Russka - Edward Rutherfurd [213]
‘Let the Cossack be a Cossack, and the peasant a peasant.’
This simple statement, which would long be remembered, had served as the epitaph for a free Ukraine. It left many of the participants disgusted.
‘That is not what I came to fight for,’ Stepan said grimly.
‘It’s as good as we could get,’ Andrei remarked.
Truth to tell, it was as much as he wanted. He realized that. Why should he want a free peasantry now that he was in a position to buy an estate? But in any case, the whole idea was impossible.
‘You can’t have complete freedom. It’s an illusion,’ he suggested.
The big man shook his head.
‘It’s no illusion, but you fear it,’ he replied sadly.
‘I just know it can’t work. And anyway, who would protect us from attack? Freedom leaves us defenceless. We need authority, a big power. Don’t you see that?’
‘I see that treachery brings only evil,’ the big man replied.
And now, within days, he was being proved right.
The peasants, furious at being sold out, were beginning to rise up again; and now it was the Cossack council, not the Poles, who decreed they must be put down at once. The orders had been issued. Andrei prepared to ride.
He knew it was the end of his friendship with Stepan: he knew it the moment he heard the order.
Yet, even so, he was in for a small surprise.
He found the big man already prepared to leave. Though he greeted his friend gruffly, Andrei guessed that Stepan must have been waiting for him before departing. His horse was saddled; some modest possessions were strapped to a pack-horse. Andrei saw a spare horse standing nearby.
‘You’ve heard the order, then?’
‘I have.’
‘You’re going?’
‘Of course. I want no part of it.’
Andrei sighed. He didn’t try to dissuade him.
‘So you’re going back to the Don?’
‘Perhaps.’
Andrei looked around, a little puzzled.
‘Where are your Polish horses? Where’s all your loot?’
‘I gave them away.’
‘Gave them away? To whom?’
‘To some peasants. They needed money more than me.’
It was a stunning rebuke, but Andrei did not try to justify himself, nor did he feel insulted. Stepan thought one way; he thought another.
‘But haven’t you kept anything for yourself? What about your farm back on the Don?’
‘Perhaps I won’t go back to the Don.’
‘Men are free there, my Ox, even if they aren’t in the Ukraine. That’s where you belong.’
For a moment or two, the Ox did not reply. It seemed there was something on his mind, something he had been brooding about for some time. He shook his head slowly.
‘Men,’ he muttered at last, ‘are never free. Not when they are ruled by their own desires.’
Andrei looked at his friend. There was a kind of finality in this statement which suggested that, whatever path it was that Stepan had been travelling in his thoughts, he had come to the very end of it and had, so to speak, returned before setting off again.
‘Don’t you have faith in men any more, my Ox?’ Andrei asked affectionately.
The fact that Stepan did not reply at once told Andrei that his faith in the affairs of men had been destroyed.
‘We are all sinners,’ he grunted with a frown.
‘Where will you go, then?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘What will you do?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Then you still have faith of some kind.’
‘Perhaps.’ Stepan glanced down at his feet. ‘One day I may become a priest,’ he said gloomily.
‘A priest?’
‘Or a monk. But not yet. I am unworthy.’
Andrei scarcely knew what to make of this.
‘Will I ever see you again, old Ox?’ he asked.
‘Perhaps.’ He wiped a fly off his long brown beard. ‘Perhaps not.’ He glanced at his horse. ‘I must be off.’
Andrei embraced him.
‘Goodbye, my Ox. God be with you,’ he said.
He did not expect to see him again.
1653
And now, on a sharp, cold morning, in the spring of 1653, young Andrei was riding northwards with the Cossack envoys.
They were going to see the Tsar.
His own career, since the departure of Stepan, had gone from strength to strength. He had increasingly come to Bogdan’s personal notice, and the Hetman, with his long, crafty face, had often given him sensitive missions.