by Eric Flint
The czar himself was looking a bit conflicted about the rescue. The dogboy still under Bernie’s gun was looking very angry. But the confrontation was over, obviously. The man could be as angry as he wanted, he had no chance against the odds he was facing.
So, Bernie turned toward Natasha and began re-holstering his gun. But she was staring past him looking at Dogboy and the czar. Then her expression changed. Bernie turned back to see Dogboy pulling out a pistol of his own and pointing it, not at him or Natasha, but the czar. The czar was looking back at Dogboy with a half-frightened, half-resigned expression on his face. As though the fate that he had been dodging all his life had caught him at last.
Then Vladislav Vasl’yevich jumped, knocking the czar out of the way.
Bernie fired, Dogboy fired. Vladislav Vasl’yevich went down, spraying the czar with his blood.
Dogboy went down, too. Wounded in the shoulder, not dead, but he’d lost his gun.
A couple of the other dogboy guards took the gunshots as a license to resume hostilities, but Vladislav Vasl’yevich’s men began firing at them immediately. Numerically, the two groups were about evenly matched, but the Gorchakov guards were equipped with the brand new AK4.7 cap-lock repeaters. The. 7 modification was only partly to the gun. The center fire chambers could be fit into a clip that was shifted right to left, one chamber every time the lever-action was opened and closed so that it was fire, cock, fire, cock. The dogboys, on the other hand-with standard Sheremetev pecuniary habits-were equipped with the cheaper AK3 flintlocks.
It was a damp day, too. The only dogboy gun that came to bear squarely on its target misfired. The end result was a simple massacre. After seeing Vladislav Vasl’yevich gunned down, his men were in no mood to take prisoners- any prisoners, not just the two who’d raised their guns.
Two of the dogboy guards survived, but they were badly wounded. Meanwhile, another group of Natasha’s guards had rescued the czarina, the nurse, her husband, and all the children.
They questioned the chief dogboy who was, as it turned out, an Oprichniki of the Boyar Duma. So this was the form that Sheremetev’s political officers were to take. Ivan the Terrible’s Oprichniki had been his personal secret police and ultimately had proven to be more trouble than they were worth. But they had included many people that would, in later years, prove very important-including Patriarch Filaret and Boris Godunov. So the Boyar Duma, also in need of a force to put down dissension, had created an updated version.
A contingent of that new organization had been given the job of guarding the czar. Their commander, the one with the dog’s head clasp, was under orders to kill the czar, but only if it looked like the czar might escape. The same orders were in place for the czar’s family, but only if the czar was dead first. The Boyar Duma didn’t want Mikhail free and after revenge for a dead family. They didn’t, even Dogboy insisted, want Mikhail dead. Just out of the way while they did what was needed to keep Russia safe from the corrupting influences that Mikhail and his father had allowed in. Russia needed a strong hand. The Russian people tended to become bandits and brigands if they were given too much freedom.
“Look, folks,” Bernie said after a while. “This is all very interesting and I’m sure quite socially relevant, but is this really the time for a debate on political philosophy? They were going to kill you, Your Majesty. Maybe not now, but once they were sure of themselves. At best, they would keep you and your whole family prisoners for the rest of your lives. Meanwhile, the bad guys are after us and I don’t want to stick around to find out what they’ll do if they catch us. It’s your country, Your Majesty. If you want to stay here and trust to the good offices of the Boyar Duma, and that fink Sheremetev, that’s your choice. But we need to leave.”
The nurse, Tami Simmons, spoke up. “We’re going with you! I’m sorry, Your Majesty, but I don’t want my kids here when these guys’ friends show up.”
The czarina agreed, and then so did Mikhail. So, the czar and czarina and their kids would ride in the Dodge with Bernie and everyone else they could fit would ride in the trailer. That still left half a dozen of Natasha’s guards without transport. They took the horses in the paddock. All of them. They would need remounts and didn’t want to leave the dogboys with transportation. There was serious talk about killing the dogboys. And as a sort of compromise, Czar Mikhail had them swear on pain of death not to serve the Boyar Duma anymore.
Bernie didn’t figure the oaths would last past the time it took them to get over the horizon, but he didn’t really care either. Natasha’s guardsmen were to make their way back to Murom as fast as they could and if Natasha wasn’t there when they arrived, at the very least orders would be.
Bernie, the czar and the czarina talked as Bernie drove them slowly over the rough roads, fields, and trails back to Murom. And by the time they got there, the czar had decided.
Well, the way Bernie figured it, the czarina decided and the czar went along. Mikhail Romanov didn’t strike Bernie as the forceful type. The decision was that the czar, czarina and the children would go to Bor, take possession of the dirigible Czarina Evdokia, and then decide where to take it.
Bernie thought about arguing for Grantville, but decided not to. The truth was, Grantville and its USE were now more of a foreign country to him than Russia was. To the extent that Bernie Zeppi felt he had a king-not much-that king was Mikhail Romanov, not Gustav Adolf.
Chapter 79
They drove up to the palace at Murom, fat and happy, totally unaware of the changes that had taken place while they were off rescuing the king of the country and his family. The guards waved them through the city gate, then others waved them through the gates of the palace compound.
Not until Bernie stepped out of the car did the guns appear.
“Oh, crap,” Tim heard the up-timer say. “This couldn’t just be simple.”
Captain Ivan Borisovich Lebedev sneered at him. “You are all under arrest in the name of the czar.”
Then Tim saw the other door of the dodge open and Czar Mikhail stepped out. Much to Tim’s surprise.
“Really?” Czar Mikhail said. “I wasn’t aware that I gave an order for this man’s arrest.”
Cousin Ivan Borisovich gaped at him. “What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be at the hunting lodge.”
“I got tired of hunting,” Czar Mikhail said, though Tim knew very well that he hadn’t been hunting.
The up-timer started grinning. Cousin Ivan looked back and forth between the up-timer and the czar. The guardsmen and Streltzi who had performed this ambush started looking at each other, trying to figure out what to do. Tim couldn’t help but sympathize with them. The day had been a whipsaw, the Sheremetev clan in control of the city then the Gorchakov clan, then the Sheremetev again. Then, when the Gorchakovs came back and were arrested by the Sheremetev in the name of the czar, out pops the czar himself to countermand the order. Of course, most of these men had never seen the czar, but Cousin Ivan had confirmed his identity. For that matter, Tim was starting to feel a bit whipsawed himself. He was a loyal member of his clan, but his oath was sworn to Czar Mikhail. Who was standing right here, denying that he’d ordered the arrest of the up-timer. Tim was fully aware that many of the orders that were given in the czar’s name were actually given by the Boyar Duma, but presumably the Boyar Duma was acting for the czar.
“You are under arrest by order of the duma! ” Cousin Ivan shouted. For once in his life, Ivan Borisovich Lebedev had made a quick decision. And it had to be one of the worst decisions that Tim had ever heard.
All of which left Tim with nothing to do but make a quick decision of his own. Who did Tim serve? The family or the czar? Clan or kingdom? And the answer surprised Tim as much as it did his cousin when Tim pulled his pistol out, stuck it in his cousin’s back and said, “I don’t think so.”
In a strange way, the up-timers really were a corrupting influence on Russia. Before the up-timers, Russia had been, in Tim’s eyes, anyway, an amalgamation of f
euding clans. Now it was a nation. Becoming one, anyway. And it was that nation that Tim decided to give his loyalty to.
“Be careful, Cousin,” he continued. “If you say the wrong thing here and now, you will die with my bullet in your back. You do not arrest the czar of Mother Russia. To attempt to do so is treason. I am not a traitor.”
Cousin Ivan went back to not making decisions. Probably for the best.
“What do we do now, Your Majesty?” Tim asked, once all the armed troops had declared for the czar and Cousin Ivan was on his way back to the cell.
“There is a dirigible in Bor. We will take possession.”
“As you command, Your Majesty,” Tim said “And go where?”
“That’s a more difficult question,” Czar Mikhail said. “I don’t want to abandon my people. And the political consequences of my leaving Russia would be extreme.”
Tim nodded in understanding. Russia, in its way, was a very insular nation. Were the czar to move into exile in some other state, it would be awfully hard for him to ever come back.
“Well, that just leaves east,” Filip said. “Far enough east that it will be difficult for the Sheremetev faction to get their hands on you, but not so far that you can’t return when the time comes.”
They started looking at maps, trying to determine the best place to go. “What about the people of Murom?” Natasha asked. “Especially the guardsmen and the Streltzi, but, really, all the people, the factory workers and the servants. When we leave, will they be punished for letting us go?”
Tim wished the princess had asked that question when there wasn’t a mob of Streltzi standing around to hear it.
“Set them free and tell them to leave,” Bernie said.
“Order them to leave their homes and their town?” the czarina asked.
“Leave it up to them,” Bernie said. “That’s all you can do. You can’t order them to be free, only offer it.”
Filip was nodding. Tim remembered Filip, from his two visits to the Dacha, as a sort of silly fellow, always talking math and theory. Yet here he was with the czar, the princess and the up-timer along with the blond servant girl discussing… Discussing what? Tim wasn’t sure. The fate of Russia? The future of the world? Who were these people and how had Tim fallen in with them?
The blond servant girl, Anya, spoke up. “That’s the truth of it, Majesty. Freedom can be taken or it can be offered, but it can’t be forced on those not ready to embrace it.”
“And is Russia ready to embrace it?” the czarina asked.
“Russia is not all one mind, Majesty,” Filip said. “If offered freedom, some will accept, others will hide in their holes waiting for a new master to come along. Still others will take it as license, as the Cossacks do, and try to become those new masters. All you can do is the best you can do. But I have become convinced that the gain in liberty is worth the cost in security.”
The czar was looking at Filip speculatively. “I’m not sure what it is, but what you just said reminds me of a pamphlet I read once. I think it was signed ‘the Flying Squirrel.’”
Filip shrugged with a half smile. “I read a lot, Your Majesty. Perhaps I read that pamphlet.”
“Perhaps,” the czar agreed doubtfully.
“So,” Princess Natasha interrupted, “we offer those who wish to follow us to the east a drink of freedom, and see who drinks?”
“That’ll work,” Bernie agreed, “as long as we can figure out where we’re going. But it’ll mean we have to announce where that is.”
They went back to the maps.
The map they were looking at was a copy of one that had been sent to the Dacha, which was a copy of one in Grantville. They were fair copies, though. And features like rivers were clear enough. The place where the Ufa River…
Tim spoke up. “We have a problem, Your Majesty, and its name is steamboats. Steamboats in the last two years-but especially in the last year-have increased the goods transported on the Volga. They kept us supplied at Rzhev and by now they can move armies. Small armies, but still armies. If we go near a river, especially one that connects to the Volga, and most of them do, it will be easy to send an army after us.”
“We have two problems,” the up-timer said. “Contradictory problems. We want a place where those who want to can follow us and we want a place where the czar’s family can be safe from pursuit.”
“I wish my friend Ivan were here. He’s better at this than I am,” Tim said. “He’s stationed at Bor where they’re building the dirigibles.”
“Then we’ll be seeing him fairly soon,” Czar Mikhail said. “As I said, it is our intent to take possession of the Czarina Evdokia.”
“Well, then he will be able to help us. But what do we tell the people here?”
“Send them to Ufa, those who aren’t going with us. There’s a fort there, built by Ivan the Terrible in 1574 and a town that grew up around it. It may not be where we end up, but it’s a place to gather,” the czar said. “The steam barges can get there I know, because I took one to see it last year.”
“Which means that Sheremetev can load an army on steamboats and take it there,” Czarina Evdokia said.
“There is that, but I think we must take the chance,” Czar Mikhail said. “Perhaps Tim’s clever friend, the baker’s son, will have a better option.”
Tim just listened as much as anything, shocked by the fact that the czar knew who Ivan was.
Natasha left them to work out the details and called for her factor, who was supposed to have been managing this part of her family estates.
“So, Pavel.”
“Princess.” Pavel looked uneasy, as well he should.
“You turned my estate over to the Sheremetevs. I’d like to know why. Did they pay you?”
“Your Highness, they had all the proper forms endorsed by the Boyar Duma. To disobey would have been treason. They threatened me,” Pavel said. “And my family. What was I to do? Your brother has been gone from Russia for years and…”
Pavel hesitated and Natasha thought that he was about to complain about her not taking a husband to manage the family’s wealth properly. It was a complaint he had made before, several times. Pavel was a very capable man who had been quick to adopt the innovations and new industries made possible by the Dacha, which was why he still had the job despite Natasha’s annoyance at his attitude.
But instead he just said, “You were out of touch. And the work must go on. I had no instructions to the contrary.”
“Very well. Give me a report on what has been happening since we last talked,” Natasha said.
It was a long report and much of it wasn’t very pleasant hearing. Many of the reforms that she had made under the influence of Bernie, and increasingly the influence of Anya, Filip and Father Kiril, had been reversed. The bonuses for good work and good ideas, the improved working conditions and pay, had been stopped and some of them had even been backtracked, treated as though they were loans, not payment, making greater debt that the serfs owed her. Then there was the diversions of funds, prices much too high paid to the Sheremetev clan for too little goods of too little quality and goods produced here sold to Sheremetev connections for kopeck’s on the ruble. “Director-General” Sheremetev and his greedy family hadn’t chopped off the head of the golden goose, but they were halfway to strangling the poor bird in trying to squeeze extra eggs from it.
As she listened she was forced to a realization. She couldn’t save it. The industrial base that she had been working to build here wasn’t something she could defend from Sheremetev. Even the estates and lands that had been her family’s for generations would be lost, at least temporarily, and the knowledge of that loss almost ripped the heart out of her. At the same time, this was strangely liberating. The family lands were gone, the serfs and other workers who made those lands productive would not be owned by her family, no matter what she did. The only question was who would get them. When it finally came, the decision to free her serfs from their ties to the land
was easy. Better they should belong to themselves than Sheremetev, much better.
“Very well,” Natasha said. “There is a proclamation I must make and legal documents that I need drawn up.”
When the nature of those legal documents was made clear to him, Pavel had a fit. He explained that Natasha was a spoiled little girl and that no man would be so foolish, not even her idiot of a brother who married a peasant. He was, in fact, so angry that his thoughts about the innovations, at least the nontechnical innovations came boiling out. That she was wasting her family’s heritage was clear. That the peasants that she showered useless and expensive gifts on would work harder with a touch of the lash instead. Natasha was tempted to give Pavel a touch of the lash, but she restrained herself. She needed to hear this. She especially needed to hear who else among her factors and agents felt this way.
So she listened meekly, like a school girl taking her deserved scolding. And Pavel, in his anger and desperation, poured out quite a bit she needed to know.
Then she had him arrested.
Another clerk was called and the proclamations were drawn up. All the serfs on all the Gorchakov lands had all their debts to the Gorchakov family forgiven. They were, if they chose to be, released from their bonds to the land and were asked to join Natasha in the east where they would build together a new land of free people. Those who chose to stay on her lands were welcome to do so, but should be warned that those who would likely seize her lands were less likely to respect her decrees in regards to the serf’s debts. Having had her documents written up, she took them off to be examined by the czar.
Meanwhile, the clerk who had taken down the documents took himself off to repeat their contents to anyone who would listen.
The czar, the czarina, and his ad hoc Duma of Bernie, Anya, Filip, Kiril, and Tim, listened to her plan with varying degrees of shock. Tim was flabbergasted and honestly thought it was a horrible idea. Not without reason. The serfs would run, some to the east following Natasha sure enough, but others into banditry among the Cossacks. And as word spread of what she had done, other serfs would run, hoping to hide among hers. The nation would collapse. Anarchy would rule and Russia would burn.
