The Russians scattered. ‘Varangians!’
‘No! Wait. Not Varangians.’
Wulfstan shouted in Russian and vaulted off the longship. The woodsmen stopped at a distance. Wulfstan called again, making beckoning gestures. The woodsmen skulked back, bowing and begging the travellers’ pardon. Wulfstan spoke a smattering of their language and established that they were frontiersmen who’d spent the summer trapping game and collecting honey and beeswax. They were on their way home by canoe to their village at the mouth of the Volkhov river, three days to the west.
Wayland emerged from the forest while the parties were negotiating. He took one look at the Russians and hurried up to a boy with a string of willow grouse slung around his neck. He flinched away when Wayland reached out for them. Wayland turned to Wulfstan. ‘Tell him I want to buy them.’
The boy’s father came over. He assessed Wayland’s desperate gaze and said something that made the other Russians laugh.
Wayland lurched round. ‘What did he say?’
‘You can have them for five squirrels,’ said Wulfstan.
‘I don’t have five squirrels. If I did, I wouldn’t need the grouse.’
Wulfstan grinned. ‘The backwoodsmen measure money in furs. Squirrels is their smallest unit of currency. Reckon a penny will buy all those grouse and a haunch of venison thrown in.’
For two silver pennies, Wayland purchased enough game to feed the falcons for three days.
Later, at the Russians’ camp, Richard traded fox skins for a sack of rye flour and two dripping honeycombs. That night the wanderers squeezed hugger-mugger into a cabin and ate bread for the first time in a month. The cooked dough was of the crudest manufacture — charred and gritty bannocks consumed in a smoke-filled hut chinked up with moss — yet all sank their heads in reverential silence when Father Hilbert said grace.
Civilised Rus began at Staraja Ladoga, a fortified town a few miles up the Volkhov river. Here they stopped briefly to take on supplies. South of the town the forest thinned into sandy heath dotted with steely ponds and clumps of pines and birches. Then the voyagers came to farmland, rowing past sturdy log cabins set in meadows where geese hissed and flapped and cockerels crowed. Between the farms were fine stands of oak and maple that rang with the sound of axes. Farmers straightened up from their toil to watch the longship pass. Many of them crossed themselves, perhaps remembering their grandparents’ tales of an olden time when the appearance of a dragon ship would have put the populace to flight. Their children had no such misgivings and chased the longship along the banks waving sticks. ‘Varangians! Varangians!’
Four days after leaving the lake they reached Novgorod. North of the city the river branched around a large island with a tollbooth at its tip. Here an armed and mounted delegation directed them towards the shore. Their leader, a man with a face pitted by smallpox, was elegantly turned out in an ankle-length fur coat fastened with silver buttons. He addressed the stinking rabble as if they were exarchs on a mission from Byzantium.
‘Welcome to Novgorod the Great,’ he said in Norse. ‘The hunters you met on the Svir sent news of your arrival. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Andrei Ivanov, steward to Lord Vasili, a boyar of the city and master of its guild of merchants.’ His eyes flickered about. ‘Who speaks for you?’
Hands pointed at Vallon.
‘The hunters said you travelled from the White Sea, but they didn’t know where you began your voyage.’
Vallon looked for Wayland. ‘You tell him.’
‘We sailed from England this spring and journeyed here by way of Iceland and Greenland.’
Andrei guffawed. ‘Listen, I’ve been in the shipping trade too long to be taken in by travellers’ tales.’
‘Believe what you like,’ said Wayland. ‘I’m English and so is that girl. Vallon our leader is a Frank. Those two are Normans. That lot are Icelanders. The rest are Vikings from Halogaland. If you doubt my word, ask the thin man with the tonsure. He’s a monk from Germany. Until a few weeks ago, we had another German with us. He was killed by Lapps in the forest.’
Andrei traded wondering looks with his escort, then took off his hat. ‘Forgive my scepticism. You’re the first travellers to reach Nov — gorod by such a roundabout route. What goods are you carrying?’
‘Walrus ivory, sea unicorn horns, eider down, sulphur, seal oil.’
‘The hunters said you had gyrfalcons?’
‘It’s true. I trapped them myself in Greenland’s northern hunting grounds.’
‘Please, if you don’t mind, I would like to see.’
Not without pride, Wayland uncovered the cage holding the white haggard.
Andrei crouched to inspect the falcon. When he spoke, his tone was matter of fact. ‘My lord has a wealthy client who loves to follow the falcon’s flight. He’s a prince who pays handsomely for his pleasures. Even though this specimen looks like a feather duster, I’ll give you a price far higher than you could obtain in the marketplace.’
‘The falcons aren’t for sale.’
Andrei frowned. ‘Why bring them to Novgorod if not to sell them?’
‘We’re not stopping here. We’re just passing through on our way to Anatolia.’
‘Rum? You’re going to Rum?’
‘As soon as we’ve rested and purchased the necessities.’
Andrei laughed. ‘Novgorod is as far as you’ll get this year. Sell the falcons while they’re still healthy.’
‘I’m sorry. They’re already spoken for.’
Andrei backed off. ‘Do you have silver to pay for your stay in Novgorod?’
Wayland glanced at Richard. ‘We can pay our way.’
Andrei bowed to Vallon. ‘Then your comfort is assured. Our city has a quarter set aside for foreign merchants. You’ll find Novgorod a welcoming place. It even has a Roman church.’
Vallon bowed in turn. ‘Thank you. We’ll need three separate establishments. The Icelanders and Vikings aren’t here by my choosing.’
‘Leave it to me,’ said Andrei. His escorts assisted him into the saddle. ‘You’re only five versts from Novgorod. About three miles.’ He spurred forward. ‘I’ll be waiting to welcome you.’
The longship rowed up the right-hand channel and soon the voyagers saw the city of Novgorod straddling both banks.
Richard whistled. ‘I never expected anything half so grand.’
The metropolis was constructed entirely of wood except for a great stone citadel and a church crowned with five cupolas on the west bank. The company rowed under a covered bridge wide enough to let cart traffic pass in both directions. On the other side Andrei waved to them from a wharf on the east bank. A gang of labourers stood ready. The voyagers rowed to shore and tied up.
‘Your lodgings are being prepared,’ Andrei told them. ‘My men will carry your cargo.’ He clapped his hands and the porters jumped into the boats and began loading the cargo into handcarts.
‘We don’t want him to find out too much of our business,’ Hero murmured to Vallon.
‘I suspect that before we go to our beds tonight, he’ll know our worth down to the last clipped penny.’
The steward led them up lanes paved with split logs and lined with stockaded houses. Most of the lots were about a hundred feet by fifty, but some were two or three times that size. Andrei stopped first at a gateway recessed in a paling fence. He opened the gate and pointed at a barn. ‘This is for your Norwegians. No luxuries. Just straw to sleep on and clean well water. My men will make sure that they have enough to eat and don’t disturb the peace.’
‘I’ll pay for your food and lodgings,’ Vallon told the Vikings. ‘Drink beer, but not to excess. If you get into trouble, don’t look to me for help. As for whores, you’ll have to make your own arrangements.’
Next they stopped at the Icelanders’ lodgings. ‘The house can sleep twelve if two share each bed,’ Andrei said. ‘The rest will have to sleep in the stables.’
Caitlin marched up to Vallon. ‘I’m not sharing a bed and I’m not sleeping in a house with strange men. And I’m not bedding down in a byre. I insist on separate quarters. I’ll pay from my own purse.’
Vallon shrugged at Andrei.
The steward gave an order and one of his men escorted Caitlin and her maids back down the road. ‘I can see that one’s used to having her own way,’ Andrei said. His brows arched in enquiry. ‘A lady of high birth?’
Vallon smiled. ‘A princess. In her own estimation.’
