Prince Ivan

by Morwood, Peter

  So what was happening?

  Ivan’s brain was racing faster than it had ever done when playing chess, for this time there was a higher forfeit than simply toppling a king of carven ivory. The arrows and the spears told him as much with tongues of rain-misted steel. He had to say something, make some reply so they wouldn’t simply kill him on the grounds of insult by dumb insolence, yet at the same time a cringing acceptance of what had been said stuck in his throat more than any blade.

  Quite probably they would kill him for agreeing with them anyway, for what man of the Golden Horde would ever respect a coward? Ivan could feel the beat of his own racing pulse, so loud and fast it was a wonder the Tatars hadn’t already noticed and done something to still it. Only the soft dripping of raindrops from the furred rim of his hat concealed the beads of icy sweat that had sprung up all along his forehead.

  Finally he bowed, not so suddenly as to make the Tatars start something only they would finish, and when he straightened again he grinned as openly and honestly as he could manage. The Tatars glanced at one another, then at their captain-of-ten, as confused as his troop but covering better.

  “Greetings to you, bahadur,” said Ivan, taking care to give the captain’s rank its proper name and not the Rus one of bogatyr. “I salute the Sky-Blue Wolves, whose nostrils must be keen indeed to scent a Rus across so many miles and leagues.” He took a quick, shallow breath. What he said next would determine how long he would live, and he had to be bold rather than craven but not so bold that the Tatars would think him better dead. “If your coats and hats are made from the hides and fleece of Russian sheep, you all must smell as bad as I…”

  There was a protracted silence whilst the bahadur captain digested this, then translated for his men. Ivan made sure he could reach a weapon. If he had to die, he would make sure the Tatars who survived would regret having met him; but the making sure was only with his eyes, and he took care not to move until there was no other choice. The sudden chorus of barking Tatar laughter was almost too much for his stretched and jangling nerves, and he recognized it a bare instant before ripping the old Northern sword out from under his knee.

  “Who are you, brave Rus?” said the captain, and the laughter of his men cut off like a snuffed candle so their leader would not have to shout.

  Ivan thought fast, then faster still. Having avoided the risk of death, he now faced the risk of ransom – yet if he lied, he was heading for death once again, this time as a deceitful and untrustworthy person. It always seemed peculiar that the Tatars, who lied and cheated as a form of military art, should place such value on the truth of those they dealt with.

  Finally he shrugged. It wasn’t the being killed, but that it might happen because of a lie. Ivan was a Tsar’s son, and though that Tsar’s realm was small when set against some others, yet its honour was something of more value than the purest gold.

  “Ivan Aleksandrovich, Prince of Khorlov,” he said, and his bow this time was a haughty nod of the head that would have done credit to the Great Khan himself.

  “Huu,” grunted the Tatar captain approvingly, and translated. Ivan could see the glint of anticipated gold and silver growing in their narrowed eyes, so the captain’s next words came as no surprise. “Good enough,” he said. “You are now a guest. What else, we decide later.”

  His next short phrases were in the Tatar language, and though the men with bows put them back in the cases at their belts, two of the riders with spears kneed their horses forward, turned them around at Burka’s flanks and braced their spears so the hooks were in Ivan’s armpits. Even through the heavy coat, they stung.

  “You ride along with us,” the Tatar said and then, with an elaboration that Ivan thought was unnecessary, “or be carried in a way you do not like.”

  Ivan looked over each shoulder, at the long spears and at the flat, implacable faces of the men who carried them, shrugged as much as the upward pressure of sharp metal would permit, and did as he was told.

  *

  The Tatar camp, the bok as it was called in their language, wasn’t as vast as Ivan had been told camps of the Tatars might be; but it was vast enough. The great horse-herds that milled about its edges, guarded by stocky riders astride equally stocky ponies, comprised at least three remounts for each fighting-man in the host. Each of those men had a yurtu, a hunched, dome-topped tent made of felt, for himself and whichever wives, concubines or captives were with him. Though they didn’t extend to the horizon as the old tales said they should, those tents went on for a long way in all directions.

  Certainly they went far enough to impress Prince Ivan, for he could see more of them than his companions. The two Tatars with spears had decided to keep his hands in plain view and away from his weapons, then to see how far they could lift their prisoner out of his saddle without permanent and devaluing damage. As a result he rode into the camp standing tip-toe in his stirrups, arms outstretched like the wings of a bird and a thin stream of blood running down inside his sleeves to dribble from his fingertips.

  He hadn’t complained or cried out when the spear-blades went through clothes and then skin, and it had most likely saved him from worse. Guard-Captain Akimov had once warned that if a prisoner yelped at what a Tatar did, the Tatar’s response would be to see how much louder that yelp could become. Ivan had forgotten Akimov’s warning, as he tended to forget so much without immediate influence on his own life, but it had come back forcefully when praised for fortitude over a wrist fractured when he was thrown by a barely-broken horse. That he’d thought the wrist no more than twisted and not worthy of fuss was something he’d kept to himself…

  Thanks to the doubled thicknesses of coat and cloak he suffered little actual harm, and less discomfort than seemed likely from the injuries. Though neither garment was as waterproof as had been claimed when he bought them, once wadded together by the pressure in his armpits they kept all but the points of the spears out of his flesh. The wounds themselves were likely less serious than his first shave at the age of fifteen, and only Burka’s jogging gait was keeping them open to produce that dramatic rain of ruby drops. Except for the nagging, itching sting of broken skin, they hardly even hurt. Then suddenly the spears went away and Ivan sat down again, hard enough to make him say the sort of word that a wise Rus keeps in check while within the confines of a Tatar camp.

  “Hah! Good spirit, this one!” said another of the harsh Tatar voices, not one that he’d heard before. Spirited or not, Ivan didn’t repeat himself, because without the numbing upward pressure, feeling came flooding back. Part of that feeling was pain.

  He blinked several times before he could see more than little dancing red-hot sparks, then focused on someone who, though as high-cheekboned and slit-eyed and droopy-moustached as every other Tatar face he had seen on this increasingly unpleasant day, was somehow familiar. Then, having recognized the face, his memory obliged as it so rarely did and recalled where and when he had seen it before. It even gave him a name.

  Ilkhan Manguyu Temir, of the Golden Horde.

  That warlord had been one of the high-ranking guests at the first, most expensive, and least successful husband-finding feast. His presence had been no more than diplomacy since nobody, and certainly not the Ilkhan, thought any of the Tsar’s daughters would choose him above the round-eyed, white-faced youths who made up the bulk of the suitors. He had been there simply to imply to other, equally round-eyed, white-faced Princes that the Tsardom of Khorlov might have friends no one could challenge with impunity. Ilkhan Manguyu had recognized the deception for what it was, just as well as he knew sunrise meant morning and that rain was wet – and to make it more impressive, he had bathed before the feast, and worn clean garments during his attendance.

  He was still wearing them now, which suggested to Ivan that they hadn’t been changed since. There was a certain unwashed tang in the air that might have been his captors, or simply confirmation of the thought. Manguyu Temir was clad in the robe of Persian silk that Ivan remembered
from the feast, but this time it covered a long coat of lamellar armour, and the robe itself had been sadly re-worked and re-patterned with numerous long slits that corresponded with shiny scratches on the armour, and with the stiff brown blotches of old blood. Though Manguyu Temir might have been responsible for them, Ivan doubted any of the stains belonged to the Ilkhan in their most proper sense.

  Certainly not in the way that the stiff darkness of his own sleeves belonged to him.

  Ivan could hear his garments crackle as he bowed to Manguyu Temir over the pommel of his horse’s saddle, and wondered whether that sound meant he had lost a lot of blood or just a little, spread thin. He was rather surprised, in a muzzy sort of way, when the Tatar khan rattled out several orders that produced stalwart warriors out of nowhere to help him dismount.

  There was a brisk chattering in the Tatar speech as the soldiers began to lead him away; presumably his captors were protesting their loss of a valuable ransom. It was interesting enough that the two men supporting Ivan – what with one thing and another, his legs refused to carry his weight – paused to hear what was being said.

  Ivan heard some of it himself, for the voice he’d identified as that of Manguyu Temir was speaking Rus. “Idiots!” it said. “Who gave you leave to make so free with any prisoner?”

  The reply, in Tatar, sounded plaintive as if making some sort of excuse.

  “So you wanted to test his courage, did you?” came the reply, more irritable than ever. “If you had tested it so there was nothing left alive for his people to ransom, what then? Would you have paid it? Vakh! Get out of my sight, before I deprive the Great Khan of ten soldiers!”

  There was a damp thudding of hoof-beats, and then a long silence in which Ivan felt relief, curiosity, apprehension, and a vast uncaring lassitude. Fingers gripped his chin and raised his drooping head, turned it from one side to the other, then let it sag forward again.

  “I know you, Rus, do I not?” he heard Manguyu Temir say. “The Tsar’s son, from Khorlov. Huu, I remember. It was a year, maybe less, that you poured drink in my cup as host to guest. Now look at you.”

  Ivan was glad there were no mirrors in the encampment. If a Tatar lord thought he looked badly used, then he looked like something dead warmed up. Certainly he felt that way. The throbbing in his armpits had faded, but that fading had let the pain spread. Instead of two points of hot hurt on which he could focus and maybe control, his entire body pounded with a low ache that refused to go away.

  “Not just now,” he said with as much dignity as he could summon up. “I’m not at my best.”

  The khan laughed harshly at such bold words and clapped his hands. There was another string of commands, and in the intervals of trying to suppress his own reaction to the various aches and bumps and cuts and bruises, Ivan was helped towards one of the yurtu tents.

  Though the inside of a Tatar tent was the last place that Tsarevich Ivan wanted to be, just now he felt too sore and weary for objections. However, this yurtu was probably the Ilkhan’s own, much larger than any other in the camp and resting on the bed of its own wagon so there would be no need to take it apart when the Tatars moved on. In consequence the interior wasn’t a sparse temporary dwelling, but was comfortable to the point of luxury.

  His escort set Ivan on a cushioned couch, then made way for a much more elderly Tatar who carried a leather bag like the satchel carried by physicians. His half-formed guess was confirmed when the newcomer nodded his head and said, “Juchi, doctor,” before inspecting then dressing the spear-wounds with a speed and adroitness that suggested vast experience.

  It was apparent from his skill that the old man Juchi was either the senior surgeon of this small army, or just as possibly Manguyu Temir’s personal physician. ‘Doctor’, was evidently the only word of Russian that he knew, because none of what Ivan said produced a reply, but the stream of Tatar uttered under his breath sounded like irritable criticism of the soldiers who had done the damage. No matter how eager a doctor might be to stay employed, it seemed they could never practice the healing art without complaining about those who forced its use.

  Ivan sat quietly and without complaint while the physician went about his business with bandages and pads of soft white cotton, feeling better at the end of the treatment than he’d done at the beginning, He even protested against the cupful of kumys mixed with bitter-smelling herbs being held out to him, but despite their lack of a mutual language, Doctor Juchi’s hand gestures were eloquent. Either Ivan could take his medicine willingly, or the doctor would summon several guards and a funnel.

  Ivan considered his options for a few seconds, and with a feeble smile he took the cup and drained it in a single wincing gulp.

  *

  If whatever had been in the cup besides fermented mares’ milk was intended to make him sleep, it was remarkably effective. When Ivan’s eyes opened again the light outside the yurtu’s half-closed door curtain had the unmistakable rose colour of late evening and he felt, if not quite like a new man, then certainly like a less bruised version of the old one. Like anyone left alone in a strange place filled with interesting things, he spent a number of minutes in careful, surreptitious rummaging, and when he stopped – not because he’d seen everything, but because someone might step through the yurtu’s flapped doorway and catch him in the act – he sat down again on the couch and wondered what to do.

  His perfunctory search of the tent had proved that Manguyu Temir and his small horde of some three thousand men weren’t executing some decision handed down from the kuriltai of the Great Khan. They were raiding on their own account, like common bandits. Ivan knew little more about the Tatars than what Captain Akimov had told him, augmented by untrustworthy chroniclers who preferred horror stories of atrocity and massacre to anything of use to a traveller. But he was aware that Tatars on a full-scale campaign brought their womenfolk and families along, well to the rear of the army, to settle in conquered territory after all the bloody work of conquering was done. Not this time. The only feminine fripperies in this yurtu had been seized for their value rather than their looks.

  It was clear that Ilkhan Manguyu Temir thought himself far, far away from the usual regions of Tatar influence, or he would never have dared use three thousands of the Great Khan’s warriors for personal enrichment. The Khakhan would take as dim a view of that behaviour as any Tsar who found his Captain-of-Guards employing the soldiers under him as a personal band of brigands.

  Someone flung up the yurtu’s door-flap and the tent’s interior filled with that warm sunset light. It was no longer rose but darkening towards peach, and was further diffused by the doorway facing in an auspicious southerly direction, like all the other tents Ivan had seen. The man outside was so tall he had to duck his head to enter, but once inside he glanced from side to side as if expecting to find Ivan anywhere but on the couch. He saluted, punching one hand into the other cupped palm as he bowed over them, then spoke in heavily accented Rus. From its awkward delivery the speech had been learned by heart and it was unlikely the man knew what he was saying. His meaning, however, was clear enough to Ivan.

  “Arise, Ivan of Khorlov, for the Ilkhan Manguyu Temir commands your attendance at his table!”

  Thanks to Doctor Juchi, Ivan felt sufficiently restored to resent being commanded anywhere by anyone who smelt the way the soldier did, and he noticed how both salute and bow were mere sketches of what they should have been. But any sign of respect at all was better than nothing, and invitation to dinner seemed a comforting assurance of good treatment towards hostages.

  Of course it could all stop abruptly if Tsar Aleksandr appeared reluctant to pay ransom for his captive son. Manguyu Temir seemed just the sort of Tatar lord to maintain his people’s reputation for casually vicious behaviour if he thought the gift of an ear or finger would help the Tsar make up his mind.

  Ivan thought about that for a shuddersome second, then spent several more wishing he hadn’t. He wasn’t encouraged by the sight of two burly Tat
ars near the cart-yurtu that was his destination, both busy cutting up sheep. That they were butchering animals instead of men mattered not a bit. In Ivan’s present mood, the sight, the sound, and the smell did nothing to make him feel more cheerful, even though whatever else would be on the Ilkhan’s table, he now knew the meat was fresh.

  This yurtu was almost as big as Manguyu Temir’s own, and seemed larger since all the impedimenta of living had been shoved to one side so the centre of its felt-rugged floor could be an open eating space. Its furniture was simple enough, cushions for sitting and low tables that were just wooden planks trestled across boxes: but their covering made them splendid.

  Each was draped with a mismatched but beautiful variety of cloths and fabrics, from intricate woven rugs and carpets to delicate translucent silks. Threads of precious metal glistened softly in the light of many lamps, and no two of those lamps was of the same design. Every one of the rare or valuable things under the dome of that tent was different in some way from the next, whether by form, or age, or place of origin.

  Tsarevich Ivan felt the fine hairs on the nape of his neck lift a little, for he knew that he was looking at the pick of a plundering that had engulfed Empires, kingdoms, towns and farmsteads. The price of all that jumbled beauty wasn’t measured in the gold or silver that might normally have purchased it, only in the blood spilled to have it here.

  “Huu! Our guest the Rus! Sit with us! Eat and drink!” Ilkhan Manguyu Temir waved a drinking cup in Ivan’s direction. To his vast relief it was an ordinary cup of plain turned wood, not the silver-mounted skull he had expected. There were no skulls on the table at all, nor any prisoners under it, supporting the planks with their bodies as the Tatars were sometimes said to make them do. It would have been a tranquil enough meal, except for the thought of what had happened to the original owners of the finery strewn so carelessly around.

  Seated around the tables were thirty-three Tatar officers: the captains of thousands and the captains of hundreds, all armoured in lamellar scales polished so brightly that each reflected back the lamplight like a mirror. Many, like their khan, wore decorative robes over the metal, but those who didn’t were clad from neck to knees in a shifting coruscation of small lights. They were professional warriors, cruel as cats, emotionless as an abacus, and they would have been both terrifying and magnificent, except for the way they smelled.