Christmas morning.
I stood in the church with Harald and Dag and a great crowd of boyars and druzhiniks together with their families; stood for four interminable hours while the cold numbed my feet and crept up my legs. In Gardariki the Christmen think nothing of praying for three or four hours at a stretch and they have no benches in their churches. If only to keep the blood flowing, they are constantly in motion—crossing themselves, bowing, kneeling, standing again—and all the while smiling, whispering, and signaling to their friends.
Despite the discomfort of it, it was a spectacle worth seeing: The rumble of bass voices droning in the dark hollow of the church so as to make the floor hum under your shoes; the peopled walls alive with painted saints in the flickering candlelight; clouds of perfumed incense drifting in the air while the bishop and his minions, in brocades stiff with golden thread, performed their secret magic at the altar.
Yaroslav, too, appeared in full regalia with his sons beside him, all of whom, even to the baby, wore the golden torques of Rus Princes around their necks. And Ingigerd, standing with her daughters in the women’s gallery, glowed like one of her own icons in silken gown and necklaces of topaz, amethyst, and pearl. Damn the woman!
The feast that followed marked an end to the six weeks of fasting which the Christmen observe before their god’s birthday. Meat appeared once more in the marketplace and there began an orgy of eating and drinking throughout the city that lasted till Epiphany, twelve days later.
In times gone by, when Grand Prince Vladimir reigned in Kiev, the whole population of the town, rich and poor alike, it was said, were treated to a banquet in the palace. But Yaroslav was too tight-fisted for charity on such a scale. It was only the usual mob of furred and booted boyars, rowdy druzhiniks, and even rowdier monks that sat down to dinner with the prince and his family.
Still, this was a goodly number of guests, who in one sitting consumed (I was told by Cook) fifty-six roast pigs, fowls innumerable, an arm’s length of sausage per man, and thirty casks of mead and ale.
In honor of the season, the floor and tables in the great hall were strewn with new straw; sheaves of wheat from the autumn’s harvest were placed in all the corners; and a huge Christmas candle, its butt stuck into a loaf of Christmas bread, was set in the center of the table.
A few places down and across the table from me sat Inge. Laughing and radiant, she was devoting herself entirely to her husband and Eilif. Since it was out of the question that either of those two had said anything the least bit amusing, I concluded that her gaiety was put on for my benefit; she knew without even looking that I was watching her. Damn and damn her again!
Beyond Inge, on Eilif’s other side, Yelisaveta sat. The young princess had never looked lovelier, what with gold rings plaited in her hair and her brocaded gown trimmed with ermine. But she was unhappy and didn’t care who knew it. While Eilif, her betrothed, launched clumsy pleasantries at her like rocks from a catapult, Yelisaveta frowned at her plate or else turned round to feed morsels to her dwarf, Nenilushka, who took the offered food between her teeth like some pet animal.
Across from me sat Harald, so far separated from Yelisaveta (as was the rule now) that the two could not even see each other, let alone speak. He too scowled at his meat and ground it between his teeth as though it were his enemies’ flesh and bones.
And this was only the beginning.
Two things happened in the course of our dinner that pretty well squelched the festivities.
The first concerned Father Vorobey, who always put in an appearance at the Christmas feast. As the hour progressed and he did not appear, Yaroslav grew worried. The starets had not been at mass that morning either and no one, in fact, could remember seeing him since the week before last. Finally, the prince went himself to look for him in his hut, and found him—kneeling before an icon of the Virgin with his hands raised above his head in an attitude of worship.
It was only when Yaroslav ventured to touch him that he perceived the man was frozen hard as a rock. Apparently his supply of fuel had run out during the night while he was lost in meditation.
In tones of sorrow Yaroslav reported his bizarre and melancholy discovery to us. He hoped, nevertheless, he said, to prevail upon God to restore life to his holy fool, and the bishop hastened to assure him that nothing in the way of beseeching would be left undone.
We had scarcely recovered from this first blow to our spirits, when the second and by far the more serious one occurred—though it began innocently enough. The Christmen have a custom of giving each other gifts on Christmas day. Accordingly, while we ate, small presents from Yaroslav were handed round the table to each of us, Thordis acting the part of the babushka, or old woman, who customarily delivers them. In every case they were either glass beads, or copper-gilt brooches, or some other cheap trinket.
“Einar Sveinsson as goes by the name of Tree-Foot,” said Thordis stopping beside him. “Nor not only something from the prince but a little bit of a thing from me as well, which hoping it won’t be took amiss.” Her old cheeks covered with blushes, she thrust two small packets at him and fled to the farthest end of the table.
Einar unwrapped the first packet, which contained a tarnished brass belt-buckle from our generous prince and provider. On opening the second he let out a merry cackle and held up for all of us to see—an eye-patch, made of red silk and embroidered all around the edge with golden thread. Not waiting a moment but whipping off his customary soiled rag, he put the patch on, adjusted it just so, and hobbled—one might almost say danced—directly down to where his lady-love stood and, before she could flee again, delivered a loud smacking kiss upon her lips, which caused the children to shriek with delight.
When the uproar had died down a little, Ingigerd said sweetly, “Thordis dear, if you can walk without your knees trembling—and I shall certainly forgive you if you can’t—come here to me now for there is one more present I would have you deliver.”
The nurse obeyed, some whispered words passed between the two women, and Inge placed an object in her hands.
“To Harald Sigurdsson,” said Thordis, “with the compliments of Princess Ingigerd and may you always think of her when you look at it.” This speech she mumbled very rapidly and, setting the thing down at his elbow, beat a swift retreat. You would suppose she knew what was coming.
The object, whatever it was, was in a cloth bag tied at the neck with a drawstring. With a wary look, Harald undid it, reached inside, and brought forth a silver pig—small enough to just fit in the palm of his hand and cunningly formed in every detail.
“Why—?” he began. Then turning it over he saw that it was a sow with teats.
“Happy Christmas,” called Eilif with a grin all over his ugly face.
Great One-Eyed Odin, I remember thinking, here’s the end of us for sure!
I was very nearly right.
Eilif and Inge, you see, were openly ridiculing Harald’s inferior birth. He and his half-brother Olaf, you may recall, had the same mother, but while her first husband, Olaf’s father, sprang from the Ynglings—the ancient royal line of Norway that boasted the god Frey as its progenitor—her second, whom she married many years later, was only a minor kinglet named Sigurd Sow. He had earned this ignoble nickname by caring so little for his dignity as to work side by side with the laborers on his farm, even to slopping the pigs with his own hands. Here, then, was Inge’s revenge on Harald for trying to usurp Magnus’ place as Olaf’s heir and in daring to court her daughter. For, concubine’s son though Magnus was, the Yngling blood ran in his veins but not a drop of it in Harald’s.
“Suee, suee, suee!” Eilif cried, cupping his hands and yelling down the length of the table. There was scattered laughter, though most of those present hadn’t the least idea what any of this was about. They only saw Harald’s fist, white-knuckled, close around the pig.
Of course, he should have laughed too—that’s what Dag would have done. If the enemy had sunk to such childishness as this, it was as good as an admission of their impotence. But Inge and Eilif knew their man better than that, and he didn’t disappoint them.
“Eilif Ragnvaldsson, I keep pigs on my farm too,” said Harald in a voice tight with anger, “nor am I ashamed to feed ’em with my own hands. And d’you know what I shall feed ’em with, Eilif? You! And the princess can call me ‘sow’ all she pleases while I feed you to my pigs!”
Dag tried to quiet him but, as usual, without success. Harald only got louder as resentments that had festered for years found their voice at last.
“You fancy Olaf’s blood more than mine, do you, Princess? Why, when I saw it flow at Stiklestad it looked no different from other men’s—no different from mine! Admire his blood, is it? Almighty God, his blood was cold as ice-water, for the man hadn’t a human heart in him at all! But maybe you know that, eh, Ingigerd? Maybe you found that out for yourself, eh? Come, Princess, we know what he was like: selfish, cruel, stupid; if that’s how saints are made, then I reckon he is one!”
It was exactly what she’d hoped he would do. Every Norwegian face in the room wore an expression of shock.
Clutching the pig in his huge fist, he rose and came along the bench towards her. She stood to face him—fearless, though he towered over her. Eilif, the coward, kept to his seat behind her, doing his best to look innocent.
“Princess,” said Harald, “it’s a fine gift you’ve given me—too fine for a farmer’s son. You would have spent your silver better, Lady, to hire more assassins, more heathen witches! That’s your style, isn’t it?” He drew back his arm. “So I give it back to you, Princess, to remember me by—”
Harald flung the pig in a downward direction at Inge’s head but she dodged to the side and instead it struck Eilif square on his forehead. The whites of his eyes rolled up and he slid senseless to the floor. The pig, rebounding, skittered along the table top and came to rest in front of Yelisaveta. She, with a flair for gesture worthy of her mother, picked it up and touched it to her lips.
Immediately Eilif’s Swedes, those who were at table with us, leapt to their feet—not that they gave half a damn for their captain but the honor of the druzhina was at stake. Of swords and axes there were none, thankfully, for on Christ’s birthday we were forbidden to come to the table armed for war, as we usually did. Still, there were lots of knives about.
What saved us was Yaroslav, for a change, behaving almost like the master of his house.
“Harald Sigurdsson, in God’s name, have you gone mad? Shedding a man’s blood on this day and breaking the peace of Christ? No, gospodin, it can’t be tolerated. Now I shall ask you to, ah, to take your men and leave this hall at once. D’you hear me? Nor show your face again until I give you permission. There. There you are, sir.”
To my great relief—for I figured he was quite capable of battering Yaroslav too in his present mood—Harald obeyed. Our men, reluctantly leaving behind their roast pork and sausage all but un-tasted, fell in behind him and we stalked out of the banqueting hall in silence. As I turned to go, I saw a smile on Ingigerd’s face. Short of producing a bloody riot, this had surpassed all her expectations. She had dealt her enemy a death wound this time.
When we had Harald alone in one of those little rooms nearby the hall, Dag was not slow to tell him why:
“Idiot! What do you think has kept us afloat at this court? Olaf! That king, whose name you made so free with, happens to be our only piece on the board—without him we have no game at all! Nobody but Ingigerd cares if you’re a bloody Yngling or not. You are brother to a saint! You fought at his side. To save his precious life you shed your blood. That is why our Norwegians follow you instead of Magnus. And what do you do? You mock him, you insult his memory! God in heaven! She set a trap for you and you fell right into it! Does nobody here use his brains but me!” He paced around the room, pounding his fist into his hand. I’d never seen him so angry.
But Harald put an end to our little discussion with a bellow of rage and frustration, “Out of my way or I’ll break you! I want no more advice from you or anyone!”
Assuming that ‘anyone’ included me, I stood back and gave him a clear path to the door, where he was headed. So did Dag at the last moment, or I’m sure Harald would have torn an arm off him at the very least. As it was, Dag looked crushed. Our game was finished. It had been a piece of folly to begin with. Ingigerd had only to find out Harald’s weak spot, stick in the knife and twist it; he had done the rest all by himself. Damn the woman!
Harald rode off to his dvor, no doubt to beat the servants bloody and have a good brood. Dag and I pushed our way through the mob of Norwegians who crowded round us in the vestibule, shouting angry questions, and hastened off to an ale house in the town, where we too could brood, like black-hearted Loki, over the ruin of our world. Not wanting to spend the night either at Harald’s, or in the barracks, or the palace, we wound up sleeping there.
By the next morning, however, Dag had regained his spirits somewhat. Harald had been victimized, dammit; insulted most intolerably! What man of spirit would not have taken offense? Prince Yaroslav was a fair man and must already be regretting his wife’s low attack on the most enterprising of his officers. We must get to Yaroslav, he said decisively, without a moment’s delay.
Unfortunately, we couldn’t, thanks to Father Vorobey having picked this inconvenient moment to die. Yaroslav, to my amazement, was quite serious about restoring him to life. For three solid days and nights, stopping only for a little sleep and nourishment, Yaroslav badgered the Virgin Mary to carry his prayers to God, while the bishop (whom I always suspected of despising the Holy Fool) laid on the incense and the music. Meanwhile the grumblings of the Norwegians grew louder as their chief continued to hide from them. Finally, Yaroslav had to admit defeat and ordered the carpenters to prepare a coffin for Vorobey which would fit his unusual posture—it proving, by this time, impossible to straighten him out. (I barely controlled the urge to suggest that they mount him on the palace roof until the spring thaw; what a striking masthead it would have made!)
The funeral at last concluded, we were admitted to Yaroslav’s study where we found the old man weary and depressed.
I won’t try to recount all our conversation, which was halting and disjointed, as the prince seemed barely able to concentrate on our words. Dag mentioned Ingigerd’s name but Yaroslav silenced him with a gesture of annoyance. Plainly, he would hear nothing against her. All right, we decided, ignore Ingigerd, concentrate on Eilif. That line of attack succeeded beautifully. Yes, of course, Yaroslav agreed, the whole business was Eilif’s fault and he must be made to pay. Messengers were dispatched at once to summon Eilif and Harald to an audience, and the one to Harald was instructed to say that he would find the outcome very much to his liking.
The captain of the druzhina was first to arrive, with a nasty purple lump on his forehead. Mind you, he’d only just gotten rid of the splint on his right wrist a week or so before. The question, I thought, was not so much whether Harald or Inge would prevail in the end but whether Eilif would live to see it.
To be brief, Eilif was found guilty of provoking a fight on the Lord’s birthday and condemned to pay Harald twenty times the weight of the pig, an amount equal to forty grivny, in silver. Harald’s spirits lifted instantly as Eilif’s plummeted, and he went straight from the palace to the Norwegian barracks, where he found most of his men sitting about the place idle, disgusted, and truculent. But here was Harald at his best. Stick him in front of some fighting men and no one had to tell him what to say. Ingigerd had thought to divide him from his men, to whom Olaf’s name was sacred, but she made the mistake of underestimating his enormous natural talent for talking to simpletons—which is surely the greatest part of being a successful commander.
Leaping up on a table and calling them his fellow soldiers, he looked them squarely in the eyes and swore he hadn’t said any of the things they’d heard him say, and offered to lay his hand on a red-hot anvil if his word wasn’t good enough for them. Without giving them too much time to think that over, he promised to divide amongst them the entire amount of silver owed him by Eilif, because it was they who had been insulted, as much as himself, and damned if he would let some bloody Swede get away with that! And didn’t they wind up cheering themselves hoarse and carrying him round the barracks on their shoulders!
But there was still worse to come, from Ingigerd and Eilif’s point of view. Dag that very night came up with an inspired idea, the sort of thing only he could have thought of, and instructed me to mention it to Harald. His advice would get a better hearing, he knew, if it came from me, which, after all, was what I’d been enlisted for in the first place.
The result was that after dinner the following day Harald asked Yaroslav’s permission to speak to the assembled court. In the hearing of all the druzhiniks, both his Norwegians and Eilif’s Swedes, he proposed the dedication of a church to Saint Olaf, to be built entirely from contributions and to be a place of worship for all the Catholic Scandinavians in Novgorod. If the prince and princess would give his project their blessing, he himself was ready to lay down a hundred pounds of silver on the spot to start it going.
Bishop Yefrem turned a lovely shade of purple—being Orthodox, you see, and hating the Catholics—but he suffered it in silence.
As did Ingigerd also. From the expressions that crossed her face, I could just about guess her feelings: first, astonished mirth at the very nerve of him; then dismay as he seemed to be actually getting away with it (the table pounding of the druzhiniks, including even the Swedes, was thunderous); and last, cold fury as the realization dawned that she could not afford to oppose him and, in fact, must publicly congratulate him for these pious sentiments.
Hating her as I did—oh, yes, I had hated her for weeks now, did I forget to say so?—hating her as I did, I delighted in her twitching lips and stumbling words. At last this proud and foolish woman had taken a fall!
All in all, the tables had been turned very neatly. Not only was Harald not divided from his men—quite the contrary—but Ingigerd and Eilif came out of the affair looking very bad. For Eilif it was a disaster. Offering a scurrilous insult to Harald in the first place, then letting himself be floored without striking a blow, and, to top all, being fined forty grivny for his pains—it stripped him of the last shred of authority. Oh, he went on posing as captain of the druzhina, but from that time on he had no influence with the men at all, and they, held in check by neither a prince nor a captain whom they respected, soon got completely out of hand.
As for the famous silver pig which started it all, taken and hidden by Yelisaveta and passed from child to child, it finally came back to Harald, who showed it off to everyone as if it were a badge of honor. Altogether, very neat.
Curiously enough, it was the very next day that, happening to visit the palace latrine and happening, for some reason, to glance at our ‘message tree’, I saw a red thread tied to its twig.
You recall that I just said I hated Inge? My heart leapt to see that red thread! Leapt as if nothing else mattered in all the world but her; leapt and went on leaping the closer to Gorodische I came, for I commandeered a sleigh and set off on the instant.
To my knock the door flew open and Inge, my lovely Inge, threw herself into my arms, buried her head against my chest, and through her tears told me how miserable she had been and how we must never, never quarrel again, and without a second’s delay drew me into her bedroom and began to pull off my clothes, and as we made love and she neared the climax, cried, moaning, that she loved me.
Well, I mean to say—how often do one’s daydreams come true?
The next day I will always remember for pure, free, careless joy. Never mind what came afterwards—I would not part with the memory of it for anything. I drove our sleigh over dazzling fields of snow, with Inge, swathed in ermine, on the seat beside me—red-cheeked, snow crystals on her lashes, laughing as we tore along at a breathless pace, and Sirko raced beside us. Afterwards, we dined at her lodge on caviar, goose, and venison, and in the evening drank wine and made love. During the whole time we never spoke the names of Harald, Eilif, or Yelisaveta. As it drew towards night, I took my leave of her with many kisses and set off homewards. (She would remain at Gorodische one more day, we decided, for appearance’s sake.)
As I entered the Norwegians’ barracks, Dag sprang upon me as if he’d been watching out for me all day long, and asked me, in a tone I didn’t quite like, to take a walk with him.
“Just how long have you been romping on the princess’s belly?” he asked straight out. Never a one to mince words, Dag.
“What? Don’t be absurd. I don’t know what you’re—”
“Save your breath. It was a suspicion and you’ve just confirmed it. You’re a bad liar, Odd, it’s one of the things I like about you.”
“How did you guess?”
“One notices things—especially when the lovers have quarreled.”
“Who else knows?”
“Do you think you’d still be alive if anyone else knew?”
“I see. And what do you plan to do now, tell Harald?”
“Oh, I like you much too much for that, but you must earn my silence, Odd. Ingigerd will try again to kill him and keep on until she succeeds. I don’t underestimate either her malice or her resources.”
“Nonsense! I know she’d like to see his backside going away, but you haven’t a speck of proof that she ever tried to kill him.”
“Jesu! What a performance she must be putting on for you, I’d love to see it. But the facts, my friend, are otherwise, whether you care to face them or not. Now, setting aside your tender heart, I have to know what she plans to do next.”
“If you’re asking me to spy on her—”
“Asking you? I’m telling you. It’s that or face Harald—who will not be pleased.”
This was bluff. Harald would raise such hell that all Novgorod would know about it by morning, which was the last thing Dag wanted. We’d all have to pack up our kit and leave.
“Then, tell him and be damned! I haven’t betrayed the smallest confidence. She asks me nothing about him.”
“How would you even know, you innocent! Can you account for everything you’ve said to her? Every word—what he likes to eat, whom he sleeps with, the hours he keeps, who guards him at night.”
“No, nothing!”
He stopped to look at me long and hard. “Give her up, Odd.”
“No.”
“What d’you think—that she loves you?”
“What I think is none of your business.”
“You are a stubborn lad, as I begin to see.”
“I could have told you that.”
“It won’t last, you know. Sooner or later Harald or Yaroslav will find you out; either way it’ll be the end for you, and probably for us all. What am I going to do with you?”
“I should have me killed, Dag Hringsson, if I were you. There’s nothing else for it.”
He let out a sigh that hung frozen, a little cloud of ice, in the air.
“It may come to that. In the meantime do me, at least, the favor of keeping your mouth shut and your ears open. You owe me that much. And for the rest, God help us.” He turned abruptly and walked away.
Poor Dag. What a task he’d cut out for himself: making Harald and me—his two trained bears—dance the steps he gave us. I saw weariness in his eyes and the beginning of fear. Fear, I think, that he was building on sand and that the first strong tide would wash us all away.