The council told Peter no before it passed sentence on his son. That did not yet mean victory for Alexei. The council merely acknowledged the obvious: an open trial would become a performance if the sovereign could replace the judges at the first sign of disagreement.
Peter demanded to know by what right they refused him. The senators cited the powers granted to them, the military men the trial declared open, the representatives of the Church their participation in it, and the magistracies the promise to carry out the common verdict. Alone, none of them could stop Peter.
Together they refused to leave.
The Book did not change its figures. For the first time the council had opposed Peter, but it had yet to pass or enforce a sentence.
Alexei's sentence was read in full. He was guilty of secret contacts, concealing the authors and gathering supporters outside the common rules. He was temporarily stripped of civil office and of his status as confirmed heir. The period of his removal was specified. His return would require open service, the abandonment of his secret coalition and separate confirmation of his obligations to the army, the fleet, the towns and the procedure for hearing petitions.
There was no death sentence.
Nor was there an unconditional pardon.
Peter asked whether he could shorten the term in return for the confession. The council replied that the confession would then become a means of purchasing a father's favour. He asked whether he could lengthen it if new letters came to light. They told him to submit new articles and reconvene the assembly.
Peter lost the right to execute his son, pardon him or alter his term on his sole authority.
Alexei lost his office, his status as confirmed heir and the right to use good intentions to justify gathering supporters in secret.
The sentence did not reconcile father and son. But both remained alive, and both lost the power to settle the matter in secret.
Then the articles of succession were read. The execution, lifelong confinement or removal of a recognised heir required two acts. The first remained the sovereign's openly declared will, bearing the charges and his signature. The second was to be a registered decision of the Extended Assembly, whose membership would be appointed in advance from the Senate, the highest army and naval ranks, the Church administration, the colleges and representatives of the towns.
Peter could not select convenient judges for a single case. No member of the assembly could be punished for a vote cast in open session. Once confirmed, the new heir would likewise have no right to dismiss that body.
The new order had weaknesses enough. It slowed decisions, allowed the parties to bargain and could itself become an instrument of collusion. It abolished neither monarchy, nor the estates, nor serfdom, nor military obligation. The articles did not promise a just heir. They merely prevented him from being accused and removed without an open hearing.
Catherine demanded written guarantees for her children as well. Not the right to inherit in defiance of a verdict, nor the secret support of the guards, but maintenance, protection from imprisonment without a stated charge and a mandatory public accusation.
People in her circle proposed a more reliable course: reach an agreement with the guards officers in advance and not wait for the council if Peter died suddenly. Catherine refused. A secret pact for the sake of her children would be no different from the method for which Alexei had just been tried.
Meanwhile, her relative lost his post in Menshikov's household. The investigation found no fraud, but discovered that three outsiders and one supplier had sheltered behind his name. The relative was assigned the standard period of investigation and maintenance without Catherine's personal protection. She could have restored him with a single word and did not.
In private, Peter asked whether she now regretted the written marriage. Catherine took out the warm stone, turned it between her fingers and answered:
"You expected the woman you remembered. I was deciding whether to stay with the man you had become."
"And did you decide?"
"Today, yes. Tomorrow I shall ask myself again."
Peter laughed once, without offence. Her answer offered no eternal guarantee, but it did offer genuine consent, which could not be obtained in advance.
The first test of the new order came from outside the family.
To finish the war, Petersburg needed timber, rope and workers. Peter demanded authority for emergency requisitions until the military need had passed, but set no term. Trofim recognised the same words that had once been used to justify open-ended labour levies.
The college proposed thirty days, specified districts, a limit on repeated requisition and a mandatory new hearing. Peter refused. The work could not be completed in a month.
The Extended Assembly kept the thirty-day limit.
Peter attended the session in person. He reminded them of Poltava, the Pruth and ships that could not be built by vote. The military men supported him until they read the final line: in a month they would have to vote again and answer with their own signatures for more men and more timber. Several withdrew, but enough remained to carry the decision.
"You will leave the fleet without timber," Peter said.
"No," the representative of the college replied. "We shall give you thirty days and make you come back for the thirty-first."
The first no spoken to a living Peter sounded neither like mutiny nor like a refusal to serve. Work began that same day. The books recorded the final lawful day of requisition.
Menshikov tried to put a favoured supplier through under an old verbal instruction. The college demanded the name of the guarantor, the price and the term. The supplier received a contract for twenty days and lost it on the twenty-first because he had failed to meet the conditions. Connections still opened doors, but no longer extended a contract without a fresh examination.
Peter saw that the new order worked more slowly, yet it worked.
For now the figures did not change: Might seventy, Trust forty-eight, Debt ninety-two. To reduce Debt, the written rules would have to prove their force in real cases.
Later Peter found an error in a supply decision, wrote the correction in the margin and signed it. Once, that would have been enough to change the course of an entire campaign.
The clerk took the sheet, registered the first signature and returned it to the sovereign.
"Carry it out," Peter said.
"The assembly's second countersignature is required."
Peter reread his own articles. The error was obvious and the correction necessary, but a single imperial signature was still not enough.
For the first time, a clerk refused to carry out Peter's order without a second signature. A rule established by the tsar had stopped the tsar himself.
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