Part 9

When the young Vasilissa heard the news from Kiev town she rose in her place at the board and said:

"It is time, good dames, that ye went to your own dwellings."

Then they all did so without a word, and Vasilissa sat pondering for the space of three full hours. "It is not a matter of ransom, however high the offer," she said to herself, "nor of force, however great and courageous, but it is a matter for a woman's wit."

Then she rose in her place, went to her own apartment and summoned the ladies of her wardrobe.

"My trusty maids," she said, "cut off my red gold hair, dress me like an envoy to a prince and prepare for me a heroic steed. I go now as ambassador from Kodol Island to Prince Vladimir, the Fair Sun of Kiev, asking the hand of his daughter Lovely in honourable marriage."

In a short space of time she was ready, shorn and dressed like a goodly gallant and a prince's envoy. Then they brought her heroic steed, and she rode off, surrounded by a brave body-guard of forty youths of the stoutest, across the open, boundless glorious plain, and as she rode she trilled a merry song.

Half of the journey was accomplished when the party met a rider whose face was sternly set towards the city of Chernigof. They greeted him courteously, and reining in his horse he asked the leader of the party who he was and where he was going.

"I am the ambassador of King Yetmanuila Yetmanuilovich," was the answer, "and I am on my way to collect tribute from any princes who value their lives above roubles. Whither away, yourself?"

"I am the messenger of Prince Vladimir," returned the other, "and I am on my way to lock the doors of Stavr's palace of white stone, and to conduct his young wife Vasilissa to Kiev town."

"You are too late," said the youths of the bodyguard, "for the Lady Vasilissa has left the palace of her husband and has gone away to a distant land."

The messenger thanked the young men for their news, and turning his steed, rode swiftly back to Kiev town, where he informed his royal master that an ambassador from the stern King Yetmanuila Yetmanuilovich was on his way, with a strong body-guard, to collect tribute from any prince who valued his life above roubles. At this intelligence Vladimir was sorely troubled, but gave orders that the streets of Kiev should be cleaned without delay, and that logs of wood should be placed across the muddy holes, so that a fair passage might be afforded to the body-guard.

When Vasilissa reached the outskirts of Kiev town she put her good steed to the walls and leapt lightly over them into the courtyard of Vladimir's palace of white stone. Then she leapt from her horse, thrust the butt end of her spear into moist Mother Earth, and flung the bridle over the point. With the stride of a bold envoy she passed the guards without greeting, and came into the royal hall, where she bowed to North, South, East, and West, and especially to Prince Vladimir. Then she turned to the Prince, and making known her name as Vasily Mikulich, the envoy of King Yetmanuila Yetmanuilovich, she demanded the hand of Prince Vladimir's daughter Lovely in honourable marriage. The Prince looked earnestly at the bold wooer and then said:

"It is well. I will give you the hand of my daughter Lovely in honourable marriage."

Then, after due notice had been given, he went in state to his daughter's apartment to tell her with all the solemnity which the occasion demanded, that he had chosen for her a goodly husband whose claim upon her love was supported by a strong body-guard of forty good youths.

But Lovely looked with a smile at her royal father, and then looked again with a laugh. "Why, father," she said, "this is no bold ambassador from the Island of Kodol or elsewhere; from King Yetmanuila Yetmanuilovich or any other stern-eyed monarch. It is a woman. Why, when he walks in the courtyard I think of a duck in the pond. When he speaks I think of the note of a flute. When he walks in the palace I think of the dance, and when he sits on the bench of white oak he presses his feet close together. His hands are lily white with taper fingers, and upon them the marks of rings are plainly to be discovered." Then Lovely laughed and laughed again, and the sound was not pleasant to Prince Vladimir, the Fair Sun of Kiev, who walked away to the window.

"I will prove her," he said, after pondering for a time. Then he left the apartment and came to the ambassador. "Will it please you," he said courteously, "to accept the challenge of my heroes to a shooting match?"

"I have longed for many things," was the quick reply, "but for none so much as to receive such a challenge." Then without further delay they went out upon the open plain and began to shoot at an oak tree standing at a distance of about a mile. One shot and another shot, one struck and another missed, the shooting was good and not so good, and the old oak merely shook its smaller boughs as if a summer breeze were blowing.

Then it came to the turn of the ambassador from the stern King Yetmanuila Yetmanuilovich, and stepping forward the envoy said, "I will not shoot with one of the heroic bows of Kiev. I have within the fair white linen pavilion in which I have lodged my brave body-guard a little bow which I always carry with me when my royal master sends me upon an embassy across the open steppe." Then at a hail from the envoy the brave body-guard brought out the bow. Five of them carried it at one end and five at the other, while the remaining thirty bold youths dragged along the quiver filled full of flaming arrows. Then the ambassador took the little travelling bow in her hand and fitted to the bow-string a flaming shaft of steel.

The cord twanged, Prince Vladimir stepped quickly aside, the arrow sang a journeying song and shivered the trunk of the ancient oak, so that the sun streamed through it.

"I will prove this ambassador once again," murmured Prince Vladimir in his royal beard. "If he (she) be a woman he (she) will have no taste for a wrestling match."

Then he got together his strong wrestlers and assembled them in a brave company. "Will it please you," he said courteously, "bold ambassador of the stern King Yetmanuila Yetmanuilovich, to try a bout of wrestling."

"Have you then bold wrestlers, as well as expert bowmen?" asked the envoy. "I have often wrestled with children during my childhood, and I can but make a bold man's effort." Then the ambassador grasped two brave wrestlers in one heroic arm and three brave wrestlers in the other heroic arm, and cracked their skulls together until the Prince begged the wrestler with children to spare his brave heroes. Then said the ambassador:

"I came to woo your daughter Lovely, Prince Vladimir, and if you will not give her to me with your blessing, I will take her with your curse."

"You shall have her by my own consent," said the King, "for with such a wooer her own consent does not greatly matter."

Then Prince Vladimir seized the occasion to make a great wedding-feast, which lasted with intervals for resting for the full space of three days. When the feast was over the bride and bridegroom were about to be led to the church to take the golden crowns, but the ambassador sat sad and silent in the hall.

"What ails you on your wedding morning?" asked the father of the bride.

"I know not," was the reply. "It may be that my father has died or my mother, and my heaviness is the sign of grief. Perchance I need some music. Call the harp players, and let us see if they can dispel my heaviness."

So the harpers were called, and they sang of the great deeds of Svyatogor, of Ilya of Murom, and of Ivan the son of Golden Tress, but for all their skill and sweetness the heaviness of the ambassador was not dispelled.

"I heard in my own home," he said, when the music ceased, "of a skilful player upon the harp of maple wood whose name was Stavr of Chernigof. Send for him, and let us see if he can dispel my heaviness."

"If I do it not," said Vladimir in his royal beard, "I shall anger the stern King Yetmanuila Yetmanuilovich. If I do it, Stavr may be freed from my prison." Yet he did it.

Then Stavr came, and, standing before the ambassador, plucked the strings of his harp of maple wood. And he sang brave songs of heroic victory, and gentle songs of constancy in love. As he sang, the ambassador began to sleep and dream, and from these signs the royal host knew well that his guest was pleased and delighted and thankful beyond measure. Then with a gentle sigh the envoy woke and the music ceased.

"A boon, O Prince," cried he; "let Stavr go to my white pavilion to entertain my brave body-guard as he has entertained me."

Such a request from one who had paid the musician the high honour of dreaming to his music could not be refused, and Stavr was allowed to go out of the banquet-hall with the ambassador by his side.

Now when they came out into the bright sunlight and had almost reached the pavilion, Vasilissa looked up at her husband and said:

"Do you not know me, Stavr?"

"Alas and alack!" said he, rubbing his eyes, "after such a time in such a dungeon I cannot recall the faces of far-off years."

"Stupid," said she. "Do you not know your own young wife Vasilissa, of whom you made your boast?"

"I would know Vasilissa if I had not seen her for thirteen years," said Stavr, with a great deal of certainty and not a little vexation.

"Stupider and stupider," said Vasilissa, turning away. "I am certain that you would not know her after three months."

Then she went into the pavilion, where she put off her ambassador's garments and dressed herself as Vasilissa, placing a coif upon her head to hide her shortened hair. When she came forth Stavr dropped his harp of maple wood upon the lap of moist Mother Earth, and taking his young wife by her lily-white hands, he kissed her sugar mouth.

"Let us ride, my fair one," he said, "ride fast and far."

"Not so," was the reply; "we shall not steal away but march away from royal Kiev town. Let us go back to Prince Vladimir, and to Lovely, my promised bride."

So they went back to the Prince and told him all their tale. "With good reason did Stavr boast of his young wife," he said, with a laugh, and then with a frown he added, "but what of Lovely the forsaken bride, for whom I chose a husband?"

"She will doubtless be easily consoled," said Vasilissa, "and will choose her next bridegroom for herself. May he harp as well and boast not so well as Stavr of Chernigof."

THE GOLDEN HORDE

Prince Vladimir lost no occasion of making a royal feast, and his banquets were the admiration of Holy Russia and of all the white world. To one banquet he invited a large number of princes, nobles, mighty heroes and their body-guards, as well as a company of merchant princes who had bought land with their wealth in order that they might be accounted gentlemen. The host made good cheer, the food was of the richest, the wine of the greenest, and the white oak tables gleamed like the newly fallen snow on the wide steppe. The stove glowed fiercely, and Ilya sat in the great corner honoured of all.

As the wine-cup passed, the heart of Prince Vladimir grew more and more generous, and he gave cities to one prince, towns to a second, villages to a third, and hamlets to another; but to Ilya he gave a cloak of marten skins with a collar of sables. Then the hero arose, left the banquet-hall with the cloak held out at arm's length from him, and came at last to the kitchen. There he dragged the cloak about the brick floor by one sleeve as if he wished to defoul it and said savagely:

"Just as I drag about this cloak of marten skins with its collar of sables, I will drag about that poisonous serpent Tsar Kalin by his yellow curls. As I pour green wine upon this cloak," suiting the action to the word, "I will pour out his heart's blood."

Then a kitchenmaid came with unwashed face into the presence of Prince Vladimir, and said without preface: "Ilya hath been in my kitchen and hath dragged about the brick floor the mantle of marten skins with the collar of sables, saying that even so would he drag Vladimir by his yellow curls. And he has poured green wine upon the mantle, saying that even so would he pour out the heart's blood of Prince Vladimir." Then wiping her hands upon her apron she added, "And I know not what to do in the matter."

Prince Vladimir rose to his feet and his face was black with anger. "Ye mighty heroes!" he cried, raising his right hand aloft, "lead Ilya to our dungeon and place him behind the iron grating. Pile up trunks of oak trees against the door and heap yellow sand over all."

At once a great company of heroes left the banquet-hall, and coming to the kitchen stood in a ring round Ilya, who smiled at them as a father might smile at his boys; and no man laid hands upon him, for he was the pride of them all. "Help us now, Ilya of Murom," they said, "or Prince Vladimir will visit upon us his sore displeasure." So Ilya, smiling still, called Cloudfall, saddled him and rode himself to the entrance of the dungeon. There he dismounted and let the shaggy bay steed go free, after having taken from him his saddle and plaited bridle.

Then Ilya went down into the dungeon, and the heroes set up the iron grating, piled up trunks of oak trees at the door, and heaped yellow sand over all, as the prince had commanded. After that they went back to their host, who praised them for their obedience and their expedition; but Princess Apraxia dug a deep passage underground, and with her own fair hands carried food of the richest and drink of the sweetest to Ilya of Murom the Old Cossáck. And this went on for three years, until Tsar Kalin heard of it, and he was head of the Golden Horde, who in all his wanderings had seen no fairer lady than the Princess Apraxia, whom he meant to take as his own in spite of Prince Vladimir and all his band of well-fed heroes.

Tsar Kalin assembled the Golden Horde, which was in number like the yellow sands upon the seashore, to ride against the royal town of Kiev. Under him were forty Tsars and Tsareviches, and forty Kings and their heirs, each with a company of forty thousand men, and when the host was all assembled it stood along the banks of swift-flowing Mother Dnieper and round about Kiev town on all sides for a distance of a hundred miles all told--a goodly escort for a fair princess. When all was ready Tsar Kalin sat down upon an armless chair in his gold-embroidered tent of white linen, and wrote a letter in great haste, using a swan-quill pen with molten gold in place of ink, and crimson velvet in place of parchment. Then he called his best and favourite runner and gave the royal letter into his hands.

"Go," he said, "to the town of Kiev, falsely styled 'royal.' Enter not by the gates of shining white oak, but leap over the city wall. Dismount not, but riding your charger enter without announcement the palace of white stone. Set the door wide open, but do not close it behind you. Bow not to North, South, East, or West, and do no special reverence to Prince Vladimir. But stand right over against him, and fling this letter upon the table, saying to him:

"Take this letter and ask Nikitich, the young man of supernatural wisdom who can both read and write, to tell thee what it contains, for it disposes in set terms of all your pretensions to royalty. Clean all the streets of Kiev town, take down the wonder-working crosses of the Holy Temples--but leave upon the domes the tall fiery darts of Ilya lest Falcon the Hunter should still be alive--and build stalls for horses in the churches. Cleanse also your palaces of white stone and prepare beds without number, for our host is great. Brew sweet liquors, for our thirst is also great, and let cask stand upon cask in noble array. For in less than two days Tsar Kalin and his great host shall walk the streets of Kiev, and our master shall wed the Princess Apraxia."

The boldness and the careful detail of the command caused the heart of Prince Vladimir to sink very low, and the best he could imagine was to gain time. So he caused Nikitich to write a letter in reply, saying: "Cleaning and fermenting are both slow processes. I shall need a space of three months to prepare this city for its coming guests." Then the favourite runner of Tsar Kalin brought this submissive reply to his master, and the truce was granted.

Prince Vladimir paced to and fro in his chamber, chewing his moustache, and occasionally heaving a heavy sigh when no one was near. Meanwhile, the cleaning and the brewing were proceeding apace, for as Princess Apraxia said quietly, "There is nothing lost by cleanliness, and a good store in the larders and the cellar, for who knows which of our friends will sleep in the clean beds and partake of our cheer."

"Ilya of Murom the Old Cossáck is no more," said Prince Vladimir bitterly. "There is no hero to fight for our faith and fatherland. There is none to defend Prince Vladimir." When the busy Princess heard these words she paused for a moment in her work and said, "Little father, command thy trusty servants to go to the deep dungeon and see whether Ilya of Murom the Old Cossáck be even yet alive." Then she went on with her dusting, for the china bowls and cups from Farthest East were always her own particular care.

"Foolish princess," said her husband, pausing in his pacing to and fro. "If I cut off your light head, will it grow again? How can the youthful aged one be alive after three years' starvation?" The Princess said nothing, but went on with her work, and in a few moments Vladimir himself went off to the dungeon on the desperate chance. And there, to his wonder, he found Ilya lying on cushions of down, with food of the richest and wine of the greenest on a table beside him, on which was also spread a wonderful written parchment of the Holy Gospels.

Vladimir was so much astonished to find Ilya not only alive and well, but to all appearance very comfortable and happy, that he bowed to North, South, East, and West, and then particularly to the hero. "Come forth, Ilya," he said, as if he had taken no share in the Old Cossáck's imprisonment. "Come forth, and defend us against the Golden Horde, for the sake of the widows and orphans which are to be." Ilya smiled gently and rose slowly from his seat of comfort, for three years' restraint had somewhat stiffened him. Then Vladimir hastened to take him by the hands, as if he had quite forgiven him for a crime which he had never committed, and leading him to his own table, placed him in the great corner and heaped food of the best before him.

But Ilya was not hungry, and he left the table without a word, for he wanted heroic exercise most of all. In the open field he saw Cloudfall grazing quietly as though his master had ridden him only yesterday; and you may be quite certain and absolutely sure that no other rider had during the past three years sat on the back of the faithful shaggy bay steed. The horse gave a joyful chuckle when Ilya once more drew near to him, and as his master proceeded to saddle him he turned his head about and gazed upon him with heroic approbation.

Certain of the people of Vladimir's palace saw Ilya mount upon Cloudfall, but they did not see him as he rode away, so swift was his flight--there was but a smoke wreath on the open steppe and streams of water burst forth where good Cloudfall's hoofs beat upon the ground. He gave a great leap upwards and alighted on the crest of a lofty mountain, from whence he looked out across the open plain to see if any of the heroes were within sight who had come out to defend Holy Russia against the Golden Horde of the Tatars.

Far away in the east he saw the white linen pavilions of the heroes who had helped him to form the barrier against Falcon the Hunter, and the sun shone brightly on their golden embroideries. At the opening of one snowy tent his keen eyes could descry even at that distance how the fine wheat had been shaken out upon the earth for the delight of a hero's charger, and how that same hero had planted upright a spear of heroic height and hung upon it a golden tassel, not for vanity of youthfulness, but as a signal to all the enemies of Holy Russia that a champion abode within that pavilion. As he stood there with his hand shading his eyes Ilya saw another hero come to that vicinity and, even at that far distance, he knew him for the young man of supernatural wisdom--Nikitich, who could both read and write. He saw how the new-comer pitched his pavilion, shook out fine wheat for his charger's delight, planted a lofty spear and displayed two tassels, not for vanity of youthfulness, but to show that a hero and a scholar abode in that pavilion.

Then Ilya came down from the mountain-top, and before you could say Svyatogor he had arrived in the space between the two upright staffs, where he gave Cloudfall the rein that he might take his share of the fine wheat, planted his own lofty spear and hung three tassels upon it, as a sign that a hero, a scholar, and a landed gentleman had come to the assistance of Holy Russia against the Golden Horde. He now entered one of the snowy pavilions, where he found twelve Russian heroes sitting at meat, who all rose to their feet, kissed him and bade him welcome, whereupon they sat down again to go forward with the business of eating. But as he was not yet hungry Ilya did not join them. He hastened to explain his mission, and asked for their help in defending Kiev town, Vladimir, and Princess Apraxia. But one of them said:

"Nay, nay, Ilya of Murom, we will not mount our steeds to defend Kiev town, Vladimir, and his Princess. For he has many princely nobles, whom he feasts right heroically and upon whom he bestows the richest gifts."

"It will be the worse for all of you," said Ilya, in great anger, and their voices rose in wrath so that the good steeds raised their heads from the fine wheat and looked with intelligent wonder through the opening of the pavilion.

Meanwhile Vladimir wrapped himself in his black velvet mantle, which was trimmed with marten, and paced to and fro in his palace in Kiev town, for the time of the truce was almost over, and so far the heroes had not made their appearance. Now as he paced up and down to soothe his anxiety his nephew Yermak came to him and begged that he might have a warrior's charger, a coat of heavy chain mail and a ponderous mace, as well as leave to ride against the Golden Horde.

"You are a mere boaster," said Vladimir carelessly. "Why, you have never yet handled a mace."

"If you do not give me the charger, uncle," said Yermak, "I will set out on foot." The youth's quiet determination had more effect upon Vladimir than weeks of persuasion, and he bade Yermak choose what charger he desired from the royal stables as well as the armour which suited him best from the armoury. Off went the youth in great glee and equal haste, but the chain mail which he found was so rusty that he flung it down with impatience upon the brick floor, whereupon all the rust flew from it; so he picked it up, selected weapons to his taste, ran to the stables, saddled a horse, mounted it and rode at topmost speed to the pavilion of the heroes.

And what did he find in that hour of anxiety and the direst peril? Why, the twelve heroes contentedly sitting playing at draughts upon a board of gold and Ilya sound asleep upon a couch under a heavy coverlet of sables. Then the anger of Yermak was very great indeed, and he shouted with all his might. "Ho, there, you Old Cossáck, Ilya of Murom. Yonder in Kiev city there is bread to eat and to spare, but no one to defend the place against the Golden Horde."