by Ann Swinfen
‘Master Holme has the right of it,’ Pyotr said firmly. ‘We will be safer with an armed guard. Besides, if you arrive at the palace of Uglich without attendants, you will be treated with contempt. A man of any standing will always travel attended. Four is a modest number indeed for a distinguished English physician.’
So the decision was taken out of my hands. I was accustomed to making my way through the world alone, or with at most one companion, but these men knew best the customs of the country, and it was wise to pay heed to them.
Without any further delay, we were packed into our sleigh with cushions, rugs and furs, and once again had hot stones for our feet. One of the servants loaded a large hamper into the foot well between us, and I stowed my satchel and knapsack behind the seat. I had brought my knapsack as well as my medicines, for I felt I should wear my physician’s gown – however rumpled – when treating a prince of the blood royal, and not come to him in my Muscovite clothes or Goodwife Maynard’s curious tunic.
I felt somewhat uncomfortable, sharing the close confines of the sleigh with Pyotr. With Christopher I had felt no qualms, for I trusted him, and besides we had travelled only by day. I was not sure I would be able to sleep during the night, crowded into this small space with Pyotr. Some of the things I had learned about him, both from the Company men and his curious deceptions about his family, meant that I was not sure that I could altogether trust him. And I always had the fear that I might talk in my sleep, giving myself away. Perhaps it was foolish. After all, he had never really done anything to cause me to distrust him.
The four guards climbed into their sleighs, the gates to the compound were thrown open, and the horses were urged into a fast trot, out into the streets of Yaroslavl. At least, I thought, it is not snowing at the moment. In fact, the sky was a clear pale blue, with no sign of cloud, but the lack of cloud cover meant that it was very cold indeed. The sun lay low in the sky, as it had done ever since winter had begun, casting long shadows from the buildings as we sped through the town. In no time, it seemed, we passed out through the town gatehouse into the open country, where the drivers whipped up the horses to a canter. Despite their rough appearance, these Muscovite horses had a smooth gait over the snow, and it was not long before we were travelling through the surrounding forest along a wide, cleared strip, which I took to be the line of the road to Uglich. My experience of the country so far had not led me to expect much of what were designated roads, but the way seemed clear enough by day. Whether it would be as easy to follow at night, I was not so sure. From the position of the sun, I reckoned that we were heading almost due west. Its orange glow caused the shadows of the pine trees to flick past us – black, gold, black, gold – in a way that was almost dizzying.
‘What I do not understand,’ I said to Pyotr, ‘is how the Tsarina knew that I was at Yaroslavl. We have only been there just over two days. Uglich is seventy miles away. How could she have heard that I was there?’
He looked at me slantwise over the muffling of fur he had pulled up around his neck and face.
‘It is not only the government which has spies everywhere. The Tsarina and her family must guard their own safety. Her uncle was sent into exile. Her father was languishing in prison before her marriage. Tsar Ivan then freed him, presumably as a favour to his new wife. But then, in the last months of his life, Ivan Vasilyevich set her aside, because he wanted to marry an English woman, Lady Mary Hastings.’
He gave a short bark of laughter.
‘Fortunately Lady Mary was able to put him off through Her Majesty’s intervention until he gave up the idea, or he died. I am not sure which happened first. Now that Boris Godunov rules the country, the whole of Maria Nagaya’s family is under suspicion. I am certain they have their own spies. They could not hope to survive otherwise. And the movement of the new chief agent of the Muscovy Company across the country will not have gone unnoticed.’
‘You mean they have been following our progress?’ I said, horrified. I thought we had been travelling through the empty wastes of this alien country, unnoticed except when we stayed in the towns.
‘Almost certainly. Remember how long we waited in Kolmogory? Plenty of time for word to reach Uglich that the new chief agent was accompanied by the requested English physician. You made no secret of your profession when we were aboard the barge. The first evening in a Kolmogory ale house probably saw the bargemen boasting about the English doctor who could raise the dead.’
I shivered. ‘I hope not. I have no wish to be credited with magical powers. If I am expected to cure the child of the falling sickness, their hopes will be raised only to be crushed, and I fear the consequences.’
‘Did you not say that you thought he did not have the sickness?’
‘I cannot be sure until I have examined him, and talked to those who have witnessed his fits or seizures. It may or may not be epilepsy.’
After a while we fell silent, for the endless flickering of the trees was hypnotic. For the most part the forest consisted of pine, stretching away for miles in all directions, but from time to time we passed through areas of birch. These lovely trees with their silver bark stood out vividly against the sombre dark green of the pines. Every leaf was shed, now, in winter time, so we could see the delicate shape of each branch and twig. Until now I had found the Muscovy countryside unrelievedly dull, except perhaps for the wide reaches of the Dvina near its mouth and its wilder reaches upstream, but those birch trees were truly beautiful.
Sometime around the middle of the day we investigated the food hamper. There was the inevitable dried meat – I believe they dry it in the wind, as I used to see it prepared in Portugal. It required a good deal of chewing, but there was fresh bread, which must have been baked that morning in Yaroslavl, and some of that autumn’s apples. There was dried fish as well, but I avoided it, for I knew by now that it would be very salty and would make me thirsty. There was the usual mead in a flask, and a bottle of a clear liquid. I had seen it before, but not tasted it.
‘Is that vodka?’ I asked.
‘Aye. Would you like some?’
I shook my head.
He grinned. ‘Good for emergencies, like brandy. Don’t let the drivers have it. We don’t want them wandering off the road.’
‘Should we give them some of the food?’
‘They have their own. Besides, one man is sleeping, so he can stay awake tonight.’
I realised that he was right. One of the drivers had curled up, so that we could just make out the top of his fur hat above the back of his seat, and he was snoring gently. In front of us I could see one of the guards’ sleighs skimming along in the lead. I hoped the other was still behind. There was a small window set in the rear of our cabin, fitted with horn, like the windows in the houses. Twisting round I saw the blurred shape of the other sleigh, close behind. The guards were taking no chances with our safety.
A while after we had eaten our frugal meal, we reached a small village, which occupied a cleared area in the forest. It consisted of nothing but one double row of cottages with some scrappy, snow-covered fields beyond, and a church no bigger than the smallest cottage. The drivers pulled up at the largest of the buildings, which Pyotr assured me was the post station, though I do not know how he could tell. Certainly there was a stable behind it, more sturdily built than most of the hovels.
While the drivers changed the horses over, two of our guards kept a watch on them, in case, as they said, the bastards abandoned us here in the forest. Pyotr and I, together with the other two guards, went into the house to see whether they could provide us with anything hot to eat or drink.
The place was far from clean, but the master of the post station and his wife were clearly anxious to please, especially after Pyotr had spoken to them sharply in Russian almost too fast for me to follow. I was not sure that I wanted to risk anything that might be served here, but the smell of the pottage which was brought to us in wooden bowls was tempting, and the taste was good. It was mostly veget
ables – cabbage and turnips – but there was a little meat, mutton by the taste of it, and it did not seem to be tainted. They also warmed a drink for us.
‘What is it?’ I asked Pyotr, after sniffing it. It smelled woody, like fresh cut logs.
‘It is a kind of beer, made of birch. It’s not a bad drink. Try it. It will warm you. One day you must try kvass.’
‘Kvass?’
‘Made from fermented rye bread.’
‘Ugh!’ I thought he was teasing me, but he looked quite serious.
The birch beer was somewhat bitter and tasted much as it smelled, but what is the use of travelling to foreign lands if you do not sample the foods and the way of life? I swallowed it while trying not to pull a face, then managed a smile for the bobbing wife, who seemed gratified. I also contrived to make her understand that I needed a piss pot. She directed me to a ramshackle shed at the back of the building, covering a hole in the ground that was their primitive privy.
When I emerged, I found the other two guards and the drivers finishing bowls of the pottage, everyone stamping their feet to stop them freezing in the snow. Pyotr paid the man what seemed a very small amount of money, and we were on our way again.
‘I expect we have eaten their dinner for the next three days,’ Pyotr said, ‘but they will be glad of the money. Even the peasants here in the forest will sometimes need coin for goods they cannot make, or to pay the Tsar’s taxes.’
‘I thought the taxes were remitted if they kept post horses.’
‘Not all of them. Not by any means.’
We had stopped only briefly, but already the sun was sinking towards the rim of the earth and the brief daylight would soon be coming to an end. It was about three weeks until the winter solstice and the turn of the seasons. I wondered how brief the daylight would be at that darkest time of the year.
The darkness seemed to come on even faster once we were underway. The drivers of the three sleighs shouted back and forth to each other, then by agreement, all three stopped. They unpacked the lanterns they had brought, and set about filling and lighting them. I had expected candle lanterns, but these had a receptacle for the train oil which the Muscovites derived, so I had been told, by rendering down the blubber of the seals and whales they killed in the seas north of St Nicholas. They secured wicks of string with a clip, one end dipped in the top of the chamber which held the oil, the other raised well above it. When the wick was saturated, they lit the free end with a strike-a-light, and closed up the lamp, which had transparent panes in the sides, like the candle lamps I was familiar with. Unlike candle lamps with their panes of horn, however, these were fitted with some sort of clear material which permitted a much brighter light to shine out.
‘What is this?’ I asked one of the drivers, tapping it with my finger.
‘Sliuda,’ he said, leaving me none the wiser.
I looked at it more closely. I believed it was mica. Thomas Harriot had once showed me some small pieces of mica, pointing out that it would make excellent window panes, were it available in larger sheets.
The light these lamps gave did not reach far, but it was certainly better than the light of candle lamps. Two were hung at the corners of the drivers’ seats, two at the front corners of the cabin roofs, and two more at the rear. With eighteen lamps glowing, we made quite a festive sight, like a band of wassailers on Twelfth Night.
‘If any outlaws should be hiding in these woods,’ I said to Pyotr, as we set off again, ‘they will have no difficulty finding us.’
‘Oh, I think you need not worry. With our lamps and the boldness of our intention to travel by night, we send a clear message that we are a strong party, and certainly armed. Outlaws are more likely to attack a lone horseman or a pair of travellers. It was wise of Master Holme to give us an escort.’
‘I hope that messenger from Uglich will be safe. He was not long ahead of us, and he was on his own.’
‘He would travel faster, but will certainly stop for the night, not risk riding in the dark. We shall probably overtake him.’
In truth, I believed him, and began to enjoy the mysterious ride through the dark forest, which seemed all the darker now, beyond our moving circle of light. The horses probably did not move so fast, for although they were fresh, the drivers needed to exercise some caution at night. Yet the dark trees seemed to slip swiftly past, as though our cavalcade was still and the forest itself fleeing away behind us.
Before long, the moon rose to the rear, casting a magical silver light over the surrounding half-seen forest. Glimpses of the sky away from the moon’s brilliance showed it sprinkled with the glitter of stars, a multitude of gems, such as I had never seen before on land. Sometimes I had caught snatches of star-studded sky when at sea, but my voyages had nearly always been accompanied by cloudy skies. I gasped in wonder that there should be so many stars crowding the heavens. As we cantered through the moonlight, we seemed always to be trying to overtake our own shadows, and always failing, while the moving trees whispered an answering refrain to the swish of the runners over the snow and the muted jingle of the harness. The silver light, the soft sounds, and the trees, black and silver, turned the world into something other, some landscape of fairy tale or myth.
I had expected to fear this ride by night through a dangerous forest. Instead I found my heart lifting with a pure physical thrill at the beauty of it. For a long time I stayed awake. Even when I felt sleep beginning to come over me I fought against it, not wanting to lose a moment of this beauty and mystery, but finally I could resist no longer. I propped a cushion to support my head, turned my back on Pyotr, who was already asleep, and abandoned my resistance.
Once or twice I woke briefly during the night. The first time was when the sleigh hit something under the snow – a stone or a fallen log – and jerked violently sideways. It righted itself at once, but it had been enough to wake me. Through heavy eyelids I watched the forest skim past. The moon was overhead now, our shadows foreshortened, The second time I woke, the sleigh had stopped at another staging post, and the drivers were busy unharnessing the horses. Pyotr was no longer on the seat beside me. He soon reappeared.
‘Ah, you are awake. I’ve brought a jug of hot mead and some sweet rolls.’
He handed them to me before climbing back into the sleigh. We drank the mead from the wooden cups in the hamper, and tore the rolls apart with our fingers. They were also sweetened with honey, and still warm from someone’s oven.
‘These are new baked,’ I said, with my mouth full. I was not accustomed to so much honey, but they were fresh and good. ‘Has some housewife been baking in the middle of the night?’
‘No longer the middle,’ he said. ‘It will be morning, though not dawn, in a couple of hours. They work a long day, these peasant women.’
The fresh horses were soon harnessed and we were on our way again. I thought I should find it difficult to sleep after being so thoroughly wakened, but to my surprise I slept soundly until it began to grow light. The moon was gone, the trees were merely trees once more, and the magic of the night had vanished.
During the second day I found that the cramped quarters of the sleigh began to be trying. I would have tried walking, could I have kept pace with the horses, but that was a foolish thought. I even contemplated suggesting I might ride one of the horses, to ease the growing stiffness from sitting too long, but I did not entertain the thought for more than a moment. I must remember that I was on my way to a royal establishment, even if it was a royal establishment in exile, and it was essential to maintain my dignity.
As we drew nearer to Uglich by Pyotr’s reckoning, I grew more and more apprehensive. I had spoken to Christopher of the child and his illness quite dispassionately, simply as a theoretical case. But in a short time I would be confronted by the reality in the form of a flesh and blood boy who might indeed be violent and cruel, who might suffer from the falling sickness, but who might also someday – perhaps someday soon – occupy the throne of all the Russias. Even in
exile, he was the acknowledged son of Ivan the Terrible, whose name provoked terror throughout Europe. He probably had the power to condemn me to torture or to death if I displeased him, or merely on a whim, like his father before him. And what of his mother, the Tsarina Maria Nagaya, clearly a formidable woman who had been married to that same Ivan the Terrible and now controlled a band of spies to rival those of Walsingham? I imagined her as cruel and witch-like, prepared to do anything to protect her son, and perhaps one day see him as Tsar, even if it meant forcing her servants to eat poisoned food intended for him.
These grim thoughts made the final stage of our journey alarming and unpleasant. However, the task had been undertaken and must be seen through to the end. The forest began to thin out. The tiny villages were closer together. Finally we emerged from the fringes of the forest into open, snow-covered fields and more houses.
‘Is this Uglich?’ I asked Pyotr, and he nodded.
I felt grubby and unkempt after so long in the sleigh, and in no fit state to approach members of the royal family. I voiced my concerns.
Pyotr nodded. ‘I am sure we will be shown the courtesy of being allocated our quarters before we need to appear before the Tsarina and the Tsarevich. We are not all barbarians, you know.’
I accepted that in silence, feeling I had been reprimanded.
Ahead of us, massive walls appeared, not a palisade of wood, as I had seen around most of the fortresses on our journey from St Nicholas. These walls were built of brick. There was a formidable gateway, manned by several guards wielding crossbows. Our three sleighs drew up, our own guards’ sleighs protectively on either side of us. Pyotr climbed slowly out of the sleigh, his empty hands held out in the classic gesture of peace. He was speaking even as he moved, in the face of the raised weapons. I caught the words ‘English physician’ and ‘Tsarevich Dmitri Ivanovich’.
The Uglich guards consulted amongst themselves, then someone was sent off, clearly to fetch an officer with greater authority. Pyotr climbed back into the sleigh.