Russka - Edward Rutherfurd [435]
And in his rage he came to two decisions which he would never alter as long as he lived. The first, which he shared with his father, was very simple: One day, I’ll meet that accursed red-head Popov again: and when I do, I’ll kill him.
The second decision he kept to himself, though he was no less determined to carry it out. I’ll ruin that landowner who sits on the land that should be ours, he promised himself. Before I die I’ll see those damned Bobrovs thrown out. I’ll do it for Natalia. And so, in the village below their house, the Bobrov family acquired a mortal enemy.
But these undercurrents caused no ripple on the placid surface of the village’s life. By the following year, it seemed that the events of 1874 had receded into obscurity. The red-headed student Popov was apparently forgotten; and in the town of Russka, only occasionally did anyone trouble to ask: whatever became of young Peter Suvorin?
Revolution
1881, September
The Tsar was dead: assassinated. Even now, months later, the ten-year-old girl found it hard to believe.
Why were there such wicked people in the world? For the last three years there had been killings – policemen, officials, even a governor. And now, with a terrible bomb, they had killed the good man, the reforming Tsar Alexander II himself. Rosa could not understand it.
Who would do such a thing? A terrible group, it seemed: the People’s Will, they called themselves. No one had known who they were or how many: perhaps twenty, perhaps ten thousand. What did they want? Revolution: the destruction of the whole apparatus of the Russian state that ruled its people from on high. Month after month, the People’s Will had hunted the Tsar; now they had destroyed him, as if to say: ‘See, your mighty state is only a sham. Against us, even the Tsar himself is impotent, to be destroyed when we wish.’ And now, with the poor Tsar dead, they had supposed the people would rise up.
‘Which shows how little these revolutionaries know,’ her father had said.
For nothing had happened. Not a village had risen, nor a single factory. The shocking event had been greeted only by a huge Russian silence. The Tsar’s son – the third Alexander – had succeeded to the throne and at once imposed order. There had been a huge crackdown; many of the revolutionaries had been arrested and most of the Russian Empire was at present under martial law. The People’s Will had failed, God be praised. Russia was calm and at peace.
Or so it had seemed. Until this new and horrible business – so inexplicable to her, so terrifying – had begun. And once again, as she had done so many times in recent months, Rosa wondered why there were such wicked people in the world.
‘They will not come here,’ her father had promised. But what if he were wrong?
It was early afternoon – a quiet time in this peaceful southern village at the border of forest and steppe. Few people were moving about; Rosa’s parents were resting on the upper floor of the solid, thatched house. Although it was autumn, down here in the Ukraine the weather was still warm. Through the open window, Rosa could see the apple tree in the courtyard and smell the sweet scent of a honeysuckle bush nearby.
Rosa was a beautiful girl. Her pale, oval face, long neck, and a certain slow grace in her movements had made some of the villagers call her ‘the swan maiden’. Her raven hair was worn in a thick braid down her back. She had a long nose and full lips. But her most striking features were her eyes. Dark-lidded, framed under the strong, black arch of her eyebrows, they were huge, blue-grey and luminous, gazing solemnly out at the world like a figure in an ancient mosaic.
She sat by a piano. She was not playing, now, but the music she had been practising that morning – a piece by Tchaikovsky – was echoing in her mind. As she stared out at the blue sky, she went over