Russka - Edward Rutherfurd [262]
‘He’ll forgive you almost anything as long as you never lie to him,’ Procopy said. ‘Once, when I was late on parade, he looked so angry I thought he was going to have me knouted, but when I told him I’d been drunk the night before and had only just woken up, he laughed and told me not to do it again.’
Above all, Procopy was cheerful because he knew that Peter was preparing for a great adventure – he was going to seize the Baltic ports.
It was a secret. The Swedes were strong and it would be necessary to take them by surprise. Brandenburg, Denmark, Saxony, all wanted to attack the Swedes and share out the rich Baltic lands of the Latvians, Estonians and Lithuanians amongst themselves. But Peter could not strike north until he was sure that he, in turn, would not be attacked by the Ottoman Turks in the south. All that year, therefore, he assured the Swedish envoys to Moscow that he was their friend, while his own envoy in Constantinople tried to conclude a satisfactory treaty with the Sultan.
Meanwhile, Russia was arming.
The new English flintlocks were a huge improvement on the old muskets of the streltsy, which had been completely unreliable. Equally impressive were the new bayonets from France.
‘See how neatly it’s done,’ Procopy explained to his father and Daniel one day. ‘Instead of firing and then fitting the bayonet into the barrel, and then removing it if you want to fire again, these cunning Frenchmen have thought of fitting the bayonet on to the outside of the barrel, so you can actually fire with the bayonet fixed!’
Neither man had ever seen such a weapon and even Daniel, the former Cossack, agreed that the thing was well done.
Above all, the state would need money.
‘We’re going to tax everything we can get our hands on,’ Procopy declared. ‘Even people’s beards,’ he laughed. ‘And since trade will improve when we’ve got our Baltic ports, we’ll make the merchants cough up too.’
‘How will you do that?’ Nikita asked.
‘Simple,’ his son replied. ‘Administrative reforms.’
And he explained how Peter was now going to allow all local tradesmen to be completely free of the control of the provincial governors and let them elect their own officials. ‘That will please them, I should think,’ Nikita said. For though he himself had once hoped to be a governor, he knew very well how corrupt their administration was.
‘Not really,’ Procopy grinned. ‘You see, we’re doubling their taxes!’
Indeed, though many of Peter’s reforms were for the ultimate good of Russia, it is certainly true that most were actually thought of originally as ways of raising revenue more efficiently.
Not only money, but men were pouring in. Procopy insisted that Nikita send a good complement from his estates, including Russka. ‘And make sure they’re all shaved,’ he remarked. When his father observed that, for his part, he couldn’t see why it mattered whether the peasant recruits were shaved or not, Procopy quickly cut in: ‘Of course it does. That way we can spot deserters at once.’
There was another way of getting men as well as applying to landlords. ‘We’re going to make sure the peasants who’ve been freed by their masters don’t get off,’ Procopy explained. ‘They’re to report to the recruiting officers or lose their freedom.’
‘So their freedom will be the army?’
‘That’s right.’
And Nikita could only shake his head at such ruthless efficiency.
But what, in the long run, did all these changes mean? This was what puzzled Nikita.
He was not shocked, as Eudokia and Daniel were. And though he found Procopy’s air of superiority hurtful, he tried to be humble and to interest himself. He saw whole regiments dressed like Germans. He saw his son lead his wife out in a new German dress, in which she looked rather bashful. He saw the Church mocked and the Tsar’s only son taken from his mother and given into the care of foreigners.
‘And all I want to know,’ he burst out to Procopy, when they were alone one day before Christmas, ‘all I want you to tell me is, where are we going? Are we to stop being Russians altogether?