Come spring time, Ludmilla’s farm transformed from an icy wonderland full of frosted barley stalks bent over and frozen; into a muddy quagmire of melting snow and random patches of exposed soil. It was a little early to begin preparing the fields, but Ludmilla was once again on a very tight schedule.
So much to do, especially when it came time for planting. There would be preparation and repairs first, then before long it would be time to till the soil and get the ground ready for seeds. The process would be rather arduous when the rains came and soaked the ground but the rains also served to clear off the snow so she could get right to work on dry days.
Father disagreed with her early start, saying the hard labor required was simply not worth the effort. “In a few more weeks after the last heavy rains, Lyev, the job will be much easier,” he assured her. But Ludmilla began planting anyway. Father knew better, of course; and she understood his logic. It could be risky, if she planted and a rainy deluge washed out her seeds or “drowned” the sprouts within the first five crucial days before they could germinate. Ludmilla acknowledged the risk, but placated her father politely.
“Let me try, Father. It’s been dry for a week. With a little luck,” she promised, “I’m sure I can get the field planted long before it rains again.” Therefore, against Father’s better judgment, she went out and sowed the entire field in a day or two—once she was done preparing the field that is.
Working in muddy ground was extremely difficult for a horse and plow as she soon discovered! Ludmilla could get entire sections of the field done on dry days; but once a big rainstorm came she’d have to wait it out; and in some cases she’d have to plow some areas all over again. This set her back for several frustrating weeks. Father kept telling her to wait and let the rainy season pass, but Ludmilla needed to get this hard work done and her fields sown quickly. She had to get back to Belgorod and see Tatyana!
She also stuck little stakes into the soil randomly throughout the field, with flags attached to them made from parts of bed sheets. This old farmer’s trick served to scare off migratory birds returning to the area, because the noise of the flags flapping in the wind would startle the birds away; and prevent them from landing on freshly sown fields, feasting on the seeds before they sprouted.
Yes, it was indeed risky. If she planted and sprouts didn’t properly germinate, then her yield might be severely diminished months later come harvest time. Yet Ludmilla was willing to chance it. She had a backup plan anyway, once the crop was planted and she could get back to Belgorod: she was going to make vodka with Bogdan. If all else failed, perhaps she could pay the family farm’s rent with that! It was a long shot, but Ludmilla believed it would work.
True, she’d had months to think about it. And that look on Tatyana’s face when she embraced her the day she left? It was so odd. It was an expression like something had just occurred to Tatyana that she hadn't thought of before. Or perhaps it was something similar to that look people get when they detect a foul odor. It would be far easier if that had been the case.
Ludmilla had given it some thought and the best conclusion she could draw was that when pressed against her chest, the girl had simply gotten a face-full of Ludmilla's boobs. That made for the most logical explanation. Ludmilla’s breasts must have squished up against Tatyana’s face as Tatyana burrowed into her outside her father’s tavern that morning.
Over and over, Ludmilla went through that scene in her mind—the way people do when they've done something they want to make sure they got away with and later torture themselves night after night mentally retracing their steps to make sure they “made a clean getaway.”
Regretfully, when Ludmilla embraced Tatyana that morning outside the tavern, she’d been standing up straight and tall, allowing Tatyana to practically shove her nose right into Ludmilla’s cleavage. Little thought was given to it at the time unfortunately. Ludmilla was quite preoccupied with maintaining her balance in the slippery snow while Tatyana attempted to kiss her goodbye. It gave her butterflies when she went over it in her mind: something so simple; and yet so easy to avoid if Ludmilla had thought about it for a mere second! Now it occurred to Ludmilla that Tatyana might have become suspicious. Could Tatyana have added it up? The hairless hands? The smooth hairless face? And then on top of all that, female breasts underneath her rubashka?
That above everything else was the biggest reason for wanting to return to Belgorod as soon as possible. She'd be living there with Bogdan and Tatyana until harvest time, and that would take at least sixty, maybe seventy days. Of course, it wouldn’t take more than a minute to detect whether Tatyana still had feelings for her, but that would also give her two months in Belgorod to be around Tatyana daily. That should be enough time to gain her confidence again and make her comfortable with the relationship. That’s what Ludmilla must do first. The rest she'd have to figure out later.
Within a month, Ludmilla was ready for her long-awaited trip to Belgorod. She took a day to pack and say goodbye to her father, then loaded up the cart with some clothes and a lunch for her journey into town. It was a bit difficult explaining it to Father, but Ludmilla tried making it plausible as best she could.
“I’m going into town to find work for a couple months until harvest time,” she explained, “make a little money for us. Then I will return. I promise.” Her father got an all-too familiar look on his face, so she added, “That’s all, Father—just two months,” she told him. But she proceeded to assure him that she’d be back in time to help bring in the crops. “You can count on me,” she said repeatedly.
He seemed to understand. However, there was also a sadness in his eyes as he kissed her goodbye—embracing her warmly for the first time she could remember since perhaps when she was a little girl. This surprised Ludmilla. Almost made her want to beg him to try and believe her—that she really was coming back. Not surprisingly he was not completely convinced. All the older brothers had left him after all, so it was no surprise he had apprehensions over seeing her go.
Then, to make things worse, he even told her—for the first time in her entire life—“I’m proud of you, my daughter.” He never talked like that to ANY of his sons! Not even Vladimyr. Never. And when he embraced her again and urged her to hurry home very soon, as though he really didn’t expect her to, it was a heart-wrenching experience. Ludmilla almost felt like crying!
“I’ll be back Father, I promise!” she swore to him again. Then she turned and left. Father watched from the porch smiling uneasily toward her. She knew he was only trying to make himself believe she'd really be back someday.
* * * *
Meanwhile however—far to the south—the spring rains had washed out the snowy grasslands of the Crimean peninsula; and turned the soil into an infinite sea of muddy sod for the mostly nomadic herdsmen of the southern steppes.
They had lived like this for centuries of course, herding goats and horses—then surviving the bitter cold winters in their small round yurts made from animal hides. Goats could be milked or slaughtered, plus wild game could occasionally be caught to feed their families. Berries and herbs could be foraged. However, come spring, for most able-bodied males, it was raiding season. Their tough women and small children too young yet to ride, simply stayed behind with the herds. That’s the way things had always been.
Small bands of a hundred horsemen—or chambuly as Tatars called them—would be mustered by local Mirzas and called up to join the main horde in the winter camp at Qapi. But this year, the call for troops was bigger. Thousands and thousands of warriors responded; and began gathering at Qapi right after the snows melted and the torrential spring rains had ceased.
The great Khan Devlet Giray began organizing his forces, compiling around 80,000 light horsemen. He also recruited some Turkish irregulars (Bashi-bazook as the Turks called them) numbering around 30,000—and an elite unit of about 7,000 Janissaries to form his imperial bodyguard.
Janissaries were highly trained infantry armed with muskets and a saber. Recruited or conscripted from conquered Christian lands, these were reliable soldiers who could bolster most any army in a field battle. They were often very young when they started their training. Taken sometimes at age fourteen or even twelve, they spent their young lives first learning Arabic and converting to Islam while they trained for military service. Next, they went through extensive weapons training and marching drills. They became some of the Sultan's most gallant fighters.
Bashi-bazook on the other hand, were undisciplined mercenary fighters who rode along just to plunder, steal, and ravage the countryside. The Turkish nickname for them, “Delibas,” roughly translated into “crazy head,” and it was well-deserved. These unruly fighters could be most anything from runaway slaves to adventurous Arabs, Circassians, Kurds, Albanians, or native Turks. Often leaderless, they were only about as reliable as a shipload of scurvy pirates, but in a scrap they might be just enough to turn the tide if they felt like fighting that day. Usually they did, if the prize was worth risking their lives. But their reputation for uncontrollable brutality when sacking villages or towns was quite well-known everywhere in the empire.
Armed by the government but never paid wages, Bashi-bazook wore no uniforms or even badges for identification. They merely served the Sultan's forces in hopes of gaining a share of the booty whenever a city or town was captured. Most Turkish armies marched into combat with at least a small complement of these adventurers; and over time, they became employed more often in garrison and patrol duties. It was merely a necessity that grew from the demands created by the sheer vastness of the Ottomon Empire. However, Bashi-bazook were little more than government-sanctioned bandits. Devlet was glad to have them in this campaign; plus he fully intended to rely heavily on the Tatars’ most notorious other great strengths: stealth and deception.
Marching from the Tatar fortress of Qapi, which was the “front door” to the Crimean peninsula, Devlet’s massive army made its way north in late March following the Muravsky Trail. They avoided major river crossings, and stuck to the high ground; following this ancient warpath through mostly unsettled or lightly populated grasslands. In fact, Murava’ is a very old Slavic word for prairie, hence the nickname “Muravsky Trail.” By following it, they could avoid marshes and forests so they could move faster.
Each Tatar brought with him an extra horse or two, so the entire column numbered about 120,000 men and over 300,000 horses. It was quite a terrifying sight! Despite the massive size of the column though, they were able to move through the country practically undetected. Tatars normally preferred raiding during harvest time so that ripening fields full of barley and wheat would be plentiful for good foraging. However, with dry ground to travel upon come late March, Devlet decided to begin his campaign a little early. This was rarely done; but he knew the journey to Moscow would take nearly two months and he had the element of surprise in his favor.
In this campaign, Devlet wanted to move swiftly and then circumvent the Serphukhov line along the Oka River before running into any major Russian forces. To accomplish this, the army traveled in columns with the main body stretching over 30 miles long and a quarter mile wide. Naturally, the Tatars employed scout units, too, and once the main body had entered Russian territory, Devlet sent out reconnaissance units of around 10,000 men in several directions. They spread out for thirty to forty miles rounding up women and men along with livestock to feed the army, then returned to the Tatar main camp with their plunder. This harvesting of slaves prevented the rest of the countryside from knowing exactly where the main body of Tatars was at any one time, because these raider units would return by a different route than whence they came, confusing any Russian patrols who might be following them.
When encountering a village, Tatars would typically surround it and set up bonfires to illuminate the countryside. In this way, they could prevent their victims from escaping. Next day they would move in and take captives. The old or infirm would have their throats cut. Infants or those unable to march would simply be left to die or mercilessly slaughtered right there on the spot. Prisoners would be interrogated about Russian troop movements; and whenever reconnaissance units might be attacked, they’d simply split up into chambuly and scatter in all directions, further confusing Russian forces.
The trail took them northeast from the Belgorod line and moved west of the city itself. Devlet was not willing to waste time attacking fortified cities along the way. For that matter he avoided attacking any organized forces at all unless he was forced into a pitched battle, which was rare in this campaign. If pressed, Devlet could certainly engage the enemy, yes. He did have some light artillery in his column and an elite guard of about 7000 musketeers; but his main force was mostly made up of horse archers and light infantry. These could not stand against heavy cavalry or field artillery; plus they were useless against heavy infantry in melee combat. That’s why Devlet focused his campaign on swift movement and avoiding any detection of his main force.
* * * *
Despite that, word did indeed spread throughout the country—and in Belgorod, Bogdan was already hearing about Tatar activity from the guards in the town when they frequented the tavern at night. Fear and panic began to spread. Even the hardened town guards showed it in their eyes. Tatyana was hearing about it every day as well. Word was going around the market and the streets of Belgorod that Tatars were already ravaging the countryside, and small villages were being plundered for slaves and forage almost everywhere in the region.
What’s more, the stories coming into Belgorod from refugees fleeing into the city seemed to indicate this was indeed a massive invasion, not just a small raid. Just how big? No one really knew yet. Would the Tatars show up one day outside the city walls and demand surrender? Possibly. And if they did, what would Bogdan do then? How would he protect his lovely daughter? Should they make a run for it? If so, where would they go?
Ludmilla, however, knew nothing of this. Leaving her farm that day and riding into Belgorod, she had simply no idea what all the excitement was about. Occasionally during her fifteen-mile ride, she'd see a large plume of smoke rising off in the distance, but it was always many miles away and she could otherwise see nothing else that seemed out of the ordinary. To Ludmilla it was just a peaceful April afternoon. It never occurred to her how much danger she was in.
Guards recognized her at the gate and waved enthusiastically as she entered, but as she passed through the streets people seemed very agitated and worried. “Welcome back, Lyev!” one hailed her. It was a guard she remembered from the tavern. “Good to see you in one piece,” he then commented, and that’s when it hit her how strange things seemed. She now saw people from the countryside and outlying farms heading into the city with bundles of clothing on their backs or pulling small carts filled with their belongings. They were apparently running from something! But what? It is only April, thought Ludmilla, what are they frightened of? She turned her cart toward the tavern and made her way through streets clogged with nervous peasants.
Ludmilla reunited with Tatyana that first evening after she arrived, and was delighted to find the girl quite happy to see her again. Bogdan was as well. However, as relieved as Ludmilla felt in seeing Tatyana pleased with her return, Bogdan and Tatyana were even more so at seeing her alive! Just having “Lyev” safely back in Belgorod seemed to give them both some measure of comfort. After all, since they didn’t know exactly where the Tatars were, they had been worried for weeks about whether “he” would even make it to the safety of the town. Ludmilla couldn’t have been more delighted with the warm reception, of course—yet she still hadn’t fully grasped what was happening. She’d soon find out.
Tatyana brought out mugs of ale for everyone to drink while Bogdan sat down with “Lyev.” He told about the massive raids that had been going on, and the refugees packing into the city. “This time, it's a full-scale invasion my boy,” said Bogdan as he swigged his ale. “Thousands of them. Never know when they might show up. People are terrified they might attack the city. The Inn has been full every night, and some folks,” he said, “have been reduced to sleeping in tents down by the town marketplace.”
Ludmilla suddenly felt sick to her stomach. She had no idea this had been going on. She knew nothing of the invasion before arriving that day, and had no inkling she was in any danger riding through the countryside earlier. Her blood ran cold worrying about her father. Will he be safe? she wondered. For that matter, was anyone?
However, within a few days, the stories of Tatar raids and villages being ransacked began to die down; and scouts returning to the city soon began reporting the Tatars had apparently moved on. Refugees left the city and returned to their farms. Life began to get back to normal in Belgorod. This was a relief to Ludmilla, and when she thought about it, it seemed unlikely now that her father was in any danger at all. Tatars were looking for villages to raid, not isolated farms—and since there were no crops ready for harvest yet, it was improbable they’d be foraging near the family farm anyway. That’s how everyone in town coming to the tavern often explained it, too. So instead, she turned her focus to the business at hand and got right to work.
She dove right in, plunging into daily repair jobs and a thorough cleaning that the inn was in dire need of. Bogdan was delighted, and so was Tatyana. Even as much as they’d remembered her work ethic, they were still astounded with her diligence and efficiency once she’d returned. They in turn returned to their daily routines. Tatyana continued to take baked bread to market, just as she’d always done, and at the beginning of the evening when customers once again started ambling in, the happy trio were quite efficient working together serving food and ale to thirsty, hungry patrons. The night’s revelry would gradually come to an end, then they’d trudge off to bed for a good night’s sleep. Next day they'd start all over again.
Ludmilla was a flurry of activity during the day. First thing she did was remove all the furniture in the dining hall and give it a good scrubbing. She made repairs, straightened nails, and tightened legs or supports on the tables so they’d stand up better to a long night of drinking and merriment. Tatyana helped, too. She traded at the market for some lacquer; and in no time, the entire dining hall smelled like fresh coats of lacquered wood and clean floors.
But she didn’t stop there. Once the furniture and tables and stools and benches were refinished and repaired, she then set herself to work on the walls! Bogdan thought it was crazy, but Ludmilla eventually persuaded him. Years of fireplace smoke and soot had collected on the interior of the inn, contributing to a smoky darkness that was only barely illuminated by candles and lamps—or even the light of day coming through greasy windows. This just wouldn’t do. Ludmilla wanted the interior to be bright and inviting. It would mean fewer dark areas inside where Tatyana might have run-ins with drunken customers who might take advantage of her. When she explained it like that, Bogdan was all for it—and so was a very proud Tatyana. “Lyev” was turning out to be even more wonderful than they’d hoped!
Ludmilla cleaned and scrubbed—up from the floor all the way to the ceiling—constructing her own scaffolding and fashioning “mop brushes” to use in swabbing the soot off the walls. What a disgusting mess it created! When she was done she even re-plastered sections which had eroded and peeled off over the years. The place looked better and better each day; and customers took immediate notice. Not only did they see there was a new “man” in Bogdan’s employ, but customers also started behaving better in the newer, cleaner dining hall. The floors were no longer a place to simply spit on or discard rubbish. No one dared! One shot of a serious glance from Ludmilla, and the perpetrator would humbly pick up after himself, or immediately cease.
Customers even began discouraging each other from doing so. “Hey, pick that up! We're not pigs here you know?” they’d yell at one another, half-joking at times, but often quite serious on occasion. It made Tatyana giggle every time they did that.
By contrast, Ludmilla would merely stand upright with hands on her hips until the violator corrected his error. There was indeed a new order to things in Bogdan’s tavern, and the enforcer of this was always present, always everywhere it seemed, watching out for Tatyana as well as cleanliness inside the establishment. She was quite blunt at times, too! She’d admonish them humorously with comments like, “The horse barn is across the street, comrades. Let’s keep this place nice for everyone to enjoy, shall we?” That always caused quite a stir of cackling and chuckles. She was like a strict Russian grandmother at times yes, but most customers thought it to be downright hilarious whenever she’d call out an offender.
Meanwhile, as the rumors of Tatar raids and slave roundups in the countryside faded away, Tatyana and Ludmilla spent day after day working together and spending time falling even more deeply in love. Even when they weren’t together, Ludmilla was working side by side with Bogdan starting the process of producing vodka for customers in the Tavern. That was the fun part for Bogdan. He’d been waiting for months to begin! He loved working with Ludmilla; and her uncanny ability for devising solutions or constructing systems for processes simply fascinated him. He could delegate most anything to her—and when he ran out of ideas, she always seemed to have at least two more to try. What’s more she refused any compensation, pointing out that her eventual payoff would occur once she returned to her farm and harvested her barley. Then they could make enough vodka with their newly learned processes to be able to pay her farm’s rent with her share. Bogdan had no argument with that!
“Besides, I’m not going to drink up our profits…this stuff is too potent for me anyway!” was how Ludmilla put it. Bogdan laughed at her for saying that; but over time it inspired him to adopt the same philosophy. “Lyev’s right,” he’d muse to Tatyana. “Why drink it? Sell it all and make even more money.” Bogdan was thrilled with his young partner’s “head for business,” and he remarked on it constantly to Tatyana. “This boy’s a keeper, my daughter,” he’d often say. Tatyana couldn’t agree more.
* * * *
In May, the allied Crimean and Turkish army finally reached the Serpukhov defense fortifications along the Oka River. There they were able to outflank a small 6,000-man Russian army and clear the path for an assault on the capital. This turned out to be the real turning point in the campaign, in that the Oka River defenses were traditionally the final barrier preventing further incursions north. Truth be told though, the Tatars did receive vital assistance along the way—and from one of the most unlikely of sources. Indeed, a rather fortuitous turn of events changed everything for the invaders.
A defector from the Russian side who’d been captured in an earlier battle tipped off his captors that going straight to Moscow would now be feasible if they were willing to spare his life and give ear to his knowledge of the area. “I know the way,” he claimed. In fact, the traitor offered to lead the horde personally through an unguarded section of the Russian defense line! Stunned at their prisoner’s apparent willingness to betray his own people, the Tatars decided not to cut his throat and instead delivered him straight to the Great Khan himself. But it came with a stern warning.
“Dog! If you turn out to be lying or tricking us,” they berated him, “we’ll roast you alive over a campfire until you scream bloody murder. Don’t try our patience. Understand?” The Russian turncoat nodded in agreement. “You have my word, comrades. I’ll show you a way around our defenses. They’ll never know a thing. I swear it.” And with that the Tatars led the rather well-healed prisoner through the camp to their leader’s tent.
Blindfolded and bound at the wrists the prisoner walked with his captors through a sea of yurts and campfires where greasy fingered warriors roasted goats and sheep captured from local farms. Captured women could be heard screeching in terror from inside nearby tents as the two Tatars and their prisoner walked among the campsites. Hardened men snickered and laughed at the sight of him—a Russian nobleman no less! This they commented about crudely as he passed. They chuckled and mocked him, all the while taunting their cohorts leading him through camp tethered by a strand of rope like some old milk cow.
“Couldn’t find any women today, eh?” one scoffed. “Just cut his throat and we’ll share some of ours with you!” another one yelled. “Yes, we've got plenty to spare, don't we?” yet another one snarled and a woman could be heard near him whimpering then crying out pitifully a few moments later. She’d been stripped of her clothing and was tied to a post next to their campfire. One of the brutes was poking her with a red-hot iron rod which he’d heated in the flames. In response to her agonizing screams the rest of the Tatars around the camp only laughed harder. Meanwhile the traitor tried to ignore the shameful goings-on. He knew there was nothing he could do for her.
Eventually they arrived at the Great Khan’s tent—a massive yurt that towered above the others and had a large dais constructed at the front for receiving emissaries or other important guests which might be brought before the Khan. As it was evening, the dais was no longer occupied, so they proceeded to the entrance. Dusk had fallen, and the camp around them soon became illuminated by campfire light and torches as the setting sun turned burnt orange. When they got to the entrance, sentries outside the tent crossed their spears over the opening and demanded an explanation.
“Entry is forbidden!” stated one of the guards. “The Great Khan is through receiving guests for today,” the other said. “No one is to disturb him.” But when the Tatars holding the prisoner detailed what their captive was proposing, a well-dressed vizier of diminutive size and advanced age soon poked his head through the flaps of the massive tent to tell them they could enter. Evidently the man had been listening from the other side and liked what he was hearing!
“We’ve captured a Russian nobleman, comrades,” said one of the Tatars, with a tinge of annoyance in his voice. He had no patience for such buffoons. These were no warriors—likely hadn’t seen combat since the beginning of the campaign. Nonetheless he needed to impress upon them the importance of their find. “A turncoat,” he continued. “Says he wishes to change sides. We’ve questioned him. Claims he knows a secret path we can lead our army to. He gave his word that this will enable us to outflank the Russian army. Clear shot to Moscow. We must bring him before the great leader immediately. Now move aside.”
That was all the elder vizier needed to hear. He stepped through the opening and interrupted the conversation. “Yes, they may enter the Khan's tent,” said the vizier, overriding the sentries. “Bring the prisoner inside,” he then commanded. The guards obediently uncrossed their spears and stared out blankly once more. The Tatars then grabbed their prisoner by the arms and led him through, the vizier gesturing for them to come inside. “You will follow me,” he told them.
Entering the enormous yurt, which was the size of a circus tent, the Tatars removed the man’s blindfold and that’s when he finally beheld the interior of Devlet Giray’s stately residence. It was truly amazing…almost like a palace on the inside. He looked around while they untied his hands. Piles of golden plunder and treasure chests stacked several layers high ringed one side of the round walls. The tent was as tall as a large temple in some far off Asian city, with ten or twelve torches lighting the gloomy interior, and a short little man with a thin moustache sitting on a gilded throne planted right in the middle. He'd been enjoying his dinner at the time—and he didn’t seem too pleased with the interruption. This must be the Great Khan Devlet Giray himself! thought the Russian.
Slave girls, dressed in colorful veiled costumes lounged around the feet of the little man on large pillows likely imported from Turkey. An enormous blue, green, and red rug with intricate designs woven into it lay beneath them. The girls were all milky white skinned and adorned with jeweled headgear, bracelets, anklets, and necklaces which descended from their necks across their bare breasts. Some, he could see, had marks and scars on their skin from receiving God knows what form of cruel punishment meted out to them during their captivity. Several had even been branded on the upper arm with some undiscernible symbol indicating they were now slaves. Some of their brands looked fresh, too.
The slave girls stared emotionlessly at the finely dressed Russian standing across the dirt floor of the yurt. There was a sadness about them that struck the man almost immediately. It occurred to him that their spirits had been broken and they'd lost their will to resist. It turned his stomach thinking about such things. He tried not to make further eye contact with them.
Meanwhile a pair of tall African male slaves, stripped to the waist and serving as his attendants, stood by the glowering little man while the vizier quickly scurried over to crouch at the Khan’s feet, touching his head obediently to the dirt floor in deference to his supreme leader. “Oh, Great Khan, we have received a guest who wishes to offer some form of assistance,” the vizier announced, with his face still looking down at the ground below him. The little man sitting on the throne covered in gold said nothing, but motioned subtly with his hand to bring forward this “guest.” The Tatars quickly complied.
Devlet Giray was unimpressed when his warriors led the prisoner to him. At first glance, the tall Russian didn’t seem to be worth his time. Nevertheless he allowed the intrusion; out of morbid curiosity more than anything else. “You are wishing to help us, my brave foe?” snarled the little man with a leering glare. Through his slanted eyes there was an intensity that shown through; and the Russian felt a lump in his throat while he tried to form words, “Y-y-yes, Great Khan,” he stammered.
Sensing the nobleman knew nothing of Tatar custom, the soldiers next to him then kicked at the back of his knees to make him kneel before their leader. The prisoner knelt and bowed his head awkwardly to the ground, in the way he'd seen the vizier doing. Devlet snickered softly as he observed the lanky fellow attempting to appear so courtly.
Having learned throughout this campaign from both prisoners and deserters alike about the political disarray going on inside Russia at the time, Devlet was certainly not surprised at receiving a willing traitor into his court. Ivan the Terrible had been brutally suppressing Boyar influence within his government. Devlet had heard of these things months before and hoped this instability within the monarchy might make things at least slightly easier for his warriors. However, when he met this man, a Boyar-son by the name of Kudeyar Tishenkov, only then did the full picture become clear: Tsar Ivan had been conducting a reign of terror upon the ancient nobility of Russia for some time. He queried the young man about this that night in his massive tent.
“So, my noble guest, perhaps you would be good enough to tell me how it is that you, a Russian, have come to help us. Are we not your enemy?” asked the Great Khan in a low provocative voice. Kudeyar remained bowed before him, and replied, “No, Great Lord, I am no longer your enemy today. The enemy of my people and the enemy of my family is the Tsar of Russia. I serve him no longer.”
There was a long pause, as Devlet studied the kneeling man. “Hmmm, and yet you have sworn fealty to the Tsar of Russia have you not?” asked Devlet in a rising ominous tone. The Russian didn’t answer immediately so Devlet continued “And why is it I should trust a man who would betray his own king?” Devlet stood up from his golden chair and folded his arms inside the sleeves of his ornately decorated robe which was sky blue with yellow-gold braiding and piping. He wore a shimmering gold and dark blue conical hat that poked straight up from his head nearly two feet to the tip. “Who are you?” Devlet then asked him. The Russian explained who he was, and why he'd defected.
“Great Khan…my name is Kudeyar Tishenkov. I am a Boyar, and son of the noble Tishenkov family. My father is dead, murdered by the Oprichniki, and I am the last of my brothers not executed or imprisoned already by Tsar Ivan.”
Devlet had heard all about the Oprichnina. It was an official policy mandated by the tsar to weed out traitors to his throne. Begun in 1565, it served as a means of wiping out members of the aristocracy who regularly challenged Ivan IV's authority or defied his edicts. It all began when a very paranoid Ivan the Terrible left Moscow on pilgrimage in December 1564, and in his absence the government fell under the control of the Boyar Council. By modern standards, this was effectively a coup d’état; and in response to what he deemed a threat to his own authority, Ivan returned to Moscow and demanded the creation of an organization to investigate and expose other such “traitors” to his throne.
The whole sordid affair served mainly to reduce the power and influence of the centuries-old Russian aristocracy; and within only a few years, Ivan had successfully solidified his power. Yet he’d done so at the expense of thousands of deaths: murders, assassinations, and unjust persecutions. Princely clans were all but wiped out in many regions of the land, with nobles being rounded up, tortured, executed, or having their lands confiscated. In one region, twelve thousand Boyars were killed or simply expelled from Russia and forced to try and escape from their own country. Peasants aiding their former lords in their attempted escapes from the Oprichniki (secret police) were also rounded up and either hanged or beheaded.
The sheer madness of it reached a fever pitch, when open air mass executions of accused traitors were conducted in Pagan Square in Moscow. Desperate for wealth to fund his extensive campaign against the Livonian Confederacy, Ivan IV and the Oprichniki eventually turned to looting the clergy and its churches! And at the height of his madness, Ivan the Terrible even ordered the Russian city of Novgorod looted and burned. Not surprisingly, the tsar had many enemies within his own kingdom.
“Ah, I see,” remarked the Khan to his guest. “So your family was one of those persecuted by the tsar. What a pity. And now you wish to serve me, do you?” asked the Khan suspiciously. However, Devlet was only testing the man. He only wanted to hear what the man was offering while not revealing too much about his desperate need for such information. After all, if he'd ordered the man tortured, his cruel bodyguards would make the man tell them most anything they wanted to know…and Tishenkov certainly had no doubt about that!
He replied, “Yes, Great Khan, if it pleases thee. I know of a way to Moscow my Lord…a way you can cross the Zhizdra River with your entire army…undetected. There's a ford along the river—to the west—one that is no longer being patrolled. I’m sure of it.”
The Great Khan smiled slightly, then made eye contact with the two Tatars flanking him. Ever so slightly, he nodded and glanced down at the kneeling man once more as if to indicate some subtle message to them. That was all they needed from their leader. They reached down and grabbed the man roughly, lifting him up by the hair and pulling his arms back. One pulled out a dagger and held it to the man's throat. Meanwhile, Devlet sat back down in his chair. The room fell silent, while the Great Khan pressed the fingers of both his hands together as though he was deeply contemplating the man's integrity.
Tishenkov closed his eyes for a moment and feared for the worst while he awaited his fate. Was the Khan going to order him killed? It might very well come to that. Off in the distance, he could hear Tatar warriors carousing and laughing. Another captured peasant girl was outside screaming, and apparently being dragged through the camp in terror. He could hear whips cracking and men jeering at each other…taunting and laughing at her. Despite the horrifying plight of the terrified woman outside, Kudeyar knew they'd do far worse to him if he failed to lead them across the Zhizdra without alerting nearby outposts. In fact, they might just execute him next morning, slit his throat, and dump his body in that very same river after he showed them the secret passage!
After a few moments, the Khan could be heard sighing. “Very well then,” he growled. “In the morning you shall go with my scouts. Show them this path—this secret ford of which you speak.” Then with that, the Khan gestured with his hand to have the traitor removed from his sight. Tishenkov was made to stand and then led by the two Tatar Warriors out of the giant palace of the Great Khan.
Outside they bound his wrists again and led him away briskly, once again through the campsites and the debauchery. He tried not to look up or provoke anyone. He tried not looking over at what was happening to the poor female still screaming and crying out nearby. By now her entire body was scarred from the hot iron rod they kept burning her with. Her legs were striped up and down. Her thighs and buttocks marked. She was now pleading with them to free her. Promised to do anything they wished. Promised to submit her body to them. He kept his eyes down and walked briskly past with his two captors.
He spent the night in a small yurt with those same two men, being fed some dried meat and given a cup of Airag (fermented mare's milk) to wash it down. The two men sat across from him and glared at him most of the night until he fell asleep. Tishenkov finally drifted off, exhausted from the day, yet awakened periodically throughout the night hearing the horrifying sounds of terror-stricken women enduring unspeakable torments in the camp outside. There was nothing he could do for those poor souls out there, he most certainly realized. And there was nothing—absolutely nothing left that he could do for himself either but carry out his traitorous mission the next day. Yet each time he stirred awake hearing the cries of some anguished woman in some far off tent and looked over at his captors, they were still awake or came to right when he did. They stared at him blankly, waiting for morning to come. They showed no emotion, of course, but the tall Russian wondered if they weren't just as worried as he was! Truly, if Tishenkov failed the next day, and his patrol was discovered, their throats would be cut right along with his.
In the coming days however, the ruse worked and the Russian traitor was indeed able to lead the Tatar allied army across the Zhizdra. Using a trail that Tatars had never learned of before, they quietly moved their entire force across the river and easily outflanked the enemy. Sentry troops along the rest of the Oka were quickly routed; and with no significant forces left to stop the invaders, the remaining Russian army retreated toward Moscow. In their wake, terrified Russian peasants, freedmen, and minor nobles fled to the city along with their families. The road to Moscow was now wide open.
Forty thousand Tatars advanced on the city; and yet in a bit of sheer irony, the traitor Kudeyar Tishenkov would never end up seeing his revenge on Tsar Ivan IV become a reality. It turned out that upon hearing of the defeat of his own troops under the royal ataman Yakov Volynsky, the cowardly Tsar fled from his palace in Moscow to Rostov, leaving the terrified citizens alone to fend for themselves.
Of course there were still a few gallant and brave souls left in Russia. Princes Belsky, Mstyslavsky, and Vortynsky dispatched Russian troops from Kolomna, and hurried desperately to get to the city before the Tatars besieged it. On May 22, this Russian relief army finally did arrive, and only one day ahead of the Khan's main force. The city was already swelling with desperate refugees when they got there; as Tatar raiding parties swept through the outlying areas around Moscow, pillaging towns, sacking villages, and capturing hundreds of slaves wherever they went.
Devlet Giray arrived the day after the Russian army and set up headquarters in the captured town of Kolomenskoye. Then, after directing half his force to go out raiding and rounding up captives, he ordered 20,000 of his horsemen to enter and set fire to the suburbs of Moscow. They overwhelmed the Zemlyanoygorod and began ravaging the city, capturing civilians everywhere they went and looting homes, churches, shops, and warehouses. That however was only the beginning of the disaster!
Fires set during the raids began to spread, and as the people of the city fled to the relative safety of the Kitaygorod, something truly tragic and even more unimaginably terrible happened. The winds came!
Indeed a strong wind came whipping through the city, stirring the fires set by the Tatars into a conflagration. It was such an enormous inferno that it quickly began to feed on itself and rose into a firestorm that sustained its own wind system. Such a phenomenon often occurs during forest fires, when oxygen is drawn in like storm force winds from every direction. In this case, it created a stacking effect, wherein the original fires set, drew in more and more of the surrounding air, causing the updraft to mushroom and strong inflow winds changed direction constantly, making the path of the spreading fire practically impossible to predict. Within only six hours the suburbs had burned to the ground and the frightened survivors fled toward the north gate of the city.
Unfortunately for most, there would be no escaping this holocaust. In a horrific scene of almost Biblical proportions, the desperate citizens of Moscow and refugees from outlying towns rushed to get up to the gate. They stood on top of each other. They ran over each other. They even stood upon the heads of one another to try and get up or over the walls to the Moskva River!
Surviving army units sent to defend the city were useless. Could never form ranks and face the enemy. They were merely caught up in the stampede of people and disintegrated into disorder right along with the fleeing refugees. Some people even fled inside stone churches to escape the flames, but they, too, perished from suffocation as the stone walls collapsed in on them from the intense heat. Many who finally did make it out of the city walls—those who could escape the flames that is—drowned in the Moskva River as the crush of bodies pushed them under the surface.
Even those lucky few who made it inside the Kremlin walls did not fare much better. The powder magazine there caught fire, and hundreds who were hiding under it in the cellars below, asphyxiated when the gunpowder exploded. Sadly, the valiant Prince Ivan Dmitrievich Belsky, heir to one of the most well-known ancient noble families was also killed in the massive fire, as he suffocated from smoke inside his own mansion inside the Kremlin. His tragic death finally brought to an end his family line; and Moscow seemed to die right along with the Belsky dynasty in an inferno of unimaginable horror.
All totaled, the death toll amounted to a staggering eighty thousand people killed during the six-hour-long disaster. For years, the city would be nearly uninhabitable and the fiendish Ivan IV refused to even live there. In fact, when he returned weeks later to view the scene in person, he ordered the burnt suffocated bodies of the dead to be thrown into the Moskva River. It was said later that the number of dead dumped into the river was so staggering, that it caused a damming effect on the river and the Moskva overflowed its banks—flooding the city for a while. Bodies were still being dug out of the rubble nearly a year later.
On May 25, after another day of looting and ravaging the city for anyone or anything still alive or of any value, Devlet Giray ordered his men to begin returning home. There was no reason to stay any longer he surmised. The Russian capital was now destroyed; and besides, as they drove south again, they could pillage town after town along the way back to their homeland. The Russian army was too small to face them out in the open; and could only tail them from a safe distance as they rampaged southward. Therefore, loaded with loot and over 150,000 captives, the horde headed back toward the southern steppes of the Crimea. They sacked and burned city after city as they went; and the Russian Army could do nothing to stop them. They ravaged Ryazan, burned Kashyra as well. And rumor now had it they were heading straight toward Belgorod.
* * * *
After Kashyra fell, that's when the people of Belgorod started hearing about the Tatars approaching from the north. Bogdan panicked. Everyone else in the town did, too! “They've burned Moscow!” people were saying. “The army is destroyed!” others were proclaiming. “Lord in Heaven, please help us!”
Women in the streets screamed in terror at the very thought of the advancing heathens. “They'll take us all, make us slaves, won't they?” asked a terrified teenage girl of one of the guards on the street one day. He spoke of it that night in the tavern to his mates. “I didn't know what to tell the girl, my boys. Yes, we'll fight them when they come, that's our duty. But let's face it gentlemen—how can we expect to stop them? There’s too many!”
My God! thought Bogdan to himself, If they could burn Moscow…if they could defeat the Russian army…why, they could bloody well take Belgorod fortress, too! He realized he needed to get his lovely daughter Tatyana out of that city…before it was too late.