City of Silence (City of Mystery) (10 page)

Today
he was wearing the plumed hat of a French aristocrat, red velvet riding britches,
and one boot.  She sat up on her elbows to consider his latest manifestation.

“The
velvet is fetching, and more practical too. The trouble with satin is that it’s
so hard to grab hold of.  And I don’t wish to slide off.”

He
grinned and flopped down beside her, the grand hat tumbling to the side as he
did so. “I can find a way to travel to the coast this summer, you know.  It
isn’t impossible.”

“It
is.”

“All
I must do is send a message to the tsarina saying that the littlest grand
duchess needs extra practice.  That my progress with Xenia has been so hard-won
and tentative I fear two months without any dance lessons at all might knock
her right back to the starting point.”  He shrugged.  “It’s true enough, in a
way.”

“Most
lies are.”

He
looked at her from the corner of his eye. “You’re in a strange mood today.
What’s wrong?”

What
was wrong?  Only a man could ask such a question, half-naked, in that
particular tone of voice.

“The
thought of you coming to the coast for the summer scares me,” she said.  “St. 
Petersburg is big and busy with lots of places for us to hide, but you can’t
imagine how different the Crimea will be.  It’s a small world and everyone is
far too aware of what everyone else is doing.”  Tatiana settled back into the
soft nest of ball gowns.  Her own red dress was in here somewhere, among all
the others.  “Filip does not have so many duties in the Crimea.”

“Giving
him more time for his wife,” Konstantin said flatly.

“You
know I hate it,” she said.  It was true.  But on this trip in particular, more
than ever, she must at least make a show of keeping her marriage together.

They
lay for a moment in silence.  “Besides,” she finally added.  “A single summer
is not so long.”

Now
this was an outrageous lie, perhaps the worst Tatiana has ever told.  A single
summer could be forever.  Whenever she stopped to consider it, she was not sure
she would survive nine weeks trapped in the villa of her husband.  Konstantin
suddenly sprang up, as if the same mental image had struck him at the same
time, and began to dig once again into the pile of clothing. 

“I
cannot seem to find my gypsy costume,” he said ruefully.  “Which is a great
tragedy for the mood of the day seems to require a gypsy.  A snarling
knife-wielding king of the gypsies, to be more precise.”

“I
suppose,” she said.  This was possibly their last time together before she left,
and Tatiana knew she was ruining everything with her mood.  He was trying very
hard to entertain her, was he not?   He pulled on the rough woolen traveling
robe of a monk – most likely Friar Lawrence from the abandoned Romeo and Juliet
ballet - and turned toward with a wicked grin.

“And
what of this?  Perverse enough to please you?”

“Quite
perverse.  Shall I dress as a nun?”

“No,
too much the cliché.  You shall be the grand lady who confesses her sins to the
holy brother and then allows him to lead her into many more.  Put your red
dress back on.  It’s beautiful, you know.  I can hardly stand to see you in
it.”

“You
must be careful.  Someday when we are dancing your face will give you away.”

“Or
something shall.”

She
laughed and fished a single red sleeve from the pile of costumes, draping it
across her chest like a military sash.  She would give him this much, but she
would not obey him completely.  She was not in the mood for costumes today. 
“It’s the nicest dress I’ve ever worn.”

“You’ll
have nicer things yet when we’re in Paris.”

She
gave him a half-hearted smile.  Paris, always Paris.  Whenever things were
tense between them, Konstantin would talk of Paris.  The only place in the
world where dancers were held in as high esteem as they were in St. Petersburg,
so when he fantasized about them escaping, of course he would imagine them
there.  He claimed that he would get a job on the stage or perhaps instructing
in the most exclusive academies.   If he could teach hopeless Russian girls,
then surely he could teach hopeless French ones, and then Tatiana would have
dresses even more elaborate than the costumes of the Winter Palace. 

Tatiana
never challenged these dreams, since they brought him such comfort, but each
time he said the word “Paris” it deepened her despair.  He was so young.  Not
just in years, but in experience.  Konstantin had spent his childhood within
the walls of a ballroom, his young adult years in a theater, and he knew little
of the cold and storyless outside world.  He sincerely believed that a man
could become whatever he pretended to be.

And
now he misread her hesitation.  “Perhaps you won’t have fine things at first,”
he conceded.  “At first we shall be poor.”

“I’ve
been poor before,” she said. 

“Then
why do you look so sad?”

“You
know the reason.  Filip.”

“He
ignores you.”

“He
owns me.  And each time we take this chance, the more likely we are to be
caught.”

“That
isn’t true, you know.  At least not in a mathematical sense.  Each time one
spins the wheel of fortune, the odds of success or disaster are precisely the
same, no matter how many times one has played that particular game before.”

“Spoken
like a true gambler.  Or at least like a man who has spun the wheel of fortune
many times.”

It
was a jibe.  He was three years younger than her but, for his age, he had known
many lovers, and often, she suspected, they had been his students.  Married
women – lonely, ignored, ripe for the picking.

He
looked at her somberly.  “I’ve never played a game quite like this one.”

“What
was the Grand Duchess Ella telling you while you waltzed?”

“Are
you jealous?”

“At
one time she was called the most beautiful princess of Europe.”

“At
one time perhaps she was,” Konstantin said.  “She asked me if I knew the ballet
dancers who were found dead this morning.  Which I did, but only slightly.  I’d
seen them in rehearsals.  They were good.”

“Why
would she even suggest that you knew them?”  Tatiana asked sharply.  

“You
know how these people think as well as I do,” Konstantin said.  “They assume
that all dancers must know each other, just as they imagine one German of
course must be related to another or that if a man has taken to sea he must
have met every other sailor in the world.  Life beyond their own small circle
is a bit of a blur to them.”      

“I
was there, you know.”

When
he frowned in confusion, she tried to explain.  “Filip told me two dancers were
dead, this morning while we had breakfast.  He meant to frighten me, because he
suspects something between us, and I don’t care how many times you tell me I am
being silly, I know that he does.  He tells me that two dancers are dead and
then he smiles this horrid smile with egg all over his teeth.  So when he left,
I went to the theater and I saw them lying there on the floor. The guards were
cleaning up.”

Konstantin
was still frowning, but more gently.  “You thought one of them might be me? 
Why should I be dead?”

“I
don’t know.  I suppose I panicked.  But the Grand Duchess Ella was there too,
with that ghoul of an Englishwoman that she drags about with her everywhere she
goes.  She and I discussed the situation.”

Konstantin
softly laughed.  “Discussed?  I was not aware that Ella discussed anything with
anybody.”

“She
discussed it with you.”

He
ignored that. “The guards said it was suicide.  The dancers playing Romeo and
Juliet become too absorbed in the story, then have some sort of tiff and kill
themselves.  Rather sad and silly but what more could there be to it?”

“The
Grand Duchess Ella thinks they were murdered.  And I agree.”

“Come
here,” Konstantin said, pulling her to him and they leaned together back into
their makeshift bed.  He draped the rough woolen cloth around her and pressed
his knees into the hollow of hers.  The robe was scratchy but warm, and
familiar in a way that all the satin of the world would never be, and they
often rested like this, between bouts, in this position that always reminded
Tatiana of twins tucked in the same womb.  She knew that he was trying to
comfort her and she also knew that lately this had been an impossible task. 

“Why
would you think they were murdered?” he whispered into her ear.

“I
don’t know,” she admitted, her own voice trembling.  This morning the world had
seemed very sinister to her - the knife in the girl’s hand, the careful
positioning of the bodies.  But here and now, in this darkened room, in the
holy embrace of an unholy monk, the danger didn’t seem quite so likely.  “I’m
not thinking clearly.  I suppose I’m just unhappy.”  Tatiana set up, pushing
the clothing aside, exposing her legs.  “She took a picture of the bodies, you
know.”

He
shrugged.  “All the royals are mad for their cameras.”

“I
know.  But it seems rather sad, don’t you think, this mania for photographing
every element of their lives?  It’s as if they don’t expect anything to last.”

He
dragged the back of his hand up her thigh, the knuckles grazing against the
muscles of her leg.  It was a dancer’s trick, this stroking of not just the
skin but the muscles beneath it and the motion had a French name, although
Tatiana couldn’t think of it now.

“Perhaps
the Grand Duchess is unhappy too,” he said.  “Unhappy women are quick to believe
unhappy stories.”

 “That’s
what she told you while you were waltzing?   That she is unhappy?”

“In
a way,” he said.  “But I already knew.”

“You
know us all better than we know ourselves, is that what you’re saying?”

He
looked impossibly young when he smiled like that, like a boy and not a man,
someone proud of himself for all the wrong reasons.  “Whatever a woman whispers
in my ear,” he said, “it is my job to have already known it.”  
 

Chapter
Six

The
Royal Yacht the Victoria and Albert - Skagerrak Strait

June
16, 1889

7:28
PM

If
there was anything more startling than the beauty of the afternoon it was the
fact that it seemed it would never end. 

Their
second day aboard the royal yacht The Victoria and Albert was coming to a close
and the ship was slowly making its way from the fretful waters of the North Sea
into the Baltic, which was rumored to be more tranquil.   “Nothing more than a
big lake,” one of the sailors promised Emma and then he had pointed a short
calloused finger toward a distant land mass and added “Denmark.” 

She
wanted to believe him.  Perhaps the worst was literally behind them now.  The
crew all swore that as they sailed deeper into the waters of Scandinavia that
the last three days of the voyage would become ever more scenic and pleasant, a
gentle drift through high-walled fjords and charming fishing villages.  That
was when the team would have time to confer, to gather their forces and make
the many decisions necessary if they were to convincingly carry out this
masquerade.

The
ship carrying Queen Victoria and the others had left the harbor of London at
two in the morning.  Yesterday morning, Emma supposed, although it was hard to
think of time in that way.  It had been instructed that the royal colors would
not be raised until midday, when they would be far from the city, somewhere off
the rocky coast of Scotland.  Victoria did not like for her subjects to be made
aware of the fact that the Queen was not in London.  She felt her absence gave
rise to anxiety among the citizenry.   

For
the majority of the first day Emma had not left her cabin.  She had been placed
in what was called the Princess Royal’s room, a lovely if somewhat overwrought
little nook tucked behind the stairs with pale salmon walls and a ceiling
fashioned entirely in plaster imitations of shells.  The high maple bed was bolted
to the floor and there was reliable electricity and a modern toilet, which she
had made use of with regularity as they pulled away from the coastline of Great
Britain and entered the North Sea.  She was fortunate indeed compared to the
men, who were apparently making do in the cramped berths where the sailors
slept and had not even a porthole to help them keep their perspectives
righted.  When she had opened her door last night to set her tray of barely
touched food into the hall, she had seen Rayley pacing.  He’d reported that Davy
was suffering the most and that Tom and Trevor had dragged him up on deck for a
bit of light and fresh air.  Staring at the horizon, Rayley said.  It’s the
only known cure for seasickness. 

Before
leaving London, Emma had bought a white blouse and slim white skirt
specifically for the nautical part of the trip, the outfit purchased under the romantic
impression that everyone at sea wore white, even the passengers.  She now saw
that – like undoubtedly many more to come – her assumption had been almost laughably
faulty.  Ships were dirty places, spewers of coal dust.  The chairs on deck had
been covered with soot when she had ventured out this afternoon, but an
obliging sailor had stepped forward with a woolen blanket and draped it over
the chair so that she could now sit without danger of smearing her virginal
clothing, staring off in the direction of the dim coastline what was rumored to
be Denmark.

Although
the hour for supper was fast approaching, the intensity of the sun was enough
to fool someone into thinking it was still midafternoon.  They were high on the
globe – certainly higher than Emma had ever traveled – and nearing the summer
solstice, when the sun would be visible for a remarkable twenty hours a day,
fading only to a dusklike glow during the middle of the night.  One of Emma’s
favorite childhood books had been about a girl from a Viking village titled
“Land of the Midnight Sun,” but no amount of reading could have prepared her
for the complete disorientation of a day which refused to end.  She wondered
what it would feel like in winter, when the opposite trick of light took hold.  Endless
night.  A pale and watery daylight breaking through for a only few hours at
noon.  No wonder people went mad in such sustained darkness – drinking, weeping,
killing each other, killing themselves.  The fabled Russian temperament with
its wild extremes of behavior, Emma thought.  Perhaps much of it is the result
of mere geography.

Emma
glanced around, but there was no one else on deck and finally she opened the
files in her lap and began to skim, once again, the notes she had been studying
since Trevor had announced they would be accompanying the Queen to St.
Petersburg.  Their first collective meal was scheduled to begin in the dining
room within the hour and if she was going to play schoolmistress to Her Majesty
the Queen, she had better be prepared.  The implications were terrifying.  But Trevor
had insisted she was the only one fit for the task and, even while she
recognized he was using flattery in a clumsy attempt to win her cooperation,
she also realized he was probably right. 

The
lecture Emma would be required to give had two parts: a brief summation of the
last few years of the history of Russia and an even briefer summation of the
Russian imperial protocol.  The former was straightforward enough but the
latter was profoundly confusing, since the social structure of the Romanov
court, to put it charitably, was far less linear than that of Great Britain. So
much so that even Victoria apparently needed to refresh her memory before her
visit and had requested that Emma – whom Trevor had evidently portrayed as some
sort of general consult on all matters arcane – should stand before them all
and outline the rules of the Winter Palace.

It
would never do for the Russians to realize they were being spied upon, so back
in London they all created some plausible role for themselves, some way to
explain why they were traveling with the Queen.  As detectives, Rayley and
Trevor could easily pass as bodyguards.  Davy was a bit trickier, but since the
Queen maintained excessive correspondence, even while abroad, it might be
plausibly explained that she traveled with her own messenger boy to handle the
post and telegrams.  They decided to place Tom in the circle as royal
physician.  He was suspiciously young, but they concocted a story that
Victoria’s primary physician was too elderly to travel, so his assistant had
stepped in for this particular journey.  Despite her age and her girth,
Victoria was remarkably healthy and did not customarily travel with a doctor of
any sort, but the Russians certainly didn’t know that.

But
Emma, how to explain the presence of Emma?  Serving as a maid was the most
likely ruse, but such a role would severely limit her usefulness once they got
to Russia.  The Queen had confided to Trevor she already had a Lady in Waiting
in surveillance, so a second would be superfluous.  Trevor eventually declared
that Emma would pose as the governess of Alix, a role which would allow her to
interact across a broader social spectrum once they were inside the Winter Palace.

Emma
shifted in her chair and took a big gulp of air.  Brisk and refreshing, just as
promised.  Salty on the tongue.  She wished that Gerry was traveling with
them.  There was no way they could explain an elderly heiress as a true member
of the forensics team and Geraldine herself had quickly pointed this out, thus
saving Trevor the discomfort of raising the issue.  But without Gerry among
them, Emma mused, the entire forensics team seemed a little… at sea. Geraldine was
possessed of no practical skills whatsoever but still somehow managed to be one
of the most useful people Emma had ever known, and her presence would be missed
in many small ways.  Gerry is my family, Emma thought, pulling the blanket
around her and taking another deep breath in an attempt to steady her nerves. 
By the age of twenty, Emma Kelly had buried her mother, father, and sister and
her brother was somewhere in America, likely never to be seen again.  Gerry had
stepped into the void, serving as an unorthodox but unfailingly compassionate
parental figure in Emma’s chaotic life.

And
perhaps these men are my new brothers, Emma thought soberly.  We make our
family where we find it.

At
precisely nine o’clock the doors opened and they were all ushered into the
dining room.  For a moment the five of them stood without speaking, as awkwardly
silent as if they were in a cathedral.  Davy, Emma noted, was pale but otherwise
appeared to be in control of himself.  Trevor seemed distracted, Rayley anxious,
and Tom was precisely as he always was.  He winked at her as he wandered over
to look at the portraits on the walls.

The
dining room was like all the other public spaces Emma had so far seen on the
yacht – neither lavish nor ostentatious, but designed instead for comfort and
the most practical usage of space. The checkered linoleum floor was covered
with a red carpet, which, judging from its slight undulation, was probably
rolled up and stored somewhere when the Queen was not aboard.  There were
various settees around the wall, all crammed with cushions.  Emma was somewhat
surprised to see a profusion of potted plants in each corner but the green
leaves offered a spot of land in the midst of the sea and were quite pleasing. 
Above the table dangled a large brass candelabrum of nautical design, which was
brightly lit despite the fact that a nearly undimmed sun was still streaming
through the windows.

“Surprising
to find seamen on the walls,” Tom said, breaking the silence.

“I
beg your pardon,” Trevor said.

“The
portraits,” Tom said.  “Every one of them shows a former captain of the
vessel.  Fitzclarence, Denman, Seymour, Campbell, and finally Thompson, who
according to the dates below his picture, must still be at the helm.  Will he
be joining us tonight, do you suppose?”

“I
doubt it,” said Trevor. “Princess Alix of Hesse will be present for the meal
and then she will retire and we shall converse with the Queen about her
expectations of the time in St. Petersburg.”

Davy
shuddered.

“Steady,
lad,” Trevor said.  “Her Majesty’s presence can be intimidating at first, as
I’ll freely admit, but I urge you all to speak just as you would if we were sitting
around Gerry’s parlor.  Tom, you might want to hold yourself to five glasses of
wine and keep your boots off the table, but otherwise, we must follow our
normal routes of inquiry.”

“Mustn’t
we wait for the Queen to speak first?” Emma asked.

Trevor
shook his head.  “Not in this case.  Her Majesty has specifically requested
that we conduct our briefings as we would do in London and raise any questions
that come to mind.”

“Then
I shall begin by asking her why the four of us are rolling about in bunks when perfectly
fine cabins stand empty,” Tom said. 

“You’ll
do no such thing,” Trevor snapped.  Even after several months of close
acquaintance he was never entirely sure when Tom was joking. “Those cabins are
held for Lords and we’re servants of the crown, not titled gentlemen.”

“But
Emma has her own room and she isn’t a Lady,” Tom said with a grin.  “No offense
intended, darling.”

“And
none taken,” Emma said.

Just
then the double doors wrenched open and, with no announcement, the Queen
entered.   A few steps behind her came a young girl who was presumably her
granddaughter Alix and thus the source of all this extraordinary bother,
followed in turn by a servant.  Although Emma dropped into a quick and awkward
curtsy, she had time to note Alix’s serious expression, her eyes slightly
downcast and her mouth slack in a way that seemed vaguely mournful.

“We
shall sit,” said the Queen, and so they did. 

The
sole attendant who had come in with the Queen held out one chair at a time,
pointedly looking at the person meant to occupy it as he did so.  Emma found
herself beside Alix, which pleased her.  If she was to convincingly pass as the
girl’s governess, they should become companionable with each other during their
brief time at sea.  They were all scarcely seated when the first course, a
shellfish soup with cream, was served with admirable promptness and the meal
began. 

Thank
God for Tom, Emma thought.  He might tease Trevor about the seamen and the bunk
beds and he might be a bit mercurial in mood, but he can talk to anyone about
anything.   He immediately gestured toward the portraits and asked the Queen
about the various captains the vessel had employed and soon had her reminiscing
over past voyages.  As a family, the Bainbridges had two inborn gifts – wealth
and what Emma’s father used to call the gift of gab.  Both came in handy on a
regular basis and as Tom and the Queen chatted, a collective calm settled over
the table.  The soup was finished and replaced by a terrine of vegetables. 
Wine was poured and poured again.  Trevor ventured a comment or two and Rayley
chimed in behind him and, although silent and a bit subdued of appetite, even
Davy seemed to relax.  When the server brought around the bread with tongs, he
took a second roll and the Queen approvingly said “Best thing for seasickness,
you know.”

“Yes
Ma’am,” Davy croaked.  “That’s what me mum says, not that she’s ever been on a
boat.”

Under
cover of the chuckle that ran around the table Emma turned to Alix.  “How have
you passed your time these first two days at sea?”