The Golden Horde

by Peter Morwood

  “Your pardon, Majesty, but you do,” said Akimov. “Both of you.”

  They looked, and Mar’ya Morevna said something venomous in a language that was definitely not Slavonic and left her mouth on a curl of exhaled air that looked much more like smoke than seemed reasonable. Ivan was beyond swearing. One of the biggest cart-yurtu was making its laborious way along the ice right under where they lay, but it wasn’t the ostentatious drapes of gold-worked silk on its felt dome that struck him speechless. It was the standard swaying above it. A tall spear-shaft decorated with cross-pieces from which hung nine white plumes, it looked unimpressive by comparison with some of the embroidered banners used by the Rus Princes; but Ivan, and Mar’ya Morevna, and all of the others who saw it, knew what that banner was, and what it meant.

  It was the tuk, the yak-tail standard that signified the authority of the Great Khan and it told those who watched, as clear as lettering, that this was an invasion.

  “No raid indeed,” said Mar’ya Morevna grimly. She looked once more with the reluctant fascination of someone unable to tear their gaze from some horrible sight, then pushed herself back from the crest of the hill. “There’s nothing we can do here except get away to spread the warning. Understood?” That last comment was directed at the bogatyri, already looking restive at the prospect of retreat without action, and more restive still that the command should come from not from their Tsar but from a woman.

  “Do as you’re bid,” snapped Ivan. “My wife’s words are my words. Heed them.” He watched as the warriors shambled back down towards their horses, moving with an ill grace that had little to do with the deep snow. “Damn them,” he said without heat. There was no point in criticizing a dog for barking or a bogatyr hero for wanting to be heroic. “If only we had the Firebird with us now, we could teach those shaggy swine down there to stay off the ice in a way they wouldn’t forget.” He looked at his wife speculatively. “Could you …?”

  “Maybe – and maybe not.” Mar’ya Morevna sounded dubious. “We’d need to destroy a major part of the host; destroy it so utterly that even the Tatars would fall back in disarray. And I doubt even the Firebird could do that much. Better not stir up this hornet’s nest until we’re more sure of what the hornets plan to do. They’re riding towards Ryazan, no doubt about it. You wanted to send couriers when we got back, but do you want to wait even that long? I could open the Gate when we turn the army back towards Khorlov and dispatch someone to warn Prince Roman Ingvarevich from here.”

  “I had more than an ordinary courier in mind. Otherwise the Prince may not listen.”

  Mar’ya Morevna nodded. “Listen or not, we’ll warn him anyway. Send one of the Kipchaqs now, and Volk Volkovich when we return to Khorlov. What Ingvarevich does afterwards is his own affair. And Vanya?”

  “Yes?”

  “When we get home we’ll keep the kremlin defences at readiness for a while, just to be safe. Remember in the summer, when you wished for an adventure? If this is it, I think you may have more than you want. And I think …” Mar’ya Morevna stared at nothing, then shook her head and began to move back down the slope.

  “You think… what?”

  “I’ve just seen what may be our whole world turned upside down. I don’t know what I think any more. And that’s what scares me most of all …”

  CHAPTER THREE

  The Princely City of Ryazan;

  December, 1237 A.D.

  Prince Roman Ingvarevich might have been Prince of Ryazan and its dominions but to Volk Volkovich he was just an irritant, no more or less than one of the fleas that plagued his wolf-form in hot summer weather. The only drawback was that a Prince, even a puny one, couldn’t be scratched in the way such fleas deserved. Instead he had to be respected, honoured, even praised; his opinions heard with something that approximated interest; even his stupidities – there were many – ignored or at least set aside for later consideration.

  The Grey Wolf was well aware that even the briefest appearance in his true shape would gain him a great deal more attention than Prince Roman had granted so far. He was also aware that Tsar Ivan of Khorlov had asked him not to do any such thing, as a favour between friends. Had Ivan ordered him, Volk Volkovich would have had no scruples about disobeying those orders if disobedience proved more convenient, but the amiable request put rather a different complexion on things.

  Volk Volkovich the Grey Wolf had been in Ivan’s service for a year and a day, no longer, but after that service was done it had pleased him to stay in Khorlov, at least when the mood moved him. The young Tsarevich, as he had been then, was one of the few humans that Volk Volkovich liked as anything other than a potential meal. Mar’ya Morevna was another, but the rest were no more than meat that walked about.

  Service and companionship with Ivan Aleksandrovich of Khorlov was entertaining, exciting, and even – had the Grey Wolf been inclined that way – profitable. The young Tsar also managed to tolerate a comrade who wasn’t a man who could take wolf’s shape, but a wolf in the form of a man with all of a wolf’s lack of scruples. Ivan had the good grace to let matters lie, rather than forcing human strictures of conscience or morality onto something very definitely not human.

  Volk Volkovich had been called oborotyen, ‘werewolf’, by people who should have known better. There were few enough of those; Ivan’s father Aleksandr the old Tsar, the High Stewards and Guard-Captains of Khorlov and Koldunov, all knew that regardless of what form he took the Grey Wolf was more than he seemed. No one else had ever seen him in the shape of anything other than an enormous wolf, and Tsar Ivan preferred it to remain that way.

  “Let it be our little secret,” he’d said, “especially when you travel on the Tsardom’s business.” Ivan had smiled thinly in a cool, confidential way that was anything but an indication of amusement and the Grey Wolf had grinned right back at him, because Tsar Ivan had stolen that smile from the Grey Wolf’s own mother.

  Volk Volkovich kept their little secret whenever there were unauthorized eyes about. It was a weapon as useful as a concealed dagger, but much less likely to be discovered and cause suspicion since in his role as courier for the Tsar, the Grey Wolf didn’t carry any weapons at all. There was already little enough trust between Khorlov and the other domains of Russia, and never less than with the Great Princes of Vladimir and their subordinates. Even the lords of Kiev and Novgorod had shown some warmth when Ivan took the crown, but not Yuriy and Yaroslav Vsevolodovich, who shared the throne of Vladimir.

  Those two brothers, and their heir-apparent Aleksandr Yaroslavich Nevskiy, had taken mortal offence at Ivan’s suspicions about their dealing with the Tatars. He had said nothing aloud that could be reported back by the inevitable spies every ruler had in every other ruler’s kremlin, but his attitude had been enough to raise their collective hackles like cats in the presence of a dog. The city and domains of Vladimir claimed to be troubled just as much as everyone else by Tatar incursions, yet it was strange how no real harm ever befell them.

  Fifteen years ago, while Chinghis-Khan’s army was returning from its four-year raid into Afghanistan and Khwarizmid Persia, the Great Khan had granted permission for his generals Jebe and Subotai to make a sweep west and north that took them through the Crimea and the Ukraine. Vladimir, though right in the path of the approaching host, had been undamaged. Since then the city had never been assaulted by raiders, its villages went unscathed when others burned, and its cattle remained in their pastures whilst the herds of other princes were driven into the wilderness of the high steppe.

  But times change, and Khans change, and secret agreements made without witnesses become less convenient than they were. If the present route of the Tatar army was any indication, whatever pact the lords of Vladimir had made with the Great Khan Ogotai was at an end.

  The problem was convincing Roman Ingvarevich to believe it.

  *

  Roman Ingvarevich, Prince of Ryazan, leaned forward to better give the impression of looking down on the tall, tanne
d man in the grey furs who stood before him. He disliked the man’s eyes being almost level with his own, even though the Prince’s chair was raised on a dais higher than most Rus noblemen required. Or perhaps he disliked the eyes themselves. They were emerald green, brilliant as gemstones or as if illuminated by some source within, and though they were an unnatural colour in a man’s face, the Prince seemed to be trying to remember where he’d seen such eyes before.

  “Your eyes are strange, Volk Volkovich,” he said at last, giving way to curiosity.

  “From my mother’s family, Highness,” said the Grey Wolf, bowing his head a little to conceal his smile. “Breeding will always show, so they say. But they serve me well enough.”

  “And have you seen this Tatar horde, Volk Volkovich? Seen them with these eyes that serve you so well?”

  “No, Highness.” The Grey Wolf drew himself up even straighter than before, disliking this petty prince with an intensity he would normally have considered wasted energy. Dislike was all he could indulge at present, and it was difficult to keep the expression off a face unschooled in the diplomatic niceties. “As I already told you” – three times now – “I’m reporting what was described to me by the Tsar of Khorlov. He saw them, with his own eyes, as did his wife, his Captain-of-Guards and his Kipchaq scouts… One of whom was sent to you directly, if memory serves me right.”

  “Ah yes, the Kipchaq. You must understand, Volk Volkovich, that when a Prince receives some wild-sounding message from an equally wild-looking messenger – one without seal or signet of authority from his claimed lord – no Prince of any wit would give credence to his tale. Without further proof.”

  “Highness, he was sent direct from what might have been a battlefield. Of course he had no seal or signet; no ruler of the Rus carries such things on a campaign. So you ignored him?”

  “Oh no, no. We would never be so rash, since inside even the most unlikely story one may find a kernel of truth.” Prince Roman Ingvarevich made a little gesture of regret, partly a shrug and partly a pout of his full lower lip. “Of course, such kernels must be properly extracted …”

  Volk Volkovich blinked, even his ruthless wolf’s mind caught off guard by such an admission. “Highness, are you telling me …” he began, then thought better of it. “Where is the Kipchaq?”

  Again the shrug and pout. “Kipchaqs are a stubborn people, Volk Volkovich. This one more than most. By the time he told us what we wanted to know, there was no alternative but to kill him. So we did.”

  “Why?”

  “We have already given our reasons. Do not presume too far on your status.”

  “The Kipchaq was a messenger from Tsar Ivan of Khorlov, sent in friendship to warn you of the Tatars!” snapped Volk Volkovich, shocked at himself for displaying such human feelings as righteous indignation. Playing the envoy was all very well, and moderately easy while his shape remained human, but to become so involved was a surprise. Especially when this stupid creature on the throne might be provoked into repeating – or at least attempting to repeat – what he had done to the previous courier. “By what right did you torture him and kill him?”

  “By the right of a Prince who was justly suspicious of a realm that has never before displayed much… friendship to ours,” said Roman Ingvarevich. “But rest assured, your Kipchaq gave his life in a worthy cause. Had there been any point in letting him live after the, ah, questioning, then once his answers were confirmed as truth he would most certainly have gone free.”

  “Highness, could you not have checked his message first, then tortured him afterwards if it proved false?” The Grey Wolf was all sweet reason, trying to correct any problems that his outburst might create for Ivan or himself. It was the verbal equivalent of showing your throat to the pack leader; he wouldn’t tear it out, but being given the opportunity was enough to calm him down. Not that the Grey Wolf had ever run with a pack in his life, but the instinctive reactions were as much a part of him as ears and eyes and teeth.

  “You may be the Tsar’s courier, Volk Volkovich, but you are very innocent for all that.”

  The Grey Wolf closed his teeth on the laugh that threatened to burst past them at such magnanimous praise and such a remarkable misreading of character. “How so, Highness?”

  “The Kipchaqs have been allies of the Rus for less than twenty years, and that only because they learned we would pay them to act as scouts, as messengers, as… As mercenaries.” Roman Ingvarevich poured disgust into his voice as a man might pour honey onto a wheaten cake. “Bound to their duty by silver, rather than by honour like an honest Russian bogatyr. But those same Kipchaqs were enemies for more than two hundred years, and those who haven’t accepted payment are still enemies. Do you understand what we say, Volk Volkovich?”

  “That you can’t trust Kipchaqs, no matter who they claim to serve?”

  “Exactly. Were we to send out our household guard to investigate this supposed message sent in supposed friendship from the son of a Tsar who was no friend at all? A message that without proof of source or provenance was no more than rumour? We think not. It might have been the bait for a trap. Such things have happened before, Volk Volkovich. The Kipchaqs are too close to the Tatars, both by race and by past alliance, for any Prince to have much confidence to their unsupported word.”

  “Highness, there are Kipchaq riders in the army of Ryazan. I saw them – indeed, they escorted me into the kremlin.”

  “We employ them. We do not depend on them. A wolf can run with the hounds; that does not make him less a wolf.”

  Volk Volkovich the Grey Wolf choked his laughter into a fit of coughing. “Oh, most assuredly, Highness,” he said when he was able. “There never was a word more truly spoken.” He cleared his throat and wiped his eyes, banishing various thoughts to the back of his mind in case he burst out laughing all over again. Of all the proverbs that the Prince of Ryazan could have trotted out, few were less appropriate or more apt. “But you said you confirmed the Kipchaq’s message as truth?”

  “We did, by sending out scouts towards the river Okya. You merely confirm the first message and what we have already learned.”

  “That as we stand exchanging pleasantries the Tatars are on their way?”

  “We have warned you already to curb that impudent tongue, Volk Volkovich. You must be aware the office of courier is no refuge from our displeasure.”

  As it is in more civilized places, thought the Grey Wolf. Unlike Ryazan, concerned with its own importance because there’s so very little of it. He bowed, extending his right hand towards the floor in the proper fashion but a degree lower than was proper so respect became insolence. Roman Ingvarevich didn’t notice, well accustomed to elaborate flattery that puffed his minuscule status as ally and very subordinate landlord of the Great Princes of Vladimir.

  “Your pardon, Highness,” said Volk Volkovich. “I spoke from my concern for Tsar Ivan’s wish to offer aid and —”

  “There will be no need for the Tsar of Khorlov to trouble himself on our account. The envoys sent to our… to the city of Vladimir will return at the head of an army long before the Tatars are close enough to threaten our walls.”

  “Highness, you requested military assistance all the way from Vladimir?” Prince Roman looked evasive, then angry, but said nothing. “But surely saw from Tsar Ivan’s letter that his lady wife can bring aid through a Gate from Khorlov in the minute of your asking for it.”

  “We have said already there is no cause for your liege lord to trouble himself,” said Roman Ingvarevich testily. “And we have no desire that such trouble should involve the sorceress he is pleased to call his wife.”

  “That was uncalled for, Highness, and I do you the courtesy of forgetting I heard it spoken,” said the Grey Wolf. The faintest trace of a snarl in his voice was enough to warn Roman Ingvarevich against taking offence. Instead he scowled in silence for a few moments, then gestured towards the door of the throne room.

  “You may leave the Presence. Now.”
>
  “And when I enter the presence of my lord the Tsar I shall tell him you asked for help from your overlords, as is right and proper for a vassal. Tsar Ivan will understand.”

  “Go!”

  The Grey Wolf bowed again, smiled a fanged smile at his own feet, then straightened up and went.

  *

  He went not merely from the palace and the kremlin but from the city altogether. For three days Khorlov’s ambassador was nowhere to be found, and during those same three days rumours about an approaching Tatar army were replaced by frightening stories from the steppes. Stories about a gigantic wolf that appeared from nowhere to slaughter sheep and goats and cattle, rending open the pens where they were herded against the start of winter, spreading their gore and entrails far and wide.

  On the fourth day Volk Volkovich was back in his lodgings, able to look at the citizens of Ryazan again without that hot green glitter creeping into his eyes as it had done during his walk from the kremlin palace four days past. The tale of his meeting with their Prince had travelled before him and, in the course of that short walk from the kremlin gates to the shabby tavern where he slept, the Grey Wolf had seen the true face of Prince Roman Ingvarevich’s people. He had been sworn at, spat on, and even the children who knew nothing of politics needed no encouragement from their parents – though some got it in plenty – to pelt the tall grey-clad figure with bones and filth.

  By the time he closed the tavern door behind him and leaned against it so he could better resist the temptation to change and go back outside, Volk Volkovich wanted, needed, had to kill something. Staying in man’s shape among those foul-mouthed, foul-minded people had been one of the hardest things he had ever done. He wanted to howl, to close his fangs in meat, to wash the dirt from his grey furs with the blood of those who had put it there.

  Instead he had gone out of the city and up to the snow-clad pastures, where he worked the frenzy of slaughter from his heart and mind until both were cool and calm again. And on the afternoon of the day that he returned, the first Tatars were seen by the Prince and people of Ryazan.