“How is it, my friend,” Ivan asked Tim, grinning evilly, “that you have all the connections, the rank and a letter of thanks from the czar and I get the plum assignment?”
It was, Tim thought morosely, an excellent question. Of course, Ivan’s grin made it even worse. “I told you I wouldn’t be able to leave anything out,” Tim said, referring to the meeting with his uncle. “I’m being reminded I need to learn to follow orders. So while you become the aide of Captain Ruslan Andreyivich Shuvalov, new commander of the dirigible Czarina Evdokia, I become the Executive Officer of Cousin Ivan Borisovich Lebedev. Which means I get to do all his work while he gets drunk and bothers the local girls.”
“Your cousin who is also a captain and the new commander of the Murom Streltzi. Murom being the family seat of the newly famous Gorchakov family. So the whole town is supposed to be full of electricity and every peasant’s hovel has indoor plumbing.”
“While you get to go flying in the newest and biggest airship in the world. At least, I think the Czarina is going to be bigger than any other so far built. In a just world, you would be stuck as Cousin Ivan Borisovich’s aide in Murom with its electricity, and plumbing—which I bet is not as good as rumor says—and its small force of Streltzi. While Nick would be the captain of the Czarina and I would be his executive officer, running test flights over Bor.”
“That would be illegal and you know it. You’re great house and Nikita Ivanovich Slavenitsky is deti boyar. They can’t place someone of your family rank under someone of his.”
“Fine, so leave Nick as captain and let you be his aide and Ruslan Andreyivich Shuvalov be his executive officer. Not the other way around.”
Ivan sighed histrionically and Tim wanted to hit him, mostly because he knew his friend was right and he was being silly. Then Ivan continued, “Sheremetev’s faction won in the latest shakeup. With the death of the patriarch and the purges in the bureaus, the Gorchakov clan—while not in disgrace—didn’t exactly come out of it smelling of roses. Besides, you know as well as I do that the Sheremetev family outranks the Gorchakov family. If the Gorchakovs were in better odor at court then Captain Slavenitsky might have gotten the slot but Ruslan Andreyavich Shuvalov wouldn’t have been put under his command even then.
“With the shake up, the riots, the patriarch’s death, Sheremetev has been declared Director-General by the Boyar Duma. He is the effective ruler of Russia and he is going to do everything he can to shift any of the glory that comes out of the up-timer knowledge to the Sheremetev clan. That’s why his up-timer Cass Lowry is to be put in charge of the Dacha. And they couldn’t put you under the command of Captain Ruslan Andreyavich Shuvalov any more than they could put you under the command of your friend Captain Nikita Ivanovich Slavenitsky. That’s the drawback of being of a great house. The only way they could make you the executive officer of the Czarina would be to put your cousin in command of her.”
“Anything but that.” Tim shuddered.
“See!” Ivan said. “And Captain Shuvalov is a capable man, if a bit of a cold fish. So, since you’re guarding the Gorchakov family seat, what’s happening at the Gorchakov Dacha?”
Part Six
The year 1636
Chapter 70
February 1636
Cass rode up to the Dacha with a mixture of trepidation and glee. He was finally going to get his own back from that traitor Bernie and his bitch Natasha. And he planned to have a little fun with that Anya chick, too. At the same time, Cass knew he had to be careful. Sheremetev and his gang weren’t the sort of people you crossed. But sooner or later, they’d get bored and leave the place fully in Cass’ control. Then he’d have the run of the place.
* * *
For several weeks things went along pretty much as they had before. The Dacha’s contacts with the outside world had always been limited; now they were the next best thing to nonexistent. Even contact with associated projects like the Czarina Evdokia, the large dirigible being built in Bor just across the Volga from Nizhny Novgorodi, or the foundry and gun shop located in Podol just a few miles away from the Dacha, were difficult and sporadic.
* * *
“I’d kind of like to know what Cass is doing here,” Bernie said. “And do we know anything about why Tami Simmons came to Moscow also, and with her whole family? She’s the American nurse.”
“The czar and czarina were so impressed with the spring typhoid reductions they decided to bring in a real up-time medical expert. Do you know her?”
Bernie shrugged. “In passing, the way people in a small town more or less know anyone else in the town. She’s from Kentucky, originally, and she’s a lot older than me. I know her husband Gerry a little better, but still not very well.”