“My God!” Priscilla said. “What else can I do’?”
“And then no doubt you will kill yourself.”
“How can you ask those questions? When you think what happened to Aunt Pat...”
“Patricia was murdered because she resisted them. She had been raped before, many years ago, and survived. As was I. I am still alive.”
“By not resisting? Have you no sense of honour?”
Sonia sat down. “Oh, yes, I had a sense of honour. Once. But is your honour of any value when you are dead? What does your honour stand for? Your position as the Princess Bolugayevska? That is over, Priscilla. This revolution has just begun. There are going to be no more princes and princesses when it ends.”
“Oh, you...you are hateful,” Priscilla shouted. “Go away. Leave me. If you do not wish to fight those men, give your gun to someone who will.”
Sonia got up and went to the door. “I will fight them,” she said. “But I will not kill my daughter. And neither will you, Your Highness, because if you try and I am alive, I will kill you first.”
Priscilla’s mouth was open. “You would rather have her raped, is that it?”
“Yes,” Sonia said. “If it comes to that. I would rather have her raped, and beaten and even tortured, so long as there is a chance that she may survive, and live.”
She closed the door behind herself, and Priscilla threw herself across the bed. She expected to weep, but she had never wept in her life. Not even when she had realised that Mom was dead. But to contemplate the possible future...it could not be going to happen. Alexei had described Bolugayen as the most secure place on earth, and she had believed him. Nor had she had the least reason to disbelieve him, until now. Oh, Alexei, she thought; if only you could be here. But with every second that passed, the troops from Poltava were coming closer. Surely.
She prowled the house, restlessly, spoke with each of the servants. They looked terrified, but for the moment, at least, steadfast. “We shall not fail Your Highness,” Gleb promised.
Priscilla felt tears spring to her eyes. “I know you will not, Gleb,” she said.
She went to the nursery, where Alexei was playing with his building blocks, apparently unaware of the crisis, while Mademoiselle Friquet and Giselle and Grishka kept going to the windows to look out; but the nursery was at the back of the house, and they merely looked down on the orchard and beyond, the stables. “Are we going to kill all of those men who assaulted Aunt Patricia?” Anna asked.
“Someone is,” Priscilla promised her, and looked over the girl’s head at Giselle’s stricken expression. Giselle had probably known Patricia better than anyone.
She went out to the upstairs porch. Morgan was on the balcony, slapping his hands together. The footman opened the door for Priscilla, and she joined the valet. “What on earth are they doing?”
“Listen, Your Highness.”
Priscilla listened, to the sound of music and laughter and voices, drifting up the slight slope from the village. “They sound...as if they were celebrating something. Do you think the war is over?”
“For them, certainly. But that is not what they are celebrating.”
Priscilla glanced at him. “You cannot mean they are welcoming those scoundrels?”
“They are not resisting them, Your Highness.”
“But...Boscowski...”
“Has either joined them or is...under restraint, Your Highness.”
“And Dr Geller? And Father Valentin? Rotislav...?”
“I do not trust Rotislav, Your Highness.”
“Then we must leave,” Priscilla said. “All of us. We must ride for Poltava. We’ll probably meet the troops on the way.”
“If they are coming, Your Highness.”
“What do you mean? Of course they are coming.” Morgan ignored her claim. “In any event, I imagine the house is being watched, even if we cannot see the watchers. If they were to catch us in the open we would not stand a chance. Nor could we possibly take the old Countess in such a flight. I think we must stay here, and defend the house. And pray that those troops are coming.”
Priscilla drew a deep, slow breath. “Do we have a chance, of defending the house, Morgan?”
Morgan sighed. “It is the best chance we have, Your Highness.”
Priscilla went back inside. We are going to die, she thought. I am going to die. And so is Alexei and Anna. None of them had really lived yet. And before they died —but that at least could surely be avoided, no matter what might be done to their bodies. Then why not make a run for it. After dark! Some of them would get through, surely. But not Grandmama, as Morgan had said. God, what a decision to have to make! “Your Highness.” Morgan had opened the door. “Someone is coming.”
Priscilla nearly tripped as she ran on to the balcony. Beneath her, on the drive, was Rotislav. Behind him, beyond the gates, was a mass of people. Her people. But she no longer believed that. “Good-afternoon, Your Highness,” Rotislav said.
“What do you want?” Priscilla demanded. “Where is Monsieur Boscowski? I sent for him.”
“Boscowski is no longer estate manager, Your Highness. He has been relieved of his duties, by the soviet.”
“The what?”
“The soviet, Your Highness. The village council. We have formed one, to control our affairs. I have been elected its president.”
“I see. But this is still my land, and those people are still my tenants, and...”
“No, no, Your Highness,” Rotislav said. “That is what I have come to tell you. The soviet has voted that there shall be no more Prince or Princess of Bolugayen. All this land is now theirs, to be divided according to the needs of each family. Do not fear. You will be allotted two acres for your own use, but you must work it yourself. If you do not, it will revert to the soviet.”
“The man must be mad,” Anna remarked. Priscilla had not heard her grandmother approach; Anna had a rubber ferule on the end of her stick. “Are you a good shot, Morgan?”
“With a rifle, Your Excellency.”
“Then take this fellow’s rifle...” Anna nodded at the footman, “and shoot that rascal down.”
Morgan looked at Priscilla. “Wait,” she said, and stood at the balustrade. “You know that is an absurdity, Rotislav,” she said. “I am very disappointed that my people, and you in particular, should have listened to such claptrap.”
“Claptrap, is it, Your Highness? Am I to understand that you do not wish the land? Very well,” he hurried on before Priscilla could speak. “You have one hour to pack your belongings and evacuate the house. You and all your family.”
“And what happens if we come out?”
“Why, you may go where you choose, Your Highness. You will have to walk, but...it is not so far to Poltava.”
“If we leave the house we are all dead,” Anna declared. “I think the Countess is right, Your Highness,” Morgan said.
“I still say, shoot him now,” Anna said.
Priscilla looked past her at Sonia, standing silently in the hall. But Sonia had already given her advice. She turned back to the balustrade. “You are being very foolish, Rotislav. Do you not realise I have sent to the Governor in Poltava, telling him that there are deserters on my property’? His men are already on their way here.”
Rotislav waved his arm. Instantly some men advanced through the gates. Two of them held poles. On one of them was stuck Oleg’s head. From the other were suspended his genitals. Priscilla gasped, and stepped backwards. Morgan had to catch her arm before she fell. “There will be no help from Poltava, Your Highness,” Rotislav said. “And if you resist us...” he waved his arm again, and some more men came forward. These carried a large wooden cross, on which was suspended Patricia’s naked body, by nails through each wrist, each ankle, her throat, her chest and her groin.
“Oh, my God!” Priscilla screamed, and fell to her knees.
“There is no blood. She was dead when they did that to her,” Anna said. “Shoot him down!” Her voice w
as like a whiplash. Morgan snatched the rifle from the footman’s hands, but Rotislav had seen the movement and hurled himself into the bushes behind the drive. Morgan fired twice, and immediately the men by the gate returned fire. The bullets smashed into the stonework and a window shattered. Morgan seized Priscilla’s arm again and dragged her back into the house; the door was slammed shut and the shutter closed. “Did you hit him?” Anna demanded.
“I don’t know, Your Excellency.”
“Well, get downstairs. You too,” she told the footman. Morgan led the footman down the stairs. The entire house was reverberating to the sound of the shooting, as those already in position returned fire. “Tell them only to shoot at what they can see!” Anna bawled. “Get up, girl! You are the Princess Bolugayevska.”
Sonia helped Priscilla up. “Did you see?” Priscilla whispered. “Oh, God, I’m going to be sick.”
“Then be sick,” Sonia said. “And then come back here, and fight.” Priscilla stumbled along the corridor.
“She will be all right,” Anna said. “She is the Princess Bolugayevska. But you...you have always been the Princess Bolugayevska.”
“Do you hate me?” Sonia asked.
“I have never hated you. Do you hate me?”
Sonia shrugged. “You are a hateful woman. But now...we have all to die like Bolugayevskas.”
Priscilla found she could not vomit, after all. But she did not suppose she would ever forget the sight of Patricia nailed to that cross...and she was not going to be allowed to. When she peered from her apartment window, she saw that the soldiers had planted the cross in the earth of the drive, so that every defender had to stare at Patricia every time they looked out. The thought that in another hour her naked body might be nailed to a cross...would she be dead when they did that to her?
She slammed the shutters, even as she was spotted and bullets thudded into the wood. From downstairs there came the sound of shots as the defenders replied, and now shots came from the rear as well; they were surrounded. She went to the nursery, where the shutters had been closed. Little Alexei was very upset, and Mademoiselle Friquet was holding him in her arms, rocking to and fro, while Giselle had Anna on her knees. Grishka waited by the window, peering through the half-closed shutters, the revolver in her hand. “Have we a chance, Your Highness?” she asked.
“There is always a chance,” Priscilla said. Now that she knew they were all going to die, she had regained her courage. She went back on to the gallery. Sonia remained by the porch window, waiting, while the house reverberated to sound and the smell of cordite drifted upwards.
“Maybe they’ll shoot themselves out of ammunition,” she said.
Priscilla went into Anna’s sitting room, where as everywhere, the shutters were closed. Anna sat in her rocking chair, moving to and fro, a bottle of champagne in an ice bucket on the table beside her, a glass in her hand. “Tell them only to shoot at what they can see,” she said again. “We must not waste bullets.”
“Aren’t you afraid?” Priscilla asked.
Anna snorted, and drank some champagne. “What have I got to be afraid of, child’? I am afraid for you.”
“Sonia says we should not kill the children. Or ourselves.”
Anna turned her head to look at her. “Only you can make that decision, but...if you do not, you may have to experience a great deal.”
Priscilla attempted a smile. “A fate worse than death.”
“There is no fate worse than death,” Anna told her. “But death can sometimes take too long to come. It would be a great boon if you could put a stop to that terrible racket.”
Priscilla had been so preoccupied with the shooting that she had hardly been aware of the additional noise. Now she realised that there was a continual high-pitched screaming coming from close at hand. She went to the guest apartment occupied by Sophie and Janine, and found her sister-in-law lying on her back on her bed, screaming again and again. I can do nothing with her,” Janine said.
“Well, then, gag her,” Priscilla said. “She is upsetting Grandma. Where is Dagmar?”
“I have no idea.”
Priscilla went further along the gallery to the other guest apartment, knocked, and went in, paused in amazement. Nathalie sat in front of her dressing table, wearing only an undressing robe, and carefully painting her face with make-up. She saw Priscilla in the mirror and smiled. “One must look one’s best when one is about to be torn to pieces, my dear,” she explained. “That’s what they did to your great-aunt, you know. The grandparents of those same people out there. They tore her to pieces. Isn’t that something to look forward to?”
Priscilla slammed the door behind her and leaned against the panels, panting. She was surrounded by madwomen. Yet Nathalie had been speaking the truth; she had forgotten the fate of Great-Aunt Dagmar. But Great-Aunt Dagmar had been hated by everyone. She was loved by everyone. Including Rotislav. My God, she thought: Rotislav. Dreaming of me! And now...She heard a shout, and the drumming of hooves. She ran back into her apartment to look out at the stables, and saw Dagmar galloping through the orchard, thick yellow hair streaming in the wind. “Shall I go after her, Your Highness?” called the footman on the back door.
“No,” Priscilla said. A rat, deserting the sinking ship, and her own mother. But maybe Dagmar could reach Poltava, where Oleg had failed.
“Priscilla!” Sonia called. Priscilla hurried along the gallery. The firing had died down, and Sonia had opened the shutters far enough to peep through. “I think they are going to attack.”
Priscilla peeped through as well. There were two bodies sprawled on the drive, a testimony to the good shooting of the defenders. Patricia’s body still hung from its cross. And there was definitely movement in the shrubbery. Priscilla went down the stairs. “Is anyone hit?”
“Not yet, Your Highness,” Morgan said.
“They seem to be advancing.” He nodded, his face set in grim lines. “Can you hold them?”
“We can try, Your Highness.”
Priscilla went back up the stairs to be with Sonia. “If we stop them now,” she said, “do you think they will go away?”
“No,” Sonia said. “Here they come.”
With shrieks of “Oorrah!” a mass of men rose from the hedges and ran at the house. Priscilla’s stomach lurched as she realised there had to be more than fifty of them, and that not only were there more shouts coming from the back of the house, but that a fair proportion of the attackers were women. Her people had entirely turned against her. Would they have turned against Alexei, had he been here?
Sonia had pulled the doors wide open, and was on the porch, firing her revolver into the people beneath her, heedless of the occasional shot being sent in her direction; she was shouting herself, with a kind of maniacal glee. Priscilla reckoned that for years her predecessor must have felt like firing a revolver into a mob. But she could do no less herself, and emptied her own weapon. Then the two women ran back into the hall where a box of bullets waited on one of the tables. Sonia reloaded quickly and expertly. Priscilla had never loaded a revolver before, and her hands were shaking; for every bullet she crammed into a chamber she dropped two on to the floor.
She heard Anna shouting something, but ignored her as she closed the chamber. “They are in,” Sonia said.
Priscilla ran to the head of the stairs, looked down into the hall, where the doors had been opened and the doorway was filled with shrieking men and women; she saw Morgan fall to his knees and then on to his face. One of the footmen lay on his back, in a pool of blood. As she watched the other threw down his rifle and raised his hands. Of Gleb there was no sign. But who had opened the doors?
Priscilla gasped for breath as she saw the surrendered footman engulfed by angry bodies, heard him scream as he was thrown to the floor and trampled on. She watched Madame Xenia run for the stairs, to be seized by her hair and dragged back into the grasp of the eager men. She heard screams from the kitchens as the maidservants were discovered. She looked at S
onia, who had retreated along the hall to the nursery. Then the mob saw her, and uttered another roar and charged at the steps. Priscilla recognised Viktor Nordenski at their head, turned and ran, following Sonia to the nursery, encountered Mademoiselle Friquet and Giselle, shaking with fear and confusion. “Where are the children?” Priscilla shouted.
“In there, Your Highness,” Giselle said. “She made us leave!”
Priscilla ran at the door, found it locked. She glared at it in frustration. It should be possible to shoot out the lock. But she did not know how to begin to do that. The mob reached the gallery. Giselle screamed. Priscilla looked back at the two women, and saw them being engulfed as the footmen had been. She gasped in terror, and ran further along the gallery to Anna’s apartment. Anna had turned her rocking chair to face the door, and she brought up her revolver as it swung in; she still held a glass of champagne in her left hand. “Grandma!” Priscilla gasped, tripping and falling to her knees.
“Use it!” Anna snapped, and Priscilla realised she was still holding her revolver. She turned, on her knees, as the doors were thrown wide and men surged inside. Anna brought up her gun and fired into them and again. Blood flew and then she too was engulfed, the rocking chair flying into splinters beneath the weight of bodies trying to reach her. Priscilla rose to her feet and backed against the wall. Use it, Grandma had said. On herself? But little Alexei still lived. With Sonia. And Sonia had said, survive. No matter what, survive.
She dropped the revolver on the floor, and was surrounded by people, enveloped in breaths which were laden mainly with vodka. Her arms were seized and she was pulled forward into their midst to face Nordenski while fingers dug into her hair and her clothes. She shut her eyes and heard the material ripping even as she thought she was going to choke from lack of breath as other fingers clawed into her hair, pulling her head backwards. She felt pain in her thighs and her belly, her back and her breasts, where hands were clutching. She was lifted from the floor and then thrown down again, and was again breathless. She opened her eyes again and gazed at Nordenski, kneeling between her legs, unbuckling his pants, and realised that she was naked save for her stockings and boots and the wisps of material still hanging from her shoulders. She threw back her head and screamed, and heard a voice shouting. Slowly the noise subsided, and Priscilla opened her eyes. Was she miraculously to be saved? But she knew she wasn’t going to be that fortunate. “This is my prize,” Rotislav said. “My reward, for leading you. Did I not say this?”
The Red Tide Page 30