And they were Moslems.

Though the campaign had been a crusade, it was the Tsar's policy that the Tatar populations he conquered should be converted to Christianity by persuasion, not by force. Indeed, to weaken their resistance, his emissaries were careful to point out to the Tatars that the empire of Muscovy already contained Moslem communities whom the Tsar allowed to worship in peace. But of course, if a Tatar wished to enter the Tsar's personal service, he must be a Christian; for Ivan himself was strict and devout.

If I am to impress the Tsar, Boris considered, I must show that I too am devout.

The two Tatars would convert that night. And soon, he felt sure, he too would become one of the Tsar's chosen few his best men.

The afternoon was overcast, but ahead of them a break in the grey clouds had allowed mighty shafts of sunlight to descend, which lit up an area of broken forest causing it to shine with an almost unnatural gleam. And to Boris, gazing eagerly towards the west, it seemed as though this sunlit patch of land, aspiring to escape from the endless, dull stasis of the plain, had gathered itself together in a pool of golden fire, and was being drawn up into the sky like a huge pillar of prayer.

At dawn the next morning the two Tatars were baptized by one of the priests travelling with them. Following the Russian custom, they were fully immersed, three times, in the River Volga.

The young Tsar could not have failed to notice it.

Two days later, they arrived at the great frontier city of Nizhni Novgorod.

It lay on a hill, frowning over the junction of the Volga and the Oka, the last eastern bastion of old Russia. Eastward from Nizhni Novgorod lay the huge forests where the Mordvinians dwelt. Westward lay the heart of Muscovy. The city's high walls and its white churches stared out over the Eurasian plain as though to say: 'Here is the land of the Holy Tsar unshakeable.'

At Nizhni Novgorod was the great Macarius Monastery, with its enormous fair. As he walked its streets, Boris smiled. It was good to be home.

The returning army was popular at Nizhni Novgorod. The Tatars had so often disrupted their affairs in the past and besides, Kazan was their rival in the trade with the east. The people showed their gratitude in every way.

It was mid-afternoon, the end of the working day, when he met the girl. She was standing outside a long wooden building that contained a public bath house. She was typical of her kind. Whereas the women of the upper classes were kept in virtual seclusion and did not show their faces in public, the women of the people liked to make a display of themselves.

Her face was painted white, her lips bright red. Her eyes were set wide apart and shaped like almonds. She was at least half Mordvinian, he supposed. Her eyebrows were painted black. She wore a long embroidered gown that must have been expensive, and from under which peeped two bright red shoes that tapped out a little rhythm on the ground, from time to time, to keep themselves occupied. On her head was a red velvet cap. Her eyes looked bored, because nothing was happening, but when she saw young Boris staring at her, they became first watchful, then faintly amused. As he walked up to her she smiled, and he saw that her teeth were black.

It was done with mercury, this blackening of the teeth, and Boris had heard the custom was borrowed from the Tatars. The first time he had gone with one of these women, her black teeth had repelled him, but he had learned to get used to it.

They stopped, briefly, at a little drinking booth where they were serving vodka. He liked this spirit that went down one so easily, even though at this time it was mainly used by the lower classes. It was not a Russian drink at all, but had started to enter Russia from the west through Poland in the last century. Indeed, its very name was only the mispronunciation by Russian merchants of the Latin name it bore: aqua vitae aqua vitae.

They finished their drink. He felt a warm surge run through him as she took him to her lodgings.

She proved to be warm, and surprisingly supple.

Afterwards, when he had paid her, she asked him if he were married, and hearing he was about to be, laughed merrily.

'Keep her locked up,' she cried, 'and never trust her.' Then she moved lightly away, in her red shoes, humming to herself.

It was with a shock, at that very moment, that Boris turned to see that a group of people had just come out of a church opposite. They were dressed in furs and did not seem anxious to attract particular attention, but Boris immediately recognized the tall young figure in their midst.

He knew very well that Tsar Ivan could not even ride near a church without paying it a visit: obviously this had been another of his sessions of prayer. But had the devout sovereign seen him with the girl? He looked at him nervously.

It was obvious that he had. His piercing eyes shot after the girl then bored into Boris. The youth held his breath.

Then Ivan laughed a sharp, rather nasal laugh and his party moved rapidly away.

Boris had no doubt he had been recognized: Ivan missed nothing. But had it altered the sovereign's opinion of him had it affected his prospects? There was no way of knowing.

It was two days before the end of October when they entered the mighty city of Moscow.

How thrilling the journey had been. They had come overland from Nizhni Novgorod, through the very heartland of Muscovy. First they had come to the ancient, high-walled city of Vladimir, where they learned that Tsar Ivan's wife had just given him a son. Then, despite his eagerness to reach the capital, Ivan had taken a large party first to nearby Suzdal, and then across to the great Monastery of Trinity St Sergius, forty miles north of the capital, in order that he could give proper thanks to God at each place.

And as he followed the Tsar to these fortress monasteries and powerful old cities, deep in the forest and meadowland of Russia, it seemed to Boris that he saw God's purpose and the destiny of the young Tsar more clearly than ever before.

Truly, he thought, the endless steppe will be conquered at last by Russia's mighty heart.

There was the lightest snow in the air that day, so thin and sparse that it hardly seemed to be falling at all, but danced in the air instead, brushing carelessly against the rooftops without settling and only dusting the ground.

The city occupied a noble setting at the meeting of the Moskva and Yausa Rivers, with the long, low line of the Sparrow Hills behind. Boris still found its size overwhelming.

Indeed, though Boris did not know it, Moscow was then one of the greatest cities in all Europe as big as sprawling London or powerful Milan. Its suburbs stretched so far out into the surrounding villages that it was hard even to say where the city began. First one encountered great monasteries with walls like castles, then the outer suburbs with their mills, orchards and gardens. And then one came to the great earth rampart that enclosed the Earth Town, where the humble classes lived; then the masonry walls of the White Town, the middle-class quarters; and at last the kitaygorod kitaygorod, the rich quarter, beside the towering walls of the mighty Kremlin itself.

Already, as they moved through the outer suburbs, there were crowds by the road. Everywhere, it seemed, bells were pealing through the snow. Huge shapes walls, towers, the golden domes of the monasteries loomed in the middle distance out of the grey haze of the snow-dusted sky.

And then, as they finally approached the citadel as though in welcome the snow died away and there before them, glowing strangely under the lowering orange light of the snow clouds, lay the mighty city.

Boris caught his breath at the sight. The cavalrymen in their pointed helmets or their tall, cylindrical fur hats rode so proudly towards the city gates; on each side of them marched the Tsar's new crack infantry corps of musketeers the streltsy streltsy and other halberdiers who, Boris could see, were already having trouble containing the thickening and enthusiastic crowd that was streaming out of the gates in Moscow's mighty walls. and other halberdiers who, Boris could see, were already having trouble containing the thickening and enthusiastic crowd that was streaming out of the gates in Moscow's mighty walls.

How splendid, and how powerful. Great towers rose at intervals along the city walls towers with high pyramidal roofs like pointed tents. And enclosed behind them lay the great sea of wooden houses, interrupted by stone towers and domes, that was the city.

Moscow: city of the imperial Tsars. When they had crowned Ivan, they had put a cap of fur and gold upon his head and claimed it had belonged to Monomakh, greatest of princes in the days of the ancient Rus. But the autocrats of Moscow went far beyond anything that Monomakh would have dreamed of in the ancient days of Kiev. Each time a city fell, its princely family was broken and made servants of the state; and its leading boyars were resettled in other provinces. When the young Tsar's grandfather had taken over Novgorod, he had even taken away the bell they used to summon the veche veche, in order to mark that the citizens' ancient freedoms were gone for ever. The Moscow family had invented a genealogy which traced their ancestry to the great Roman emperor Augustus, at the time of Christ. In the Kremlin now, splendid cathedrals by Italian architects had appeared beside the onion domes and towers of its older churches and monasteries so that, here in the heart of this northern forest empire, one might, for an instant, think oneself before a Florentine palazzo.

Moscow: city of Church and state. In the opinion of many churchmen, the state and religious authorities should rule together in perfect sympathy. This was the Byzantine ideal of the old Roman Empire of the east. And so it was in Moscow. Had not young Ivan already set out two great programmes of reforms, one for his administration and one for the Church? The young Tsar would not tolerate magnates who oppressed the people, nor clergy who were lax or immoral in their habits. Did not each great law code have a hundred chapters? For Ivan liked such mighty symmetry.

Moscow: heart and mind of Russia. Inside the great, stout walls that ringed the city, dwelt some merchants and others from abroad; but never were they allowed to defile the inner life of the mighty people of the north. Catholics and Protestants could visit but not make converts. Orthodox Russians knew better than to trust the treacherous people of the west. Though there were many Jews and other foreigners down in the southern lands of Kiev, here in the north none were allowed to come.

The state of Muscovy might yearn to possess the Baltic ports that would give them free access to the west but here at Moscow, her heart and mind would be safe, impenetrable, protected by mighty walls that should never be broken down. Neither Tatars with sword and fire, nor treacherous Catholic, nor cunning Jew should ever enter and conquer here. This was Russia's protection against fear.

A great procession was moving from the city gates. The clergy was coming led by the Metropolitan. With banners, icons, shining vestments, they came from the huge walled city with its gleaming domes, under the heavy grey and orange sky, while the air was riven with a thousand crashing bells. They were coming to greet the Tsar.

'Slava all praise. Conqueror, saviour of Christians.' all praise. Conqueror, saviour of Christians.'

And it was on this day that Boris heard the soldiers give a new name to the conquering Tsar Ivan. They were calling him Grozny Grozny meaning 'Awesome', 'Dread', or, as it is usually if inaccurately rendered: 'Terrible'. meaning 'Awesome', 'Dread', or, as it is usually if inaccurately rendered: 'Terrible'.

The snows had already fallen when his wedding day arrived.

A few friends, all made in the last year, came to the little house in the White Town suburb to collect him; but despite their attempts at gaiety, he felt very much alone.

Already, though it was less than a month before, the triumphant return to Moscow seemed far away.

What a day that had been! After Metropolitan Macarius had made his speech of welcome, Ivan had replied, comparing the Tatar yoke to the captivity of the ancient Hebrews. Even Boris had felt like a hero as they passed through the city gates and came to Red Square and the mighty Kremlin.

He had felt like a hero as he drank in the taverns with the other young fellows. He had felt like a conqueror when he came out into the night and walked about the citadel admiringly.

The huge space of Red Square had been nearly empty. In summer, it was full of market stalls, though in winter the whole market moved down on to the frozen river below. The big open space stretched away before him like the empty steppe. Beside it rose the massive, impenetrable walls of the Tsar's fortress with its vast, high towers. The tallest soared up two hundred feet into the starlit night and somewhere, in that vast, closed fort, dwelt the Tsar. Some day, he had thought contentedly, I'll be asked to go inside those walls.

His elated mood had lasted until he had gone into the quarter just east of the Kremlin.

This was the kitaygorod kitaygorod the so-called Basket Town a walled area within which great nobles and the richest merchants dwelt. Here were big houses not only of wood but even of masonry too. The rich nobles were celebrating. The street was full of big sledges pulled by magnificent horses. The coachmen were drinking and talking together. Even by torchlight, he could see splendid furs and oriental carpets piled in the empty sledges, for the comfort of the burly, wealthy men who would in due course stomp out into the night. the so-called Basket Town a walled area within which great nobles and the richest merchants dwelt. Here were big houses not only of wood but even of masonry too. The rich nobles were celebrating. The street was full of big sledges pulled by magnificent horses. The coachmen were drinking and talking together. Even by torchlight, he could see splendid furs and oriental carpets piled in the empty sledges, for the comfort of the burly, wealthy men who would in due course stomp out into the night.

His prospective father-in-law, he had realized, was probably in there somewhere. True, he did not live there he had a substantial wooden house in the White Town but he was sure to be at the feast of some powerful men in this noblest quarter. And this knowledge had reminded Boris of the central fact of his life. He was poor.

Indeed, as his future father-in-law Dimitri Ivanov had made clear, he was only giving Boris his third daughter as a favour to Boris's father, who had been his friend in bygone years. Not that Boris was making such a brilliant marriage though it was the best that his poor father had been able to arrange.

But for Dimitri, it was certainly a sacrifice. The possession of three good-looking daughters was an asset to a noble like him. They were kept in seclusion in the women's quarters upstairs and could be used to make marriages that would benefit the family. Though young Boris was acceptable by his birth, that was all; and so the dowry that Dimitri gave his youngest daughter Elena was very modest and caused Boris sadly to realize a simple truth. 'The richer you are, the more people think they ought to give you,' he sighed.

As for his feelings about Elena, Boris was both excited and uncertain. His father had arranged the betrothal long before, and it was only when he had come to Moscow before leaving for the Kazan campaign that he had met her.

He would never forget it. He had entered the big wooden house late one morning. They had offered him bread and salt and, in the proper manner, he had gone to the icons in the red corner, bowed three times and murmured, 'Lord have mercy.' It was as he crossed himself from right to left and turned that the girl and her father had entered the room.

Dimitri was short, fat and bald. He wore a dazzling blue and gold kaftan. His face was broad and narrow-eyed, revealing the existence of a Tatar princess in his family some generations before, of which he was very proud. His beard was full, and red, and reached luxuriantly down his swelling belly over which it was carefully brushed outward like a fan.

Elena was at his side. She was wearing a long embroidered dress of pinkish red. Her hair was golden and plaited in a single braid down her back. On her head was a modest diadem, and over her face a veil.

With a faint grunt of satisfaction, Dimitri whipped off the veil and Boris found himself staring at his future wife.

She was not like her father at all. Her eyes were blue and soft: Boris noticed that at once. They were set rather far apart and were, perhaps, somewhat almond in shape; but that was the only hint that she might be related to this short, cruel-looking man. Her nose was narrow, yet slightly and nervously flared above her broad, rather full mouth. She seemed pale and tense. The muscles in her neck were standing out as she looked up at him.

She is afraid I may not like her, he saw at once, and this made him feel tender and protective. She does not realize that she is beautiful, he also shrewdly observed. That, too, was good.

And best of all, as he stared at her thoughtfully, he realized something else: he wanted her. He wanted her with the simple, definitive passion which says: She will be mine to order as I please, and I can make her beautiful.

'I had a fine offer for her the other day,' Dimitri told him frankly, 'but I had kissed the cross on this with your father and there's an end to it.'

Boris gazed at her. Yes, she was lovely. He started to smile.

And it was then that the little incident had taken place that caused him, on his wedding day, to be uncertain. It was nothing really. He told himself it meant nothing at all. Elena had looked down at the floor. Yet what was the expression that had flitted across her rather anxious face? Was it disappointment? Or could it conceivably have been disgust? He had looked carefully but been unable to see. Surely if she had utterly disliked him she would have said so to her father? He would not have held Dimitri to his oath in such a circumstance. Or was she remaining silent out of a sense of duty?

In the few meetings they had had since, he had tried to suggest to her that if she was unhappy in any way she should tell him, but she had modestly assured him that she was not.

All was well, he told himself, as the party came near Dimitri Ivanov's house. All would be well.

And surely, he thought, as they stood together before the priests, surely this was meant to be.

The Russian marriage service was long. The tall tapers, decorated with marten skins, filled the church with brightness; the air was heavy with the smell of wax and the priests with their long beards and their heavy robes coated with pearls and gemstones seemed almost heavenly presences as they solemnly moved about and the choir chanted. Candlelight, incense, hours of standing: like every Orthodox ceremony, by the time it was over, 'you knew you had been to church'.

Boris made his vows and gave the ring which, in the Russian Orthodox manner, was placed on the fourth finger of her right hand. But the most moving moment for him was the point, towards the end of the service, where his bride reverently went down on her knees and prostrated herself before him, lightly tapping his foot with her forehead as a token of her submission.

It was a very real submission. Like all women of the upper classes, she would be kept in near seclusion. Indeed, it was a point of honour with both of them that she should be. She will never demean herself by appearing in public, like a common working woman in the street, he promised himself.

And similarly, it was a point of honour with her that she should obey her husband. To disobey him would be, to her, as disloyal as if a soldier disobeyed an order from his commander. To contradict him before others would be the act of a mere plebeian.

Some men made a point of beating their wives and, Boris had heard, the wives took it as a sign of love. Indeed, the famous guide to family conduct, the Domostroi Domostroi, which had been written by one of the Tsar's close advisers, gave precise instructions as to how a wife should be whipped, but not beaten with a stick, and even told the husband how to speak to her kindly afterwards, so as not to damage their marital relations.

But as he looked down at this young woman at his feet whom he scarcely knew but now intensely desired, Boris had no wish to punish her. He wanted only to merge himself with her, to take her in his arms and, though he scarcely realized it himself, to receive from her the warm affection that he had never known.

So he now experienced a sudden, sharp emotion as, following the custom, he cast the bottom of his long gown over her as a sign of his protection.

I will love her and protect her, he swore in a silent prayer, and believed that in this moment, before the blazing candles, he had truly become a man.

At the end of the ceremony, the priest handed them a cup from which both drank and then, in the best Russian manner, he crushed it under his heel.

As they walked out the guests, who were almost entirely on her side, threw hops over them. They were married. He sighed with relief.

There was only one small episode which remained in his mind to mar the happy day. It took place at the wedding feast afterwards.

There were many guests and, as is usual on such occasions, they treated the young man kindly. This being an important family gathering, the women also attended the feast and he made a low obeisance before Dimitri Ivanov's old mother who, it was said, ruled the whole family down to all her grandchildren from the splendid seclusion of her room on the upper floor. She gave him, he noticed, a nod but not a smile.

The tables were already piled high with food. At this season he knew there would be goose and swan, well seasoned with saffron. There were blinis blinis served with cream, caviar, the meat pies made with eggs called served with cream, caviar, the meat pies made with eggs called pirozhki pirozhki; there was salmon and all manner of sweetmeats all the rich diet that caused the swollen figures of so many of the men and women crowding the room.

On a table set to one side, he noticed something else that impressed him red and white wines from France.

For though the men of Moscow were not permitted to travel to other lands indeed, to do so without permission might mean death the nobles and rich merchants were as familiar with foreign luxury goods as they were ignorant of the way of life of the countries from which these came. To afford such wines at one's table: this was to be upper class, Boris considered. In his own house he usually drank mead.

Poor as he was, proud as he was, and small as the dowry had been, Boris could not help feeling a sense of gratification that he had joined himself to these people who were so obviously rich.

The company sat down to the wedding banquet with the bride and groom put in a place of honour. At once, before the meal properly began, wine was served. Boris drank some and quickly felt a renewed surge of warmth. He had some more, looked at his bride with a little frisson of excitement, and smiled at those around him.

All was well. Almost. For though he had no great love for Dimitri Ivanov, there was only one person in the room that he hated, and for some reason he had been seated opposite him.

This was Elena's brother Feodor. He was a strange creature. While the elder of her two brothers closely resembled his stocky red-headed father, Feodor, aged nineteen, was slim and fair-haired like Elena. His beard was clipped very short and was curled. The rumour was that he had had all his body hair plucked out. Sometimes his face was lightly powdered, but in honour of the occasion he had restrained himself that day; however, it was clear that his face had been massaged and patted with some unguent, and even across the table Boris could pick up the heavy smell of his scent.

There were many such dandies in Moscow: they were quite fashionable, despite the stern Orthodoxy of the Tsar. Many, though not all, were homosexual. But as Feodor had informed him at their first meeting: 'I love what is beautiful, Boris: boys or girls. And I take whatever I want.'

'Sheep and horses too, no doubt,' Boris had replied drily. The practices of some of Feodor's friends were said to be varied.

But Feodor had not been at all abashed. He had fixed his hard, shining eyes on Boris.

'Have you tried them?' he had asked in mock seriousness and then, with a harsh laugh, 'Perhaps you should.'

Boris did not care for this, coming from the brother of his bride. There was something harsh and cruel in Feodor, despite his wit and occasional humour, and he had avoided him since.

For some reason Elena was fond of him. She did not seem to think that his nature was truly vicious unless, which God forbid, she condoned him? Boris had tried not to think about this possibility.

But this was the wedding feast. He must try to love them all. Dutifully therefore he raised his glass and smiled when Feodor proposed a toast to him.

The blow, when it came, was completely unexpected.

It was halfway through the meal that Feodor, eyeing him calmly, remarked: 'How nice you two look together.' And then, before Boris could think of any reply: 'You should enjoy sitting in your place, Boris. After this, I'm afraid, you'll be sitting much further down the table from any of us.' It was said, apparently, with ironic humour, but loud enough for many people to hear.

Boris started violently.

'I do not think so. The Bobrovs are at least on a level with the Ivanovs.'

But Feodor only laughed.

'My dear Boris, surely you realize, no one here could ever serve under you.'

It was an insult: the greatest and most calculated that could have been given. But it was not an idle taunt, as if he had said: 'Let a dog puke on your mother.' Boris could not get up and strike him for it. Feodor had made a highly technical statement about his family that could be verified in a book. And it was possible, Boris feared, that what he had said might be true.