For Yanka, her father and their companions were doing a very dangerous thing: they were trying to escape from the Tatars.
The Tatars. Even now, most Russians did not really understand the nature of the empire of which they had just become a part. Failing to perceive the absolute importance of the Mongol elite from their distant eastern homeland, the Russians confused them with the subject Turks who fought under them, and therefore gave the Horde a Turkish name which was to remain in use throughout history: the Tatars.
The estimate of the Mongol war council had been exactly right. Russia had fallen in three years. The great army that had passed through the village of Russka had swept on to destroy Pereiaslav utterly; within a twelve month, Chernigov had fallen and golden Kiev was a ghost town.
The ancient state of Rus was finished.
For convenience, the Mongols divided it in two. The southern half – the territories around Kiev and the southern steppe – were placed under direct Mongol rule. The north – the lands in the great loop of the Russian R, and in the deep forests beyond – were left under the nominal control of the Russian royal house, with the proviso that the princes ruled, henceforth, only as the representatives of the Great Khan. They were there to keep the people quiet and collect the Khan’s tribute. That was all.
Some chronicles of the time – and many Russians too – liked to pretend that the Tatars were just another, if impressive, group of steppe raiders whom, for the moment, the Grand Duke had to buy off.
The reality was very different. The Grand Duke was summoned eastwards, even as far as Mongolia, to receive his badge of office – the yarlyk. He ruled only at the Khan’s pleasure. ‘Remember, you belong to us now,’ all princes were told. No disobedience was tolerated. When a bold prince from the southwest refused to bow to an idol of the Great Khan, he was executed on the spot. This imposition of rule was immediate and total. Indeed, the only reason why the Russian princes were allowed to exist at all was because the Mongols, unimpressed with the wealth of the northern forests – puny indeed compared to the rich caravans and cities of Asia – had reckoned that the Grand Duke’s territories were not worth the cost of direct administration.
It is likely, had the Mongols not paused for the elections in the orient of a new Great Khan, that all Europe might have fallen at this point too. But the new Khan decided instead to consolidate his western empire: a new capital, Sarai, was built on the southern Volga and his army commanders were told: ‘Wait.’
And in this matter, too, the Mongols displayed their excellent understanding. For there was one other relevant fact which they had quickly understood.
Russia was Orthodox; the west Catholic.
Back in the days of Monomakh, the split between Rome and the Eastern Church had been one of liturgical niceties. But since then, the gulf had widened. Questions of authority were involved. Was the Patriarch of Constantinople – or his fellow patriarchs in the east – prepared to submit to the Pope’s authority? Had the Eastern – Orthodox – Church showed a proper interest in the Pope’s Crusades? Feelings ran high. When the Russians sent frantic appeals to their fellow Christians in the west for help against the heathen Mongols, they were met with silence. Indeed, the west watched with satisfaction while the Orthodox were being punished for their mistake. Worse yet, not only did the Catholic Swedes start to attack them in the north, but a pair of crusading orders – the Livonian and Teutonic Knights – whose headquarters were up by the Baltic Sea, started with the Pope’s approval to raid the lands of Novgorod. ‘Let the heathens smash them,’ said the Catholic west, ‘and we’ll gobble up the pieces.’ So it was that the Russians concluded, more firmly than ever: ‘Never trust the west.’ And the Mongol leadership cleverly calculated: ‘Take Russia first. The west can wait. Russia belongs to Asia now.’
Yanka’s father was not a bad-looking man.
He was just above average height, and fair, though his beard was thin and the crown of his head was covered by only a few strands of hair. His features were small and regular, while the upper part of his face seemed rather bony. His pale blue eyes were generally kindly, though they sometimes looked at people as if he were counting something. He was, in a nondescript way, quite pleasant-looking. Occasionally, he drank too much.
Sometimes he would punish her with a beating if she had misbehaved; this was always in the evening, and at such times he could be stern and frightening. But he was less severe, she knew, than the other fathers in the village.
He himself supposed that in earlier years he had taken less notice of her than he had of Kiy, his son. But the terrible events since the Tatar invasion had changed all that; and now, as they continued on their journey, he realized that he had undertaken it chiefly for her sake.
For if they did not leave, he had thought that she would die.
At first, after the terrible destruction, a strange silence had fallen upon the village. News of the fall of the cities of Pereiaslav and Kiev came; then nothing. From the boyar in the north, not a word. Perhaps he was dead. Meanwhile, in the shattered village, seed time and harvest came. Yanka’s father took up with a stout, dark-haired woman, though he did not marry her; and she taught Yanka to embroider. Kiy became a dexterous woodcarver. And then, the previous year, the blow had fallen.
On an autumn day a small Tatar troop led by an official from the newly created governor of the region, the Baskak, marched briskly into the village. All the people were lined up and counted – a thing that had never been known before. ‘This is the census,’ the official said. ‘The Baskak numbers every head.’ Then the men were divided into groups often. ‘Each ten is a tax unit and is fully responsible for maintaining its full complement,’ they were told. ‘Nobody may leave.’ A peasant who foolishly tried to argue was immediately whipped. They also discovered that the village was to have a new significance.
The imperial post service, the yam, connected every part of the Great Khan’s empire. His messengers, and selected merchants, could use it. There was a station every twenty-five miles, where mares and sheep were kept to supply kumiss and meat. Also a quantity of spare horses. For when the Khan sent a messenger, the man wore bells to warn the station of his approach so that a fresh horse would be ready, on to which he could leap, never pausing in his journey. The Baskak had decided that the ruined fort would do very well for a yam. An official stationed there would oversee the village too. ‘Which means,’ a villager whispered, ‘that we shall all be slaves.’
But it was the final action of the official which had destroyed Yanka. For suddenly, turning to the village elder he had demanded: ‘Who are the best woodcarvers here?’ And being given five names he had called them out. The youngest was Kiy, aged fifteen. ‘We’ll take the boy,’ the Mongol snapped. For the Great Khan had asked for artisans to be sent to him. And for long afterwards, that evening, as the party travelled away across the steppe, Yanka had gazed after the distant figures who began to look like tiny shadows that might sink, at any time, into the reddening sea.