City of Silence (City of Mystery) (16 page)

Tatiana
leaned against the wall of her bathroom, pressing a towel to her mouth and staring
at her splotched face in the mirror as if it were the image of a stranger.  This
could not be. There were ways to end the process, dangerous and bloody ways,
but to find them she would need help.  Help that would most likely come in the
form of a servant, a servant who would have to be bribed into cooperation, and
who might still talk when the deed was done.  She would have to find a way to
put her hands on money and then she must select someone who was utterly
discreet, for if such a thing was ever –

A
knock at the door.

The
face in the mirror frowned at her. Whoever could that be?  No one ever came to
her apartments save for servants and Filip, and they certainly would not bother
to knock.

Tatiana
hastily splashed water from the basin on her face and smoothed her hair.  She
crossed through the bedroom and sitting room and into the small foyer, tossing
the soiled towel in a refuse basket as she walked, and finally pulled open the
door to find the Grand Duchess Ella
Feodorovna standing
in the hallway, her hand raised as if to knock a second time.

Stunned,
Tatiana bobbed a curtsy.  “Your Imperial Highness.”

“You
are surprised.”

“Yes.
 I was made to understand that your family had recently arrived.”

“And
that is why you are surprised to find me here?” Ella inquired with a twist of
her mouth.  “Because you expected me to be with my British family?  I assure
you that no one has noticed my absence. 
Granny is locked
away with her papers - she works every day, you know.  Being a monarch, and not
a consort, must be a terribly tedious role for a woman to play.  And Alix is
out for a carriage ride with Nicky.”

“Congratulations.”

“Are
my motives that obvious?”

Tatiana
gripped the doorframe, suddenly hit with another wave of queasiness, but
through sheer force of will she managed to quell it. “I meant no disrespect,
Your Imperial Highness.  I can only imagine it would bring you great pleasure
to have a sister living in the palace.”

“Indeed
it shall.  Might I be allowed to enter your rooms?”

“Oh
yes,” Tatiana said, jerking back.  What was wrong with her?  How could she
leave the Grand Duchess standing in the hall while she weaved on her feet like
a drunkard, clutching both sides of the doorframe?  “Please do enter.  And please,
would you like to sit?”

The
smile still playing around her full lips, Ella circled the small sitting room
before electing to perch herself on the tallest chair. Tatiana frantically
glanced about, seeing her cast off robe tossed across another seat, a pair of
Filip’s boots in the corner, the remnants of breakfast still on the tray.

“I
would of course welcome a match between my sister and my nephew,” Ella said
smoothly, as if she had not noticed the disarray of the room.  “And I have
hopes that any opposition to their union will melt away when the Russian side
of the family finally manages to throw their welcoming dinner for the British
side.  As of now, the plans are for Friday evening.  The summer solstice.  The
longest day of the year.  It is shockingly late, waiting three days after their
arrival to formally welcome guests, but you know how they are.”

The
use of the term “they” was telling. Tatiana felt like a perpetual outsider
within the Winter Palace, but it was a surprise to hear that the Grand Duchess
felt equally disenfranchised.  Surprising too that she would confide anything
at all suggesting a riff between the British and Russian factions of her
family.  But surely none of this was what had brought Ella to Tatiana’s
doorstep, to a part of the palace so removed from her own apartments.

As
if reading her thoughts, Ella reached into a satchel she had wedged beside her
on the chair and said.  “We are alone, I presume.”

“Yes.”

“Excellent. 
There is something I wish you to see.”  Her graceful white hands withdrew a
file from the satchel and then a square paper from the file.  Moving to accept
it, Tatiana saw it was a photograph.

“What
do you make of it?”

Just
as expected, it was the photograph Ella had taken on the morning the bodies had
been found.  Tatiana studied it.  Considering the distance from the balcony to
the floor, the images were quite clear.

“The
knife,” Ella prompted impatiently.

“Clamped
in the girl’s hand, just as we noticed and commented upon.”

“Indeed. 
And does the shape of the blade look familiar?”

“Curved
and long.  The handle is not–“

Tatiana
broke off, horrified.  How could she have failed to notice this earlier, on the
morning she had gone to the ballroom?  It seemed she was failing to notice any
number of things of late, as if her famously clever mind had deserted her just
when she needed it most.  But from the angle the camera had taken, it was
obvious that the knife in the dead girl’s hand was most unusual, a weapon which
was in fact designed to draw notice to itself, to attract the attention of
someone sitting even in the highest tiers of the theater.

“It
is his, is it not?” Ella asked, her tone indicating she well knew the answer.

Tatiana
looked down into Ella’s face. The photograph in her hand was trembling. “Anyone
in the theater could have gained access to that knife.”

It
was true. The props used in the theatricals were not locked away.  Konstantin
had even remarked upon it their last time together, that he couldn’t find his gypsy
costume, that it was likely lost somewhere in the laundry.  If the costume had
been taken, then the knife certainly might have gone missing too.  And while most
of the knives and swords and pistols used in the entertainments were fakes, the
long curved dagger of Konstantin’s gypsy costume was the real thing.  At the
climactic moment of one especially vigorous scene, he was expected to climb a
rigging of an improvised ship and use it to release a flag.  Everyone involved
with the performances for the Tchaikovsky ball knew this – knew that the curved
knife carried by the gypsy king was both dangerous and commissioned to
Konstantin Antonovich.

“Marriage
is very difficult, is it not?” Ella suddenly said, fiddling carelessly with the
edge of her glove. 

Tatiana
only could look at her mutely.

“When
one is a girl, just on the brink, you hear the older women talk of the
necessity of compromise, but of course at that time you have no way of understanding
what they mean,” Ella continued with a low, soft voice.  “And by the time one
understands the true nature of these compromises, it is too late.  You are
trapped and must seek solace wherever you can, even in the most improbable
places.  I believe it was Alexandre Dumas who said that the chains of wedlock
are so heavy that it takes two to carry them, and sometime three.”

Was
this meant as a joke?  As a threat?  Tatiana forced a weak smile.  Ella did not
smile back, but rather pulled off her glove and considered the pale gold ring
on her left hand.  “You care for him.  That much is obvious.”

“Yes,
Your Imperial Highness.”

“As
do I, which is why no one must know this picture exists. The man who developed
it is disinterested.  He develops many pictures for me, roses from the gardens,
the family at ease, that sort of thing.  It is unlikely he will remember this
one.”

Tatiana
blinked but said nothing.  She thought it was quite likely the man would
remember this particular picture, murdered bodies being intrinsically more
interesting than roses and photographs of families at ease.

“And
Cynthia Kirby is sworn to secrecy on the matter,” Ella continued.  “Other than
that, you and I are the only ones who know it exists, so as of this moment, it
does not.”  With a theatrical flourish of her own, Ella tore the picture once,
then again, and stood to toss the pieces into in the same woven basket which
held the cloth Tatiana had used to clean away the traces of her nausea.

So
this is how the powerful dispose of inconvenient facts, Tatiana thought.  They
rip them, place them in a basket, and believe that this act alone is enough to
make the truth disappear.  Perhaps they are right.  Suddenly weak again, she
pressed her fingers to her lips and weaved slightly on her feet.

“Why
are you so pale?” Ella asked, turning toward her. The question was accusatory
in tone, as if Tatiana’s continued obvious distress was a challenge to Ella’s
ability to manage the situation. 

“Begging
your pardon, Your Imperial Highness, but there were many members of the guard
present when you took that photograph.  Any one of those men might remember the
event and inquire after the resultant image.”

“The
guard was more than willing to dismiss the murders as a double suicide,” Ella
said with a shrug.  “I don’t anticipate trouble from them.”

“But
the person who did this…who used Konstantin’s knife and then left it in the
dead girl’s hand.  It was a very direct effort to draw attention to him, is it
not?”

“Indeed,
the most obvious of clues, which the men cleaning up the crime nonetheless
managed to ignore.”   

“This
person must be furious that his plan has failed. That he left, as you say, the
most obvious of clues, and they still were not noticed.”

For
the first time Ella hesitated.  “Do you have any idea how our boy might have made
an enemy such as this?”

“No,”
Tatiana said.

“For
you know what we are on the verge of suggesting, do you not?”

Tatiana
shook her head.  She desperately wished to sit before her legs gave way, but it
was impossible to do so with Ella still on her feet.

“What
we are suggesting,” Ella continued, “is that there is someone within this
palace who is so cruel that he will kill two innocent dancers simply to pin the
crime on his true enemy, which is Konstantin.  But it appears this person has
failed.  The bodies have been carted away with only the most perfunctory of examinations
and the weapon, while presumably being stored somewhere, has to date attracted
no attention at all.  No one within the guard has cared enough to notice that
the knife in question was part of Konstantin’s gypsy costume and not the plaster
cast knife used in the Romeo and Juliet scene.  So it would appear that this
elaborate message, this switching of the props, has gone undetected and thus
our villain’s plans to incriminate Konstantin have fallen to ruin.”  Ella
frowns.  “But one thing does bother me.”

“That
whoever is determined to destroy Konstantin might try again?”

Ella
responded to this rather obvious suggestion with surprise. “Yes, I suppose
there is that chance.  But I was about to say that my grandmother has traveled
from London with two bodyguards, and that the British police are quite
different from the Russians.  Bulldogs, every last one of them.  I would
imagine that if Granny’s Detective Welles and her Detective Abrams gained
possession of that picture their eyes would go to the knife at once.  But of
course…they won’t.”

“Mrs.
Kirby might not tell them that the photograph exists?”

“Why
ever should she do such a thing?  Or talk to them at all?  She works for me.”

“And
she is loyal to you?”

“Of
course she is loyal to me. All my servants are loyal to me,” Ella said, her
head jerking with exasperation.  “And whatever is wrong now?  I have offered
you every assurance and yet you remain so pale.”

“I
am unwell, Your Imperial Highness.”

Ella
tilted her chin.  “What sort of unwell?”

Chapter
Ten

The
Winter Palace – The Premiere Ballroom

June
19, 1889

3:45
PM

“You
fight me.”

“I
promise you that I do not.”

The
dance instructor dropped his hands from Emma’s waist and stepped back so that
they stood for a moment in silence, each considering the other.  She had never
met a man quite like him.  Eurasian, the term was.  His straight black hair,
pulled taut and knotted at the nape of his neck, certainly gave him an Oriental
look, as did his high cheekbones and deep set brown eyes.  But his height and
pale skin were undeniably Russian.  He told her he came from Siberia, that part
of the map which lay between the finely-detailed countries of Europe and the
blank empty expanse of Mongolia.  His features, like the land, were a bit of a
compromise.

He
frightened her.  Or perhaps it was the waltz itself.  When Emma told Trevor she
knew how to waltz, she had anticipated a dance quite different from this.  The
English version of a waltz involved standing straight up, with the man bracing
the woman at arm’s length, the two of them moving at a slow and measured pace
through the shape of a box.  She had not been in the ballroom of the Winter
Palace for ten minutes before she realized that what Konstantin expected of her
was something else indeed.  Something swift, whirling, unpredictable in form
and powerful in execution.  The Russians claimed their women like they claimed
everything else – hips thrust forward and in the pace of a gallop.

“The
imperial family,” Konstantin said, pointing to the balcony level, “sits there. 
Everything we do is to entertain them, so your face must be tilted upward.  You
know what this means?”

“I
must lean backwards.”

A
displeased toss of the head.  “This is a myth, you know.  The myth of the waltz. 
The woman does not actually lean back.  It is a trick of the eye.  I will show
you.  Come here.”

Emma
stepped toward Konstantin, wondering why she was so nervous.  No one was there
to witness her clumsiness.  They were the only two people in the theater.

He
took her hand in his and pulled her close. “Flex your knees,” he said, “and
push your hips into me.  No, not straight in, not like that.  You stand a
little to the left of me.  It is so we will not knock knees or step each on the
other one’s feet.”   Emma bent her knees and pushed her hips toward him.  It
was a most extraordinary position to be in and they were having an even more
extraordinary conversation.

“Now,”
he said, “the woman remains to the left of the man during the entire dance to
accommodate his sword, which hangs on his own left hip.  I do not have a sword,
but try to imagine.”  He looked down at her, his eyes narrowing a bit over the
bridge of his substantial nose.  “If it is done correctly, there’s a bit of a
hollow there, just right for you to slip into.  No.  Closer.  You must not be
so afraid.  It is all very natural, is it not?”

Was
this natural?  If so, why had she never felt it before?

“So
you see,” he said, when she had finally edged herself close enough for his
satisfaction.  “We are not bending the tops of our bodies away from each other,
we are pushing the lower bodies closer to create that illusion.  Keep your arms
high, if you please.  I do not want a drooping flower.”  He turned her slightly
to the left and then to the right but did not move his legs, which was a
relief.  Their four feet were so close that she was afraid if she moved even
one of hers, she would topple.

 “I
don’t think you understand.  I have just arrived here.  I am a stranger in your
country and entered into this pageant at the last minute, as some sort of
courtesy to the Queen.  No one expects me to be good.”

“Will
you be dancing with me?”

“Evidently.”

“Then
I expect you to be good.  If you have finished talking, we shall now attempt to
waltz.”

We
are all but fused, Emma thought.  It is impossible to clang against each other
when we start out so close, and I won’t lose him in the turn, and there’s some
comfort in that, I suppose.  They had only been working together for a few
minutes and already she could tell her back would be sore when she climbed into
bed tonight, and her legs exhausted from keeping her knees so unnaturally
forward, wedged between his. 

But
when Konstantin began to move, Emma could see at once the wisdom of this
strange position he had bullied her into, for their turns felt simultaneously
easier and more dramatic.  Was he pleased that she had managed to hold on, to
stay with him through these initial revolutions?  

Three
turns in, he stopped.  “Don’t drop your chin.”

“I
did not drop my chin.”

“You
looked at me,” he said.  “You must not.  Not to me or to the other couples on
the floor or those in the audience.  Look to the ceiling.”

“The
ceiling?  How will I know where I am going?”

“You
are a woman.  You do not need to know where you are going.  I will take you
there.”   His narrow eyes narrowed more. “You do not trust me?”

Trust
him?  She did not know him.  The women who trust strange men, she thought,
those who close their eyes and lean back…they are carried away on any number of
dark waves, some of them never to be seen again.  Her sister Mary’s face
flashed through her mind, unbidden as it always was.

But
he had already accused her of fighting him, so it would be pointless to argue
further.  Not in the grand ballroom of the Winter Palace in Russia of all
places, when she was so very out of her element and so far from home.  She was
here to protect the Queen and her granddaughters, after all, not to argue with
some strange man about how to waltz.  With a sigh that Emma hoped Konstantin
would take as evidence of compliance, not exasperation, she lifted her arms as
wide as they would reach, tilted her hips towards him, and raised her chin. 

As
if satisfied by her surrender, he began again, the turns wider and more
vigorous.  For a moment she was dizzied, but quickly realized that it helped if
she directed her gaze toward something specific with every turn.  Fortunately,
the top of the theater had no end of things to attract the eye.  Each corner of
the room held a stage set, presumably for the upcoming ball.  A peasant cottage
in one, looking like something from a child’s fairy tale book and nearly
complete.  A balcony in the next, presumably for the lost scenes from Romeo and
Juliet, and then a half-finished ship with a mast and riggings, and in the
final corner there was a canopy of green branches that were evidently the
beginning of some sort of forest.  These four environments, each so strange to
behold, gave Emma something to spot as she turned, a way to orient where she
was on the enormous floor.  Cottage, balcony, ship, and forest.  

For
a few minutes, it worked.  And then he began to take her into a series of
reverses which scrambled the sequence she had come to expect, and she began to
lose her form.  He stopped.

“I
am sorry,” she said.

“Why
do you not trust men?”

“What
do you mean?  Of course I trust men.”

“Close
your eyes.”

“What?”

“You
look around the room with your head swinging back and forth, trying to guess
where we are going next.  If you close your eyes, you will trust me.”  He smiled
as they began to move again and Emma allowed her eyes to flutter closed, just
as he had asked. 

“For
I know something about women, you see,” he whispered, bringing his mouth close
to her ear. “They only trust men when they find they have no other choice.”

The
Streets of St. Petersburg

4:35
PM

Davy
and Vlad were sitting at the precise same café where he had braved coffee with
Elliott Cooper that morning, although this time the drink at hand was even more
potent.  They should call this place the Café of the Revolution, he mused, but
perhaps it was really not so strange that the members of the Volya would choose
to congregate there both before and after their meetings.  Humans were
habituated and self-limiting creatures, Davy had noted.  Even in a large city
with innumerable options, they tended to return to the same places over and
over.

“Do
you have brothers?” Vlad inquired.

“Three.”

“You
are lucky.  A couple of spares.”

“You’ll
forgive me if I do not see it that way.”

“My
brother Sasha was killed in the revolution,” Vlad said without emotion.  “But I
suppose Cooper told you that.”

“He
did.”

“I
am not surprised.  This is the first thing that anyone ever knows about me. That
I am the brother of a martyr.”

Davy
sat back as a serving girl approached and plopped, without comment or ceremony,
two squat glasses of what was apparently vodka before them.  Vlad had not
ordered them, at least not in any manner Davy could identify, so he could only
assume that promptly delivered glasses of unornamented vodka were standard
procedure at the Café of the Revolution, along with the sort of short harsh
cigarettes that Vlad was now lighting.

“A
man needs brothers,” Vlad said.

“I
noticed the members of the Volya use the term ‘brother’ as often as ‘comrade,’”
Davy said.  “At least you have Gregor and the others there.”

“I
meant real brothers,” Vlad said, cutting his eyes at Davy as he took the first
draw on the cigarette.  “Gregor…trivializes me.”

“He
told me that since you had lost Sasha and he had lost Yulian, that he considered
the two of you to be-“

“Shit. 
Pure horse shit.  You saw the way it was as well as anyone.  I raise my hand to
make a suggestion and he sends me to check the lock, or bring him cigarettes,
or on whatever other senseless errand has struck his fancy.  Speaking of which,
will you join me in this smoke?”  He sent the paper package of cigarettes, with
a match tucked inside, spinning across the table and Davy deftly, if somewhat
reluctantly, caught it.

“Older
men often play that game with younger men,” Davy said, striking the match
against the heel of his boot.  In the nine months he had been with Scotland
Yard, Davy had developed his own brand of interrogation and had found that the
best way to get someone to confess to something was to first make a confession
of your own.  “There are two men ranked above me where I work and there are
times when I think they see me as comedy, the way the actors bring a dog or
donkey on stage during a play.”  He brought the match to his cigarette and
puffed, pulling in a wave of smoke so dark and acrid that he coughed and grabbed
for the vodka, which only turned his cough into a strangled sputter.

Vlad
watched this scene with the slightest hint of amusement.  “You are not
accustomed to smoking?  Or drinking?”

“Not
accustomed to smoking these or drinking that,” Davy gasped when he caught his
breath. 

“Nothing
in Russia ever goes down quite as smooth as one expects,” Vlad said.  He had a
thin face, with a pointed chin.  A look of hunger played about his features, and
Davy suspected that his brother’s death had not turned him into the malcontent
creature he now was, but had rather merely accentuated his inborn nature.  Vlad
Ulyanov had most likely been unhappy even back in the sand pile, a sniveling
disgruntled toddler who always wanted whatever toy lay in the hands of another.

Nonetheless,
Davy’s story seemed to have earned him some ground, for Vlad was now looking at
him with sharpened interest.  “These men who trivialize you, they also work for
the Queen?”

Davy
nodded, glancing at an earthenware pot to his left which held a clump of
geraniums.  The next time the man was distracted, he would have to toss his
vodka into it, for if he consumed too much he suspected he would find it
impossible to keep his senses.  “They found me doing a nothing job in the
streets,” he said.  “A less than nothing job.  Trained me, gave me my first
promotion.  Are good to me, by all measures.”

“And
they never quite let you forget it.”

The
tone of voice was sardonic, but Davy recognized the genuine emotion behind it. 
This shaming sense of having been the last one invited to the party, allowed in
as an afterthought, and expected to be perennially grateful for the chance.  Yes,
he too understood well enough how it felt to be the least among men but loyalty
would not allow him to demonize Rayley or Trevor, not even to further gain
Vlad’s confidence. 

“They
do not always seem to welcome my ideas,” he conceded.  “But they have given me
some chances.  At times I feel they have even placed me in situations that are
somewhat out of my depth.”

“Out
of your depth?  As a messenger boy?”

Well,
that was a bit of a error, was it not?  Davy had never totally believed Mrs. Kirby
and Elliott Cooper when they had blithely claimed that the Volya would accept
the notion that a lad who was wealthy enough to have attended boarding school
would then accept the paltry job of being a messenger boy.  Not to mention the
other incongruity, that he was expected to pass as a political revolutionary in
service to the Queen.  He would have to divert the conversation at once or risk
making an even greater error.  Someone – was it Rayley? – had once told Davy
that the secret of a successful lie was to keep it as close as possible to the
truth.