Authors: Peter Morwood
It was the
tuk
, the yak-tail standard that signified the authority of the Great Khan and it told those who watched, as clear as lettering, that this was an invasion.
“No raid indeed,” said Mar’ya Morevna grimly. She looked once more with the reluctant fascination of someone unable to tear their gaze from some horrible sight, then pushed herself back from the crest of the hill. “There’s nothing we can do here except get away to spread the warning. Understood?” That last comment was directed at the
bogatyri
, already looking restive at the prospect of retreat without action, and more restive still that the command should come from not from their Tsar but from a woman.
“Do as you’re bid,” snapped Ivan. “My wife’s words are my words. Heed them.” He watched as the warriors shambled back down towards their horses, moving with an ill grace that had little to do with the deep snow. “Damn them,” he said without heat. There was no point in criticizing a dog for barking or a
bogatyr
hero for wanting to be heroic. “If only we had the Firebird with us now, we could teach those shaggy swine down there to stay off the ice in a way they wouldn’t forget.” He looked at his wife speculatively. “Could you …?”
“Maybe – and maybe not.” Mar’ya Morevna sounded dubious. “We’d need to destroy a major part of the host; destroy it so utterly that even the Tatars would fall back in disarray. And I doubt even the Firebird could do that much. Better not stir up this hornet’s nest until we’re more sure of what the hornets plan to do. They’re riding towards Ryazan, no doubt about it. You wanted to send couriers when we got back, but do you want to wait even that long? I could open the Gate when we turn the army back towards Khorlov and dispatch someone to warn Prince Roman Ingvarevich from here.”
“I had more than an ordinary courier in mind. Otherwise the Prince may not listen.”
Mar’ya Morevna nodded. “Listen or not, we’ll warn him anyway. Send one of the Kipchaqs now, and Volk Volkovich when we return to Khorlov. What Ingvarevich does afterwards is his own affair. And Vanya?”
“Yes?”
“When we get home we’ll keep the kremlin defences at readiness for a while, just to be safe. Remember in the summer, when you wished for an adventure? If this is it, I think you may have more than you want. And I think …” Mar’ya Morevna stared at nothing, then shook her head and began to move back down the slope.
“You think… what?”
“I’ve just seen what may be our whole world turned upside down. I don’t know what I think any more. And that’s what scares me most of all …”
The
Princely
City
of
Ryazan
;
December
,
1237
A
.
D
.
Prince Roman Ingvarevich might have been Prince of Ryazan and its dominions but to Volk Volkovich he was just an irritant, no more or less than one of the fleas that plagued his wolf-form in hot summer weather. The only drawback was that a Prince, even a puny one, couldn’t be scratched in the way such fleas deserved. Instead he had to be respected, honoured, even praised; his opinions heard with something that approximated interest; even his stupidities – there were many – ignored or at least set aside for later consideration.
The Grey Wolf was well aware that even the briefest appearance in his true shape would gain him a great deal more attention than Prince Roman had granted so far. He was also aware that Tsar Ivan of Khorlov had asked him not to do any such thing, as a favour between friends. Had Ivan
ordered
him, Volk Volkovich would have had no scruples about disobeying those orders if disobedience proved more convenient, but the amiable request put rather a different complexion on things.
Volk Volkovich the Grey Wolf had been in Ivan’s service for a year and a day, no longer, but after that service was done it had pleased him to stay in Khorlov, at least when the mood moved him. The young Tsarevich, as he had been then, was one of the few humans that Volk Volkovich liked as anything other than a potential meal. Mar’ya Morevna was another, but the rest were no more than meat that walked about.
Service and companionship with Ivan Aleksandrovich of Khorlov was entertaining, exciting, and even – had the Grey Wolf been inclined that way – profitable. The young Tsar also managed to tolerate a comrade who wasn’t a man who could take wolf’s shape, but a wolf in the form of a man with all of a wolf’s lack of scruples. Ivan had the good grace to let matters lie, rather than forcing human strictures of conscience or morality onto something very definitely not human.
Volk Volkovich had been called
oborotyen
, ‘werewolf’, by people who should have known better. There were few enough of those; Ivan’s father Aleksandr the old Tsar, the High Stewards and Guard-Captains of Khorlov and Koldunov, all knew that regardless of what form he took the Grey Wolf was more than he seemed. No one else had ever seen him in the shape of anything other than an enormous wolf, and Tsar Ivan preferred it to remain that way.
“Let it be our little secret,” he’d said, “especially when you travel on the Tsardom’s business.” Ivan had smiled thinly in a cool, confidential way that was anything but an indication of amusement and the Grey Wolf had grinned right back at him, because Tsar Ivan had stolen that smile from the Grey Wolf’s own mother.
Volk Volkovich kept their little secret whenever there were unauthorized eyes about. It was a weapon as useful as a concealed dagger, but much less likely to be discovered and cause suspicion since in his role as courier for the Tsar, the Grey Wolf didn’t carry any weapons at all. There was already little enough trust between Khorlov and the other domains of Russia, and never less than with the Great Princes of Vladimir and their subordinates. Even the lords of Kiev and Novgorod had shown some warmth when Ivan took the crown, but not Yuriy and Yaroslav Vsevolodovich, who shared the throne of Vladimir.
Those two brothers, and their heir-apparent Aleksandr Yaroslavich Nevskiy, had taken mortal offence at Ivan’s suspicions about their dealing with the Tatars. He had said nothing aloud that could be reported back by the inevitable spies every ruler had in every other ruler’s kremlin, but his attitude had been enough to raise their collective hackles like cats in the presence of a dog. The city and domains of Vladimir claimed to be troubled just as much as everyone else by Tatar incursions, yet it was strange how no real harm ever befell them.
Fifteen years ago, while Chinghis-Khan’s army was returning from its four-year raid into Afghanistan and Khwarizmid Persia, the Great Khan had granted permission for his generals Jebe and Subotai to make a sweep west and north that took them through the Crimea and the Ukraine. Vladimir, though right in the path of the approaching host, had been undamaged. Since then the city had never been assaulted by raiders, its villages went unscathed when others burned, and its cattle remained in their pastures whilst the herds of other princes were driven into the wilderness of the high steppe.
But times change, and Khans change, and secret agreements made without witnesses become less convenient than they were. If the present route of the Tatar army was any indication, whatever pact the lords of Vladimir had made with the Great Khan Ogotai was at an end.
The problem was convincing Roman Ingvarevich to believe it.
*
Roman Ingvarevich, Prince of Ryazan, leaned forward to better give the impression of looking down on the tall, tanned man in the grey furs who stood before him. He disliked the man’s eyes being almost level with his own, even though the Prince’s chair was raised on a dais higher than most Rus noblemen required. Or perhaps he disliked the eyes themselves. They were emerald green, brilliant as gemstones or as if illuminated by some source within, and though they were an unnatural colour in a man’s face, the Prince seemed to be trying to remember where he’d seen such eyes before.
“Your eyes are strange, Volk Volkovich,” he said at last, giving way to curiosity.
“From my mother’s family, Highness,” said the Grey Wolf, bowing his head a little to conceal his smile. “Breeding will always show, so they say. But they serve me well enough.”
“And have you seen this Tatar horde, Volk Volkovich? Seen them with these eyes that serve you so well?”
“No, Highness.” The Grey Wolf drew himself up even straighter than before, disliking this petty prince with an intensity he would normally have considered wasted energy. Dislike was all he could indulge at present, and it was difficult to keep the expression off a face unschooled in the diplomatic niceties. “As I already told you” –
three
times
now
– “I’m reporting what was described to me by the Tsar of Khorlov.
He
saw them, with
his
own eyes, as did his wife, his Captain-of-Guards and his Kipchaq scouts… One of whom was sent to you directly, if memory serves me right.”
“Ah yes, the Kipchaq. You must understand, Volk Volkovich, that when a Prince receives some wild-sounding message from an equally wild-looking messenger – one without seal or signet of authority from his claimed lord – no Prince of any wit would give credence to his tale. Without further proof.”
“Highness, he was sent direct from what might have been a battlefield. Of course he had no seal or signet; no ruler of the Rus carries such things on a campaign. So you ignored him?”
“Oh no, no. We would never be so rash, since inside even the most unlikely story one may find a kernel of truth.” Prince Roman Ingvarevich made a little gesture of regret, partly a shrug and partly a pout of his full lower lip. “Of course, such kernels must be properly extracted …”
Volk Volkovich blinked, even his ruthless wolf’s mind caught off guard by such an admission. “Highness, are you telling me …” he began, then thought better of it. “Where is the Kipchaq?”
Again the shrug and pout. “Kipchaqs are a stubborn people, Volk Volkovich. This one more than most. By the time he told us what we wanted to know, there was no alternative but to kill him. So we did.”
“Why?”
“We have already given our reasons. Do not presume too far on your status.”
“The Kipchaq was a messenger from Tsar Ivan of Khorlov, sent in friendship to warn you of the Tatars!” snapped Volk Volkovich, shocked at himself for displaying such human feelings as righteous indignation. Playing the envoy was all very well, and moderately easy while his shape remained human, but to become so involved was a surprise. Especially when this stupid creature on the throne might be provoked into repeating – or at least attempting to repeat – what he had done to the previous courier. “By what right did you torture him and kill him?”
“By the right of a Prince who was justly suspicious of a realm that has never before displayed much…
friendship
to ours,” said Roman Ingvarevich. “But rest assured, your Kipchaq gave his life in a worthy cause. Had there been any point in letting him live after the, ah, questioning, then once his answers were confirmed as truth he would most certainly have gone free.”
“Highness, could you not have checked his message first, then tortured him afterwards if it proved false?” The Grey Wolf was all sweet reason, trying to correct any problems that his outburst might create for Ivan or himself. It was the verbal equivalent of showing your throat to the pack leader; he wouldn’t tear it out, but being given the opportunity was enough to calm him down. Not that the Grey Wolf had ever run with a pack in his life, but the instinctive reactions were as much a part of him as ears and eyes and teeth.
“You may be the Tsar’s courier, Volk Volkovich, but you are very innocent for all that.”
The Grey Wolf closed his teeth on the laugh that threatened to burst past them at such magnanimous praise and such a remarkable misreading of character. “How so, Highness?”
“The Kipchaqs have been allies of the Rus for less than twenty years, and that only because they learned we would pay them to act as scouts, as messengers, as… As mercenaries.” Roman Ingvarevich poured disgust into his voice as a man might pour honey onto a wheaten cake. “Bound to their duty by silver, rather than by honour like an honest Russian
bogatyr
. But those same Kipchaqs were enemies for more than two hundred years, and those who haven’t accepted payment are still enemies. Do you understand what we say, Volk Volkovich?”
“That you can’t trust Kipchaqs, no matter who they claim to serve?”
“Exactly. Were we to send out our household guard to investigate this
supposed
message sent in
supposed
friendship from the son of a Tsar who was no friend at all? A message that without proof of source or provenance was no more than rumour? We think not. It might have been the bait for a trap. Such things have happened before, Volk Volkovich. The Kipchaqs are too close to the Tatars, both by race and by past alliance, for any Prince to have much confidence to their unsupported word.”
“Highness, there are Kipchaq riders in the army of Ryazan. I saw them – indeed, they escorted me into the kremlin.”
“We employ them. We do not depend on them. A wolf can run with the hounds; that does not make him less a wolf.”
Volk Volkovich the Grey Wolf choked his laughter into a fit of coughing. “Oh, most assuredly, Highness,” he said when he was able. “There never was a word more truly spoken.” He cleared his throat and wiped his eyes, banishing various thoughts to the back of his mind in case he burst out laughing all over again. Of all the proverbs that the Prince of Ryazan could have trotted out, few were less appropriate or more apt. “But you said you confirmed the Kipchaq’s message as truth?”