Ivan Naryshkin acknowledged his signature before the town, the garrison and the men of his own circle.
Ivan did not ask for mercy or call himself a victim. The exemption had been his decision. He had granted it to a contractor who promised rapid collection. The contractor's men concealed the complaint because an inquiry would have stopped the levies and made them miss the deadline.
"The deadline was met," Ivan said. "The town produced the money. The regiments received their supplies. You are judging me for an order that worked."
"I am judging you for the price you forbade anyone to name," Peter answered.
The family offered to settle the matter quietly. Ivan could leave his post on grounds of ill health, retire to his estate and keep the respect of people who only yesterday had been ready to vouch for him. The military proposed another quick solution: punish Ivan, dissolve the council and return the town to its former administration. Then one guilty kinsman would be enough to ensure that nothing else had to change.
Peter refused both conveniences.
Luka read out the entire chain: the signature, the exemption passed down, the missing number, the new levies, the names of those who had lodged the complaint. Ivan was given time to answer and named the men who had acted without his knowledge. Their decisions were examined separately. His admission alone made nobody innocent, and mere association with him made nobody guilty.
Ivan was stripped of his post and of the right to issue guarantees in the name of the tsar's household. Property directly connected with the levies went towards the first payments. He kept his life and the right to defend himself.
Some of the Naryshkins turned away from Peter. To them, Ivan's rescue in 1682 had been a promise made in blood, and judgment under the common rule looked like betrayal. Peter lost the support of men who for many years had regarded his victory as their property.
The town council survived its disarmament. It no longer commanded the garrison and could not shelter proven killers. In return, it gained the right to demand an answer to a complaint within a stated time and to keep a second copy outside the governor's book.
Fedot was offered a post at court as the man who had helped pacify the town. He refused.
"I did not pacify the town. I made you hear what it had been saying before it took up arms."
Fedot remained the representative of the service families on the council. His father's schedule lay beside the new complaints. The blank line had not disappeared, but now it could not be hidden by suppressing a single book.
The Book lowered Debt. A second copy had preserved the complaint after an order to remove it, the town and the garrison had submitted to a common inquiry, and a kinsman of the tsar had answered under the same rules as everyone else. But Stepan, who had been executed, did not return, nor did Fedot's lost sloboda.
At the review after the Astrakhan inquiry, Peter kept the units outside the town rampart until the first payments and inspections had been completed. The officers grumbled: the tsar was allowing yesterday's rebels to delay the army's entry. Peter replied that he had set the deadline himself and was therefore bound to honour it before anyone else.
After the inquiry, Boris Sheremetev handed Peter the insignia of a colonel. His regiment had managed to halt before open gates and wait for a common decision, though plunder and glory lay on the other side of the wall.
Peter received the rank of colonel for restraining the victors.
Sixteen-year-old Alexei Petrovich took part in the inquiry as a junior tally clerk. He linked the three copies of the complaint, found the order setting the collection deadline and showed how much of what had been seized had never reached the army.
After the reading he asked his father, "Why did the complaint become lawful only after the town took up arms?"
Peter wanted to answer that it had been lawful before that. But until the revolt, the sheet had never reached anyone capable of stopping the governor.
Peter answered, "We learnt to send orders down quickly, but not to bring complaints up with equal speed."
Alexei proposed a mandatory period for inquiry before force could be used. The military objected: a petitioner could draw out the time while an enemy gathered men. Luka added that a false complaint could become as effective a weapon as a false accusation.
His son was right about one thing: an answer could not be postponed indefinitely. But his proposal still offered no way to distinguish a genuine complaint from an attempt to gain time for another attack.
That same month a new search order demanded the return of fugitives from the Don. The army needed labourers, salt, horses and men who had fled their obligations. The commanders wanted to hunt not only those whose names already appeared on the wanted lists, but anyone who could be declared necessary for military supply. Otherwise, they said, every sloboda would conceal an experienced craftsman under the guise of an ordinary fugitive.
Peter authorised an exemption for men whose service was connected with military supply. The document named the author, the term and the area of the search. After Astrakhan, he thought one precise record would be enough to prevent the exemption from spreading.
The order reached Trofim Zhuravlyov at the landing stage. Among the wanted men he saw his brother's name.
Gavrila Zhuravlyov had fled to the Don after being taken twice for transport duty and having a horse seized once for somebody else's arrears. Now the document called him an essential worker in river supply.
Trofim read the terms for return: surrendering voluntarily would reduce the punishment. The order set neither a term for future service nor a local hearing.
"Find your brother and you will save his life," the commander said.
Once again the state was asking Trofim to choose between his own kin and an order that worked. Only this time the order had been drawn up properly.
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