The Ringed Castle - Dorothy Dunnett [48]
Sir Henry’s niece, walking past, sat down at the other end of Philippa’s backgammon table and bent a grave look on Chancellor. ‘He paid for the fault with his life,’ Jane observed. ‘And rendered his immortal soul to his Maker.’
‘In December, I should accept it: a tragedy,’ Diccon said. ‘But in August?
Sir Henry cleared his throat. ‘When you,’ he said to Philippa, ‘were scaling forbidden royal trees and punching stable boys in the stomach, my Jane at six was reading the Office of Our Blessed Lady in Latin daily at Aylesbury, crossing occasionally with her governess to Ashridge to play, read and dance with the late child Prince Edward. We all fall silent when she speaks, except Diccon, who might as well have perished with Willoughby, for all we have heard about Russia.’
‘I’m sick of Russia. Eden will tell you,’ Chancellor said.
‘I don’t want to hear it in Latin,’ Sir Henry said. ‘My God, I’ve had enough Latin. I did you proud, anyway. Vehementer pium institutum vestrum amplector, viri honestissimi … “Prompted by your ardent affection for your native land, you are applying yourselves to the furtherance of a project which will, I trust, prove beneficial to the people of England and reflect also honour on our common country. I part with Chancellor for this reason: not because I am tired of him, or because I find his maintenance burdensome to me, but that the authority and position Chancellor so well deserves may be given him. While we commit a little money to the hazard of fortune, he commits his very life to the remorseless sea. With what toils will he not be broken? With what dangers and watchings will he not be harassed; with what anxieties will he not be devoured? While we shall remain in our ancestral homes, he will seek foreign and unknown realms; he will entrust his safety to barbarians and unknown tribes; he will even expose his life to the monsters of the deep,” I said. I hope Jane is listening. And now what? Back wined and dined and hanging with furs from the Kremlin, you complain because a man has not the skill to get himself drowned in December. Now I look at you, you’re getting fat.’
‘He isn’t,’ said Jane. ‘I hear the castle of Moscow is fine, and is set on a fair wooded hill.’
‘There is a handful of churches and palaces, ringed about with high walls and rivers. The Tsar’s home, the Kremlin, lies in the innermost ring, and the city outside it.’
‘And is Russia rich?’ added Philippa obediently. ‘What nature of land is it?’
Diccon Chancellor spoke to her, but his eyes were on something beyond her. ‘A land half-snatched by men from the hang-nails of winter, where heat and cold swing like a lodestone. For five months of the year the ice is an ell and more thick on her rivers. The poor may be smitten stiff in their cabins, and the sledges run into Moscow with the sitting dead grasping the harness. Of all the peoples of the earth, they have the hardest living.’
‘They plant crops?’
‘They are sunk in morasses and flooded with rivers: trees march through them like armies. They have no grains to export, nor jewels, nor spices nor any object of grace. They have walrus teeth and seal oil and sables, martens and grease beavers, hides and timber and tallow, salt and wax. They have no need of hives, for lakes of honey live in the trees. They say a man, slipping, lived in a pool for two days, and had to cling to a bear’s fur to pull himself out.’
‘They are a hardy nation?’ Jane Dormer said.
‘They are strong,’ Chancellor said. ‘Square, brawny men with short legs and big bellies, who do not repine. I have nothing, they say, but it is God’s and the Duke’s Grace’s. They do not think, as we do, that what is ours is but God’s and our own. They are content to scrape and scratch all their lives at the Tsar’s princely pleasure.’
Philippa’s brown eyes were wide open. ‘Don’t they rebel?’ she said tartly.
‘With what?’ Chancellor said. ‘They have only numbers. And without army, without navy, without order, without standing in Asia or Europe,