The watching platforms were some ten men deep and the front railings were sturdy and strung across with several layers of thick rope. A little higher up, where the river twisted between rocks and the best crashes were to be seen, there were more platforms, rougher ones built by the villagers. The most daring observers would also brave the natural ledges above the ravine towards the start of the race where the land was dry but the cliffs fell steeply down to the course below.
The racers, Vladimir and Ivan both amongst them this year, would be reaching the starting pool now, their boats carried over their heads as part of the ceremony. The craft were slim one-man canoes of animal hide stretched over a flexible birch frame and Elizaveta had had little trouble carrying her own on the glorious morning when she’d sneaked out in her brother’s clothes and joined the line-up.
She sighed at the memory. Had it really been six years ago? She was sixteen now and no boy’s clothes would hide her womanliness, but Ingrid – thankfully back to full, bossy health – had still set two maids to watch her from before she woke. Elizaveta hated it but could not blame her wary mother; she would ride again if she got half a chance.
She peered enviously up the river as Anastasia arranged them all along the railing, carefully making space for the lost princes to join them. Edward was twenty-three now so too old to qualify for the race, though he’d taken part several times before. He had not distinguished himself but he had made it to the end and Elizaveta had admired him for trying. Prince Andrew, however, although still young enough to race, had simply said with his usual easy flair that he was not a boatman. It was fair, she supposed – a man, as Anne had primly said, should know his own strengths – but she struggled to admire him for it.
Andrew seemed to her to float around the kremlin looking very elegant but doing little of any use, though he had been receiving visitors recently – dark-eyed Slavs from his homeland who looked to restore him to his crown. Anastasia was very excited about it and forever hanging on his long, thin arms, flicking her blonde hair and gazing up at him, asking to know more of Hungary. She was after a husband, that much was clear, and, feeling mischievous, Elizaveta slid herself between her sister and the prince.
‘Who do you think will win, Andrew?’ she asked.
‘Oh, your royal brother, I am sure,’ he replied in his smoothly perfect Rus.
‘Which one?’
‘There is more than one in the race?’
Five-year-old Agatha, standing next to them with her hand in Edward’s, laughed out loud but Anne stepped hastily forward, shushing her little sister.
‘Both Vladimir and Ivan are riding,’ she told Andrew. ‘Vlad won last year and wishes to keep the cup and Ivan is desperate to take it off him.’
‘I see,’ Andrew said calmly, ‘and who will succeed?’
‘Vlad,’ Agatha said promptly, pushing past Anne, ‘because he’s biggest. That’s right, isn’t it, Edward?’
Edward smiled down at her.
‘Perhaps, Agatha, but I fear both your royal brothers will be challenged by Gregor, the young Count of Smolensk.’
Elizaveta looked admiringly at Edward; as usual he had quietly noticed exactly what was going on.
‘I agree,’ she said. ‘I have seen Gregor practise and he is so fast down the rapids it takes your breath away.’
Andrew squinted down at her.
‘You have watched the practices, Princess?’
‘Oh yes,’ she confirmed, ‘otherwise how else would I know who to place a wager on?’
Andrew’s eyes widened further.
‘You have wagered?’
‘Why yes. Not myself, of course, but Hedda has secured my stake.’ Elizaveta drew a small birch sliver from her pocket, carved with Gregor’s rune-mark, and Andrew looked fearfully around, as if she were holding a still-bleeding pagan sacrifice.
‘Princess,’ he begged, ‘put that away or you will be in terrible trouble.’
‘Oh no,’ Elizaveta assured him, ‘we all do it – well, except Magnus. He just mutters stuff about Christ throwing the moneylenders out of the temple, but this is no temple. Even Anne pulls herself away from her books long enough to wager. It adds to the excitement, do you not think?’
Prince Andrew clearly did not. Anne looked uncomfortably at her feet and Anastasia seized her chance.
‘I did not wager,’ she said primly.
Elizaveta spluttered and was about to point out that Anastasia had been the first to go to Hedda that morning when she caught sight of an ice-blonde head moving through the crowd towards them and her thoughts were instantly scrambled.
In the last two years since she had visited the Ros settlements she had seen Harald rarely. He and his men had barely been allowed to stay in Kiev for more than a few weeks between successful ventures on her father’s behalf. The two of them had stolen what time they could, but it had been all too short, save for a precious month last summer when they had both accompanied her father on a visit to Novgorod, the northern capital of the Rus, to inspect the vaults.
Yaroslav had allowed Elizaveta to conduct the visit and, feeling very royal, she had led the way down the low stone corridor that ran deep beneath the chill city. Harald had followed dutifully behind, and she had been achingly aware of the warmth of his big body at her back. The guards at the vast oak doors had bowed so low to her that their noses had almost scraped the cold rock floor and had stood deferentially back as they had stepped inside. Fifteen big caskets, locked to the floor with great chains, had stood before them – a wall of wealth – and she’d heard Harald’s breath catch.
‘You have worked hard,’ she’d murmured and the look he’d given her had fired her skin, despite the ice of the stone chamber.
‘So have you.’
He’d stepped behind her to look upon the wealth he had gathered to secure Norway and for a moment Elizaveta had been frozen by the thought of how he had done so. It had not, she’d known, been by smiling or asking nicely. When he was abroad on her father’s service Harald worked in blood and she’d been painfully aware that these spoils she kept like some little dragon were a sparkling veneer over the necessary violence of his life as a soldier. She’d taken a step back, suddenly afraid, but his hands had closed gently on her shoulders, steadying her.
‘I want you with me, you know,’ he’d said, his voice low. ‘I want you with me in Norway.’
She hadn’t dared look at him.
‘Do you not have a woman waiting?’
‘Not one like you.’ He’d dropped his hold and strode forward, running his big warrior’s hand across the caskets. ‘Look what we’ve done already, Elizaveta.’
‘I have done little.’
‘Not true. You have understood me. You have understood my ambitions and you have started us on the path to achieving them.’
It had been the ‘us’ that had reached into her, sending prickles through her whole body. Gathering herself, she had moved forward to join him, carefully unclasping her neck chain so that they could check every casket. He had spoken no further of a union but as they had knelt side by side on the Rus stones, their faces aglow with the light from the gold that would win Norway, she had been sure that this had become their shared destiny.
That, though, had been last summer. Recently she’d begun to wonder if she had imagined the cave, as Halldor might imagine the trolls that could live in it, and she shifted awkwardly as Harald drew close.
‘Welcome to our great Rapids Race,’ she offered shyly.
‘I am very glad to be here,’ he responded, though his eyes were upon her, not the river.
Thrown, Elizaveta looked down at the water bubbling close to the platform. It had been a hard winter and the river still carried lumps of ice. If a rider caught on one it could cut the skin of his canoe and send him down in moments.
‘The waters run hard,’ she managed.
‘They will carry us fast south then.’
Elizaveta looked up at that.
‘You are taking the tr
ade boats to the golden city?’
‘To Miklegard, yes.’
‘Miklegard!’ She smiled at the ancient Viking term for Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire. ‘The seawater in your veins is itching?’
‘A little, perhaps. This is duty – the traders were sorely attacked by the Pechenegs last year so your father has assigned us as guards – but I confess that I am eager to see the place. They say it takes a man a full day to walk around the walls.’
Elizaveta felt envy stir inside her again. She had heard many tales of the beauty of Miklegard – the Great City – and longed to see it for herself.
‘I am told the Hagia Sophia is the largest church in all God’s world,’ she said.
‘And the richest. The central cupola rises to the heavens themselves, wide enough to hold a very choir of angels and lined with gold so thick you could make ten armrings from one panel.’
‘Even you would do well to claim that treasure, Harald.’
He looked hurt.
‘I am not such a heathen, Elizaveta. I would like to see the cathedral for its beauty, not its worth.’
‘I’m sorry. I would like that too.’
‘Though the treasure would not hurt.’ He winked, then leaned a little closer. ‘Our caskets are safe, Princess?’
Her body sung; he had not forgotten their visit. The troll cave had been real – but had the words spoken been real too?
‘Your caskets are safe, yes.’
‘Our caskets, Elizaveta. I would like . . .’
But now Agatha bounced up between them.
‘Harald! You made it. Are you not racing?’
Harald gathered himself and smiled down at the five-year-old.
‘I am too old to qualify, Agatha.’
‘You’re more than eighteen?’ she asked, her wonderment at his great seniority making them both laugh.
‘He is eighteen,’ Elizaveta told her. ‘He has been at war too long and missed his chance.’
‘At what, Princess?’
Harald seemed very close, his grey eyes sharp as new-mined crystals.
‘At racing, of course.’ Elizaveta licked at her lips, suddenly dry, and added as Agatha bounced away again, ‘I rode the rapids once.’
‘You did?’
He looked down at her, his grey eyes swirling with something that was either admiration or disgust.
‘Yes, I,’ she said defiantly. ‘Or rather, I rode them halfway.’
‘You crashed?’
‘No!’ She glared at him. ‘I rode very well.’
‘I don’t doubt it. So what happened?’
‘I was netted.’
He blinked.
‘Netted? By whom?’
His tone was playful but the memory was still painful for Elizaveta and she had to put up a hasty finger to catch a rogue tear before it could smudge the kohl her mother had finally let her use on her lashes.
‘There are men stationed in groups along the banks with great nets on wooden poles to catch any riders who are tossed from their canoes and may be in danger from the rocks,’ she explained. ‘The boys are young and no one wishes to see them die.’
‘Of course not, but you, Elizaveta – you were not in any trouble?’
Despite herself, she smiled.
‘I was in much trouble, Harald, but not from the water.’
‘Your father did not approve of you racing?’
She shook her head.
‘Girls are too delicate for such sports, or so he says, though I do not see why. We are lighter and more agile than boys and I had practised harder than any. I was hurt more by that stupid net scooping me out of my boat than I would ever have been if they’d let me finish.’ Harald looked at her again, seeming to scrutinise every part of her face until she shifted awkwardly. ‘What is wrong? Am I smudged?’
He smiled.
‘No, Elizaveta, you are not “smudged”. I was merely wondering . . . why?’
‘Why did I ride? Why should I not?’ She could hear her own voice rising in a way her mother would undoubtedly condemn as undignified, but she could not stop it. ‘Has anyone ever asked Vlad why he rides, or Ivan? No! It is a fine thing for them to wish to test themselves, to rise to the challenges that nature has set, to pit their skills against those of their peers, so why, then, is it so strange for me? Are we so different, men and women?’
‘In some ways,’ Harald said, his voice so low now it stopped her own in her throat and made her heart push at her breasts. His eyes followed the motion and she swallowed. ‘But you are right. I think women every bit as brave and fiery and determined as men.’
‘Oh?’ she retorted, confused. ‘And you have known many women, have you?’
‘A few.’ He raised a slow eyebrow and her stomach flipped inside her. ‘Though none that mattered – yet.’
Elizaveta’s throat felt very dry. Who had he known? Concubines? Pretty, wild little street women who’d crawled over his scars with their lithe, practised bodies? His chest was tight up against hers and for a treacherous moment she longed to put her hands against it and feel his strength. He was staring at her still, his glacier eyes fixed on her lips as if he might kiss her right there, in the royal grandstand, as if she might let him, and she pulled back, flustered. She was not one of his street women, won with honeyed words and a muscled chest.
‘The race will begin any moment,’ she said stiffly, turning back to the river.
‘Elizaveta, I did not mean . . .’
A shout went up from the riverbank and she turned gratefully to look up at the great scarlet flag waving in the trees at the top of the ravine. It indicated that the racers were in the starting pool and an expectant silence fell on the hundreds of watchers lining the river. Guards stood to attention, netters braced themselves against rocks and, at the centre of the grandstand, Grand Prince Yaroslav rose, picked up a golden hammer and swung it cleanly into the centre of a richly patterned gong. The sound shivered, sweet and low, across the water and was joined by another up the bank and then another in the trees and a fourth hidden in the ravine. The mingled sounds filled the spring air and then suddenly the forest flag went down and the race was begun.
The nobles in the grandstand, forgetting themselves in the excitement of the moment, pushed forward as hard as the commoners on the banks and Elizaveta suddenly found herself forced against the railings. To her left Prince Edward lifted Agatha onto his shoulders as Anne, never one for fuss, stepped back a little. Prince Andrew flapped ineffectually at the crowd, Anastasia attempting to soothe him as she let herself be crushed against his chest and Elizaveta felt a little crushed herself. For a moment she fought for breath until suddenly the ebb and flow of people was stopped as Harald reached his long arms out around her, forming a shield. She was grateful for his solid presence, though not sure she felt any safer, but now, on the ridge, a flag went up and her attention was caught.
‘Green,’ she said excitedly, daring to glance back at Harald. ‘The flag is green.’
‘Is that your man?’
She nodded. Gregor was wearing green. Vladimir was in purple, Ivan in scarlet and blue and the five other young men in various other colour combinations.
‘Who do you have?’ she asked him, unable to take her eyes off his arms, the muscles rippling against the push of the crowd.
‘Green too,’ Harald admitted. ‘I saw the lad ride yesterday; he was fearless.’ They watched in silence for a few moments then he added: ‘I would have liked to see you ride the rapids, Elizaveta.’
‘I would have liked the chance.’
The boats were not visible yet but on the platforms at the top of the rapids the people were going wild. Agatha was screaming excitedly, bouncing up and down on poor Edward’s brave shoulders and pointing upstream. Elizaveta leaned over the parapet to see, but suddenly Harald’s face was beside her own and his chest tight against her back.
‘Elizaveta.’ His voice was low, urgent.
She turned and found herself in his
arms.
‘Harald, please. People are looking.’
‘They are not.’ That much was true. ‘I must speak. Your father will send me to muster the trade fleet down in Vitichev within a few days and I seek your leave to talk to him.’
Elizaveta’s ears were filled with the excited calls of the crowd but she seemed to hear only him.
‘You can talk to him any time, Harald,’ she stuttered, fearing she was reading his intentions wrong. ‘You are his man.’
‘But I wish, this time, Elizaveta, to talk to him of you.’
‘Oh.’
‘To ask his permission to take you as my wife – my wife and future queen.’
She strained to catch the words. All around people were pressing to the waters’ edge and their roar was grabbing at Harald’s words, tangling them so they would not enter her brain.
‘There,’ someone called, ‘there they are!’
‘Elizaveta,’ Harald urged, ‘may I talk to him – may I talk to him of us?’
Us? The word lit a memory of them both knelt before the caskets in Novgorod, their future shining before them.
‘Yes,’ she gasped out. ‘Yes, Harald – you may. And now,’ she giggled, embarrassed, ‘may I watch the race?’
He smiled too then took her face in both his hands, so big they wrapped all the way up to her ears.
‘In just one moment.’
His lips pressed against hers, so fast and sure that she had no chance to protest, even had she wanted to. For a moment she was drowning deliciously in the kiss, but then he was spinning her round and pointing up the river as if nothing had happened at all. His hand, though, was still on her waist and the musky scent of him was all around and his words were rippling through her mind as if she were truly riding the rapids this time.
‘’Tis Gregor!’ Edward cried and Elizaveta forced herself to pull away from Harald a little as the green tunic whirled into view upriver, Vladimir’s purple close behind.
The Constant Queen Page 6