Russka (64 page)

The two young men fell into an easy conversation. The clerk seemed eager to talk to this visitor from the south and it was not long before he warmly suggested: ‘Come to my lodgings today. We can talk better.’

It seemed an excellent chance to learn more about this great state which the Ukrainians were trying to join, and Andrei accepted willingly. He agreed to come that afternoon.

The lodgings of Nikita Bobrov were in the fashionable
kitaygorod
quarter, but they were modest, consisting of three rooms on the upper floor of a stout wooden house belonging to a merchant.

His host was not alone when Andrei arrived. Standing at one side of the main room was a middle-aged man in a heavy sheepskin. At the far end stood a plump woman with a younger one beside her, whose face Andrei could not quite see in the shadows.

The man in the sheepskin was of medium height. His bad-tempered face might once have been pale but now it was blotched;
he had small dark eyes and his hair was parted in the middle and pulled tightly down his head so that it seemed to become one with his flowing beard. Everything about him, his body, his eyebrows, his entire character, appeared to be close-knit. He might have been a small merchant. And he was obviously as angry as he dared be.

Nikita briefly excused himself while he turned back to this man, whom he now addressed with an air of finality.

‘I can talk to you no more, Ivan,’ he said firmly. ‘My mind is made up. You see for yourself that Elena has hurt her leg and needs Maria to help her. She can’t even get to the market. You can’t object to your wife helping her mother. And even if you do, I’m ordering you, so there’s an end of it. You’re to leave now and return here after Easter with those missing rents.’

‘I should never have brought her,’ the fellow mumbled angrily.

‘That’s beside the point. And take care you bring those rents when you return,’ the young man added severely, ‘or I’ll have you thrashed.’

The man glowered in the direction of the two women, but reluctantly placed his hand on his heart and made a low bow to Nikita before going out. His heavy steps could be heard going down the stairs outside. Andrei thought he detected a stifled laugh from the younger of the two women, but a moment later they, too, bowed and vanished into the next room.

‘My steward,’ Nikita explained with a smile. ‘A difficult fellow.’ He indicated two benches by the window and they went over to them. ‘The fact is,’ he confessed, ‘I brought a widow from my village as housekeeper to save myself the expense of hiring servants in Moscow. Now,’ he added ruefully, ‘I have family quarrels on my hands. The penalty of being poor,’ he grinned. ‘Let’s talk of other things.’

Andrei soon discovered, rather to his surprise, that he and his host shared several things in common. As his face suggested, young Bobrov’s mother, who had come from Smolensk, was Polish and thanks to her he had early on been taught to read and write and scan a little Latin – in fact, a similar education to the one Andrei had got in Kiev. He even knew some Polish courtly tales. But while this degree of education was becoming more common in the Ukraine, it was still very rare in Russia and the young clerk had been delighted to discover someone his own age who shared these attainments.

As Andrei had hoped, his friend was happy to give him all the information he wanted about the politics of Moscow.

‘You came at a good time and you took your letters to the right people,’ Nikita assured him. ‘The Tsar and the boyar Morozov are your friends, and that’s important. The people hate Morozov because he has a silver-plated carriage and he put high taxes on bread and salt, but he’s powerful. His wife and the Tsar’s wife are sisters and their family, the Miloslavskys, control a lot of the court.’ He grinned. ‘Morozov even owns part of the big ironworks you saw at Tula.’

‘But we asked for the Tsar’s protection before, and nothing came of it,’ Andrei reminded him.

‘True, but things have changed. The first time you asked, the Tsar was younger and your letter arrived in the middle of a popular revolt here. Half the suburbs were in flames and Morozov nearly lost his life. Moscow wasn’t ready to take on a commitment that risked war with Poland. But we’re stronger now and the Tsar’s in control.’

‘What about the Church?’ Andrei asked, remembering Bogdan’s words.

‘The Church wants union. You know the Patriarch of Jerusalem himself came to Moscow to plead your cause. And we already value your Ukrainian scholars.’

Andrei knew that the Patriarch of Jerusalem had been in Kiev at the very time of Bogdan’s triumphal entry and that after this he had gone north. He also knew that a number of Ukrainian scholars had recently been set up in a house in the Sparrow Hills at Moscow’s edge. All this seemed to augur well.

‘But the greatest and most powerful friend you have is not even our master the Tsar,’ the young man solemnly told him. ‘It’s our new Moscow Patriarch.’ And now Andrei noticed that his host unconsciously dropped his voice a little in respect: ‘Patriarch Nikon.’

Andrei had noticed that although this new Patriarch had only been chosen the previous year, people already seemed to speak of him with a kind of awe.

‘They say,’ Nikita went on, ‘that he may be a new Philaret.’

This was a remarkable claim. For when, forty years before, the amiable Michael Romanov had been chosen by the
Zemsky Sobor
as the first Tsar of the new dynasty, it was not long before his
father, the austere Patriarch Philaret, was virtually ruling the state for him. Could this new Patriarch, whom he knew to be of humble origins, really be so powerful?

‘Wait till you see him,’ Nikita said.

Nikon’s interest was simple, it appeared. He wanted to see Moscow recognized as the equal if not the highest of the five patriarchates of the Orthodox Church. The dignity of the Moscow Patriarchate had to be raised. They needed more saints. Only a year before, the body of Metropolitan Filip, whom Ivan the Terrible had murdered, had been ceremoniously brought back to Moscow to be venerated in the Kremlin church. He also knew that the Russian Church was backward, its texts corrupt and its scholarship inferior. He wanted to correct all this and, together with the Ukraine, make the ancient lands of Rus a mighty bulwark against the Catholic and other religions of the west.

‘He’s already started to reform the prayer book and the liturgy,’ Nikita explained. ‘It seems we’ve even been making the sign of the cross the wrong way.’

‘Is there any opposition?’ Andrei wondered.

‘Yes. A bit. There’s a small group amongst the senior zealots who don’t approve. They hate change.’ He laughed. ‘I got waylaid in the Kremlin not long ago by some fellow from the provinces called Avvakum – I ask you, what a name! – who went on about it for half an hour until I shut him up. But Nikon’s very powerful and he’ll make short work of any opposition. You can be sure of that. And then, my dear fellow, Moscow will truly be the third Rome,’ he added enthusiastically.

It was an enthusiasm Andrei could share. This was what the Cossacks wanted to see.

They were briefly interrupted by a rustling at the entrance as the older of the two women appeared and began quietly to set food on the table. It was a modest meal: fish, a few vegetables, and a sort of gingerbread she had made without eggs or milk, so as not to break the Lenten fast. To wash this down, however, Nikita had allowed himself some of the vodka which was now the drink of all classes in northern Russia.

Andrei had idly watched these preparations, curious to see whether the younger woman would appear; but she had not. They moved to the table and at once Nikita poured them both a liberal quantity of vodka.

Andrei was curious to know more about his host. What sort of man was he?

‘I’m a small landowner,’ Nikita explained. ‘My family have been service gentry – boyar’s sons, they call us – for a long time. Our estate’s a small place in the Vladimir region. But I hope to rise,’ he confided. He explained that the next step up would be to join the more select, so-called Moscow Gentry that Ivan the Terrible had founded with his chosen thousand retainers. ‘And who knows, after that? People like me have even become boyars – the highest rank of all.’

His modest education, it turned out, was a great advantage to him because it allowed him to make himself useful in his government department.

‘It was because my mother taught me Polish that I was chosen for this part of my department,’ he added. ‘We have special responsibility for Cossack affairs.’

Andrei knew that the government department – the
prikaz
– was one of the ways to advancement in the Tsar’s service and he was curious about it. Nikita was happy to tell him more, describing the work of his unit with pride. Yet the more Andrei listened, the more puzzled he became.

For as well as Cossack affairs, it seemed Nikita’s
prikaz
dealt with honey production, the Tsar’s falcons, and numerous other matters that seemed to be completely unrelated to its main task. When he questioned Nikita about this, the young clerk only grinned.

‘Every
prikaz
is the same in Moscow,’ he said. ‘You see, each department grew up because some particular matter had to be dealt with; and when something new turns up, it’s just given to whoever happens to be free. There are at least three other departments dealing with you Cossacks, as well as my own.’

‘Isn’t it confusing?’

‘It is until you know your way around. But it’s useful too, you know. The thing is to try to get your finger into as many pies as possible.’

As Nikita began to describe the extensive and hopelessly confused Russian bureaucracy, Andrei’s head began to swim. How, with so much red tape, so much overlapping of responsibilities, was it ever possible to get anything done? Try though he might, the more he listened, the less he could see any answer to this question – which, indeed, was not surprising, since any
Muscovite at that date could have told him that there was no solution to the problem of government red tape.

They drank numerous toasts: to the Ukraine, to Holy Russia, to the Cossacks. Nikita was anxious to know the Cossacks’ military strength and Andrei assured him of their fitness.

‘Because if we accept the Ukraine, it will mean war with Poland,’ the young man remarked seriously.

For his part, Andrei wanted to know about the many people from other countries he had seen in Moscow. Who were they? At this, Nikita became vehement.

‘Damned foreigners,’ he cursed. ‘We need them, that’s the trouble. Do you know why, my dear Cossack?’

Andrei was not sure.

‘Because you and I aren’t good enough, that’s why.’ He sighed. ‘It’s the same problem Ivan the Terrible faced. Most of our history, you see, our enemy has been the horsemen, usually from the east. People like my ancestors – and nowadays you Cossacks – know how to fight the Tatars. But now we have even more powerful people we need to fight: the Germans, the Swedes, the powers up in the Baltic. We want to conquer the Baltic and dominate its trade, but these people have science and military expertise that we do not possess.

‘Why do you think I am a clerk in a
prikaz
when my ancestors were warriors? It’s because the Tsar doesn’t need poor amateurs like a Bobrov to lead his men. He needs Dutch and German engineers, Scottish mercenaries, even English adventurers. They’re the people who we’re recruiting to be our officers now. They know how to fight trained infantry. They understand siege warfare and modern artillery.’

‘What about the
streltsy
?’ Andrei had always understood the famous musketeers were formidable.

‘Good in their day – in the time of Ivan the Terrible. Hopelessly out of date now, both in tactics and weapons. They’ve got lazy too.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘No, we must be humble and learn from the west, my friend. They possess so much knowledge.’

These thoughts seemed to depress him. They depressed Andrei too, for this new world hardly sounded promising for the half-disciplined Cossacks either. Nikita poured them both more vodka, which they downed. Nikita poured again. Then he suddenly brightened.

‘Of course, once we’ve learned their damned western science – Dutch cunning we call it in Moscow – then we’ll kick them all out.’

‘Ah,’ said Andrei appreciatively. ‘I’ll drink to that.’

And so, though they did not know it, the two men, with their poor smattering of education, drank cheerfully to the greatest weakness of the Muscovite state.

For, like almost everyone, even amongst the elite in Moscow, these young men were entirely unaware of the centuries of culture that these uncomfortable western neighbours represented. Of the great philosophical debates of the Middle Ages they were entirely ignorant. Of the Renaissance they knew almost nothing. For the slow growth of a complex political and economic society in Western Europe, they cared not at all. The Russians had seen only the military power of the west and supposed that if they copied it, they had discovered all they needed. Thus they reached out to touch, not substance, but merely the dancing shadows cast upon Russia’s walls.

‘What about the foreign merchants?’ Andrei asked. ‘I’ve noticed a great many.’

Nikita shrugged.

‘They’re all heretics. Patriarch Nikon has known how to deal with them, I must say. The reason you notice them is that the Patriarch made them all wear their own national dress, even if they’ve been here a generation or more. That way they can’t conceal themselves. You know they’re not allowed to live in the city any more?’

Andrei had heard of the so-called German quarter – the contemptuous Russian words actually meant ‘Dumb people’s quarter’ – outside the city, but had not realized that it was a sort of ghetto.

‘That was Nikon too,’ Nikita said approvingly.

‘I don’t see any Jews.’

‘No. The Tsar won’t have them.’

‘That’s good,’ the Cossack said.

‘There’s only one other kind of foreigner that’s banned – at least from the capital.’

‘Who’s that?’

‘The English, of course.’

‘The English?’ The young Cossack from the south did not
know a great deal about this distant nation. ‘Are they terrible heretics?’