The Betrothed Sister (36 page)

Padar said, ‘My lady, I have brought you Flanders wool.'

‘No, no, you brought me a greater gift.' Thea reached out to Gudrun and took her hand. They both wept tears of relief and joy. They chattered on about the ladies of St Omer, about the countess, about Thea's time at Holy Trinity and about little Edith. Thea begged Gudrun to join her terem when Padar was away on his travels.

‘I shall. And baby Edith will come too.' Gudrun frowned. ‘But will I be welcome?'

‘If you are thinking of Lady Olga, she is spending the autumn in Germany and then she will be moving into Prince Sviatoslav's household in Chernigov.'

‘How have you managed that, my lady?' Gudrun said.

A silk curtain blew against the isinglass window as a door opened and Katya came in. She bowed to Thea but as soon as she saw Gudrun and Padar, she was all eyes for the baby who slept on the divan by their sides. She lifted Edith. ‘May I?'

Gudrun nodded. For a moment Katya buried her face in little Edith's shawls.

‘Katya will tell you all about Lady Olga,' Thea said to Gudrun and turned to Katya. ‘Katya, show Gudrun and Edith the garden. I wish to talk with Padar for a moment. I need his advice concerning my brothers Godwin and Edmund.'

After Gudrun and Katya hurried out into the garden, Padar listened intently to what Thea had to confide.

‘I knew it was so but I fear that it is too late. Rebellion in England will never be consolidated. There are Norman castles and stronger defences everywhere and there are parts of the land where people are adjusting to Norman rule. I think Edmund agrees, but Godwin is broken. He feels that he has betrayed his father if he does not recover his kingdom.'

‘And you feel it is an impossible venture.'

‘There is little desire for war. There has been so much suffering.'

‘But that is a defeatist attitude,' she said fiercely.

‘It is a realistic one. The English thanes left to England must now work from within to improve the peoples' lives.'

‘Oh, Padar. How sad all this is.'

‘My lady, it is change, some good and some bad. That is how one day the future will judge it all. For now we must live as well as we can. Peace is precious.'

Some days passed and Thea thought she would never find the best opportunity to discuss Edmund's request with her husband. At last an opportunity did arrive. It was a fasting day, which meant eating lightly and not meat. They had shared a goblet of watered wine. He reclined against feathered cushions that had come from Denmark with Thea.

‘Play for me this afternoon, my sweet.'

‘With pleasure, my lord.' Thea lifted her harp onto her knee. Plucking the strings she began to sing a song she had been taught by her Danish music master. Vladimir told her that her voice was as beautiful as that of the nightingale.

‘Thank you, my lord. One day I shall sing songs for our children.'

‘They will be enchanted children if you sing to them as you sing for me. They must learn to play instruments. You must teach them.' His eyes were filled with genuine admiration.

On an impulse she laid aside her harp and crossed the chamber to a great oak coffer. She lifted the lid, and dug deep below the tapestries she stored there. She withdrew her mother's bone-plated casket. From the casket, she lifted out one of her most precious possessions and held aloft the Godwin christening garment, so fragile that sunlight shone right through it. ‘My grandmother asked if our first son could be called Harold for my father.'

Vladimir watched the sunlight shine on the precious garment. ‘All this way, and all that time ago and it survives.' He smiled at her adoringly. ‘Yes, we shall call him Harold amongst the family but I think his name for formal occasions must be Mstislav. This way we keep the boyars happy and my father content.'

‘If that is your wish. In the terem he will always be Harold.'

‘Of course, that is as will be.' He kissed her on her lips and pulled her onto his lap. ‘One day we shall have many children.'

‘My mother had four, though one, our beautiful Magnus, is dead and another is a prisoner in Normandy. I wish you could help him. I wish you could spare an army to invade England and take my country back for my brothers.' There it was said and she could not take back her words, though she knew they were futile.

This was no simple request such as a baby's name or that her child would be christened in an English christening robe. He gently pushed her off his lap and rose from the bench. Slowly he paced the length of the room, his boots tapping as he walked. His raven's head was bent in thought and his hands were folded in front of his long gown. Occasionally he raised a hand to touch the cross he wore about his neck. Something about the frown on his countenance and the sound of his boots clacking over the tiled floor made her feel extremely uneasy. Thea let go a sigh, sensing that she was about to be rebuffed.

Vladimir sank down beside her again, lifted her hand and kissed it. ‘It is not a decision for me alone. The boyars have a council and even our freed men have a say. It would have to be their decision.' Vladimir pulled her close. ‘I shall send a letter to the King of England asking him to free your younger brother into our care, though I suspect he will refuse.' He took both her hands into his own. She felt gripped by sorrow for Godwin, for her sister in Wilton Abbey, for her mother in a nunnery in Canterbury and she felt sad for Ulf because she suspected that he would not be set free.

Vladimir continued, ‘We cannot spare any soldiers for a foreign war.' He looked at her with sadness in his eyes. ‘Perhaps we can organise a ship to bring back survivors from the English rebellions, those who need a new land for their home, though unless they have their own way of living in Rus lands as mercenaries or as craftsmen, they could find life very difficult here.'

‘But …'

‘No
but
. Edmund is welcome here as a merchant, but only that. He cannot interfere in our political decisions. You, my wife, must not involve yourself in the ruling of our lands. You are mistress of your terem. As such you will rule fairly and by example, just as I, my father and uncles and cousins rule our land. Your task is to guide our children and our noblewomen. That is all I ask. Our women do not meddle in politics. Do you understand?' He lifted her hands to his lips and kissed them. ‘It is not right for women to try to behave like men and you are now a Russian princess. You will rule the politics of your terem and oversee my household and I know you will do this well. The women already respect you and, well, Lady Olga. I think you handled that incident very well too.'

Thea bit back her protest. She did not want a quarrel. ‘I had to ask.' A feeling of irritation welled up deep inside her. A snake had entered her garden. She was a woman and a Rus princess who must not think about politics. It was unfair. For now she would hold her tongue but things must change if they were to continue to live in harmony. ‘I shall tell Edmund,' she said aloud.

‘No, I shall,' he said. ‘In a month you will travel to Pereiaslavl. The skald, Padar, requests that Gudrun and their child accompany you. Will that make you happy?'

‘I am glad to have Gudrun back. Even though she has her own household now, she will always be part of mine. She dwells in my heart.'

‘Not as much as I, my sweet.' He pushed his hands into her hair and drawing her close kissed her forehead and then her lips as if to silence her. She returned the kiss but as they kissed she remembered how she had once lived through a terrible siege. She had learned too much about politics to not be curious about how a country worked. Her grandmother had been a politician. Her mother had been courageous. That night she wished as she looked through her chamber window at a rising full moon that one day she, too, would prove her worth in the world of men.

Part Three

Marriage

Oleg and Boris advanced on Chernigov. Vsevolod joined Iziaslav in Kiev and these brothers reunited …

Oleg and Boris led pagans to attack the Rus. Many Rus died …

Boris, Oleg and their uncles met in Battle at Nezhata meadow where the carnage was terrible and Boris fell … Iziaslav died, struck on the shoulder by a spear …

The Russian Primary Chronicle,
entry
1078
, translated and edited by Samuel Hazzard Cross and Olberg P. Sherbowitz-Wetzor, Medieval Academy of America, Cambridge, Mass. 1930

28

Kiev, December 1076

Sviatoslav died from the cutting of a sore and was buried in Chernigov.

Russian Primary Chronicle, entry, 1076
, trans. and edited by Samuel Hazzard Cross and Olberg P. Sherbowitz-Wetzor, 1930.

For almost five years, despite many separations, Thea and Vladimir's apparent happiness was smiled upon by all who knew them. They were sensual by nature but it was more than that – Thea delighted in his vigour, determination and in his sense of justice. He spoke many languages and knew poetry. They discussed Greek poets long into the night. She learned to speak Russian with increased fluency. He was ambitious but not overly so. He was fair-minded. Often he discussed matters of law with her but when she tried to change his opinion the discussions ceased. To Thea's mind, his one fault was that for him her main role in their partnership was that of wife and mother but as the years passed she began to possess an increasingly strong sense of her identity as an admired and clever princess of a great land. She was her father's daughter and she wanted to rule.

She knew that Vladimir admired her intelligence as well as her beauty. One day, she decided, he would need her clever mind to help him rule Russia.

The merchants of Kiev and many of the noblemen expected that in time Vladimir would be their grand prince. Thea heard whispers to this effect amongst her ladies, many of whom visited their families who lived in the city's great houses. Katya, too, carried stories to Thea from her merchant father, Dimitri, who returned often from his travels to dwell with her Rus mother in a grand house situated below the hill of palaces, in the merchant's quarter in Kiev.

This Christmastide everybody was anxious – merchants, noblemen and Prince Vsevolod's immediate family, in fact, all of Kiev. Prince Sviatoslav lay ill. It had been only three years since he had seized his brother Iziaslav's throne and Iziaslav was thrown out of Kiev for a second time. For three years Sviatoslav ruled. It was not to last. Over this past Christmas, the sense of apprehension amongst the nobility reminded Thea of the atmosphere in King Edward's palace of Westminster ten years before when
he
lay dying. Who would succeed to England's throne? This question had caused the terrible succession crisis that had eventually caused her father's death, their family to be scattered, her exile, and her younger brother Ulf, now sixteen years old, then six years of age, to be taken into Normandy, never to be set free.

Padar, a regular visitor to Thea's terem, said that Iziaslav had it coming. He had raised taxes to build monasteries. He had helped the poor but he refused to provide the merchants with an army to protect them as they traded south along the Dnieper. That decision was unpopular. Tribes from the Steppe lands were attacking ships and demanding tribute. Padar insisted that Iziaslav was weak and Prince Vladimir agreed, but he considered also that his father was foolish for supporting Uncle Sviatoslav and his greedy sons Boris and Oleg. Gleb had already quietly moved south, away from trouble.

When the Kiev Council, led by Sviatoslav and Vsevolod, demanded that Grand Prince Iziaslav leave the city or face imprisonment, Prince Iziaslav had taken as much gold and jewels from the palace as he could pack into fifty closely guarded carts and had set off for Poland, his wife's country. The Poles who had helped Iziaslav the first time he was exiled from his kingdom chose not help him this time. They refused him sanctuary and made an alliance with Prince Sviatoslav. Iziaslav found his sanctuary in Italy.

Who knew what could happen now, Thea mused, if Sviatoslav died. Padar said that Sviatoslav's sons, who ruled in Chernigov, would fight to inherit the throne of Kiev. The Kiev Council had found Sviatoslav as much of a disappointment as his elder brother. Padar reported how this grand prince did not protect the merchants from attacks on the River Dnieper from the Cuman tribes. Earl Connor complained that Sviatoslav refused them guards. Edmund growled that if Prince Vladimir had real courage he would raise an army and throw the Sviatoslav family out of Kiev.

‘Hush, Edmund you speak treason. Anyway they spend most of their time in Chernigov.' Then, Thea would warn, ‘Have a care where you say such things. There are spies everywhere.'

Edmund would simply say, ‘The Cumans attack our ships. Soon it will be our cities.' Thea noted how Russian her brother had become but even so he had no rights in this his adopted country. Despite the attacks the triumvirate of Padar, Connor and Edmund thrived and they grew wealthy.

Now they were reassured as Sviatoslav weakened. It was increasingly clear from court talk that the boyars would have none of Sviatoslav's family to rule if he died. They might instead select the fair-minded and astute Vsevolod as their new grand prince, rather than the Sviatoslavichi sons, whom they considered sly imitations of their father.

Thea sat in her sewing chamber stitching a shirt for her husband. Companionably, she shared the window seat with Katya as the room was warm. The isinglass kept the draughts out and allowed a little natural light to seep through. Harold, her first son, only eighteen months old, was contentedly playing with wooden animals that Earl Connor had given him as a gift. Wrapped in soft furs, her tiny baby, Iziaslav, was sleeping in his cradle as his nurse applied a gentle pressure with her felt-slippered foot to the cradle's rockers.

Snow twirled against the window. Thea loved watching the snow fall. It would soon be piled up about the courtyards, until a few months later it would melt into unpleasant rivers of slush. But for a time it was beautiful, like a fairy tale.