Reverend Green waited for the translator to finish. Once he was done, Green frowned and spoke in English. “So if he wanted to end serfdom, for instance, the Duma would stop him?”
Most of the Russian delegation in Grantville was well-versed in English because England was Russia’s biggest trading partner in the early seventeenth century. But not all of them were—and, in any event, the English they knew was quite different from the version spoken by up-timers. So, they’d brought a number of translators with them.
Kseniya’s husband had been chosen as their priest partly because he was fluent in English. With his help, she’d grown fairly adept in the language, so she thought she’d understood what Green had said. But since the third person present in room, Colonel Leontii Shuvalov, was one of the Russians who spoke almost no English, she waited until the translator was finished just to be sure.
She then glanced over at Shuvalov. Kseniya was by now fully aware of the up-timers’ attitude toward serfdom, but this was not the place to discuss it. While she was still trying to figure out how to guide the conversation to a safer topic, the colonel spoke up. “It probably wouldn’t be the Boyar Duma, what you would call the royal council, that stopped him, but the Assembly of the Land. The ah, middle class I believe you call it. The great families have never been the ones pushing to limit the rights of departure.”
Again, they waited for the translator. Once he was done, the American priest—no, she thought he was called a pastor—looked surprised.
“I would have thought they would want it most.”
Kseniya understood that quite well. She waited for the translator to interpret for the colonel and then said: “Yes, I know you would. You up-timers tend to simplify things.” Kseniya was a bit annoyed at Reverend Green. “It isn’t a conflict between the evil lords and their suffering serfs. The great families can afford to . . . what is it you call it up-time . . . go head-hunting? Though, in the case of serfs, it’s more back-hunting.”
Reverend Green snorted.
“I’m not sure that Boyar Sheremetev would agree with you,” Colonel Shuvalov said.
“Of course not.” Kseniya regretted saying it as soon as it came out but the truth was she despised Fedor Ivanovich Sheremetev though she had never met him. From all reports he was ill-tempered and not very good at dealing with the bureaus. Still, the news that the Smolensk war would have been a disaster had brought him back into politics. So she explained a bit more. “Russia lacks labor, and the weather conditions that make it the next thing to impossible to work the land for half the year don’t help. If the serfs were released from the land, the only people in Russia who could afford to hire the labor needed to run a farm would be the great families and the big monasteries.”
“Don’t forget the new innovations,” Colonel Shuvalov pointed out. “While there is truth in what you’re saying, there is less of that truth now than there was before the Ring of Fire.”
Kseniya hesitated. What she wanted to say was unsafe, more for her family than for her. But spending time in Grantville had made it harder to keep her mouth shut. “It takes time to put those innovations into production, Colonel. Can you afford to lower your—” A quick glance at Reverend Green. “—tenants’ rent?”
Colonel Shuvalov grinned at her. It was a surprisingly friendly grin. “Actually, yes. Though I will admit that it’s only because Boyar Sheremetev has been quite generous with my family.” Then the colonel turned back to Reverend Green and addressed him through the translator. “Kseniya’s father-in-law and I aren’t really in the same position, not quite. We are both Russian officers. He a captain, I a colonel, but the larger difference is that aside from the lands granted me by the czar, Boyar Sheremetev provides additional support. So my financial position is a bit better than his and less likely to be swamped by changing economic tides.”
“Speaking of the army, how are the negotiations with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth going?” Kseniya asked.
“Negotiations?” Reverend Green asked, after he got the translation. “What are you negotiating with the PLC?”
Now Colonel Shuvalov did look shocked. “Surely you knew! Poland and Russia are at war! We have been since the Truce of Deulino expired over a year ago. The negotiations are an attempt to prevent the shooting war from resuming.” Then he looked back at Kseniya. “Not well, when I left Russia. King Władysław is insisting that he is the rightful czar.” He snorted. “And I believe the rightful king of Sweden, as well. Boyar Sheremetev is convinced that he, like we, has read the history of the other time Smolensk war. So he knows, probably, that it is unlikely that he can actually gain the throne. But considering the degree to which he trounced us in that other time, he seems to expect to receive the war indemnity without actually having to fight the war.”