He was right.
“You style yourself Ivan Aleksandrovich, Tsar’s son of Khorlov, from the lands of the Rus that lie beyond the standing stone and beyond the Summer Gate,” said the Tsar at last. His voice was all of a piece with the rest of him, not harsh, but deep and mellow like a great-bass singer. Ivan was reminded, briefly and without relevance, of Sivka. Tell the truth, little master, said the horse’s voice inside his head. Ivan ground his teeth on all the convincing excuses that sprang to mind, and finally nodded acknowledgement.
“Majesty, my father is the Tsar in Khorlov’s kremlin,” he said, and waited as the reply was written down then added, very quietly, “and he didn’t command me to do this.”
“No matter who commanded you,” said Vyslav Andronovich. “A Tsar’s son who steals from his host is no prince, and deserves no more consideration than a common thief. Why should I treat you otherwise?”
“Because I wasn’t stealing, Majesty,” said Ivan. “I was only borrowing. Borrowing can’t be stealing, if the intent to keep the property isn’t there. I would have put the perch back after I was done with it.”
“‘I’, and ‘I’, and ‘I’, but never ‘we’.” Tsar Vyslav Andronovich twisted his heavy moustaches between fingers and thumbs, training the resultant points out across his face. “You cover your companions well, Ivan Aleksandrovich, so well that one might almost think them ignorant of this. But from what sage authority did you hear the legal quibble between borrowing and theft?”
After a few seconds of silence, the Tsar stroked his moustache again and smiled without humour. “No need to say it aloud, but you were quoting that learned counsel your new servant, Volk Volkovich the Grey Wolf.” Ivan stiffened, stared straight ahead and said nothing. “You should remember this, young sir. The man who believes everything the Grey Wolf tells him is the man most likely to be found half-eaten in the woods.”
Ivan heard a snarl, a scuffle of paws on the wooden floor, a thud and a stifled yelp as the Grey Wolf took exception to the Tsar’s words, and was disciplined for it with the butt-end of a spear. “Majesty,” he said, “whatever you may think of him, my servant the Grey Wolf isn’t on trial. I would ask you of your courtesy, please restrain your guards.”
“Let it be done,” said Vyslav Andronovich, and made a gesture of instruction to the armed men in the Council Chamber. “Now,” he said, “I am woefully ignorant of how other times and places regulate their lives, but in the Summer Country, anyone who borrows an object without first asking permission is stealing it. In fact, and in law. Did you ask for such permission?”
“Of course, Majesty.”
“Where?”
“At the hunting lodge of Countess Vasilisa Kurbit’yevna, Majesty.”
“But you did not ask for permission here?”
“You were away from the kremlin, Majesty, and—”
“And my High Steward wasn’t good enough.”
“He was… Excuse me, Majesty, but he was just another intermediary, and I’ve had enough of intermediaries, no matter how trusted and efficient they may be. In this present matter, they’ve always refused me.”
“And you hoped I might not?”
“Hope is all a man can do, Majesty.”
“So why did you not wait to ask me? Why did you throw away your honour and take matters into your own hands?”
Ivan stared at Vyslav Andronovich and saw what he hoped was a glimmer of sympathy in the Tsar’s dark eyes. “Majesty, waiting needs time, and time is something I can’t spare! The matter of the Firebird concerns my father’s life and the safety of his realm—”
“Does it go beyond your honour as a bogatyr, a Prince, and your father’s son?”
Ivan drew a long breath to calm himself, then nodded. “Yes, Majesty. It does.”
“Then Prince Ivan, I think you should tell me all about it. Bring your lady wife up here, and… Yes, and your other companions as well. If a man is going to hear truth, he can never hear it from too many sources.”
After ten minutes of discussion as intense as the crossfire of arrows, Tsar Vyslav Andronovich looked from Ivan to Mar’ya Morevna, and then at the unhuman faces of Sivka and the Grey Wolf. “I give no reason why,” he said, “but I believe your story. If you had asked me for the brief use of a Firebird’s perch-of-honour, I would have loaned it to you without scruple or condition.”
Ivan gazed at the Tsar, wondering privately whether he would really have been so amenable. Until now, neither he nor Mar’ya Morevna had been in the habit of pouring out their woes in the hope of sympathy, and it still felt slightly improper. The troubles of Khorlov were not the Summer Country’s affair, except where the Firebird was involved; and that involved only the Firebird, rather than Princes and Tsars and Ministers, however sympathetic.
“And if I ask you now?” he said.
“It seems a little late for such courtesy,” said Vyslav Andronovich. “After all, no matter that your motive was of the best, you did me a wrong.”
“What can I do to set it right?” said Ivan, knowing that the conversation had taken on the grim inevitability of actors in a play.
“You were willing to steal one thing for yourself,” said Vyslav Andronovich. “If you want it so very badly, then be willing to steal something else. A crime to cancel a crime.”
“Be careful, Vanyushka,” said Mar’ya Morevna, laying her hand on his sleeve as though to hold him back from a dangerous decision. “All the lords of the Summer Country disapprove of theft just as much as this Tsar—”
“Scarcely so, noble Lady,” said Vyslav Andronovich. “I disapprove of it far more when I’m the victim than when I stand to benefit.” The Grey Wolf growled low and deep in his chest, and one of Sivka’s hoofs scraped across the floor to leave a gouge that would be there when the kremlin crumbled. The Tsar looked down at the mark and smiled faintly. “You have staunch supporters,” he said, “but to make the decision yours alone, my guards will escort them to their places. I wouldn’t want your choice influenced by your friends.
Of course,” said the Tsar once they were alone again, “it may make things easier to know that you aren’t stealing someone else’s property, just recovering a gift I gave away by mistake in a fit of generosity. Most excessive generosity, and a most unfortunate mistake.”
“So explain the error and just ask for it, or them, or whatever, to be returned.”
“Would your father the Tsar do such a thing, Prince Ivan?”
Ivan shrugged. “Perhaps. Or perhaps not. The question has never arisen. But despite that, you still want me to reach a quick decision?”
“Quick,” said Vyslav Andronovich, “and correct.”
“Correct for you, Majesty, or for me?”
“Just correct is good enough.”
Saying ‘yes’ would be so easy, and the Tsar, who knew better than most, had assured him that everything would be all right afterwards; no blame, no accusations, and all the help he might need. But no matter what Vyslav Andronovich might say, there was still the way the hunting-party had looked at him when they found him in the square with his fingers round the Firebird’s perch. Against that was the way Mar’ya Morevna had held his hands and told him what he’d done was for the best. He could deny it, make it and this new theft for the Tsar just something done for convenience, to get assistance, the Firebird and all the other things he needed. But that would stab her trust with a knife and twist the blade. Some things were worse than winning. They were worse even than dying. Some things couldn’t be lived with.
Prince Ivan looked at Tsar Vyslav Andronovich. “Then the answer I find most correct,” he said, “is no.”
The Tsar gazed thoughtfully at him. “You are young, and rash. That much has been proved already. I will give you one minute to reconsider—”
“No, Majesty,” said Ivan. His voice was cool and neutral, neither mannerly or rude. “I don’t need a minute. Or an hour, or a day. Or however long my life in the Summer Country might be. I was wrong. What I did wa
s wrong. But two wrongs never make a right. I said no. I mean no. Now make an end.”
“As you wish,” said Vyslav Andronovich, and with a nod towards his guards, clapped his hands together.
CHAPTER NINE
Castle Thorn of the Teutonic Order;
January, 1235 A.D.
Shadows danced through the cold and pillared darkness of the undercroft, and the flames of torch and candle fluttered in the air stirred by the movement of huge iron gates as they were swung shut. A great echoing clang rolled up from the crypt beneath the fortress chapel, and that noise formally signalled an end to the funeral proceedings for the two files of sergeants who had acted as an escort to the bier were already relaxing even before they were dismissed.
Albrecht von Düsberg took a heavy black key from the crowded ring hanging from his belt and twirled it in the lock, then pushed at the cold metal of the doors to make certain they were secure. It had been explained to him by the Hauskomtur that the checking of the crypt door was a traditional part of any interment in Castle Thorn, whether of knight or unfortunate guest, but in von Düsberg’s view it was one of the more pointless things to do. Nobody outside the burial chamber would want to enter it before they absolutely had to, and certainly nobody inside would be coming out without assistance.
But Kuno von Buxhövden had insisted, so Albrecht went through each and every step of the procedure and kept his opinions to himself. He was glad to be out of the crypt; it was dank, chilly, and faintly foul-smelling, since even though the cold that breathed from the rock walls ground into the marrow of a man’s bones, it still wasn’t cold enough. The miasma of corruption hanging inside was a better memento mori than any number of carven skeletons.
“Surely by now Father Giacchetti sleeps with the saints,” said Brother Johann, and crossed himself for what had to be the hundredth time. He had been repeating the sign with a sort of feverish intensity since Giacchetti died, as a shield against the intrusive realities of life and death.
Von Düsberg glanced at him and thought such a sudden display of delicacy was an ironic attitude for a pretty boy who kept company with an inquisitor. Father Arnald had seemed less troubled by the death of the Apostolic Notary, and it seemed likely the Grand Master would soon be given a Papal letter of authority stating that, in the event of Father Giacchetti’s sudden, unexpected and unfortunate death, Father Arnald would succeed him.
Whether that letter had been written in Rome and signed by the Holy Father was another matter. Brother Johann was skilled with a pen, had the calligrapher’s great advantage of young eyes, and the even greater advantage that as an inquisitor’s secretary, nobody would dare to question the authenticity of whatever papers he carried. Albrecht smiled grimly and said nothing.
Grand Master von Salza wasn’t so reticent. “Certainly our late brother of the Benedictines won’t lack for good companions,” he said. “We’ve laid many brave knights to rest down here.” Then he grinned and, with his features underlit by the candle in his hand, the effect was unnerving even to von Düsberg. “Very few saints though, and I doubt they’d want Father Giacchetti in their company unless somewhere in the calendar there’s a patron for stupid old men.”
“How could he be stupid, Grand Master?” Brother Johann didn’t understand, or didn’t want to understand. “He was a good and holy man, and he died of the cold in this dreadful place, and of the infirmities of his own venerable age.”
Von Salza held the candle higher and stared for several seconds at the yellow spearpoint of its flame. “Did he?” he said, and blew the candle out. “I thought he died because he couldn’t heed a warning.”
Father Arnald had been pacing to and fro, waiting for the final business of the funeral to be concluded so that, presumably, he could present von Salza with the letter. He was walking slowly, head lowered in apparent thought or prayer, through a pool of the wan light that filtered down the stairs from the chapel above. Only Albrecht von Düsberg was placed well enough to see how von Salza’s words stopped the inquisitor in his tracks and brought his head up with all the colour drained from his face.
“Explain that,” he said. “Explain it at once.”
“Right here and now, in front of everyone?” said von Salza in well-simulated surprise. “I’d have thought such things were better discussed in private. Brother Treasurer, have one of the tower rooms heated so that—”
“Stay right here, all of you!” rasped Father Arnald in a harsh voice, even though von Düsberg and the other Order officers hadn’t moved and indeed had no intention of doing so. The Father-Inquisitor stalked across the crypt until he stood face to face with Hermann von Salza. The friar was breathing heavily and his fists were clenched, while the Grand Master looked calm and at ease with the world. “There are things needing said between us, and this is as good a place as any.”
“Is it?” Von Salza folded his arms and made to lean back against the wall, then compared the damp stone to the white silk of his mantle and thought better of it. Albrecht von Düsberg concealed a smile. “You’ll have to speak for yourself. I have no great fondness for standing around in an open grave.”
“The grave of a man you put in it,” said Arnald.
“Now that I think you had better explain, Father-Inquisitor. No knight would make such an allegation unless he was willing to defend it with his sword. You, of course, are protected by your cloth…” The insinuation was obvious.
“Protected? As Father Giacchetti was protected? Then the protection of my cloth counts for very little!”
Kuno von Buxhövden took a step forward and laid one big hand sympathetically on the inquisitor’s shoulder. “Please, Father, come away from this place. It’s not helping. Even a man of the cloth can become over-wrought by grief. There’s no shame in it. And don’t worry about the rest, you don’t realize the gravity of what you’re saying.”
Father Arnald glared at him and flung off the Hauskomtur’s hand so violently that von Buxhövden swayed back in anticipation of a blow. “Do I not, then? So why will nobody tell me what veiled warning Giacchetti ignored – warnings like those I’ve heard a dozen times since I came to this castle.”
“Veiled warning?” Von Buxhövden’s honest face was puzzled. “There was nothing veiled about it.”
“At long last! Praise be to God, a man who isn’t afraid to utter honest threats!”
Von Salza and his Treasurer, the only two men privy to this particular secret, watched as the castellan backed away, puzzlement giving way to nervousness. “You aren’t well, Father-Inquisitor,” von Buxhövden said. “Not well at all.”
“Father Arnald,” said Hermann von Salza, “perhaps it’s just as well that you insisted there be witnesses present when we spoke. Brother Johann?”
“Grand Master?”
“Have you ever heard any of my knights or officers utter a threat against Father Giacchetti?”
“No, Grand Master.”
“Then write, boy. Write that down, the way that you’ve been writing everything else.”
“Yes, write,” said Father Arnald. “Write how they killed Giacchetti, as a warning to me!”
“Write that accusation down as well, Brother Johann,” said von Düsberg quickly. He had expected the charge to be made in due course, but not so soon or so conveniently before witnesses. “Kuno, Wilhelm, make your marks as validation of it. Your seals can be appended later.”
The Grand Master watched as Hauskomtur and steward took their turn fumbled briefly with the secretary’s pen, then stared at Father Arnald for a moment. “Kill that old man as a warning?” he said at last. “Don’t flatter yourself. Think it, if it gratifies your vanity, but we’re the Order of Teutonic Knights, not the Order of Assassins. And you, Father-Inquisitor, are still very much alive. What does that suggest?”
Arnald’s mouth worked, but no words came out.
“Father Giacchetti killed himself in spite of Castellan von Buxhövden’s many warnings to him. I’m sorry if I insult his memory, Brother J
ohann, but he was worthy of the company of saints only if sainthood means stupidity and stubbornness. We of the Order have lived in Prussia for long enough that we might be expected to know something of the climate. Father Giacchetti thought otherwise, and acted as if he was still in Rome. He was told a wearisome number of times that there was no sin in dressing warmly, in sleeping in a bed, in having a brazier in his room. He ignored all of that, and we all know the consequence, may he rest in peace.”
Von Salza crossed himself, then glowered at Father-Inquisitor Arnald. “It was only through the good graces of my officers that he wasn’t buried without rites, as a suicide deserves! And you choose his funeral as the time to accuse me of his murder? With what proof? By what right, other than your own arrogance? You once demanded an escort of my knights to bring you safely back to Rome. I refused. Now I withdraw that refusal, Father Arnald of the Holy Inquisition, because I want to make quite certain that you – and what has just been written down – get to the Pope intact. What happens afterwards is his concern.”
The Grand Master drew himself up very straight, and made the sign of the cross again, this time right in front of the inquisitor’s confused and angry eyes. “Perhaps von Buxhövden is right, and you aren’t well. If so, you have my pity.”
“I don’t want your pity!”
“All the more reason to grant it, then. And you also have my leave to go.” Hermann von Salza moved his hand slightly, and the two files of sergeants who had flanked Father Giacchetti’s coffin moved to flank the inquisitor instead. “Take him away.”
*
The Summer Country;
The Kremlin of Tsar Vyslav Andronovich
The Tsar’s guards came to attention at that handclap and saluted him, then all of them – even those who stood behind the throne – marched from the Council Chamber. Vyslav Andronovich watched them go, then summoned a servant with a chair. The same man brought Ivan his dagger and sabre and helped him fasten each sheathed blade to his belt. The return of his weapons made Ivan feel better, but more even than that, he appreciated the gesture of trust. Another chair was brought for Mar’ya Morevna, and then the Tsar sat back in his throne and stroked once more at his moustache.
Firebird (Tales of Old Russia Book 2) Page 27
