The Ringed Castle (6 page)

For four hundred years, the ancient high city of Moscow had stood within its ramparts above the River Moskva, and within it, century after century, had flowered the palaces of the prince and his courtiers, the storehouses, the kitchens, the stables, the workshops; the markets, the painted churches in brick and in timber, the hooded arches of convent and monastery; the blessed walls and chapel which sheltered the Metropolitan, who was next unto God, our Lady and Saint Nicholas only excepted. Walking between the monasteries of St Nicholas on his right, of Constantine and Helen on his left; past the square belfry where, on Easter night, the great bell of Moscow would set off the carillons of three hundred and fifty churches in the low city outside the walls, Adam Blacklock, the artist, was gripped by an open-eyed silence, as if a volume of miniatures had surrendered to him, and was submitting, book by book, to his advance.

This garden of towers: this confection of wrought stone and round tulip heads, copper and gold, spiralled and lobed in a frilling of leaved stone and damascened roof-planes; this ancient assembly pleated with steps and fretted with a nonsense of archways and ivorine galleries; dissolved in fire; lost in neglect; masked; altered; rebuilt; painted; carved; gilded; dressed within and without to a thousand different tastes, stood at the headwaters of four civilizations, and the sunlit white scallops of Italy smiled daisy-fresh down on the squares, garrets, towers, steps, passages, shafts and deep frescoed arches of the earlier ages, spanning two hundred years to the low-stalked domes and squat shapes of St Saviour with its budding of chapels fit, one felt, to be stood in the palm of one hand.

Then Lymond said briefly,
‘Blacklock!’
and he found that they had passed the cluster of cathedrals, and the dust of a tall church rebuilding, and had arrived before a square wooden pavilion, resting among the newly sprigged bushes and trees running down to the slope of the Moskva.

It seemed an unlikely presence chamber for the Tsar of all Russia, until you remembered the fire of a few years before, which had destroyed so much of Moscow that the Emperor had moved from the Kremlin to Vorobievo, ruling from over the river, and seventeen thousand of his subjects had died. Then they were inside, their heads covered again, as was the custom, and standing waiting in a room lined with guards, their axes lifted shoulder high against the white fur of their hats; their white velvet gowns brushing the smooth
wooden floor, laid with fine carpet. They stood there, Viscovatu, Guthrie and Lymond sustaining a weird conversation in Latin, embellished with gems from Fergie’s professional repertoire, until the interpreter arrived, twenty minutes later, and at the end of the room the carved double doors were flung open. The interpreter, a cheerful monk called Ostafi, shook them one by one by the hand as they were ushered forward, and grinned even more widely when Adam addressed him in English.

‘My dear man!’ said Guthrie sardonically. ‘Where ever would he learn English? Our friend here speaks Russian and Latin and Greek, and if you can’t teach yourself one of them quickly, you’ll have to become the world’s leading exponent of mime.’ And so he walked, deaf and dumb, after the others into the Audience Chamber, and became aware of space, and a high tented roof, of carpets and benches and a standing group of men dressed in identical robes of gold tissue, and of a high dais at the far end on which was a state chair of gold on which a crowned man was seated, surrounded by a handful of courtiers more richly dressed than the others, and a bearded man in the black hat and robes of a priest. Then Ivan IV, Tsar of Russia, lifted his heavy, ringed hand and they moved forward, coming to rest below and before him while in clear, echoing Russian the interpreter began his preamble.

The windows, some glass, some latticed, were small. But shafted sun danced on the walls, reflected from the gold tissue, and gathered itself to blaze and glint on the sceptre, the tiara and gown of the Tsar. He was wearing, as Adam learned later, the Kazan cap of state, a sable-based pyramid of foliated gemmed gold; and the fabric of his robe was gloved with wrought gold: blocks of pearl-bordered metal with inlaid figures of brilliant enamel, all joined with a network of heavy, natural jewels.

But it was the man within the harness at whom they all looked. A man tall, wide-shouldered and young, with blue eyes and a long, flattened nose and a moustache and beard of fine, thick auburn hair, who spoke Russian in a bass voice, and waited while Viscovatu translated, and Lymond, baring his head, answered in neat, balanced Latin.

Ivan was young. This Adam had not known. Young as himself; younger than Fergie; younger by far than Alec Guthrie. The man who had planned the conquest of Kazan and had outfaced the boyars, who was bending his mind to the new laws, the new schools, the new tutors and the new printing which must drag Russia from its barbaric enslaved history could be in age very little more, or little less than the other man standing before him. In years, in ability and, it seemed likely, in pure intellectual arrogance, there was not all that much to choose between Francis Crawford and the Sovereign Grand Prince Ivan Vasilievich.

A shiver of foreboding travelled up Adam’s spine. There was more talking. He saw Lymond turn towards him, and bracing himself, he moved forward in his turn and paid his respects, in European court fashion, to the Tsar. Then the Chief Usher moved forward and he saw that the chest containing Kiaya Khátún’s present, of which he had heard, was being passed from him to Viscovatu and thence, on one knee, to the Emperor. There was a waft of spices, and Ivan lifted the narrow lid.

Inside were a number of long objects wrapped in soft linen. Adam, standing close to him, smelt the frankincense in their folds and knew, with sudden finality, that the aroma was all of spice that the fine chest contained. Instead, lifted out one by one by the secretary and examined one by one by the Tsar, were the objects which the woman Kiaya Khátún/Güzel/the Mistress had brought with her from Stamboul in that coffin painted with lotus flowers and the names of Magna, Horus and Harpoctates: the prototypes, in perfect small, of six of the newest field-pieces and handguns from the West.

He felt himself go red, and saw Guthrie had flushed also. Given the smiths and the metal, these guns in their proper size could be dealing death on the field in six months. Death, perhaps, to the Tartar and Turk. But death later to whom?

And then he thought, ‘But in himself and us, Lymond has already placed a weapon a thousand times greater than these in the Sovereign Grand Prince’s hand.’

Ivan was speaking. Lymond replied, through the interpreter and Ivan uttered again. Neither man smiled: there was no change and no softening in that unexpected bass voice. Then the box was closed and taken away, and the Tsar lifted his heavy, chased sceptre again, holding it loosely in his well fleshed, metal-soiled fingers, and, echoed by his interpreter, began to voice a string of uninflected, flat questions.

Lymond answered. He went on answering while Adam, the blood alternately flooding and leaving his veins, tried to stand at ease, without swaying or stiffening, and with mounting anxiety, to follow the mood of the exchange. On the Tsar’s side, there was, if anything, an added brusqueness by now. The questions came without cease: he had, it was clear, a precise catalogue in his mind of what he wanted to know and only once did the man on his right—Adashev?—with the cloudy brown beard lean forward to murmur to him.

His next question was pointed. Lymond took a moment longer than he need have done to volunteer a reply. When he did speak, it was in Russian. He had been asked, Adam supposed, how he could hope to control thirty thousand assorted men through an interpreter, and with no humility had demonstrated his answer. It would also, he knew, be in excellent Russian. Given, single-minded, four months
in which to learn a new language, he would back Lymond against any linguist on earth.

In any case, it had given him at this moment the ascendancy he needed to change briefly the lead of the interview. Having begun, he went on speaking in Russian while the Tsar sat staring at him with those curious china-blue eyes. Elegantly scented with spice like his pistols, the requirements and demands of St Mary’s.

The Tsar heard him out. If he had a reputation for violence, there was no sign of it here; but no sign either of a weak or a yielding personality. He received Lymond’s words without interruption, and, at the end, stared at him for a long time without speaking. Then, lifting his voice, he made a single harsh comment.

Hard and fast as a ricochet, Lymond answered him, displeasure distinct in his face. The Emperor replied with three words; and then, turning his shoulder, began to address the black-attired man on his left. The secretary, approaching Lymond, spoke in a murmur of Latin. ‘You and your men are dismissed.’

Lymond lifted his eyebrows, but made no audible rejoinder. Turning to the dais, he bowed, and Blacklock, Guthrie and Hoddim in turn did the same. The Tsar, still chatting, half lifted his right hand in acknowledgement. They had almost retired to the doors when he turned fully round, raised a finger and said something with mild force to Adashev. The courtier rose, bowed, and walking smoothly, caught up with Lymond. Adashev smiled, and spoke.

‘Oh
Christ,
’ said Adam under his breath, cut off like a deaf mute from all adult comprehension.

Guthrie, beside him, grinned and murmured, but not loudly enough to be overheard, ‘It’s all right. Lymond has been commanded to Adashev’s house for further discussion, while we are to return to our quarters. You aren’t dealing with Scots or English or Italians, you know.’

It was Guthrie also who enlightened them all, back in the building they shared, and answered Adam’s questions, and those of Plummer and d’Harcourt and the others who had not been present. ‘The contract is still open. Ivan won’t decide until after Adashev’s meeting with Lymond.’

‘Christ,’ said Danny Hislop, ‘with the Angry Eye?’

‘What?’ said Guthrie sharply.

‘Boyar Plummer here,’ said Danny, ‘was anxious to know. Were you in the Uspenski? Did you see the Rublev frescoes? The Virgin of the Don? Christ with the Angry Eye?’

‘Which was the Uspenski?’ said Fergie Hoddim with interest. ‘Yon tall, plain one at the end with the five gold-leaf onions?’

‘Fioravanti,’ said Lancelot Plummer, driven to intervene in the interests of culture. ‘The Uspenski Cathedral, redesigned seventy-five
years ago by Aristotle Fioravanti from Bologna in white Kama sandstone and used for coronations and all State ceremonials. My God, you must have noticed it.’

‘From Bologna?’ said Fergie, surprised. ‘Think of the price! Had they no Russian architects?’

‘The Cathedral of St Michael Archangel,’ said Plummer kindly, ‘built by Alevisio of Milan. The Granovitaya Palace and the Kremlin walls, built by Marco Ruffo and Pietro Solario. They had Russian architects begin work on the new Uspenski before they called in Fioravanti. They called in Fioravanti when the new walls fell down.’

‘If,’ said Adam, ‘we could get back to the Tsar …?’

‘Well, you saw what happened,’ said Guthrie. ‘He asked the sort of questions any hard-headed statesman would think of. Where had we all learned our profession; how long had we been together; what nationality were we all; what battles had we taken part in, and whom had we fought for. What religion did we subscribe to. Were we traders. Why had we left France in the first place. And what had Lymond been doing in Turkey.’

‘Mon dieu,’
said Ludovic d’Harcourt gently.

‘À l’oeil fâcheux,’
said Danny Hislop. ‘What did he say?’

‘The truth,’ Guthrie said placidly. ‘More or less. That we owe allegiance to no single master. That we fight for money and France has not enough money to satisfy us. That we have never taken arms against the Scottish nation, to which many of us belong, or for the Turk, whose faith none of us holds, but that were we to be munificently paid, we might do even that. And that we have no interest in trading.’

‘Speaking for himself,’ said Lancelot Plummer.

‘Speaking for all of us,’ said Guthrie bluntly. ‘The English have opened up a new shipping route by the Frozen Sea to the north coast of Russia. Their pilot Chancellor was in Moscow last year. Ivan doesn’t want a hopeful new prospect blighted by local disputes with the natives. If the English want to trade here, we help them.’

‘There’s a point,’ said Fergie Hoddim, ‘that I’d advise ye to give suit and presence to before you argue much further. If Lymond has asked for more money than the Russians are willing to pay, you don’t suppose they’re going to stand by and watch us stroll away to offer our catholic services to Poland or Lithuania or Turkey?’

‘That, of course, is the risk,’ said Guthrie blandly. ‘It all depends on whether our friend has judged the market correctly. I won’t tell you the conditions he laid down. It would upset your digestion.’

They were in their dining hall, sitting or standing about him as he leaned half-hitched against the long table. Adam said, ‘My digestion died on me as it is, somewhere in the Baltic. What went wrong? Why the bristle and snap at the end?’

‘The Tsar,’ said Alec forbearingly, ‘said that no high-born prince in his realm, or even the Blessed Head of his Most Holy Church, had ever laid claim to fees of such magnitude.’

‘And Lymond?’

‘Said that this was possibly why, as he had observed, the Crimean Tartars had been driven out neither by a princely campaign nor by a miracle.’

‘Oh Mary Mother of God.’ Adam closed his eyes.

‘He wished to make an impression,’ said Hislop, with a blandness quite equal to Guthrie’s. ‘Let us hope …’

He broke off. Adam looked at him quickly.

‘… that he makes the right one?’ said Guthrie, smoothly filling the pause. He had risen from the table, raising his hand. At the unspoken signal, Plummer rose also and swiftly and silently took his place by the door to the staircase, while d’Harcourt and Vassey moved to the head of the steep inner stairs to the kitchens.

Danny Hislop said, ‘What’s more, I suppose we have to wait dinner till his lordship returns?’