‘Look,’ she cried suddenly, ‘there’s a church. Let’s go in and pray.’
What a strange, wayward girl she was! But what spirit she had. Before they parted that day, Andrei had already decided: It’s time I had a woman: this will be the one.
Because of business, however, he had to put her out of his mind for a couple of days.
It was on the third day that he saw a strange sight. He was just walking out of the White Town when, turning a corner, he saw a wagon that had been stopped in the middle of the street; and at the same moment he realized to his surprise that it was being attacked by a small mob. Thinking they must be robbers, he was about to rush to the aid of the wagoner when he noticed that the attackers were being led by a pair of priests.
‘What’s this?’ he asked a bystander.
‘Those are zealots,’ the fellow grinned. ‘And they’ve found what they’re looking for.’
To his amazement Andrei now saw the mob pull down from the wagon a lute, a balalaika, and several other musical instruments.
‘A fire!’ he heard one of the priests cry. ‘Burn these iniquities.’
And sure enough, moments later, the wagon itself was set on fire. Not only that, but the gathering crowd of onlookers was roaring its approval. He had been curtly told by a priest the day before not to smoke his Cossack pipe, and he had also seen a drunkard dragged away to be flogged. But what kind of land was this, where priests burned musical instruments? Scarcely thinking what he was doing, he opened his mouth and began to utter a curse of disapproval, when unexpectedly he felt a hand held across his lips.
It was a female hand, and before he could even look down, he heard a familiar voice speaking softly at his shoulder.
‘Take care, Cossack.’
Her hand was a little longer than he had realized; as she took it away, Maryushka gently squeezed his cheeks and then ran the tips of her fingers across his lips.
‘Don’t you realize, Mr Cossack,’ she whispered, ‘there are probably people in the crowd who are listening – they’ll tell the priests if they hear you swearing.’
‘What then?’
She shrugged.
‘Who knows? The knout perhaps.’
The Russian leather-thonged whip was a fearsome instrument.
‘Are these zealots so strict then that they burn musical instruments and give the knout for swearing?’
‘Oh, yes. The Patriarch is for it, and some of the zealots in the Church are even stricter. They are determined to cure us Russians of our whoring and drinking. All sorts of pleasures are forbidden.’ She laughed. ‘You know, the landlord’s even afraid to go home because the priest at Dirty Place preaches such sermons. And Bobrov has a lute from Germany hidden in his house, I know.’
Andrei frowned. Was this dour zealotry the Orthodoxy he was fighting for? Was everything in the Muscovite state so dark, so claustrophobic? The sense of unease he had felt on his journey northwards from the Ukraine seemed to come back to him now with more force.
But Maryushka had reached up and gently touched his lips again.
‘Is there anyone in your lodgings now?’ she asked.
He knew there was not.
He looked at her.
‘What if we’re caught? The knout?’
She smiled.
‘No one will catch us.’
A blue sky appeared the next day, and the spring sun. By noon the thaw had set in. And though, in the succeeding days, the sky was often overcast, it was clear that winter was ending at last.
The streets became sodden, grey and brown. A rich, damp smell began to emanate from the millions of logs of the wooden houses, like a sharp, resinous incense. The wet wooden walls were almost charcoal; icicles, thinning to mere needles, hung from the glistening eaves; and here and there the white walls of a church or the slender shape of a silver birch glimmered above the dull slush and endless puddles of the street. The smoke from the fire in every house rose to be carried, like the modest sound of the church bells, over the still sombre morass of the city whose high, golden domes alone gave promise of the light and warmth to come.
In this melting season, Andrei made love to the girl Maryushka.
She had a slim, strong body; the light freckles on her legs and breasts petered out to a surprisingly pale whiteness. Her breasts were rather small.
She would visit his lodgings in the afternoon, and they would lie on his bed in the shadowy room that was almost overheated by the big stove at one end. She liked to undress herself and stretch out, luxuriously, to await him. Sometimes, having arched her back with a catlike movement, she would raise one of her strong, slim legs and admire it before asking him, cheerfully: ‘Well, Mr Cossack, what are we going to do today?’
The first day they made love, he noticed that she winced when he first touched her, but when he looked surprised she gave a wry smile and held up her arms.
‘A little reminder from my husband,’ she remarked drily, and Andrei saw that along the side of one arm were ugly dark marks where the steward had obviously punched her. ‘He’s quite strong,’ she said mildly, and then, as though the bruises were not there, pulled him gently to her.
‘You are strong yourself,’ he remarked a little later, ‘like a cat,’ he added.
‘Yes,’ she replied, ‘a cat with teeth.’
And so they passed the time each afternoon while the dull light outside slowly turned to dusk, then darkness, and apart from some occasional footfalls in the street and the faint hiss from the hot stove, the only sound was the slow dripping of melted ice from the overhanging eaves, or the little rustle and soft thud of snow slipping off the roof onto the ground below.
Sometimes, afterwards, she would sigh.
‘You will be gone soon, my Cossack.’
‘Don’t think of it, my little cat.’
‘Ah, easy for you to say. You’re not trapped.’
It was hard for him to reply to this.
‘Sometimes I wish that Ivan would die,’ she would muse. ‘But … what then? I’ve nowhere to go.’ And then she would manage a short, ironic laugh. ‘All dressed up on St George’s Day – but St George’s Day has been taken away. What do you think of that, Mr Cossack?’
This was a subject to which she often returned in their conversations, and it was one that made Andrei rather uneasy.
For his affair with Maryushka was turning out to be not only a sensual pleasure, but a very important piece of education: and it was an education that was by no means pleasurable.
Only since coming to know her, Andrei now realized, had he truly begun to understand the nature of this powerful Muscovite state. And the more he understood, the more uncomfortable he became. The feature of the state that he disliked above all was one that – though it had been developing for along time – had only recently passed into law. And this was what, nearly every time they talked, Maryushka complained about.
For she was no longer a free peasant. St George’s Day had been abolished.
It was the law code of the present Tsar, Alexis, which had so decreed just four years before. Until that time, though the right had been limited in practice, it was still possible in theory, once a year, for the Russian peasant – technically free since the days of ancient Kiev – to leave one master for another. The old institution of St George’s Day was still in force.
It was the service gentry, the small men with modest estates, who disliked the rule. Invariably short of money, they could never match the terms the Church and magnates could afford to offer for the labour which, thanks to Russia’s endemic famine and plague, was always in short supply.
Pitiful the service gentry might be, individually. But taken all together they were a large and formidable force. It was they who kept order in the country; they who could, when need arose, raise troops in every village in the vast, ungainly land. In short, as the rest of Europe entered the modern age, in the backward land of Muscovy there remained an essentially feudal state of petty landed retainers and a Holy Tsar.
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It had been the riots of 1648, when the administration had briefly lost control of Moscow, which had reminded Alexis that he should ensure the loyalty of this service class. And he had done so brilliantly.
In 1649, the famous Russian law code known as the Ulozhenie was proclaimed. Amongst its provisions it stated that no peasant might leave his master’s land for another; and that there was no time limit for the recapture of runaway peasants by their owners. It also stated for good measure that the lower orders in the towns were likewise unfree to move.
To most of the peasants in Dirty Place, these provisions made no difference to their daily lives. They greeted the news, as it filtered down to them, with an apathetic shrug.
But Maryushka did not. Her sharper intelligence perceived the law for what it was. She saw that now there was nothing to prevent the landlord owning his peasants like chattels.
And she was right. As history was to show, with this great law code, the road to the final subjugation of the Russian peasant had been quietly opened. For over two centuries, longer than the actual subjugation to the Mongols, most Russians would be born to be serfs.
‘Do you understand?’ Maryushka demanded. ‘Your young friend Bobrov owns me like a slave. He can probably even sell me. If I run away, he can get me back as long as I live.’ She laughed bitterly. ‘You Ukrainians revolt against the Poles. Then you want to become part of Russia, which is worse! You’d be better off under the Turkish Sultan!’
It was a thought which had recently occurred to Andrei too. But he could only answer: ‘The Sultan is not Orthodox.’
Surely that was the point; at least, he hoped it was.
Then, as if to resolve his doubts, came Palm Sunday.
The morning was overcast, but with only a thin film of grey cloud, which was seamed with glimmering gold and silver fissures from the bright spring sky that was hidden above.
Nikita had suggested Andrei should accompany him, so that they could go into the Assumption Cathedral in the Kremlin afterwards; accordingly they had set off together, followed respectfully by Maryushka and her mother, for the citadel; but when they arrived at Red Square the crowds were so thick that they had to stop some way from the Kremlin walls.
As they waited, Andrei glanced at the older woman and then at Nikita. Did either of them guess about his relationship with Maryushka? He supposed not.
They did not have long to wait.
The ceremony of Palm Sunday in the Holy State of Muscovy was, at that time, an extraordinary affair. Setting out from before the towering, exotic mass of St Basil’s Cathedral, the long procession of boyars, officials and priests moved towards the little tribune near the middle of Red Square, where the choir of boys was singing hymns. Sombre, rich, magnificent, the greatest men wore huge chains of gold around their necks, tall hats, and coats of ermine or black fox. Splendid embroidered robes adorned the boyars, heavy enough, it seemed, to crush lesser men. And how imposing the bearded Muscovite priests looked, in their glittering vestments covered with gold and gemstones; they had become still more gorgeous in recent years by adopting oriental headgear. The bulbous, jewelled mitres of the bishops, like so many church domes, caught the dull glow from the broken sky and glimmered with an eerie magnificence.
On a wagon pulled by four horses was a tree, hung with fruit, to symbolize the day; on each side, the streltsy guards, ranged in open formation across the square, now sank to their knees and bowed their foreheads to the ground. And last of all, to re-enact for the people the entry of Christ into Jerusalem on that great day, came the Tsar himself, walking humbly on foot and leading a donkey upon which sat the tall figure of the Patriarch.
At the little platform the procession paused. The Tsar spoke a few words. Then it moved on, across Red Square and into the Kremlin through the great Gate of the Saviour. The Tsar was going to the Cathedral to pray.
Surely, Andrei thought, this must be the ideal state: the land where the Church and monarch were as one. How was it the Russians liked to style their ruler? ‘Most Pious and Orthodox, the most Gentle Tsar.’ Wasn’t that what he had just seen?
He and Nikita went into the Kremlin. There was too much of a crush to get into the Assumption Cathedral itself but they waited outside in the hope of seeing something more.
Their patience was rewarded. At the end of the service, with the bells pealing, he saw not only Tsar Alexis but the sweet-faced Tsaritsa too emerge from the Cathedral uncovered.
‘The Patriarch insists that she show herself to the people on these great occasions,’ Nikita whispered, as they both bowed low.
Yes, Andrei thought, all is well. I have seen Holy Russia.
It had been a memorable day.
It was also the end, at least for a while, of his affair. He had not especially thought about it, but when, later that day, he encountered Maryushka again at Nikita’s lodgings, and she suggested she should come to him the next day, he shook his head.
‘Not in Holy Week,’ he said. It was one thing to sin, but during this, the most sacred week of the year, he simply felt he could not; and he was a little surprised that even her wayward and rebellious spirit could wish for such a thing.
She shrugged, a little sadly, but said nothing.
Holy Week passed quietly. Feeling guilty after his previous sins, Andrei fasted strictly.
On one day he, Burlay and the other Cossacks rode out to look at the Tsar’s country residence at nearby Kolomenskoye. Sited by the Moskva River it was a curious jumble of buildings – some wooden, others of brick, covered with white stucco. Its tent roofs, onion domes and towers flanked by ascending pyramids of kokoshniki suggested a silent, powerful peacefulness like an Indian temple.
They returned to the city feeling refreshed.
By the end of the long and lovely Easter Vigil in the Kremlin at the end of the week, Andrei felt both weak in the knees and elated. The next morning, he saw the Tsar ceremonially give the brightly painted Easter eggs to the great men and soldiers at the Kremlin. Then he went to Nikita’s lodgings for the feast that marks the end of Lenten fasting.
It was a happy occasion. Blinis, honey cakes, gingerbread, all manner of foods had been procured. Maryushka and her mother, both a little pale after their vigil the night before, served the collection of friends Nikita had invited. Appropriately, the sky had cleared to a pale blue that morning and this Easter Day Andrei felt suddenly as if he had been made anew.
Yet as his head began to swim pleasantly with the kvass and mead and vodka he was offered, and a delightful warmth began to fill his stomach, his pious thoughts of the preceding week soon began to fade into the background, and looking across the room at Maryushka he thought happily: Soon I’ll make love to her again.
The week after Easter is known, in the Russian Orthodox Church, as Bright Week.
And it was on the Tuesday that the Cossacks were at last received in person by Patriarch Nikon at his palace.
Only now, seeing him at close quarters and without his mitre, did Andrei realize the dominating presence of this legendary figure.
The Patriarch stood an astounding six foot six inches. Years of prayer and rigorous fasting had left their unmistakable mark on his face which, like his tall body, was gaunt but commanding. His eyes were not unkind, but piercing.
He treated the Cossacks in a friendly but businesslike manner.
‘Though the Metropolitan of Kiev properly comes under the Patriarch at Constantinople,’ he said, ‘Holy Russia can and should give him its protection. This I am determined to do. And as for the Church in Moscow, it is backward. I welcome our brothers from Kiev who have so much that we need.’ He looked at them severely. ‘This is the dawning of a new age – an age of renewed and purified Orthodoxy, led by a pious Russia. You Cossacks will have a splendid role in the defence of our Orthodox state. You may rely upon me, therefore,’ he concluded, ‘to support your application for the Tsar’s protection. Indeed,’ he smiled, ‘I think you may be sure that your mission here will succeed.’ r />
It was not only the ringing words – it was the tone of them, the force of the man, which commanded, uplifted. And as he left, Andrei suddenly felt that he was no longer just a rebel against Poland, but the servant of a mighty cause.
Maryushka’s husband arrived the next day.
Andrei saw her briefly at Nikita’s lodgings, but it was only possible to talk for a few moments. She told him she was to return to Russka with her husband in three days.
‘So I shan’t see you again,’ she said quietly. Then she was gone.
He was surprised by the effect this news had on him. A strange melancholy seemed to invade his whole spirit, a sense of loss rather like a foreboding. Yet why should that be? If he were truthful with himself, the ending of an affair usually left him with a sort of elation – a sense, however mingled with regret, of freedom, of pastures new, and, it had to be said, the pleasant, self-satisfied feeling of a conquest completed.
Yet this time it was different. He felt a cold sadness he had not known before – and he realized soon that it was not because she had meant so much more to him than any of the many others, but that this time, he was afraid for her.
It’s not just the steward and what he’ll do to her, he realized. It’s something in herself.
Without fully understanding it, he was looking at the inner fate of a woman who wished to protest in an endless land where all must submit.
He did not want to lose sight of her. It was absurd.
A partial reprieve, at least, was suggested the next morning when Burlay, the leader of the mission, announced that their work was nearly completed and that they would soon be returning home.
‘How soon?’ Andrei asked.
‘About a week,’ he was told.
‘Then I have a request to make,’ he said.
‘Very well,’ Burlay said when he had heard it. ‘As long as the landowner there has no objection. You can follow on as you please.’
And so it was that Andrei made preparations to accompany Maryushka to northern Russka.
Nikita Bobrov was amused when Andrei told him of his desire to visit the estate and explained his own connection with the place.