Russka - Edward Rutherfurd [112]
‘So,’ said the young merchant sadly, ‘you think Prince Alexander is right and we have to submit to these pagans?’
Milei looked at the thin young man with calm disgust. And now there came into his eyes a look of ancient, cynical cunning that Yanka had seen before, but never known enough to understand.
‘I think,’ he said very quietly, ‘that the Tatars are the best friends that we have.’
‘Exactly,’ the fat boyar broke out. ‘I saw at once, my friend, that you were an intelligent man.’
Yanka was aghast. What could he mean?
‘Of course Alexander is right,’ Milei continued. ‘We have no choice. Mark my words, in a few more years they will rule us all. But that is not the point. Who runs the caravans from the east with whom you trade? The Tatars. Who mints coins and who keeps the steppes free of Cumans? The Tatars. Where shall our sons find profitable service and plunder? With the Tatars, just as my Alan ancestors served the Khazars before the state of Rus existed.
‘And what is the alternative? The princes of Rus? The Grand Dukes who never lifted a finger to help Riazan or Murom when the Tatars came?
‘The Tatars are strong and they love the profits of trade. Therefore I will cooperate with them.’
Yanka was white.
Before her, at that moment, rose up the vision of her mother, falling before her eyes. Then the Tatar with the missing ear. Then her brother, disappearing across the darkening steppe.
So he was for the Tatars.
She had not known. How could she, a poor Slav peasant from a little village? She had not understood that, for more than a thousand years, Sarmatian, Khazar, Viking and Turk, the men of steppes, of rivers and of seas, the powerful wanderers on the earth, had seen the land and the people of Russia only as objects for their use, to be ruled for profit.
Several of the older men were nodding wisely.
It was fortunate that, standing quietly in a corner, virtually forgotten, she was too shocked even to speak.
But at that moment, she felt more utterly defiled by the nights she had spent with Milei than she ever had, even in the depths of her despair, by those spent with her father.
It was a week later that she first suspected she might be pregnant.
She did not tell him. She said nothing to anyone. In any case, there was no one to talk to. But what should she do? At first, she did not know. She walked around Novgorod each day, trying to make up her mind.
Looking for quiet places, away from the noisy bustle of the narrow streets, she visited the outlying monasteries, and the prince’s hunting grounds to the north of the city. She came to know the place quite well.
Yet the better she came to know Great Novgorod, the less she liked it. Even in the nearby Yuriev Monastery, where she had expected to discover a peaceful haven, she found a huge, square cathedral that was so high and harsh that it seemed almost cruel.
Similarly, when she entered the church of those gentlest of saints, Boris and Gleb, what she saw was a big, rich building, housing pompous oak coffins of the nobility at one end. An old woman told her: ‘This place was built by Sadko – the merchant in the song.’ And as she gazed round at the impressive interior the old woman added approvingly, ‘Yes, he was rich.’
Day by day, Yanka was discovering that this was all that mattered in Novgorod – how much money one had.
Not only when she went to the market, but at the inn or in the streets, whoever she talked to seemed to speak of their neighbours and to value them only by their wealth. To them, she realized, I am not a person. I am only a sum of money. And as the time passed, this harsh, unyielding world began to repel her. I don’t belong here, she confessed to herself. I have no wish to remain.
It was not easy, being obliged to make love to the boyar at nights, and going out into this harsh, mercantile world by day. The image of herself that she had once conceived – as a silver birch tree, withstanding wind and snow – no longer helped her. If she closed