Russka (47 page)

‘You find it too rich?’ Stephen enquired curiously.

At once Philip became guarded and looked at him nervously.

Stephen had smiled, then taken his arm gently.

‘I understand.’

Philip looked relieved.

‘One must be careful nowadays, my friend,’ he said softly.

‘Of course. You are a Non-Possessor then?’

The priest from Moscow bobbed his head in acknowledgement.

‘And you?’ he asked Stephen.

‘I too,’ the simple-minded Russka priest confessed.

They had walked quietly back together to Boris’s home where they had embraced before Stephen returned to his home.

The next day Philip had inspected the icons in the market and at the monastery carefully. Then he had given Boris his opinions.

‘The priest is a Non-Possessor. At present it’s not clear whether he’s a heretic, but he reads too much and he’s a fool. There’s no knowing what heresy he might easily tumble into. As for the icons, I find four designs that are a disgrace.’

‘Heretical?’

‘Absolutely. As bad as anything I’ve seen from Novgorod.’

In the minds of some purists, the products of that city were always suspect, because of its proximity to the Baltic ports and to Lithuania with their dangerous Catholic and Protestant influences from the west.

‘So I could prosecute?’

‘I think you should.’

Boris had smiled.

‘I promise you, the matter will receive my full attention,’ he replied.

And so now, to the astonished monk, he blandly outlined his conclusions.

‘It seems, Brother Daniel, that the icons that the Peter and Paul Monastery is producing are heretical. They are being sold in the market under your direction.’ Seeing Daniel look baffled, he continued quietly: ‘I’m afraid that it is so. I have it on very good authority, and as you know, in the current climate … it places the monastery – or some of those in it – in danger.’

There was no question about it, Daniel was beginning to look nervous. For the matter of the heretics having been disposed of, the charge concerning the icons was still under consideration in Moscow. Who knew what would happen?

‘If this is so,’ Daniel began, ‘of course we should take advice.’

‘Certainly,’ Boris agreed. ‘Although, of course, by raising the matter with higher authorities, you also run a risk.’

‘But surely no one could think we intended …’

‘Brother Daniel,’ Boris cut in, ‘I have come from Moscow. I must tell you that the atmosphere there …’

It was true. The atmosphere was electric. Already the condemned heretics, under the customary torture, were starting to denounce anyone they could remember talking to. Search parties were going out to arrest supposed heretics amongst the Volga Elders far out in the forests of the distant north.

‘Besides,’ Boris explained smoothly, ‘I am very much afraid your own family connections may be linked to the business.’

‘My family?’

‘Of course. Your cousin Stephen our priest. He is, I suppose you know, a Non-Possessor.’

Even under the thick beard, it was possible to see Daniel blanch. He had long ago guessed, of course, that his cousin had these feelings.

‘But I am utterly opposed to such views – if he has them,’ he added cautiously.

‘I know that as well as you. But we also both know that at times like this, when the authorities are looking … It is not the truth that counts but what may be perceived, what may be said. They will look at you, the icons, and your cousin – with whom you are often seen – and they will create a pattern that will speak the word “heresy”.’

The beauty of the thing, the exquisite irony. Though monk and priest were exactly opposed in their central beliefs, it was possible by a neat analysis and synthesis to bind them together like a pair of felons.

There was a long pause.

‘I do not need to tell you of my regard for you both, nor for my family’s regard for the monastery to which we gave its most cherished icon.’

Daniel bowed his head. The icon by Rublev was certainly the best thing they had. He could not deny that the founder’s family had been steadfast. He also saw clearly that Boris was offering an opening.

‘How might we proceed?’ the monk enquired.

Boris took a long breath and looked thoughtful.

‘The question is,’ he mused, gazing at the ends of his fingers, ‘whether I can persuade my friend, a priest from Moscow, that this matter does not require reporting. ‘

‘I see.’

‘It is he who has pointed all this out to me, and he is zealous.’

‘Perhaps if I spoke with him?’

‘Unwise. He would take it as an admission of guilt.’ He paused a moment. ‘I have also my own position to consider.’

He allowed silence to settle upon the room.

‘I should certainly be sad,’ Boris remarked after a time, ‘to see misfortune fall upon a family – a large family, with many members – whom we wish well.’

Many members. He watched as Daniel worked this out. Himself the monk, Stephen the priest, then there was Lev the merchant and then, ah, yes, of course, Mikhail the peasant was also his cousin. Boris waited until he saw that Daniel had thoroughly understood.

‘I am sure we all wish yourself, and the estate at Dirty Place, well,’ the monk murmured carefully.

They understood each other.

‘Well, I shall see what I can do,’ Boris remarked briskly. ‘Let us say no more of this for the present.’

But as the monk was leaving, he said casually: ‘By the way, Brother Daniel, if you chance to see Lev the merchant, would you send him to me?’

And later that afternoon, with perfect equanimity shown by both sides, Boris borrowed another eight roubles from the merchant at the derisory interest rate of only seven per cent.

Before returning to Moscow the next day with Philip the priest, he assured him that the offending icons would be altered at once and that Stephen the Non-Possessor had been sternly warned. He also made him an interest-free loan of a rouble which, as he had foreseen, the stern enemy of heresy accepted with alacrity.

How sweet was the taste of victory. He departed in great good humour.

He did nothing for Mikhail the peasant. There was no need, now that he had nowhere to go.

In the winter of that year, when the snow lay on the ground, a huge
expedition set out from Moscow led by Ivan’s best men, including the brilliant Prince Kurbsky. They were going to Kazan.

Amongst the ambitious young men who went with it was Boris.

He had been gone a month when Elena went into labour. It was a long labour, but as she suffered, she prayed: Surely now, if I endure all this pain, God will make him love me.

When the child was born, it was a girl.

In the Year of Our Lord 1553, from the kingdom of England, with a message of universal brotherhood from their boy king to any they might encounter, there set sail three ships under the command of a brilliant member of one of England’s most illustrious aristocratic families: Sir Hugh Willoughby. His pilot general was the skilful Richard Chancellor. They were looking for a trade route round the north-east coast of Eurasia that might lead them to Cathay.

Sadly, in those treacherous northern waters, two of the three ships were separated; for months Willoughby and his men wandered the northern seas until, at last, trapped on an island off the Lapland coast, they froze to death in the terrible darkness when the sun completely departs for the months of Arctic winter.

But while Willoughby wandered, lost, a very different fate befell the remaining ship, the
Edward Bonaventure
, in which Chancellor sailed.

For in the summer months he proceeded north – so far north that he entered a strange region where, at that season, the sun never went down at all. And it was here, in the month of August, that he put ashore in a curious land where the local fishermen prostrated themselves at his feet.

So it was that the first Englishman in centuries came to the land now called Muscovy.

George Wilson liked Moscow. No one had ever taken much notice of him before, but in this place he seemed, along with his shipmates, to be something of a celebrity.

He was a ratty little man: small, thin, sinewy, with a narrow face, hard, cunning eyes set too close together, and a shock of yellow hair which these strange Russian folk would sometimes pat in their curiosity. Indeed, in Muscovy, where most men and women were stout, he looked rather like a jackal in a company of bears. He was thirty years old. He had only come on this voyage because,
after a small business failure as a draper, he had been rather at a loose end.

His cousin, a sea captain, had warned him about these northern waters. There were ice floes big as mountains, he had said. No place for a skinny little fellow like him. Well, here he was, halfway to Cathay, in a land of men like bears. And, as far as he could see, things were looking up. For his narrow eyes glinted as he saw how much money there was to be made.

How immense the land was: hundreds of leagues from town to town. How cheap was human life. When they had arrived in summer, he had watched the great barges being dragged upriver from the northern estuary by parties of men with ropes tied round them. He had heard their mournful singing; he had seen the overseers cut with whips those who fell. He wondered how many of these unfortunates survived the long journey.

Yet how fabulously rich it was, too. Since no one knew who these visitors were or where they came from, the English party had been kept almost in confinement in the north while their hosts awaited instructions from the capital.

‘These people’s hospitality is so great I can hardly tell if we are guests or prisoners,’ Chancellor had ruefully remarked to him.

It had been winter before they were taken to the capital, and so Wilson had seen the cargoes from these barges off-loaded on to a thousand sleds to be carried from the collecting points to the inner cities. He had never seen such a concourse of vehicles. Every league, every day, hundreds of sleds passed them on their way to or from the cities that rose out of the snowy wastes. Goods, all manner of goods, passed by: grain, fish, but above all he saw furs, furs, and more furs. Could there be so many sables, ermines, beavers and bears in all the world? This forest hinterland, he thought, must be greater than all the lands he had ever heard of.

But above all, one huge realization opened in his mind – an understanding that grew greater, more insistent, more awesome with every league they went: they were going further and further from the sea. This is the hugest country in the world, he thought, yet it has no shores.

How utterly different from his English home in London: nowhere in England were you far from its indented coastline; how utterly unlike the French, the Germans, the other folk who plied the busy North Sea and Baltic ports. These people in their vast,
landlocked world of forest and snow were different, cut off, a race apart.

‘Truly, this is a rude and barbarous people,’ as Chancellor had remarked to his companions.

Yet their welcome in Moscow had been astounding. It had made an unforgettable impression on George Wilson. For no sooner had they arrived than they were summoned to attend the Tsar.

Even George Wilson, cunning and cynical little fellow that he was, found his knees shaking as they were ushered into the royal presence. He had already heard that, in this huge land, all men were the Tsar’s slaves: now he understood what that meant.

Ivan stood at the end of a great hall in the Kremlin Palace. On each side of him stood the huge forms of his boyars, in their heavy, rich kaftans. How tall he was – made taller by the high pointed hat he wore, trimmed with fur. A pale, hawk-like face; a terrible, piercing eye. He commanded all, dominated this heavy, Asiatic magnificence. The party were awestruck. As Ivan meant them to be, for he was anxious to impress these merchants from this strange and distant country. They might be useful to him.

He was friendly. Their letter of recommendation, written in Latin, Greek, German and other languages, was explained to him. Then they were invited to a feast.

It surpassed anything they could have imagined. A hundred sat down: they ate off solid gold. Stuffed fish, great roasts, strange delicacies like elk’s brains, caviar,
blinis
; wine served in goblets encrusted with gems. Everything was lavish, splendid, heavy. Tsar Ivan sat apart from the mere mortals he was honouring. From time to time he sent a morsel of food to one of the guests as a mark of his favour. Each time, all stood, while the name of the recipient was called out, and the Tsar’s own long title was proclaimed. Wilson noticed that the pious Tsar crossed himself, from right to left, each time he raised food to his own mouth. He also noticed that it was the fashion, amongst these huge, bearded people, to drink off a goblet of wine at a single draught.

The banquet went on for five hours.

‘I think we are at the court of Solomon himself,’ he whispered to one of his companions.

‘Or the court of Babylon,’ the other replied.

But it was only afterwards, when they were escorted round the
royal palace, that Wilson truly appreciated that this strange, mighty empire was like no other.

For how splendid, yet how barbarous it was. Room succeeded cavernous room. It was like being in some endless succession of antechambers to a Russian church. Candles lit up the gloom. By their soft, gleaming light he saw walls painted with riotous patterns of plants, winding around each other like snakes, and with dancing animals –in reds, ochres, greens. No mirrors reflected the light, but everywhere hung icons that glimmered sadly with gold. There was little of the furniture that would have been found in an English palace: only plain chairs and benches, great studded trunks and huge stoves; but rich oriental carpets and hangings of silk and brocade more than compensated. It was a noble palace. And yet … And yet there was something else that made him fearful. It was a feeling of heaviness, of dark power. In this church-like gloom, the painted passages seemed to Wilson like tunnels, the chambers like halls in a labyrinth. As they went in, further and further, it made him think of something deep, subterranean, like a womb where a man might hide; and who knew what other passages, what chambers there might be, behind thick walls that would muffle any cry? He was glad when they came out.