Russka - Edward Rutherfurd [271]
And when she saw the look that Daniel gave Arina, she understood that this death meant something very serious indeed.
Yet at first, Maryushka thought she liked the new abbot. He was a pleasant-looking man in his fifties, with a round face and very pale blue eyes, who would stop to talk to children in Russka.
But he was an outsider. The death of the old abbot had caused a visitation from the authorities. They had not been impressed with what they saw; the election of a new abbot was stopped and the monks, to their great annoyance, had had this new man imposed upon them from Vladimir.
He had arrived in early May. Two weeks later, he had become suspicious of what was going on at Dirty Place. A week after that, two strangers arrived at the monastery, and were closeted with him for some time.
How warm the church always seemed to Maryushka.
It was a simple, wooden building with a little octagonal tower over its centre. One came up a flight of wooden steps to the covered porch by the west door; though beneath this was an undercroft with a stove where they often gathered in the depth of winter.
Inside the church, though the wooden ceiling hid the tower itself from view, the room was high and light streamed in through the open windows. There was a little iconostasis of four tiers, although the top row, the prophets, was so close to the ceiling that it had to be set at an angle. All the painting had been done by local artists, some of it very crude; overall, it looked reddish, rather squashed and friendly.
It was a warm, late afternoon in early summer. The sun was gently lighting up the icons of the local saints beside the Royal Doors. In the shadows in the corners, candles had been lit before other, darker icons.
The whole village was there, standing together in the stillness, while little particles of dust danced in the long shafts of sunlight above. Sometimes, when the village was at prayer like this – the men with their long beards, the women with scarves tied over their heads – it seemed to her as though they were timeless: as though the present itself, having been foreshadowed, was also a memory, dreamlike in its quality.
This was her family: the people with whom – such was the will of God – she was to live and die. And for that very reason, she belonged to them and they to her in the gentle, warm intimacy of the little church.
Her father was conducting the service. Still, though she was nine, she saw him as a Patriarch – as unshakable, as timeless as one of the prophets on the iconostasis. He, like Silas, will die, she knew. Yet he will never die. He will be with me here, always. She stood beside her mother. As she sang the responses, how lovely, yet how sad her voice sounded.
They had just reached the Litany when Maryushka noticed the two visitors quietly enter the little church. Other heads turned also.
She saw them bow, and make the sign of the cross with two fingers before standing reverently at the back.
Her father, too, had seen them. For an instant, as he began the prayers, she saw him hesitate. But then, looking up as though for guidance, he solemnly went on.
As he went through the prayers, she tried to concentrate. But she could not help looking back to see what the strangers were doing. Nothing, it seemed.
Was there something even more fervent than usual in Daniel’s prayers? Was there, on that quiet, late afternoon, some particular tinge of sadness, yet of warmth in her mother’s singing?
It was as Daniel raised his hand for the final benediction that the two men suddenly stepped forward.
‘Stop the service!’ one cried.
‘This is an affront to the Church and to the Tsar,’ announced the other.
Slowly, carefully, Daniel completed the benediction. Then, gazing down at them, he asked: ‘You have something to say to me?’
‘You make the sign of the cross with two fingers,’ the first called out.
Daniel said nothing.
‘Why have you not prayed for His Majesty, the Tsar?’ demanded