Russka - Edward Rutherfurd [48]
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