Kremlins Boxset

by K L Conger

  A monk stood at the front of the chapel, leading his parishioners in hymns. Few actually sang, yet Anne found the soft music in the muted hum of the church comforting.

  She, Ekaterina, and the merchant woman hunkered down in one corner of the church where they found some empty space next to a wooden cabinet. Anne immediately clasped her hands together, holding them against her chest and dropping her head so her mouth rested on her knuckles. She sent prayers to God for Yehvah and her fellow maids in the Kremlin palace. She prayed for them to be spared from the flames and God to strengthen what little of the Tsar's army remained around Moscow to turn away their Eastern enemies.

  When she’d finished her prayers, Anne opened the cabinet, wondering if it might be a good place to lie down. In truth, it wouldn't be comfortable. One person might stretch out in it lengthwise from side to side, but thin shelves inserted every two hands or so meant they wouldn't fit between them in terms of width. Shrugging, Anne shut the cabinet door and wrapped an arm around Ekaterina, who huddled against her.

  INGA SPRINTED THROUGH the city, doing her best to keep going in the direction of the market, while keeping away from the flames. It wasn't easy. She kept being diverted to side streets and forced to double back to find a route heading the direction she wanted to go. Frustration over her path didn’t prove the worst thing she dealt with, though. Not by far.

  Many people she passed talked of taking refuge in the Kremlin. They wouldn't be able to. The gates already stood closed and barred. Inga attempted to explain it to the first few groups she came across. They stared at her blankly before moving toward the center of the city anyway. She didn't have time to explain it to every person she met. They must find their own salvation.

  Inga ran against the tide of people trying to get back to the Kremlin. It felt like pushing against a river current. Every so often, she stopped one of them to ask someone what lay behind them. They all spoke of a curtain of flames and smoke. The Tatars pushed forward with it—some said ahead of the flames, others said behind—looting the gutted houses.

  As Inga traveled farther from the Terem palace, she felt as though she’d moved into hell. Up ahead, phantom pillars of flame moved through the streets, independent of burning buildings. More than once, they ran directly at her and she leapt out of their path. She thought they must be ghouls or demons come from beneath the earth. Not until they ran past Inga, singeing her clothes with their fire and knocking her platok askew, did she realize they were human beings the flames had captured and eaten.

  Chaos ruled the city. Smoke filled her line of sight, bells tolled the death knell. The mournful music came from every direction, as did the flames. The bells became a mournful accompaniment to the roar of the fire, punctuated by staccato human screams.

  Inga felt terror at what she witnessed, but it didn’t paralyze her. She’d faced fires in Moscow before. She’d witnessed enemy armies, the brutal face of war, and Ivan’s savage exploits. She’d moved beyond letting fear paralyze her.

  Ignoring her emotions, she pushed forward through the city.

  After several hours, sweat soaked Inga’s clothing. Soot covered her arms and dress. Ashes flurried through the air like snow.

  Inga realized she’d begun moving in circles. She couldn’t seem to get out of the part of the city she presently traversed. Each time she reached a dead end, or the city’s structure forced her onto another path, she did her best to move toward the market again. After the third time she ended up in a frustratingly familiar place, the futility of it settled on her. The flames created an ever-tightening circle, moving slowly inward to trap the people of Moscow in its heart.

  Inga could always double back and try to find her way through an entirely different path, but she’d come this way to begin with because it proved the only route available to her.

  A pang of despair hit as Inga understood she’d never find Anne and Ekaterina in this. The sadness paralyzed her more than anything she’d seen in the streets. Ekaterina had only been Inga’s charge a few months, and already she’d failed the girl. Inga had found herself in plenty of dangerous situations during her time at the palace. Still, Yehvah never lost track of her as completely as Inga had now lost Ekaterina.

  Tears coursed down Inga’s cheeks. Flames decorated every structure in her line of sight. Halting by a wall that felt hot, but didn’t yet burn, Inga fell to her knees. She offered up prayers for Anne and Ekaterina, begging God to keep them safe...and free. Escaping the flames meant little if they ended up in enemy hands.

  Inga rose to her feet, struggling to breathe in the hot air. She needed to find a safe place, away from the flames. Before she became a living torch herself.

  She circled back around toward the Kremlin. Because she still stood inside the ring of flames, making her way back into the heart of the city proved fairly easy. The closer she came to the Kremlin, the more crowded the streets became with other panicked Muscovites trying to find safety as well.

  At length, Inga made it back. She stopped short of the Kremlin gates and climbed an as-yet-unburnt church to see above the heads of the crowd. Despite the flames, chills scurried down her spine, and a hard stone dropped into her stomach at what met her eyes.

  The square in front of the palace gates had become a hell all its own. Piles of bodies rose up in dark mountains all over the square. At first, Inga didn’t understand how they'd all died. The longer she watched, the more she understood.

  Fleeing the conflagration, Muscovites fought to get into the citadel. The newest arrivals crushed or trampled those already there, brutally smashing the bodies against the Kremlin gates. Unable to advance or retreat, they were suffocated by heat and smoke, or crushed under falling beams the crowd knocked down while beating against the Kremlin walls.

  They died to the sound of bells ringing the death knell.

  Moving torches ran in every direction, causing people to scream, panic, and push one another, which resulted in more deaths.

  Inga wouldn’t get back in. Nikolai had been right about that. Instead, she resolutely climbed higher, onto the top of the church outside the Kremlin gates. Not a particularly shrewd thing to do, as wooden shingles covered the roof. If the fire reached this far into the city, the church would burn beneath her. Not to mention, Nikolai’s words about hot air rising high proved true as well. The air turned black with smoke. Inga breathed slowly and deeply, continually reminding herself she could, in fact, still breathe.

  Still, for the time being, the roof of the church seemed safer than being on the ground where she would surely be trampled. A handful of others also climbed to the roof of the church. They sat quietly around Inga, skin blackened with soot and eyes haunted with what they’d seen.

  Wrapping her arms around her knees and pulling them into her chest, Inga gazed out across the city. A sea of pulsing, glowing embers. Those embers represented people and structures in the beloved place she'd always called home. The air proved too hot and dry for tears. She swallowed past a lump in her throat. Her beloved city, burning again.

  Inga sent up prayers to God for help. Vague prayers. Her brain felt fuzzy. Her heart, numb. She couldn’t even think of what to ask for.

  ANNE WAITED TENSELY with Ekaterina, the merchant woman, and the rest of the survivors in the church. She’d never asked the merchant woman’s name, and the woman didn’t offer. Anne supposed she should ask, but too much dread and exhaustion warred in her chest for pleasantries. One look at the woman’s face said she felt much the same as Anne.

  Anne didn't imagine more than a few hours had passed since the fire started, though it felt like days. Three youngsters from among the congregation went out into the city to observe and bring back news. All young men, claiming twelve or fourteen winters, they were swift on their feet and shrewd enough to avoid danger. One returned to report the fire continued to spread roughly an hour before. The other two had yet to return.

  The door of the church opened. The second of the three chosen youngsters walked in, his face pal
e and frightened. His entire stance bespoke despair.

  Anne's heart beat faster with worry. Whatever news he brought, it couldn't be good. The entire crowd in the church quieted their whispering and turned to look at him, leaning forward as one.

  "The fire has burnt out,” the young man stated grimly.

  After a moment of stunned silence, a cheer went up from the people in the church. Anne smiled, laughed. She hugged Ekaterina, who appeared more relieved than Anne felt, and shook the merchant woman’s hand. The two of them shared a relieved smile.

  Anne turned back to the church’s door as the crowd quieted once more. Why on earth did the boy look so despondent?

  "How did the people put it out?" a disembodied male voice came from the opposite side of the church. Anne had no hope of seeing the man who spoke.

  If anything, the youngster’s face grew bleaker. "They didn't. The low stone walls dividing parts of the city from each other provided barriers. Even they are blackened and melted in some spots." He took a deep breath, raised his chin, and rolled his shoulders back, as though preparing for some great pronouncement. "Moscow has burnt to nothing."

  Anne along with the rest of the crowd, stared at him in stunned silence.

  The monk stepped toward the boy, raising an objecting hand. "Surely you exaggerate, lad. The fire started only three hours ago."

  The boy nodded, tears filling his eyes. "I know," he sniffed. "That's all it took to render our city to ashes."

  Anne, trapped inside the church all this time, couldn't imagine it. She couldn't visualize all of Moscow having been burned down to cinders.

  She raised her voice so the boy heard her. "What about the Kremlin?"

  Several heads turned toward her when she asked before immediately snapping back, hanging on the boy’s response.

  He sniffed again. “Everything barred within the Kremlin gates survived."

  A rash of relieved breaths collectively exited the crowd. Anne felt more relieved than at any time since she’d left the palace this morning. If the palace still stood, Yehvah, Inga, and all the other maids remained safe.

  "Here, in the northern suburbs, most things survived," the boy went on. “But the rest of the city..."

  After a few moments’ pause, in which no one said anything, the monk stepped up, daylight bouncing off the bald spot on the apex of his head, and raised his hands for silence. For some reason, the motion drew Anne’s eye to his brown, soot-stained smock. "Please, my good people,” he intoned. “This news is indeed distressing. Take heart. The Tsar is safe. His palace in the Kremlin still stands in all its shining glory. We will rebuild our city, as we have before. God has spared us."

  Anne immediately felt the truth of his words. They lived. No doubt many Muscovites no longer did, yet enough of them would survive to rebuild and keep going.

  The monk turned back to the boy. "Is it safe for us to leave the shelter of this church?"

  The boy hesitated, then shook his head. "I wouldn't quite yet. Many Tatar soldiers still walk the city. The fire has driven most of them out. Still, we should wait a few hours to make sure we don't run into them."

  The priest nodded and clapped the boy on the shoulder. "Wise words, my lad. We will do as you suggest."

  Anne patted Ekaterina's hand and settled in to await the time when they could return to the Kremlin.

  She leaned back against the wall, feeling grateful for God's mercy. After all the tension coursing through her body, the release of it brought exhaustion. After a few moments, her eyelids grew heavy. She dozed.

  A loud crash made her eyes fly open, her heart pounding painfully once again. The entire crowd yelped in surprise.

  Anne searched the room wildly for several seconds before identifying the source of the noise. The church’s heavy wooden door had burst inward.

  Short, armored men with silky black hair and thin, almond-shaped eyes poured in like insects. Some held shields. All held weapons of some kind, including curved, wicked-looking daggers and pointed spears, which might have gleamed in the afternoon light if they weren’t covered in blood.

  Tatar soldiers.

  The men yelled at the crowd in a jarring-sounding language. She didn't hope to understand it. The short, Eastern soldiers grabbed people by the arms, yanked them to their feet and manhandled them out the door.

  Anne gazed down at Ekaterina. Tears of dread formed in the girl’s eyes and she trembled. The merchant woman, on Ekaterina’s other side, frowned determinedly.

  Anne needed to keep Ekaterina from being taken. But how?

  She turned to the cabinet by the wall and swung its door open. She and Ekaterina sat in the far corner of the church. It would buy them a few minutes.

  Anne yanked on the shelves in the cabinet and, to her great surprise, they came out easily. She shoved them to the floor, kicking them toward other parts of the church. Snatching Ekaterina's wrist, she shoved the girl into the cabinet.

  Ekaterina cried out, grunted, and protested. Anne ignored her.

  "What are you doing?" Ekaterina sputtered, wide-eyed.

  "Get in there, Ekaterina. Huddle down and don't make a sound."

  "It won't work, Anne. They’ll find me."

  "Perhaps," Anne admitted. “This is the only chance they won't. Hush girl. If they don't find you, make your way back to the Kremlin."

  “Do as she says, Foolish Girl,” the Merchant woman said at Anne’s shoulder. She helped Anne stuff Ekaterina's foot into the cabinet. She glanced up and shared a look with Anne that said she understood Anne’s intentions.

  “Be safe,” Anne whispered, and planted a quick kiss on Ekaterina’s forehead.

  “Quickly woman,” the merchant woman said quietly. “Before they look this way and see.”

  Without another word, Anne shut the cabinet door on Ekaterina’s frightened expression.

  Knowing she couldn't protect the cabinet in any way, or they would guess someone hid there, Anne glanced furtively around the room. As more and more of the church’s occupants were hustled outside, the area around her became less packed.

  She flung herself away from the cabinet and onto the opposite wall. The merchant woman followed. Huddling against the wall, Anne did her best to affect frightened tears. She remained in the stance for several minutes until the Tatars reached her. One of them yelled at her, harsh, alien words she had no hope of understanding, and motioned her to her feet. She huddled closer to the wall as though afraid and turned away from him, pulling her knees into her chest.

  A rough hand closed around her arm. Strong fingers squeezed to the point of pain and spun her around to face him. He stood so short, she looked him in the eye without raising her jaw.

  Weak, he was not. Drawing a hand back, he hit her hard across the face and she fell to the wooden floor of the church. Her face grew numb where he struck her. Wooden splinters dug into her palms, feeling like tiny daggers. The man dragged her up by her elbow and jostled her roughly out onto the street.

  Amid the jostling, she caught sight of the merchant woman being led—much more calmly—out after her.

  Outside, the smell of wood smoke proved significantly stronger than inside the church. Dark gray clouds hung low in the air. She felt certain they must be a result of the fire. Anne saw neither the sky, nor much of anything standing farther than one street away through the thick, gray air.

  The Tatars busily bound the people from the church by their wrists to a long rope. It would form a chain of prisoners, all tied to one another and forced to walk in a straight line.

  When all were secured, the line of prisoners moved northward. It stopped periodically while the Tatars wrestled more prisoners from their hiding places in the northern suburbs. Inevitably, it continued toward the outskirts of the city.

  Yehvah educated Anne well enough for her to know that being taken prisoner by the Easterners led to one of two things: death or slavery.

  Anne, though not as old as Yehvah, would still be considered an old woman by most. Because she’d l
ived a sheltered life in the Kremlin, she’d already lived beyond the age most common women reached. Her hair held a great deal of gray and wrinkles beset her face.

  Still, age wasn’t always a barrier to what bad men often did to women. Death would most likely be preferable to slavery for her.

  As they plodded through the streets, Anne didn't know what her future held. Her life might prove much more difficult in its final stretch than it had been up until now, serving in the Kremlin.

  Even so, she heaved a deep breath and felt gratitude, forcing the fear out of her chest. Gratitude for her friends surviving within the Kremlin. She felt certain they did. Gratitude that the Tatars didn't seem to have found Ekaterina. Gratitude for the survival of the supreme Tsar of Russia. It proved God still held Russia’s fate in His palms. Sending up prayers to heaven, Anne put her life entirely in His hands.

  Chapter 11

  Taras noticed the three men, only silhouettes against the distant horizon, when he first went out on his porch in the morning. Several hours passed before the men arrived at his little cabin in Anechka valley. As they drew closer, he worried less and less about any threat they posed. Well dressed, covered in thick pelts, they rode expensive, well-bred horses. Each led three pack ponies laden with goods, most of which didn't look like food or water, but rather more rich clothing and jewels. These were wealthy boyars.

  Taras didn't know what brought them this far north, but they posed little physical threat to him. Even if they meant to rob him, he didn't have anything in his possession worth nearly as much as one of their fine kaftans. He doubted men used to luxuries such as these knew anything about physical combat.

  The three boyars rode their horses calmly through the powdery snow, right up to his porch. The heavyset man in front took the lead. Wings of white in his dark hair suggested his age and a thick bearskin draped his shoulders. When he twisted in his saddle to glance back at his companions, Taras caught sight of the head of the bear, snout and teeth still intact, hanging down between the man’s shoulder blades. “Good evening, Good Sir,” the man raised a hand to Taras. “How does this day find you?”