Russka - Edward Rutherfurd [165]
It was now that, at one end of Moscow’s Red Square, the Metropolitan ordered the building of that fantastic collection of exotic towers apparently grafted together to make a new Russian life form. Unlike any other, the building later became famous in history as St Basil’s Cathedral.
Ivan would have liked, next, to defeat the mighty Khan of the Crimea as well; but for the present, that was too tough a nut to crack.
So it was that Tsar Ivan, trying to open the doors of his landlocked prison, turned northwards to threaten his neighbours – those rich Livonian ports he needed so much on the shores of the Baltic.
At first it seemed he might succeed.
No wonder, then, that Elena saw little of her husband. The life of the servitor was hard. Often there was little to eat. Blistering heat or tremendous cold: these were his lot. Before leaving for the north Boris had returned from Astrakhan with some modest plunder – a few roubles’ worth, that paid off some of his debts – and a hardened man.
His relationship with her father, never warm, now became distant. This was not a personal matter – indeed, Dimitri was pleased with his son-in-law’s career – it was a question of politics.
The trouble had begun when Boris had returned from Astrakhan. Beneath the new harsh exterior, Elena sensed a kind of elation in him. For while his armies had been subduing the steppe and desert by the Volga, Ivan and his inner counsellors had been pressing through another kind of victory at home: the reform of the realm.
Once again, in common with all the centralizing rulers of the era, it was the magnates and their clients that he was determined to crush. The old rewards for service, though they were not what they had once been, were curtailed. Instead of a boyar or serving prince being given a city to feed off, local men, chosen by the gentry and merchants, were to administer each locality. But most important of all, it was now decreed that all holders of estates – whether the service pomestie or the privately inherited votchina – must give the Tsar military service when summoned.
‘That will teach those lazy devils who is master,’ Boris grimly remarked in front of his father-in-law. ‘Do you know that half the estate holders in Tver were giving no service to anyone?’
‘Then tell me,’ Dimitri Ivanov asked acidly, ‘exactly what is the difference now between your estate, which you inherited, and a mere pomestie? Since the Tsar usually allows the son to carry on after the father on the service estates.’
Boris considered.
‘There’s a legal difference, technically; but in practice you’re right. There’s no difference. If you don’t serve, the Tsar will take your estate away.’
‘And you are happy with that?’
‘Yes. Why should I not want to serve the Tsar? Don’t you want to?’
It was a wicked question for he knew very well that his wife’s family held several estates and that, at present, none of them was actually serving.
Dimitri said nothing, but passed his hand over his bald head with obvious irritation.
‘If a man doesn’t want to serve the Tsar,’ Boris went on coolly, ‘I personally would have to conclude that he must be the Tsar’s enemy.’
‘You should conclude no such thing, young man,’ Dimitri thundered.
‘I am glad to hear it,’ Boris answered drily.
Elena’s mother had managed to separate the two men after that. But the damage had been done.
Nor was it just a dispute between two men. Elena knew very well that the bad feeling between her husband and her father represented a growing divide between those who were behind the reforming Tsar, and the members of the old ruling classes, great and small, who disliked the whole tone of his rule.
Indeed, there were whispers in her father’s house now – things said that she would never have told Boris about – but which made her wonder if the young Tsar would last.