Tsar Wars: Agents of ISIS, Book 1 (8 page)

Such a gigantic facility required a massive
infrastructure to keep it working smoothly. Unprotected humans
could not simply stroll out across the field; even maintenance
teams rode about in armored trams and wore protective gear.
Passengers and baggage traveled through mechanized underground
tubeways that whisked them to the safe harbor of the terminals.
With the new spaceship engines being ultra-quiet, the silence on
this vast field resembled that of a graveyard—a graveyard with rows
of enormous headstones.

Hasina’s ship landed, and she and Eva went
directly from the terminal to a hotel. During the voyage to Earth,
the two women had reached a truce of sorts: Hasina was less
condescending and Eva was less confrontational. Tensions still
bubbled beneath the surface, but they never erupted into open
hostility.

Hasina had arranged for one of the court’s
finest couturiers to be waiting for them at the hotel. They’d sent
Eva’s measurements ahead before they’d left Turtello, and a
complete ensemble of clothing was waiting for them. Eva tried every
piece on and last-minute adjustments were made. The clothes were
all beautiful and well made, but deliberately slightly out of
style, as might befit a minor boyarynya from a far corner of the
Empire.

Eva delighted in trying out one gorgeous
dress after another, while Hasina eyed her coolly. “You’ll be
presentable,” she announced at last.

“I’m always presentable,” Eva said absently,
admiring her image in a full-length mirror. “I look good no matter
what I’m wearing—or not wearing, as the case may be.”

Eva’s new wardrobe was packed carefully and,
first thing the next morning, Hasina escorted Eva to the Grand
Galactic Palace. This stately building with its breathtaking yellow
and white façade, had been built up as additions to the previous
Grand Kremlin Palace right by St. Vasiliy’s Cathedral, and was an
ostentatious display of wealth and power.

Hasina led her through security, where it
seems she was a well-known figure, and through a maze of hallways
that even Eva, with her good sense of direction, quickly got lost
in. They went to a suite of rooms bigger than some of the theaters
Eva had played, where Hasina introduced her to a handsome woman who
looked to be in her late forties.

“Your Ladyship,” Hasina said, “may I present
to you Lady Ilona Farik from Ortanj. Ilona, this is Lady Elena
Voslenko, chamberlain of the imperial household.”

Eva did a proper court curtsy. “Honored to
meet you, Your Ladyship,” she said demurely.

Lady Elena was tall, with slight touches of
gray in her hair, but few lines on her face despite the
responsibilities of her office. “Hello, Ilona,” she said. Her words
were casual, but her voice still had a touch of reserved crispness
to it. “Hasina has told me just a little about you, but her
judgment was always sound and I’ll trust her opinion. You want to
serve Her Highness?”

“If Your Ladyship finds me worthy of that
honor.”

“Thank you for bringing her here,” Lady Elena
told Hasina. “You can leave her with me.”

Hasina gave a small nod and left.

“Sit down, Ilona,” Elena said, pointing to
one of the elegant chairs in the room. Eva did as she was told, and
Lady Elena sat facing her. “Hasina has only given me the barest
facts about you. Your father is a boyarin, I understand.”

“A minor one, Your Ladyship, and only newly
ennobled.”

“You’re a little older than most of the girls
I get here.”

“My father thought we might gain some status
if I served a tour as freilina.”

“He was right,” Lady Elena said. She stared
off into space over Eva’s head for a moment. “Ortanj, Ortanj…I was
there once, oh, about ten or fifteen years ago. I don’t remember
too much about it, I’m afraid, but I do recall one fountain, very
ornate—”

“You’re probably thinking of Alisha Fountain.
It was built about fifty years ago by the graf at that time to
commemorate the death of his beloved wife.”

“I remember a lot of cherubs—”

“Oh yes,” Eva said dryly. “Cherubs, angels,
birds, thick columns covered with stone ivy, curlicues and quotes
from sappy love poems everywhere you look. Most Ortanji are
embarrassed by it, but it’s been in so many travel brochures that
it’s now a tourist attraction. It brings in rublei, so no one’s
going to tear it down, no matter how much they want to.”

Lady Elena delicately arched an eyebrow. “You
certainly believe in speaking your mind, don’t you?”

“It’s my mind, Your Ladyship. If I don’t
speak it, who will?”

There were tiny twitches of a smile at the
corners of Elena’s mouth. “This could be a very interesting tour,”
she said. Rising, she continued, “Come with me. I’ll introduce you
to the rest of the girls.”

Eva fell in behind her ladyship, who led her
down another maze of corridors. “Did Hasina tell you that the
Velikaya Knyaghinya will be traveling to various places now, to see
different parts of the Empire? You won’t even have time to settle
in before you have to leave.”

“That’s fine with me,” Eva said. “This way I
won’t have to unpack and pack again.”

“Very practical,” Lady Elena said with a
nod.

They wound through more confusing corridors.
“This is the residential portion of the palace,” Lady Elena
explained. “You’ll be working here almost exclusively. There are
other people to tend to the Knyaghinya’s needs elsewhere in the
palace. Do you know what a freilina does?”

“Sits around and looks pretty?” Eva said in a
tone designed to let the chamberlain know she was joking.

“Looking pretty is optional, although there
are minimum dress and grooming standards. As for sitting around,
that can only happen in your off-hours, which is never. You keep
the Velikaya Knyaghinya’s schedule, making sure she wakes, eats,
bathes, and sleeps when she’s supposed to. You put away what she
takes out and pick up what she drops; this is the woman who will
soon have all the problems of the Empire on her shoulders—she
doesn’t need to concern herself with whether her dirty socks ended
up in the hamper. You fetch things that need fetching and deliver
things that need delivering. You herd her without appearing to herd
her. You’re a companion and confidante. If she asks for something,
you provide it … which will never happen, because you’ll anticipate
all her needs and see to them before she feels the need to ask. You
will be a mind-reader, a prophet and a miracle-worker. And if you
do your job well, she won’t even know you’re there, any more than
she notices she’s breathing. And above all else, you will
never—even under torture—tell anyone outside the palace what has
gone on here. Think you can do that?”

Sure,
Eva thought.
It’s like a good
dance routine, where every step and every movement looks effortless
and spontaneous, no matter how hard you have to rehearse it.
“Sounds like a wonderful challenge,” she said aloud.

“That it will be,” Elena said. She opened the
door to another well-appointed room. “Ladies, gather around and
meet the latest member of your team.”

There were four young women in court gowns
seated around the room. Despite what Eva had just been told, they
looked decidedly unbusy. All four women stood up quickly when they
saw Lady Elena, and made brief curtsies to her. Elena nodded in
response and led Eva over to one of the girls. “Lien-Hua,” she said
to the most senior-looking girl, who might have been Eva’s age or
perhaps a year or so younger, “this is Lady Ilona Farik, who comes
to us all the way from Ortanj. Ilona, Lien-Hua is in charge of this
detail. I’ll leave the rest of the introductions to her.”

As she turned to go, she leaned over to Eva
and whispered, “I agree with you. That fountain is hideous!”

The women maintained a respectful silence
until the door had shut firmly behind Elena. Then they looked with
scorn over at Eva. “I’ve never heard of you,” one of the other
girls said accusingly.

“Don’t let that make you feel ignorant,” Eva
said with a cheery, innocuous smile. “I’m sure there must be plenty
of people who’ve never heard of
you
, either.”

The girls turned to Lien-Hua. “Why did she
saddle us with
her
?” one of the girls said.

“A detail is traditionally four ladies,”
whined another.

Lien-Hua didn’t look any happier than the
others, but spoke a little more discreetly. “She must have her
reasons. It’s not against the law or anything.” She turned to
address Eva for the first time. “I’m Lady Wong Lien-Hua. You take
orders from me. Understand?”

“Perfectly.”

Lien-Hua introduced her to the other three
girls, and Eva forgot their names as soon as she heard them. It was
clear from their faces and the intelligence—or lack thereof—behind
their eyes that they were three women with but one brain amongst
them. Barely. Forever afterward, Eva thought of the group as
Lien-Hua and the Three
Shicksehs
.

“She’ll only get in our way,” said
Shickseh
Number One, talking about Eva as though she weren’t
there.

“She doesn’t know what she’s doing,” said
Shickseh
Number Two.

“We’re leaving for Languor tomorrow,” said
Shickseh
Number Three. “How are we supposed to train her in
just one day?”

“We’ll cope, I’m sure,” Lien-Hua said.
“Ilona, just sit or stand in a corner and stay out of the way.
We’ll take care of everything.”

“Aye aye, Your Ladyship,” Eva said, saluting
smartly. “If I may ask, where is Her Highness now?”

“No you may not ask,” said
Shickseh
Number Two (or was it Number One?) with a snooty tone.

“At lessons,” Lien-Hua said curtly. She
looked at her wristcom. “And speaking of which, they’re almost
over. Take your stations, ladies. Ilona, just stand back next to
the curtains. If we’re lucky, she won’t even notice you.”

The girls may have been vacuum-brained, but
they had their routines down pat. They moved to positions around
the room and waited. Barely a minute later, a large door opened and
the Velikaya Knyaghinya swept in.

Natalia Ilyinishna Sokolova, grand-niece to
Tsar Vasiliy and heir-apparent to the throne of the greatest empire
in human history, was a rather plain-looking fourteen-year-old
girl. She was barely taller than Eva and somewhat thin, just
starting to develop a young girl’s figure. Her brown hair—by
tradition, never cut—was wrapped in a long braid and worn atop her
head like a crown, the signature look of royalty. She also had the
saddest eyes Eva had ever seen—eyes that knew the weight of
responsibilities to come.

The Velikaya Knyaghinya looked exactly like
the thousands of pictures and news clips Eva had seen of her over
the years, a face familiar to everyone throughout the Empire. And
yet, as Eva watched, there was something not right, something she
couldn’t reconcile with the image of the young woman in the news,
some subtle difference that sent alarm bells jangling in her
mind.

“I hate math!” Knyaghinya Natalia exclaimed
petulantly. “I don’t see why they force me to take it. When I’m
tsaritsa, I’ll have advisers to do that stuff for me.”

Eva immediately spoke up. “And how will you
know they’re not lying if you can’t check it for yourself?”

The air in the room dropped ten degrees. The
Three
Shicksehs
looked as though someone had knocked over an
entire cabinet full of priceless imperial porcelain. Lien-Hua’s
eyes flashed cold fury as she turned toward Eva. The Velikaya
Knyaghinya looked over at Eva, seeing her for the first time. “Who
are you?” she asked in stiff, formal tones.

Lien-Hua tried to step in front of Eva,
transposing herself between the Velikaya Knyaghinya and the
upstart. “Your Highness, I—”

But Eva was not the sort to hide herself away
demurely. She stepped forward, brushing Lien-Hua lightly aside, and
made a full formal curtsy. “If it please Your Highness, I am Lady
Ilona Farik, always at your service.”

The Velikaya Knyaghinya said nothing, but
looked Eva up and down as though measuring her for a casket. The
silence in the room dragged on for seconds that felt like hours.
Finally the Knyaghinya turned toward a chair and walked over to it.
The entire incident with Eva was forgotten. “I’m hungry,” she said
as she sat down.

Shickseh
Number Three (or was it
Number One?) was immediately at her side with a plate of small
sandwiches at the ready. The Velikaya Knyaghinya reached over and
chose one without even looking at it, leaned back in her chair,
closed her eyes and began nibbling.

As a skilled dancer, Eva’s eyes were keenly
aware of body movement, of how a person walked, stood and sat. As
she watched the Velikaya Knyaghinya walk across the room and sit
down, Eva realized this was what had triggered her mental alarms.
Though the Velikaya Knyaghinya’s moves were almost perfectly
natural, they were just the tiniest bit off.

She’s got an artificial right leg,
Eva
thought.
How interesting.

With that observation, her mental alarms went
silent again. There was nothing sinister or menacing here, just a
new fact to be incorporated into her database. Whatever medical
condition had led to this development, the Palace had chosen not to
reveal it to the general public. It was something Eva would have to
account for in protecting the girl, nothing more.

As soon as she could do so without attracting
attention, Lien-Hua pulled Eva over to one side for a private chat.
“You will speak only when spoken to, is that clear?”

“I
was
spoken to,” Eva said calmly.
“She made her remark about math to the room in general. I merely
responded to it.”

Her calm demeanor only infuriated the other
girl more. “You stay out of our way,” she said through clenched
teeth. “We know what we’re doing. We’ve been at this for four
months now.” She paused for a moment. “I’ll put you on laundry
detail. That should keep you out of our hair. I’ll have one of my
girls show you to the Velikaya Knyaghinya’s bedroom. You can pick
up any dirty clothes and take them to the laundry, bring back the
clean ones and put them away. They must be stored neatly, with no
wrinkles. Tomorrow we leave on our little excursion, so we’ll
expect your help packing. Do you think you can manage all
that?”