Varanger

by Cecelia Holland

  “Let’s go,” he said. “We’ve got to get some horses.” He took her by the hand and they started toward the wharf on the river shore, across the rushing water from Kiev.

  Raef was still walking when the sun rose across the high grassy steppe, a great orange blob that seemed to swallow the horizon. He was exhausted; he would have to stop, soon, to rest.

  If he didn’t find her, would he walk forever? Conn, he knew, was far away, and going farther with every step, and he felt an ache deep in him like something uprooted that he might never again see his cousin.

  The day warmed around him, birds flying up, and the mists rising from the ground. He was looking for someplace safe to stop and rest, when he saw a horse galloping up the steppe toward him.

  He stood, swaying a little with fatigue, wondering if this were an enemy. The horse trotted up and wheeled neatly on its hocks.

  Janka held the reins, and Merike was up behind him. Raef gave a wordless yell of pleasure, and she slipped off the back of the horse and came running toward him and flung herself into his arms.

  “Merike,” he said. “Merike.” He buried his face in her hair.

  The horse tiptoed nearer. Janka said, “I see you, before, long way, I go get her.”

  Merike, in his arms, was sobbing. “I think you dead. I think you kill. Them kill you. My goose. My good.” She wept against his neck.

  Janka said, “Where is Raven?”

  “Conn. He went somewhere else,” Raef said.

  Janka looked back to the north. “I want see him. Now never.” He sounded wistful.

  Raef took Merike’s face between his hands and kissed her. He said, “I’m going home, Merike. Back to where I belong. Come with me.

  She kissed him again, her body pressed against him, her hands on his hips, and then she stood back. She glanced up at Janka, and faced Raef again.

  “No. Here stay. I home here.”

  Janka said, “You stay with us, maybe, hah, Goose? Then Raven come too.” He laughed. “You be hun, like me. Belong here.”

  Raef caught Merike’s hand. “But I’ll love you. I swear it.”

  She was crying, tears running down her brown cheeks, and she pushed his hand aside. Not hard. But away. “Someone else,” she said. “Someone—” She tugged her thick black hair. “Not me. White hair. White skin. White eyes. When you home again. Not me. I home here. My people glad I home. What we do—I glad of that. All I see and do with you.” She smiled at him, even as she wept. “But now I home.”

  He stood there, bereft. She came to him and kissed him again, firmly, and lifted his hands and pressed her face against them. “You good. You more good of all I know. Go home, Goose. My wild goose.” She turned and went to Janka, who gave her an aim up behind him, and they galloped away.

  He slept, a little, and then walked back. From the top of the river bluff, that afternoon, he watched Pavo’s warriors drive the people of Kiev into the river to be baptised.

  First they hauled down the stone and wooden Peruns, who had stood under all the trees in the city, and cast them into the river; the biggest of these Volodymyr himself dragged along by a rope, through a steep streambed to make it easier. The local people all wept, and some followed along after the fallen idol, begging and pleading for it to be saved. Then Pavo’s men closed in.

  They rode horseback, and carried whips, and from every corner of Kiev they pushed the people out and down. Wailing and crying, the people went the only way they could, down the long steep hillsides to the river, and then out into the water. There the priest said words, and sprinkled them. When they walked up out of the river again, they were Christians.

  Raef stayed by the big chestnut tree on the river bluff until well after sundown, but Conn didn’t come.

  The next sundown followed, and Conn wasn’t there, and the next. This was the day he had promised he would come. When dark had fallen utterly, Raef went down into the city to find something to eat.

  He felt alone, an old dry bone; he thought that the beautiful princess with the black hair, who had freed them, who had after all saved them, had taken Conn for her reward, lured him out beyond reach, snared him in some other ring. He felt a spreading cold grief in the middle of his chest.

  All the houses of Kiev were shut tight against him. But under some of the trees, where the print still marked the ground of the old gods, he found bread, and dried fish and meat, all fresh. Some of the people at least were still bringing their offerings. He had to fight some dogs for the food but there was enough to fill his belly.

  He went back up to the top of the bluff. From the foot of the tree the steep slope led down to the river, a path pounded zigzag into it from hundreds and years of feet going up and down. The shoulder of the bluff rose up like a grainy yellow wall, pierced with rain gulches, and deep holes; some of the holes wound back deep into the bluff, led into caves and tunnels. He found a little sheltered opening to sleep in, where someone else had been: a few stubs of candles lay at the mouth. He lay down looking out east, where Conn had gone. The rising moon shone in his eyes, and he dreamt of his mother, lying with the whole world round in her arms.

  The next sundown, as he loitered by the big tree, he realized someone was following him.

  He drifted away down toward the river, down the steep gritty slope of the bluff, which was gouged with little caves. When he looked up, there was still enough light in the sky to show him the man coming after him, enough to see the smooth blunt head, and the scalplock.

  He went down fast toward the river; if he got to the water, he could escape. The path led around the shoulder of the hill, steeper with each step, and then behind him something whistled.

  He felt the whip wrap itself around his ankles, and then he was flying out and slamming into the sloping ground, face-first, his arms out in front of him, so the skin peeled off up to his elbows. He struggled around, reaching for the tight hold on his ankles, and Pavo came scrambling down after him, laughing in the dark.

  “You think I let you go. I kill you first, Goose—”

  Raef broke free, and lunged forward, trying to get past Pavo, get behind him, into the darkness. Pavo reared back, and the whip cracked out again.

  The thin leather lash burned around and around Raef’s chest and waist and back, coiling around him like a snake that bit with its whole length. He lay on the ground again, smelling blood, his body stiff with pain.

  “I kill you and hang you in the tree for Raven to find,” Pavo said, in his ear. “Then I kill Raven, because he think him so good, so much better than everybody else.”

  He stepped back, ripping the whip away. Raef got up onto all fours, gasping for breath; he hurt all over, his chest sliced to ribbons. He struggled to stand up, heaved himself onto his knees, and the whip cracked again and this time it wrapped around his neck.

  He gagged, choking, clutched at the thin cord with both hands, his breath sealed off. He sank to his knees, violent color spinning in his eyes. Pavo was laughing at him, somewhere close by. He felt the whip jerk tighter; sparks shot through the darkness of his vision.

  Then something smashed into him, and rolled him over flat. Somebody howled. He clawed at his neck, loosened the whip and dragged in a deep breath, and nobody pulled it tight again.

  Conn roared, “You want to fight, Pavo?”

  Pavo lay sprawled on the ground in front of Raef; he reared up, and Conn pounced on him with both feet and drove him down again.

  Raef unwrapped the whip from his neck and threw it away. He crawled off, still sobbing for breath, his throat raw, his legs gone soft. When he tried to stand up he fell down on his knees again. He’ saw Pavo leap up off the ground again, and Conn closed with him, and they wrapped their arms around each other and stood together a moment, locked together, their voices snarling, each trying to throw the other down.

  Then Pavo flinched away, and went to one knee. Conn stood over him, hit him in the side, cocked his fist to hit him again, and Pavo wheeled around. In the moonlight Raef saw somethi
ng metal flash in Pavo’s hand, and he drove it deep into Conn’s ribs.

  Raef shouted, and staggered up, sagged down again, helpless, and saw Conn reach out and grip Pavo by the scalplock. Saw him drag the knife out of his side and thrust it into Pavo’s neck below the ear, and wrench.

  Raef let out all his breath in a rush. Pavo’s body sagged down, his head still in Conn’s grip, and the blood streamed out of him. Raef struggled forward. Conn let go the head in his hand, and began to sway, and Raef reached him just as he fell.

  “Conn,” he said. “Conn.” Everything he touched was slippery with blood. He gathered his cousin into his arms, the body shuddering in his arms, a fountain of blood.

  Up on the top of the bluff, a horn blared.

  Conn whispered, “Get out. Go. Damn him. All tricks.” He sobbed for breath. The air was whistling out of the wound in his side.

  Raef picked him up and reeled away on wobbly legs across the slope to the bluff face, the nearest of the caves. He dragged himself and Conn into the slot in the rock. For several feet it was only a chink, traveling steeply downward, between the dampsmelling gritty walls. He crept along it, cradling his cousin against him, his back scraping along the rock, eased himself and Conn around a hard corner, and then stood in some wider space, pitch dark.

  He could hear Conn breathing, slow and hard. He staggered along under his weight, blind in the dark, brushing along the wall of the cave, and then saw, ahead, the faint yellow glow of a light. He went toward it, following the tunnel around a curve. Ahead, the tunnel curved again, back into the darkness, but a light was shining out of a little room, dug into the stone on one side. He went in that archway. The room was only a few feet deep, round-ceilinged as the doorway was arched, a burrow in the raw stone. A candle burned in a niche on the far side. He went into it and sank down on his knees, and held his cousin in his arms, his head against Raef’s shoulder.

  “Conn,” he said. “Conn.”

  The light lay gentle on Conn’s face. It glittered on the blood covering them both. Conn moved, his eyes opening, looking around at him, and he smiled. “Late. Day late.” He whispered, “Better . . . I loved you . . . always only loved you . . .”

  Raef said, “Conn.” The light shimmering in his eyes.

  Conn drew a ragged breath, and sighed it out. Raef felt trembling all through him, bubbling in the blood that poured out from the wound. Raef waited for another. There was no other. He clutched Conn tight in his arms, falling down into a pain so terrible and deep he knew it would kill him before he reached the end of it.

  Drowning in grief, as if from the bottom of a well he looked up, and saw someone standing beside him, in a long hooded robe, head bowed, so he could not see the face.

  The monk said, gently, “May I help you?”

  Raef could hardly move, or talk. He leaned forward, laying his cousin down on the ground as gently as a newborn baby. He bent over him, bracing himself up on his arms, and wanted to weep and could not. The monk knelt down, and began to straighten Conn’s body, laying him flat on his back, his legs straight, and then folding his arms over his chest.

  “If you allow it,” the monk said, “I will pray for him.”

  Raef hung there, unable to move, seeing the kindness in the monk’s touch. He could not endure to think or move or act. He said, “What good will that do? Why do you pray at all?”

  The monk said, “It comforts me.”

  He passed his hand over the dead man’s face, shutting his eyes. A look came over Conn that Raef had never seen on his face before, a kind of peace: he looked much younger, like a boy, handsome, unspoiled, perfect.

  The monk said, “You loved him. But you must leave here. This is a place of the dead, here, and you are still alive, and will be so for many years. I will take care of him. Here he will never rot, nor be eaten by beasts and vultures. His enemies will not touch him any more. He need never fight again. He will lie here in peace forever.”

  Raef stood up. He was covered with blood. He gulped down the hard lump in his throat. He said, “Who do you pray to?”

  The monk lifted his head. “What does that matter?”

  Raef looked into the monk’s eyes, black as time. He drew in a ragged, shattering breath.

  The monk said, “The candle is going out. You have to go.”

  Raef turned, stumbling out of the room, and abruptly he was in darkness. He said, “Help me.” No one answered. He stood a moment, hoping someone would come show him the way, but finally he started off on his own, feeling his way along the wall of the cave. He wandered a long while in the cave, in the dark. He never found the niche again, nor the monk. For once in his life, he had no sense of what was around him; he walked into the walls, and smashed his hands and feet. He saw Conn before him everywhere. He thought endlessly of Conn, how Conn had always been beside him, how Conn had always saved him. At last he saw a pale gleam down the tunnel, and went toward it, and came out into the sunrise, on the bluff.

  He stood a moment, one hand on the stone, gathering himself. He had come out the same way he had gone in. There was a lot of blood all over the ground in front of him, and Pavo’s whip lay there, but the Tishats himself was gone, head and body both. Raef went slowly downhill, toward the water, to wash off the blood. Conn’s blood. He bent down over the water, and now, at last, he wept.

  CECELIA HOLLAND is widely acknowledged as one of the finest historical novelists of our time. She is the author of more than thirty novels, including The Angel and the Sword, Jerusalem, Lily Nevada, and The Kings in Winter. Holland lives in Humboldt County, in Northern California, where she teaches creative writing.