‘Go, Liubyézny,’ she whispered. ‘I will bring the young fool to reason.’
Galitsin still lingered, and was about to speak.
‘Do you not hear, fool?’ cried young Peter, stamping his foot and actually taking a step towards Galitsin, over whom he towered by half an arm’s length. ‘Lord, sister, I will have better obedience from my servants when I am master!’
This—which was overheard by some who listened in the ante-room—was said to be the first roaring of the young lion who was soon to tear old Russia into shreds.
What passed between brother and sister after Galitsin had gone—pale and trembling—from the room, shutting the door of the ante-room after him, I cannot tell; but it is certain that the drums and fifes remained at Preobrajensky, and that the conduct of young Peter grew bolder from this day, instead of conforming more strictly to the wishes of the Regent, who would have had the Tsar sink ever more helplessly under her control.
For instance, Peter now set up a recruiting office at his mother’s palace, and here the names of many distinguished Russian families were to be found represented by the younger sons of the Boyars, youths who discerned in the service of Peter hopes of future advancement which could never be expected under Sophia’s rule. It was these young Boyars, more than Peter himself, who worked silently for the revolution in Peter’s favour which was to take place within two years of this time. For men say the Tsar recruited and drilled his men, and fortified his camp, and armed and mounted his troops, all for pastime, not seriously realising his strength or theirs, or his by reason of them; but they worked deliberately and with the full intention to make of Peter’s pleasure regiment a grim and warlike reality, by means of which one day the Tsar of their choice should be placed in power.
And Peter, having now found—perhaps to his surprise, but certainly to his great delight—that he had gained much by asserting himself, began to take more liberty and to ignore his sister the Regent when her wishes clashed with his own.
Were horses required for his pleasure army? A detachment is sent to the Konyúshannui Prikaz, or cavalry department, in Moscow, and the required number of animals is driven out to Preobrajensky.
By the saints, any fool with a pair of eyes in his head might have foreseen which way matters tended!
Yet Mazeppa, who was no fool, and whose eyes were as good as most, made or appeared to make a mistake in this matter.