The Last Tsar's Dragons

by Jane Yolen

  “I am laughing, imbecile,” he answered, but gently, because the man had been with him since the days of the flagellants, and a man of such fervid loyalty could not be found elsewhere. Or bought.

  The door opened, and his man shuffled in, hunched and slow. “My . . . apologies, Father Grigori,” he stuttered. “But I have news.” He hauled one of the dragon boys in with him. The boy had a nose clotted with snot, and he sniveled.

  Rasputin waited, but the man said nothing more. He really is an imbecile, the mad monk thought. The boy said nothing, either. Waiting, Rasputin assumed, for a sign from his elders. And betters.

  Raising an eyebrow, Rasputin finally cued the man. “And this news is. . . ?”

  It was the boy who spoke, trembling, the clot loosened, snot running down towards his mouth. “Your holiness,

  I . . . I have found the Red Terror.”

  Rasputin stood and waved them fully inside his chambers, handing the sniveling boy a clean handkerchief to wipe his nose with, since he seemed disinclined to use his own sleeve.

  “Quickly, quickly,” Father Grigori said, trying to balance his voice between anger—which might silence the stupid boy forever—and over-eagerness, which might push the boy to augment his report or simply make up parts of the tale. “Come in, where we will not be overheard, and tell me everything.”

  “It is about dragons, red dragons, and there is a man called Lenin who will free them, but he will not be here until the month’s end. Three days from now. When the moon is full. Only when he comes. . . .”

  The boy babbled on for a few more minutes but said nothing else of interest. It didn’t matter. Rasputin knew all he needed to now.

  Dragons, he thought. Red dragons. The news was yet another sign of the love that the Lord God had for his most worthy of servants.

  “Heat up water for my bath,” Rasputin said to his man, the boy already forgotten in his haste. “Lay out a clean outfit. This evening I dine with princes.”

  But first I will bring this news to the tsar. It is sure to get me back into his good graces.

  Lying in the copper tub filled to the brim with steaming water, Rasputin gave thought to the evening ahead. In his mind, it had become a celebration instead of a ploy to insinuate himself back into the palace.

  There is no need now! The information he now possessed was too valuable. An upstart Marxist has gotten his hands on some dragons? That is news that could make a man’s fortune.

  Rasputin decided that he would not only bring this news to the tsar but also help him with stratagems to destroy the red dragons and trap the revolutionary leader.

  And then I shall go to dinner!

  How he would charm them all. Possibly one or more of the tsar’s nubile young daughters would be at the dinner. None of them married yet. Maybe the youngest, Anastasia, an untouched blossom.

  He sank for a moment below the water, feeling it wash through his hair. Felt it healing the recent scores from the whip.

  Dragons. Red dragons. Thank you, dear Lord.

  The tsarina looked over each of her daughters carefully. They were in their party frocks, and each one was more beautiful than the last.

  Like princesses in one of the dear tales the Brothers Grimm set down, she thought. Though thank the good Lord they have not had to go through great perils.

  Alexei looked well, too. The days of rest, the return of the doctor’s strict regimen, seemed to help. Nicky had been right about that. Father Grigori did so shake the poor child up.

  Turning to her youngest daughter, she snapped, “Stand straight, Anastasia. And fix your ribbon. A grand duchess does not slump. We must shine tonight. Shine.” She turned to her first maid, the one she’d brought with her from Germany all those many years ago. She spoke quickly in a German dialect. “Honestly, Greet, sometimes I worry she will be mistaken for a peasant.”

  Greet did not reply to that. She had been long in service to Alexandra, largely due to her ability to not reply. Alexandra liked impertinent servants even less than she liked Jews.

  “Is it a party, Mama?” Alexei asked, once the fuss about Anastasia’s comportment was done with.

  “More than a party,” the tsarina said. “A secret as well.”

  “I love secrets,” Alexei said.

  “And can keep none of them,” Anastasia whispered at him fiercely. Well, she certainly couldn’t talk back to her mother. It wasn’t allowed. Besides, she’d made the mistake once of telling him something as they played, and he’d scattered it about to the servants and Father Grigori, which meant everyone at the palace soon knew about her crush on Vasili, the portrait painter. Every time Vasili had come into the room, she had blushed the color of sunrise after that, guessing he knew about it, too. She had never forgiven Alexei nor spoken to the portrait painter again.

  “Can, too,” Alexei said, thinking about all the secrets told to him by Father Grigori he’d never told anyone. And the stories. But he would someday . . . when he was tsar and there were no consequences to what he did and said. Only obedience.

  He would know everything about everyone just as his father did. Everything.

  Shoring up my co-conspirators had been tougher work than I’d imagined it would be. Really, they have no stomach for this stuff. Aristocrats are ever prepared to pronounce sentence but rarely willing to carry out that same sentence themselves. Unless it is in a stupid duel. Assassination should be short, brutal, and the outcome without question. Not two men of equal strength and ability flailing about with swords!

  Washing my hands in the large basin as these thoughts banged about in my head, I began to giggle at the overwrought metaphor.

  “I am not Herod,” I told the mirror. I forced myself to stop giggling. It wouldn’t do to be overheard laughing alone, talking to myself. It would give my wife ammunition to fight any separation.

  Then, remembering that Ninotchka was out at some women’s gala, and the servants dismissed for the evening, I felt immediately relieved and finished the thought, though quietly, in case the walls were thinner than I believed. “And the mad monk is no Christ!” There! I’d said it aloud.

  It was not that I enjoyed getting my hands dirty. Well, perhaps in this exceptional case. . . .

  “Still, if you really want something done,” I said to my image, “occasionally you have to be the one to do it.” The image stared back, stern, unyielding. I would have to be certain to carry that face with me to Prince Yusupov’s party.

  The others wanted the monk dead almost as much as I did. The prince even called him “a meddlesome priest.”

  But the worry was still with me—could I count on them completely? I shrugged rather dramatically, ran fingers through my hair, then thought: I have to be certain they do not make me the one to take the blame for Rasputin’s death.

  My mind whirled with possibilities. Other than the poison—and it’s enough to fell a bull and its cow besides—their plans are ludicrous. Each has told me privately they will have knives in their boots, revolvers in their waistbands, so that if need be, they can finish the job properly. Stupid aristos. This will only alert him. He has the cunning of a wild creature. He will nose such things out. Besides, once the body is seen by the authorities, it must seem like an ordinary death. The poison is undetectable. Knife wounds and bullet holes scream assassination.

  On the other hand, he thought, Rasputin himself is the incalculable part of the equation. He has that dark magic on his side. He is a Mesmer. He can make anyone believe that which he tells them to believe.

  I bit my lower lip, thinking the worst of thoughts now:

  I cannot presume the others have the will to actually use their weapons.

  “Better to be prepared myself,” I told the mirror. “It will steel my will.”

  In just a few hours, the mad monk will be dead. I repeated this to myself until I believed it. And after that—all worries will disappear.

  Hands dried, hair practically as polished as my boots, I found my late father’s old dagger that
he had never used for anything but opening walnuts. Placing it in the bosom of my shirt, I gave a sudden shudder. I had no pistol.

  Everything rested in God’s hands now.

  An awful thought crept past my wall of confidence: And the monk has the ear of God.

  “Do not fear,” I whispered to myself. “Never fear.” It was merely that the sheathed blade was unexpectedly cold against my chest. As if death rested there. Plus, I was now profoundly aware of it.

  It is good I am aware of it. I bit my lower lip thoughtfully. It will remind me to have courage.

  I squared my shoulders and went out into the palace hallway, shutting the door to the apartment behind me with a satisfactory snick.

  To my extreme horror and surprise, I saw the misbegotten son of a Siberian peasant marching down the hallway toward me. The mad monk in his best embroidered blouse, black velvet trousers, and shiny new boots.

  “Rasputin!” I said under my breath, as if I watched a dead man walking. Why is he here? What is he doing? Where is he going? My thoughts raced as the confidence I had worked so hard to build fled like Russian columns before German infantry. It was too early for the monk to be ready for the evening party. What if he got there too soon and discovered our plans?

  “Good evening, Father Grigori,” I said as calmly as I could when we drew nearer together, all the while thinking, What is he doing here? Perhaps he is going somewhere else instead?

  Now I was all but babbling in my head. Too early or not at all? I don’t know which is worse. Could Rasputin dare either? Both? Could he believe he could get away with insulting the prince? Is Rasputin that powerful?

  My hands began to tremble, and I had to will them to stop. Then I subtly put myself into Rasputin’s path, so that he would either have to pull up or plow me down.

  For a mad moment, I was afraid, thinking he would march right over me. But at the last second, he stopped, looming over me, and I am not a tiny man.

  That was when I smelled something odd, a miasma of some sort. It took me a moment to place it. Cheap soap. I could barely keep myself from wrinkling my nose. This was no magician, this was a charlatan!

  “Out of my way, lackey,” Rasputin said, as if the two of us had never been introduced. His eyes were as cold as his mother’s breast milk must have been. “I have important news for the tsar.”

  Now I was truly close to panic. What news could the monk have to cause him to miss his dinner and insult me openly? Surely he had uncovered our plans! Surreptitiously, I reached inside my jacket, my fingers touching the hilt of the dagger. It should have given me courage, but all it seemed to do was raise more doubts.

  I may have to cut him down here in the hall.

  Suddenly I was unsure if I could manage such a thing. He is far bigger than I am. And if older, certainly stronger.

  I felt sweat pooling under my arms, thought wildly, If I miss with my first stroke, he could probably snap me in two with his huge peasant’s hands.

  “Why not give it to me then, Father,” I said, hoping my voice didn’t sound as querulous and weak to the monk as it did to me. “I assume by your outfit that you have somewhere else you must be?”

  I was really just trying to buy some time. I’d need to be just a few steps back so to have room to draw steel, but not so far away as to be unable to close and strike. But if I did so, I’d no idea what I might tell His Majesty to explain the murder of the tsarina’s closest advisor in the halls outside my chambers.

  But tales can be fabricated, evidence planted. And though I was not terribly adept with a knife, a man’s heart was not a walnut, no matter how shrunken it may be.

  Those other skills I had in abundance: manipulation, storytelling, obfuscation.

  But the knife would have to come out first.

  Before I could pull out the blade, the mad monk spoke in that damnable convincing voice.

  “You are right, my son. I have somewhere to be. Somewhere important. The tsar, bless him, is probably already closeted with his beautiful wife. No man should be so disturbed. I will speak to him in the morning after our prayers.” He managed to pack information and insult in six short sentences before turning on his heel and marching away.

  I watched him disappear around a corner, sweat from my knife hand drip-dripping onto the hilt.

  My car followed Rasputin’s, but not that closely. I did not want to frighten him off. It soon became clear we were both going to Prince Felix Yusupov’s palace.

  The prince was sole heir to the largest fortune in Russia, and I was certainly not in his set, so I’d never been inside his house, though I knew where it was. But if I could help pull off this coup, I was certain the prince would reward me greatly.

  The prince had once been good friends with the mad monk, pals in carousal, so they say. That was years before he was married. He and Rasputin had gone together to all the dubious night spots. The women they kept company with were dubious as well. But in this marriage, the princess now held the upper hand—her royalty trumped his money. So, Rasputin had been ruled out of the prince’s life. An old story but a true one.

  But the monk had not taken the hint, so a year ago, Prince Yusupov was heard to complain, “Will no one kill this starets for me?”

  I hadn’t known about it then, but when I spoke of my plan to Pavlovich, he told it to the prince. “A great favor,” he was told.

  And so things began to boil. But because of Pavlovich’s extensive social calendar, the first time he was free was this evening, December 30th. He and I decided that Pavlovich didn’t dare cancel any of his previous engagements and thus arouse suspicion.

  Suddenly aflame with excitement, I leaned forward. “Faster!” I told the driver. “Faster now.”

  It was pitch black outside, the true dark of a Russian winter, lit only by the car’s lights illuminating swirling snow. The driver had a heavy foot, and soon we approached the prince’s palace.

  If anything, my mood was even higher than before. I felt that if I got out of the car now, I could dance all the rest of the way there. “Drive around to the servants’ entrance,” I instructed the driver. “I am a surprise guest.”

  “Good one, sir!” he answered, making the turn around the back of the palace.

  One of the stewards took me down to the cellar room where the dinner was to be held. No one else was there yet.

  The cellar room was of gray stone with a granite floor. It had a low, vaulted ceiling and heavy curtains to keep out the cold. I tried peeking out from behind the curtains to get a sense of the room, but I realized immediately that my shoes protruded from underneath. I could not hide there.

  The place already felt like a mausoleum. All it needed was a plain coffin. Only the carved wooden chairs, the small tables covered with embroidered cloths, and the cabinet of inlaid ebony indicated that it was a place of habitation. A white bearskin rug and a brilliant fire in the hearth hardly softened the room’s cemeterial aspect. Though perhaps knowing the plan for the evening, I exaggerated the sense of finality.

  In the very center of the room stood a table that was laid for six: the prince, the monk, Pavlovich, two other conspirators, and the prince’s wife, who had been the bait to lure Rasputin to the place. Though the monk was not to know it, Princess Irina was off in the Crimea with her parents, not here.

  I smiled, a full, almost boyish grin. What a plot we have hatched! What a coil.

  A door opened, and I startled, too late to return to the safety of the curtain, but soon realized it was Dr. Lazovert, the purveyor of poisons. He put a finger to his lips, summoning me over.

  A samovar in the middle of the table was already smoking away, surrounded by plates of cakes and dainties. When I got close enough, the doctor pointed to the sideboard where drinks sat.

  “Each one filled with poison and the rims of the glasses soaked in poison as well,” Dr. Lazovert whispered, adding, “and each cake filled with enough cyanide potassium to kill several men in an instant. It won’t matter which he takes up. Just b
e sure you and the others—and the servants—do not take a taste of anything down here.”

  I thought, almost gleefully: Several men! We only want to dispatch one.

  The plan was in motion. I knew what came next. As soon as Rasputin dropped, it was my job to get the body out of there. But just in case the monk was slow to die, I had my knife. And someone else a pistol. Then we’d wrap the body in an old rug the prince had procured and drop it in the Neva, which flowed nearby. The spring floods would take care of the rest.

  From upstairs came the sound of music. “Is that ‘Yankee Doodle Dandy’?” I asked the doctor. “That damned American song?”

  The music was supposed to be part of a party that Princess Irina was throwing for some women friends before joining the men.

  The doctor nodded. “Now hide. They will soon be bringing Rasputin down.”

  Knowing now that the curtain was not a plausible hiding place, I situated myself on the other side of the wooden serving door. It had a small window. I could see, and hear, but not be seen. The main servants were off, having been given a free night and warned not to return ’til morning, with just a few of the most trusted left behind.

  “Perfect,” I said to the doctor, but he was already heading upstairs.

  And then the door from the stairs opened, and down walked the mad monk himself, followed by a nervous-looking Yusupov.

  I wanted to shout at the prince, “Stop sweating! You’ll give the game away.” But we were already well into it. It would play out as it would. I shrank back for a moment, away from the window in the door, took a deep breath, and waited.

  Rasputin sauntered into the room, smiling. He could feel his body tingling, starting at his feet. That always meant something huge would happen soon. Perhaps Princess Irina would declare her love openly. Perhaps the prince would simply offer her to him. He had done so before with his other women, when they were both younger and the prince not so caught up in convention. Rasputin made little distinction between a princess and a prostitute in bed. They even liked it better that way.