Meanwhile, the old monk was gazing at Igor rather severely.
‘You fast too much,’ he said abruptly.
‘Surely fasting is permitted?’ Igor said in surprise.
‘A fast is a tithe we pay to God. And a tithe is a tenth, not more. You should limit your fasts. You are too severe with yourself.’
‘And my prayers?’
Ivanushka knew that his father prayed for a long time at dawn, and then again, three or four times, before the day was over.
‘Pray as much as you wish, as long as you don’t neglect your business,’ the monk replied sharply. He paused for a moment, then went on: ‘This fasting, you know, came into our church from the Latin west, through Moravia. I am not one of those who condemn the west, but too much fasting amongst the laity is foolish. If you want to do that, you must join the Romans and say their creed,’ he added with a faint smile.
For more than a decade now, there had been, technically, a breach between the eastern and western Christian churches – between Constantinople and Rome. The disagreement concerned mainly the form of addressing God and the Trinity in the creed, though certain differences in style and theological emphasis underlay the division. The Pope claimed the highest authority. The eastern Church did not agree. But it was not as yet a deep rift.
The monk’s gentle taunt, therefore, was merely a way of reminding Igor that, as his spiritual son, he owed him obedience.
‘I will do as you say,’ the noble replied. ‘As for the boy, if he’s not to be a priest, what’s to become of him?’
Father Luke did not even look at Ivanushka.
‘God knows,’ he replied.
1067
Kiev the golden. There was only one problem in the land of Rus. This was that its rulers had invented a political system that did not, and could not possibly, work. The problem lay in the system of succession.
For when the royal clan had chosen that cities should pass, not from father to son, but from brother to brother, they had not foreseen the consequences, which were disastrous.
Firstly, when a prince ruled a city, he might set his sons to rule over the lesser towns in that territory. But when he died, they usually had to give these up to the next prince in line, perhaps without compensation. Worse still, if one of the princely brothers died before being granted a city, his children were completely left out of the long chain of succession. There were many such landless princes without prospects, and these political orphans were known by the same name that was applied to other dispossessed or dependent folk in Russian society: izgoi.
And even when the succession of brothers did not create izgoi, it still produced ludicrous situations.
For the princes of Rus were often long-lived, and they had many sons. What if the eldest son produced children who were fully grown warriors and statesmen by the time his youngest brother, their uncle, was still a boy? They would still have to give up power for their boy-uncle. No wonder they were angry.
Indeed, as the generations passed, it became harder and harder even to work out who was entitled to what, let alone to get the parties to agree to it. Thus the ruling clan of Kievan Rus spent generations devising makeshift arrangements within a system that was inherently unworkable. They never solved their problem.
Kiev the golden. Of late it seemed to Ivanushka that a harsh, angry light menaced the golden city. Treachery was in the air. And now, a year after it had appeared, in the dead of winter, the meaning of the terrible portent in the heavens was becoming clear in the land of Rus.
At first, Ivanushka had even been afraid for his father.
Of all the princes in the land of Rus, none was stranger than the Prince of Polotsk. Men said he was a werewolf. He was certainly terrible to look upon. ‘He was born with a caul wrapped over his eye,’ Ivanushka’s mother had told him, ‘and it’s there to this day.’
‘And is he really so evil?’ Ivanushka had asked.
‘As wicked as Baba Yaga the witch,’ she had replied.
The revolt of the Prince of Polotsk was a typical dynastic quarrel. Though not a landless izgoi, this grandson of the Blessed Vladimir had been cut out of the main chain of succession: so while he kept the city of Polotsk, which lay towards Poland in the west, he could never inherit Kiev, Novgorod, Chernigov, or any of the greatest cities of the land of Rus.
For a time, while other, less important izgoi princes had been creating trouble in the outlying territories, the Prince of Polotsk had remained quiet. Then suddenly, at the dead of winter, he had struck in the north, at the great city of Novgorod; and as the snow lay thick upon the ground, Igor and his two eldest boys had ridden north with the Prince of Kiev and his brothers.
If only Ivanushka could have ridden with them. Since the interview at the monastery, he had spent a miserable year. Because of Cuman raids in the steppe, the caravan with Zhydovyn the Khazar had been postponed. Igor had made several attempts to place him in one of the princely households, but with no luck. More than once, his father had asked him if he would not like to visit the monastery again; but each time he had hung his head, and Igor had shrugged and turned away. And now his father and brothers were hunting the werewolf.
‘Father will kill him,’ Ivanushka had cried as they left. But in his heart, he had not been so sure. Three weeks had passed. They heard that the western rebel city of Minsk had fallen, and that the armies had passed on towards the north. After that, silence.
Then, one afternoon in early March, while the snow still lay on the ground, Ivanushka heard the stamp and jingle of a horse coming into the courtyard and ran out to see a tall, stern figure dismounting.
It was his brother Sviatopolk. How handsome and brave, how like their father he looked. He glanced at Ivanushka. ‘We won,’ he announced drily. ‘Father’s on his way back with Boris. He sent me ahead to tell Mother.’
‘And the werewolf?’
‘He lost and ran away. He’s finished.’
‘What happened at Minsk?’
Sviatopolk smiled. Why did his mouth look bitter when he smiled, and why did he only do so when he was talking about people being hurt? ‘We butchered all the men; sold the women and children as slaves.’ He gave a short laugh. ‘There were so many slaves it drove the price down to half a grivna a head.’
Ivanushka followed him into the house. At the entrance, Sviatopolk paused and half turned to him. ‘By the way, there’s good news for you.’ He spoke the words casually.
‘For me?’ Ivanushka’s mind began to race. What could it be?
‘God knows why,’ Sviatopolk remarked. ‘You’ve done nothing to deserve it.’ The words were spoken light-heartedly, but Ivanushka knew Sviatopolk meant them really.
‘What is it? Tell me what!’
‘Father will tell you.’ It seemed that Sviatopolk was not particularly pleased with the good news, whatever it was. He smiled thinly, then turned away. ‘You’ll have to suffer until he comes, won’t you?’ he said, and stepped into the house.
Ivanushka heard his mother’s cry of joy. She loved Sviatopolk, he knew, because he was so like his father.
The news his father brought, the next day, was so wonderful that he could hardly believe it.
The younger brother of the Prince of Kiev, Prince Vsevolod, held the southern border city of Pereiaslav. It lay some sixty miles downriver from the capital and was a splendid city. Vsevolod had made a marriage that impressed the nobles of Rus, for his bride had been a princess of the royal house of Constantinople itself, the family of Monomakh. And their son Vladimir was only a year older than Ivanushka.