The Betrothed Sister (33 page)

When the time comes I shall make other arrangements for that birthing chair
. ‘Is Vladimir to visit?' she said aloud. Vladimir had not sent her a letter while she was living in the Convent of the Holy Trinity and she had not been able to send him anything either. Often she had thought of tokens, a poem written on birch wood or a drawing but there had been no one to take it to him, not even Katya's father, who had melted away after that one visit. Occasionally, she had heard snippets of news from ladies who visited the convent. Prince Vladimir had been fighting the Steppe tribes south of Kiev or the brave warrior prince was out on the eastern borders near Chernigov.

Anya replied evenly, ‘No. You must be patient.'

‘I shall try but it is difficult. I have waited so long and now nothing feels as if it is really happening to me. If only I could see my betrothed, speak with him …'

‘No,' Anya said firmly. ‘For the nobility, that is not our custom.'

Thea had prayed to St Theodosia nightly, before she drifted into sleep, that he still loved her.

As her wedding approached, Thea had fittings for her wedding gown. She was to wear a deep crimson overdress with a long, trailing, gold mantle. This dress was of damask, covered with gold embroidery, its borders scattered with garnets from Bohemia. Her golden veil was so fine it was luminous, its hem embroidered with little seed pearls. Her belt was of plaited gold and studded with garnets and pearls and her undergown had opus anglicanum, tiny raised flowers with hearts of silver thread, scattered around the hem. Her night shift was silk and it, too, was heavily embroidered at the neck with opus anglicanum. When she enquired about the needlewomen who worked on these garments, she discovered that two English women who lived with their exiled merchant husbands in the city had embroidered them.

She learned that during the ceremony she would be crowned, not with flowers like an ordinary maiden, but rather, she must bear the weight of a princess's heavy, jewel-encrusted crown and walk with it on her head without allowing it to slip. She must glide through her wedding ceremony like a swan. Too many musts, she thought, feeling rebellious.

Her lessons in deportment continued under Lady Olga's supervision. Remembering Anya's advice, Thea listened, learned and never complained. An uneasy peace existed between them until one afternoon Olga entered her chamber uninvited. Tension hung in the air like a fragile glass bead ready to shatter if knocked to the floor.

‘Lady Olga, I do not need any more lessons.' Thea looked over at Katya. ‘We have planned a walk in the orchard today. I am sorry that you have made a wasted journey.'

Lady Olga shook her head. ‘My lady, I come for the rushnyk today, not to coach you further in deportment, though as to whether you are ready or not remains to be seen on your wedding day,' she said. ‘I shall take the rushnyk now since I am to carry it into St Sophia for you.'

‘I see. Did Princess Anya say so? Yes, I expect she did,' Thea said and waved her hand towards her sewing chair. ‘Of course, it is ready.' She turned to Katya. ‘Katya, could you fetch it from my sewing chair.'

Once Lady Olga received the parcel, she bowed again to Thea and wished her a happy maidens' party.

The moment she was gone, Thea said, ‘Fetch my mantle, Katya. We shall walk in the orchard. I feel uncomfortable. She is like an unpleasant odour.'

Katya said quietly, ‘I feel her malevolence too.'

Weeks of waiting were over. Thea would have her bath in an enormous bath tub that was filled to the brim with warm scented water. Her skin would be scrubbed until it gleamed and her hair, that when unbound rippled past her hips, would be washed with her favourite rose soap. Her maidens would braid her hair into a single braid to represent her last night as a maid. Together, Thea and her maidens would eat pastries and sweetmeats and drink honey wine. As they ate, her bride's maidens would tell her their magical tales to enchant her sleep with pleasant dreams. Princess Anya warned, ‘These stories must not go on like an endless ball of twine.'

‘Yes, Princess Anya,' the maidens said in a chorus.

‘Indeed, I must have my beauty sleep,' Thea laughed, feeling happier than she had felt for days. The palace had not felt as if it was her home. The servants were distant. The slaves were silent. They were not her servants and she did not like the idea of owning slaves. But soon all this would change.

The slaves lit the candles and vanished. The bath-house smelled of honey and wax. After Thea stepped from her bath and her hair had been braided, she lay back in the cushions that littered the colourful mosaic floor, ate sweetmeats from a silver dish, drank a cup of honey wine and looked forward to listening to her maidens' stories. The first tale went like this.

A crane and a heron lived in a marsh. Their huts stood on stilts at opposite ends of the bog. But the crane was very lonely. The heron was like him. She had a long nose and elegant legs. He flew over the marsh to the heron's house and asked for her hand in marriage. He waded up to her doorway and made his request. ‘No crane,' she replied. ‘I won't marry you. You have long legs. Your coat is too short. You fly badly. You can't provide for me. Go away, spindle-shanks!'

The crane went away dejected. The proud heron thought, but maybe I was wrong. I am so lonely. She fluttered and fluttered, hesitated, hesitated then, at last, decided. Off to the crane's house she flew and made her proposal to him. He refused her. Sometime later, feeling even lonelier than ever, he thought of his missed opportunity, and so he waded across the marsh to the crane's hut. This time, she put her nose into the air and declined but, of course, she regretted it later. And so, Lady Thea, it continues out there on the marsh. They keep proposing marriage to each other! And neither can say yes. Both are such lonely creatures. What is the sense in that!

‘He should never have refused her. Trust a man to be so proud and regret his pride,' Thea said with firmness in her tone.

The next was a tale of Baba Yaga, the witch who lived in a house with clawed legs; she who haunted the sky with her pestle and mortar. Then a bridesmaid told Thea a story about the frog princess and, finally, another told her the story of Little Pigskin who had a wicked stepmother and who married her prince because she was really a princess. Thea kept her own story close to her heart because that one was only for her prince.

‘So many tales,' Thea said as she began to feel sleep calling her.

‘Enough now, to bed,' Princess Anya ordered. She shooed the maidens to the antechamber and put Thea to bed in the sleigh-shaped bed in the second room. ‘Sleep well, little dove,' she said and kissed her brow. Thea was already drifting into her dreams. She drowsily thought of her prince, convinced that he would cherish her, as the princes in the tales her maidens had told her, guarded their princesses.

26

Thea awakened to the ringing of bells from St Sophia. Katya was already at her side with bread and honeyed milk. ‘You must eat a little, Princess,' she said. ‘It would not do to have a grumbling stomach today.'

As morning suffused the chamber with May sunshine, Thea was dressed by Katya and her maids, supervised by Lady Olga and Princess Anya. Each of the layers she wore below her wedding gown felt feather-light as they were sewn from delicate Byzantine silk.

Led by Anya and escorted by her maidens, Thea descended to the hall for the small and intimate meal that would precede her wedding. A priest from St Sophia entered the chamber from a side entrance. With a swaying incense burner that emitted the scent of frankincense, he approached the table where she sat at its head. He blessed her first and after he blessed the light meal of meat and cheese that was laid out for her bridal party. She could not touch a morsel. Her stomach was churning and her heart was beating too quickly. In case her nerves got the better of her, she drank a little wine to sustain her through the lengthy ceremony. Anya sent guards with Katya and Vera to fetch the prince from the palace. ‘We are ready,' she said.

After the two maidens departed, Thea turned to her right side curious as to why an empty chair had been placed there. Perhaps it was for Vladimir but it was not. Moments after the deputation left to summon the groom, the great hall door burst open to reveal a solitary tall, fair-headed young man clad in a blue mantle, accompanied by one servant. For a moment he stood framed by the giant doorway. A heartbeat later he walked down to the table, his cloak falling in elegant folds behind him, a glittering sword hilt visible in the scabbard attached to a jewelled belt. Thea sucked in a breath as this beautiful man, her brother, Edmund, knelt in front of her, his fair head bowed. ‘Sister, I am here at last,' he said, raising his head to look into her eyes.

Thea steadied herself, stood and said, ‘By the Virgin, my beloved brother, you are welcome. I never thought to see you again on this earth and here you are.' Tears welled up in her eyes and she reached out her hand to him. ‘Come, Edmund. This seat beside me can only be for you. If only Padar and Gudrun were here too and Earl Connor, my happiness would be complete. But they are not and I am more than overjoyed that you are here.'

‘It is my honour to present you, beloved sister, to your husband today.'

‘Is this your doing, Princess Anya?' Thea said turning to Anya.

‘Our surprise,' Anya whispered. She then said loudly and with great formality, ‘Edmund, son of Harold, brother to Thea, please join us.' She indicated the empty chair. ‘Your page may sit on the lower benches.'

‘Edmund, how come you here?' she said when Edmund was seated beside her.

Edmund said, ‘We can talk later, Sister. Thanks to fair winds and a safe river journey I am here. Our parents would be proud of you today. Our murdered father had hoped to be the parent of a new dynasty. Mother is stuck in that Norman convent in Canterbury. It will be through yours and Prince Vladimir's children that we shall survive as princes. This will be our new dynasty, our destiny that through you, we live again to rule.'

Thea felt a great sense of responsibility. This was how she was to avenge her father's murder. Edmund lifted his cup and Thea saw a tear roll down his cheek. She leaned over and wiped it away with her thumb. ‘Edmund, you are here and my happiness is complete.' She bit her lip and tasted a bitter droplet of blood on her tongue. All this ceremony. Would happiness really follow? Vladimir was not real any more. Had he ever been real?

A little bell chimed, reminding her of Grandmother Gytha's bell. For a moment she thought that the countess might have enjoyed her wedding and had she been there they could have joked about the ridiculous ceremony later, but her thought had no time to linger. She missed her mother. A mother should see her daughter married. Had Elditha even received her letter? There had been no reply though perhaps it was too soon for one. A tear edged its way onto her cheek. She swallowed hard. There must not be another, not today.

The great door swung open again. Everything now began to proceed too quickly. There was no time to feel sad. This was, after all, her wedding day. She had longed for this prince. Surely she was not feeling a sense of regret, not that she ever had the power to turn her back on this marriage.

A dozen candle bearers entered followed by a bearded priest in his sweeping embroidered robes. The candle bearers stood at the sides of the hall, six to one side and six to the other. The cleric held aloft an enormous cross of gold studded with enormous gems, yellow amber in the centre and blue sapphires and deep red garnets on the cross's arms. Moments later, Prince Vladimir's cousin, Sviatopolk, who was to be Vladimir's chief attendant, entered and stood behind the priest.

Her heart hammered against her rib cage because at last Vladimir had entered. It was the first time she had seen him since that stolen moment in the church in Novgorod. He stopped and knelt four times, each time facing in one of four directions. Her heart soared. The enchantment took hold of her again.
How beautiful he looks.
His long black hair fell softly onto his shoulders. His full-length gold damask gown and mantle fanned out into a triangular shape at his feet. She was sure his mouth twitched a smile as he looked her way and knelt at last to her, his chosen princess.

In order of age a procession of relatives followed. Uncle Iziaslav, who had been usurped what seemed a long time ago by the magician prince, looked kindly and very handsome. He was still greatly criticised, she had heard, by the boyars of Kiev. The difficulty, Katya claimed, was that he simply was not as clever as his father. The great Prince Yaroslav had developed trade in amber, furs, beeswax and slaves. He had controlled three great trade routes. Iziaslav's father had developed money-lending systems that made Rus merchants very wealthy. Iziaslav had done nothing to protect the merchants of Kiev from the Steppe tribes. In fact, the tribes demanded a toll on the merchandise that travelled on the rivers through the lands belonging to the Slav villages they had pillaged.

Trying to remain dignified, with the help her maidens and Katya gave her, Thea rose, waiting momentarily as the maidens adjusted her veil and arranged her trailing mantle. Once the maidens stood back, she walked from the table to a wide archway which divided two halls. She entered the adjacent hall where two chairs had been placed on a dais for herself and Edmund, dear Edmund. If only Padar and Gudrun were here. What could have happened to them? Under Anya's sharp eye, her maidens gently removed her veil, deftly undid her long single plait, separated it and neatly rebound it into two long tresses to symbolise her approaching union with Prince Vladimir.

Vladimir's close relatives entered the smaller chamber. Vladimir followed. He bowed to her and she inclined her head. She must not speak to him, not yet. It was forbidden. Servants moved around the nobles and offered bread and cheese to the family visitors. Katya had told her that the bread was important because it contained water from seven wells, flour from seven sacks, eggs from seven hens, butter from seven pots and so these wedding loaves would symbolise their approaching oneness.