Tsarina

by Patrick, J. Nelle

  “Her father, you say?” Viktor said, nodding. The Reds around Kache gave her approving nods. She glowed, proud of her contribution, and I saw her and Leo meet eyes for a beat, a gentle smile flitting between them.

  “I was always kind to you,” I whispered before I could stop myself.

  “You were,” she said. “But you never forgot that I was merely the help.”

  “Did you not want a job—”

  “Quiet,” Viktor snapped. “There’s your deal, Miss Kutepova. The information, or your father’s blood on your hands.”

  Emilia took my hand, gave me a mournful look. Everyone was staring, dozens and dozens of eyes on me. I looked first to Viktor, then to Leo. I narrowed my eyes. We were losing the upper hand.

  “Fine,” I said firmly. “By all means, draw my father to you. It will be a fascinating endeavor indeed, to watch a group of mismatched militia up against the Preobrazhensky Regiment, especially when his daughter is on the line.”

  The room exploded in jeering, tossing crude insults. Leo put a palm to his forehead. Viktor shook his head and held back a man who lunged for me. Kache was shouting, Emilia was huddling closer and closer. I did my best to look strong.

  Leo yelled something. I turned to him, my lips parted—surely I misheard him.

  “What, Uspensky?” Viktor said, his booming voice gradually quieting the room. A few of the lights on the stage flickered out, further darkening the space; it felt like we were in a cave, dangers ever multiplying.

  “Paris! The countess wants to go to Paris; it’s all she’s talked about. You’ll help us, Miss Kutepova, or we’ll lock . . .” He paused, looked from me to Emilia. “We’ll lock Miss Boldyreva up in the Fortress until you do. She’ll never get to Paris. She’ll never leave Russia.”

  Emilia fainted.

  It happened so quickly that I hardly had a chance to realize what was happening before her body slumped to the floor. The Reds laughed—actually laughed, like this was all a game. It felt like my body was falling away, leaving nothing but fury, a skeleton of myself engulfed in the emotion.

  “I don’t know where the egg is! I told you, I don’t know who took it!” I shouted as I slumped to the ground beside her, put a hand on her back. Emilia would never survive in the Peter and Paul Fortress—even if they let me go, if I could warn my father . . . she’d never make it that long. She was built for parties, not prisons.

  Emilia curled into a ball on the floor as she came to, while Kache looked at the two of us unfeelingly. Leo knelt down, spoke just loud enough that we could hear him over the roar of the audience.

  “Think,” he said. “Think. Who else knew about it? I promise you—no one in the household knew about that room. It had to be someone the tsar trusted.”

  “No one.” I choked on tears, but then it came flooding back. “The mystics. A few days before you tore Saint Petersburg apart, we had our leaves read by a mystic who knew all about it. Perhaps she has it, or knows about another mystic who does.”

  The room went quiet; whatever I’d said, I could tell it was serious, more serious than they expected. Leo looked at Viktor, eyes wide.

  “A mystic would know how to do the claiming ceremony for a new owner,” Viktor muttered. “She could claim it for anyone, anyone she wanted.”

  “Or keep it from being claimed for Lenin,” Leo said.

  Viktor nodded. “Indeed. Rasputin led the mystics—they’re mostly Whites, like him, I’d think. I can’t imagine they’ll betray him by handing the egg to us. But if this mystic knows Miss Kutepova . . . if she trusts her . . .” He looked to me. “Do you know where to find this woman?”

  “I know the bookshop she works in, in Lower Nevsky,” I said, looking over at Emilia, who had barely moved. “We had our leaves read there a week ago.”

  “Excellent. Go find the bookshop owner and convince this woman to give you the egg.”

  “Not a wise idea,” Leo said quickly, shaking his head at Viktor. “Lower Nevsky is mostly Factory Soviets. They’re with us, but plenty of White soldiers are still there, or at least, were when I cut through to visit my uncle this afternoon. I think we’d have better luck avoiding problems with a daytime crowd.”

  The room didn’t like this; they mumbled and whispered. Viktor folded his arms. Finally, he nodded.

  “Fine, tomorrow. First light. But hurry, Uspensky. We must present the egg to Lenin when he arrives in Saint Petersburg. We’ll be heroes,” he said, nodding warmly at his fellows. “Let the Cheka handle the Romanovs, Russia’s past. The Palace Soviets will hand Lenin Russia’s future.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  We were led back through the lobby and to the second floor. There, what were once bedrooms had been converted into dressing rooms and prop storage; there were rows and rows of dulled party dresses alongside wooden suns, moons, painted backdrops, glittery curtains, and furniture with wheels on the legs. We made our way down the hall slowly, Leo ahead of us, another Red behind. Emilia was gripping my arm so tightly I could feel her fingernails through my dress sleeve.

  Finally, Leo stepped aside, motioned into a room with a lit vanity on one wall and a drab loveseat on the other. “Countess Boldyreva,” he said, nodding toward it. It didn’t escape me, or, judging from the grunt, the Red behind me, that he used her title. From his tone, I suspected he felt guilty and meant it to comfort her, but Emilia was too deadened to notice. She stepped into the room, shivered, and I moved to walk in after her. Leo stood in front of me, so thick he completely blocked my view of Emilia.

  “You’re staying down the hall.”

  Emilia spun around. Her eyes were full of pleading, full of misery.

  “Why can’t we be together?” I asked, my voice quavering. “I agreed to help you so we could stay—”

  “Because I don’t want you plotting together,” Leo answered. “You might be nobles, but I know you aren’t stupid.”

  “We won’t—” Emilia began, but she didn’t get any farther—the other Red stepped forward, grabbed her door, and slammed it shut. He jammed a key into the lock despite my protests. Emilia screamed, pounded on the door uselessly, and then thudded to the ground. I called back to her, tried to duck around Leo and race back to her room.

  “Stop it. You’re lucky we’re not holding you both in the Fortress overnight, with the other Whites,” Leo growled at me, grabbing hold of my shoulders and spinning me around so I faced away from Emilia’s cries. His face was impatient now; he folded his arms, nodded toward the room behind me. “That’s yours. We can throw you in or you can walk in, but either way, you’re going in.”

  He held all the cards, and he knew it. My tongue felt swollen in my throat, the sound of Emilia weeping was strangling me, but I marched into the room, spun on my heel to face Leo. The room was full of broken rhinestone crowns and comically fake jewelry that glittered in the dim light.

  “You’re a monster,” I whispered as the Red behind him laughed at me.

  Leo ignored my words, pointing to the window. “Don’t try to jump,” he said seriously, motioning toward the window. “You’re on the second floor.”

  “I noticed,” I said.

  “Enough, Miss Kutepova,” Leo said, rolling his eyes at me. “We’re not interested in prisoners, not really. Do what we’ve asked, and you can go on to Paris or London or wherever you like.”

  “What are you interested in, exactly?” I asked, waving a hand to the window sarcastically. “Burning down a bank? Homes? Stealing wine from the palace cellars?”

  “No,” Leo said. “We’re interested in the people of Russia ruling Russia, instead of a few wealthy nobles. Nothing more.”

  “Ah, I see. So lighting Emilia’s home was just for fun then?”

  “A casualty of war,” Leo said drily. “Good night, Miss Kutepova.” He backed out of the room, moved to shut the door. Seeing the sliver of hallway disappearing made the anger in me
grow taut again. I grabbed an empty inkwell off the nightstand and lobbed it at Leo’s head. It found the doorframe instead, shattered into a thousand pieces. Leo growled, flung the door open; it crashed against the back wall, bounced back toward him.

  “You entitled brat,” he snapped, stomping toward me.

  “Brat? Fine,” I yelled as he stopped a few feet from me. “But I’m also the daughter of a war hero. A man who protected Russia from the Germans, who is fighting for this country. What are you, Leo? A thug who kidnaps girls? You’re pathetic.” I raised a hand to slap him again, but he grabbed my wrist before I could strike.

  “Don’t try that again. You won’t like the result,” Leo snarled, throwing my hand down. “And don’t stand here and pretend you’re better than me. The only reason you’re still in Russia is because you’re afraid you’ll lose your chance to be tsarina if you run away. I’ve seen you at dances for ages, Miss Kutepova. I know what you’re all about. You love parties and fancy foods and owning jewelry that would feed my family in Samara for a year. You love yourself, not this country. That’s all people like you are capable of loving.”

  My wrist was still in Leo’s hand, so I did the next best thing—I drove my knee up as hard as I could into his crotch. He yelled, fell back, clutching his groin. I meant to kick him again, to run, to do something, but I was shaking. I could feel tears brewing, and suddenly they were falling down my cheeks, my lungs were filled with stones, my knees weak. He’s wrong, why can’t he understand that he’s wrong? I loved Russia—I loved her parties, I loved the beauty and the splendor, yes, but I loved my country like any soldier or king. I love Alexei, for more than just his promise to make me tsarina.

  I did not understand how both Leo and I could be Russian. I did not understand how both Leo and I could be human.

  I took two rocky steps backward and sat down on the edge of the bed, buried my face in my palms as Leo hauled himself up via a dresser by the door.

  “I love Alexei Romanov more than you’ll ever love anything, Mr. Uspensky. I love my country more than you’ll ever love anything,” I whispered. Leo strung my name into a series of curses, glowered at me from where he stood doubled over. I found I wanted him to rush at me, to hit me—better yet, to render me unconscious. It would be a brief respite from this, from the thousands of emotions flooding me, the hurt, the fury, the sorrow. I closed my eyes.

  Leo exhaled; I jumped, anticipating him to lash out in anger, but was surprised to see him still standing by the door. A little hunched over, his face still a little twisted in pain.

  “Just help us get the egg, Miss Kutepova, and soon this will all be a bad memory.” He firmed his jaw, stood up straight, and slipped out of the room, shutting the door behind him. I was about to fall back on the bed to cry again when the door clicked open and Emilia stepped in, her face as swollen and tearstained as mine surely was. Leo met my eyes for a moment from the hallway, then pulled the door shut and locked us inside.

  “I was jealous, once,” Emilia said. Her nose was still red, her eyes bloodshot, but she smiled a little at me as we lay side by side on two settees we’d pushed together. The act badly scratched the floor and caused a rack of men’s costumes to slide off the rack, both of which offered some small satisfaction.

  “Jealous? Of me?” I answered.

  “No, not of you,” she said, elbowing me in the ribs. I sniffed, tried to swallow, but found my throat still too swollen from tears. “Of you and Alexei.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, surprised. I turned onto my side, wiped the stray hairs from my face. Shouting rose up from the streets; it sounded like a few drunks fighting. We listened for a moment before I continued. “You were jealous that I might be the tsarina?”

  “Perhaps a little,” Emilia said thoughtfully. “But mostly I was jealous of how easy it was for you and Alexei. It was like you didn’t even mean to be in love, you just were. I grew taller, my hair grew longer, my French grew better—well, a little better, anyhow—and you and Alexei grew more and more in love.”

  “I wonder if it’s like that for everyone,” I mused, reaching down to strum my fingers across the strings of a broken balalaika. “It should be.”

  “I admit,” Emilia added, “it was quite the example to live up to. I worried I’d forever compare all of my own romances to yours.”

  “I’m sure the great love of your life will be just as easy and just as beautiful. It’ll be perfect.”

  “If there is a love of my life. If we get out of here,” Emilia said, face falling.

  “We’ll get out of here,” I said. “You, me, Alexei, his parents, his sisters. We’ll all get out of here.”

  “But you and me,” Emilia said tensely. “To Paris, Natalya. Like you promised. Right? You and Alexei will be terribly happy there.”

  It was a strange thing, picturing a life with Alexei where he wasn’t wearing a crown. Where he wasn’t in a suite at the palace, wasn’t being bowed to. I closed my eyes, pictured him in common clothes instead of a military uniform, standing in a field of green. His hand in mine as we stood under the summer sun and stared across fields and fields of lavender to where the violet blended into the sky. Who would he be, without a country to rule? Without a populace to think of? Without politics to follow and people to lead?

  It was a strange thought, though not an unpleasant one.

  “Of course. We’ll go to Paris. As soon as we can,” I said, nodding vaguely.

  “Good. Leave Russia to the Reds and their stupid egg. They’ll run it into the ground soon enough anyhow,” Emilia said.

  I should have agreed with her. It should have been easy, even. A life in Paris with Alexei, a life that would be happy and beautiful and as lovely as anything. And yet . . .

  Not Russia. It was not Russia.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Leo came for us just after dawn, when the sky was still half navy with night. The city was quiet and cold, and we could hear the sounds of the Neva from our room. Emilia and I hadn’t slept an hour combined—if the fights in the streets hadn’t woken us, the wars in our heads had. I was pleased to see Leo looked equally exhausted, his shoulders sagging as he stood in the doorframe.

  “Are you ready?” Leo asked. Emilia tensed beside me on the mattress that smelled faintly of mildew.

  “Not quite,” I said. “Is a lady’s maid coming to dress us?”

  Leo’s eyes widened; when he realized I was being sarcastic, he narrowed his eyes, shook his head. “Let’s move.” He vanished down the hall, walking fast.

  We laced our boots back up; we hadn’t changed out of our clothes, which felt wrinkled and twisted wrong against my body. I pinned my hair up carefully then helped Emilia with hers, hating myself at how much better Kache was at this.

  “Maybe,” she said as I jammed the final hairpin in, “a soldier will ride by. One who’s still loyal. He’ll see us and rescue us.”

  “If they recognize us,” I said with dismay, lifting my arms and letting them flop back down. “I look worse than any maid we ever hired, that’s for certain.” Emilia’s face instantly fell. “But they’ll surely recognize us anyhow—a jewel with a little dirt on it is still a jewel,” I said, which made her smile again.

  Leo reappeared moments later, tapping his foot as he wrapped a gray scarf around his throat. I found Emilia’s eyes; we silently agreed to take our time smoothing our dresses, untangling our eyelashes, turning back and forth in front of the tiny mirror until Leo cleared his throat loudly.

  “I believe we’re ready now, Mr. Uspensky,” I said sweetly, turning toward him.

  “How excellent, Miss Kutepova,” he answered, bowing obnoxiously and motioning out the door. We walked to the end of the hallway, back down the stairs and to the front door, which hung wide open. Reds were asleep in the lobby, draped across furniture, curled into balls with blankets and snoring softly. At the front door, Leo stopped and spoke,
voice a whisper.

  “Let me make myself clear,” he said testily. “Viktor has me checking in with the other Reds every two hours. If the two of you even look like you might give me trouble, I send word back to him, and your life gets even less comfortable. Are we clear?”

  “You’re taking us alone?” I asked, trying to hide my genuine surprise. “No gang of boys to glare at us while you drive the carriage?”

  Leo countered with a stony look. “I’m quite confident I can handle the two of you. Besides, the rest of the Palace Soviets have their own responsibilities.”

  “Like burning houses?”

  “Like preparing for Lenin’s arrival,” Leo said.

  “They don’t all actually believe in the egg, do they?” I said accusingly. “Not the way you do, at least.”

  Leo didn’t answer, firmed his lips together. “It’s hard for some to believe, Miss Kutepova, that a pretty egg made from jewels means all our hopes and goals and revolutions are useless. Perhaps everyone here doesn’t believe with my conviction, but trust me when I say every Red in this house—every Red in this country—believes that something wrong, something unnatural, something unfair is keeping us at the bottom of the heap and you at the top. So while they handle Lenin, and the marches, and the remaining soldiers, I’ll handle the egg. We all do our part.”

  He said the last bit like I couldn’t possibly understand what he meant, then spun around and began to walk, stomping along like the ground insulted him. The entire thing made me even more annoyed with him, but I followed along with Emilia behind me.

  The sun crested over the horizon, painting the sky gold and orange, colors that would soon give way to the usual watercolor of gray clouds. It was freezing; my breath formed smoke as I exhaled, and my fingers turned red. I thought of the fur muffs I had at home, the leather gloves, warmer coats than this borrowed wool one. Leo took us the long way around Upper Nevsky, crossing from Vasilevsky Ostrov to another island, Petrogradsky Ostrov, where we could see the Fortress they’d threatened to lock Emilia up in. I looked back at her, saw her face had gone pale.