ings on a knoll overlooking the Opir River. The boyar’s house was built of thick, smoothly-planed fir logs, dove-tailed at the corners, similar to those still built in some Ukrainian villages today. Its roof was of heavy wooden shingles covered by a thick coating of red waterproof clay. The windows, as in all houses of that period, were cut out in the southern wall of the house. Instead of panes of glass, cattle bladder membrane was used, stretched out on frames, diffusing a weak yellowish light into the interior. The doors at the front and back of the house led into a long hall whose walls were hung with diverse pieces of armor and weapons, with horns of stags, and bison, with skins of boars, wolves and bears. On either side of the hall were doors leading into spacious, high-ceiling chambers containing ovens of clay and handsomely carved shelves for dishes. One of the rooms was Tuhar Wolf’s and on the opposite side of the hall his daughter’s. In back were two wide store rooms, one used as a kitchen and the other as servants’ quarters. In the boyar’s living room the walls were draped with bear skins except by the bed where hung an expensive Persian rug, probably acquired by the boyar while on some military expedition East. There also hung his bows, hunting knives and other weapons. Peace-Renown’s room, hung with gleaming soft furs and bedecked with flowers had also its floors covered with deep, soft furs. On the wall opposite the windows, directly over her bed, hung an expensive metallic mirror and beside it a wooden, silver-encrusted “Teorban”, a four-stringed musical instrument, the beloved friend and confidante of Peace-Renown’s girlish musings and day-dreams.
In a glen not far from the house, were the stables, barns and other farm buildings including a small cottage for the herdsmen. But today, a quiet desolation reigned in the spacious boyar domicile. The boyar and Peace-Renown were away, the servants had been dismissed, the animals ordered driven to herd with a neighboring Korchenian settler; only the archers
111
