Russka - Edward Rutherfurd [70]
He had kissed his father, long and warmly, before striding out.
Often now as he rode across the steppe with a feeling of tender sadness, his memory returned him to that morning when, as a boy of twelve, he floated down the great River Dniepr with his father, his mind full of high hopes. Like a physical presence he could feel his father’s hand on his shoulder, feel his powerful heart beating behind him, and he wondered: is he still with me, my father? Is he still alive in Kiev, perhaps remembering that very day, sharing my dream with me, his hand around my shoulder? Or has he gone into the great cold?
And around the campfire he remembered his father’s forgiveness and his mother’s healing presence.
And then there was Sviatopolk. Though he rode some distance away, with the Prince of Kiev, it was easy to pick him out by the banner carried before him that bore the three-pronged trident. It was not that his face was hard and bitter – it had always been that – but there was a new look in his eyes, a faraway gaze that Ivanushka, having known desperation himself in his youth, recognized at once. And his attitude towards his brother, though always cool, had taken on a new tension which, to those who knew him well, was a sign of danger.
On two occasions Ivanushka had gone up to him, once to ask him: ‘Have I offended you?’ The second time, with some misgivings, he had asked: ‘Is something wrong with you?’ But each time Sviatopolk had bowed to him coldly and enquired, with sarcastic politeness, after his health.
Sviatopolk lived well in Kiev. His sons were successful. What, Ivanushka wondered, could it be?
It was when Sviatopolk was asleep that the monsters troubled him.
During his waking hours, it was only a question of calculation, even if that always brought the same conclusion. But in his sleep, the monsters came.
How had he got into debt? Even now, he could hardly believe it had happened.
If they’d let me into the inner circle, he told himself, by now I’d be rich. That was the trouble, he told himself several times a day.
Everyone in Kiev was speculating. Most of the merchants and boyars were. Even the small merchants and artisans did if they could. But the greatest speculator of all was the prince himself.
Salt, that was the key. In the good old days, when his father Igor was in his prime, they brought salt across the steppe in caravans from the Black Sea. But now, with Cumans breaking up the southern trade route, the only places to get salt safely were in the west: from the south-western province of Galicia, or from the kingdoms of Poland and Hungary. And the plan of the Prince of Kiev was to form a cartel that would get control of all the salt sold in the land of Rus.
This campaign was dearer to the prince’s heart than even the crusade against the Cumans. He had prepared the ground for years, marrying one of his daughters to the King of Hungary and another to the King of Poland.
‘Nothing will stop him,’ Sviatopolk often declared. ‘Then they’re going to force the price up, and make a fortune.’ Even now, the beauty of the scheme filled him with a kind of cold joy.
But he was not in the cartel. Though he had served the Prince of Kiev well – no one ever accused him of failing in his duty – he had never been invited into the inner circle; and as time went on, he knew that his influence was slowly waning. ‘He’s not the man his father was,’ people said. ‘Or his brother,’ they sometimes added. It was his awareness of this last comment that ate into his soul, and made him all the more determined to impress the world.
If the prince would not make him rich, he would find other ways.
So had begun the series of bad investments. There was the futile attempt to bring salt from the Black Sea. Who knew what had become of those Khazar merchants and their camels in the southern