Firebird (Tales of Old Russia Book 2) Page 6

  “Just so.” Mar’ya Morevna laughed that abrupt little laugh of hers that could as easily mean trouble as good humour. “It would do exactly that. And it seems, beloved, that you’ve spent more time with your books than I thought. Well done.”

  This time, knowing both the laugh and the tone of voice in which she spoke, Ivan took his wife’s hand and lightly kissed the back of it. To the spies – unless they knew Mar’ya Morevna far too well – it was no more than a loving gesture. For Ivan and his dear wife, whose marriage could be a boisterous affair when it had to be, it was a defensive movement closely related to grabbing an opponent’s sword-hand…

  “Thank you. But sometimes I just guess well. Dmitriy Vasil’yevich ground the rules of logic into me a long time ago, and I still haven’t forgotten all of them.”

  Mar’ya Morevna gave him a chilly and distinctly old-fashioned look, then retrieved her hand from just under his nose as though reluctant to keep it so close to a target in case she felt inclined to do something unfortunate. Ivan grinned.

  “Not in front of the servants,” he said, knowing that if he hadn’t been smacked already, playfully or otherwise, then it wouldn’t happen.

  “You!” said Mar’ya Morevna, then laughed with a sound that was a deal less threatening than the look on her face. “Have you finished, Stepan?”

  “Yes, Highness.”

  “Good. Do any of you have anything to add to Stepan’s report? No? Then…Sergey, continue please.”

  As the big innkeeper, or soldier, or whatever he was pretending to be, began to speak, Ivan set aside any further teasing of his wife because Sergey began talking about Khorlov. There was nothing unflattering about Ivan’s home or his family, but that probably just meant there was nothing unflattering to report. Mar’ya Morevna’s spies were secure enough in their liege lady’s trust that they wouldn’t let tact cloud truth.

  Most of the report had to do with the tension between Tsar Aleksandr of Khorlov and the Great Princes of Kiev and Novgorod. Ivan knew a lot of it already, from other sources: that unease had been going on since before his marriage, and indeed the wedding had both eased and increased it. When Ivan was single there was no risk of him providing the Khorlovskiy dynasty with a legitimate heir, and one or other of the Great Princes might have a pretext to legally annex the little tsardom on Aleksandr’s death. Khorlov’s allies were of its own small stature and no deterrent to political and military machinations.

  Mar’ya Morevna had changed the situation. Not only was she Ivan’s wife, she was a great ruler in her own right, a sorceress, a commander of armies who knew all the subtle Greek Byzantine arts of war and – according to rumour – she was expecting a child. That rumour stayed uncorrected, and for love’s sake as much as dynastic considerations, Ivan and Mar’ya were doing their best to make it come true.

  When Tsar Aleksandr believed the Princes of Novgorod and Kiev and not Koshchey the Undying had been behind the hurts done to his son, he had been prepared to make war on them individually or all together. It hadn’t happened, but at least the Princes had retired muttering to their kennels like so many mastiffs and looked set to stay that way for now. Boris and Pavel Mikhaylovich had other things to think about. They were being threatened themselves as they had hoped to threaten Khorlov, by the Great Prince Yaroslav of Vladimir and his son Aleksandr Nevskiy, and what might come of it nobody knew.

  Even the Tatars had gone away. Ivan and Mar’ya Morevna had expected revenge for her destruction of Manguyu Temir’s half-tuman-strong raiding party, but the Khakhan Ogotai had done nothing. Manguyu Temir had been raiding without his permission and Ogotai, ruthless as all Tatars, probably considered the removal of so disobedient a vassal and his supporters to be more a favour than anything else. He was busy conquering Sung China and Khwarizmid Persia, and had lost interest in things further west.

  “Now that’s a backhanded blessing,” said Mar’ya Morevna as the lines moved on the map, and signed herself with the life-giving cross. Everyone else did likewise. They knew exactly what she meant.

  “Of course, silk and porcelain and tea are going to be hard to find for the next few years,” said Ivan dryly. “Or then again, perhaps not. More expensive, though. Whoever invades wherever, the merchants always manage to reach an accommodation. It’s the people who buy their goods who have to pay.”

  “I’d rather have high-priced silk than a Tatar horde sitting on the doorstep of my kremlin,” said Mar’ya Morevna, and meant it. “There’s plenty of room in China for them to run about in, and with a bit of luck, they’ll all get lost.”

  It was laughing from safety at the howl of the wolf and they all knew it, but if the choice was between that mocking, insincere laughter or cowering in terror, then false mirth was easier to live with.

  The spies continued to talk, and after all the reports had been delivered, some salacious, some boring, but none of them truly terrible, Ivan and Mar’ya Morevna referred back and forth to the map and for almost two hours discussed what they had heard, helped every now and then by more details from the spies.

  “I’ve never had any love for the Mikhaylovichi in Novgorod,” said Ivan, “but I’m not sure I want to see them replaced by Yaroslav’s people.”

  “No?” Mar’ya Morevna was surprised. “Seeing your enemies discomfited without needing to soil your own hands always seems good to me.”

  “Better the wolves you know than the bears you don’t.” Ivan looked at the map and pointed at the area just beyond Prince Yaroslav’s city of Vladimir. “Manguyu Temir’s Tatars came through here, but there’s no record of any plundering, any killing, any anything. And nothing to show why, either. Never mind merchants, what sort of accommodation did Yaroslav make with the Horde of the Sky-Blue Wolves?”

  Mar’ya Morevna looked thoughtful. She tapped her finger against the tiny tower that represented Yaroslav’s kremlin, then ran it up the surface of the map to the city of Suzdal. “Close, but not too close. Pavel?” The spy Pavel stood up and bowed at being picked out for special notice. “I sent Yevgeny to join you in Suzdal last summer. Is he still there?”

  “Yes, Highness. When last we met, he was a merchant dealing in furs.”

  “Good. Very good indeed. Then his moving south to Vladimir won’t seem too remarkable. Great Prince Yaroslav and his son Aleksandr Nevskiy need watching. Make it so.”

  “As you command, Highness.”

  Mar’ya Morevna leaned closer to her husband and lowered her voice in case the matter was too private even for her own spies to hear. “It isn’t just the doings of the Yaroslav bear, Vanya,” she said. “And it’s more even than their immunity from the Tatars. What’s troubling you?”

  “This.” He gestured at where the map was blank beyond the River Vistula, except for a few patches of detail showing where the Poles and the wild Prusiskai tribes had been troublesome. “There’s no indication of the German knights we were hearing about. They ate Lithuania, Livonia and Prussia the way you or I would eat buttered bliniy, but nobody said anything against them.”

  “It would have needed doing sooner or later, to protect the settled lands on either side of the forests. The tribes have been increasingly troublesome these past years, and if the Germans hadn’t done it, some poor Rus would have to. I’m glad it was the Teutons, though. Neither you, nor I, nor anyone with a hope of coming out again, would have gone into the Prussian forests without their heavy armour. The Prusiskai use magic the way more sensible folk use fire.”

  Mar’ya Morevna thought a moment and corrected herself. “No. They used it that way. I suspect that there aren’t enough of them left to do anything of the sort.” There was another short pause as she gave Ivan the sort of look that usually accompanied a gentle, loving touch on his mouth. “And small loss. You never had to deal with them, nor did your father. My father did. And he, the kindest, gentlest man I ever knew before I met you, said ‘never again’ when he came home. But you’re right. We should keep an eye on that particular border.” She looked at t
he map, closely and then closer still. “And on the Teutons, the Knights of the Sword or whatever they call themselves.” There was a tiny catch of breath amongst her words, an almost missed grunt of annoyance. “Nothing at all. Yes, I see.”

  “Yet Aleksandr Yaroslavich Nevskiy has been voicing his suspicions to everyone who’ll listen.”

  Mar’ya Morevna relaxed audibly. “Aleksandr Nevskiy would claim the wide Ocean-sea itself was a threat, if he thought it might stop people thinking about how he and his father are so friendly with the Tatars.”

  “But even with this to help us, we can only take his word for it. There’s nothing to show if he’s right!”

  “And you were the one who teased me about being too wrapped up in matters of security.” She poked Ivan gently in the ribs. “Yes, I know; so I’ll send out a spy or two in the spring and have this blank space filled in with useful detail before you know it.”

  “Why not now? If Yevgeny’s leaving Suzdal—”

  “Yevgeny’s a deal closer to where I want him to go than anyone I might send into the Germanic lands. Anyway, Vanyushka, there’s nothing to worry about until spring. Nobody in their right mind would attack Mother Russia with the winter coming on. Can you imagine how long a German rytsar knight would last before he froze, or before he and his big horse went through the ice on some lake or river and never came back up? No, spring’s early enough to worry about them.” Ivan looked at the map again and frowned, then dismissed his worries.

  “You’re right, of course. Sending an army in winter would be the last mistake they’d ever make – and I doubt they’d be so stupid.” He straightened his back. “Are we done here?”

  “Until tomorrow. I have a few more questions for these excellent servants,” the spies all smiled and bowed at the compliment, something Mar’ya Morevna didn’t hand out lightly, “before they go back about their, and your and my, affairs. But all that can wait until the morning.” She stood up, then yawned and stretched, both gestures extravagant and not particularly ladylike but quite in keeping with a commander of armies who had been collating intelligence for almost five hours. “I give you all my thanks, and bid you all good night.”

  *

  With one last glance at that worrying blank area over Prussia, Ivan took the magic map from the wall and folded it away into its surprisingly small bundle. He nodded courteously to the five spies, who presumably had their beds made up somewhere in the many rooms of the Red Tower, then trotted downstairs after Mar’ya Morevna.

  When they emerged into the kremlin courtyard there was someone waiting for them, a lantern in one hand striking golden sparkles from his mail and tall-spired helmet. Ivan had spent too many hours being suspicious, and when he didn’t recognize the hulking silhouette his hand went for the long Circassian dagger tucked behind his belt-buckle. Then the figure moved, the lantern shifted and the droop-moustached face of Oleg Petrovich Fedorov emerged from the shadows of his own making. Mar’ya Morevna’s Guard-Captain looked at the half-drawn kindjal dagger and said not a word, but it was just as well that most of his expression was concealed by the nasal bar and cheek-plates of his helmet.

  “And a good evening to you too, Oleg Petrovich,” said Mar’ya Morevna, nudging Ivan in the ribs to make him put the blade away. She looked at the big warrior, then frowned. “What’s the matter?”

  “There’s a visitor at the kremlin gates, Highness,” said Fedorov. “Given the late hour, I thought it best not to admit her without your permission, especially since there are already…visitors…within the walls.”

  “Were you expecting more?” asked Ivan, glancing at his wife.

  “No.” Mar’ya Morevna gave her Guard-Captain a sharp look. “Her? A woman, alone, at this time of night? And you left her outside?”

  Fedorov gazed impassively at his liege lady as the flicker of her annoyance went past his ears like a sling-stone. “At this time of night, and unannounced, yes, Highness, I did. Under guard, too.”

  Mar’ya Morevna stared at him for a moment, then made a noise that was halfway a laugh and halfway a clearing of her throat. “Your pardon, Oleg Petrovich. It’s been a long day, and you were quite right of course. Take us to her.” As they walked across the darkened kremlin courtyard, she said, “Why does this mysterious woman want to see me?”

  “Not you, Highness. Prince Ivan. She asked for him by name.”

  The answer didn’t quite stop her dead in her tracks, but the hesitation in her stride was too obvious to be hidden, and Ivan suspected it was only the unfeigned bewilderment on his face that saved him from an interrogation more stringent than any directed at the spies in the Tower. Then he saw the woman, dark-haired, slim within her long black cloak, and not the least bit overawed by the pair of Guard-Captain Fedorov’s tallest soldiers who flanked her. She stared at him with green eyes whose colour and brilliance was plain even at a distance and at night, and Ivan began to smile despite himself.

  “Vanya,” said Mar’ya Morevna in a tight, dignified voice, “there have never been any secrets between us, or so I thought. Is this…person…someone from your past that I should have heard about before now?”

  Prince Ivan looked at her with a grin that might have eased her mind at once, or as easily prompted her to knock him off his feet. Then the grin got even wider. “I did tell you, but I might have forgotten to describe her.”

  “Forgotten? Someone like you, forget someone who looks like that?”

  “She doesn’t look like that all the time. Not even most of the time.” He advanced very, very slowly, stopped a short distance from the woman, and inclined his head in a curt little nod of welcome. “Good night, and well met.”

  The cool green eyes looked him up and down with a gaze filled with speculation and unvoiced thoughts. “My greetings again, Prince Ivan.”

  “And likewise to you,” said Ivan. “Might I introduce my wife, the lord of this kremlin—”

  “Mar’ya Morevna the beautiful, daughter of Koldun the sorcerer,” said the woman quietly and bowed low; it seemed more right and proper than the more usual courtesy. “Who has not heard of the fairest Princess in all the Russias, and her fortunate husband?”

  Mar’ya Morevna opened her mouth to say something then thought better of it and closed her teeth with a click, at a loss for words for the first in a very long while. “Ivan,” she said at last, “just who is this?”

  “Someone to whom I owe my life,” he said, and warily extended one hand. “What favour can I do you, Mother Wolf?”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Castle Thorn of the Teutonic Order;

  1234 A.D.

  There was no tilt-yard in Burg Thorn, the castle being more a fortified monastery and not built with frivolities like tournaments in mind. But there was a courtyard below the great chapel, flanked on one side by the castle’s curtain wall and on the other by the lowering bulk of the barbican that led to the inner ward. Trapped and focused by those two masses of brick and worked stone, the clangourous echoes of steel on steel hammered harshly across the trodden grass, almost as harshly as the blows that brought such sounds to life.

  On one side of the yard – a cleared space in the outer bailey that was much longer and wider than its name suggested – a new draft of foot-soldiers drilled with shield and cutting-spear under the unsympathetic eye and still less sympathetic voice of one of the Teutonic Order’s sergeants-at-arms. Neither they nor he were knights and so, despite the Christian, holy and monastic nature of the Order, he was able to make use of the full heights and depths of his vocabulary. It had always been sharp, senior sergeants seemed to be born that way, and this one had honed his invective to a razor edge by twelve years’ service in the Holy Land where he kept young men alive by ensuring they were more scared of him than the Saracens.

  On the other side, mail-clad Teutonic Knights of Castle Thorn duelled for practice, exercise and recreation. Or most did; one found that blunted training weapons, half again as heavy as the real thing, involved a lot more effort than ex
pected.

  Albrecht von Düsberg broke ground, opening the distance between himself and his opponent enough to salute with his sword and end the bout. The other armoured man, a Schwertbruder from Bavaria by the look of his gear, returned the salute with a snap of the wrist that proved either he was an excellent actor or that his joints and muscles weren’t complaining anything like as much as von Düsberg’s.

  It was always the same with the Sword Brethren; without a sudden burst of piety – prompted by God alone knew what sin – or a desire to go crusading where victories could be won by valour rather than negotiation, they would have continued as mercenaries or the sort of knight who turned a nice profit from booty gained by winning tournaments. Either way, hardly one of them knew or cared about the difference between practice and a fight to the finish.

  Waiting barely long enough for his opponent to walk away, Albrecht leaned on his notched sword and battered shield and wheezed for breath as though his lungs were about to burst. There had been a moment or two during the mock combat when he’d thought the bursting had already happened, and he knew now what Hochmeister von Salza had been gently hinting: too much time in the Archbishop of Salzburg’s library, nothing like enough time encased in fifty pounds of mail. Five hundred pounds was what it felt like, most of it dragging at his shoulders and down towards the ground despite the belt meant to transfer some of that weight to his hips. Albrecht forced those aching shoulders back; an over-loose mail hauberk could sag forward or backward – but always off balance – if its wearer leaned too much one way or the other.

  The snow in the tilt-yard was ankle-deep and still falling, but Albrecht von Düsberg didn’t feel in the least bit cold. That would come later, unless he did something about it involving hot water. A dragon’s-breath of vapour plumed through the slits of his helmet’s demivisor, and he steamed like a hard-run horse through the links of his mail as well. Every other knight and sergeant that he could see through his own private fog-bank were doing the same. Once the thickly quilted gambeson worn beneath armour was well soaked with hot sweat, nobody could help but steam. And stink.