The Betrothed Sister

by Carol McGrath

  ‘We shall see what Princess Anya has to say about your rudeness.’ Lady Olga set her back and marched out of the chamber muttering incoherently.

  ‘Lady Olga will be your enemy now. If you go to the church of St Nicholias you will be discovered,’ Katya fretted as she fussed around Thea.

  ‘She never was my friend. She won’t find out if I’m very careful. Besides, I am meeting my betrothed, not just any man.’ Thea reached out and took Katya’s hands. ‘We can escape the terem for one afternoon and return by Vespers without Lady Olga discovering us.’

  ‘In that case we must make a careful plan and let us pray that we are not discovered,’ Katya said thoughtfully.

  ‘And, I do feel that I must lie down after all.’

  Thea lay on top of her wolfskin bedcovering, stroking the silver fur, her thoughts on Saturday.

  18

  As the day began to lose light, concealed in heavy cloaks, Thea and Katya slipped into the Church of the Virgin, the smaller church that opened into the garden and was often used by ladies of the kremlin. Priests were lighting sconces. Women came and went from the terem. Thea glanced at them as they passed her by. Thankfully, no one took notice of the two heavily veiled women praying before the paintings on the iconostasis screens.

  It was not unusual for Thea to spend chill winter afternoons in the church dedicated to the Virgin. To Thea the iconostasis was mysterious. Three doors led into the sanctum: the beautiful gates which were shut when offices were not observed. To either side of the beautiful gates, the north and south doors, the entrance and the exit for the deacons. Her favourite was the door beside which she knelt, the north door where she imagined the Archangel Gabriel might exit while she knelt in prayer. She often studied the depictions of the Archangels Michael and Gabriel as bells rang out time’s passage, as Vespers merged into Compline or until Lady Olga sent a servant to disturb her and fetch her back to the terem for supper.

  Today it was important that she was not fetched back to the terem. As she waited for Vladimir’s priest, it was as if the small dove she saw in the frescoes depicting Noah’s flood had entered her heart and fluttered in an attempt to escape. The second bell after midday passed, the third, and finally after this, they were alone with icons and statues. If the messenger did not come soon the office of Vespers would creep up on them. Olga might appear with her watching eyes everywhere and escape through any door other than that into the garden would be impossible. Her head throbbed. She closed her eyes.

  ‘My lady.’ Thea started. She glanced up. A priest was standing beside them. For a short moment she thought he was the angel. He was holding a lantern. The smell of fish oil from it assaulted her nostrils as he approached. This priest belonged to the world of men. He was indeed a worldly priest. He had slipped into the Nave through the iconostasis’ north door when her eyes had momentarily closed.

  He bowed his head. ‘I am your guide. Keep close and follow me.’ As he smiled into the gloom, the lantern lit up his features. He was young and his face was kindly. ‘My name is Sebastian, a martyr’s name. I am no martyr. Hurry before we are discovered. I would not wish to see the inside of the fortress cells as a punishment for this deceit.’

  Thea did not give Katya the opportunity to change her mind but nodded, scrambled to her feet and stepped ahead of her maid. She followed Sebastian out through the front door of the church hoping that Katya was behind her. They walked across the busy, icy courtyard and paused by the postern gate. Father Sebastian asked them to allow the passage into the street beyond. The guards smiled at Father Sebastian. One called jokingly, ‘Chaperoning the ladies now, are you?’

  ‘Escorting two maidens who must select a prayer cloth for Lady Sabrina.’

  ‘I hope their boots are strong and their cloaks thick. There is a freeze going on up there.’ The guard who spoke glanced up at the heavens. ‘It’ll be a chilly walk back.’

  ‘I shall have them back before the sun sinks.’

  ‘What sun?’ The guard shrugged his shoulders and stamped his feet as they passed through the low postern gateway. They entered a street that led by the river route towards the town square. Father Sebastian remarked they need not walk far.

  Katya looked nervous so Thea whispered, ‘Never fear.’ Clearly, Katya did fear for she looked uneasy as they walked close to the river. Merchants’ houses rose up on either side, some with yards that sloped down the hill on their right to the bank. Thea could glimpse the gleaming cupolas of St Sophia visited on important saints’ days by everyone from the kremlin and which lay to the other side of the fortress, peeping to her left up beyond the high kremlin walls. She watched the wide, fast-flowing river where melting ice-flows drifted by. Though a thaw was beginning spring had not arrived.

  ‘Watch your steps.’ The priest said, glancing up at the sky. ‘It’s darkening already.’ He tapped his lantern. ‘This slush may yet freeze over. We have this.’

  It was only a short walk to the Church of St Nicholias. Thea had forgotten what it was like in the world beyond the terem. If only she could linger to watch boats unload cargos by the wharfs. If only she had time to explore the streets and the many shops that surrounded the kremlin castle.

  Father Sebastian led them down a side street into a tiny square, gliding ahead of them, his robes sweeping over the icy slush. The Church of St Nicholias rose up in front of them and as they caught him up, the priest led them forward, unlocked a low door and ushered them into the nave. Thea’s heart leapt as her eyes adjusted to the shadowy interior. He was kneeling by the altar to St Nicholas. A candle flicker later and he turned around and saw her.

  ‘You are here.’ He scrambled to his feet and opened his arms wide. ‘And you did not forget me all those months. You looked out for my message.’

  Thea nodded. ‘My lord, I received your message and left your answer.’

  The priest set his lantern down on the ground and turned to Thea. ‘I have closed the door. You have until Vespers. Your servant and I will wait here in the nave. I can hear her confession too should she so wish to confess.’ He glanced at the curtained confessional to the side of the nave.

  Thea felt herself smiling. Nothing ever happened in Katya’s life. Thea wondered what her maid could possibly confess – her thoughts perhaps. Gudrun, who was staying behind to guard her chamber, well, that would be different, she mused, the smile hovering about her lips. Gudrun longed for Padar’s company always. Thea suspected they had seen each other secretly before Padar had gone north that winter to trade for furs. He was expected home any day now.

  ‘We shall pray while you and Prince Vladimir profess to each other.’ Father Sebastian laughed mischievously at his own jest.

  Vladimir waved him away. He drew Thea out of sight behind a pillar, placed his mantle on the floor against the wall and bade her sit. The cloak was of dark wool and lined with sheepskin. Sinking into its softness, she immediately felt comfortable in his presence. She had chosen not to wear a veil but had carefully concealed her hair under a wimple in case she was recognised as they passed through the kremlin courtyard. Today, her disguise rendered her more like a servant than a noble lady.

  Vladimir touched her face gently and said, ‘Well concealed, my lady, but at least I can see your green eyes.’

  ‘They are really grey but evidently change depending on the light. No, I’m told grey with flecks of green.’

  ‘Who said?’

  ‘My mother, and she and my sister Gunnhild really do have green eyes, completely so, like cats’ eyes and their hair is fair, not at all like mine, though both are tall in stature.’ Thea involuntarily raised her hand to where her wimple concealed her hairline.

  ‘We consider red hair fortunate and I am fortunate to know you, my princess.’ He leaned back against the wall. ‘How has your life been since last summer?’

  ‘My life has been tedious.’ She told him how she had passed her Christmastide and how she had many friends amongst the women in the terem. When she told him about the storyte
lling competition to choose her wedding attendants he said, ‘You must think of a story to tell me. You must set a standard. It can be a story you will tell me on our first wedding night.’ He shuffled closer to her. ‘You do know that you have to wear a veil until our third night?’ He put his head in his hands and moaned. ‘How shall I wait? I suppose I must.’ He lifted his eyes and with mischief playing in them said, ‘Silent is my garment when I touch the ground, when I tread the earth …’

  Thea interrupted, ‘or dwell in towns or stir the waters.’

  He added, ‘Sometimes my trappings lift me over the habitations of heroes and this high air, and might of the welkin bears me afar above mankind. You know the riddle?’ he exclaimed. ‘You are as beautiful as that swan.’

  She rolled her eyes. ‘Well perhaps, we shall see, my lord.’ She looked at his dark glossy hair. As quick as a turn of an hour glass she said, ‘Since we speak in riddles, I have a riddle for you.’

  He nodded and said, ‘Try me.’

  ‘I bring joy to the men who dwell in towns. When I sing out with my flexible tones they sit at home silent. Tell me my name who brightly imitates professional singers and loudly foretells many welcome tidings.’ Do you know it?’

  ‘If I don’t think too hard, I shall know it.’ He tapped his fingers in the air as if playing a tune on a pipe. ‘No, it does not come to my mind. “Welcome tidings”.’

  ‘You must think on it.’

  So you like to sing and play music, my lady?’

  ‘Indeed, my lord, and tell stories.’ She shifted closer to him, just a tiny bit. ‘But which creature is this? Guess now. I think you do not know the answer,’ she teased.

  He could not tell her. Delighted that she had won the contest she said, ‘Then I must tell you some other time.’ She looked pointedly at his glossy black hair again and still he did not pick up a clue. ‘I shall tell you on our wedding night.’

  He lifted her hand and studied her countenance. ‘You are a tease. But another time is good. It might give me time to consult the skald Padar when he returns.’

  ‘Tell me this, when are we to be married? My uncle will call me back to Denmark with my dowry if I must wait much longer for our nuptials.’

  ‘Not this summer as I had hoped but my father now says it will be next spring. We have just secured Kiev. There is still much to arrange there. We intend bringing the bones of our founding fathers Dimitri and Gleb to Kiev for the translation of their relics to St Sophia.’

  ‘Translation. What’s this? ‘

  ‘The movement of their bones to a new resting place before they are beatified and are created saints. These saints are Russian, not Armenian, Roman, nor Greek. They are ours so it is to be an important ceremony. Everyone who is anyone will be there. So …’ he paused and lifted her hand and kissed it through her glove.

  She shuddered. She did not like this talk of moving bones and sainthood attached to her wedding. She said quietly, ‘What “so”?’

  ‘So, because it is such a grand occasion and every important noble in the land will be in Kiev, our wedding will follow within a week. Everyone will be present.’

  ‘When will this be, Vladimir?’

  ‘Next Eastertide.’

  ‘It’s a long time away. More than a whole year.’

  ‘It is, but afterwards we shall have a very long time together and many children.’

  He lifted her right hand and removed her mitten. ‘You are wearing my ring, the one I sent for our betrothal,’ he said. He turned her hand over and kissed her palm. ‘And the waiting is exciting because you are brave and clever. Longing to know you makes you even more desirable.’ He reached over and planted a feather-light kiss on her lips. She felt her lips parting. His tongue explored her mouth and touched her own. The sensation almost made her want to swoon with desire. Just in time he released her. She caught her breath. So this was what it was like. She was confused. Prince Vladimir touched her hand. ‘I should not have perhaps, not yet.’

  What could she say? What dared she say? ‘The priest,’ was all she could say. ‘I must go.’

  The priest was hustling forward to collect her. ‘The day will be darkening, Princess. You must not be discovered here. Come.’ The prince helped Thea to her feet. She almost fainted as he held onto her hand a moment longer than was necessary. ‘I shall see you again soon, little bride.’ He whispered into her ear, ‘My beautiful swan, keep searching for me in our wall niche.’

  The priest rushed Thea and Katya back through the church. Using the key hanging from his belt he slid open the door’s barrel lock. No one had yet arrived for Vespers but a group of priests were approaching the church from the opposite side of the tiny square. Father Sebastian passed a bundle to her. It was a prayer rug wrapped in plain linen. ‘Take it, my lady. Take turns carrying it. When you get it into the terem you must give it over to Sabrina. She will understand.’

  As they set out of the church and stepped into the small square, Thea shivered and stared up at the sky. Clouds hung there like leaden sacks. The temperature had dropped further. It was bitterly cold. Thea hoped that Gudrun who had remained behind to guard her door would keep the wolfish Olga from her chamber.

  The hunting season always began in November with the first snow falls. Already Padar and Earl Connor had shipped their early consignments to Denmark. By late December that year the rivers had frozen and ice flows floated down into the Danish seas. Padar’s return had been delayed. Earl Connor returned a week before and had moved into the fortress where he would negotiate with the steward over which furs he wanted to purchase. When Padar arrived back in Novgorod on the very same day that Thea met with Prince Vladimir, he took up residence in the warehouse ready to sort through and grade the consignment of furs he had brought by sleigh down from the forest lands west of Lake Onega. Padar’s boys excitedly lifted lids off the half-dozen basket coffers to reveal piles of glistening pelts – the skins of martens, beavers, hares, squirrels and foxes. Padar laughed his delight as he looked through them. These would make him a fortune. He scratched his beard as he thought of where he could sell them. The kremlin steward would purchase much of Earl Connor’s share but there would still be plenty more to sell. Winter was deep in the Rus lands but now the snow was melting perhaps he should trade south into Germany.

  Padar lifted up a stretch of grey skin that had been taken from a reindeer, thinking how it would make Gudrun a fine pair of slippers. All she needed to do was to line them with soft wool. He set the deer pelt aside. How he longed to see Gudrun. Thinking about it, this grey reindeer skin made a perfect excuse to take him right to the doors of the terem.

  When it was possible for Gudrun to leave her mistress they would marry and set up their own home. Lady Thea’s marriage had been delayed and delayed. He had travelled back to Denmark and returned again and still not a word of it. Earl Connor had said he could not understand why the marriage had been delayed. He hoped that Prince Vsevolod was not looking for a reason to send Thea back whence she had come.

  ‘No,’ Padar had reasoned back to the earl. ‘He needs the Danish king’s support. He wants taxes from Danish merchants who pass through his lands. The prince just has to see her to want her.’

  ‘But he cannot see her. She is veiled in his presence.’

  ‘Ummph,’ Padar grunted. ‘He will not be disappointed when he does see her face.’

  Padar glanced about the narrow hall room that smelled of wax-polished birch wood furniture, candles, oil and charcoal. He wondered at what he had accomplished since he had visited Russia to broker Thea’s betrothal. At long last he had a place to call his own. He smiled to see six Russian boys working under his carefully chosen English foreman. He clapped his hands with joy to see the braziers that made his trading hall warm and dry, glow, and that on a damp day prevented his furs from decaying. I am settling down for the first time in my life, he told himself. Life is good to me.Yet, and he sighed at the thought, Yet Lady Thea still remains betrothed and unwed. And this means I shal
l remain unmarried too.

  He gnawed at the problem. Why had there been such long delay to her wedding? The prince was fighting on the Steppes, in the forests that bordered Bohemia, helping his father and his uncle keep peace in Kiev in case the wandering scoundrel, the so-called sorcerer, Prince Vsevslav of Polotsk, returned to cause trouble. That was surely why, and meantime Thea had to wait, just wait and wait.

  Padar plucked a pine marten pelt from his heap of furs. It would be a beautiful addition to a mantle, as a hood lining with enough left over to edge the cloak, a gift to raise Lady Thea’s spirits, with Prince Vladimir galloping around the family’s many fortresses demanding loyalty to his uncles and father.

  There were great cities scattered about the Rus lands, towns with odd names that sounded distant to his ear. Padar knew not where these cities lay, but, as he held the soft pine marten pelt in his hand, he determined to break into their trading communities.

  One day, he promised himself, Gudrun would be wife to a great merchant and they would have many children. How could he advance his plan? Possibly he could join a caravan travelling south-west towards the German lands. He tugged at his beard, deep in thought. He could take those furs even into Flanders. If he did this he could try to see Countess Gytha again one last time, for she was, without doubt, approaching her end years.

  He pushed the thought into the recesses of his mind. Today he would make a visit to the fortress. He would bring Thea the pine marten fur and Gudrun the reindeer skin for new slippers.

  He carefully wrapped the furs in oiled linen. He looked, with meaning in his eyes, at the boys he had set to unpack the baskets of furs. ‘By the time I return I want all those pelts packed again,’ he said to Dirk, his foreman. ‘Make sure they are hidden in chests safely underneath the copper pots.’ He rubbed his hands together. ‘We do not wish to risk thievery. Goodness knows what mischief lurks around the corner. They have to be sold before the competition gets an edge on us.’ He scratched his head and added, ‘We shall be making a journey soon.’