She stared at him in amusement.
‘You can read too?’
‘Yes. I learned here in Novgorod.’
A Mordvinian, a mere Finn from the forests, who could read.
It was at this moment that Yanka made up her mind.
That very evening, she went to Milei the boyar and told him what she wanted.
‘Well,’ she asked, when she had finished, ‘you had what you wanted from me. Will you help me now?’
To her surprise, he smiled kindly. He even gave her some useful advice.
‘Now tell me again the name of this merchant and where he lives,’ he said. And then: ‘You don’t actually know if this young man wants…?’
She shook her head.
‘But I think he will,’ she replied.
The very next morning, Milei arranged the matter.
‘It will cost me a pretty penny though,’ he remarked with a wry smile. ‘However, the priests will approve.’ The church encouraged the liberation of slaves.
He could be kindly, Yanka realized; for the ability to be generous is a pleasant exercise for powerful men.
And so, that afternoon, she turned to Purgas outside the church and asked: ‘Would you like to marry me? My master will buy your freedom if you want.’
He looked thunderstruck.
‘I wanted to ask,’ he confessed. ‘But as a slave, I was afraid…’
‘There are conditions,’ she went on. She had thought very carefully about this; and it was Milei who had coached her, rather reluctantly, in what to do. ‘We shall leave the city and live near my village – but not as a boyar’s peasants,’ she added quickly. That was one thing she knew she did not want. ‘We shall be free. We’ll live on the Black Lands and pay rent only to the prince himself.’
Despite everything, she wanted to be near her father. If anything happened, at least he would be there. But she did not want to be in the same village; nor did she wish to have Milei as a landlord any more.
‘Go to the Black Land, then,’ Milei had told her. ‘There’s Black Land with good soil – chernozem – right next to Russka. The prince is glad to get peasants on his land. You’ll get good terms and you could do very well.’
Hearing this, to her relief Purgas laughed. There was nothing in the world he wanted more.
‘That’s settled then,’ he said.
It was: almost.
‘There is one other thing,’ she began hesitantly, and looked down at her feet.
He waited.
‘Once, a long time ago…’ she paused. ‘When I was just a girl… It was a Tatar, they came to the village.’
He stared at her, not comprehending for a moment. Then he gently drew her to him and kissed her on the forehead.
They left two days later with Milei, who allowed them to follow him in a second sled.
When at last they reached the place on the River Kliasma where the stream led down to Russka, he parted from them.
He had been distant on the journey, as a boyar might be with a pair of almost slaves. But at the moment of parting he called Yanka over to him.
His worldly, clever face was not unkind as, discreetly, he pressed two grivnas into her hand.
‘I’m sorry about the child,’ he murmured.
Then he was gone.
The day after they arrived at Dirty Place, it began to thaw.
1262
Milei the boyar waited.
Across the river, pale columns of dust rose from time to time, swirling across the field that had recently been harvested. The sky was a brilliant blue. There were a few thin, vaporous clouds in the high distance. Away over the forest, on the horizon, was a pinkish haze. It was very dry; there was a scent of wormwood; no discernible wind.
He was waiting for the Tatar.
Things had been tense all that year. At any moment, he had feared an explosion.
And this very morning, here in Russka, it had almost come. If he had not been there himself those two Moslem tax collectors would be dead, he was sure of it. Only when he had threatened the villagers that he would turn them off his land did they quieten down.
‘Not that they love me for it,’ he smiled grimly.
They were all in the big barn now, loading sacks of grain on to the tax collectors’ wagons. He still kept one ear cocked for any further sounds of trouble.
‘It’s certainly a pity these damned tax farmers are Moslem,’ he sighed.
He had been right about the Tatars: right in every respect. Everything had come to pass exactly as he had told those Novgorod merchants it would, a dozen years ago. The Tatars had taken over the north-east. True, the princes had been allowed to continue their rule; but the census and conscription had come; the northern lands were now divided up into myriads, thousands, hundreds and tens, just as the lands of Kiev had been. And there was nothing that anyone could do about it.
Even Novgorod had had to submit to being taxed: Lord Novgorod had been humbled too. Prince Alexander had ridden in with the Tatar tax collectors and helped take the Tatars’ tribute himself. He had crushed the local people when they resisted.
Milei smiled. What a cunning fellow this Alexander was! He had discovered how to get the Tatars on his side; he’d used them to push aside his uncle and his brother until, now, he was the greatest prince in all the Russian lands. He even wore an oriental helmet, given him by the Tatar Khan.
The Russian people might not like him, yet his policy was not only cunning, it was also wise. The Russians alone could not defeat the Tatars. ‘Look what happened to his brother Andrei,’ he would remind people who called Alexander a traitor. ‘He tried to fight the Tatars: so they smashed him and looted half the towns in Suzdalia.’ That had been ten years ago and it was still remembered.
And what if Russians looked for help from outside?
‘Consider, in that case, that fool the Prince of Galicia,’ he would urge. The prince in the south-west, who had been flirting with the Pope, had been even more foolish than Milei had predicted. First, he had received a crown from the primate. Then he had looked for allies. Who should he choose but those pagan Lithuanian tribes of the north, who were expanding into the western Russian lands to avoid the Teutonic Knights? The Lithuanian chief had, for a few years, become a Roman Catholic and together he and the Prince of Galicia had challenged the Tatars.
And the result of it all?
The Tatars thrashed Galicia and made them attack the Lithuanians. Then they made the Prince of Galicia take down all his fortifications. The western Catholic powers, as usual, did nothing; the Lithuanian king went back to being a pagan. And that summer, he had heard, the pagan Lithuanian had attacked Galicia, which was now quite defenceless.
‘Poor Galicia’s finished. If Alexander had tried anything like that,’ he always said, ‘the Tatars would have taken one half of his lands, and the Germans would have taken the other.’
Alexander was wise. But, oh, he was subtle, too!
Tatar policy was never to hurt the Church. And Alexander, who served the Tatars, had made the Metropolitan Cyril a close friend.
‘And bless me, now he’s got every priest and monk in the land on his side. The people hate Alexander, yet every time they go to church, they hear the priests say he’s a national hero. Those priests are even calling him Alexander Nevsky now, as though that skirmish with the Swedes on the River Neva back in his youth had saved all Russia.’
The political astuteness of this propaganda amused the boyar hugely.
Yes, he had been right about the Tatars. They were the masters and only a fool would refuse to work with them. He, Milei, had been working with the Tatars and with Alexander Nevsky for more than a decade.
He had also used intrigue.