Something went under the floor. Not a sound - a stirring. As if under the benches there weren't beams but a vein, and heat began to run through it.
Alexander didn't answer at once.
He looked. Not at Ignat - into the depth. Not at faces - into the flame.
As if the hearth were not warmth but an omen. Not a place - a warning. There was no map there, yet every bright corner was a principality; somewhere in it an axle would crack.
- There will be a campaign, - he said. Not loud, but as if a seal had gone down on hot wax. - But not this year
The silence tightened. Not from words. From what would not be - this year.
- Now - another thing. Rus' holds, but it wobbles. My brothers are gone. The principalities are afraid. Some wait. Some whisper. While I drive cavalry, who gathers levy and tax? Who raises the walls? Who holds the north while the south smokes?
He wasn't speaking about himself: we would not bear it.
Ignat stepped closer. His voice had weight.
- Prince. I know the fear. But it isn't yours. It sits in the heads of those who will see us fall quiet. That the Grand Prince is dead. That nearly all his sons were cut down. And Rus' - didn't strike back
- They'll say: take what you want. Burn. Kill. And you - rebuild. While hooves trample. While the princes' children ride in sacks
The quiet wasn't silence. Tension crackled under the rafters. Then a voice came - lower, sharper.
Dobrynya the Ognishchanin. He didn't flare. He honed.
- And what if that's exactly what they're waiting for?
No anger. No challenge. The calculus. A cold blade in water.
- What if the steppe isn't a lair but a mirror? What if someone wants us to lunge? To strip the center bare by sending strength into the smoke? And then - knife to the back?
Ignat turned. Not sharply. But the look was heavy, like a man deciding whose throat to take.
Dobrynya didn't twitch. He spoke like a smith who doesn't look up for anger.
- Too clean. Laid out like a letter: grivna, arrows, remounts. Only not for us - for a crowd. So we go. So they wait for us
Alexander watched - closely. Not the words - the core. And not only that. A confirmation.
What Dobrynya said wasn't a discovery. It was an echo - of something already turning in him that now came out in someone else's tongue. And it eased him - darkly, firmly. As if you'd been walking on ice and heard the crack - and then learned you weren't the only one who heard it.
He already felt it: they were expected. As if the enemy hadn't only struck but baked our answer into his plan.
If we don't answer - weakness.
If we answer - steel in the back.
So when he spoke, he didn't clarify. He checked.
- You're saying we're being led?
- I'm saying we're being computed, - Dobrynya answered - quiet, like a weight on the scale. - While we race into the scorch, someone measures our walls
The hall didn't start; it settled. Wary. Careful. As if the air itself had changed. There wasn't only smoke in it now - there was suspicion. And not outside.
Here. Perhaps - among us.
Alexander's look was different: no snap, no sting. Not suspicion - weighing.
He knew: even if there is a plot, it's secondary. The point is whether the center is shedding rubble. The Rus' Yaroslav built won't fall to gossip. Only if we lower our own heads.
He breathed out. Like a builder stepping back and seeing the wall holds.
- Then it's settled. The campaign is deferred. Not "for a year" - for as long as needed. Until we have footing. But we won't sit idle. The steppe will learn that Rus' is silent not from fear but from will. That we do not forget. That we answer - even when we don't hew
No boyar rushed to speak. No one sighed. They looked. They waited. Because now every word was not an opinion. It was a choice.
Alexander turned his gaze to Ignat, and Ignat was already standing firmer. Not because he'd heard an order. Because he understood - the shift had begun.
- We harden the frontier. All sides. Where a man can pass - we set a wall. Where a man can burn - we drown with water. Where a man can steal people - we leave a path to the forest yards. Stores. Posts. Lines. Men. Everything set - so when the hour comes we won't hunt for shields but open the gates and ride out ourselves
Ignat didn't nod. Didn't smile. His shoulders reset; his palm hitched the belt. Because this - was his.
Answer. Frontier. Restraint. Will.
So the prince hadn't thrown it to drift. The road wasn't closed.
A fist clenched - and opened. Not peace. Readiness. He had wanted the campaign not for glory but for blood - and he understood: hold until the blow.
He stood as he had then, when he'd run into smoke; when in his hands was a hand, nameless; on a cord a cherry shard of a comb. His.
- Right, - said Vyshata. Not approval - experience. - That's how Rus' has survived. Not by pursuit - by the wall. The steppe isn't a fortress. It has no center. It has wind. And smoke. Chase smoke - you lose
He glanced around. The voice wasn't loud, but it was firm.
- They have herds. We have hill - forts. They don't need to hold. We do. Every yard. Every line. That's why we built. That's why we raised Pereyaslavl
Alexander breathed deep, as if he had carried the weight out. Not from weariness. Like a builder who steps back and sees the wall stand true.
- So it will be. Not retreat. Fortification
He raised his hand. No jerk. But in a way everyone saw it.
- Mstislav. Bring the table
The guardsman nodded. Not like a subordinate. Like a shield carrying an order written on it. In another moment he was gone - with two house - guards. Quiet, as if they carried not a thing, a decision.
A minute later - they returned.
A low table. Spruce. Shaved only yesterday. Edges not rounded - cut. Less a table than a fragment. Torn from something larger. From something that hadn't stood.
Burlap lay like a cloak. It hid, but didn't smother the smell. Resin - acrid as a burn. Fresh. Alive. And under it not "wood" but the body of a tree that had held oaths, remembered hands, heard.
They didn't carry it to the prince. They took it to the center, between the hearth and the north wall. Where once the judgment - board stood.
Where they weighed not price but will. Closer to heat. Closer to the chamber's heart.
They set it down. Didn't slam. Set it - like a stone. Like weight. Like an anchor under which they would now tie Rus'.
When it stood, the air didn't fall - it gathered. As if waiting not for a word - for a blow.
Alexander didn't call. He rose. And all rose - at a command that hadn't been spoken.
The boyars - as a bench lifting. The metropolitan - slower, but without hesitation. Men stood. Not by rank - by weight.
They stood not to the prince but to the place. To the burlap. To the resin - scent. To the stored decision.
Alexander didn't speak. He pulled it back. He didn't whip it off. He drew it - like skin from a body. No flourish. Exact.
And all saw: not a map. A scar. A cut.
Tanned hide, dense. Veins like veins. Not parchment - skin. Not drawn - carved. Each line clawed as if with bone. Or a knife. Places rubbed with charcoal.
The house - guards were already there. Without a word they brought heavy stones. They didn't drop them - they set them. Pressed the corners into the spruce. Now it wouldn't shift. Now Rus' was clamped.
The light fell in a wedge from the hearth toward Pereyaslavl. A place already ash. A place waiting for more.
Now the map was looking.
Alexander had already lifted his hand - breath for speech - when Oleg, as always, slid in not rudely but like a chip into a seam. A soft voice with a spicy sting:
- Prince... the map is exact. Not by years - even by memory. I'm only curious - whose hands kept it
The hall didn't stir. Alexander didn't answer. He looked not at Oleg - at the map.
Like a butcher searching where to cut without ruining the carcass. Yet he smiled - lightly, almost a tease. As if the question were not a challenge but a reminder.
- I didn't know memory had an age
Oleg wasn't offended; he doesn't hit in the open. He only moved a finger in the air.
- Memory doesn't. Access does... Orders started from the map. And the junior princes - they weren't asked. They were told
He knew what he was saying. He remembered who carried off what.
Iziaslav - took from Kyiv to Novgorod with seals and rolls. Sviatoslav - gathered the chronicles of Chernihiv, Murom, Ryazan. Vsevolod - took Pereyaslavl and Rostov. Each man carried not only a sword, but a pen. Each - a map of his own, a power of his own.
And those who remained - the younger - got nothing. No plan, no border, no road. Only rumors and scraps.
Maps were orders about people.
Alexander didn't back away and didn't press. He let the pause speak. Then - slowly, as if easing a knife into wood:
- Maps aren't given. They're gathered. From tracks. From scrolls. From memory - and from right
He could have said: I made it myself. Say that, and everything would crack - faith, fear, time.
So he gave neither lie nor naked truth - he gave the trimmed middle:
- What you see isn't a map. It's a fresh seam: the threads aren't drawn, the wound waits
Oleg held his tongue, but one brow flickered. He understood. He saw this prince was no boy. Not a wonder. A threat.
He wanted a name - he got a vector. He came to bite - found himself in a move.
Alexander held the silence. Then, dull and low:
- Whoever wants to know where it came from should first decide where he means to go with it
He didn't look man by man. He looked at them all at once.
At the cross by the table. At the hands on hilts. At the faces behind which stand towns, walls, yards, and children. And each man understood: this was no longer a council. It was sentence passed on the living.
He didn't raise his voice. He simply said the thing after which no one wanted to speak first.
Alexander held the silence a moment more. But it wasn't a pause - it was a run - up.
He drew a breath. Not to speak - to brace. Cold under the skin. Time moved.
He set his palm below Kyiv - at Kaniv, the ferry - yard.
From there his finger ran up the Ros':
Bohuslav, a small town in a bend; Korsun, a brace at the crossings; higher - Yuriev, Yaroslav's town. On the Dnieper itself - Vytichev, a little port - town, and the mouth of the Stuhna at Trepol, a riverside place; on the Stuhna - Vasyliv, a town.
Not to point- to drive in. To ground it.
- First task - below Kyiv at Kaniv, and up along the Ros': from Kaniv to Korsun, then Bohuslav, higher - Yuriev. The plan isn't to batter the wave but to stitch in the defense: field watches, knot - towns, and ready - out mounted hundreds
A torch swung. Light struck faces.
Stanislav had already lifted a brow, a chest - but Vyshata was quicker. Ignat shifted a shoulder, didn't have time to breathe in. The man who'd been in the field spoke first.
- Prince… - Vyshata stepped nearer. - What you're naming already holds. Not walls, not towers - a ligature. If it tears above, it catches there. If it tears below, we stand there
He wasn't excusing. He was reminding.
- Not by the map. By memory. We don't "look" there, we hear it. There's no burst there
His gaze swept the map - and jabbed higher.
- But to the east - it's bare. From Pereyaslavl to the Sula the mesh is sparse. Not hill - forts, names on parchment. One watch - and a week of silence. One fire - and no one to see. Along the Psel, along the Vorskla - they'll come. On crusted snow, on ice. And they'll skirt Kyiv like water
He raised his eyes:
- If we don't close it, next winter we take a knife under the heart. Not smoke - dead snow
Those who understood nodded - not to agree, because there was no other way to nod.
They had been waiting for this. Stanislav had expected the word "Sula." Ignat - the eastern split. Even Illarion twitched a brow. It seemed the prince had either forgotten where the weakness lay or didn't see what already stood there.
Alexander, as if he'd heard their quiet, nodded to Vyshata's words and pressed a finger into the place where the steppe could turn toward Kyiv.
- I know. That's step two. Step one is the raid corridor. The Dnieper's right bank. The Ros' is the door to the heart. From the river's fords to Kyiv - a day's hard trot; from the Sula - two days and marsh. If the Ros' falls, Pereyaslavl won't reach us - the table goes cold till harvest
No one argued. But faces changed. Creased. Uncertainty hooked in like a barb under ribs. What had they missed?
Vyshata looked longer, and plainly displeased. He kept his tongue.
Alexander went on - no longer in images but in clean count:
- Along the whole line - restore the logworks. Where there's earthwork, brace it. Where the timber's rotted, renew it. Ditch - clean it. Parapets - raise them. Towers - are not a wall, they're an eye. See not smoke, see movement. A watch not by guessing - by height
Nods went around. Short, quiet - like a fist tapping a palm. The job was named. Not arguable. Not new. But plain. We'll raise what was; what stood will stand.
He didn't wait and carried on.
- Bread and salt - no more by happenstance. From now on - by measure. Not "as it comes," but how much and when. Each node has a tiun. With him - a scribe. What's needed - they don't beg, they write. Scribes in the prince's yards at Kyiv and Pereyaslavl read. And answer
A pause - not silence. Held breath.
Stanislav dropped his eyes. Ignat rolled a shoulder as if a boot had rubbed. Dobrynya pressed his lips - not hard, like when a splinter sits under the nail and there's no time to yank it.
Before - by custom. Now - by rule and roster. Spring - repairs. By harvest - collections. Winter - hauling. Without measure. Without a date. Whoever remembered - did it. Whoever didn't - found an excuse.
Now - there are no excuses.
Alexander saw it: no one argued, and no one nodded. They were thinking. So he didn't let it close in - he pushed on. Like a smith who knows when the steel will cool.
- By St. Peter's Day - stores laid in. By Pokrov - cross - check. By winter - a road over crust. All of it - on a sheet. Not in the head. Not in a word. Not "by arrangement." How many arrows. How much oats. How many watchmen. And who answers - with his head. This is no longer a host. It's a statute. A roll. Any man who fails - off feed. And off his post
A nod here. A frown there. But no quarrel. Because to object now made you not "against the rule" - against Rus' itself.
Where the baggage train is, there's a delay. Where the tiun is, there's a seal. Where the scribe is, there's a slip. And the man who answers - is the boyar. Not the prince. Not the scribe. The one whose land will be trampled if the cart never came.
And that wasn't punishment - it was weight. Fail to bring it, and you didn't just lose land. You lost people. Then there'd be no one left to set a plowshare in the field.
Dobrynya the Ognishchanin spoke at once. His voice was a shovel on stone: rasping, sharp, but deep.
- And if a scribe lies and a tiun seats his son - in - law? What do I say after? That there was a paper?
He didn't look at Alexander. He looked at the floor. As if testing if it would give way.
Alexander didn't argue. Didn't comfort. He spoke it as if dropping a gauge:
- Answer it in deeds. Any man who lies - removed. You hold on till the last sack
The reaction was scant, exact. A nod somewhere. A thin breath drawn elsewhere.
Dobrynya said nothing more, but he lifted his head. The skin at his wrist was dark, as if a hand had held him by iron. He wasn't asking - he was taking the weight.
They all knew: it isn't a burden - it's a shield. Don't deliver, they'll breach. Don't haul it in, they won't hold. And the thought, bitter as vinegar on a wound, was swallowed in silence. Because the other way is blood.
The warriors squared their shoulders - as if in their hands they held not spears but tally boards. If one man forgets a line - it won't be a page that burns. It'll be a town.
The prince's finger trembled and held. This time he wasn't looking at the map. He looked at faces. He spoke heavier, as if he held the whole hall.
- Now the signals for an attack. What's the practice? And if the enemy comes - how do you call? How do you send word?
A few boyars traded glances. Not mockery - puzzlement. Doesn't he know?
He'd burned the steppe with them, ridden the borders, seen it himself. But Alexander's gaze was direct, without a doubt. He wasn't asking - he was checking. He wanted not faith but a rule.
Ignat cut the quiet.
- As it's done with us, prince. At each ford and on each ridge - a watch: two men, a horse, pitch and bundles of brush. By day we smoke, by night we burn. There's no standard: in one place one fire is alarm, in another - two. Each man by what he remembers
Alexander gave a short nod, as if checking it off against the map in his head. Everything went as he remembered: by memory, by the body. And it wasn't enough. His gaze slid south; his finger traced the tributaries.
- And how along these borders?
This time the Tysyatsky answered. Vyshata didn't move - his voice stepped forward. He knew exactly where to stand, and why.
- On the Ros' they blow the horn more often; on the Stuhna - they ring the bell. If there's fog or a downpour - we send a rider; where we can - a boat runs the water. There are gaps between nodes - fire doesn't see everything. Not every beacon site is ready, not every place has dry stock
He stopped a beat. His eyes didn't dim - they were looking farther off, as if he stood not in the prince's hall but in a frost - white valley.
When he spoke again, the voice wasn't louder, but it was firmer.
- In winter we pull the watches in to fords and bridges; we set pickets out on the ice. The sign is the same, only the horn more. Rotations are whoever steps up: at times the elder sends men, at times my hundred - captain. That's why it tangles. If the enemy comes close, the watch doesn't fight: he gives the sign and pulls back to the hill - fort. Lives longer that way
No one cut in. This wasn't an instruction - it was a rule burned into bone. A man spoke who had buried more than one watch.
Alexander didn't argue. He only nodded. Not to agree - to show he'd heard.
Men sharpened. A brow rose here, a head there. The prince had his own question and was already carrying it. He didn't draw it out. His hand slid along the map's edge, and he spoke.
- What we have now is no single order. Everywhere it's "as we do it here." Enough. It must be one and the same. Beacon - pits only on vantage points. By day - smoke: wet branches, moss, dung. Thick. By night - flame: brush and pitch. Bright
His finger moved from node to node. Between them - a riffle, then a hill. The rest leaned in. Not like servants. Like wolves over a carcass - each man tallying his share.
- One fire - small force. Two - many. Three - a siege. Fire sees fire. Between watches - line of sight. From a watch to a node - a half - day's march. No "seems like." No "we don't do it that way."
Stanislav straightened. Looked into the map, then at the prince:
- And if there's fog? If there's rain? The beacon is soaked and the smoke slides into a gully - who learns of it?
- Or the smoke lies down in the woods, - Ignat added, stepping in, a finger along a slope. - And by the statute - that's alarm. Do we send the host blind?
A fingernail clicked against the table's edge. Someone drew breath.
This was no sketch now - it was a structure. If it didn't mesh, there would not be order but uproar. Not an ambush but a fair of fires. The enemy would laugh to the cue.
Then Vyshata stepped closer. He planted his fists on the table's rim like a man bracing on a boat's gunwale.
- What are these questions? Are you otroks(7-14 y.o. boy)?
His hand swept the map without looking - exact.
- If there's fog - horns. If there's rain - trumpets. Daylight. To the near posts. Shields and cloths for flagging across the gap. If it's shut altogether - a rider. That's it. Even a fool can grasp it. We hold by wit, not by smoke
It was as if a scabbard rang in the hall. Fine, barely heard. But every man knew where the sound lay.
Stanislav stood straight, but his fingers tightened on his belt - not in anger, in memory. Ignat didn't turn his head, but his look narrowed and hardened like a rope under strain. They kept still - not from assent. They knew they owed their answer not to Vyshata.
The silence turned taut.
Ignat didn't argue. He didn't give ground either. He let Vyshata pass - and took the word for the prince.
He looked not at Vyshata but into the map.
- All right, - he said. - But who believes?
He set his finger on Trepol and drew to Vasyliv.
- Some men light a fire every evening so they don't freeze. Others - only for a death. One fool smokes by stupidity - ten hosts ride out for nothing. Who comes back?
He raised his eyes. It wasn't a quarrel - it was a warning.
- Without a penalty for crying wolf - it collapses. Without drill alarms - it crumbles. Not year one - year two
He didn't leave - he stepped back. Not with his body - with his attention. Like a man who's hauled that load before - and remembers how it fell apart in the mire.
Into that step - the silence settled.
Not as a pause. As a nest.
A snake took it. No one moved. Even the torch's flame seemed to wait.
Then - a sound. One.
Not a word. A strap's creak.
Every head turned.
Oleg.
A palm went down on the map. Not pointing - pressing. A mark. "Mine."
- And there's sowing, - Oleg said.
He stayed by the wall - not in the circle, in earshot. A smooth voice, almost sympathetic.
- In two weeks - fields. Seed already measured out. Everything counted. Everything aboveboard. But if we drag plowmen now to tend beacon - fires - furrows will be missed. Not one. In a chain. And without bread there'll be no one left to smoke the beacons. Not because we won't order it - because they won't live to
He spoke like a healer: steady. But there was pus under the bandage.
- And the Rasputitsa - mud season - wagons will stop. Near woods - maybe. Far woods - sink. Say "thirty souls to the towers" and thirty hearths go cold. Then what? Who feeds them? Who feeds the feeders?
His finger slid along the map - and twitched. Slipped for a breath- and came back.
- Order - yes, we need it. Of course. Just... not the plowmen. A plowman is bread. Touch him and you've set the volost on fire. Old men - yes. Housefolk. But by measure. By will. Those who can - give. Those who can't - what claim do you make?
- And who gives grain if the peasants go? Who do you levy from - Pereyaslavl? From my barns?
The pause hung - like smoke with no wind.
Vyshata dipped his head a hair, as if scenting for poison under honey. Stanislav stood still, a hand to his belt - where there was no sword, only memory. Ignat didn't look up - but his fingers locked together.
Radomir clicked a knuckle:
- You hear, boyars?
It was enough.
Alexander didn't look at the face. He watched the finger. The one stroking the map like it was his own thing.
- Enough, - he said.
Plain. As if he'd lifted a stone off a barrow. One - and the dead thing breathed.
- "Care" is when the plow is in your hands. Not when it's propped by the wall and we pray the earth tears itself open
He ran a finger across the map. Not stroking. Cutting.
- Spring will come. We won't stop it. Meet it empty - handed, and it won't be a beacon that burns. It'll be a volost. Rus'
A pause. On the inhale. Almost a doubt. A chance. But - no.
- We don't touch the plowmen. Until Pascha - their will. After that - by the count. Any man who gives - gets feed. Any man who won't - refusal. Any man who lies - to the rampart works. Any man who hides - stripped
He spoke it like a blow.
- Twice over - off with the elder. The tiun takes his place. And don't bring it to me. Bring it to the tiun - with the scribe
In the corner - a whisper - small rasp of parchment. Simeon's hand shook.
The quill skittered. The inkwell rocked. Nearly went over.
Gavriil didn't turn. He clamped the boy's elbow - fast, hard. He muttered, not for ears, for the line:
- Write it plain: "to the rampart" - earthworks. With a shovel
No other sound. But the whole chamber heard it: the weight had reached even those who only write.
- And we'll take the grain. From each - an even share. Where there's a barn - the scribe goes there. No asking. No bowing. So no one thinks he can hide in words.
Oleg didn't answer. But his shoulder moved. His hand left the map. Empty.
Only then did Alexander step. Not aside. Down into it. Like a man who's already started walking and cannot go back.
A dent from a thumbnail stayed in the map. Small. And as if it held the whole thing.
Alexander didn't speak at once.
Not because he didn't know - he was letting the poison air out.
A hollow quiet in the hall. Not respect. Held breath.
After a volley you wait: the smoke thins - and you see who's left.
The prince didn't look at Oleg. He didn't take his eyes off the map. His palm stayed on the south of it. Where the Ros' runs. Where the nodes lie. Where smoke becomes a shield - or a shroud.
Then a breath. Through his teeth.
He lifted his gaze. First to Stanislav. Not as to a subordinate. As to a keep that will take the order on its stones.
- We start with the nodes. - His voice was low, dry, like sound on stone. - Yuriev. Korsun. Bohuslav. Vasyliv. Each gets a signal platform. At the wall or on a knoll. A brazier set in clay. Under a cover. Holds heat, doesn't roar in flame. It shines - it doesn't shout. Seen three hills off. And it holds if it snows
His hand was already going on - but Vyshata slid in like iron into a seam.
- Won't be enough. If we don't account for fuel, the watch - hut burns and no one knows. It's happened. The nomads came - the watchmen flashed up; the smoke was seen only over ash
Not anger in his voice - but something cracked in it. Not a threat - the past. The men near him didn't hear words; they saw a hill, and what was left on it.
The silence was short, packed. No one cut across it.
- We need a standard: two piles of wood - one dry, one wet. A sack of resin bark. Bundles of brush. A shovel. A bucket. All of it on the platform. Refilled every two weeks. The manor - elder responsible
He didn't step out of the ring, but he turned his head. Off to the side. At Dobrynya.
Dobrynya answered at once. No malice - but with an edge:
- Two woodpiles. A sack of resin bark - fine words. Who hauls them? The signals flare and the watchmen are in the fields. Sowing. A beacon without hands is cold coals
Vyshata didn't answer at once. He looked at Dobrynya the way he'd look at a shield gone sodden.
- Each volost carts to its own node. Every other Saturday. Two bundles dry. One - wet. A sack of resin bark - fortnightly. Carrying - housefolk and boys. Don't touch the plowmen till sowing is done. Miss the lesson - fine in silver and two days on the rampart. Repeat - pull the elder. The tiun seats another. That's it
He turned to the prince. No challenge - like handing up a spear.
- I've said it right, haven't I?
Alexander didn't answer at once. He only nodded. It was enough: everything needed had already become an order.
He didn't add thanks. But the way he looked at Vyshata would have signed a charter. The man's shoulder didn't move - but it seemed to thicken, like a timber before the cut.
Alexander's gaze ran round the ring. Not over faces - over fault - lines. Who bends easier. Who he'll ask later.
- Good. Now the runners and their paths. Two tracks from every node. First - the alarm track. Across fields and people - so everything lights at once. Second - the forest track. For messages, not for a cry
- Routes laid by elders with the tiuns. Notches, ties - let them mark them. But if a runner stumbles, take it up with them. The track must be known. Not like a chance - like a memory
Stanislav rolled a shoulder. Fingers to his belt. Not a threat. As if a wolf had stepped into the room.
- And if the track leads into a mouth? - his voice cut like a tooth through hide. - The enemy isn't at the border. He's in us. One forged runner and we'll burn ourselves. Or bolt. On our own alarm
The hall didn't gasp. It dulled - low. Like before a shot.
Ignat leaned in. His hand wasn't on a hilt. It held the air. As if feeling the weight.
- My proposal: a courier with the prince's seal. And the dolon - word. Without both you listen, you don't act. Without the seal - not an order. Not an alarm
Simeon flinched. His quill scratched an extra stroke. Beside a field - an ink drop. Like blood. He looked at it as at a sentence.
Alexander didn't answer at once. His fingers settled on the map. Not cutting. Not pressing. As if he were listening - not to parchment, to himself. Something chimed inside. Went still.
- Agreed. Then every node has its own dolon - its countersign. Changed with every alarm. Any man who opens without it - to the rampart works. Any man who forges it - to the rope
Movement by the wall. One guardsman missed his footing. He didn't fall. But he stepped - as if the floor had turned to water. Enough.
Alexander didn't look at him. But he knew each man who twitched.
- Tiuns answer with the seal. Scribes - with the word. The error isn't in ink. It's in bodies. Any man who fails to check - goes down
He didn't add: so does the one who appointed him. Even so, a draft ran the chamber - thin. Like a warning.
Stanislav didn't lift his eyes from the map. His cheek flickered. Not from heat. From the tally. He was already throwing wood - not on the hearth, on the alarm - fire.
And beside him a whisper seemed to say: your son is a runner too. Who carries word if he goes down?
And then - a sound. Not in the hall. Outside the wall. In the citadel. A branch cracking, a cup clicking - it was too loud for the hush where Rus' was being decided.
The pause didn't run on. But you could hear a noose breathe in it. Not on a neck. On all of Rus'.
They kept breathing all the same. They didn't freeze.
Around the ring - no words. Only short nods. Agreement at once, as if they'd said it - he hadn't. You couldn't shape it better. There was nothing to argue with.
But that was the frame. Under it - bolts to tighten.
Alexander didn't draw it out. He turned to Ignat. Not sharply - like signing what had been decided already.
- And no one rides blind. One fire isn't a sign. One horn - no sign. Two lights in succession - that's alarm. One - stand ready. Don't break loose at every smoke
He set his palm on the map. Not to decree - as if touching something living.
- Each node has two fire - pits: one for daily use, one for signal. One inside. One on the platform. Don't mix them: mistake it - rampart duty, no feed. Repeat - removal
From the yard the smithy answered, short: riveting hoops for shovels and mattocks.
Ignat was ready for the word - and asked anyway:
- Who triggers the alarm? Who keeps it from becoming "we built it - and forgot"?
Vyshata snorted low, annoyed.
- Who else? It isn't a hen on a tower - it's a watchman. He triggers it
Alexander didn't let it run on.
- No. The watchman is for the field. The tower is an eye. Not a hand. Signal duty is the node's guard. They're inside. They're at the walls. They know what and when. The tower can repeat. It doesn't decide. Whoever holds the node - answers
Ignat nodded. No quarrel. Vyshata shifted a little. Not objecting - counting.
- Then the watchmen only look?
- No, - Alexander drew a finger along the river. - Between nodes - watches on the ridges and fords: ten to twelve towers. Two or three men. A horse. Bundles. Their work is to see, light, and go. Don't take the blow - send the sign
The scheme stood like a rank. It didn't need explaining. It was clear: the watch is the spark; the node is the hearth. The first sees. The second decides.
Radomir stepped closer to the table, eyes on the map:
- The towers - how high? Three sazhen? Or four?
- Better four, - Vyshata didn't let the prince nod. - If the ground allows. Logwork with stakes. No fancywork - strong enough to hold. Not blow over
Stanislav was already tracing ridges and hollows with a finger:
- How many towers? How do we keep them manned?
- Three or four days to a shift, - Ignat said after a thought. - Then we change. Don't touch the horse. One per post.
- And if there's no time to get out? - Illarion asked, quiet, clear. He wasn't looking at the map - he was looking at Ignat's face.
Ignat didn't lift his eyes.
- Then they burn. But their work isn't to die. It's to signal. If they didn't - an empty fire. If they did - then even burning, they've already saved
The pause was brief, heavy. All knew what it meant.
The talk widened. Without Alexander. No quarrels - they set it the way you lay a wall.
Stanislav jabbed the map again:
- How do they know it's time? Who lights which?
The silence sank deeper. Not a small question: the answer could tear it all. They traded glances - and all eyes went to the prince.
Alexander gave a short smile, like a tooth along steel. The hall tightened.
- A tablet. Waxed - or birch - bark. Each node has its own. On it: whose light we take, to whom we send; where the fords are; how far to the neighbors - a half - day's march. Cardinal marks carved on the post at the platform. With the watch - hung on a nail. Update it after every alarm. There'll be no mistake if they learn it
Ignat let out a breath - not small, the way a man does who's carried a load and understands he isn't alone.
The boyars traded looks. Not a plan now - a rule.
Stanislav lifted his eyes off the map:
- And if the enemy came close and didn't dare? We need a stand - down
- Two long peals on the bell, - the prince answered at once. - Lights to coals. Without that, an alarm doesn't die
- So - two - sign discipline, - Stanislav said. - One - stand ready. Two - ride out. Stand - down - two long
Alexander's gaze circled the ring.
- By St. Peter's - two practice signals per node: with watchmen, with the timing counted from sign to turnout and from turnout to stand - down. Let the beacon be an order
The answer wasn't noise - it was a shift: men were counting - where, how, with whom.
Ignat dipped his head. His voice was dry, exact:
- And who answers for "mix - ups"? Whom do we call to account when the light goes the wrong way?
Alexander nodded. He'd expected it.
- A name - board. At the node gate - a branded plank. On it - the guard captain, the tiun, the volost elder, and if it's a river node - the senior boatman / if it's land - the senior watchman. The man at the fire - the man who holds it. The rest answer up to him
He spoke level. Each word cut like a line into wood.
- False light - no feed for them. Rampart duty with a shovel. Repeat - removed from office. No "I forgot." No "I didn't know." You stuck your hand in the flame - don't complain the smoke stings
A hammer struck outside; the sound came into the hall.
- Missed wagon delivery - fine. Elder removed. The yard inventoried and sold; the boat padlocked at the landing. Sale witnessed under the tiun's and elder's oath. Scribe's forgery - attainder and banishment. His name is scraped out too
He lifted his eyes.
- Without a name there is no service. Brand goes on the board - today. The seal on the register - while you stand here
Ignat didn't nod. He spoke - as if he were already writing:
- Then I start with those who lied first. When they came at Prince Vsevolod - there was no smoke and no runner. I know who held the nodes then
He didn't look around. He spoke to a board that didn't exist yet.
- The planks are still in the forest, the brand not burned in - but the first names are set. When we nail them up - we won't be choosing. I'll say them