Chapter 21
"I had no idea it was like that in our own palace!" cried Maria. "Oh, and my shoulders do hurt where that man hit me, and my knees and... I will have him and that lewd fellow and the equerry flogged to death for this!"
"That solves nothing," said Helena. "It only perpetuates the violence by showing it coming from above. Have you ever seen someone flogged to death?"
"I... no."
Helena had not done so either, but she had heard stories.
"Well, at first, a man tries to be brave and not cry out. By a dozen strokes he is grunting or whimpering, and the first of the blood is showing. Ten strokes more and he is crying and has probably pissed himself. Another ten and there's the hint of bone showing. If he is lucky a knout might break his back cleanly and kill him with shock. If not, he may survive eighty strokes of so, as the skin, flesh and muscle is systematically stripped from the bones of his back, and then the whip or knout can start to damage the internal organs, ripping into his kidneys and liver. And if that makes you throw up, my dear, you have no right to order it," she added as Maria pulled out her utensil to heave.
It was the dispassionate tone of voice describing the horrors which always did it. A man would often talk without further persuasion, she knew, if the horrors of torture were discussed in such a manner.
"They must be punished," said Maria.
"They must, and it must be made clear that it was for unnecessary harshness from the first, and lewd behaviour and forcing themselves on women for the other two, and make sure that you have such behaviour always punished," said Helena. "Make them scullions, the lot of them."
"I... yes, I will," said Maria.
oOoOo
"Your Majesty, I have sent the treaty to my king and his chief minister, and I believe I should ask for sanctuary in your kingdom," said De Lumbres.
"Even though you were royally outwitted by someone from a family which has been playing political games since politics was invented?" said Gryzelda.
"You're a woman; Cardinal Mazarin would expect me to outwit you," said De Lumbers.
Gryzelda lifted one shoulder.
"It's scarcely my fault if Pan Marcypan is a dick," she said. "What did you say when you wrote to him?"
"Only that I was sorry you had outwitted me by pretending to be a fool," said De Lumbres.
"What, you did not tell him that the treaty was switched out by sleight of hand so you signed it believing it to be the original? Have you no guile at all, M. Le Marquise?"
"Apparently not," sighed De Lombres.
"Of course you may have sanctuary; but not as ambassador. Mazarin can send me a new puppet of his and we shall see if he can manage sweet almond paste or more bitter almonds. Perhaps you can advise me as to what lands I might purchase in France. I've a mind to purchase enough to become a political power there."
oOoOo
Tsarina Maria swept through every corner of the palace with her ladies and Cossacks in attendance. Several role-reversals and a few sackings later, and she pointed at one of the maids who had been kind to the supposedly wanting scrub-woman and had expressed her opinions freely on some of the upper echelons.
"What is your name?" Maria demanded.
"Stepanka Ivanova, your majesty," said the poor woman, in fear and trembling.
"You will be the liaison to the Tsarina, with the same pay as an equerry – make it so" she said to her secretary. "You are not a spy, but you will have the power to dock the pay of those who abuse their authority, and will bring me a weekly report on the harmony of the life in the palace. The workforce is insufficient to do the job if menials must work from five in the morning until late at night; see that a second shift is hired, and the food rations will also be increased."
"Majesty, this will cost hundreds of roubles," said the secretary.
"Then I will have one less gown a year and pay it out of my clothes allowance," said Maria.
Helena embraced her impulsively when they were in the privacy of the Tsarina's own rooms.
"Well done!" she said.
"But what of outside the palace? If it is as bad," said Maria.
"It's worse," said Helena. "But if Papa Remi can get through to your husband, you can, between you, abolish serfdom, insist on minimum wages, and we shall leave you troops to help to enforce the changes. But it will be better if you can make your ladies understand, and have them work on their husbands. Because foreign troops are not really an answer. If the former serfs your husband is working beside are willing to form an elite guard for him, when my husband has finished training them, he will have native Russian guards."
oOoOo
Aleksej was almost sobbing with the blisters on his hands and the pain in his back. Only pride kept him from crying.
Iwan Plato noticed, and called to the Cossack who was more ataman of works than an overseer.
"Hey! My brother here is all in; he's not used to physical labour. I want to get him some salves for his hands, and bandages."
"Rzędzian has all the stuff," said the Cossack. "Probably some wódka too, or even mead; if Zagłoba didn't loot it all."
Plato laughed.
"You Cossacks and your looting!" he said.
"It's a national avocation," said the Cossack. "We have no need to loot in general, and it's frowned on, so a run into enemy territory is by way of being an outing with bonuses."
"And risks," said Plato.
"And risks; but when is a man more alive than when he is facing death?" said the Cossack philosophically. "Bring back some salves; the fatcat boyars are suffering, and they need treating."
"You care for them too?" asked Aleksej.
"Certainly; they are pigs who need a lesson, and that comment rude to good hogs, but there is no reason to be unduly cruel. The ataman says they need to learn, and part of that learning is how we are good Christians who care for all our people, and ease their pain. These so-called noblemen are no sorts of Christian at all, and I should say 'Godly,' for a Jew or a Moslem... apart from the Tatars... care for God's creatures. The exception being galley slaves. The Turks don't think of them at all, poor bastards. Mind, I'd as soon sell every boyar in Russia as galley slaves as let them invade us."
Rzędzian's rough kindness soon had the tsar's blisters addressed, and the young szlachcic came back with them to the canal lines to see to the boyars.
Aleksej listened. His Cossack guard joined him and winced to hear Rzędzian called 'menial' by one of the boyars.
"Screw you, and your blisters, then, goat-fucker," said Rzędzian. "If I were a Polish peasant I'd still be a better man than you; and you'll not have salve until you beg my pardon and ask nicely."
This was never going to happen with that particular man; Aleksej knew him, and wished he did not.
"Hey, Leka, feeling better?" one of the diggers gave Aleksej a pet name from those used.
"Yes. Thank you," said Aleksej, wondering why he felt good over a serf addressing him so familiarly.
"Those idiots will never learn," said the man, Aleksej thought him known as 'Vanya' another Ivan.
"Do you think they cannot learn, Vanya?" asked Aleksej.
"Well, it stands to reason, friend Leka," said Vanya. "They're boyars; they've had someone to do everything for them since they were born, 'cept eating, pissing and shitting, so any brains the Good Lord gave them have shrivelled up and died,"
"They do have schooling to make them think," said Aleksej.
"Yes, but do they learn anything practical? Nah," said Vanya. "That Pole they're abusing, he's a nobleman, but he's also a fine healer, and as good at looting as a Cossack. Mind, he's been riding with Jurij Korybut since he was a small boy, so I guess he learned. Made a fortune when they were fighting the Swedes, looting the stuff most people didn't bother with, like blankets, and selling them back to Swedes who were cold for four times the value."
"And nobody stopped him?"
"No, I think they figured that anyone who invaded their country deserved all they got," said Vanya, with a spit. "I'm not sure how I feel about them invading us. On the one hand they rescued us from being conscripted, and they're actually training us the way our own overlords never did. We learned more in two days than we'd been shown in two months. And we're learning how to build roads and canals. But on the other hand, they're foreigners. Y'know what I mean? It feels uncomfortable that the people we like and trust more aren't our own people."
"Yes, I can understand that dichotomy of thinking, and the dilemma at the paradox."
Vanya ruffled the tsar's hair.
"Oh, I could listen to your jaw-crack talk for hours, our Leka," he said. "Whatever job did you have that needs such beautiful nonsense?"
"I... was a clerk," said Aleksej. He was suffering his own dichotomy of thinking; in one part of his mind he was appalled at the familiarity shown to him. If his guards had been here, Vanya would have been dragged away and executed. And yet, it was a reaching out to him as a newcomer, an acceptance of him which was strangely comforting, from his feeling of isolation. Aleksej embraced Vanya, fiercely.
"Thank you," he said.
"What for, Leka?" said Vanya, puzzled.
"Being a brother to me," said Aleksej.
"You're a funny little fellow," said Vanya, "but you're trying to learn and fit in, I didn't know why Prince Jurij put you with us, rather than doing something that needs book learning, but I reckon I've worked it out."
"Oh?" asked Aleksej, wondering if the fellow did know.
"I reckon he wants to train you to be an engineer, like him, who knows why as well as how about where to dig. And he knows you'll need to know the extent of what any one man can do to know what's possible."
"I hadn't considered that," said Aleksej. "I've been resenting him, and King Jeremi, who put me here."
"Oh, they've got their eyes on you to be something in whatever they leave when they withdraw from Russia," said Vanya. "Maybe I should bow and scrape for when you're running some government office."
"Are all serfs like you and the other Ivan?" asked Aleksej.
"Nah, mate, a lot are like boyars, dead stupid and too broken to think for themselves," said Vanya. "Those bastards start breaking us from childhood, and the priests tell us we must accept our lot and worship the tsar like he was the effing brother to Jesus Christ. And it stands to reason, he isn't, not nowise. And it makes you think, when you aren't too tired and hungry all the time to be able to think, that this has to be a lie, and what other lies are we told? I believe what the Polish and Cossack priests tell us, and that we are all brothers, equal in the eyes of God. Which is why I reached out to you, you poor little misfit, because we're all one together as volunteers working for the good of our fellows, in the end."
"I see; thank you," said Aleksej. "You do not mind a Catholic priest?"
"Well, they cross themselves funny, but nobody expects us to do anything different to how we allus have, and it's the same God, innit?" said Vanya.
oOoOo
"So, have you learned anything today?" asked Jeremi.
"Yes, I have, Jeremi," said Aleksej. "I have learned that boyars think serfs to be too stupid to speak, and serfs think the boyars too stupid to wipe their arses. I have learned that most serfs are stupid for being hungry and crushed and that most boyars are stupid for not bothering to use their brains. I have learned that I should trust the Bible not the higher ranks of churchmen and that a man is a man."
"My brother!" said Jeremi, embracing him happily. "If you know that a man is a man, and that most people are stupid regardless of their estate, you have all the tools for ruling."
A whimsical smile touched the mouth of the tsar.
"You mean, keep close to you as advisors those who can think, regardless of their estate, and otherwise speak simply with short words?"
"And never underestimate the damage a stupid, ambitious man can do, in his failure to take all things into account," said Jeremi. "Our former way of doing the Liberum Veto for example, where a stubborn or ambitious man could block any law by citing his golden rights. I managed to persuade the Sejm that, even as someone who points a finger has three other fingers pointing back at himself, the exercising of the Liberum Veto trampled on the golden rights of others, and should be used to raise a debate, not immediately stop some legislation."
"A wise change. I have the Assembly, because though in theory my rule is absolute, my dynasty is new, my father being brought to the throne to rule."
"A good time to bring in sweeping reform," said Jeremi.
"I suppose so. Is this all you eat as a matter of course, or are you being frugal as part of my lessons?"
"You call this frugal? I thought I was being relatively lavish, so you had one meal a day which is closer to what you might be used to."
"Believe me, I'm grateful for it, but I do eat a great deal more and with more variety as a general thing."
"Then you'll die young, and obese," said Jeremi.
"I like my food," said Aleksej, plaintively.
"Well, while you are on short rations, your stomach will get used to smaller meals, and then you may eat sumptuous food, but in smaller portions, and live longer on it, whilst wondering if the people you met to dig with have enough not to die of hunger."
"You know where to put the knife, and then twist."
"Next time you see a serf child with big, sunken eyes, gaunt in a face which looks wizened like someone elderly, you will see them, as you have never seen them before, and you will want to press food into that child's hands," said Jeremi. "And this is what a father should do, for you are the little father of all your people."
"I am," said Aleksej. "And I suppose I should thank you for these painful lessons, and humbly thank God that you came as a teacher, not a conqueror."
"And I will help you," said Jeremi.
