‘You jest!’ she cried, flushing; but I disclaimed all idea of jesting.
‘You shall come with me to Preobrajensky now at once, if you will,’ I said; ‘I ride from thence at this moment. The young Tsar will send you forthwith to his brother’s palace.’
So I seated the girl—Praskovia Soltikof—upon my own horse and walked by her side back to Preobrajensky; and as I gazed in her face and listened to her animated talk, ‘By the Saints,’ I thought, ‘you would make the best Tsaritsa of all the girls I have yet seen, for you have spirit enough both for yourself and also for the frog who would call himself your husband, and beauty that should make even his cold blood run warmer in his veins!’
She prattled all the way, telling me how dull was life in her Siberian fortress, and how she longed for change and for movement. She told me she had never had a lover, at which assertion I raised my eyebrows.
‘You will have plenty, my friend,’ thought I, though I did not say it, ‘whether you marry Tsar Ivan or no; for the man who could be near thee and not feel his pulses beat the quicker for it would be no man, but a thing of wood or of stone!’
Even young Peter, when he saw her, for all that he numbered but sixteen years, flushed up and laughed boisterously, crying that Ivashka would be a fool, indeed, if he saw not here something that would change his mind in the matter of his marriage. ‘By the saints,’ he said, ‘wench, thou shalt bid them send up more of thy stock when it comes to my turn. How old art thou?’
‘Seventeen,’ replied Praskovia, and Peter shook his head. ‘Thou’lt be a hag before I am in middle life,’ he said. ‘Well, let Ivan see thee; I will write him a letter—he will not look at thee else. Lord! I should be a kind brother to thee,’ he ended with a second boisterous laugh, ‘if Ivashka took thee!’
CHAPTER XV
Praskovia Soltikof passed that night in the Tsaritsa’s house at Preobrajensky, for young Tsar Peter would write his promised letter to Ivan, and that could not be done quickly, since at this time—though in after years he became a notable letter-writer—the writing of letters was a slow and laborious matter for him. In the morning I rode with her to Moscow, Peter having bidden her God-speed at departing, addressing her as ‘sister,’ to Praskovia’s delight, and bidding her—in case Ivan should be fool enough to pass her by—return among the maidens who in two years’ time would assemble for his own bride-choosing.
‘I owe thee much for this, Chelminsky,’ she said as we rode, ‘and if I should become Tsaritsa I will not forget thy service to me.’