‘Oh, it was I, my friend,’ he laughed. ‘She is too old for me, or I might yet take her out of thy hands.’
Nevertheless, Vera informed me to my surprise, when next I saw her, that Peter had been each day, and that he had commanded the Boyar, under pain of grievous punishment, to see that his daughter remained unbetrothed for a year.
‘And what means that, Vera?’ I asked gloomily. ‘That he would preserve thee in safety for me to wed when I am Hetman, or that he will think of thee for himself when the time comes for his bride-choosing?’
‘At any rate, it will keep our fat Boyar away,’ she smiled. ‘For the rest, save me from another Tsaritsa-choosing! Sooner let us——’ Vera paused.
‘Let us what, my Vera?’ I insisted. ‘Speak and fear not.’
‘It is most sinful to marry without the consent of the parents,’ she said; ‘and yet I can imagine that such a step might be necessary. My father has been cruel in these matters, though I know well that he seeks my advantage as he sees it.’
The end of this conversation was that we were quite agreed to take matters into our own hands and do as we willed rather than as Tsars and fathers ruled it. But destiny proved too hard for us.
For the Boyar Kurbatof, seeing great hope for his daughter’s advancement in the behaviour of the Tsar Peter, who insisted that Vera should remain unbetrothed for a year, now suddenly altered his attitude towards Vera; and whereas she had hitherto enjoyed more freedom than was usual among Russian maidens at that time, he now instituted the strictest terem for her in his own house, placing her behind iron bars and silken curtains, and forbidding and effectually preventing all access to her except by her old nurse.
Thus it happened that the interview at which we had arranged to rebel proved to be our last meeting for many a day; and to every application made by me to the Boyar for a sight of his beloved daughter, I received the reply: ‘Come at the end of a year if you are Hetman.’
The Tsar Peter was admitted several times before his return to Preobrajensky, and this added much to my torture, which became so acute that I gladly received, presently, the call to ride with my Cossacks upon Galitsin’s new expedition against the Crimean Tartars, leaving Vera to the care of the Highest and of her own discretion.