Chapter 81
Sheremetev was still furious over the news that the czar was with Princess Natalia and still discussing what it would cost to have the patriarch endorse his claim that Czar Mikhail was under a spell when a new telegraph message arrived.
BY ORDER OF CZAR MIKHAIL, FEDOR IVANOVICH SHEREMETEV IS TO BE PLACED UNDER ARREST FOR TREASON AND KIDNAPPING OF CZAR MIKHAIL AND HIS ROYAL FAMILY. HE IS ALSO SUSPECTED IN THE DEATH OF PATRARCH FILARET. CZAR MIKHAIL INVITES ALL FREEDOM LOVING RUSSIANS TO JOIN HIM AT UFA WHERE NEW LANDS WILL BE GRANTED. SERFS WILL BE RELEASED FROM THEIR BONDS TO THE LAND AND THE FREEING OF HOLY MOTHER RUSSIA WILL BEGIN.
Sheremetev threw the message across the room and the new patriarch picked it up to read, while the boyar read the rest of the messages.
BY ORDER OF PRINCESS NATALIA GORCHAKOVNA THE DEBT OF ALL SERFS ON ALL GORCHAKOV LANDS IS HEREBY FORGIVEN. ALL MY PEOPLE ARE INVITED TO JOIN ME AND CZAR MIKHAL IN UFA WHERE A NEW FREE RUSSIA IS BEING BORN. I DO NOT REQUIRE THIS OF YOU WHO OWE ALLIEGANCE TO ME BUT OFFER IT TO YOU.
This message Sheremetev handed to Patriarch Joseph. “These two, oh …” Sheremetev paused, looking for a word vile enough to describe the two messages, then gave it up and simply said, “documents spell the end of order in Russia. They are the death knell of our way of life. You must support me in this, Patriarch.”
“Of course, Director-General. However…”
Sheremetev listened as Joseph laid out the nature of the bribe he would demand in exchange for his support.
The word was already out. Dmitri Mamstriukovich Cherakasky, one of Filaret’s long-time friends who had only abandoned the war party since the Ring of Fire, came storming into Sheremetev’s office in the Kremlin, slamming open the door. Sheremetev would have been expecting him if he had thought about the copies of the dispatches that had gone to other members of the Boyar Duma, but he hadn’t.
“So the czar didn’t willingly retire to the hunting lodge but was held there.” Cherakasky sneered. “I suspected that, but decided to give you your chance because war with Poland would have been a disaster, however well we did in Rzhev. But having him and his family, you-you bumbling fool-kidnapped him, then lost him. You’re finished, Sheremetev. I’m going to the Boyar Duma and you’ll…”
Bang!
The sound of the pistol was loud in the closed room. Sheremetev swung the pistol to point at Patriarch Joseph. “Forget the bribe. You’ll support me or you’ll be where he is now.”
The guards rushed in and then stood there looking back and forth between Sheremetev and his gun, and Cherakasky bleeding out from a sucking chest wound on the floor, and Patriarch Joseph, who stood stunned.
“Petrov, who of these are trustworthy?” Sheremetev spoke quickly, waving his gun at the other guards. The problem was that most of the Boyar Duma ’s guards owed their primary loyalty to the various boyars of the Duma, not to Sheremetev.
Petrov didn’t hesitate that Sheremetev noticed. Instead he simply drew his own pistol and pointed it at the official section leader. “I’ll need your weapon, Sergeant. You’ll get it back after things are settled.” He then gave quick, concise orders for two other men to take the weapons of the other three men in the detail. All the while explaining that it would be better for the disarmed men if they were in no position to interfere. “No one can blame you for what happens after you’re locked up, fellows.”
After the guards had been restrained, Sheremetev gave orders to the rest. Three boyars were to be arrested. “Patriarch Joseph and I have a few things to talk over.”
As Sheremetev was cleaning his own house in Moscow, the riverboats were carrying the czar, Natasha and Bernie to Bor.
In Bor, Captain Ruslan Andreyivich Shuvalov, commanding the dirigible Czarina Evdokia, got the message first and immediately ordered the arrest of his second-in-command. He privately rather liked Nick, but Nick was on the wrong side. He also ordered the arrest of the station commander of the Bor Streltzi, who had also been a Gorchakov appointee. A man, as it happened, who outranked him, according to the new order of ranks that had been introduced since the arrival of the up-timers. But the new ranks didn’t mean all that much yet, when compared to the traditions of Russia. What mattered was who you owed your allegiance to. Captain Ruslan Andreyivich Shuvalov owed his to the Sheremetev family, which meant the czar was on the wrong side, too. He prepared the dirigible for flight so he could provide tracking information and force the czar back into the hands of the Boyar Duma where he belonged.
Ruslan Andreyivich over-rode the political officer, who wanted to have Nick and the former commander executed. He wasn’t by nature a vicious man, just utterly pragmatic. Besides, after this had all settled out, he would be working with these people or their relatives. The less blood on his hands, the easier that would be.
He didn’t arrest Ivan the baker’s boy for two reasons. One, Ivan was too junior, and two, he was a Sheremetev connection who had gotten the post by virtue of his tie to Boris Timofeyevich Lebedev, so should be quite dependable. He considered promoting the lad to take Nick’s place, but he couldn’t. Ivan was, after all, the son of a baker. Streltzi. He couldn’t be placed over members of the service nobility.
“You know,” Tim commented, “when you came back to Murom, you didn’t realize that word had reached the town to arrest you. But we can be pretty sure that word has reached Bor. They may think that we’re heading directly Ufa, but to get to Ufa by river we have to go right by Nizhny Novgorod and Bor.”
“Do you think they will be ready for us?” Bernie asked. He’d seen Tim in the war games at the Moscow Kremlin and had been impressed by the kid in Murom.
“I don’t know.” Tim said. “That is, I don’t know how they will be ready for us. What they will have done to prepare for us. By now they know we are on the river but some of the messages we picked up when we stopped at that radio telegraph station suggested that much of the Streltzi from Nizhny Novgorod are out beating the woods looking for the princess. Getting the order to go into the field to the city that Streltzi are stationed in is easy with the radio links, but getting the order to go back home to them once they are in the field is a lot harder. Unlike the up-timer radios, the spark gap units that we are building here are not portable. Well, you can put one on a riverboat..”
“The strategic situation?” Natasha said. “Let’s keep to the point.”
“Sorry, Princess!” Tim blushed. “They may be able to get them back before we get to Nizhny Novgorod, but it’s not that likely. So it’s probably going to be about half the garrison at Nizhny Novgorod-that’s maybe a hundred people and we have almost that many with us. Nizhny’s Streltzi are pretty well-armed. I think they have the AK4’s, that is the cap locks, but not the 4.7’s which have the new chamber clips. So we will have a better rate of fire. That’s brand new.
Only the Gun Shop, the Dacha and your Streltzi at Murom are equipped with the 4.7’s.”
“And a few hundred rich nobles who have to have the newest gun no matter how much it costs,” Anya added.
Tim-who was wearing the brand new six-shot revolver-was spending quite a bit of time pink, to the amusement of the ladies.
“Anyway, we should have a better rate of fire for the first few minutes of battle if it comes to that,” Bernie said. “Got it.”
“Yes, but I don’t think it will come to that unless we actually stop in Nizhny. I think they will look at the boats and the guns and the fact that the czar is aboard and not shoot if we don’t. Maybe.”
“What about Bor?”
“The same. If we don’t bother them, they won’t bother us.”
“But we are going to bother them. We are going to go in there and take my dirigible,” Czarina Evdokia said. Since it was named after her, she took a proprietary interest in the giant airship. “It’s completed most of its trials
