Russka - Edward Rutherfurd [143]
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