The Golden Horde (24 page)

The chosen guardsman was back within a few minutes, out of breath and sweating inside his mail, but with the straight, heavy
shpaga
in his hands. It was a sword of the North people, as old as the Rus themselves. Ivan took it and drew the broad blade, the weapon’s heft and balance quite different to his more usual light Cossack sabre. Its massive pommel and thick short crossguard made the hilt fit more closely to his hand, restricting any dainty finger-play, but that same restriction made the
shpaga
feel like a natural extension of his whole arm: shoulder, elbow, wrist, blade. He held it up to the light, and the edges glittered with a cobweb-fine crosshatch of honing marks.

Aleksey Mikhailovich watched him and laughed harshly. Condemned to death by his actions unless he could buy back his life with the death of his own lord, he had given up his pretence of drunkenness and now watched preparations with a coldly rational eye. “Will you kill me, Majesty?” he said. Ivan stared at him but didn’t waste breath on a reply. “Or will I kill you? Alive or dead, you remain a coward and traitor. Before we begin, I want you to know that.”

The common people had been pushed back outside a circle whose perimeter was marked out by Rus and Tatar spears, turn and turn about. Unasked and more unwanted than he guessed, Archbishop Levon Popovich was striding to and fro within it, sprinkling holy water everywhere, accompanied by a train of priests all waving censers with such energy that the heavy smell of incense all but masked the scents of well-cooked food.

“Will you wear armour?” asked Amragan
tarkhan
. For all his efforts to be a disinterested observer, the Turk was as fascinated as anyone else right down to the lowest scullery servant crowded around the circle of spears. Ivan considered a moment.

“No,” he said at last. “Why prolong matters? Sword and shield are good enough.” He pulled off the velvet kaftan, now dark and stiff on one side of the collar, and tried the weight of one shield after another from the half-dozen or so contributed by his guards before picking a round iron-rimmed wooden one with an iron boss over its hand-grip. He settled it against his forearm, looped the cross-strap around his neck, then glanced at Aleksey Mikhailovich and the soldiers surrounding the
bogatyr
moved aside without needing to be told.

They closed behind him again as soon as he was within the combat circle, but Ivan felt sure his adversary had no thought of escape. He recalled the way Aleksey stared at him from other times and other places. Koshchey the Undying had that same look, hungry and hating; so had Dieter Balke, the Teutonic
Landmeister
, though his hatred had been tempered by a brutal merriment. But the looks had all one thing in common; they wanted to kill.

Ivan Aleksandrovich of Khorlov came on guard in the proper manner for his chosen weapons, shield advanced and angled to deflect the blows rather than block them, sword poised to work around the shield-rim with that vicious snapping motion as though the three-foot blade was no more than a riding whip. He did so just in time, for Aleksey wasted no time on assuming formal fighting postures. Instead he feinted a high cut and as Ivan’s shield moved, slammed his own shield against its edge to pull it aside and thrust his already-bloodied sword through the sudden opening.

Ivan felt the chill of it go by as he jerked his head aside. The straight stab was all that saved him; a long cut would have gone through whatever space his head had left to dodge in. He hooked his own sword-hand over Aleksey’s outstretched forearm and wrenched down on it, trying to pull the extended sword from the man’s hand or even with luck break his arm at the elbow.

It didn’t work; Aleksey Romanov’s extra four inches of height prevented Ivan from gaining enough leverage either to break, pull or throw. But he was still able to keep the man from recovering his sword for another blow, and protected by that he spun around the axis of the locked shields. For one hazardous second his unguarded back was to his enemy, but with the
bogatyr
’s arm still well caught, there was nothing that Aleksey could do, either to attack or to defend himself as Ivan completed his turn, broke the lock on his shield and lashed back-handed with the rim.

It struck with a soggy impact that missed the spine Ivan had hoped to snap but not one of the kidneys, and Aleksey howled as he went staggering forward. The Tsar of Khorlov regained balance and came after him, sword raised to cut him across the lower back. Aleksey reeled around far enough to block with his shield, and Ivan’s swordblade screeched as it stuttered across rivets in a shower of sparks and planed away a long curl of wood. His own shield boomed an instant later as it stopped a wild swing from the
bogatyr
’s sword, then went heavy. Ivan knew what had happened at once, and wrenched sideways with all his strength. The shield creaked, groaned – and then its handle snapped and it went flying.

Tsar Ivan didn’t care. Aleksey had sheared through the thin iron of the rim, almost clipping a handspan of meat from Ivan’s bicep, but jammed his blade immovably into the close-grained planks beneath. When the shield spun away, the
bogatyr
’s sword went with it. He still had his own shield, but Ivan had his father’s sword. Shifting the heavy
shpaga
into both hands, clumsily because the weapon’s grip wasn’t really big enough, Ivan advanced on Aleksey Mikhailovich Romanov and in a score of shattering blows, reduced the other man’s shield to matchwood and tatters and sent him sprawling on his back.

They stared at each other, panting, and Aleksey’s look of hatred was undiminished. “Kill me,” he managed to say between the gasps and a racking fit of coughs, “kill me a thousand times, and still you won’t be right!”

He might have been dying already, from that frightful chop across the back, but Tsar Ivan wasn’t prepared to wait for a traitor to die in his own time. “Maybe so,” he said wearily, putting one booted foot on Aleksey’s chest and resting his swordpoint beneath the man’s chin, “but you’ll be no less dead.” He crossed both hands on the pommel and leaned down with all his weight.

There was cheering, uncertain at first because of the expression on Ivan’s face as he walked away from the upright sword driven through meat and bone and gristle into the earth beneath, then more full-throated with every passing second. The Tsar’s honour had been vindicated and his decisions proven right by nothing less than victory in combat before the judgment of Heaven. The Tatars were still not friends and allies, but at least they weren’t going to destroy the city because of the actions of one stupid young warrior. There was still food uneaten and drink undrunk…

Ivan felt his mouth move in response, sure that it was no smile, but without a mirror unsure what the muscles of his face were doing. He hadn’t felt frightened either before or during the fight, but now it was over and he was still alive, he felt sick. It wasn’t reaction to killing Aleksey Romanov, but something deeper. Mar’ya Morevna met him at the edge of the combat circle, reached out and took his hand, and he was grateful for the simple contact. Then he gazed past her to where Amragan
tarkhan
was engaged in some conversation with the captain of his guard, and Ivan recognized that queasy feeling in his belly as disgust.

“We used to blame each other for surviving the invasion more or less unscathed,” he said at last, his voice miserable. “It’s gone beyond that now. They don’t even have to kill us; we’re doing it ourselves on their behalf. I think the Golden Horde has truly won at last …”

Volk Volkovich shook his head, just once. “It was the death of one man, not an entire city, so that makes
you
the winner. And notice has been taken, I think. There’ll be no dynasty of Romanov Tsars. Not this year, at least.”

CHAPTER SIX

The
Independent
Tsardom
of
Khorlov
;

July
,
1243
A
.
D
.

Mar’ya Morevna was sponging at her husband’s head again when Amragan
tarkhan
came over to them. She glanced at the Turk but paid him no further heed since the black crust of dried blood chose that moment to come away from Ivan’s ear and he yelped like a trodden puppy.

“If you’d let me take care of this mess at once, I could have saved the earlobe straight away,” she said severely. “But no, this needs work, and all because you had to be a hero. Look at you.”

The response that it was difficult without a mirror wasn’t something she wanted to hear, so instead Ivan gave her a wretched look and a sort of crooked smile that moved only the undamaged part of his face. “There are some things that can’t wait,” he said. “You’ve ruled your own domain. You should know that.”

“And you fought well,” said Amragan
tarkhan
. He took being ignored by Mar’ya Morevna as something expected from any woman, Princess or otherwise, with a husband dripping fresh blood on her fingers and part of his ear on the table beside her. “In my defence, no matter what your people thought of it. I shall say so when I make my report to the Ilkhan Batu.”

“Report that the Tsar of Khorlov executed a criminal. That’s enough.”

“It is more than enough. But I remind you again, you are not Tsar —”

“Amragan
tarkhan
, at least ten days and maybe two weeks of hard riding lie between Khorlov and Sarai, even for one of the Khan’s
chapar
couriers with a change of horses every twenty miles and a bandoleer of bells to clear his path. For all I know I may be Tsar indeed, no matter what you tell me, or I might not even be a Prince. If the Khan of the Golden Horde has changed his mind, you wouldn’t know. But until I stand before him and he says otherwise, if I call myself Tsar a correction isn’t needed every time.”

The
tarkhan
studied Ivan for several seconds, his angular face cold and considering. “You are a strange one,” he said at last. “You submit to the Khan without question, regardless of the wishes of your High Council – oh yes, I heard that too – to save your city; you fight and kill one of your own
bogatyr
warriors to save your honour before a guest and again, to save your city and its people; then you seem willing to put your neck under the axe by arguing about what title you should bear.”

“Personal matters and policy matters are two different things,” said Ivan. Then the significance of what Amragan
tarkhan
had just said struck through the ache and sting of Mar’ya Morevna’s nursing. “So Khorlov will come to no harm because of that young fool?” He frowned, and not this time just because of what Mar’ya Morevna was doing to his mutilated ear, but at his own choice of words. He had said ‘young’ automatically even though their ages had been so close, but Aleksey Romanov’s behaviour was that of a man with a lot of growing up still to do, and now he never would. Did that mean Ivan himself was growing older than his years? And did it matter now? He didn’t know.

His eyes shifted past the Turk to where three of Captain Akimov’s guards were busy in what remained of the dispersing circle of people. For all that the fight had taken place because of an ostensible breach of hospitality, the Cossack Guard-Captain had formed his own opinion about the real reason behind it, an opinion and a reason confirmed by Ivan’s not issuing any alternate orders to those that Akimov had loudly given his men. Two of them were wrapping the
bogatyr
’s corpse in a cloak, and the third was working hard to clean any remaining stubborn smears from Ivan’s sword. He had already used that same sword to lop Aleksey’s head from his shoulders, as befitted the death of a traitor. It needed little effort. Ivan had made sure of that.

Amragan
tarkhan
followed his gaze, then swung back to focus briefly and pointedly on Ivan’s ripped ear and the long cut across his cheek. “No harm,” he echoed. “You took the offence on yourself, and I have already forgotten it.”

Have
you
really
? thought Ivan. He could see the same cynical disbelief flick like the beat of a bird’s wing across Mar’ya Morevna’s face.
I
think
not
.
Or
at
least
,
only
for
as
long
as
it
suits
you
. He kept the thought closed away as Amragan
tarkhan
should have done earlier, having concluded how to play the same game. Appear to take everything, every word, every gesture, at its face value while accepting none of it. Ivan was well aware that the Khan’s envoy might still be able to spring some surprises on him, but there was a pride in the Turk that made him waste his shots on ill-advised gestures and posturing. That remark about Ivan and his High Council disagreeing over the issue of surrender and submission was just such a waste. There had been no need for anyone to know it, except that the
tarkhan
wanted to impress; and what he had done instead was to warn Ivan, Mar’ya Morevna, Volk Volkovich, and anyone else how little could be regarded as secret. Ilkhan Batu of the Golden Horde might have been better advised to employ renegade Chin of Kithai as his ambassadors; on the few occasions Ivan had met them, dealers in jade and silk and spices for the most part, their words had said little and their impassive faces still less.