‘They’re getting some from Tula, but we have plenty on our estates,’ he had declared happily, and immediately made the Tsar a present of one of his woods.
When the news came, in 1696, that the Turkish fort of Azov had fallen, he was ecstatic.
‘Can’t you feel it?’ he cried to Eudokia. ‘I can. I feel a warm wind blowing into our northern forests – a warm wind from the south.’
One other development had taken place during the Azov campaign: Peter’s invalid half-brother Ivan had died. It was not an important event in itself but it meant that now, as he returned to Moscow in triumph, Tsar Peter at the age of twenty-four sat alone upon the throne.
‘He may be wild,’ Nikita had assured his wife, ‘but now we shall see great things.’
Even he however had been thunderstruck by what happened next: Peter’s triumphal entry into the capital.
It took place on a sunny October day in 1696. By the Moscow river a triumphal arch had been erected in the Roman manner, with huge statues, one of Mars, the other of Hercules, on each side. Below it was a model of the Turkish Pasha in chains.
When the procession came, it was headed by Peter’s tutor – the man who played Prince-Pope in the infamous Drunken Synod – dressed up in armour. Then in a gilded carriage came the Swiss Lefort. Then more carriages. Then came a cart containing a traitor who had foolishly helped the Turks during the campaign. The instruments of the torture and execution he was to suffer were displayed beside him.
And at last, towards the rear of a procession that went on for miles, came Peter.
To many who had never got a good look at him before, he was an astounding sight. He was built like an athlete. He had a mop of dark hair, a moustache like a Cossack, and piercing, staring eyes. He stood no less than six foot seven inches high.
Yet this young Russian giant was not wearing Russian dress. He wore a German uniform, a black coat and a huge black three-cornered hat in which he had jauntily stuck a long white feather.
And there was not a priest in sight.
No icons came before the procession; no priests with banners. No welcoming speech from the Patriarch; no church bells rang. A Roman Caesar had come, wearing a German uniform; a pagan procession was entering the capital of Holy Russia.
‘Yet even the Romans had their gods,’ Nikita murmured. ‘And even Genghis Khan, pagan that he was, did not despise the Church.’ And as he gazed at the procession he thought he saw a new, harsh sun that would burn away all the shadows.
As for Eudokia, she stared with furious disgust.
‘When his mother died, and he would not even stay at her bedside, I said he was unnatural,’ she remarked. ‘Now I have seen the face of evil itself.’
Yet even this horror had been as nothing to what was happening now.
For in 1698, Peter had, once more, done something that no ruler of Russia had ever done.
He had travelled abroad. And he had taken Procopy with him.
While they were away, Eudokia had scarcely even visited Moscow. The place had become hateful to her. Instead she had spent most of her time alone, down at Russka, where she continued to pass long hours in the company of the priest Silas, and Daniel and his family.
But now Peter and her son were back. And in Moscow, all hell had broken loose.
Daniel approached the capital with a mixture of curiosity and dread.
Could the rumours he had heard since Tsar Peter’s sudden return from abroad really be true? It was many years since he had been to the capital, but when he received the summons from that godly woman Eudokia Mikhailovna, he had not hesitated but had come, bringing with him his wife and little daughter.
For – and it often puzzled Daniel that God should have granted such a gift in these evil days – he and Arina, after nearly fifteen years, and long after they had given up hope, had unexpectedly been blessed with a daughter. She had been born in 1693 when Arina was thirty-nine and he was in his sixties. And now here he was, aged seventy, with a wife and a six-year-old girl.
At first, when he and Arina had gazed at the little baby who had so wondrously appeared, they had been astonished by one thing: she did not in the least seem to resemble either of them.
It was old Elena who, with a smile of delight, solved the mystery.
‘To think that, in my last days, I should have been granted such a thing,’ she muttered. ‘The child is my Maryushka, to the life.’
So that was what they called her: Maryushka. And old Elena, in the last three years of her life, would sit with the child every day with as much pride as if it had been her own.
Yet if little Maryushka had come into their lives like a ray of sunshine, what dark years they were into which she had been born. All over Russia, but especially in the north, the government had continued to persecute the Raskolniki. Some sought martyrdom by challenging the authorities. Others continued to worship in secret.
The early years, after the terrible edict, had been especially difficult. No one had been sure what to do. But Silas and Daniel had consulted the friends of Avvakum and with them had reached a wise conclusion.
‘There is no merit in challenging the government and calling down its wrath,’ Daniel would tell his little family. ‘The edict is wrong, but perhaps in future it will be changed. We shall continue to pray, in secret, as we have been taught. We shall not seek trouble, but if persecution comes, we must suffer it as best we may, secure in God’s protection.’ It was a course that hundreds, even thousands of little congregations had followed in that vast land. No one, neither the government nor the congregations themselves, knew how many.
Daniel was cautious as he approached Moscow, it was understandable. The capital was not only the seat of persecution. It had also become a place of danger. For that very summer, while the strange young Tsar had still been abroad, the streltsy had revolted again.
Had Sophia, still in furious exile in her convent, put them up to it? No one knew. Fortunately for Peter, his counsellors had managed to smash the rebellion very quickly. But the Tsar had hurried home anyway and now, a month after his arrival, all Russia was waiting to see what their young ruler would do.
As Daniel entered the suburbs, however, the huge city seemed to be quiet. His little cart made its way slowly towards the city’s outer wall, passed through and came eventually to the kitaygorod where the Bobrovs had their substantial house. And there at last, with the late afternoon sun pleasantly on his back, he led his wife and daughter into the large, dusty courtyard.
It was a big, wooden house on two floors, with a massive outside staircase. Around the courtyard were a number of lesser buildings, in which he would be given lodgings.
He placed his hand on his heart and bowed low as the grey-bearded figure of Nikita himself appeared and gave him a courteous greeting. A moment later, from the upper floor, Eudokia came out, smiling; before her walked a serving girl, with a pleasant face, carrying bread and salt in welcome.
‘Welcome, faithful Patriarch,’ she said.
How the old man’s heart warmed. His face, usually rather solemn, creased into a smile. That little word ‘faithful’ meant so much to them both. It meant that, despite their different stations in life, they were friends. It meant that she relied upon him for emotional support. He knew it. And lastly it meant something else, which was never spoken of before her husband.
‘My Lady Eudokia Mikhailovna,’ he said fervently, bowing low in greeting. He had only seen her in Russka before, never in Moscow. In Russka she dressed simply. But here in the capital she was magnificently attired in rich red brocade and a headdress studded with pearls. Though he despised all the trappings of worldly wealth, old Daniel could not help thinking that she looked very well in her finery.