by Will Thomas
“Unfortunately, my money is very much on Mathilde.” Sergei sighed. “What’s left of it, anyway.”
I looked at Barker, waiting to ask a question. He nodded.
“When I spoke to her the other day, she mentioned something that concerned me,” I said. “She spoke of Meyerling.”
George rolled his eyes and waved at a servant to bring champagne. Meanwhile, Sergei looked like he had a toothache.
“She is obsessed with the matter,” he admitted. “A young prince like Nicky and a common mistress like Mathilde go off to a cabin because they are not allowed to marry, and he shoots them both. Tragic. But it happened.”
“Idiotic is what it is,” George remarked. “Would anybody care for some champagne? Here you are, Sergei. You need this.”
“Not an hour goes by that she doesn’t mention a suicide pact,” the grand duke continued. “He must be hers or they will die. She has planned a dozen ways to do it so far. You must remember, three years ago, she was a schoolgirl.”
“Has she made threats against Princess Alix?” Barker asked.
“Of course. By the dozens,” the grand duke admitted. “As he begins to slip through her fingers, the threats grow more ominous.”
“What of Nicholas? Does she make threats to him as well? Of him alone, I mean?”
Sergei spoke in falsetto. “‘If I can’t have him, Sergei, then no one shall have him. I’ll shoot him myself with my little pistol.’”
“She owns a pistol?” Barker’s face slid my way, his eyes hidden behind his spectacles.
“Yes, sir,” I admitted. “I’d forgotten. It was a little thing, hardly bigger than a derringer.”
“I bought it for her in the Rue St. Louis,” Sergei said. “She wanted a bigger one, but the shop owner insisted upon a so-called ‘woman’s pistol.’”
“Presumably, it shoots bullets and not powder puffs,” the Guv said with frost in his voice. “Can she shoot?”
Sergei nodded. “Of course. She’s quite the little marksman. She plinks at crockery so often I have a man in to repair the holes in the walls.”
“Tell me, sir,” my partner asked. “In your heart of hearts do you believe she would shoot the tsarevich, her lover?”
“I don’t think so,” Sergei replied. “We are not in a Zola novel.”
“Friends!” A voice came echoing down the hall. Nicholas’s boots stamped on the marble floor. He scooped the delicate glass out of George’s hand and downed the champagne in one gulp. Then he fell into a chair beside Sergei.
“I never thought there could be anything more boring than an Orthodox service, but congratulations to the English, they’ve done it! More champagne!”
The latter was addressed not to a particular servant but to the Orangery at large. While we waited he complained about the length of the ceremony, the ages of the women, the weakness of the English in overorganizing every minute of a man’s life, and the uncomfortable tightness of English boots. I was never so glad as when the servant whom we had met first when we entered brought a tray of glasses and a bottle of Veuve Clicquot.
“To the Potato Club!” the tsarevich cried. “Nostrovia!”
They downed their glasses. Barker and I did not partake.
“What, pray tell, is the Potato Club?” the Guv asked. There was a ghost of a smile on his face. He found the little tsar-in-training amusing.
Nicholas tapped the side of his nose.
“Secret society, you know,” Nicholas said. “Younger royals only. We only let Sergei in because he pays for everything. Sergei! You’ve left your hair in your other suit!”
I began to feel sorry for the grand duke, having to nursemaid a young crazed woman I was sure he must be weary of and placating her equally crazed lover. I hoped his government would cut him a substantial check someday after he was beggared and living in the streets. Mocking a man’s baldness is bad form.
“Nicky,” George said, “it isn’t a secret society if everyone knows about it. It’s merely a drinking club, gentlemen. We don’t plan to invade Switzerland or anything.”
“Switzerland!” Nicholas exclaimed. “Good cheese and chocolate.”
George laughed. “Let’s discuss invading Switzerland at our next meeting.”
“How did your club get such an interesting name?” I asked.
“We discussed this and the three of us decided that we have no idea,” Sergei replied. “We were blind drunk when we set up the rules.”
“I think Nicholas got up to make a speech,” George said. “It concerned the virtues of the humble potato. Of course, we’d been drinking vodka since midnight. Anyway, there you have it. The Potato Club.”
“The Potato Club!” Nicholas echoed. “Look here! I had necklaces made.”
They each unbuttoned the top button of their shirt and retrieved a gold chain from which hung a lump of gold that, if one used his imagination, resembled a potato.
“Impressive,” I said.
“We are inducting Georgie into the club. Oh, not this Georgie, the English one. Stuffed shirt. He needs half a bottle poured down his throat as soon as possible. We’re going to have a party for him the night before the wedding. One cannot go to one’s marriage bed sober. You are invited. Oh, not you, Mr. Whatsis. You’re too old and too disapproving. But my shooting teacher here can come!”
I supposed it mattered little that he never actually learned or remembered our names, though we were trying to save his life and ducking bullets in the process.
“It’s time for lunch,” Sergei interrupted, pulling a watch from his pocket. “We should limit ourselves to half a bottle of champers each. We might be forced to speak to the queen.”
“Mind you,” Nicholas said, “if the Prince of Wales arrives we can drink until dinner.”
Barker frowned. It was true that Victoria’s heir was proving to be a bit of a rogue, a lesser version of Nicholas. Much lesser since he had married. I’m not certain why that is. Young royals in line for the throne with parents who demand they toe the line seem to invariably rebel. Perhaps it is the only way to get their parents’ attention.
“Lunch!” Nicholas cried, jumping to his feet. “We’ll shoot afterward. I’m starved. But I don’t know why everything is preserved in aspic here. What is aspic, anyway? Congealed fat? It’s disgusting.”
The other members of the Potato Club rose, bowed to us, and left. It looked as if they wanted to apologize for Nicholas’s boorish behavior.
“They are a pair of royal governesses,” I said when they were gone. “But the infant rules the nursery.”
“Heaven help us all,” Barker rumbled. “It takes all the composure I have not to put the boy over my knee.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I was wondering about the advisedness of refusing both a guest of this country and a man who would eventually rule a tenth of the planet at the very least. Teaching Nicholas to shoot was the equivalent of giving a tot a knife and telling him to go play with his friends. Nothing good would come of it.
We sat once again in the Goat Tavern over a crust of bread stuffed with ham and a pint for our troubles while the royals dined in elegance with silver candlesticks and champagne.
“He’s probably a major in his country’s army,” I complained to my partner. “Surely someone would have taught him to shoot a pistol by now.”
Barker grunted in reply. He reached for a pickled onion.
“Why me?” I continued, aggrieved. “I don’t work for Colt. I am not an instructor of firearms. I’m not even a particularly good shot.”
“Amen,” the Guv said.
I gave him a withering look. “Nicholas has his own secret police. Let them teach him. We have an assassin to find.”
“You must take every opportunity to be at the tsarevich’s side,” Barker replied. “You’re of a like age. That’s why he asked you. As you know, I’ve been excluded.”
“He wants to impress his little ballerina friend.”
“It is a male trait. Lad, you know you
are going to teach him to shoot. You are merely kicking at the goads.”
“Yes, well, some goads need kicking. I still hoped that sound reason might give me an excuse to refuse him. Might I be considered a traitor if I agreed to teach a future tsar, our sworn enemy just ten years ago, how to kill someone? I mean, really, sir. He didn’t ask so that he can stand on the lawn of the Summer Palace and shoot at targets. He wants the thrill. What will satisfy him? Shooting me in the leg?”
“You’ve got an assassin for that,” the Guv said, giving a dour smile.
“My point exactly. I already have one person trying to kill me. Why would I invite a second?”
“As I said, the assassin is not trying to kill you,” he reminded me. “He’s merely trying to unsettle you.”
“Perhaps he is just a poor shot.”
“I think we both know better.”
“Blast,” I grumbled. “I can’t get out of this, can I?”
“You never had the slightest chance, Mr. Llewelyn.”
And so I reported to the Orangery after lunch. We British are very prompt. Corporal Dinsdale was there to open the door, but the second I stepped inside a hand seized my shoulder.
“There you are,” Nicholas cried, clapping me on the back. “Where have you been? I’ve been waiting for hours!”
He pulled me down a hallway gleaming with marble and gilt. He led us through rooms and halls and down two flights of stairs so quickly I could not take the opportunity to look at the sumptuousness of the palace. I’ve retained a vague image of marble and carved hardwoods. Finally, we reached some sort of cellar, longer than it was wide, with large barrels stacked at one end. The walls were a humble plaster and the floors cement. There was no marble here. It might have been a cellar anywhere in London. It was probably the oldest part of the palace.
“With an assassin about, it’s all the more reason to learn how to shoot.”
“True, Your Imperial Highness.”
“Oh, bosh. Call me Nicky when we’re alone. I’m quite bored with bowing and scraping. You know, you may be the first fellow near my own age that I’ve met since I came here. I was beginning to think you were a nation of septuagenarians.”
I tried to think of a response but I was bone-dry. The tsarevich continued as if he didn’t really expect an answer, anyway. I gave him an excuse to hear himself talk.
“So, you were holding the blighter who tried to assassinate me, and his head exploded. How did that feel?”
“Feel?” I asked, shocked by the question.
“Yes, yes. I saw you,” he said, sizing me up. “His brains were in your hair and clothing. Were you scared?”
“No,” I answered. “I was more stunned and disgusted.”
“But you did not recognize the fellow?”
“No, sir.”
“He had a long beard, did he not?”
“He did,” I replied.
“All anarchists wear long beards. They can’t afford barbers, I expect. It’s money better spent on dynamite and cheap vodka.”
Surely there must be a clean-shaven, teetotaling anarchist somewhere, I thought. However, one does not argue with an absolute monarch. Or the son of one, anyway.
Two cases were open on top of one of the barrels. One was at least a hundred years old, an old French dueling set. The case had seen better days and looked particularly disreputable next to the other, which was so new it must have been purchased since the tsarevich’s arrival. Two excessively long-barreled Colts lay in a gleaming black case with red silk lining. The contrast between the red and the faded aqua velvet was striking, but still, the antique set had a particular charm of its own. I confess I have an affinity for old things: books, knickknacks, curios, and detritus of a previous age. I ran my hand around the edges of the case and closed it. There was a small brass inscription set in the top, the Cyrillic letters rusted in green.
“What does it say?” I asked.
“Oh, that?” the tsarevich remarked.
He could not have been less interested. I imagined the case had been foisted upon him by the tsar’s ministers. With a cap and ball, he might be less likely to shoot off an imperial toe.
“It’s a gift presented to my grandfather by … what’s the name? Georges Charles de Heeckeren d’Anthès. Yes, that’s it.”
I blinked. “Isn’t he the one who shot the writer Pushkin in a duel?”
“Indeed he is. He donated the pistols in order to get rid of them, but we couldn’t very well tell the public that we had possession of a pistol that killed the world’s greatest living author, could we? It’s knocked about the Winter Palace for decades. I think I saw it under a table leg once to stabilize it. But look here! This is what I want to know about!”
I could have talked about Pushkin all day. The man was a genius. However, one must acquiesce to a tsarevich, especially if he could attack one’s country on a whim.
“That’s a very good set,” I replied. “Did you get it in London?”
“Yes, George smuggled it here for me.”
“The Duke of York smuggled this in?”
“No, the other George. Prince George of Greece and Denmark.”
I noticed for the first time a scar on Nicholas’s forehead, near the hairline, where George had deflected an attack on his cousin in far-off Otsu, Japan.
“He bought this for you?” I asked. “It isn’t easy to get permission to purchase pistols here, you know.”
“He’s a prince of two countries, no less. Who would tell him no? So, come show me how to shoot one of these things.”
He lifted a pistol loosely in his hand and I leaned back out of the way. The gun was unloaded, but the way he waved it about still put an ache in the pit of my stomach.
“Where shall we shoot?” I asked before walking to the far end of the room.
There were many large barrels in a corner, one stacked atop the others. I found a piece of chalk and drew a crude ring on the top of the barrel. Then I lifted the other pistol, pulled the pin, and rolled out the cylinder. I began to insert rounds and then stopped myself. Two bullets would be enough, unless it was two too many.
The tsarevich took it from my hand and gave me the empty one. Hurriedly, I jammed bullets into the chambers, as Nicholas stamped about, waving the pistol at the target. This was a terrible idea, I told myself. How did I get myself into this?
“Shouldn’t someone else be here?” I asked, feeling distressed. “Someone from your government, I mean?”
“George said he’d be outside, making sure we aren’t disturbed. Now, come. How do I stand?”
“Turn sideways and hold out your right arm a little lower than shoulder height. Excellent. Now raise your left arm and grab your other wrist. You’ll need the support, you see, because the pistol kicks backward when you shoot. You don’t want to lose control and shoot wildly.”
“Yes, yes.”
“There is a sight you can look along at the end of the barrel here, see? You can use that or merely point and shoot. It’s up—”
He shot. Twice. So much for restraint. I was glad I had only given him two bullets. He ran to the barrel to look for the marks.
“Here’s one!” he shouted. “It’s about a foot away from the center. I can’t find the other one.”
“That’s excellent for a first shot,” I said. “Mine was closer to a foot and a half. Depressing, isn’t it?”
“A little,” he admitted.
“It’s a skill, not a talent, sir. Would you like to try again?”
I filled the cylinder on my pistol, then traded with him in spite of the foreboding I felt coming from deep inside me.
“Thank you,” he said, shooting six times as quickly as he could squeeze the trigger. “This is great fun, isn’t it?”
He had a lopsided grin on his face. I watched him run over to see how he did this time.
“Look!” he cried. “Two inches away with one shot! I am improving under your fine tutelage.”
Tutelage, my eye, I thought. He h
adn’t listened to a thing I said. It was like teaching a puppy to sit.
“That partner of yours, Mr. Barker. He’s a very interesting fellow,” he said.
“He is that,” I agreed.
“When I left the palace the other day and saw him I was certain he was another assassin sent to kill me.”
He turned and fired off the pistol again. If anything, his shots were wilder and more erratic than when he began. This could quickly get out of hand. What if he shot himself?
Barker taught me something not so long ago. When one is in the middle of something that may get out of hand, try to calm yourself. Close your eyes for the briefest moment, then open them and observe clinically, without preconceptions or set conclusions. I breathed in. I let it out, closed my eyes, then opened and observed.
Nicholas was agitated. He was shooting at the target without aiming. It was as if he thought the assassin was in front of him and he was trying to defend himself. His face was perspiring, though it was cool in the cellar. He couldn’t be still. He was almost in a frenzy.
It wasn’t mere nerves, I thought. Nicholas did not seem like a born leader of men. I suspected he didn’t want to be tsar, and even if he did, he wouldn’t be any good at it. The thought of eventually being responsible for so many millions of people is too much unless one is a natural leader of men. In his first official duty, he’d nearly been murdered. This was his second time out of Russia and an assassin was already barking at his heels. He hadn’t even made his first official speech and the people of his own country already hated him as a symbol of oppression. Not for himself, perhaps, but for what he stood for. He was a target, as much as the one I had crudely sketched on the barrel.
He held out the empty pistol and reached for the loaded one. Let’s just suppose he did put a bullet in the old Llewelyn cranium. What then? We were alone. It would be his word against mine if I were shot. His word alone if I died. I switched pistols with him.
“Aim,” I told him.
He did. At my head.
I lifted my pistol, my heart hammering so loudly in my breast I thought he could hear it. This was not how I pictured ending my life. I thought it likely my situation would not lead to longevity, but being shot by the future tsar of Russia? I hadn’t anticipated that one.
