Two Cases for the Czar

by Gorg Huff

  The city wasn't a powder keg, but it was a simmering pot, with people expressing themselves in a way that wasn't allowed a few months earlier. And quite a few people who resented the heck out of other people finding their voice.

  All of which meant that there really wasn't anyone to help us in the apprehension of Piotr Veloshov. Two of the heads of the neighborhood associations wanted help in setting up investigative arms for their neighborhood associations, two promised that they would grab Piotr Veloshov should he come into their territory. Which really meant that they would grab him if, and only if, he walked in wearing a sign proclaiming that he was wanted.

  The fifth association wanted nothing to do with us at all. That fifth one was the most likely one to host him. It was the poorest district in the city of Kazan, about sixty percent Orthodox according to Damir Vasin, but the percentage that was Muslim was increasing every day, and the Orthodox bosses of the neighborhood didn't like it. The neighborhood association was, at its core, a mob along the lines of the Cosa Nostra.

  I've read the Godfather books.

  Anyway, it was like that. All of them were, really, but this one was more blatant about it. And it was also looking like it might soon come to open warfare between the Orthodox gang and the Muslim gang.

  Meanwhile, of course, there were still the remnants of an army of fifteen thousand investing Kazan, and eight thousand troops in the city, most of whom were Orthodox. General Tim had been recruiting heavily in the Muslim parts of the city over the winter, so the army, too, was mixed by now, producing its own troubles.

  After two days of meetings with local leaders, we were again invited to a meeting at the Kazan kremlin, this time with General Ivan Maslov, the commander of the forces in the Kazan command area as long as General Tim was in Ufa.

  General Maslov was in a rumpled officer's uniform with a colonel's eagles on his shoulder boards, and a star on his "caterpillar hat." or, as I preferred to think of it, baseball cap. It was a round cap with a stiff brim sticking out the front. It was fur lined with ear flaps that were, at the moment, folded up. General Maslov shook my hand and bowed over Miroslava's as he greeted us in the hallway outside his office and gestured us in. The hat came off to be flung on the table, revealing thick wavy red hair. Which was no surprise, since General Maslov had a slightly more than wispy red beard, cut short in the czar's fashion.

  "Have a seat." He gestured to a large table, one end of which had been cleared of papers and covered with a tablecloth. It had three places set, one on the end and one on either side, and it was apparently up to us to decide who was to sit where.

  I sat on one side, Miroslava the other, leaving the head of the table for General Maslov.

  "Sorry about the mess. Supplies are coming in now, and we're in quite good shape militarily. We're still outnumbered. Not quite two to one, but as long as we don't make any gallant charges against the enemy's works, we should be fine." He waved at the papers scattered about the rest of the table. "It's still an organizational nightmare, though."

  "I can imagine," I said. "And that makes me even more curious as to why you would take the time to see us?"

  He blinked in surprise. "The airplane, of course. You are the main engineer on the new Russian airplane, aren't you?"

  "No, not really," I admitted. "I'm in charge of the steam engines that will power it and, of course, that means that I have to work with the structural design team, but mostly I'm about making the boiler engines and condenser work properly."

  "Is that really a good idea?" General Maslov asked. "With no disrespect to you, they are making good spark plugs in the west by now, and we can too, with a bit of effort. For that matter, internal combustion engines are being manufactured across Europe. Why add in the extra complexity of boilers and condensers to the mix?"

  "Tolerances, mostly. In spite of what you've heard, internal combustion has its own set of drawbacks. Mostly having to do with the fact that you're essentially shooting off a gun inside the darn thing five or ten times a second, every second, for hours at a time. That's a lot of stress. I paused a moment to collect my thoughts. This was an argument that we'd been over at the Dacha for most of January and February, but I wasn't expecting it here, today. "In a way, because of the boiler and condenser, much of that stress is removed. Generally speaking, steam engines work at much lower temperatures and under much less stress than internal combustion, for the same amount of work accomplished. We ended up with steam engines for exactly the same reason that we abandoned turbojets early on. A turbojet is, when it comes right down to it, a very simple device. But it works at such high temperatures and under such high stress that at the least little issue, the thing will rip itself to pieces. The same is true, to a lesser extent, of all internal combustion engines."

  "You talk like steam is safe," General Maslov said. "We've had a lot of boiler explosions over the last couple of years, and we're still having them."

  "Not on our steam engines, we're not," I said. "Nor on the ones produced at the original Dacha. The ones that are blowing up now are the ones that are being made by some blacksmith who looks at a broad sheet and thinks he's an engineer."

  General Maslov held up his hands in something between a calming gesture and surrender. "I was just acting, and you're right. The ones produced by the Dachas and the Gorchakov factory in Murom are pretty safe by now."

  "That's right, partly because of our experience over the last few years, and partly because we have access to the science of that other history. Steam, as Bernie would say, gets a bad rap." I looked over at Miroslava, and she was grinning.

  I grinned back. "You were right," I admitted.

  "She was right?"

  "Yes," I said. "We had a friendly bet about why we were invited to dine with the great General Ivan Maslov. I thought it would be politics, like the city council. But Miroslava thought it would be engineering."

  "Call me Ivan," Ivan Maslov said. "The general is only a brevet rank, and the great is pure publicity. The real great general is Tim." He turned to Miroslava. "How did you deduce that I would be interested in engineering?"

  "From what we are told at the Dacha, you are very much an expert on what Bernie Zeppi calls 'modern' war. This is all third hand, Bernie to Natasha, Natasha to Anya, and Anya to us, as well as other sources. But according to several of those sources, you are, in fact, the better general. Or at least you were better at the wargames in the Moscow kremlin?"

  "Which proves the difference between a wargame and a war," Ivan said. "In spite of what Tim may have told Bernie Zeppi, he is the better general. There is a thing in war, real war, that isn't there in a game. A chaos and a combination of fear and fury, terror and elation, and most of all confusion and uncertainty that can rob a man of his higher faculties in a way that no war game ever can. Tim can stand in that maelstrom and think clearly, and act decisively, better than anyone I have ever seen."

  Miroslava shrugged that off. "Which doesn't matter to my premise. We aren't in combat here. There is time to think. So it would be a question about the tools of war rather than politics."

  Ivan held up a hand in the gesture that meant acknowledging a touch in a practice sword fight.

  "But why airplanes?" I asked.

  "Because we need them," Ivan said. "The war isn't over. Sheremetev isn't defeated, and—even more importantly—the boyars aren't defeated. We need air power and we have lost two dirigibles over the last year. And considering how much dirigibles cost, we can't continue with them. Airplanes are our only choice. We have to have them, and soon. Most especially, we have to have them before Sheremetev or the boyars get them."

  We spent the next hours talking about aircraft design and how they would be used in the war to hit armies in the field. Because General Mazlov had figured out that they couldn't keep armies from traveling at will across Russia. Just fortifying hardpoints wouldn't solve the problem, and it was control of the skies that would let you get your forces into position in time to win battles.

&nbs
p; Then Miroslava blurted, "I'm an idiot!"

  I said, "Yes, dear."

  General Ivan Maslov said, "Surely not."

  Miroslava gave me a glare, then smiled at General Maslov "Yes, I am. It didn't occur to me until just now that Kazan is still under siege."

  General Maslov looked . . . there is an up-timer phrase that was even out of fashion in Bernie's time, "gobsmacked." And that is how General Maslov looked.

  "Understand, General, we arrived in the city at three in the morning, and since then, we have been meeting with this or that civil leader, trying to arrange the apprehension of a thief. We haven't gone to the walls and looked out. There has been no shortage of food. No noticeable damage to the city. How do you manage a siege without it showing?

  "It didn't occur to me that Piotr Veloshov might not be able to get into Kazan to be arrested," Miroslava admitted.

  Ivan Maslov looked at her, then looked at me, and started laughing. He laughed quite a long time. He would look at me and laugh, then look at Miroslava and laugh, try to apologize, and laugh some more.

  "Truly," he finally got out, "I am sorry to laugh at you. But I have been in the siege from the beginning." Suddenly all laughter left his voice. "There was no doubt at all that it was a siege. Not here, not on the mountain." He sighed then. "As to your man, we do have people slipping in and out, mostly at night. But we are careful about who we let in, and where they go afterward. We do get deserters from Birkin's army, but those men are assigned to units on the walls and away from the gates. Your man might pretend to be one of those, I guess.

  "I'll give orders that the gate guards be on the lookout. What should they be looking for?"

  We described the horse and clothing he was wearing, and the rifle. Showed the police sketch of him based on Ivan Cherkasski's description. Neither of us had ever actually seen the man.

  As we were leaving General Maslov repeated, "We really need those planes, Mister Lyapunov. Much more than we need a thief caught."

  I left the meeting with a much greater urgency about getting steam-powered aircraft into production than I had before meeting General Maslov.

  Then it was back to waiting for Piotr Veloshov.

  Chapter 10

  Location: On the Road

  Date: May 22, 1637

  Piotr Veloshov leapt free of Socks as the horse stumbled and almost fell. He'd been pushing hard, harder than he should have, and both he and Socks were tired. It had caught up with him.

  It wasn't much, just a hole left by who knows what, but Sock's right front hoof went into it and he stumbled, and now he was limping.

  Piotr examined the fetlock. It was broken, he was sure. He sighed and led the horse off the path into a small grove of trees, where it wouldn't be seen by the casual traveler. Then he stripped off the saddle and, sighing at the loss of his transport, shot the animal behind the ear.

  He considered the saddle. It was worth money, quite a bit of it. But not nearly as much as he had in his bags. If Socks were still alive, he would be a day out of Kazan. Now it was two, at least.

  Location: Outside Kazan

  Date: May 24, 1637

  Piotr Veloshov looked at the army outside the city of Kazan and realized he really should have thought things out a bit better. He had been misled by the way the siege worked out. It was supposed to be over by now. Sheremetev's army was supposed to have pulled up stakes and been in the field halfway to Ufa. But there it was, sitting outside Kazan, even as the river boats came and went.

  Location: Besiegers Camp, Outside Kazan

  Date: May 24, 1637

  General Ivan Vasilevich Birkin, looked at the city of Kazan as he nibbled on the patty. The patties were cooked beans and chopped cabbage, with a bit of rye flour and egg to hold it together, cooked in shaped pans, and then dried until they were as hard as rocks. They were made in Nizhny Novgorod, and about all his army had to eat since the rivers melted over the last month.

  With the rivers passable, Czar Mikhail's "General Tim's" gunboat controlled the river and that had proved much more damaging to his supply lines than he'd expected. At this time of year, as the ice melted, Russia became a land of mud. And General Birkin's supply boats, steam-powered, were stopped and captured by General Tim's river monster.

  General Tim effectively controlled the river halfway to Nizhny Novgorod. Food and shot could still be transported overland, but that was difficult in the muddy late spring.

  What he should do was lift the siege, move his forces back to Bor, and fortify Bor and Nizhny Novgorod to keep Tim from leading a flotilla of steam boats filled with Kazak troops up the Volga to take Bor and Nizhny Novgorod, and eventually take Moscow.

  What he was doing was sitting out here at Kazan while his army rotted away beneath him. All because the boyars of the Duma were too afraid to face reality.

  Location: South Gate, Kazan

  Date: May 24, 1637

  A small group of soldiers approached the gate. Three, then a straggler a few yards behind them. The gate was open, but there were guards watching. Each man was asked his name. They were common soldiers, streltzi in the main. Ivan Fydorivich, Petr Ivanovich, Pavel Kirlovich, and the straggler Ivan Piotrovich. The guards questioned them about what unit they were from. The first three were from one company, the fourth from another. They were assigned and escorted to a holding area, but their weapons and goods weren't taken. The plan was to recruit them into the czar's army here in Kazan.

  It was actually a fairly slow night for the south gate. They usually got more people. They were on the lookout, but they were on the lookout for a deti boyar on a fine black horse with white socks on his two front legs. Not a bedraggled troop with mud on his rifle butt and his clothing.

  Location: Transient Barracks, Kazan

  Date: May 25, 1637

  Piotr Veloshov woke at dawn. He didn't have much choice. There was a sergeant kicking the cot he was sleeping on. "Up and at 'em, you slugs. You're in the army now. The real army. The czar's army, not that collection of gaol scrapings that you were in."

  Piotr got up. He had no intention of being in any sort of army. He was a man of refined tastes and, since they hadn't searched him, a man of means.

  They were taken under guard to a mess hall. It was lightly guarded and the guards were friendly in their tone, but it was guards all the same. In the mess hall, there was scrambled eggs and porridge, sausage and small loaves of black bread. Piotr hadn't eaten this well since he left Ufa, and from the look of the other "recruits" they hadn't eaten this well for longer.

  During breakfast one of the others, a recruit from days before, gave them the schedule. Sometime during the day, they would be interviewed, asked if they were planning anything, and if anyone else was, what unit they were from, why they left, all sorts of things. "It's how they tell that we're for real, not some trick of General Birkin's."

  And that was when Piotr knew he had to get out of here. He'd managed to fake it so far because all they asked at the gate was the name of the unit he was attached to. There was no way he could survive an in depth interview without giving himself away.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Back in the barracks, he grabbed his gear and went to the jakes, intending to slip away. He wanted to take Ivan's rifle, but couldn't think of an excuse. Well, he had a bag full of paper rubles, and even a fair amount of silver. That would just have to be enough.

  A guard followed him, and Piotr was half expecting it. The guard had a pistol, but not one of the six shot revolvers. It was one of the old single shot chamber loading flintlock pistols, though this one had been modified to take capped chambers.

  Piotr walked like he was holding it, and just as they were getting to the door of the jakes, he grabbed his belly and groaned.

  The guard came over to see if he was all right, and Piotr punched him in the balls. As the guard bent over, Piotr grabbed his head and twisted. He heard the crack, actually heard the man's neck break.

  The army, at least General Tim's army, had starte
d the process of having uniforms, one of the functions of the ladies of Kazan and the new sewing machines over the course of the winter siege. Most soldiers in the army at least had an army tunic with an armband showing rank buttoned to the shoulder.

  Piotr took the guard's tunic, as well as the pistol. He was a corporal. He put the corporal in the jakes, closed the door, and left.

  Location: Kazan Kremlin

  Date: May 25, 1637

  I opened the door to see a grizzled sergeant carrying a hunting rifle. "Yes? What can I do for you?"

  "We may have found your man."

  "Excellent! Where is he?"

  "Missing." The sergeant looked both embarrassed and angry.

  I waved the sergeant in. In a way, I wasn't surprised. Piotr Veloshov had shown a remarkable facility for slipping away. At first in fact I was almost pleased for the man.

  But the sergeant was still speaking even as he came in. "Fellow came through the gate last night on foot. Happens a lot. Deserters from Birkin's force. Gave a unit name. Was carrying a rifle and a pack, but not riding that horse you said he'd be on."

  That last sounded resentful, like it was our fault that he'd slipped away.

  "This morning, after he ate our breakfast, he went to the jakes, killed Corporal Bolshov, stole his tunic and pistol. Bastard slipped out the gate of the guard barracks, and he's loose in the city somewhere.

  "Is this the rifle?" He held it out to me.

  "I don't know. I have never seen it. Miroslava?"

  She took the rifle and examined it. "Yes, I think so. I haven't seen it either, but it was made by the Ruzukov gun shop. Not by Stefan, but one of his top smiths, and this one has the shop's mark. It's not impossible that one of Stefan's rifles made it into Birkin's army, but it's not likely either."

  I was still trying to deal with Piotr having killed someone. Cat burglars weren't supposed to be murderers. I knew better, I really did, but somehow it just didn't feel right.