The Betrothed Sister

by Carol McGrath

  ‘Padar may be back in time for my wedding.’ Thea spoke her wishful thought aloud.

  ‘I hope so, Thea, but that would be too late. We had to decide on which girls must be your maidens without him.’

  ‘So who are to be my maids?’

  Anya folded her arms, her elegant silk sleeves trailing onto the carpet.

  ‘Go on,’ Thea said calmly though she did not feel peace in her heart.

  Anya touched her lower lip with an elegantly ringed finger. ‘Well now, let us see. Vera, Kalina, Vira, and Julia. I think we must include Katya. She has been your companion and her father stands high in my husband’s estimation.’

  Thea nodded. ‘I like these girls well enough. May I hear the stories?’ At least she was to have Katya.

  ‘You will have a maidens’ party. They will bathe you and prepare you for your wedding on the following day. On the night of your maidens’ celebration we shall hear the stories. What do you think?’ Anya said, smiling. She turned to face Thea and embraced her, folding her affectionately into the wide, trailing silken sleeves. She held Thea back. Thea could not return her warmth. She felt all this was happening to a puppet princess. She was not really present and Anya did not even notice it. ‘The wedding is on the seventeenth day of May, the day selected by Mother Sophia,’ Anya was saying. ‘This is only fourteen nights away.’ She released Thea and clapped her hands. ‘And, the family has a gift for you and Vladimir, one you shall know first.’

  ‘A gift?’ What could it be, another birthing stool?

  As Anya nodded, her eyes widened. ‘Thea, you are to have your own house here in Kiev, not as grand a palace as this, but it is an elegant two-storeyed house with two wings, a tiled roof, rooms with glass windows or, at least windows of isinglass.’ Thea came alive again, the puppet princess banished. She would have somewhere of her own, a home of her own. ‘You can see the river with all its boats from all four tall windows. There are two courtyards, herb and fruit gardens and a small apple orchard. It has an encircling wall and do not worry ever. Even though Kiev can be dangerous, guards will be alert for trouble. You do not ever need to venture into the city streets.’ Ah, Thea thought. We shall see. ‘You will have a large part of the house for your terem and a new chapel for your own use.’ Anya reached out and excitedly clasped Thea’s hands. ‘It is called the Chapel of St Theodora and it has been consecrated already. You will move into it soon so that you and Vladimir do not share the same palace before the ceremony. I shall stay with you to help you prepare.’

  Thea said politely, ‘It is more than I had wished for. I thought I would still share your terem here in the palace.’

  ‘I think you will prefer to have your own household. Russian noblewomen organise the whole house. They travel around their castles and estates making sure everything is just so. By now, you must recognise that it is pleasanter for us to entertain guests in the terem and not to mingle with men at their feasting. Some foreign noblewomen find this strange, but it is a gentler way, I think.’

  ‘I shall manage my household efficiently,’ Thea said firmly, knowing that she was not convinced that she could ever enjoy confinement in a terem. She remembered the saints’ days’ feasts the women and children attended at her uncles’ court at Westminster when she had been a child. She reflected wistfully on the jugglers, the harpists, the storytellers, the great central hearth and the sound of male voices singing. Pushing the memory away, she bit her lip and asked, ‘Is Lady Olga to attend my wedding?’

  ‘Yes, my dear, she must. Her husband is my husband’s steward. Lady Olga is very important here and, although you may wish it otherwise, she will help you prepare for the wedding.’

  Thea felt herself tense. Raising her head proudly, she rose from her cushions and stretched to her full height. ‘Lady Olga treated Gudrun cruelly. I cannot forgive her.’

  ‘Sit, Thea, such an outburst does not become you. Life can be unfair. I understand your frustration but you must swallow your pride. Let the past be the past. After your wedding you need not see Lady Olga unless she decides to visit you. You can choose your own servants. When the skald returns, you will see Gudrun once again. Do not allow Olga to spoil your wedding.’ Anya poured another cup of cherry wine and offered it to Thea. Sensing defeat, Thea sank back onto the cushions. ‘A wedding is a joyous occasion,’ Anya added. Thea accepted the cup and slowly sipped the wine. The wine, at least, was sweet and soothing, if Olga was not.

  Anya lifted her cup to her lips, sipped a little and set it down again. ‘There, that is better. Now, there is something else I have intended to tell you.’

  Thea gripped her cup tightly.

  ‘My husband hopes that Padar and Earl Connor will establish new business interests in Kiev. Gudrun is forgiven for whatever magic she may have inclined towards. It was a bad year. Everyone suspected we had witches at court. I promise you, we believe she is innocent of spellmaking.’

  ‘Of course Gudrun is innocent.’ Thea almost dropped her cup. ‘The women say that I am to save some of my bathwater from the maidens’ party for my husband to drink on our wedding night so that he falls in love with me. Is that not spellmaking?’

  ‘No, it is not,’ Anya said. ‘It is a harmless tradition. When Gudrun returns to our lands she comes back to us as Padar’s wife. She is not part of the court. Olga claims that she, herself, acted in good faith.’ Anya set her cup back on the table. She said in a quiet tone, ‘I believe that she was wrong, but Lady Olga was only thinking of your interests. You broke the rules and when you did that you put yourself in great danger. It is fortunate for you that Vladimir took responsibility for that escapade.’ Anya took Thea’s now empty cup and placed it beside her own. ‘Enough of past misdemeanours. Let us forget and forgive. Come and see my children. Eupraxia has grown fat as a piglet and is as stubborn as a mule. Rostislav is talking more and more every day. Soon you will have children of your own. Think happy thoughts and forget about Lady Olga.’

  ‘I shall try.’ As Thea made this difficult promise, doubts about Lady Olga remained securely lodged in the recesses of her mind. She determined that when Padar returned, Gudrun would stay close to her, under her own and Vladimir’s protection.

  Two days before her wedding Thea was carried in her litter to her new house. Princess Anya, Lady Olga and Mother Sophia accompanied the party. There had been no point in Princess Anya telling her that she would have her own choice of servants. Three score of these were in residence already. Thea determined that when her wedding was over she would make changes. Anya had chosen her cooks and seamstresses, laundrymaids, beekeepers, servers, personal attendants, sweepers, scrubbers, gardeners and cleaners.

  ‘And, look at this. We unpacked your gifts from Denmark,’ Princess Anya said.

  Thea exclaimed over everything – the precious glassware that was laid out on top of an ash wood coffer in her chamber; the linen that had been stored into a great chest in her antechamber; her spoons; her tapestries and bolts of material which had also been unpacked and displayed. Then, as her eye flew around her bedchamber, she saw the present she had actually found difficult to accept; the birthing chair, the gift from the Danish princesses, had been ominously stowed in an alcove where every morning she would see it on awakening.

  She pointed at it. ‘That will be kept from my sight until it is needed. Store it somewhere else. For me to even look on it before I conceive is bad luck.’ It was probably a lie, but Thea thought St Theodosia would absolve her. She would never use that birthing chair. It was a gift given with ill-intent.

  At Princess Anya’s bidding, two maids ran to remove the offending chair. ‘It is not appropriate for a birthing chair to be placed in a bedchamber. It will be brought to the bath-house when your time comes. Olga supervised the unpacking. She should know better.’ Anya looked around at everything else approvingly. ‘Yes, it is a beautiful room, perfect for your bridal nights.’

  When the time comes I shall make other arrangements for that birthing chair. ‘Is Vladimir to vis
it?’ she said aloud. Vladimir had not sent her a letter while she was living in the Convent of the Holy Trinity and she had not been able to send him anything either. Often she had thought of tokens, a poem written on birch wood or a drawing but there had been no one to take it to him, not even Katya’s father, who had melted away after that one visit. Occasionally, she had heard snippets of news from ladies who visited the convent. Prince Vladimir had been fighting the Steppe tribes south of Kiev or the brave warrior prince was out on the eastern borders near Chernigov.

  Anya replied evenly, ‘No. You must be patient.’

  ‘I shall try but it is difficult. I have waited so long and now nothing feels as if it is really happening to me. If only I could see my betrothed, speak with him …’

  ‘No,’ Anya said firmly. ‘For the nobility, that is not our custom.’

  Thea had prayed to St Theodosia nightly, before she drifted into sleep, that he still loved her.

  As her wedding approached, Thea had fittings for her wedding gown. She was to wear a deep crimson overdress with a long, trailing, gold mantle. This dress was of damask, covered with gold embroidery, its borders scattered with garnets from Bohemia. Her golden veil was so fine it was luminous, its hem embroidered with little seed pearls. Her belt was of plaited gold and studded with garnets and pearls and her undergown had opus anglicanum, tiny raised flowers with hearts of silver thread, scattered around the hem. Her night shift was silk and it, too, was heavily embroidered at the neck with opus anglicanum. When she enquired about the needlewomen who worked on these garments, she discovered that two English women who lived with their exiled merchant husbands in the city had embroidered them.

  She learned that during the ceremony she would be crowned, not with flowers like an ordinary maiden, but rather, she must bear the weight of a princess’s heavy, jewel-encrusted crown and walk with it on her head without allowing it to slip. She must glide through her wedding ceremony like a swan. Too many musts, she thought, feeling rebellious.

  Her lessons in deportment continued under Lady Olga’s supervision. Remembering Anya’s advice, Thea listened, learned and never complained. An uneasy peace existed between them until one afternoon Olga entered her chamber uninvited. Tension hung in the air like a fragile glass bead ready to shatter if knocked to the floor.

  ‘Lady Olga, I do not need any more lessons.’ Thea looked over at Katya. ‘We have planned a walk in the orchard today. I am sorry that you have made a wasted journey.’

  Lady Olga shook her head. ‘My lady, I come for the rushnyk today, not to coach you further in deportment, though as to whether you are ready or not remains to be seen on your wedding day,’ she said. ‘I shall take the rushnyk now since I am to carry it into St Sophia for you.’

  ‘I see. Did Princess Anya say so? Yes, I expect she did,’ Thea said and waved her hand towards her sewing chair. ‘Of course, it is ready.’ She turned to Katya. ‘Katya, could you fetch it from my sewing chair.’

  Once Lady Olga received the parcel, she bowed again to Thea and wished her a happy maidens’ party.

  The moment she was gone, Thea said, ‘Fetch my mantle, Katya. We shall walk in the orchard. I feel uncomfortable. She is like an unpleasant odour.’

  Katya said quietly, ‘I feel her malevolence too.’

  Weeks of waiting were over. Thea would have her bath in an enormous bath tub that was filled to the brim with warm scented water. Her skin would be scrubbed until it gleamed and her hair, that when unbound rippled past her hips, would be washed with her favourite rose soap. Her maidens would braid her hair into a single braid to represent her last night as a maid. Together, Thea and her maidens would eat pastries and sweetmeats and drink honey wine. As they ate, her bride’s maidens would tell her their magical tales to enchant her sleep with pleasant dreams. Princess Anya warned, ‘These stories must not go on like an endless ball of twine.’

  ‘Yes, Princess Anya,’ the maidens said in a chorus.

  ‘Indeed, I must have my beauty sleep,’ Thea laughed, feeling happier than she had felt for days. The palace had not felt as if it was her home. The servants were distant. The slaves were silent. They were not her servants and she did not like the idea of owning slaves. But soon all this would change.

  The slaves lit the candles and vanished. The bath-house smelled of honey and wax. After Thea stepped from her bath and her hair had been braided, she lay back in the cushions that littered the colourful mosaic floor, ate sweetmeats from a silver dish, drank a cup of honey wine and looked forward to listening to her maidens’ stories. The first tale went like this.

  A crane and a heron lived in a marsh. Their huts stood on stilts at opposite ends of the bog. But the crane was very lonely. The heron was like him. She had a long nose and elegant legs. He flew over the marsh to the heron’s house and asked for her hand in marriage. He waded up to her doorway and made his request. ‘No crane,’ she replied. ‘I won’t marry you. You have long legs. Your coat is too short. You fly badly. You can’t provide for me. Go away, spindle-shanks!’

  The crane went away dejected. The proud heron thought, but maybe I was wrong. I am so lonely. She fluttered and fluttered, hesitated, hesitated then, at last, decided. Off to the crane’s house she flew and made her proposal to him. He refused her. Sometime later, feeling even lonelier than ever, he thought of his missed opportunity, and so he waded across the marsh to the crane’s hut. This time, she put her nose into the air and declined but, of course, she regretted it later. And so, Lady Thea, it continues out there on the marsh. They keep proposing marriage to each other! And neither can say yes. Both are such lonely creatures. What is the sense in that!

  ‘He should never have refused her. Trust a man to be so proud and regret his pride,’ Thea said with firmness in her tone.

  The next was a tale of Baba Yaga, the witch who lived in a house with clawed legs; she who haunted the sky with her pestle and mortar. Then a bridesmaid told Thea a story about the frog princess and, finally, another told her the story of Little Pigskin who had a wicked stepmother and who married her prince because she was really a princess. Thea kept her own story close to her heart because that one was only for her prince.

  ‘So many tales,’ Thea said as she began to feel sleep calling her.

  ‘Enough now, to bed,’ Princess Anya ordered. She shooed the maidens to the antechamber and put Thea to bed in the sleigh-shaped bed in the second room. ‘Sleep well, little dove,’ she said and kissed her brow. Thea was already drifting into her dreams. She drowsily thought of her prince, convinced that he would cherish her, as the princes in the tales her maidens had told her, guarded their princesses.

  26

  Thea awakened to the ringing of bells from St Sophia. Katya was already at her side with bread and honeyed milk. ‘You must eat a little, Princess,’ she said. ‘It would not do to have a grumbling stomach today.’

  As morning suffused the chamber with May sunshine, Thea was dressed by Katya and her maids, supervised by Lady Olga and Princess Anya. Each of the layers she wore below her wedding gown felt feather-light as they were sewn from delicate Byzantine silk.

  Led by Anya and escorted by her maidens, Thea descended to the hall for the small and intimate meal that would precede her wedding. A priest from St Sophia entered the chamber from a side entrance. With a swaying incense burner that emitted the scent of frankincense, he approached the table where she sat at its head. He blessed her first and after he blessed the light meal of meat and cheese that was laid out for her bridal party. She could not touch a morsel. Her stomach was churning and her heart was beating too quickly. In case her nerves got the better of her, she drank a little wine to sustain her through the lengthy ceremony. Anya sent guards with Katya and Vera to fetch the prince from the palace. ‘We are ready,’ she said.

  After the two maidens departed, Thea turned to her right side curious as to why an empty chair had been placed there. Perhaps it was for Vladimir but it was not. Moments after the deputation left to summon the groom, the gr
eat hall door burst open to reveal a solitary tall, fair-headed young man clad in a blue mantle, accompanied by one servant. For a moment he stood framed by the giant doorway. A heartbeat later he walked down to the table, his cloak falling in elegant folds behind him, a glittering sword hilt visible in the scabbard attached to a jewelled belt. Thea sucked in a breath as this beautiful man, her brother, Edmund, knelt in front of her, his fair head bowed. ‘Sister, I am here at last,’ he said, raising his head to look into her eyes.

  Thea steadied herself, stood and said, ‘By the Virgin, my beloved brother, you are welcome. I never thought to see you again on this earth and here you are.’ Tears welled up in her eyes and she reached out her hand to him. ‘Come, Edmund. This seat beside me can only be for you. If only Padar and Gudrun were here too and Earl Connor, my happiness would be complete. But they are not and I am more than overjoyed that you are here.’

  ‘It is my honour to present you, beloved sister, to your husband today.’

  ‘Is this your doing, Princess Anya?’ Thea said turning to Anya.

  ‘Our surprise,’ Anya whispered. She then said loudly and with great formality, ‘Edmund, son of Harold, brother to Thea, please join us.’ She indicated the empty chair. ‘Your page may sit on the lower benches.’

  ‘Edmund, how come you here?’ she said when Edmund was seated beside her.

  Edmund said, ‘We can talk later, Sister. Thanks to fair winds and a safe river journey I am here. Our parents would be proud of you today. Our murdered father had hoped to be the parent of a new dynasty. Mother is stuck in that Norman convent in Canterbury. It will be through yours and Prince Vladimir’s children that we shall survive as princes. This will be our new dynasty, our destiny that through you, we live again to rule.’

  Thea felt a great sense of responsibility. This was how she was to avenge her father’s murder. Edmund lifted his cup and Thea saw a tear roll down his cheek. She leaned over and wiped it away with her thumb. ‘Edmund, you are here and my happiness is complete.’ She bit her lip and tasted a bitter droplet of blood on her tongue. All this ceremony. Would happiness really follow? Vladimir was not real any more. Had he ever been real?