The Masters

by Christopher Nicole

  Anna gulped. “Nathalie is sixteen years old,” Alexandra went on. “And is, I am informed, an extremely beautiful child. She will make you very happy, Peter Colinovich.”

  Peter at last found his voice. “Nathalie was the name of my first wife, Your Majesty.”

  “Well, then, you will have no difficulty remembering the name of your second, eh? This wedding has our blessing, Prince Peter. Monsieur Taimanov is expecting you to call, tomorrow. The wedding is arranged for next week.”

  *

  “Just like that,” Anna said, when they were back at the house.

  “Patricia is going to live,” Peter said. “Nothing else is important.”

  “A living death,” she shuddered.

  “I believe she will survive it. And there is much to hope for. The Tsar has not yet been crowned. This is scheduled for next year. Then there will almost certainly be an amnesty. Patricia may serve no more than a year.”

  A year, Anna thought. In the company of desperate men and women, criminals and Jews. Those who wound up in Siberia were merely more desperate than most. More filled with angry hate than most. And these were to be Patricia’s sole companions, apart from her guards, bent only on mistreatment of the unfortunates under their rule, for at least a year.

  “What is really upsetting you,” Peter said, “is the thought of my marrying again. But it is a course you yourself recommended.”

  “So I did,” Anna said equably. “We will have champagne in the small parlour, Dmitri,” she told the butler.

  “I do assure you that it will make very little difference to our present arrangements,” Peter said, following her.

  “Far less indeed than you if you had married Pobrebski and had been carried off to Port Arthur.”

  “I have no doubt of it.”

  He held her shoulders. “But you are still angry. I give you carte blanche to mould this wife of mine into whatever image you choose.”

  “I had intended to.” She gave him a quick kiss before Dmitri could come in. “Our joint intention must be to make her a mother, just as rapidly as possible.”

  *

  “Prince Peter! Countess Anna! You’ll take tea?”

  Madame Taimanova gushed. Anna reflected that the Georgian woman must have been a beauty in her youth, but had put on a great deal of weight; her cheeks bulged as did her corset, and her hips were massive. Yet her hair remained splendid, long and yellow, but thick-stranded, quite different to the silk of Anna’s own. She had no intention of making friends with such a woman. “We would prefer champagne,” she said.

  “Oh! Yes.” Anastasia Taimanova looked at her husband.

  “Champagne,” Monsieur Taimanov said. “Champagne!” he shouted at his butler.

  “And now, my daughter,” Anastasia said, archly.

  Peter stood up as the girl entered the room. There could be no doubt he liked what he saw. Nathalie Taimanova took after her mother, at least in looks. She was a tall young woman, and had, for a sixteen-year-old, a remarkably full figure. Her features were similarly bold, with a big nose and strong chin, but she was certainly handsome. While her yellow hair, worn loose, cascaded around her shoulders like lengths of rope. She curtsied. “Your Highness.” She curtsied again to Anna. “Your Excellency.”

  “Why, I am charmed, mademoiselle,” Peter said. Anastasia gave a sigh of relief.

  *

  “Well,” Anna remarked when they got home. “Charmed indeed. You realise the girl has no manners. She slurped her champagne.”

  “So did her mother,” Peter pointed out.

  “But you can hardly wait to get your hands on those breasts.”

  “As you say, dearest Aunt, she is to provide me with an heir. Several heirs, hopefully. Therefore I must wish to get my hands on her body, yes.”

  She glared at him, and he smiled, and took her in his arms. “I shall still love only you, my dearest, darling Anna.”

  She turned up her face for a kiss, and the door opened. “Ahem,” Sophie commented.

  “Did no one ever teach you to knock?” Anna said. “But come in. I wish to speak to you. The dressmakers arrive in an hour.”

  Sophie shrugged. “When are you leaving St Petersburg?”

  “We are leaving immediately after the wedding,” Anna said.

  “But I shall be staying here.”

  “Now, Sophie, we have already discussed this...”

  “Please, Peter,” Sophie said. “You don’t want me hanging around like the sceptre at the feast while you are honeymooning.”

  “It is not proper for a young girl to live on her own,” Peter objected.

  “I am not a young girl: I am twenty-seven years old. And I shall not be living on my own. I have been invited to live with Janine Grabowska as her companion.” Peter looked at Anna in consternation.

  “I see,” Anna remarked. “Does Her Majesty know of this arrangement?”

  “Janine is ceasing to be a lady of the bedchamber.”

  “And what of her husband?”

  “He is twenty years older than she, and has a mistress. He is not the slightest bit interested in what she does with her spare time — providing she does not take a lover.” Sophie’s cheeks were pink.

  “You mean a male lover,” Anna suggested.

  “Oh...” Sophie turned and ran from the room.

  “My God!” Peter said. “What are we to do?”

  “Let her get on with it. We are not going to find her a husband now, and I suppose even she is entitled to some happiness. Let her have it while she can.”

  *

  Anna and Peter waited in one of the receiving rooms of the Peter and Paul Fortress. The fort had been built to guard the approaches to the city, and was on an island fronting the Nevski Prospect, connected to it by a broad-spanned bridge. Its guard duties had long been superseded by forts built on islands further out into the Gulf of Finland, and it was now a suburb in itself, full of bustling people and busy shops, apparently oblivious of the grim walls rising in their midst, for Peter and Paul had changed its role to that of a political prison. Enter these walls, it was said, and one departed in only one of two ways: in a wooden box or to board the train to Siberia. That might not apply to the Prince Bolugayevski and his aunt. But it could certainly apply to his sister.

  The door opened, and Peter stood up. Anna remained seated, because she was not at all sure that her knees would support her. She had a great sense of relief, as Patricia entered, accompanied by two guards, a man and a woman. Patricia wore a shapeless grey gown, and wooden shoes. Her hair was bound up in a bandanna, but the wisps of it that escaped were still red-brown. Her face was pale but in no way distorted, and she moved with sufficient ease to indicate that there had been no permanent damage to her limbs or back. Only her eyes were different. Patricia’s eyes had always been a bright blue, lively and inquisitive, impatient, even. These eyes were dull, and somewhat bored. She was here because she had been commanded to be here, and she had got into the habit of obeying commands.

  “Trisha!” Peter hurried forward, and checked. “We would like to be alone.”

  “That is not possible, Your Highness,” said the male guard.

  Peter glared at him, then decided to ignore him. “Oh, my dearest Trisha!” He would have taken her in his arms, but she held him away, presented her cheek for a kiss. “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “I am perfectly well, thank you, Your Highness.”

  “Your Highness? I am your brother.”

  “We do not have brothers, in here, Your Highness. Or sisters.” She looked past him at Anna.

  “Have you been ill-treated?” Anna asked.

  Patricia’s eyes became more opaque yet. “Nothing has been done to me that I shall not survive, Your Excellency.”

  Peter released her, his shoulders sagging with despair. Anna came forward in his place, taking off her gloves to hold the girl’s hands. “Your mother survived,” she said.

  “My mother is dead, Your Excellency.”


  Anna bit her lip. “Listen,” she said. “I understand how you feel. Remember that I have experienced some of it myself. Perhaps more.”

  “Not more, Your Excellency,” Patricia said.

  “Ah!” Anna said. “But you will rise above even that, Patricia. Listen to me. Next year is the coronation. There will be an amnesty then. You will be freed. It will only be a year.”

  “God curse the Tsar,” Patricia said. “I do not wish his amnesty.” She turned her head to look at the woman guard. “Will you whip me for saying that?”

  “I will whip you till you bleed,” the guard assured her.

  “Listen to me,” Peter said. “I am Prince Bolugayevski. You cannot whip my sister as if she were a common felon.”

  “As your sister is in here, Your Highness, she is a common felon,” the guard pointed out.

  Patricia turned for the door. “Patricia,” Peter said.

  “Do not concern yourself, Your Highness,” Patricia said. “I have been whipped before.” She glanced at Anna. “Several times.”

  She left the room, the guard following. The door was closed by the other, male guard. Peter gazed at him, hands opening and then closing into fists. Anna held his arm. “She will come home,” she told him. “In a year. And we will nurse her mind back to sanity. Now you must put her from your mind, and concentrate upon your wedding.”

  *

  “Have you read this?” Colonel Michaelin threw the paper across his desk, and Reddich picked it up, somewhat tentatively. “Well?” Michaelin demanded.

  “The Tsar is very generous,” Reddich ventured.

  “Generous my ass! He is a weakling, who has allowed the Bolugayevskis to make a fool of him. And it is not just the girl. That thug Ulianov. That harpy he always has around. Those Jewish bastards. When I think of all the work we put into that, Reddich, for nothing.”

  “Ten years in Siberia should sort them out,” Reddich suggested.

  “Some of them. Those that die. Those that come back will be even more hardened terrorists.”

  “They will hardly include the Bolugayevska girl, your honour,” Reddich said. “She will never survive ten years in Siberia.”

  “How do we know she will have to spend ten years in Siberia?” Michaelin asked. “Her sentence has already been commuted from death. Now, next year the Tsar is to be crowned. There is almost certain to be an amnesty then; it is traditional. Unless we do something, that young woman could be back here within a year.”

  “Well, your honour, we will still have achieved our primary objective, that of bringing down the Bolugayevskis.”

  “Don’t you believe it,” Michaelin said. “On the surface, yes. But my informant at the palace tells me that Prince Peter’s disgrace is all a sham. And this after I presented evidence implicating him and his aunt in the plot! He is being banished to Port Arthur...but as the Tsar’s agent there, and when our negotiations with China reach a satisfactory conclusion, he will be returned here, promoted, and welcomed back into the fold.” He pointed with his pen. “I want his sister kept in Siberia for the maximum term. Find some more evidence against her, Reddich. Manufacture it, if you have to. And incidentally, if you can find anything against Prince Peter as well, that would be most welcome. Use the woman Popov, if you have to.”

  *

  The wedding had, as society required in the circumstances, been a very small affair, conducted in the drawing room of the Taimanovs’ house, and attended, apart from the priest and his assistants, only by the mother and father and brother of the bride, by the aunt and half-sister of the groom, and by the Countess Grabowska, on behalf of Their Majesties. “It is my last official duty,” Janine had confided to Anna, “before I retire to my husband’s estates in the Ukraine.”

  And entirely seduce my niece, Anna had thought.

  As soon as the ceremony was over, and the toasts had been drunk, the wedding party had sat down to lunch, during which, to Anna’s consternation, the new Princess Bolugayevska had spilled her tea, removed the cup, and drunk from the saucer instead. Peter had observed his aunt’s dismay, but now she was gone, and Sophie and Janine Grabowska were waving him off with his bride, who had changed her wedding gown for a walking-out dress, and had her hair pinned up as she was now a married woman. She had drunk no wine with the meal, preferring to stick to tea, but was clearly still inebriated with anticipation overlaid by apprehension. “Your aunt does not like me,” she remarked, as the carriage drove to the Bolugayevski Palace.

  “She will grow to like you,” Peter assured her.

  “But...how long is she staying in Russia? Is she not an American?”

  “She is also Russian, and a Bolugayevska to the tips of her toes. She has been acting as my hostess.”

  “Well, that is no longer necessary, surely.”

  “She is also the manageress of my estate.”

  Nathalie considered this. “Will I not…not manage the estate for you?”

  “In the course of time, perhaps. And when we go to Port Arthur, she will be accompanying us,” Peter said carefully.

  “Port Arthur? Where is that?”

  “At the eastern end of Asia.”

  Nathalie stared at him. “Why are we going there?”

  “I am being sent there, as Russian consul.”

  “Consul? But you are a prince! You did not say this before.”

  “No, I did not. However, you do understand that you have married a disgraced man? I am being exiled, firstly to my estate, and then to the Far East. It is really quite a compliment that I should be offered a posting at all.”

  “I think it is an insult.”

  “Well, perhaps fortunately, it does not matter what you think, my dear.” To his consternation she began to cry.

  “I want us to be so happy,” she sobbed, swabbing her eyes.

  “Why should we not be happy my dear Nathalie.”

  “The wife of a consul,” she moaned.

  “You are the wife of Prince Bolugayevski,” he told her.

  The carriage rolled down the driveway to the Bolugayevski Palace, and waiting flunkies opened the doors for them. Dmitri and Madame Popov waited at the foot of the steps. The marriage had been arranged, and carried out, so quickly that neither of them had yet glimpsed the bride, just as this was the first time Nathalie had seen her husband’s town house. She gazed at it in delighted amazement, hardly noticed the bowing servants as she strode into the porch. “Is this really our house?” she asked.

  “It is one of our houses,” Peter said.

  “Oh, my!” She did a pirouette, skirts flying.

  “Would you like to have a guided tour?” Peter asked. “Oh, yes.”

  “Madame Popov.” The housekeeper came forward and bowed.

  “Oh,” Nathalie said. “Aren’t you at least going to carry me over the threshold?”

  Peter swept her from her feet and carried her into the hall, set her down again. “Don’t be long,” he said.

  *

  His valet undressed him, and was then dismissed. He sat up in bed and smoked a cigarette, while he waited for his bride to come to him. He was aware of some peculiar and certainly unusual sensations. He had not lied to Anna when he had told her that she had dominated his life, sexually, ever since he could remember. And he had her. That was an impossible dream come true. But he now also had this uppity bitch, foisted on him by the Tsar and Tsaritsa, for some purpose of their own —the use of Taimanov’s millions, perhaps. Or his influence in Georgia. Their daughter was a many-sided sacrifice, to the Tsar’s needs, to her father’s ambitions...and, at the end of the day, to Prince Bolugayevski’s lusts.

  Because he did lust, after things he would never dare attempt with Anna, much as he wanted to. Anna was too much a creation of dreams, his dreams. To do anything which might cause that gorgeous, precious, delicate flower to close its petals, after so long, would drive him to despair. But his wife...he found himself smiling. Most men took a mistress to seek what they could not obtain from their wives, whether it
be intellectual or sexual stimulation. He had been given a wife, to give him what he dared not ask from his mistress!

  The door opened, and she stood there. She wore a white lace nightgown, and had clearly been prepared for bed by the excited maids. The lace concealed very little of her, yet she apparently regarded it as sufficiently modest, for she gave a little squeal as she saw him — his random thoughts about both Anna and herself had caused an erection. “Close the door,” he said.

  “That is no way to receive your bride,” she protested.

  “How else would you be received, Nathalie?” He got up and she retreated against the door. “If you open that door I shall beat you,” he promised her. She began to pant, her eyes bulging as she watched him approach. “Women do not wear nightdresses in my family,” he told her, and twined his fingers in her bodice, a single jerk ripped the material to her navel, another had it lying in shreds about her ankles. He watched her enormous breasts heaving as she gasped for breath, while her surprisingly flat belly fluttered in time. But he was even more pleased with her legs, which were long and well-shaped.

  Yet he still wanted to hurt her. He put his hand on the nape of her neck, fingers thrust deep into the thick yellow hair, and brought her forward to kiss her mouth. He had kissed her at the ceremony, but lightly. This was a savage, angry kiss, born out of the fact that he did not love her, would never love her, and yet had to desire her sufficiently to make her the mother of his children.

  He stooped to sweep his arm under his knees and lift her from the floor, carrying her across the room to throw her on to the bed. She seemed to scatter, arms and legs and hair flying in different directions. Before she could recover, he was kneeling between her legs. She seemed to gather her wits, and regain her breath, together. “You have no right to use me so,” she complained.

  “You are my wife,” he reminded her.

  *

  For the journey south, to Moscow, the political prisoners — there were some forty of them, evenly divided between men and women — were herded together in a single cattle car. In many ways this experience was a great relief. The presence of both men and women left the sexes inviolate, and in addition, in the car with them were half a dozen armed policemen; the authorities feared that an attempt might be made to rescue them. Patricia was the most relieved of them all by the overcrowding and the presence of the guards. If only a few months before she would have been repelled by the odours with which she was surrounded, sickened by the food that was offered them in huge pails into which they had to delve with their hands, or nauseated at having to perform her necessaries in public and great haste whenever the train stopped, she was more concerned at the prospect of ever finding herself alone with any of the other prisoners.