And Nikita would roar with laughter because it was perfectly true, the officers from different countries often brought their own drill books with them, which did not agree with each other, and which they utterly refused to change.
On this, as on many other matters, Eudokia would conclude with the words: ‘Things were better in the time of Ivan the Terrible. He’d have sorted them out.’
It was strange, therefore, that she did not approve of the Tsar’s wars. To Nikita, the absorption of the Ukraine and the drive into the Polish territories to the west meant glory for Russia. To his practical wife, however, they did not. ‘War just means ruin for our poor peasants,’ she complained.
Even Nikita admitted she had a point. There were at this time a hundred thousand men under arms. The military took up sixty-two per cent of the state’s budget and, as always, the taxes fell on the peasants. ‘If we go on like this, we’ll have another rebellion like Stenka Razin’s,’ Eudokia predicted.
She began to insist, each year, that they inspect their villages, which Nikita found a great bore; and she personally would interview the peasants and frequently give them money. ‘It’s lucky we’re rich, with so many peasants to feed,’ he would remark wryly. But she paid no attention.
Given her conservative views, therefore, it did not surprise Nikita that in religious matters his wife should sympathize with the Raskolniki. Nor was she alone among the noblewomen of the day. The Tsar’s first wife had done so. And a little group of prominent ladies, including one of the great boyar family of Morozov, had not only supported the followers of Avvakum but even gone to prison for it. Such sympathies, however, were becoming unfashionable amongst the noble class, as well as dangerous; and Nikita had told Eudokia she must keep her thoughts to herself.
He supposed that she had.
The troubles of Nikita Bobrov began with a change in the court, when suddenly, and quite unexpectedly, Tsar Alexis had died, leaving behind him a court split into two factions.
By his first wife he left several daughters and two sons: Fedor, pleasant but sickly and Ivan, an unfortunate child, mentally retarded and with a growth of skin over his eyes. By his second wife, a woman of modest birth, Alexis had left two infant children – a baby girl and a boy of three.
The little boy’s name was Peter.
The family of Alexis’s first wife, the mighty Miloslavskys, had not been pleased at the appearance of the second wife’s family, the humble Naryshkins. Above all, they hated the Tsar’s friend Matveev, who had first introduced the couple.
It was a predictable Muscovite business. Young Fedor became Tsar; Peter and his mother were kindly treated, but the Miloslavskys took over all the reins of power. It did not take them long to find a pretext for arresting Matveev. That educated gentleman was foolish enough to be found with a book of algebra in his baggage, which was, naturally, taken to be a form of black magic. Even Nikita, when he heard of the arrest of his mentor, could only shake his head and remark: ‘He was asking for trouble. What did he want with such stuff anyway?’
Though he had lost a powerful patron, the change at court did not mean the end for Nikita Bobrov. He was not important enough to worry the Miloslavskys. He had friends. Given time, he might have continued his advance.
Except for those fatal words to young Tolstoy.
The palace of Kolomenskoye lay not far outside the city of Moscow on gently rising ground beside the river.
It was an extraordinary collection of buildings. For generations a summer residence of the Tsars, Alexis had added to its stone churches and bell towers a large, sprawling set of wooden houses and halls as exotic and striking to the eye as the twisted cupolas of St Basil’s Cathedral in Red Square. Great bulbous domes, high tent roofs with windows peeping out, huge onion-shaped gables and massive exterior staircases – the place was a riot of Russian forms taken to extremes. Like much of the church architecture of Alexis’s reign, it was exuberant and ornamental. It was as though, seeing their own architecture for the first time with partly westernized eyes, some of the builders in Russia had decided to take their traditional forms and play with them, twisting them, piling one next to another, until the final result was a tremendous, exotic stage-set, a gigantic Muscovite honeycomb imbued with an impressive, rich heaviness.
And it was on a sunny summer’s day, walking in the gardens before Kolomenskoye Palace, some years into Tsar Fedor’s reign, that Nikita encountered Peter Tolstoy.
Why was it that he disliked the fellow so much? Tolstoy was a strong man – no doubt about it – with heavy black eyebrows and piercing blue eyes. He was intelligent. Perhaps too intelligent, perhaps cunning. He was about ten years younger than Nikita, but he knew more – and both of them were aware of it. His family’s no better than mine, Nikita thought irritably; yet something about Tolstoy told Nikita that he was going to the top.
When, therefore, young Tolstoy started to walk along beside him, Nikita experienced a wave of irritation. As far as he could, without being rude, he tried to ignore him. He only vaguely listened to what was being said. And so three or four minutes passed before, to his surprise, he suddenly realized that the damned fellow was talking about Eudokia, his own wife.
He started to listen. What was Tolstoy saying? Schismatics? Danger? Now he really began to pay attention, and what he heard made him tremble.
For it seemed that Eudokia had been talking. Behind closed doors, to other women, thank God, but she had been talking all the same: arguing, in her usual way, in favour of the Raskolniki.
And very quietly, like the smooth courtier and diplomat he was, Tolstoy was warning him about it. Women’s talk of course, but things were being said. If such things came to the wrong ears… ‘We men are always the last to know,’ Tolstoy remarked with a smile. But it seemed all Moscow knew. And as Nikita looked across at the other’s calm, impassive face, he was filled with a sudden fury. Why was Tolstoy saying all this – as an act of kindness? Or was it a threat – a piece of information he could use at a future date? Was the fellow trying to establish a hold over him for some reason? It wasn’t clear.
Worst of all, he was being made to look a fool. He had little doubt that Tolstoy was speaking the truth. Eudokia was disobeying him, and this young man was quietly telling him that he couldn’t control his own wife. Yet even then, he might have kept his temper, had it not been for one tiny thing.
The two men had paused in their walk. Nikita, full of resentment, had been staring at the ground when, feeling the other man watching him, he looked up into his face. And met Tolstoy’s eyes.
Nothing in the world is more unwise than to give an expressive look to a person one does not know very well. For it is sure to be misinterpreted, usually because the other sees therein the reflection of his own thoughts. So it was with Nikita and Tolstoy. By the look of worldly cynicism Tolstoy then gave Nikita, he had meant to convey: ‘Ah, my dear fellow, there’s no accounting for women’s chatter.’ But what Nikita saw was: ‘My God what a fool you are, and we both know it.’ It was the last straw. He exploded.
‘You vile young rascal,’ he abruptly burst out. ‘Do you think I haven’t always known you for what you are? If you want to spread gossip about my wife, you’ll find it rebounds on you. I promise you that.’ And then, very quietly: ‘Take care or you may regret this.’
It was foolish. He knew it almost before he had finished. But seeing Tolstoy wince in surprise, he mistook this also for a look of contempt, and turned on his heel.
As for Tolstoy – who in reality had only meant to do a favour to a useful fellow – he at once concluded that Nikita must be an enemy: just important enough to be dangerous, and who might need to be neutralized one day.