Russka (75 page)

‘God made nature,’ she warned him, ‘and if you seek to impose your order upon nature too, then I say that this is nothing but pride. You and your Tsar are evil.’

And to Procopy’s great sorrow, he found his mother estranged from him.

Strangely enough, all three parties to this argument were profoundly and equally Russian: Eudokia in her religious conservatism; Nikita in his fatalism; and perhaps most of all young Procopy in his optimism. For, having seen the outside world and its order, even if remaining unaware of its complex underpinnings, Procopy had assumed that, just as the villagers in Russia can build a house in a day, so with a strong leader and a titanic effort, a new order can be imposed from above. This belief is the perennial tragedy of Russia.

What, then, had the embassy really accomplished?

In fact, a great deal. Peter had wanted to study shipbuilding: he and others had done so quite thoroughly. He wanted new armaments, gunpowder that did not continually misfire, and knowledge of modern fighting methods, especially at sea. He obtained all of these. He also opened up new avenues for trade.

The Russians’ diplomacy failed. No one wanted to fight the Sultan of Turkey at that time. But if his drive to the warm seas of the south might be stalled, Peter had discovered in his travels that there could be other alliances he could make that would get him access to the other trade route he needed: the Baltic Sea in the north.

Above all, it was the long-term consequences of the embassy which were the most important. Men like cunning old Peter Tolstoy might not have learned a great deal about shipbuilding, as they had been told to do, but they came back with a wealth of observations, a knowledge of foreign languages, and some insight, at least, into European education and culture. These were the early Europeanized Russians, the group of which Sophia’s counsellor Golitsyn had been the forerunner. These were the men who, in the long run, would open Russia’s windows on the west.

Was Procopy Bobrov such a man? Not quite. But though he lacked the desire to educate himself profoundly, he had still taken in enough to see that his homeland was centuries out of date.

This had one sad consequence. For while her sense of religious propriety had separated Eudokia and her son, Procopy now found a subtler barrier between himself and his father. Nor could he help it.

For to Nikita, his son had become a stranger. It was not his western style of dress, nor his travels as such. But Nikita could sense, in that faint but unmistakable reserve in Procopy’s manner, by the distant look in his eye, that his son no longer warmed to the same things; he knew something his own people did not. Nikita had seen German and English officers look at their Russian troops that way.

He’s not really a Russian any more, he thought. And, hardest of all to bear for a man who had always thought himself more educated than his fellow nobles: He secretly despises me.

This, then, was the young man who had just walked into the courtyard, and at whom Daniel was staring in disbelief.

For Procopy was wearing a smart green uniform, close-fitting, with buttons down the front in the German manner. His legs were encased in breeches and stockings. And apart from a neat moustache, he was cleanshaven.

Of course, in the old Cossack days in the Ukraine, when men still called him Ox, Daniel had been used to cleanshaven men. But here in the north – that the son of Nikita Bobrov should do such a thing! – he could only stare in wonder.

Nikita, following his gaze, smiled a little apologetically.

‘The Tsar’s friends came back from their journey cleanshaven,’ he remarked.

‘The Tsar himself has shaved the beards of the boyars at court,’ Procopy reminded him. ‘He says he won’t tolerate people at his court looking so primitive. He told me so today.’

Primitive! Daniel winced at the word. He saw Eudokia start as if she had been slapped, and then look away from them. It was a calculated insult.

Yet Nikita Bobrov appeared to ignore this rudeness. It seemed he had something else on his mind. He turned to his son with a look of enquiry.

‘You came from Preobrazhenskoe?’

Procopy nodded.

‘Well?’ Nikita asked.

‘It’s decided. We have some confessions. We begin the executions tomorrow.’ He took his father by the arm. ‘Come,’ he said, ‘I’ll tell you about it.’ And he led him into the house.

Only now did Eudokia turn to face Daniel and his little family again. He saw there were tears in her eyes.

‘Thank God,’ she cried softly. ‘Thank God that you have come.’

Only gradually did Daniel realize the full horror of what was going on. Only during the course of that winter did he come to understand why the Lady Eudokia had felt so in need of his presence. And he himself was not sure how he could comfort her.

As Procopy had announced, the executions of the mutinous
streltsy
had begun the day after Daniel’s arrival.

Indeed, they might have started sooner if the interrogations – which had been going on down at Preobrazhenskoe – had not been so difficult. For very few of the mutinous soldiers were prepared to talk, despite some extensive persuasion.

It was at that time in Russia normal procedure in all cases of this kind to give prisoners the knout to elicit a confession. The use of torture in interrogation was normal in most countries at that time, whereas it is used in far fewer countries today, but a word of explanation may be needed about the Russian method.

For it is sometimes thought that the famous Russian knout was just a kind of whip, or a flail like the English cat o’ nine tails. But whereas the English navy, in the last century, would give a man a thousand lashes with the cat and reckon he might live, a twentieth of that ration with the knout would have killed him. And though, say, a Bobrov might have thrashed a peasant on his estate for some misdemeanour, he would probably have used the rods called
batogs
, not a knout.

The knout was three and a half feet long and made of leather. Much thicker than
batogs
, it was also very heavy. As a result, when a blow was struck, which the knout-master did by leaping forward and swinging with all his force, it actually sunk a wound, like a bar, into the victim’s back for the depth of half an inch or so. The skin was completely pulverized. Blood and tissue flew with every stroke. If the knout-master worked down your back, by the second time round he would be at the bone.

In order to appreciate how thorough the Russians were in this matter, however, it should further be explained that the more severe method was first to tie the victim’s hands behind his back and then haul him up by the hands with a rope over a beam. This meant not just that he hung before the knout-master but that his arms were actually dislocated from their sockets while the
knouting went on. When lowered, the arms could then be forced back into their sockets again.

This was the Russian knout, with which most prisoners were interrogated.

Tsar Peter was very concerned about the mutiny of the
streltsy
. He had seen his own uncle hacked to pieces by them when he was a boy and he knew they were capable of overturning him and putting Sophia back in his place. The questioning was urgent, therefore. Not only the
streltsy
but two of Sophia’s maids were stripped and knouted – although Peter leniently allowed one of these a simple execution when he discovered she was pregnant.

As well as the knout, Peter in person supervised the putting of some prisoners to the rack and also had them roasted on a fire in front of him. Yet the
streltsy
were still so obstinate in their silence that on at least one occasion Peter tried to cure a mutineer’s silence by breaking open his clenched jaws with a stick.

Procopy Bobrov was present at a number of these interrogations.

He was there for a particular reason. As soon as they arrived back, Peter had joined the young man to his newly formed government department. It was called the
Preobrazhensky Prikaz
– in effect, a secret police bureau. And right from the start, it would make itself feared.

‘The
streltsy
aren’t talking much, even under torture,’ Procopy told his father. ‘But we do know they planned to replace Peter and they were going to kill every foreigner in Russia too. We’ll deal with them, though.’

The executions that autumn went on for three weeks, from the last day of September to October 18.

On October 12, there was a sudden dense fall of snow, plunging Moscow directly into winter, but the daily public executions went on.

Daniel witnessed several. The victims died in various ways, though usually they were beheaded or hanged. Peter also demanded that his boyars and friends should take a hand in the executions, and Daniel heard Procopy say to his father one evening: ‘The Tsar’s curious to see some people beheaded in the European way, with a sword instead of an axe tomorrow. Have you a good heavy sword you could lend me?’

Daniel saw Procopy at work the next day. Someone else in the
crowd told the old man that he had seen the Tsar himself behead several men.

All these events Daniel witnessed with sorrow, but not with horror. The knouting, the executions: the
streltsy
had rebelled and it was only to be expected that they would be punished.

His horror began one morning when they brought out the regimental priests.

It was in Red Square. There, before the great, exotic towers of St Basil’s Cathedral, Peter’s men had erected a huge scaffold – but not just an ordinary scaffold: this one was in the shape of a cross. They led out the priests to the scaffold. Daniel braced himself to witness a monstrosity.

But what happened next took his breath away entirely. For now, to perform the hanging, came the court jester. He was dressed as a priest.

The same day, in the gardens of the Novodevichy Convent, a hundred and ninety-five more of the
streltsy
were hung on gibbets, near Sophia’s window.

All these corpses were to be left dangling – strange, frozen spectres, for five long months through the winter.

And what was Daniel to make of all this? He thought he knew. As the months passed, he became increasingly certain. Yet even then, he did not wish to form the thought himself.

Why had Eudokia summoned him? For comfort. Because, Daniel soon realized, there was no one else she felt she could trust.

Her son was godless. Her husband, wanting success for his family, said nothing.

‘You see for yourself, all around, what has come to pass,’ she told him privately. ‘Help me, good Daniel, to know what to do.’

Ostensibly he was there as a carpenter. And, indeed, he did some beautiful joinery in their house, so that Nikita himself soon forgot his irritation at his wife’s unexpectedly sending for the fellow. The landowner would proudly show Daniel’s workmanship to visitors, and had he not refused to work for anyone else, Daniel could have had many commissions.

In a way, both the Bobrovs came to be glad of this addition to their household. For while his wife was devoted to the parents, Nikita found himself delighted by the presence of the little girl.

Maryushka was, indeed, an enchanting little girl. With her
bright, freckled face and shining eyes she seemed to suppose that it was only natural that all the world should be her friend.

‘She’s a dainty little thing,’ old Nikita would marvel. ‘She could be a dancer.’

Even Procopy, whose impatience with Daniel was not always concealed, used to pick her up and carry her about with him whenever he visited the house. He had a wife and two little children of his own. ‘So you,’ he would tell her, ‘must be my sweetheart.’

‘Where’s your beard?’ she would always, fearlessly, ask him. ‘Why haven’t you got a beard?’

‘The Tsar tore it off,’ he would laugh.

She revered her father. She knew that he was older than the fathers of the other children, but knowing also with what respect he was treated in Russka, supposed that he was therefore someone quite out of the ordinary. When she was very little, she had for some time thought that he and God the Father must be one and the same.

If Nikita was amused by Maryushka, Eudokia did indeed find the comfort she sought with Daniel and Arina. Each day, she came quietly to pray with them. Often, when Daniel was working in the house, she would stand near him, watching silently. He was, Daniel saw at once, necessary to her. And as she once confessed to him herself: ‘I have been a strong woman all my life, but in this new world, I feel as if all that I have known is being taken away. Do not leave me just yet, faithful friend.’

When she could slip out undetected, she would even put on a simple peasant’s cloak and go with Daniel and his family to their secret church services. And Daniel permitted himself a smile when he remarked: ‘They’ll think you are my wife, and that Arina is my daughter, and Maryushka our granddaughter.’

She herself was amazed to discover what Daniel had managed to learn in his first week: that these services for
Raskolniki
were taking place in secret all over Moscow. Nearly always, in the capital, they were held in private houses rather than churches. There, sometimes in the room of a modest artisan, they would take out their icons, darkened with smoke and age, place them on the walls, and pray earnestly together, making the sign of the cross with two fingers.

But if Daniel brought Eudokia comfort, he found none for himself.

While the
streltsy
executions continued by day, Peter was still seen, by night, at the houses of his friends in the German quarter. With him, it was well known, was his mistress Anna, while his wife, despite the fact that she had given him a son, scarcely saw him at all. By late October, the executions temporarily stopped. Peter left the capital to go down to the River Don, where he was once again building a new fleet. The seven weeks of fasting that preceded Christmas began and for a time Moscow was quiet. But at Christmas, Peter was back. He and the Mock Synod paraded through Moscow and the German suburb on two hundred sleds in a wild effort at carol singing, which Daniel, then at prayer, fortunately missed.