Russka - Edward Rutherfurd [154]
‘Then we shall have another regency, run by the mother’s family, those damned Zakharins,’ they argued.
What was the alternative? Strictly speaking there was, on the outer fringes of the court, the harmless but pathetic figure of the Tsar’s younger brother – a weak-headed creature, seldom seen. Even when the boyars remembered his existence, he was generally dismissed again as unfit. But what about the Tsar’s cousin Vladimir? Of all the many princes, none was more closely related to the reigning monarch and he was a man of some experience. Here was a better candidate than this baby boy.
Over the dying man, they argued. Even Ivan’s most trusted friends, the close councillors he had made himself, were skulking in corners, whispering. They were all betraying him as he watched and listened, scarcely able to speak. And what would happen to Muscovy after he was gone? Anarchy, as they fought each other for power, these cursed, treacherous magnates.
But then he had recovered. The veil, having been lifted, descended once again. His courtiers bowed before him and greeted him with a smile. The subject of his cousin Vladimir’s succession was not spoken of, as though it had never been. And Tsar Ivan said nothing.
Yet all around the court, there was an air of gloom. In May, Ivan had taken his family to the far north, to give thanks for his life at the very monastery where his own mother had gone when she was pregnant with him. It was a long way: far, far into the forests towards the Arctic emptiness. And there, in a distant river, his nurse had accidentally dropped Ivan and Anastasia’s baby son who had died in a few moments.
Over the warm, dusty citadel that summer, the sun had hung, like a silent companion to the dry, parching sadness within its massive walls. In the north-west, at Pskov, there was plague. In the east, at Kazan, the troubles with the conquered tribesmen were getting worse.
And for Boris, too, these long months had been touched by a kind of sadness.
He and Elena had hurried back to Moscow in March and taken up their modest quarters in the little house in the White Town.
Elena would make daily visits to her mother or her sister. Whispered news of the dark developments in the court would reach them each day, either through Elena’s father or from her mother, who had friends amongst the elderly ladies granted quarters near the royal women in the palace. Boris found himself often alone and with not much to do. To fill the time he took to walking about the capital and visiting its many churches, often hovering for some time before an icon, and saying a perfunctory prayer before moving on.
Yet although their life was quiet, he could not avoid expense. There were the horses to be stabled, the giving of gifts, and above all the yards of silk brocade and fur trimming for kaftans and dresses required to visit those who, he was assured, might be useful to him.
He could not help it: he resented these expenses which he could not really afford. Sometimes, when his wife arrived back happily from a visit to her mother, full of the latest news, he felt a kind of sullen anger, not because she had behaved badly towards him in any way, but because she seemed always to believe that all was well. Then, when they lay together at night, he would lie almost touching her, wanting her, yet holding back, hoping by this little show of indifference to worry her enough to break through the wall of family security that seemed to surround her. How can she really love me, if she does not share my anxiety? he wondered.
But to young Elena, these little shows of indifference only made her fear that her moody husband did not care for her. She would have liked to cry but instead her pride made her shrink from him, or lie there surrounding herself with an invisible barrier so that he, in turn, thought: See, she does not want me.
It was a particular misfortune that he should have encountered a young friend in the street one day. They had retired to a booth to drink for a time, and after asking about his health and that of his wife,