Varanger

by Cecelia Holland

  When Dobrynya had done with his ceremonial greeting, Volodymyr made a gesture, and someone else walked forward and answered for him. This man talked a long while, in dansker, but with an accent so thick Raef could make little of it. At last, Volodymyr raised his hands to them all, and abruptly the lights went out and the curtain came down, and everybody turned to leave.

  Raef turned gladly to go, but Dobrynya said, over his shoulder, “Stay where you are. You’re coming with me. Rashid?”

  “I am here, Lord.”

  “You should come also. Volodymyr will want to welcome you back.”

  “Lord, I long to see the prince, may Allah show him the true way.”

  They went on through the hall, out a back doorway, and through a covered passage to another building.

  This one was well lit, smaller, warmer. Heavy cloths with pictures woven into the thread hung from the walls, and there were benches heaped with cushions, cushions on the floor, carpets spread on the floor. At one end was an open hearth, and at the other an intricate screen, floor to ceiling, of some carved wood fitted with gold. In every corner of the room, though, stood a man in a blue coat, a sword at his belt, so motionless they might have been stones.

  Behind them, the door shut, and then Volodymyr appeared there in front of them, no taller than Dobrynya. He was smiling, which made him look younger. He took the little round cap from his head as he walked.

  “What did you think?”

  Dobrynya said, “It was better than the last time. It’s good to have Sfengus do the talking, I liked that.” He put out his hands and Volodymyr took them, and they kissed each other on both cheeks, and then embraced, standing there awhile with their arms around each other, and not speaking.

  Volodymyr broke the silence and the grip, stepping back. Yet the whole thing is still too simple. I want not just to be above everybody but to be finer—alone, separate.” He circled his hand around, searching for better words. “And the light must be stronger. There must be more to do, more elaborate.” He looked around him for the first time at the other people with his uncle. “Rashid!” His face lit, bright as a child’s. “Let me remember—As-salaam! Is that right? Alekium!”

  Rashid bowed over his hands, giving out a little patter of his own speech. “You honor me, Prince.”

  He put out his hands, and they kissed and embraced also. Raef thought this was the Sclava way, all this overworked welcome. The light, he thought, was some other thing, not Sclava and certainly not Varanger: maybe this was what they meant by Rus’. Then Prince Volodymyr clapped his hands. “I am glad to see you all, Uncle, and my lord Blud. Uncle, make this other man known to me.”

  Dobrynya waved a hand at Raef. “This is one of my Varanger.-

  Raef gave him a dark glance, and Blud came striding forward.

  “Varanger! This limp piece of rope? What is he, Dobrynya, another Sclava done up to look like Sviatoslav? If you want to return to the glories of your father’s reign, Volodymyr, you need to stop mixing the red wine of his blood with river water!”

  The prince turned to Raef, his eyes sharp. “Who are you, stranger?”

  Raef burst out, “Not one of his Varanger.”

  Blud roared, triumphant. Dobrynya wheeled toward the boyar, all his usual calm crackling into temper. “You backbiting little swine, I’m tired of your interference. You’ve humiliated me once too often, Blud!”

  The boyar drew himself upright like a sail up the mast. Like Dobrynya he wore a fancy long coat, embroidered in gold, and his dark red hair all smoothly combed and curled. “We threw out Yaropolk, when he decided he was better than the rest of us, Dobrynya. Don’t think we can’t do all that over again!”

  “I conquered Yaropolk,” Dobrynya shouted.

  “With my help, and don’t forget that! My forefathers came here with Rurik—I am blood of Rurik on both sides.” Blud held up both forefingers, like some kind of sworn oath. “What are you?”

  Dobrynya almost lunged at him. “My family was here before Rurik!”

  “Your sister was Sviatoslav’s housemaid,” Blud said, his lip curling.

  Raef backed away; he was hungry, and still angry about the rope remark, and he had seen enough of this. The prince had gone back to his chair, by the hearth, and was watching impassively as the two men screamed at each other. Along the walls the bluecoated men stood like stones. Raef went to the door, where the guard captain Oleg stood. Oleg made no effort to stop him, and Raef walked out.

  C H A P T E R E L E V E N

  Out on the apron of land at the approach to the Knyaz’s compound, a fringe of oak trees grew along the edge where the land fell off into a ravine. Beneath the oak trees in a line were little images of the Sclava gods, each one with a scatter of offerings before it. Raef wandered along from figure to figure. Most were wooden, like the ones in Holmgard, but some were stones, carved and smoothed into human shapes, knees, jaws, eyes, and arms. Scattered around the feet of each one were a few nuts, a wooden bead, a bit of shell, an old apple. Under an image with breasts was a doll. A woman with a ragged scarf wrapped over her gray hair still knelt down before this one, to give her little gift of eggs. He remembered how the ordinary people had cheered Dobrynya on his way up here; these were the people who left pieces of fruit before these images. He wondered what they made of Volodymyr descending in a halo of light.

  “Raef!”

  He wheeled; Skinny Harald was coming up along the trail from the city, past the Knyaz’s compound. He had a keg in his arms. Raef swerved over to meet him, guessing what was in the keg.

  “That had better be wotka. Where are we camped?”

  “Down there.” Harald nodded ahead, where the trail led down the side of the ravine. “Your brother has us all set up.”

  “Is there anything to eat? I’m really hungry.” They walked together onto the trail, and started down. The slope of the ravine went down in steps and shelves, and there were little thatches and the ruins of houses scattered all over it.

  “Ask him.” Harald nodded ahead of them.

  The trail they were following was wide enough for two people, winding down through thick brush into the ravine, but just ahead, where the slope leveled off a little, a narrower path forked off to the right, and ten yards along that path the ledge ended under a great sprawling old tree. On the ledge beneath the tree was a hut.

  The wooden walls had lost much of their whitewashed daub and the roof had fallen in along one side of the ridgepole, but Janka was balanced up there on the gable, holding with one hand and with the other laying bundles of old thatch back in place. The mare was hitched to one side of this house, her foal asleep on its side in the sun nearby, and Raef’s and Conn’s sea chests were standing in the narrow doorway. There was no sign of the hun woman, whom Janka had been supposed to bring down along with the horses. Conn and Leif the Icelander, were standing in the open ground in front of the house, where a fire had been laid, and Conn saw Raef and shouted and flung one hand in the air.

  “Where have you been?” He gave a quick, commanding glance at Leif, who went back up past Raef to the main trail, where Harald was waiting. As the Icelander went by Raef he muttered a greeting. Raef sauntered down onto the ledge and over to his cousin, who stood watching the other men stride off down the main trail. The hillside was so steep that now that Leif and Harald were descending on the main trail Raef was looking at the tops of their heads. He banged Conn companionably on the arm.

  “How did you find this?”

  “Just looking.” Conn turned to look around. “What do you think of this? There’s more houses down there. All empty. I just moved everybody in. What’s going on here? Did you find anything out?”

  “They had a war here, sometime, not too long ago, a lot of people left. Or died. When they drove out the last Knyaz. That must be why all these houses are here and empty. I saw Volodymyr. Dobrynya’s little prince wants to be king of the world, but they don’t even have control of Kiev. There are people here who think they are more Varanger
than we are, but they aren’t like us at all. They all speak dansker, kind of.”

  Conn grunted. “What about those ships? Are we getting those ships?”

  “I don’t know. Is there anything to eat?”

  “I’m still working on that,” Conn said. “But this is good, isn’t it? Once we get the roof fixed.” He looked very pleased with himself.

  “Good enough,” Raef said. He clapped Conn around the shoulders. “You did a good job.” He stooped to pick up his sea chest, and went through the narrow door into the hut.

  The roof of poles and thatch wasn’t solid, but the huge overspreading canopy of the tree and the makeshift frame of the roof shadowed the room, and he was inside before he saw the hun woman, huddled in a corner, her knees and arms against her body. He lowered his sea chest to the floor, looking around. There were no sleeping benches, but against the wall was a stack of rugs, or blankets, which must have come from somewhere else, since they weren’t dirty. The wall behind them was shedding plaster daub all over but the hut had been swept out, and behind this room was another, small as a cupboard, which Janka seemed already to have moved his own gear into.

  Overhead, Janka had fastened up half a row of thatches, and now he climbed down off the roof and was gone. Conn came in with his chest. He looked at the hun woman as if he had forgotten about her. Raef went out again, looking around.

  The vast tree was heavy with the long white strands of its blossoms and the air was sweet with their scent. He felt at once this was a good place. He walked across the ledge to the downslope into the ravine. Another ledge opened up some fifty feet below, this one wider, with six huts on it, and from high over their heads he looked down at Leif and Harald there, sitting by a fire bed. Vagn hurried past them with a bucket, from Raef’s viewpoint only a brimmed hat with milling feet beneath. Down behind their huts, out of sight of the Varanger, Janka was sealing another row of their thatch. Along a lower ledge, farther down the ravine, a string of horses was tethered and he recognized Pavo’s lanky chestnut among them. Across the blooming trees that filled the ravine were more houses, scattered where the land was flat, and down toward the river. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad, he thought.

  Behind him, in the hut, the woman screamed.

  He knew, right away. He could not have stayed out; it was as if his mother screamed. He plunged back across the yard, and into the hut, in the dimness seeing only the tangle of their bodies, and he got Conn by the shoulders and heaved him off. In one stride he put himself between his cousin and the woman.

  She was sobbing, but she started up off the floor, and he pushed her toward the corner again. “Stay there.”

  Conn stood up, naked, the light from the doorway behind him, and said, “Get out of my way, Raef.”

  Raef said, “I won’t let you.”

  Conn lunged at him, and they grappled together. Raef braced himself, his head down. He felt Conn gather against him, the smooth collected irresistible strength that Raef had always striven to match and never could, and couldn’t now either, one knee buckling, his muscles groaning, giving way; his left arm lost its grip. Then abruptly, Conn let him go and stepped back.

  “What’s the matter with you?”

  Raef was panting, his shoulders throbbing. He said, “I won’t let you.” He glanced quickly behind him to make sure the woman was still in her corner. “You’ll have to kill me, Conn.”

  Conn stood quiet a moment, his arms slack at his sides. The sunlight through the door behind him kept his face in shadow. Finally, he said, “All right. You know I won’t do that. Couldn’t, ever.” He wiped one hand across his face. “I’m going out and find us something to eat.” He picked up his shirt from the floor. “And somebody more willing.” He went out the door.

  Raef stood still a moment, thankful; he knew he would never beat Conn. He looked at the woman again, crouching in the corner, staring at him. The edge of the sunlight reached her and he could see in her face what she thought, and he called for Janka. The hun came at once in from the yard. He had likely been watching everything. He said, “You brother fight?”

  “No,” Raef said. “I was just making a point to him. Tell her he won’t do it again. Tell her I won’t, either.” He was on the edge of explaining about his mother, but he didn’t want Janka to know that. “She can haul water and wood and do other work and sleep in here and we’ll feed her. We’ll protect her. If she runs away somebody else will catch her and he will rape her, and probably kill her, too, while he’s at it.”

  Janka stared at him, his forehead rumpled, and then he turned to the woman and spoke, gesturing now and then, at some length. As he spoke the woman’s gaze turned from him to Raef. The shimmer of fear in her eyes changed to a wary curiosity. Raef looked away from her; he thought she would run off, likely, no matter what he said. The memory of his mother trembled on the edge of his mind, what had happened to her, suddenly much more real. How he had come of that suffering. His muscles hurt from the fight and he was tired and still very hungry and he hoped this story didn’t get around. He said, “Fix the roof, Janka,” and went out of the hut into the long summer afternoon.

  Conn brought down a haunch of meat, and they got a fire going in the circle at the upper house, where he and Raef were staying. Conn thought of this as his holding. He had never before ruled a hall of his own, but now he had one, even if it was only a hut. He got some stones set around the fire for people to sit on, and sent somebody for the wotka.

  What had happened with Raef amused him. He had always known Raef had a soft place for women, because of his mother. The hun woman was ugly anyway. He sat on a rock with his arm hanging over his cousin’s shoulder watching Leif cut slices of meat to roast. Then while they were eating the first half-raw strips, Dobrynya himself came down the trail, riding a trim chestnut horse.

  “I’ve been looking for you,” he said. He turned his horse sideways on the little path. Conn admired how effortlessly he mastered the horse. “If Pavo hadn’t seen you I would not know where you are even now. I want you to come with me, I want the Knyaz to meet you.”

  The other men were gathered around the fire; after a few glances at Dobrynya, they ignored him. The steady loud eating went on. Raef looked up and said, “Is this going to be like the last time? All show and the odd insult?”

  The golden Sclava lord grunted at him. His cheeks flushed. “No. This is merely with me and the Knyaz. I have something to . . . propose to him.”

  “Come on,” Conn said, and started toward the trail. He wanted to see what this Knyaz was like, and he certainly wanted to hear what Dobrynya proposed to do. The six dragonships down in the market were never far from his mind. They followed the posadnik up the trail and across the height to the gate into the stockade.

  Inside the gateway Dobrynya dismounted and a servant took his horse away. Conn looked around. The palace compound was much bigger than he expected. Men in blue coats stood at every gate, every doorway. Two people in the rags of servants were hauling wood into the great hall in front of them and he could hear axes ringing, just around the corner. He could smell bread baking.

  They crossed the open ground inside the gate, but they did not go into the hall with the painted door; instead, Dobrynya led them around the side, and in through a gate into a courtyard, which lay between the back of the hall and two smaller buildings, also gleaming with whitewash, their walls painted with birds and leaping deer. A narrow roofed corridor led between the two buildings. In the courtyard, three or four men dressed as grandly as Dobrynya were standing around, each surrounded by a little circle of other, lesser men. One of these great men broke forward to meet Dobrynya as he walked in.

  “Are you here to make plans with the Knyaz, Dobrynya?” he said. “Do you think you can keep me from finding out?”

  Dobrynya did not stop. “Come, then, Blud Sveneldsson. Hear what you want to,” he said.

  They went up between two guardsmen to the door into the farther of the two buildings. The doorframe was all carved and
gilded, and the door itself was painted with an eagle. Going through it after Dobrynya, Conn came into a room longer than it was wide, with hangings on the walls, and cushions and little tables. Just inside the door were more guards, one of them the man who had met Dobrynya at the dock. At one end of the room, on a big carved chair, sat a tall slender man in a dark coat.

  He was talking to the Mahmettan, Rashid. Dobrynya went forward, and said Conn’s and Raef’s names, and the tall man stood and came forward, tall and high-headed.

  “I am glad to receive you. I have heard much of you.” He did not offer to shake their hands. This man was older than Conn by ten years; he had a manner that put Conn on edge, as if he expected them to bow to him. “Tomorrow we shall have a great feast, such as you must be used to, in the kings’ halls in the north. Meanwhile, welcome to my court and to Kiev.”

  The red-haired lordling who had barged in with them stamped forward. “Knyaz, are these men guests? Or are they—as Dobrynya claims—”

  Volodymyr said, “Blud, when we hold council, then you will hear everything. Wait until we hold our council.”

  The redheaded Blud strutted a little in the middle of the room. Conn looked around again, admiring the Knyaz’s furnishings, and saw the latticework screen across the opposite end of the room, and wondered what was behind it. Blud said, “Just remember, you can do nothing without me!”

  Conn turned around, drawn to the challenge in his voice. Volodymyr flung his head back. He flashed with righteous kingly wrath. “I can do nothing with you!” His voice poured out of him, furious. “Whatever I plan, you stand in the way. Whoever I command, you command to disobey me. If I am to be master here shall be master over everybody, Blud!”