Ignat fell silent, but the silence brought no relief - it hung in the hall like an old curtain in a draft: taut, unclear, heavy not with sound but with what hadn't been said.
Somewhere by the wall a guardsman rasped a cough - dry throat, not sickness. The air sat dense: warm wax, dried cloak -grass, a faint worn film of iron.
Lamplight slid over its surface, cutting edges as if with a knife. Indigo river - lines ran the parchment, darkened by touch - the map kept the memory of fingers as much as places.
And then - Stanislav. He'd kept quiet, but he stepped in. Not with a foot - with a word:
- Holding isn't enough, - he said. - We need ambush points. Don't fly - catch. Three sites per sector: a ford, a ravine shoulder, a wooded hollow. Mark the spots for the border voevodas
He didn't raise his voice - and yet the room thickened. Someone by the wall cleared his throat, softly, as if for dust, but all knew - it was for the words. Alexander - short, exact:
- Where exactly?
Stanislav's finger didn't point. It drove in.
- On the Ros' - at Bohuslav's narrows. Below - under Korsun, on the headland over the drop. Between Steblev and Vasylkiv - among the bends of the rocky slopes. By Pereyaslavl - where the Trubezh meets the Dnieper; on the Supoi - a narrow Dnieper tributary, a door to Pereyaslavl; at the Sula's mouth. Where ice and bridges open a way. There the ambush hits - from the flank, not the chest
Ignat bent over. He wasn't looking like a scribe - like a hunter. His palm settled on the table's edge; his fingers closed slowly, as if reins already lay there.
The sites were exact. All on a break. All for a strike.
- Sound sense, - he said. - I know the Sula and the Trubezh in smoke and ash. Till now men hit when they had to, not as a line. Now - we fix it
Vyshata nodded - sharp, soldier -clean.
- Then as laid down: the nearest rides first. The tysyatsky musters the levy, the voevoda takes them with the druzhina and leads. The node gives the men; the voevoda - the blow
It sounded like an old rule cut by a knife. A dull answer ran through the hall: a barely seen nod here, lips pressed there.
But Alexander was no elder.
He looked at them. Not upward - inward. A look that tests a wall before bringing up the ram.
- By the time you muster and wait, the nomads are gone. This isn't war - it's a raid. Sit, and you're late
For a beat - a shift. Not quarrel. Friction. Like ice under a heavy hoof.
The captains traded looks. A brow here, a lip there. Not mockery, not fear - memory. It's always been: smoke, the rider, the muster; then the ride out. For centuries. And if not that - then what?
Stanislav didn't speak. But his look cut: That's how it has held for ages.
Vyshata moved - not threatening, but firm, like a man bracing to take a blow without giving ground:
- Prince. You don't bend a host. The muster holds. A raider strikes fast, but he doesn't always run; at times he lures. Send out hundreds without the muster - they'll be cut one by one, and neither horse nor saddle comes back
He glanced to Ignat and Stanislav.
- Captains aren't hounds to sprint at every puff of smoke. The muster gives strength: druzhina and levy in one fist. Break it, and you've a sickle here, a bow there, one arrow left. Not a battle - a rabble that harms itself
He spoke not striking but shielding. The old order was his - not just duty, flesh. He stood in it like mail.
Ignat leaned forward. His voice dropped and roughened, as if from under a helm:
- True. A muster is not just men. It's stores. It's oats, shafts, a spare horse. Without them it's not a ride - out - it's a burial. Say you catch him - then what? Horse in a bog, water a mile off, last arrow spent. And the foe not even turned yet
He didn't grow louder. But a gritty truth spilled from his throat - the rasp men hear a hundred times under smoke.
- We're not nomads. We live here. We bury here. We rebuild. Not fling ash - sweep it from the yard
He spoke like a man who'd watched a pursuit break not from arrows but from exhaustion. Stanislav nodded - short, not a sign, a thought chopped clean.
Even so - the silence. Not answer, not consent. It hung like rain that hasn't started.
Ignat waited, let the quiet pass through the room. Then something changed in his voice - as if an old seam split behind the shield of order.
- And if we don't ride - we burn. Like that time on the Trubezh. We didn't reach it. We were late
He didn't name it. No need. For one - a brother. For another - a son. For others - the stink of burnt timber worked into a cloak and never aired out.
A creak by the door. A guardsman clenched his haft. Not from fear - from remembering. Someone behind bowed - not praying - just trying to breathe.
No one made noise. But the air went dull - like before a burial when the coffin is already in the hands and words aren't spoken yet.
The hall locked - the pause stood like a stone holding a breath. All waited to see who would take the weight first.
Alexander didn't let them sink into the past. His hand rose - and a short, slicing pause cut through the hall, as if he'd severed it from the rest of the talk.
He looked not at men but at the map. At the Ros'. At the Stuhna. The places that burn first.
- I know, - he said. - The muster by voevoda and tysyatsky stays. When the host moves - we move as one. If the walls go - the walls answer. As before
His gaze slid south - where the steppe and the wind are. Where there are no walls - only horse and smoke.
- But raids are another thing. There time is a weapon. Muster like for war and you ride back into ash. There we need fixed sortie hundreds. A hundred and a half in each. Each for its own corridor. No muster, no summons. You hear - you're in the saddle
He spoke unhurriedly, laying stones in a foundation.
- That doesn't erase stores, doesn't break the shield. It's the shield thrusting a spear
The words went in like stakes. He leaned a little over the map as he said them, like a smith over a billet - so the blow won't miss.
No one interrupted. Vyshata looked aside, as if trying that "shield with a point" on in his head. Ignat neither nodded nor shook his head - his fingers only tightened on the table's edge.
Stanislav gave the smallest nod. Not assent - taste - testing: is it cracked.
- These sortie hundreds - what are they, prince? And where do you mean to plant them?
He asked not as a subordinate. As the accountant of war - how many oats, how many shoes, how many wagons won't arrive.
Alexander didn't look away. Nor did the rest. There was weight in the question. Those hundreds aren't just horses. They're the outcome. For the men who reap. For the ones who keep the house while riders go.
- Permanent detachments, always ready to ride, - he said. - Light, fast. No baggage, but spare arrows and mounts laid in. They wait for no summons. Hear it - already in the saddle
Vyshata narrowed his eyes; Ignat folded his arms. They weren't itching to cut in: the earlier thinking had been sound; now they wanted the whole of it.
The prince ran a finger across the map.
- Two hubs. Yuriev. Pereyaslavl. A hundred and fifty in each. Each ten - under a senior. One horse already saddled. Thirty arrows per man. The signal - and three hours. After that it isn't pursuit - it's reckoning
Ignat leaned forward slowly, like a man forging not words but a formation. In his eyes flickered this: if it works - maybe no one burns like on the Trubezh.
- Sense in it, but the kit's thin
He spoke slow, solid - measuring pace by strength, not by road.
- Two horses per rider. One under saddle, one led. Drive a tired mount and the tempo dies. Change each hour. The steppe keeps its tempo - and so must we
He traced a short line in the air - as if marking where to add.
- Not on day three - on the same hour. Gear not in a cart like on campaign. Everything at the knot: oats cached, arrows at the door. Where the horse is waiting - the arrow waits too
He wasn't arguing. He was fitting pieces. Like a man who has begun laying, and sees another line going in beside his.
Alexander nodded - short.
- So be it. In motion till sunset. At night - under our wall. We don't sit at the ambush sites. This isn't a battle - it's recovery: remounts, pack, captives. Not for glory - for return
The prince ran his palm along the map's edge.
- Plunder - by order only. Any man who plunders on his own - loses his share. Turn aside - under the banner. To the court
The voice didn't call or ask. It set stones.
Ignat didn't answer. He only let his eyes pass across the map. He checked - and didn't look away.
The hall caught it. If Ignat of Pereyaslavl keeps still and holds, it goes into the account. You can move - eyes open.
Stanislav traded a look with Vyshata. No words - but weight. Vyshata gave a slight tilt, as if he had just counted through every yard and farmstead.
- And who keeps a village when your riders go out? - he said. - People aren't icons. One is sowing, one is planting. Tell them "drop the plow," they'll swear the prince drove his own bread off the field
It wasn't a rebuke; it was a warning - without men at home, the home dies.
Stanislav bent lower, eyes on the map:
- And how do you catch an enemy if you don't know where he turned? In open field you don't read hoof - scars. You need a tracker - quiet, who hears grass; an old hand who finds a ford by its smell
Alexander nodded. Not in reply - in advance. Like a man who's already stepped and waits who will step after him.
- Land is held by eyes, not fists. Riders aren't plowmen. Those hundreds will be druzhina - men. Not peasants. The village stays under an eye: elders, boys, the tiun's men. Not with a sword - with sight. The ones who see, who know when to call. Sowing holds. Bread stays
His finger set down on the map. It didn't slide - it pressed.
- They won't go searching for a trail. They'll know it. From each district - one hunter. The one who hears grass. Who doesn't see - senses. Not a guardsman, not a man of the line. The first man in the woods
He lifted his eyes. There was no "maybe" there. There was "will."
The captains looked at one another - not to argue, to price it. The prince's words sounded not like a plan but like a structure already standing. Each man began to fit it to his stretch of border.
And then - a movement. Barely audible. Like a step through dry grass beyond the wall.
Oleg. He had kept silent - long. The way men do who think not of what will be said but of what won't.
He raised his head slowly. His voice was soft as silk, but with the shine that sharpens steel rather than warming it:
- Prince… "druzhina hundreds" is a fair word. But who fills them, when your druzhina is with you and the walls aren't empty? Shall we muster a host from rosters alone? And when they do ride - who will be left to wait for them back?
He didn't smile. But the pause after his words felt like that.
By the wall Mirnomir shifted a shoulder like a wolf that has caught a turn in the wind. In the far corner someone straightened - as before something that might crack.
Alexander didn't look away. His voice didn't grow louder - but it gained weight.
- Not from air - from the count. From boyars' men. Each has three to five; the great have ten or more. In Kyiv land - near a hundred boyars. In Pereyaslavl - no fewer. Enough for the rides and for the walls
Wax and iron lay heavy in the chamber's smell.
Scribes hung over their sheets, quills arrested in the air. Dobrynya by the wall dipped his head, let his gaze slide across the map and back to the prince - measuring, wordless.
Oleg didn't yield. A light step - he was closer to the table, almost over the map.
- So the hundreds are made of boyars' men? Good. And the prince stands aside? Only counts? Is guard only their duty? If a man hides his best or sends a lame horse for a rider - will you know it? Or just say, "I ordered it"?
He didn't wait for an answer. The words weren't a quarrel - they were an audit.
- Even if the idea is sound - who rides under it? Will all send the men who hold their fields? Or will we see the listed - servant for rider, boy for horseman?
Alexander understood: Oleg wasn't slow - he was the touchstone. He wasn't in the way - he was checking whether the prince was playing soldier with other men's hands.
- From me - thirty guardsmen to each hundred, - he said. - Not from the watch - from reserve. Saddled. Kitted. Ready. I hold my share
His gaze moved from face to face - slow, as if fixing each one in memory. One guardsman shifted a foot, as if to change his stance - and froze. Vyshata, his face unchanged, closed a hand behind his back till the knuckles blanched.
- And you will send yours. What's due. Not for spite - for the count. Not for me - for your walls
A pause. Solid, heel on stone.
- And if you don't send - and the ride fails - and a steppe stallion drinks from your well - don't wait for my men. I came to call. You turned away. Then burn - alone
Silence settled like dust after a blow. Someone let out a slow breath, louder than words. The room smelled of wax and metal - as if a whetstone had just passed and the air still rang.
And it hadn't cooled yet.
Oleg said nothing. He only set his chin a fraction - as if fixing not the words but their weight. And stood. A man who hadn't yielded - yet had stepped further.
No one stirred.
No questions. No shifting. Just a slab of silence: no one pushed back, no one stepped in. They had accepted.
Alexander saw it. His fingers settled on the map - not like on parchment, like on reins. The hall gave no answer - and that was the sign.
- Now - the second line. East. Pereyaslavl. From the Sula to the Vorskla
Oleg didn't move. But his look stayed on the prince's hand. He was holding not a word - a thought. As if deciding: not yet - but soon. By the wall, Mstislav tightened his grip on his axe - haft, almost absently - testing whether his palm had gone damp.
What came next moved fast, without delays - like in the field where everyone knows what to cut and where.
Ignat raised the south wall: undercut, the ditch clogged, grass soaking in the seams. The tower over the Trubezh must go to four sazhen. The well in the citadel - bad water, but they're digging already on Vsevolod's order.
He spoke tapping a knuckle on the map where the rampart lines came together.
Stanislav took the Posulye: fords open, the town - fort of Voin' can't hold alone. Decided - to set a logwork and ditch at every ford: a horse can't pass, a boat must go around. Runners up the rivers - the Seim and the Desna - so Chernihiv hears before Kyiv.
Gavriil's inkwell shivered and clicked against the wood. A slick sound - and the quill skated. No one turned. But the room paused a hair: if the scribe flinched - there's something sharp in the account.
Ignat added the Vorskla - Psel: a blind throat. Ice in winter, mire in summer. There are fords, but few - like doors in a dark wall. He proposed deadfalls and bogged paths, huts at the winter crossings. Stanislav and Vyshata cut it off: rare threat, no anchors, too few men.
They chose to wait - but marked it on the map.
Watch - huts, beacons, the rest - by the order already set on the Ros' line.
After that - the river flotilla. Ten bridge - boats on the Trubezh. Task - ferry a hundred men inside half a day; scuttle the bridge if we're pulling out. Dobrynya proposed we inspect the Serpent Ramparts - see what still stands, where the ditch has gone.
Everything moved like harvest: everyone knew where to cut.
And then the weight came in.
The chief treasurer, Radomir - the one whose pen is heard less often than the sword, but hurts more; one figure and the warband is left without oats - silent until now, lifted his eyes from the table's edge.
His fingers just brushed the board - the wood was wet with drops of wax, tacky like tar in the morning cold. He didn't touch the map. Didn't twitch. He looked only - not at the lines, at the empty spaces between them.
Not like a man stung by a word - like one who had waited for the pause to turn into silence. He'd held it a long time. And now he dropped it like a stone into a pond. The ripple went through the hall.
- The border - clear. The sites are chosen, the decision on the ramparts and the ford - taken. All sound. On the map - smooth. In the granary - empty. So now the second question: can we carry it?
Not a draft in the hall. The air moved differently, as if someone drew cold through a slit that used to be a wall.
Ignat turned his head a fraction. Not roughly. Simply - he didn't understand. Or didn't want to.
- Carry it? - said Ignat. - This isn't a bargain. This is a frontier. Here you don't carry - you hold
He wasn't picking a fight. He was fixing a truth in place: a war leader doesn't haggle. He decides.
Someone looked to the prince. Someone - to the table. No one - to Radomir. He stood alone - not in words, in the reckoning.
Radomir, though, looked not at Ignat but at the map.
- I'm not speaking of courage. I'm speaking of weight. Hay is in trouble. The horses are already on spring oats. Which means flax gets cut. Less flax - less cloth. Less cloth - lower duty. Lower duty - a leaner treasury
For a moment the hall went still. Not from respect. From arithmetic.
Someone frowned. Someone slipped back into the shadow. Only Stanislav stopped dead, like before a blow - not at the words, at the convergences.
Alexander lifted his gaze.
- How's that? All the past years were enough - hay, flax, cloth. And now, the moment all my brothers, the princes, were cut down at once, a horse can't find even straw?
He didn't shout. But his voice went into the hall like a wedge into wood. In that moment he wasn't looking at Radomir. He was looking at all of them. Into the eyes of those who stared at the table.
The boyars glanced at one another - short, sharp. Each look said: understood. Plotting is not only in the woods and at the ford. It's already on the threshing floor. In the granaries. In the parchment. In the grain someone chose to hide while others fight.
Stanislav stepped forward. The movement wasn't haste but a taut draw, as if holding a horse just before the leap.
- Prince. Put this under my internal charge. If you allow it - I'll pick the men to go look. Not with papers - with eyes. The same ones who caught the merchant in spring - the one who rode off with the treasury. We found him in three days. They look, and they remember. And they don't sell
He paused a beat. His eyes slid aside - not straight, slantwise - to where Oleg stood.
- Word has reached me, - said Stanislav, still looking askance, - that men of the Berestovichi court are seen too often near the state granaries. We start with them, I think. You don't mind, Oleg?
Oleg's face didn't change. He tilted his head slightly - whether in assent or to the draft, it wasn't clear.
- Every rumor is worth checking, - he said evenly. - Especially the kind that likes to reach the voevoda faster than the tiun - the steward
The voice was the same: silk with a chill. But it already carried this: you're not the first to think you've outfoxed me.
Alexander kept silence for a moment. He looked not at Stanislav but at Oleg, the way a smith looks at iron: he doesn't strike - he heats. He waits for the moment.
Then he nodded. Slowly. Not agreeing - ratifying. He'd heard. And into that nod the weight fell, like the hammer of an axe.
The hall darkened - not the light, the air. Heat from the lamps turned dry, as before a storm. The smell of iron rose like smoke. With it came something new: a dull taste of raw hide, as if it lay across the palm - tacky, creeping under the nails.
Someone tensed - like just before the breath goes out. For an instant the whole chamber hushed, as if we were not looking for oats but for those who hide them.
And then - Dobrynya. He struck like an axe on a board: short, dry.
- Searching is needful. But the oats are already in the mangers, and spring hasn't even begun. The horses are eating what we saved for April. We won't last to haying. So - what do we decide?
Gavriil lifted his quill, then held it over the parchment. Simeon, beside him, bit his lip by habit - every time he heard the treasury thinning.
Alexander didn't ask. Didn't ponder. He had been waiting for this question.
He simply raised his hand - as you set a mark. As if until this second he had been holding the blow so as not to waste it.
- By Pokrov, - said Alexander, - a report from every tiun - the steward. Hay, oats, flax, honey. I want to know what we hold and what we give. I take this under my personal hand
Radomir and Dobrynya didn't answer. And didn't look away. There was no fear there. Only the count - measuring how much longer before it can't be done.
The prince saw it. He didn't press. He'd already said what mattered.
- He who holds - stands, - said Alexander. - He who doesn't - we hold him. Otherwise, come spring, there'll be no one left to stand
No one moved. Yet the room tightened. Not from bodies - from the truth that had entered like a splinter in the palm. Undebatable. Necessary.
This wasn't about hay. It was about the same wall we are raising now - of ramparts, watchtowers, fires, and men. Now oats, flax, and honey lay in it too.
And then a draft breathed through the doorway. A lamp flickered. It didn't die. But for a moment the air turned to ink.
Everyone was silent. But inside that silence someone was already searching for a way out.
Silence lay on the table - tight, strung.
And a step. Not loud - more like a thought breaking.
Oleg. Not a step - a shift. Not wind - pressure. The air seemed to hold its hearing.
He stood. Said nothing. As if holding a rein - and knowing: if it bolts, he won't hold it. He breathed out. Not giving up - letting go.
- There's a move. No firewood. No levy. No ash. If the nomad is the trouble, let horse answer horse - let riders be the screen
The voevodas - the war leaders - turned, not sharply but at once. Like a beast that rises at a sound in the thicket - not an enemy, but the one who growled at it yesterday and now calls it to run with him.
Stanislav narrowed his eyes. He wasn't looking at the speaker - he fixed on the point where weight had suddenly appeared.
- What do you mean? - he asked. Not wary - heavy. A test.
Oleg came up to the table - careful, as if the floor carried itself by listening. Igor edged aside to make room without lifting his hand from the table's rim.
- Along the Ros' River - a southern Dnieper tributary. Between the lanes of approach. Where a raid rolls like a wave - we seat those who feel the wave before it crests. Torks, Oghuz - steppe drifters, torn between whip and oath
- They're already running from the Polovtsians (Cumans). Already looking for a roof. I know them; I have a word with their elders. They won't sit with a stranger; they won't stand with you. With me - yes. We give them land. They give us wind. For their blood - our peace
He meant to go on, but didn't have the chance.
Ignat struck his fist against the table's edge. A dull thud - but the dullness carried anger.
- Them?! - it tore out of him. Not like a blow - like a winter breath he'd been holding. - The same men who for years have burned villages, butchered the marches, dragged our children into the steppe - now they'll be our screens? You want to tuck a snake in under our heart?
The hall shivered - not much, like a bellows before the exhale. Some looked away; others, on the contrary, fixed on Oleg. Stanislav set his neck. Vyshata froze.
But Oleg didn't flinch.
He looked at Ignat - not past him, straight. He answered not with a shout but lower, sharper:
- Yes, savages. Yes, they cut. But a savage knows where a mare will set her hoof before it even lifts. Their elder has a burn across one eye. I ransomed a girl from him. His son coughs; in a blizzard he shakes like ours. That's not "a tribe." That's people. Their children sleep in the cold. Like ours
A shoulder moved somewhere. Not in objection - in weight. As if the talk had shifted from "nomads" to everyone who lives with snow at their edge.
Oleg took a step. Not to the prince - to the map.
- Let them be hearing, not guards. If we don't trust, we don't sleep. If we don't sleep, we don't rot
He wasn't speaking up to the hall but off to the side, like a man who has already seen this move play out on the ground:
- Not inside our walls - in the land ahead of them. Not into us - beside us. For salt, for pasture, for iron. For life
There was no pleading in his voice. Only the calculus.
- Not a shield - skin. While they're cutting into it, we raise the host. While their fires burn, we have time
He breathed out. Not heavy. Exact.
- That will be enough
And in the hall it sounded louder than if he'd shouted.
Vyshata squinted. Stanislav meant to speak - only glanced at the prince instead. He held back. Testing: take the rein now, or wait for the strike.
A fresh nail - scratch had been left on the map - dark, like a mark of blood. Every eye fell there.
Someone slid a cup aside; the scrape across the wood went through the room like a whine.
Alexander didn't lift his eyes. He kept them on the map. Or simply didn't want to look at Oleg. Until now the senior boyar had been the one who threw doubt. Now - he was the one who offered a way through.
Ignat had already moved, breath breaking in his chest - but Alexander raised a hand. No sharpness. Yet it was clear: he would be the one to speak.
Silence in the hall. Not fear. Not consent. Expectation.
Then he spoke softer than needed - and for that, stronger.
- You think they'll listen? A steppe man doesn't shiver at the word "prince." And a boyar from Rus' - will he take him for his own?
The voice wasn't harsh. But it carried this: not doubt in the plan - trial of Oleg himself.
- Who stands behind this? Who takes them in - and if they break, answers for it? You?
The last word didn't drop - it went in. Clean. Like a blow with the wager already behind it.
Oleg didn't answer at once. His fingers rested on the table's edge and held. He knew: if it cracks, you go alone - without a shout.
There was no doubt in him. He knew each word costs a saddle. Each silence - a neck. He knew what he was staking.
- From the south, from the east. From beyond the Don, from the Vorskla. I'll bring them out. I'll find them. I'll settle them. I'll show where, I'll name how many, I'll agree on what. And if they break, I - not you - will open the gates to them. I will close them. While they stand, they stand on my blood. If they fall, I'm beneath them. Not on a list. In person. Face in the dust, if it comes to that
He wasn't throwing a challenge. He wasn't peddling an idea.
He stood. Without another word. And now all of it - was him. The hall understood: the idea was no longer air. It was this man. His back. His name. His last breath - if it cracked.
The air shifted. Not fresh - edged.
Everyone saw him stand. No one stepped beside him. No nods, no backing murmurs. Because if he fell, he'd fall alone. The prince wouldn't hold the hand of a man who had put down his own. The others would keep quiet - and later say, We warned you. Even if they hadn't.
Ignat didn't move. His fist wasn't clenching now - it was holding.
His face was stone, but a predator's flame danced in his eyes. He hated the nomads the way you hate for the blood of your own. Only one thought held him in this moment: now they would be under his nose.
- If they break, - he said quietly, not looking at Oleg but through him, - I'll bury them. All of them. Where my brother rotted in autumn and the earth went thick, rich with guts
There was no threat in his voice. Only a promise.
Oleg didn't hold his tongue - but he didn't flare either. He spoke evenly. And after he spoke, silence grew heavier.
- Only be sure you don't set them up first and then say, "They struck first." You have reasons, Ignat. For your brother. For the woman from his house who didn't come back
A glance caught the sword's hilt. Fingers didn't jerk - but they set down on it. Everyone felt how the bowstring pulled tight.
Ignat lunged - not at Oleg, at the voice. A step, half a breath. Not to strike - to cry out. With a word, a shout, everything that had been standing inside him since those he never brought back were lost.
His hand didn't go to the hilt, but the shoulder twitched like a fighter ready to crash in even empty - handed.
And in that same beat - Alexander's look. Not a bark. Not an order. Just a look.
Ignat froze. His breath crushed in his chest as if a hammer - head had been driven into it. He exhaled - deep, like a man who has inhaled a handful of ash.
- Easy, boyar, - he said slowly. His voice dropped a shade, like a man who hears a rumble in himself but still holds. - Not every truth is yours. And not every debt is cleared by a word
A lamp cracked, dull. A snap - and nothing. Even the drop of wax that fell from the light hit like a finger - flick to the ear - sharp, alien.
The scribe, Simeon, was no longer writing. He only held the quill. Too tightly. As if afraid not to drop it, but to drop himself. His gaze skittered - not over faces, over shadows. And like the rest, he felt it: if blood starts now - no one will stop it.
Alexander didn't move. But his temple was wet. Not sweat. A reminder. Power doesn't shout. It presses - quietly. Until the throat tightens.
Oleg didn't answer at once. His fingers didn't twitch, but they stopped. In his eyes - not retreat, a shadow. As if he remembered he was staking not only a word - but a wager.
Without stakes and shadow, power is a tent in a storm.
These nomads were his chance. A bridge he'd been building. A chance that now, with the princelings gone, he would be in this chamber not the second man - but the needed one.
He didn't stir. But in that instant - he searched. He didn't lift his gaze at once. His fingers stayed on the table, but his eyes slid aside, as if catching not the prince's look but a short nod from someone. The hall held silence. Not refusal, not a hand. A silence that leaves a man alone.
He came back to himself and breathed out. Not heavy. Exact.
- Reproach isn't proof. I knew there would be doubts. I'm not defending them - I'm binding them. If we don't place them, they'll sit themselves. Not in the line - in the gap. Between law and need. Between our side - and against us
He looked up at Alexander, not at Ignat.
- So long as they eat from our pot, the Polovtsian can only swallow his spit. Without us they're dust. With me - they're a thorn. Long, awkward - sticking out. Against us - only if we pull it out ourselves
He wasn't loud. But each word went in like a nail.
- They aren't walls. But if the Polovtsians ride tomorrow and we don't make it - these are the men who take the first blow. And the first smoke won't be from our village
Vyshata clenched a fist. Not in anger - in understanding. He knew it could work. He also knew what it meant: the first blood might be another's - but still under their name.
A dull ripple of looks went through the hall. One or two short nods - the kind you give to a hard necessity. A frown here and there - as men began to tally the ways it could come back to bite.
Dobrynya spoke first. Not loud - but with a crackle in his voice:
- A double - edged blade, Oleg. Today it cuts the Cuman - tomorrow it cuts us. You hold them by a word? A Cuman will do the same - by his word. His blood binds him tighter than we do. Then we won't see smoke - we'll see a hole in our palisade
Heads turned. No one argued. No one nodded.
Dobrynya fell silent. What remained in his words wasn't threat - it was memory. As if he could already see smoke rising not from a hearth but from a wall. Like that time near Kiev - when they missed the hoof - beat because they believed.
The hall went still. A few glances twitched - as if the term had already fallen due.
Alexander held his tongue. Not from doubt - from the count. He didn't look at Dobrynya when he answered. It wasn't tone - it was weight:
- Words break. So we won't hold them by a word. By need. By fear
He lifted his eyes to Oleg - straight. There was no doubt in them. There was a price.
- They come under us not from faith - from a cornered life. If they forget, we remind them. Not with speech. With a hand
The hall didn't erupt - but it breathed out. Some looked away; some clamped onto the map. Not delight. Acceptance - heavy, but needed.
Then came Ignat's step. Not across the floor - across the pause.
He hit the table with his fist. A dull thud. In that dullness - the edge.
- One year, prince. If they break - I'll break them myself
He drew a finger across the table - toward Oleg. No fury. As if underlining a line in a sentence.
- Him too
No one in the hall exhaled. Everyone heard it for what it was: not a threat. A way of agreeing - through a tooth.
Oleg didn't answer. Not with eyes, not with words. He had already staked - and understood: now the stake wasn't his alone.
Now - it was everyone's.
Even those waiting for a failure.
Alexander saw it. He didn't stop it.
Because he knew: the stake had already taken. If it collapsed, he'd strike first. He'd wipe out the ones who broke - and Oleg with them. If it held, he'd gain a frontier. Light cavalry. Eyes.
He wasn't asking for consent. He was waiting for the price. They had named it. Which meant - he could take it.
- Their camp - under our eye. Their elder - on our ledger. Their fires - under watch. If they break, we cut them down. No court. No words. Leave not even ash
He breathed out. Not heavy - like cooling a blade before it goes to the sheath.
- They hold the land until the first treachery. After that - no land. No them. No name
He turned to the scribe. Not to Oleg. Because the decision wasn't personal - it was state.
- Write it. Not as a favor - as a system. The frontier isn't a guest. The frontier is a lock. The key stays with us
A pause. Like an oath. Not silence - a decision.
- The first smoke isn't a summons. It's already ash
The prince fell silent.
The air didn't drop - it quieted.
Wax dripped from Simeon's stylus. He didn't stir.
He wasn't writing. He only listened.
And when it stilled - he was afraid for the first time.
Fear wasn't the last note. What hung in the hall wasn't "if," but "when."
And into that pause - no shout, a bell - tone - rose another voice.
Illarion. The metropolitan.
He stood in shadow like a rock. He'd been silent longer than anyone. But when he spoke, the house - guards straightened, Stanislav slid his elbow off the map. The word didn't come from battle but like a bell above it - higher than hoof - beat.
- You've spoken for walls. For horses. For hay. But not for those all this is for. People in the villages, on the market, at their craft. Not only their souls - their lives are in your hands
He stopped - not for a pause. To let the silence boil, then settle.
- When trouble rises, they must not run without sense. Not into a ford, not into a scream. Off to a side. A clear one. So that even in fear they go without wandering. So they look not for a wall - but for a way. Like to church through fog. Not from fear - toward faith
His words were still ringing when a breath came from a corner. One of the younger guards. Barely audible: "Where does our village go?" - and a hand settled on his shoulder beside him. Not an answer - a vow.
Radomir glanced to the wall, yet his fingers still clenched on his knee. Vyshata cut his eyes toward two younger men at the door and gave himself a short nod: those are the ones who stay if we leave.
Alexander didn't answer at once - he waited for the metropolitan's words to settle in each man like ash in a palm.
Then he looked up to Illarion and gave a short nod - not to a war leader but to an equal in a defense where sword and word hold one line.
- Right. If people scatter without order, everything else breaks without a blow
His finger slid across the map and stopped between Yuriev and Bohuslav.
- Yuriev's district. There's a village on a rise, the road runs to the ford. There - a refuge - yard. Palisade, ditch, gates. A granary with grain, a well under a roof. A pen for stock, pitch for the signal. Inside - the tiun's order (the steward) and the priest's. Outside - the voevoda's order (the war captain). Watchmen are locals, but under the node's seal
- They go there on the sign. No crush. No yelling. An old woman at the gate. A boy with a whistle. They must know where to look, too
Stanislav nodded without lifting his shoulders from the map.
- By Korsun - a yard on the road to the bridge. If that's cut, there's a farm up the ravine. That's the second
His finger moved across the parchment - this time without wax. The mark stayed not on paper but in memory.
- And in Bohuslav - on the bend, - Vyshata added. - Above the town. Gullies all around; easy to stockade
Illarion spoke again. Not as a shepherd now, as a knot set in stone. The voice didn't rise - it pressed.
- You've named where. Now say when. Let the signal be like the bell for matins. Let them move when you call - and wait if trouble hasn't crossed the threshold. And if you call, let it be like a word at an oath. Once. So you don't call - and fail to come. Or call - and come for nothing
His voice didn't sound - it bit in. Like a chisel that makes no noise, yet leaves a cut.
Vyshata nodded - not arguing, carrying on. As if the answer had been waiting just outside the door.
- Three quick on the tocsin - the assembly yard. A long peal - fire. Slow - stand down
He didn't explain - he set the posts along the road.
- They'll hear - they'll know. They won't bolt. They won't run under hooves. They'll stand. And wait. For the sign
He spoke calmly. In that calm was the order that says: if it rings, it has come - and if it has come, do not run. Stand.
From the corner came a dry snort - men remembered last year, when they moved too soon and the horses trampled them.
Alexander's gaze slid to the Dnieper.
- Vytichev. Trepol. Yards not on the riverbank - set back. Up on the terrace - the natural step above the floodplain. Three to five versts. So they don't burn first
Ignat drew breath and already leaned in:
- And in Pereyaslavl…
Alexander didn't let him finish.
- Pereyaslavl - Ignat's. Chernihiv - the men of Chernihiv. You live there - you decide there. I won't say it better
Ignat pressed his lips. No argument. His eyes went to the doorway - as if he were already counting who comes through first when the alarm sounds.
The hall held a pause - not release, an after - vibration. Like a bowstring after the shot: the string is empty, the tremor still holds.
Silence wasn't quiet; it was a delayed step - like the moment before you weigh what a shield weighs, and what you'll pay for it.
Alexander didn't pronounce an ending - because the ending was already there. Now came the count.
The council didn't break - it flowed. From smoke to grain. From spear to cart.
The parchment rustled, not like a scroll - as a billfold. Hands didn't fly up - they calculated.
Radomir didn't step forward - he simply lowered a hand to his bag. Drew out a roll. No hurry, no flourish. As if he were taking out not parchment but a result.
He didn't start speaking. He set it down. The roll. Precisely. As if laying a price against the map - not an opinion.
- What does this all cost? - he asked. Not to the hall. To the air. To the debt.
He didn't wait for an answer.
He rasped - short, like a rusty key catching a broken tooth. His fingers tightened: not illness, a sign that the treasury and the treasurer crack from the same thing - wear.
The treasurer didn't err in number. He erred in breath.
It was enough for all to remember: he's mortal too.
Then he took up a quill. Slowly. As if by that motion alone he canceled the misfire.
He drew a line. Once. Twice. No words. No theater.
- For now - two hundred and fifty, rounded. Not grain - grivnas. That's to start. With towers, iron, horses, fuel, a wagon of clamps, and a slice of harvest we won't gather - because the watch will leave the plow
He didn't lift his eyes. The quill barely moved in his fingers.
- After that - sixty a year. Give or take a mare if one wrenches a leg. Pay, hay, fodder, wax - everything on the count. Not a gift - a system
A brow went up somewhere - rich. No one said a word. It was clear: Radomir wasn't defending the figures - he was holding them. Like a priest holds a censer - so it doesn't swing wide.
- Less than half a raid, - Dobrynya added quietly. - If the nomad rides with five hundred, horses alone will cost him four times that. We - one quarter. For a wall you can't buy with gold or fear
The prince's steward fell silent, but the quiet didn't settle. Men held it - listened to its minted edge. Then Radomir raised his eyes - not to the prince, to all.
- That's the base. Towers. Nodes. Horses. Iron. Beacons. All we need so the corridor along the Ros' - from Vasyliv to Kaniv - is not just a cut through the brush, but lives and lights when it must
He turned a leaf - slowly, not as if opening a ledger but what stands behind it.
- But if we take everything you've just agreed - wave two will cost more than wave one
His voice stayed the same - level as a vault.
- Two hundred men for fast turnout - seven hundred. Ambush - points, as Voivode Stanislav proposed - twenty - four. Refuge - yards, as the hierarch said - another seventy. Rear service, boatmen, grain reserve, ferry, watch over the Torks - together - near three hundred more
He looked the hall over - slowly, not asking - checking who had followed.
- Sum: if we go to the end - eight hundred and fifty on top of the two hundred fifty. And yearly - another five hundred fifty. Near half a grivna per household. But then it isn't merely a border. It's a line where a man can live
Dobrynya cleared his throat - not for show, because he saw farther.
- And still - that's without arrows. Without spring water and the roads the wagons will tear. Without a church - and if the refuge - yard sits in the back country, no icon - no one comes
He wasn't fighting the numbers. He was adding them from memory.
- I'm not naming chain - iron for the gates or brackets for the doors. Or that day a horse dies off - schedule - in full run. All that in a year without fire. And if there is fire?
Radomir nodded. Once. No weight. Simply - yes. He knew. It was already accounted for. Just in other lines. Not ink - salt.
Alexander didn't answer at once. His fingers ran across the table, as if testing what the figures weighed. He didn't argue. He didn't thank. He only breathed out - not air, the sum:
- We counted what can be seen. What falls out falls on us. So the figures aren't a tally, they're a threshold. Step - and you pull it. Fail - and you break
His gaze moved to the boyars. None argued. Only Oleg gave a small shoulder - shift, as if settling a load. Ignat didn't blink - only the bowstring jumped along his cheek. Vyshata clenched his fingers - not in dissent - in taking his share.
They all knew: it won't be tighter than this, and it won't be clearer.
Then - a short quiet. Not doubt. Acceptance.
The prince looked at the roll, then at every face in the hall. And asked:
- How do we divide the burden?
The echo went up into the vaulting and came back as silence. Not because men kept quiet - because they were counting.
Igor spoke first. Rostislavich. A guest. He didn't hold back - he stepped in.
- Novgorod will give. The market too. A tenth. Not fat - but honest. For the road. For the weight of gold - so it arrives
He didn't turn his head, but the look paused a beat, as if he heard behind the wall the men he was shielding. There were no merchants in the chamber, but the words had already reached their purses.
Then - Illarion. The metropolitan spoke not as power, but as duty.
- The Church will give a fifteenth. Grain. Shelter. Candles. Not a gift - a place. So there's someone to bury the dead, and a where for the living to last
His voice didn't tremble. But Simeon, the junior scribe, hearing "a fifteenth," bent to his teacher - quietly, as though he were asking not about a levy but a fate:
- From each household?
Gavriil didn't answer. He only nodded. And breathed out - not heavy, like at an open window in winter.
Oleg looked to the prince but spoke to the hall.
- We hold the frontier - we pay for it. A quarter. Not per horse - per field. With the men who plow and now go on watch
Vyshata didn't cut in - he only folded his arms. Ignat said softly:
- We'll pay it back. Even if not all of it. At least this way
Stanislav stood at the map. Without lifting his eyes he said:
- Half - the prince. And we with him. He answers - he lays down. We hold the shield - then we hold the account
When Stanislav said "half," Alexander didn't step - he reached. Slowly. As if the hand's own motion had to decide whether the world was ready to take the weight.
He took the roll. From Radomir. He didn't snatch - he received. Like a reckoning. Like a gift. Like a stone.
He set it before him. Not as a prince - as a surveyor.
Then he pressed the signet. Exact. No theater.
The wax cracked. Quietly. Enough.
The numbers became a sentence.
And in that sentence was a count - not only in grivnas. In days. In weights. In time.
He didn't go on at once. Only shifted his gaze.
He set his palm on the map - the parchment creaked like ice crust. As if the land under his fingers had to hear.
- From now on - not opinion. Work. Not tomorrow - at first light
He didn't raise his voice. But each syllable set down like a mark on beams.
- Before sowing the spring crops - every plow at the plow. What we do now: mark the spots for beacons, haul clay for braziers, lay out the fire - pits. People - housefolk, elders, boys. Wood - only near. Don't break the draft
- When the roads dry - we set towers, put boats out. After sowing - rotation. By lesson. No pulling twice from one homestead. If a man breaks order - he's pulled. From feed. From place
He spoke not like a prince - like the elder. The one who lays his hand on the wagon first, not only a signet on the wax.
Oleg gave a small nod. No smile, no bow. His fingers touched the belt's ear of grain - and were gone. The scales dipped - but didn't break.
No one else moved. Not because there were no words. Because any word now was either a repeat - or a dig under what was already hammered in.
Even so, Dobrynya spoke. Not in spite - by duty.
- Prince… Do you set the dates yourself? Or do we lay them out?
Alexander nodded - not sharply, as if he'd already heard it inside.
- Already measured. The work fits the season, not the glossary
Then he began. No fanfare. Like a draft through a field.
- Right after the waters fall: repair the ramparts, string - dryers for bowstrings, replenish arrows. By June I want the whole chain of beacons burning
- July - August: fill out the mounted hundreds, drill the routes, run "practice alarms."
- Autumn: haul grain to the nodes, replace rotten palisades, shutter wells. Fewer watchmen in winter, but the towers don't go dark
He added nothing more. Only drew his palm across the map - not as a prince, as a tiller. As if he were cutting a furrow, not a border.
The work began. Not with noise - with weight.
From this day the silence will be the watch. The fires - the script. And each man who climbs a tower will not just be an eye - he'll be an age looking forward.
Spring smells of sowing. This year - of smoke as well.