The undercroft greeted them with cold.
Radomir raised the torch and touched its flame to the wick of a lamp set in the wall. Light spread slowly through the wide cellar.
To the left lay furs - sacks and bundles of pelts bound with leather straps. Fox. Beaver. Marten. The soft fur caught the firelight with a dull sheen. To the right iron was piled in dark heaps: bars, spearheads, bundles of clamps, axe heads.
Farther in stood barrels of wax and honey. Between them were jars of spices, sacks of salt, and bags of grain. Along the walls stood chests sealed with lead stamps. There was hardly any empty space.
Above them the heavy beams of the ceiling vanished into shadow.
Stanislav came down after them. Behind the voivode a guardsman followed quietly, carrying another torch.
Alexander walked behind Radomir, studying the storehouse.
Furs. Iron. Barrels of wax. Sacks of grain.
The chests were closed, bound with cord, and sealed with lead. Nothing about them revealed what lay inside. Alexander stepped to one of the chests and ran his fingers over the lead seal. Then he tapped the lid with his knuckles.
A dull sound.
He moved to another and knocked the same way.
The same sound again.
No silver in sight. No ingots. No grivnas. No sacks of coin.
He straightened.
"Where is the silver? The grivnas. The gold."
Radomir stopped.
The torch lifted slightly in his hand. One eyebrow twitched almost imperceptibly. He studied the prince more closely than before.
"In the undercroft of Saint Sophia's cathedral, my prince."
He turned the torch, letting the light pass over the rows of sacks and chests.
"The great treasury is kept there. Ingots. Regalia. Books. Icons. Beneath stone."
He said it calmly, as something long known.
"Under the seal of the Metropolitan. Not in the princely court."
Alexander paused for a moment. His gaze moved across the chests, the sacks of fur, the iron by the wall. Radomir watched him carefully, as if to see whether the prince understood.
Then he added in the same quiet tone:
"This here is the trade treasury. Everything with which Rus pays the world."
Alexander nodded slowly and lifted a sable pelt. The fur smelled faintly of cold and animal. He ran his fingers through the thick coat.
Smooth.
For a moment it felt as if Rus itself lay in his hands - rich prey already watched by dozens of hunters.
"Good," he said at last. "Then tell me - how much comes into the treasury in a year?"
"Last year, sixteen thousand grivnas by weight. This year it will be less."
Radomir lowered the torch slightly and stepped closer to the prince.
"You know why."
The torch crackled softly in his hand.
"The mud season. And… changes on the princely thrones."
Alexander listened in silence. It was clear enough: the treasury would bring in less this year. But the year had only just begun. There was still time to change that.
Alexander shifted his gaze to the old man.
"What brings such income?"
Radomir did not answer at once.
The torch in his hand dipped slightly. He looked at the prince in silence, as though he had expected a different question. Alexander tilted his head a little, meeting his gaze without blinking. Stanislav, who had been examining the iron by the wall, glanced over at them. A moment later the guardsman by the barrels lifted his head as well.
Radomir was the first to look away.
"Tribute. And regular levies from the volosts - fur, wax, honey, fish, flax, hemp, iron, salt. Part of it we later turn into silver. Fur and wax are our foundation. We sell them to our neighbors."
He gestured toward the sacks of fur, then walked to the barrels - pine and oak, bound with iron hoops. Seals hung from the lids: cord drawn across the boards, a lead stamp bearing the princely mark.
Alexander set the sable aside and stepped closer.
Radomir cut the seal with a knife and pushed the lid back. Inside lay blocks of wax - yellow, dense. Alexander leaned over. He had expected candles. Instead the wax lay raw, stacked in even pieces, almost like ingots.
Radomir took out two blocks and placed them in the prince's palm.
"Fur is the most valuable," he said, "but wax sells the most. Everyone needs it - churches, great houses, empires."
Alexander turned the blocks in his hands. They smelled faintly of honey and smoke. From one of these a hundred candles could be made - light for a church - or a merchant could carry a dozen such bars south and sell them for three times the price.
Stanislav came closer and gave a quiet grunt.
"Merchants fight over fur," he said. "But without wax, even a church sits in darkness."
Radomir glanced at him - the look one gives a man who has stated the obvious - and nodded briefly.
Alexander suddenly tossed one of the wax blocks lightly into the air. The dark yellow bar turned once and landed heavily in his palm. He threw it again and caught it again. A thin trace of resin remained on his fingers.
"All this only for candles?"
"Among the Greeks and the Latins, candles burn by the thousands," Radomir said evenly, watching the prince's hand. "Wax is costly there. For churches. For palaces. That is why we keep it here."
Alexander tossed the block once more and caught it harder this time. The wax cracked softly in his grip and a small corner broke away. The smell of resin thickened in the air.
The prince lifted his eyes toward the darkness of the undercroft.
"So if wax stops moving… it will not only be churches that grow darker."
Radomir watched the way he held the block.
"That is why we keep it, my prince."
Alexander nodded and set the wax back into the barrel.
Then he looked down at his hands.
His fingers had darkened with wax. Almost without thinking he rubbed one palm against the other, trying to wipe away the sticky film, and frowned.
The prince glanced around as if searching for something to wipe his hands with.
The keeper had already begun closing the barrel. The lid dropped back into place, the cord crossed over it, the knot tightened. A fresh lead seal was pressed onto the line.
Radomir walked on between the rows, but when he did not hear the prince's steps behind him, he stopped and turned.
Alexander was still standing by the barrel, studying his hands. He lifted his head and looked toward Stanislav and the guardsman.
"Is there a clean cloth?"
Both men paused for a moment. Stanislav frowned, as if he had not quite understood the question. The guardsman had already opened his mouth to answer when the keeper spoke first.
"There is, my prince. Over there, in the chest with the cloth," he said, nodding toward a row of chests. "Or upstairs, in the counting room."
He spoke calmly - to him it was simply another kind of goods.
Alexander turned to him and gave a short nod.
"Open it. I need to wipe my hands."
The keeper stepped to the nearest chest.
At that moment Radomir returned and stopped beside Stanislav and the guardsman. He saw the prince rubbing his fingers together again, trying to scrape the wax away.
A faint grimace flickered across Alexander's face.
Stanislav cast him a brief sideways glance. The prince was still rubbing his fingers, as though the wax burned the skin. One of the voivode's brows twitched slightly.
The keeper had already lifted the lid of the chest. Inside lay folded pieces of cloth. He tore off a small strip and handed it to the prince.
Alexander took it and began wiping his hands at once.
His movements were quick and precise. He worked carefully over his fingers, between them, across his palms - as though he had done this many times before.
The wax came off quickly.
The prince squeezed the cloth, testing whether any stickiness remained, and only then lowered his hand.
Radomir stood beside Stanislav and said quietly, without taking his eyes off the prince,
"A careful prince."
Stanislav did not even turn his head.
"Mind the treasury, Radomir."
And he walked on along the rows of iron.
After wiping his hands, Alexander returned the cloth to the keeper. The man made a brief mark on a strip of birch bark and left the chest of cloth open.
Alexander moved on, his eyes passing over the rows of goods while his mind quietly measured how each of them might turn into silver. From a corner came the bitter smell of hemp and the salty crumble of dried salt spilling from cracked bundles.
Without turning, he asked,
"What other sources of income are there? You did not name them all."
Radomir no longer walked ahead of him but beside him now.
"That is true. Beyond fur, wax, honey, and the rest, a large income comes from the myto - trade tolls from towns and river crossings. Kiev. Novgorod. Smolensk…"
Alexander caught the word at once.
"A toll? On every good?"
Radomir shook his head.
"No, my prince. Myto is a toll on trade itself. For the road. For the market. For the crossing. For entering a town."
He gestured toward the rows of goods.
"A merchant travels across Rus and pays at every node - in Novgorod, in Smolensk, here. That is why the revenue grows large."
Alexander stopped beside several weathered barrels of salt.
"And it is still profitable for them?"
"It must be. Otherwise they would not come. In Novgorod fur is cheap. Among the Greeks the same sable brings ten times the price."
Alexander looked over the rows of fur. The salt. The iron along the wall.
How had he not seen it before? It was simple.
Fur, wax, honey - goods the southern lands could not do without. Byzantium and the western lands needed them constantly. Even after all the tolls, the merchant still walked away with a strong profit.
Seeing that the prince had fallen into thought, Radomir added,
"The tolls themselves are small, my prince. Better to take a little from every caravan than a great deal only once."
Alexander nodded. It made sense. Press merchants too hard and the road would simply bend elsewhere.
Radomir continued calmly, as if turning another line of accounts in his mind.
"There are also judicial fines. Wergilds and penalties. For murder - forty grivnas, by the laws of your father. For killing a princely man, more."
He spoke of it with the same even tone he had used for wax and fur.
The torch crackled softly. A drop of resin broke loose and struck the stone.
Radomir paused a moment, as if calculating the figures.
"The income is small."
Alexander said nothing. He walked farther along the rows and stopped beside a barrel standing near the far wall.
It looked as though it had been placed there later than the others. A narrow gap remained between it and its neighbors, and on the floor a fresh arc showed where the barrel had recently been dragged. Dust lay evenly across the lid, yet the iron hoop around its neck was cleaner.
He stepped closer.
The barrel smelled of honey, but weaker than the rest. Those nearer the passage gave off a stronger sweetness; honey had seeped through their cracks, clung to the wood, and filled the cellar with its scent.
"Show me this one," he said.
The keeper froze.
The undercroft seemed to grow quieter.
Radomir cast a brief glance at the barrel, then at the prince. The pause lasted a moment longer than a simple inspection required. Only then did he nod to the keeper.
The man removed the tag.
"Novgorod. Wax / honey. Third week."
The tongs snapped shut. The seal split cleanly, the fragments dropping into a pouch, and the sound rang unexpectedly loud beneath the beams of the cellar.
The cord snapped. The plug creaked from its groove, and the smell of honey deepened.
Radomir did not hurry.
"Look, my prince."
He tilted the barrel. The keeper dipped a small ladle and lifted it again, a thin thread of honey stretching downward. Radomir ran a finger along the edge and drew a drop between his fingers. It held together, shining in the torchlight.
"Good pull. No water. No sourness. The weight should match the mark."
Alexander watched the honey in silence. It was thick and clear.
Then he slowly straightened, looked at Radomir, and said simply,
"Excellent."
Alexander moved toward the far wall. In a shallow niche rows of iron ingots lay stacked there - dark, heavy, streaked with rust.
The smell changed. The sweetness of honey faded, replaced by the dry bitterness of scorched metal and damp iron.
He ran his palm across the top ingot. At once his skin darkened with a gray film.
"Where does the silver go?" he asked, still looking at the iron.
Radomir answered immediately, as if he had long expected the question.
"To the druzhina. Garrisons, fodder, horses, iron. Wages for the men."
"How much?"
Alexander slowly turned his head.
Radomir gave a slight shrug.
"More than half."
The torch crackled softly.
Alexander held his gaze on the flame for a moment, as though making sure he had heard correctly.
"More than half?"
Radomir was about to answer when Stanislav spoke beside them.
"That is so."
Alexander turned toward the voivode.
"What surprises you, prince? Did you not have a druzhina before?"
Alexander said nothing.
His fingers clenched into fists on their own, then slowly loosened again. Weakness could not be shown. There was too much in this world he still did not remember the way a prince was meant to remember it.
Stanislav did not wait for an answer.
He stepped closer to the iron, picked up one of the rods, and bent it in his hands. The metal creaked faintly.
"Soft."
He tossed the rod back onto the pile.
"The druzhina's trust is much the same."
The voivode looked at the prince. The gaze was heavy and unexpected.
For a moment Alexander felt his heart drop, then begin to beat faster, harder. Since waking in this world fear had rarely come to him. But the voivode's words sent blood rushing through him.
"I see you do not hesitate to speak plainly."
Stanislav's face did not change.
"My prince, the druzhina and I serve by honor and oath. But men do not live by oath alone."
He let his gaze pass briefly over Radomir and the keeper standing nearby, then returned it to the prince.
"Today, at the midday meal, I have gathered the senior men of the druzhina."
He said it calmly.
"We shall see whether you are worthy to lead your father's druzhina."
With that the voivode walked past the prince toward the stairs leading up to the counting room. The guardsman followed him at once.
Alexander watched the voivode's back grow smaller until it disappeared into the stairway.
The keeper lowered his head even further. Any careless word now could cost dearly.
Radomir stood beside the prince in silence, watching him as Alexander continued to stare toward the stairs.
A few moments later the warriors Mstislav and Mirnomir descended the steps and came toward them.
Alexander looked away and turned back to Radomir. The old man met his gaze as if nothing at all had just happened.
The prince did not speak immediately.
"Besides the druzhina… what else?"
"The Church and the scribes. The court and administration. Roads and trade. Gifts to envoys."
Radomir spoke in the same even tone, as if turning through another column of accounts.
"Whatever remains becomes the reserve."
Alexander held his gaze for a moment.
For an instant everyone was silent. Above them, in the counting room, a board creaked dully.
"Good," Alexander said at last. "We'll continue our conversation upstairs."
He turned and walked toward the stairs. Torches swayed, and shadows crept along the walls. Mstislav stepped forward to light the way, the keeper hurrying after him.
Radomir did not move at once.
He watched the prince go. Alexander's shoulders remained steady, yet for a moment his hand paused at his belt, as though steadying a tremor.
Mirnomir, following the prince, glanced back. The old man still stood among the iron ingots. Their eyes met for a brief moment.
Radomir inclined his head slightly.
Only then did he move.
He adjusted his belt and followed them.
The undercroft filled with the echo of their footsteps.
The smell of honey, iron, and damp earth remained below - together with the quiet crackle of the torches.