To the south, along the edge of the steppe, the little frontier forts had been strengthened and huge ramparts of earth and wood had been built, so that there was now an almost continuous wall to keep the raiders out. But they still either broke through, or made huge sweeps across the steppe, far over the horizon, to circumvent the defences and come down unexpectedly from the north.
Ten years ago the Rus had launched a massive attack across the steppe that had left twenty Cuman princes dead. Four years later, led by Boniak the Mangy, the Cuman warlords had struck back and even burned churches in Kiev itself. And now the Russians were going down to break them. It was God’s work: Ivanushka had no doubt of that.
‘We know their usual grazing grounds and their winter camp,’ he said to his sons. ‘We’re going to hunt them down.’ Though the business was grim, as he looked about him at his strong sons and the mighty army of the three princes, he was confident.
But even so, having at last achieved his life’s ambition to ride to the Don, he felt melancholy. He could not help it. The main reason was his father. That at least he understood. The other reason was less clear to him: it was something vague, uneasy. And it was made worse when, on the day they entered the steppe, Monomakh turned to him and quietly remarked: ‘They say, my Ivanushka, that something is troubling your brother Sviatopolk.’
Day after day, southwards and eastwards across the steppe they rode. The grass was green, the ground draining. Across the vast, rolling plateau, for hundreds, thousands of miles, the land was drying out, from the rich steppe to the mountains and the deserts where, even now, the delicate spring flowers were being burned by the sun to vanish without trace into the sand.
Within days, the pale feather grass began breaking out – a white sheen spreading in front of them like an endless mist over the rich black earth hidden below. Horses and men hissed through the grass like myriad snakes; where the grass was short, their feet drummed upon the ground. Birds skimmed anxiously across the feather grass before this huge advancing host. Sometimes an eagle, a blue-grey speck, hung high above the moving mass.
Ivanushka rode quietly on his finest grey: Troyan. At midday, the sun overhead grew so bright that it seemed as if the whole army, his horse, the day itself, had grown dark because of it. Steadily they went on.
Monomakh was cheerful. Often he would canter ahead, a favourite falcon on his wrist, and hunt across the steppe. And in the evenings he would sit by his tent with his boyars while a minstrel strummed his lyre and sang to them:
It was after these evenings, when the fires were low and all but the men on watch were sleeping, that Ivanushka found himself most melancholy. For he was sure he would not see his father again.
He had gone to Kiev to take leave of him, and had found him almost helpless. A sudden crisis the year before had left him partly paralysed: he could smile, faintly, with one side of his mouth, but his speech was very slurred.
‘You should not be grieved,’ his mother told him. ‘He is to depart soon, and so am I. But see what years God has granted us, and be grateful.’
The old man was still handsome. His grey hair was still thick. Like others in that period of better nutrition in Russia, he had kept most of his teeth. Gazing down at his long, noble face, Ivanushka had wondered whether he should go on campaign, but Igor, guessing his thoughts, had done his best to smile and whispered: ‘Go, my son.’
He had kissed his father, long and warmly, before striding out.
Often now as he rode across the steppe with a feeling of tender sadness, his memory returned him to that morning when, as a boy of twelve, he floated down the great River Dniepr with his father, his mind full of high hopes. Like a physical presence he could feel his father’s hand on his shoulder, feel his powerful heart beating behind him, and he wondered: is he still with me, my father? Is he still alive in Kiev, perhaps remembering that very day, sharing my dream with me, his hand around my shoulder? Or has he gone into the great cold?
And around the campfire he remembered his father’s forgiveness and his mother’s healing presence.
And then there was Sviatopolk. Though he rode some distance away, with the Prince of Kiev, it was easy to pick him out by the banner carried before him that bore the three-pronged trident. It was not that his face was hard and bitter – it had always been that – but there was a new look in his eyes, a faraway gaze that Ivanushka, having known desperation himself in his youth, recognized at once. And his attitude towards his brother, though always cool, had taken on a new tension which, to those who knew him well, was a sign of danger.
On two occasions Ivanushka had gone up to him, once to ask him: ‘Have I offended you?’ The second time, with some misgivings, he had asked: ‘Is something wrong with you?’ But each time Sviatopolk had bowed to him coldly and enquired, with sarcastic politeness, after his health.
Sviatopolk lived well in Kiev. His sons were successful. What, Ivanushka wondered, could it be?
It was when Sviatopolk was asleep that the monsters troubled him.
During his waking hours, it was only a question of calculation, even if that always brought the same conclusion. But in his sleep, the monsters came.
How had he got into debt? Even now, he could hardly believe it had happened.
If they’d let me into the inner circle, he told himself, by now I’d be rich. That was the trouble, he told himself several times a day.
Everyone in Kiev was speculating. Most of the merchants and boyars were. Even the small merchants and artisans did if they could. But the greatest speculator of all was the prince himself.
Salt, that was the key. In the good old days, when his father Igor was in his prime, they brought salt across the steppe in caravans from the Black Sea. But now, with Cumans breaking up the southern trade route, the only places to get salt safely were in the west: from the south-western province of Galicia, or from the kingdoms of Poland and Hungary. And the plan of the Prince of Kiev was to form a cartel that would get control of all the salt sold in the land of Rus.
This campaign was dearer to the prince’s heart than even the crusade against the Cumans. He had prepared the ground for years, marrying one of his daughters to the King of Hungary and another to the King of Poland.
‘Nothing will stop him,’ Sviatopolk often declared. ‘Then they’re going to force the price up, and make a fortune.’ Even now, the beauty of the scheme filled him with a kind of cold joy.
But he was not in the cartel. Though he had served the Prince of Kiev well – no one ever accused him of failing in his duty – he had never been invited into the inner circle; and as time went on, he knew that his influence was slowly waning. ‘He’s not the man his father was,’ people said. ‘Or his brother,’ they sometimes added. It was his awareness of this last comment that ate into his soul, and made him all the more determined to impress the world.
If the prince would not make him rich, he would find other ways.
So had begun the series of bad investments. There was the futile attempt to bring salt from the Black Sea. Who knew what had become of those Khazar merchants and their camels in the southern steppe? He had tried to extract iron from some marshlands he owned: and discovered after two years of obstinately pushing his men, that the little iron he found cost more to extract than he could sell it for. All his schemes had failed; yet the poorer he became, the greater the state he maintained in Kiev. I must impress them, he vowed.