The Ringed Castle - Dorothy Dunnett [102]
Danny’s narrow eyes disappeared in a soundless laugh. ‘I wondered what happened at the Troitsa,’ he said. ‘No. I am not valued enough to be spied on. Nor are Mr Crawford’s four other senior officers, who are all here.’ He raised his voice. ‘Blacklock: Master Chancellor has been admiring the Golden Room frescoes.’
On George Killingworth’s other side, a spare, brown-haired man in his thirties leaned forward, his colour a little high, and said agreeably, ‘The devil rot you, my Daniel. Mr Chancellor said no such thing, I’m willing to wager.’
‘Adam Blacklock,’ said Hislop, introducing. ‘Blacklock is artistic by nature, and even eloquent, if you encourage him, on the subject of the liberty of the artist. He likes the frescoes. He likes the vices and virtues on the voussoirs. Don’t you, Blacklock?’
Some private baiting was going on, which Chancellor did not understand. He watched the next great vessel come in, and be presented, and cut up, and tasted. The Tsar, sitting alone in his high-backed ivory chair, was somehow different. Chancellor studied him, and realized that he was no longer wearing the Kazan tiara, but the crown of Vladimir Monomachus, and that he had changed his robe of silver tissue for another, of scarlet sable-trimmed baldachine. Looking at the opposite table he saw, with disbelief, that all his courtiers had likewise exchanged their gowns of bright silver for others, edged and collared with snow-rafts of ermine. A tall figure, standing by his chair, made him look up, and he received Danny Hislop’s ungentle foot on his ankle just as someone intoned. ‘The Great Leader Ivan Vasilievich, Grand Duke, King and Lord of all Russia, extends his favour to Ritzert, and sends him meat from his own table.’
Diccon Chancellor hastily rose, as the dish was offered to him, and he took something and placed it on the flat round cakelike substance they gave you for platters. He bowed to the Tsar, and then on all sides to his Councillors, and sat carefully down. ‘Do you like pickled cucumber?’ said Danny Hislop. ‘Or prunes? I’ll pass them along.’
The sauce dishes were gold. The vinegar, salt and pepper vessels were gold. The dippers and small drinking pots at each cover were of gold, and some of them jewelled. All of them were quite dry. Diccon Chancellor toyed with his knife among the anonymous meat chopped up in saffron, and shook his head to the pickles. Danny smiled. ‘Patience,’ he said. ‘In some things we are Muscovite. It will be wine, and not fermented mare’s milk.’
‘We?’ said Chancellor.
‘I am lavishly paid,’ Danny said, ‘to think in the first person plural. ‘We are no mean acquisition, you know. Fergie Hoddim over there, with the moustache, God rest his razor, is our legal expert, the provider of snares in which apes are caught. Ludovic d’Harcourt learned his physic in Malta, and will defy any Montpellier man when it comes to hiring a leech. Lancelot Plummer, the beautiful gentleman in chastely sewn samite, is an engineer and architect unparalleled, who has built for our Voevoda Bolshoia a column for St Simeon Stylites to sit on.’
‘I passed it, I think, on the way here.’
‘Ah,’ said Danny. ‘The Kremlin palace. You passed Mr Crawford’s Kremlin residence. You have not yet seen the one Plummer has built at Vorobiovo but you certainly will. The rewards for expertise, as I have said, are enormous. We also fight.’
Chancellor said, ‘The princes and boyars must envy you.’
He was understood. This curious, blunt-featured little man with the high pink brow under his seamed, stiffened cap said, ‘The ruling powers in this enterprise leave nothing out of account. The princes led the army against the Crimean Khan Devlet Girey last summer and were extremely unlucky … Voevoda Sidorof killed and Ivan Sheremetev wounded, the hero of Kazan. He handed you the pork. Yes. It had all the marks of a rout,’ said Danny blandly. ‘But Devlet Girey received news that the Tsar was advancing with his army on Tula, and that was enough to put the Tartars to rout. They fled back to the Crimea