The Firebird

by Susanna Kearsley

  So she told the empress only, “I do fear I could not say.” Which, she thought, so phrased, was not entirely dishonest. And she added more truth: “I am sometimes called ‘Anna Niktovna’ by the people of our street.”

  The Empress Catherine looked at her, and echoed, “Anna Niktovna?” She gave it the pronunciation Anna had: NEEKtovna, from the word NEEKtoh, for “nobody.” Nobody’s Anna. No one’s child.

  “They mean no offense, Your Imperial Majesty,” Anna explained. “The other children whom I played with called me that, when I first came to live here, and they did it more because I am so headstrong and would take no one’s advice, than from the fact that I have no father living.”

  She was chattering. The empress could not possibly be interested in how the other children had regarded her, thought Anna, but because she could not call the foolish words back she could only drop her eyes again, her cheeks now warmly flushing.

  Empress Catherine told her kindly, “It is not always a bad thing to be headstrong, Anna Niktovna.” Her lovely skirts were moving, rustling lightly on the floor as she began to turn away. “But pray that you do never tell His Majesty the Tsar I have so counseled you; for men,” she said, “are always to be managed.”

  And with that, she made a graceful exit through the room where, somewhere out of Anna’s line of vision, a fine mirror lay in shattered bits, and was no longer beautiful.

  Chapter 28

  Rob looked well rested, at least, when he opened the door of his room to my knock the next morning. He had showered and shaved but was still shrugging into his shirt when he stepped to one side to invite me in. “I’m nearly ready,” he told me, then noticed my outfit and said, “You look smart. Am I underdressed?”

  Adjusting the weight of my necklace against the bright folds of the top that had cost rather more than I cared to admit, I said, “No. It’s only that I have my meeting at eleven, and I wasn’t so sure I’d have time to come back here and change clothes beforehand.”

  “That’s very prepared of you.” He said that straight-faced, but when he met my eyes, he seemed unable to keep back the smile. “No, really. I admire your ability to plan ahead.”

  “Says the man who’s had his Russian visa since last May.”

  He let that pass and asked, “So what’s the plan this morning?”

  “Well.” I had in fact been giving this a lot of thought. “I think it’s fairly obvious, from what we saw last night, that Anna hadn’t ever met the Empress Catherine till that moment, so I—” Suddenly distracted, I broke off to stare. “Is that a Jacuzzi?”

  He turned, too, to follow the line of my gaze to the tub sitting plainly in view in the room. “Aye, it is. I’ve a sauna as well.”

  “How do you rate?”

  He finished buttoning his shirt. “You have to smile at the management a certain way,” was his advice.

  “I guess so. Anyway,” I pulled my thoughts back to their former track, “I thought, since we know Anna’s only just met Empress Catherine, then it stands to reason she won’t have the Firebird yet, will she? So our best bet is to follow her around a bit from this point on—not day to day, of course, but in a general sense, because if Catherine did give her the Firebird, it’s going to have to happen in the next two and a half years.”

  “How d’ye figure that?”

  “Catherine,” I said, “died in May of 1727. And what we witnessed last night must have happened in November of 1724, because that argument between the tsar and Catherine was about Willem Mons, wasn’t it? I mean, they never mentioned him by name, but didn’t you get that impression?”

  His indulgent glance told me I was missing something.

  “What?” I asked.

  “I got no impression at all,” he said, as though I ought to have figured that out for myself. “They were speaking in Russian.”

  “Oh.” Feeling embarrassed that I hadn’t thought of that, I offered Rob an apology and filled him in on what everyone last night had said to each other, so far as my memory allowed. “And Mons,” I said, “according to the Internet, was thrown in prison on November 8 and executed eight days later, so if Peter and Catherine were arguing about Mons last night, then what we saw must have been happening sometime between those two dates.”

  He agreed that sounded logical, then added, “So it had no real effect then, when the empress asked for mercy. The tsar had Mons killed anyway.”

  I nodded. “But in fairness, I don’t see he had much choice. Peter the Great had worked so hard to bring Russia out of the Dark Ages, but there were so many people opposed to him that he just couldn’t afford to be seen to be soft on corruption, and Mons was corrupt.” And then, with all the reading I’d done last night on the Internet still fresh within my mind, I said, “He spared the sister, though. He only had her whipped, and sent off into exile. It’s a very Russian punishment,” I told him. “Exile.”

  “Aye, we Scots have some experience with that as well.” He turned as he tucked his shirt into his waistband, then walked the few steps to the bathroom and turned on the taps, intercepting my next comment with, “And afore you say anything, I’m only washing my hands. I’ve been minding your lecture. I’ve got bottled water for brushing my teeth.”

  “Yes, well, see you remember. The last person who ignored my advice wound up with a nasty parasitical infection.”

  “Giardiasis,” he said, showing off his knowledge. “Caused by Giardia lamblia, a single-celled intestinal parasite. I looked it up.”

  “You couldn’t take my word for it?”

  He turned the taps off, dried his hands, and sauntered out to join me, reaching for his jacket where it lay across the bed. “Of course I took your word. I only like to ken the details,” he explained. “I looked up ‘Factory,’ too, in the old sense that Anna uses it. I guessed she didn’t mean the same thing we do, by the term.”

  “No,” I said. “A Factory was a group of merchants authorized to set up trade abroad.”

  “I ken that, now. I even ken the place they had their warehouses. Which minds me… did you have a chance to sketch a copy of that old map from your granddad’s book? The one that showed the streets west of the Admiralty?”

  I took the folded paper from my pocket. “This map?”

  “Aye. That’s perfect, thanks.” He flipped it open, scanned it briefly, gave a nod, and said, “All right, then. Let’s go see what’s going on this morning at the Gordon house.”

  ***

  Mary and Nan had been helping her pack.

  They were near her own age, and she held them as dear as if they had been truly her sisters, yet always she felt an awareness that they stood a little apart, being Vice Admiral Gordon’s true daughters while she herself was but his ward. To her eyes they were prettier, though Mary was less pretty when she frowned, as she was frowning now.

  “I do not see,” Mary complained, “why they wish you to live in their house. Surely it would not be such an inconvenience for them if you simply went to them each morning and came home each night.”

  Anna said, “It is not for the days alone that General Lacy and his wife have need of me. I’m meant to be there also in the evenings, for the general’s wife may then require companionship or care.”

  “She is no longer ill.”

  Nan, neatly rolling Anna’s stockings, said, “She is with child.”

  Her sister straightened. “Is she really? Where did you hear that?”

  “Sir Harry told me.” Nan’s cheeks tinged becomingly with pink although she seemed to try to keep her tone uncaring as she spoke Sir Harry’s name. Sir Harry Stirling was a leading figure of the English Factory, and a friend of the vice admiral, and although he must be surely nearing forty his good looks and clever ways had caught the eye of Nan some time ago, and lately it appeared that she had caught his eye, as well. It would, thought Anna, come as no surprise to see a match made there in future, and that pleased her, not for Nan alone, but for the fact that having someone like Sir Harry Stirling as a son-in-l
aw could only raise Vice Admiral Gordon’s status.

  Mary asked, a little saucily, “How would Sir Harry know this?”

  Nan’s blush deepened. “Why, he dines with General Lacy on occasion.”

  Anna said, “The question ought not to be how he does know it, but whether he should have repeated it.”

  Nan looked at Anna, curious. “Did you know, Anna?”

  Anna gave a shrug, and Mary pounced on it.

  “You did know!” Mary said with glee. “You knew the general’s lady was with child, and yet you did not tell us.”

  Anna answered patiently, “The news was not my own to tell.”

  The sigh that Mary gave was thick with feeling. “I could never keep so great a secret.”

  From the doorway of the room, Vice Admiral Gordon’s voice remarked, “’Tis well at least one of my girls is discreet.” He was dressed to go out, in the finely cut mourning coat that he had worn for these past weeks since the tsar’s death, all through the bitter month of February and now into March. With a doubtful glance round he asked, “Is it now safe for a man to come into the room? Are the frilly things all packed away?”

  Mary laughed. “Anna owns nothing frilly,” she said to her father. “Nor frivolous. And if she did, she would hardly be taking it with her, for she could not wear it. Not now.”

  The vice admiral accepted the sense of this, nodding with almost convincing solemnity. “No, I suppose not.” He entered the room then, and Anna could see that he carried both hands clasped behind him, the way that he had when he’d brought her a gift when he’d come home from being at sea. “Still,” he said, “now that the funeral is past, I daresay there’ll be times when the mourning is lifted for various parties and pleasures, and then a young lass may have need of her frills.”

  With a flourish he drew from behind his back something that looked like a cushion, all oblong and soft. It was only when Anna had taken it into her own hands that she realized it was a bolt of new fabric—a lovely, brocaded silk woven with white leaves and softly blue flowers and small sprays of berry-red blossoms surrounded by curving gold fern fronds that ran like a delicate lace in the background, and all on a pale field of frosted sea-green that looked quietly gray in some places when caught by the light.

  Anna caught her breath. Something so beautiful could only come from France, and she knew well enough from helping to balance the household accounts how expensive such a fabric must have been. Eyes full, she looked at him. “I cannot take this.”

  Mary, reaching out to stroke the silk, said, “Nonsense, Anna. Surely it was meant for no one else, it is the very color of your eyes. Wherever did you find it, Father?”

  Gordon shrugged. “It was gathering dust at the Custom House. One of the merchants who came in last autumn had brought several like it from Paris, but had to depart before all of his goods were released, so they’ve now come to Mr. Wayte, and he suggested that, since I had daughters who liked pretty things, I might do well to choose a few pieces to please them.” He smiled down at Mary. “There’s silk for you also, and Nan, in your chamber. I chose blue for Nan, since Sir Harry does favor that color, I hear.”

  Nan was used to his teasing and only blushed lightly before she, like Mary, rose up on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek, thanking him warmly before dancing off with her sister to see what their own French silks looked like.

  Still smiling, the vice admiral looked down at Anna and said, “I did think you could make a fine gown of that.”

  Anna shook her head. “You are too generous. I have gowns already. And as Mary said, I can wear nothing else but mourning for a while yet.”

  “Then you will have ample time to sew your gown.” His tone, she knew from past experience, was not about to yield an inch of ground to any argument. “The mourning will not last forever, and the general is more sociable than I am. He does keep a lively dinner table, and who knows but you may meet a young man there more suited to your temperament,” he said, “than Mr. Taylor.”

  Anna sighed, and told him, “Mr. Taylor is a good man.”

  “That he is.” His eyes held fatherly affection. “But not good enough for you. I would have all my girls make matches that are worthy of their rank.”

  She found it endearing he worried so much about finding them husbands. He’d worried more when they’d first come here, so much so that on his wife’s death he had briefly thought of sending poor Jane back to Scotland to her mother’s own relations, for he’d feared she’d have no future in St. Petersburg. But Jane had begged him not to, had implored him, in a letter Anna knew Vice Admiral Gordon still kept tucked within his letter book, to let her stay close by him and not send her back to live with those who had been so unkind to her own mother, and from whom she could expect naught but neglect. And so he’d let her stay, and seen her cared for, as he cared for Nan and Mary, and for Anna, and for Charles and Charles’s mother, and his older daughters living still in Scotland—reckless Jean, with her unhappy marriage and her brood of bairns, and gentler Betty, both of whom he yet supported with the payments he sent over. Jane had once remarked that the vice admiral likely viewed them all much as he viewed the crews of his own ships, and having spent so many years a captain and commander could do nothing less than feel himself responsible for how they fared.

  Anna smiled at Gordon now and said, “You need not worry for my match. I have no rank that is my own.”

  “Then you may borrow mine and raise yourself above what you might otherwise have been. This is a country in which such things may be possible, if one presents oneself in the proper way. And wears the proper clothes.” With that, he reached to take the silk from her and placed it with precision on top of the plain items she had packed into the trunk. “What of your treasures? Will they go in here as well?”

  He gave a nod toward the parcel that lay lonely on the bed—the same small parcel she had carried from Calais, and from the convent before that. He’d never asked to look inside it. Anna wondered what conclusions he would draw were he to see the Holland nightgown her Aunt Kirsty had embroidered long ago to give her mother, and the lock of bright hair tied with the blue ribbon that had once been hers, and with them both the sheet of paper softened now by frequent reading, bearing words that once had seemed to her a promise, in the writing of a man whose name she’d taken for her own to ease the heartache of her giving up the life she had once dreamt of. If Captain Jamieson in truth had ever returned to the convent, he’d have found that she had gone, and if the nuns had sent him onward to Calais, he would have lost her there as well and gone no farther, for she’d left no trail behind to let him follow her to Russia. But at least he would be safe, she thought. She hoped that he was safe.

  She could feel Vice Admiral Gordon’s keen eyes watching her, and waiting for her answer.

  Anna shook her head, and picking up the parcel said, “I’ll carry these myself.”

  “Are you then done with this? Good.” Lowering the hinged lid of the trunk he latched it firmly. “I will have Dmitri take this over on his sledge, and after dinner I shall walk you to the general’s house myself.”

  Their dinner was a quiet meal, with little said, and afterward both Nan and Mary saw them to the door, with Mary hugging hard as though the general’s house were in another country altogether, and not only in another street.

  Anna told her, “It will be no different from when I was taking care of Jane, when she was in her lodgings. I will see you all the time.”

  It was Dmitri, though, who seemed most wary of her prospects in her new, if temporary, home. He’d been frowning since returning from the task of taking Anna’s trunk by sledge to General Lacy’s house, and now as she was telling him good-bye, he frowned more blackly and remarked, “You should be careful there. There was a bird perched on their window ledge, an ugly black bird, tapping at the glass. It is not good, to have a bird do such a thing outside your window. Always it means something bad will come. A death, perhaps. An illness. Something bad.” His eyes held Anna’s
so intently she could see the deep concern beneath their darkness as he told her, with more feeling, “You be careful in that house.”

  Chapter 29

  The general’s house was grander than their own. The dark floors gleamed, and smelled of polish, and although it was yet afternoon the candles in the sconces in the entry hall had all been lit to chase away the wintry shadows, sending bright reflections dancing in the shields of brass behind them, raising sparkles from the cut glass edges of the mirror on the wall.

  The walls themselves were half-tiled in the elegant Dutch fashion that the tsar had so admired, and Anna felt distinctly plain surrounded by such richness; plainer still when she and the vice admiral were escorted by the servant who’d admitted them into the general’s drawing room, where long, heavy curtains of green draped the elegant windows, and glimmers of silver and porcelain adorned every table, and portraits in gilded wood frames hung serenely by tapestried chairs.

  There was no icon hung in the corner, as there would have been in a Russian home, but on the wall nearest Anna a silver-tipped wooden cross bore a carved figure of Christ in pale ivory, His face neither joyful nor suffering. That watching face stirred her memory, and just for a moment she felt as she’d felt all those years ago, when she had stood in the nuns’ parlor on her arrival at Ypres, so uncertain. Afraid.

  Then, she’d had Captain Jamieson close by her side. For a moment, she could have imagined him still, and called to mind the talk they’d had about how God preferred to use His pawns above all other pieces when He played at chess with living men. “Is that because He sees into their hearts, and sees their braveness?” she had asked the captain then, in all her innocence, and he had said he hoped so. With the memory of his reassuring hand upon her shoulder, Anna tried to draw herself up bravely now, in hopes the eyes of Christ upon the crucifix might see within her heart and judge her worthy of this challenge.