The Ringed Castle - Dorothy Dunnett [33]
Outside, Güzel’s house was pure Russian. Inside, it was Venetian and Arab and Turkish, from the Murano glass and silk hangings to the silver incense burner and the blue and yellow tiles on the floor of the hot room where the lord of the house might strip off the stiff leather and steel of two weeks’ campaigning and emerge, bathed and rested, in the fresh robes made for him from the velvets and damasks in her embroidery rooms.
Those who lived in the Kremlin, whose wives walked veiled to church and to weddings and, surrounded by slaves and by stewards, took part in public life not at all, watched the foreign princess secretly; defensively; consumed by an envious and frantic curiosity. Güzel, knowledgeable in the ways of both men and women and accustomed to ruling, steel within silk, the still greater establishment of the Stamboul harem, made no inexpedient advances but waited, allowing her visiting tradesmen and craftsmen to glimpse and be astounded by the tall Gothic splendours of her Nürnberg clock, and the fragile and unimaginable mystery of the Italian harpsichord.
On the day the Tsaritsa’s chief lady in waiting called on her, Güzel’s house was ablaze with wax lights and hung with the smells of jasmine and the almond and sugars of sweetmeats. She saw the kitchens and the serving rooms, and met Master Gorius Grossmeyer, Güzel’s German physician. Two days later, Güzel received the first ceremonial visit from Anastasia herself and was able to present her with the silk robe, re-embroidered with crystals and bullion, which her woman had made for the new son Ivan, then four months old, and to invite her to consult with her doctor.
The following day, Güzel was received by Anastasia in the Golden Rooms at the palace of Terems, bringing some lengths of deep crimson velvet and a covered basket of sweet cakes, borne by her serving woman. There she met the whole household of women, including the widowed Tartar Queen Suunbeka and her son, brought as willing hostage to Moscow after the Tsar’s victory over the Tartar stronghold of Kazan. She met too the wives of the princes, who soon visited her and were visited in their turn. But most of Güzel’s time, from then onwards, was divided between the house she controlled and the palace.
Whether the Voevoda knew what was happening, and what place, indeed, he had in this intriguing establishment, was something that the curious ladies of the Terems were unable to discover. That the two were unmarried was ascertained at the beginning. So also was the certainty, though from what source no one knew, that it was Güzel who had brought to the Tsar this inestimable band of Western trained soldiers, and that it was her resources which had furnished both the journey and the splendours of the residence which he shared.
The princes and boyars attached to the court, hearing the tale with a certain brooding interest from their wives, felt more than a spice of envy for the endowments which could call forth such favours. They were further gripped by what their wives could relay to them of Güzel’s experiences in the seraglio of the Sultan Suleiman, and all she had learnt there and from Dragut her lover, of the Turkish army and naval command.
Güzel knew a great deal, and it was not hard to persuade her, now and then, to tell what she knew, about the Spahis and the Janissaries, and their numbers and leadership; about their weapons and practices; about the Sultan’s advisers, and his policy towards the Tartars on Russia’s borders and towards Russia herself.
From Güzel, indirectly, the Boyar Council learned as much, in a few weeks, as the princes learned about western customs direct from her favourite Crawford of Lymond, the foreigner they called Voevoda Frangike. But to questions about Güzel, the Voevoda had proved politely uncooperative, proceeding thence smoothly to intolerance: whether the Voevoda was thus defending his mistress, his vanity