Elena would make daily visits to her mother or her sister. Whispered news of the dark developments in the court would reach them each day, either through Elena’s father or from her mother, who had friends amongst the elderly ladies granted quarters near the royal women in the palace. Boris found himself often alone and with not much to do. To fill the time he took to walking about the capital and visiting its many churches, often hovering for some time before an icon, and saying a perfunctory prayer before moving on.
Yet although their life was quiet, he could not avoid expense. There were the horses to be stabled, the giving of gifts, and above all the yards of silk brocade and fur trimming for kaftans and dresses required to visit those who, he was assured, might be useful to him.
He could not help it: he resented these expenses which he could not really afford. Sometimes, when his wife arrived back happily from a visit to her mother, full of the latest news, he felt a kind of sullen anger, not because she had behaved badly towards him in any way, but because she seemed always to believe that all was well. Then, when they lay together at night, he would lie almost touching her, wanting her, yet holding back, hoping by this little show of indifference to worry her enough to break through the wall of family security that seemed to surround her. How can she really love me, if she does not share my anxiety? he wondered.
But to young Elena, these little shows of indifference only made her fear that her moody husband did not care for her. She would have liked to cry but instead her pride made her shrink from him, or lie there surrounding herself with an invisible barrier so that he, in turn, thought: See, she does not want me.
It was a particular misfortune that he should have encountered a young friend in the street one day. They had retired to a booth to drink for a time, and after asking about his health and that of his wife, this world-weary and unmarried young worthy had remarked: ‘All marriages turn to indifference, and most to hatred, they tell me.’
Was it so? For weeks this foolish little sentence preyed on his mind. Sometimes he and Elena made love several nights running, and all seemed well; but then some imagined slight would interrupt the uncertain course of their relationship and as he lay beside her in secret fury, the words would come back to Boris’s mind and he would decide: Yes, it is so; and he would even will it to be so, as a self-fulfilling prophecy.
So it was that the young Russian stood on the edge of the chasm of self-destruction, and gazed into it.
Sometimes, in front of the icons in the churches he visited, he would pray for better things; he would pray that he might love his wife always, and she him, forgiving each other’s faults. But in his heart, he did not really mean it.
It was on one of these occasions, as he was standing before a favourite icon in a small local church, that he happened to fall into conversation with the young priest named Philip. He was about the same age as Boris, but very lean, with red hair and a hard, intense face that seemed always to be bobbing forwards as though, like a chicken looking for food, he could seize the subject under discussion with a few quick dabs beyond his beard. When Boris had expressed an interest in icons, and told him that his own family had given a work by the great Rublev to the monastery at Russka, Philip had become wildly enthusiastic.
‘My dear lord, I make a particular study of icons. So, there is a Rublev at Russka? I did not know it. I must go there, to be sure. Perhaps you would allow me to journey with you one day? You would? You are very kind. Yes, indeed.’
And before he knew it he had acquired, it seemed, a friend for life. Philip never failed after that to meet him, at least once every two weeks. Boris thought him harmless enough.
Elena did not tell him she was pregnant until July. She expected the baby at the end of the year.
He was excited, of course. He must be. Her family all congratulated him. It seemed that this news must make all the women busier than ever.
And when he thought of his father, and realized that this might be the son who would continue their noble line, he felt another rush of emotion; a determination that, at all costs, he must succeed, hand the estate on in good condition, and more.
Yet as he sat beside Elena he would look across, see her smiling at him as though to say: ‘Surely now he must be pleased,’ and think: She is smiling at me; yet it is also her treasure that she guards in there. This child just completes her family: it will be theirs more than mine. And, anyway, what if it’s a girl? That will be no good to me, yet I shall have to pay for it. In this way, often, the joy they told him he must feel turned to secret resentment.
He did not make love to Elena once he knew she was pregnant. He could not. The womb suddenly seemed to him mysterious, sacred – both vulnerable, and for that reason, rather frightening. Like a pea in the pod: sometimes, that was how he saw it; and who but a monster would break open that pod, disturb the little life inside, or destroy it? At other times, it made him think of something darker, subterranean, like a seed in the earth that must be left in the warm, sacred darkness before, at its season, emerging into the light.
In any case, Elena was often away these days. Her father had an estate just outside the city. She often went there, in the weeks of late summer, to rest with her family.
As Boris gazed over the city now, on this warm September afternoon, he told himself that he must accept what fate had in store. Elena was due back the following morning with her mother. He would be kind to her. The afternoon was wearing on. There was a heaviness in the golden haze; yet at the same time, in the blue sky, a slight hint of the autumn chill ahead. At last he sighed.
What the devil did Stephen the priest want with him, though? It was time to go and find out.
The tall young priest was polite, even respectful.
He had come to Moscow to visit a distant relation, a learned monk, and before leaving the city he had requested a brief audience, as he rather elaborately put it, with the young lord.
The matter was very confidential. It concerned the peasant Mikhail.
Boris was slightly surprised, but told him to go on.
‘Might I ask, Boris Davidov, that you will not mention this conversation to anyone at the monastery?’ the priest asked.
‘I suppose so.’ What was the fellow up to?
Then, very simply, Stephen outlined poor Mikhail’s dilemma. He did not tell Boris that the peasant had actually been encouraged to sabotage the work on the estate, but he did explain: ‘The monastery may well be tempted to take him from you. They would gain a good worker, and you would lose your best peasant – which in turn would make it harder for you to keep up the estate.’
‘He can’t leave,’ Boris snapped. ‘I know very well he can’t afford the fees.’
Under the law, a tenant wishing to depart upon St George’s Day not only had to clear any debts he had to his landlord, but had also to pay an exit fee from the house he had occupied. The rates for this were stiff – more than half a rouble – that was more than the value of Mikhail’s entire yearly crop, and Boris was quite right in thinking he could not pay it.
‘He can’t afford it, but the monastery can,’ Stephen quietly reminded him.
So that was it. An underhand way of stealing another man’s peasants was to pay their exit fees for them. Would Daniel the monk do such a thing to him, a Bobrov? Probably.
‘So what are you suggesting, that I should remit some of my peasant’s service?’
‘A little, Boris Davidov. Just enough to help Mikhail make ends meet. He’s a good peasant, and I can tell you, he has no wish to leave you.’
‘And why are you telling me this?’ Boris demanded.