Russka - Edward Rutherfurd [54]
As he walked, Shchek was rather cheerful. Since he had become a zakup, his life had not been easy. The prince’s steward worked him hard. His wife, ashamed of his status, had become sullen. But this unexpected gift from the young noble was a great windfall. A silver grivna was worth about three months’ wages to a peasant like Shchek.
He took the path through the woods and continued along it to the glades where the women picked mushrooms. He pressed on, past the pool where, the villagers said, rusalki dwelt. It was a little way past the pool that he came to a crossroads. The right-hand track, he knew, led south to the prince’s estate. The left-hand track led northwards; but since it passed through a place where one of the villagers had been killed by a boar, few people took that route, thinking it unlucky.
On impulse, however, the peasant decided to do so. That Ivanushka brought me luck, he considered. I’ve nothing to fear today.
Some way to the north of Russka, the river made a large curve round a low and densely wooded hill. It was here that the villager had been killed. Thick undergrowth had formed round the base of the hill, much of it bramble and thorn. It was not an inviting spot, and he would not have paused had he not suddenly seen, a hundred yards ahead of him, a large fox slipping silently into the undergrowth.
I wonder if he has a lair in there, Shchek thought. Fox fur was valuable. As quietly as he could, and suffering a number of scratches, he made his way through the undergrowth and began to climb the hill. And a few minutes later, having almost forgotten the fox, he was grinning with delight and astonishment.
For the hill, so densely covered with oak and pine, and which no one ever visited, was a treasure house. It was crowded with beehives. He could smell the rich, thick smell of honey up in the trees everywhere. As he wandered around, he counted no less than twenty hives up in the branches; until finally he laughed aloud. ‘That Ivanushka has brought me more luck than he knew,’ he cried.
He did not plan to tell anyone about it. For already he could see how to make use of it. I might even be able to get free one day, he mused.
1075
In the year 1075, few men in the land of Rus were considered as lucky as Igor the boyar.
His master, Prince Vsevolod of Pereiaslav, showered gifts upon him. No one was held in more honour in that prince’s druzhina.
The greatest nobles, now, had a new status: instead of the old blood-money of forty grivnas, their lives had been set at eighty. Even to insult them carried a fine of four times the value of a smerd.
Igor had been granted this high status. More than that, so impressed was the Prince of Pereiaslav with his loyal servant, that the previous year, he had given Igor the lordship of extensive lands on the south-east border of the principality, including the little hamlet of Russka.
These outright gifts of land were a new method of rewarding faithful retainers. Cheaper than gifts of money, in a state where land was plentiful, these land grants began the process whereby the term ‘boyar’, which originally meant a retainer or nobleman of the druzhina, came to signify ‘landowner’.
Igor the boyar had reason to be happy. Yet behind his aloof and busy manner, there was a sadness. Seeing Igor and his greying wife together, a stranger might have thought that they shared a love of quietness. Yet in fact, they were quiet because each was afraid that almost anything either of them said might bring to the surface the sadness concealed in the other.
Boris was dead. He had been killed in a skirmish at the edge of the steppe one winter day. As was the custom, they had brought his body back on a sled.
Igor would never forget that day. It was snowing, and as