He was always conscious of one other important fact about his mother: unlike his father she was a Slav. So I am half a Slav, he thought.
What did it mean, to be a Slav? It was, he knew, a huge community. Over the centuries, Slavic people had spread to many lands. The Poles in the west were Slavs; the Hungarians and Bulgarians partly so; further south, in the Balkan Mountains of Greece, the people were Slavs too; and though their languages had drifted apart from that spoken by the eastern Slavs who lived in the land of Rus, one could still easily hear the similarities.
Were they really a race? It was hard to say. Even in the land of Rus, there were many tribes. Those in the south had long ago mixed with the invading peoples of the steppe; those in the north were part Bait and Lithuanian; those in the east had gradually mixed with the Finno-Ugrian peoples of the forest.
Yet when Ivanushka looked at his mother, and compared her with his father and the other foreign retainers of the heroic Scandinavian ruling dynasty, he could say at once that she was Slav. What was it? Was it that she was musical? That she could be suddenly sad, then suddenly gay? No, it was another quality, he realized, that he especially associated with the Slavs. You see it in the peasants too, he considered. For even if they get angry and violent, they change back again in a moment. It was that they were gentle.
His mother was moving away now. Once more, Ivanushka stared at the star. What was it telling him? Some of the priests were saying it meant the end of the world. Of course, he knew that the end of the world was coming – but surely not just yet?
He remembered the preacher he had heard, only a month before, who had profoundly impressed him. ‘The Slavs, dear brother in Christ, have come late, it is true, to work in the vineyard of Our Lord,’ the priest had said. ‘But does not the parable tell us that those who come last shall be rewarded no less than those who were there before? God has prepared a great destiny for His people the Slavs, who rightly praise Him.’
The words had thrilled him. Destiny. Perhaps because he was approaching puberty, the subject of destiny was much on his mind. Destiny: surely, he would be part of it. And surely too, Ivanushka prayed, the Day of Judgement would not come before he had had a chance to perform the great deeds for which he felt he was intended.
He did not know that, at this very moment, his destiny was being decided.
It had been a bad day for Igor. A promise of betrothal which he thought he had secured for Ivanushka had fallen through that very afternoon, and he did not know why. The family – a noble one – had suddenly backed off. It was an irritation, though one that he would normally have shrugged off.
But now this. Silently he gazed at the man before him.
Igor was a tall, impressive figure. He had a long, straight nose, deep-set eyes and a sensual mouth; his striking and exotic appearance was accentuated by the fact that the hair on his head was jet black, while that of his pointed beard was grey. From his neck on a chain hung a small metal disc on which was incised the ancient tamga of his clan: the three-pronged trident.
Like many of the noblemen in Kiev, it would have been hard to guess with certainty his ancestry. Indeed, even the many princes of Rus, whose origins were Scandinavian, by now were as likely to be dark and olive-skinned as fair. But Igor’s descent was from the radiant Alans.
They had come from the east. With others from ancient Alan and Circassian clans, the father of Igor had joined a great warrior prince of the Rus in his campaigns beyond the River Don; and having fought well – there had never been a finer horseman – he was even admitted to the prince’s council, the druzhina. When the prince returned, he had accompanied him; and so he had come across the steppe, to the rivers and forests of the land of Rus. There he had married a noble Scandinavian girl, and now their son Igor, in turn, served in the druzhina of the Prince of Kiev.
Besides his role as a warrior, Igor had many business interests. And in the city of Kiev, there was much in which a man could trade. There was the grain from the rich black earth of these southern lands which was sent to the cities in the great forests of the north; there were the furs and slaves sent down the river to Constantinople. From the west came silver from Bohemia, and Frankish swords from the distant countries beyond. From Poland and the far western provinces of Rus came the all important salt. And from the east, downriver or in caravans across the steppe, came all manner of wonderful goods – silks, damasks, jewels and spices – from the fabulous orient.
The trading empire of the Rus was formidable indeed. All the way down the great north-south network of waterways that led from the cold northern forests by the Baltic to the steppe above the warm Black Sea, there were trading posts and even substantial cities. In the north was Novgorod. Halfway down, by the headwaters of the Dniepr, lay Smolensk, and west of that, Polotsk. Above Kiev lay Chernigov; and below, as a last outpost on the borders of the steppe, Pereiaslav. Each of these cities, and others besides, could boast populations in thousands. An estimated thirteen percent of the population were engaged in trading and artisan activities – far more than feudal western Europe. Upon the vast landscape where ancient hunting and primitive agriculture ruled, therefore, were dotted these lively centres of commerce, cartels and a money economy. And their lords were merchant princes.
After the disappointment about the betrothal, Igor had been hoping that this evening’s meeting at his partner’s house would improve his temper. For a long time he had been planning a caravan across the steppe to the south-east. There, beyond the great River Don, where the Caucasus Mountains descended from the skies to meet the Black Sea, lay the old peninsula settlement of the Rus: Tmutarakan. And opposite that, on the broad Crimean peninsula that jutted out into the sea from the centre of its northern shore, were huge salt flats. In recent years, a powerful tribe of steppe raiders, the Cumans, had weakened this trade with Tmutarakan; but as Igor had said: ‘If we can bring back a large shipment of salt, we can make a fortune.’
The details had come together well. In early summer, several shipments would be brought to a little trading post and fort called Russka, at the edge of the steppe, where his partner had a storehouse. From there, with an armed escort, the caravan would set out. ‘And I only wish I could go myself,’ he remarked truthfully.
And then he had made the request which so embarrassed him.
The man who sat opposite him was a few years younger than he. He was not as tall as Igor, but he was massive. He had a heavy chin, a slightly drooping under lip, a large curved Turkish nose, and drooping lids over his black eyes. He had thick black hair and a black beard cut in the shape of a broad wedge. Balanced, it seemed precariously, on the back of his head was a skull cap. This was Zhydovyn the Khazar.
His were a strange people. They were Turkish warriors who, for some centuries, had controlled an empire in the steppe that stretched from the desert by the Caspian Sea all the way to Kiev. When Islam had swept through the Middle East and tried to cross the Caucasus Mountains on to the great Eurasian plain, it was the mighty Khazars of the steppe, together with the Georgians, Armenians and Alans in the mountain passes, who had barred their way. ‘So it’s thanks to us Kiev isn’t Moslem now,’ he liked to remind his friend Igor.