Russka - Edward Rutherfurd [353]
On the morning of December 14, when the army and the Senate were to take the new oath, a group of officers led some three thousand confused troops into the Senate Square. They arrived late, after the senators had already taken their oath. On the conspirators’ instruction the troops began to shout: ‘Constantine and Constitution.’ It was believed that the soldiers supposed that this strange word, constitution, must be the name of the Grand Duke’s wife.
Nicholas, wanting to avoid bloodshed, had them surrounded; but at dusk, when they did not budge, some rounds of canister were fired and several dozen men killed. Then it was over. Soon afterwards, in the south, Pestel’s rebellion was strangled at birth. Five ringleaders only were executed.
This was the Decembrist revolt. Aristocratic, amateurish, slightly absurd. Yet despite – perhaps even because of – the heroic folly of these nobles, they came to be seen as an inspiration, like the Christian martyrs of ancient times, for those revolutionaries who came after them.
To the new Tsar, Nicholas, the revolt was a shock. He was a simple man who believed in service. He assumed his nobles did. What possible reason could there be for these fellows to betray their sacred trust? He had all their confessions copied and bound in a book which never left his desk and which he studied carefully. From it he learned of Russia’s need for laws, liberty and a constitution. He was not a clever man, but he thought about it.
First, however, there must be order.
1827
Summer was beginning and Tatiana was contented: for now, suddenly, in place of silence and sadness, the house was full of happy voices. And as she looked forward to the coming summer months’, it seemed to her that nothing more was likely to shatter their tranquillity. My children, she thought, smiling, have come home.
In the year and a half since Alexander Bobrov had died, she had often been lonely, with only Ilya – who seldom went down to his Riazan estate – for company. In that time, too, tragedy had struck the family twice more. A year ago, Olga had lost her handsome husband – killed while on service – leaving her with one baby and pregnant with another. Thank God, at least, she was well-provided for, the Smolensk estate being large. Then, late last autumn, poor Alexis had lost his wife in a cholera epidemic, just before he was due to go off with his regiment; and one winter’s morning, a sled had arrived at Bobrovo containing – small, cold and miserable – his five-year-old son Mikhail, to be taken care of by his grandmother. ‘Just until Alexis marries again,’ she told Ilya.
Tatiana had been philosophical. Old Arina had been brought back into service as nanny, with her niece to help her. And under their care little Mikhail – Misha, they called him – turned out to be a gentle, sweet-tempered version of his father. Arina found him a child of his own age from amongst the serfs in the village – Ivan Romanov’s youngest son, Timofei – and soon the two little boys were playing happily together each day and old Arina pronounced confidently: ‘He’ll mend.’
And then, in spring, had come good news. Olga and her two babies would come there for the summer. And a week later a letter arrived from Alexis. A new campaign against the Turks was expected that autumn. But for the summer, he had obtained three months leave: ‘Which I intend to spend with you and my son,’ his letter declared.
‘So we shall have our hands full,’ Tatiana told the old nanny cheerfully.
Indeed, of all her children, only Sergei would be missing. ‘And that,’ Tatiana had to confess, ‘is probably just as well.’
At first, Olga saw no danger. She certainly meant no harm.
How happy she was to be back in the simple green and white house, and to gaze down the slope to the river bank where