The Ringed Castle - Dorothy Dunnett [89]
Cornfields passed: meadows, rivers, woods and pasture-land and small wooden towns: Derevnia, Vochensko and Yaroslav on the Volga, where Diccon Chancellor invited his son to sniff the wind from Bokhara for musk, spices and ambergris.
He remembered Rostov, after that; and Peraslav, because of the fish, and Dubna because he had caught a cold by then, and the Outschak because he was bored and no one would speak to him because Mr Lane and Mr Killingworth were arguing over whether they should have sold the broadcloth at Vologda for whatever price it would fetch, and Mr Price thought they should have made their trading post right away at Kholmogory and bartered the cargo for furs where they were cheapest.
The effort to keep their voices down, in spite of the thunder and squeak of thirty ill-made telegas squelching through mud like deep gruel, didn’t do much for their tempers: his father had to remind them that until they presented the Queen’s letter and had their privileges officially confirmed, they had no right to start trading anywhere. And that at the present rate of unrepeatable progress, they would barely reach the Tsar and get all their business completed before they had to start back to St Nicholas to meet the incoming Edward again.
They were still quarrelling when a rider, in a handsome furred hat, came spurring towards them and made a long announcement which Diccon Chancellor, his colour still heightened a little, translated anxiously. ‘The representatives of the great Duke Ivan Vasilievich, by the grace of God great lord and Emperor of all Russia, are on their way now to greet us, and we are commanded to meet them at the Troitsa Monastery at Serghiev.… We’ve passed it. Haven’t we?’
Nepeja had joined them, dismounting. ‘It is ten versts behind us. We can be there very quickly. The carts can follow.’
Two years ago he would have thought, his brow ridged: What would Willoughby have done? This time Diccon Chancellor said immediately, and politely, ‘I am in some difficulty. After your Tsar has generously agreed to receive us, we have no more than a matter of weeks in which to set up our trading stations, arrange for storehouses, offices and staff, meet merchants and visit commercial centres, sell our present cargo and arrange for another. And our journey has taken too long already.’
Master Nepeja bowed. ‘I apologize for the weather. But the Troitsa is very near. One day will make little difference.’
‘I will be frank with you,’ Chancellor said. ‘One day would make little difference, as you say. But if it were to stretch to a week, or two weeks, as has been known to happen, we may well have to return north before our work here is half completed. Who knows?—there may be further delay in Moscow. You say the Tsar is pressed with military concerns. It seems to me that, did he know all the facts, he would be concerned that this great opportunity for trade between our two countries should not be missed for the sake of a mere formality. I should like to proceed to Moscow as if we had never encountered his messenger, and I would be in your debt if both you and the messenger would support me.’
A beautiful voice, speaking in English behind him, said, ‘The messenger would have his heels broken, and the Sovereign Grand Prince would then send him limping on foot forty miles to the Troitsa as punishment. Master Nepeja would merely lose his province, I fancy. And you your pains: the Tsar is not noted for patience. It is really simpler to come with me as you are bidden.’
Diccon Chancellor turned, and the whole party with him.
Noiseless in the rain and the mud and the shifting