Russka: The Novel of Russia

by Edward Rutherfurd

  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.

  1071

  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.

  Just below the village, on a piece of land where the floodwater was shallow, small stakes stuck out of the water. This was the area where vegetables were grown, richly flooded each spring.

  Cabbages, peas, onions and turnips would all appear here in due course. Garlic too was grown and later in the year, pumpkins.

  On the western, forest side of the river, however, where the banks were higher, a new feature had appeared. Here, where the bank rose to its highest point of some thirty feet above the river, it had been further heightened by a rampart, with a stout wall of oak on top. This fortification, enclosing nearly two acres, had been constructed some fifty years before. It contained, besides some long, low quarters for troops, and stables, two large storehouses for the use of merchants, and a small wooden church. This was the fort. It belonged, as did most of that land, to the Prince of Pereiaslav.

  There was one other feature of the village. About fifty yards from the entrance, on a pleasant spot overlooking the river, was the graveyard, where the ashes of the dead were laid in the ground. Beside this spot stood two stone pillars, each about seven feet high and carved so that each appeared to be wearing a tall, rounded hat with a big fur brim. These were the chief gods of the village: Volos god of wealth, and Perun the thunder god. For despite the attempts of the prince’s priests, out in the countryside many a village like Russka still quietly continued the old pagan ways. Even the village elder had two wives.

  And it was by the cemetery, this clear spring afternoon, that a single figure was moodily walking.

  Someone who had not seen him in the last three years would not have recognized Ivanushka. He had become as tall as his brother Sviatopolk, but in the process he had also become thin and pale. There were dark rings around his eyes and he seemed gaunt and haggard.

  But there was something else, even more striking than these physical changes. About his whole person now there was an aura. The way his head hung, his downcast eyes, the careless walk he affected, all seemed to say: ‘I do not care what you think; I defy you all.’ And yet at the same time, this silent voice added: ‘But even my defiance will fail.’

  In the last three years, nothing had gone right.

  At first one important event seemed to give him hope. After waiting nearly a month in Kiev before being spirited away by Zhydovyn to join his family in Poland, he had discovered that his father, disgusted by the cowardice and treachery of the Prince of Kiev, had exercised his right to change masters and transferred to the druzhina of his younger brother Vsevolod, who ruled the southern frontier city of Pereiaslav.

  This did indeed seem a stroke of fortune. Not only was Vsevolod known as the best and wisest of the ruling brothers, but by his Greek wife he was the father of the brilliant young Vladimir to whom Ivanushka had been promised. Surely now that Igor served his father, Vladimir would send for him.

  Yet no word had come. Even Igor was surprised. ‘But I’ve joined Vsevolod’s service too recently to demand it,’ he admitted to Ivanushka sadly. Sviatopolk served with his father. Boris went to the court at Smolensk. Yet though his father tried to find him a place at Chernigov, Smolensk and even distant Novgorod, nobody seemed to want Ivanushka.

  He thought he knew the reason. ‘It is Sviatopolk,’ he sighed.

  Wherever he went, people treated him with a distant kindness that told him they thought he was a simpleton. He could almost hear them thinking: Ivanushka’s a fool. Once he had even confronted Sviatopolk and demanded: ‘Why have you ruined my reputation?’

  But Sviatopolk had only looked at him in mock amazement.

  ‘What reputation, Ivanushka? Surely nothing from my poor tongue, for or against you, would make any difference to the impression you produce yourself.’

  As time went on, the expectation of his stupidity began to surround Ivanushka like a wall. He even began to say and do foolish things, as though hypnotized by people’s opinion. He felt trapped and the city of Pereiaslav with its stout earth ramparts became like a prison to him.

  Indeed, he was only happy when he was out in the countryside.

  It was a year after the move that Igor was put in charge of the defences along part of the south-eastern border. And it was at the centre of this area, now one of the prince’s estates, that the little fort of Russka lay.

  It was an insignificant little place, of no interest to anyone – one of dozens of little frontier forts along the borderlands. Indeed, Igor would hardly have troubled to pay it more than a cursory visit if his friend Zhydovyn the Khazar had not reminded him that the warehouses there could serve as a useful depot for the caravans they still hoped to send to the east.

  Ivanushka liked to visit this place. He would help the men repairing the fortress wall, or wander along through the woods, enjoying their peaceful quiet. And since Igor did not know what else to do with his youngest son, he would send him down there from time to time to help Zhydovyn receive shipments at the warehouse.

  Which was the cause of his misery today. He had been in charge of receiving a consignment of
furs that morning while the Khazar was away. He had heard the villagers and the men who brought the furs downriver laughing together; he had seen them look at him with amusement. And somehow, though he could never make out how it happened, two valuable barrels of beaver furs had gone missing. Now the Khazar was due back shortly, and he had no idea what to say.

  It was just as he was gloomily pondering this matter that he saw the peasant.

  Shchek was of medium height with a broad, stocky, square body upon which rested a round face with broad cheeks, soft brown eyes and a wavy aureole of black hair that stood up like a soft brush; he wore a linen shirt and trousers, with a leather belt outside the shirt, and bast shoes. There was something about his whole body, thickset and square though it was, that seemed to suggest a gentle, if possibly obstinate character. He was standing at the corner of the graveyard, and watching young Ivanushka carefully.

  In Shchek’s mind was a very simple thought: They say this young man’s a fool. But I wonder if he has any money. For Shchek was about to be ruined.

  Shchek the peasant was, like most of his kind, a free man. True, his status was humble. The very name of the class to which he belonged – the smerdy – meant ‘the dirty ones’! But he was free, in theory, to live where he wished and sell his labour to whom he chose. He was also free to incur debts.

  He ran over them in his mind. The horse, first. That had not been his fault: the animal had gone lame and died. And since he was obliged to supply a horse to the prince for his soldiers in time of war, he had to buy another. But that had only been the start. He had gone drinking in Pereiaslav. Playing dice too. Then bought his wife a silver bracelet out of guilt; and obstinately borrowed again, and gambled again, to retrieve his money.

  Now, as a member of the village commune, he owed the prince’s steward a tax on his plough, and he knew he could not pay it.