If only Daniel could have felt that his personal joy was a harbinger of better days to come.
He had wandered so many years, all over Russia, troubled by his sinful past, seeking peace yet never finding it. He had sought out holy men. But it was only during his time in Yaroslavl that he had truly found them. For it was there, in the wild Black Lands beyond the Volga, that he had met the stern Trans-Volga hermits and their followers. These were the true Russian believers, these austere and godly men who lived in the forests. In the manner of ancient Israelites, they felt their daily lives were close to God. Some were prophets. They shunned the evil world they saw around them. Like Avvakum and the other Raskolniki they were shocked at the changes in the Church, and with even more certainty than Avvakum they declared that these signs of wickedness meant the coming of the Antichrist himself.
‘Prepare with prayer and fasting,’ they advised, ‘for the end of days is nigh.’
Sometimes, having found such happiness at Russka, Daniel had wondered if perhaps the hermits over the Volga had been mistaken. By chance, after many years of the harshest winters, the climate in north Russia had become milder the year after his marriage: the cold season had been shorter, the crops better. Might it be a hopeful sign? But when, after four years of marriage, his wife had failed to become pregnant he sadly concluded: It is probably a sign that, for the faithful, the world is becoming too wicked a place for children to live in.
In 1684, if any confirmation were needed of the wickedness of the world, the blow fell.
An edict from the Regent Sophia outlawed the Raskolniki. Suspected schismatics could be tortured and anyone sheltering them would lose their property. For obstinate offenders the penalty was death. On the day that news of this terrible edict had reached Russka, Silas had come to Daniel’s house near the market square and spent an hour talking with him urgently. When he emerged, he was looking grim.
Arina had remained outside while the two men talked and did not venture back until some time later. But when she did, she found Daniel so deep in prayer that he was unaware of her presence. She had never seen him so agitated before. With tears in his eyes, he was prostrating himself before the blackened little icon in the corner, knocking his forehead on the floor and murmuring: ‘Lord have mercy. Let this cup pass from me.’ And feeling that she was intruding, Arina had begun to back out of the room.
It was just as she was doing so, however, that her husband said something else, that seemed to her very strange. For suddenly, staring up at the icon with a look of desperation he cried out: ‘Yet who am I, Lord, to ask for mercy – If who have murdered, not once but many times?’
Arina gazed at him. What could he mean? Surely the words were not to be taken literally, for it was hard to imagine her husband hurting a fly, let alone committing a murder. What, then, was in his mind? And it struck her, with a greater force than ever before, how little she still knew about the life of this man whom she unreservedly loved. And being ignorant, she thought, how can I help him now, in his hour of need?
When they were alone that evening, Daniel told her about Silas’s visit. Faced with the terrible new threat of the edict, even the old priest had been uncertain what to do. ‘He honoured me by asking my advice,’ Daniel gravely told her.
‘And what did you tell him, Petrovich?’
‘For my sins, I advised him to go on.’ He looked at her with troubled eyes. ‘If we continue, even in secret, it may bring great misfortune upon us – upon you too, Ivanovna,’ he confessed.
She bowed her head. Whatever suffering might lie ahead, she knew that she only desired to share it with him.
‘It is all I have – this faith,’ Daniel suddenly burst out. ‘I have wandered all my life in search of truth, Ivanovna. I cannot turn back now.’
And it was then, because the moment seemed right, that Arina begged him: ‘Will you not tell your wife something of your past life, Petrovich?’
It was a strange tale he had to telclass="underline" a story of solitary wanderings that seemed to have taken him all over Russia. He told her about the elders he had met at Yaroslavl. ‘And before that, for a time, I was a lay brother in a monastery. That is when I learned to read.’
And now Arina told him what she had overheard that day and gently asked him: ‘What did you mean, Petrovich, when you said that you had murdered?’
To which, to her surprise, he sadly answered: ‘Yes, it is true. I have killed.’
For several moments after this confession he was silent, then he slowly continued, ‘You see, Ivanovna, even when I was a child, I had a passion for justice. Indeed, I would be so offended by anything that, to my childish eyes, seemed unjust that I would even pretend to be a fool, not to understand what was going on – so that often the other boys thought me simple in the head.’ He smiled regretfully. ‘Nowadays, of course, I know that justice belongs only to God, and that goodness can only be found in prayer. But when I was young, I believed there could be true justice in the government of men: and when I did not find it, I became angry.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I fought. I joined Stenka Razin.’
‘You were in his rebellion?’
He nodded. ‘And we killed, Ivanovna. In the name of justice we killed not only soldiers and wicked officials, but God knows how many innocents too. At the time I thought it right: now I can only throw myself at God’s feet and beg for mercy.’
‘You were a Cossack then?’
‘I was. A fighting Cossack. I fought with Bogdan too. I thought nothing of killing in those days.’ He paused. ‘Later, I wanted so much to break with my evil past that – as though I had taken holy orders – I changed my name to Daniel.’
‘What was it before?’
‘Stepan.’ He smiled gently. ‘Though since my brother Cossacks thought me big and simple, they gave me another name. They used to call me the Ox.’
1698
Procopy Bobrov was an enthusiast. He was thirty-one yet, to his mother at least, he sometimes seemed like a child. Often she would say: ‘It was the worst thing I ever did in my life, to send him to Preobrazhenskoe.’ And when the nice, sensible wife she had chosen for him complained that he shamefully neglected her, Eudokia could only sigh sympathetically and remark: ‘I’ll do what I can, my dear. But it’s that accursed Peter who makes him so.’
For this was how, in private, she referred to the Tsar.
Preobrazhenskoe was a pleasant spot – a modest wooden hunting lodge with large stables, only three miles from Moscow’s walls and close by that other satellite of the city, the German quarter. All around stretched broad meadows, dotted with silver birches; further away lay a white-walled church whose blue dome looked rather cheerful against the paler blue of the sky. And it was there that the sixteen-year-old Procopy Bobrov had made the acquaintance of a striking twelve-year-old boy, already as tall as he was.
The women’s network of Eudokia’s family had worked only too well. The young Tsar’s Naryshkin mother had been only too grateful to greet a friend for her son from a sound old family like the Bobrovs. For her state was pitiable: except when he was needed for some ceremonial appearance, the boy Peter was ignored; their allowance was so small she had even had to beg the Patriarch for extra funds; and fearing for their safety, she was glad enough to keep out of sight at Preobrazhenskoe.
‘There is nothing – nothing! – good that one can say about Peter,’ Eudokia would cry contemptuously. ‘He’s nothing but,’ she’d search for words, ‘a German lout!’ If only she had never sent Procopy to Preobrazhenskoe. That was where the trouble had begun. The boy’s mother was at fault. He had not been properly supervised, allowed to run wild, mix with all sorts of company. He ate like a peasant – even Procopy admitted that. And he was forever playing soldiers with his friends. Including Procopy, thanks to her folly.