Page:Ivan the Terrible - Kazimierz Waliszewski - tr. Mary Loyd (1904).djvu/344

 320 bloodshed, and declaring that unless peace was made forthwith he would send no Ambassador into Poland, nor receive any from that country, for the next thirty or forty years, Ivan rejected the ultimatum in every particular. And more: he retracted his previous concessions, and refused to be satisfied with only four Livonian towns. He must keep six-and-thirty—Narva and Derpt among the number—and would only give up Viélikié-Louki and twenty-four small fortified places in the neighbourhood. This was his 'final calculation.'

He was labouring under some illusion as to Possevino's power. When his letter, and the instructions he sent with it, arrived at Vilna, Batory was not there. The King had already reached Polotsk, and was preparing to march out his army. The Jesuit and the Muscovite envoys followed him, and the Papal envoy did his best to mediate. But Pouchkine and Pissemski were as intractable now as they had lately been docile and conciliatory. When Possevino inquired why the Tsar had altered his proposals, 'The New Testament wipes out the Old,' was Pouchkine's scornful answer; 'the King of Poland had refused the Tsar's first offers, and the Tsar was now making others, and would add nothing more—not that!' he added, and twisted a bit of straw in his fingers as he spoke. Batory, on his side, was in no humour for more negotiations. He must, no doubt, show some consideration for the Papal mediation; so he undertook to tell Possevino he would give up the indemnity and the destruction of the strong places. But he certainly never expected the Russians to take him at his word. As a matter of fact, Ivan's Ambassadors turned a deaf ear, and the King, hurrying forward the date of their farewell audience, told them he was going to set forth without more delay, and make war—'not to take Livonia, but everything their master owned.' The Jesuit perceived he would gain nothing here by insistence. He announced his intention of proceeding to the Tsar's Court, in the hope of bringing him back to a better state of mind, and Batory wished him a pleasant journey. But the Polish army was already on its march.

Batory would even have left Ivan's last letter unanswered altogether, but the King's counsellors did not wish the German and Polish gazettes to remain under the impression produced by the insults it had contained. The effusion of ink and blood had been simultaneous up to this, and the same course must be pursued. The royal Chancery was set desperately to work, and evolved an epistle numbering forty pages—so that the insulter might have full measure—which reminded him that his mother had been the daughter of a mere Lithuanian deserter, and attacked his own public and private life,