Peter The Great, of Orange. Usurper on the Throne. Sergey Soloviev

do anything! – and Vasily hid the silver, – right, Foma? – the serf turned to his comrade.

      He nodded his head reluctantly and continued to look at the floor. Sadness fell upon Vasily. His comrade was completely taken aback by what had happened. They were driving us out into the cold from a warm and well-fed place, a boyar’s estate.

      – Come on, hurry up! – Romodanovsky ordered sharply, in a lordly manner.

      And these two serfs, assigned to an important task, rolled out into the corridor. The boyar rang the bell. The sleeping bag came up. and Fyodor Yuryevich pointed to the servants:

      – Take them out. so that they don’t flash in the tower…

      – I will do everything, prince-father, – answered Senka, and glanced at the open door to the corridor, and bowed carefully, and as low as possible.

      After all, the sly one saw that the priest-boyar was not in the mood, he could even order a flogging.

      ***

      – And whoever wants some hot sbiten, come on in, Orthodox! – the cheerful merchant said.

      An ordinary tradesman, of course, in an inconspicuous sermyaga caftan, heavy yuft boots and a felt hat pushed to the left side. The street vendor had nothing outstanding except for his beard sticking out.

      – Give me a mug, it’s cold… – the archer muttered, holding out a small coin, a dengi.

      He drank slowly, looking at the drink vendor. He handed over the mug, and the merchant quickly rinsed it with water from a wooden bottle.

      – You’re a clever fellow, I see, – muttered the service man, – we’ve never had such near the Church of Paraskeva-Pyatnitsa…

      – I used to carry things around in the ranks. I heard that the riflemen had returned, so here we are. And our house, with my brother, is not far away. We are from the Tsykler people, released into freedom…

      – Ah, – and the rifleman’s voice warmed. – the late Ivan Eliseevich? That’s how… And what should I call you, my dear man?

      – Me, Vasily, and my brother, Foma… He’s my pie maker. Would you like some pies? With sauerkraut, Lenten…

      – Ah, let’s have some pies!

      Vaska whistled wildly, and the pieman quickly appeared, throwing back a clean gray cloth from the goods.

      – Here, choose, Strelets… With cabbage and mushrooms.

      He chose slowly, paid. And both peddlers were already calmly walking through the settlement. They had only taken a hundred steps, and by the Church of John the Baptist they had already taken all the goods. Business was going well, the brothers returned with new ones.

      A couple of beggars were sitting on the porch, and an old woman was sitting next to them, mumbling under her breath.

      – Give us a pie, too, good fellow merchant! – the beggar cried.

      – Here, take it, in the name of John the Baptist and Mother Paraskeva, – Foma was not greedy.

      It’s like this, there will be no loss… Fomka always thought so, and he was almost never wrong.

      The old woman’s clothes were poor. All sewn and re-sewn. But her shoes were good, brown goatskin shoes. They are brought from Persia. Foma walked in circles nearby, waiting for someone to come up. And he was right. The archer sat down next to her, the old woman whispered something. The pie-maker thought, or maybe, sinfully, that she was a matchmaker. But no… He saw how the old woman gave him the letter, and the archer gave her his. The soldier hid the message in his boot.

      Foma dropped his hat, and immediately picked it up, shaking it off. The passers-by did not notice, but Vasily understood everything. They had an agreement among themselves, a cap fell, which meant that a comrade had seen something important. And they had to follow the one with whom one of the archers was talking.

      And as the archer rose from the stone steps, the sbiten seller slowly followed him. And the pie man, having waited a little, slowly followed the old woman.

      He was able to turn around and hide the pies, changed his sermyak for a sheepskin coat and tucked the bag behind his back, and got himself a staff. It’s good, the old woman didn’t walk quickly, Foma was in a hurry. But what happened was unexpected, they found themselves at the tower of Princess Marfa. Here the lively serf began to hide in dark corners, afraid that the princess’s servants would notice him, and then he would lose his head!

      ***

      – To hell with it. Tyomka, don’t drag it out! It’s dark after all! – the elderly archer spoke in jokes and squinted with his left eye. This service man looked like a buffoon, dressed in an archer’s caftan by mistake. But both experienced strelets and foremen, and even the sergeants, knew that this strelets had fought at Chigirin, and at Perekop, and had shown himself in the Osai of Azov.

      – Right now, Uncle Dmitry! Wait a bit… The candle needs to be closer, I can’t make it out…

      And the fingers, calloused from labor, moved the copper candlestick with a tallow candle burning brightly in it towards the owner of the house.

      And there were not two servicemen here, and not three. But eight elected ones, from the entire strelets community. Three foremen, and a couple more strelets sergeants, and privates. Finally. Artemy was able to read the letter:

      – So Princess Martha is sending us a letter. She has learned about our misfortune and state unrest, – and he looked at his comrades with a satisfied face.

      – Don’t keep us in suspense, Tyomka, read it!

      – Okay, here it is:

      “Greetings to you, Streltsy, from me, Marfa and Tsarevna Sophia. We have heard about your troubles, that you have been worn out in the service of the sovereign, and you are not given a break. And you have not seen your families and wives for almost two years, working incessantly on the Don and Azov. And Tsar Peter, having gone abroad, forgot about you. And it is not known whether he is alive or not, others say that the boyars replaced him with a German. They wanted to destroy the Tsarevich, Alexei Petrovich, but his loyal people hid him. And for that, Tsarina Evdokia was dishonorably slapped on the cheeks. Our only hope is in you, loyal service people of Moscow, that you will stand up for the sovereign’s cause and the Orthodox faith. And I would, with God’s help, stand by Tsarevich Alexei until he reaches adulthood, and protect both the veu and the Orthodox customs…” – Evona, how things turned out, – Dmitry whispered worriedly.

      – And what do you think, uncle? – asked Artemy.

      – We’ll take the charter to the regiments… The society will decide everything for us.And I think we’ll do what they did in Nizhny Novgorod. We need to call up the militia and drive the boyars out of their yards. They’ve betrayed the Orthodox faith and Holy Rus’. And we’ll do what Kuzma Minin didn’t do and Stepan Razin couldn’t.

      – Look at you, Mityai, where are you going with this…

      – If we do it, we’ll do it wisely… We’ll preserve the state and beat the traitors without mercy. And I see you have good pies here. I haven’t had those for a long time.

      – A pie shop and a kvass shop appeared next to the settlement. Vasily and Foma, – one of the riflemen, Ustyan Ivanov, was saying.

      – New ones? Who’s seen them here before? – and Mityai even got up from the bench.

      – Nothing… They say they were released from the Tsyklerov servants. After that execution. And they settled here.

      – My God, just like children, – and Mityai grabbed his shaggy head, – who among you knows the housekeeper Ivan Eliseevich?

      – Mikhail Ivanovich and Elise Ivanovich served in the Kursk city regiment… And