In the meantime, an ambassador from no less a court than France had been dancing attendance on Anne, looking for a wife for the widowed Henry I, and it felt to Elizaveta as if all of Yaroslav’s older children were doing their part in extending his web of influence, save her. It hurt, though not enough to encourage the pale-livered princes on offer.
‘In the spring, Elizaveta,’ Yaroslav had told her on Twelfth Night, barely curbing his rising impatience, ‘we will choose a husband. If you cannot then I will – and you will accept my choice graciously. You are twenty-four, daughter, and we must marry you before your womb shrivels and no one wants you at all.’
He was right of course, but as Elizaveta watched the flames grasp the neck of the great dragon-prow she felt sudden sympathy for the poor ship. She had loved Harald. Recklessly and foolishly she had loved him, and that love had burned her as the dragon-ship was burning now.
She watched sadly as with a strange, sucking sound the last of the ice around the ship melted away and it bobbed on its self-created pond. Soon its charring strakes would split apart and it would sink beneath the surface where, before morning, a thin crust would already have formed over any floating remains, trapping them until the spring thaws sent them spinning south.
To the left of the grandstand an impromptu band had struck up. Elizaveta spotted her viol teacher at the heart of them and looked for the tug of the music inside her but it did not come and she stood sombrely at Jakob’s side, the two of them fixed on the sinking vessel as the rest of Kiev began to dance. Then, suddenly, a call ripped through the crowd from the people furthest upriver.
‘A spirit!’
‘A spirit from Valhalla, come to claim his ship!’
‘Nonsense,’ Yaroslav said quickly but he, like the rest, moved forward to look up the Dnieper where many fingers were now pointing and from where, over the crackle of the flames, the night air was filled with the sound of spiked hooves pounding the ice. Into view came a horseman, riding up in the stirrups of a huge stallion, wearing a scarlet cloak and a helmet fixed with ceremonial wings on either side. He did, indeed, look like some warrior spirit as he took the bend in the solid river and bore down on the ship.
‘Who is he?’ the crowd asked each other, delighted.
‘He’s a dead man if he rides any closer to the ship.’
‘Spirits cannot die!’
All eyes watched as the figure galloped alongside the galley, a huge, dark shape against the orange glare, his mount’s hooves seeming to skim the dangerously thin ice. Then, just as it looked as if he would pass on down the dark Dnieper, he flung himself from the horse and landed square on the dragon’s head so that the insistent flames reached eagerly up to devour his boots. The crowd gasped and pressed forward as the man – if man it was – held up an arm.
‘I am here to die with this ship,’ he proclaimed. ‘To die for my sins against this glorious nation of the Rus, as I justly deserve.’
‘No!’ the crowd protested.
He silenced them with a hand.
‘Only one thing can save me . . . the love of a woman.’
The crowd ooh-ed, delighted at this living story.
‘What woman?’ they called, volunteers already squirming keenly to the front.
‘The Princess Elizaveta,’ came the reply, then the heroic figure swept the helmet from his head and a curtain of ice-blonde hair fell over his scarlet cloak.
‘Harald!’
Elizaveta could hardly believe it and didn’t know whether to berate him as a fool or embrace him as her hero. The crowd, however, were in no doubt and all looked keenly to Yaroslav to release their ‘spirit’ from his hellish flames.
‘You abandoned us, Harald,’ Yaroslav called across the river.
‘I know it, though I did so with all honest intentions. You have seen, I hope, that I advised you out of my small warrior’s wisdom and not pride or cowardice?’
The flames were eating into the dragon’s neck now and Harald climbed a little higher, clutching at the beast’s carved ears as the crowd clutched at each other.
‘I will make reparation, Grand Prince,’ Harald went on. ‘I will make your beautiful daughter Queen of Norway and then of Denmark and of England too. Together, Yaroslav, we will rule the north, I swear it, but I must have Elizaveta as my queen. I beg this of you.’
The ship creaked. The fire at the centre had burned through the base and now one side splintered, sending the whole vessel rocking. Within minutes it would fold in on itself, dragging the prince into the inferno and down to death in the Dnieper.
‘Grant it!’ the crowd begged their own prince.
Elizaveta saw Yaroslav’s eyes flicker across the dying ship and knew that, as much a showman as Harald, he was judging the time he had left.
‘You will treat her with all honour?’ he demanded as, with a shriek of tearing wood, the mast fell, slamming into the ice and sending the ship tipping wildly.
‘I will,’ Harald called and now Elizaveta caught real panic in his voice.
‘Serve him right,’ she muttered, ‘for his damned hero tricks,’ but her heart was in her mouth and she stepped up to take Yaroslav’s arm.
‘You consent, daughter?’ her father asked her, one eye on the ship.
‘I consent,’ she agreed, as loudly as she could.
‘Then, Prince Harald,’ Yaroslav called, ‘come and claim your bride.’
Harald stilled, bowed his head a moment, and then leaped from the dragon. He landed on the ice with a thud and skidded towards the bank where eager hands waited to lift him clear just as the ship burst. The dragon’s head seemed for a moment to rear up before collapsing backwards into the flames as the water frothed around them. Elizaveta put a hand to her chest to keep her heart within, for it was beating like a blacksmith’s hammer against the anvil of her bones. Now, though, Harald was being brought before her, lifted onto the grandstand on the shoulders of the people of Kiev and her sisters were pushing her keenly forward. She must compose herself.
‘A grand entrance, Harald,’ she said drily as he knelt before her.
He looked up through his curtain of hair, the golden flecks sparkling in his soft grey eyes.
‘I wanted to impress you.’
‘By singeing your boots?’
‘And I wanted to make it hard for you to say no.’
She shook her head.
‘You certainly did that, but Harald . . .’ She put out a hand and raised him so his great body was against hers. ‘Even had you crept in on a donkey I would not have said no.’
He kissed her hand and the crowd whooped.
‘I am unendingly glad to hear it – but your father might have.’
Elizaveta saw the sense of it; this crazy charade had offered Yaroslav a chance to climb down with honour, even with a flourish. And yet . . .
‘Why did you come back, Harald?’ she whispered.
He wrapped her hand in his and pressed it to his chest.
‘Because, Elizaveta, fool that I am, it seems . . . it seems I love you.’ He blushed and stumbled on quickly. ‘And I heard tell that maybe you loved me too?’
‘Maybe. Though you hurt me, Hari.’
‘I know it and I regret it more than the loss of a thousand ships. I won’t do it again. Let me show you . . .’
Harald pulled his eating knife from his belt and held it to his throat. The crowd, drunk on the continuing action before them, gasped but Harald simply slit the leather cord around his neck and released the rich ring Elizaveta had returned to him.
‘May I?’
He took her hand again and, before everyone, slipped the glorious ring onto her finger. The crowd cheered and cheered.
‘Tomorrow,’ Yaroslav said sternly. ‘Tomorrow in the Hagia Sophia, you will be wed.’
‘Before my womb dries up?’ Elizaveta dared to ask him and his eyes narrowed.
‘See it stays safe until then, daughter,’ he instructed and turned to lead Ingrid into the first dance as the fire festival re
luctantly let go of its impromptu interruption and resumed its usual festivities.
‘Yes, Father,’ Elizaveta murmured to his back but there was no way she was waiting any longer.
‘Come,’ she said, taking Harald’s hand to lead him from the grandstand.
‘Now?’ he asked, eyes darkening to the colour of the bubbling Dnieper.
‘Now.’
Elizaveta led him to Jakob’s workshop, unlocking the huge doors with the key the boatbuilder had ordered cut so she could enter whenever she wished to look at the eagle-prow he was working on for her. Holding Harald’s hand tight she drew him round a half-built trading ship, through the rack of sweet-smelling wood waiting to fulfil its destiny beneath the axe, and up the ladder to the loft above. Here Jakob kept his tools, his carvings and his experiments; here, Elizaveta’s eagle was taking shape beneath the rafters; and here Jakob had a soft feather bed for the nights he worked too late with his beloved boats to go home to his wife.
‘You’re sure?’ Harald asked but in answer she just pulled him down beside her and kissed him and then they were tearing at each other’s clothes as if the boat were still burning beneath them.
Elizaveta felt his hands all over her body and in her turn explored his, seeking out the scars with her fingertips, her mouth locked onto his and her every sense singing. She could smell a glorious mingling of fresh wood, sweat, and smoke, and the softness of Jakob’s bed beneath her contrasted deliciously with the hard body of the man she had not dared to believe would return.
‘I want you,’ she murmured, pulling him up and over her. ‘I want you now.’
He held himself there for a moment, looking down on her, teasing her.
‘Now?’
‘Right now, or you ride north alone.’
‘Never.’
He dipped and ran soft kisses down her neck and between her breasts until she arched up to meet them and then, slowly and deliberately, he entered her. There was a sharp pain and then a wonderful, overwhelming rush of sensation.
‘Yes,’ Elizaveta muttered, clutching him deeper inside. ‘Yes, Harald. Please.’
‘It does not hurt you?’ he asked, pausing.
‘Only when you stop.’
Harald smiled at that and began moving again, filling her with the sort of rush of feeling she’d been craving for so long. He paused again, kissed her, then suddenly rolled over, pulling her with him so that, still locked together, she was straddling him.
‘Harald!’
‘Your turn, my sweet.’
‘Really?’
‘Try it.’
So she did, moving slowly at first but then picking up pace as the sensations swelled inside. She was riding the rapids again, her body surging with adrenaline, feeling the rush of the wind and the power of the water beneath her except that this was no cold river but Harald, her Harald, and she rode him high until, with a cry of pleasure, the water took her and she knew herself to be exactly, completely, and gloriously where she ought to be.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Austratt, February 1043
‘Harald will sail for Norway.’
‘I know,’ Tora agreed, trying to sound composed.
‘You told me. In the New Year you said and now it is New Year. Indeed, it’s been a new year for so long now I’d say it is barely new at all.’
‘True,’ Finn conceded.
He sounded odd and when Tora looked up from her embroidery she saw he was twisting his hands together like an old woman considering a knot in her loom.
‘Is something wrong, Uncle?’
‘Something is . . . different.’
Finn did not make ‘different’ sound enticing. Indeed, in Tora’s experience, different was rarely enticing; it was so unreliable.
‘But Harald is still coming?’ she probed.
‘So his letters say, yes. He plans to land in Sweden and cross the Kjolen mountains down to Nidaros.’
‘Good. We can be there, then, to welcome him.’
‘We can. Him and . . .’
‘And what, Uncle?’ Tora demanded impatiently, shoving her needle into the linen pattern and rising.
Finn took a visible breath.
‘Him – and his wife.’
Tora’s world spun. The half-woven pattern on the loom danced before her eyes. The needlework dropped from her fingers and the fire in the brazier seemed to rise up before her. She’d thought news of this magnitude would have reached her. Nay, she’d thought such news was impossible; thought he was hers.
‘The Rus princess?’ she forced out. Finn’s bowed head was all the answer she needed. ‘How could he?’
‘He writes it was a political imperative,’ Finn said, babbling now. ‘He writes he was bound to the Grand Prince. He writes that he still honours our family above all others in Norway.’
‘Damn our family.’
‘Tora!’
‘He promised himself to me, Uncle.’
‘Then you married another.’
She flinched. It seemed so cruel that her marriage to Pieter, such a paltry aside to her life, might rob her of the one man she’d ever truly wanted.
‘That was not my choice,’ she snapped.
‘I made that match for you in good faith and you know it. Besides, this can still work, sweetheart, I promise you. He says he will see you wed with great dignity to . . .’
‘He will see me wed to no man,’ Tora snarled, ‘save himself.’
‘Tora . . .’
‘And you, Uncle, will support me in that, I am sure.’
She could hear herself, low and menacing. Anyone listening outside the doors would think there was a stranger within and maybe there was. Everything Tora had thought she stood for, had thought she lived for, seemed to have been pulled away from her. Did Harald think she was so meek as to just accept this? To marry his substitute groom with smiles of gratitude and support him in his bid to put another woman on the throne?
Well, he was wrong. For many, many years Tora’s only real purpose in life had been to marry Harald Sigurdsson and she would not be denied it now. Let him come and his Slav bride with him; the wretched woman would soon see who held the strings in Norway.
PART TWO
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The Bay of Malaren, September 1045
The wind grabbed viciously at Elizaveta’s hair and threw salt into her eyes, heedless of the hot tears already blinding them. She huddled lower into her sleeping sack, more like a slug than a queen, and prayed for this merciless journey to be over. For so many years she had dreamed of sailing over the Varangian Sea, imagining herself stood at the prow facing the glorious waves, but the reality had turned dark and wet and bitter and now she cursed her naivety. This was not some Rus river trip but a tough, cold battle against the open ocean. She clutched at her belly, swollen with Harald’s precious child, and prayed for land.
Two seasons in a row they had been ready to sail and two seasons in a row the wild men of the North Rus had attacked Novgorod and Harald’s troops had been forced to assist Prince Vladimir in seeing them back into the forests. Elizaveta’s grateful brother had paid well and there had been much booty besides but it had seemed to Elizaveta that they were in danger of sinking under the weight of these war profits if they did not sail soon.
There had been only one benefit of the delays – the chance to attend Agatha’s wedding to Edward, a day that had touched her heart. She had grown so used to her littlest sister following the quiet English prince around Kiev that it had been strange to see them stood side by side as man and wife, but right too. Now the bridal pair had departed for Hungary with Andrew, Anastasia and baby Adelaide for rebellion was rising in Andrew’s homeland and emissaries had ridden into Kiev asking for him to return to lead them. Edward had offered Andrew his sword, saying he was sick of waiting for a summons from England that he knew would never come, and the two couples had ridden west together.
Ivan had also left Kiev to serve the emperor, his new father-in-law, in the Greek
seas and Stefan had been sent to the growing city of Chernigov to control their father’s eastern borders. Yaroslav’s children were spreading out across the known world, just as he had always intended, and as Elizaveta had prepared to sail for Norway the thought had both terrified and excited her. She had made her sisters, even Anastasia, promise to write and had stocked up on vellum of her own but there had been no chance to send a message whilst in the grip of the relentless sea.
At first they had sailed west, tracking the southern shore of the barren lands of the Fins and all had seemed well, but earlier today they had struck out into the open sea towards Sweden and a sudden storm had crashed in on them, roaring menace. Now, although the sun should be reaching its highest point, it was darker than night, a strange green gloom that crept into Elizaveta’s heart like a weed. She pushed back against the side of the ship and watched, mesmerised, as wave after wave rose over them. Every one looked as if it must surely suck them all under, before the brave little vessel crested each foaming top, the crew hanging onto their oars as if the thin wood might grow feathers and fly them to safety.
At Elizaveta’s side, Greta was on her knees, praying to the louring skies, her near-blue lips muttering supplications over and over, her dress dark from the relentless spray and her hair whipping around her face like a pirate’s lash. Elizaveta felt for her. Hedda had offered the services of her daughter, Greta, now fourteen, as a wedding gift and Elizaveta, touched, had gratefully accepted the girl as her maid. In Novgorod she had proved herself a quick learner and had been a great comfort in Elizaveta’s two previous pregnancies, both of which had come to nought.
Elizaveta’s heart twisted at the remembrance of those losses and she pushed her hands even further around her belly, as if she could keep this baby inside by force of will. She could feel cramps and a dull ache in her back and knew, from too many times with her mother, what that might mean.
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