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Novgorod, February 1550
Almas felt his way carefully in the dark to the nearest wall, marveling as he had every day for what seemed an eternity that after he’d escaped the worst prison he’d ever known beneath the Kremlin, he’d somehow ended up in another in Novgorod.
With a sigh he put his back against the wall and slid down into a sitting position. Black as tar, dank, and crowded, the cell held nineteen men. Not being able to see, Almas could not judge the true size of the space. The men couldn’t move more than a few inches without bumping into one another.
Since the Russian triumph over Kazan, Ivan had persistently attempted to broaden his borders. Endless raids and skirmishes took place in which the Tatars fought to protect their lands from Russia’s imperialist ambitions. They won some battles and lost others. Neither side enjoyed significant victories.
Russian soldiers captured Almas not far from the Livonian frontier with a small contingent of his countrymen. Descended from the Cossacks who once inhabited all the Eastern lands, including Russia, he considered himself a soldier of the Tatar Empire, or what remained of it. His ancestors passed down stories of seeing the first yellow-haired, blue-eyed men and women and not knowing where they came from. Now Ivan’s horde threatened their lands, their people, and their culture.
Almas would rather die fighting than become a prisoner, but, as when Kazan was taken, he'd been wounded, forced into slavery, and herded into a crowded prison with others of his race he’d never met before.
Now he dwelt in Novgorod. He didn't know how long he’d been here. For weeks, his group had been shuffled from town to town. Once in Novgorod, they were thrown into this dark cell and forgotten. The lack of light made it impossible to discern the passage of time. A week? A month? They ate regularly, if poorly, and Almas made a full recovery from his extensive injuries. And for what? He’d found his health only to come into an existence of darkness and misery.
All the prisoners felt it: a stirring syndrome. They wanted so badly to be out that every man experienced moments when he swore the walls were closing in. Unable to run, stretch their legs, do anything except hunch in the cell, every moment felt a breath away from madness. Yet, what could they do? Prisoners held no sway over their own fate.
Then things got worse.
Up until recently, a great deal of noise surrounded them. The other prison cells had also brimmed with people, mostly Livonian prisoners captured during the war. None of the Tatars, including Almas, spoke Livonian, though several could pick a few words and phrases out of the darkness.
Nearly five hundred prisoners in all shared the prison, including women, children, and the elderly. The Livonian children were the source of the noise. Sometimes it became unbearable—screaming, crying, wailing. Almas clasped his hands over his ears to shut it all out.
Then it ceased completely. A week before—or so Almas guessed—the Livonian prisoners, all of them, had been taken. There commenced a great ruckus in herding them out of their cells. Once gone, the silence became intimidating. After hours and hours, Almas missed the cries of the children. It had been noise, yes, but the noise of life. Now only the silence of emptiness prevailed. The prisoners did not return. They might have been moved to another prison or another city, or put to work as slaves. Almas didn’t think so. Five hundred? Moved all at once? Surely not.
Besides, the guards spoke of the arrival of the Russian Tsar mere days before the Livonians disappeared. Almas couldn't believe it a coincidence. He'd heard tales of Ivan and his exploits. The guards refused to confirm it, but Almas highly doubted the Livonians walked the earth anymore. Not in human form, anyway.
The waiting proved the most frustrating. Since Ivan’s arrival, Almas and his fellow Tatars were fed less often—only when the guards remembered, in fact. Every man in the cell had been a soldier. Bold and strong, they'd concealed items about their persons. Things considered innocuous by the guards, but which soldiers could use as weapon if the situation required. Such things proved immaterial in a jail cell, however. Until and unless they were freed, they would have no chance to use their weapons or their military intellects.
The thought of wasting away, waiting to die in a tiny room because he'd been forgotten threatened to drive Almas mad. More than once he’d felt pain in his forearm, only to realize he dug his own nails into his skin, drawing blood. Still, the waiting ambled on.
Almas put his head against the wall and thought of his wife and sons back home. They remained safe in a tiny village, protected by other family members, or he hoped they did. Assuming Ivan’s Oprichniki hadn’t ransacked his village, of course. It lay far to the East, out in the wilderness, and Almas doubted Ivan’s army reached so far. Still, he couldn't know. Almas hadn't been home in months. He didn’t believe he ever would be again. Melancholy consumed him, and Almas forced his thoughts away from the loneliness of missing his family.
Taras. A decent young man with great potential who’d been seduced by Russia’s seductive lifestyle. Almas wondered what happened to him, even pitied him, but always thought of him with fondness. After Taras helped him escape Moscow, Almas returned to his family. When he left them again to go fight the Russians, his goodbyes had been brief. Yet, his wife and sons cried. They'd never done that before, not in all the times he’d left home. At the time, he'd been sure it resulted from his having been captured by the Russians for so long. Now he understood better. Somehow, they'd known he wouldn't return this time.
A lurching sound from far away brought everyone’s head up. Though they could not see one another, Almas sensed the motion. It sounded like the outer door to the prison had opened. Someone approached. A minute later, pale orange light played on the prison wall beside the cell. Torches. The heavy tromp of boots and the brightening of the room announced more than one person. Almas fought the urge to shade his eyes. The light of the torches was pale by most standards, but it burned brighter than anything this cell had seen since the Livonians piled out.
The guards spoke in rough Russian. They ordered Almas and the others out of the cell. The prisoners, not shackled, were escorted at spear point. When they reached daylight, Almas was blinded. He hadn't been outside in so long, his eyes refused to adjust. Day had faded to evening. The sun had either set or mostly set, but brilliance of the sky still burned Almas's eyes. After several minutes passed, he still squinted, his eyes nearly shut.
The square outside the prison looked like an arena. On one side stood a raised dais. Ivan Grozny sat atop it on a dark, throne-like chair, looking like he might fall over dead at any second. He wore a coat of mail, spattered with dried blood. Around him stood hundreds of spectators, mostly Oprichniki soldiers. They looked demonic. Almas had heard tales of their appearance and exploits. He’d assumed the stories were embellished. He'd been wrong.
The guards shoved the Tatar prisoners into a clearing at the center of the mob. Almas immediately became aware of a terrible stench. He knew its source: decaying flesh. Dark mounds rose ominously all around them. He saw them through the lines of soldiers, but his eyes wouldn’t adjust well enough to make out details. Dead animals, perhaps?
“Hail, prisoners of Tatar!” The crowd silenced when a dark-haired man with piercing blue eyes, pale skin and pointed features held up his hands and addressed them. Almas didn’t know who he was, but he acted as the Tsar’s spokesperson. “You are accused of high treason, for refusing to surrender to the divine Tsar of all Russia. The penalty is execution.”
The crowd cheered and Almas smelled his own death in his nostrils. This pretense of a trial Held no justice. This would be an execution.
“Where are the Livonian prisoners?” The man who spoke was one of the Tatar prisoners from Almas's cell. Almas didn’t know the man’s name—they'd never exchanged names—but Almas recognized him all the same. He’d been the leader in the cell. He’d encouraged them, prepared them, and kept them from killing one another. Almas thought of him simply as the Voice. It felt good to put a face to the man, and fitting for him to take the lead here as well. Short with dark hair and eyes, the Voice had a round face and skin tinged with yellow.
The Tsar’s spokesman turned a sinister smile on the Voice and Almas shivered. There was something monstrous in that smile. The spokesman turned to the Tsar and bowed. “I beg your indulgence, my Lord Tsar?”
After a pause, Ivan nodded. “Skuratov, if you bore us, we'll cut it short.”
“I assure your grace it won’t take long.” Skuratov turned and addressed the Voice again. “You want to know where your fellow prisoners are, Tatar? Don’t you see them? They’re all around you.”
Chills crashed along every part of Almas’s body like waves. He'd not travelled to the sea since he was a boy, but he remembered the overwhelming din of the water against the rocks. He felt like one of those rocks.
The decaying mounds of flesh—it was the Livonians.
The crowd laughed heartily at the Tatars’ dismay. Even Ivan smiled cruelly.
The Voice seemed to understand as well. Sorrow stole into his round features. “Women and children made up that group. What right do you have—” He didn’t get any farther. Skuratov picked something up. The object spun through the air. It hit the Voice in the chest with a solid thunk and he fell to his knees. Almas’s vision still hadn’t cleared completely, but the weapon struck him as too small to be a knife, not long enough for a spear. Almas guessed a small ax of some kind.
Though he’d guessed it much earlier, Almas understood with perfect clarity that he would not leave this arena alive. He stepped out, chest out and head back, in front of the other Tatars and raised his voice, wanting Ivan to hear it.
“You want to kill us? Very well. We shall die. Understand this, Grand Tsar of Russia: you may slaughter us upon the altars of both our churches, but the blood of every innocent victim will rise against you one day. Their cries reach the ears of the god of the universe. May he curse you for what you’ve done!”
Silence filled the square. Almas felt the other Tatars rally behind him.
Ivan stood, and the Russians immediately deferred to him. He took two steps toward Almas. “Curse me, heathen? How can He curse me? Do you not understand? My legacy will live forever. My son shall follow me, and his him, for generations. Even God cannot stay my hand. If my actions displeased him, he would put an end to them, would he not?”
Many in the crowd chuckled appreciatively.
Almas prayed briefly for the correct answer to come to his lips. He spoke without thinking. “Mark me, Ivan Grozny. One day the blood you have taken will be taken from you. God shall put an end to your...generations sooner than you think.”
Ivan smiled indulgently. “I think not, Heathen.” His gaze slid toward Skuratov. “Kill them.”
The crowd cheered as guards came forward to lay hands on the prisoners. The Tatars did not need to speak to one another. They stood back to back, waiting until the guards stood only a pace from them to spring into action. Almas fingered the jagged metal concealed in his sleeve, scavenged from the prison. The others hid similar weapons. Only two didn’t: one man who'd fallen terribly ill in the cell, and another who already nursed an injury. They could not fight and, when prodded out into the square, the Tatars quickly surrounded their wounded.
Now, every man except the two invalids threw themselves at a guard. Almas lunged at the one in front of him. The man’s eyes widened in surprise right before Almas tackled him. Putting the soles of his feet on the man’s stomach Almas squatted on the man's abdomen and his knife into the man’s heart.
Almas glanced up to see another Tatar bury his knife in Skuratov’s stomach. They were winning. Their actions—and their weapons—took the Russians so much by surprise that they still hadn't caught up. Each of the Tatar fighting men had killed at least two Russians already, except for Almas. Almas turned toward Ivan, whose face grew dark with anger. Almas knew what he must do.
Springing to his feet, he made a straight line for the Tsar. Ivan noticed him coming and backed away. Almas nearly made it. A foot from the dais, he hit a brick wall. A white-hot pain filled his gut. He looked down to see a protruding hilt, half-covered by a blood-spattered hand. My blood. He turned to find an Oprichniki soldier standing beside him, hand on the hilt. The man twisted the blade in his gut and Almas's vision blurred. The pain deafened him, swallowing him in its vibrations.
He lay on his back. His eyes registered bodies in front of him. His fellow Tatar prisoners faced him with staring eyes and unmoving chests.
So, they hadn’t won after all. He'd not truly believed they would. He raised his head to examine his own body. Blood—pitchers of it—gushed from his abdomen, beneath the belt line. He couldn’t see his insides, but felt them seeping out.
Ivan was being rushed from the square, shouting and cursing about the importance of his own safety. Almas registered Ivan’s orders that all Tatar prisoners be “put down.”
Then the white-hot pain became white light.
