Citadels of Fire

by L.K. Hill

  Chapter 9

  Moscow, spring 1543

  Inga paced in the kitchen doorway. She glanced up to see Bogdan glaring at her. She put her head down and paced some more. What kept Natalya? She rarely ran this late.

  Bogdan chopped vegetables so fast, she couldn't see his knife. Inga always wondered if he would cut himself. He never did. He finished an entire table full and put them into a pot before turning to her. She cringed, waiting for the lecture. Bogdan shifted his weight to one foot and put his fists on his hips.

  “Inga, where is she?”

  Inga threw her hands up. “I don’t know, Bogdan. She should have been here by now.”

  “I need those things from the market within the hour, or dinner for the dignitaries will be late. Get going.”

  “I can’t carry all the supplies back by myself, Bogdan. I have to wait for Natalya.” Inga paused, debating. Natalya never forgot the time; it was unlikely she simply lost track. Servants were beaten for such things. Likely she'd been cornered into another duty and could not get away.

  “I’ll go and look for her.” Inga slipped out of her clogs and hung her shawl on a peg next to the door.

  “Look for her? What if you pass her? Then she’ll be waiting for you.”

  Inga sighed in frustration. Bogdan was being a pest today. “I’ll only be gone five minutes. If I don’t run into her, I’ll come back and see if she’s here. Is that acceptable?” Bogdan grunted, but the scowl remained.

  Before Inga made it through the kitchen door, he stopped her again. “The dignitaries are filling the corridors. You can’t go out there looking like that.”

  Inga looked down. She'd been working outside all day. Spring had arrived, which meant work on the grounds. Dirt, soot, straw, and gravel covered the front of her smock.

  “You’ll have to go around, through the courtyard,” Bogdan intoned.

  Inga hedged at the idea. She would be more likely to miss Natalya, who would come through the palace to get to the kitchen. Besides, Ivan’s current behavior made everyone want to avoid the courtyard. All the same, Inga thought Bogdan might explode if she argued with him further, so she put her shawl and clogs back on and headed out the door.

  Outside a brown stain glared up from the stone walkway. A week ago, one of Ivan’s “projects” had been found there. The servants buried it, but the bloodstain remained. Shivering, she hurried toward the courtyard.

  Ivan spent his childhood hiding in closets and fighting for his right to exist. After his mother died and he lost his nurse, things became immeasurably worse. He’d taken to torturing baby animals. Plenty of stray dogs and cats roamed the palace grounds, and he liked to slice open their bellies while they still lived, to see how their insides worked. He claimed mere curiosity. Inga thought he took more interest in watching them die than in how their bodies functioned. It was blasphemy, but Inga secretly hoped Ivan would never take the throne.

  Rumor had it that, a month earlier, he'd committed his first rape in a village outside the Kremlin Wall. He simply threw a woman to the ground and did it in front of everyone. Such occurrences were common among boyar men, but Ivan only had thirteen winters. Some servants whispered that the men of his retinue congratulated him on having such control of his manhood at such a young age.

  More recently, Ivan had been rounding up boys his age to pillage the nearby villages for fun. They burned, plundered, and terrorized as they went. Ivan showed no interest in politics yet, but if he ever did . . .

  The stone-inlaid courtyard stood empty today, unlike yesterday. Inga had been excited to see all the dignitaries arriving with their horses, trunks, servants, and other belongings. That had been before she realized the amount of work that would accompany the new arrivals.

  Inga hurried across the courtyard, her eyes on the stones in front of her. She did not see the tall man coming toward her until she plowed into him. One glance, and she berated herself for not paying attention.

  Sergei. Not only a boyar, but one to be avoided at all costs. Whenever Inga saw him in the hall, she took a different route, risking Yehvah’s wrath rather than pass by him.

  Inga jumped back with a mumbled, “Forgive me, my lord,” and then scurried to the side to let him by.

  He didn’t move, but stood there staring at her. Fear settled in her stomach. Sergei had been an unpleasant boy at best, and was a horrid man. There were stories about the way he treated his women. While the stories only applied to the boyar women he took as mistresses, they were intimidating nonetheless.

  Sometimes boyar men took women of lower status to their beds, and most women would be glad of the social elevation. Rich men took care of their lovers, but no woman in the palace, even the servants, wanted anything to do with Sergei. Being his mistress would mean physical pain. Now Inga was alone in the courtyard with him.

  Sergei moved toward her. Inga braced herself for the blow. Boyar men had struck her before, including Sergei, but Sergei’s fists left worse marks than the others’. She felt surprise when he took her chin in his thumb and forefinger and lifted her face to his own.

  “You are forgiven.” He smiled, showing yellow teeth, and his breath smelled so acrid, she struggled to keep from shuddering. Still holding her chin, he let his gaze wander down the length of her body. When his eyes met hers again, his fingers pinched her chin hard enough to cause pain.

  He smiled at her—it made her want to sick up on the spot—and pushed her backward roughly. She fell heavily against the outer stone wall of the palace, skinning the palms of her hands. He laughed, leering at her over his shoulder as he strutted away.

  When he'd disappeared, Inga glanced around to be certain she was alone. She let her body shudder to release the pent-up fear. Then she rose, pressing her hands to her stomach. Telling herself she was all right, she turned to her task. She needed to find Natalya. Taking a deep breath, she moved forward.

  It struck her as odd for Sergei to be in the courtyard at this time of day. She would have thought he’d be extolling his own virtues among the visiting dignitaries. And why would he use the courtyard, rather than going through the palace? They were questions for another time, and Inga pushed them to the back of her mind.

  As she reached the far side of the courtyard, a sickening thunk stopped her from going farther. It came from around the corner at the back of the palace. Knowing she would be in trouble if she didn’t get back to the kitchens soon, Inga hurried to the corner and peeked around.

  Two hundred paces away, a group of armed guards stood around a back entrance used by people who routinely lived and worked in the palace, and were not being formally received.

  Another loud thunk made Inga jump. One of the guards bent his knees, as though something had hit him from above. It took him a moment to straighten up again. He rolled his shoulders a few times, as though trying to pretend nothing happened. It took another of the strange, sickening noises before Inga understood.

  The guards held wooden spears at their sides. The spears stood longer than each man was tall, held with the butt on the ground, the metal tip pointing straight up. Small, solid objects were hitting the spears, being impaled on them. Inga understood when another man grimaced, and righted his spear.

  Then she heard it. Faint, but haunting: the sound of faraway maniacal laughter. Inga raised her eyes. It came from the top of the bastion.

  She shivered and turned away, wishing her curiosity hadn’t gotten the better of her. She'd witnessed another disturbing game Ivan had become fond of lately. He took small animals up to the roof and hurled them to the flagstones below. Their bodies shattered on the stones of the courtyard or were impaled on the tips of the guard’s spears.

  And he laughed.

  Inga shivered as the faint laughter reached her ears again; an echo of madness. Breaking into a run, she made it to the safety of the palace. She'd probably been gone longer than five minutes already, but didn’t care. She didn’t think she could bring herself to enter the courtyard again.

 
She rushed through the corridors, looking down each hallway for Natalya. Natalya worked in this wing of the palace Natalya all morning. Inga decided to search thoroughly to make sure Natalya wasn’t here. Then she would head back to the kitchen. Chances were Natalya already waited there for her, but she wanted to be sure.

  When she’d searched all the obvious places and decided to return to the kitchens, Inga came upon Anne.

  “Anne, have you seen Natalya? She was supposed to meet me in the kitchens fifteen minutes ago.”

  Anne frowned. “I know. She left me thirty minutes ago, saying she had to go meet you.”

  This stopped Inga mid-stride. She’d felt nervous when Natalya didn’t show up, but she’d pushed it away. If Natalya left thirty minutes ago, she should have arrived in the kitchens long before Inga left to look for her.

  Inga thanked Anne and doubled back, deciding to do one more complete sweep of the wing, including the secluded, seldom-used passages she'd skipped the first time. Her trip to the market forgotten, she ran again. If Natalya wasn't there, Inga would have to go find Yehvah so they could search.

  Inga reached the most secluded part of the palace last. She felt absurd for imagining Natalya might be here. The sconces on the walls were not lit because no one had come down here in days. Inga wanted to be able to say she looked everywhere, so she kept going.

  She reached a certain corridor and glanced down it. The bleak light of the overcast sky coming in through small windows situated up high in the palace walls provided the only illumination. Shadows permeated the low corners of the hallway, and Inga could see nothing. Movement caught her eye. It might have been a skulking animal, but the movement seemed too elongated.

  Inga crept closer. A figure materialized in the shadows. A person lay on the floor. The movement she'd seen was the arm reaching out. Why would someone lay on the floor in this vacant part of the palace? As she got closer, she could hear shallow, raspy breathing. In the dim light, Inga did not see a narrow table against the wall on her right. Her hip bumped it as she moved forward. It made an abrupt, jarring noise. In the utter silence, it echoed. The figure’s head came up and Inga gasped.

  “Natalya!”

  She ran toward her friend, sliding onto her knees as she reached her. Bruises covered Natalya's skin. Blood streaked her face and dark, finger-shaped marks covered her neck. Her dress had been torn almost completely off, and her legs were exposed. Bruises marred them as well. Blood streaked her inner thighs. Inga understood immediately what had happened.

  “Oh, Natalya,” Inga put one hand over her own mouth. She placed her other hand on her friend’s arm.

  “Inga. He . . . he . . .” Natalya collapsed in tears. Her head went down to the floor, and she curled up into a ball. Inga wrapped her arms around her friend, crying with her. Natalya shuddered. She needed a doctor.

  “Natalya,” she said sitting up, “I’m going to go get help.”

  “No, Inga. Please don’t leave me here.”

  Inga sighed, looking around. “Can you walk?”

  “I don’t know.” Natalya shook her head and kept talking. The words came out so slurred that Inga could not understand.

  “Natalya!” Inga said sharply. Natalya snapped back to attention, and Inga moderated her voice. “No one knows where we are. People are looking, but they’ll never find us here. If you can walk, I can get you out of here. If not, I need to go get help. Do you want to try?”

  Natalya nodded through her tears. Inga wrapped her shawl around her friend’s shoulders and put her clogs on Natalya’s feet, hoping they would steady her. It took three tries to get Natalya to her feet, and she cried out in pain each time. Inga feared one of Natalya’s ankles might be broken.

  Once on their feet, they moved at a snail’s pace. Even so, Natalya kept falling. She cried out more loudly each time she collapsed.

  Inga set Natalya down against the wall. She left the shawl, taking her clogs and promising to return promptly. Natalya nodded. She seemed to understand, but that didn’t make it easier for Inga to leave her.

  “I’ll bring Yehvah. And Bogdan.”

  “No, Inga. No men. Please.” Inga nodded, then turned to leave. She could hear Natalya weeping as she sped down the hall and around the corner.

  She flew through the palace, knocking servant and boyar alike out of her way. For the first time in her life, she gave no thought to propriety or social standing. Her sister had been attacked.