A Princess of Roumania

by Paul Park

  She pressed past him, and the dog ran on ahead. Dreams didn’t have to mean anything. They were coming toward the dam from the opposite direction from Water Street. They sank into a ravine with the stream at the bottom and then came up suddenly through the trees. The land flattened out, and she was following the footprints and Andromeda’s prints too, until they reached the ice house, and there it was. They came out of the woods and there it was, and she was relieved to see it—a small victory. The scale had changed, of course. The land was open, the hills larger and more gradual. The pool was bigger under its skin of ice. The house was bigger, too. And it wasn’t staved in. On the contrary, it looked occupied, a wooden cottage trimmed with bark, with a thatched roof, diamond-paned windows, and smoke in the chimney.

  “You were right,” said Peter Gross.

  * * *

  ON THE SLOPE ABOVE THE house, under the shelter of the trees, four men stood watching. One stripped off his gauntlet to wipe his face. They’d had to run through the woods and the uneven snow, hoping to catch the girl before she reached the house.

  Captain Raevsky and his men had spent the night on the hill, waiting in the bitter cold. They’d tried a different place on every night. Plans that had been vague even in Bucharest were insufficient now, and if it weren’t for the presence of the house, he might not have known for sure that he was even in the right locality. His men had taken shifts and been out every day and night. It was too much to expect that they should find the right clearing, and for a week now he’d been convinced he was on a wild donkey chase, until he’d heard the boy screaming. Even then the echoes had confused him, and he wasn’t expecting a boy’s voice—just a girl’s. Now they were paying for his stupidity.

  He wiped his forehead with his sleeve. He was a bearded, grizzled, grim-faced man, worried now. He would be worried until the prize was safe, until they’d managed to cross out of this wood to Albany. It had been months since they’d left Bucharest for the steamship docks. They had come a long way through cold country just to make a mistake here at the end. If they had run a little faster, he could have taken Miranda Popescu before she reached the dam.

  He could not wait to see what happened at the house. He didn’t want to go inside and fetch her. No one had said anything about a boy. But the girl could not be harmed, which made things difficult.

  He brought up his field glasses for a moment. A yellow dog was already on the shore of the ice pond. He could see the girl through the birch trees. She was older than he’d expected, older than the photograph the baroness had shown him: not a child at all, really—a young woman with the pale, narrow face and dark eyebrows of her father’s family, and she looked older than the boy, who was holding his right arm. It was broken or swollen. But surely he recognized that boy. He tightened the focus, held him in the circle of his glasses—no, a chance resemblance to an older man.

  The day before, and on several occasions since they’d made their camp, he had stood in this same place for several hours, hoping to catch a glimpse of the inhabitants of the little house. Toward evening a woman had come out, carrying a bucket to a line of cages under the eaves—rabbit hutches, he presumed. She’d opened one of the cages and took out something he couldn’t see. As she did so, a man had crossed over the dam and gone inside without pausing or saying anything.

  The first time he’d seen the woman and the man, he had known they were enemies. He’d kept his men away, and they’d kept to themselves—without a doubt they were Roumanians. He could tell just by the look of the place. The cottage could have stood in any mountain village between Cluj and Brasov. And they must have guns, the captain thought, to live here in the woods so far from any town. Worse, they must have some method of conjuring, for the woods here were full of savages and God knew what else. How had the boy and the girl come here after all, except through conjuring? Every night since they had left the Henry Hudson River and then paddled up the Hoosick into the deep wilderness, he’d kept watch over his men from midnight until dawn, looking out for wendigos and magic—his guide had told him. Men died in their blankets without a mark on them, claiming they’d seen wives or women who were far away.

  The boy and the girl were going straight to the house as if they knew about it. Now the captain rubbed his lips, wondering if someone had gotten word to them. Without a doubt the inhabitants of this place were spies, sent on the same mission by an opposite power. Who was interested in the white tyger? Anyone who hated Roumania, and quite a few who loved it—were these the empress’s people? Antonescu’s? It was impossible to think they might be Germans, Turks, but if not, what were they doing here? If so, it was important to act quickly, before they were able to make plans. Raevsky had left four men at the river camp, and the three he had here were not a lot, not in these woods. He touched his heart, and as he did so, he brushed with his fingers the embroidered emblem on his breast: his talisman, his lady’s emblem, the red pig of Cluj.

  * * *

  AT THE ORIGINAL ICE HOUSE, where Miranda and Peter had first met, the spillway of the dam was made of stone, with a stone bridge across it. Here, most of that was wood. A simple wooden bridge crossed the stream over the mouth of the pond, and led immediately to the door of the little house. Miranda came out of the trees and climbed the slope on the far side, across the stream from the house, and there the bridge ended in a wall of rough, big stones about two feet high, which soon subsided into the rocky bank. Miranda climbed onto this wall, then walked along it to the wooden bridge across the top of the dam. Under her feet, the water flowed into the stream behind a broken column of ice.

  The dog had run ahead of them as they’d climbed the bare bank, had run out onto the ice over the middle of the pond. She was barking toward a slope of evergreens on the other side, perhaps a hundred feet away. Miranda could see some men there, walking down through the trees. They were dressed in green uniforms and green woolen caps.

  One was bare-headed, and he raised his hand. “Miss Popescu,” he shouted. “Please.”

  Standing on the wall beside the bridge, Miranda felt another surge of relief. These people knew her, and the ice house was here, and these four men were probably Gregor Splaa and the others her aunt had mentioned. De Graz, maybe, or Prochenko—“Oh, thank God,” she said, but when she turned toward Peter she could see nothing in his face but confusion and concern—“It’s all right,” she said. “Now it’s all right.” But the dog was barking, Andromeda was barking, and the men paused on the bank. The one who’d spoken was a gray-bearded man, and his gray hair was clipped short. “Please,” he repeated. “I have a message.”

  He spoke English with an accent. He put his hand inside his coat and pulled out a yellow envelope, which he held above his head. When he tried to step down off the bank, Miranda could hear Andromeda snarling, see the thick fur rise along her back.

  “Oh,” Miranda said. Her aunt had mentioned Gregor Splaa would have a letter. But now the stupid dog was running across the ice, and when she came to the man, she leapt at him and knocked him down. Two of the others pulled revolvers from their coats, but they hesitated when Miranda yelled, when she jumped down off the dam and came sliding toward them, following the dog’s track. “Andromeda,” she called, “Andromeda—it’s all right!” until the dog let go of the man’s arm and came back to the middle of the pond where Miranda was waiting. No cracks appeared, but there were threatening noises as the ice settled under their weight.

  The man got to his feet. Miranda heard him cursing, and the others put their guns away—old-fashioned six-shooters, Miranda now noticed, with long octagonal muzzles. Rachel’s father had a similar one in his collection of Civil War memorabilia.

  Still, the guns weren’t a good sign. She went down on her knees on the ice and put her arms around the dog’s neck. The gray-haired man had circled round a bit, trying to find a place where the ice was solid. “Miss Popescu,” he shouted with his gauntlet to his mouth. “I bring a letter from Roumania.”

  Miranda listened to the dog
’s low growl. She felt the vibrations of it in her arms and chest. The dog’s breath was sweet, her teeth were white next to Miranda’s ear.

  “We come to fetch you, yes?” continued the gray-haired man. “We come to take you home.”

  “Gregor Splaa!” Miranda shouted. “Gregor Splaa! Is that you!”

  “Please, miss,” he called back. “No, I am Raevsky. Raevsky is my name.” He tried to step onto the ice again, except his boot went through and he jumped back. “Please,” he repeated. “Come see. I have a letter from the empress. Also chocolate.”

  Raevsky wasn’t a name she recognized. And the letter should be from her aunt. And these men had guns. And as the gray-haired man was talking, one of his soldiers circled around the pond toward the stone wall where Peter was standing. He was a yellow-haired man in a green cap, and there was nothing friendly about him, nothing friendly about his movements, nothing friendly about any of them, Miranda decided, and Andromeda had known. She was growling with her lips pulled back.

  Miranda turned and called to Peter. “Go to the house. Go knock on the door.”

  As she spoke, the door to the little house opened behind him on the other side of the bridge. A woman came out onto the step. Her red hair was streaked with white, and she spoke words Miranda couldn’t hear.

  The yellow-haired soldier was moving faster now. He had climbed the bank and jumped onto the wall that led to wooden bridge. He was only a few steps from Peter, and the old woman in back of him. “Look,” she yelled, and Miranda heard her. She was pointing with her finger toward the soldier on the wall. “Red pig! Ceausescu.”

  The gray-haired man—Raevsky—had found a little spit of shoreline that curved into the ice, and he was closer to Miranda now. He didn’t have to shout. “The empress wants to meet the daughter of such famous parents,” he said.

  Andromeda growled. Miranda stood up. Raevsky was smiling as he held the letter out. So maybe it was all right after all—she took one slippery step forward. But the woman on the dam was yelling, “Ceausescu, Ceausescu!” which made her stop.

  * * *

  THE CAPTAIN WAS STILL SMILING as he watched her expression change. He tried to appear happy as he learned the worst. The girl knew enough to be frightened of the baroness’s name. She wouldn’t come any closer. But maybe she was close enough, so he lurched forward off the bank and grabbed her by the wrist. The ice broke under his boots, but the water wasn’t deep next to the shore. He floundered with the water around his shins, trying to drag the girl onto the bank where his man Carl was waiting with his arm outstretched, a revolver in his hand. There was no point in pretending now. The ice broke in a long crack, and the dog was coming at him, its claws scratching and slipping as it gathered itself to jump. But Carl had room. He fired, and the dog, poised in its leap, collapsed onto the ice a few meters from shore.

  The captain ducked down with his arms around Miranda’s waist. She was shouting at him, batting at his face, and she was stronger than he’d expected. There was blood on the ice, though the dog still moved, still dragged itself toward him.

  Now there was another cry from the dam. He’d told his man Ferenc to circle round, but he hadn’t meant him to go that far, especially if there was someone at the house. He should have kept to the trees, but there he was on the wall itself. The Gypsy woman hadn’t budged from her own step, but there was the boy with the swollen, broken arm. He didn’t look like much of a threat, but where was the other man? Someone must have a gun inside that house.

  “Ferenc!” he called out. But then Miranda Popescu had shifted in his hands, was smacking him around the head again, and he had to find a way to pinion her arms. When he looked up again, he saw his man and the boy struggling together on the wall, and Ferenc had his gun out, and Raevsky listened for the shot—“Come back,” he shouted. “I’ve got her now.” But he didn’t have her; she was fighting him again, and when he looked up his man had fallen on his back off of the wall, and the boy was still standing there. Carl and Alexandru circled round to help him, but now they stopped, confused by another gunshot, which was not from Ferenc’s pistol. It came from a rifle, so it wasn’t any of theirs. Raevsky could tell by the sound. He knew there was another man in the house, not just the old woman who was standing there. But the sound hadn’t come from that direction. For a moment everything was still.

  The captain’s ears were ringing from Carl’s first shot at the dog, which had come too close to his head. The second, from the rifle, had a flat, clapping sound, and the captain placed it somewhere on the hill behind and above them. Miranda Popescu had stopped resisting, and the captain stood with the water to his shins, his arms around her waist. He was waiting for the third shot.

  They all waited. When it came, it slashed across Carl’s cheek and left a wound. Another centimeter and it would have killed him. He dropped his gun and put his hand to his face, and the blood seeped through his fingers.

  Miranda Popescu whispered in Raevsky’s ear. “You let me go.”

  After that, things happened fast. Alexandru was pulling Carl into the shelter of the woods. Then he came back to help Raevsky. Not that it mattered—though she was straining against him, he had the girl’s arms pinned. Her face was near his own. The letter from the empress drifted in the water. And he was safe, at least. The girl was too close to him for anyone to risk a shot.

  But the dog struggled to its feet. Blood dripped from its side. And now the boy beside the dam took a step onto the ice. The red-haired woman from the house was bending over Ferenc on the shore. “Help him,” Raevsky shouted to Alexandru, and at the same time Miranda Popescu took the lobe of his ear between her teeth and bit on it until the flesh parted, while she twisted suddenly away. She waded out into the water to the broken edge of the ice. She broke through twice in the shallow water. Then she was clambering up where he knew he couldn’t follow, where he knew the ice would break under his weight, and besides, he was exposed now to the man on the hill. Their own rifles were back at camp.

  But the man on the hill wasn’t much of a shot. The fourth bullet passed close to his bleeding ear. Marksman or not, someone was trying to kill him, shoot him in the head. Carl and Alexandru were crouching on the bank, and he climbed up to join them among some rocks and bushes, out of sight of the little house.

  He gave his orders. After Carl was bandaged, he’d go back to camp, so Gulka could bring up the long guns. Gulka was at the river with the pirogues and the others, twenty minutes through the woods. Raevsky cursed his own stupidity—it had been his decision to leave the rifles behind. He hadn’t wanted to scare off the girl. But he could have hidden them in some closer place.

  He and Alexandru would have to go after that idiot Ferenc. Alexandru was the captain’s nephew, his sister’s son, and Raevsky kept his hand on his shoulder as they climbed out of the shelter of the rocks. Raevsky wouldn’t allow him to be hurt; keeping to the trees, they climbed over the rise until they saw the house again, in the clearing on the far side of the frozen pond. The door was open. There was no one on the wall and no sign of his man. Miranda Popescu still knelt on the ice over the fallen dog. The boy was too heavy to add his weight to theirs. He was standing by the shore.

  He could hear the boy’s voice, but couldn’t understand what he was saying. God, what a mess. With luck the baroness would never hear about it, though that would depend on what happened now. Where was Ferenc—had the Gypsy woman brought him inside? And the original problem remained. Miranda Popescu could not be harmed.

  He watched her struggle to her feet, hoisting the dog in her arms. He was surprised she could lift it. She stepped over a crack in the ice and then staggered toward shore, away from the triangle of muddy water where she’d bitten him and he had let her go. The envelope still floated there.

  The red-haired woman now appeared at the side of the house. That was where he’d seen her the day before, feeding her animals. Now she stopped at the line of cages. She opened the first one and pulled out a small bird, holding it in the n
est of her hands for a moment before throwing it into the air. He watched it climbing steeply toward the sun, a gyrfalcon or a kestrel. Then it was gone.

  Miranda Popescu walked unsteadily over the ice, carrying the big dog. She was forty meters away, not more. Once she paused and looked toward him where he crouched in the shelter of a tree.

  Another bird rose into the air, larger this time, a traveler’s eagle, he thought. Disoriented for a moment, it flew in circles around the pond.

  And as he watched Miranda carry the dog onto the bank, two more birds went up.

  * * *

  LIGHT CAME FROM THE OPEN door and from two kerosene lamps, which had been burning when they came in. The inside of the cottage was dark, smelly, wonderfully hot. There was no furniture but only piles of clothing and supplies. There was a stack of fishing traps against the wall.

  The soldier lay unconscious in the middle of the floor, a boy as young as Peter, or only a little older, with thick lips and stiff yellow hair. Peter himself stood beside the woodstove, pressing his hand into his armpit, staring at the raw boards under his feet. He’d tried to help her on the bank, but when he touched Andromeda she’d snapped at him; now Miranda held the dog’s chest and haunches in the circle of her arms. The burden was too heavy. “Help,” she said. The woman was coming up behind her through the door—she’d brought the soldier inside and then gone out again to fool around with her birds. Together they laid the dog next to the stove.

  Miranda’s feet were freezing, soaked. She stripped off her socks and running shoes, then sat cross-legged and took the dog’s head into her lap. She could feel the beating heart, steady and strong against her thigh. Good—and there wasn’t a lot of blood. She dug her fingers into the thick fur, searching for the wound, while the woman squatted next to her.