Russka (41 page)

Already, as they moved through the outer suburbs, there were crowds by the road. Everywhere, it seemed, bells were pealing through the snow. Huge shapes – walls, towers, the golden domes of the monasteries – loomed in the middle distance out of the grey haze of the snow-dusted sky.

And then, as they finally approached the citadel – as though in welcome – the snow died away and there before them, glowing strangely under the lowering orange light of the snow clouds, lay the mighty city.

Boris caught his breath at the sight. The cavalrymen in their pointed helmets or their tall, cylindrical fur hats rode so proudly towards the city gates; on each side of them marched the Tsar’s new crack infantry corps of musketeers – the
streltsy –
and other halberdiers who, Boris could see, were already having trouble containing the thickening and enthusiastic crowd that was streaming out of the gates in Moscow’s mighty walls.

How splendid, and how powerful. Great towers rose at intervals along the city walls – towers with high pyramidal roofs like pointed tents. And enclosed behind them lay the great sea of wooden houses, interrupted by stone towers and domes, that was the city.

Moscow: city of the imperial Tsars. When they had crowned Ivan, they had put a cap of fur and gold upon his head and claimed it had belonged to Monomakh, greatest of princes in the days of the ancient Rus. But the autocrats of Moscow went far beyond
anything that Monomakh would have dreamed of in the ancient days of Kiev. Each time a city fell, its princely family was broken and made servants of the state; and its leading boyars were resettled in other provinces. When the young Tsar’s grandfather had taken over Novgorod, he had even taken away the bell they used to summon the
veche
, in order to mark that the citizens’ ancient freedoms were gone for ever. The Moscow family had invented a genealogy which traced their ancestry to the great Roman emperor Augustus, at the time of Christ. In the Kremlin now, splendid cathedrals by Italian architects had appeared beside the onion domes and towers of its older churches and monasteries so that, here in the heart of this northern forest empire, one might, for an instant, think oneself before a Florentine palazzo.

Moscow: city of Church and state. In the opinion of many churchmen, the state and religious authorities should rule together in perfect sympathy. This was the Byzantine ideal of the old Roman Empire of the east. And so it was in Moscow. Had not young Ivan already set out two great programmes of reforms, one for his administration and one for the Church? The young Tsar would not tolerate magnates who oppressed the people, nor clergy who were lax or immoral in their habits. Did not each great law code have a hundred chapters? For Ivan liked such mighty symmetry.

Moscow: heart and mind of Russia. Inside the great, stout walls that ringed the city, dwelt some merchants and others from abroad; but never were they allowed to defile the inner life of the mighty people of the north. Catholics and Protestants could visit but not make converts. Orthodox Russians knew better than to trust the treacherous people of the west. Though there were many Jews and other foreigners down in the southern lands of Kiev, here in the north none were allowed to come.

The state of Muscovy might yearn to possess the Baltic ports that would give them free access to the west but here at Moscow, her heart and mind would be safe, impenetrable, protected by mighty walls that should never be broken down. Neither Tatars with sword and fire, nor treacherous Catholic, nor cunning Jew should ever enter and conquer here. This was Russia’s protection against fear.

A great procession was moving from the city gates. The clergy was coming led by the Metropolitan. With banners, icons, shining
vestments, they came from the huge walled city with its gleaming domes, under the heavy grey and orange sky, while the air was riven with a thousand crashing bells. They were coming to greet the Tsar.

‘
Slava
– all praise. Conqueror, saviour of Christians.’

And it was on this day that Boris heard the soldiers give a new name to the conquering Tsar Ivan. They were calling him
Grozny –
meaning ‘Awesome’, ‘Dread’, or, as it is usually if inaccurately rendered: ‘Terrible’.

The snows had already fallen when his wedding day arrived.

A few friends, all made in the last year, came to the little house in the White Town suburb to collect him; but despite their attempts at gaiety, he felt very much alone.

Already, though it was less than a month before, the triumphant return to Moscow seemed far away.

What a day that had been! After Metropolitan Macarius had made his speech of welcome, Ivan had replied, comparing the Tatar yoke to the captivity of the ancient Hebrews. Even Boris had felt like a hero as they passed through the city gates and came to Red Square and the mighty Kremlin.

He had felt like a hero as he drank in the taverns with the other young fellows. He had felt like a conqueror when he came out into the night and walked about the citadel admiringly.

The huge space of Red Square had been nearly empty. In summer, it was full of market stalls, though in winter the whole market moved down on to the frozen river below. The big open space stretched away before him like the empty steppe. Beside it rose the massive, impenetrable walls of the Tsar’s fortress with its vast, high towers. The tallest soared up two hundred feet into the starlit night and somewhere, in that vast, closed fort, dwelt the Tsar. Some day, he had thought contentedly, I’ll be asked to go inside those walls.

His elated mood had lasted until he had gone into the quarter just east of the Kremlin.

This was the
kitaygorod –
the so-called Basket Town – a walled area within which great nobles and the richest merchants dwelt. Here were big houses not only of wood but even of masonry too. The rich nobles were celebrating. The street was full of big sledges pulled by magnificent horses. The coachmen were
drinking and talking together. Even by torchlight, he could see splendid furs and oriental carpets piled in the empty sledges, for the comfort of the burly, wealthy men who would in due course stomp out into the night.

His prospective father-in-law, he had realized, was probably in there somewhere. True, he did not live there – he had a substantial wooden house in the White Town – but he was sure to be at the feast of some powerful men in this noblest quarter. And this knowledge had reminded Boris of the central fact of his life. He was poor.

Indeed, as his future father-in-law Dimitri Ivanov had made clear, he was only giving Boris his third daughter as a favour to Boris’s father, who had been his friend in bygone years. Not that Boris was making such a brilliant marriage – though it was the best that his poor father had been able to arrange.

But for Dimitri, it was certainly a sacrifice. The possession of three good-looking daughters was an asset to a noble like him. They were kept in seclusion in the women’s quarters upstairs and could be used to make marriages that would benefit the family. Though young Boris was acceptable by his birth, that was all; and so the dowry that Dimitri gave his youngest daughter Elena was very modest and caused Boris sadly to realize a simple truth. ‘The richer you are, the more people think they ought to give you,’ he sighed.

As for his feelings about Elena, Boris was both excited and uncertain. His father had arranged the betrothal long before, and it was only when he had come to Moscow before leaving for the Kazan campaign that he had met her.

He would never forget it. He had entered the big wooden house late one morning. They had offered him bread and salt and, in the proper manner, he had gone to the icons in the red corner, bowed three times and murmured, ‘Lord have mercy.’ It was as he crossed himself from right to left and turned that the girl and her father had entered the room.

Dimitri was short, fat and bald. He wore a dazzling blue and gold kaftan. His face was broad and narrow-eyed, revealing the existence of a Tatar princess in his family some generations before, of which he was very proud. His beard was full, and red, and reached luxuriantly down his swelling belly over which it was carefully brushed outward like a fan.

Elena was at his side. She was wearing a long embroidered dress of pinkish red. Her hair was golden and plaited in a single braid down her back. On her head was a modest diadem, and over her face a veil.

With a faint grunt of satisfaction, Dimitri whipped off the veil and Boris found himself staring at his future wife.

She was not like her father at all. Her eyes were blue and soft: Boris noticed that at once. They were set rather far apart and were, perhaps, somewhat almond in shape; but that was the only hint that she might be related to this short, cruel-looking man. Her nose was narrow, yet slightly and nervously flared above her broad, rather full mouth. She seemed pale and tense. The muscles in her neck were standing out as she looked up at him.

She is afraid I may not like her, he saw at once, and this made him feel tender and protective. She does not realize that she is beautiful, he also shrewdly observed. That, too, was good.

And best of all, as he stared at her thoughtfully, he realized something else: he wanted her. He wanted her with the simple, definitive passion which says: She will be mine to order as I please, and I can make her beautiful.

‘I had a fine offer for her the other day,’ Dimitri told him frankly, ‘but I had kissed the cross on this with your father and there’s an end to it.’

Boris gazed at her. Yes, she was lovely. He started to smile.

And it was then that the little incident had taken place that caused him, on his wedding day, to be uncertain. It was nothing really. He told himself it meant nothing at all. Elena had looked down at the floor. Yet what was the expression that had flitted across her rather anxious face? Was it disappointment? Or could it conceivably have been disgust? He had looked carefully but been unable to see. Surely if she had utterly disliked him she would have said so to her father? He would not have held Dimitri to his oath in such a circumstance. Or was she remaining silent out of a sense of duty?

In the few meetings they had had since, he had tried to suggest to her that if she was unhappy in any way she should tell him, but she had modestly assured him that she was not.

All was well, he told himself, as the party came near Dimitri Ivanov’s house. All would be well.

And surely, he thought, as they stood together before the priests, surely this was meant to be.

The Russian marriage service was long. The tall tapers, decorated with marten skins, filled the church with brightness; the air was heavy with the smell of wax and the priests with their long beards and their heavy robes coated with pearls and gemstones seemed almost heavenly presences as they solemnly moved about and the choir chanted. Candlelight, incense, hours of standing: like every Orthodox ceremony, by the time it was over, ‘you knew you had been to church’.

Boris made his vows and gave the ring which, in the Russian Orthodox manner, was placed on the fourth finger of her right hand. But the most moving moment for him was the point, towards the end of the service, where his bride reverently went down on her knees and prostrated herself before him, lightly tapping his foot with her forehead as a token of her submission.

It was a very real submission. Like all women of the upper classes, she would be kept in near seclusion. Indeed, it was a point of honour with both of them that she should be. She will never demean herself by appearing in public, like a common working woman in the street, he promised himself.

And similarly, it was a point of honour with her that she should obey her husband. To disobey him would be, to her, as disloyal as if a soldier disobeyed an order from his commander. To contradict him before others would be the act of a mere plebeian.

Some men made a point of beating their wives and, Boris had heard, the wives took it as a sign of love. Indeed, the famous guide to family conduct, the
Domostroi
, which had been written by one of the Tsar’s close advisers, gave precise instructions as to how a wife should be whipped, but not beaten with a stick, and even told the husband how to speak to her kindly afterwards, so as not to damage their marital relations.

But as he looked down at this young woman at his feet whom he scarcely knew but now intensely desired, Boris had no wish to punish her. He wanted only to merge himself with her, to take her in his arms and, though he scarcely realized it himself, to receive from her the warm affection that he had never known.

So he now experienced a sudden, sharp emotion as, following the custom, he cast the bottom of his long gown over her as a sign of his protection.

I will love her and protect her, he swore in a silent prayer, and believed that in this moment, before the blazing candles, he had truly become a man.

At the end of the ceremony, the priest handed them a cup from which both drank and then, in the best Russian manner, he crushed it under his heel.

As they walked out the guests, who were almost entirely on her side, threw hops over them. They were married. He sighed with relief.

There was only one small episode which remained in his mind to mar the happy day. It took place at the wedding feast afterwards.

There were many guests and, as is usual on such occasions, they treated the young man kindly. This being an important family gathering, the women also attended the feast and he made a low obeisance before Dimitri Ivanov’s old mother who, it was said, ruled the whole family down to all her grandchildren from the splendid seclusion of her room on the upper floor. She gave him, he noticed, a nod but not a smile.

The tables were already piled high with food. At this season he knew there would be goose and swan, well seasoned with saffron. There were
blinis
served with cream, caviar, the meat pies made with eggs called
pirozhki
; there was salmon and all manner of sweetmeats – all the rich diet that caused the swollen figures of so many of the men and women crowding the room.

On a table set to one side, he noticed something else that impressed him – red and white wines from France.