The Golden Horde Read online

  Not that the Sight was any great use, to hear the stories. It didn’t help find lost things or see accurate events in the future, but it could cast a brightness or a shadow, an intimation of something good or bad waiting to happen. Even had it been more useful the Sight was no gift to wish on anyone. If one was minded that way it was possible to worry about what the impending light or darkness might mean to the exclusion of all else, including sanity.

  That was the tale, anyway. If Tsar Aleksandr felt that a young Tsar was needed to face whatever might happen tomorrow, next month, next year or whenever, then even if his reasoning was almost impossible to explain, that reasoning would be sound.

  Ivan felt his courage shrivel inside him as it sometimes did when he stood on the open brink of a tall place, but rather than step back he jumped. “I accept the charge,” he said, clearly enough to be heard all the way to the back of the Council Chamber, “and will be such a Tsar as my father would wish.”

  The words were simple; generations of ritual hadn’t yet encrusted them with elaborate phrases of acceptance. But once those words were spoken, whether here and now in front of the Council and the druzhinya or more usually intoned softly beside the bed where the last Tsar lay newly dead, the Prince who uttered them was Prince no longer.

  Ivan was Tsar, by birth, by decree and – after an uncomfortable few seconds of hesitation among the councillors and glances exchanged by the boyaryy and bogatyri of the Tsar’s retinue – by popular acclaim as they stood up and cheered. There was nothing else for them to do except stand up and cheer, except be declared a traitor.

  Despite the warmth in the great wooden hall brought on by braziers and fur-wrapped bodies, the drops of sweat that formed and trickled down the hollow of his back felt cold. It wasn’t entirely the Council’s reluctance to see him as Tsar, though that had a part in it. But Ivan had been watching his father’s face as he took the plunge into the sea of monarchy with all its shallows, rocks and sharks, and the expression he glimpsed had brought the sweat and shivers to his spine.

  Because there was relief on Tsar Aleksandr’s face, and it was a terrible thing to see.

  *

  The Independent Tsardom of Khorlov;

  June, 1237 A.D.

  “I think,” said Tsar Ivan wearily as he sprinkled sand on the wet ink of the last sheet of parchment and pushed it aside, “my father should be commended.”

  “Why this time especially?” Mar’ya Morevna poured him a cup of wine without being asked and slid it between his pen-cramped fingers.

  Ivan drank the cup empty in three swallows and held it out for a refill before he replied. “For not abdicating years ago. I’m – Oh no you don’t!”

  That was addressed to Tsarevna Anastasya Ivanovna, who was trying to chew his most recently-completed document to a malleable consistency. Mar’ya Morevna had brought the eighteen-month-old twins to keep their father company and watch him at work, but far more interesting were the tools of that work. There were newly-trimmed quills that broke with a satisfying snap, molten sealing-wax simmering over alcohol lamps, a heavy silver inkwell containing reputedly indelible black ink and a bottle to refill it, containers of fine silver sand for rubbing into their own or preferably someone else’s eyes, and many sheets of paper that might prove edible if chewed and dribbled on for long enough.

  Ivan had never realized before how much destructive entertainment the secretarial impedimenta of the realm could provide, or how dangerous to small fingers it could be. He reached over and extracted his daughter from the middle of the next six months’ legislation for the Tsardom, more than half inclined to leave her there to see how it might be improved. Setting the child onto the floor, where she immediately toddled off to do something horrible to her brother, he slapped the stack of paperwork back into something resembling order. There was a similar stack waiting for the morning, but some servant with good sense had covered them all with a cloth and put a block of crystal as a weight on top, just to get them out of the Tsar’s sight.

  “I thought you got used to this side of ruling a domain when we lived in Koldunov,” said Mar’ya Morevna. “You’re getting as good at it as Strel’tsin.”

  If those were meant to be words of encouragement, they fell distinctly flat. “Let’s leave Dmitriy Vasil’yevich out of this, shall we? I’ve had enough of him for one day.” Ivan took a long pull at the replenished cup, as if the sharp tang of the white Krimean wine could wash the taste of hard work from his mind as well as his mouth. “Your High Steward was a great deal more obliging than mine. Strel’tsin believes I can best learn by doing; Fedor Konstantinovich at least had the good grace to try teaching me how to do what I was trying to learn.”

  The First Minister had been with them for the greater part of the day; five hours of administration that felt much longer, before breaking for a hasty luncheon then this damned scrivener’s work for the rest of the afternoon. It was at such times that Ivan understood that air of relief he’d seen on his father’s face, when Tsar Aleksandr finally pushed his abdication through the Council’s doubts and disapprovals. It was also at those times he failed most completely to understand the attractions kingship had for adventurers in the old byliniy tales.

  Those stories never went beyond golden thrones and golden crowns and golden cups. They never mentioned how the thrones hurt your backside worse than any saddle, and the crowns hurt your head worse than any helmet, and the cups hurt your mouth and jarred against your teeth unless you were very careful indeed and, because it was difficult to get the embossed interiors completely clean, they always gave any new cupful of wine a distinctive and far from pleasant flavour of the last one.

  At least Khorlov’s Great Crown didn’t need to be worn more than once, at the coronation, and though some of the lesser crowns were almost as heavy, they were worn only when the proper occasion demanded it. For the rest of the time, when he wore anything that might be called a crown at all, Ivan had persuaded Strel’tsin – in his role of High Steward and custodian of customs and traditions – that a new, younger Tsar with new, younger ideas could make do very nicely with a row of worked-gold plaques set into the band of his favourite and most comfortable fur-brimmed hat, with a clasp of gold and pearls at the front, as worn by the voivodes of Wallachia and Transylvania. It held a spray of egret and peacock feathers, so the whole effect looked magnificent enough without leaving a groove on its wearer’s forehead.

  For all that, Strel’tsin – who didn’t have to wear the damned thing – sniffed at the way it looked and made observations about how it seemed more appropriate to a heathen Saracen emir than a Tsar of Holy Mother Russia. Ivan thought about what the Wallachians would have said about that, and muttered something under his breath, and offered to lay the matter open to discussion.

  That was another thing the stories didn’t mention about being a Tsar or a Prince or a King: getting your own way was seldom as simple as saying ‘do this’ and watching it be done. It usually involved pen, ink, parchment and discussion, always discussion. No matter how Strel’tsin pronounced that word, Ivan discovered that what it invariably meant was ‘argument.’

  As if keeping a leash on his annoyance with the realm’s First Minister wasn’t enough, there was arbitration in pointless disputes between the boyaryy and lesser nobility. In the old days, the two or more parties would simply have arranged alliances then indulged in a vicious little private war until enough peasant levies had been slaughtered to satisfy the injured dignity of either side. Ivan’s grandfather Tsar Andrey had put a stop to that, reasoning rightly that if enough boyaryy got into an altercation at the same time there wouldn’t be enough peasants left alive to bring in the harvest. It was a just, wise and well-reasoned law, but there were times after one representative or another had been droning rights and precedents for an hour at a time, when Ivan felt inclined to throw old Andrey’s ruling out of the nearest window, give each man a sword, and let them fight it out in open court.

  “At least you are learning,�
� said Mar’ya Morevna, patting his hand reassuringly. She smiled wickedly and sipped at her own wine. “Even if it’s only how to keep your face from showing what you’re thinking.”

  Ivan looked at her thoughtfully and hunched his shoulders, then pulled at his still-youthful short beard. “Noble Lady, you should be more respectful to the Tsar your husband,” he said, a fair imitation of Strel’tsin in one of his drier and more creaky moods. Mar’ya Morevna exploded in a splutter half laughter, half wine, and almost a complete risk to the newly finished court papers. Ivan mopped briskly with the small cloth he kept for wiping ink off his fingers and nodded in shrivelled approval. “Yes, Lady, like that. Much better. Ah, how quickly you learn the elevated manners of this court …”

  “If you want to act the fool,” said Mar’ya Morevna when she finally stopped laughing, “then go and do it for the children.”

  “I should really save it for the Kievans,” Ivan said with a grin, “except they’d probably just believe it proved everything they’ve ever been told about the Tsar of Khorlov.”

  “They’re still testing?”

  “As hard as ever. They – or rather, their Great Prince safe at home in his kremlin palace – want to find out how much they can provoke me before honour and policy force me to react.”

  “‘Honour and policy’? Strel’tsin’s words, I suppose.”

  “Yes. Did I mention ‘strictures of diplomacy’?

  Mar’ya Morevna sighed. “You didn’t have to.”

  The practice of testing a new ruler’s fortitude was common enough, especially if that ruler was young, and Ivan walked a tightrope every time one of the other city-states sent a delegation of ambassadors to Khorlov, hiding his frequent annoyance behind a bland diplomatic mask. Too weak a response was just as damning as too severe; one might encourage other Princes to take liberties with the interpretation of a border, but the other would discourage them from friendly alliances. He had to prove steady and reliable, while all the time controlling a desire to see the smiling, mocking envoys kicked out of his throne-room, out of his kremlin, out of his realm and all the way back to where they came from.

  There was a thud, a splash and a pause just long enough for an intake of breath. Then a shrill wail of dismay came from somewhere underneath the table, and Mar’ya Morevna groaned in despair. “There was a bottle of ink on the table when I brought the children in, wasn’t there?”

  Ivan looked, and smiled wearily. “There was.” The wail became a howl of fury, and he peered briefly at its source. “Don’t worry, Kolya,” he told his son the Tsarevich Nikolai Ivanovich, as he combined the royal dignity of his outrage with a vigorous blowing of black bubbles, “it’s not poisonous. Oak-gall ink just tastes that way.”

  “You should use the Khitai ink-sticks,” said Mar’ya Morevna reprovingly. “Then this sort of thing wouldn’t happen.”

  “It wouldn’t happen if you hadn’t brought your daughter in here, and if she hadn’t tried to drown my son and heir.”

  “Where does this your and my business come from all of a sudden?” Mar’ya Morevna demanded, ready to bristle with fury until she saw the slow smile creeping over her husband’s face and decided merely to kill him. Instead she picked up the little Prince, wiped him in a not very hopeful way, then gave up since she was just spreading the ink into an even layer.

  “It ought to wash off,” said Ivan, “eventually.” He reached for the wine-flagon and poured himself another drink, topped up Mar’ya Morevna’s goblet, then turned curiously as the door of the chamber swung open. Any interest they might have had in this visitor died at sight of yet another long grey beard. It wasn’t High Steward Strel’tsin this time but Archbishop Levon Popovich, the Metropolitan Patriarch of Khorlov, probably the last person in the realm Ivan wanted to see after a long and busy day.

  Both he and Mar’ya Morevna managed to restrain their groans as they rose and bowed to the old prelate, but Ivan managed to catch his wife’s eye and wink. In situations such as this, it was a signal long arranged; at the second wink, she would suddenly remember or discover that both had to be urgently elsewhere, and they would make their escape. For now Ivan supposed he might as well give Archbishop Levon a few minutes, long enough to drink that last cupful of wine.

  “Good evening, Eminence,” he said as politely as impatience would allow. “You are well tonight?”

  The Archbishop blessed them both, then helped himself to the remaining wine without so much as a by-your-leave. “Well enough, Majesty, Highness,” he replied. “Well enough.” He didn’t look it; not sick or anything so obvious but with an air of unease about him, the look of a man with bad news and no good way to tell it.

  The silence dragged on until Ivan and Mar’ya Morevna both felt as uncomfortable as the Archbishop looked, and until it was obvious that subtle mental prompts to get on with it weren’t going to work. “Well, but not comfortable, Eminence,” said Mar’ya Morevna at last. “Something troubles you. Politics? Or religion?”

  Levon Popovich gave her a look that suggested he knew well enough when he was being made game of, no matter how gently. “Neither, Highness. Or perhaps both. It concerns the Tsar’s Majesty, and the well-being of his domains, and also it concerns you.”

  “Put that way, Eminence, it sounds more matter for the High Council than a private conversation here.”

  “I think not.”

  “Meaning?” Ivan drummed a quick tattoo on the table with his fingers. “We could go round and round all night with such vague intimations, my lord Archbishop, and I have other things with equal demands on my time. Come to the point.”

  The Archbishop set down his cup with a small, solid sound and stared at the swirls it caused in the surface of the wine as if hoping for inspiration. None came and at last he looked Ivan full in the face. “The point, Majesty, is the Art Magic.”

  This time Ivan didn’t bother stifling a grunt of annoyance. “The old bugbear again? I thought my father put you right on that. More than once, if I remember properly.”

  “He spoke to me on the subject, Majesty. As did your wife and your High Steward. And as you correctly recall, on more than one occasion. But on no occasion did any of those lectures ‘put me right’, as you are pleased to call it. For something to be put right, it must first be wrong.” He picked up the wine-cup and drank as Ivan had done, like a man trying to wash a bad taste from his mouth.

  “And what would you have me do about it that my father didn’t?”

  “The laws concerning wizardry, sorcery, call it whatever you will —”

  “The Art Magic,” said Mar’ya Morevna flatly.

  “— Are unacceptably lax in Khorlov and its dominions,” the Archbishop continued, as if she had never spoken.

  “Unacceptably… Who says so?” There was a crack of the knout in Ivan’s voice, but Levon Popovich either didn’t hear it or chose not to.

  “I do, Majesty.”

  “You said nothing of this at the Council meeting when my father gave me Khorlov and those same dominions, more than a year ago. Why so slow, Eminence?”

  “It didn’t concern me then, since you had been practicing the,” he glanced sidelong at Mar’ya Morevna, “the Art Magic for some years with no harm either to yourself or others.”

  “No harm? No harm?” Mar’ya Morevna flared up, losing all her patience and most of her manners. “Glory to God, Eminence, if that’s all you can say about my husband’s employment of the Art, you had best go read some of the chronicles that mention it. He saved this realm more than once, and your intolerant stiff neck along with it!”

  “The use of sorcery, noble Lady, is acceptable – if only just – in a youthful and headstrong Prince, but without precedent in a Tsar.”

  “Only because the precedent has never been set,” snapped Ivan. “Consider it done as of my coronation. Consider too the good that the Art has done for all the lands of the Rus. I haven’t heard you level any criticism at them, Eminence.”

  “What is done in Kiev is
on the head of the Prince of Kiev,” said Archbishop Levon. “I am Patriarch of Khorlov, and my concern is with Khorlov.”

  “Your concern, as you call it, is with me.”

  “Then Majesty, my concern is with your children as well.” He gazed thoughtfully at the two infants, who were being quiet for once and playing some game of their own invention with quill-pens shattered beyond repair. “Are they not being taught the, um, the Art?”

  “Yes, Eminence, they are. As they learn to talk, and while they learn their letters.” Levon Popovich looked aghast at this frank admission, and Ivan guessed he’d been expecting a far more reluctant response.

  “Eminence,” said Mar’ya Morevna, trying to be reasonable after her earlier outburst, “take heed of what was already said. The lowest peasant in Russia can create a little fire without flint and tinder if he knows the least part of the Art; just enough to light a candle in the dark or a stove to keep him warm. But most do nothing of the sort. It involves too much effort and an untrained mind would find it too much trouble. Besides,” she forced her mouth into a smile, though smiling at this wearisome priest was the last thing she wanted to do, “what would the poor yokel do if he started the fire burning on the wrong side of his skin? So he uses flint and tinder after all, and lifts a burden with his arms rather than the Art. But the potential is there.”

  “It’s that potential which has been so good for Russia, Eminence,” said Ivan. “It’s kept the Tatars at bay, except for their damned raids. They fear us, not as warrior adversaries but with the fear of superstition.”

  “Majesty, this is all very well and probably true.”

  Mar’ya Morevna drew a sharp breath to say exactly what she thought of that malicious comment, but swallowed the words and sat back in her chair as Ivan waved her to silence. “But sorcery,” continued Archbishop Levon remorselessly, “is intrinsically evil and while good may come from it, the Devil can quote scripture for his own ends.”