The Secret Language of Stones (27 page)

Chapter 30

As I took a seat and waited for the staff to serve us, we made small talk. The effort of pretending all was well proved almost as painful as the burns on my fingertips, which I tried to keep hidden in my lap. Briggs came in with the food and offered us a choice of cold chicken or meat pie. There was also wine, but I was afraid to take more than a few sips lest it affect my alertness. I sensed I needed to keep my wits.

“How is the talisman coming?” Grigori asked me.

“Almost finished,” I said. “There's some burnishing and polishing to do.”

“Did you get any information on the fate of the family?” Yasin asked.

“I can't tell anything until I'm with the person connected to it. Do you think they are alive?”

Yasin shook his head. “I don't think they are.”

“Why is that?” I was looking for a clue, wanting him to say something to give me some insight into their plans. And at the same time, I tried to appear naïve. My only chance of saving the Dowager was to keep these men from thinking I knew anything. I had to be able to walk away from them when tea was over and summon help. If I seemed nervous or asked the wrong questions, if I made them suspicious, they might trap me too.

“Why would they kill the tsar and keep his family alive?” Yasin asked, rhetorically.

“The children and the empress were, after the tsar, the manifestation of the corrupt royal system,” Grigori added. “The Bolsheviks would have no use for them, other than the pleasure of destroying them.”

Was he saying it with relish? Whenever we'd spoken of this before, I'd always thought he repeated the Bolshevik propaganda in order to explain the atrocities that were occurring in his homeland. But I'd been wrong. It was clear to me now that Grigori Orloff believed in the Bolshevik cause.

The conversation drifted to other topics. The men demolished the pie and the chicken. When we were done, Briggs came in to ask if we needed anything else.

I eyed him. Was he as safe as I thought? Or had he been lying too? Was he in on the plan to kidnap or murder the Dowager? And what of me?

Back in my room, I walked back and forth in front of the windows. And then, reminded of Grigori's incessant pacing, I stopped. I sat down and worked. And worked. The basket weave I'd chosen was taking much longer than expected. The complicated pattern of gold threads lacing over and under one another occupied my mind and at the same time allowed it to wander, to try to come up with a plan I could execute on my own.

By ten o'clock, I was desperate to take action, but still not sure what I should do. If I could get to a telephone and not be overheard, I could call the local police. But I hadn't seen a phone and I didn't know how to go looking for one without arousing suspicion when, for all I knew, everyone in the household was part of the plot.

Still weaving, I must have fallen asleep at the table. When I woke, long past midnight, the moon shone through the windows, illuminating the finished talisman. The crystal looked alive; the gold glimmered. I picked it up. I couldn't hear any voices but sensed they were
indeed there, waiting until a connection could be made via a loved one before imparting their terribly sad information.

It was the first time I'd ever made a piece of jewelry in search of proof of death, and I hated having done it. If I ever saw the Dowager again, if in the morning I figured out a way to help her, to free her, she was sure to ask. How could I be the one to deliver this horrible news?

I barely slept and went down to breakfast early, hoping I might find Briggs alone and talk to him, try to get a sense if he was indeed innocent or part of Grigori and Yasin's band of thugs.

But both men were already at the dining table, half done with their breakfasts, and I couldn't figure out how to get the butler alone.

“Did you sleep well?” Grigori asked.

“No, I didn't. Too anxious about today. About giving the empress the talisman. About what it will tell us.”

“I'm afraid it won't be possible for you to spend a long time with her,” Yasin said. “We've received a message from London and they want her to leave as soon as possible.”

I nodded as if everything made complete sense, but I was confused. Was I really going to meet with her?

“I'll come and get you as soon as Madame is ready.”

What game was this? How were they going to bring me to the Dowager? How were they going to get her to pretend she was all right when she'd spent the night in a dungeon tied to a chair? Or had she? Was the scene I'd witnessed some kind of torture to get information from her? Had they decided to let her go? But they couldn't—she'd seen their faces.

At ten o'clock, Grigori knocked on my door and told me the Dowager was ready for me. Together we walked to her rooms. Yasin opened the door and led me inside, through her sitting room into her bedroom. The heavy forest green damask drapes were drawn. Only a small lamp was lit. The room and the woman sitting by the window were shrouded in shadows. Dressed for travel, the Dowager was all in black, with a hat and veil covering her face, black gloves on her hands.

I walked toward her, but Yasin stopped me before I came too close.

“Can I have the talisman?” he asked. “I will give it to Her Highness.”

I handed it to him. He crossed the room and handed it to the Dowager.

She held it in her palm and looked down at it.

“What should she do?” he asked.

“I need to show her,” I explained. “I need to hold it as well.”

He seemed concerned but then nodded and gestured.

I approached and stood close to her. I tried to peer through the veil and into her eyes, but her glance was cast down, looking, it seemed, at my handiwork.

“If Your Highness would hold on to the talisman, I need to put my hands around yours.”

She nodded and did as I asked.

I put my hands around her gloved ones.

I'd expected children's voices to come all at once. Was sure of it. But I heard only the distant ticking of a clock and waves hitting the rocks. Maybe I'd been wrong. Perhaps I hadn't sensed the children's souls waiting for their chance to speak to their grandmother.

“They . . . your family . . . your grandchildren . . . they aren't talking to me, Your Highness. They are still alive.”

I expected her to say something. Just a few words of thanks. Someone of her breeding would have acknowledged my efforts. But she remained silent.

I released her hands. She dropped the talisman on the table.

How odd, I thought. Wasn't she going to take it with her? Her grandchildren's memorabilia was contained within the crystal. How could she leave it behind?

Yasin appeared at her side, helping her up.

“The car is waiting,” he said to her, and then turned to me.

“I believe you have something for Her Highness?”

Pavel had told me only to give her the second necklace, the necklace with the emerald eggs, if she was alone. But we weren't alone. And moment by moment I was becoming less and less certain she was the Dowager at all, but an imposter. Could the real Dowager have left the talisman behind? Wouldn't she have clutched it to her chest, cherishing it and the hope it had offered?

“Yes, I do,” I said, and took off the chain with the ruby eggs dangling from it. As I gave the decoy necklace to her, I prayed my hand wouldn't shake. “Monsieur Orloff wanted me to give these to you and tell you they are from your son. A gift he planned on giving you himself one day.”

I watched the woman pretending to be the Dowager take the piece of jewelry and barely glance at it as she slipped it into a black satin reticule.

Together they left the room. I watched their backs as they walked through the sitting room and stepped over the threshold and into the hallway. I watched as the stranger dressed in the Dowager's clothes turned the corner. As she walked out of sight, the panic inside of me bubbled up and soured my stomach and then I did start to shake. From head to toe. My fingers worst of all.

Chapter 31

Somewhere in this godforsaken castle, the mother of the recently executed tsar of Russia sat tied to a chair, her feet and her hands bound. A gag stuffed in her mouth. I had no doubt, if she wasn't already dead, she would be soon. I surmised they wouldn't kill her until they safely held the necklace.

And now they did.

Even though it wasn't the real one, even though there was nothing inside those pretty red eggs. They believed they possessed what Monsieur had sent me to deliver.

“Well done, Opaline. You made an old woman very happy,” Grigori said. We were in the foyer, watching the Dowager and her party leave. “Did you tell her the truth? Did you really not hear any messaging?”

“I really didn't,” I said as I put my hand up to my forehead and rubbed it. I knew why I hadn't heard anything. The talisman that was now in my pocket would only have worked if held by the children's true grandmother, not a fraud dressed in her clothes.

“Another headache?” he asked, with what seemed like real concern.

“Yes, a terrible one. I think I need to take a powder and lie down for a little while. Is that all right?”

“Of course. We're not departing for at least two hours.”

“I'll go to the kitchen. I'm sure they can find something.”

“I'll get it for you,” Grigori offered, “and bring it to your room.”

I had no choice but to let him.

A few minutes later, he knocked on my door and came in carrying a small tray. I took the powder in water. “Thank you. Now I should lie down.”

He left. I waited a few minutes and then got up. I wanted to find Briggs and find out if there was a phone. Even if they were in on the charade, I could come up with an innocent enough reason to need the phone. And then I'd find a way to call the police. If I bumped into Grigori, I'd just say the headache hadn't gone away and I wanted some tea.

But when I arrived at the kitchen, there was no one in sight. Had all the staff been sent off already? Was anyone left in the castle but Grigori and me? And the Dowager?

I searched but found no phone in the kitchen. Taking a glass of water, as an alibi in case anyone remained behind, I left and made my way to the library. No phone in sight. Was it possible there wasn't one? No. This castle belonged to royalty. Modernized, electrified, there must be a phone. Even if no one currently lived here, people had been living here as recently as four years ago, Briggs had said.

The clock on the mantel chimed. I'd used up a half hour. And I hadn't found a phone and I didn't know how to get to the Dowager. And then I remembered the prints of the castle in the upstairs hall. A series showing how it had evolved over the centuries.

I made it back to the hallway without being seen and examined each print. The dungeon must have been part of the original building. I started there and then, by studying each subsequent print, finally understood the layout of the east, west, and center wings. I knew my location. And hers. And now how to get there.

I found the older wing of the castle, then the stone room, the staircase, and finally the dungeon. With shaking hands, I tried the
door, afraid I was not going to find the empress alive. When I opened it, I found myself staring at a lifeless woman sitting in a chair, her head falling on her chest, her chest not moving.

I was too late. “I'm sorry,” I whispered.

Then I heard rustling. Was it Grigori? Had he found me? I turned around. No one was at the door. The noise continued. I turned again.

The sound wasn't emanating from the door but from the Dowager. She'd raised her head. Was twisting in her seat.

First, I removed her gag.

“I thought it might be those men again and wanted them to think I'd expired.”

“Well, it worked. I thought . . .Thank God you didn't, Your Highness.”

I untied her hands and went to work on her feet. Then I helped her up. Wobbling, she had to take two turns around the room before her circulation returned to her limbs and she could stand on her own.

Amazingly, she wasn't scared, but angry and full of fury. “These are the monsters who destroyed everything that ever mattered to me. Hurry, child, they will be back and I need you to help me.”

“But how?”

“I own a gun. You have to get it for me.”

“But they packed all your things. Yasin and your maid, who was dressed as you, left.”

“I should have been more suspicious when my own maid came down with a stomach bug on the boat. But the gun is still in the room, I'm sure.”

I turned to go, took five steps, and came face-to-face with Grigori.

Chapter 32

“I thought your head ached,” Grigori said as he took my arm and pushed me down into one of the other chairs and then, before I could respond, began to tie my arms behind my back.

The Dowager rushed over and tried to intervene, but he shoved her and she went sprawling onto the floor.

He hadn't yet gagged either of us. I started to scream: “Help, help!” The Dowager joined me. Grigori looked at both of us and laughed.

“Scream as loud as you want. Everyone is gone but Fodor and I. Oh, you don't know who Fodor is. I think you know him as Briggs. He's one of us.”

“What do you want with me?” the Dowager asked.

“I? Very little. We've taken the jewels my father hid all these years and they are on their way to Russia. I've done my job. There are some people arriving later this evening who want to talk to you, Your
Highness
.” He spat out the word. “And I promised to give them that opportunity.

“As for you—” Grigori turned to me. Sadness in his brown-­diamond eyes. He gave me one of his smiles—not dazzling but tinged with despair. “I wish you'd stayed in your room. Minded your own business. We were leaving, you and I. We were going home to Paris.” He shook his head. “We were going home, Opaline. I was going to make sure you returned safely before I left for Russia.”

I didn't doubt the sincerity in his voice. In fact, I decided to take advantage of it.

“Grigori, please don't leave us here. I understand you're a Bolshevik and your principles are against the monarchy, but there's a difference between ideology and murder. And murder is a terrible burden to bear for the rest of your life.”

He cocked his head, as if listening and weighing my words.

“You saved my life on that ship,” I said. “I know you weren't doing it just because of this rendezvous. I saw your face. I know what's inside of you. You saved my life—are you really going to be the one who also ends it?”

His face twisted into a mask of grief as he wrestled with his personal emotions versus his politics. “I didn't plan on having feelings for you.”

“But you do.”

He shrugged. “This is a time of war in more ways and in more places than one. In a time of war sacrifices must be made.”

A few moments passed.

“How can you leave your father? Your family? Your country?”

“My family? My country? My father never loved me. Not really. Not with his soul. And France has never been my country. I used France. Used her naïveté. Used her willingness to believe everyone wants to be in Paris instead of Petrograd. Used your city's tunnels to hold secret meetings under the shop in order to plan all this. And now that I've done my job and secured the diamonds, I'm going back to Russia as a hero to work for the party. I've done what I came to France to do.” He spat out the name of my homeland.

“The Rainbow Diamonds?” The empress looked at me.

I nodded.

“I'd thought so. Nicky told me about them so long ago. He said he had given them to your Monsieur Orloff to safeguard. Did you bring them with you? Is that what you were going to give me?”

“I was,” I told her. “But they took them.”

“My father-in-law handpicked each of those stones,” she said.
“Collected them. Treasured them. The finest colored diamond collection in the world . . . He gave them to my husband . . . and from my husband they went to Nicky . . .” Her voice trailed off.

“And now that fortune will help to fund the new party, the new Russia. Stones!” he said. “Glittering, gaudy stones. Blood money.”

All his emotion shone in his eyes. What I'd thought of as resentment had been hatred. I'd misread so much about this man. So had his father. We see what we want to see when we look at someone. Like a diamond before it has been cut. We can guess at its brilliance but can't see the faults until the stone has been cut and polished. Only then can we glimpse inside and see the occlusions and the clarity.

“You should have stayed in your room with your ghosts, Opaline.” Grigori's voice cracked. He turned. And left. The door clanged shut. A key turned. The metallic sound echoing like the final punctuation to Grigori's words.

“They have taken all of my treasures, haven't they?” the empress said. “My son, my grandchildren, my country.”

What did she believe? What was she asking? What did she really want to know? I decided I would wait. If we survived this and if she asked again, then I would offer her the talisman and together we would learn the fate of those five precious children. But was there any reason to conjecture about what I'd sensed and tell her nothing but a hunch? Did she need to know that here and now, while we were alone in this ancient underground cell? So deep belowground that, despite it being August, we were freezing cold. As I started to shiver, I worried about the empress, who'd been left here overnight.

She needed heat. So did I. What were we going to do to survive? I shut my eyes and tried to reach Jean Luc. He'd been so distant since I'd gotten on the boat. Barely here. He'd warned me. He was already leaving. Drifting away. But I couldn't bear to let him go.

Or maybe I wouldn't have to. Maybe this was all meant to be. Maybe the Dowager and I would be left to die here. Maybe this was the end of my time on this plane. Perhaps that's what Jean Luc
meant. Had he known? And when the end came and I was released from this body, would my soul find his?

My shivering increased. The Dowager's teeth chattered. I struggled against the ropes but they remained taut. Frustrated, I jerked my arms downward. Had I heard a faint squeak? I repeated the action. The rope wasn't giving but the wooden slats of the old chair were. For another minute or two I yanked and tugged, each exertion producing more creaking until I heard the first splinter. Keeping at it, I continued moving my arms up and down until the wood finally gave out and the chair rail clattered to the stone floor. With the echo still ringing, I disentangled my hands from the rope.

Jumping up, I rushed to the Dowager and untied her. Her skin was cold to my touch. Once I'd helped her stand, she leaned on me, unsteady on her feet.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

“I will be. It's just so cold down here. We need to keep moving,” she said as we began to pace. From one end of the cell to the next. Back and forth. After ten minutes of this, she stopped.

“This won't do. We must find a way out,” she said. “A way to open the door.”

We searched the room together, inspecting it, both of us hoping we'd find something, but we failed. It was hard to give up, but after an hour, we realized there simply was nothing down here but the chairs and the rope and bottles of wine. I cracked one open on a rock, one for me and one for her.

“What are we going to do?” I asked.

“We're going to think of something. I haven't survived so much to die at the hands of those filthy Bolsheviks who've stolen everything from me.”

“Not everything,” I said.

“What do you mean?”

I reached inside of my shirt and pulled out the necklace and gave it to her. “Your son's gift to you,” I said.

She took the necklace from me and inspected it. “There is a key?”

“He told you that much?”

“Yes, he said there would be a key to open it.”

“They took the key. They think they've got the real necklace. I don't know how long it will be before they realize their eggs are hollow. But we need to get out of here and find safety before they do. I will make you another key when we get out.”

“Did Monsieur Orloff tell you about the necklace?”

“No, only that it was a secret gift. And he gave me an identical necklace to wear on the outside of my clothes in case anyone followed us.”

“He is a smart man. My son chose well when he chose him.” She fingered the eggs. “If Monsieur didn't tell you about the Rainbow Diamonds, how did you know?”

I told her about making the key myself and opening them.

“What did you make a key with?”

“I'm a jeweler. Miniature locks and keys are part of my designs. I found a bit of gold in my pocket and heated it.”

“With what?”

“My fingers.”

“Your fingers? I don't understand.”

I told her a little about myself and my heritage.

“A mystic. One got us into this trouble. How ironic if one were to get me out.”

“I'm not a mystic.”

“Would you prefer ‘witch'?”

I nodded. Even if I didn't live to use it, the time had come to own it.

“Can you make a key to get us out of here? To unlock the door?”

“I don't have any gold or tools.”

“If it's gold you need . . .” She held out her hand, showing me her two rings.

“Even if there's enough there to fashion a key big enough, I would need more heat than I can generate. More heat than my own fingers could withstand.”

Behind me warmth caressed the back of my neck, as if someone were blowing on my skin. I turned around. No one stood behind me. But I knew. Jean Luc was there. He'd come back.

I closed my eyes and saw words in the triptych I'd deciphered. The same words I'd read in the grimoire.

Make of the blood, heat.

Make of the heat, a fire.

Make of the fire, life everlasting.

The talisman around my neck began to generate heat. It traveled down my chest, down my arms, out my fingers, into the room. Like swimming in the sea at home when I was a child, I floated on the feeling and let the waves of warmth lull me. The Dowager's teeth stopped chattering. The room grew warmer. I thought about the amazing nights I'd spent alone in my bed, with Jean Luc setting me on fire.

And then I knew what to do. I wasn't sure if it would work. But I needed to try.

I worked the gold into a key. The metal became hotter than I could bear, but I couldn't stop. This pain was Jean Luc's last great gift to me. All of his energy, all of his effort, his good-bye. Tears dripped down my cheeks as I fashioned notches and ridges. Then I put the warm, soft gold into the lock and let it remain there. The lock would imprint on the gold and form the key. Once it cooled, we could use it to escape.

I won't be there on the other side of the door, Opaline.

I heard what Jean Luc said and nodded, but was afraid to speak.

I'm trying to stay with you, but I don't have any more time. It's pulling me. It
's not dark anymore, my darling. There's light. Brilliant light.

I pictured that light, the white light of a flawless diamond, welcoming Jean Luc to the next stage of his journey.

I put my hand on the key in the door. I wasn't seeing what was
in front of me. I pictured an unblemished diamond shattering and sending out incandescent splinters of rainbows until there was no light but only that dazzling white light.

The key had cooled. I turned it. Heard the tumblers move.

I opened the door.

I let the Dowager go first and then followed. I sensed that when I stepped across the threshold I would be leaving Jean Luc behind. I hesitated a moment. Then felt her bony fingers grip my wrist and pull me across from what was to what would be.

We both knew it as soon as we reached the first floor and looked out the window. All the cars were gone. We were alone in the castle. Grigori had left us in the dungeon to die. But we were not going to die. We both knew that too.

And I knew something else. Something I didn't want to know.

The talisman around my neck had grown cold against my skin. For the first time in more than two months, no warmth emanated from it. No heat. Jean Luc had gone. My phantom lover had left me for good.