Natasha alighted from the carriage at her family's dacha outside of Moscow, along with her aunt, Sofia Petrovna. Both were wearing full regalia, "dressed to the nines," as Bernie put it. Aunt Sofia served as her chaperone, necessary in Moscovy's culture. While her brother, Vladimir Petrovich, was away in Grantville, someone had to assume responsibility for the lands. That responsibility fell on her. Young for it she might be, but she and Vlad were the last of their branch of the family. It was a wealthy branch. Thankfully, she and Vladimir had been raised by a free-thinking father who had been rather enamored of the west. She had been educated alongside Vlad. Fashionable or not, someone had to take care of things.
Aunt Sofia turned to Boris. "Well, Boris Ivanovich, what do you suppose Bernie has done this time? I thought the stinks and noises from his bathroom were quite enough. What now?"
Boris smiled. "One never knows, not with Bernie Janovich Zeppi, my lady. We shall just have to see. I am most concerned that he be well-behaved for the visit. And, Bernie being Bernie… one never knows."
"It's not Bernie we need to worry about. It's the nerds," Natasha corrected. Boris knew she was right. What he was worried about wasn't really Bernie. After a good bit of pressure and growing interest in the Dacha, the Grantville Section of the Embassy Bureau, and the new products that were coming out, Boris and Natasha had arranged a tour of the Dacha for several people who had been pushing to see and know more about it. On the one hand, Boris had no objections. On the other, some of the spectators were very opposed to the changes that were happening in their society. He feared they might use this visit as an excuse to protest more. The problem wasn't just Bernie or just the nerds or even just the information coming from Vladimir. It was a combination of all of them.
The czar and czarina, Patriarch Filaret, several members of the cabinet and some of their wives, arrived over the next few hours and had to be provided quarters in the Dacha for their stay. The normal inhabitants of those rooms had been moved into outbuildings, and even into a large, heavy, double-walled tent. Natasha greeted each guest as they arrived.
Boris listened to the lecture on soil chemistry with half an ear. It wasn't that it was unimportant. In the long run, it might turn out to be drastically important. But Boris had other things on his mind.
Boris Ivanovich Petrov was a spy. He was not the least bit ashamed of either the title or the meaning that it encompassed. He had been a field agent in Poland, England, and, most recently, Grantville. He had, on occasion, found it necessary to kill quietly from behind in defense of his czar and his mission. He took no joy in doing so, but didn't hesitate to, either. His new job as head of the Grantville Section of the Embassy Bureau was supposed to be a job in which that sort of thing was no longer necessary. That, unfortunately, hadn't proved to be the case.
Starting about three months after his return to Moscow, several of the other bureaus wanted the up-timer reassigned to them to focus on their projects. The pressure had been increasing ever since, with only limited relief when he had given Cass Lowry to the military. The roads bureau wanted Bernie to spend all his time on road-making equipment. The farming bureau wanted him making farming machinery. He was also wanted to make medicines, concrete, steel, plastics, and who knew what else.
There had been time for some of the effects to be felt since Bernie had arrived in Muscovy. Some road crews had the equipment he introduced and had been building and repairing roads much faster. A new quick-loading rifle was in limited production. Bernie insisted on calling it the AK3. This time Boris somewhat approved of the joke. Andrei Korisovich was head of the team that was developing the new rifle, but that wasn't the only reason he approved. Boris had seen up-timer movies that mentioned the AK47.
Both the Swedish and Polish sections of the Embassy Bureau wanted Bernie transferred to them, and the Grantville Section shut down. The Swedish Section claimed jurisdiction because Bernie had become a subject, sort of, of the king of Sweden since he had left Grantville. The Polish Section claimed jurisdiction because Bernie was teaching what he knew about firearms.
The knives were out, all over Moscow. Some of them were political and some made of steel. The political ones were by far the more dangerous.
"By introducing nitrates into the soil." For a moment Boris was distracted from his thoughts. Nitrates and the nitric acid that could be produced from them, played an important role in the production of smokeless gun powder. No, the lecturer was talking about using clover and beans to enrich the soil on the Yaroslavich family estates this coming spring.
Somehow, and Boris wasn't entirely sure how, he had gotten involved with the financial workings of the Yaroslavich family. It had seemed so innocent at the time. Vladimir Petrovich had merely offered letters of introduction to his sister, as well as several letters for her. In the letters to her, he had suggested that the Yaroslavich family should pay the czar a phenomenal amount for the Bernie/Grantville franchise and offered his dacha as a good place to put Bernie. By long-standing tradition, great houses and merchants of the empire paid the czar for the right to run commercial enterprises, like the import or export of goods, mining, or whatever.
So the Yaroslavich family owned the Bernie/Grantville franchise. Bernie was a big part of the Grantville, or American, Section's turf. The American Section, along with the Yaroslavich family, controlled access to Bernie and, through Bernie, controlled access to the experts who had been brought to the Dacha to work with him. The Yaroslavich clan had the patent on everything that came out of the Dacha.
It didn't seem like a large sum now, aside from the direct income to the Yaroslavich clan, which wasn't all that great. Yet.
But the favors flowed like rivers. And favors were the currency of political power in Muscovy. If the mining bureau wanted a road to a new mine, it would not have to come just to the roads bureau, not now. Now it would have to come to the Grantville Section and the Yaroslavich clan. Boris had collected more favors since being made head of the Grantville Section than in all the rest of his career. On the downside, when people came to him for favors he couldn't grant, he made enemies.
With Bernie placed in their dacha, it became clear that the Yaroslavich family were backing the Grantville Section. So far, no one had had enough influence to change that. Which also meant that the Yaroslavich family was passing out favors. Natasha was picking up more and more IOU's from the high nobility. They weren't being stingy in a monetary sense, but there was a degree of political selectivity in their choices.
But this was Moscow. Alliances could change at a moments notice. Or not. Now the patriarch was nervous, Boris heard. There were rumors that the Yaroslavich clan would try for the throne. Boris was confident that they had no such goal, but power carries its own implications.
A more realistic concern was that they would gain influence with the czar. Mikhail was loved, but not that well respected. Not considered… particularly strong. Of course, his hands were tied. The Assembly of the Land had seen to that when he was elected. Those limitations might well explain why he was so popular. When the government got blamed for something it was usually his advisors, not the czar, who got the blame. It was known that Mikhail had cried when told he had been elected czar. As well, it was known that he had refused the crown. He had continued to refuse until told that if he didn't accept, the blood of the next "time of troubles" would be on his hands.
Natasha knew the czarina, Evdokia. Before Bernie, that acquaintance would have given her family protection, but not much influence. Now that acquaintance was a way for up-time ideas to reach the czar without going through his father, who was also the patriarch of the Orthodox Church. And the ideas had gotten to Mikhail, some of them, anyway. Hence this little event.
Ivan Ivanovich had read the reports. That was one of the reasons that he had pushed for this general demonstration of the products of the Dacha. One of the reasons. The other being his increasing concern about the influence of the Grantville Section. Increasingly, he had been forced, almost against his will, to realize the importance that the Ring of Fire was going to have on the rest of the world, including Russia.
He watched Pter Nickovich pace about in a dither, getting in the way of the workmen handling the ropes. And found himself tempted to do the same thing. He knew what was about to happen he'd read about it in the reports. Then as the ropes were let out, it began to rise. Two poles, about five feet apart with ropes going from them to a basket below and balloons above. He had thought that he knew what was going to happen, but he hadn't realized what it would feel like. Twenty feet into the air, then twenty five, thirty, supported by nothing but air. It's only connection to the earth the ropes that held it down. And in the basket that hung below the dirigible testbed, Nikita Slavenitsky smiled and waved to the crowd of dignitaries.
Ivan Ivanovich waved back, it was absolutely the least he could do. What he wanted to do was jump up and down and shout. A Russian was flying in the air, held aloft by the knowledge and craftsmanship of his fellow Russians. He had read that the up-timers had already flown. But knowing about it from a report was one thing, seeing it was something altogether different. The up-timers with their machines doing it was one thing. Russians making a flying device out of wood, rope and cow guts-that was something altogether different. Even in his excitement about the flight, Ivan realized that it meant that one of his goals in forcing this demonstration had backfired. If anything it would increase the influence wielded by the Grantville Section. He looked over at the czar's pet up-timer, in time to see as Bernie, looking bored, snorted a laugh.
Bernie could understand why Pter Nickovich was so nervous. Today the czar, the czarina and some members of the cabinet had come to see his baby fly. Bernie looked over at the big shots. They were gawking. Totally gone. You'd think the aliens were landing or something. Then he thought about it. Granted, it wasn't that much of a dirigible. It had no power and there wasn't much you could do with it, not yet. But, Nikita was the first Russian to fly in this time line.
Shit, this was history. For here and now, this was like the first rocket ship to the moon or something. Bernie found himself giggling a bit. Nikita Ivanovich Slavenitsky was a nice guy and usually had a joke to tell or a dirty story. But he wasn't the sort of guy you would think of as Neil Armstrong or whoever. But Nicky was going down in history.
One of the big shots was looking a bit offended. "You find this funny?"
Bernie had forgotten the guy's name. He was the head of the Embassy Bureau, Bernie knew that much. "It's not that, sir. I just never thought that a guy I had a beer with every now and then would make history."
"History?" The guy paused. Looked up and nodded. "The first Russian to fly."
"Yes, sir," Bernie said. "Nikita Ivanovich Slavenitsky and Pter Nickovich have done Russia proud today. Real proud."
The big shot looked at Bernie a bit sharply for a moment, then he smiled. "You will excuse me, Bernie Janovich. I must speak to the czar."
Ivan Ivanovich headed back to the czar in a rather bemused state of mind. He wasn't sure what to make of the up-timer. He hadn't tried to take credit for the flight, even though Ivan knew that Bernie's explanations had been a large part of making it possible. Nor had he been demeaning of the Russian efforts. Ivan didn't know what to make of the man, and that bothered him. He glanced up at the flying carriage. He wanted control of such devices if he could manage it. He thought they would be important.
"We can fly," Evdokia, Czarina of All Russia-and sometimes a real pain in the butt-insisted. Mikhail looked at his wife and sighed. He knew he was going to lose the argument. They were in the best room in the Dacha and it had been an interesting day.
"I know how you feel," he tried, though in truth he didn't. He knew his Doshinka had dreams of flight but he never had. Mikhail's dreams tended to be dark things, best forgotten. "But we have real problems that we must deal with."
Evdokia, thankfully, didn't ignore the problems, though Mikhail was fairly sure she wanted to. "I know, Mikhail. But I think that Pter Nickovich made some excellent points about the usefulness of such a flying ship. More importantly, though, is the useful thing he didn't mention."
"What useful thing is that?"
"Pride. Pride in being Russian. Pride in being a part of something great. Who is, ah, was… will be that up-time general that Mikhail Borisovich Shein is always quoting about eggs?
Mikhail shook his head, not able to remember the name. He thought the general was French but that was all he remembered.
"Well, that's not the only quote. The general Nappy something also said that the moral is to the physical as three to one." She grinned. "I think to the fiscal, it's even more. Let us fill the hearts of the people of Russia with pride in who they are. Not with fear of the bureaucrats."
Mikhail looked at his wife for long time, just taking in the bubbling excitement. She fairly glowed with it. Could Pter Nickovich's big balloon really produce such a reaction? And if it produced that sort of reaction in the Russian heart, what effect would it have on the Polish heart and the Cossack heart? "Very well. I will support the project. I can make no promises, mind."
Evdokia just grinned. Somehow, as pleasant as that smile was, it made Mikhail a bit nervous.
The dog and pony show had been going on for three days. Bernie had been moved into his garage, because of all the important people who had shown up. He didn't mind it, especially. The garage was where he was trying to fix the car, without a lot of success. The VIP visit, Boris said, was going quite well. But it was still a total pain in the butt.
Bernie had spent most of the last three days explaining that it was really Vanya, Misha, Filip, Grigorii and the others who had actually worked out all the improvements. He had just helped a bit. Really, the whole thing was kind of embarrassing. The only good thing about the whole dratted business was the thankful looks he got from the brain cases. They had apparently not expected to be given credit. Finally, he had had to sneak away. When Grigorii Mikhailovich started explaining orbital mechanics and Newton's laws of motion, Bernie's brain started to fry. He just didn't want to hear it again, not right now.
He was having a beer in the kitchen when the door opened unexpectedly. At first Bernie was afraid that one of the brain cases had come looking for him again. But, no… it wasn't a brain case. Jeez. This was the boss, the big boss.
"Howdy, Your… ah… Majesty." Bernie snaked out an arm and grabbed a chair. "Have a seat."
The big guards who followed the czar around were looking daggers-or maybe swords-at Bernie. Apparently they thought he was supposed to be doing something differently, but Bernie was tired and couldn't figure what. "Say, Your Majesty, why is the muscle looking pissed at me?"
Bernie knew that the czar knew some English but it didn't appear to be modern English. "Muscle? Pissed?"
"Ah, guards looking angry. I figure that I've done something I'm not supposed to do. That, or I ain't done something I am supposed to do. But I don't know what."
The czar nodded. "Probably you didn't bow. Bernie, is it?"
"Yes, sir. Bernard, really, but that makes me sound like some kind of old coot. I like Bernie better."
"Do you?" The czar laughed. "I'll call you Bernie, then."
"I'd appreciate it more than I can say. Thank you, Your Majesty." Grinning, Bernie stood up and swept the czar the most impressive bow he could manage. After watching movies all his life, it wasn't all that bad. Not really right, but impressive, in its own way. For some reason the guards were looking daggers at him again, but the czar cracked up. That laugh made Bernie feel better. Looking at the guy, Czar Mikhail, Bernie figured he didn't get to laugh all that much.
Bernie sat down again and repeated his offer of a chair. "I'm playing hooky. I'm supposed to be in one of the lectures explaining that I didn't do anything. You want a beer?" Sure, he was an older guy, and the czar, and all that crap… but he was a guy. Bernie figured he could use a beer now and then, just like anyone else.
Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov was more than a little bemused by the up-timer. He had been impressed, seriously impressed, by the demonstrations. There was a telegraph that allowed messages to be sent from one part of the estate to another. The plumbing system… ah, the plumbing system. He wanted that in his palace. Also the telegraph, all through the Kremlin. That would be good.
The military applications of the telegraph were obvious-if it could be made to work over any real distance. And they talked of radios that might be made that would not need the wires. He had been briefed on most of it, but hearing was not the same as seeing.
Mikhail had also noticed that Bernie was constantly giving credit to the local experts for doing the work and solving the problems. He had wondered how much of that was truth and how much politics. "I noticed you explaining again and again that you didn't do anything. Is it true?"
"Mostly, yeah." Bernie shook his head. "When I got here… well, I was never the smartest kid in class but I figured with a four-hundred-year head start, I ought to be able to teach you guys something. Mostly, though, I'm sort of a glorified dictionary. I explain words that have changed meanings and words that English didn't have, doesn't have, now, that it had up-time. And everyone here is smarter than I am."
"Surely not everyone?" Mikhail pointed at Anna. He assumed the maid would be illiterate. And she was a woman, after all.
"Yep, her, too." Bernie grinned. "She's picked up English fast, really fast. And she can do Arabic numerals and paper spread sheet bookkeeping. All that, while my Russian is still the pits even after I've been here so long. And she's better at the bookkeeping than I am. What's worse, I taught it to her."
"Yes." Czar Mikhail's eyes were hooded and dark. "There has been a great deal of talk lately about your accounting and taxes. An income tax. The patriarch is quite enamored of it."
Bernie shifted in his seat. It was pretty uncomfortable, all of a sudden. "I sort of opened a can of worms with that one. No one really wants to explain anything to me, just have me explain things to them, so I don't know how it works here. Anyway, the most important thing about taxes back up-time was that they were mostly fair. Mostly everybody paid them. There were people who had good lawyers and sometimes folks cheated. Still, it sort of spread the burden around, so no one group had to do it all."
Mikhail nodded. "We are considering that. It does seem that it will increase revenues, at any rate. The, ah, what was it called… the Fica, that one. That one we're having a little trouble with."
Bernie grinned and took another sip of beer. "Yeah, I heard. I had to explain what 'retire' meant. And no one understood that one. What do people do here, just work until they die? No chance to just kick back and relax, just live. I had a lot of trouble getting that clear. And when I told them about the Social Security numbers and how everybody had one, well, the brain cases just went nuts."
They sat and chatted for a long while. It was interesting to listen to someone who was mostly unguarded and not weighing every word to make his case. Mikhail finally, once the servants unfroze, got his beer and the discussion ranged all over.
Mikhail enjoyed especially the discussion of what it was like to live up-time. Cars, first dates and bananas in winter were only a part of it. Mikhail was the wealthiest and, in theory, most powerful man in Russia and had never had a banana in any season, much less a banana split.
Mikhail brought the discussion around to representative government. He wanted to get a feel for how it worked from someone who had experienced it to compare with the theory. Bernie seemed to assume that Mikhail would disapprove of it. It was the most guarded Bernie had been all evening. Mikhail liked the concept, but wasn't sure how well it would work on the ground in Russia. From his reading, it had almost seemed that every citizen of the nation must be a scholar of the law. All in all, Mikhail found Bernie's ignorance of how the details worked according to the books reassuring. It didn't take him long to figure out that Bernie actually knew less about the mechanics of how the constitutional laws of the United States of America worked up-time than he himself did.
It was clear to Mikhail that Bernie didn't have the slightest clue about how Russia worked. Russia did have a history of electing officials and representatives. But the constitution-that was a bit different. It was not like England's Great Charter or Poland's. Nor like the agreement that the Assembly of the Land had insisted he sign when they forced the throne on him. The constitution… those were a list of restrictions on the crown. They restricted the czar's power, but the constitution seemed to do more than that. It provided a concrete structure that was designed from the beginning, rather than growing just any which way.
"I don't know, Bernie." Mikhail stared into the mug he held. "I was elected to be the czar, but that was a special case. They picked me because I was only sixteen years old and they felt sure they could control me. Even so, they limited my power. Which wasn't something that bothered me, then or now. Mostly, my father runs things. He is the one who really should have been czar. But the reason that the election happened at all was that there was no one left in the direct royal line. And because they needed someone after the time of troubles. Anything was better than continuing to fight over everything. Even then, it was the Assembly of the Land and the cabinet who voted. The people of Muscovy aren't used to voting on everything."
"Yes, I get it. That's sort of the point of representatives," Bernie said. "The people elect them and they are the ones who vote on the laws and stuff. Were the people who voted elected?"
Mikhail shrugged. "Some, not all. The Assembly of the Land has men who represent the crafts or a place or who are high in the church. Some representatives of the merchants and tax collectors participate."
"That sorta sucks." Bernie had not cared in the least about the people of Muscovy when he agreed to come. It had just been a job; keep your head down do what the man tells you and get your pay. It had been good pay, so who cared. Gradually, without his really noticing it, that had changed. Bernie knew he was living in a very privileged situation. He had no desire to endanger that privilege by upsetting people-especially the frigging czar. The comment had just sort of slipped out. At the same time, he felt sort of obligated to help these guys get it right. He started to apologize. "Sorry about the profanity, Your Majesty."
He should have stopped there; he knew it. And he intended to, but some how it all just came poring out. "What does someone who has a lot of power and money care about the little guys? It's not a representative government unless, well, all the people get represented. Everyone, not just churchy guys, not even just guys, and not just people with money, should have a vote. If you just listen to the guys with the money and power, they're going to tell you what they want, not what people need. You ought to get rid of them and get yourself some regular folks to advise you."
Mikhail was looking at him like he was crazy. Then slowly his expression changed. Now he was looking at Bernie like Miss Mailey used to look when Bernie said something stupid in class. "Have you considered the possibility that I might not have a choice? When I was selected as Czar of Muscovy, I was required to sign an document. It had four major provisions. First, I promised to uphold and protect the Orthodox Church of Russia. Second, I promised to give up any possibility of revenging myself or my family for wrongs done to us."
The czar paused for a moment and a pained look crossed his face. "And there were wrongs done to us, Bernie, severe wrongs. Third, I promised to make no new laws or alter old ones, and to take no important measure which might contradict the existing laws, or suspend the legal proceedings of the court of justice. Finally, I promised to begin no wars and to make no peace by my own will."
Mikhail Romanov shook his head a bit and took a sip of beer. "I cannot dismiss those 'churchy guys,' as you call them, Bernie. Not my father, or any of the others. Nor the boyars or dvoryanstvo, ah… councilors and bureaucrats. I cannot restore the elected officials from the provinces. It is not within my power."
Bernie paused for a moment or two, trying to take it all in. Mikhail wasn't the all powerful figure he had thought. Then something occurred to him, the constitutional convention that Mike Stearns had set up and all the campaigning. "I'm in over my head, Your Majesty. I don't think anyone from up-time ever considered that you might not be all-powerful. I don't know what you can do about it. All I know is that representative government should represent everyone and that the representatives will only really represent the people who can fire their asses."
Bernie signaled the cook to pour a couple more beers. "We didn't actually vote on everything, you know. We elected the people who would run the government and then every few years we voted again. If we liked the way they had been running things, we reelected them; if we didn't, we elected someone else. Truth to tell, I usually didn't bother voting. After the Ring of Fire, though, we had a big meeting and set up the Emergency Committee to draft us a constitution. Maybe you could do something like that."
Mikhail sighed. "Not easily, Bernie. From what I understand, your Mike Stearns was setting up a government from scratch. There was no government in place because it had been left in the future."
"Yeah, mostly. There was the mayor and stuff, but he sorta stepped back from it right at the start."
"Somehow, I don't think the boyars and men of the cabinet are going to politely step aside." Mikhail grinned, but his eyes were kinda sad. Somehow Bernie figured that if he could, Czar Mikhail Fedorivich Romanov would step aside faster than Henry Dreeson had.
Mikhail and his father were already consulting with the "brain cases," as Bernie called them. Mikhail wanted a way out of the trap the up-time history had put him in. Since the history of that other future had leaked, people with power were not happy. He and his father, as czar and patriarch, had been carefully dancing in the mine field of Russian politics, focusing on the danger of a return to the time of troubles to keep the various factions in check. Even so, power was shifting between the factions. The one led by Fedor Ivanovich Sheremetev, for instance. Sheremetev felt that the information from the up-timers and the actions of Peter the Great really sort of ruined the Romanov credentials as arch-conservatives.
"Interesting, perhaps." Fedor Ivanovich set his glass on the table. They had been discussing the history of the United States of America and its constitution. "Interesting, but not that impressive. It was their day in the sun, that's all. The Mongols had theirs and this United States had theirs. They were only two hundred years old. Barely a youth, as nations go."
Mikhail looked across the table at him. There were only three men at dinner tonight. Filaret, Mikhail and Fedor. Mikhail wanted Fedor's support. "I am more concerned with something else. The general agreement-and I read this over and over again-was that Russia continued to lag behind much of the rest of the world. We can change that, and I believe we should. Right now, we should start. Because right now, everyone is four hundred years behind Grantville. We have Bernie here and Vladimir in Grantville. We can modernize."
Fedor nodded, but Mikhail didn't think he was listening. Not properly at any rate. "The army, most assuredly. Right away. That I agree with. But this other? This constitution? Why? A firm hand on the reins. That is all that is needed, Mikhail. A firm hand on the reins of Rus."
Mikhail shook his head. No, Fedor wasn't listening.
Fedor Sheremetev left the dinner and considered most of the way home. He understood what Mikhail and Filaret were contemplating. Oh, yes. He knew that Mikhail was afraid of power. Let every peasant vote. Introduce a constitutional monarchy, maybe even that perverted idea, a democracy. He snorted. Hardly.
Fedor had a lot more sympathy for Joseph Stalin than he had for Nicholas Romanov. Stalin, if he had nothing else, had had a firm hand. And a firm hand was what Russia needed. Always had and always would.
Fedor looked down at the hands that gripped the reins of the horse. Mikhail didn't ride, did he? No. Always the carriage. Always the passenger. Never in control. That described Mikhail Romanov as well as any other phrase.
"I don't care if he wants to fuck the czarina," Mikhail Borisovich Shein said. "We have our own up-timer now, and he's one who can fight."
His aide took it in stride. General Shein was a volatile man by nature. The calculation hidden by the volatility was harder to see; most people never did. "What should we do with him, sir?"
"Stick him in the gun shop." The Russian army had a dacha of its own that was not publicized. The general snorted. "And keep him away from anyone important. Question him extensively, but not harshly. If that doesn't work, we can use stronger measures. From what I understand, the main reason we got him is that he managed to piss off or piss away the opportunities in Grantville. No one will miss him much."
The aide made a note and went on to the next item on the agenda. "The musketeers are arguing with the outlander solders about their walking walls again." The aide was a bureaucratic noble and therefore an officer in the Russian army. He didn't think all that well of the foreign mercenary companies. Or the city musketeers, the Streltzi -who, when not called to active service made up the merchant class in Muscovy.
The general gave him the look. Mikhail Borisovich Shein had commanded a force made up mostly of musketeers at Smolensk during the last war with Poland. They had held out for twenty months against a force ten times their size. Whatever the traditional animosity between the two classes, General Shein didn't share it. At the same time, he was fully conversant with the Russian army's need to modernize. Slowly, he began to smile. "But what is modernize in a world where we have people from the future? Find me two men, Georgi Ivanov. Rough men. One outlander officer and a musketeer. Put them in a room with the up-timer and let them argue about it."
Cass Lowry found Russia to be cold, and-after his education at the hands of Natasha's guards-more than a bit frightening. That impression was in no way diminished when he met Ivan Mikhailovich Vinnikov and Samuel Farthingham.
The issue was whether the Russian moving forts were useful. Cass wasn't entirely sure what a moving fort was, so the first thing Ivan and Samuel had to do was arrange a demonstration.
"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 Muscovy 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, the musketeers, 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."
Sofia's eyes sparkled like cold black diamonds. "Nevertheless, it cannot be you that goes. You are needed here. Bernie needs you. Boris and Daromila need you. You may not abandon that trust."
Natasha stopped her pacing. She'd been trying too hard to justify being the person who went. She knew it. "But I so want to see it, Aunt Sofia. So very much." She threw herself onto a bench. "Vladimir is there. I miss him. And I want to see it."
"Even so." Sofia's eyes softened. "I know, dear." She patted Natasha's hand. "I know." She grinned. "So do I want to go." Then she straightened her shoulders. "But we must carry on here. Czar Mikhail has said that he will consider this marriage, but there must be a senior female of the family to examine Brandy. And I know just who to send." She cackled in laughter. "Oh, my. It will do them so much good."
"I didn't really believe it. Not until I saw that." Vlad watched the Las Vegas Belle until it was out of sight. Even after several months, he still wasn't entirely sure he believed it. And slowly he began to smile. "I believe that turnabout is fair play, Brandy. Perhaps I should write Bernie that I insist that he build me an airplane. And a factory for cars. And an oil refinery."
"Soda pop." Brandy looked in the direction where the plane had disappeared. "Real, old-fashioned Coca-Cola. I miss those. New movies, instead of re-watching all the old ones. Xerox machines for quick copies. Um, we can probably think up a bunch of stuff to demand, really. They won't be very realistic, I imagine, but it might be kind of fun to make a demand instead of trying to satisfy them. Besides, they might just do it."
They walked slowly to Brandy's house thinking up ever more outrageous things to demand of Bernie and the "brain cases" in Muscovy and laughing at their demands. No one could be sad on a day like today.
They turned up the walk to Brandy's house and she hesitated a bit. Vlad knew that it was because her mother had died there.
He'd been surprised, three days after Donna died, by the attendance at her funeral. It seemed like a large number of people showed up. Most unusual was the cluster of young girls around Brandy. One of them was one of the most beautiful girls he had ever seen. Her hair was a deep auburn and her skin was clear with just a few freckles.
Brandy had, in compliance with Donna's wishes, arranged a simple graveside service. It was very brief. Afterwards, people visited with one another and everyone spoke to Brandy and Vernon for a moment or two. Brandy introduced Vlad to the cluster of young girls. They were. .. quite exceptional, he thought.
Much to Vlad's surprise, Vernon was one of the first to leave. "He's just not good at emotions." Brandy had noticed Vlad watching Vernon. "He never has been. He's closed up, like in a shell or something. It drove Mom crazy. That, I think, is why they got divorced. Mom was too emotional for him, I guess."
Vlad looked down at her. "I promise you. I promise you that I will never be so, so…"
"Calm and dispassionate?" Her tears started flowing again. "Good. I don't think I'd like it any better than Mom did."
The sound of the doorbell jerked Brandy to alertness. She smoothed down her dress and checked her reflection in the mirror before opening the door. Here goes, she thought.
Vladimir stood on the porch, smiling at her. Her breath caught a bit. They'd been dating a long time, but this was the first time they'd been alone together. Really alone. No servants. No Mom. Brandy still felt Donna's loss keenly. But a person had to move on. This dinner was an effort to do that.
"Come in, please." Brandy smiled as Vlad brought his left hand from behind his back with a flourish. His eyes twinkled a bit. "The little books, they say a man should bring a gift to dinner. So, I brought you this."
This was not flowers or candy, or even a bottle of wine. Vlad had brought a bag of coffee beans. Brandy grinned. "Good. We'll have some later." She stood aside and waved Vlad inside. "Dinner will be ready in just a moment. I hope you like it."
Vlad divested himself of his heavy fur coat and looked around the room. "You have changed a few things, Branya. Not much, just a little. The home seems somehow more your own, now."
"Just a little." Brandy felt sad for a moment. "I loved my mother, but I never cared for that 'country' look she liked so much. So I sort of streamlined the room a bit." A dinging sound came from the kitchen. "One thing about a house this size, you can hear the timer. Come on in. The table is ready and it sounds like dinner is, too."
Brandy ushered Vlad into the small dining area where she had used Donna's best china and crystal to set the table. "Have a seat. I'll be right back."
Brandy came back with a large platter of something. Noodles, Vlad thought. He'd become fond of noodles. But what was covering them? It smelled wonderful, whatever it was.
Brandy set the platter on the table. "I've got no idea if this is really a Russian dish. But Cora said it was, so I tried it. I hope it's good. I'm not really much of a cook. Mom tried, but I wasn't very interested, to tell the truth."
The smell had Vlad salivating. "I don't care if it's Russian, Branya. It smells wonderful. Just wonderful."
Brandy smiled widely and served Vlad a portion of the dish, whatever it was. She poured wine for them both and indicated the salad and bread on the table. "Thank heaven for greenhouses. We always had lettuce back then. I'd miss it, if we didn't have it here, even if it isn't the iceberg I'm used to." Apparently noticing Vlad's hesitation, she urged, "Go ahead. Dig in."
Vlad did. The scent was marvelous and the taste even more so. It only needed one thing. "Is there, perhaps, some smetana?"
Brandy gave him a look and he grinned guiltily. Brandy had commented before about his liking for smetana. He put it in nearly everything he ate, including stew. "It has quite a bit in it already." She passed him the dish full of sour cream. "But I knew you'd want more. Is it all right? Does it taste good?"
Vlad nodded, busying himself with the dish. "Marvelous." He added sour cream to his plate. "Marvelous. I'm afraid I'm ruined for Russian cooking, at least the cooking back in Muscovy. Ruined. I may never wish to go back, just for the flavor of the food alone. What is this called?"
"Beef Stroganoff."
Vlad ate until Brandy was pretty sure he was about to explode.
"Marvelous," he said. Several times. Well, it was, but that was only part of the reason he kept saying it. Vladimir was terrified.
After dinner, over coffee in the living room, Brandy began to feel a little awkward. What did you say now? How did you handle this kind of privacy when you didn't have any intention of needing, well, this kind of privacy? Not yet, at any rate.
Vlad solved the problem by beginning to speak. "Natasha tells me that the situation in Muscovy is quite tense. Czar Mikhail has vaguely suggested a constitution to replace the agreement he made on assuming the throne. Such a document would be binding not only on him, but on all future czars. Most importantly though, it would also be binding on the Duma and Bureaus and replace the Zemskiy Sobor with an elected legislature or perhaps turn the Assembly of the Land into such a congress."
"Yes. Natasha mentioned it. I understand that the income tax and the business tax are meeting quite a bit of resistance."
"That's a diplomatic way of putting it." Vladimir laughed. "I worked it out. It would cost my family several million of your dollars every year. While my family is quite well off, we're not the richest nobles in Muscovy, not by any means. If that tax is done just a little bit wrong, it could ruin half the nobles in Muscovy. I sent my sister a description of your system of tax deductions for things like capital investment along with Cass and Bernie's 'Precious.' Frankly, I don't think it will happen unless Czar Mikhail can come up with something to sweeten the pot."
"So, what can he give them?"
"For right now, I'm not sure." Vlad leaned back on the couch. "But in a few years, relief from having to have serfs might do it."
"Don't count on it, Vlad." Brandy shook her head. "The serfs could end up as factory workers and have even less freedom than they have now. 'I owe my soul to the company store.' If it could happen in America, where we-at least in theory-all had the same rights, think how much easier it could happen in Muscovy where serfs are already restricted in when they can quit."
Vladimir sighed. "I know. Adam Smith and all your economists tell us that free labor is more productive than slaves or serfs. That slavery and serfdom is bad for the economy of the nation. But what they usually neglect to mention is that it's still very profitable for the people who own the slaves." He looked down at his coffee cup.
"Brandy, I've lived here for a long time and have accepted many of your principles, but that doesn't mean my countrymen have. I agree that serfdom must be eliminated but I don't see any way to do it."
When Brandy got up to light the gas lights against the darkening of the room, Vlad moved just a tad closer to her end of the sofa. Whenever she leaned forward to pour more coffee, or stood to busy herself with something, he moved just a little bit closer. Eventually, Vlad was right where he wanted to be. Close, nearly touching.
Brandy looked a little nervous when she discovered just how close he was. Deciding not to give her, or himself, a chance to bolt, Vladimir took one of her hands in his own. "Branya, I have something I want to speak of, something that is not about Bernie or even about Muscovy."
Brandy's breath caught just a bit before she nodded at him. "You can speak to me about anything, Vladimir. What is it?"
He had been quite confident of her response when he had written the letters asking permission from Czar Mikhail and informing Natasha of his intent. Somehow, that confidence had disappeared when he had been informed that Mikhail had agreed to the marriage-at least conditionally. The condition being that she make a valid conversion. And Natasha had informed him that several ladies of the family would be coming to Grantville to look Brandy over. At that point he had seen the looming disaster of his aunts arriving to inspect her before he even asked for her hand.
But Vladimir was still hesitating and Brandy was looking at him expectantly. "I am not one of your up-time men, Branya. And I may not have the correct words. But I have grown very… fond of you. Very fond. And I, I…" Vlad paused a moment. "I wish you to be my wife, Branya. I wish it very much."
Brandy's eyes glittered in the candlelight. "Wife? You want to get married?"
"I do," Vlad said. He watched her face closely. What would she answer?
"Yes."
Half an hour later, after some very pleasant kissing and some not so pleasant explanation. Brandy wasn't quite so sure.
"We don't do that," Vladimir said, sounding a bit desperate. "Abandon thy family, abjure thy name." He shook his head. "It sounds glorious, but Romeo and Juliet ended up dead. When my sister married an English count-with my father's permission but without his converting-it almost ruined the family. Were I to marry without the czar's consent, our family's property could be seized and my sister could end her life in a convent. Forced to take holy orders. Not because Mikhail would want to do it, but because the cabinet would insist."
Brandy knew that was all too likely an outcome. But Vladimir was continuing. "If I asked the czar first and you said no, I would look foolish. But if I asked you first and the czar said no, I didn't know what I would do. I didn't wish to make a promise to you until I was sure I could keep it."
"All right!" Judy was grinning from ear to ear. "All right, Brandy. So, when's the wedding? What are you going to wear?"
"I don't know to the first question." Brandy took a sip of root beer. "And I don't know to the second one, for that matter."
All the members of the Barbie Consortium who were attending the monthly lunch looked confused. "It's more complicated than I knew." Brandy sighed. "It turns out that Vlad is sort of a prince or something like that. He can't just get married, not to a foreigner, not to anybody, really. He has to get permission."
Vicky Emerson looked outraged. "What, from his father? He's a grown man. Why ask for permission?"
Brandy shook her head. "His parents are dead. Both of them. Two sisters, Natasha in Muscovy and Adelia in England. No, it's not his parents, it's the czar. He had to get permission from the czar. He apparently asked him before he asked me," Brandy added, with some resentment. Vladimir had explained that he had to do it that way but it still pissed her off. "And then there's the religion thing, too."
"Religion thing?" Hayley Fortney paused in the act of sipping tea. "There's a religion thing, too?"
Brandy nodded again, and sort of sighed. "Yeah. It's all going to take a while, it looks like. I'd just as soon go down to City Hall and have a civil ceremony, get all the hoopla over with. But Vlad's church will not recognize a civil ceremony, he says. It's against canonical law. And, it turns out that if he gets married in any church except a Russian Orthodox church, he could be charged with treason. So we figure we better wait."
"That's kind of hard, isn't it?" Judy looked around at the girls. "Your Vlad is a nice looking guy. A nice guy in general, for that matter. I bet you hate waiting."
"Well, one thing about it." Brandy shrugged. "At least we ought to be really sure about it when it does happen. Vlad says he probably ought to have a priest come here, anyway. Natasha is sending a bunch of people from his lands and they're all going to go to school here. And to the oil field. So they need a priest. They wouldn't be comfortable going to St. Mary's. We're probably looking at six or eight months to wait."
"That's just about enough time," Judy muttered.
"Enough time?"
"Yeah," Judy grinned. "Just about enough time to plan a really big, really nice wedding."