Russka - Edward Rutherfurd [146]
But they lost. A little after 1500 the Church council, led by the formidable Abbot Joseph, declared that the Church’s lands and wealth gave her a power on earth that was wholly desirable. Those who thought otherwise were in danger of being called heretics.
Stephen the priest privately favoured poverty. His cousin Daniel, however, had shown such diligence in everything relating to business that the abbot of the Peter and Paul Monastery had made him the supervisor of the monastery’s activities in the little trading town. To hear Daniel talk about the fall of Kazan, you might have mistaken him for a merchant or a tax collector. ‘We can pick up some of the extra trade through Nizhni Novgorod and from the south,’ he would explain eagerly in his soft voice. ‘Silk, calico, frankincense, soap …’ He would tick them off on his fingers. ‘Perhaps we can even get some rhubarb too.’ For some reason this luxury was still imported from the east.
But above all, Daniel’s secret mission in life was to help the abbot enlarge the monastery’s lands.
He would probably succeed. For generations the Church had been the one section of the community which had continuously increased its landholdings. Two years before Tsar Ivan had tried to limit the scale of this growth by insisting that the monasteries and churches must have his permission before they accepted or bought any more land. But these rules were always hard to enforce. In the central regions of Muscovy, at this time, the Church owned about a third of the land.
There were two desirable estates close by. One was just to the north and east, a tract of land that had passed back into the hands of the Moscow princes. Perhaps Ivan would grant them this: for despite his recent attempts to limit them, he was still a huge giver of land to the Church himself. And then there was Dirty Place.
Boris’s father had held on to his estate, but would the young man with his wife and small dowry be able to? Daniel smiled. Probably not. They would either give the land to the monastery in return for a life tenancy: this was often done. Or they could sell it outright. Or they could get themselves ever deeper into debt until the monastery took the estate over. Boris would be well treated. His family’s long connection with the monastery would ensure that. He would live out his life with honour. The monks would pray, after his death, for this noble benefactor who gave his lands to the service of God. We’ll look after him,’ he would say.
There was only one problem the monk foresaw. Knowing the monastery’s intentions, the young man would try very hard to keep his independence, as his father had done. He would do everything he could to avoid borrowing money from the monastery. ‘Which is where you come in,’ Daniel had told Lev the merchant the day before. ‘When the young man wants to borrow, offer to lend to him and I’ll guarantee the loan,’ he suggested. ‘I’ll see that you don’t suffer by it.’
At which Lev had laughed, and his Tatar eyes had shown a flicker of amusement.
‘Ah, you monks …’ he had replied.
And now the young man was approaching.
Elena was surprised, as the sled crossed the square, to hear her husband mutter a curse. What a strange, moody fellow he was, this young man. But when she glanced at him, he gave her a rueful grin.
‘My enemies,’ he whispered. ‘They’re all cousins.’ The four men looked harmless enough to her. ‘Beware especially of the priest,’ he added.
Boris’s fear of the priest was founded upon a single fact: that Stephen could read. He himself could make out a few words. There were many nobles at court, he knew, who read; and the monks and priests in the great monasteries and churches read and wrote in their own, rather stylized, church language. But what was this parish priest, in a little village, doing with books? To Boris it seemed foreign and suspicious. Catholics, or those strange German Protestants who traded in Moscow, probably read books. Worse yet – so did Jews.
For there was