Russka

by Edward Rutherfurd

  As Andrei had hoped, his friend was happy to give him all the information he wanted about the politics of Moscow.

  ‘You came at a good time and you took your letters to the right people,’ Nikita assured him. ‘The Tsar and the boyar Morozov are your friends, and that’s important. The people hate Morozov because he has a silver-plated carriage and he put high taxes on bread and salt, but he’s powerful. His wife and the Tsar’s wife are sisters and their family, the Miloslavskys, control a lot of the court.’ He grinned. ‘Morozov even owns part of the big ironworks you saw at Tula.’

  ‘But we asked for the Tsar’s protection before, and nothing came of it,’ Andrei reminded him.

  ‘True, but things have changed. The first time you asked, the Tsar was younger and your letter arrived in the middle of a popular revolt here. Half the suburbs were in flames and Morozov nearly lost his life. Moscow wasn’t ready to take on a commitment that risked war with Poland. But we’re stronger now and the Tsar’s in control.’

  ‘What about the Church?’ Andrei asked, remembering Bogdan’s words.

  ‘The Church wants union. You know the Patriarch of Jerusalem himself came to Moscow to plead your cause. And we already value your Ukrainian scholars.’

  Andrei knew that the Patriarch of Jerusalem had been in Kiev at the very time of Bogdan’s triumphal entry and that after this he had gone north. He also knew that a number of Ukrainian scholars had recently been set up in a house in the Sparrow Hills at Moscow’s edge. All this seemed to augur well.

  ‘But the greatest and most powerful friend you have is not even our master the Tsar,’ the young man solemnly told him. ‘It’s our new Moscow Patriarch.’ And now Andrei noticed that his host unconsciously dropped his voice a little in respect: ‘Patriarch Nikon.’

  Andrei had noticed that although this new Patriarch had only been chosen the previous year, people already seemed to speak of him with a kind of awe.

  ‘They say,’ Nikita went on, ‘that he may be a new Philaret.’

  This was a remarkable claim. For when, forty years before, the amiable Michael Romanov had been chosen by the Zemsky Sobor as the first Tsar of the new dynasty, it was not long before his father, the austere Patriarch Philaret, was virtually ruling the state for him. Could this new Patriarch, whom he knew to be of humble origins, really be so powerful?

  ‘Wait till you see him,’ Nikita said.

  Nikon’s interest was simple, it appeared. He wanted to see Moscow recognized as the equal if not the highest of the five patriarchates of the Orthodox Church. The dignity of the Moscow Patriarchate had to be raised. They needed more saints. Only a year before, the body of Metropolitan Filip, whom Ivan the Terrible had murdered, had been ceremoniously brought back to Moscow to be venerated in the Kremlin church. He also knew that the Russian Church was backward, its texts corrupt and its scholarship inferior. He wanted to correct all this and, together with the Ukraine, make the ancient lands of Rus a mighty bulwark against the Catholic and other religions of the west.

  ‘He’s already started to reform the prayer book and the liturgy,’ Nikita explained. ‘It seems we’ve even been making the sign of the cross the wrong way.’

  ‘Is there any opposition?’ Andrei wondered.

  ‘Yes. A bit. There’s a small group amongst the senior zealots who don’t approve. They hate change.’ He laughed. ‘I got waylaid in the Kremlin not long ago by some fellow from the provinces called Avvakum – I ask you, what a name! – who went on about it for half an hour until I shut him up. But Nikon’s very powerful and he’ll make short work of any opposition. You can be sure of that. And then, my dear fellow, Moscow will truly be the third Rome,’ he added enthusiastically.

  It was an enthusiasm Andrei could share. This was what the Cossacks wanted to see.

  They were briefly interrupted by a rustling at the entrance as the older of the two women appeared and began quietly to set food on the table. It was a modest meal: fish, a few vegetables, and a sort of gingerbread she had made without eggs or milk, so as not to break the Lenten fast. To wash this down, however, Nikita had allowed himself some of the vodka which was now the drink of all classes in northern Russia.

  Andrei had idly watched these preparations, curious to see whether the younger woman would appear; but she had not. They moved to the table and at once Nikita poured them both a liberal quantity of vodka.

  Andrei was curious to know more about his host. What sort of man was he?

  ‘I’m a small landowner,’ Nikita explained. ‘My family have been service gentry – boyar’s sons, they call us – for a long time. Our estate’s a small place in the Vladimir region. But I hope to rise,’ he confided. He explained that the next step up would be to join the more select, so-called Moscow Gentry that Ivan the Terrible had founded with his chosen thousand retainers. ‘And who knows, after that? People like me have even become boyars – the highest rank of all.’

  His modest education, it turned out, was a great advantage to him because it allowed him to make himself useful in his government department.

  ‘It was because my mother taught me Polish that I was chosen for this part of my department,’ he added. ‘We have special responsibility for Cossack affairs.’

  Andrei knew that the government department – the prikaz – was one of the ways to advancement in the Tsar’s service and he was curious about it. Nikita was happy to tell him more, describing the work of his unit with pride. Yet the more Andrei listened, the more puzzled he became.

  For as well as Cossack affairs, it seemed Nikita’s prikaz dealt with honey production, the Tsar’s falcons, and numerous other matters that seemed to be completely unrelated to its main task. When he questioned Nikita about this, the young clerk only grinned.

  ‘Every prikaz is the same in Moscow,’ he said. ‘You see, each department grew up because some particular matter had to be dealt with; and when something new turns up, it’s just given to whoever happens to be free. There are at least three other departments dealing with you Cossacks, as well as my own.’

  ‘Isn’t it confusing?’

  ‘It is until you know your way around. But it’s useful too, you know. The thing is to try to get your finger into as many pies as possible.’

  As Nikita began to describe the extensive and hopelessly confused Russian bureaucracy, Andrei’s head began to swim. How, with so much red tape, so much overlapping of responsibilities, was it ever possible to get anything done? Try though he might, the more he listened, the less he could see any answer to this question – which, indeed, was not surprising, since any Muscovite at that date could have told him that there was no solution to the problem of government red tape.

  They drank numerous toasts: to the Ukraine, to Holy Russia, to the Cossacks. Nikita was anxious to know the Cossacks’ military strength and Andrei assured him of their fitness.

  ‘Because if we accept the Ukraine, it will mean war with Poland,’ the young man remarked seriously.

  For his part, Andrei wanted to know about the many people from other countries he had seen in Moscow. Who were they? At this, Nikita became vehement.

  ‘Damned foreigners,’ he cursed. ‘We need them, that’s the trouble. Do you know why, my dear Cossack?’

  Andrei was not sure.

  ‘Because you and I aren’t good enough, that’s why.’ He sighed. ‘It’s the same problem Ivan the Terrible faced. Most of our history, you see, our enemy has been the horsemen, usually from the east. People like my ancestors – and nowadays you Cossacks – know how to fight the Tatars. But now we have even more powerful people we need to fight: the Germans, the Swedes, the powers up in the Baltic. We want to conquer the Baltic and dominate its trade, but these people have science and military expertise that we do not possess.

  ‘Why do you think I am a clerk in a prikaz when my ancestors were warriors? It’s because the Tsar doesn’t need poor amateurs like a Bobrov to lead his men. He needs Dutch and German engineers, Scottish mercenaries, even English adventure
rs. They’re the people who we’re recruiting to be our officers now. They know how to fight trained infantry. They understand siege warfare and modern artillery.’

  ‘What about the streltsy?’ Andrei had always understood the famous musketeers were formidable.

  ‘Good in their day – in the time of Ivan the Terrible. Hopelessly out of date now, both in tactics and weapons. They’ve got lazy too.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘No, we must be humble and learn from the west, my friend. They possess so much knowledge.’

  These thoughts seemed to depress him. They depressed Andrei too, for this new world hardly sounded promising for the half-disciplined Cossacks either. Nikita poured them both more vodka, which they downed. Nikita poured again. Then he suddenly brightened.

  ‘Of course, once we’ve learned their damned western science – Dutch cunning we call it in Moscow – then we’ll kick them all out.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Andrei appreciatively. ‘I’ll drink to that.’

  And so, though they did not know it, the two men, with their poor smattering of education, drank cheerfully to the greatest weakness of the Muscovite state.

  For, like almost everyone, even amongst the elite in Moscow, these young men were entirely unaware of the centuries of culture that these uncomfortable western neighbours represented. Of the great philosophical debates of the Middle Ages they were entirely ignorant. Of the Renaissance they knew almost nothing. For the slow growth of a complex political and economic society in Western Europe, they cared not at all. The Russians had seen only the military power of the west and supposed that if they copied it, they had discovered all they needed. Thus they reached out to touch, not substance, but merely the dancing shadows cast upon Russia’s walls.

  ‘What about the foreign merchants?’ Andrei asked. ‘I’ve noticed a great many.’

  Nikita shrugged.

  ‘They’re all heretics. Patriarch Nikon has known how to deal with them, I must say. The reason you notice them is that the Patriarch made them all wear their own national dress, even if they’ve been here a generation or more. That way they can’t conceal themselves. You know they’re not allowed to live in the city any more?’

  Andrei had heard of the so-called German quarter – the contemptuous Russian words actually meant ‘Dumb people’s quarter’ – outside the city, but had not realized that it was a sort of ghetto.

  ‘That was Nikon too,’ Nikita said approvingly.

  ‘I don’t see any Jews.’

  ‘No. The Tsar won’t have them.’

  ‘That’s good,’ the Cossack said.

  ‘There’s only one other kind of foreigner that’s banned – at least from the capital.’

  ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘The English, of course.’

  ‘The English?’ The young Cossack from the south did not know a great deal about this distant nation. ‘Are they terrible heretics?’

  ‘Worse. Didn’t you know?’ Nikita involuntarily lowered his voice even to speak of the horror. ‘They cut off the head of their own King, Charles I, not four years ago.’

  Andrei looked at him. As a Cossack, he supposed that it was a terrible thing to kill a king though it did not seem so very terrible to him, so long as the king wasn’t Orthodox.

  But the effect upon Nikita, even of mentioning this awful deed, was quite extraordinary. His face puckered up into an expression of utter contempt and loathing.

  ‘They killed their own annointed King,’ he repeated. And then he said something which stayed in Andrei’s mind for a long time afterwards. ‘They are worse than the Poles. Thank God we know that we are the Tsar’s slaves.’

  Several times before Andrei had noticed this manner of speaking. The common people would call themselves the Tsar’s orphans, and the official service classes seemed positively proud to call themselves his slaves. So far he had assumed it was a figure of speech; but watching his new friend Nikita now, he was not so sure. It was strange.

  It was just after leaving that he caught sight of the younger woman. He had glanced back at the house and seen her face, quite clearly, at an open window.

  It belonged to a girl about his own age: a pretty face, lightly freckled, with regular features. He could just see the top part of her body. It was obviously slim. Definitely a handsome girl.

  She was watching him. He smiled at her. She smiled back, then, quickly turning her head, ducked back inside the window.

  He frowned. How strange. It looked almost as if the girl had a black eye.

  Perhaps it was not altogether by chance that he happened to pass near Nikita’s lodgings the next day and strolled about in the little market nearby. If he had been curious to see the girl, he was rewarded, for he had only been there a short time when she and her mother came by. He noticed that the mother, despite what Nikita had said, was hardly limping at all.

  They saw him and greeted him politely. And as they came close he saw clearly that, though it was fading, the girl had certainly had a black eye.

  He engaged the older woman in conversation, and she seemed quite happy to talk, but all the while he noticed the girl. There was something about her, a lightness on her feet, a faint humour in her lips, that almost reminded him of Anna. He knew she was staring at him. He tried to listen to what the older woman was saying.

  And then suddenly he started. What had the woman said? She had just remarked that they came from the town of Russka. He questioned her more closely. She described the place, where it was; there could be no doubt about it: his young friend’s estate was undoubtedly the place from which his grandfather had run away. Which means, he thought with a smile, that if he hadn’t, I should very likely be a peasant of Nikita’s instead of a Cossack he entertains in his own house.

  He was just about to blurt all this out when some instinct for caution held him back. Nikita might yet be useful to him, and who knew how he might feel about the grandson of a runaway? Nonetheless, he supposed he must have relations in the place.

  ‘Perhaps I shall visit it some day,’ he said lightly.

  They talked a little more. He told them about his companions and where they were lodged, then they parted. As they did so, he saw that the girl was looking at him intently.

  It was not a complete surprise, therefore, when he met her in the street the next day near his lodgings. She came up to him with a smile. Despite the dark mark around her eye, she looked cheerful, even radiant. She had a light, springing step. ‘Well, Mr Cossack,’ she said, ‘may I walk with you?’

  Most of the women one saw in the street moved rather cautiously; even if they wore a headdress, they placed a large scarf over it, tied under the chin; they seldom smiled. But though she wore a scarf and a long, rather threadbare cloak, there was something in this girl’s easy, almost dancing gait that reminded him of the free, self-confident Cossack girls of the south. ‘You should call me Maryushka,’ she said, using the diminutive. ‘Everybody does.’

  ‘Well, Maryushka,’ he said, ‘tell me about yourself. Why do you have a black eye?’

  She laughed. It was a gay little sound, though with a hint of sadness and bravery in it that was very appealing.

  ‘You never need to ask a married woman that,’ she replied. Then with a sigh she added: ‘They say it’s a fault in my character.’

  Her story was simple, though unusual. When she was younger, she had refused to marry.

  ‘There was a boy in Russka,’ she laughed again. ‘He was so handsome! Slim, and dark like you. But he married someone else. He didn’t want me. And the other boys – well …’ She made a gesture of contempt. ‘My father was dead. My mother goes on at me every day: “Marry this one, marry that one.” I say, “No! He’s too short. No, he’s too tall.” She says I’m a wicked girl. I need training. I’ll get a bad name. So …’ She shrugged.

  ‘So you married the steward? The man I saw at Bobrov’s?’

  ‘His wife died. He told my mother he’d tame me. “Give her to me,” he says.’

  ‘You didn’t re
fuse?’

  ‘Yes. But he’s the steward. He could make it very awkward for us. He has the power. So – that’s life. I married. I was old, you know. Nearly twenty.’

  ‘And he beats you?’

  She shrugged.

  ‘That’s part of being married. He hits with his fist. Sometimes I can get out of his way. But he’s quick.’ She gave a mournful laugh. ‘Oh, yes. He’s quick. So. That’s all.’

  Andrei had always heard that these women in north Russia suffered harsh treatment from their husbands. The Cossack girls, he knew, though their husbands often called them weak women and pretended to despise them, would not have put up with much of this kind of treatment.

  ‘What does your mother say?’

  ‘At first she says: “Obey him and don’t be headstrong, then he won’t beat you.” Then she says: “You must work to make him love you. Have children.”’ She shrugged, then gave him a little smile. ‘You know what she says now? She says: “Maryushka, all men are the same, to tell you the truth. Obey him, submit, but keep your own council. Men are despicable,” she says, “but there’s nothing you can do about it.” So I say: “Why didn’t you tell me that before?” And she says: “Because I wanted you to get married.”’ She laughed aloud. ‘So I’m married.’

  ‘And how did you get to Moscow?’

  ‘Ah, I tricked him. He had to bring the rents to our landlord. So I say: “Take me to Moscow and I’ll do anything you want.” Then when I get here I say to my mother: “You have to keep me here. I can’t stand it any more. Not this month.” So she pretends to hurt her leg and the landlord’s sent him back to Russka without me!’ She laughed happily.