How big was the place anyway?
Here he had to guess.
For like most such documents in this huge and imprecise land, the title deeds to the estate stated no exact boundaries.
It was the usual formula. Only the local people, long familiar with the place, could say with any certainty where these traditional limits to cultivation lay.
But these three sides, lying as they did upon poor podzol, were of less interest to Milei than the east side across the river, where the chernozem was rich and fertile. And here the boundary, where it joined the prince’s Black Land, was well established.
Since there was no present reason why the Prince of Murom should grant it to him, Milei had several times offered to buy the village of Dirty Place from him. So far, he had got nowhere. But as his steward had pointed out, he had only partly cultivated the chernozem he already had.
‘Send me more slaves,’ the steward said, ‘and I can yield you good returns.’
It was with these matters on his mind that, late in the August of that year, Milei the boyar came to visit Russka.
The hay was already cut and the cone-shaped stacks were casting shadows on the meadow across the river when he rode into the settlement.
He had given the steward fair warning, and a stout new hut, with a tall, steep roof and a fenced plot of land around it, awaited his arrival. He came alone, with a single servant, and immediately called for fodder for his two splendid horses.
When the steward started to bring hay, he immediately cursed him.
‘Oats, you fool! These aren’t your pitiful village horses.’
Indeed, the splendid beasts were half as big again as the sturdy little northern horses the villagers used.
Milei himself ate quickly, made a few testy comments about the turnips they offered him, and then at once retired for the night. But when the steward’s wife complained to her husband about the lord’s bad temper that night, the steward grinned. ‘It’s a good sign. I know him,’ he told her. And when she looked surprised: ‘See, he wouldn’t bother to get cross if he hadn’t decided to take an interest in the place.’
The old fellow was right.
Milei was up at dawn the next morning, riding out to inspect the estate, with a few curt nods to the inhabitants as they went out to the fields.
The largest crop, the spring-sown rye, had already been reaped in July. They were reaping barley that day.
Milei rode round every inch of the place, with the steward running along beside him. He paid special attention to the chernozem.
‘We don’t grow any wheat?’
‘Not at present, lord.’
‘We should try.’ He gave a short, hard laugh. ‘Then you can make Communion bread.’
Communion bread? So the boyar meant them to have a church. The steward smiled to himself. He must really mean business.
He made other suggestions, too. They had started to grow buckwheat in the south when he was a boy. He wanted to try that at Russka. In particular, he seemed to have taken offence at those turnips they had offered him the previous night.
‘Damned peasants’ food,’ he said in disgust. ‘You hardly grow any peas here.’
‘No, lord.’
‘I want more peas, and lentils too. Hemp as well. Grow it with the peas. Hemp seeds are full of oil. They keep you warm in winter.’
‘Yes, lord.’ What on earth could the boyar want with all this? Could it be that he not only wanted to build the place up but actually live here himself? ‘Will this be for yourself, lord?’ he rashly inquired.
‘Mind your own business and do as you’re told,’ the boyar replied sharply, and the steward immediately bowed.
So that’s what he’s up to, if I know him, he thought happily.
Milei was pleased with the flax.
‘But I want more,’ he announced.
This was the basic fibre product of northern Russian agriculture and it was one commodity that could be profitably transported to market. The north-western city of Pskov was even exporting flax abroad.
When he inspected the livestock, the boyar did not complain. The sheep were not bad: they were small, hornless animals with rather long bodies that he had introduced himself. The pigs did well. But the cattle made him shake his head sadly. They stood less than three and a half feet high at the shoulder; at winter’s end, a single man could carry them out of their stalls to pasture.
Milei said nothing, and passed on.
It was afternoon before the boyar finally returned.
He ate, then slept. And then, in the early evening, he made a tour of the village huts and inspected the peasants.
He was not pleased.
‘A dirty, miserable collection of people,’ he remarked with irritation to the steward. ‘And don’t bother to remind me I sent most of them here,’ he added with a grim smile.
But his temper visibly improved when, last of all, he came to the house of the father and daughter he had sent the previous year.
‘At last,’ he said with satisfaction. ‘A clean izba’
It was better than that. There were fresh herbs hanging from a little straw rope over the stove. The place smelled sweet. Everything was beautifully cared for: the loving cup on the table, in the shape of a duck, was a little work of art. In the red corner, a candle burned before the icon; in the corner opposite, three beautiful embroidered cloths hung.
This was what Yanka, in eight months of the blackest inner torment, had achieved.
And in front of him, it appeared to the boyar, stood a model father and his child. Though he had been working in the field all day, the peasant’s thin brown beard was neatly combed. He had put a fresh blouse on in the boyar’s honour; and he smiled respectfully, but manfully, like a fellow with a clear conscience.
The girl was a pearl. Neat, clean, and he was bound to say, good-looking. For once, even the cynical Milei’s heart was touched.
‘A good man deserves such a daughter to look after him,’ he said with a pleasant smile for them both.
How the girl had improved since he had last seen her. She was still slim, but her body and face had filled out a little in this first season of her womanhood. Her skin was wonderfully clear, yet a little pale.
He looked at her carefully. Was there a trace of worry in her eyes?
Then, thinking of his own daughters, he reminded himself that all girls worry about something at that age.
‘A pretty virgin to pluck,’ he could not help murmuring to himself once they were outside again.
He went to Dirty Place the next day, then announced that he was departing but would return shortly.
‘So be ready for me every day,’ he shouted to the steward as he left.
He did not come back for a month.
When he returned, in late September, he was followed by four boats which his men were pulling up the stream with ropes.
In the first was a family of slaves.
‘Mordvinians, I’m afraid,’ he said to the steward, ‘but you’ll make them work.’
In the others there was livestock: Milei had brought young calves from the Riazan region.
‘They grow them bigger in those Oka meadows,’ he said. ‘Give two of them to that new man with the daughter to look after for the winter. He’ll take good care of them.’
He settled into his house and announced that he would remain there a week, at the end of which he would receive the rents.
‘Then,’ he told the steward, ‘I’m going to Novgorod on business. I shall return from there in the spring.’