When he arrived at the Count’s palace, an edifice of pale strawberry marble facing directly on the Neva and near the busy center of the city, he was shown first to a receiving room resplendent with gold and mirrors. As he waited for the Count to see him, Oleg moved around the room restlessly. Whichever way he turned, he met his image in a mirror, and he thought for a moment of the man whose help he was about to seek.
Count Hernando Sevilla was almost eighty years old, but despite his years he enjoyed a vigorous life. As a young man he had been considered very handsome; and with his great wealth and these good looks, the stories said that he had conquered a thousand hearts both male and female from Russia to the west of New Spain. Though he was married and the father of three daughters, in later years, his lovers were all men; and it was this sybaritic taste that had won him his notorious reputation in St. Petersburg. The rumors were—and Oleg knew that they were mostly true—that Count Sevilla liked nothing better than a brawny soldier, one of the peasant types that were conscripted from the rural provinces. Sometimes he won their favour with elegant and costly gifts, but other times he found partners willing to love him for the respite it gave them from the harsh military life none of them had wanted in the first place.
After a wait of ten or fifteen minutes, a servant escorted Prince Oleg to the Count’s dressing room. As he entered the room, he saw Sevilla preening before the mirror in tight pink wool pants and a silk shirt the color of a robin’s egg. The shirt had long, very full sleeves gathered into a lacy wrist band; the neck was elaborately ruffled and studded with seed pearls. Ignoring Oleg, the Count turned a little on his toes and patted his flat stomach. Then he peered forward at himself, examining his ravaged old face minutely.
No hint remained of the once beautiful young man who had been adored for his aquiline nose, sweet mouth and smouldering brown eyes. The dough white skin was pulled tightly over high skeletal cheekbones. When he smiled at Oleg his teeth showed like chips of yellow wood.
“Be with you presently. Prince Oleg. I have already rung for champagne.” The Count giggled and gestured to his man servant who was standing beside him. The young man leaned forward, scrutinized his master’s face closely, and then, drawing a pair of silver tweezers from his pocket, he gently plucked a long coarse whisker of black hair from a mole near the Count’s temple. Then he reached for a tin of powder; and with a puff the size and colour of a grapefruit, he dusted Sevilla’s face with yet another coat of heavy white powder.
Oleg felt himself growing more and more irritable. The Count’s appearance horrified him, and he felt an almost physical revulsion at being in the same room with such an old ruin. Underneath the heavy odor of hair oil that the Count used to slick his blue-black hair, beneath the perfume and powder and oily body odors, Oleg knew he could smell the man putrifying from the inside.
Finally, the wrinkle shrouded liver-colored eyes turned on him. They still could sparkle with devilment.
“Dear Oleg, I can’t tell you how delighted I am to have your company this morning. Though Gustavo,” he indicated his man servant who was opening the champagne a servant had just brought, “is a darling boy, one does grow so tired of seeing the same faces every day. We’ve missed you at the gaming tables this summer. Don’t tell me you’ve lost your love of the dice?”
Oleg shook his head, still impatient. He took a sip of wine and then another. It was risky business trusting Sevilla, and the champagne helped him to steel his will.
“Hernando,” he said. “May we be alone for a few moments?”
The Count giggled and tipped his head coquettishly. “Why of course, dear Oleg.” He ordered Gustavo from the dressing room. “How thrilling!” he trilled as he sat beside Oleg with his chair turned just so that he could see himself in one of the dozen full-length mirrors that walled the dressing room.
Oleg gritted his teeth and took more champagne, determined to ignore the Count’s embarrassing femininity. “Do you recall a conversation we had one night, a month or so ago, at Annjanette’s establishment?”
The Count thought a moment. “You asked about the Hummingbird, did you not?” He giggled and preened again. “I was quite jolly that night. I don’t remember what I told you.”
“You said there was a drug you had brought back from the New World. You said it would make anyone, man or woman, insatiably passionate.”
“Oh, and it does, dear Prince! It’s a marvelous elixir and great fun for everyone. It’s called the Hummingbird because the Indians of the New World make it from the pulverized wings of a tiny bird called the hummingbird mixed with the juice of certain berries they habitually chew.”
“Do you have any of this…potion now?”
The Count raised his eyebrows. “Don’t tell me even such a paragon of masculinity as yourself has difficulties now and then? You mustn’t take it more than once, you know. It can be quite dangerous.”
“It’s not for me, Sevilla,” said Oleg quickly.
Again the pencilled brows rose. “I am more and more surprised. I thought you and your beautiful princess were the flower of noble conjugality.”
Oleg made as if to stand. “Had I known you would be abusively sarcastic, I would not have come, Count Sevilla. You will excuse…”
The Count waved his manicured hand. “Sit down, dear boy. You mustn’t be so touchy this morning. To answer your question: yes, I have some of the hummingbird with me.” The eyes narrowed. “But it is dear.”
“I was sure it would be,” said Oleg wryly thinking of the thousands Sevilla was reputed to owe at the gaming tables.
“When do you want it?”
“As soon as possible.”
“Tut tut. Prince. You mustn’t rush me.” The Count smiled grotesquely. “You will be at the masquerade at the Winter Palace? Well then, we’ll speak again that night. You understand I cannot give it to you myself. Something will have to be arranged. And then there is the question of payment…”
This time Oleg meant it when he stood up and turned to the door. He had what he wanted—or close enough—and now he couldn’t wait to be gone from the old Count’s presence. “Don’t concern yourself about money. I’ll give you what you want. You just make the arrangements.”
The Count followed him to the door. “This ward of yours, Oleg. Will she be at the ball too?” Oleg turned to confront the man too quickly. They were face to face, and the Count grinned wickedly. “Never mind, dear Oleg. We are both men of the world. I won’t breathe a word of your little secret to a soul.”
That same morning Alexei had breakfasted with Elizabeth in her boudoir; but though she had urged him to remain with her for more of the amorous lovemaking that had filled their night, he was eager to be apart from her. At night, in the darkened bedchamber, he frankly enjoyed Princess Elizabeth’s caresses, but by dawn’s light her passion seemed predatory and her complexion had taken on a sordid grey hue that contrasted too disturbingly with the rosey glow he recalled from his last meeting with Katia. Elizabeth Romanov, despite her skill in bed, was a poor substitute for the innocent beauty Alexei had hoped to claim as his own. For most of the morning and early afternoon he had remained in his own rooms writing letters and attending to financial matters relating to his lands in the Archangel region. By three he was bored and restless and thought he would walk awhile in the palace park. He had just returned from his walk and was strolling in the picture gallery located on the mezzanine balcony overlooking the marble entrance hall when Oleg stormed through the front doors in an evil mood. Their meeting beneath the portrait of Oleg’s father. Prince Ivan, was unavoidable and unpleasant for both men.
“Good afternoon, Cousin,” said Alexei, noting as he spoke how strong the resemblance was between father and son. They had the same cruel blonde coloring. “I have been reviewing family history.”
Oleg grunted and walked past his cousin without glancing at either him or the pictures on the wall. “And I notice that one person is missing.”
Oleg stopped. When he looked arou
nd at Alexei, his vision was speckled with arcs of light that had troubled him all day and exacerbated the dreadful pain in his head. Since his meeting with Count Sevilla, the headache had steadily worsened until, unable to bear it any longer, he had thrown down his papers and left the diplomatic offices he occupied off Senate Square. The pain was excruciating, like a steadily thudding hammer between his eyes and trying to read and dictate letters had nauseated him. His hands shook and his skin was a more sickly white than usual.
“I have walked the length of the gallery, Oleg, and find no portrait—not even a miniature—of my aunt, Princess Anna.” There was a touch of malicious taunting in Alexei’s voice.
“And why should there be?” snapped Oleg, his voice reedy with pain. “She was a whore.” He took a step away, but Alexei grabbed his arm.
“I told you before, Oleg, you can say what you like about any of these barbarians,” his gesture indicated the whole gallery of painted faces, “but keep a civil tongue when you speak of my aunt.” Alexei tightened his grip and pulled Oleg closer. “Your father drove her away from him. You know that as well as I do.”
“Take your hands off me! How dare you touch me. You’re a guest…”
“No, Oleg. I’m here because the Czar demanded it and for no other reason.”
“If it were up to me, you’d be on your way to the wilderness with the rest of your slimy treasonous friends. Now let me pass.” Oleg heard his voice grow shrill. At the door to the west hall he turned and almost screamed at Alexei. “If your services are so precious to our esteemed Czar, why are you still here?”
Alexei laughed. His cousin’s discomfort was so apparent and so well deserved that he could not help feeling pleased by Oleg’s lack of self control. “Calm yourself,” he said. “And be patient. In another week or two I will be gone.”
“Not soon enough for me!” Oleg slammed the heavy door behind him, leaving Alexei to wonder what had so enraged his cousin this time.
He turned back to the portrait of Prince Ivan. It was a good likeness. The artist had made no attempt to disguise the old prince’s rapacious looks. He had even captured the mood of vicious chill Alexei remembered so well whenever he was in the same room with his uncle. He recalled his own mother’s words uttered more than twenty years before: “He will kill her one day.” Strange, he thought, how certain moments from childhood are never forgotten but remain in the foreground of memory to be recalled over and over again. Alexei’s mother had said that Prince Ivan would kill Princess Anna. He wondered now if that was literally true. Were Oleg’s hatred, the story of the znakhara, all the hints that surrounded Princess Anna’s disappearance, just elements in an elaborate ruse to cover up a family murder?
The old prince’s eyes stared down at him. His was the face of a murderer most certainly; nevertheless, Alexei was inclined by intuition to think the prince had stopped short of killing his wife. Instead he had driven her into a kind of madness that had, ultimately, the same result. He thought of his aunt: a gruesome troubling thought of her body swept down river away from the netting parties the prince had ordered after her disappearance. Sickened slightly by his own vivid imaginings, Alexei turned away from Prince Ivan’s portrait and walked toward his rooms. As he did so, he passed the painting of Prince Oleg done half a dozen years earlier. He was dressed in full military uniform—though his commission was strictly honorary—bedecked with gold braid and the ribbons and medals Czar Alexander had awarded him for his diplomatic services to Holy Russia. If possible, he was even crueler in appearance than his father. Alexei shook his head, wondering at the poison that coursed through the blood of this branch of the Romanov family. It was just as well that Princess Anna had been successful in her suicide attempt, for if she still lived—and for as long as she lived no matter how hidden her anonymity—her life and the lives of those she cared for were put in jeopardy by her only child, the cruel and vengeful Oleg Romanov.
As the cousins confronted one another, in another part of the palace a more loving scene was taking place. Katia and Mary were sitting side by side on the loveseat in Katia’s boudoir. Katia had done some line drawings of farm animals—a cow, a grazing horse, some piglets—and used these simple illustrations to make a story for Mary. Though the little girl kept very still and made no particular response to Katia’s words, she was, nevertheless, completely alert. Her thoughts were consumed with Oleg Romanov.
On the night when he entered her nursery, she had awakened almost immediately. At first it seemed like a nightmare, one of the dozens that regularly disturbed her sleep; but when she realized that he was real, a terror as cold as death gripped her; and she knew she must not let him know that she was awake. She could hear his breathing in the still room: raspy and labored; and she smelled the wine he had drunk and almost gagged on the aroma.
Gradually, all that Mary had suffered in her short life was becoming resolved around this single person: Oleg Romanov. She feared and hated him with the intensity of a grown woman. She didn’t know what he wanted when he paid that midnight visit to the nursery; but she sensed his evil intent. She did not know what he was doing to Katia—Katia whom she loved more with each passing day—but it was enough to know that because of Prince Oleg the young woman was desperately unhappy and sometimes near panic.
“Did you like that?” asked Katia when she had finished her story. She did not expect an answer, but still she asked the question in the faint hope that someday Mary would speak or change her bland expression. She rang the servant’s bell. “Nurse will take you back to your room for a nap before supper, my darling.” She caressed the long straight hair, fair as corn silk. “Sleep with the angels, Marika.”
The nurse whose name was Martha was a slovenly wench interested in doing the least possible work in the shortest number of hours. Instead of undressing the child for her nap, she merely removed her high buttoned boots and long stockings and put her onto the bed surrounded by picture books. Martha didn’t mind taking care of Mary. No matter how slipshod her work, the child never cried or tattled: and this left Martha with plenty of extra time to gossip in the servants’ quarters. It was three-thirty when she closed Mary’s door and hurried downstairs to the servants’ sitting room.
For a few moments, Mary lay still, staring at the elaborate plaster ceiling over her bed; but gradually the feel of the room, of the whole Romanov Palace, began to bear down upon her with such unmitigated gloom and evil that she thought she could not breathe. She sat up, clutching her breast and panting. Beads of sweat sheened her forehead. She got out of bed and ran to the window. Throwing open the shutters Martha had closed to darken the room, she pressed her face against the cool panes of glass and stared out into the parkland.
It was then that she was seized by a daring thought, so daring in fact, that she at first dismissed it as impossible. But the more she looked at the rolling green lawn, the stone paths, and the silky blue river, the more enticing her strategy seemed. She would get out; she would escape for a little while.
Without stopping to plan her destination or even the means of her escape, she slipped through the nursery door—the oak door was so heavy she thought she might be defeated at the start—and down the hall to the servant’s stairway. Light and silent in her bare feet, she hurried down to the ground floor. At the bottom, she was stopped short by two doors. One was open and led directly into the kitchen garden. From where she stood she could see the tomato vines heavy with red fruit and smell the good loamy earth that recalled happier childhood times. But to reach the garden, she had to pass before another open door. This was the servant’s sitting room, and Mary could hear Martha’s laughing voice inside. Cautiously she peered around the jamb and saw the nurse, her back to the door, sitting on the lap of a man in a coachman’s uniform. He was nuzzling into her neck; his eyes were closed. They were both laughing.
Mary darted through the back door and into the garden without being seen. Then, for a moment, she hung back in the shadow of the eaves wondering where to go next. Th
e courtyard beyond the garden was crowded—or so it seemed to a small girl—with the Prince’s large staff going about their various chores. To her right she heard the sounds of water and female voices from the laundry. Left, there was a narrow cobbled path that skirted the edge of the vegetable garden and went through the orchard and out of sight. She skipped quickly along this route and was soon safely away from the palace.
It was a wonderful moment and for the first time in many months she felt released from her burden of fear and confusion. She did not understand anything that had happened to her since the night of the fire that had destroyed her happy childhood. Her young mind could not comprehend either the violence she had suffered or the weighty threat that she felt whenever she was in Prince Oleg’s presence. For a little while as she wandered down the path, however, she felt a new emotion, so unfamiliar that she hardly recognized it: she was. happy. She skipped around a fountain and came face to face with Black Jake.
Her first instinct was to run. She had never seen a black face before and thought it must surely be the devil incarnate, yet another manifestation of the evil she had thought herself free of for a moment. Then something surprising happened. Black Jake, who seemed almost as surprised as she, smiled. She stood stock still, and then it was as if a spasm caught her lips and twisted them. She smiled back at him.
The Frost And The Flame Page 20