To one great lord who in his inexperience ventured to offer counsel, as in the olden time of the _Drujina_, he said sharply: "Be silent, rustic." While still another, more indiscreet, who had ventured to complain that they were not consulted, was ordered to his bedchamber, and there had his head cut off.
The court grew in barbaric and in Greek splendor.

As the Tsar sat upon the throne supported by mechanical lions which roared at intervals, he was guarded by young nobles with high caps of white fur, wearing long caftans of white satin and armed with silver hatchets.

Greek scholarship was also there.

A learned monk and friend of Savonarola was translating Greek books and arranging for him the priceless volumes in his library.

Vasili himself was now in correspondence with Pope Leo X., who was using all his arts to induce him to make friends with Catholic Poland and join in the most important of all wars--a war upon Constantinople, of which he, Vasili, the spiritual and temporal heir to the Eastern Empire, was the natural protector.
All this was very splendid.