Prince Ivan (3 page)

But all of that stony echoing space led inevitably to the one commodity Khorlov and all of Russia possessed in abundance.
Cold
. Only when the Hall was full of people did it seem truly warm, and even then its walls leaked a slow, soft, steady chill that not even the hottest summer could abate.

In winter that chill could cut like a knife.

It was cutting right now. Ivan made his bow from the doorway as quickly as he could, then moved with unseemly haste up the hall and closer to the great fires banked up on either side of his father’s throne. Tsar Aleksandr was wearing his crown, the winter one with fur inside it, and a long crimson kaftan embroidered with gold and lined with lustrous sable. High Steward Strel’tsin was standing to one side, dressed in his usual grey. They both looked uncomfortably formal.

“Son of mine,” said the Tsar in that tone of infinite patience possessed only by saints and the parents of several children, “Soon you’ll be twenty years old, and I’ll be sixty-five. The string of pretty girls associated with your name are one thing, but what steps are you taking to secure the succession?”

It was unpadded even with a royal plural, and it took Ivan off his guard. He had been expecting a lengthy preamble such as those beloved of Strel’tsin, wordy enough that he could prepare a defence, or excuse, or whatever the situation might require, long before his father finished speaking. This direct question caught him in much the same way as a rake left in the garden’s long grass had once done, right between the eyes.

“I, uh,” said Tsarevich Ivan, and stopped. What he’d said wasn’t much, but more than enough.

“As I thought,” said the Tsar wearily. “Nothing’s changed. Vanya, I have no desire to arrange my children’s marriages, not after promising them a freedom of choice. But if I must, then I will.” He sat back and glanced sidelong at the High Steward with a glitter of sardonic amusement in his blue eyes. Ivan saw that glitter, and saw too the shadow of a smile that hid within his father’s silver beard as a fox hides in a thicket.

“Dmitriy Vasil’yevich assures me you’ve been advised that our own little kingdom lacks enough importance for any great Prince to want alliance with us.” Ivan nodded. “There have, however, been recent developments which caused something of a change.”

“Prince Yuriy,” said Ivan before High Steward Strel’tsin could speak.

Tsar Aleksandr struck his hands together, applauding. “Well done,” he said. “And well done to you also, Dmitriy Vasil’yevich. You still teach facts well enough for at least some of them to stick in the memory of my dear son.”

Ivan grimaced slightly, but changed it to a smile in time. Yet another groove had been worn in the surface of his brain to produce that prompt answer. He had often wondered whether it might be easier to find some small spell that would lock such education into his head, but the High Steward, as Court Wizard this time, had warned against it. Since magic was a part of memory, using it to memorize other matters would, he claimed, set up such cross-currents in the brain that one might have to sort through the contents of an entire library before remembering what day it was. Ivan got the same effect from vodka, but didn’t mention it. Strel’tsin wasn’t known for his sense of humour.

“As you so rightly say, Ivan,” said Tsar Aleksandr, “Prince Yuriy Vladimirovich of Kiev. And why would you say this name rather than, perhaps, Boris Mikhaylovich of Novgorod, or his brother Pavel?”

“Because those two Princes won’t move against any foe, not even Manguyu Temir of the Sky-Blue Wolves, for fear that when one brother moves, the other who remains in Novgorod will lay sole claim to the sceptre and take all for himself.” Ivan paused, gathered his thoughts and smiled a thin smile that, though he remained unaware of it, was the most adult expression to cross his face since he entered the audience chamber. “The encouragement of which belief, and all the others to augment it, currently costs us five
poodiy
of silver every year. Prince Yuriy, however, answers to none but himself. All three desire our land, but only Yuriy of Kiev will dare leave his own kremlin in an attempt to get it.”

It was uncomfortably true. Ivan, and the – hopefully male – child resulting from a marriage he hadn’t yet even considered, were the only things to prevent Khorlov from being swallowed up by the ambitions of such princes as Yuriy, who was already taking an interest in the Tsardom, less with an eye towards alliance by marrying one of three eligible daughters than simple annexation by force.

Only a legitimate heir to the Tsardom of Khorlov would give Prince Yuriy pause for thought. Kiev wasn’t yet so powerful that he could move with impunity against a realm whose succession was assured, for such an action would be seen as a threat against the independence of all the other little kingdoms of the Rus. It would not be tolerated, it would be opposed, and the combined opposition would outnumber Prince Yuriy’s army ten to one.

“It seems,” said Ivan, “that I’ll have to start looking for a bride.”

He smiled wryly at the prospect for, as his father suggested, he already had something of a reputation amongst the ladies of the court. Having to restrict his attentions was less than appealing, for once the more immediate delights of their company had been set aside, there wasn’t one among the lot with whom he would care to spend the rest of his life. Which meant, and the thought when it ran through his head provoked a little smile, that he had no need to restrict his choice to the ladies of Khorlov. Much entertainment could be obtained from the round of banquets and ceremonials that would precede his choice.

But such things were expensive, and unnecessary expense was the province of the First Minister rather than the High Steward, which meant that Dmitriy Vasil’yevich Strel’tsin would have to change his hat again. He did, at once.

“Majesty,” said Strel’tsin, bowing to the Tsar, “it would be better on the grounds of economy if not only a wife for the noble Prince were sought, but also husbands for the Princesses. Catching, as it were, four birds with but a single strew of grain.”

Ivan stared at Strel’tsin and slowly raised one eyebrow. The man spoke sense and logic, of course – Khorlov wasn’t rich, and paying for the maintenance of confusion between the Novgorodskiy princes hadn’t helped – but he spoke it with a relish that Ivan didn’t like. It was almost as if the High Steward had caught Ivan’s smile and the thought that had prompted it, and now as First Minister he was trying to be deliberately annoying.

“Your words are as always, First Minister,” he said, “full of wisdom and the dry consideration of dry years. We thank you.”

Dmitriy Vasil’yevich knew a dismissal when he heard one. No Steward and Minister who had served two Tsars and hoped one day to serve a third ever needed to be told twice when to leave the Presence. He leaned on his staff and bowed more deeply than ever, so that this time his long beard came close to sweeping like a besom across the floor, looked once and most thoughtfully at Prince Ivan through dark eyes that betrayed none of whatever thoughts swam deep within them, and took his leave in silence.

The click of the door-latch sounded very loud indeed.

Tsar Aleksandr leaned forward and raised a disapproving eyebrow, then smiled a little as he realized he’d seen Ivan do the same thing only minutes earlier. There were portraits in the palace of the kremlin that were almost fifty years old, portraits of when he too had been a young Tsarevich, Tsar Andrey’s eldest son. They might have been a mirror, reflecting then the face that looked up now at Aleksandr Andreyevich: the same blue eyes, the same hair so flaxen-pale as to be almost white, that showed how strongly the blood of Ryurik the Norseman still flowed in the veins of the Tsars of Khorlov.

“Like father, like son,” said Tsar Aleksandr to the mirror image of himself, and to Ivan’s astonishment, he grinned. “I have a confession to make, Vanyushka.” The Tsar looked about the empty audience chamber like a conspirator, or like a father playing games with his children, then concealed his mouth behind one shielding hand. “When I was your age, I didn’t like Strel’tsin either. I used to believe he was
born
old. That he was always so wise, and so thin, and so grey. Do you know, Vanya, I’ve never seen him laugh?”

“I think he’d crack in two if he tried.” With a shrug Ivan dismissed the High Steward from his mind and instead went to the small table close by the steps to the throne, where he poured wine into a goblet of figured Persian crystal as heavy and cool as carven ice. It was red wine, the favoured drink of the Romans of old, and as far-travelled as the soldiers of that ancient empire. This was brought at great price from the warm Tuscan hills to be drunk here in Khorlov, a city built on the edge of forests of birch and pine so vast that they could swallow all the land of Italy and leave not a trace behind. Tsarevich Ivan looked into its darkness and thought,
It
can
travel
,
why
not
I
?
Before
duty
and
politics
nail
me
to
this
one
piece
of
ground
.

“Father?”

“I said, are you going to give your poor thirsty old father some of that, or would you rather stare at it all day?”

Ivan felt the warmth of the mild reproof in his face and ears. His fair skin showed it like a beacon across his cheeks, as red as the wine, and he made so much haste in filling and delivering a second cup that he came close to spilling it.

Tsar Aleksandr accepted the goblet of wine, pointed the tip of his finger at a drip running down the outside and concentrated a moment so it turned about and ran back into the cup, then glanced at his son. “If you want to travel so much, Vanya,” he said, “then why not do it?”

Ivan turned to look at him, wondering when his father had begun lessons in the reading of thoughts.

He met the steady gaze of eyes as coldly blue as his own, and didn’t look away though it was an uncomfortable scrutiny disturbingly close to the yes-no-maybe consideration of a lazy cat watching a mouse go by. Ivan wondered why, but in common with many others in such a situation, was reluctant to ask in case he found out.

Aleksandr Andreyevich, Tsar of Khorlov, sat quite still and silent, and though his eyes hadn’t left those of his son, neither they nor his mouth nor the expression of his face said anything of the thoughts passing within. It was as if a house had been locked and the lights within put out. That closing of his face was another necessary skill in political debate, for if one art was the reading of expression, another was the hiding of it. Tsar Aleksandr was a master of both, and many more besides. It was said of him that in negotiation he could out-bluster a Kievan Rus, outwit a Khan of Krim Tatary and outstare a cat, and only the last was false.

Ivan was no cat, and to be subjected to that cool gaze wasn’t how he planned to spend his day. He sipped casually at the wine in his goblet until there was none left and then, not wanting to be the first to move by rising to refill it, was reduced to fidgeting with the empty cup. And still his father gazed at him, and gave no hint of what went on within his mind.

“Put down the cup before you break it.” It wasn’t what Ivan had expected to hear, but he did as he was told and sat afterwards as still as he was able. “When you were a child,” Tsar Aleksandr continued in that same soft voice, “you loved
skazki
tales, and the
byliny
epics of the old heroes.”

“I wanted to be a
bogatyr
,” said Ivan. “I wanted to ride my horse across the wide white world, and find adventures, and be brave, and be known so.”

“But instead you find yourself the son of a small Tsar, learning the dull duties of ruling a small tsardom.” If there was irony or bitterness in Aleksandr’s voice he hid it well. “You
will
travel, Ivan. And for all your eagerness, that travel will be farther and harder than you would wish. Perhaps those dull duties might be better after all.” He shook his head, and something seemed to vanish from around it like mist in the morning. “There were other things, but they were clouded and I couldn’t see them. Perhaps it’s just as well.”

Ivan said nothing until he’d refilled and emptied his goblet not once but twice. Whether the Tsar was speculating, or whether he had truly Seen something of the future, wasn’t something Ivan wanted to know. Though not so impressive as some forms of magic, he always found True Sight to be among the most eerie. It could be little comfort to any man, to know the time and manner of his own death.

Tsar Aleksandr tasted his wine. “You’ve had your youth and your freedom, Vanya. If you want to see the world, then best you do it soon. That’s why I called you here, because I agree with Dmitriy Vasil’yevich. The matter of your marriage is something other than a subject for discussion next week, or next month, or next year. Now it’s time for your life’s duties to begin. Not the worst, and not the least; only the first, and perhaps the best.”

“That sounds like one of Strel’tsin’s little homilies,” said Ivan.

“Probably it is, now,” said his father absently. “But the words are older even than the High Steward. Much older. They’re true enough.” Aleksandr took another, longer draught of wine then set the goblet aside. “I love my daughters, but I would as soon Khorlov went to my son, and to his sons after him.”