As soon as the introductions had been made, he said, “It is very gracious of Your Eminence to hold dinner for us.”
“Not at all,” the archbishop replied. “While we were waiting, we’ve been at these magnificent hors d’oeuvres and heeding the advice of Saint Timothy, who admonished us, you may recall…”
“‘Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake,’” Torine picked up. “In the King James Bible, First Timothy, chapter five, verse twenty-three. One of my favorite bits of Holy Scripture.”
“That would suggest you’re a Christian, Colonel,” Archbishop Valentin said, “which is one of the questions I planned to pose.”
“I think I am, Your Grace,” Torine replied. “My wife is not so sure. Which brings us, of course, to the First Epistle to the Corinthians….”
“‘Let Your Women Keep Silent,’” the Archbishop quoted, chuckling. “On the basis of your knowledge of Holy Scripture, Colonel, I will regard you as a Christian. I’ll get to the other gentlemen in a moment, but right now, why don’t we all have a glass of the very excellent Saint Felicien Cabernet Sauvignon that Aleksandr has so graciously provided.”
He raised his hand and a man in a starched white jacket appeared with a tray holding bottles of wine and glasses.
When the wine had been poured, Archimandrite Boris raised his glass.
“I would like to thank you all for coming here to help His Eminence and myself, even understanding that wasn’t your primary purpose in coming.”
When there was no response to that, the archimandrite went on: “Will someone tell us what that primary purpose is?”
When there was no response to that, the archimandrite nodded toward Naylor.
“Perhaps you would be willing, my son, to do so.”
Naylor opened his mouth. But before a word came out, the archimandrite asked, “Are you a Christian, my son?”
“When I was a kid, I was confirmed — Colonel Castillo and I were — in the Evangelische Church in Germany. Saint Johan’s, in Hersfeld. And then I became an Episcopalian when I was at West Point. My parents are Episcopalian.”
“That’s very interesting, but my question was ‘Are you a Christian?’”
“Yes, sir.”
“And what is it that brings you here, that so infuriates Mrs. Alekseeva?”
Naylor looked at Castillo, obviously asking for his permission to answer. Castillo nodded.
“I am to relay to Colonel Castillo the request of the President of the United States that he enter upon extended hazardous active duty in connection with the Mexican drug and Somali pirates problems.”
“And why would you say this so infuriates Mrs. Alekseeva?”
Naylor again wordlessly asked for — and got — Castillo’s permission to reply.
“Probably because the last time Colonel Castillo worked for the President, the President tried very hard to kidnap Colonel Castillo — and Mrs. Alekseeva and her brother — with the intention to load them on a plane and ship them off to the SVR in Russia.”
“So they’ve told me. So why are you in effect doing so?”
“Obeying orders, Your Grace.”
“Obeying orders from whom?”
“My father.”
“Heeding the scriptural admonition to ‘Honor thy father and mother…’ et cetera?”
“It’s more that my father is a general and I’m a lieutenant colonel, Your Grace.”
“And do you think the President will again try to turn Colonel Castillo over to the kind ministrations of the SVR?”
“It wouldn’t surprise me, Your Grace.”
Castillo snorted.
The archimandrite asked, “Yet you’re here to tell him what President Clendennen wants him to do?”
“And to tell him I think he’d be a damned fool to do it.”
The archbishop joined in: “Your father is aware of what might happen to Colonel Castillo if Colonel Castillo accedes to President Clendennen’s request?”
“Yes, Your Eminence, he is.”
“Then why…?”
“Because he’s a soldier, sir. Soldiers do what they are ordered to do.”
“Soldiers, I would suggest,” the archbishop said, “like priests, are expected to do what they have been ordered to do. Sometimes, a priest — and, I would suggest, a soldier — gets an order he knows it would be wrong to execute.”
“Yes, sir. That’s true, Your Eminence.”
“Posing for him the problem of doing what he’s ordered to do knowing it’s wrong, or disobeying the order, while knowing disobedience is wrong.”
“Then, Your Eminence,” Naylor said, “he must decide which is the greater eviclass="underline" disobedience, or complying with an order he knows is wrong.”
“Or choosing the middle path,” the archbishop said. “Which apparently you have done. Complying with your orders, but making it clear that Colonel Castillo would be a ‘damned fool’ for doing what your father and the President want him to do.”
“Sorry about the language, Your Eminence,” Naylor said.
“That wasn’t blasphemy, my son, simply colorful language spoken in the company of men. But, while fascinating as this conversation is, I think we should turn to why the archimandrite and I are here, and your role in that. That is, I’m afraid, going to take some time.”
“We are at your pleasure, Your Eminence,” Jake Torine said.
“My pleasure was the exchange between Colonel Naylor and myself. This is duty, and as we just discussed, duty sometimes — perhaps even often — is not a matter of pleasure.
“And so I am here to deal with a matter between Patriarch Alexius the Second and myself. Do any of you know who His Beatitude is?”
“Isn’t he sort of the Pope of the Russian Orthodox Church, Your Eminence?” Torine asked.
“His Beatitude is the Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia,” the archbishop said. “A position analogous to the Roman Catholic Pope. But having told you that, I suspect that you don’t know much more than you did previously.
“Let me ask this question, then, of all of you. How much Russian history do you know? Specifically, how much do you know about the Oprichnina?”
“Not much about either, Your Eminence,” Torine confessed.
The others shook their heads, joining in the confession of ignorance.
“Sweaty… Svetlana has told me about the Oprichnina, Your Eminence,” Castillo said.
“In addition to his other duties, the archimandrite is in charge of our seminaries,” the archbishop said. “In that function he has reluctantly become far more of an academic than I am. Boris, could you give our friends a quick history lesson — Oprichnina 101, so to speak?”
“If that is your desire, Your Eminence,” the archimandrite said. He took a long moment to collect his thoughts, and then began.
“I suppose I should begin with Ivan the Fourth, sometimes known as ‘Ivan the Terrible.’”
Both Castillo and Naylor had first heard of Ivan the Terrible when they were eleven and students at Saint Johan’s School in Bad Hersfeld. He had stuck in their memory because they had learned he had amused himself by throwing dogs and men off the Kremlin’s walls because he liked to watch them crawl around on broken legs.
“Ivan the Terrible — Ivan the Fourth — was born in 1530,” the archimandrite went on. “There was then no Czar. Most of the power was in the hands of the Grand Duke of Muscovy, Ivan’s father, Vasily the Third. His power came from the private armies of the nobility, the boyars, who placed them at Vasily the Third’s service, providing they approved of what he was doing.