“Oh. Those.” Natasha sat down next to Anya and said quietly, “You know the dies we made for the Gun Shop?”
Anya nodded.
“I had an extra set made and sent it to Murom. I’m having AK3’s made for my armsmen.”
“How many?”
“Not a lot. A couple of hundred. You know that we’d be last in line, with Andrei Korisov and Cass Lowry doing the distribution.”
“Have you seen the latest?” Pavel Egorovich Shirshov asked, handing a pamphlet to Ivan Mikhailovich Vinnikov.
The guard captain looked at the pamphlet and began to read silently.
“Out loud if you don’t mind,” Pavel Egorovich said testily. Though a skilled craftsman, he didn’t read.
Ivan Mikhailovich cast him an apologetic look and began to read out loud. “If we are to have a constitution it must ensure the rights of all Russian citizens…” He continued reading. It was an argument that without a section limiting government, the constitution would be just another way to tie the people down. The writer actually seemed to wonder if a constitution was a good idea at all. Then he went on to-purportedly-quote a conversation between members of the boyar class. A cousin and a younger son of one of the great families. They were reported to have said that the great families thought that a constitution would be a great thing if they got to write it. The conversation was supposed to have been overheard in a brothel.
“Any idea who wrote this?” Ivan asked, a bit nervously. This was the sort of thing that could get people in serious trouble.
Pavel shook his head. “A boy in Moscow was selling them on the street. Couldn’t have been more than ten or so.” That was happening more and more frequently. Scandals mixed with political opinion.
“I talked to one of them a bit a few days ago.” Pavel commuted back and forth between the Army’s dacha and the Kremlin every few days. “He sells his papers to make a bit of money. He buys them from a man he thinks is a bureau man, but it could be a merchant. There is apparently more than one man, and they don’t all meet in the same place.”
“It says here that this Patriarch Nikon caused it.” Colonel Pavel Kovezin stared at the broadsheet with distaste clearly showing on his face.
Machek Speshnev, who had brought this news to the colonel, nodded. A lieutenant in this regiment of Streltzi, Machek was a pious man. This information had struck a chord with him, as well as with many other members of the Palace Guard Regiments.
“I’m surprised this information became public, but it has. The question is, is there anything we can do about it?” Machek’s family would most definitely wind up as oppressed “Old Believers,” he was sure. “I don’t think I’d care to be sent up north, chasing, beating and killing priests.”
The very idea was repugnant.
A lot of information that was coming from the up-timer histories was repugnant. Inconceivable, a lot of it.
Colonel Kovezin stopped staring at the broadsheet. “How many people have seen this?”
“A lot of them,” Machek admitted. “The things have been being passed around all over the city. Along with the ones about killing rats, boiling water, not drinking so much…”
“This city is being buried in paper,” Colonel Kovezin said. Then he grinned. “We live in interesting times. Never mind this. I’m sure the patriarch is well aware of it and will make a pronouncement. Try to keep the men calm. Today is a big day for us and I want everyone’s attention kept on his duty.”
Machek grinned back. “Today is the day?”
“Yes. Today we receive our new rifles. Never mind the flurry of paper coming out of the Dacha. It’s not our problem.”
Chapter 50
Moscow
June 1634
Third Lieutenant Boris Timofeyevich Lebedev was savoring the victory. Right up to the time he was called into the commandant’s office. He had beaten Third Lieutenant Ivan Maslov in the Polish invasion scenario two weeks ago and won a nice purse in bargain. The betting had been five to one against him. Lebedev, known as Tim to his friends, had been playing the Polish and he had won by ignoring Smolensk. After all, Poland already held Smolensk. They had held it since the Time of Troubles. And Poland, just like Russia, only had to worry about Smolensk if they didn’t have it.
Now he was trying to figure out what he had done wrong, that would get him summoned by the commandant. Tim put his shoulders back and entered the commandant’s office not looking left or right, stood at attention and saluted as smartly as he was able. The commandant returned the salute with a casual half wave. Then he asked him the last question he ever expected to hear. “So, Third Lieutenant Lebedev, how did you manage to defeat the entire Russian Army and take Moscow, in just ten weeks?”
“Sir?”
“Come now, Lebedev. It’s all over the Kremlin. I understand the odds were five to one in favor of that baker’s son, Ivan Maslov?”
“Sir? Are you talking about the Polish invasion scenario?” Tim was out of his depth. It wasn’t one of the official war games.
“Yes, of course, Lebedev.” The commandant pointed to a map on the left wall. The map showed part of Russia and part of Poland. “Show me how you did it.”
Tim walked over to the map pointed where he placed his troops and how he moved them using the River Volga as the supply line. “Russia is not Moscow; Russia is the Volga. In the Time of Troubles, Poland took Moscow but they couldn’t keep it. But the Volga controls transport.. ”
Just as Tim was getting into his description of what he’d done, he heard another voice.
“Would it interest you to know, Lieutenant Lebedev, that Polish troops took Rzhev three days ago? From the somewhat vague first reports we have, there are around ten thousand troops there now, a mixture of the magnate’s personal troops, mercenaries and Cossacks.”
“What?” Tim faced the new voice and recognized General Mikhail Borisovich Shein. Then, in a state of shock, he blurted out the first thing that come to mind. “But that’s the wrong place, sir.”
“I’m relieved to hear it,” General Shein said wryly.
Tim stood mute.
“Speak up, Lieutenant,” the commandant said. “Why do you think Rzhev is the wrong place?”
“It’s too far upriver, sir. The Volga is navigable at Rzhev but only barely. Tver would be a better choice, even if it is farther. You’d want to take Rzhev, too. Later. After the first strike. But if you take Rzhev first, you warn Tver and give them time to fort up and block any river traffic from going past.”
General Shein looked at the commandant. “He’ll do.”
After that, things moved quickly. Third Lieutenant Boris “Tim” Lebedev found himself suddenly assigned as aide de camp to General Artemi Vasilievich Izmailov.
“Third Lieutenant Boris Lebedev reporting as ordered.”
“Who are you?”
“Sir, I’m to be your cadet aide de camp.”
“I asked for Maslov! The baker’s boy.” General Izmailov was clearly not pleased.
“Ivan?”
“You know him?”
“Yes, sir. We’re friends at the military academy.” That was the semiofficial name of the still semiofficial
