Russka - Edward Rutherfurd [92]
It was a family from the next village who had announced their intention of leaving. ‘We’re going north,’ they told him. ‘There are endless lands up in the northern taiga,’ they explained, ‘going right across the Volga, where men are free, without a master. We’ll escape up there.’
These were the so-called Black Lands. In fact, they were the prince’s land for which the settler paid him a small rent; but the further north and east one went, the more settlers became frontiersmen, recognizing no authority. Such freedoms were exciting, even though the life could be hard. ‘Come with us,’ they suggested. The father of the family had once been north as a young man. ‘I know the way,’ he claimed.
‘And if we get caught?’
The fellow had shrugged. ‘I’ll take the risk,’ he said.
The great river journey they had undertaken was very simple. They were slowly ascending the great Russian R. First up the Dniepr; then cutting across eastward until, after their brief overland journey, they had joined a small river that took them to the underside of the huge northern loop – the sluggish River Oka. For once at the Oka, they were in the Grand Duke’s lands where the Tatar patrols did not bother to come.
How pleasant it was, at last, to drift along the River Oka. Fish were plentiful. Forgetting her grief in this great adventure, Yanka had started to eat again. One day they even caught a noble sturgeon. As they went north and east, they saw signs of a gradual change in vegetation. There were fewer broad-leaved trees, more firs and larches. Their guide also pointed out another important feature to them. ‘We’re getting into the country of the old Finnish tribes now,’ he explained, ‘like the Mordvinians. And the names of places are Finnish too.’ The Oka River itself was an example. The cities of Riazan and Murom likewise. And one day, passing a modest river that joined them from the left, their friend remarked: ‘That river’s got a primitive Finnish name too: it’s the Moskva.’
‘Anything up there?’ Yanka’s father asked.
‘A small town called Moscow. Nothing much.’
Yanka’s father had considered carefully what they should do. He was attracted by the idea of these distant free lands of which the others spoke. But he was cautious too. Life could be very hard for a settler. He had with him a quantity of money, which he kept carefully hidden. He could start up anywhere. But I might be able to get more out of a landlord who needs a tenant, he thought.
So he had formed a simple plan. ‘When we get to Murom,’ he decided, ‘I’ll look for the boyar Milei. Perhaps he’ll help us. But if he won’t or he’s dead, maybe we’ll try the north.’
And so, that August, Yanka and her father went along the Oka.
The boyar Milei was a large man with a family of five. He was very proud of his physical strength. He was also cunning.
When the news had come upriver, eight years before, of the Mongol attack on Riazan, he had not waited to be summoned to battle. ‘The Grand Duke of Vladimir will order us to join him if he gives battle,’ he remarked shrewdly, ‘but he’ll do nothing for us if these raiders come to Murom.’
In this assessment of the relationship between the Grand Duke and the princes of the minor city of Murom he was entirely correct.
The little principality of Murom lay at the eastern edge of the loop of the Russian R. West of it lay the rest of the great loop – the wide lands of Suzdalia, ruled by the Grand Duke of Vladimir.
Once, Murom had been a major city, greater than Riazan. But in the last century, Riazan had become richer, and Suzdalia had become mighty; and now the princes of Murom did the bidding of the Grand Duke without question. So, of course, should Milei the boyar. Unless it did not suit him. Faced with this new threat, therefore, Milei had discreetly withdrawn, with his entire family, for a visit to the most remote and obscure of all his estates, where he had wisely remained until the following year.
The estate in question was isolated indeed.
Across the great loop of the Russian R, and dividing it horizontally in half, there