Yanka did so, and immediately cried out in pain. The water was scalding.
‘You’ll get used to it,’ the woman said, and pushed her feet down again. ‘Now stand up.’
As she did so, she almost toppled over. The pain in her feet was terrible.
The old woman caught her, steadied her, then pulled her shift right up, exposing her stomach.
Suddenly she felt helpless just like a little girl again, as if her father were making her lie down on the bench. The sharp fumes from the tub were almost choking her. She looked down and saw that not only her feet, but her legs were turning bright red.
‘You’re boiling me,’ she moaned.
‘More or less,’ the old woman said, and poured in some more hot water.
The minutes passed. The pain in her legs had turned to an ache, then almost to numbness. She had grown used to the smell, though her eyes were still streaming. When she thought she would fall, or faint, the old woman gave her a staff to hold. And still, from time to time, she poured in more hot water and added more of the pungent herbs, whatever they were.
A whole hour passed. Then Yanka fainted.
When she came to, she found the old woman rubbing her bright red feet and legs with a paste of some kind.
‘They’ll hurt for a while. They’ll feel scalded, but they aren’t,’ she said calmly.
‘And the baby…?’
‘Come and see me in the market, the day after tomorrow, at sundown.’
Yanka slept late the next morning.
The day after, as instructed, she walked by the little stall. The old woman glanced up at her, her hard eyes giving nothing away.
‘Well?’
Yanka nodded.
‘It worked. It’s all right.’
‘As I told you,’ the old woman said and turned away, as if she were of no further interest.
There was nothing left for her now. There was nothing in Novgorod. She tried to avoid Milei for fear that he might make her pregnant again. But what was she to do next?
Soon, while the snows were still on the ground, she knew that the boyar meant to take the road back to the east. But where should she go? She was determined not to stay in Novgorod.
Strangely, despite all that had happened, she missed her father’s familiar face. She had no wish to return to live with him, yet she would like to see him again. Without him, she was still utterly alone.
Yet on what possible terms should she return? Had the boyar some plans for her? Or did he intend to leave her at some town or roadside inn and pass on into the distance? She had no idea; and being completely unsure what she wanted herself, she did not care just then to ask him.
It was at this time that she found one place of sanctuary. She discovered it three days after her abortion.
It was a church, but not a stone one. It lay in the Potters end, on the St Sophia side of the city, and it was constructed entirely of wood. It was dedicated to St Blaise.
This saint was a typical example of how, at the level of the simple people, the Christian Church had wisely adapted itself to the customs and affections of the Slavs and Finns it converted. St Blaise was a saint who protected animals. To all intents, the saint was identical to the old Slav god Veles, protector of cattle, god of well-being and wealth.
Something about the atmosphere of the dark wooden building with its tall sloping roof made her feel at home. From the outside, it was more like a high barn, yet inside, with its low ceiling and its dark little icons and gleaming candles, it had the warmth and intimacy of an izba. True, the logs it was made of were huge. It was as solid as a fortress. But the priests, the old men trying to look busy, the stout women patiently sweeping or polishing the candlesticks that stood everywhere, all seemed friendly. As she stood, sometimes for an hour or more, in front of the icon of St Blaise, she felt that, perhaps, even in her own miserable and useless existence, there might be hope.
‘Lord have mercy. Lord have mercy,’ she would sometimes whisper to herself.
Once, as she turned from the icon, she saw a tall, dark-bearded priest who looked at her kindly and said: ‘Our Father loves all His children. Above all He loves those who have fallen and who repent.’ And Yanka, knowing that he had seen into her heart, felt tears crowd into her eyes as, with head bowed, she quickly left the church.
It was a few days later that she met a young man.
There was, at first glance, nothing exceptional about him. He was about twenty-two or three, she supposed, a little above average height, with a brown beard. His cheeks were rather high, his eyes almond-shaped and brown. She noticed his hands. They were workman’s hands, and calloused, yet there was something fine, strong yet sensitive in the well-shaped, tapering fingers. Unusually for a workman, his nails were carefully pared. He had a serious, studious look.
When she first saw him, he was standing quietly, in reverence, before an icon, but as she moved towards the door, he immediately left off his prayers, so that she smiled to herself.
He let her leave just in front of him and then caught up and fell into step beside her.
‘You seem to think you are going my way.’ She smiled a little mischievously.
‘Only to protect you. Which way do you go?’
‘Towards the Leatherworkers end.’
‘I too. My master lives there.’
There seemed no harm in him.
He was a slave, she discovered, a Mordvinian who had been taken captive after a raid when he was twelve. His name was Purgas. His master since he was fifteen had been a rich merchant here in Novgorod, who had had him taught carpentry.
They parted near the inn, but not before he had learned that she liked to visit the wooden church each afternoon.
She half expected, therefore, to see him there the next day, but she was surprised when he produced a little piece of carving he had done. It was a tiny riverboat, no bigger than his hand, carved out of birchwood, with oarsmen and a little sail.
It was so perfectly done that, for a moment, she caught her breath; for it reminded her of the carvings her brother used to do.
‘It’s for you,’ he said. And he insisted that she take it.
He walked her home again that day.
They often met after that. He was always friendly, rather quiet and, she soon observed, there was a kind of shyness about him, a reserve, that she liked. When they walked through the streets, he would pause from time to time, to point out some feature of a house that she would otherwise never have noticed: a little carving, some latticework by a window, or simply the way that the heavy logs were joined at the corners.
There were dozens of ways of joining logs, she discovered. They could be cut round or square, they could be laid this way or that, notched or slotted one into another. What to her had seemed an endless collection of stout, rather brutal wooden houses was to him a mass of elaborate puzzles to be solved and enjoyed as he passed.
‘There are more ways of building a simple izba than you would dream of,’ he told her. ‘And the master carpenters of Novgorod know them all.’
Yet though he appreciated the city and knew every building in it, she soon discovered that he missed the native forests of his childhood.
‘We lived in the woods, out by the Volga,’ he told her. And he would enumerate for her all the trees and plants of the region. When he spoke of buildings, it was with a keen professional appreciation; but when he spoke of the forests, a dreamy, faraway look came into his eyes, and she felt for him.
But the greatest surprise came the fourth day they met. She had stopped in the church in front of an icon depicting Christ holding an open book on which some words were written.
‘“Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgement,”’ Purgas said, reading the text.