The Ringed Castle - Dorothy Dunnett [15]
‘Some of this he has done. He took Novgorod, and brought back to Moscow three hundred sledges of treasure. Three years ago he conquered Kazan. Soon he will turn to Lithuania, Livonia and Poland, and for that he must have a trained army.
‘In Russia none has ever been organized. The Tsar appoints a general, or Voevoda, who may be a leading member or even the chairman of the council, the boyar duma. For his officers, he counts on the Moscow boyars and his own many relatives, who appear on demand, and on the service princes, who occupy estates in return for their duty. Also, after Kazan, the Tsar created the Streltsi, the first permanent force of hackbutters. He recruits men of ability, and gives them in return grants of confiscated land. And sometimes he can call on the Cossacks, free settlers, who live under their own chiefs on the frontiers.
‘Since he lacks artisans and engineers, he has tried to import these from the west, together with armour and weapons and powder, but most of this traffic has been blocked, as we know, by the western states on which he will use them. The people have valour and endurance, but no discipline, no method and no drill. Nor, by tradition, is the Tsar himself a leader in battle. Since the days of Dmitri Donskoi, no Duke of Muscovy has gone into battle. The tradition has been the oriental one until now: to save face, and to delay by negotiating.
‘We are negotiating now to become the first foreign paid leaders of the Russian army,’ Lymond had said coolly. ‘Bear in mind that you are not dealing with an Englishman, an Italian or a Scot. You are dealing with a nation more accustomed to the traditions and commerce of the east, and with a man whose upbringing has left him distrustful of people. He is given to violent outbursts: his brother Yuri is an idiot The greatest restraining influence in his life is his wife, and his young family. He is educated and widely read, but irrationally so. He thinks quickly, and expects it in others. He has great personal wealth. He is deeply and romantically religious, and sees his country as the custodian of a sacred trust—Two Romes have fallen, but the third stands, and a fourth there will not be. But though there is a Metropolitan, there is no powerful church with secular powers. There is no social system; no feudal arrangement; no chivalry. Only the boyars, corrupt and violent whenever the Tartar threat is removed, and the descendants of the old appanaged princes.
‘He is to be cultivated as the hawk is to be cultivated. We have also to enforce the friendship and confidence of his favourite, Alexei Adashev, risen from the minor gentry to become keeper of the Tsar’s bedchamber and of his personal treasury, and the Tsar’s chief adviser, in council and out of it. Together with him you must impress the monk Sylvester, who succeeded the Metropolitan Makary as the greatest influence, until last year, in the Emperor’s life. And after them, you must deal with the Russian commanders—Princes Mikulinksy and Pronsky-Shemyakin and Vyazemsky, Mstislavsky and Andreevich, Peter Morozov and Ivan Sheremeter and the most learned, idiosyncratic and skilful of them all, Prince Andrei Kurbsky, Adashev’s particular friend.…’
Sweat broke out on Adam Blacklock’s pale brow, and he reined in abruptly, just in time to avoid the hindquarters of Lymond’s horse. Lymond had dismounted and, pulling off his flat cap, was saluting the ikon over the gateway. Adam, without looking at anyone, did the same; and remembered to keep his hat in his hand as he walked, with Hoddim and Guthrie, over the threshold. There, Viscovatu met them: the monk who was Ivan’s Chief Secretary, and led them past the ranked guards and up the slight, crowded rise of the hill.
For four hundred years, the ancient high city of Moscow had stood within its ramparts above the River Moskva, and within it, century after century, had flowered the palaces