The Khazar Empire had faded now, but Khazar merchants and warriors still often crossed the steppe from their distant desert base, and there was a large Khazar trading community in Kiev, beside the entrance known as the Khazar Gate. Of all the men he knew to organize the caravan and lead it across the steppe, Igor could think of none he trusted more than Zhydovyn the Khazar. And indeed, he had only one regret about his partner.
For Zhydovyn the Khazar was Jewish.
All the Khazars were Jewish. They had become so when, at the height of their empire, their ruler had decided that his people’s primitive paganism was not worthy of their imperial status. And since the Caliph in Baghdad was Moslem and the Emperor in Constantinople was Christian, this ruler of the steppe – who did not want to seem the junior partner of either of them – sensibly chose the only other religion with a single God that he could find: and the state of the Khazar warlords converted to Judaism. Thus it was that Zhydovyn spoke Slav and Turkish – and preferred to write both using a Hebrew alphabet!
‘Will you take my young son, Ivanushka, with the caravan?’ That was all his friend Igor had asked him. Why then should the Khazar hesitate? He knew the boy quite well. His father was his partner. The answer, however, was simple: Zhydovyn was afraid.
I can see it all, he thought. If we get caught by the Cumans and he’s killed – that will be understood. But I know this little fellow. It won’t be like that. He’ll go and fall in a river and drown, or something stupid like that. And then I shall get the blame. And so he prevaricated.
‘Ivanushka’s rather young. What about one of his brothers?’
Igor’s eyes had narrowed. ‘Are you refusing me?’
‘Of course not.’ The Khazar looked awkward. ‘If you are sure it’s what you wish…’
And now, suddenly, it was Igor who felt awkward. Under normal circumstances he would simply have told Zhydovyn that this was his wish and that would have been that. But now, fresh from the humiliation over the betrothal that day, he found himself suddenly overtaken by a wave of embarrassment. The Khazar was an excellent judge of people. He didn’t want Ivanushka either. For an instant he had felt a surge of anger towards his youngest son. He disliked failure.
‘No matter.’ He got up. ‘You are right. He’s too young.’ The incident was closed.
Or almost. For just as he was leaving the Khazar’s house, he could not resist turning to ask his friend: ‘Tell me, what do you think of Ivanushka – his character?’
Zhydovyn had thought for a moment. He liked the boy. One of his own sons was a little that way.
‘He’s a dreamer,’ he said pleasantly.
As Igor rode home, he scarcely glanced at the red star. He was a sternly religious man and he had no doubt that God was sending a message. But it was his duty to suffer whatever would come, he supposed. Instead he thought of Ivanushka. ‘A dreamer’ the Khazar had said. He knew what his own brothers called the boy. Sviatopolk calls him a fool, he thought sadly.
And what could one do with a fool? He had no idea.
It was three days later that the red comet passed out of sight, and there were no more signs in the heavens that winter.
Spring. In the beginning of each year in this fertile country, water covered the land, and the water was the river. Kiev: city by water. They would see it in a moment. The long boat moved steadily down the broad, placid stream of the Dniepr. Four men pulled gently on the oars, guiding it towards the city. Ivanushka and his father stood in the stern, the tall man’s arm round the boy’s shoulder.
The boat, though it was twenty feet long, was hollowed out of a single massive tree trunk. ‘No trees,’ Igor told his son, ‘are as big as those in the land of Rus. A man with an axe can carve himself a small ship out of one of our mighty oaks.’ And it seemed to the boy, feeling his father close beside him, that in all his life, no morning could ever be more still and more perfect than this.
Ivanushka wore a simple linen shirt and trousers, over which he had pulled a brown woollen kaftan, since the morning was still cold. On his feet were green leather boots of which he was very proud. His light brown hair was cut short in the page boy style.
They had been upstream at dawn to inspect the traps where the men were fishing. Now, still early in the morning, they were returning to the city for breakfast. And after that… Ivanushka felt a tremor of excitement in his stomach. For this was to be the day.
He looked up at his father. How often he had seen him, on some vantage point high on the wooden walls above the river, gazing down like a silent eagle on the watery landscape far below. Standing in the stern of the boat now, wrapped in a long black cloak, tall and spare, one might indeed have supposed that Igor had only to unfurl his cloak in order to rise up into the sky and hover, high over the river and woods, before swooping upon some luckless prey.
How powerful his father’s arm was as it rested against his neck: not only with the strength of mere muscle, though. For when he was close to Igor, he sensed another strength that came from the past: haunting like an echoing memory, yet flowing into his being like a warm river. ‘You have the blood of mighty warriors in your veins,’ Igor had often told him. ‘Giants in battle, splendid horsemen like my father and his before him; our ancestors were strong before the Khazars came, in times when even the mountains were young. Remember, you are one with them; they are always with you.’ And then his heart would thrill when his father added: ‘And one day you too will pass all this on, to your sons and those who come after.’ This was what it meant to have a father and to be a son.
And today, he was sure, he would begin his career, following his elder brothers and his father, as a warrior, a bogatyr.
The monk would settle it all.
Softly the boat moved with the current. In the morning silence, the great river spread towards the south. The air was sharp, but still. Traces of mist remained upon the surface of the river whose huge, ceaseless movement was barely perceptible, thus creating a watery landscape that was always receding, yet motionless. As one looked south, grey-blue water and pale blue sky seemed to melt together at the horizon in a single, liquid softness, becoming indistinguishable one from another in the distance, while to the east the golden sunlight diffused in the haze.
They were coming in sight of the city now, and Ivanushka let out a little sigh. How beautiful Kiev was.
It sat on the right side of the river. On banks that rose steeply over a hundred feet above the water, and topped with high wooden palisades, it stretched for a couple of miles, overlooking – strong but secure – the gentle, placid landscape.
The city consisted of three principal sections. First, at the northern edge, on a modest tumulus, stood the stout old citadel. This contained the prince’s palace and the large church founded eighty years before by the Blessed Vladimir himself, the Church of the Tithes. Next, to the south-west and only separated from it by a small ravine, was the new citadel – a considerably larger area, built by St Vladimir’s great son, compiler of the Russian Law, Yaroslav the Wise. Outside this, and running down to the river, lay another, still larger area, also protected by wooden walls. This was the suburb – the podol – where the lesser merchants and artisans lived. And down by the river were the jetties where the cumbersome, masted boats were moored.
In the two citadels, many of the larger buildings were made of brick. In the podol, all but a few churches were constructed of timber. All around were pleasant broad-leaved woods, even on the high, steep slopes that fell to the river below.
Everywhere in the city, golden crosses bearing the extra diagonal bar that represented Christ’s footrest in the eastern churches, caught the morning sun; and the golden, shallow domes of the churches glowed. Indeed, the great city itself looked like some vast and gleaming ship floating upon the waters.