The Last Crusaders: Ivan the Terrible (8 page)

12

A fellow of medium height but very broad chest, in baggy breeches, scuffed leather boots and a fine embroidered blue shirt. A white scar where a nostril had once been torn open in a knife fight, yet handsome with his neat beard and laughing eyes.

Then even he was taken by surprise when Smith stepped out of the shadows behind, a sword clenched in each huge fist. The Cossacks stopped and stared at him, but he remained very calm and still.

The leader smiled. ‘Thank you, yes, we will take your weapons from you for now.’

‘I’m not offering you my weapons.’

‘Please. It is better this way. If you fight, all four of you will die.’

‘And so will half of you.’

‘You will kill ten of us, single-handed?’

‘He will, in truth,’ said Stanley, still sitting ignominiously in the dust. ‘Smith, don’t. Hand ’em over.’

Smith growled and fought inwardly, eyes burning, mouth working furiously beneath his grizzled black beard. Eventually he mastered himself enough to raise both swords and hurl them forward so they stuck quivering in the ground, perilously near the leader’s feet. But the Cossack chief only grinned. He already liked this brute.

‘Now,’ he said, ‘bind them.’

Smith roared and fought but he was soon crushed and held down by sheer weight of numbers – though he blacked several eyes and bloodied several noses before his arms were finally roped hard behind his back. His speech was nothing but the richest ­obscenities, unbecoming, thought Nicholas – as Smith was at last thrown down in the dust beside him – unbecoming of a man who was, strange to recall, a lifelong member of a monastic order. Just as well Smith hadn’t joined the Franciscans. Not his style.

Of the bandits there were at least twenty. They stoked up the fire with more dung and sat companionably around, swilling some evil-smelling spirit from a leather flask. There in the fire’s glow was the small moustachioed rider in his pointed kalpak hat they had met earlier, hardly distinguishable from a full-blood Tatar. Beyond the firelight, others were busy going through the baggage cases – snorting with disgust over the beautifully wrapped porcelain dining plates and lengths of finest Bruges lace that the Queen had sent for the Court of Moscow. Yet the noiseless expertise with which they had ambushed them had to be admired. And all four felt that though these were dangerous and lawless men, if they had wanted to kill them, they would have done so already.

The gravel-voiced chieftain with the extravagant manners introduced himself. ‘Stenka, son of Timofey, that is Timofeivitch. At your service, and delighted to carry your baggage for you a little way.’

His men laughed.

Amongst their lost baggage was Smith’s precious Persian jezail, the finest musket he had ever known, its barrel unusually rifled for accuracy like a short-range fowling piece, yet so beautifully crafted that it still had the power of a smooth-bore firearm. All he could think of was how to retrieve it. Stanley said Smith loved that gun more than most men loved their wives.

The four of them sat at swordpoint in the dust, an outward-facing circle. Yet Smith still argued with their captors. ‘We have no need of you. We are going to Moscow.’

‘To Moscow? Ah, to the Court of our beloved Father the Czar? As long as he doesn’t start thinking he actually rules over us free men of the steppe. We rule ourselves down here, do we not, comrades?’

Noisy, half-drunk agreement.

Stenka Timofeivitch grinned broadly. ‘Now, tell me where you are from. You are not Turks.’

‘No, we are not Turks!’ said Smith.

‘Indeed,’ nodded Stenka. ‘Or we should already have had your intestines out to restring our bows. Perhaps you are Germans? They get everywhere.’

‘Not Germans,’ said Stanley. ‘English.’

‘Ah, English,’ said Stenka pleasantly. ‘I have never met English before. Nor killed one, for that matter.’

‘Nor have I yet killed a Coss—’ began Smith with his usual diplomacy. Stanley swiftly intervened.

‘No need for that,’ he said. ‘We are delighted to be here, enjoying your hospitality.’

‘Why else are you here?’

‘Simply in embassy to the Court. That alone.’

‘Don’t take me for an illiterate fool,’ snapped Stenka. ‘English merchants and ambassadors round the North Cape and sail into Archangel in the white north, coming to Moscow by river portage. This is no ordinary way to Moscow. A very long way round from England. You are well sunburned. What business had you in the Mediterranean?’

‘None of your business.’

‘If you do not tell us, we will torture you.’

‘You amaze me.’

‘Or we torture your friends, until you yourself answer.’

‘A tired old trick.’

‘It tends to work.’

‘If you say so. Try it now.’

Stenka Timofeivitch wavered then smiled. These were tough strangers after all. And they had one virtue he could not ignore. They were fellow Christians, even if not of the true Orthodox Church of Mother Russia. He cursed jovially, then said, ‘Let us eat. Maybe torture later, yes?’

All the Cossacks laughed very much at that.

And so, bound and aching in the dust, they ate morsels fed to them at dagger-point by these wild men of the steppe – morsels of meat and game better than anything they had tasted for days, though still starvation rations. Only Smith refused.

‘Eat, Brother. Keep your strength up.’

Smith just sneered.

They awoke with a start to the sound of pistol fire. Stared blearily about. But it was only Stenka Timofeivitch, using their priceless porcelain plates for target practice. He had wedged them upright amid balls of horsedung some fifty yards off, and was shooting at each of them with two pistols at once, with typical buccaneer disregard for preserving gunpowder. He hit home every time. His men looked on admiring.

When he stopped to have them reloaded, Stanley called out, ‘Those make costly targets!’

‘These trinkets? Made for women!’ He took another loaded pair of pistols and blasted another one. Then he paused and looked back at Stanley, eyes narrowed. ‘How costly?’

‘In England,’ said Stanley, ‘one of these plates would cost as much as a decent horse.’

‘A horse?’

Stanley nodded.

‘Savages,’ muttered Hodge. ‘They can only think in terms of ’orses, look.’

Stenka considered. Then he bawled, ‘Get these trinkets wrapped up again! God damn you, Englishman, why did you not say so before?’

‘I didn’t know you were going to start shooting them.’

Stenka growled and strode away over the steppe to cool his anger.

Half an hour later they rode out, heading north, the four of them still bound astride their own horses, the Cossacks carrying the baggage.

Stanley said, ‘Don’t tell us you are escorting us all the way to Moscow.’

‘We might get a fair reward. Then again, we might just head to the market in Kharkhov and see what these trinkets and women’s fabrics of yours fetch there.’

‘Kharkhov. That’s heading dangerously near to Tatar lands, is it not?’

Stenka, abruptly converted to a love of porcelain, growled through clenched teeth, ‘No Tatars are taking these plates off me.’

As they rode away, Nicholas looked back and saw the pale broken fragments in the long grass. Crafted in China with ancient skill, shipped across half the world to Egypt, to Constantinople, to Venice, across Europe, to England and the court of the Great Queen. Then sent back again with her ambassadors to the Court of Russia, only to be taken and shot to pieces by some barbaric horseman in the wilderness, and left in pieces on the treeless steppe like shards of unseasonal snow. What a fable of the futility of human endeavour! Nicholas brooded, becoming philosophical. It must be the ache in his tethered arms, the hunger in his belly. And these broken bits of porcelain would remain here, immune to time and decay, long after all of them riding away were dead.

13

They rode for long days, and though the Cossacks spoke little to them at first, gradually they came to identify them. Stenka Timofeivitch the chief in his fine blue shirt, a proud son of the Don. His father was a true Cossack though his mother was a slave girl from the River Kama. Yet what did a man’s mother matter? ‘Women are only good to shell peas and feel hens for eggs,’ said Stenka.

When he took off his shirt to bathe in the river, they saw his left shoulder bore an ugly brand. ‘The Mark of Cain,’ jested Stenka. He had a loud roaring voice when angered, made his prayers to all gods and none, though called himself a True Son of the Church, and was as likely to swear by Allah as by Christ. He liked to cry ‘God is merciful, but Stenka is not!’ before falling on any of his men that enraged him, punching them to the ground and cursing them where they cowered. None dared oppose him, all would follow him to the death. He had killed more than sixty men, they said in admiration.

The small dark horseman who had first stumbled on them was Ivan Koltzo, superlative rider, and though small, he could outdrink the Devil. He had seen his mother and two sisters burned to death in a blockhouse by Tatar raiders. There was Chvedar the renegade priest, said to be impervious to sword or bullet, who performed mock religious ceremonies for a glass of vodka. One-eyed, ugly, bony, lanky, quick with his fists, notorious lecher, given to nakedness when drunk, he trimmed his beard with the same knife he had used to stab a fellow priest to death. For comic entertainment he sometimes dressed as a woman. There was Andriushko, hulking, sweet-natured, lazy, with only seven fingers. He talked polyglot gibberish when drunk, and smoked a fine gold-and-ivory inlaid pipe. And there was Petlin, gossip and eavesdropper, fawner and flatterer. He could read and write, though Ivan Koltzo said, ‘Riding a cow does not make you a Cossack. Reading books does not make you wise.’ Petlin wore a chainmail habergeon, and was fond of killing dogs.

What a crew, thought Nicholas. Our new comrades. Hardly knights or gentlemen, though he fancied they could handle themselves well in a fight.

One evening he quietly asked Stanley, ‘How many Cossacks are there like these?’

Stanley shrugged. ‘Nobody knows. Cossacks are not a race of men, nor a nation, they have no state, no government. The word only means “free man”, wild man of the untamed steppes beyond Moscow’s government. Maybe there are five thousand, ten ­thousand. They shift about, they build no cities, they vanish like the wind. They are as much nomads and bandits as the Tatars, their hated enemies with whom they have so much in common.’

‘But if Moscow comes under attack – would they defend it?’

Smith said, ‘Not a chance. They owe the Czar only the vaguest allegiance. Anyway, that is not how they fight. They are mounted raiders, not steady soldiers. Imagine trying to discipline a horde like this.’

‘Stenka rules them sternly enough.’

Stanley looked thoughtful.

Hodge coughed. They glanced round. The one called Petlin was closer than they realised, smiling over at them and whetting his dagger.

He said suddenly, ‘You have been among the Turks.’

None of them answered quickly enough, denied it vehemently enough. He nodded. ‘Yes you have. Perhaps you work for them. Perhaps you are Turkish spies. The Cossacks have fought the Turks for centuries. We hear of great movements afoot. And spies ­moving among us, through Russia, preparing the way.’ He spat on his knifeblade and wiped it. ‘It is impolite of you not to tell us the whole truth. And it will be ill for you if we discover treachery. We Cossacks hate traitors.’

Stenka rode alongside Nicholas. ‘This England is ruled by a great king?’

‘No, a great queen.’

‘A?’

‘Queen. A female king, a king’s daughter.’

‘England is ruled by a woman?’

‘It is.’

Stenka stared at him, jaw lowered, and then he began to smile, and then to laugh. He laughed so hard the tears rolled down his face and he had to drum his fists furiously on his knees to stop himself again. When at last he had dried his eyes, and called back to all his comrades that England was ruled by a woman, to general hilarity, he said, ‘In my country, we have this joke. A new bride says to her husband of a week, Why do you not love me? He says, I do, my heart’s desire. Then, she says, Why have you not beaten me?’

Nicholas couldn’t quite see the point of the joke but he laughed politely.

‘This England.’ Stenka shook his head. ‘It will never amount to anything, ruled by a woman.’

‘We shall see,’ said Nicholas.

They were sitting in the wearisome noonday heat in a shallow valley, cross-legged in the dust, chewing the gobbets fed to them by the men of the Don. Smith suddenly spat his mouthful of meat and gristle into the dust between his boots and stared east.

Petlin’s eyes narrowed. ‘You do not like the meat we give you?’ he said softly. ‘We can give you other things to chew on if you prefer.’

This Petlin was a great danger to them. He had hated the four strangers from the start, perhaps because his chief Stenka had taken to them so easily. He demanded of Stenka continually that their throats be cut and their bodies left for the kites and the steppe dogs, until at last Stenka rose in a fury and spat in his face and then beat him almost senseless. After that, Petlin only hated the strangers all the more.

Smith ignored him now, eyes fixed on the east. The grass shimmered in the haze. Then he said softly to Petlin, ‘I think you should get down on all fours before me.’

Petlin stood and drew his dagger. ‘What did you say?’

Smith said, ‘Ingoldsby, see that dust cloud? Use your younger eyes.’

‘I see it.’

‘Don’t think you see things on the steppe that we do not, English dog!’ said Petlin angrily. ‘We know every stream, every spring, every ridge and rise and swale. We know why the dust may drift west even in a west wind. Because over that ridge where you are looking, the wind rises and curls back on itself a little and brings a rise of dust.’

‘No,’ said Smith. ‘That dust is not raised by the wind. There is not enough wind today. It is constant and it is too much. That dust is raised by the hooves of many horses.’

Petlin stared a moment longer and then he was indeed down on all fours before Smith in a trice, as he had suggested. Ear to the bare ground. It took him only a second or two to hear the sound reverberating through the black earth. And then he was on his feet and running to Atman Stenka.

‘The Tatars! The Tatars are coming!’

Stenka looked up, edge of a dagger brought up to his mouth laden with stew. Then he was on his feet and striding, roaring out orders. As he rolled and struggled to his feet himself, cursing his bonds, Nicholas could hardly believe men could move so fast. Whether it was courage or sheer terror of the Tatars that drove them, hard to say. Ivan Koltzo booted over the cooking cauldron and kicked the shallow fire wide in a shower of sparks. A plains fire might help: a pall of smoke, the horses panicked. He wrapped the burning hot cauldron in a tough canvas and loaded it up. The twenty or so Cossacks were soon mounted, bows across their ­shoulders, old muskets, arquebuses, some priming wheel-lock firearms even as they dug their heels savagely into their ponies’ flanks.

‘Keep together!’ roared Stenka. ‘And you, Andriushko, heave our guests up on their mounts, they need a—’

‘Cut our bonds!’ Smith bellowed back even louder. ‘We’ve been fighting the unchristened longer than even you, Stenka Timofeivitch! Loose us and give us back our weapons, for the love of Christ!’

Petlin rode around, goaded by this spectacle even more than by fear of the oncoming Tatars, that dustcloud not half a mile off now. ‘Do not trust them, Atman, this is all a trick. They may even be in league—’

He was abruptly cut short by a furious Smith heeling his pony in alongside the startled Cossack’s and headbutting him hard in the face. Petlin reeled back lengthways along his pony’s back and only just succeeded in pulling himself upright again without losing consciousness altogether and falling off.

‘Ride west with the rest, Petlin the sour!’ yelled Stenka. Then he rode at Smith. ‘How many Tatars have you killed?’

‘Tatars, Turks, they are cousins of the blood! And I have killed more Turks than you Tatars!’

‘You lie! I have killed more than sixty.’

‘I have killed more.’

Stenka glared across at Stanley. He trusted the blond giant more than this bellicose bull of a man with his reddened eyes.

Stanley found it all rather braggardly and tiresome, and he really thought they should be going soon. ‘I never counted,’ he said. ‘But he has fought the Turk for three decades, and killed a few score. You should set him free. All of us. You need us.’

Stenka spurred his horse around once more and cried out, ‘Andriushko, cut ’em loose! They’ve nowhere to ride but with us anyway, or the Tatars will have their hearts out on stakes by sundown!’

Andriushko quickly sliced open the coarse hemp bonds and all four gasped as they moved stiff arms and wrists. Four days like this. Four days being fed at dagger-point, four days without washing, four days shuffling bare-arsed over the grass after using the great privy of the Scythian plains …

‘Now ride!’ cried Stenka. ‘Make for that rise across the gully!’

It was nothing. The gully a thin watercourse gouged through the black earth, no more deep nor wide than the height of man. A paltry barrier, mere entertainment for a Tatar horseman to vault over. Then a shallow rise of twenty feet or so. But it was the only feature in this otherwise featureless landscape: not a tree, not a rock, a mound. Nothing. The worst terrain imaginable in which to defend themselves – let alone from attack by a Tatar raiding party.