City of Silence (City of Mystery) (11 page)

The
girl hesitated.  “Reading.”

“I
like to read too,” Emma said.  Despite their difference in rank the girl was
clearly shy and the task of sustaining any sort of conversation would therefore
fall to Emma.  Her face was pretty, her dignity remarkable for her years, but
yet it was hard to look at her and immediately imagine what the tsesarevich
would see that was so  unique and compelling that it would sustain an
infatuation over a separation of four years and a thousand miles.  “What were
you reading?”

“Paradise
Lost.”

Emma
raised an eyebrow.  “By Milton?”

“Is
there another?”

Well
that was something.   An attempt at humor and, if she were indeed reading
Paradise Lost at leisure, the girl must have at least a bit between the ears.

“I
very much admire the poem,” Emma said.  “What do you think it means?”

Alix
hesitated again and Emma realized the girl was behaving as if she really was
her governess, not a dining companion, and as if this were all some sort of
test.

“Myself,
I consider it an analysis of how we each must take personal responsibility for
our actions,” she hastily added, to establish that this was a conversation and
not an examination.  “I most adore the line where God says that he made humans
‘sufficient to have stood, but free to fall.’”

Alix
nodded slowly.  “I see it as a tale of forgiveness,” she finally said, glancing
self consciously around her at the various servants in the room, who were
coming and going with their pitchers and plates of food.  “Adam and Eve were
the first humans to sin and thus to require the grace of God.”  She raised her
rounded chin, suddenly looking much like her grandmother.  “It is my opinion
that salvation is the only proper theme of literature.”

Emma
smiled.  It was a very basic interpretation of the text, but not an inaccurate
one.  The young princess indeed had more possibilities than were evident at
first glance.   

“It’s
an admirably challenging reading choice,” Emma said, aware that she herself
also sounded a little too adult and pious.  “Most girls favor romances.”

“I
read those too,” Alix whispered, as a steaming plate of veal was placed in front
of her.

“Salvation
of a different sort,” Emma whispered back, picking up her wine glass.

“Nicky
loves the sea,” Alix said, with a return to her normal tone and a rather abrupt
change of topic.  “He wears the uniform of the Russian navy for all state occasions.”

The
Russian navy, Emma thought.  Founded by Peter the Great, the design of their
ships all allegedly based on that of a single skiff the first tsar had brought
back from a visit to England, thus giving rise to the theory, at least in the
universities and shipyards of London, that the success of the Russian navy was
the result of science stolen from the British.  Emma had been so immersed in
reading eastern history over the last three days that these facts slid back to
her unbidden.  But she merely nodded encouragingly, and Alix went on. 

“His
family yacht is far larger and grander than this one,” Alix said, with a guilty
look in the direction of the Queen. 

Emma
made a noncommittal sort of murmur, wondering if Nicholas possessed the skill
to actually captain a craft, even one the size of Tsar Peter’s original skiff.  She
suspected he did not, which made his pride in wearing a nautical uniform rather
affected, like a child playing dress-up.  But it hardly mattered.  For when she
had said the name “Nicky,” Alix’s face had suddenly become alive with light and
animation.  She was one of those women who could be transformed by joy, who
could fly from merely pretty to compelling on the wings of sheer emotion. 

“He
is so dashing in his naval uniform,” Alix said. “The trousers are white and the
jacket is blue with gold braid on the shoulders and an insignia –“

“I
say,” Tom said, calling down the table as if they were all patrons at a
boarding house.  Rayley startled with horror but the Queen seemed completely
nonplussed.  “What holds you ladies so deep in conversation?”

“We’re
discussing Paradise Lost and the nature of salvation,” Emma replied.

“Good
heavens, such gravity,” said Tom with a mock frown.  “If your thoughts grow any
more ponderous, I fear the very ship shall sink beneath us.”

“We
shall continue our conversation later,” Emma said quietly to Alix, and, on
impulse she reached across the table and squeezed her hand.   It was doubtless
an inappropriate gesture, to touch royalty without their bidding, but the girl
flushed with pleasure, clearly happy to have a new friend or at least a
sympathetic tutor.  She’s frightened too, Emma thought.  Unsure of what she’ll
find in St. Petersburg or all the changes the years might have brought to her
Nicky.  To write a passionate letter from afar is one thing; to have something
to say to the person when you meet them is an altogether different matter, and
Alix knows that she is sailing into an uncertain future.  Going to one of the
few places on earth where the flag of her grandmother may not protect her.   

And
then a violinist began to play from the corner and any further discussion was
unnecessary.

An
hour later the table had been cleared, the servants had departed, and Alix too
had gone to her cabin, presumably to dream of salvation and men in white
trousers.  The true business of the night was about to begin.

“We
shall not concern ourselves with talk of protocol until some later evening,” the
Queen said.  “For Alix will need to be present at that lecture as well.  From
what I understand from Ella, a German princess is expected to curtsy to a
Russian grand duchess, so she will need some direction.”

A
British Queen is expected to curtsy to a Russian tsarina as well, Emma thought,
but she supposed the arrogance of the Russian court was indeed a subject best
suited for another day.  They had enough to cover tonight.

“Miss
Kelly,” the Queen continued, with the tone of one long accustomed to being in
charge.  “Will you now give us your summation of Russian history?  Not the
entire dreadful subject but rather just the most recent facts, the ones most
pertinent to the matter at hand.”

“Certainly,
Ma’am,” Emma said.  “I suppose we should start with the current tsar’s father,
Alexander II?”

The
Queen nodded.  “A good man, if memory serves.”

“He
accepted the need for reform,” Emma said, striving to keep her voice measured
and matter-of-fact.  A week ago she had been mending Gerry’s underdrawers and
she could hardly fathom the turns of fate which had brought her to this place
and time, sipping sherry on the royal yacht and giving a history lesson to the
Queen.  “The Russian serfs are abysmally poor, which I suppose goes without
saying, and Alexander II signed a bill early in his reign giving them the most
basic sorts of rights and freedoms.  Before that, the serfs were thought to
belong to the land they worked and thus could be bought, sold and traded, much
in the manner of American slaves.  The reforms, limited as they may seem to
outsiders, established the reputation of Alexander II as a tsar who was
sympathetic to all classes of people and somewhat of a progressive.  But many
of the serfs did not think the reforms went far enough and, especially in the
rural regions, the new rules were not sufficiently enforced.   Over time
resentments began to build again.”

“Eventually
leading to the tsar’s death,” the Queen said tonelessly. 

Emma
paused and took a deep breath. “Yes, Ma’am. The assassination of Alexander II
was undoubtedly the most pivotal event in recent Russian history and I believe
it would be a mistake to underestimate the impact it has had on the psychology
of the present royal family and thus the matter at hand. “

“The
imperial family,” the Queen corrected her. “We are royal, but they call
themselves imperial.”

“Yes,
yes of course,” Emma said.  “Your Majesty is of course right.  It is a
distinction we must all take care to remember.”

“The
particulars of the assassination?”  Trevor prompted.

“It’s
a sad tale,” Emma said.  “One morning the tsar was traveling by carriage through
the streets of St. Petersburg.  A homemade bomb was thrown at his entourage but
missed its mark, in the sense the tsar himself was uninjured.  He insisted on
stopping to offer aid to wounded members of his guard and as he exited the
coach, a second bomb was thrown. This one found its target and the tsar
suffered dreadful injuries.  The loss of both legs, great gashes on his torso
and face.”   Emma glanced at the Queen, who sat immobile.  “Begging your
pardon,  Ma’am.”

“No
need to apologize,” Victoria said calmly. “We are speaking of Nicky’s
grandfather and, as you say, an event that informed the current state of the
Romanov court.  Please continue.”

“The
tsar was mortally wounded,” Emma said, “and requested to be taken to the Winter
Palace to die.  That was just as it happened, two days later.  The irony is
that Alexander II had not only granted basic reforms twenty years before his
death but had also, on the very morning he was attacked, signed an additional
bill into law granting further freedoms to the serfs, such as the right to own
private property and elect representatives in their rural districts.  You might
say he was attempting to start Russia on the road to modern government and
yet…”

“He
was killed by the very people he was trying to help,” Tom said simply.

“As
is often the case,” the Queen said. “His kindness was his doom.  He would have
lived had he stayed in the royal carriage and not insisted on disembarking to
offer succor to his guard.”

“His
reforms would have lived as well,” Emma said. “For when he learned that his
father had been murdered, the tsar’s son and successor, the man we know as
Alexander III, went into his father’s office and ripped up the freedom
initiative his father had signed that morning.   He proclaimed that in attempting
to help the serfs Alexander II had tried to pet a rabid wolf and vowed to never
make the same mistake.  And he has thus been an autocratic and unrelenting
ruler, not only recalling his father’s reforms but pulling Russia back into a
more feudal way of life.  We are speaking, of course, of the present tsar and
the father of Nicholas.”

A
silence fell on the table.  Trevor noticed that the Queen’s lips had grown thin
and her jaw was tense.  She had certainly been aware of the events Emma
described but revisiting the details seemed to have stirred up a variety of
emotions.  Victoria had been fortunate enough to escape an assassination
attempt early in her own reign and had from that time nursed an unhealthy
interest – some might say obsession –with the subject of murdered politicians.

“Is
there any way of knowing where young Nicholas stands on these matters?” Trevor
asked the Queen.  “His grandfather was a reformer, his father a
traditionalist.   It seems the boy would have to lean one way or the other.”

Tom
reached to splash a bit more sherry into his glass.  Very bad form in front of
the Queen, but the servants had all been banished from the room and she did not
appear to notice.  She was frowning at the tablecloth before her, evidently
deep in thought.

“There
is no way of knowing what, if anything, Nicky thinks,” Victoria finally said. 
“I gather he is rather sheltered, young for his age, and that his father has
done a remarkably ineffective job of preparing his eldest son to rule according
to any political philosophy at all.”

A
slight but awkward pause fell across the table and Rayley’s eyes briefly met
those of Trevor.  The precise same charge had been laid against Victoria
herself, that she had allowed the fiftyish Prince of Wales to remain a gadabout
schoolboy, not to mention his son, the even more wretched Eddy.  There’s
something about these monarchs with all their power, Trevor thought.  This
power that they are reluctant to release even to their own children.  Perhaps
they believe that if they never acknowledge their mortality, it shall never
come to pass.  

“They
call the tsar “The Bear,” do they not?” Tom asked, knowing that sometimes an
awkward silence is best smoothed by asking a question to which everyone already
knows the answer.

“They
do indeed,” Emma said promptly, “and the assassination of his father has
stamped the entire reign of Alexander III.  He is the proverbial iron-fisted
ruler - suspicious of outsiders, preoccupied with the idea that his father’s
cruel fate might await him or other members of his family.  His fears are
undoubtedly warranted, for social unrest in Russia is extraordinarily high and
the poverty of the serfs is more profound than ever.”

“Yet
in her letters my granddaughter Ella assures me that all is safe and calm in
St. Petersburg,” the Queen said.  “I know this to be untrue, both from an
awareness of the facts Miss Kelly has so neatly summarized and from my own
intelligence sources around the city.”  The Queen gave a bark of laughter, a
sound with more anger than humor.  “And sometimes Ella herself slips up in her
letters, providing details which clearly show the excessive precautions which
are undertaken in an effort to protect them all.  Guards in such number that I
sometimes suspect the entire imperial family lives under a type of very
well-appointed siege, all but hostages within the walls of the Winter Palace.  Then,
as if I needed any more proof of my suspicions, this came.”  She reached for a
pile of papers on the table beside her, evidently placed there by a servant before
departing, and slowly brought her eyeglasses to her face, carefully tucking the
wires around her plump ears.