Outside, the night grew deeper. The cloud cover broke so that, here and there, a few stars could be glimpsed. Within, Ivan sat, apparently brooding, telling Boris to fill his goblet, and his own, with wine from time to time.
‘They say,’ he murmured softly, ‘that I may retire and become a monk. Have you heard that?’
‘Yes, lord. Your enemies say that.’
Ivan nodded slowly. In the early days of the Oprichnina many of the boyars had suggested this solution.
‘And yet,’ he went on quietly, ‘it is true. Those whom God chooses to rule over men are given not freedom, but a terrible burden; not a palace, but a prison.’ He paused. ‘No ruler is safe, Boris Davidov. Even I, chosen by God to rule over men according to my will – even I must watch the shadows on the walclass="underline" for any one of them may possess a knife.’ He drank thoughtfully. ‘Better, perhaps, the life of a monk.’
Boris, too, as he sat with Tsar Ivan, felt the oppressive silence of the shadows. He had drunk deeply, but his head was still clear; instead of confusion, he felt within him a slowly rising melancholy as he entered into the twilight world of this ruler he revered. He, too, in his small way, knew what it was to be troubled by the treacheries and phantasmagoria of the night. He, too, knew that a terrible phantom may, in the cold light of dawn, turn out to be real.
They will kill him, he thought, if he does not first kill them.
And here he was, sitting opposite this great and troubled man, his Tsar, who was taking him once again into his most intimate confidence. How he longed to share the life of this mighty figure, so close yet so all-powerful, so terrible yet so deeply wise, who saw into the dark hearts of men.
They drank in silence.
‘Tell me, Boris Davidov, what shall we do with this rascal priest who has stolen land from the Tsar?’ Ivan asked at last.
Boris thought. He was honoured to be asked. He had no love for Daniel, but he must make a wise answer.
‘He is useful,’ he said at last. ‘He loves money.’
Ivan looked at him thoughtfully. His eyes were more bloodshot, but still piercing. He reached out his long hand and touched Boris’s arm. Boris felt a thrill of excitement.
‘Well answered.’ He smiled grimly. ‘Let us beat some money out of him.’ He signalled to two of the other Oprichniki, and whispered instructions. They went over to where the monks were still standing and quietly conducted Daniel out.
Boris knew what they would do. They would tie him up, probably upside down, and beat him until he told them where all the monastery’s money was hidden. Priests and monks always had money and usually disgorged it fairly soon. Boris did not feel sorry for him. It was the smallest of all Ivan’s chastisements. The fellow probably deserved worse.
But now the Tsar’s long evening had begun.
It was by a little sign, an involuntary winking of Ivan’s left eye, that Boris understood what was to come. He had heard of it from other Oprichniki and he knew that it frequently followed a church service. The sign meant that Ivan was in a mood to punish.
‘Tell me, Boris Davidov,’ he now said in a quiet voice, ‘who is there here who is not to be trusted?’
Boris paused.
‘Remember your oath,’ Ivan murmured gently. ‘You have sworn to tell your Tsar all that you know.’
It was true. He had no reason to hesitate.
‘I am told there is one,’ he said, ‘who is guilty of heresy.’
It took Stephen quite by surprise when the four strange men came to search his cell.
They were thorough. Systematically, with the skill of long practice, they ransacked the box that contained the few possessions he had brought from his former home; they investigated the bench on which he slept, his few clothes, they examined the walls and would have torn up the floor had not one of them, in the gap between the thick logs of the wall, discovered what he was looking for: the little pamphlet.
How strange. Stephen had almost forgotten the existence of the English tract. He had not even looked at it for months, and only kept it in order to remind himself, from time to time, of what might be said about rich monks by those who were free to do so.
He might even have pretended he did not know what it was, but for one thing: the very day that Wilson had given it to him, while it was fresh in his mind, he had written down the Englishman’s translation in the margin.
When they had dragged him to the refectory, it was this that they showed to the Tsar.
Ivan read it slowly; he read it aloud. From time to time he would stop, and, in a deep voice, point out to Stephen the precise nature of the disgraceful heresies written down in his own hand.
For though some Protestants, like the English merchants, were tolerated because they were foreigners – and better at least than Catholics – Ivan was deeply affronted by the tone of their writings. How could he, the Orthodox Tsar, condone the insolent, anti-authoritarian arguments they used? Only months ago, the previous summer, he had allowed one of these fellows, a Hussite from Poland, to expound his views before him and all his court. His reply had been magnificent. It had been written out on parchment pages and delivered to the ignorant foreigner in a jewelled box. In rolling phrases the Orthodox Tsar had crushed the impertinent heretic for ever.
‘We shall pray to Our Lord Jesus Christ,’ he had ended, ‘to preserve the Russian people from the darkness of your evil doctrines.’
And now here was this tall, solemn monk, hiding such filth in a monastery.
When he had finished reading the pamphlet he glowered at Stephen.
‘What have you to say to this?’ he intoned. ‘Do you believe these things?’
Stephen looked at him sadly. What could he say?
‘They are the views of foreigners,’ he said at last.
‘Yet you keep them in your cell?’
‘As a curiosity.’ It was true, or near enough.
‘A curiosity.’ The Tsar repeated the word with slow, deliberate contempt. ‘We shall see, monk, what other curiosity we can find for you.’
He glanced at the abbot.
‘You keep strange monks in your monastery,’ he remarked.
‘I knew nothing of this, lord,’ the old man miserably answered.
‘Yet my faithful Boris Davidov did. What am I to think of such negligence?’ He paused for a moment. ‘I need no church court to deal with this,’ he remarked. ‘Isn’t that so, abbot?’
The old man looked at him helplessly.
‘You did well, Boris,’ Ivan sighed, ‘to expose this monster.’
And indeed, even Boris had been astounded by the pamphlet Ivan had read out.
‘How shall we punish him then?’ the Tsar wondered aloud, his eyes moving round the room.
Then, when he saw what he wanted, he rose from his chair.
‘Come, Boris,’ he said, ‘come help me mete out justice.’
It took some time, yet even so, Boris did not feel pity. In that terrible night, heavy with wine, swept up in the Tsar’s hypnotic power, what they did seemed to him a final, fitting vengeance for the wrongs that he had suffered.
Let the priest die, he thought. Let the viper – a heretic too – die a thousand deaths.
He had seen many worse deaths than this. But the particular method seemed to amuse the Tsar that night.
Softly, almost gently, he had crossed the floor to where Mikhail was standing and taken out of his hand the chain by which the bear was led.
‘Come, Misha,’ he had said softly to the bear. ‘Come, Misha, Tsar of all the bears; the Tsar of Russia has something for you to do.’ And he led him over to the priest.
He had nodded to Boris, and Boris had quickly attached the other end of the chain to Stephen’s belt, so that now bear and man were linked together with just two paces between them.