1636 The Kremlin Games (43 page)

Well, she’d done that before. But never with a princess in tow, much less an up-timer.

*     *     *

“He’s not the worst,” Aunt Sofia pointed out.

“He’s not the worst, he’s not the worst, he’s not the worst!” Natasha chanted and threw her hands in the air. “I know perfect well that he’s not the worst, dammit.”

“You’ve been around Bernie too long,” Sofia said. “Stop using that word, even in English.”

Natasha turned a stone face to her. “He’s not the worst. But he’s not what I want.”

“What do you want, child?”

“I don’t know yet. I haven’t had a chance to learn what
I
want.”

That wasn’t really true. She knew it—and judging by the expression on her face, her aunt Sofia knew it too. What Natasha wanted was Bernie, but that seemed as remote as the moon.

She paused a moment. “I want Vladimir. I wish I could talk to my brother.”

*     *     *

“Damn their eyes!”

For a moment, Brandy thought Vladimir was quoting another book. Then she realized that he was angrier than she’d ever seen him.

They were in the salon. She was reading a book and Vladimir was trying to catch up on the endless paperwork. He’d just opened the latest dispatch bag from Moscow. “What’s wrong?”

“You know that delayed mica shipment?” Vladimir leaped out of his chair and began pacing. “It wasn’t delayed because of weather or bandits. Well, not real bandits. The
Boyar Duma
delayed it. On purpose. They’ve also taken Czar Mikhail and his family hostage, along with that nurse and her family.” He thrust the letter toward her. “Look at this! Just look at it!”

Brandy was forced to push the papers away from her face. “Calm down, Vladimir. And talk sensibly. What else has happened?”

He pulled the papers back, then read from them. “Because of its vital importance to the state, the Dacha has been placed under guard.” Vladimir threw the paper onto the table. “That means they’ve got Natasha. And Bernie.”

*     *     *

Over the next few days, after Vladimir had calmed down a bit more, Brandy was able to read a translation of the offending papers.

Czar Mikhail and his family were safe, if being held hostage was safe. Not that they were officially being held hostage. They had “been moved out of Moscow to ensure the czar’s safety.” The up-time nurse Tami Simmons and her family were being held in the same place as the czar, so, again, they were safe. The manager at the mica mine, while nothing had yet been done to him, was being held under suspicion of “involvement in the recent unpleasantness.” Accusations of corruption had been laid against the manager . . . and against Vladimir himself.

No shipments of anything would be sent from Moscow or from Vladimir’s own lands. He was, effectively, broke.

Bernie and Natasha, along with the rest of the Dacha staff, were in “protective custody.”

Chapter 71

March 1636

“We will be having guests,” Colonel Shuvalov said.

Natasha looked up at his comment. “Guests?”

“Yes. Representatives from the Ottoman Empire. They have been looking at factories on the Don and Volga rivers and we have been told to be circumspect in what we show them.”

Natasha hated to ask Shuvalov, but she needed to know. “What is going on?”

“The government is looking for new allies in case Gustav Adolf and the USE decide to look east for new lands to conquer.”

“Insanity!”

“Actually, it’s not,” Shuvalov said, with what sounded like real regret. “You know that Sweden is perfectly willing to bite off pieces of Russia. Our access to the Baltic is now Swedish Ingria and we pay taxes to Sweden on every cargo that sails from Nyen
.
The USE is rapidly becoming the richest, most industralized, nation in Europe . . . Yet the Swedes still complain about our holding back the grain shipments when they know we lost a quarter of this year’s crop to the early storm.”

“But the up-timers would never let . . .”

“Let? ‘Let’ is not a word used with kings, Princess Natalia. Besides, Michael Stearns lost their election. He is no longer the prime minister—for that matter, unless he recovers from his battle injuries, Gustav Adolf is no longer the emperor.”

“You really don’t care about anything, do you?” Natasha spat. “Whatever your master says, you parrot him!”

Shuvalov looked at her and Natasha realized that she might have gone too far. Shuvalov was Sheremetev’s man and Director-General Sheremetev was the most powerful man in Russia. Since Sheremetev had taken power there had been a purge of the bureaus the like of which hadn’t been seen since Ivan the Terrible. The Dacha and the Grantville Section had gotten off fairly lightly—in large part because between them they were the goose that was laying the golden eggs. But even they weren’t untouched. Boris had lost several people who were considered politically questionable and the Dacha remained under guard.

“Director-General Sheremetev is a great man. He is not perfect. No one is, even those touched by God. He’s right about where the threat comes from. The Limited Year hasn’t been repealed and the bureau men aren’t screaming about it anymore. They’re too busy covering their asses by kissing his. The purge in the bureaus has been extreme, but it hasn’t been entirely political. A lot of the deadwood has been removed and there is greater opportunity for those with more talent and fewer family connections. Peasants aren’t just going to look for gold in the mountains, they are finding factory jobs all along the Volga. The jobs aren’t wonderful, but they are better than being a farmer.

“As to the director-general’s foreign policy . . . However noble of character the up-timers may be, they aren’t in control of the USE. They have influence out of proportion to their numbers, but those numbers are minuscule. Poland is probably less of a threat to us than the axis of Sweden and the USE. From where we sit, the biggest difference between Napoleon or Hitler and Gustav Adolf is that his army would probably do quite well in a winter war in Russia. He was born and raised in Sweden, after all. If he should decide to take Poland and keep coming east, we will be facing a force that outnumbers us and outguns us, led by a man who is quite possibly the greatest general of our time. We will need allies. All of them we can get.

“Natalia Petrovna,” Shuvalov said, “I take no joy in the thought of war with the up-timers. But I learned at an early age that what I want doesn’t control what happens.”

*     *     *

Director-General Fedor Ivanovich Sheremetev rode his horse up to the gates of the Dacha compound at the head of a troop of personal cavalry. He had still not made up his mind what to do about the Dacha. His cousin, Ivan Petrovich, wanted it. Wanted it badly. And Ivan Petrovich, corrupt as he was, had support within the family and the
Boyar Duma
. Also, Fedor could rely on Ivan to crack down on the Dacha staff.

Which was, in a way, the problem. Ivan Petrovich would squeeze the golden goose all right—but he just might choke it to death. And the Dacha had been laying right well over the last couple of years. Among other things, it had laid the logistics for the dust-up with Poland. Which had put Russia in a better position than it had been for twenty years.

A lot depended on how well Leontii Shuvalov’s suit was progressing. If the Gorchakov girl, Natalia, was proving difficult, Fedor might have to go with Ivan Petrovich because he could not afford to have the Dacha or the Gun Shop running loose. He got down from his horse with difficulty and shook Leontii’s hand. “How goes your suit?”

“Reasonably well, Director-General,” Leontii said. “Princess Natalia understands the situation. I won’t say she is thrilled, but I doubt she will fight it.”

“And how do . . .” Fedor paused as the lady in question arrived. “We’ll talk later.”

*     *     *

“The letters have gone out to Poland, what’s left of the Holy Roman Empire and the Turks,” Director-General Sheremetev said. “I’m not sure of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, mostly because Władysław can’t seem to get over the notion that he should be czar of Russia, but who knows? I expect to have better luck with Murad. I don’t know which way Ferdinand will jump.”

“And the riots?” Leontii asked.

“Worked quite well at distracting Mikhail’s adherents and added enough between him and the bureau men to cut off most of his information flow. They have also provided more than ample justification for cracking down on the bureaus. I think we have them put in their place for now.” Sheremetev snorted. “Button clerks, the lot of them. Self-important button clerks who have been getting above themselves since the Time of Troubles. They needed to be shown the stick. We’ll wait a few more weeks before we show them the carrot.” Sheremetev was talking about a plan to put enforcement of the ties to the land in the hands of the government.

“Anyway, you will have heard the reports by now. So what do you think of Cass?”

Shuvalov said, “He does know and understand up-timer technology. But I’m deeply concerned about his effect on the atmosphere here. I had visited the Dacha a couple of times when Bernie and Princess Natalia were in charge, and there was an openness to it. It’s hard to explain. Everyone cared about the work. Everyone, from the maids with the chamber pots to Natalia herself. All the way up and down the line, everyone was concerned with making a contribution. I’ve tried to maintain that attitude, but with Cass it’s almost impossible. He demeans everyone.”

Director-General Sheremetev laughed at the colonel. “Leontii, my boy, the up-timers would call you a boy scout. I saw the same thing you saw, my friend. But it was too free. Believe me, the Dacha will produce more with a bit more of the whip and less of the carrot.”

“Very well, sir. But I still despise that bastard. And I don’t care at all for the way he looks at Princess Natalia.”

“Is the princess interested in the up-timer?” Sheremetev gave Leontii a sharp look.

“No.” Leontii laughed. “She despises Cass even more than I do. She might be interested in Bernie, though. She’s young and inexperienced. I don’t believe she really knows her own mind.”

“And that could be dangerous.” Sheremetev nodded. “I’ll look into it.”

*     *     *

Director-General Sheremetev did indeed look into it. He interviewed both Bernie and Natasha and came away from those interviews uncertain. Bernie really was too valuable an asset to dispose of casually. He understood what was being built in the Dacha better than any other single person. That very knowledge made him more dangerous.

That night at dinner, Natasha asked the question that they had all been wondering about. “What is the situation in Moscow?”

The director-general looked at her then turned to Bernie. “Are you familiar with the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan?”

Natasha knew that before Bernie had come to the Dacha he would have been, at best, vaguely familiar with the history of Japan or the rule of the shoguns. However, while most of his education as a consultant at the Dacha was technical, some of it was historical, especially for what was now current history. And Bernie had ended up translating or helping to translate quite a bit of history.

“Yes, a bit, Director-General Sheremetev. The emperor is mostly a religious figurehead. He reigns, but he doesn’t rule. It’s the shogun who has the real political power.”

Sheremetev nodded. “Yes, that’s basically correct. I believe we need a similar system here in Russia, given all the problems we’ve had with our czars. I believe Russia needs a strong hand at the reins, but doesn’t need—certainly can’t afford—the sort of, ah, disruption that a dynastic squabble would produce. To provide the first while avoiding the second, I have taken on a role analogous to that of shogun. Mikhail never really wanted the power of the throne, anyway. This way Mikhail will remain safe, comfortable and secure . . . as long as there is no trouble.” He smiled.

It was, Natasha thought, an extremely cold smile.

“Mikhail’s limited year was a good plan, poorly executed,” he continued. “We do need more gold and silver to augment the paper money and to use in foreign trade. However, the way he did it, without properly preparing the ground, almost led to a revolution.”

Natasha didn’t snort, not even under her breath, but she wanted to. Yes, the
dvoriane
were upset, but they never would have rioted unless they believed that they had support in the
Boyar Duma
.

“He had no means in place to ensure the loyalty of the service nobility,” Sheremetev continued. “That is why I have created the post of political officer. Russia had them up-time under Stalin’s rule. They watched the service nobility, even if they called it something else in the twentieth century. Political officers will be mostly, but not entirely,
deti boyar
, whose job is to make sure that their charges don’t do anything stupid. I thought of using the church, but people get really upset about things like that.”

Suddenly everyone was looking at Colonel Leontii Shuvalov.

Director-General Sheremetev noticed and laughed. “Oh, not at all. Leontii is a fine man, but not nearly the right man for this. The new political officer for the Dacha is . . . Cass Lowry.”

Chapter 72

A hunting lodge just west of Tatarovo

Mikhail Romanov, Czar of all the Rus, bounced his daughter on his knee with a mixture of relief and profound loss. The relief was because he and his family were safe—at least for the moment. The loss was not for the loss of power, but for the loss of his father.

Mikhail had been told that his father had died of a stroke and that was entirely possible. Filaret, Patriarch of Russia, had in fact had a series of minor strokes. And, considering the rumors about the limited year and the peasants, the riots were a natural response to his father’s death.

Still, the timing was suggestive, and Fedor Ivanovich had been awfully quick to respond. Filaret would never have gone along with Sheremetev’s takeover and he had the connections to fight back. Mikhail couldn’t help the belief that one of Sheremetev’s agents had managed to get close enough to the patriarch to help the stroke along. The possibility that Filaret was still alive was no more than a fantasy.