Day of the Oprichnik Read Online Free PDF Page A

fiend.”
    “But one defrocked monk told me, ‘He who does tobacco smoke / is sure to be Christ’s bloke,’” Okhlop objects.
    “And the Cossack lieutenant in our regiment always said, ‘Smoked meat keeps longer.’” Posokha sighs as he takes a cigarette.
    “You numbskulls, you blockheads! Our Majesty doesn’t smoke,” I tell them. “Batya quit, too. We have to watch the cleanliness of our lungs, too. And our tongues.”
    They smoke silently, listening.
    The door opens and the rest of the lot stagger out with the noble’s wife. She’s naked, unconscious, wrapped in a sheepskin coat. For us, tumbling a woman is a special kind of work.
    “Is she alive?”
    “They rarely die from it!” Pogoda smiles. “It’s not the rack, after all.”
    I take her senseless hand. There’s a pulse.
    “All right, then. Drop the woman off at her family’s.”
    “You got it.”
    They take her out. It’s time to finish up. The oprichniks keep glancing at the house: it’s wealthy, full of goods. But since the mansion is to be demolished by order of His Majesty, no stealing is allowed. It’s the law. All the goods go to His Majesty’s red rooster .
    I nod to Ziabel; he’s our guy for fire.
    “Take over!”
    He takes his Rebroff out of the holster and puts a bottle-shaped attachment on the barrel. We move away from the house. Ziabel aims at the window and shoots. The windowpane splinters and shatters. We move farther away from the house. We stand in a half-circle, take our daggers out of their scabbards, raise them up, lower them, and aim them at the house.
    “Woe to this house!”
    “Woe to this house!”
    “Woe to this house!”
    There’s an explosion. The flames are thick, belching out the windows. Shards of glass, frames, and grates fall on the snow. The mansion has been taken. His Majesty’s red rooster has come to call.
    “Well done!” Batya’s face appears in the frosty air, in a rainbow frame. “Let the Streltsy go, and get yourselves to prayer in Uspensky!”
    All’s well that ends well. When work is done—we pray in the sun.
    We exit, avoiding the hanging corpse. On the other side of the gates the Streltsy are pushing back reporters. They stand there with their cameras, champing at the bit to take pictures of the fire. Now they’re allowed in. Since the News Decree, after that memorable November, it’s all right. I wave to the lieutenant. The cameras focus on the fire, on the hanging nobleman. In every house, in every news bubble, Russian Orthodox people will know and see the power of His Majesty and the state.
    As His Majesty says:
    “Law and order—resurrected from the Gray Ashes, that’s what Holy Rus stands on and will always stand on.”
    It’s the sacred truth!

 
    In Uspensky Cathedral, as always, the atmosphere is murky, muggy, and majestic. Candles burn, the icons’ gold casings shine, the censer smokes in the hand of narrow-shouldered Father Juvenale, his delicate voice echoes; the bass voice of the fat, black-bearded deacon booms from the choir steps. We stand in crowded rows—all the oprichniks of Moscow. Batya is here, and Yerokha, his right hand, and Mosol, his left hand. And we’re all native Muscovites, including me. We’re the backbone. We also have the young ones. His Majesty is the only one absent. On Mondays he usually graces us with his presence—he comes to pray with us. But today our sun isn’t here. His Majesty, our head of state, is completely immersed in state affairs. Or he might be in the Church of the Deposition of the Robe of the Virgin Mary, his domestic temple, praying for Sacred Russia. His Majesty’s will is law and mystery. And thank God.
    It’s a normal day today, Monday. The usual service. The Epiphany has passed, sleighs have been ridden along the Moscow River, the cross has been lowered in an ice hole. Under a silver gazebo, twined ’round with spruce boughs, infants have been baptized, we ourselves have taken a dip in the icy water, fired the