Suddenly, he seemed to become aware that the room was cold. He rubbed his hands together roughly and smiled as though grateful for the distraction. “Forgive me, Alexei. I only just realized how dreadfully cold it is in here this morning.” He pulled the bell cord near the fireplace. “In spring and summer I work without a fire in the morning. I am inclined to doze off if things become too comfortable, you see. It is but one of the disadvantages of age.” He smiled warmly at Alexei as if determined to put the young man at his ease.
As several servants entered the room and busied themselves making it more comfortable, Annandale continued talking. “Look upon your misfortune in this way. You have a golden opportunity to prove yourself before the world. Times have never been more advantageous for a determined man. I know you, Alexei Stephanovich. You are likeable and quick as a fox. I wish my son had half your talents! For one with your instinctive skills, the world is a city of gold awaiting conquest. But do you have what it takes to dare, my boy? To challenge yourself beyond the expectations of other men? That is what success requires, Alexei Stephanovich. No doubt about it, to build from nothing, you must be sharper and braver and tougher and quicker than your competition. Do you have what it takes for that, Your Highness?”
“And more, sir,” replied Alexei stiffly. It seemed to him that he was being challenged in some way, and he didn’t like it. If the old man wanted him to stand up for himself, he damn well would! “May I remind you, sir, that I am a Romanov prince? What my father lacked, I possess in ample measure. You will not find me shirking from a fight or bested in a game of wits, however high the stakes.”
Apparently, something about the young Alexei’s arrogant stance pleased the Duke of Annandale for he was quick to apologize. “My boy, forgive me. Why do we stand here like two warriors? Why do I feel I must deliver this obligatory lecture as my father did to me? It is absurd when I have the greatest faith in you and intend to give you all the help I can.” The Duke had urged Alexei to take a seat then in one of the deeply cushioned chairs by the yellow marble fireplace with its flashing brass appointments. As they talked a footman served tea discreetly. Alexei’s heart still hammered, but now it was with excited anticipation and not fear.
It was that morning that Alexei learned of the Duke’s many and varied financial enterprises and of his generosity as well. Among his diversified business interests was a long established but highly conservative trading house which was losing money.
“Learn the business through and through,” the Duke commanded. “Bring me some profit, and I will deed the company to you when I die.”
That winter, while making Alexei a guest in his palatial London home with servants and transportation at his disposal, Annandale had put Alexei to work in the offices of the Southern Cross Trading Company. Then, when he was eighteen and knew the trading business as well as any old hand and had already instigated profitable changes in management and procedure, Alexei went to sea, visiting ports and offices in Africa, Asia and Australia. It had been difficult to leave his good friends for the Duke had been like a father to him; and careless, risk-taking Hunt had been his brother. But the experience Alexei gained under sail with Southern Cross traders proved invaluable. At his suggestion, significant changes were made in the company’s trade routes. Southern Cross began to challenge its competition in the fast expanding markets of the southern hemisphere: Brazil, South Africa, and Australia.
It had been after his first trip to Sydney, Australia, that Alexei returned to find the House of Annandale in deepest mourning. Hunt, the Duke’s heir and Alexei’s best friend, had been killed when his new horse, an evil-minded roan, misstepped a water jump. Hunt was thrown back against some rocks, and the resulting head injury had proved fatal.
“You are now my son,” Annandale told Alexei when the aging man’s grief at last permitted their reunion. “You are now my son.”
But how sincerely he meant this did not become clear until eighteen months later when the Duke himself died quietly over his papers in his study at Deer Park. Just that morning, he had summoned his solicitors and bequeathed to Alexei Stephanovich Romanov the full and royally sanctioned ownership of the Southern Cross Trading Company, as well as a fortune in other worldwide investments.
Alexei was now a rich man, but grief such as he had never known drove him back to Russia. He spent nearly two years there, neglecting his English affairs, wandering through the country by horse and foot and carriage, talking to the common country folk, and letting Russia’s bountiful wilderness ease his mourning. After the manicured daintiness of little England, the wide Russian emptiness was exactly what his grieving heart craved. But everywhere he traveled, he saw things that angered him and made him ashamed to call himself Russian. The serfs suffered more each year while the nobility squandered their money and every petty bureaucrat wanted to live like a king. From time to time, Alexei voiced his outrage and once—before his identity was known—he was jailed in a village on the edge of the Urals. Over the years, he became close to the revolutionary, Pavel Pestel, and several other men his own age who wanted a constitution for Russia similar to that of the new United States.
Eventually, word had reached Alexei that his British affairs were in turmoil; and if he wanted to save the fortune entrusted to him by the Duke of Annandale, he must return to London immediately. He left Russia with reluctance and promised his friends he would return. But back in England he lost himself in matters of finance and trade. He was successful beyond his wildest imaginings, but somehow these successes were hollow to him. He was welcomed in Court; and, in all the finest town and country houses, at musicales and gala dances, rich mamas tried to interest him in their bland bejeweled daughters. These entertainments left Alexei ever emptier of feeling. He tried to fill the void with strong drink and exotic women, but nothing helped for long. Finally, unable to bear England any longer, he sailed for Australia on one of his traders, the Southern Star. It was on the return voyage to London that he met Black Jake.
Chapter Twelve
Two days out of Sydney, the Southern Star had encountered high seas and icy winds from the south that threw the ship badly off course; and, despite the competent efforts of Captain and crew, the vessel suffered heavy damage to its sails. It would be necessary, Captain Robinson had told Alexei, to put in at the nearest port for repairs if they were to make the long voyage to England. Reluctantly, Alexei agreed, though he knew the only port where they would find the supplies and laborers they needed was the infamous Hobart Town, capital of Van Diemens Land, England’s harshest penal colony. Though Sydney was also a penal settlement, Alexei always rather enjoyed his visits there for the country itself—with its' vast spaces and exotic flora and fauna—excited him with its potential for development. One day, he thought, a thriving nation will exist here at the bottom of the world.
Van Diemens Land, however, enjoyed such a foul reputation for injustice and decadence that he had always avoided it despite its nearness to Australia. Now a visit was, unfortunately, unavoidable.
The sea-battered Southern Star sailed up the Derwent River on a fine morning; and to Alexei who stood on deck, the sunlit village he saw with its rows of neat stone buildings and quay crowded with whaling vessels and traders and cargo ships of many nations appeared surprisingly hospitable. Only when he had disembarked some hours later and had an opportunity to stroll about the town did he grow to appreciate the horror of the place. Wherever he went he encountered convicts in their drab uniform dress; some were manacled together and labored under the threatening whips of overseers who were themselves convicts who had been fortunate or devious enough to win favor with the authorities. The convict presence was inescapable. He climbed a small rise just beyond the town, but even there the sound of clanging irons was carried on the wind.
Though still a wilderness, Van Diemens Land was less to his liking than Australia. It lacked that continent’s solemn spaciousness that reminded him—despite the many differences—of his own beloved Russia. There was abo
ut Van Diemen’s Land a quality that recalled the claustrophobic daintiness of England without that country’s charm. He thought of what his captain had told him. It would be a month to six weeks before the Southern Star would be seaworthy. Alexei sighed and wondered how he would pass the time.
When Governor Sorell, the King’s appointed director of the penal colony, invited him to be his guest at Government House, Alexei had accepted gratefully. Despite his dislike for the little country, Alexei was a canny businessman and after a few days recognized the possibility for a lucrative trade arrangement in the future. The presence of a wealthy Russian prince with close connections to the English Crown sent quite a flurry through the colony, and his evenings were spent pleasantly enough at dinner parties and dances where the few ladies of quality the colony could boast did their best to convince him that Van Diemens Land was not—as it appeared—beyond the limits of civilization. But nothing he saw or heard altered Alexei’s first impression of the place.
One night after dinner when the ladies had retired to an upstairs sitting room, Governor Sorell, who had drunk enough wine during the meal to feel expansive, tried to explain the purpose of the penal colony. Across the table from Alexei sat Reverend Billy Stone, the colony’s only Church of England minister, a disgruntled bitter-speaking young man who, Alexei sensed, would not have joined the church had he known his call would be to minister to convicts at the ends of the earth. Beside Stone was a corpulent Englishman named Collins, the owner in absentia of several thousand acres of sheep grazing land in the interior of the island. Collins seemed eager to impress Alexei and boasted how he could make a fortune in Van Diemens Land but rarely leave the comfort and luxury of his London home.
“Surely such absentee landlords do Van Diemens Land no service, Governor?” commented Alexei, disliking the braggard Collins for his arrogance and too-apparent greed. “Isn’t it in the best interests of England to settle this island with homesteaders who will remain here rather than encourage such…speculation?”
“Indeed it might be, Your Highness,” agreed Sorell stroking his moustache. “But you must understand, England is a small country with, unfortunately, a growing criminal population. In a country as large as Russia you can send your malcontents off to some safely distant corner. Since the Revolution in the Americas, however, England must resort to transporting the riff-raff to Australia and Van Diemens Land.”
“And you must agree, Prince Alexei,” put in Reverend Stone, “that this place is hardly habitable for gentlefolk. Beyond the limits of Hobart Town the wilderness is infested with villainous black fellows without a shred of civilization.” Reverend Stone shuddered visibly and glanced uneasily over his shoulder as if fearing attack at any moment.
“Jabbering bogey-men,” added Collins. “They live in tribes, wandering naked from this place to that. They have no written language or knowledge or numbers. They are animals and until every last one of them is wiped out, this is no fit place for me or mine. Why, man, I have daughters! Three innocent girls. Do you think I would allow them to risk their precious womanhood here where there is hardly any law beyond the city limits?”
Alexei had heard a great deal about these natives of Van Diemens Land; but apart from one or two he had seen in the streets—pitiful misfit people entirely out of place in the white man’s settlement—he had not seen any. “How many of these people are there?” he asked Sorell.
“God knows,” the Governor replied. “Two hundred thousand. Perhaps more.”
“And they are fierce?” The blacks Alexei had seen had huge gentle eyes and grey-black faces characterized by gentleness rather than ferocity.
“One dare not homestead,” cried Collins. “The creatures burn the dwellings and steal the children. I shudder to think what a gentlewoman might suffer at their hands.”
“Some day, Your Highness, we will succeed in wiping them out entirely. I know I speak for every strong-hearted man in Hobart Town when I say that we will not rest easy until these black devils are completely destroyed.” Sorell’s fist pounded the table as Collins and Stone echoed their agreement.
This British enthusiasm for killing—as if the natives were wild game to be bagged and bragged about—disgusted Alexei; but he held his tongue, thinking how glad he would be to leave this wretched colony of self-satisfied Englishmen. He sipped his wine and hardly listened as Collins related his experiences on a recent raid at a native camp. He was sickened by the glee in Collin’s voice as he related how he and his riders had hamstrung the young men they captured asleep by their fires and crushed the skulls of infants. How could the minister, Stone, sit silent throughout this narrative, he wondered. For the first time, Alexei hated the English and despised himself for dealing with men who were, at best, ignorant brutes. Through the open window a gust of night air cooled the back of his neck, and with its chill came memories of Russia. A great wave of homesickness washed over him and he realized he must soon return to his own land.
Collins was speaking to him.
“I would be happy to pay and pay well.”
“I beg your pardon, sir?” Alexei had been called back to the reality of the moment by the man’s braying accent.
“I was saying that if my servant and I may travel with you to England, Your Highness, I would be most terribly grateful. You see, the ship on which I originally intended to sail is not so speedy a packet as your neat little vessel. I understand you will make it to Portsmouth in just over three months.”
“If all goes well. The Southern Star is, after all, a merchant ship; and, as I am sure you realize, sir,” Alexei’s voice was coloured by sarcasm, “Time is gold.”
“Right you are!” Collins cried. “That is why I simply must prevail upon you to take me on as a passenger. I have been so long in this tiresome place I fear for my affairs at home.” He stood and stretched his hand across the table to Alexei. Alexei would have enjoyed refusing the man’s offer of friendship under most circumstances; however, good manners decreed that as a guest in Governor Sorell’s home he must not do anything that would embarrass his host. Reluctantly, Alexei stood and shook Collins’ broad fat hand.
“We leave at dawn two days hence. I suggest you board the night before for we will set sail the instant the tide turns.”
Homeward bound, the swift little packet bore valiantly against the strong winds and rough seas it encountered along the west coast of Van Diemens Land. Alexei kept to his quarters—a luxurious though small cabin outfitted entirely in cedar and situated near the bow of the ship—and avoided Collin’s company. A dozen days out, however, when the winds had stilled, he encountered the man several times strolling the deck. With each meeting Alexei liked Collins less. The Englishman’s overbearing and vulgar manner offended the Prince, and with each unfortunate encounter he found he had less tolerance for the older man’s barely disguised brutality. When he discovered that the servant brought aboard by Collins was a black man, a native kidnapped from the shores they had recently departed, Alexei was tempted to put the two of them off on some remote island rather than participate in what he was sure was an act of cruelty on Collins’ part. Alexei had seen the black man once, tied by the ankles to one of the forward rails. Without pause, Alexei strode forward and undid the bonds. The cord had left deep painful indentations around the man’s ankles. For just a moment at that time, the native had stared into Alexei’s eyes; and there had seemed to be an instant of understanding between them. Alexei hoped so. Later that night he thought how important it was that this unfortunate black man not mistake him for one of the Englishmen who had made it their goal to destroy his race.
Alexei couldn’t sleep. He discovered previously unknown lumps and hard spots in the down mattress that lined his built-in ship’s bed. Rather than soothing him, the ship’s rocking was an aggravation that kept him wakeful for many hours as he watched the moonrise from his porthole. Finally, unable to bear the inactivity of a sleepless night, he slipped on a velvet and brocade robe kept hanging in the wardrobe; and with
steps made silent by the soft moroccan leather slippers he wore, he made his way up on deck. He leaned against the railing and stared into the black swift moving waters below.
He had come to a decision. When he reached London he would make sure that his business affairs were in order, and then he would depart, with as little delay as possible, for Russia. Before leaving London the last time he had received a top secret packet from Czar Alexander requesting that he intervene with the British crown on a matter of some delicacy. The British ambassador in St. Petersburg had intercepted a document that purported to be the military plans of a Russian invasion of Germany. The Ambassador had threatened to inform the German government and then dispatch his ligation from Petersburg; the tenuous balance among three great powers was threatened. Czar Alexander had requested Alexei to use his influence with the King of England to assure him that Russia had no such expansionist plans. Fortunately, Alexei had been able to secure an audience with the King and persuaded him that what his ambassador had thought were approved plans were in fact only the work of an inconsequential clique of hotheaded militarists. Alexei’s efforts on the Czar’s behalf had been so successful that a warm welcome in Petersburg was virtually assured him. Perhaps, thought Alexei, I have spent too long pursuing private goals and amassing riches. Long ago, his father had dreamed that his son would operate within the Russian government as a force for liberty and emancipation. Might now be the time…?
These sober yet exhilarating thoughts were interrupted by a sound coming from behind one of the bulkheads slightly aft of where he stood. At first he dismissed it as only the cry of the sea wind as it licked the sails above him. But when the noise repeated, he could not dismiss it again. He moved stealthily in the direction from which it came.
The Frost And The Flame Page 10