The Constant Queen (20 page)

‘Now?’ Elizaveta gasped.

‘Now. I am the hero of the hour, Lily!’ He winked. ‘The Grand Prince will surely not refuse me?’

Elizaveta shook her head, a strange thrill suffusing her body as Harald leaped the table and went on one knee before a very surprised Yaroslav.

‘Grand Prince,’ he said, his voice ringing around the hall. ‘I have suffered much to return to you and I ask one boon – your daughter. I cannot live a moment longer
without her as my wife.’

There was an ooh of delight from the women in the hall and, though Elizaveta looked modestly down, her body sang. She sneaked a look at Anastasia and was pleased to see her usual smug expression
wiped from her fair face. Beyond her, Agatha was grinning wildly. Elizaveta’s youngest sister was nearly thirteen now and had had her own share of proposals but she stuck steadfastly at
Edward’s side and, in her usual forthright way, had made it clear that she intended them to be wed. Elizaveta might be making it to the altar just in time not to be beaten by another of her
sisters.

‘In that case,’ Yaroslav said, playing the crowd, ‘we must have a wedding.’ Cheers greeted this. ‘We will have it one week hence.’

Harald looked back to Elizaveta and grimaced. She giggled.

‘’Tis only a week,’ she mouthed.

‘’Tis a week too much,’ he mouthed back and her body tingled.

‘Yes,’ Yaroslav said, putting out a hand for Ingrid who, as always, rushed to his side. ‘A wedding, then a few days for you to . . . get to know each other.’ Whoops of
delight. ‘And then we will sail.’

The crowd were still calling their approval but Elizaveta saw Harald stiffen and felt the noise fuzz around her.

‘Sail?’ he asked Yaroslav.

‘Yes, for Miklegard. We cannot, I’m sure you will agree, afford to wait.’

Harald rose, one foot at a time. He looked stiff suddenly, almost old.

‘Your Highness, we must talk about this.’

‘Talk?’

Yaroslav’s eyes narrowed and the delicious thrills around Elizaveta’s body were instantly chased out by a shiver of cold dread. The mood had changed. Everyone knew it. Even the
youngsters at the back of the hall had stilled and the sudden silence was suffocating.

‘The situation in Miklegard is not as we thought,’ Harald said. ‘Not as it was.’

Yaroslav advanced on him and though he was two heads shorter than the Varangian he seemed to tower over him.

‘Not as
we
thought?’

‘Not as we
hoped
.’

‘
We
hoped, Harald?
You
said Miklegard was cracking.
You
said she was weak.
You
said we could take her.’

‘And it seemed true,’ Harald protested. ‘Nay, I thought it was true. We all did.’

He looked desperately to Halldor and Ulf who rose now and came to their leader’s side, his supporters, his protectors. They were no use, though, against Yaroslav’s rising anger.

‘And what then, pray,
is
the situation in Miklegard?’

‘Unsettled,’ Harald managed. ‘The emperor is dead and there is not yet a new one.’

‘Then,’ Yaroslav snapped, his voice a whip-crack, ‘we must move now. Your wedding can wait.’

‘No!’ Elizaveta cried and then smothered it in a napkin.

This mission was so important to Yaroslav. More than that, it was driving him and had been for months. He had taken Elizaveta to see the fleet, a magnificent group of ships that must have cost
half his silver to build. He had called Vladimir back from Novgorod and spent hours with the boy – now a man and as eager for the glory of this bold plan as his father – plotting their
every move. He had even employed the greatest minds in all Rus and beyond to find a coating for the ships that would repel the legendary Greek fire. The project had consumed him and he would not
let it go.
Should
not let it go. She looked angrily at Harald. Why was he so scared? He had escaped Miklegard a fugitive, so surely he must seize the chance to return a victor?

‘It is not just the emperor, though, Sire,’ Harald was protesting. ‘There is the empress too.’

‘The empress!’ Yaroslav scoffed. ‘You are afeared for your manhood, Harald?’

The
druzhina
laughed but it was a terse, nervous sound.

‘Your Highness,’ Elizaveta heard Harald urge, his voice low, ‘please can we discuss this in private. It is complicated. I would not wish you to send your beautiful ships into
destruction.’

Yaroslav’s eyes narrowed further, like slits in a full-face helmet.

‘You doubt my fleet?’

‘No, Grand Prince. No, I . . .’

‘You doubt my son, perhaps?’

He gestured to Vladimir who came forward, flanking his father as Ulf and Halldor flanked Harald.

‘I doubt him not,’ Harald insisted.

The Rus nobility were edging forward, eager to hear, and Elizaveta saw Ulf and Halldor square their shoulders and glance to their company, as if readying to fight. No swords were allowed in the
great hall but these men of Harald’s, these strange, wild, fiercely loyal men, had hands as deadly as blades wielded by others. Were they threatening her father? How dare they?

Elizaveta rose too. Her mother waved her frantically down but she was a part of this and she would not stand back and let her future husband, her oh-so-glorious hero of a future husband, destroy
all of Yaroslav’s plans.

‘Harald,’ she said and all eyes swung her way. ‘Explain yourself. You say Miklegard is weak, leaderless, so why . . .’

‘Not leaderless,’ Harald broke in. She bristled and he made a visible effort to check his tone. ‘They have the empress.’

‘But she is a woman and an old one besides – and mad, too, or so they say.’

‘Perhaps, but she was born in the purple.’

‘This all turns on the colour of the empress’s bedhangings?’

‘Yes!’ Harald’s voice broke across the listeners, sharp as a slap, and Elizaveta flinched back. ‘Yes,’ he repeated, more quietly but her anger was rising now.

‘You do not wish to attack?’ she asked icily.

‘I don’t consider it wise to attack, no. The people of Miklegard . . .’

‘The people?’ Elizaveta spluttered. ‘So now we are to cut our plans to account for the common will?

‘Miklegard is a vast, cosmopolitan city, Lily.’

‘And Kiev is not?’

‘Miklegard is different. You would not understand, you . . .’

But Elizaveta had heard enough. Years she had waited for this man. Years she had dreamed of him and planned for him and yearned for him. Years she had believed in him but it turned out that he
was not the man she’d thought.

‘Oh I understand, Harald,’ she said. ‘I understand very well. You are but a storyteller’s hero, all transitory adventure and tiny, petty, personal triumphs. You sail
alone. You and your precious pair of bodyguards and your ship full of bachelor soldiers. This country, my father’s country, has sheltered you and nurtured you and kept your precious treasure
–
I
have kept your precious treasure – but when we ask you for just a little in return, you refuse us.’

‘Elizaveta, that’s not true. I seek only to protect Kiev.’

‘No, Harald – you seek only to protect yourself. Here.’

She unclipped the great neck chain that she had taken from its casket before dinner with such pride. It was thick with keys and charms now, worth more than most men, nay, than most lords, would
see in their lifetime and she had felt honoured to wear it. Now, though, she despised it.

‘Take it!’ She thrust it into his hand. ‘Take it and take your precious men and go. Go north to Novgorod and release your damned treasure and return to Norway where you belong
– where you have always belonged.’

She felt the weight of the
druzhina
’s eager stares and knew the bowers would be a-buzz with this tomorrow. She caught sight of Anne, frozen in horror at the argument, and
Agatha’s kind eyes swimming with sympathy, but looked away before she could catch Anastasia’s inevitable triumph. Even that, though, felt right; she had been seduced by Harald as surely
as Yaroslav had and she must pay.

‘We will attack Miklegard without you,’ she told him.

‘No! No, please.’ Harald looked to Yaroslav. ‘The golden city is as closed off in its mind as it is by its walls. No one will welcome you, not the fleet, not the empress and
not a single man, woman or child. You would have to kill them all.’

‘Then,’ Yaroslav said, stepping over to Elizaveta and putting an arm around her shoulders, the solid weight of it making her realise how she was quivering, ‘maybe that is what
we will do. It is no concern of yours now, Harald. As my daughter says, you should leave.’

Harald looked from one to the other. He turned and let his eyes roam the vast room. Ulf and Halldor pressed close to his side and suddenly Elizaveta hated them. They would take him away from
her. Already her anger was cooling, leaving her clammy and nauseous.

‘I love him,’ she’d told Ulf. Had they laughed at that? Had they gloried in another of his conquests?

Slowly Harald nodded.

‘If that is your wish, Grand Prince, though I sorrow in it. I shall go to Norway and if I am such an empty hero to you, Elizaveta, I shall find a wife elsewhere. Good night and good
luck.’

And with that he swept a clipped bow to Yaroslav and leaped from the dais, Ulf and Halldor swift at his heels and Aksel only a heartbeat behind them. Briefly the boy glanced back at Elizaveta,
sorrow in his young eyes, but at the clack of the soldiers’ boots across the marble floor, he turned and was gone.

The hall sat, frozen, as outside the Varangians called for their horses. They all listened as the gates cranked open, their chains creaking as Halldor’s had done in his story barely a
candle’s mark past and then, in a riot of hooves and shouts, they were gone. Harald was gone and Elizaveta was alone.

Novgorod, January 1043

‘M
ore ale!’

‘More? Any more, Harald, and you’ll drown.’

‘More ale! Aksel!’

Harald waved his tankard at the boy who rushed forward with an apologetic look at his father.

‘Let him,’ Halldor sighed. ‘Perhaps a sore head will bring him to his senses.’

‘Who needs senses?’ Harald drawled. ‘Who needs feelings?’

‘Ah!’ Ulf clapped his leader on the back. ‘Now we get to the heart of it.’

‘Don’t talk of hearts.’ Harald sensed as much as saw his old friends rolling their eyes over his head. ‘And don’t laugh at me.’

‘We’re not laughing, my lord. We are simply wondering how much more of your hard-won treasure you intend to pour into a tankard and out of your own foul bowels before we can set
sail. We have a fleet. We have men.’

‘It’s winter.’

‘Not the best time to sail, I grant you, but the Varangian Sea never freezes and at least this way we might surprise them. If we sail now we can be in Norway within a week and paying good
King Magnus a nice surprise visit in his winter residence. If the messengers are to be believed, King Harthacnut is dead. England has passed to Edward, Ethelred’s son, but Denmark has gone to
Magnus. That’s another kingdom handed to him on a plate and it’s not right. Let him cede Norway to you and go and relax in the fertile Danish lowlands. You said yourself that Finn
Arnasson has paved the way for a peaceful entry and the men are ready just in case he is proved wrong. There is no farming to be done, and no trading either. ’Tis the perfect time to
sail.’

‘It’s not right.’

‘What?’

Harald looked up.

‘I said it’s not right.’

‘Sailing to Norway?’

‘No! I mean, yes –
that’s
right. What’s not right is sailing alone.’

‘You are not alone, Harald. We have five hundred men. We have . . .’

Halldor clamped a hand over Ulf’s mouth.

‘Go and check on them, Ulf.’

Ulf looked startled.

‘Check on the men? Why?’

‘Because if they are as ready as you say – and I believe they are – they will be restless, troublesome. See they are not bothering the good citizens of Novgorod, will you? And
take Aksel – it’s time he had his first street brawl.’

Ulf sighed but rose.

‘Fine, fine. We’ll leave you two to cosy up. Come on Aksel, lad, let’s go and crash some skulls together.’

Aksel leaped up eagerly and followed Ulf from the tavern. Halldor settled himself on the bench at Harald’s side.

‘It’s her, isn’t it – Elizaveta?’

Harald drank. He didn’t talk about women; no man did – or should. All autumn he had busied himself with trading treasure, commissioning boats, mustering men. All autumn he’d
turned his blonde head determinedly north but the first snows had crept under his skin and suddenly it all felt wrong.

He’d read Finn’s letters again and again and even written to say he was sailing in the New Year. Finn had assured him that Magnus was ready to ‘welcome his dear uncle’
and though he doubted that was true, he had also sent letters to Ingrid’s brother, King Anund of Sweden, to be sure of safe housing there until the way was clear into his homelands. Ulf was
right – Magnus had Denmark now and he was sure the boy would eventually make at least a pretence at settlement and he could move forward from there.