The Ringed Castle - Dorothy Dunnett [142]
Viscovatu had followed him. ‘The Voevoda is overmodest,’ he said. ‘Without this one man, he cannot defend Moscow from the Khan Devlet Girey?’
Lymond did not look round. ‘The Tsar knows how many men he has, and how many he needs.’
The pale, goitrous eyes looked at him from under the sable rim of the schapka. ‘So you beg for his life?’ the Tsar said.
Lymond’s unemotional gaze did not alter. ‘I beg for nothing save your highness’s forgiveness. If the Church so decides, it may hang him from this tribune now.’
‘What does the Church decide?’ said the Tsar.
The voices, thin over the snow, came clearly to Chancellor. Beside him, Christopher was breathing heavily, and George Killingworth’s face, above the vast golden beard, had turned an odd shade of red. Chancellor supposed he himself must be pale: he felt very cold. The other officers and the Streltsi had done nothing. It was, he supposed, part of the test. How loyal was the Voevoda; how loyal were his men; how strong was his grip on them? Strong enough, at least, to prevent them at this moment from taking wild action. And of the loyalty of the Voevoda, looking at that blood-streaked face and listening to Lymond’s cool, implacable voice, the Tsar and the Metropolitan must have no permanent doubts.
The glittering form of the Metropolitan stirred, an old man, weary under the great uneven gems on the golden scaled robe, and the stole with its grotesque river pearls. He said, ‘Is it worthy of the offence that the decision be taken here, in the streets of the city?’
‘Yes,’ the Tsar said suddenly. ‘I wish to hear what is in your heart. Half the case has been judged. The three ikon painters have suffered. This man did not outrage his faith, but corrupted another’s. I do not see how his punishment can be less.’
Viscovatu’s voice said softly, ‘Your offending servants were flailed.’
In the sleigh with his father Christopher said, whispering, ‘They were dead.’
‘Not quite,’ Chancellor said. ‘But then, they were Russians, with Russian bodies. This man would die.’
The Metropolitan stirred again, clutching the crozier with its double gilt cross, looking neither at the Tsar nor the Chief Secretary. He was an old man, and cold, and although his power was great, the power of the Tsar was still greater. Finally, he raised his face, and looked, flatly and sternly, on the Voevoda and the artist, still and drawn and silent beyond him. ‘His punishment also,’ he said, ‘is the flail. Let it be carried out.’
‘Let it be carried out by me,’ Lymond said.
There was a little silence. Then Viscovatu smiled. ‘The Voevoda might be moved to be too lenient. A man is hanged by both hands at the pudkey, with weights attached to his feet. And the twenty-four lashes are from a wire flail.’
‘In that case,’ Lymond said, ‘lenience hardly enters markedly into the matter. But you may send what observers you wish.’
Viscovatu looked at the Tsar, and then at the Metropolitan. ‘There is the tribune. Why not settle the issue now?’
‘Willingly,’ said Lymond’s crisp voice. ‘Or tonight, if the Tsar would prefer.’
It was the solution. ‘Tonight,’ said the Metropolitan gratefully, shivering within the furs under his sakkos.
And: ‘Tonight,’ said the Tsar. ‘After the banquet.’ And raising his hand, caused the sleigh to drive off.
The second sleigh followed, and then the boyars, followed by the Streltsi, and the scourgers, and the cart with the three ikon painters, broken and bloody within it. They had taken Blacklock from his horse and tied him to Viscovatu’s stirrup. The little procession turned into the Frolovskaya Gate and disappeared up the slope. Lymond, Chancellor saw, was again riding beside the Tsar’s sleigh. Killingworth said, ‘We’re supposed to be going in there. Aren’t we? For the banquet.’
‘Yes,’ said Chancellor. Christopher, beside him, said nothing at all.
Francis Crawford attended the Tsar’s Twelfth Night banquet, and was even lightly voluble, seated among the noble guests and not far from the English party, who returned his graceful greeting