Part 7

But even this terrible revenge was not enough for the implacable widow. Those were days when news crept slowly, and the Drevlians did not dream of Olga's treachery. Once more she sent them a deceitful message: "I am about to repair to you, and beg you to get ready a large quantity of hydromel in the place where my husband was killed, that I may weep over his tomb and honor him with the trizna [funeral banquet]."

The Drevlians, full of joy at this message, gathered honey in quantities and brewed it into hydromel. Then Olga sought the tomb, followed by a small guard who were only lightly armed. For a while she wept over the tomb. Then she ordered a great mound of honor to be heaped over it. When this was done she directed the trizna to be set out.

The Drevlians drank freely, while the men of Kief served them with the intoxicating beverage.

"Where are the friends whom we sent to you?" they asked.

"They are coming with the friends of my husband," she replied.

And so the feast went on until the unsuspecting Drevlians were stupid with drink. Then Olga bade her guards draw their weapons and slay her foes, and a great slaughter began. When it ended, five thousand Drevlians lay dead at her feet.

Olga's revenge was far from being complete: her thirst for blood grew as it was fed. She returned to Kief, collected her army, took her young son with her that he might early learn the art of war, and returned inspired by the rage of vengeance to the land of the Drevlians.

Here she laid waste the country and destroyed the towns. In the end she came to the capital, Korosten, and laid siege to it. Its name meant "wall of bark," so that it was, no doubt, a town of wood, as probably all the Russian towns at that time were.

The siege went on, but the inhabitants defended themselves obstinately, for they knew now the spirit of the woman with whom they had to contend. So a long time passed and Korosten still held out.

Finding that force would not serve, Olga tried stratagem, in which she was such an adept.

"Why do you hold out so foolishly?" she said. "You know that all your other towns are in my power, and your countrypeople are peacefully tilling their fields while you are uselessly dying of hunger. You would be wise to yield; you have no more to fear from me; I have taken full revenge for my slain husband."

The Drevlians, to conciliate her, offered a tribute of honey and furs. This she refused, with a show of generosity, and said that she would ask no more from them than a tribute of a pigeon and three sparrows from each house.

Gladdened by the lightness of this request, the Drevlians quickly gathered the birds asked for, and sent them out to the invading army. They did not dream what treachery lay in Olga's cruel heart. That evening she let all the birds loose with lighted matches tied to their tails. Back to their nests in the town they flew, and soon Korosten was in flames in a thousand places.

In terror the inhabitants fled through their gates, but the soldiers of the bloodthirsty queen awaited them outside, sword in hand, with orders to cut them down without mercy as they appeared. The prince and all the leading men of the state perished, and only the lowest of the populace were left alive, while the whole land thereafter was laid under a load of tribute so heavy that it devastated the country like an invading army and caused the people to groan bitterly beneath the burden.

And thus it was that Olga the widow took revenge upon the murderers of her fallen lord.

VLADIMIR THE GREAT.

Vladimir, Grand Prince of Russia before and after the year 1000, won the name not only of Vladimir the Great but of St. Vladimir, though he was as great a reprobate as he was a soldier and monarch, and as unregenerate a sinner as ever sat on a throne. But it was he who made Russia a Christian country, and in reward the Russian Church still looks upon him as "coequal with the Apostles." What he did to deserve this high honor we shall see.

Sviatoslaf, the son of Olga, had proved a hardy soldier. He disdained the palace and lived in the camp. In his marches he took no tent or baggage, but slept in the open air, lived on horse-flesh broiled by himself upon the coals, and showed all the endurance of a Cossack warrior born in the snows. After years of warfare he fell on the field of battle, and his skull, ornamented with a circle of gold, became a drinking-cup for the prince of the Petchenegans, by whose hands he had been slain. His empire was divided between his three sons, Yaropolk reigning in Kief, Oleg becoming prince of the Drevlians, and Vladimir taking Rurik's old capital of Novgorod.

These brothers did not long dwell in harmony. War broke out between Yaropolk and Oleg, and the latter was killed. Vladimir, fearing that his turn would come next, fled to the country of the Varangians, and Yaropolk became lord over all Russia. It is the story of the fugitive prince, and how he made his way from flight to empire and from empire to sainthood, that we are now about to tell.

For two years Vladimir dwelt with his Varangian kinsmen, during which time he lived the wild life of a Norseman, joining the bold vikings in their raids for booty far and wide over the seas of Europe. Then, gathering a large band of Varangian adventurers, he returned to Novgorod, drove out the men of Yaropolk, and sent word by them to his brother that he would soon call upon him at Kief.

Vladimir quickly proved himself a prince of barbarian instincts. In Polotsk ruled Rogvolod, a Varangian prince, whose daughter Rogneda, famed for her beauty, was betrothed to Yaropolk. Vladimir demanded her hand, but received an insulting reply.

"I will never unboot the son of a slave," said the haughty princess.

It was the custom at that time for brides, on the wedding night, to pull off the boots of their husbands; and Vladimir's mother had been one of Queen Olga's slave women.

But insults like this, to men like Vladimir, are apt to breed bloodshed. Hot with revengeful fury, he marched against Polotsk, killed in battle Rogvolod and his two sons, and forced the disdainful princess to accept his hand still red with her father's blood.

Then he marched against Kief, where Yaropolk, who seems to have had more ambition than courage, shut himself up within the walls. These walls were strong, the people were faithful, and Kief might long have defied its assailant had not treachery dwelt within. Vladimir had secretly bought over a villain named Blude, one of Yaropolk's trusted councillors, who filled his master's mind with suspicion of the people of Kief and persuaded him to fly for safety. His flight gave Kief into his brother's hands.

To Rodnia fled the fugitive prince, where he was closely besieged by Vladimir, to whose aid came a famine so fierce that it still gives point to a common Russian proverb. Flight or surrender became necessary. Yaropolk might have found strong friends among some of the powerful native tribes, but the voice of the traitor was still at his ear, and at Blude's suggestion he gave himself up to Vladimir. It was like the sheep yielding himself to the wolf. By the victor's order Yaropolk was slain in his father's palace.

And now the traitor sought his reward. Vladimir felt that it was to Blude he owed his empire, and for three days he so loaded him with honors and dignities that the false-hearted wretch deemed himself the greatest among the Russians.

But the villain had been playing with edge tools. At the end of the three days Vladimir called Blude before him.