Ivan’s enemies tried to block all he did; there were many, Boris had heard, who were even saying that the expedition to Kazan was a waste of money.
And now the young Tsar was turning to him – to him, Boris Bobrov from a miserable little estate by Russka – he was turning to him by the dark waters of the Volga and saying quietly: ‘I need such men as you.’ A moment later he had gone and Boris, trying to see him, could only whisper fervently after him, into the shadows: ‘I am yours,’ to which he added that most awesome of all tides: ‘Gosuda’ – sovereign, lord of all.
He had stayed there, trembling with excitement, as the faint dawn at last began to appear in the east.
As the boats continued their journey up the great River Volga that day, Boris was still just as excited by late afternoon as he had been early that morning. What might the meeting with the young Tsar lead to? Was this a prelude to a step forward for his family?
Boris, son of David, surnamed Bobrov. The custom of naming people had changed in recent generations. None, nowadays, but princes and the greatest boyars used the full form of patronymic, with its ending in – vich. Tsar Ivan, for instance, was Ivan Vasilevich but he, a humble noble, was only Boris Davidov, son of David – not Davidovich. To define his identity more precisely, however, a Russian might add to these two names a third – usually the name by which his grandfather was best known. Sometimes this was a baptismal name, like Ivan, so that the third name became Ivanova, shortened to Ivanov. Or it might be a nickname.
It was in this way, during the sixteenth century, that family names began to appear, somewhat late, in Russia. For this third name was sometimes held over to later generations – though the practice was still at the individual’s choice, and a family, having chosen a surname, might easily alter it several times.
Boris’s family were proud of their name. It was, they always insisted, Ivan the Great himself who had given Boris’s greatgrandfather the nickname ‘Bobr’, meaning beaver: though whether it was because he liked to wear a beaver coat, or that he was hardworking, or whether that awesome monarch decided this minor nobleman looked like a beaver, no one seemed to know. But Bobrov the family had decided to be called, and that was that. The Mighty Beaver, they called this ancestor respectfully. It was his father who had given the monastery at Russka its beautiful icon by Rublev, and the family saw to it, with progressively more modest donations, that both men were still remembered by the monks in their prayers.
For the family of Bobrov had fallen from what they had been in former times. The decline had been gradual and was entirely typical of Russian noble families.
In the first place, the estates had been divided many times over the generations, and the last three had failed to acquire new ones. The greatest blow had been when Boris’s grandfather, having become, like so many of his class, hopelessly in debt to the local monastery, had handed over to it the entire village of Russka, keeping for himself only the lands at Dirty Place. The family still had a house within the walls of Russka which the monastery let them have at a modest rent; and since Boris felt that the name of Dirty Place sounded undignified, he preferred to say that he came from Russka.
One day, he hoped, I’ll build Dirty Place up into something and then perhaps I’ll change its name to Bobrov.
But until that time it was just a shabby little hamlet and it was all he had.
In some ways he was lucky. The estate at Dirty Place, though rather reduced by subdivision, was still on good soil and he was the sole heir. It was also a votchina – it belonged to him absolutely by inheritance. In the last half century, less and less land was being held as votchina, and more and more was being held, either by impoverished landowners or by new men, as pomestie – that is, on condition of service to the prince. And though in practice pomestie land often passed to the next generation of a family, it only did so at the prince’s pleasure. Even so, Boris’s income was hardly enough to pay for horses and armour and support him through the year. If the family was ever to recover its former state, he must gain the favour of the prince.
The meeting with the Tsar had been the most important thing that had happened to him so far in his life. But even though the Tsar now knew his name, he must do more to attract his hero’s attention. The question was, what?
In late afternoon, they passed an area on the left bank where the woods gave way to a long strip of steppe; and it was while they went by that Boris saw a motley collection of houses about a mile away. He gave a faint snort of disgust as, staring at them, he saw that they were moving.
‘Tatars,’ he murmured.
The Tatars on Muscovy’s borders often lived in these strange, mobile houses – not so much caravans, like those used by the gypsies of western Europe, as wooden huts with small wheels underneath them. To the Tatars, the fixed abodes of the Russians, attracting rats and all kinds of vermin, were like pigsties. To Boris their mobile homes proved that they were shifting and untrustworthy.
The sight of these vagrants made him think about the two he had captured. He looked down at them. They were a pair of stocky, flat-faced fellows with shaved heads; when they spoke, their voices were deep and loud.
They bray like asses, he thought.
And they were Moslems.
Though the campaign had been a crusade, it was the Tsar’s policy that the Tatar populations he conquered should be converted to Christianity by persuasion, not by force. Indeed, to weaken their resistance, his emissaries were careful to point out to the Tatars that the empire of Muscovy already contained Moslem communities whom the Tsar allowed to worship in peace. But of course, if a Tatar wished to enter the Tsar’s personal service, he must be a Christian; for Ivan himself was strict and devout.
If I am to impress the Tsar, Boris considered, I must show that I too am devout.
The two Tatars would convert that night. And soon, he felt sure, he too would become one of the Tsar’s chosen few – his best men.
The afternoon was overcast, but ahead of them a break in the grey clouds had allowed mighty shafts of sunlight to descend, which lit up an area of broken forest causing it to shine with an almost unnatural gleam. And to Boris, gazing eagerly towards the west, it seemed as though this sunlit patch of land, aspiring to escape from the endless, dull stasis of the plain, had gathered itself together in a pool of golden fire, and was being drawn up into the sky like a huge pillar of prayer.
At dawn the next morning the two Tatars were baptized by one of the priests travelling with them. Following the Russian custom, they were fully immersed, three times, in the River Volga.
The young Tsar could not have failed to notice it.
Two days later, they arrived at the great frontier city of Nizhni Novgorod.
It lay on a hill, frowning over the junction of the Volga and the Oka, the last eastern bastion of old Russia. Eastward from Nizhni Novgorod lay the huge forests where the Mordvinians dwelt. Westward lay the heart of Muscovy. The city’s high walls and its white churches stared out over the Eurasian plain as though to say: ‘Here is the land of the Holy Tsar – unshakeable.’
At Nizhni Novgorod was the great Macarius Monastery, with its enormous fair. As he walked its streets, Boris smiled. It was good to be home.
The returning army was popular at Nizhni Novgorod. The Tatars had so often disrupted their affairs in the past – and besides, Kazan was their rival in the trade with the east. The people showed their gratitude in every way.