She was a widow. A mother. Surrounded by enemies who had just murdered her husband.

The Drevlians expected her to surrender. They sent twenty ambassadors to Kiev with a marriage proposal. They were certain she had no real choice.

They were wrong.

Princess Olga of Kiev (c. 890-969 AD) answered the murder of her husband with four acts of methodical vengeance -- each more calculated than the last -- culminating in one of the strangest military tactics ever recorded. She asked the besieged city for three sparrows from every household. They gave them to her. What happened next became legend.

This is the full story: the primary sources, the scholarly debates, and the true history of a woman who turned grief into governance -- and fire into a political instrument.

Episode 1 of Scorned Empire. Where the betrayed become legen ...