“Any idea who wrote this?” Ivan asked, a bit nervously. This was the sort of thing that could get people in serious trouble.
Pavel shook his head. “A boy in Moscow was selling them on the street. Couldn’t have been more than ten or so.” That was happening more and more frequently. Scandals mixed with political opinion.
“I talked to one of them a bit a few days ago.” Pavel commuted back and forth between the Army’s dacha and the Kremlin every few days. “He sells his papers to make a bit of money. He buys them from a man he thinks is a bureau man, but it could be a merchant. There is apparently more than one man, and they don’t all meet in the same place.”
* * *
“It says here that this Patriarch Nikon caused it.” Colonel Pavel Kovezin stared at the broadsheet with distaste clearly showing on his face.
Machek Speshnev, who had brought this news to the colonel, nodded. A lieutenant in this regiment of Streltzi, Machek was a pious man. This information had struck a chord with him, as well as with many other members of the Palace Guard Regiments.
“I’m surprised this information became public, but it has. The question is, is there anything we can do about it?” Machek’s family would most definitely wind up as oppressed “Old Believers,” he was sure. “I don’t think I’d care to be sent up north, chasing, beating and killing priests.”
The very idea was repugnant.
A lot of information that was coming from the up-timer histories was repugnant. Inconceivable, a lot of it.
Colonel Kovezin stopped staring at the broadsheet. “How many people have seen this?”
“A lot of them,” Machek admitted. “The things have been being passed around all over the city. Along with the ones about killing rats, boiling water, not drinking so much . . .”
“This city is being buried in paper,” Colonel Kovezin said. Then he grinned. “We live in interesting times. Never mind this. I’m sure the patriarch is well aware of it and will make a pronouncement. Try to keep the men calm. Today is a big day for us and I want everyone’s attention kept on his duty.”
Machek grinned back. “Today is the day?”
“Yes. Today we receive our new rifles. Never mind the flurry of paper coming out of the Dacha. It’s not our problem.”
Chapter 50
Moscow
June 1634
Third Lieutenant Boris Timofeyevich Lebedev was savoring the victory. Right up to the time he was called into the commandant’s office. He had beaten Third Lieutenant Ivan Maslov in the Polish invasion scenario two weeks ago and won a nice purse in bargain. The betting had been five to one against him. Lebedev, known as Tim to his friends, had been playing the Polish and he had won by ignoring Smolensk. After all, Poland already held Smolensk. They had held it since the Time of Troubles. And Poland, just like Russia, only had to worry about Smolensk if they didn’t have it.
Now he was trying to figure out what he had done wrong, that would get him summoned by the commandant. Tim put his shoulders back and entered the commandant’s office not looking left or right, stood at attention and saluted as smartly as he was able. The commandant returned the salute with a casual half wave. Then he asked him the last question he ever expected to hear. “So, Third Lieutenant Lebedev, how did you manage to defeat the entire Russian Army and take Moscow, in just ten weeks?”
“Sir?”
“Come now, Lebedev. It’s all over the Kremlin. I understand the odds were five to one in favor of that baker’s son, Ivan Maslov?”
“Sir? Are you talking about the Polish invasion scenario?” Tim was out of his depth. It wasn’t one of the official war games.
“Yes, of course, Lebedev.” The commandant pointed to a map on the left wall. The map showed part of Russia and part of Poland. “Show me how you did it.”
Tim walked over to the map pointed where he placed his troops and how he moved them using the River Volga as the supply line. “Russia is not Moscow; Russia is the Volga. In the Time of Troubles, Poland took Moscow but they couldn’t keep it. But the Volga controls transport . . .”
Just as Tim was getting into his description of what he’d done, he heard another voice.
“Would it interest you to know, Lieutenant Lebedev, that Polish troops took Rzhev three days ago? From the somewhat vague first reports we have, there are around ten thousand troops there now, a mixture of the magnate’s personal troops, mercenaries and Cossacks.”
“What?” Tim faced the new voice and recognized General Mikhail Borisovich Shein. Then, in a state of shock, he blurted out the first thing that come to mind. “But that’s the wrong place, sir.”