Russka - Edward Rutherfurd [197]
There were the itinerant merchants in Pereiaslav and even Kiev who went out to join the caravans that followed the ancient salt route across the steppe to the Crimea. They lent money. So did a merchant in Russka. And so did the Jews. And they all lent to Ostap, on the security of his farm.
It was a fine farm. There were excellent crops of wheat and millet. There was part of the big wood, upstream, where Ostap owned a hundred beehives. ‘But we need you,’ his greying mother had told Andrei frankly. ‘Because if someone doesn’t manage the farm – and your father – we’ll lose everything. And I can’t do it.’
He wanted to go. He longed to go. Yet, as he reached the farm, Andrei was still uncertain what to do. He was a little disconcerted therefore when, as he dismounted, the old man abruptly said: ‘You’re leaving in the morning. I’ve prepared all you’ll need.’
Even as Ostap spoke, Andrei saw his mother coming out of the house looking worried. He glanced at them both while his father sucked contentedly on his pipe.
‘Andrei!’
It was all she said.
He paused. The prospect of going thrilled him, but he looked at his father with concern.
‘What about the farm, Father?’ he brought himself to ask.
‘What about it?’
‘How will you manage?’
‘Very well, damn you! Are you ready to leave?’ Sensing opposition, Ostap was starting to grow red.
Andrei hesitated. He caught his mother’s eye, saw her pleading look.
‘I’m not sure. Perhaps I should leave later.’
‘What!’ his father roared. ‘Are you disobeying me?’
‘Not exactly.’
‘Silence, you young cur. You’ll obey your father.’ Suddenly Ostap’s heavy brows knitted and his eyes gleamed with anger. His whole body seemed to grow rigid. ‘Or is it,’ he asked menacingly, ‘that I’ve bred a coward? Is that it? Are you a coward?’ The last word was said with such apparent contempt and loathing, it was such a calculated insult, that Andrei felt his own body tense and his face go white with anger. It seemed, at any moment, that father and son might fly at each other’s throats.
The cunning old fox, the youth suddenly thought. He’s goading me deliberately so that I won’t do as Mother wants. And even though I know what he’s up to, I’m still getting angry.
‘Well?’ Ostap thundered. ‘Have I bred a coward? Are you really afraid to fight? Must I go and die in shame?’
‘Die as you please,’ Andrei cried in frustration.
‘So that’s how you talk to your father!’ Ostap was now beside himself. He glanced to left and right for something to strike Andrei with.
And who knew what might have happened next if, at this moment, three figures had not come riding out of the woods straight towards the little group. For the sight of them reduced both men to silence.
One was splendidly dressed, and rode a magnificent bay. The other two, dressed in long black coats, rode smaller horses. The first was a Polish noble; the other two were Jews.
That a Polish noble should ride in such company was no particular surprise. For generations now, the Polish Commonwealth was the one country in eastern Europe where the Jews could live at peace. Indeed, the authorities there even allowed Jews to carry swords like noblemen.
They drew up in front of the porch without dismounting. The Pole glanced down at the family before him coolly, then surveyed the farm thoughtfully. Andrei noticed that the gold brocade on the nobleman’s beautiful coat glinted in the sun; his long, aristocratic hands rested easily upon the saddlebow. His face was oval, pale, and except for a thin, dark moustache, clean-shaven. His eyes were large, blue and rather luminous. A kinsman of the great Lithuanian-Polish magnate, Vyshnevetsky, who owned vast tracts of land in the eastern Ukraine, Stanislaus was the local official of this region, overseeing numerous little forts like Russka, which Vyshnevetsky owned, on the edge of the steppe.
He remained silent for a few moments, but when he finally spoke, Andrei could only stare at him dumbfounded.
‘Well, Ostap,’ he remarked casually, ‘we’re taking over the farm.’
For several moments there was complete silence. They were