The Last Tsar's Dragons

by Jane Yolen

  Without noticing, she shuddered. Touched her right temple, which was throbbing.

  Best she get the girls married off—or at least promised—as soon as possible, to strong princes.

  Halfway up the second set of stairs, she took a deep gulp of air and pushed for more speed from her weak legs. This disease of Alexei’s might kill us all someday.

  Now in the hall, she went along as fast as she could, hoping the bruising might not have hurt Alexei so much this time. That his knees wouldn’t swell up.

  The doctors had been hinting at an improvement. The aspirin powder they had been giving Alexei regularly was something new, processed in Germany, so she knew it had to be of good quality—was especially made for such pain, such swelling.

  For a while it had worked. But only a little while.

  But Father Grigori, blessed be that holy man, had demanded the doctors be kept away. And as God so favored him, she had gone along with his advice.

  And. . . .

  She’d reached the door of the nursery. It was slightly ajar. She listened for a second, heard no cries, no sobbing. Alexei seemed to be doing better under the priest’s care rather than the doctors’. Less bruising, better appetite. . . .

  But that cry that she’d been able to hear two floors away . . . that was not a sound she’d heard before. Perhaps the pain had maybe gotten worse. Ach! It was so difficult to know what to do.

  I will put it in God’s hands. That can never be wrong.

  She crossed herself again in the Russian way, though even after so many years in Russia, it felt like an affront to God. But otherwise, she was happier in this old religion than the newer Lutheranism she’d been born into. If it had only been the Russian Orthodox church, her dear husband, their daughters and son, she would have been content living in this barbaric country.

  But the people. . . .

  Grandmama, she sighed, I am trying to be strong like you. But underneath that breath of courage. . . . These people will be the death of me.

  She would have taken the Veronal and lain down for the rest of the morning, but she knew she could do nothing until her darling Alexei was tended to. And after that, a farewell dinner with her husband, who was to be off in the morning playing at soldiers with his popinjay generals, in wars they never quite seemed to win.

  She trusted in the Lord, repeating that over and over in time to the sound of her feet on the carpet, on the steps, on the parquet floor. “I trust in the Lord. I trust in the Lord.” She repeated it like an instruction booklet. It was the only way she could be certain that His will would be done.

  Of course the Jews are all safe, having seeded their shtetls with drachometers—early warning devices that only they could have cobbled together, I thought as I washed my hands in the basin. I checked the mirror casually. “You goat,” I said to myself sternly. “Think this through.” I was always stern with myself on the tsar’s business. Rather, the devices were put together by cannibalizing a German invention. “That’s more like it,” I said. “Trust the Jews to steal an idea.”

  “The tsar will take that bit of Jew bait in better. Especially with his German wife.” I smiled. “And yes, I know I am speaking to myself. It’s the only way of holding an intelligent conversation in the palace. After all, no one else can keep up with my ideas.” Especially not the tsar. I do not say this last out loud. Alas, the Romanovs bred for stupidity. Rather like the British royals.

  Even though I know myself to be alone, even though I am certain I did not say anything important that could be overheard, I glanced around, suddenly afraid someone might have sneaked in. Because I know, everyone knows, that there are spies everywhere. Even my dear wife reports what I say, do, to the authorities.

  After all—everyone spies. My wife spies on me. As I on her.

  Riffling through the desk drawers where I kept the more secret documents, I mumbled: “I have the information about that device somewhere.”

  Of course that was often the problem—not getting the information, but finding the information when I needed it.

  Ninotchka insists a messy desk is the sign of a disordered mind, and she constantly has the maid tidy things.

  “Tidying things!” I nearly spat the words out. “That is a euphemism for hiding things where I can’t find them. Just because she thinks it’s messy does not mean I cannot find what I need. And right now. . . .” I glowered at the order on the desktop. “Right now,” I whispered in case she might be up and about, “right now I am thinking about taking a different wife.”

  After a minute of sorting through the piles, I found the information I sought, under an invitation to dinner. Of course!

  “Here it is: Dov Krinsky!” I remembered now. Krinsky’s father had worked with a German scientist, as his chief dogsbody on experiments on something called a telemobiloscope. “A real Dusseldorf dummy!” That came out almost as a snort. The rest came tumbling after. “Yes! Yes!”

  My right forefinger tapped the papers as I remembered, an old habit from a few years back when I was more spy than bureaucrat. “Hülsmeyer almost lost his shirt with the invention, forgetting to file the proper patents and papers. But the German navy got wind of it and its potential to spot oncoming ships and. . . .” I could feel my excitement spilling over and I addressed the desk companionably. “I see you are ahead of me!”

  “We got this from his mother,” I told the desk. “A disgusting crone of a woman. But susceptible—as they all are—to a rather large bribe.”

  If the desk found this display of spleen unworthy, it kept its own counsel.

  “Young Krinsky himself almost got away, through the underground, on his way to the Americas with the complete set of plans, and a prototype. Leaving his family behind. Isn’t that just like them?”

  I held the paper up to the light, though I didn’t need to actually read it. Just the first line. The rest I had memorized, just needed that bit at the beginning to remind myself.

  “Krinsky’s old mother died in questioning. That was done by a clumsy oaf of an examiner. Never, never let someone die if there are still questions to be answered. But not before telling us her son had died when the boat sank, along with the plans and the lessons.”

  I was the only one who noticed there was a strange defiance in her eyes. So I ordered a complete search of the house and found a second set of plans. I told no one else, and the men with me who might have seen something all got shipped off to the front, following the tsar’s latest wrong call for soldiers. So now there were dead ends everywhere.

  I didn’t say any of this out loud, so the desk had no chance to laugh at this little joke. I made a face at it.

  “So you don’t find that amusing, Desk?” This was of course not fair to the desk, which could not read my thoughts. “You are not alone. No one else thinks I am a funny man, but the jokes are always on them.”

  I walked back to the mirror, straightened my coat. Shook my finger at my reflection, all the while saying to myself: The tsar should have listened to you when you told him to gather the Jewish scientists all in one place and force them to work for Russia. Away from their families, their friends. Use them and rid ourselves of the rest.

  I saw there was lint on my jacket and tried to pick it off.

  The mirror image did not look pleased and made a sour moue with his mouth. I added, “So, once again I was not heeded.” Then I shouted for my man, Nikita, to deal with the lint.

  “NIKITA!”

  The room rang heavily with the sound, but there was no answer from him or from anyone else. Damn! Does no one work here but me?

  And Nikita—never around when I need him.

  “Servants are a pestilence,” I said aloud, not caring if any of them heard.

  Then I took a brush from the top drawer in the small dresser beneath the mirror and removed the lint myself, as if I were a peasant. Then I proceeded to brush down the front of my jacket with more vigor than necessary.

  Checking myself in the mirror again, I laughed, “Almo
st presentable, if still a functionary.” The mirror chuckled as well. Almost as if we were twins actually conversing.

  Leaning forward, I gazed into the mirror’s eyes so we looked as if we were trading secrets. I whispered, “I may have to finalize that trip I was planning to take to Germany with my wife. A second honeymoon, we will call it. A visit to the baths. An attempt at baby-making. But whatever we call it, a necessary step.” I nodded and my image nodded back, indicating it was indeed a good plan.

  What I didn’t say was that I was afraid the tsar’s star, like his mind, was dimming. And his son would not long outlast him, poor child. I had no idea who might be jumped up to tsar. Some minor prince, I supposed. But which one, and when. . . .

  I must keep a careful ear out. They will always need someone like me to make the government run smoothly.

  I walked toward the door, looked back over my shoulder, nodded at the full image of myself. And of course he nodded back. “D’accord,” I mouthed as he did.

  But the word “functionary” rose up in my throat like the sick aftermath of a rancid dinner. It is dust in their royal mouths. But without us, there is no government, as many an autocrat has found out to his dismay.

  My mirror twin smiled. It was not a pleasant smile. More snake than courtier.

  We silently oil the wheels of their progress. And they reward us to do it. But not enough. Never enough.

  Hmmm, I think I will try my hand at poetry. The royals profess to love it. On the other hand, by the looks of some of the toughs proclaiming their allegiance to the rebels, I wonder if they would know what to do with a poem other than use it to wipe their bums.

  At the desk again, I picked up the papers about Krinsky and shook them as if interrogating the sentences.

  If I cannot save my position, this early batch of Krinsky’s notes on the telemobiloscope and drachometer could be my passport to a richer life. Our passport. Ninotchka’s and mine. I understand the Germans can be very liberal with their rewards for scientific invention.

  I headed out the door and into the hall, going once more to see the tsar.

  Or as I ofttimes call him in the echo chamber of my heart, His Royal Graciousness High Buttinsky, but carefully, of course, and never aloud. I know that I am not irreplaceable.

  But all the while, I silently reminded myself: When one works for the tsar, one must always restate the obvious. He has no imagination and a limited grasp of facts. And I know that once in the Presence Room, I’ll certainly have to wait at least an hour to be announced, as the news of the dragons’ success or failure will already have been brought by courier.

  This time it took an hour and fifteen minutes by my pocket watch before I was signaled in to speak with the tsar.

  By then he was in a foul mood. He had consulted with the generals, and the news he had of the dragons was not good. Deprived of their natural Jewish prey, the black horde had taken once more to raking the provinces with fire.

  This time, or so it was announced by one of the generals who spoke to the very small smattering of officials, it had cost the country a really fine opera house, built in the last century and fully gilded, plus a splendid spa with indoor plumbing, two lanes of Caterina-the-Great houses, plus the servants therein. And the roads—as if they had not been already bad enough.

  But as the general added, “Thank the good Lord it is winter,” as if this changed everything about the disaster.

  All about me the old men, the top princes and administrators, nodded their heads sagely, several even crossing themselves as if this alone would ward off disastrous news.

  Only later in my own rooms once more did I understand what he meant was “Thank the good Lord it is winter—all the hoi and most of the polloi are at their homes here in the city and not in their summer dachas where they would have been easy pickings. No, rather they are safe and sound in the city. They will not join any revolt.”

  We all knew that the smoke in the provinces—like a bad odor—would hang over those towns for a week or more. A daily, deadly reminder of the folly of dragons. When the people who owned summer houses in the province went to check out their houses, they could not possibly be pleased. And who would they blame? Was I the only one who worried about it? In whispers and insinuations, their wrath would most certainly land on His Royal High Carelessness.

  Of course, I pointed out some of this to the tsar at the time, but carefully, as I wanted my head to remain firm on my shoulders. At least until my new wife wore me out.

  Bowing lower than protocol demanded, I said, “Do you remember, Gracious One, what I said concerning the Jewish scientists?”

  The tsar stroked his beard and shook his head. Then, instead of giving me an answer, he mumbled a few words to the mad magician, Rasputin.

  I held Father Grigori’s name unspoken in my mouth, then spit it out. It was not so much a greeting as invective. But that monk, that priest of magics, said nothing in return, his own position secure because he was a favorite of the tsarina and her only son, the tsarevitch, the child with the bleeding sickness.

  I waited to see if the tsar would turn to ask to hear my information again. If he would only remember the conversation we had a week ago. I could feel the pages of Krinsky’s invention crackling in my jacket, eager to speak out.

  I waited some more, this time eyes closed, in anticipation, in hope. But when I opened them again, it was to see the tsar and his closest advisors—several generals and Rasputin—abruptly leaving. To plan his next war, I supposed. On the Jews? On the Continent? Or on the rebels who like fleas were multiplying as we stood in uncertainty here?

  Then I knew for certain: Our little father has become an absent parent. With his catastrophic leadership, his choice of a German wife, his lack of a hardy heir, his waxing and waning attention. This war will no doubt have as little effect as the last.

  “But Tsar Nicholas II is always trying.” I realized with a start that I’d said that aloud. But as no one was still standing near, it put me in no danger.

  And then I thought privately: The tsar is very trying. I smiled, but kept it very small and contained. One must never laugh openly at the tsar. Even in private it can be dangerous.

  I began the long walk back to the Presence Room door, thinking: Of course, I have no ability to effect changes straight on, not like the ruler of a country. I must wait and wheedle to get what I want. But even with all his power, look what the tsar accomplishes. Nothing. He sends troops of loyal Cossacks to harry the Jews on the ground. He sends a murder of dragons by air. Nyet, nothing. So he does it again for more nothing.

  Stepping into the now-empty hallway, my thoughts came faster and faster: A man who keeps doing the same thing and expecting different results must be mad. Or at least not overly endowed with brains.

  And the honest second thought I had—which quite surprised me—was that I was certain that Rasputin thought the same thing. He was not a man silent about his opinions. But he was a man who could use the church and magic to keep him safe.

  I only have my wits.

  But then I smiled. Rasputin and I have something else in common. We know that the tsar’s faults do not stop either of us from cashing his chits, living comfortably at court, finding new young wives at every opportunity. I gave my own version of the monk’s wolfish grin: our own wives or other men’s.

  Suddenly, my legs gave way and I managed to sit on one of the chairs in the long corridor placed there for the older courtiers for just such an occasion. I sat for a moment, regaining my equanimity. Working for a ruler can be difficult. Some days it is as if I am slogging through the mud. My own personal battlefield, I once confided to Ninotchka—early in our courtship. But, like the Jews in their burrows, I may become dirtied, but I am safe from the fire. So why this sudden weakness?

  And then, as if that light suddenly shone through my own window, I understood what was truly afflicting me: it was an unsuspected fear. The powerful are like dragons. Friend or foe, if their gaze is fixed upon you, you are likely
to get burned.

  I would not sit here where any passerby could see my weaknesses and calculate how to destroy me. Where any gossip could begin that would be my end. I had not climbed this far up to become prey. I reminded myself of my intellect, my ability for camouflage, my strength. And when I put my hand over my breast pocket, the crackle of paper reminded me that I still had major cards in my hands.

  I stood, shoulders back, head up, and went straight to my apartment. Even if I could not put any spring in my steps, I could more than manage to look like a man about important business, a man of determination and strength. Which I was. Which I am.

  And at least—I reminded myself—I did not have a long way to go.

  Some twelve feet below the frozen Russian surface, two men sat smoking their cigarettes and drinking peach schnapps next to a blue-and-white tiled stove. The tiles had once been the best to be had from a store—now long gone—in the Crimea, but in the half-lit burrow, the men did not care about the chips and chinks and runnels on them. Nor would they have cared if the stove were still residing upstairs in the house’s summer kitchen. They were more concerned with other things now, like dragons, like peach schnapps, like the state of the country.

  One man, Borutsch, was tall, gangly, and humped over because of frequent stays in the burrow, not just to escape the dragons, either. He had a long beard, gray as a shovelhead. With the amount of talking he tended to do, he always looked as if he were digging up an entire nation. Which, of course, he was.

  The other, Bronstein, was short, compact, even compressed, with a carefully cultivated beard and sad eyes behind rimless eyeglasses.

  Borutsch threw another piece of wood into the stove’s maw, his long arms able to reach both the small woodpile and the stove without standing. Which he couldn’t fully do in the burrow anyway. The heat from the blue tiles grew increasingly hotter, but there was no smoke due to the venting system that piped the smoke straight up through ten feet of hard-packed dirt. Then, two feet before the surface, a triple-branching system neatly divided the smoke so that when it came into contact with the cold air, it was no more than a wisp. Warm enough for wolves to seek the three streams out, but as they scattered when there were dragons or Cossacks attacking the villages, the smoke never actually gave away the positions of the burrows.