It was just then, scanning the house, that Ivanushka saw a single face at a window.
It was Zhydovyn. He was looking out gloomily, unable to gauge what he should do.
One of the men had pushed his way to the front. He was carrying a long, thin pike. ‘Show us your men,’ he shouted.
‘There are no Jewish men,’ someone replied. And there was a general laugh.
In fact, as far as Ivanushka could tell, old Zhydovyn was probably alone in there except for some servants.
‘Show us your women, then!’ the man bellowed, to a general guffaw.
Ivanushka braced himself and started to push his horse forward, through the crowd. People began to turn. There were cries of anger.
‘What’s this?’
‘A damned noble!’
‘Another exploiter.’
‘Pull him down!’
He felt hands grabbing at his feet; a spear was thrust up at him, only just missing his face. He wanted to strike at them with his whip, but knew that if he made the slightest angry movement he was lost. Slowly, imperturbably, he coaxed his horse forward, gently nudging his way through the parting crowd to the front. Then he turned.
Ivanushka looked at the crowd, and they stared at him.
And to his surprise, he experienced a new kind of fear.
He had never faced an angry crowd before. He had faced the Cuman horde; he had several times looked at death. But he had never faced a wall of hatred. It was terrifying. Worse than that, he suddenly felt numb. The crowd’s hate came at him like a single, unstoppable force. He felt naked, fearful, and strangely ashamed. Yet why should he feel ashamed? There was no cause for it. True, he was a noble; but he knew very well that he had done these people no harm. Why should their rage make him feel guilty? Yet the force of their united hatred was like a blow to the stomach.
Then the crowd fell silent.
Ivanushka gripped the reins and gently patted his horse’s neck, lest he too take fright. How strange, he thought, to have survived the Cumans only to be killed by a mob.
The man with the pike was pointing at him. Like most of the others, he wore a dirty linen smock with a leather belt; his face was almost wholly covered with a black beard and his hair fell to his shoulders.
‘Well, noble, tell us what you want before you die,’ he called out.
Ivanushka tried to meet his angry eyes calmly.
‘I am Ivan Igorevich,’ he replied in a loud, firm voice. ‘I serve Vladimir Monomakh, whom you seek. And I have sent him a messenger, in my name and in yours, begging him to make haste and come to the veche in Kiev.’
There was a faint hum in the crowd. They were clearly uncertain whether to believe him. The man with the pike narrowed his eyes. It seemed to Ivanushka he was about to thrust the pike at him. Then, from somewhere, came a voice: ‘It’s true. I’ve seen him. He’s Monomakh’s man.’
The man with the pike turned to the speaker, then back to the noble. It seemed to Ivanushka that there was a trace of disappointment on his face.
But now, like a tide, he felt the wave of hatred from the crowd receding. ‘Welcome, Monomakh’s man,’ the fellow with the pike said grimly. ‘What are these Jews to you?’
‘They are under my protection. And Monomakh’s,’ Ivanushka added. ‘They have done no harm.’
The fellow shrugged.
‘Perhaps.’ Then, suddenly, seeing that this was the moment to strengthen his temporary street-leadership, he turned round upon the crowd and bellowed: ‘For Monomakh! Let’s find some more Jews to kill.’
And within moments, he had led them away.
Ivanushka went in. He found the old Khazar alone except for two women servants. He stayed with him until late afternoon, when the city was quieter. Only then did he proceed to his brother’s house.
It was as he had feared. They had reached the tall wooden house in mid-afternoon. As far as he could judge, Sviatopolk had made no attempt to run. Supposing the boyar to be far more successful than he was, the furious crowd had killed him, ransacked the house, and burned it down.
Ivanushka found the charred remains of his brother’s body, said a prayer, and then in the failing light, returned to seek shelter as he had once before at the Khazar’s house.
How strange it was, after so many years, to find himself in that house again, sitting alone in the candlelight with old Zhydovyn.
The Khazar had recovered from the attack now. And Ivanushka, though saddened by Sviatopolk’s death, found that he did not feel unduly melancholy.
They ate together quietly, saying little; but he could see that the old man, still brooding over what had happened that day, was longing to say something. And so it did not surprise him when, at the end of the meal, the old man suddenly remarked sharply: ‘Of course, none of this would have happened if the country was properly governed.’
‘What do you mean?’ Ivanushka asked respectfully.
‘Your princes of Rus,’ the Khazar replied scornfully, ‘those fools. None of them knows how to organize an empire. They have no proper laws, no system.’
‘We have laws.’
Zhydovyn shrugged.
‘Rudimentary laws of the Slavs and norsemen. Your church laws are better, I admit, but they are Greek and Roman, from Constantinople. Yet who runs your administration, such as it is? Khazars and Greeks half the time. Why are your people revolting now? Because your princes either break the law or don’t enforce it – or just have no laws to prevent them oppressing the people.’
‘It is true we have been badly ruled.’
‘Because you have no system within which to work. Your princes fight amongst each other all the time, weakening the state, because they can’t devise a workable system of succession.’
‘But, Zhydovyn,’ he protested, ‘is it not true that the succession of brother by brother is derived not from the Varangian norsemen but from the Turks? Did we not take this, too, from you Khazars?’
‘Perhaps. But your rulers of Rus are incapable of order. You can’t deny it. The royal house is in chaos.’
What the old man said rang true. Yet Ivanushka was reluctant to agree. For despite his disgust at the people that day, with their foolish, anti-Semitic rallying cries, he could not help himself thinking: How wrong they are, these Jews. How far behind us, with their endless trust in laws and systems.
He sighed, then said aloud: ‘The law is not everything, you know.’
Zhydovyn gazed at him. ‘It’s all we have,’ he replied bluntly.
Ivanushka shook his head. How could he explain? That was not the way to think.
No. There was a better way. A Christian way.
He could not, perhaps, find the words himself, but that did not matter. For had they not already been said, better than he could hope to express them, in the most famous sermon ever given in the Russian Church?
It had been preached just before his birth, yet so well recorded that he had learned sections of it as a child. The sermon had been given by the great Slav churchman, Hilarion, in memory of St Vladimir. He had called it: On Law and Grace. And its message was very simple. The Jews had given mankind God’s law. But then had come the Son of God, with a greater truth – the rule of grace, of God’s direct love, which is greater than earthly rules and regulations. This was the wonderful message which the new Church of the Slavs would demonstrate to the vast world of forest and steppe.
How could he tell old Zhydovyn this? He could not. The Jews would never accept it.
Yet had not his own journey through life been a pilgrimage in search of grace? Had not he – Ivanushka the Fool – discovered God’s love without a textbook of laws?