1636:The Kremlin games

Chapter 51

Tim could have bet that, but he would have lost. Because sitting on his ass arguing was precisely what Janusz Radziwill, the commander of the Polish forces, was doing. Not about the order of march, but what they should do now. Janusz, in his early twenties, was already the court chamberlain of Lithuania. That was a high post in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which he had gotten because of the influence of his cousin Albrycht Stanislaw Radziwill, Grand Chancellor of Lithuania. Janusz was sitting with his two main subordinates discussing the absence of the arms depot that they had been expecting. It was a rerun of several discussions they had since they had gotten to Rzhev and discovered that the Russian invasion Janusz’ spy had informed him of was not nearly so near as they had expected.

“Ivan Repinov has confirmed everything,” Janusz insisted again.

Mikhail Millerov, commander of his Cossacks, snorted. “You can’t depend on anything that rat-faced little bureau man says. I’ve questioned many men and his sort is the hardest to get the truth out of. Not because he’s a strong man, but because he’s weak. He’ll tell you anything you want to hear and change his story five times in as many minutes.”

“Yet what he said makes sense and fits with what the agent reported,” said Eliasz Stravinsky, the commander of the western mercenaries. “Ivan Petrovich Sheremetev is as crooked as a dog’s hind leg.”

“Yes!” Janusz exclaimed. “That by itself explains the situation to anyone familiar with Russia. Ivan Petrovich commits graft as other people breathe, continuously and with very little thought. And as the nephew of Prince Fedor Ivanovich Sheremetev, the third power behind Cherkasski and the patriarch.

“Fourth, if you count the czar,” Mikhail Millerov corrected.

“I don’t,” Janusz insisted. “Mikhail Romanov is his father’s puppet and everyone knows it. In any case, Ivan Petrovich has ample opportunity for that corruption. He got the contract for the depot and pocketed the money.”

Millerov nodded a little doubtfully, and Janusz continued. “My agent in the Muscovite treasury bureau spent considerable time putting together the pieces. Prince Fedor Ivanovich Sheremetev was clearly in charge of making the arrangements. And naturally shifted contracts to where they would do his family the most good. Corrupt, every last one of them.” It didn’t occur to Janusz to wonder what someone on the outside might think of the Polish nobility.

“Possibly… or possibly your man misinterpreted a scam of the Sheremetev family and the only place the depots were ever intended to be was in the pockets of the Sheremetevs.” Millerov shrugged. “At this point we’ll likely never know for sure and it doesn’t matter anyway, because we are sitting here in Muscovite territory. They aren’t going to apologize. They’re going to deny and the depot isn’t here. They’ll demand reparations. Granted, the Truce of Deulino expired in July of 1633. His Majesty has refused to give up his claim on the Russian throne and Russia hasn’t given up its claim to Czernihow or Smolensk. So legally Poland is at war with Russia, but up to now it’s been a pretty phony war. Little fighting and even less talking. The war is going to get a lot more real now, one way or the other. So it would be best to win it. Yes?”

Eliasz Stravinsky nodded. “If we go back now, we’ll look like idiots. Not very good for the career, that.”

Janusz Radziwill nodded almost against his will. He was still convinced that the reports had been accurate. The Muscovites were planning to take Smolensk and much of Lithuania, just like they had tried in that other history. But probably-as had happened before-corruption in their ranks had interfered. Still, the Cossack was right. It didn’t really matter now.