Now there was almost total silence about the table. It was not so much the reporting of these deeds that impressed but the stony delivery, which lacked all emotion. When the Pechenegi had raided, raped and razed this man's Ungar settlement, they had turned him into an utterly pitiless killer.
'I've had reports, of course,' Svyatoslavich broke the silence, 'if somewhat vague until now and few and far between. But this is something to chew on. And so my Boyars have driven the Pechenegi back, you say? A recent turn of events? Perhaps they learned something from you, eh?'
'They learned that standing guard behind high walls achieves nothing!' said Thibor. 'I spoke to them and said: "Summer is at an end. The Pechenegi far to the south are grown fat and idle from the little work they've had to do; they do not think we'll come against them. They are building permanent settlements, winter homes for themselves. Like the Khazars before them, they are putting aside the sword in favour of the plough. If we strike now they'll fall like grass beneath the scythe!" Then, all the Boyars banded together, crossed the river, struck deep into the southern steppes. We killed the Pechenegi wherever we found them.
'But by then I had heard rumours of a greater peril in the making: to the east the Polovtsy are rising up! They spill over from the great steppes and deserts, expand westward — soon they'll be at our doors. When the Khazars fell they left the way open for the Pechenegi. And after the Pechenegi? Which is why I thought — why I dared to think — that perhaps the Vlad would give me an army and send me east, to put down our enemies before they wax too strong…'
For long moments Prince Vladimir simply sat and stared at him from eyes half-lidded. Then he quietly said, 'You've come a long way in a year and a month, Wallach…' And out loud, to his guests: 'Eat, drink, talk! Honour this man. We owe him that much.' But as the feasting continued he got up, indicating that Thibor should walk with him. They went out into the grounds, into the cool autumn evening. The wood smoke was fragrant under the trees.
A little way from the palace, the prince paused. Thibor, we'll have to see about this idea of yours — this eastward invasion, for that's what it would be — for I'm not sure we're ready for that. It's been tried before, you know.' He nodded bitterly. 'The Grand Prince himself tried it. First he tackled the Khazars — Svyatoslav ground them down and the Byzantines swept up their pieces — and then he had a go at Bulgaria and Macedonia. And while he was at it the nomads laid siege to Kiev itself! And did he pay for his zeal? Aye, however many sagas are written about him. Nomads sank him in the river rapids and made his skull into a drinking cup! He was hasty, you see? Oh, he got rid of the Khazars, all right, but only to let in the damned Pechenegi! And shall I be hasty too?'
The Wallach stood silent for a moment in the dusk. 'You'll send me back to the southern steppe, then?'
'I might, and I might not. I might stand you down from the fighting entirely, make you a Boyar, give you land and men to look after it for you. There's a lot of good land here, Thibor.'
Thibor shook his head. 'Then I'd prefer to return to Wallachia. I'm no farmer, Prince. I tried that and the Pechenegi came and made a warrior of me. Since then — all my dreams have been red ones. Dreams of blood. The blood of my enemies, the enemies of this land.'
'And what of my enemies?'
'They are the same. Only show them to me.'
'Very well,' said the Vlad, I'll show you one of them, Do you know the mountains to the west, which divide us from the Hungarians?'
'My fathers were Ungars,' said Thibor. 'As for the mountains: I was born under them. Not in the west but in the south, in the land of the Wallachs, beyond the bend in the mountains.'
The prince nodded. 'So you have some experience of mountains and their treachery. Good. But on my side of those peaks, beyond Galich, in that area called the Khorvaty after a certain people, there lives a Boyar who is… not my friend. I claim him as one who owes allegiance to me, but when I called in all my little princelings and Boyars he came not. When I invite him to Kiev he answers not. When I express a desire to meet with him he ignores me. If he is not my friend then he can only be my enemy. He is a dog that comes not to heel. A wild dog, and his home is a mountain fastness. Until now I've had neither the time, the inclination, nor the power to winkle him out, but — '
'What?' Thibor was astonished, his gasp cutting the Vlad short. 'I'm sorry, my Prince, but you — no power?'
Vladimir Svyatoslavich shook his head. 'You don't understand,' he said. 'Of course I have power. Kiev has power. But all so extended as to be almost expended! Should I recall an army to deal with one unruly princeling? And in so doing let the Pechenegi come up again? Should I form up an army from farmers and officials and peasants, all unskilled in battle? And if I did, what then? An army could not bring this Ferenczy out of his castle if he did not wish to leave it. Even an army could not destroy him, his defences are so strong! What? They are the mountain passes themselves, the gorges, the avalanches! With a handful of fierce, faithful retainers, he could hold back any army I muster almost indefinitely. Oh, if I had two thousand men to spare, then I might possibly starve him with a siege, but at what expense? On the other hand, what an army cannot achieve might just be possible — for one brave and clever and loyal man…'
'Are you saying you want this Ferenczy taken from his castle and brought to you in Kiev?'
'Too late for that, Thibor. He has shown how he "respects" me. How then should I respect him? No, I want him dead! His lands then fall to me, his castle on the heights, his household and serfs. And his death will be an example to others who might think to stand apart.'
Then you don't want his thumbs but his head!' Thibor's chuckle was throaty, without humour.
'I want his head, his heart, and his standard. And I want to burn all three on a bonfire right here in Kiev!'
'His standard? He has a symbol, then, this Ferenczy? Might I enquire the nature of this blazon?'
'By all means,' said the prince, his grey eyes suddenly thoughtful. He lowered his voice, cast about in the dusk for a moment, as if to be doubly sure that no one heard. 'His mark is the horned head of a devil, with a forked tongue that drips gouts of blood…'
Blood!
Gouts of blood soaking into the black earth. The sun had touched the horizon and was burning red there like… like a great gout of blood. Soon the earth would swallow it up. The old Thing in the ground trembled again; its husk of leather and bone slowly cracked open like a desiccated sponge to receive the earth's tribute, the blood that soaked through leaf-mould and roots and black, centuried soil down to where the thousand-year-old Thibor-creature lay in his shallow grave.
Subconsciously Thibor sensed the seeping blood and knew, in the way all dreamers 'know', that it was only part of the dream. It would be a different matter when the sun had set and the seepage actually touched him, but for now he ignored it, returned to that time at the turn of the tenth century when he'd been merely human and had gone up into the Khorvaty on a mission of murder…
They had travelled as trappers, Thibor and his seven, as Wallachians who followed the Carpathian curve on a trek designed to get them deep into the northern forests by the onset of winter. In fact they had simply come from Kiev through Kolomyya and so to the mountains, but they'd taken all the paraphernalia of the trapper with them, to substantiate their story. It had taken them three weeks of steady riding to reach the place in the very lee of the sheer mountains, (a 'village', consisting of a handful of stone houses built into the hillside, half-a-dozen semi-permanent cabins, and a smattering of gypsy tents of cured skins with the fur inside) which the current incumbents called Moupho Aide Ferenc Yaborov, a mouthful they invariably shortened to Ferenc, which they made to sound like 'Ferengi'. It meant 'Place of the Old One', or 'of the Old Ferengi', and the gypsies spoke of it in lowered tones and with a deal of respect.