The Constant Queen (8 page)

‘Elizaveta!’

Reluctantly she turned back to see Yaroslav pursuing her.

‘Father?’

‘Do not let this boyish posturing upset you, my sweet.’

‘It has not.’

‘Indeed? Good.’ He tucked a finger under her chin and lifted her face. ‘Men will seek you, Elizaveta.’

‘Because I am a Princess of Kiev?’

‘Yes, but more than that – they will seek you for your spirit. A man needs a wife with spirit if he is to succeed in life.’

‘As you have, Father?’

‘I am blessed, Elizaveta. I married your mother for my nation but I have grown to love her for herself. I hope you find such fortune too and will do my best to make it so.’

Elizaveta opened her mouth to try to thank him but he was gone, back to his dais to look over his people, and she was left to retreat to her bed, strangely comforted by his awkward words but no
less confused.

Banks of the Dnieper, April 1034

‘E
lizaveta stepped up onto the grandstand beside her sisters and felt the usual mix of elation and envy that the Rapids Race always set
swirling inside her. With Yaroslav richer than ever on the trade and territory Harald and his Varangians had brought him, he was planning a huge celebration and the competition area below Kiev
looked magnificent. The race was always run at the height of the snowmelt when the river shot down the tight path through the forest cliffs, twisting between rocks, through pools and over little
waterfalls until it hit the open water at the bottom.

The two grandstands were stood down there on stilts either side of the fastest run of the current, and this year they were bigger than ever and decorated all along their wood-tiled roofs with
scarlet pennants edged in gold. There were raised walkways leading to both, the one on the far bank stretching a long way round as the floods were high this year, forcing the lower section of the
river so far out across the plains that it sometimes seemed, especially in the morning mists, as if the sea itself had come to Kiev.

The watching platforms were some ten men deep and the front railings were sturdy and strung across with several layers of thick rope. A little higher up, where the river twisted between rocks
and the best crashes were to be seen, there were more platforms, rougher ones built by the villagers. The most daring observers would also brave the natural ledges above the ravine towards the
start of the race where the land was dry but the cliffs fell steeply down to the course below.

The racers, Vladimir and Ivan both amongst them this year, would be reaching the starting pool now, their boats carried over their heads as part of the ceremony. The craft were slim one-man
canoes of animal hide stretched over a flexible birch frame and Elizaveta had had little trouble carrying her own on the glorious morning when she’d sneaked out in her brother’s clothes
and joined the line-up.

She sighed at the memory. Had it really been six years ago? She was sixteen now and no boy’s clothes would hide her womanliness, but Ingrid – thankfully back to full, bossy health
– had still set two maids to watch her from before she woke. Elizaveta hated it but could not blame her wary mother; she
would
ride again if she got half a chance.

She peered enviously up the river as Anastasia arranged them all along the railing, carefully making space for the lost princes to join them. Edward was twenty-three now so too old to qualify
for the race, though he’d taken part several times before. He had not distinguished himself but he had made it to the end and Elizaveta had admired him for trying. Prince Andrew, however,
although still young enough to race, had simply said with his usual easy flair that he was not a boatman. It was fair, she supposed – a man, as Anne had primly said, should know his own
strengths – but she struggled to admire him for it.

Andrew seemed to her to float around the kremlin looking very elegant but doing little of any use, though he had been receiving visitors recently – dark-eyed Slavs from his homeland who
looked to restore him to his crown. Anastasia was very excited about it and forever hanging on his long, thin arms, flicking her blonde hair and gazing up at him, asking to know more of Hungary.
She was after a husband, that much was clear, and, feeling mischievous, Elizaveta slid herself between her sister and the prince.

‘Who do you think will win, Andrew?’ she asked.

‘Oh, your royal brother, I am sure,’ he replied in his smoothly perfect Rus.

‘Which one?’

‘There is more than one in the race?’

Five-year-old Agatha, standing next to them with her hand in Edward’s, laughed out loud but Anne stepped hastily forward, shushing her little sister.

‘Both Vladimir and Ivan are riding,’ she told Andrew. ‘Vlad won last year and wishes to keep the cup and Ivan is desperate to take it off him.’

‘I see,’ Andrew said calmly, ‘and who will succeed?’

‘Vlad,’ Agatha said promptly, pushing past Anne, ‘because he’s biggest. That’s right, isn’t it, Edward?’

Edward smiled down at her.

‘Perhaps, Agatha, but I fear both your royal brothers will be challenged by Gregor, the young Count of Smolensk.’

Elizaveta looked admiringly at Edward; as usual he had quietly noticed exactly what was going on.

‘I agree,’ she said. ‘I have seen Gregor practise and he is so fast down the rapids it takes your breath away.’

Andrew squinted down at her.

‘You have watched the practices, Princess?’

‘Oh yes,’ she confirmed, ‘otherwise how else would I know who to place a wager on?’

Andrew’s eyes widened further.

‘You have wagered?’

‘Why yes. Not myself, of course, but Hedda has secured my stake.’ Elizaveta drew a small birch sliver from her pocket, carved with Gregor’s rune-mark, and Andrew looked
fearfully around, as if she were holding a still-bleeding pagan sacrifice.

‘Princess,’ he begged, ‘put that away or you will be in terrible trouble.’

‘Oh no,’ Elizaveta assured him, ‘we all do it – well, except Magnus. He just mutters stuff about Christ throwing the moneylenders out of the temple, but this is no
temple. Even Anne pulls herself away from her books long enough to wager. It adds to the excitement, do you not think?’

Prince Andrew clearly did not. Anne looked uncomfortably at her feet and Anastasia seized her chance.

‘I did not wager,’ she said primly.

Elizaveta spluttered and was about to point out that Anastasia had been the first to go to Hedda that morning when she caught sight of an ice-blonde head moving through the crowd towards them
and her thoughts were instantly scrambled.

In the last two years since she had visited the Ros settlements she had seen Harald rarely. He and his men had barely been allowed to stay in Kiev for more than a few weeks between successful
ventures on her father’s behalf. The two of them had stolen what time they could, but it had been all too short, save for a precious month last summer when they had both accompanied her
father on a visit to Novgorod, the northern capital of the Rus, to inspect the vaults.

Yaroslav had allowed Elizaveta to conduct the visit and, feeling very royal, she had led the way down the low stone corridor that ran deep beneath the chill city. Harald had followed dutifully
behind, and she had been achingly aware of the warmth of his big body at her back. The guards at the vast oak doors had bowed so low to her that their noses had almost scraped the cold rock floor
and had stood deferentially back as they had stepped inside. Fifteen big caskets, locked to the floor with great chains, had stood before them – a wall of wealth – and she’d heard
Harald’s breath catch.

‘You have worked hard,’ she’d murmured and the look he’d given her had fired her skin, despite the ice of the stone chamber.

‘So have you.’

He’d stepped behind her to look upon the wealth he had gathered to secure Norway and for a moment Elizaveta had been frozen by the thought of how he had done so. It had not, she’d
known, been by smiling or asking nicely. When he was abroad on her father’s service Harald worked in blood and she’d been painfully aware that these spoils she kept like some little
dragon were a sparkling veneer over the necessary violence of his life as a soldier. She’d taken a step back, suddenly afraid, but his hands had closed gently on her shoulders, steadying
her.

‘I want you with me, you know,’ he’d said, his voice low. ‘I want you with me in Norway.’

She hadn’t dared look at him.

‘Do you not have a woman waiting?’

‘Not one like you.’ He’d dropped his hold and strode forward, running his big warrior’s hand across the caskets. ‘Look what we’ve done already,
Elizaveta.’

‘
I
have done little.’

‘Not true. You have understood me. You have understood my ambitions and you have started us on the path to achieving them.’

It had been the ‘us’ that had reached into her, sending prickles through her whole body. Gathering herself, she had moved forward to join him, carefully unclasping her neck chain so
that they could check every casket. He had spoken no further of a union but as they had knelt side by side on the Rus stones, their faces aglow with the light from the gold that would win Norway,
she had been sure that this had become their shared destiny.

That, though, had been last summer. Recently she’d begun to wonder if she had imagined the cave, as Halldor might imagine the trolls that could live in it, and she shifted awkwardly as
Harald drew close.

‘Welcome to our great Rapids Race,’ she offered shyly.

‘I am very glad to be here,’ he responded, though his eyes were upon her, not the river.

Thrown, Elizaveta looked down at the water bubbling close to the platform. It had been a hard winter and the river still carried lumps of ice. If a rider caught on one it could cut the skin of
his canoe and send him down in moments.

‘The waters run hard,’ she managed.

‘They will carry us fast south then.’

Elizaveta looked up at that.

‘You are taking the trade boats to the golden city?’

‘To Miklegard, yes.’

‘Miklegard!’ She smiled at the ancient Viking term for Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire. ‘The seawater in your veins is itching?’

‘A little, perhaps. This is duty – the traders were sorely attacked by the Pechenegs last year so your father has assigned us as guards – but I confess that I am eager to see
the place. They say it takes a man a full day to walk around the walls.’

Elizaveta felt envy stir inside her again. She had heard many tales of the beauty of Miklegard – the Great City – and longed to see it for herself.

‘I am told the Hagia Sophia is the largest church in all God’s world,’ she said.

‘And the richest. The central cupola rises to the heavens themselves, wide enough to hold a very choir of angels and lined with gold so thick you could make ten armrings from one
panel.’

‘Even you would do well to claim that treasure, Harald.’

He looked hurt.

‘I am not
such
a heathen, Elizaveta. I would like to see the cathedral for its beauty, not its worth.’

‘I’m sorry. I would like that too.’

‘Though the treasure would not hurt.’ He winked, then leaned a little closer. ‘Our caskets are safe, Princess?’

Her body sung; he had not forgotten their visit. The troll cave had been real – but had the words spoken been real too?

‘Your caskets are safe, yes.’

‘
Our
caskets, Elizaveta. I would like . . .’

But now Agatha bounced up between them.

‘Harald! You made it. Are you not racing?’

Harald gathered himself and smiled down at the five-year-old.

‘I am too old to qualify, Agatha.’

‘You’re more than eighteen?’ she asked, her wonderment at his great seniority making them both laugh.

‘He
is
eighteen,’ Elizaveta told her. ‘He has been at war too long and missed his chance.’

‘At what, Princess?’

Harald seemed very close, his grey eyes sharp as new-mined crystals.

‘At racing, of course.’ Elizaveta licked at her lips, suddenly dry, and added as Agatha bounced away again, ‘I rode the rapids once.’

‘
You
did?’

He looked down at her, his grey eyes swirling with something that was either admiration or disgust.

‘Yes,
I
,’ she said defiantly. ‘Or rather, I rode them halfway.’

‘You crashed?’

‘No!’ She glared at him. ‘I rode very well.’

‘I don’t doubt it. So what happened?’

‘I was netted.’

He blinked.

‘Netted? By whom?’

His tone was playful but the memory was still painful for Elizaveta and she had to put up a hasty finger to catch a rogue tear before it could smudge the kohl her mother had finally let her use
on her lashes.

‘There are men stationed in groups along the banks with great nets on wooden poles to catch any riders who are tossed from their canoes and may be in danger from the rocks,’ she
explained. ‘The boys are young and no one wishes to see them die.’

‘Of course not, but you, Elizaveta – you were not in any trouble?’