Russka (42 page)

For though the men of Moscow were not permitted to travel to other lands – indeed, to do so without permission might mean death – the nobles and rich merchants were as familiar with foreign luxury goods as they were ignorant of the way of life of the countries from which these came. To afford such wines at one’s table: this was to be upper class, Boris considered. In his own house he usually drank mead.

Poor as he was, proud as he was, and small as the dowry had been, Boris could not help feeling a sense of gratification that he had joined himself to these people who were so obviously rich.

The company sat down to the wedding banquet with the bride and groom put in a place of honour. At once, before the meal properly began, wine was served. Boris drank some and quickly
felt a renewed surge of warmth. He had some more, looked at his bride with a little frisson of excitement, and smiled at those around him.

All was well. Almost. For though he had no great love for Dimitri Ivanov, there was only one person in the room that he hated, and for some reason he had been seated opposite him.

This was Elena’s brother Feodor. He was a strange creature. While the elder of her two brothers closely resembled his stocky red-headed father, Feodor, aged nineteen, was slim and fair-haired like Elena. His beard was clipped very short and was curled. The rumour was that he had had all his body hair plucked out. Sometimes his face was lightly powdered, but in honour of the occasion he had restrained himself that day; however, it was clear that his face had been massaged and patted with some unguent, and even across the table Boris could pick up the heavy smell of his scent.

There were many such dandies in Moscow: they were quite fashionable, despite the stern Orthodoxy of the Tsar. Many, though not all, were homosexual. But as Feodor had informed him at their first meeting: ‘I love what is beautiful, Boris: boys or girls. And I take whatever I want.’

‘Sheep and horses too, no doubt,’ Boris had replied drily. The practices of some of Feodor’s friends were said to be varied.

But Feodor had not been at all abashed. He had fixed his hard, shining eyes on Boris.

‘Have you tried them?’ he had asked in mock seriousness and then, with a harsh laugh, ‘Perhaps you should.’

Boris did not care for this, coming from the brother of his bride. There was something harsh and cruel in Feodor, despite his wit and occasional humour, and he had avoided him since.

For some reason Elena was fond of him. She did not seem to think that his nature was truly vicious – unless, which God forbid, she condoned him? Boris had tried not to think about this possibility.

But this was the wedding feast. He must try to love them all. Dutifully therefore he raised his glass and smiled when Feodor proposed a toast to him.

The blow, when it came, was completely unexpected.

It was halfway through the meal that Feodor, eyeing him calmly, remarked: ‘How nice you two look together.’ And then, before
Boris could think of any reply: ‘You should enjoy sitting in your place, Boris. After this, I’m afraid, you’ll be sitting much further down the table from any of us.’ It was said, apparently, with ironic humour, but loud enough for many people to hear.

Boris started violently.

‘I do not think so. The Bobrovs are at least on a level with the Ivanovs.’

But Feodor only laughed.

‘My dear Boris, surely you realize, no one here could ever serve under you.’

It was an insult: the greatest and most calculated that could have been given. But it was not an idle taunt, as if he had said: ‘Let a dog puke on your mother.’ Boris could not get up and strike him for it. Feodor had made a highly technical statement about his family that could be verified in a book. And it was possible, Boris feared, that what he had said might be true.

For the entire upper class of Russia, even down to an impoverished little gentleman like himself, was recorded in an enormous and hotly disputed table of precedence. This was the all-important
mestnichestvo
. It was not a simple system though, like that still existing in England, where a clearly defined structure of office, rank and title allows, to all intents and purposes, the entire upper and official classes to be assigned a place about which there can be no reasonable argument. For the Russian system did not depend upon the position of the individual but of all his ancestors vis-à-vis the ancestors of another man. Thus a man might refuse to sit lower down the table than another at a banquet, or even to take orders from him as an army commander, if he could prove that, say, his great-uncle had occupied a higher position than the other’s grandfather. The
mestnichestvo
was huge; every noble family brought the most elaborate and impressive family tree they could to the officials who were in charge of it. This tiresome system, towards which most aristocracies are prone, had been developed over the last century or so and brought now to such a point of absurdity, that Tsar Ivan had ordered it to be suspended when the army went on campaign. To do so was the only way of getting any order obeyed.

At public functions, for instance, great magnates had been known to refuse to sit in the place allocated even when the Tsar commanded – to risk his displeasure and possible ruin rather than
yield. For once a family yielded place to another, then that fact, too, became a precedent in the
mestnichestvo
system that might reduce a family’s standing for generations to come.

Boris had always understood from his father that the Bobrovs, thanks to their former service, need yield nothing to the Ivanovs although they were somewhat poor. Was it really possible that his father had been mistaken or had misled him? He had never made enquiries: he had just assumed.

Could it be that the clan of the three-pronged
tamga
, of warriors who went back to Kievan times, were of such small account in the state of Muscovy?

As he looked at Feodor, so confident, so quietly mocking, he began to lose confidence in his own position and started to blush.

‘This is no time for such matters.’

It was Dimitri Ivanov’s voice, cutting through the lull in the general conversation, and for once Boris was grateful to his father-in-law. But for the rest of the evening that sense of embarrassment, as if the ground had given way under his feet, remained with him.

Late that night the young men of the party escorted the couple back to Boris’s house. It was a small house which, because it had belonged to a priest, was painted white as a sign that the occupant paid no taxes. Boris had been lucky to find it.

Everything was ready. Following the custom, he had laid sheaves of wheat upon his nuptial bed. And now at last he found himself alone with Elena.

He looked at her. Did she look thoughtful? Did she look sad? She smiled, a little nervously. He realized that he had not the remotest idea what was in her mind.

And what was she thinking, this rather quiet, shy fourteen-year-old with the golden hair?

She was thinking that she could love this young man: that he seemed to her better, if a little slower-witted, than her brother. She was afraid that, being young and inexperienced, she might not know how to please him.

She saw that he was lonely; that was obvious. But she also perceived that there was something brittle in him. While she wanted to comfort him, and help him grow out of what she sensed was a morbid state, her instinct told her that, as he came up against an unyielding world, he might turn back into his loneliness and
demand that she share it. And it was this sense of danger, this dark cloud on the horizon, that made her a little hesitant to subjugate herself to him too quickly.

But the simple discoveries of passion, in two very young people, were enough to form the beginning of their marriage on that and the succeeding nights.

In two weeks’ time, they were due to visit Russka.

It was a sparkling winter morning as Boris and Elena, wrapped in furs, and in the first of two sleds each drawn by three horses, approached the little town of Russka.

Meanwhile, in the market place at Russka, a small but significant meeting was taking place.

To look at them, one would not have guessed that the four men – a priest, a peasant, a merchant and a monk – were cousins; and of these four, only the priest knew that he was descended from Yanka, the peasant woman who had killed Peter the Tatar.

It was Mikhail, the peasant from Dirty Place, who was especially anxious. He was a squarely built, broad-chested fellow with soft blue eyes and an aureole of wavy, dark brown hair that rose almost upright from his head. Now, his usually placid face looked worried.

‘You are sure her dowry is small?’

‘Yes,’ the tall priest replied.

‘That’s bad. Very bad.’ And the poor man stared at his feet miserably.

Stephen gazed down at him sympathetically. For four generations, ever since his great-grandfather had been named after the old monk, Father Stephen the icon painter, to whom they were related, the eldest sons in his family had been called Stephen and had entered the priesthood. His own wife was also the daughter of a priest. Stephen was twenty-two, a tall, imposing figure with a carefully trimmed dark beard, serious blue eyes and an air of quiet dignity that made him seem older. His information about Elena was sure to be good. He had contacts in Moscow, and since he could read and write – an unusual accomplishment in the priesthood at this time – he could even correspond with the capital.

‘A wife with no money – just think what that means for me!’ Mikhail lamented. ‘He’ll squeeze me till he breaks my bones. What else can he do?’

The question was asked without any rancour. Everyone understood the problem. Dirty Place was all Boris had. With a wife, and soon a family to keep, the only way he could possibly survive would be to get more from his estate and the peasants on it. Under his ailing father, things had been lax; but who knew what might happen now?

‘You two are lucky,’ he remarked to Stephen and the monk. ‘You’re churchmen. As for you,’ he turned to the merchant with a rueful smile that contained a trace of malice, ‘what do you care? You live in Russka.’

Lev the merchant was a stout man of thirty-five, with thin black hair swept back over his head and a hard, Tatar face. His beard was thick. His Mongol eyes were black and cunning although, as now, they could soften with faint amusement when simple-minded men like his cousin Mikhail assumed that his elementary business practices were some kind of fiendish cunning.

He dealt chiefly in furs, but he had extended his activities into several ventures, and in particular had prospered as a lender of money.

As was often the case in Russia, the largest moneylender in the area was the monastery, which had by far the greatest capital. But the expanding economy of the last hundred years had created opportunities for many merchants to supply credit as well, and in Russia all classes borrowed. A prosperous small-town merchant like Lev might be owed money even by a magnate or a powerful prince. Interest rates were high. Some loan sharks even charged a hundred and fifty per cent and more. Mikhail was sure that his rich cousin would go to hell when he died, but meanwhile he envied him. They were all the same, he thought, the people who lived in Russka – rich and heartless.

Since Russka had been taken over by the monastery, it had grown. There were now several rows of huts of which some were quite large, with their main rooms upstairs to keep them dry throughout the year. Over five hundred people lived within its walls which, like those of the monastery across the stream, had been strengthened. Over the gateway, now, there was a high tower with a tall tent roof made of wood. This served as a watchtower for town and monastery, to give them warning of the approach of the Tatars or the bandits who had appeared in the area several times in recent years.

There was a busy, prosperous and orderly air about the little town. In the market place, beside which there was now a stone church as well as an older wooden one, bright stalls were regularly set up. People came from all the nearby villages and hamlets. There was a tax collector in the place who received the customs dues from the traders, but the original impetus for the market was the fact that the goods supplied by the monastery were exempt from taxes. Here one could buy salt, brought in shallow draft boats from the north, and caviar. Local pork, honey and fish were all excellent. Wheat came upriver from the Riazan lands to the south.

But above all, Russka was known for its icons. The monastery had a regular little workshop. There were no less than ten monks, working with assistants, producing a constant flow of icons which were sold in the Russka market. A number of artisans, brought in by the monastery, were housed in Russka where they turned out handicrafts, some religious, others not, for sale on the stalls. People came from Vladimir, and from Moscow itself, to buy.

Now Lev turned to Mikhail and put his arm round him.

‘I shouldn’t worry,’ he counselled. And then he spoke aloud the thought that only Mikhail, amongst the four of them, had failed to grasp. ‘Don’t you realize – if this fellow has his way,’ he indicated the monk beside him, ‘young lord Boris won’t have his estate much longer anyway.’

The gentle, joyful hiss of the sleds. They ran down the gleaming road of the frozen River Rus, between the lines of soft, snow-laden trees until, round a curve, the banks opened up to several broad, white meadows.

In the first sled rode Boris and Elena. In the second, the five Tatar slaves, Elena’s maid, and a huge quantity of baggage.

And now at last, there lay Russka before them, with the monastery below it. How quiet it was. Under a clear, light blue sky the wooden tent roof of the tower, glistening in the sun, reminded Boris of a tall sheaf of wheat or barley, tied just below the top, standing in a field after harvest. He squeezed Elena’s hand and sighed with pleasure at the familiar, childhood sensation of being enveloped in the peace of the Russian countryside.

The tower, it seemed to him, was like a token of summer and of fulfilment, hanging in the bright winter sky.

Elena, too, smiled. Thank God, she was thinking, that the place
was not quite as small as she had feared. Perhaps there might be a few women here that she could talk to.