With these thoughts he stared down at the woman who wanted her child.

'The boy is ours.' Little Kiy heard the words and looked first at the Alan, then at his mother. He tried to see if the Alan meant to kill him. Surely if they meant to, they would have done so by now. Yet what was to become of him? Was he never to see her again? The sharp smell of the big horse and the hot tears that welled up in his eyes seemed to fill the whole afternoon.

The men by the wagons were stirring, harnessing up. The Alan allowed his gaze to wander over the steppe. Lebed stood where she was.

The dark Scythian watched her as impassively as a snake. His horse shook its head. The village must be close indeed, he thought. How he longed to raid it. But he had twice suggested it and his blood brother had been unwilling. His arm flexed round the boy. 'Let us go, my brother,' he said quietly.

The Alan paused. Why should he pause? There was no reason to do so. But since it would be a long journey, and since the boy his blood brother had captured was about to begin a new life, and since he wished to show some small act of kindness towards the little boy to reassure his watching mother, he moved close and drawing it out from his chest, hung a small amulet around the boy's neck. It was a talisman of the magical bird Simrug, whose eyes point in different directions one to the present, one to the future. Pleased with this gift, he nodded to the Scythian, and the two men wheeled their horses.

As they did so, Kiy's face began to pucker up. He wrenched himself round, stared back round the Scythian's unyielding arm.

'Mama!'

Her body quivered. Every muscle she possessed wanted to move, to rush at the horseman. But she knew that if she did, he would strike her down. For some reason she herself did not understand, she knew that stillness and silence were her only hope.

'Mama!' A second time. They were thirty paces away now.

She did not move. Slowly the two men walked their horses into the long grasses, towards the east. Seventy paces. A hundred. She watched the small round face, its eyes very large, looking strangely pale above the dark horse that carried it away.

'Mama!'

Still she gazed at the face intently. The tall feather grass was starting to obscure him.

The carts were moving now, lumbering after them, accompanied by the other horsemen. They did not even bother to glance at her, as she stood, watching them go.

She had been praying in her mind since the moment she had first seen them; and although her prayers had been to no avail, she continued to pray, nonetheless. She prayed to the god of the wind, whom she felt against her face. She prayed to the god of thunder and lightning, and to the sun god who even now beat down upon them both. She prayed to the god of cattle. She prayed to Moist Mother Earth, who lay everywhere, under their feet. She prayed to all the gods she knew. But the empty blue sky looked down upon her and gave her nothing. It seemed metallic, hard as the horsemen's eyes.

The wagons receded through the swaying grasses. After a time she could no longer see even a faint cloud of dust. And now it seemed to her that the blue sky itself was slowly receding from her. And though she continued to pray, after the manner of her people, she bowed her head in tacit acknowledgement it was fate.

It was mounting a small hillock and looking back that the Alan saw her: a tiny figure in the distance, still standing there, watching after them.

And then he took pity on her. For by chance, that year, he too had lost his only son.

When the Scythian heard what his blood brother asked of him, his eyes shone.

'Twice today, my brother,' he replied, 'you have said to me do not ask when I desired to raid the village. But that you may know my love for you, ask anything of me and it shall be yours. For did we not put our sword points in the cup of blood together? Did I not swear by wind and scimitar to be yours in life and death?' With an easy movement, he passed the little boy across to the Alan. 'He is yours.'

Then he waited.

Had it not been against his honour, the Alan would have sighed. Instead, with a light smile, he answered: 'My faithful brother, you have journeyed far with me to honour my grandfather, and you have done all that I have asked, not only today but many times. Nor have you ever asked anything in return. Now, therefore, I beg you, ask a gift of me that I may show my love for you.'

He knew a gift was due; and he knew what it would be.

'Brother of mine,' replied the Scythian gravely, 'I ask for Trajan.'

'Then he is yours.'

It hurt, physically, when he said it. Yet even in his pain he felt a surge of pride: to give such a horse away this, truly, was the mark of a noble man.

'One last ride on him,' the Alan said gaily. And without waiting, he wheeled Trajan about and with no more than a touch, and holding the little boy easily in his arms, put the horse at a gallop across the steppe.

And as Little Kiy looked about him in bewilderment, clinging instinctively to the splendid beast's mane, the Alan said to him in the Slavic tongue: 'See, little boy, you are returning to your village: but all your life you will be able to say "I rode on Trajan, the noblest of all the horses of the radiant Alans".'

The little boy had no idea that there were tears in the Alan's eyes. All he knew was a thrill of joy, and of excitement greater than he had ever known before.

So it was that Lebed, staring hopelessly at the empty steppe, suddenly saw, as though it were the wind god himself, the flying form of Trajan racing over the ground towards her. Almost carelessly, and without a word, the Alan dropped the child at her feet, then turned and rode away into the shimmering steppe.

She hugged the child to her, in disbelief, while he clung to her.

And she scarcely took in the fact that, after a moment, he abruptly turned round in her arms, pointed to the disappearing figure on the pulsating steppe and cried out: 'Let me go with them!'

Carrying the child in her arms, lest he be taken from her again, she hurried back to the woods.

Lebed did not return to the village at once. Instead, she went to a quiet place beside the river. Close by there was a sacred oak tree to which she gave thanks, and then, wishing only to be alone with her child, she sat in the shade and watched the little boy while he played by the water and then slept a while.

It was evening when they emerged together from the wood's edge. The big field had been cleared, and was empty. Like two little clouds, they drifted slowly across the big open space.

The harvest was done. In one corner of the field, as was the custom, a sheaf of barley had been left standing a gift to Volos the god of wealth. At the top of the field, a group of little girls were standing in a circle, playing a clapping game and laughing; and as they entered the village, the geese by the huts greeted them with their usual din.

The first person Lebed saw was her husband. His face lit up with joy as he lifted the little boy high into the air above his head, while her mother-in-law came out of the hut and gave her a curt nod.

'I looked for you,' he said. No doubt he had. Indeed, she knew, his warm heart might have driven him to search for them for days except that there were so many other things he had to do.

'I found him,' she said simply. Then she told them about the horsemen, and they went to the village elder and made her tell it all again.

'If they come another time,' the elder said slowly, 'we shall move north again.' For the little community had come north to that place only five years before to avoid paying tribute to the horsemen of the steppe.

But that day there was nothing to be done except celebrate the ending of the harvest.

Already the young men and girls had gone out beside the field and were rolling and turning somersaults on the grass. In front of the elder's hut, the women were putting the finishing touches to a small figure in the shape of an old man, made of barley. It had a long, curling beard which, just then, they were anointing with honey. This was the god of the field, whom they were about to take to the boundary where the field met the edge of the woods.

And it was only now, as the villagers were gathering, that Mal emerged from the doorway of his hut. He hesitated when he saw Lebed and the child, but the little boy ran up to him. 'I saw the bear,' he cried. 'I saw him.'

And Mal blushed deep red, as Lebed pulled Kiy away.

As the villagers started to move out into the field, Lebed felt her husband at her side. She did not glance up into his face, as she knew he hoped she would, but she already knew the soft expression it wore. His eyes were glowing with eagerness like a boy's she knew this, too, without looking. His long arms hung beside her and now one of them moved as his hand took her by the arm and gently squeezed. That was the signal she knew it was coming.

She kept walking. Other women, she guessed, had noticed the little signal too. It was a strong arm, she thought, though rather bony, and by walking on, by not looking up, she could best conceal her lack of enthusiasm. He would come to her that night: that was all. She pushed the little boy in front of them so that their eyes could rest upon him, and this, as they entered the field, was their communion.

While the sun began its slow descent on to the trees, and the long shadows streamed across the cut field, the villagers began the songs and dances. In a circle now, led by her mother-in-law, the women who had been reaping sang: 'Stubble of the summer grain Give me back my strength again.

I reaped you and now I am weak, But winter is long, winter is bleak: Harvest field and summer grain Give me back my strength again.'

The warm rays of the sinking sun caught the soft honey that trickled off the beard of the barley man, so that it shone.

By the side of the field, three old women, each a babushka babushka too old now to dance or sing, watched them placidly. As she glanced at them, Lebed smiled to herself. She knew that she too would pass that way. They say that the god of the field shrinks to a tiny old man when the field is cut, she thought. Humans, too, shrink into the earth, dwelling underground like the ancestral too old now to dance or sing, watched them placidly. As she glanced at them, Lebed smiled to herself. She knew that she too would pass that way. They say that the god of the field shrinks to a tiny old man when the field is cut, she thought. Humans, too, shrink into the earth, dwelling underground like the ancestral domovoi domovoi. That was fate. Nature could not be mastered; man or woman could only accept seed time and harvest. And her individual destiny this too, she knew, was not important. No, not even the loss of her child would be greatly noticed, whatever her pain. So many children were lost. Nobody counted them. But some survived; and the life of the village, of the rod rod, only this would continue, always, through the harsh, remorseless cycle of the seasons in the endless land.

When the song was done, she went over to Little Kiy. He was sitting on the ground, fingering the talisman the horseman had given him; his mind was not on her, but moving upon the open steppe. He scarcely looked up at her.

And now her husband was in front of her, hovering over the child, his face smiling, eager.

He too was necessary: at certain times, at certain seasons, she had need of him. Yet although she was his to command, although it was the men who ruled in the village, it was the women, she knew, who were strong and who endured. It was the women, like Moist Mother Earth herself, who protected the seed in the ground and who brought forth the harvest for the sun god and for a man with his plough.

He smiled.

'Tonight.'

It was after dusk, when the splinters of resin wood that served as candles were lit, that the feasting began in the elder's hut. The loving cup and its ladle, brimming with sparkling mead, was passed from hand to hand. And with each course of fish, millet bread, and meat, a dish was offered to the domovoi domovoi who it was assumed had emerged from his lair under the barn to join them. who it was assumed had emerged from his lair under the barn to join them.

When the food was eaten, the whole village continued to drink, and to dance. Kiy saw his mother take her red tambourine and dance before his father; and watched, fascinated, until in the heat his head finally fell forward on his chest and he slept.

Twice her husband touched her and murmured: 'Come.' Twice she shook her head and continued to dance. She too had drunk, though less heavily than the others, and now her body was suffused with warmth. Excited by her own dancing, she began to crave him; but still she danced and drank, to bring herself to the moment when she would truly want him.

Gradually, as men and women alike reeled drunkenly out into the night, Lebed too allowed her husband to put his arm round her waist and lead her out. All around, by the huts, towards the field, indiscriminate couplings were taking place: who knew, who would remember, who had lain with whom? Who would know whose child was whose, in any results of that general sexual encounter? It did not matter. By such careless means the life of the rod rod would go on. would go on.

They went down to the river, past long grasses where the fireflies were shining in the darkness. Together they gazed at the river, that gleamed in the moonlight. To this little river, the villagers had given a name, taken from the horsemen of the steppe they feared. For as the Slavs knew well, some of the greatest of the Alans had described themselves, in their Iranian tongue, as Rus Rus meaning 'light', or 'shining'. And so, since to a Slav ear this word had a pleasing feminine sound, well suited to a river, the villagers had called the little gleaming waterway meaning 'light', or 'shining'. And so, since to a Slav ear this word had a pleasing feminine sound, well suited to a river, the villagers had called the little gleaming waterway Rus Rus the shining one. the shining one.

It was a good name. And no doubt it would have pleased them still more had they known that this same Iranian name Rus Rus or or Rhos Rhos was also to be applied in these early ages to that mighty river far to the east that later times would call the Volga. was also to be applied in these early ages to that mighty river far to the east that later times would call the Volga.

Rus they called the river; and the hamlet beside it they called, similarly, they called the river; and the hamlet beside it they called, similarly, Russka Russka.

The night was quiet. The stream shone, moved, yet did not move. They lay down on the grass. High above in the starlit summer sky, pale clouds came from time to time, like horsemen in an unhurried procession, glowing softly in the reflection of a crescent moon that rode to the south and who knew, out in the forest, what bear or fox, wolf or firebird might be moving through the shadows, or what horsemen camped by their fires upon the endless steppe?

But the only sound that Lebed heard was a whisper in the leaves, as the wind moved softly over the land.

The River In the year of Our Lord 1066, in the month of January, a terrible sign appeared in the heavens. It was seen all over Europe.

In the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of England, threatened with William of Normandy's invasion, it was recorded in the chronicles with gloomy expectation. In France, Germany and all round the shores of the Mediterranean it was seen. In eastern Europe, in the newly formed states of Poland and Hungary, the dreadful object dominated the nights. And beyond them, on the eastern borderland where forest meets steppe and the broad River Dniepr runs down to the temperate Black Sea, the great red comet hung, night after night, over the white and silent landscape; and men wondered what new evil was to befall the world.

And how that world had changed. In the nine turbulent centuries since the days of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius, western civilization had passed from classical to medieval times in a series of huge events. Rome had become Christian; but soon after, its sprawling empire, now divided between its western and eastern capitals of Rome and Constantinople, had collapsed under the weight of huge barbarian invasions.

From the Mongolian lands above the Great Wall of China they had come, wave after wave from the east, crossing the great southern crescent of mountain ranges and sweeping down on to the desert and steppe of the vast Eurasian plain. Some white, some Mongoloid, mostly speaking forms of Turkish, these terrible invaders swept all before them. Thus came Attila and his Huns; after them the Avars; then the Turks. But it was not their sudden invasions, nor their huge, short-lived empires in the steppe that broke the Roman Empire: it was the enormous chain reaction of migrations that they set off as they crashed into the tribes of eastern Europe. These were the migrations that brought the Franks to France, the Bulgars, descendants of the Huns, to Bulgaria, the Saxons and Angles to Britain, and gave the names of tribes to regions like Burgundy and Lombardy.

By the end of this process, the old world had been shattered. Rome had fallen. Western Europe, though the barbarians were slowly converted to Christianity, remained a disorderly patchwork of tribal and dynastic regions. Only in the eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea did a semblance of the old order remain. For here, just above Greece and beside the narrow channel that links the Black Sea to the waters of the Mediterranean, stood the stately city of Constantinople, also known as Byzantium. Unconquered, guardian of classical culture and of eastern Christianity, its character Greek rather than Latin, Constantinople remained inviolate: the city where, right through the Middle Ages, there would still preside even if only in name a Christian Roman Emperor.

But this was not the end of the west's troubles. For in the year 622, the Prophet Mohamet made the first hijra hijra from Mecca and the mighty power of Islam began its explosive expansion. 'To the Garden, Moslems, not the Fire,' their leaders would cry as they went into battle: for those who fell were assured a place in heaven. From Arabia the Moslem armies swept through the Middle East, then eastwards to Persia and India, and westwards across North Africa and even into Spain. In another drive, they even reached the gates of Constantinople. And for centuries yet to come, Christian Europe was to tremble at the prophet's name. from Mecca and the mighty power of Islam began its explosive expansion. 'To the Garden, Moslems, not the Fire,' their leaders would cry as they went into battle: for those who fell were assured a place in heaven. From Arabia the Moslem armies swept through the Middle East, then eastwards to Persia and India, and westwards across North Africa and even into Spain. In another drive, they even reached the gates of Constantinople. And for centuries yet to come, Christian Europe was to tremble at the prophet's name.

Lastly, to trouble the world yet further, came the Vikings.

Pirates, merchants, colonists, adventurers, from around the year 800 these Scandinavian voyagers burst upon the stage of history. They took over much of central England, they set up colonies in Iceland, Greenland, and even visited the North American coast. They founded the state of Normandy and swept round into the Mediterranean.

And it was one group of Swedish Vikings who, having founded trading colonies round the Baltic Sea, made their way down to the river system of that great eastern hinterland, the land of the Slavs.

Varangians, these norsemen were sometimes called. They set up a huge, north-south trading network collecting goods at the Slav city of Novgorod in the north, and sailing down the Rivers Dniepr, Don and Volga. On the Black Sea coast, near the mouth of the Don, they set up a trading post known as Tmutarakan. And whether it was because they were fair, or because they traded or fought side by side with fair Alannic peoples in those southern lands, or for some other reason we do not know, these piratical norse merchants soon came to be known to the civilized southern world they entered by that ancient Iranian name still borne by some of the Alans the word meaning 'light' or 'shining' Rus Rus.

And thus the new state of Russia was born.

High on the palisades the boy gazed out at the huge red star. His mind was in a fever of excitement.

Far below in the darkness lay the broad River Dniepr; the ice at its edges dimly reflected the star's blood-red light. Behind the boy, the city of Kiev was silent.

It was nearly two centuries since this ancient Slav city by the Dniepr had become the capital of the state of Rus. Lying in rolling woodlands a day's journey from the beginning of the southern steppe, it was the collecting point for all the trade from the northern forests that was to pass downriver to the faraway Black Sea and points beyond.

What could the star portend for the city? the boy wondered. Certainly it must be a sign from God.

For the land of Rus was Christian now. In the blessed year of Our Lord 988, Vladimir, Prince of Kiev had been baptized, with the Roman Emperor of Constantinople himself acting as his godfather. Did not many already, for this conversion, call Vladimir a saint? And was it not said that two of his sons, young Boris and Gleb, had also joined the blessed?

The story of their death, just half a century before, had immediately entered popular folklore. For in the springtime of their lives, these two royal princes, facing assassins sent by their wicked elder brother, had meekly submitted, spoken only of their love for each other, and commended their young souls to God. The sadness, the gentleness, of their deaths had touched the Slavs, and Boris and Gleb became the best-loved heroes of the land of Rus. The Passion-Sufferers, they were called.

Kiev was a city of churches now. In her streets one heard not only the sounds from the merchant boats upon the river, but also the chanting of monks and priests in a hundred churches; and the squat Byzantine cupolas of the greatest of these, covered with gold, gleamed warmly in the sun. 'One day,' the nobles claimed, 'we shall be like Tzargrad itself.' For this was the name they often gave to the Roman Emperor's city of Constantinople. And if, as the chroniclers in the monasteries had to confess, there were many peasants in the countryside who still preferred the old pagan ways, it would only be a question of time before they too joined the great commonwealth of the Christian world.

And what did the star mean for him? Did it mean danger? Would he be tested in some way?

For the coming year was to be the most important in his life. He was twelve years old. He knew his father was looking for a place for him in the entourage of one of the princes; there had been words about betrothing him, too. And even more thrilling was the fact that this very summer, his father was sending a caravan across the steppe to the east. For weeks he had been begging his father to let him go with it. And then, he thought, I shall ride all the way to the great River Don. His mother was against this dangerous ambition; but just the week before, his father had said he would consider it, and the boy had been thinking of little else since. And when I return, I can train to be a warrior, he promised himself. Like his noble father.

So intent was he upon these thoughts that he hardly noticed the approach of two figures until they were standing beside him.

'Wake up, Ivanushka, you'll turn into a tree.'

His name was Ivan but he was called by the diminutive: Ivanushka. He smiled, faintly, but did not take his eyes off the star. He knew his brothers had come to tease him. The younger of these two, Boris, was a fair-haired, friendly-looking fellow of sixteen, already sprouting a beard. The elder, Sviatopolk, had a long, serious face and dark hair. He was eighteen and already married. After Boris had tried to coax the boy home for a minute, Sviatopolk gave him a sharp kick. 'Stop freezing. Think you're an ice maiden?'

Boris stamped his felt boots to keep warm. Sviatopolk muttered a curse. Then they left.

Still the red star hung silently in the heavens. This was the fourth night Ivanushka had watched it, standing alone and refusing all calls to return home. He was a dreamy boy. Often one of his family would find him staring at some spot outside, go away, and return to find him still there, with a half-smile on his broad face, his pale blue eyes still fixed on the same place. Nor could they stop him doing it, for these little acts of contemplation were necessary to him. He was one of those beings who, for better or worse, have a sense that all nature is speaking to them directly. The minutes passed, therefore, and still he continued to gaze, without moving.

'Ivanushka.' It was his mother now. 'Foolish boy. Your hand is like ice.' He was aware of her putting a fur coat on him. And though he did not take his eyes off the star, he felt her gently squeeze his hand. And now at last, Ivanushka turned and smiled.

They shared a special bond. How many hours he could happily spend sitting with her by the fire in their big, wooden house, listening to her recite him the courtly tales of the heroic warriors the bogatyrs bogatyrs or fairy stories of Baba Yaga the witch or the firebird in the forest. or fairy stories of Baba Yaga the witch or the firebird in the forest.

Olga was a tall, slim woman, with a broad forehead but rather small, delicate features and dark brown hair. Her family had been great chiefs, once, of the ancient Slav tribe of Severiani. As she sang these tales in a soft, faraway voice, Ivanushka would gaze up at her, spellbound. The image of her beautiful yet tender face was often in his mind; it was a presence that he carried with him through his life, like an icon.

When she sang for his father, she could sound very different. Her voice would descend to a harsh contralto, her manner assume a laughing, teasing scorn. Did he guess that her long, pale body had hidden strengths, that she could make it behave in a way that drove his father wild with desire? Perhaps, like all children, he had always had a natural sense of these things.

Sometimes they would read the holy books together, both leaning forward eagerly, with difficulty but always triumphantly making out the Slavic words, written in bold uncial script, of the New Testament and Apochryphal stories. He would study the sermons of the great preachers of the Eastern Church John Chrysostom or St Basil; or, better still, a Slav preacher like Hilarion. He had also learnt several of the lays of the great singer Bayan, whom his own grandfather had known; and these he could recite faultlessly, to please his father.

Ivanushka shared something else with his mother. It was a little gesture that she used to make. One would often see it when she was standing and talking to someone a slow raising of her arm from her side towards them, as if ushering them through a door. It was such a gentle movement, though almost sad, yet tender and caressing. Of the three brothers, only Ivanushka had taken this gesture from her, though whether by inheritance or unconscious imitation he did not know.

He was always conscious of one other important fact about his mother: unlike his father she was a Slav. So I am half a Slav, he thought.

What did it mean, to be a Slav? It was, he knew, a huge community. Over the centuries, Slavic people had spread to many lands. The Poles in the west were Slavs; the Hungarians and Bulgarians partly so; further south, in the Balkan Mountains of Greece, the people were Slavs too; and though their languages had drifted apart from that spoken by the eastern Slavs who lived in the land of Rus, one could still easily hear the similarities.

Were they really a race? It was hard to say. Even in the land of Rus, there were many tribes. Those in the south had long ago mixed with the invading peoples of the steppe; those in the north were part Bait and Lithuanian; those in the east had gradually mixed with the Finno-Ugrian peoples of the forest.

Yet when Ivanushka looked at his mother, and compared her with his father and the other foreign retainers of the heroic Scandinavian ruling dynasty, he could say at once that she was Slav. What was it? Was it that she was musical? That she could be suddenly sad, then suddenly gay? No, it was another quality, he realized, that he especially associated with the Slavs. You see it in the peasants too, he considered. For even if they get angry and violent, they change back again in a moment. It was that they were gentle.

His mother was moving away now. Once more, Ivanushka stared at the star. What was it telling him? Some of the priests were saying it meant the end of the world. Of course, he knew that the end of the world was coming but surely not just yet?