The winter passed pleasantly enough. I devoted much of it to improving my Slavonic with the assistance of a girl from the town whom I slept with.
And I spent much time in the company of young Volodya. He too was happy to be staying in Kiev. Novgorod, with his mother, nurse, and tutor, held no charms for him, while here were chances for danger and adventure. The Pechenegs disappointed him by never once showing their faces, but still there was tracking and hunting, skating, skiing, and sleigh-riding to occupy him—all of which he was keen on.
Harald often invited himself along on these outings. From the start he patronized the boy, pretending they were great chums while never missing a chance to show him the ‘correct’ way to draw a bowstring, to build a camp fire, to launch a falcon (which Harald himself had not known before a year ago). Volodya bore all this patiently enough, but when Harald boasted to him one day, “You shall soon have me for a brother-in-law, young’un, what d’you say to that?” the boy regarded him silently for a moment and replied:
“Eilif once said the same thing to me, friend Harald—those very words—and look at him now.”
“What?” Harald spluttered, “Why, damn you—!”
Volodya turned his back and marched away, leaving the captain of the druzhina fuming.
What led up to this boast of Harald’s was the following. The previous night Yaroslav had drunk rather deeper than he was used to and was in an expansive mood. (Barrels of wine and ale had, by now, been brought in from the towns upriver.) As we all sat talking after supper, he turned to Harald suddenly and said:
“Look here, Harald Sigurdsson—been meaning to bring this up, waiting for the proper moment. You needn’t answer right away but give it a thinking over, will you? I mean to say, Eilif’s dead now, isn’t he, God help his soul, and so his betrothal to my Yelisaveta—well, that’s obvious, isn’t it? But still I favor the idea of uniting the captain of the druzhina to my family by a marriage. Now, I know what you’re going to say—she is a bit wild, feuds with her mother and that sort of thing, but she’s young, she’ll settle down, and she is a lovely thing to look at, now you must admit that. Of course, Ingigerd has it in for you a bit, hasn’t she? Oh, I notice things, you know, though really I don’t know why. She has her moods and quirks. Well, I suppose, married to a man so much older than herself, and Novgorod’s a gloomy place, I’m the first to admit it. Sometimes, you know, I think I should have been a monk, I crave the solitary life. But we princes have our duty, like it or not. We must father more princes to take our place—and what a prince I have fathered, eh? What a young lion!” He embraced his son, who sat quietly beside him, and kissed his cheeks. “Now, what was I saying—oh yes, your marriage to Yelisaveta. We’ll bring Ingigerd around to it, just you let me handle that part of it. But here I am running ahead of myself and don’t even know if you favor the match or not.” He paused and looked at Harald expectantly.
“You do me great honor, Prince,” replied Harald gravely. “Though I have only a passing acquaintance with your daughter, she seems to me a virtuous and good-hearted girl, as befits the child of such a father. With your permission I will begin my suit the very day we return to Novgorod, and furthermore I will make it my business to gain the friendship of the Lady Ingigerd, whose dislike of me I find both painful and mystifying.”
He avoided my eyes for fear he would burst out laughing in the old man’s face.
Ye gods, I thought, if only Dag were here! This smooth piece of work is worthy of the master himself!
Inside him I knew that Harald was shouting with glee, and, as soon as Yaroslav had limped off to bed, he did precisely that: shouted, pranced, and drank until dawn in a state of mind that seemed equal parts joy and madness.
Without his knowledge, Yaroslav’s words had had an effect on me, too. As I said, I had succeeded pretty well over the winter in driving Inge from my thoughts. Novgorod and its intrigues seemed very far away, and the question of Inge’s part in those various attacks on Harald was no more to me than a sort of weary perplexity, when I allowed myself to think of it at all. But the first breeze of spring carried the scent of her perfume on it and seductive memories invaded my waking and my sleep: of Inge’s skin, slick with sweat, in the steam bath; of the nervous excitement before each tryst; of late nights sipping wine before her fire; of rolling in her bed while good Saint Irene, veil over face, saw nothing.
In short, I itched for her again. Could I, I wondered, give all that up for mere prudence sake? It was Yaroslav who decided the question for me, because the offer of his daughter to Harald meant that Dag’s strategy, even without Dag to guide it, was bearing fruit. What I’d taken on faith so far, I could see happening now. Harald, backed by all the resources of a rich and doting father-in-law, reclaiming Norway from the Danes, installing Yelisaveta as his queen, and sending me home to Iceland a rich and influential man, able to take vengeance at last on the murderers of my family.
I must do nothing to jeopardize that. Let Inge be as innocent as an angel, it no longer mattered. Now, more than ever, loving her could only bring me to grief. Her daughter’s betrothal to the hated Harald would provoke a domestic crisis beyond anything that poor, fond Yaroslav could imagine. I knew Inge that well, at least. And when it came, I had better be clearly on one side or the other, because the fence that I had straddled up till now would be flattened at the first assault. There was no middle ground any more.
No! I told myself. If I ever loved her, I do no more. My allegiance goes where my interest lies. The business between us, whatever it meant for her or for me, is over. On the first day that I set foot in Yaroslav’s dvor I will tell her so. By Christ and Odin I swear it.
How strong, how resolute I felt, having sworn this great oath! How easy when a thousand versts lay between us.
April. The ice broke up in the Dnieper. The Kievans, who, as far as I could see, had done remarkably little all this time in the way of forging weapons or drilling their militia, reluctantly gave us back our liberty.
Prince Yaroslav had done nothing all winter long but moon about ‘his Lady’, forced to bear the burden of government on her frail shoulders these many months. For her sake he had lit candles by the armload and worried himself sick with imaginary fears.
Now, in our fleet of borrowed strugi he made the men bend to their oars just as hard as when we were racing the other direction to Kiev’s rescue. Harald, as I have said, was equally hot to be home: to claim his bride and drive Ingigerd insane with rage. What a consummation of his desires!
And now I, too, was ready. Like a man who has made up his mind to bear an ordeal—to have a rotten tooth pulled or an arrow cut out of his hide—let it come now, I thought. Let there be no more waiting.
Our swift ships devoured the miles to Novgorod.