The Ringed Castle - Dorothy Dunnett [314]
And Guthrie said, ‘You will not reach the Dwina alive.’
‘Because of the arms?’ Lymond said brusquely; and raised his aching brows in exasperated impatience. ‘Don’t you think? Don’t you know your merchants by now? The Privy Council may have unloaded the munitions, but the Muscovy Company had its own interests to look after, and did. There are nine casks on board which answer to pewter, but you won’t find the contents on anyone’s cupboard in Moscow. It’s not what we asked for. But it’s something.’ He stopped, and taking his time looked with deliberation into each hostile face. ‘I am not throwing away two years of my life for a fancy. The foundations are built. I will not let the Tsar, or Vishnevetsky or anyone else stop the fabric from rising upon them.’
‘How will you deal with them?’ Guthrie said. ‘How will you deal with unbalanced and ignorant aliens?’
Lymond flung his crossed hands wide. ‘How do I ever deal with the Tsar? From moment to moment, from second to second, averting, training, sustaining … cossetting him like a nurse-maid if I have to.… He cannot have gone so far away in ten months.’
‘And Vishnevetsky?’
‘Baida, so young, so glorious? I shall serve under him,’ said Lymond mildly. ‘It will not be for long.’
‘And Güzel?’ said Danny Hislop, from across the width of the room. Lymond turned.
But it was Philippa who answered, with her brown hair drifting loose round her pale, thin-boned face, and her brown eyes concentrated and frowning. ‘This is what you must consider. She isn’t fickle, Kiaya Khátún. She knew what was coming. Master Dee here has drawn up your horoscope—yes,’ as his face hardened—’I gave him your birth date. He didn’t return the favour, I may say, by allowing me more than this single fact from its contents. Your horoscope says that you will not go back to Russia.’
‘Then it is wrong,’ Lymond said. And with a patience which could be felt, he tried once again. ‘I want you to try to understand. I am going alone. The risk, if any, is mine. I have no dependants, no responsibilities; I am adamant that this time no one will accompany me. What I hope to do in Russia is worth the risk I shall take. Do you imagine I would do what I did tonight if I did not think it of an importance unimaginable? If I can pull this one man back from the brink, I can save a nation perhaps from something worse than the Tartars. Perhaps bridge the gap of two hundred years. Perhaps find an existence worth living.’
‘And that is the truth, isn’t it?’ said Danny Hislop’s brittle voice. ‘You have found a reason for living. Restored like bloody Chrysostom, because of an earthquake. But there are two questions in all this you haven’t considered. Is Russia ready for you? And will you conquer in the end, or will Russia?’
‘He’s right,’ Guthrie said. ‘You thought—we all thought—we had laid the foundations, firm and steady and secure when you left. It was not so. No matter what the Tsar did; no matter what brashness Prince Vishnevetsky committed, the soldiers and the people together might have stood firm, you would think. The Tsar is one man. He could not come, one man, and remove our money and our weapons. He had to have willing servants, and the Streltsi themselves had to be overawed and subservient, to allow themselves to be so treated. They are a nation accustomed to violent, unreasoning rule, and when it yokes them again, they have no instinct to withstand it, to beat it down and replace it with sanity. I tell you, they are not ready for us yet. And if you had given them arms and then laid down your life on some whim of the Tsar’s, they might have turned against Europe and savaged it.’