A Queen Among Crows: Book One of Empire's End

by M. S. Linsenmayer

  "But perhaps," he waited. No one sang. "Ahem, perhaps we can wait until after you finish your lunch."

  "Yes, yes, do that please. Outside." I sat down again "I wish to try this baklava."

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  A Cult above the Rest

  Interlude:

  "Blue Boy Blew over Botany Bay Beach"

  October 24th, 1908, London.

  The famous Leading Airman James 'Blue Boy' Rutger, age 24, of His Majesty's Royal Navy, today dazzled the beach going crowd with a display of his new experimental flight suit, which when coupled with his own innate power, maintained a steady flight for over 40 minutes before finally ascending to an altitude of some 1,600 feet, a new record for non-assisted human flight.

  Leading Airman Rutger was quoted as saying " it's the wind that's the problem. I could go higher, and was trying for it, but if I make myself too light I start to blow all over the place like a silly leaf. If I am too heavy, I just go up too slow. We need a better guidance system."

  -London Times, Associated Press release

  "This is not a church" I pointed at the large brick and sheet metal structure we were being led- or perhaps more properly, herded- to.

  "That, would be correct." Julie was not in a friendly mood for chatter.

  "It is not a temple, synagogue, Parthenon, cathedral, mausoleum, cemetery, observatory, virginal bath, or other place of worship and religion of any kind." So, I chattered.

  "Your powers of observation are brilliant, Eryma, you should pursue a career as a government agent." Julie ground out.

  "It is" The lead monk sing songed "Our place of mysteries."

  ".... of mysteries" the chanters chanted.

  I was beginning to wonder what happened if he asked someone to get him some toilet tissue. Then I thought better of it, and decided not to wonder. I stopped in the road, the chanter behind me bumped into me with a hint. I stayed there, stopped, for a few minutes on purpose and made a quite obvious showing of looking around, while the idiot kept bumping into me. Some things, simply needed to be done.

  I looked at the structure at the end of the street again, seeking mystery. Old brick, rusted sheet metal, chain link fence, boarded up windows, and badly dented sign painted - in badly spelled Russian- 'Hogart and sons, lumber yards'. I wood of made a joke about the missing mystery being the mystery, but I saw better.

  The spray of shadows on the broken street alerted me, glancing up showed several flights of birds beginning to flock above us; we would have reserves, at least. Eurasian Jackdaws, too small to fight, but good for scouting; some rooks...and a small flight of Carrion Crows, their larger wingspans holding steady against the wind; James own much broader form a crisp silhouette against the setting sun. Not as large or capable a force as I could pull in from the mountain woods of Prussia, but enough to handle monks, I hoped.

  Julie nodded at me, she had seen them. I turned my head to look at Anna, she was shivering, obviously frightened, but Ilona was pulled close on her shoulder. The ware house did not thrill me, it seemed a lovely place to be full of vermin, and I was starting to develop a natural phobia of rats. The idiot in the badly washed bathrobe behind me gave me one more shove. Right then, I had about enough of that to last me the next two lifetimes. I considered grabbing the idiot and putting him into a colonial scout knot. I then considered Anna. Time to be annoying instead.

  They wanted me to walk, I walked. Faster. Right though their ranks, past Julie, past the choir group leader, and directly through the fence gate, up the stairs, and, with arms outstretched like I was playing rugby, right into the large rusted doors. Which shuddered on their badly kept hinges, but held. Running steps behind me was the lead monk trying to catch up without tripping in his skirt; idiot. A glance down showed the problem, the doors had an old chain lock on them. A hand on either side and a good stiff grunt of young again muscles fixed that little problem; the chain split with a bang like a gunshot, and the doors flew open to either side.

  "Hello!" I yelled, as loudly and cheerfully as I could.

  "Would you care to buy some encyclopedias?" Lois added.

  In the stripped clean warehouse, some two or three hundred robed figures turned as one to face me. Well, that was not creepy or anything. It had to be insanely hot with all those people in this unventilated room in those horrible robes. No wonder the place stank of sweat and urine.

  I stood, arms outstretched, still smiling. The horde just stood staring back. Or I think they stared, with their hoods, they may have all been napping. No, they were all standing. Assuming that is, they were people at all, I was beginning to believe they were mannequins. From the packed left side, a quick noise came from one farting. I concluded they were alive, then.

  "Be at peace, my children, and let our guest through. I must see her, with my own eyes, the one I have seen so many times with my soul. This living paradox. This living impossibility." The voice was male, deep, commanding, in Russian, but with an accent I had not heard before.

  The crowd split like a lake before an ancient prophet, at the end of the new passage, there was a raised dais, and a large canopied bed, lit by a small electric lamp. So, this was the master of the mystery. Julie took the lead, walking without any hesitation between the rows and rows of silent monks. I followed as best I could, my walking stick clenched a bit harder than was decorous. Anna pushed her way up, to come beside me, and reached to take my other hand. Her palm was hot, hotter than human, and tickled lightly my skin as she built up charge.

  Julie stopped in front of the dais, then waved operatically at the yellowed cotton drapes. "Madame Eryma, the Queen of Crows, may I introduce to you, someone who was once a favorite of the Empress Elizabeth but is now discarded; Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin, priest, philosopher, faith healer and bishop. He believes he can see the future. And was foolish enough to tell the Empress the truth of what he thinks he saw."

  I looked past the drapes, beside me, Anna drew in a quick breath. The figure was bloated, corpulent, like a man dead at sea for many days; with a long untended beard, enlarged eyes, and a head many times larger than it should be. Those eyes now bored into me, sick and yellow, the face cracked a ghastly grin, with rotten teeth and drool coming from one side.

  "Yes, yes, I see you clearly, now." The voice did not match the body, it was almost musical, compelling, "Madame, you are dead."

  #

  "Was that a threat?" I was not happy about this, not happy at all. From the feel of Anna's hand in mine, she was not happy, either. "Or are you making some reference to the events in Prussia? I assure you, I did not die there."

  "No, no, of course not." Rasputin motioned me closer, and dropped his voice to a whisper. " You died over one hundred years ago. You are buried, yes, buried, behind the cracked green door in your house. Your body, is quite frozen I am afraid. The world never really thaws up there. It just gets more or less frozen, depending on the season."

  Julie looked at me and shrugged. "For what it is worth, he once told me I would be entombed below the pyramids of Gaza. But that was back at court, when he was sane... Or well, saner."

  "Was a pretty Cleopatra involved?" I smirked.

  "Oh no," Julie did her leopard thing "I prefer my queens more Nubian."

  "If you two are done ignoring me in my own church..." Rasputin gestured at the ceiling "I have yet to finish your prophecy."

  "Right, right, you were saying... I was dead, did not know it, and my frozen cadaver was propped up in a pantry someplace, probably between the vegetables and the canned sausages, and was probably ruining both? Tell me, someone had to put it there, why not give me a proper burial? And how can I not know it? Anna, Lois, both of you can see behind me, could you please check for canned sausages? Not you, please, Julie, I suspect we have confused these poor monks enough, any more and they may faint."

  Anna made a big show of looking behind me "Nothing here, Miss." She almost giggled.

  "Well I looked closely earlier, and did not see a sausage, but I did se
e a pair of lovely hams." Julie panned in a circle, looking around her "None of the monks exploded, do you think they did not understand that reference? Am I being too subtle?"

  "For the record." Rasputin harrumphed "I do not require celibacy in my teachings. So, my followers understood the sausage, hams, and should you need to comment, sliced bacon. But what you" and he pointed at me "do not understand, is that YOU ARE DEAD. This life is not real, it is a memory of a dream; you died, you are not here, and everything you do here will change nothing, as you are but a ghost on a stage, doomed to follow the script you wrote long before. Pages of a play, pages scattered by the winds, pages lost, and pages found; it does not matter if you cannot read them, you will follow them, and all of us shall be doomed by it."

  "Then why warn me? If nothing I do can change the future, why tell me at all?" I thought he made no sense at all.

  "I was not telling you. You are a broken line already written. I was telling the child; she has a choice. Anna, little one, come and listen; storms are coming. If you take your mother, and go home, you will see nothing but war and death. If you stay here, Princess Catherine's enemies will destroy you. If you follow this fool, you shall be damned with her. Only if you go to your great grandmother, to Elizabeth, will you live to adulthood. I owed her a debt from long ago, my warning you now is payment on that debt. And now, go, go, and take these fools with you. I am tired, and wish to sleep." Rasputin fell back, and began to pretend to snore. Badly. James did better watching baseball.

  I started to say something, Julie grabbed my arm, and pulling me and Anna with her, started to leave. "We should go," she said "Before we have to kill all these idiots."

  The walk to the door was swift but steady, I refused to be dragged or to look like I was running away. The lines of monks simply stood and stared at us like brown robed gargoyles the entire time. There was something deeply and fundamentally wrong about the way they slaved themselves to this madman, it offended my colonial upbringing.

  They tried to slam the doors shut behind us. Tried, but I had opened them too hard; they mainly squealed shut and then sort of shuddered into place. The sun outside was low against the sky but still visible and welcome, the air was winter crisp and much cleaner, and about a thousand locals were on the roofs watching us, with James clearly in the lead. The reserves, a pleasant sight indeed. I waved upwards; they all croaked, clacked, squawked, or chattered back.

  "M'lady" Anna turned to Julie "Was any of that, true? Am I going to die?"

  "I do not know. He has been wrong before, but he has been right as well, which is why they brought him to court to begin with." Julie squared her shoulders and began leading us down the street again.

  "Was he right or wrong when he got kicked out?" I walked after, Anna jogging behind.

  "Oh, he was right. But he said it in court, in front of all the wrong people, and embarrassed the Princess. She couldn't kill him for that, but she hurt him, oh she hurt him. He was almost normal before, now he is broken." Julie had reached her new auto mobile, and opened the door for me and Anna.

  I let Anna scoot in first. "Lovely" I said.

  "Quite. And educational...When Catherine gets that angry, it is a quiet and terrible anger. Not the storm, but the buildup before it; her eyes grow dark, and the symbols beneath her skin flare like rockets. I decided then and there I never wanted that anger pointed at me; half the world says I am mad, but I am sane enough for that." Julie bowed as she closed the auto mobile door behind us.

  I turned to look at the back seat. Three sets of eyes, one human, blinked back. "Ilona" I said "if Anna goes to Elizabeth, she and her mother will need an escort."

  "I can handle that." Ilona said "but I have yet to decide if I shall stay after. Picking a human is an important decision. Gillian seems happy with hers, but the troubles Laura gets into...good grief."

  "Laura creates her own troubles. What do you think, Anna?"

  "Can I talk to my mother first?" Anna asked, "She is back at the palace, in the servant's quarters."

  "Of course," Julie laughed "And we have clothes to get picked up, makeup to put on, and a dinner to get too first. Hold on everyone, I am going to see how fast this thing can go."

  Oh, dear.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  A Woman of Wealth and Taste

  Interlude:

  To: Captain Simon Illyanovich Kosigan, Imperial Security

  For Your Eyes Only

  Sir, per request and requirement we have searched the towns around Schloss Drachenberg, and while we have found no direct evidence that the 'queen of rats' is indeed living we did find a safe house, now abandoned, constructed in an unused side part of the main sewer system leading between the castle and the city. This room contained a large bath, several used boxes of medical supplies, and what we believe was several barrels of a primitive version of the restorative solution, attached to a delivery system and a small gas electric generator.

  We have sent samples of the solution on to the capital laboratories for analysis, but my experts here seem doubtful that considering the primitive nature of the equipment here the patient could have survived; it is entirely possible, they may in fact have melted. Just in case, I have had the drains plunged and samples of that material sent on as well.

  Yours to command,

  Captain Alessandro Flamma

  Princess Catherine's home, The Winter Palace, is justly famous the world over. The physical and political center of an entire complex of lesser palaces, museums, opera galleries, fortresses and government offices called Catherine's Hermitage it can lay claim to being among the most beautiful and wealthiest buildings on earth. Built on the northern side of the city's central square, and adjoining the Neva river on the other, it is over 800 feet long, 100 feet high, and made of not a single palace, but four lesser palaces entwined, rebuilt, and constructed over, with a single outer structure of brilliant green stone and vaulting white marble supports.

  I wanted to blow it up the minute I saw it, world's largest collection of fine art and antiques be damned. Sadly, I was certain that was not a popular opinion- just how many peasants died to build this damn thing, anyway- but it was the only one I had. Fortunately, Lois was happily enraptured by the art and beauty, and James, well, he took some of the locals to go crap on the roof.

  Julie had parked her vehicle on the street some distance away, as auto mobiles were not allowed past the security gate and onto Palace Square itself. I got out and started walking as fast as I could. With this new dress, towards marble stairs leading up to the two story main doors, with Anna somewhat skipping behind, when Julie stopped me with her arm.

  "Let me guess, I am to head to the servant's entrance?" I glared.

  "No, the opposite, we are to head to the Hermitage Theater." Julie pointed east.

  "Oh wonderful!" Anna exclaimed, sounding like some beau had just handed her a cherry pastry.

  I turned around to look at her " You love the theater that much?"

  "No servants are allowed inside Miss. Shall I wait or head back to my mother, M'lady" Anna's eyes were full of hopes.

  "Neither." Julie dashed them with quick ruthlessness. "My instructions were to bring you both. You will enjoy it, I think, Eryma. It is quite different from what anyone who is not familiar with the court expects; as Anna noted, no servants are allowed, only the Princess's personal chef and his assistants. The food is plentiful and delicious, albeit Russian, and served as a buffet. The upper levels of the Theater contain many balconies, and the true lords of the empire often eat there, overlooking the actors, dancers and musicians practicing their show. There is a special decree covering the place, from Princess Catherine, commemorated in bronze and embossed on the stair way wall. It reads, ‘Eat what you want, wear what you want, sit where you want, and don't ask me any stupid questions.’”

  "Oh dear." I said "I am starting to like her. So how do we do this?"

  "Both of you follow me. By long tradition, and the fact I greatly prefer a uniform to a dress
, I eat with the military officers in the left-wing balconies. So, we head in, fill our plates at the buffet, and carry them and a bottle or two of wine up the left stair- it has the gold and red carpet- and to whichever of the balconies has space. Do try and be somewhat polite to the officers; the generals command armies, the admirals navies, the colonels get the drink refills, and the captains command your sorts of people."

  "My sorts of people?" we were walking fairly fast, towards what I assumed was the Theater, now. Well the building was certainly brightly lit and elegant enough.

  "You know, spies, murderers, thieves, secret police men, torturers, the occasional dog catcher... Lovely people. Ah, here we are." Julie nodded to the soldier standing beside the wide crystal and bronze double doors. He bowed slightly then opened the door for us.

  The first thing to hit me wasn't the light or the music, it was the smell of the food. Roasted meats, spices, fresh breads, and chocolate. Even if I hadn't had lunch a few hours before I would be drooling. I was about to follow my nose on inside when Julie waved me over for one last word.

  "Lois, James, Ilona... I won't forbid you three, but for the rest, please stay outside. If someone mistakes you for simple animals, it will get messy." Julie said.

  "But...but..." The girls twittered.

  "Now now, she did just buy you a nice lunch, dears, so be polite, and keep an eye on the outside. This is, after all, the first place the revolts try and attack whenever they feel particularly revolting. Only what, three attacks in the last twenty years?" Lois grinned.

  "Well yes, it made for a lovely show. It's why we have that big open square, and guards with rifles on the roofs. That said, " Julie made an extravagant bow "My queen of crows, assorted birds and young lady to be, welcome, to the Imperial Theater."

  #

  Anna had clearly never seen that much food in her life. She stopped, and stared, with eyes like green china plates, causing traffic jams among the mingling nobles, officers, and ladies of the evening. Several of the officers decided to take offense, and growl, at this obvious servant being here; Ilona, Lois, James and I growled back. Some stories of who I was must have spread already, as the offended decided to become the offense -less fairly quickly.