Russka: The Novel of Russia

  Putting his long arm round Boris’s shoulder, the Tsar led him back to the table; then he called to the other Oprichniki: ‘Now let the good Tsar of the bears deal with this heretic!’

  At first they had had some difficulty. Stephen, saying nothing, had gone down on his knees, touched his head to the ground and then, crossing himself as he rose, stood quite still before the bear with his head bowed in prayer. The wretched animal, starved and miserable though it was, had merely looked from side to side in confusion.

  ‘Take my staff,’ Ivan had commanded, and the black-shirts had circled the pair, prodding first one and then the other, pushing the priest at the bear from behind, jabbing at the animal with the sharp iron tip of Ivan’s staff.

  ‘Hoyda! Hoyda!’ Ivan cried. It was the cry of the Tatar drivers to their horses – his favourite encouragement. ‘Hoyda!’

  They struck beast and man; they goaded the bear until, at last, confused, enraged, stung by the pain, it began to strike out at the man chained to it, since there was no other object within reach. And Stephen, bleeding from the blows from the mighty claws, could not help trying to ward them off.

  ‘Hoyda!’ cried the Tsar. ‘Hoyda!’

  But still the bear did not finish the business in hand and, in the end, Ivan signalled his men to drag Stephen out and complete the execution in the yard.

  Yet still the night was not over. Tsar Ivan had not done.

  ‘More wine,’ he commanded Boris. ‘Sit close by me, my friend.’

  It seemed as if, for a time, the Tsar had forgotten the others in the room, put out of his mind, perhaps, even the priest he had just killed. He gazed moodily at the rings on his fingers.

  ‘See, here is a sapphire,’ he said. ‘Sapphires protect me. Here is a ruby.’ He pointed to a huge stone set in the ring on his middle finger. ‘A ruby cleanses the blood.’

  ‘You have no diamonds, Gosudar,’ Boris remarked.

  Ivan reached out and took his hand gently, giving him a smile of surprising intimacy and frankness.

  ‘Do you know, they say that diamonds keep a man from rage and voluptuousness, but I have never liked them. Perhaps I should.’

  Boris almost needed to pinch himself to make sure he was not dreaming – that it was really the Tsar sitting here, side by side with him, talking to him like a brother; as intimately, as sweetly as a lover?

  ‘Here.’ Ivan took a ring off another finger. ‘Hold it in your hand, my Boris. Let us see. Ah, yes.’ He took the ring back after a few moments. ‘All is well. That is a turquoise. If it loses colour in your hand, it means your death. See,’ he smiled, ‘the colour is still there.’

  He said nothing for a minute or so. Boris did not interrupt his thoughts.

  Then suddenly Ivan turned to him.

  ‘So,’ he asked, ‘why did you hate that priest?’

  Boris caught his breath. It was not said unkindly, rather the reverse.

  ‘How did you know, lord?’

  ‘I saw it in your face, my friend, when they brought him in.’ He smiled again. ‘He really was a heretic, you know. He deserved to die. But I would have killed him for you anyway.’

  Boris stared down. Hearing such words from the Tsar he felt a welling of emotion. The Tsar, terrible though he was, was his friend. He could scarcely believe it. Tears started to his eyes. He himself had no real understanding of how lonely he had been all these years.

  Suddenly he had a great urge to share his unhappy secrets with the Tsar who cared for him. Whom else should he tell, if not God’s representative upon the earth, the protector of the one true Church?

  ‘You have a son, Gosudar, to continue your royal line,’ he began. ‘I have no son.’

  Ivan frowned.

  ‘You have time to beget sons, my friend, if it is God’s will,’ he murmured. ‘Have you then no son?’ he asked, surprised.

  Boris shook his head slowly.

  ‘I hardly know. I have a son. Yet I think I have not a son.’

  Ivan looked at him carefully.

  ‘You mean … the priest?’

  He nodded.

  ‘I think so.’

  Ivan said nothing for a little while, raising the goblet of wine to his lips.

  ‘You could get other sons,’ he said, and looked at Boris meaningfully. ‘I have had two wives. Both gave me sons. Always remember that.’

  Boris pursed his lips. Emotion closed his throat. He nodded.

  Ivan’s eyes travelled round the room slowly. They were a little glazed. His mind seemed far away.

  After a little time he rose. Boris hastened to rise also, but Ivan motioned him, with a single, royal gesture, to prostrate himself before him on the ground. Then he gently lifted the hem of his long robe and cast it over Boris’s head, just as a bridegroom covers his bride at the marriage service.

  ‘The Tsar is your only father,’ he quietly intoned. Then, turning to the other Oprichniki, he called out: ‘Bring us our cloaks, and then await us here,’ And having put on his sable coat and his tall fur pointed hat, he said to Boris in a low voice: ‘Come, follow me.’

  There were more stars now, in the depth of the night. Grey, ragged clouds passed slowly over the monastery as Tsar Ivan, his staff tapping on the frozen snow, made his way like a ship with unfurled sails across the empty yard and out through the gate towards the River Rus. Boris followed just behind.

  Solemnly the high Tsar strode, down the path, over the river’s thick ice, and up the track to the little town above.

  How silent it was. The high tower, with its sharp, pointed tent roof, stood out boldly against the patches of starry sky behind.

  Still speaking no word, Ivan led him up the path from the river to the gateway. The little gate at the side, manned by a single night watchman, was still open. Ivan passed through, into the starlit market square. And now he turned.

  ‘Where is your house?’

  Boris pointed and was about to lead the way, but already the Tsar had faced round again and was striding on, across the open space, his long staff’s tap, tap, the only sound in the town except for the faint rustle of his long robes.

  Boris wondered what he intended.

  The Tsar did not pause as he came level with the little church whose dome shone softly in the starlight; he continued down the street until Boris ran to open the door of his house. Here, before the door, Ivan halted.

  ‘Call down your wife. Let her come without delay,’ he ordered in a deep voice.

  Not knowing what was to follow, Boris ran up the staircase and opened the door.

  A single lamp was burning in one corner. Elena lay dozing, with the baby boy in her arms. She started to see Boris’s pale face, in such a state of nervousness, suddenly at the door. But before either of them could utter, they both heard Tsar Ivan’s deep voice below: ‘Let her come down at once. The Tsar is waiting.’

  ‘Come,’ Boris whispered.

  Still not fully awake, utterly mystified, Elena got up. She was dressed only in a long woollen shift and felt slippers. Holding the sleeping infant in her arms, she came out to the top of the staircase, scarcely understanding what was going on.

  As she came out, she stared at Boris and, glancing down at his hands, her eyes suddenly opened wide in horror. He, too, looked down.

  He had not noticed before; it must have happened when he was goading the bear.

  ‘Your hands are covered in blood,’ she cried.

  ‘I stabbed your dogs; they barked too loud at a late guest,’ came the deep voice from below. It was an old, bitter Russian jest. ‘Come down,’ the voice went on.

  She turned to Boris.

  ‘Who is this?’

  ‘Do as you are told,’ he whispered urgently. ‘Hurry.’

  Uncertainly, she descended the stairs.

  ‘Now come to me,’ the Tsar’s voice softly commanded.

  She felt the icy night air on her face and tried to cover the child. She walked over the frozen snow to where the tall figure stood, not knowing, in her confusion,
how she should salute him.

  ‘Let me see the child,’ Ivan said. ‘Put him in my arms.’ And, letting his staff rest against his shoulder, he stretched out his long hands.

  Hesitantly, she passed over the child. He took it gently. It stirred, but did not wake. Nervously, under a dark stare from his eyes, she stepped back a pace or two.

  ‘So, Elena Dimitrieva,’ Ivan said solemnly, ‘did you, too, know that the priest Stephen was a heretic?’

  He saw her start violently. There was, at that moment, a large gap in the clouds and the whole of the sky above Russka was clear. A quarter moon, now visible over the gateway, sent a pale light along the street. He could see her face clearly. Boris was standing to his left.

  ‘The heretic priest is dead,’ he said. ‘Even the bears could not abide him.’

  There was no mistaking it. He saw her face. It was not just the horror which some weak women felt at hearing of a death, even a grisly one. It seemed as if she had received a body blow. There was no doubt: she had loved him.

  ‘Are you not pleased to hear that an enemy of the Tsar is dead?’

  She could not answer.

  He transferred his gaze to the child. It was a small, fair infant, not yet a year old. Miraculously, it was still sleeping. He looked at it carefully in the moonlight. It was hard to tell anything by its features.

  ‘What is the child’s name?’ he murmured.

  ‘Feodor,’ she whispered back.

  ‘Feodor.’ He nodded slowly. ‘And who is the father of this child?’

  She frowned. What was he talking about?

  ‘Was it my faithful servant, or was it a heretic priest?’ he gently enquired.

  ‘A priest? Who should the father be if not my husband?’

  ‘Who indeed?’

  She looked innocent, but she was probably lying. Many women were deceitful. Her father, he remembered, was a traitor.

  ‘The Tsar is not to be deceived,’ he intoned. ‘I ask you again: did you not love Stephen, the heretic priest I have rightly killed?’

  She opened her mouth to protest; yet, because she had loved him, because this tall figure terrified her, found herself unable to speak.

  ‘Let Boris Davidov decide,’ he said, and looking towards Boris asked: ‘Well, my friend, what is your judgement?’

  Boris was silent.

  Now, standing between them both, and with this child, half a stranger to him, in the freezing night, an extraordinary mixture of ideas and emotions crowded into his brain. Was Ivan offering him a means of escape, a divorce? No doubt the Tsar could arrange such a thing: the abbot, to be sure, would do whatever the Tsar said.

  What did he believe? He scarcely knew himself. She loved the priest; she shrank from her husband. She had, by this and other means, humiliated him, tried to destroy the pride which was – should it not be? – at the centre of his being. Suddenly all his resentment of her over the years came together in a single, overpowering wave. He would punish her.

  Besides, if he gave way now, if he acknowledged the child which might not be his, then she had won. Yes: her final triumph over him. She would laugh to all eternity and he, the bearer of the ancient, noble tamga of the trident, would lay it down in the dust at her cursed feet. Not only he, but all his ancestors. At this thought, another wave of rage went through him.

  And what had the Tsar told him? What had he said, with such meaning?

  ‘You can have other sons.’ Of course, that was it. Other sons, with another wife, to inherit. As for this boy … whoever his father was, let him suffer – for that way, infallibly, he would hurt her.

  He would punish her, the child, even himself. That, he now saw, in this deep, dark night – that was what he wanted.

  ‘The child is not mine,’ he said.

  Ivan said not a word. Taking his staff in his right hand, holding the infant, who now began to cry, in his other, pressed against his dark, flowing beard, he turned and began to walk, with the same tap, tap of his staff, towards the gate.

  Boris, uncertain what to do, followed at a distance behind.

  What was happening? Only gradually, in her confusion and fright, had Elena understood what was being said. Now, shivering in the snow, she stared after them in horror.

  ‘Feodor!’ Her cry ran round the icy market place. ‘Fedya!’

  Slipping in her felt shoes, almost falling, she threw herself wildly after them.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  Neither man looked round.

  She came up with Boris, seized him, but he pushed her aside so that she fell.

  And now Tsar Ivan reached the gateway where the frightened keeper, his hand on his heart, was bowing low in mortal fear.

  Ivan pointed to the door to the tower.

  ‘Open it.’

  Still bearing the child, he went inside. Slowly he began to mount the steps.

  They were barring her way. Her husband and the foolish gatekeeper: they were barring her way at the foot of the tower.

  She understood now: instinctively, she understood them, and the terrors that lay in the dark labyrinths of their minds.

  Forgetting everything, she clawed at the two men, fought them like an animal and, with a sudden rush, burst past them, slamming the heavy door behind her and shooting the bolt.

  She ran up the wooden stairs.

  She could hear him now, somewhere in the darkness above her: the creak of his footfall on the stairs, the tap, tap of his iron staff on every second step. He was high above.

  Desperately, her heart sinking, she ran up after him. She could hear her baby crying.

  ‘Gospodi Pomily: Lord have mercy.’ The words came involuntarily on her breath. Still he was high above her, so high.

  It was halfway up, at the point where the tower steps came out on to the battlement that ran along the wall, that she realized she could hear nothing from above.

  Ivan was already up there, in the high chamber in the tent roof where the look-out windows faced over the endless plain. She stared up at the tower that rose sheer, harsh and silent above her, and whose wooden roof made a dark, triangular shadow across the night sky. For an instant, she was uncertain what to do.

  And then she heard it, her child’s cry, high in that great roof above; and looking up she suddenly saw a pair of hands hold out a small white form which then, as she herself cried out with a cry, she thought, that must have reached the stars, they tossed, like a piece of jetsam, out into the night.

  ‘Fedya!’

  She threw herself against the battlements, reaching out, in a futile gesture, into the blackness, as the small white form, shocked into silence, fell past her into the deep shadows beneath where she heard its faint thud upon the ice.

  At dawn the Tsar left. Before doing so he insisted that he receive the traditional blessing from the frightened abbot.

  He added two sleds to his little cortège: one contained a substantial quantity of the monastery’s coin and plate; the other contained the bell which Boris’s family had given the monks in former times, and which he intended to melt down for the extra cannon he was making.

  Soon afterwards, word came that the Crimean Tatars were indeed approaching the Russian lands. The Tsar, giving credence once more to the belief that he was a physical coward, absented himself in the north. The environs of Moscow were ravaged.

  It was two weeks after the death of her child that Elena discovered, to her astonishment, that she was pregnant. The father of the child in her womb, as it had been before, was Boris.

  There is, in the service books of the Orthodox Church, a very beautiful reading.

  It is an address of the great St John Chrysostom, the golden-mouthed, and it is read only once a year, in the late-night vigil that welcomes in Easter Day.

  It was with some surprise during the Easter Vigil at the Monastery of Peter and Paul in the year 1571 – at which most of the diminished population of Russka and Dirty Place were present – that the congregation noticed a single figure enter, very quiet
ly, at the back of the church a little after the vigil had begun.

  Since the beginning of Lent, Boris had not been seen out of doors. No one was sure what was going on.

  It was said that he was fasting alone. Some also said that his wife would not see him; others that they had heard him addressing her.

  Again, some declared that he had tried to stop the Tsar killing his son; others that he had stood by.

  So it was hardly surprising that people glanced back at him now, every few minutes, to see what he was doing.

  Boris stood with his head bowed. He did not move from the back of the church, the place reserved for penitents, nor did he look up or even cross himself at the many points in the service where this is called for.

  The Easter Vigil, celebrating as it does the Resurrection of Christ from the tomb, is one of mounting joy and excitement. After the long fast, almost total in the final days of Passion Week that follow Palm Sunday, the congregation is in that state of weakened, cleansed emptiness which is conducive to receiving a feast of spiritual rather than material food.

  The Vigil begins with Nocturne. At midnight, the royal doors of the iconostasis are opened to signify the empty tomb and, with tapers in their hands, the congregation makes the Easter procession round the church. Then begins the service of Matins, and the Easter Hours, which rises towards that climactic point where the priest, standing before all the people, proclaims:

  ‘Kristos voskresye: Christ is risen.’

  And the people cry back:

  ‘Voistino voskresye: He is risen indeed.’

  Since Stephen had gone, a young priest had taken his place. This was the first time that he had stood, cross in hand, before the Holy Doors.

  His own knees felt weak from fasting, but now, as he faced the congregation with their lighted tapers and smelt the thick incense that filled every corner of the church, he had a sense of exaltation.

  ‘Kristos voskresye!’

  ‘Voistino voskresye!’

  Despite their hunger, despite everything, it seemed to the priest that a wonderful joy was filling the church. He trembled a little. This, truly, was the miracle of Easter.

  ‘Kristos voskresye!’ he cried again.