Russka - Edward Rutherfurd [229]
‘If the Tsar wants to take the Ukraine under his wing,’ he remarked thoughtfully, ‘he will have to sign a contract to guarantee our people better rights than these.’
But now it was Nikita who shook his head.
‘We know the Ukraine has other customs, which will be respected,’ he assured Andrei. ‘But surely you understand, if the Tsar accepts you under his protection, he does not sign contracts with you. That is beneath his sovereign dignity. You must trust in his kindness and understanding.’
‘The King of Poland signed contracts with us,’ Andrei protested.
‘The King of Poland is only an elected monarch.’ Nikita smiled with faint contempt.
‘Cossacks,’ Andrei said carefully, ‘are not slaves.’
‘And our Most Pious, Orthodox and Most Gentle Tsar is appointed by God to do with us all as he wishes,’ Nikita replied firmly. ‘You must remember,’ he went on, with a trace of condescension, ‘that the Tsar is the heir of St Vladimir, of Monomakh, and of Ivan the Terrible.’ He smiled a little grimly. ‘Ivan, I can assure you, knew how to command obedience. He had one of my own ancestors roasted in a frying pan.’
It was curious, Andrei thought, how these Russians seemed to take pride in the cruelty of their rulers, even when it was directed against themselves. He had several times heard Muscovites speak admiringly of the terrors of Ivan: they seemed almost to long for his return.
How different from the Cossack way. The Cossack warrior gave his Hetman power of life and death over everyone during a campaign, but woe betide him if he tried to exercise any authority in time of peace!
This little altercation had produced a slight tension between the two men. Nikita broke it with a laugh.
‘Well, my Cossack, you are welcome to visit my poor estate. I’ve told my steward to put you in my house and look after you. I’m only sorry I can’t come with you myself.’ He paused. ‘By the way,’ he gave him a sidelong glance, ‘I know I can rely upon you not to subvert any of my peasants to your Cossack ways – of either sex.’
So, he knew. Andrei looked at the floor awkwardly. But as they parted he reflected that, in Muscovy, one could never be sure what people knew, and what they did not.
Russka.
He supposed it was what he had expected.
Spring had come to the little town and its monastery. As they approached the place, the woods opened out to large open fields; their long, gentle undulations of raw turf, dark earth and long slivers of greying snow seemed to be an echo of the endless spaces beyond. At Russka itself, the ice had cleared from the centre of the stream. At the edges, the women still knelt on boards by holes in the ice, washing their clothes in sight of the monastery’s pale walls.
On the trees, even before the last traces of ice had melted from the ground around them, little green buds were already opening staunchly under the hard, bright blue sky. Just outside the walls of Russka, a cattle pen was already a little sea of mud.
It had been a strange journey. Maryushka and the steward travelled in a light, two-wheeled cart while Andrei rode. Despite the surrounding dampness, the tracks through the woods were fairly passable and they made good speed. At nights they rested in the villages or hamlets along the way.
The steward was sullen. Now and then, as if to prove that he was really an interesting fellow, he would engage Andrei in conversation. But Andrei politely discouraged him and remained aloof. To Maryushka he was similarly distant, so that the steward more than once growled to his wife: ‘A cold fellow, that.’
Sometimes Andrei would trot on ahead of them; or he might hang back and watch their two heads from behind, Maryushka’s held rather still, the steward’s bobbing forward constantly as though he were nodding off to sleep. But more often he would walk his horse beside them, glancing across from time to time at Maryushka, who would always be looking, dully, straight ahead. How pale she was.
Twice, however, when