He went up to his own room in the top of his lofty tower and sat down at the table to write on a scroll of parchment, but it was no psalm or cathedral hymn which the turbulent scholar wrote. It was an invitation to a feast and ran thus:
“Whosoever wishes to eat savoury viands ready to his hand and without cost to himself, as well as to drink green wine of priceless value and to wear embroidered robes of the best, let him come to the court of Vasily at once and instantly.”
He wrote out this invitation many times and then gathering up the scrolls went to the open window. Here he fitted each of the parchments to a stout arrow and shot them into the city, which was about two miles away; and as the men of Novgorod came from church they gathered up these strange missives in the streets and lanes and broad paven courtyards. Many of them wondered, and they came together in groups gravely discussing the marvellous matter, until a priest came along from the church and read one of the scrolls which was attached to the arrow. Then the word buzzed round the town, “Vasily the Turbulent commandeth us to an honourable feast.” And the men of Novgorod the Great thought that now their chance had surely come to pay off the long score against the man who troubled the peace of their trading city.
Meanwhile Vasily was making preparation for his guests, and he meant to use the occasion to select for himself a brave bodyguard. The test for admission to this very select and honourable company was to be so severe that Vasily would be perfectly sure of gaining protectors of the bravest. He rolled a great cask of green wine from the vaults and set it up in the middle of the banquet-hall, saying to himself, “Whoever shall lift in one hand a cup of this wine and shall drain it at one breath, and shall likewise stand upright after a blow from my cudgel of red elm, shall make one of my brave bodyguard.” Then he went to his room in the top of the lofty tower and lying down upon his heroic bed of smooth planks slept the sleep of Ilya the Old Cossáck.
The next morning, very early, his widow mother paced the passages of her palace and chanced to look out upon the broad courtyard. To her surprise she saw that it was crowded with a great company of the men of Novgorod. In trembling haste she ascended the tall tower and roused her unruly son from his heavy sleep.
“Do you sleep, Vasily,” she said, “and take your ease and care nothing for the peril which is even now at your gates? See, a company of angry men make your courtyard as black as a raven’s wing.”
The young man at once sprang to his nimble feet, grasped his great club of red elm in his white hands, and went out into the wide courtyard.
“Ho, there, Vasily the Turbulent,” shouted some of the foremost of the guests. “We have come to your banquet and are determined to eat up all your stores of food, to drink up your green wine, to wear your embroidered robes, and then drag forth your golden treasures.”
The tone of the acceptance of the invitation could scarcely be described as polite, and it roused the hot blood of Vasily the Turbulent. He leapt forth into the courtyard, grasped his club of red elm with a firm grip and began to brandish it. Wherever he swung it forward an open lane appeared among the crowd, and when he drew it backward he made an alley. Soon the men of Novgorod were lying in great heaps in the courtyard, while the rest went back to the town; and Vasily climbed once more to his chamber at the top of the tall tower.
After a while there came a black-browed handmaid to the door of the chamber, and calling Vasily outside she told him that the New Trader wished to join his bodyguard; and Vasily came down to the hall where the young man stood near the great vat of green wine. He was a comely youth with black curls upon a white brow, and blue eyes which looked ever into the distance, as if he sighted new lands afar off and cared not for the trodden ways. As soon as he saw him standing there proudly erect, Vasily advanced swiftly upon him, grasping his great club of red elm, and smote him a stunning, staggering blow. But the young man was neither stunned nor did he stagger. He stood firm under that heavy blow, the black curls upon his forehead did not move, and the wine from the full cup in his hand was not spilt.