And then he had thought about his own little family, and the boy, Feodor. And that had made him scowl, too.
Was the boy his? It was a question that had been exercising his mind for nearly a year and a half. It was possible, of course. It might be that on that afternoon when he had struck her and forced himself upon her – it could be that then she had conceived. But what if it were not that day? What if the priest had already been with her, or if he had called the next day, or the next?
As the months passed, he had brooded upon this, frequently. When the child had arrived, he had received the message not from his wife, but from the priest, who had chosen the boy’s name. It was the name, moreover, of Elena’s brother whom he had hated. Was there irony in that? When he had finally returned, he had examined the child minutely. Who did it look like? It was hard to say. It did not seem to him to resemble anyone. But time would tell; features would appear which would tell him the truth: he was sure of it.
Meanwhile he had observed them both. The priest had congratulated him with a smile. Was there a trace of mockery in it? His wife had smiled faintly at the priest, who had stood beside her in a manner that, to Boris, appeared protective. Was there complicity between them?
The more he allowed, even encouraged, these thoughts to linger in his mind, the more luxuriantly did they grow, like some morbid but fantastic plant which, as it bloomed, took on in Boris’s imagination a kind of dark beauty, like one of those wondrous, magical plants that were said to flower only at night, in the depths of the forest. He watched the flower, he nurtured it; in a strange way he even came, in the dark recesses of his mind, to love it like a man who learns to feed upon poison and then, even, to crave it.
It was in December, when the baby was nine months old, that he had begun to feel sure it was not his. Whether this was the natural outcome of his speculation; whether the dark flowers of this plant he had nurtured required this belief in order that he might more completely admire their beauty; or whether something exterior had prompted him, he now became convinced. The child’s face, at certain angles, started to seem long, like the priest’s. The eyes looked solemn. The ears, above all, were neither his nor his wife’s. They were not the same as Stephen’s either, but they were more like his than Boris’s. Or so it appeared to the landlord on one of his routine, secret inspections of the little boy.
He had stayed up the high watchtower that day, alone with these thoughts, gazing out at the endless wastes until he had definitely decided that it was so. The little fellow who crawled across the wooden floor and smiled up at him, was not his. He had not yet decided what he would do.
He had just come level with the church when he heard a shout from the gates, and turned to see what it was.
Daniel the monk saw them first: two large sleds, whisking down the frozen river from the north. They were each drawn by three magnificent black horses.
They sped over the bank and came straight towards the monastery gate.
Only as they drew close did he see that the men in the sleds were all dressed in black. And they were almost at the gate before he clearly saw the face of the tall, gaunt figure wrapped in furs who sat in the first sledge.
And then he crossed himself and, in stark terror, fell to his knees on the hard snow.
It was Ivan.
As usual, he had come from Alexandrovskaya Sloboda secretly, without warning, his swift horses eating up the miles as he sped, sometimes by day, sometimes by night, from monastery to monastery in the icy silence of the forest.
The party did not waste any time. They drove straight into the centre of the monastery courtyard, and the monks were still looking out in surprise when the tall figure rose from his sled and began to stalk slowly towards the refectory. He wore a high, conical fur hat. In his right hand he carried a long staff with a gold and silver top and a pointed iron tip that pierced deep holes in the snow as he advanced.
‘Call your abbot,’ his deep voice echoed around the icy yard. ‘Tell him his Tsar is here.’ And the monks trembled.
About five minutes passed before they were all assembled in the refectory. The old abbot stood at their head, some eighty monks behind him, including Daniel. The dozen Oprichniki with the Tsar were stationed by the door. Ivan had seated himself in a heavy oak chair, and was facing them gloomily. He had not removed his fur hat. His chin was sunk upon his chest, so that his long nose partly obscured his mouth. His eyes, glinting under his heavy brows, looked up at the monks, darting suspiciously from one to the other. His long staff rested beside him, leaning at a sharp angle over the back of the chair.
For a little time he said nothing.
‘My loyal servant, Boris Davidov Bobrov: where is he?’ he quietly enquired.
‘Up at Russka,’ someone said, and then shut his mouth as though he had not spoken.
Ivan looked neither to right nor left.
‘Fetch him,’ he intoned.
One of the Oprichniki vanished through the door. Several long moments of silence followed. Then the piercing eyes fell upon the abbot.
‘You were sent an oxhide. Where is it?’
If the old abbot looked terrified, his fear was no worse than that which now came over Daniel. Suddenly, in this new and awful light, face to face with the Tsar, the plan which once had seemed so daring now appeared pitiful. It was also impertinent. His legs suddenly felt cold. He wished he were hidden at the back of the room.
‘Brother Daniel was put in charge of it,’ he heard the abbot say. ‘He can explain to you what he has done.’
Now he felt the Tsar’s eyes upon him.
‘Where is my oxhide, Brother Daniel?’
There was nothing else for it.
‘As you said we might, Gosudar, we used it to mark out a patch of ground, which, if Your Majesty is so gracious, might be granted to your loyal monastery.’
Ivan stared at him.
‘You ask for no more?’
‘No, great lord, it is enough.’
The Tsar rose. He seemed to tower over them all.
‘Show me.’
The idea had been nothing if not ingenious. After all, the Tsar’s message had been quite explicit: they were to use the oxhide to enclose the land. Why not, then, cut it into strips? Better yet, why not subdivide the strips? Or even better still…
It had been at the end of the summer that Daniel had set the monks to work. Using sharpened combs and knives they had proceeded, day after day, to take the oxhide apart, making from it not just fine strips of leather but a thread. With care and ingenuity this thread, now wound carefully round a block of wood, could be unravelled to enclose no less than a hundred acres. The area had been staked out by Daniel on St Nicholas’s Day.
Now, with the spindle of thread in his hand, he trudged across the snow, followed by Ivan, the abbot and the Oprichniki, to the place where the stakes began. He had just begun to unwind the thread when he heard Ivan’s voice.
‘Enough. Come here.’
This was it then. Death, he supposed. He went and stood before the Tsar.
Ivan reached forward his long hand and took Daniel by the beard.
‘A cunning monk,’ he said softly. ‘Yes, a cunning monk.’ He looked bleakly at the abbot. ‘The Tsar keeps his word. You shall have your land.’