The Kremlin Games(119)
* * *
Tim’s great uncle was no one’s fool and ten times as politically astute as Tim ever wanted to be. It had taken him all of a minute and a half to get through the fiction of the contingency plan. He had laughed at General Izmailov’s notion of giving Tim a medal and then having him shot. A rough, cackling laugh, that seemed to come from the depths of hell. “A good plan,” his uncle said when he finished laughing. “But he was wise not to carry it through. I would have regretted having a man of such wit put to death.”
Tim waited. Silent. At attention.
“Well?” his uncle barked.
“Yes, sir. General Izmailov is a great general and a great asset to Russia.”
“But a friend of Shein’s—one of his protégés, in fact. Keep your distance from him, boy. Sheremetev’s not fond of Shein. The war party didn’t do well in this last shake up. I’ll try to keep your general alive for you, but not to the point of risking the family. Now tell me about Khilkov. What went on? And why did Izmailov let him do it?”
Tim told him. It wasn’t like General Izmailov had much choice, considering Khilkov’s family connections. Then they went on to the situation in Rzhev and the Polish border in general.
“Rzhev was a mistake, sir,” Tim said. “They didn’t have the steam ships to take advantage of it, even if they had held the town. It really was one of the magnates going off on his own.”
“I don’t doubt it, boy. That’s what started that business with the false Dmitris, back at the beginning of the Time of Troubles. Poland uses its magnates to test the waters.”
“Yes, sir. But they didn’t have the logistic train to support it even if it had worked.”
“You seem pretty sure of that, boy. The Poles are cavalry. They need their horses but can steal the rest.”
Tim hesitated. He was in fact quite sure that cavalry would be trashed if it lacked infantry support and Russia controlled the rivers for troop transport. But his great uncle was a boyar of the Duma and ruled the family with an iron hand. “Not with us controlling the river with steam barges. War horses need grain, horseshoes, and so on. Cavalrymen need food and equipment—which breaks in the field—and gunpowder. They would do damage but with the steam barges to put troops in front of them and the walking walls and cannon . . . especially with the AK3’s . . . they are going to run out of cavalry long before we run out of bullets. Over the course of an hour cavalry can outrun a steam barge, but over a day they can’t keep up. With the dirigible to locate them . . .” Tim shook his head. “They wouldn’t last a week.”
“Tell me about the flying ship.”
“It told us where they were. That was important in Rzhev, but would have been even more important if the Poles had tried to push farther in. It would have let us see where they were going and get there first. They would have been forced from one trap to another, until they were utterly destroyed. Cavalry is doing well to cover thirty miles a day; a dirigible can cover that in an hour or two, if the wind is good. Then go home and tell the infantry and mobile artillery where the cavalry is headed. Cavalry’s day is over except as support troops. If that.” Which was a risky thing to say because his great uncle had been a cavalry commander under Ivan the Terrible.
All in all, it was a grueling interview and Tim was happy to get back to the Kremlin. Though Tim didn’t know it, the interview had a strong effect on the policies of the Boyar Duma. Cavalry, which had always been the province of the service nobility, was downgraded in importance and so was the service nobility. Instead, the Streltzi class with its rifle companies would be given more support and respect. It wouldn’t happen in a year or even a decade, but between the destruction of Khilkov’s cavalry and the many reports, both official and unofficial, the writing was on the wall. Eventually, because the service nobility was the class that produced the bureaucrats and the Streltzi class was the class that produced the merchants, the private sector would gain—a bit at a time—the ear of the government and the public sector would be heeded a bit less. The years of limited mobility would not be allowed to lapse. With inflation, that would mean that more and more of the peasants would be able to pay off their debts to the lesser nobility and seek factory jobs.
Totally by accident and without ever knowing it, Tim had struck a blow for freedom. A small blow. Even a tiny one. But enough such tiny blows and even the massive edifice of Russian serfdom might eventually fall.
* * *
Tim had a week in Moscow to get all the new uniforms made, then he got sent as executive officer to a cousin who was leading a contingent of cavalry to the city of Murom. It was too late in the year, unfortunately, to use one of the new steam barges for the purpose. The rivers were already freezing over. Tim had hoped to ride on one of them.