Prisoner of the Iron Tower (21 page)

“Andrei,” began Kuzko awkwardly, “I’ve been thinking. They say nobody survived. They say all the crew drowned. But—”

“You think
I’m
Duke Aleksei’s lost son?” Andrei got up, knocking over his stool. He clutched his head, as if he could wrest the memories from his locked brain.

“Stands to reason, lad. The storm that night washed you up here, on this very beach.”

“Then why—why can’t
I
remember anything?” And Andrei, overcome with bitter frustration, flung open the hut door and went out into the darkness.

The night was as dark as the foul-smelling pitch Kuzko used to caulk the hull of his little boat. Andrei stumbled, unseeing, along the shingle, blind, deaf to the mean blast of the wind off the lightless sea, or the menacing rattle of the incoming tide fast clawing its way up the pebbled beach.

“Why!” he yelled at the black sea, straining his throat until it was raw. He dropped to his knees on the damp stones, sobbing with frustration. “
Why
can’t I remember?”

“Why do you need to know?”

The voice was softer than the whisper of the tide.

“Who’s there?” Andrei jerked around. “Come out! Show yourself!”

“I am the one who healed you.”

It was that voice again, the one that had haunted his fevered dreams when he was hovering between life and death.

“I’m going mad. Hallucinating.”

“Think of me as your spirit-guardian . . . if it helps.”

“I don’t believe in spirits. Angels or daemons.”

“I can help you unlock your memory. But only when you are ready.”

“Do it. Do it now!”

The voice fell silent and all he could hear was the chitter of stones swirled around by the encroaching tide.

And then the fog in his mind melted away and a flood of memories rushed in.

Faces flickered before him in the dark like phantasms: Astasia, his sister; his father Aleksei, careworn with affairs of state; his mistress Olga, with her bewitching smile . . .

He stood on the quay on a grey, windswept morning. His royal-blue naval uniform glittered with golden buttons and epaulettes, but the collar was damnably tight.

His mother and father were there, shivering in the fierce wind off the River Nieva. And his beloved sister, dark-eyed Astasia, came running forward, flinging her arms about his neck to hug him as if she would never let go. . . .

And now he was in a little boat, being rowed out toward a great warship anchored midstream. Her wood-and-iron hull towered above him; a rope ladder was lowered for him to scramble up. As the oarsmen brought the little boat around, he gazed up and saw her figurehead: a gold-feathered bird with the face and bare breasts of a voluptuously beautiful woman. He read the name:
Sirin,
Spirit-Bird of Paradise.

Andrei opened his eyes and found himself sprawled facedown on the cold shingle, with a froth of tide lapping close to his head.

“I am Andrei Orlov.” He spoke the words out loud.

Slowly he drew himself up to his feet. “I
am
Andrei Orlov!” he shouted with all the force of his lungs across the black sea.

CHAPTER
17

“My lord.” Kuzko and Irina went down on their knees on the dirt floor of the hut.

“I’d be dead if it weren’t for the two of you. You saved my life. I’ll never forget that.” Andrei went to help Irina up.

“But you’re the Grand Duke now.” Kuzko kept his eyes averted, staring embarrassedly at the floor.

“As for that . . . isn’t my father Aleksei still alive?”

“Oh dear, dear,” whispered Irina, throwing her apron over her face. “And I said such things. About your family. Forgive me, my lord, forgive me.”

“If the Emperor Eugene believes me dead . . .” The implications were too immense for Andrei to take in all at once. He only knew that the Tielen tyrant who had usurped his father’s throne would not be pleased to see a rival claimant return from the grave.

He took Irina by the arms and gently eased her down into her chair by the fireside. “Listen to me. What you’ve learned from me tonight must stay our secret. As far as we’re all concerned, I’ll revert to being Tikhon, a shipwrecked sailor.”

Kuzko nodded, gnawing on the stem of his pipe.

“But I need to find out how the land lies in Mirom. Any chance of a trip up the Nieva to Mirom for supplies, Kuzko?”

“Won’t you be recognized?”

“Not with this beard,” Andrei said wryly, stroking the curly growth darkening his chin.

“I haven’t traveled that far since I was a young man. It’s a long journey, my lor—Tikhon.” Kuzko corrected himself. “And who’s going to look after my Rina while we’re gone?”

“There’ll be a generous reward for your kindness.” The magnanimous words were out of Andrei’s mouth before he had thought. If he was penniless Tikhon, how was he to gain access to the revenues from his estates?

“I can’t pretend that wouldn’t be appreciated,” Kuzko said gruffly. “But there’s also the question of your health. It’s hard work sailing a little boat like my
Swallow
. The spring tides can be treacherous out in the Straits—and she’s not built sturdy like a warship.”

Gavril lay immobile, staring at the sky through his high, barred window. Clouds drifted past. He could not even lift his damaged head from the pillow. Every time he blinked, the cell wavered and contracted before his eyes, leaving him as nauseous and dizzy as if he were on a storm-tossed ship.

From time to time, a terrible throbbing pain pulsed through his temples. He dreaded its return, for with the pain came hallucinations: grotesque and disorienting. He thought he saw Director Baltzar and his lean-faced assistant bend over him, wielding saws and scalpels.

“We slice the top of the skull off, like the shell of a boiled egg,” he heard Baltzar say as the saw blade began to grate into his head and his own warm blood began to drip down into his eyes, “and then we scoop out the diseased parts of the brain—”

And then the dripping blood became a crimson curtain, blinding him. They prized off the top of his skull and exposed his raw, pulsing brain to the cold air—

“Help me,” whispered Gavril. “I can’t go on like this.”

“Mirom,” murmured Andrei. The
Swallow
had just rounded a bend in the broad Nieva, weaving in between great merchantmen and warships, just another little fishing smack amid so many others bobbing on the swirling waters. And now the prospect of the city lay before them, half-hidden by the forests of masts and sails.

As the
Swallow
slowly drew closer to the city, the ravages of the citizens’ revolt and the Tielen invasion began to reveal themselves. The spires and star-spangled onion domes of the Cathedral of Saint Simeon still glittered, gold and azure and crimson, against the cloudy sky. But the great dome of the Senate House was blackened like a roasted eggshell, cracked and half-open to the sky.

And as the strong current of the Nieva propelled them onward, the ruined facade of the West Wing of the Winter Palace loomed up on the right bank. Fire had seared to the very heart of the building, leaving a roofless, charred shell.

The view of the fire-blackened ruin blurred. Andrei turned away, angrily dashing his hand across his eyes. Buildings could be restored and rebuilt. But the people who had died in the revolution, they could not be brought back. And his inheritance, his right to succeed his father as ruler of Muscobar, how could that ever be restored?

Andrei’s plan was to seek out an old, influential friend of his father’s and confide in him. First Minister Vassian seemed to be the most suitable choice; Vassian’s eldest son, Valery, had been in his year at the Military Academy and had, he suspected, been quite seriously smitten by Astasia’s charms.

And yet, as he made his way from the quayside toward the more affluent quarters of the city, he felt a growing sense of unease. Everywhere he looked he saw Tielen soldiers, the Tielen tongue was spoken on every street corner. Even if he was permitted an audience with Kyrill Vassian (which was far from certain, given the shabby state of his clothes and untrimmed beard), did the First Minister still wield any influence in Tielen-ruled Mirom?

Vassian’s town house was an imposing mansion, its stucco frontage painted in pale blue and white, the colors of a spring sky. As he approached, Andrei saw that all the blinds were drawn. He halted, confused. What did this mean? Was the family away? Had Eugene sent them into exile?

He decided to go around to the servants’ entrance. Even if the family was not at home, they would have left a housekeeper and a maid or two to care for the property.

After knocking and ringing the bell several times, all without reply, he had just decided to give up when he heard footsteps echoing hollowly within, and the door opened a crack.

“What is it?” demanded a surly voice.

He would have to bluff his way in. “I heard there was work in the gardens,” he said, improvising. “Spring planting—”

“Well, you’ve had a wasted journey. The house is shut. Good-day.” And the door slammed in his face.

Andrei stepped back. He was unaccustomed to such churlish treatment. His first instinct was to pound on the door again and demand to speak to someone in authority. And then he looked down at his shabby clothes and remembered. He was Tikhon, son of a poor fisherman. No one would let him near the First Minister.

Slowly he made his way back to the front of the house. In his mind’s eye he saw the blinds open, the sparkle of candles at every window, the First Minister and his wife Elizaveta in formal evening dress, standing at the open door to welcome their guests . . .

“Such a tragedy.” A bent old woman stopped beside him to gaze at the house, shaking her head as she spoke.

“A tragedy?”

“Didn’t you hear? It was a bad business. I used to do their washing, you know,” she said confidentially. “His wife found him in the stables. Dead.”

“Dead?” Andrei repeated, astonished. “I had no idea the Minister was ill.”

“It was suicide,” she said. “He blew out his brains.” She patted his arm and then shuffled on, still muttering to herself, “That poor woman . . .”

Andrei turned away. The blank windows behind him had hidden this horrible secret. What had caused Kyrill Vassian, a venerable and astute statesman, to fall into such black despair that suicide seemed the only honorable solution? Who else remained in Mirom from Vassian’s ministry whom he could approach for advice? How many Orlov supporters had died in the revolution?

At a loss as to what to do, he wandered the streets of the city like a vagrant, head down, the collar of dead Tikhon’s jacket pulled up to avoid the slightest risk of being recognized. He skulked in dingy alleys, drawing back into dark doorways whenever he saw anyone approaching too close.

Now a morbid desire gripped him. Here he was, little better than a ghost haunting the streets of his home city. He had to know how Mirom had commemorated the drowned heir to its ruling family. Had the city fathers erected a memorial to the lost crew of the
Sirin
? Had young women wept and left flowers and tearstained letters of farewell beneath it?

He searched the avenues of the fashionable Admiralty Quarter where prosperous merchants and naval officers lived.

The statues of his august forebears stood in tree-lined squares here, most prominent among them, the monument to his Great-Uncle Nikolai Orlov, who had died at sea in a skirmish against the Tielens. But where was the memorial to Andrei Orlov and his valiant sailors? He too had died at sea, sailing to confront the Tielens. But because they had perished in a storm, had he and his men been deprived of their heroes’ memorial?

The unjustness of it brought a bitter taste to his mouth.

Or were there to be no more monuments to the Orlovs now that Eugene was Emperor?

He began to ask passersby if they knew where the
Sirin
Memorial was to be found. Some looked at him blankly. One or two spat when he mentioned the name of Orlov. The owner of the newsstand outside the Nieva Exchange looked at him quizzically.

“The Emperor’s commissioned a bronze statue to stand in the Winter Palace Square. And can you guess who it will be?” The news-dealer gave him a wink from one rheumy eye. “Himself, of course!”

Andrei turned away. His heart felt cold as stone. The city where he was born, which he had been destined to rule as Grand Duke, had forgotten him.

He sat down on a bench beneath the trees opposite the ornate facade of the Grand Theatre and watched seagulls squabbling noisily over a crust of bread.

What did I do with my life here? Frittered it away on gambling, pretty actresses, and parties. Andrei the Good-Time Boy? No. Andrei the Wastrel; Andrei the Good-For-Nothing. Small wonder no one’s cared to erect a memorial to me; what was there worth commemorating?

A playbill, blown by the wind, landed at his feet. He picked it up and read:

Olga Giladkova, recently returned to Mirom from her triumphant winter season in Smarna as Leila in
The Corsairs
.

A memory of long-lashed eyes, smoky-grey, gazing into his, a husky voice murmuring, “Don’t forget me, Andrei. You know I will always be your friend. . . .”

“Olga,” Andrei said aloud. The need to see her again overrode every other thought in his mind. Olga could be trusted with his secret. Olga would never betray him. When they had become more than friends, she had shown him the secret entrance to her dressing room, used to avoid the crowds of admirers who pursued her after every performance.

“What a secretive lot you actors are!” he had whispered as she led him, his hand in hers, along the dark tunnel.

“Every actor needs a quick escape if his performance has not found favor with the public,” she had whispered back.

“And every actress needs a discreet way to smuggle in her admirers?”

Andrei slowly limped toward the alleyway that led around the back of the theater. Away from the sculpted statues of voluptuous muses and floral garlands that adorned the splendid facade, the rear of the great building was plain brick, shabby and neglected, with dead weeds poking from cracks in the mortar. If there were a matinee today, the little door might be unlocked.

He glanced around to see if anyone was watching. He was alone. The rusty latch to Olga’s little door was stiff, but after a few tugs, the door opened inward.

Andrei fumbled his way along the damp, dark passageway, remembering to count the number of paces, as Olga had taught him. Thirty-one, turn to the left, nine, stop and feel for the handle.

Silently closing the door behind him, he sniffed the air, recognizing the familiar musky scent of Olga’s favorite tobacco. The secret passage brought him into a tiny, chilly room housing a water closet and rose-painted porcelain hand-basin. Through the velvet-curtained doorway lay her dressing room. His heart began to beat faster. He raised one hand to draw the curtain aside just enough to take a swift look inside. If Masha, her dresser, was there, he would have to wait till Olga was alone.

Inside he glimpsed the gilded mirror surrounded by the soft glow of candles, the cluttered dressing table strewn with pots of greasepaint, rouge, and powder. A woman was sitting at the mirror, humming to herself as she dabbed at her face with a powder puff. And what an unforgettable face: strong-featured, the mouth overlarge and generous, deep-set grey eyes, dark as a November evening. A slight haze of blue tobacco smoke perfumed the air from a slender cigar left burning on a saucer.

“Olga,” Andrei said, moving so that she could see his reflection in the mirror.

The powder puff dropped from her hand.

“Who are you? And how did you get in here?”

He saw her hand move toward the little silver bell, ready to summon help.

“Don’t you recognize me, Olga?” His voice trembled, in spite of himself. “It’s me. Andrei.”

“Andrei is dead,” she said to his reflection. But her hand stayed where it was—close to, yet not touching, the bell. “Are you his ghost?” She asked the question as if the idea in some way intrigued her.

“Do I look like a ghost?”

“You look like a man who needs the attentions of a good barber. If you are Andrei, ghost, then prove it to me. Tell me something only Andrei could know.”