first day and by the next morning we could barely straighten our backs. (I should explain that verst is the Rus word for what I reckon is a little less than one of our miles.) We faced two hundred and seventy versts more of this torture before we would cross the watershed to the headwaters of the Dnieper—and we would have to quicken our pace or risk running out of rations short of our goal.

Somehow we did it.

All the ships carried more men than they had oarlocks, so that rowers were able to change off frequently in rotation. Even Yaroslav, not to be outshone by Harald, took his turn on the bench, just as his grandfather Svyatoslav, that fierce heathen warrior-prince, is said to have done. In this way we rowed steadily each day from dawn until pitch darkness overtook us.

For those not rowing there was other work for blistered hands to do—namely, working the grindstones to produce oatmeal for our porridge and rye flour for our bread. Warriors, their arms white with flour up to the elbows, swore that they hadn't joined the druzhina to be housewives!

At night when we camped, our first task was to start a fire and boil the water for the oatmeal and dried beans; next, to heat flat stones in the fire to bake our bread on. Our loaves were often burnt on the outside and half raw within, but we were too tired and hungry to mind.

You might expect that men as tired as we would have no strength left for fighting among ourselves, but so bitter had grown the hatred between Eilif's men and ours that on the very first night a brawl erupted over the choice of a campsite. One man of ours and one of theirs was killed and quite a few on both sides bloodied. From then on curses, taunts, shoving matches, and stone throwing between us were daily occurrences.

If feelings between Harald and Eilif grew more embittered, those between Harald and myself improved. I have already said that he was at his best when he was leading men into battle, and this was even truer (I was forced to admit) now that Dag was out of the picture. Harald did breathe easier. The day's labor was never so grueling that he couldn't joke with us at the end of it, ask me for a bit of a story, get the men talking or singing to take their minds off their blisters and aching bones. Ours was the only part of the camp where laughter was ever heard.

Yaroslav generally took his meals with us and I found to my surprise that there were sides to the prince I hadn't seen before. He could curse—although nothing stronger than ‘damn your eyes'; he could laugh at a dirty story; he could even be persuaded to do a bit of a sailors' jig despite his game leg. As the distance lengthened between Ingigerd and him, I saw him undergo a subtle change, becoming less the timid, weak, and foolish man that she believed him to be, and, in some fashion, made of him.

Ah, Ingigerd, what have you done to us men! Whenever she drifted into my thoughts I drove her out with every ounce of will that was in me. How much simpler life was without her.

Once on the Dnieper we were borne along on the swift current that sweeps down to the great sea which the Rus call ‘Black,' two thousand versts to the south. Picking up a steady breeze as well, we flew along at three times the speed we had made before.

As we neared our journey's end, we first smelt and then began to see the signs of pillage and destruction. Charred fields, smoldering orchards, whole villages, as well as the dvors of many a rich boyar, burned to the ground; and scattered everywhere the bones of men and beasts, already picked clean by vultures. It appeared from a hasty reconnaissance that many, including even babies, had been burnt, strangled with nooses, or impaled on stakes where they hung until their corpses fell to pieces.

I heard plenty of talk about our enemy. “They're demons from Hell, not men”, said one old warrior. “They have the faces of animals,” said another. “They eat, sleep, even fuck their women on horseback.” Others chimed in: “They neither plow nor sow and their only houses are black tents on wheels. Their dinner is rats and lice, which they wash down with horse's blood. They have no religion except the worship of animals. They dress in sheepskins and their chief weapon is the bow. With these little bows they can drive an arrow through your shield, your ring mail, your leather jerkin, and the shaft will still come half-way out your back.”

A little past noon on the thirteenth day of our voyage, we came in sight of the fortified hamlet of Vyshgorod, perched on a height about eight versts above the city. We would use it as a base from which to launch a counter-attack. There was no other suitable stronghold this side of Kiev.

To announce ourselves and give heart to the garrison there, we struck up a rowing chant, which the ships behind us took up also. The chant died in our throats as we drew nearer and saw how the log walls encircling the hamlet bristled with arrows and were in many places black and smoking. Here, too, vultures circled overhead and crows strutted on the ramparts. Save for the cries of carrion birds there was no sound.

Harald, wanting to have a look round, grounded the Saint Olaf where a steep stairway, carved into the face of the bluff, led up to the citadel. While the rest of the fleet stayed safely out in mid-channel, we leapt down warily onto the narrow beach with our swords drawn.

As we stood at the foot of the steps uncertain what to do, a raven, roosting on the parapet above, gave out a sudden squawk and flapped away. Where it had strutted a solitary face peered cautiously down. Next moment there were shouts from within and the postern gate swung out. Haggard men in battle-stained clothes ran down to meet us.

With Harald in the lead, we climbed the steps and entered the village. Inside, a jumble of tiny cottages crowded right up to the wall. Most were blackened by fire and open to the sky where their thatched roofs had been burnt away. In the lane leading from the postern a raggedy mob of women and children, and even some men of fighting age, reached out bony hands to us. They were as sad a lot of human beings as ever I'd seen. Along every path and in every doorway lay wounded men with hollow, haunted eyes. Such few farm animals as could be seen were skeletons, hardly worth the boiling, though even they would go into the pot soon enough.

Yaroslav, followed by Eilif and the senior druzhiniks, came up behind us. Amid a babble of voices, we were all conducted to Vyshgorod's church—the only building that still had a roof over it. After the sweet, clean air of river and woods the stench here of sweat, piss, and gangrenous
flesh was stomach-turning. Among the rows of sick and wounded that stretched the whole length of the darkened nave, lay one figure a little apart from the others, his head pillowed on his saddle and a blood-streaked robe spread over him.

“Eustaxi Mstislavich, is it you?” asked Yaroslav, bending over the body of his nephew.

Though at first sight his face resembled an old man's, so pinched and pale it was, I reckoned his age at no more than thirty. Raising himself on an elbow, he whispered, “Uncle Yaroslav? Thank God.”

Any other man than Yaroslav might have answered, “No thanks to you, you wretch!” But not our prince. “Tell me, in God's name, what has happened here,” was all he said.

Gritting his teeth against pain, Eustaxi answered, “We men of Smolensk and Chernigov, five hundred horsemen, came here—five? six weeks ago?

We swam our horses across the river and, without stopping to rest or eat, my father led us in a charge straight up to the walls of Kiev.”

Yaroslav shook his head sadly. “‘Charge!' is the only command Mstislav knows.”

“When the enemy caught sight of us they jumped on their horses and galloped away. ‘See how they run!' cried my father. ‘After them!' They pretended to retreat, drew us on until our horses were exhausted and our column strung out and then suddenly turned on us. In an instant they were all around us, pouring in arrows. One pierced my lung, another pinned my thigh to my saddle. We didn't have a chance.” Eustaxi clutched his uncle's arm as a spasm of pain shook him. He and a handful of others, he said between clenched teeth, had escaped and sheltered here—only to starve to death. Foraging parties sent out at night never came back. And every day a heathen band would ride over from their camp to scream insults at them and dare them to come out and fight. “Sometimes”—his voice sank to a whisper—“sometimes they ride up to the walls and spit.”

“And you permit this, you dog!” cried Harald, shouldering Yaroslav out of the way. “One skirmish a month ago and since then you've done nothing but skulk in this hole and lick your wounds? No wonder they spit at you. I join them!”

Every head in the place swiveled toward us. Eustaxi groped for his sword; the effort was too great, he rolled back, gasping. “Who the devil
are you that talks so brave? If I could stand, damn you …” A fit of coughing interrupted his words and he spit some blood into a cloth.

“Now, now, my boy,” Yaroslav stroked his head. “But your father? Not dead—?”

“I wish to Christ he were! The Wild Bison of Chernigov was taken alive. They brought him here, right under the walls, to show him to us: stripped naked, a wooden yoke across his neck with his arms strapped to the ends of it; his body cut and bleeding from the lash. He cried out, begging us to kill him with an arrow. I ordered it done, but they dragged him out of range at the end of a lasso. He ran, he stumbled, and still they dragged him with his face in the dirt. That was weeks ago. Maybe he is dead by now—I pray he is. But Tyrakh Khan knows his worth in ransom; they'll keep him alive just for that.”

Yaroslav could do nothing but shake his head and mutter a prayer.

“But how have you come here, Uncle?,” asked Eustaxi. “Who brought word to you, for we didn't—” he stopped short, plainly ashamed of what he'd nearly let slip.

“Yes, I know all about that,” said Yaroslav sternly. “One of your people, who meant to do you a harm, has probably saved your lives. His name is no matter.”

(I heard the prince say later that the guilty boyar of Smolensk, whom he knew by sight, was lying quite near us among the wounded as he spoke these words.)

“Prince Eustaxi,” I asked, “have you not even tried to get a message out?”

“Where to, in God's name? Belgorod and Vasiliev to the south have fallen—at least, we saw smoke on the horizon that way. As for the men of Pereyaslavl, no need to send them word; the bodies of our dead floating down the river was message enough. And they rode up to see what was the matter. They blundered into an ambush exactly as we did. We could hear the sounds of slaughter from here, and there was nothing we could do. Later, a handful of them reached us in the night.”

We were all sunk in gloomy silence for some moments. Then Yaroslav burst out, “But there's Izyaslavl and Volhynsk—neither far away and both ruled by warlike princes!”

Eustaxi's jaw set stubbornly. “I obey my father's orders. Those towns, Uncle, are on your side of the river, and you were not to find out—”

“In the name of God!” cried Yaroslav, lifting up his hands, “this is madness!”

“Now then, fellow,” said Harald, intentionally not calling him prince or gospodin, “you say the Pechenegs come over daily to harass you? Have they come today?”

Avoiding Harald's eyes, Eustaxi nodded that they had.

“And they'll come again tomorrow?”

A shrug.

“Then we've got no time to waste. They mustn't know we're here. Where can we hide our ships—about twenty, mostly small?”

“Why—nowhere, it's impossible.”

“That word comes too easily to your lips, fellow. Nothing is impossible.”

“But gospodin Harald,” said Yaroslav, “you can see for yourself there's no natural cover along the river bank and not a shed or a barn anywhere.”

Harald waved him to silence. “There is one place they won't be seen. We have no choice. Give the order, Prince.”

“To do what?”

“Sink them, of course.”

“Why, you goddamned fool, you traitor!” Eilif shouldered his way to the front, purple-faced with feigned outrage. Here was his chance, at last. “You see, Yaroslav, what this fool's advice is worth! Sink the ships? Why, he's lost his mind! You'll strip him of his captaincy for this, won't you? By God, he should be whipped and hanged for it! Sink the damned ships?”

“Harald Sigurdsson—?” said Yaroslav plaintively, looking from one man to the other in confusion.

“We'll begin with mine.” Harald spoke as if Eilif wasn't there at all. “Tangle-Hair, you see to it. Oars, rigging, provisions, anything portable is to be brought up here, stack it all in the streets if you have to. Then hole her and send her to the bottom.”

I confess, I stood frozen like everyone else, not believing he was really serious.

“Body of Christ, do I have to explain it in small words! If we lose surprise we've lost everything. What use are the ships to us? If we lose, we die here, agreed? If we win, we build new ones, it's as simple as that. Obey me in this or I leave you in Eilif's hands, and may God help you! Now, what's it to be?”

“Eilif Ragnvaldsson,” said Yaroslav after a long moment's silence, “we shall do as gospodin Harald says.”

“But, Prince—”

“At once, Eilif!”

Well, well, thought I, the old dog has learned a new trick; though he would never dare take that tone with Eilif without Harald standing by to shore him up.