The Ringed Castle - Dorothy Dunnett [101]
His fingers were still in the Tsar’s. ‘Ritzert, thou wilt eat our bread and salt with us,’ said the Sovereign Grand Prince, and with equal suddenness released him, his cloudy eyes sliding to where George Killingworth stood, Diccon knew, just behind him. ‘Give me your hand …’
Diccon Chancellor moved back. And as he moved, caught somewhere the wraith of a smile between Francis Crawford and the Russian who had interpreted. His stomach, already taut, gave a faint and warning vibration as he glimpsed all the implications of that. Then Killingworth, Best, Price and Lane had all been invited to supper; they were all bowing in great heavings of damp fur and velvet, and behind them, the doors opened for a stalking, sideways withdrawal, and freedom.
‘Christ,’ said Harry Lane as they paced, handed from group to lordly robed group through the courtyard.
‘Deacon Agapetus put it better,’ Chancellor said. ‘Though an Emperor in body is like all other men, yet in power he is like God. Wait until you’ve lived through their supper. It will not remind you of Whitehall.’
‘It’s Oriental!’ said Robert Best hoarsely. He smiled and bowed, elaborately, to a fresh group of boyars.
‘… It’s Tartar,’ said Diccon Chancellor’s supper partner that evening in the Granovitaya Palace, as the bread ritual was beginning (Ivan Vasilievich, Emperor of Russia and Grand Duke of Muscovy doth reward thee with bread). ‘The whole system of government is Tartar. The women, shut away in the terems. The way their swords hang. The post-horse system, the yams. Half their language is Tartar. My God, they were subject to them for over two centuries. The Grand Duke used to stand here every year and feed the Great Khan’s horse out of his bonnet as homage. They tell you Tartars are born blind, like animals. But they became Moslems before the Russians became Christians. They were still struggling with Dasva, Striba, Simaergla and Macosch in these parts long after the Golden Horde had fought itself to a standstill.’ The speaker, one Daniel Hislop, stood up and sat down as another slice of bread was ceremonially passed between Grand Prince and supper guest. ‘You needn’t look haunted,’ he added, not without malice. ‘No one near us speaks English. Yet.’
‘You belong to the Army,’ said Diccon. It was a foregone conclusion. He had bowed to this short, clever-faced person who wore his embroidered, ankle-length robe like a second-best night-gown, and had betrayed no amazement, he hoped, on being addressed in the accent of Scotland. Daniel Hislop, without doubt, served under the Voevoda Bolshoia.
Danny Hislop said, ‘There are half a dozen of us with Lymond, Mr Crawford.’
‘Is he here?’ said Chancellor, glancing round. Lit on its three sides by windows, and from above by great hanging lustres of bronze work, the big room was blazingly bright. Light flowed from the white linen and massy gold plate on the four long raised tables which lined it; from the long jewelled therliks of the serving lords, over a hundred, now moving among them with the dishes of young swan dressed with sour milk: the first of seventy dishes, Chancellor knew: baked meats and roast meats and broths, garnished with garlic and salt in the Dutch fashion, which he would be expected to sample with relish.
And light, above all, golden as sunrise upon the high painted vaults of the hall, struck from the plate, the gold and silver basins and goblets, ewers, flagons and jugs wrought with beasts and fishes and flowers which stood piled on tiered shelves round the massive middle pier of the room. Beside it, two serving officers waited, napkin on shoulders, each bearing a worked stand-cup, circled with pearls, for the Tsar. A copper cistern of mead and sweet wine packed with snow, stood clouded beside them.
‘… Are you impressed?’ said Danny Hislop. ‘We don’t greatly care for western plate, as it happens, but we collect it to display to our visitors. He isn’t here, and neither is Master Guthrie, whom you saw perhaps with the guard in the morning. Or I should not be having the pleasure of your company.’
‘It