The Red Tide

by Christopher Nicole

  But she had her duty to perform, her aura of omnipotence to maintain. Gleb gave her a knee up, as he had done whenever she went riding from her first day here. Her two grooms mounted behind her, walked their horses out of the drive in time to hers. It was still only mid-March, and very cold. Women were working to clear the snow from the road into the village. It was one of the things about Russia which always surprised her, that the women seemed required to do all the heavy work...and that they did not seem to mind. This morning, as always, they stopped work to bow and then cheer their mistress, for all that their bare hands and arms glowed red with the cold. Priscilla smiled at them, and rode into the cluster of houses. As ever, she went first of all to the church, to kneel before the altar and be blessed by Father Valentin.

  In his tall black hat and with his flowing black beard, he truly was a relic of the past, but he was the most reassuring of figures, not really in himself, but because of what he stood for. The Russians were the most religious people on earth. That had to be their salvation. And yet... “What is going to happen, Your Highness?” Valentin asked as she kissed his hand.

  “The war will continue until the Germans are beaten,” Priscilla said. “And we will plant the wheat crop as soon as the ground thaws.”

  “I meant, about the Little Father, Your Highness.”

  “There will be another Little Father, soon, Father Valentin.”

  She went on to the schoolhouse, and chairs scraped as the children rose to their feet. Komski the master bowed. “What terrible news, Your Highness. What will become of us?”

  “We shall continue fighting the war, and we will continue farming our crops here on Bolugayen, Komski.”

  He bowed again. “Do I ask the children to hail the Tsar, Your Highness?” he whispered.

  “Of course. Long live the Tsar,” she called, and the children responded. Whoever he may be, Priscilla thought.

  She went to the hospital, and was escorted through the ward by Geller, stopping from time to time to speak with a patient. “Will a Socialist government affect us on Bolugayen, Your Highness?” the doctor asked.

  “I imagine we will have to pay more taxes,” Priscilla said.

  “Ah!” Geller commented. But he could tell she didn’t want to talk about it.

  Priscilla went outside, where the grooms waited with her horse. They had been stamping their feet and slapping their hands together because of the cold, but they hastily stood to attention as she emerged. Now she looked past them, and saw Rotislav, standing further down the main village street, on which the hospital was situated, and talking with a man. That they were talking about her she did not doubt for a moment, nor was she disturbed by this; she knew that the people of Bolugayen talked about her constantly, and the more constantly when she was in their midst. What interested her, and did disturb her, in a vague manner, was the fact that she had never seen the other man before, and if she could not always put a name to all of her husband’s tenants, she certainly knew all of their faces. Even more disturbing, when she turned towards them, the stranger hurried off. “Rotislav!” she called.

  The valet came forward, bowing as he reached her. “Your Highness.”

  “Who was that man, Rotislav?”

  Rotislav looked bewildered. “Man, Your Highness?”

  “The fellow you were speaking with, Rotislav. He was a man, was he not? And a stranger.”

  “Oh, you mean Viktor Nordenski, Your Highness.”

  “If that is his name, yes, it is he I am speaking of. He is not a Bolugayen man.”

  “No, no, Your Highness. He is a soldier. Was a soldier. We served in the same regiment.”

  “You mean he is Polish, like you?”

  “No, no, Your Highness. He is a Ukrainian. But yes, we were in the same regiment.”

  “Fighting for the Germans.”

  “Well, yes, Your Highness. We had no choice. But we escaped together.”

  “You never spoke of him, before.”

  “He is of no account, Your Highness.”

  “A fellow deserter? What is he doing here, in Bolugayen?”

  “He is looking for work, Your Highness. I told him there was none here.”

  Priscilla regarded him for some seconds. Obviously he was lying. The question was, what about. “I think you should go after your old comrade, Rotislav, and bring him up to the house so that I may meet him. If we cannot find him employment, I should still like to offer him a square meal.”

  Rotislav bowed. “Your Highness is too kind.” He stood by her stirrup. The grooms stepped back. Because they remembered that once he had been their senior in the village hierarchy? Or because, for some reason, they still regarded him as their senior, Priscilla wondered. In any event, he clearly intended to give her a leg up. He had done this before, and she found it unsettling. As it was on this occasion. His hand, wrapped round the ankle of her boot, remained there a moment longer than was necessary, and his fingers moved, as if he were massaging her flesh through the leather. Oh, to know what secrets he and Alexei had shared during their imprisonment together!

  She looked down at him. “Thank you, Rotislav. I shall look forward to meeting your old comrade.” She turned her horse and walked it out of the village, the grooms at its heels.

  Priscilla drew rein and looked up the slope of the road to the hilltop above the valley. Standing there were three people, huddled together against the cold wind. More fugitives, she thought. Perhaps more comrades of Rotislav. Her heart went out to such dregs of humanity. But at the same time she understood that even Bolugayen’s resources were limited; she could not offer refuge to every fugitive in Russia, whether they were fleeing the Socialists or the Okhrana or the Army: she had been told often enough how, during the great famine of 1907, Alexei had used armed guards to keep people off his property. She hated the idea of having to do that, but if it was a case of exposing her own people to want...She turned her horse and walked it up the slope. It did not occur to her to feel afraid of three hungry people: she was the Princess Bolugayevska.

  They watched her approaching, and continued to stand there, waiting for her. Priscilla listened to the reassuring sound of her grooms’ hooves behind her, and walked right up to them, frowning as she realised they were women, and that although their clothes were in rags, they had once been fine clothes. “Who are you?” she demanded. “What do you want here?”

  One of the women pulled away the ragged strips of material wrapped around her face. “Who are you?” she demanded.

  Priscilla’s head jerked. “I am the Princess Bolugayevska.”

  Nathalie gave a hoarse laugh. “Why, so am I,” she said. “So are we all, Princess Priscilla. Are you not going to invite us in?”

  Chapter Eleven - The Wives

  Priscilla slipped from her saddle before either of the grooms could react. She was aware of a most peculiar sensation. Over the past five years she had been steeped in stories of the various eccentric members of the family, the more so since Sophie had returned to Bolugayen to live. Thus she realised that this huge woman who had addressed her had to be the Princess Dowager, just as the hardly less well-built young woman beside her had to be the Countess Dagmar. But the third woman, tall, dark, slender, who had been walking with a slight limp...her head and hair and face were almost completely hidden by the protective headscarf, but Priscilla’s stomach did a complete roll. “We have been walking for a long time,” Nathalie said. “Would you be kind enough to offer us a ride?”

  Priscilla looked at the grooms, almost in desperation. “You are welcome to use our horses, Your Highness,” one of these said. “But I am afraid we do not have side saddles.”

  “Fuck that,” Nathalie told him crudely. “Give me a leg up.” She swung into the saddle, and a moment later Dagmar was also seated.

  Priscilla looked at Sonia. “I am Sonia Bolugayevska,” Sonia said.

  Priscilla drew a deep breath. “I am Priscilla Bolugayevska,” she said. “Would you like to ride behind me?”

&n
bsp; “What on earth are you doing here?” Anna demanded. She was asking the question of Nathalie, but she was looking at Sonia. Priscilla remained standing at the back of the room; not for the first time since coming to Bolugayen she felt completely out of her depths.

  “We have decided to visit with you, Anna,” Nathalie said. “For a season. Things are not good in Petrograd.”

  “But how did you get here?”

  “Mostly by train.”

  “We understood there were no trains.”

  “When there were no trains, we walked, as we walked from Poltava.” Nathalie sat down heavily, with a deep sigh. “I would like something to drink.”

  “Champagne, Gleb,” Priscilla said. There were some things which nowadays came naturally to her. But her brain was spinning even faster. The thought of these three women, used to nothing but total luxury, walking through the snow all the way from Poltava...things must indeed be bad in Petrograd.

  “Not champagne,” Nathalie said. “Vodka. Lots of vodka.”

  Gleb looked at his current mistress. Priscilla nodded, and he hurried from the room. “What you need is a bath,” Anna remarked.

  “Oh, yes. A hot tub. Have three drawn, if you please.” Anna snorted. Priscilla pulled the bell rope. “And then a warm bed. I want to stay in bed for at least a week,” Nathalie announced.

  Madame Xenia arrived, and Priscilla gave her the necessary orders. She hurried off again. Anna looked at Sonia. “You were not supposed to return here.”

  Priscilla bit her lip. Although Sonia had ridden behind her back to the house, she had not spoken, except to say, “You are very kind, Your Highness.” But she did not wish her to feel unwanted.

  “There was nowhere else to go,” Sonia replied. “May I see my daughter, please?”

  “Of course you may,” Priscilla said, before Anna could speak. Anna glared at her, but Priscilla ignored her grandmother. “Would you like to see her now, or...after you have bathed and changed your clothes.”

  Sonia looked down at herself. “That would be better, I suppose. Thank you, Your Highness. But I have no clothes into which to change.”

  “Madame Xenia,” Priscilla said, as the housekeeper returned into the room. “Hunt through my wardrobes and find clothes for these ladies.” Xenia looked at Nathalie in consternation. “Oh, get the seamstresses upstairs to make whatever alterations are necessary,” Priscilla said. “Madame Xenia will look after you, Your Highness.” Sonia and Xenia looked at each other. “But of course, you know each other,” Priscilla said.

  “Yes” Sonia said. “Thank you, Your Highness. May I ask, is Anna well?”

  “Oh, indeed,” Priscilla said.

  “And is there any news of Colin?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “Vodka,” Nathalie said with great satisfaction, as Gleb returned.

  “Of all the effrontery,” Sophie declared. “Coming here. That fat pig is bad enough, but Sonia...” She glared at her aunt. “You’re not going to let them stay?”

  “You will have to ask the Princess,” Anna said huffily.

  Sophie turned to Priscilla. “Of course they are going to stay,” Priscilla said.

  “For how long?”

  “For as long as it is necessary.”

  “Ha! What are you going to say to her?”

  “I don’t really know,” Priscilla confessed.

  Yet, oddly, she had always had the feeling that one day she and her predecessor would meet. Now it was necessary to be positive; they could not share the same house at arm’s length, as it were. She retired to the study, sat behind Alexei’s desk, and summoned Grishka. “Are you pleased to see your old mistress again, Grishka?”

  “Oh, yes, Your Highness.” Then Grishka bit her lip, wondering if she had said the right thing.

  “I wish you to resume being her maid, while she is staying with us. I would also like to speak with the Princess, as soon as she feels able.”

  “The Princess, Your Highness?”

  “I do not think one should cease to be a princess by a stroke of a pen, Grishka.”

  “No, Your Highness. I was just thinking...when His Highness comes back...”

  “But we don’t know when that is going to be, do we?” Priscilla asked. “You will of course invite the Princess to join us for supper, although I will quite understand if she would prefer to take it in her apartment. But I really would like to speak with her. I will go to her, or she may come to me. It is up to her.”

  “Yes, Your Highness.” Grishka curtsied, and retreated to the door, and there curtsied again. “Your Highness is very kind.”

  Kind, Priscilla thought. Guilty, more like. She only knew that suddenly, and after all her earlier rejection of the very idea, she desperately wanted to get to know this woman, and if possible to help her. And when Alexei came back? He would probably be as angry as Grandma appeared to be. But she was in charge of Bolugayen at this moment, and she would do what she thought right. She returned to the study after she had been bathed and dressed for dinner; Grishka had told her that Madame Bolugayevska would indeed like to call on her, at her convenience. She had named six o’clock. That was before the rest of the family normally came down for the evening.

  She had dressed with great care, as if she were throwing a party, and had chosen a dark blue gown with a deep decolletage, and her favourite necklace, a thin gold band from which was suspended an enormous pearl which seemed to nestle in her cleavage. Now she sat behind the desk. Here, she was clearly the one in authority. But she did not suppose Sonia would challenge that authority. “Please come in,” she called when she heard the knock.

  Gleb himself opened the door for Sonia, and closed it behind her. Patricia found that she had stood up. She had not intended to do that. But she was drawn to her feet by the sight of her visitor. When they had first encountered each other, and even when the fugitives had been brought to the house, it had been difficult to discern much about any of them, because they had been so wrapped up and generally filthy and miserable in appearance. Now she gazed at a tall, slender, and quite exquisitely beautiful woman, her black hair loose and curling on her shoulders. Her gown was one of Priscilla’s own, with a decolletage which left bare her superb neck and throat as well as the curve of her full breasts. Priscilla knew that Sonia was about forty years old, just as she knew the Jewess had lived an intensely hard life, but there was no trace of either — apart from that limp. “Please sit down,” she invited.

  Sonia sank into a chair before the desk with a rustle of taffeta. “I must thank you for the loan of your clothes.”

  “It is the least I can do. Yours...”

  “I have not changed them for four weeks. Grishka has taken them away to be burned.”

  “I will have the seamstresses up again tomorrow morning,” Priscilla promised. “And we will make you a wardrobe of your own.”

  “You are very kind,” Sonia said again. “I am sorry to have inflicted myself upon you, but...”

  “This is your home. How do you feel? I mean, after your...journey?”

  “As if I have been travelling all my life. But Nathalie and Dagmar have suffered more: I have made that sort of journey before. Did you not know that, Your Highness?”

  “I was told of it.” Priscilla was embarrassed. “Have you seen little Anna?” Sonia’s lips twisted. Priscilla sighed. “What did she say?”

  “When Grishka said, this is your mother, Your Excellency, my daughter replied, Priscilla is my mother.”

  “I am sorry. The family, well...”

  “You mean Aunt Anna.”

  “I suppose so. She felt that was necessary. I am most awfully sorry about it. And now you are here, why, we shall set about reversing the situation.”

  “I do not think Prince Alexei would like that.”

  “Prince Alexei is not here.” Priscilla saw Sonia’s eyes flicker, as if for the first time she was realising that this apparent child she was facing was actually as much the Princess Bolugayevska as she had eve
r been. “And I do not know when he will ever return.”

  “Did you love him?”

  “Would you like an aperitif? Champagne?”

  “Thank you.”

  Priscilla rang the bell. “I do love him, very much.”

  “So do I,” Sonia said. The two women gazed at each other. “I never betrayed him,” Sonia said. “He acted upon rumour. He felt that was necessary.”

  “And you can forgive him that’?”

  “Is not love a business of forgiving?”

  Priscilla looked up in some relief as Gleb entered with the tray and glasses. “Have you any news of Colin?” Sonia asked.

  “I am afraid not. So you see, we live in a kind of limbo here. Waiting. And we do not even know for what we are waiting.” She raised her glass. “I am so glad to have met you, at last, Sonia. I am so glad that you are here.”

  *

  The first dinner was an icy affair. Nathalie did not come down, but Dagmar did, also wearing hastily adjusted borrowed clothing, and looking around her with an air of, this is all really mine, you know. Father Valentin and Tigran Boscowski also came up to greet the new guests, but were clearly very nervous at meeting Sonia again, the more so when they saw that Priscilla had seated the ex-Princess on her right. Anna, as usual, sat at the bottom of the table, with Sophie and Janine. The old guard forming up against the new, Priscilla thought. But Sonia had once been one of the old guard herself. After the meal she had a word with Valentin. “There was a stranger in the village this morning, Father. An old comrade of Rotislav’s.”