Redemption

 REDEMPTION

**Konstantin Sandalov**

  THE HEAVY CROWN (TRILOGY)

  BOOK THREE. REDEMPTION

**(Historical Novel)**

  PART ONE. THE CONSPIRATOR TSAR

  Chapter 1. The Cross-Kissing Oath

*Moscow. The Assumption Cathedral. June 1, 1606.*

Monomakh's Cap smelled of someone else's sweat.
Vasily Ivanovich Shuisky felt it the moment Metropolitan Isidore lowered the heavy crown onto his head. This smell—musty, corrosive—remained from Boris. Or perhaps from Otrepyev.
Power smelled of the fear of predecessors.

Shuisky knelt before the Royal Doors. The stone slabs of the floor chilled his legs even through his velvet breeches. He was fifty-four years old—a deeply old man by current standards. His back ached, his eyes watered from the thick incense smoke, but he held himself upright.
He knew who stood behind his back.
Mstislavsky. Golitsyn. Vorotynsky. The Romanovs.
The flower of the Moscow nobility. A wolf pack that allowed the old Fox to become the leader. Allowed him—for now.

Silence stood in the cathedral. Not reverent, but expectant. They were waiting for him to pay the price.
Shuisky rose with a grunt. A clerk, mincing, brought him an unrolled scroll.
Such a thing had never happened in Rus' before. Tsars swore allegiance to God, but never to their servants, however high-born.
Vasily Ivanovich placed his small, dry palm on the Gospel.

"I, Tsar Vasily," his voice, usually quiet and husky, now sounded surprisingly firm, "kiss the cross to the entire Russian land."
He swept his gaze over the boyars. His gaze was tenacious, heavy, dim-sighted.
"That I shall not put anyone to death without a boyar trial. Shall not take away estates and courtyards. Shall not punish wives and children for the guilt of husbands."

A sigh went through the rows. Someone—it seemed to be Tatishchev—exhaled loudly.
They got what they wanted. Guarantees. Now the Tsar could neither execute nor pardon at his whim. Autocracy had ended. The Deal had begun.

Shuisky leaned down and pressed his lips to the golden crucifix.
The metal was cold.
*Rejoice,* he thought, feeling the taste of gold. *Think you have hobbled the horse? Write, write your charters. Paper will endure anything. But power—it is not in paper. It is in the ability to wait.*

He walked out of the cathedral onto Cathedral Square.
The day was overcast. Low clouds caught on the crosses of Ivan the Great Bell Tower.
A crowd stood on the square.
Not that enthusiastic mass, drunk with happiness, that met False Dmitry a year ago. This crowd was gray, sullen, and silent.
People looked at the new Tsar from under their brows. They knew: the Land did not choose this Tsar. He was "shouted out" on Red Square by his own people while the streltsy washed the Polish blood off the pavements.

"Health to you, Sovereign," shouted someone from the front rows. Without joy. Out of duty.
Shuisky raised a gloved hand.
No one fell to their knees. No one threw a hat into the sky.
There was whispering in the crowd.
"He's so small..."
"Bald..."
"Is it true he buried Tsarevich Dmitry twice?"

Shuisky walked through the line of streltsy to the Palace of Facets. He felt with his back this sticky, mistrustful chill of the people's dislike. He knew: for them, he was the "Boyar Tsar." Not the Anointed One, but a nominee.
And this was the most terrifying thing of all.

---

In the evening, he sat in his cabinet.
Candles smoked. Reports from voivodes lay on the table.
Shuisky took off the crown and rubbed his temples. His head was splitting.
His brother, Dmitry Shuisky, entered the door quietly. An arrogant, stupid man, but devoted to the clan.
"Vasya," he said without ceremony. "Things are bad."
"Where?" asked the Tsar without raising his head.
"On Varvarka. And at the markets. People are talking."

Shuisky raised his cloudy eyes.
"What are they talking about? That I am old? That I am stingy? I know that."
"No. They say we fired the cannon in vain."
Vasily Ivanovich froze.
"What?"
"They say," his brother lowered his voice, "that the ash you shot... it didn't fly to Poland. It fell on the ground. And from this ash, they say, devils are crawling out. And also... they say that He got away."
"Who is He?"
"Otrepyev. They imply we killed some German or a Tatar, but the true Dmitry escaped again. They saw him. On a white horse."

Shuisky stood up slowly. He walked to the icon but did not cross himself.
Instead of fear, a cold, poisonous anger rose in him.
"I saw the hole in his chest myself," he hissed. "I saw his mug smashed by stones myself. He is dead, Dima. Dead as this table."

"They don't care," his brother spread his hands. "They are bored, Vasya. They need a holiday. Otrepyev was a holiday. And you are weekdays. Lenten, boring weekdays. So they invent fairy tales."

The Tsar walked to the window. Moscow slept, plunged into darkness. Only the sentries called out to each other on the walls.
He realized that peace would not shine for him. He had taken a dead man's throne, but the dead man did not want to leave.
"Fine," said Shuisky, and his voice became dry and hard, like the crackling of dry branches. "They want a fairy tale? They will get a fairy tale. A scary one."
He turned to his brother.
"Write a decree. Gather the regiments. All voivodes—to the oath. Whoever doubts my power—to the rack. Not as a traitor, but as a thief. I kissed the cross that I would not execute without trial. Well then, there will be a trial. Swift and righteous."

He clenched his fist. A small, senile fist in which the fate of a huge country was now squeezed.
"I didn't steal this crown. I picked it up in the mud when the rest ran away. And I won't give it to anyone. Neither the living nor the dead."

  Chapter 2. The Galley Slave

*Putivl. Voivode's Hut. August 1606.*

There was a heavy spirit in the upper room. It smelled of unwashed bodies, old sheepskin, and rancid oil.
Prince Grigory Shakhovskoy, a descendant of Rurik, sat on the edge of a bench, trying not to touch the table with the sleeves of his expensive kaftan. He felt squeamish. And scared.

Opposite sat Ivan Bolotnikov.
He didn't look like a human. He was a fragment of a rock, roughly hewn with an axe. Huge shoulders seemed to hinder his sitting, his hands—unnaturally long, with twisted joints—lay on the tabletop like two dead crabs.
On his wrists, where the sleeves were pulled up, wide white stripes were visible. Scars from shackles. The skin there was smooth, shiny, dead.

"So, you saw him?" asked Shakhovskoy. The Prince's voice treacherously cracked.
"I saw him."
Bolotnikov didn't raise his voice. He spoke quietly, with a slight whistle—evidently, his nose bridge had been broken.
"Tsar Dmitry is alive. Healthy. He sits in Sambor, gathering regiments."

Bolotnikov looked at the Prince with a heavy, unblinking gaze. His eyes were strange—yellowish, empty, like a fish's. There was no respect in them. There was nothing in them at all, except the weariness of a beast that had gnawed at the bars for too long.
Shakhovskoy knew: it was a lie. There was no Tsar in Sambor; an impostor-double sat there. But he didn't care about the truth. He needed a battering ram to break down the gates of the Kremlin.

"And the letter?"
Bolotnikov slowly reached into his bosom. Pulled out a scroll. Threw it on the table. Didn't hand it over, but threw it—like a bone to a dog.
Shakhovskoy unrolled it.
"'To our Great Voivode...'" he muttered. "'To grant favor to the serfs... To beat the boyars...'"
The Prince looked up.
"Beat the boyars, Ivan? And who am I? I am also a boyar."

Bolotnikov moved for the first time. He leaned forward, and the table board creaked piteously under his weight.
"I need you, Prince. For now. You'll give cannons. Gunpowder. You'll give men."
"And then?"
"And then God will judge."
Bolotnikov chuckled. But the smile touched only his mouth; his eyes remained dead.
"I sat on an oar for fifteen years, Prince. The Turk beat me with a whip until my back turned into meat. I know how you live. And I know how we live."

He stood up. In the low room, he had to bend his neck.
"I will lead your people, Shakhovskoy. But don't ask me to pity them. And hide your boyars... hide them far away. My lads are angry. They don't read charters. They see silk—and grab their knives."

---

On the square in front of the cathedral, there was no room for an apple to fall.
Putivl—a city of thieves, runaway convicts, and steppe freemen—waited.
The crowd hummed hollowly, gutturally. There were no bright clothes here. Gray coats, torn shirts, Tatar fur caps. Tension hung in the air, thick as before a storm.

Bolotnikov walked out onto the porch.
He was silent for a minute. Just stood and looked at them.
And the crowd went quiet under this heavy gaze. They sensed a leader. Not a master who looks through them, but a wolf from their own pack, only seasoned, beaten.

"Tsar Dmitry is alive!" he barked. His voice was hoarse, torn by winds, but everyone heard. "He sent me to you!"

Bolotnikov drew his saber from its scabbard. Curved, Turkish, notched.
"Shuisky lives fat in Moscow! The boyars pull your veins! Enough!"
He slashed the air with the blade.
"The Tsar gives you freedom! Go to the estates! Everything you find is yours! The bread is yours! The gold is yours! Their women—take them!"

The crowd exhaled. For a second there was silence—people digested what they heard. They were allowed everything. Their sins were absolved in advance.
"Lyubo!" (Good!) someone yelled in a wild voice.
"Lead us, Father!"
"Death to the boyars!"

It was not a cry of joy. It was the growl of a hungry pack to whom meat had been thrown.

Aside, by the hitching post, stood nobleman Istoma Pashkov. He had brought his hundred to help the "lawful Tsar," hoping for ranks and rewards.
Now he turned pale, looking at the possessed crowd.
"Istoma," the lieutenant touched his sleeve. "Do you hear what he's saying? He'll put us under the knife. We are landowners too."

Pashkov gripped the saber hilt until his knuckles turned white.
"Silence," he hissed through his teeth. "Silence and smile. If they understand that we are afraid, they will tear us apart right here. We have saddled a tiger, lieutenant. Now the main thing is not to fall under its paws."

Bolotnikov descended from the porch straight into the crowd. People reached out to him, trying to touch his kaftan as if it were the robe of a saint. And he walked through them, not looking, with the firm step of a man accustomed to walking on a heaving deck.
He knew what he was doing.
He didn't intend to rule. He intended to burn.
He didn't care who sat in the Kremlin—Dmitry, Shuisky, or the devil himself. He needed to see the burning estates of those who had once chained him to an oar.

By evening, the first detachment marched out of the city.
They walked without formation, bawling songs, waving axes and boar spears.
Black smoke rose over Putivl—someone had already set fire to a rich merchant's house, just like that, out of joy.
The Civil War had begun.

  Chapter 3. Wolf Fodder

*Village of Kolomenskoye. Rebel Camp. November 1606.*

Autumn did not arrive that year—it rotted immediately.
The sky over Moscow hung like a dirty, wet rag. The earth, sodden from endless rains, turned into black mush that devoured boots, cart wheels, and gun carriages with a squelching sound.

Istoma Pashkov, the noble centurion, stood on the porch of a captured royal manor. He wrapped himself in a cloak lined with fox fur, but the dampness chilled him to the bone. Dampness and fear.
The camp of the "Tsar's army" stretched before him for a verst. Thousands of fires smoked in the fog, mixing the smell of smoke with the stench of wet sheepskin, sewage, and alcohol fumes.

Below, by the broken fence, a crowd of ragamuffins in coats was finishing off a horse. The horse was good, thoroughbred—an *argamak* stolen from a boyar stable. It wheezed, kicking its legs in the mud, while peasants with guffaws hacked at it with axes, not waiting for it to die.
"Tear it, brothers!" yelled a red-haired peasant with a wall-eye. "Boyar meat is sweeter!"

Pashkov turned away. He felt sick.
A month ago, when they marched from Putivl, it seemed to him that this was a campaign for truth. For the lawful Tsar Dmitry.
But now, standing under the walls of Moscow, he saw the truth.
This was not an army. This was locusts.

"Admiring the view?" a heavy voice sounded behind him.

Pashkov flinched. Prokopy Lyapunov stood next to him.
A Ryazan nobleman, a voivode, a man hard and proud. He, too, had brought his regiments to Bolotnikov. And now he, too, stood and looked at this hell.
Lyapunov's face was gray, cheekbones tight against the skin. He hadn't slept for three days.

"Cattle," Lyapunov spat. "We brought a zoo to the capital, Istoma."
"They hanged my nephew today," said Pashkov quietly.

Lyapunov turned his head sharply.
"Who? Mitka?"
"Him. He went on reconnaissance. Returned, and these... Cossacks... saw boots on him. Morocco leather, red. Pulled them off. And put him on an aspen tree. Said: 'You are too smooth, master. Bloodsucker.' And the charter from Bolotnikov is no decree for them. Bolotnikov himself watched and laughed."

Pashkov took out a pouch with trembling hands. The tobacco was damp and wouldn't light.
"We are in a trap, Prokopy. In front—Shuisky with cannons. Behind—our own serfs with knives. If we take Moscow... they will butcher us first. They don't care who we are for. It matters to them that we walk in silk."

Lyapunov was silent. He looked at the glow over Moscow. There, behind the walls, sat Tsar Vasily. A thief. A usurper. But—a nobleman. One of their own.
"Shuisky sent a man," Lyapunov said suddenly. His voice sounded hollow, like from a barrel.
Pashkov froze.
"When?"
"At night. Skopin-Shuisky, the Tsar's nephew. He writes: 'Brothers, come to your senses. With whom have you allied? With a thief and a convict? Return under the sovereign's hand. Tsar Vasily will forgive everything. And give ranks, and grant estates.'"

"He lies," exhaled Pashkov. "Vaska Shuisky always lies. He'll lure us in and chop off our heads."
"Maybe he lies," Lyapunov turned his whole body to the centurion. His eyes were cold, decisive. "But Shuisky at least won't roast us on spits for fun. And these—will."
He nodded at the camp.
"To them, we are enemies by blood, Istoma. Our white bone is stuck in their throats."

A wild female scream rang out below. Drunken Cossacks were dragging some wench into the bushes.
"Hear that? That's the bailiff's daughter. Yesterday—a respected maiden. Today—meat. Tomorrow our wives will be in her place, Istoma. Choose. To be a traitor for a runaway serf or to be a dead man."

Pashkov crushed the unlit pipe in his fist.
The choice was terrible. To betray again. To turncoat again. Judas's sin.
But he wanted to live. He wanted to go to a warm room, to a tiled stove, far away from this sticky, bloody mud.

"When?" he asked.
"Tomorrow," cut off Lyapunov. "At dawn, Shuisky makes a sortie. As soon as the bells strike at the Simonov Monastery—we turn the regiments around. And strike."
"Strike where?"
"In the back," Lyapunov grinned crookedly. "In Bolotnikov's back."

---

It was dark in Ivan Bolotnikov's tent.
One tallow candle burned.
The voivode sat on a bear skin, legs crossed Turkish-style. He was sharpening a saber.
*Shhh. Shhh. Shhh.*
The stone slid over the steel with a nasty, whining sound.

Bolotnikov didn't sleep. He had forgotten how to sleep like a human back on the galleys. Sleep was a luxury there.
He heard everything. Drunken screams, women's squeals, the snoring of thousands of people.
And he smelled it. Not smoke and not shit.
The smell of treason.

He knew that Lyapunov and Pashkov were whispering. Saw how they wrinkled their noses looking at his "eagles."
"White-hands," he whispered, testing the blade with a finger. Blood appeared instantly, dark, thick.
He calmly wiped the bloody finger on the skin, not wincing.
"Think I don't know? Think you outwitted the serf?"

He could order them cut down right now.
But there were many of them. Noble regiments are power. It's armor, it's muskets, it's formation. His peasants with pitchforks won't stand against a formation.
He needed them to go into battle first. To lie down under Shuisky's cannons.
And if they betray...

Bolotnikov looked at the candle fire.
"Well, come on, Prokopy," he said into the void. "Come on, Istoma. Show your guts. Wolf fodder. I knew you were dogs. And dogs are either fed or killed."

Outside, a horse neighed.
Over Kolomenskoye, a gray, dank dawn was breaking.
A dawn that was supposed to paint the Moscow snow red.

  Chapter 4. Judas's Kiss

*Near the village of Kotly. December 2, 1606.*

The fog was thick as sour milk. It muffled sounds, distorted figures.
Istoma Pashkov sat on his horse, feeling the gelding under him nervously shift its feet, squelching in the mud. The hand gripping the reins went numb from cold and tension.

To his right and left in the gray haze stood his hundreds. Noble cavalry. Men in quilted armor, in iron hats, with drawn sabers. They were silent.
Horses snorted, releasing steam.
No one looked each other in the eye. Everyone knew what was about to happen.

Ahead, in the lowlands, the crowd roared.
There stood Bolotnikov's main army. Peasants, serfs, Cossacks. They were preparing to attack Tsar Shuisky's regiments.
Pashkov heard their voices—hoarse, angry, drunk with fear and rage.
"For Tsar Dmitry!"
"Death to the boyars!"

Pashkov gritted his teeth. *Death to the boyars...* he repeated to himself. *Fools. You yelled your own sentence. And now we will execute it.*

It thundered.
The earth trembled. Shuisky's cannons struck from the side of the Tsar's camp.
Crimson flashes bloomed in the fog. The crack of breaking trees and human howling were heard.
The battle had begun.

"Forward!!!" roared Bolotnikov's voice somewhere in the vanguard. "Cut them down!"

Pashkov saw the gray mass of "allies" surge forward, into the lowland, straight at the Tsar's muskets. They ran disorderly, waving axes, pitchforks, sabers. They believed that the noble regiments of Pashkov and Lyapunov would cover them from the flanks.
They believed they were one army.

Pashkov waited.
His heart beat in his throat like a trapped bird.
A messenger from Lyapunov galloped up to him.
"It's time, Istoma," he shouted, drowning out the roar of the cannonade. "Skopin-Shuisky gave the signal! Wave your hat!"

Pashkov closed his eyes for a second.
Here it is, this line. Step over—and you are Judas. Stay—and you are a corpse.
He exhaled air smelling of gunpowder fumes.
And barked:
"Listen to my command!!!"

Hundreds of heads in iron helmets turned to him.
"Banners—down!" yelled Pashkov, his voice breaking. "Turn around! Beat the thieves! For Sovereign Vasily Ivanovich!"

A momentary confusion arose in the ranks. Some didn't understand. How—beat the thieves? Aren't we with them?
But the instinct of obedience worked. Nobles, who hated the peasants, waited for this order.
"For the Faith! For the Tsar!" the centurions picked up.

Pashkov's cavalry, gaining speed, struck not the enemy.
It struck the flank of its own infantry.

It was like a knife entering soft butter.
Cossacks and peasants running into the attack didn't expect a blow from the side. They didn't even put up pikes.
The first row was simply swept away by horses. The crunch of bones was audible even through the roar of shots.

Pashkov slashed some peasant in a rough coat. He turned around at the last moment.
Istoma saw his face. Young, beardless, stained with soot. And eyes. Wide, full of childish amazement.
"Master?" was all the lad managed to exhale. "What are you doing?.."
Pashkov's saber split his shoulder to the collarbone.
Blood spurted in a hot stream, flooding the centurion's face, getting into his mouth.
Salty.

"I am no master to you!" screamed Pashkov, shaking off red drops. He hacked again and again, trying to drown out his conscience with the ringing of steel. "You are a thief! A mad dog!"

Chaos began.
Bolotnikov's men, squeezed between the Tsar's streltsy in front and traitor-nobles in the back, mixed into a pile.
"Treason!!!" a wild wail swept over the field.
The formation crumbled.
Peasants dropped pitchforks. They rushed about like sheep in a pen where wolves had broken in.
They were cut down from saddles. They were trampled by horses. They were shot point-blank.

Pashkov saw his lieutenant impale an old man who tried to shield himself with an icon.
Saw Lyapunov, all splattered with someone else's blood, cutting his way to the center to join the Tsar's troops.

In the center of this bloody vortex, Ivan Bolotnikov rushed about.
Istoma saw him for a moment in a break in the smoke.
The giant was on foot. His horse had been killed. He stood, legs wide apart, and spun his heavy saber like a windmill. Around him lay a mountain of bodies—both nobles and streltsy.
Bolotnikov was screaming. But not words of command. He was howling.
He saw his army dying from a stab in the back.
He met Pashkov's eyes. Through heads, through pikes, through smoke.
It seemed to Istoma that the voivode would jump across the whole field right now and sink his teeth into his throat.

But then a volley of the Tsar's cannons struck the rebel ranks. Canister shot mowed down a whole row next to Bolotnikov.
He was carried away, dragged off by his own men.
"Retreat! To Kaluga! To the abatis!"

The battle turned into a slaughter. The fleeing were finished off for another three versts.
Snow, mixed with mud, became brown.

---

In the evening, Pashkov rode into the Tsar's camp.
His horse limped. His cloak was hacked, someone else's blood baked on his cheek.
A young rider in shining, clean armor rode out to meet him. Prince Mikhail Skopin-Shuisky. The Tsar's nephew, the hope of the dynasty.
Skopin looked at Pashkov without a smile.
Around them, streltsy rejoiced, dragged prisoners, divided loot.
But here, between the two voivodes, hung silence.

"Victory, Istoma," said Skopin quietly.
Pashkov wiped his face with his sleeve, smearing the dirt.
"Victory, Prince."
"You did the deed. The Sovereign will not forget. The rank of Duma Diak is promised to you."

Pashkov looked at his hands. They were trembling.
"Tell me, Prince..." he asked hoarsely. "And God... Will He also forget?"
Skopin-Shuisky looked at the field strewn with corpses. Crows were already beginning their feast there.
"God is far away, Istoma," answered the young Prince. "But Moscow—here it is. Alive. We saved it. At this price."

He turned his horse and rode to the Tsar's tent.
Pashkov remained alone.
He was a victor. He was rich. He was forgiven.
But he knew that until the end of his days, he would wake up from that amazed look of the lad with the pitchfork: *Master? What are you doing?..*

Judas received his pieces of silver. But it was too early to look for a rope.
The war was just flaring up. Bolotnikov had left. And he would return even angrier than he was.

---

  PART TWO. THE TUSHINO THIEF

  Chapter 5. The Teacher from Shklov

*Starodub. Administrative Hut. May 1607.*

The man was dragged into the hut by the scruff of his neck. He resisted, kicking his legs in worn-down shoes and squealing like a hare caught in a snare.
"Don't touch me! I am a peaceful man! I teach children literacy! I know how to write!"

He was thrown onto the dirty floor. The man curled up, covering his head with his hands. He was short, with a reddish beard, with darting, frightened eyes. Dressed poorly—in a worn Polish zupan, covered in road dust.
The hut smelled of sour wine and tobacco.
Two men sat at the table.
One—Ivan Zarutsky, a Don Cossack Ataman. Handsome, dark-haired, with a predatory face and an earring in his ear.
The second—Pan Mekhovetsky, a Polish adventurer, a commander of mercenaries.

They examined the prisoner as a horse thief examines a horse at a fair.
"Looks like him?" asked Zarutsky, lazily picking his teeth with a straw.
Mekhovetsky stood up, walked to the lying man. Took him by the chin and roughly, like cattle, yanked his head up.
The prisoner began to shake.
"Turn," ordered the Pole. "In profile."

The man obeyed, sobbing.
"Well?" asked Zarutsky.
"There is a resemblance," Mekhovetsky said thoughtfully. "Redhead. Hooked nose. One arm slightly shorter than the other, like that... murdered one. Only that one was an eagle, and this one is a wet hen."

"It's nothing," the Ataman chuckled. "He'll get used to it. We'll insert feathers—he'll fly."
He leaned toward the prisoner.
"Who might you be, wretch?"

The man swallowed, looking up at the Ataman with animal terror.
"I am Matvei... Verevkin. Or... Bogdanko. We are from Shklov. I was a teacher, read the Psalter... Traded a little... Let me go, Pans! I have no money!"

Zarutsky and Mekhovetsky glanced at each other and burst out laughing. The laughter was loud, malicious.
"He has no money!" laughed the Ataman. "But do you have a kingdom?"
"What... kingdom?" whispered the teacher.

Zarutsky abruptly stopped laughing. He grabbed the teacher by the lapels and jerked him to his feet. His face was very close—swarthy, hard.
"Stop playing the fool," he said quietly but terrifyingly. "We know who you are. You are not Matvei. And not Bogdanko. You are Tsar Dmitry Ivanovich. Miraculously saved from Shuisky in Moscow."

The teacher popped his eyes out.
"Have mercy! What Tsar?! I have never been to Moscow in my life! I am an insect! I..."
A punch to the stomach bent him double. He wheezed, gasping for air.

"Wrong answer," said Mekhovetsky calmly, sitting on the edge of the table. "Try again. Are you the Tsar?"
"N-no..." wheezed the prisoner.
A second blow, this time a kick to the ribs, knocked him onto his back.

"You don't understand, friend," said Zarutsky affectionately, looming over him. "We have an army here. Thousands of Cossacks. Poles. They all need salary. And there is no one to pay. Shuisky doesn't pay us, he wants to hang us. We need a Tsar. We need a banner. Understand?"

He took out a dagger and began to clean his nails.
"If you are the Tsar—we will dress you in velvet. Put you on a horse. Lead you into Moscow. You will have women—as many as you want. Wine—barrels of it. Power, honor."
He shifted his gaze to the blade.
"But if you are not the Tsar... then why do we need you? An extra mouth. We'll cut your throat now and throw you in a ditch. No one will even remember the teacher from Shklov."

Silence hung in the hut. Only a fly could be heard buzzing, beating against the mica window.
The prisoner lay on the floor, smearing tears and dirt over his face.
He was a little man. All his life he was afraid. Afraid of the elder, afraid of the master, afraid of hunger. He just wanted to live.
But now life was offered only in exchange for a Soul.

He looked at Zarutsky's boots. Then at the cold eyes of the Pole.
He realized: they are not joking. They don't care who he is. They need a Puppet.
"And..." his voice trembled, broke. "And if... if they find out?"
"Who?" Mekhovetsky sneered. "The peasants? They haven't seen the Tsar in the face. Show them a brocade kaftan—and they are happy. And the boyars... The boyars will pretend to believe if we show strength."

Zarutsky extended a hand and lifted the prisoner. Brushed off his shoulder.
"So who are you, man?"
The teacher from Shklov took a deep breath. In this breath died Matvei Verevkin. Died the petty trader, scribe, vagabond.
A Monster was born.
"I am Dmitry," he said quietly, lowering his eyes. "Ivanovich."

"Louder!" barked Zarutsky.
"I am Tsar Dmitry Ivanovich!" shouted the impostor, and his voice broke into a squeal. "I was saved! God carried me out!"

Zarutsky broke into a broad smile.
"That is glorious. That is good, Sovereign."
He shouted into the entryway:
"Hey! Bring a kaftan! And wine for the Sovereign! And wash him, he stinks like a dog!"

Cossacks tumbled into the hut with an armful of clothes. Someone dragged a jug.
They began to change the newly-minted "Tsar." They tore off the dirty zupan, pulled on an expensive one, embroidered with gold, but also from someone else's shoulder—it bunched up on the back.
He stood, allowing them to do whatever they wanted with him.
He felt fear retreating, replaced by a strange, intoxicating feeling. A feeling of permissiveness.
Yesterday he could be beaten for a sideways glance. Today Atamans doffed their caps before him.

"Drink, Sovereign," Mekhovetsky shoved a goblet at him.
False Dmitry II—no longer a man, but a Shadow—drained the wine in one gulp. It burned his throat, hit his head.
He straightened up. His eyes shone with an unkind, wild gleam.
"And say, Pans..." he said, and impudent notes cut through his voice. "I could use a wench. Am I a Tsar or not a Tsar?"

Zarutsky guffawed, slapping his thighs.
"You'll have a wench! You'll have Moscow! You'll have everything!"
The Ataman winked at the Pole:
"Our man. We'll work well together."

---

In the evening, the "Tsar" was led out to the army.
Thousands of throats yelled "Glory!". Cossacks threw caps in the air. They saw what they wanted to see: a lawful ruler who would give them the right to loot.
No one noticed that the "Tsar" was afraid of horses. No one noticed that he didn't know how to hold a saber. No one noticed that his hands were the hands of a scribe, not a warrior.

False Dmitry II rode through the formation, smiling stupidly.
He was an empty vessel into which the poison of the Troubles had been poured.
He didn't know what awaited him. Didn't know about Tushino. Didn't know about Marina Mniszech, who would lie in bed with him with disgust, recognizing her "dead husband" in this dirty peasant. Didn't know that he would end his life hacked by a saber on a hunt by his own guard.

Now he was happy.
A little man received a big toy. A toy called Russia.

  Chapter 6. Wedding to a Shadow

*Tushino Camp. September 1608.*

The carriage stopped, stuck by a wheel in a deep rut.
Marina Mniszech pulled back the velvet curtain. A smell hit her nose that made her want to cover her face with a perfumed handkerchief. It smelled of thousands of horses, rotting straw, roasted meat, and human sweat.
This was Tushino. The second capital. "Thief-City," as it was whispered in Moscow.

"We have arrived, Your Majesty," said Pan Yuri Mniszech, her father.
He sat opposite, an old, cynical voivode who had lost all his money at cards and was now placing his last bet. A bet on his daughter.

Marina looked at him with an icy gaze.
"I will not go anywhere, Father."
"You will go," Mniszech answered calmly, adjusting his sable hat. "We have no choice, Marysia. Shuisky let us out, but there is no road back to Poland. King Sigismund does not wait for us. And here is an army. Here is money."
"There is an impostor there!" she screamed, clenching her fists so that nails dug into her palms. "Some serf sits there! You want me, the anointed Tsaritsa of Moscow, to lie in bed with a peasant? To recognize my Dmitry in him?"

Father intercepted her hand. Hard. Painfully.
"Your Dmitry is dead, stupid girl. Rotted. And this one is alive. And he has a hundred thousand sabers under his hand. If you say 'yes'—you are Tsaritsa again. If you say 'no'—you are a prisoner. And believe me, Cossacks won't stand on ceremony with a captive Polish woman."

The carriage door flew open.
Outside stood a roar. Thousands of eyes looked at the carriage. Poles in shiny cuirasses, Zaporozhians with forelocks, Russian defectors in boyar hats.
Everyone waited for a miracle. Waited for the meeting of separated spouses.

Marina stepped out.
She was beautiful. Pale, in a black traveling dress, with her head held high. She walked along wooden planks laid over the mud, as if on the marble of Wawel Castle.
Ahead stood a large tent, covered with brocade.
At the entrance, He waited for her.

False Dmitry II (former teacher, former tramp) stood shifting from foot to foot. He wore a royal kaftan strung with pearls, but it fit baggily. The red beard was combed, but his hands... He hid his hands behind his back.
He was afraid. Afraid of this woman more than of Shuisky.
He knew who she was. And she knew who he was.

Marina walked up to him. Stopped two steps away.
The crowd froze. One could hear the wind flapping the tent flap.
She looked into his face.
Searched for at least one feature. At least a shadow of that Dmitry—elegant, daring, with merry eyes.
But she saw only the coarse, drank-away face of a peasant trying to portray greatness. He smelled of wine and onions, despite expensive perfumes.
It was a mockery. A caricature.

"Marysia..." the "Tsar" said hoarsely. The voice was alien. Rough.
He reached out a hand to her.

Marina shuddered. She wanted to spit into this outstretched palm. To scream: "Thief! Liar!".
She felt her father's gaze on her back. The gaze of Hetman Rozhinsky. The gazes of thousands of armed beasts waiting for the performance.
Her life hung by a thread. Not the life of a Tsaritsa, but the life of a woman.

She took a breath. Deep, like before jumping into icy water.
Something inside her died. Pride? Honor? Or maybe her soul?
Only cold calculation remained.
*I will be Tsaritsa,* she thought. *Even in hell.*

Marina stepped forward.
"Dmitry..." she said loudly so that everyone could hear. "My Sovereign! Alive!"
And fell onto his chest.

The crowd roared.
"Hurrah! Recognized! True Tsar!"
Kettledrums thundered. Cossacks fired pistols into the sky.

In the tent, hidden from the eyes of the rabble, they were left alone.
False Dmitry stepped back from her, breathing heavily. He was still afraid.
Marina stood in the middle of the tent, wiping her lips with a handkerchief. Squeamishly. Thoroughly.
"Listen to me, serf," she said quietly. Her voice rang with steel. "In public, I will call you husband. But here, in private, do not dare touch me. Come closer than a step—I will stab you."

The "Tsar" blinked. Malice flashed in his eyes, but immediately extinguished under the pressure of her authority.
"As you say, Mother... As you say. If only I could return the kingdom. And there..."
"And there we shall see," she cut him off. "Pour me some wine. And call Father. We will think how to take Moscow."

She sat in an armchair, smoothing the folds of her dress.
Outside, a celebration raged. People drank to the health of the "miraculously saved spouses."
And in the tent sat two impostors.
One stole a name.
The second sold a memory.

Thus began the Tushino Encampment. The most shameful and terrible time of the Troubles, when thieves judged honest men, and whores played the role of Tsaritsas.

  Chapter 7. Northern Wind

*Veliky Novgorod. Detinets (Citadel). March 1609.*

The wind from the Volkhov blew so hard it seemed it could peel the skin off the face. It carried the smell of melting snow, pine needles, and the nearby Baltic.
Prince Mikhail Vasilyevich Skopin-Shuisky stood on the fortress wall.
He was twenty-two years old.
He was young, handsome with that strict, northern beauty found in people of duty. In his eyes there was neither fear nor that mad gleam that burned the False Dmitrys. In them was the calm, cold light of reason.

Next to him, wrapped in a fur cloak, stood a foreigner. Jacob De la Gardie. Swedish general. Red-haired, freckled, pragmatic mercenary.
Below, on the frozen river, regiments were forming up.
It was a strange sight. Russian militiamen in coats stood shoulder to shoulder with German reiters in blued armor and Swedish musketeers in blue camisoles.

"Good formation, Prince," said De la Gardie in broken Russian. "But my soldiers want money. King Charles awaits the cession of Korela."

Skopin gripped the railing so hard his glove creaked.
It was the price. A terrible price.
His uncle, Tsar Vasily Shuisky, locked in Moscow, ordered: "Give the Swedes everything they ask, just bring the army."
To save the heart of Russia, one had to cut off a finger. Give the ancient fortress of Korela to the Lutherans.

"You will have Korela, Jacob," answered Skopin quietly. "And there will be money. First—Moscow."
"Moscow..." the Swede chuckled. "There are two Tsars there now. And both, they say, are not real. One is a thief, the other a coward. Who are we fighting for, Prince?"

Skopin slowly turned his head. His gaze was heavy, mature beyond his years.
"We are not fighting for Tsars, General. Tsars come and go. We are fighting so that here," he struck the stone of the wall with his fist, "there is no Poland. So that my children pray in Russian, not in Latin."

Below, a trumpet played.
The regiments moved.
It was a new army. Skopin didn't just gather people. He trained them.
All winter, while Moscow starved and Tushino drank, here in Novgorod, blacksmiths' hammers banged and training fire thundered. Skopin taught Russian peasants the "German order." Taught not to run from cavalry, but to meet it with a forest of pikes. Taught discipline.

A messenger ran up to him on the wall. All in lather, face red.
"Voivode! Joy!"
"Speak."
"Cities are rising! Kostroma, Galich, Vologda! Peasants take pitchforks, beat Poles in the forests! They wait for you, Mikhail Vasilyevich! They say: 'Our savior is coming!'."

Skopin didn't smile.
He knew what this smelled of.
Popular love is poison. Especially when your uncle is a Tsar who is hated.
Vasily Shuisky sits in the Kremlin and trembles with envy. He fears his nephew more than the Poles.
"Savior"... It is a dangerous word. Saviors in Rus' are either canonized or poisoned.

"To horse," commanded Skopin.
He descended into the courtyard. A servant brought him a white stallion.
The Prince easily, in one motion, flew into the saddle.
He looked like St. George the Victorious from an icon. Shining armor, scarlet cloak, young face.
The army met him with a roar. Not on command. From the soul.
They believed him. For the first time in the years of the Troubles, Russia had a Hero, not an Executioner.

"South!" shouted Skopin, raising his mace. "To Tver! To Moscow!"

The avalanche moved.
The northern wind blew in their backs. It chased away the fog, it froze the mud, making the roads hard.
Retribution was coming. Young, angry, and pure.

---

*Two weeks later. Tver.*

Polish hussars—the best warriors of Europe—laughed.
"Who is coming? Skopin? That boy? We'll scatter his bast-shoe wearers with just whips!"

They went out into the field imposingly, showing off wings behind their backs.
But the "bast-shoe wearers" didn't run.
The Russian formation bristled with long Swedish pikes. The hussars flew onto them and choked on blood. And then the musketeers struck—in a volley, together, as in training.

The Poles ran.
The Tushino camp trembled. A rumor passed like lightning: "Mikhail is coming! Invincible!".
Thieves and marauders, accustomed to robbing the defenseless, suddenly understood that the party was over. The Master had come.

Skopin sat in a tent near Tver. He wrote a letter to his uncle in Moscow.
*Sovereign, hold on. The enemy is defeated. The road is open. I will be there soon.*
He put a full stop.
At that moment, he felt a sharp stab in his side. Heart? Or a premonition?
He was too bright for this dark time. Too good.
And darkness does not love light.

  Chapter 8. The Cup of Poison

*Moscow. Chambers of Prince Vorotynsky. April 23, 1610.*

Moscow hummed like an Easter bell.
A week ago, Mikhail Skopin-Shuisky entered the city. It was a triumph such as the ancient capital had not seen since the capture of Kazan. People fell into the mud, kissed the tracks of his horse, grabbed his stirrups. Women howled with happiness, men threw caps.
"Here he is!" they shouted. "Here is our true Tsar! The Red Sun!"

But in the Kremlin, behind thick walls, sat Tsar Vasily. Old, bilious, looking like a spider. He watched the jubilant crowd through a crack in the shutter and heard no joy. He heard a sentence.
*They love him,* thought Shuisky, clenching dry fists. *They want him on the throne. And me—in a monastery.*
Next to him stood his brother, Dmitry Shuisky. A talentless voivode who lost all his battles. He hated his nephew even more strongly. For youth. For talent. For victory.

---

Today was a feast. Christening at Prince Vorotynsky's.
All the nobility gathered.
It was stuffy at the long tables laden with silver and food. Hundreds of candles burned, melting wax and air.
Mikhail Skopin-Shuisky sat in the place of honor.
He was cheerful, but pale. The last months of war had sucked the strength out of him. He slept little, worked much.
"To the health of the victor!" proclaimed the host of the house a toast.

Mikhail raised his goblet. The wine splashed dark, thick.
At that moment a woman approached him.
Ekaterina Grigoryevna Shuisky. Wife of Dmitry Shuisky.
And daughter of Malyuta Skuratov.
The blood of Ivan the Terrible's chief executioner flowed in her. This was a woman of steel, cruel, with eyes in which light never reflected.

She carried her own cup. Special. Golden, chased.
"Allow me, nephew," she said, and her voice was sweet as molasses, "to congratulate you. You are our pride. Drink from my hands. Respect your aunt."

Silence hung in the hall.
Everyone knew the Shuyskys hated Mikhail. Everyone felt this tension.
Mikhail looked at the cup. Then—into Ekaterina's eyes.
He understood everything.
He was a warrior. He smelled death a mile away. Death stood right in front of him, in a brocade summer garment and a *kokoshnik* studded with pearls.

He could refuse. Could push the hand away. Could splash out the wine.
But he was a Rurikid. And he was too proud to show fear before a woman.
"Thank you, aunt," he said quietly.
He took the cup. Heavy, cold.
Ekaterina smiled. Her smile was Malyuta's—with just the lips.

Mikhail brought the gold to his lips.
The hall stopped breathing. Someone among the guests looked away. Someone crossed themselves under the table.
He drank. To the bottom.
Placed the empty cup on the tablecloth.
"Sweet," he said.

A minute later his face became ash-gray.
Sweat—large, cold—appeared on his forehead.
Mikhail clutched his chest. Not enough air. Inside, in his stomach, a fire flared up, as if he had swallowed red-hot coals.
"Stuffy..." he wheezed, trying to unbutton the collar of his kaftan. Fingers didn't obey.
He swayed and collapsed onto the floor.

Guests jumped up. Panic began.
"Healer! The Prince is unwell!"
Ekaterina Shuisky stood calmly, folding her hands on her stomach. She looked at the hero writhing on the floor the way her father looked at victims in the torture chamber. The work was done.

Mikhail was carried out in arms.
He died for two weeks. In terrible agony. His young, strong body fought the poison (sublimate or arsenic—no one would know), but the poison was stronger. Hair fell out, skin turned black.
Moscow stood under his windows and cried.

On April 23, he passed away.
When the coffin was carried out of the house, the crowd didn't let it be put on the hearse. People lifted the coffin on their hands and carried it all the way to the Archangel Cathedral.
Shuisky and his brother Dmitry walked behind the coffin, feigning sobbing.
But you can't fool the people.
Stones flew in the crowd.
"Murderers!" hissed the Muscovites. "Poisoned the falcon! Now you won't live yourselves!"

  PART THREE. THE SEVEN BOYARS

  Chapter 9. Scissors for the Tsar

*Moscow. Tsar's Chambers. July 1610.*

Moscow smelled of burning and fear.
This smell seeped even through the thick walls of the Kremlin, through oak shutters, through incense smoke.
Vasily Ivanovich Shuisky sat on the throne.
The throne was huge, golden, but the Tsar on it seemed a small, dried-up old man. His hands, ringed with gems, trembled.

He knew the news. It was terrible.
Near Klushino, Polish Hetman Zolkiewski defeated the Russian army to smithereens. The Tsar's brother, Dmitry Shuisky (the very one whose wife offered poison to Skopin), fled the battlefield first, abandoning cannons, banners, and the supply train. He rode into Moscow on a ridden-down horse, barefoot, having lost his boots in a swamp.
There was no army anymore.
Between the Poles and Moscow was emptiness.

The door to the chamber flew open without a knock.
Shuisky flinched. One didn't enter to a Tsar like this. One entered to a prisoner like this.
On the threshold stood Zakhar Lyapunov—brother of that very Prokopy who betrayed Bolotnikov. Next to him—Prince Golitsyn, Prince Vorotynsky, and a dozen nobles with drawn sabers.

"What do you want?" asked Shuisky, trying to give firmness to his voice. "Who let you in? Guards!"
"You have no guards, Vasily Ivanovich," Lyapunov sneered, walking on the carpet with dirty boots. "The guards ran away. And you are no Tsar to us anymore."

Shuisky gripped the armrests of the throne.
"I am God's Anointed! I kissed the cross!"
"You transgressed the cross," cut off Golitsyn. "You poisoned your nephew, our hope. You washed yourself in blood. Because of you, Herod, the Poles stand under the walls."

Lyapunov walked up closely. He reeked of wine and sweat.
"Get down, Vasya. Your time is up."
"I won't get down!" squealed Shuisky. "This is my throne! I am a Rurikid!"
"Get down, I say!" barked Lyapunov and, grabbing the Tsar by the collar of his brocade robe, jerked him off the throne.

Shuisky fell onto the carpet. Monomakh's Cap rolled across the floor, hitting the boards with a dull thud.
No one rushed to pick it up. Rus's greatest shrine lay in the dust like an old mushroom picker's hat.

"To the monastery with him," commanded Vorotynsky. "Tonsure him. And so his spirit is not in the world."
"I don't want to!" screamed Shuisky, kicking his legs. "You have no right! I am married! I have a young Tsaritsa!"
"Was a Tsaritsa, will become a nun," spat Lyapunov. "Drag him."

They dragged him.
Not through the front porch, but through the back exit, like a sack of flour.
Brought him to the Chudov Monastery.
Monks were already waiting there. They stood with stony faces, holding a black cassock and scissors.

Shuisky realized: this is the end.
He began to fight. He bit, scratched, squealed.
"I won't give in! I will anathematize you!"
Four burly nobles piled on him, pressed him to the floor. Twisted his arms.
"Read the prayer, Father," said Lyapunov, wiping a scratched cheek.

The Abbot began to read the rite of tonsure.
"Our brother Varlaam renounces this world..."
"I do not renounce!" yelled Shuisky, writhing under the bodies of tormentors. "I am not your brother! I am the Sovereign!"
"...Renounces wife, children, power..." monotonously mumbled the monk.
"No! No!"

The Abbot approached with scissors.
Steel clanked.
A gray lock of hair fell onto the slabs.
"Give it here," Lyapunov snatched the scissors from the monk. "You, Father, cut too gently."
He roughly, in clumps, began to hack the former Tsar's hair. Along with hair, he cut a piece of skin on the head, but Shuisky no longer felt pain. He only howled—long, mournfully, like a beast.

Ten minutes later it was all over.
On the floor lay an old man in a black, coarse cassock. Bald, with a bloody head, broken.
Vasily Shuisky died. Monk Varlaam was born.

"To the cell with him," tossed Golitsyn. "And set a guard. So he doesn't run away."
The nobles went out into the air.
They overthrew a tyrant. They thought they saved Russia.
They didn't know they had committed another terrible mistake.
The country remained without a Tsar. The throne was empty.
And a holy place is never empty.

  Chapter 10. Seven Heads of the Hydra

*Moscow. Palace of Facets. August 1610.*

It was strangely quiet in the Kremlin.
No one sat on the throne. Monomakh's Cap was put away in a chest, out of harm's way.
Seven men sat around a table.
Seven boyars. Fyodor Mstislavsky, Ivan Vorotynsky, Andrei Trubetskoy, Vasily Golitsyn, Ivan Romanov, Fyodor Sheremetev, Boris Lykov.

This was called—"The Seven Boyars" (*Semiboyarshchina*).
A government without a head.
They looked at each other with suspicion. Each of them wanted power, but each was afraid to take it alone.

"Hetman Zolkiewski stands in Fili," broke the silence Prince Mstislavsky, chairman of the Duma. "Demands an answer. Who will be Tsar?"
"Not Shuisky, Lord forgive us," grumbled Romanov.
"And not the 'Tushino Thief'," added Vorotynsky. "If we let False Dmitry in—he'll hang us all."

"There is a way out," said Fyodor Sheremetev quietly.
Everyone turned to him.
"What?"
"Wladyslaw. The Polish Prince. Son of Sigismund."
Silence hung in the hall.
The proposal was monstrous. To seat a Catholic on the Orthodox throne? A Pole? An enemy?
But it was a way out.
"He is young," continued Sheremetev insinuatingly. "He is fifteen. We will surround him with our people. We will marry him to a Russian. We will force him to accept Orthodoxy. But we will have a lawful Tsar, recognized by Europe. And Zolkiewski won't touch us."

The boyars exchanged glances.
It was a deal with the devil. But the devil offered protection from serfs and impostors.
For the aristocracy, a Polish prince was closer and more understandable than a Russian peasant with a pitchfork or a mad impostor.

"And the people?" asked Trubetskoy. "The people won't accept a Latin."
"And will we ask the people?" sneered Mstislavsky. "We will say that this is necessary for saving the faith. That Wladyslaw is being baptized into our faith."

The door opened.
Patriarch Hermogenes entered.
He was eighty years old. He barely walked, leaning on a staff. But his eyes burned with fire.
"I heard," his senile voice thundered, "what you have thought up here. Calling Lithuania to the tsardom?"
"It is politics, Vladyka," grimaced Mstislavsky. "We are saving the city."
"You are destroying your souls!" Hermogenes struck the floor with his staff. "If the Prince is baptized into Orthodoxy—I will bless. But if not—I will curse! Both you and him! There shall be no heretic on the Moscow throne!"

The boyars lowered their eyes.
They knew: Hermogenes would not break. This old man was made of flint.
But they had already decided.
Fear of the mob's riot was stronger than the fear of God.

"Write the treaty," said Mstislavsky. "Call Zolkiewski. We open the gates."
"Into the Kremlin?" Romanov was horrified.
"Into the Kremlin. Let the Polish garrison guard us. From our own people."

On the night of September 21, 1610, the Kremlin gates quietly opened.
There was no battle. There was no storming.
Orderly rows of Polish hussars and German mercenaries entered the heart of Russia.
Hooves clattered on the cobblestones. Alien banners with the white eagle fluttered.
The boyars surrendered Moscow without a shot. To save their skins and estates.

This was the bottom.
There was nowhere lower to fall. Russia no longer existed. There was the Polish province of Muscovy.

  Chapter 11. The Stone Elder

*Moscow. Chudov Monastery. Undercroft. January 1611.*

It was so cold in the dungeon that breath froze as frost on the old man's sparse, gray beard.
Patriarch Hermogenes sat on an armful of rotten straw.
He was eighty years old. His body had dried up, turning into parchment stretched over bones. The cassock hung on him like on a hanger. But his eyes—deeply sunken, dark—burned with fanatic, terrible fire.

A bolt clanged above.
The door opened with a creak. A cloud of frosty steam and torchlight burst into the basement.
Two men entered.
Mikhail Saltykov—a boyar, a turncoat, head of the Russian servants to the Poles. And Pan Gosiewski—commandant of the Kremlin, the factual master of Moscow.
They were well-fed, ruddy, in warm fur coats. They smelled of roasted goose and expensive wine.

Saltykov squeamishly kicked the straw with his boot.
"Well, Vladyka? Come to your senses?"
Hermogenes didn't move. He didn't even raise his eyes.
"I am not speaking to you, Judas," he wheezed. "I am conversing with God. Do not interrupt."

Gosiewski sneered. He respected strength, even enemy strength, but his patience was snapping.
"Listen, old man," said the Pole with a strong accent. "The matter is simple. A militia is gathering near Moscow. Lyapunov, rebels. They want to storm the city. There will be much blood."
He squatted before the Patriarch.
"Write them a charter. Order them to disperse. You are the Patriarch, they will listen to you. Write: 'Prince Wladyslaw is our lawful Tsar, submit to him.' And we will let you out. You will return to your chambers, eat off gold."

Hermogenes slowly raised his head.
He looked at Gosiewski. Then shifted his gaze to Saltykov.
In this gaze, there was so much contempt that the boyar backed away.

"Want bread, dog?" the Patriarch asked Saltykov quietly. "Want power?"
With difficulty, leaning on the wall, he stood up. His legs trembled, but he straightened to his full considerable height.
"I," his voice strengthened, thundered, reflecting off the stone vaults, "will write to them. I will certainly write."
Saltykov rejoiced.
"That is glorious! Should have been done long ago!"

"I will write to them," continued Hermogenes, and every word fell like a stone, "to come here faster. To burn you with fire and sword. To not spare their lives for the sake of the Orthodox faith!"
He raised a dry hand and crossed the air in front of him, as if driving away demons.
"Blessed be those who go to save Russia. And cursed be those who sold her to the Latins. Anathema to you! Anathema!"

Saltykov turned purple. He pulled out a dagger.
"I'll cut out your tongue, old devil!"
"Cut!" shouted Hermogenes, tearing open the torn cassock on his chest. "Kill me! I am already dead to the world! But you won't kill my word! It has already left! It is already in Nizhny, in Ryazan, in Yaroslavl!"

Gosiewski intercepted the boyar's hand.
"Don't be a fool, Mikhail. Kill him—you make him a saint. A martyr. Then they will definitely tear us apart."
The Pole looked at the old man with hatred mixed with fear.
"Let him rot here. Give no bread. Water—a mug a day. Let's see how he sings in a week."

They left, banging the heavy door.
The bolt clanged like a shot.
Hermogenes remained in darkness.
He sank onto the straw. Strength left him. Hunger gnawed at his stomach like a rat.
But he smiled.

He knew he was in time.
By secret paths, through faithful monks, his charters had already left the Kremlin.
Small scraps of paper written by a candle stub.
*"Look how our fatherland is plundered and ruined... Arise, Russian people! Do not spare your lives..."*

These letters were flying right now along the snowy roads of Russia. They burned the hands of those who read them. They awakened conscience.
The old man was dying in a stone sack. But his voice was already sounding on the squares, gathering a new, terrible storm that was supposed to wash the dirt off the face of the earth.

---

  PART FOUR. RESURRECTION

  Chapter 12. The Butcher and the Prince

*Nizhny Novgorod. September 1611.*

The morning was cold. The Volga wind chased yellow leaves and scraps of Polish decrees, which no one read, along the pavement.
A man stood on the porch of the Church of John the Baptist on the Marketplace.
Kuzma Minin. The *Zemstvo* elder.
He didn't look like a hero. Stocky, broad-faced, with hands accustomed to chopping meat and counting copper. He was in a simple kaftan, but his gaze was heavy, like a bull's before a fight.

The square was packed with people. Merchants, artisans, refugees from burned Moscow. People stood silently, despondently. They were tired. Tired of requisitions, of fear, of news that "Rus' has perished."

"Orthodox Christians!" Minin's voice was not loud, but in the silence, it sounded like a hammer blow. "How long shall we sleep?!"
The crowd stirred.
"Moscow is in captivity!" continued Kuzma, clenching his fist. "Filthy dogs trample our shrines! The Patriarch is dying of hunger in a dungeon! And what are we doing? Guarding our purses?"

He stepped forward, to the very edge of the steps.
"Do we want to help the Muscovite state? Then we must not spare our lives!"
He tore open the collar of his kaftan.
"We will sell our yards! We will mortgage our wives and children! But we will gather an army! Who, if not us? There is no more Tsar! No boyars! There are only us—Kazan orphans!"

He took off his hat and threw it on the ground.
Then he untied the purse hanging on his belt. Heavy, leather. Shook all the contents into the hat. Silver, copper, even a gold ducat clinked.
"Here is everything I have. Take it! For gunpowder, for muskets, for mercenaries!"

The square exhaled.
This gesture of the butcher broke the dam.
Rings from merchants' wives' fingers flew into the hat. The last money of the poor flew in. Pearl necklaces flew in.
The people woke up.
But money is half the battle. Money doesn't know how to fight. They needed a Leader.

"Whom shall we call as voivode?!" shouted someone from the crowd. "The boyars have all sold out! The voivodes are either thieves or cowards!"
Minin raised his hand.
"There is one man. Honest. Brave. Not noticed in treason. Did not spare his blood."
"Who?!"
"Prince Dmitry Mikhailovich Pozharsky!"

The crowd buzzed approvingly.
They knew Pozharsky. He fought the Poles in Moscow six months ago, was severely wounded, and was taken to his estate barely alive. He swore allegiance neither to the Tushino Thief nor to Prince Wladyslaw. He was clean.

---

*Village of Mugreevo. Estate of Prince Pozharsky. October 1611.*

Prince Dmitry Pozharsky sat in an armchair, his legs wrapped in a bear skin.
He was still weak. The wounds received at Lubyanka were healing poorly. He limped, his face was pale and haggard. Melancholy froze in his eyes.
He believed that everything was over. Russia had died, and he only had to live out his days in the wilderness, praying for the forgiveness of sins.

Sleighs drove into the yard.
People got out. Bearded, serious. Men of Nizhny Novgorod.
In front walked a stocky peasant. Minin.
The Prince knew him. Butcher. Cattle trader.
*Why are they here?* thought Pozharsky with irritation. *To ask for money again? Or to complain?*

Minin entered the upper room. He didn't bow from the waist, as befits a commoner before a prince, but nodded with the dignity of an equal.
"Health to you, Dmitry Mikhailovich."
"And you be healthy," answered the Prince hollowly. "What brings you here?"

Archimandrite Theodosius, who came with the delegation, started to speak ornately about duty and faith, but Minin interrupted him.
"There is business, Prince. We gathered an army. There is money. There are people. There is no voivode."
Pozharsky smiled a bitter smile.
"No voivode? And Trubetskoy? And Zarutsky? They stand near Moscow, the 'Cossack camps.' Go to them."
"They are thieves," cut off Minin. "And we are not on the same path as thieves. They rob the country, not save it. We need an honest sword. Your sword, Prince."

Pozharsky turned away to the window.
"I am sick, Kuzma. Wounds ache. And what kind of voivode am I? I am a simple steward (*stolnik*). Not a noble boyar. Other princes won't listen to me. They'll say: 'low-born'."
"And we spit on lineage!" Minin walked up close to the armchair. "We have one lineage now—Russian! Stand up, Prince!"
"I won't stand up," said Pozharsky stubbornly. "They will betray. Like they betrayed Lyapunov. My own people will kill me."

Minin was silent for a moment. Then he said quietly, looking into the Prince's eyes:
"And you, don't fear betrayal. I take the treasury upon myself. I will be your 'chosen man.' You will fight, and I will manage the household and catch thieves. If any boyar makes a peep—I'll gnaw his throat out. But you—lead the regiments."

Pozharsky looked at this butcher.
He saw in him such wild, primordial strength as no boyar in the Duma possessed.
The Prince realized: this is the last chance.
God is sending him not an army, but a Helper.

Dmitry Mikhailovich threw the skin off his legs.
Tried to stand up. Pain shot through his thigh, he winced, but stood.
He straightened up. Pale, thin, but straight as a blade.
"Good, Kuzma," said Prince Dmitry Pozharsky. "I will take the sword. But on one condition. The treasury and supplies are on you. And I will punish traitors by my own authority, without regard for rank."
"Agreed," Minin extended his broad, calloused palm.
The Prince, a Rurikid, descendant of Vsevolod the Big Nest, firmly shook the hand of the meat trader.

In this handshake, a new Russia was born.
Not boyar, not royal. *Zemsky* (of the land). People's.
"Gather the people, Elder," commanded Pozharsky, and his voice regained commander's steel. "We march to Yaroslavl. There we will gather everyone who hasn't turned rotten. And from there—to Moscow."

  Chapter 13. The Butcher's Strike

*Moscow. Krymsky Ford. August 24, 1612.*

The heat was infernal. The sun, hanging in a whitish, dusty sky, melted helmets and dried throats.
Prince Dmitry Pozharsky looked at the other bank of the Moscow River.
There, flashing with the steel of cuirasses and the gold of banners, death was unfolding.
Hetman Jan Karol Chodkiewicz, the "Lion of Lechistan," brought a huge army to Moscow. And most importantly—he brought a supply train. Four hundred wagons with bread, salted meat, wine, and gunpowder.
If this train breaks through to the Kremlin to the besieged garrison—everything was in vain. The hungry Poles in the Kremlin will eat their fill, take heart, and the siege will drag on for years. And the Militia has no strength for years.

"They march beautifully," Prince Turenin, standing nearby, hissed through his teeth.
"They march as if on parade," responded Pozharsky. "Because they don't consider us people. To them, we are rebelling peasants."

It thundered. The earth trembled.
Polish hussars went on the attack.
It was a terrible sight. "Winged Cavalry." Feathers rustled behind the riders' backs, terrifying enemy horses. Long lances with pennants lowered, aiming at the chests of the militiamen.

The blow was of monstrous force.
The Russian noble hundreds standing in the center buckled. The crack of breaking lances, the neighing of horses, and the screams of people being trampled by iron hooves were heard.
Pozharsky, overcoming pain in old wounds, commanded:
"Hold! Do not retreat! Streltsy, fire!"

Smoke from muskets covered the field. The battle broke up into hundreds of small skirmishes. They hacked with sabers, stabbed with bardiches, pulled hussars from saddles with hooks.
But Chodkiewicz pressed. His infantry, German mercenaries, step by step pushed the militiamen to the river.
The Russians retreated. Slowly, snapping back, but retreating.

And on the other bank, in Zamoskvorechye, stood the "camps" of Prince Trubetskoy. Cossacks. Formally—allies. But in reality...
They stood and watched the Poles kill the militiamen.
"Let the Zemstvo men wash themselves in blood," guffawed the Cossacks, spitting sunflower seeds. "And we'll take the loot later."

Pozharsky saw this betrayal. His vision darkened from impotent rage.
If the Cossacks don't strike—it's the end of the Militia.

---

Evening was descending on the battlefield.
The Militia was on the verge of defeat. People were falling from fatigue. Chodkiewicz's wagons had almost broken through to the Serpukhov Gates. Another hour—and the bread would be in the Kremlin.

Kuzma Minin galloped up to Pozharsky's headquarters.
He was terrifying. Without a hat, kaftan unbuttoned, face black from soot. In his hand—a heavy saber on which someone else's blood had baked.
He jumped off the horse, almost falling.
"Prince!" he wheezed. "Trouble! Ours are bending! And these Cossack Herods stand, watch!"

Pozharsky sat on a drum, pale as death. The wound opened, the bandage on his thigh was soaked.
"I see, Kuzma. I have no reserves. Everything is in battle."
"Give me men!" barked Minin.
The Prince raised cloudy eyes to him.
"Whom?"
"Give me three hundred nobles! Those in reserve with Khmelevsky!"
"Why do you need them? You are not a voivode, Kuzma. You haven't walked in formation."
"Give them!!!" yelled Minin so that horses shied away. "I'll strike them in the belly! Suddenly! Across the ford! They are tired, they are celebrating victory! If we don't strike now—it's the end of Russia!"

Pozharsky looked at the butcher.
It was madness. To throw a civilian into battle at the head of noble cavalry? Against Hetman Chodkiewicz?
But such fire burned in Minin's eyes that the Prince understood: this one will not retreat.
"Take them," said Pozharsky quietly. "Take Khmelevsky's hundred. Go with God."

---

Minin flew to the nobles who stood in the copse, waiting for the order to retreat.
"Brothers!" he yelled, waving his saber. "Listen to my command! Follow me!"
Captain Khmelevsky, an old slasher, was surprised:
"Where to, Elder? There is death there."
"There is glory!" barked Kuzma. "Shall we, Russian people, give Moscow to the Poles?! Are we worse than Cossacks?! Let's go! Whoever doesn't go is a woman!"

And he, a simple trader, spurred his horse and was the first to rush into the water of the Krymsky Ford.
The nobles—proud, high-born—exchanged glances.
They felt ashamed. The butcher goes to die, and they stand?
"For Kuzma!" roared Khmelevsky. "Hurrah!"

Three hundred horsemen flew across the river.
The Poles didn't expect them. A company of Lithuanians guarding the flank had already relaxed, took off helmets, drank wine.
The blow was sudden and terrible.
Minin's detachment crashed into the Polish flank like a cannonball.
"Chop!" yelled Kuzma, working with the saber like with an axe in a slaughterhouse.

Panic is a terrible thing.
It seemed to the Poles that a fresh army had fallen upon them. In the twilight, fear multiplied three hundred by ten.
"Russians broke through! Surrounding!" screams spread.
Chodkiewicz's ranks wavered. The rear ran, crushing the front.

And then a miracle happened.
Trubetskoy's Cossacks, who had watched the battle with sneers all day, saw the Poles running. Saw a handful of nobles led by a peasant driving the Hetman's army.
Envy seized them. And greed.
"At 'em!" yelled the atamans. "The loot is leaving!"
The Cossack lava, thousands of sabers, broke from their place and struck the fleeing Poles from the other side.

It was a rout.
Hetman Chodkiewicz, winner of so many battles, fled, abandoning his precious supply train.
The wagons with bread, which never reached the Kremlin, went to the Russians.
In the Kremlin, on the walls, hungry Polish soldiers stood and howled in despair, watching their hope disappear in clouds of dust.

---

Late at night, Minin returned to Pozharsky's tent.
He could barely stand. His kaftan was hacked into rags.
Prince Dmitry Mikhailovich came out to meet him. He hugged the elder. Tightly, like a brother.
"Well, butcher," whispered the Prince, and a tear rolled down his cheek. "You chopped some fine meat today."
"Not I, Prince," Kuzma exhaled tiredly. "The Lord. And the Russian people."

Moscow was saved.
The besieged garrison in the Kremlin was doomed. They had no food left.
Ahead was only hunger, cannibalism, and capitulation.

  Chapter 14. A Crown for the Youth

*Moscow. The Kremlin. October 1612.*

The gates of the Trinity Tower opened with a creak resembling a moan.
Prince Dmitry Pozharsky and Kuzma Minin sat on horses, waiting for the garrison to exit. Behind their backs stood the Militia—silent, stern. They waited for the enemy to spit in his face, or maybe tear him apart.

But when the gates opened, anger disappeared. Only nausea remained.
Not people came out of the Kremlin. Shadows came out.
Polish soldiers, once proud noblemen in velvet and armor, staggered from the wind. Their faces were covered with parchment skin, eyes sunken into black pits of skulls.
A smell came from them. A sweetish, sickening smell of decay.

Minin covered his nose with his sleeve.
"Lord Jesus..." he whispered. "They are..."
"Cannibalism," Pozharsky tossed briefly. He knew what had been happening behind the walls in recent weeks. They ate cats, rats, boiled book parchment. And then they began to eat the dead. And then—the living.

The Poles threw weapons into the dirty snow. Sabers, muskets, halberds—everything flew into a pile.
They walked through the line of Russians, expecting death. But the Russians didn't beat them. They looked at these skeletons with horror and squeamishness. There is no honor in defeating dead men.

The Militia entered the Kremlin.
The heart of Russia was defiled. Horses (or rather, their gnawed bones) stood in churches. Icons were chopped for firewood. In the Palace of Facets, where Tsars feasted, lay piles of garbage and human remains.
Pozharsky dismounted at the Assumption Cathedral.
He took off his helmet. Crossed himself at the soot-covered dome.
"We returned the house, Kuzma," he said quietly. "Only one cannot live in it yet. Needs washing. Washing for a long time."

---

*Moscow. The Assumption Cathedral. February 1613.*

The Zemsky Sobor (Assembly of the Land) hummed like a disturbed hive.
Seven hundred people. Boyars, nobles, Cossacks, merchants, state peasants. All the Russian land gathered to decide one question: "Who is to be Tsar?".

Argued until hoarse, until fights.
"Prince Golitsyn for the tsardom!" shouted some. "Ancient lineage!"
"Golitsyn is in Polish captivity!" objected others.
"Pozharsky!" roared the third.
Dmitry Pozharsky sat in the corner, pale from pain in his wounds. He shook his head negatively.
"No. The Cap is not for me. I am a warrior, not a politician. The boyars will gnaw me to death."

"Trubetskoy!" yelled the Cossacks.
"Vorotynsky!"
"The Swedish Prince!"

It seemed the Troubles would start a second round. Again discord, again blood.
And then a Cossack ataman stood up. He had a throat of cast iron, and a saber—sharp.
"Why are we guessing?!" he barked. "We have a natural Tsar! Mikhail Fyodorovich Romanov!"
Silence hung in the hall.
The boyars exchanged glances.
Mikhail? That boy? He is only sixteen. He sits with his mother in Kostroma, in a monastery. He is quiet, sickly, famous for nothing. His father, Metropolitan Filaret, is also in captivity.

Fyodor Sheremetev, a cunning boyar, leaned to his neighbor and whispered:
"Why not? Misha Romanov is young. Hasn't reached reason yet. He will be pliable for us boyars. Will rule as we say. And his lineage is noble—from Ivan the Terrible's first wife, Anastasia. Sort of kin to the Rurikids."

"Romanov!" picked up the Cossacks (they liked that Mikhail's father was the Patriarch in Tushino, means "one of us").
"Romanov!" agreed the boyars (hoping to control the boy).
"Romanov!" exhaled the people (tired of heroes and wanting a simple, "natural" Tsar).

The decision was made. Not because Mikhail was the best. But because he suited everyone. He was a compromise. A point of balance.

---

*Kostroma. Ipatiev Monastery. March 1613.*

The cell was cramped.
Sixteen-year-old Mikhail Romanov huddled in the corner, behind the back of his mother, Nun Martha.
He was crying.
Before them stood an embassy from Moscow. Boyars in fur coats, clerks with charters. They bowed to the floor and spoke terrible words:
"The Land has chosen you, Sovereign. Accept the crown."

"I don't want to!" shouted Mikhail, and his voice broke into a rooster's cry. "I won't go! You killed all the Tsars! Poisoned Godunov! Tore Dmitry apart! Tonsured Shuisky into monks! You will kill me too!"

Mother, Martha, shielded her son with herself.
"I won't give him!" she said firmly. "He is still a child. Do you see what evil times these are? He needs peace, not a Tsar's title. Leave us!"

The boyars knelt but did not leave.
Archbishop Theodoret raised the icon of the Feodorovskaya Mother of God.
"Do not look at us, Nun," he said sternly. "Look at Her. If your son refuses—God will hold him accountable for the final ruin of Russia. Blood will spill again. Poles will come again. This sin will lie on Mikhail's soul."

Mikhail looked at the face of the Virgin. Then out the window.
There, outside the monastery walls, stood a crowd. Simple people. They knelt in the snow and cried. They didn't ask for power. They asked for protection. They needed a Shepherd so the wolves would stop tearing the flock.

The youth wiped his tears with his sleeve.
He stopped shaking. Suddenly something woke up in him... either from his grandfather, Nikita Romanovich, or from his formidable aunt Anastasia.
Doom.
The doom of a victim who ascends the altar himself.

"Let God's will be done," he said quietly.
Martha sobbed, hugging her son. She understood: she is not giving him to people. She is giving him to History. And History knows no pity.

---

*Moscow. The Assumption Cathedral. July 1613.*

Mikhail Fyodorovich stood before the altar.
He wore the Royal Robe—heavy, golden, hot.
The Metropolitan raised Monomakh's Cap over his head.
The very one.
Which Boris Godunov put on, dreaming of a dynasty.
Which False Dmitry put on, dreaming of glory.
Which Shuisky put on, dreaming of power.

They all died. They all lost.
The Cap descended onto the boy's head.
It was heavy. Unbearably heavy. It pressed on the temples, bent him to the ground.
Mikhail swayed but stood firm.

He turned to the people.
Thousands of eyes looked at him. With hope. With faith. With love.
"Health to you, Father Tsar!" the choir burst out.
"Hurrah!" roared the square.

In the first row stood Prince Pozharsky and Citizen Minin.
Pozharsky leaned on a cane—wounds ached. Minin had aged, gray hair struck his beard.
They looked at the young Tsar.
"Well, Kuzma," said the Prince quietly. "We carried the burden to the end. Now it is his turn."
"It will be hard for him," sighed Minin. "Oh, hard. Ruin all around. Treasury is empty. Robbers in the forests."
"It's nothing," Pozharsky chuckled. "The main thing is—the Crown is in place. And the neck will get stronger."

Mikhail Fyodorovich Romanov, the first Tsar of the new dynasty, took the first step on the red carpet.
The Time of Troubles was over.
But the heaviness of the crown remained.
And the Romanovs were to carry this heaviness for three hundred years. To the very basement in the Ipatiev House. But that... that is a completely different story.

**END OF THE THIRD NOVEL OF THE TRILOGY "THE HEAVY CROWN"**

© Copyright: Konstantin Sandalov, 2026