Russka - Edward Rutherfurd [42]
‘Father will kill him,’ Ivanushka had cried as they left. But in his heart, he had not been so sure. Three weeks had passed. They heard that the western rebel city of Minsk had fallen, and that the armies had passed on towards the north. After that, silence.
Then, one afternoon in early March, while the snow still lay on the ground, Ivanushka heard the stamp and jingle of a horse coming into the courtyard and ran out to see a tall, stern figure dismounting.
It was his brother Sviatopolk. How handsome and brave, how like their father he looked. He glanced at Ivanushka. ‘We won,’ he announced drily. ‘Father’s on his way back with Boris. He sent me ahead to tell Mother.’
‘And the werewolf?’
‘He lost and ran away. He’s finished.’
‘What happened at Minsk?’
Sviatopolk smiled. Why did his mouth look bitter when he smiled, and why did he only do so when he was talking about people being hurt? ‘We butchered all the men; sold the women and children as slaves.’ He gave a short laugh. ‘There were so many slaves it drove the price down to half a grivna a head.’
Ivanushka followed him into the house. At the entrance, Sviatopolk paused and half turned to him. ‘By the way, there’s good news for you.’ He spoke the words casually.
‘For me?’ Ivanushka’s mind began to race. What could it be?
‘God knows why,’ Sviatopolk remarked. ‘You’ve done nothing to deserve it.’ The words were spoken light-heartedly, but Ivanushka knew Sviatopolk meant them really.
‘What is it? Tell me what!’
‘Father will tell you.’ It seemed that Sviatopolk was not particularly pleased with the good news, whatever it was. He smiled thinly, then turned away. ‘You’ll have to suffer until he comes, won’t you?’ he said, and stepped into the house.
Ivanushka heard his mother’s cry of joy. She loved Sviatopolk, he knew, because he was so like his father.
The news his father brought, the next day, was so wonderful that he could hardly believe it.
The younger brother of the Prince of Kiev, Prince Vsevolod, held the southern border city of Pereiaslav. It lay some sixty miles downriver from the capital and was a splendid city. Vsevolod had made a marriage that impressed the nobles of Rus, for his bride had been a princess of the royal house of Constantinople itself, the family of Monomakh. And their son Vladimir was only a year older than Ivanushka.
‘We’ve still to arrange a meeting of the two boys,’ Igor proudly explained to his wife, ‘but Vsevolod and I became friends on the campaign and he’s agreed in principle – in principle,’ he emphasized severely, looking at Ivanushka, ‘that Ivan should be attached to young Vladimir as a page.’
‘This is a great chance, you know,’ his mother said to Ivanushka. ‘They say this Vladimir is gifted and has a great future ahead of him. To be his close companion when you are still both so young …’ She spread her hands in a way that suggested the treasure house of Kiev and the imperial city of Constantinople all rolled into one.
Ivanushka was beside himself. ‘When? When?’ was all he could ask.
‘I shall take you to Pereiaslav at Christmas,’ Igor told him. ‘By which time, you had better have prepared yourself.’ And with that he dismissed him.
‘I’m sad to see Ivanushka go, though,’ his mother confided to her husband afterwards. ‘I shall miss him.’
‘That is a woman’s lot,’ Igor remarked coolly, unwilling to admit that he felt the same.
It was shortly afterwards that a small incident took place in the stables that would have shocked Igor and his wife had they known about it.
The three brothers were together. Boris, grinning broadly, had clapped his little brother on the back in a friendly way that sent him sprawling; then he had given him a whole silver grivna for luck and ridden down to the podol. That left Ivanushka and Sviatopolk alone.
‘Well, brother, I told you the news was good,’ Sviatopolk remarked quietly, as he gazed admiringly