Russka - Edward Rutherfurd [137]
At Nizhni Novgorod was the great Macarius Monastery, with its enormous fair. As he walked its streets, Boris smiled. It was good to be home.
The returning army was popular at Nizhni Novgorod. The Tatars had so often disrupted their affairs in the past – and besides, Kazan was their rival in the trade with the east. The people showed their gratitude in every way.
It was mid-afternoon, the end of the working day, when he met the girl. She was standing outside a long wooden building that contained a public bath house. She was typical of her kind. Whereas the women of the upper classes were kept in virtual seclusion and did not show their faces in public, the women of the people liked to make a display of themselves.
Her face was painted white, her lips bright red. Her eyes were set wide apart and shaped like almonds. She was at least half Mordvinian, he supposed. Her eyebrows were painted black. She wore a long embroidered gown that must have been expensive, and from under which peeped two bright red shoes that tapped out a little rhythm on the ground, from time to time, to keep themselves occupied. On her head was a red velvet cap. Her eyes looked bored, because nothing was happening, but when she saw young Boris staring at her, they became first watchful, then faintly amused. As he walked up to her she smiled, and he saw that her teeth were black.
It was done with mercury, this blackening of the teeth, and Boris had heard the custom was borrowed from the Tatars. The first time he had gone with one of these women, her black teeth had repelled him, but he had learned to get used to it.
They stopped, briefly, at a little drinking booth where they were serving vodka. He liked this spirit that went down one so easily, even though at this time it was mainly used by the lower classes. It was not a Russian drink at all, but had started to enter Russia from the west through Poland in the last century. Indeed, its very name was only the mispronunciation by Russian merchants of the Latin name it bore: aqua vitae.
They finished their drink. He felt a warm surge run through him as she took him to her lodgings.
She proved to be warm, and surprisingly supple.
Afterwards, when he had paid her, she asked him if he were married, and hearing he was about to be, laughed merrily.
‘Keep her locked up,’ she cried, ‘and never trust her.’ Then she moved lightly away, in her red shoes, humming to herself.
It was with a shock, at that very moment, that Boris turned to see that a group of people had just come out of a church opposite. They were dressed in furs and did not seem anxious to attract particular attention, but Boris immediately recognized the tall young figure in their midst.
He knew very well that Tsar Ivan could not even ride near a church without paying it a visit: obviously this had been another of his sessions of prayer. But had the devout sovereign seen him with the girl? He looked at him nervously.
It was obvious that he had. His piercing eyes shot after the girl then bored into Boris. The youth held his breath.
Then Ivan laughed – a sharp, rather nasal laugh – and his party moved rapidly away.
Boris had no doubt he had been recognized: Ivan missed nothing. But had it altered the sovereign’s opinion of him – had it affected his prospects? There was no way of knowing.
It was two days before the end of October when they entered the mighty city of Moscow.
How thrilling the journey had been. They had come overland from Nizhni Novgorod, through the very heartland of Muscovy. First they had come to the ancient, high-walled city of Vladimir, where they learned that Tsar Ivan’s wife had just given him a son. Then, despite his eagerness to reach the capital, Ivan had taken a large party first to nearby Suzdal, and then across to the great Monastery of Trinity St Sergius,