1637_The Volga Rules Read online

  “Yuri, arrange for a message to the Goritsky Monastery.”

  “What’s Lady Sofia Gorchakovna going to tell us that we don’t know?”

  “It’s not just Lady Sofia. By now she has a whole network of old biddies up there. Old biddies, and not-so-old biddies, who are a real source of political intelligence.”

  “It will be risky. The assistant director has the oprichniki watching the radios like hawks.”

  “Talk to Petr Stravinsky. He’s a practical man who can smell a change in the wind.”

  “You think the director-general is in that much trouble?”

  “Yes.”

  Yuri didn’t look pleased at that and Boris didn’t blame him. As much as he wanted to think that Sheremetev had taken a dirigible to some place of secure exile, Boris didn’t believe it. Fedor Ivanovich Sheremetev was not the sort of man to meekly accept defeat, even if he had a good chance of surviving. And with what he’d done, there was no way out but victory. So he would bathe Moscow in blood before he gave up. Where is Sheremetev, Boris wondered, and what is he up to?

  Goritsky Monastery

  April 19, 1637

  Some time later, Sofia read the radio message aloud to her friends, then asked their advice. She turned to the widow of Dimitri Cherakasky. “Elena, what do you think?”

  “Fedor Ivanovich has to be getting desperate.” There was a shortish pause, then she went on. “He can’t be…”

  “Can’t be what?”

  “Calling in the Poles.”

  “Why not?” Sofia asked. “He did before.” Sheremetev had been part of the cabal of seven boyars who had invited Prince Władysław Vasa, now King Władysław IV of Poland, to come be the czar of Russia in 1610.

  “Because if he does, all of Russia will rise up.”

  “If things keep going the way they are, all of Russia is going to rise up anyway,” Katrina Chaadaev offered. “Did you read the constitution? Old Russia and the bureau men will be able to keep their serfs. That’s going to cut the legs right out from under Sheremetev with the bureaus.”

  “Those who supported Sheremetev did so out of fear of Mikhail’s reforms, but not entirely so. A lot of them were going with what seemed to be the winning side. Remember, at first Mikhail was just off in the woods somewhere and Sheremetev was running things in his name. That let Sheremetev put his people in position, so when Mikhail ran for it, he was already on top. Sheremetev never had what could be called real support. It was all about his position,” Sofia said. “Now that position is looking weaker every day. If Sheremetev doesn’t do something, someone is going to figure the best way to get back in the czar’s good graces is to put Sheremetev’s head on a platter and deliver it to Mikhail by steamboat.”

  “I think Elena is right. Sheremetev will invite Władysław to come be czar of Russia.”

  “But Władysław has Gustav II Adolf on his western border. Would he take it even if it were offered?”

  “Perhaps not. But that doesn’t mean Sheremetev can’t get support from Polish or Lithuanian magnates. And they will come in, you know it.”

  CHAPTER 33

  All Your Fault

  Ufa

  April 20, 1637

  Vladimir stepped onto the dock along with Bernie. As it happened, he had never met Boris Timofeyevich Lebedev. And he wasn’t convinced of the wisdom of depending on the lad, no matter how good—or at least lucky—he seemed to be so far.

  That was the problem. Tim’s success could have been nothing more than a combination of luck and caution. Vladimir had had opportunities to talk to real generals, experts in the art of war like General Lennart Torstensson and Admiral Simpson, who had cut his teeth in what he called a brown-water navy. River warfare, even if it was in up-time Vietnam where the rivers never froze, was still river warfare. Granted, nothing “General Tim” had done was exactly wrong, according to those men’s advice. On the other hand nothing he had done had been particularly inspired either. Besides, he was a kid. Vladimir, near thirty-five, remembered how much of an idiot he had been at twenty.

  The fact that Czar Mikhail and Bernie had faith in the lad didn’t exactly fill him with confidence. They weren’t military experts, either. The apparition that climbed out of the USSRS Kazan didn’t put his mind to rest. The young man was wearing baggy white pants, a red coat loaded down with enough gold braid to support a small nation, and he was wearing a fur-lined baseball cap with enough scrambled eggs on the bill to feed an orphanage of hungry children. And his beard was not full. The words “callow” and “overdressed” came to Vladimir’s mind…and Vladimir was not a man to dress in rags.

  “I like the new look,” Bernie said, grinning.

  The lad winced and reddened. “The ladies of Kazan didn’t feel the clothing I had suited the czar’s general.”

  “Where did they get the idea for the scrambled eggs?” Bernie asked.

  “Ivan!” Tim said. “It was his revenge for making him a colonel.”

  “Where is Ivan? I thought you were going to bring him.”

  “No. In my absence he’s in overall command of the Volga forts at Kruglaya Mountain and Kazan.” Then he turned to the grizzled captain behind him. “This is Captain Vasily Borisovich. He’s in charge of changing my diapers.”

  The captain’s expression was a study, Vladimir thought. A mixture of strained patience, affection, and respect. Suddenly, Vladimir felt a little less nervous.

  In the Ufa kremlin, Tim looked over the plans for the walls and made a suggestion. “You should make your walls bigger. Cover more territory. In fact, my recommendation would be to run a wall from the Belaya River to the Ufa River, just north of the Ufa kremlin.”

  “That’s three miles of front just along the wall and over thirteen miles in total,” General Togym said. “Granted, right now the rivers offer protection for most of that, but next winter…”

  “You’re quite right. But I have been forced to reassess the number of men needed to hold a section of defensive works again and again since the introduction of the new rifles, the machine guns, and the rockets…not to mention the artillery that both sides will have next winter. And every time, the number goes down. Storming defensive works in a world of rapid-firing guns is a form of mass suicide. Even against hastily set up works, much less the sort of works that can be put in place over the course of a year.”

  “Fine. Perhaps we can defend so much. But why?”

  Tim sighed. “Because what I haven’t been able to figure out is how to defend the rest of Russia. We can defend hard points with very few men, but what about the fields, the outlying villages that we will need to feed ourselves? Those are the places that I see no way at all to defend. At the very least we need to have some place we can bring our people into when we are attacked.”

  “More than that,” Vera added. “We need the room for industries to make things to sell so we can buy food if those fields are burned.”

  Tim nodded at her. “The strategic situation is complicated. Sheremetev has stabilized his control of Russia up to the west side of the Volga all the way to Kazan. He controls the northern Divina River, all the way to Archangelsk, but not much east of that. He doesn’t control much at all of the Cossack territory to the south. On the other hand, he has an alliance with at least some of the magnates of Lithuania, so the Sjem is not going to authorize any actions against him.”

  “And for Sweden to act would take a miracle,” Brandy said.

  “Militarily, I’m sure you’re right. But his political control of the territory is weak at best. If we just hold him off, he might well lose control of the duma. And we are getting defections. Granted, most of them are from the very bottom of the social ladder, but we are getting at least some representatives from most of the great houses now, and some of the mid-level nobility. If we can get greater support from the west, Sweden and the USE, that would put even more political pressure on him.”

  “Not very likely,” Vladimir said. “The USE doesn’t have access to us except th
rough the northern trade route. And that is, at best, a very narrow tube to pull the sort of supplies we’re going to need through, even if the Catherine the Great gets modified to handle the ice better.”

  “So we will get no aid from the USE?” Czar Mikhail asked.

  “Nothing official. Ron Stone is sympathetic and gold is worth a lot. Have you found gold?”

  “We have two mines, but so far the output is small.”

  “Well, Ron will provide lend lease for a while. I’m not sure how long.”

  “We need better access to the production of the USE, Your Highness,” Czarina Evdokia told Vladimir. “Even if General Tim is right and they are stopped till next winter, a nonindustrial nation can’t fight an industrial one for long and survive.”

  Ufa

  April 21, 1637

  Bernie’s door burst open without a knock and Vladimir roared, “How dare you make free with my sister!”

  Bernie blinked, and for just a second he bought it. Then he realized that Vladimir was just having a bit of fun at his sister’s expense.

  “How dare he?” Natasha screeched, and Bernie knew that at least for the moment Natasha hadn’t realized that Vladimir was teasing. “How dare you! I am going to marry Bernie.”

  “I haven’t given you permission to marry anyone.”

  Oops! Bernie thought. That sounded real.

  “It’s a new world. We have a constitution and I have rights,” Natasha said. “I will marry who I want to.”

  Vladimir blinked. And while he was standing there, Brandy came in. “You tell ’em, sister,” Brandy said in English. Then she punched Vladimir in the side.

  The notion of male solidarity never reached Bernie’s consciousness. The notion that he hadn’t, in fact, asked Natasha, even less so. He was getting everything he wanted without having to say a word.

  Vladimir looked at Natasha, then at Brandy, then at Bernie, and said, “This is all your fault.”

  Cast of Characters

  Adams, John — Captain of Catherine the Great dirigible

  Andreevich, Stefan — Smith in Ruzuka

  Andreevich, Vera Sergeevna — Stefan’s wife

  Anya — Runaway slave

  Cherakasky, Elena — Widow of Dimitri Cherakasky, monastery

  Dolmatov-Karpov, Tatyana — Sent to monastery due to unfortunate incident with a groundskeeper

  Eduardovich, Yulian — Orthodox priest of differing views

  Gorchakov, Brandy (nee Bates) — Grantville up-timer, married to Vladimir

  Gorchakov, Natalia (Natasha) Petrovna — A princess of Russia

  Gorchakov, Sofia Petrovna — Natalia’s aunt and chaperone

  Gorchakov, Vladimir Petrovich — A prince of Russia, Natalia’s brother

  Izmailov, Artemi Vasilievich — General in the Russian army

  Khan, Salqam-Jangir — Tatar ruler, attacks Ufa

  Lebedev, Boris Timofeyevich “Tim” — General of Czar’s army

  Maslov, Ivan — Colonel of Czar’s army

  Metropolitan Matthew — Head Priest in Kazan

  Nickovich, Petr “Pete” — Artisan and natural philosopher

  Odoevskii, Ivan Ivanovich — Prince, with Sheremetev

  Petrov, Boris Ivanovich — A bureaucrat of Moscow

  Petrov, Iosif Borisovich — Boris’ son, in Grantville

  Petrov, Ivan Borisovich — Boris’ son, in Ufa

  Petrov, Mariya — Boris’ wife

  Petrov, Pavel Borisovich — Boris’ son

  Polzin, Stanislav Ivanovich — Commander of the “garrison” at Ufa

  Polzin, Olga Petrovichna — Stanislav’s wife

  Romanov, Alexis — Son of Czar Mikhail

  Romanov, Evdokia “Doshinka” — Czarina of Russia

  Romanov, Irinia — Daughter of Czar Mikhail

  Romanov, Mikhail Fedorovich — Czar of Russia

  Sayyeau, Guy — Engineer’s Mate on Catherine the Great

  Sheremetev, Fedor Ivanovich — Russian boyar, cousin to Czar Mikhail, takes over as director-general

  Shein, Mikhail Borisovich — General of Russia, forms Siberian State

  Shuvalov, Leontii — Colonel in Russian Army

  Simmons, Gerry — Up-time husband of Tami

  Simmons, Tami — Up-time nurse hired by Czar

  Slavenitsky, Nikita Ivanovich “Nick” — Pilot

  Trotsky, Fedor Ivanovich — A Russian spy

  Tupikov, Filip Pavlovich — Artisan and natural philosopher

  Utkin, Ivan Nikolayevich — Colonel of Russia

  Utkin, Elena — Ivan’s cheating wife

  Utkin, Izabella Ivanovna — Ivan’s daughter, about 16 or 17

  Utkin, Nikita Ivanovich — Son of Ivan, soldier of Russia

  Zakharovna, Valeriya — Crewwoman on Czarina Evdokia

  Zeppi, Bernard “Bernie” — Up-timer hired by Vladimir, counselor to the Czar