Yelisaveta Yaroslavna kicks her stallion to a gallop, splashes across a stream and through a stand of birches just coming into leaf, her long yellow hair streaming out behind her, her hawk riding on her fist, the greyhounds racing beside her. Ahead of her is her dacha, a neat little house of painted shingles and pointed eaves, her own house, where she never has to lay eyes on Ingigerd, her mother. Behind her rides her brother Vladimir and the others of their party. It has been a good day, her first hunt since the snows melted; she is bringing back ermine, weasel, hare, a baby fox.
Inside the garden gate she leaps from her lathered mount, tosses the reins to a groom, and runs into the house. With one motion, she flings off her cape and takes a proffered goblet of hot wine from Ala, her dwarf.
“Mistress, you have visitors,” Ala says. “Two foreigners came this morning, Varangians they said. They wanted a bath, I sent them to the sauna.”
“Then fetch them out.” She slaps the foolish girl on the cheek.
Varangians! She feels her heart beating. Can it be? At last?
She tosses down another draught of the wine, trying to calm herself. Meanwhile, her brother has slipped in through the door. Vladimir, at twenty, is five years younger than she. He is the only one in the family she loves.
“Volodya, it’s him!”
But it isn’t him, after all.
Two blond-bearded strangers appear in the doorway, shepherded by Ala, their faces red and hair damp from the sauna. Bolli Bollason and Ulf Ospaksson; they introduce themselves, speaking in Norse, a language she has hardly spoken since the day Harald fled from Novgorod, leaving her behind, a heart-broken girl of fifteen. She cannot hide her fear.
“Harald Sigurdsson? He isn’t ..?” Her throat is tight.
“He isn’t dead, Princess,” says the one called Bolli. “But he soon may be, or he may be blinded, or castrated. He is a prisoner these eight months. Sometimes he gets a message out to us—”
“So long!”
“We couldn’t come sooner. Storms at sea, your Russian winter. Take us to your father now. Only with his help is there a hope of rescuing Harald.”
Yaroslav the Wise, Grand Prince of Kievan Rus, is in his study, as usual, hunched over a book, a fur cap on his balding head and a rug over his knees against the cold. He is called ‘The Wise’ because he owns dozens of books in both Slavonic and Greek, and has even written a book of laws for his turbulent nation. But as a husband and a father? Perhaps not so wise. He looks up, blinking his watery eyes, as his children and two strangers enter.
“Young Harald in prison? But how can it be?” His hands flutter, he touches his white beard.
Bolli and Ulf, both speaking at once, pour out their well-rehearsed story. How the noble Harald was accused—unjustly—of rebelling against the Emperor, betrayed by his best friend, Odd Thorvaldsson, who schemed to get the post of Commandant for himself. At the mention of that name, Yelisaveta and Vladimir exchange a swift look. That youth with the shaggy black hair and glib tongue, Harald’s skald, clever at languages. A pagan, and didn’t care who knew it.
And their mother’s lover.
“Dear God,” cries Yaroslav. “Of course, we must rescue him … my daughter … and he … but how ..?” As the old man struggles with his words, there is the sound of a hacking cough from the doorway. Ingigerd, his wife, stands there, steadying herself with a hand on the jamb.
Yaroslav winces. “Yes, well, come in, my dear, we’ve just had some terrible—”
She takes them all in with a cold stare. The woman is more than fifty years old, the mother of ten children; she is bone thin, her skin like paper, and she has a sickness in her lungs. How much longer can she live? Only willpower keeps her going. Willpower and rage. She already knows what news these Varangians bring. She has a spy in her daughter’s house.
“Harald Sigurdsson in prison? Let his great carcass rot there. We haven’t heard from him in so long I dared hope he was dead.” A coughing fit overcomes her and she sinks onto a chair.
“Why must you hate him so, Mother?” Yelisaveta screams at her, making white-knuckled fists of her hands. “He came to us just a boy, seeking refuge with us, but you treated him like an enemy from the first day.”
“You know why,” Ingigerd hisses.
Yes, they all know why. All, that is, except innocent Yaroslav. As long as Harald lives, Magnus Olafsson, the young King of Norway, will never be safe on his throne. Ingigerd will do anything to protect Magnus, whose father she loved.
“I am nearly an old woman already, Mother. If I cannot marry Harald I will die, unloved, a virgin. Is that what you want for me?”
“You a virgin? Don’t tell me you haven’t had lovers, you little slut.”
“No, Mother, I have not, not like—”
A warning look from her brother stops her before she can say, Not like you and King Olaf, you and Odd Tangle-Hair.
“Please Inge,” Yaroslav raises his hands to heaven, “in Christ’s Name, or course we must do what we can for Harald in return for all the priceless gifts he’s sent us, and for the girl’s sake, or else see her gloomy face here forever. And yet—and yet I don’t know what.”
But Ulf speaks up now. He and Bolli have a plan to free Harald and their friend Halldor from prison, but it can only work if there is a diversion, and a friendly ship for them to escape to. And as the Varangians talk, young Vladimir’s eyes catch fire.
“Yes, Father, do it! And not one ship but a hundred ships, five hundred. We have them, and we have the men, eager to plunder these Greeks. We will do more than rescue Harald, we will avenge his suffering.” Vladimir is captain of the druzhina, the elite warriors of the Rus army. “My druzhiniks grow fat and lazy. And it has been a hundred years since your grandfather Igor laid siege to Constantinople—”
“And what a disaster that was,” Yaroslav wails. “Those devilish fire-breathing machines. Who can stand against them?”
“But his time I will be in command.”
“And I will be with you on the deck to receive my bridegroom,” cries Yelisaveta, embracing her brother and kissing his cheeks.
“Yes, all right, yes, my son.” Even in Yaroslav’s old breast there still beats a warrior’s heart, though faintly. He pulls down a dusty volume from his shelf, opens it to a map of Constantinople.
And while they plan, Ingigerd, coughing and clutching her chest, staggers from the room.