Russka

by Edward Rutherfurd

  The state of Muscovy might yearn to possess the Baltic ports that would give them free access to the west but here at Moscow, her heart and mind would be safe, impenetrable, protected by mighty walls that should never be broken down. Neither Tatars with sword and fire, nor treacherous Catholic, nor cunning Jew should ever enter and conquer here. This was Russia’s protection against fear.

  A great procession was moving from the city gates. The clergy was coming led by the Metropolitan. With banners, icons, shining vestments, they came from the huge walled city with its gleaming domes, under the heavy grey and orange sky, while the air was riven with a thousand crashing bells. They were coming to greet the Tsar.

  ‘Slava – all praise. Conqueror, saviour of Christians.’

  And it was on this day that Boris heard the soldiers give a new name to the conquering Tsar Ivan. They were calling him Grozny – meaning ‘Awesome’, ‘Dread’, or, as it is usually if inaccurately rendered: ‘Terrible’.

  The snows had already fallen when his wedding day arrived.

  A few friends, all made in the last year, came to the little house in the White Town suburb to collect him; but despite their attempts at gaiety, he felt very much alone.

  Already, though it was less than a month before, the triumphant return to Moscow seemed far away.

  What a day that had been! After Metropolitan Macarius had made his speech of welcome, Ivan had replied, comparing the Tatar yoke to the captivity of the ancient Hebrews. Even Boris had felt like a hero as they passed through the city gates and came to Red Square and the mighty Kremlin.

  He had felt like a hero as he drank in the taverns with the other young fellows. He had felt like a conqueror when he came out into the night and walked about the citadel admiringly.

  The huge space of Red Square had been nearly empty. In summer, it was full of market stalls, though in winter the whole market moved down on to the frozen river below. The big open space stretched away before him like the empty steppe. Beside it rose the massive, impenetrable walls of the Tsar’s fortress with its vast, high towers. The tallest soared up two hundred feet into the starlit night and somewhere, in that vast, closed fort, dwelt the Tsar. Some day, he had thought contentedly, I’ll be asked to go inside those walls.

  His elated mood had lasted until he had gone into the quarter just east of the Kremlin.

  This was the kitaygorod – the so-called Basket Town – a walled area within which great nobles and the richest merchants dwelt. Here were big houses not only of wood but even of masonry too. The rich nobles were celebrating. The street was full of big sledges pulled by magnificent horses. The coachmen were drinking and talking together. Even by torchlight, he could see splendid furs and oriental carpets piled in the empty sledges, for the comfort of the burly, wealthy men who would in due course stomp out into the night.

  His prospective father-in-law, he had realized, was probably in there somewhere. True, he did not live there – he had a substantial wooden house in the White Town – but he was sure to be at the feast of some powerful men in this noblest quarter. And this knowledge had reminded Boris of the central fact of his life. He was poor.

  Indeed, as his future father-in-law Dimitri Ivanov had made clear, he was only giving Boris his third daughter as a favour to Boris’s father, who had been his friend in bygone years. Not that Boris was making such a brilliant marriage – though it was the best that his poor father had been able to arrange.

  But for Dimitri, it was certainly a sacrifice. The possession of three good-looking daughters was an asset to a noble like him. They were kept in seclusion in the women’s quarters upstairs and could be used to make marriages that would benefit the family. Though young Boris was acceptable by his birth, that was all; and so the dowry that Dimitri gave his youngest daughter Elena was very modest and caused Boris sadly to realize a simple truth. ‘The richer you are, the more people think they ought to give you,’ he sighed.

  As for his feelings about Elena, Boris was both excited and uncertain. His father had arranged the betrothal long before, and it was only when he had come to Moscow before leaving for the Kazan campaign that he had met her.

  He would never forget it. He had entered the big wooden house late one morning. They had offered him bread and salt and, in the proper manner, he had gone to the icons in the red corner, bowed three times and murmured, ‘Lord have mercy.’ It was as he crossed himself from right to left and turned that the girl and her father had entered the room.

  Dimitri was short, fat and bald. He wore a dazzling blue and gold kaftan. His face was broad and narrow-eyed, revealing the existence of a Tatar princess in his family some generations before, of which he was very proud. His beard was full, and red, and reached luxuriantly down his swelling belly over which it was carefully brushed outward like a fan.

  Elena was at his side. She was wearing a long embroidered dress of pinkish red. Her hair was golden and plaited in a single braid down her back. On her head was a modest diadem, and over her face a veil.

  With a faint grunt of satisfaction, Dimitri whipped off the veil and Boris found himself staring at his future wife.

  She was not like her father at all. Her eyes were blue and soft: Boris noticed that at once. They were set rather far apart and were, perhaps, somewhat almond in shape; but that was the only hint that she might be related to this short, cruel-looking man. Her nose was narrow, yet slightly and nervously flared above her broad, rather full mouth. She seemed pale and tense. The muscles in her neck were standing out as she looked up at him.

  She is afraid I may not like her, he saw at once, and this made him feel tender and protective. She does not realize that she is beautiful, he also shrewdly observed. That, too, was good.

  And best of all, as he stared at her thoughtfully, he realized something else: he wanted her. He wanted her with the simple, definitive passion which says: She will be mine to order as I please, and I can make her beautiful.

  ‘I had a fine offer for her the other day,’ Dimitri told him frankly, ‘but I had kissed the cross on this with your father and there’s an end to it.’

  Boris gazed at her. Yes, she was lovely. He started to smile.

  And it was then that the little incident had taken place that caused him, on his wedding day, to be uncertain. It was nothing really. He told himself it meant nothing at all. Elena had looked down at the floor. Yet what was the expression that had flitted across her rather anxious face? Was it disappointment? Or could it conceivably have been disgust? He had looked carefully but been unable to see. Surely if she had utterly disliked him she would have said so to her father? He would not have held Dimitri to his oath in such a circumstance. Or was she remaining silent out of a sense of duty?

  In the few meetings they had had since, he had tried to suggest to her that if she was unhappy in any way she should tell him, but she had modestly assured him that she was not.

  All was well, he told himself, as the party came near Dimitri Ivanov’s house. All would be well.

  And surely, he thought, as they stood together before the priests, surely this was meant to be.

  The Russian marriage service was long. The tall tapers, decorated with marten skins, filled the church with brightness; the air was heavy with the smell of wax and the priests with their long beards and their heavy robes coated with pearls and gemstones seemed almost heavenly presences as they solemnly moved about and the choir chanted. Candlelight, incense, hours of standing: like every Orthodox ceremony, by the time it was over, ‘you knew you had been to church’.

  Boris made his vows and gave the ring which, in the Russian Orthodox manner, was placed on the fourth finger of her right hand. But the most moving moment for him was the point, towards the end of the service, where his bride reverently went down on her knees and prostrated herself before him, lightly tapping his foot with her forehead as a token of her submission.

  It was a very real submission. Like all women of the upper classes, she would be kept in near seclusion. Inde
ed, it was a point of honour with both of them that she should be. She will never demean herself by appearing in public, like a common working woman in the street, he promised himself.

  And similarly, it was a point of honour with her that she should obey her husband. To disobey him would be, to her, as disloyal as if a soldier disobeyed an order from his commander. To contradict him before others would be the act of a mere plebeian.

  Some men made a point of beating their wives and, Boris had heard, the wives took it as a sign of love. Indeed, the famous guide to family conduct, the Domostroi, which had been written by one of the Tsar’s close advisers, gave precise instructions as to how a wife should be whipped, but not beaten with a stick, and even told the husband how to speak to her kindly afterwards, so as not to damage their marital relations.

  But as he looked down at this young woman at his feet whom he scarcely knew but now intensely desired, Boris had no wish to punish her. He wanted only to merge himself with her, to take her in his arms and, though he scarcely realized it himself, to receive from her the warm affection that he had never known.

  So he now experienced a sudden, sharp emotion as, following the custom, he cast the bottom of his long gown over her as a sign of his protection.

  I will love her and protect her, he swore in a silent prayer, and believed that in this moment, before the blazing candles, he had truly become a man.

  At the end of the ceremony, the priest handed them a cup from which both drank and then, in the best Russian manner, he crushed it under his heel.

  As they walked out the guests, who were almost entirely on her side, threw hops over them. They were married. He sighed with relief.

  There was only one small episode which remained in his mind to mar the happy day. It took place at the wedding feast afterwards.

  There were many guests and, as is usual on such occasions, they treated the young man kindly. This being an important family gathering, the women also attended the feast and he made a low obeisance before Dimitri Ivanov’s old mother who, it was said, ruled the whole family down to all her grandchildren from the splendid seclusion of her room on the upper floor. She gave him, he noticed, a nod but not a smile.

  The tables were already piled high with food. At this season he knew there would be goose and swan, well seasoned with saffron. There were blinis served with cream, caviar, the meat pies made with eggs called pirozhki; there was salmon and all manner of sweetmeats – all the rich diet that caused the swollen figures of so many of the men and women crowding the room.

  On a table set to one side, he noticed something else that impressed him – red and white wines from France.

  For though the men of Moscow were not permitted to travel to other lands – indeed, to do so without permission might mean death – the nobles and rich merchants were as familiar with foreign luxury goods as they were ignorant of the way of life of the countries from which these came. To afford such wines at one’s table: this was to be upper class, Boris considered. In his own house he usually drank mead.

  Poor as he was, proud as he was, and small as the dowry had been, Boris could not help feeling a sense of gratification that he had joined himself to these people who were so obviously rich.

  The company sat down to the wedding banquet with the bride and groom put in a place of honour. At once, before the meal properly began, wine was served. Boris drank some and quickly felt a renewed surge of warmth. He had some more, looked at his bride with a little frisson of excitement, and smiled at those around him.

  All was well. Almost. For though he had no great love for Dimitri Ivanov, there was only one person in the room that he hated, and for some reason he had been seated opposite him.

  This was Elena’s brother Feodor. He was a strange creature. While the elder of her two brothers closely resembled his stocky red-headed father, Feodor, aged nineteen, was slim and fair-haired like Elena. His beard was clipped very short and was curled. The rumour was that he had had all his body hair plucked out. Sometimes his face was lightly powdered, but in honour of the occasion he had restrained himself that day; however, it was clear that his face had been massaged and patted with some unguent, and even across the table Boris could pick up the heavy smell of his scent.

  There were many such dandies in Moscow: they were quite fashionable, despite the stern Orthodoxy of the Tsar. Many, though not all, were homosexual. But as Feodor had informed him at their first meeting: ‘I love what is beautiful, Boris: boys or girls. And I take whatever I want.’

  ‘Sheep and horses too, no doubt,’ Boris had replied drily. The practices of some of Feodor’s friends were said to be varied.

  But Feodor had not been at all abashed. He had fixed his hard, shining eyes on Boris.

  ‘Have you tried them?’ he had asked in mock seriousness and then, with a harsh laugh, ‘Perhaps you should.’

  Boris did not care for this, coming from the brother of his bride. There was something harsh and cruel in Feodor, despite his wit and occasional humour, and he had avoided him since.

  For some reason Elena was fond of him. She did not seem to think that his nature was truly vicious – unless, which God forbid, she condoned him? Boris had tried not to think about this possibility.

  But this was the wedding feast. He must try to love them all. Dutifully therefore he raised his glass and smiled when Feodor proposed a toast to him.

  The blow, when it came, was completely unexpected.

  It was halfway through the meal that Feodor, eyeing him calmly, remarked: ‘How nice you two look together.’ And then, before Boris could think of any reply: ‘You should enjoy sitting in your place, Boris. After this, I’m afraid, you’ll be sitting much further down the table from any of us.’ It was said, apparently, with ironic humour, but loud enough for many people to hear.

  Boris started violently.

  ‘I do not think so. The Bobrovs are at least on a level with the Ivanovs.’

  But Feodor only laughed.

  ‘My dear Boris, surely you realize, no one here could ever serve under you.’

  It was an insult: the greatest and most calculated that could have been given. But it was not an idle taunt, as if he had said: ‘Let a dog puke on your mother.’ Boris could not get up and strike him for it. Feodor had made a highly technical statement about his family that could be verified in a book. And it was possible, Boris feared, that what he had said might be true.

  For the entire upper class of Russia, even down to an impoverished little gentleman like himself, was recorded in an enormous and hotly disputed table of precedence. This was the all-important mestnichestvo. It was not a simple system though, like that still existing in England, where a clearly defined structure of office, rank and title allows, to all intents and purposes, the entire upper and official classes to be assigned a place about which there can be no reasonable argument. For the Russian system did not depend upon the position of the individual but of all his ancestors vis-à-vis the ancestors of another man. Thus a man might refuse to sit lower down the table than another at a banquet, or even to take orders from him as an army commander, if he could prove that, say, his great-uncle had occupied a higher position than the other’s grandfather. The mestnichestvo was huge; every noble family brought the most elaborate and impressive family tree they could to the officials who were in charge of it. This tiresome system, towards which most aristocracies are prone, had been developed over the last century or so and brought now to such a point of absurdity, that Tsar Ivan had ordered it to be suspended when the army went on campaign. To do so was the only way of getting any order obeyed.

  At public functions, for instance, great magnates had been known to refuse to sit in the place allocated even when the Tsar commanded – to risk his displeasure and possible ruin rather than yield. For once a family yielded place to another, then that fact, too, became a precedent in the mestnichestvo system that might reduce a family’s standing for generations to come.

  Boris had always understood from his
father that the Bobrovs, thanks to their former service, need yield nothing to the Ivanovs although they were somewhat poor. Was it really possible that his father had been mistaken or had misled him? He had never made enquiries: he had just assumed.

  Could it be that the clan of the three-pronged tamga, of warriors who went back to Kievan times, were of such small account in the state of Muscovy?

  As he looked at Feodor, so confident, so quietly mocking, he began to lose confidence in his own position and started to blush.

  ‘This is no time for such matters.’

  It was Dimitri Ivanov’s voice, cutting through the lull in the general conversation, and for once Boris was grateful to his father-in-law. But for the rest of the evening that sense of embarrassment, as if the ground had given way under his feet, remained with him.

  Late that night the young men of the party escorted the couple back to Boris’s house. It was a small house which, because it had belonged to a priest, was painted white as a sign that the occupant paid no taxes. Boris had been lucky to find it.

  Everything was ready. Following the custom, he had laid sheaves of wheat upon his nuptial bed. And now at last he found himself alone with Elena.

  He looked at her. Did she look thoughtful? Did she look sad? She smiled, a little nervously. He realized that he had not the remotest idea what was in her mind.

  And what was she thinking, this rather quiet, shy fourteen-year-old with the golden hair?

  She was thinking that she could love this young man: that he seemed to her better, if a little slower-witted, than her brother. She was afraid that, being young and inexperienced, she might not know how to please him.