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worse.
    “That damned fire.” He stopped moving and turned on the hapless carpenter. “I would have you beaten, but then you would claim you could not work, and that will not serve my purpose. You will not escape work. I tell you, therefore, that you—you—and your two assistants, none else, will work continually until you drop from it.”
    It was better than the carpenter had expected. He crossed himself and bobbed his head still lower. “We will do it. Yes, Excellency.”
    “I will have you observed all day and night. If you slack, you will be beaten and sent away if you are still alive.” He glanced toward the room. “I will not accept inferior work, so do not do anything shoddy.”
    “No, Excellency,” said the carpenter, his back already aching at the thought of the labor ahead of him.
    “You will finish.” It was more than an order; it was a statement of fact, incontrovertible.
    “Yes, Excellency,” said the carpenter, thinking that his reprieve was a bitter one, for if he failed, his two assistants—his nephews—would be subject to the same penalties he was. They and their families would become beggars if they failed to do as this Duke ordered them, assuming they were not killed.
    Moscovy was subject to fires; a city of wooden buildings often covered in snow ran that risk as fires were constantly burning within them. The Moscovites had long since learned to make up the parts of a house in advance of building, so that the structures could be erected swiftly, sparing the occupants the dangers of exposure. Anastasi Shuisky’s house was grander than most, as befitted his rank, but had been assembled in the same way that most of the other Moscovy houses had. There were fourteen rooms on two floors, with kitchens, a bakery and a bathhouse at the back of the property, the midden and latrines on the other side of a stone fence. As noble establishments went, it was fairly modest, but a man like Anastasi Sergeivich Shuisky came from an ancient and revered family, so had no need of extravagant display.
    There were nine residents of the house, and three dozen servants to keep it running. It was not as large a household as many, for Anastasi kept his wife and children at his country estate where they would be in less danger away from the Court. Here in Moscovy his widowed cousin Galina Alexandrevna—ten years his senior—served as hostess for his guests and covered certain of his indulgences for fear of beggary. Her daughter, Xenya Evgeneivna Koshkina, was still unmarried at twenty-three and considered a disgrace to the family. She spent most of her time in charitable works, which suggested that she might one day become a nun, thus ending the stigma of her spinsterhood. There were two assistants, distant relatives, who had their wives with them; they were there on sufferance and knew it, and therefore were as compliant as Galina Alexandrevna. An elderly priest occupied two rooms and looked after the spiritual needs of the household; Father Iliya was considered a learned man, which lent a certain importance to his position. The ninth resident was Piotr Grigoreivich Smolnikov, aged and blind now, but once a superb fighter for the Grand Duke, the father of the current Czar. He lived here on Shuisky’s charity in recognition of his heroism and as a way to retain favor with the old soldiers who still controlled the army.
    Anastasi Shuisky did not bother to look at his carpenter as the man bowed himself out of the Duke’s presence. He sighed as he took his place at the long table where he had spread out several discouraging dispatches from Poland. There had been no new information for three months, and would be no more as long as winter held the north in its unrelenting grip. He had gleaned as much as he could from the reports, but he went over them again in the hope that there might be material he had overlooked. He was increasingly troubled about the embassy Istvan Bathory would be sending once spring came.