The Russians Collection

by Michael Phillips

  “It is your home, Anna. What more could a princess wish for?”

  “I . . . I know my mother and father would make you as welcome as they could . . . they would consider it a great honor . . . but what about your father, Princess?”

  “Right now it would not appear that I can be of any help to him. No, I’m afraid my father must not know. I’ll tell him I’m going home until the baby is born, and afterward plan to spend some months in Lividia. If that word spreads about the city, it may protect Father from Basil’s evil schemes. No one else must know . . . that is, do you think your Lieutenant Grigorov will help us?”

  “I am certain he will do whatever I ask.”

  “Then we must be off without delay!”

  “You are certain, Princess?”

  “Yes . . . yes, Anna! It is the only way I and my child will be safe. Now go—talk to your Cossack. I want to be out of here before morning!”

  In a flurry of emotion and rapidly tumbling thoughts, Anna ran into the sitting room where Misha was still waiting patiently.

  64

  Misha was quickly able to convince the princess not to attempt a midnight flight from St. Petersburg.

  “If by chance the man is still spying on the house, or worse, if he has friends inside the estate reporting to him, it will be much easier to conceal our moves in broad daylight.”

  Katrina shuddered at the thought of a spy for Basil Anickin living under her father’s roof.

  “I still do not understand you, Lieutenant,” she said.

  “If we drive away now, through quiet and deserted streets, our presence will be as visible to anyone watching as the tsar himself walking through the city at midafternoon. Believe me, once the sun is high and the day’s bustle has begun, you will cause less of a stir by your movements, and the secrecy of your departure will be protected.”

  “I trust your discretion, Lieutenant.”

  “Try to get some sleep during what remains of the night, Princess, and I will make the necessary arrangements.”

  The sun had fully risen the next morning and the dew was mostly evaporated from the grass and new summer’s foliage. The air carried a hint of warmth and the fragrance of a true June day. Anna stood at one of the front upstairs windows watching the placid scene below. She had already been busy making her share of the in-house arrangements for Misha’s charade, and was now making final preparations to depart with the princess. Only a handful of faithful servants had been taken into their confidence, and the rest, although they thought they were aware of Anna’s and the princess’s movements, were in fact only cognizant of what Misha wanted them to see. If there was talk about the events of the previous night and this morning, he was confident it would all point exactly in the direction he wanted it to—straight toward the Remizov home.

  Only Polya, whom Anna trusted more than anyone in the house, was privy to the entire plan, although even she would not be told their final destination. Mrs. Remington herself, whose chief task would be to act as liaison to Prince Viktor, would assume Katrina safe in her own bed across town. Katrina’s father was not in the least aware of what was transpiring, and for everyone’s sake it seemed best to keep it that way. As of that morning he hardly even remembered that his daughter had come for a visit at all! Mrs. Remington especially wanted to keep from him a realization of the truth of the attack.

  Word quickly spread that morning that Anna had asked Polya to return to the Remizov home with her to act as the lady’s maid, do laundry, and help her in whatever ways necessary to wait on the princess, bringing tea to her rooms, trays of food at mealtimes, and perhaps even attend the delivery of the baby. With great enthusiasm she scurried about the kitchen that morning, telling everyone of her new assignment, keeping to herself that she would in fact be ministering to an empty house.

  Not long thereafter, Princess Katrina’s personal carriage pulled to the front door of the house. Enclosed as it was, nothing could be seen of the occupants. Lieutenant Grigorov had helped them inside, he said, before Leo Moskalev, whom the princess had asked for instead of her own driver, had mounted the box outside.

  “Anna told me to ask you, from the princess,” Misha said, “if you would take them to the rear door of the princess’s home, and make certain no one sees them as they disembark. Her condition is of some embarrassment to her just now.”

  “I understand, sir,” replied Leo. “No one shall lay an eye on the princess, including me.”

  “Anna assured me you could be trusted. Take good care of your mistress, Anna!” he shouted into the carriage, then signaled for Leo to drive on to the front, where Polya would join them.

  With fanfare and animation, Polya opened the door and climbed inside the carriage herself, talking inside to Anna the whole time, with now and then a motherly word to Princess Katrina. A few other servants watched from a distance. Polya closed the door from inside, then Leo urged the two horses forward, and the carriage moved down the drive and onto the street, toward the Remizov home.

  A few minutes later, two Cossack guards made their appearance. Misha met them, stationing one at the front door and one at the rear of the house. “The princess has just left for her own home,” he said in a loud enough voice for the house servants to hear. “But we must be on our guard here against any further attacks by housebreakers. I will be on my way over to the other house shortly to make certain the princess is well protected and safe there as well.”

  While this ruse was being carried out, the final and most difficult phase of the subterfuge had to be implemented.

  About nine that same morning, ten minutes after the departure of the princess’s carriage with Moskalev and Polya, the servant’s droshky pulled up to the back quarters of the house. Misha had made sure the area was deserted from observing eyes both inside and out. Two servants, simply dressed, exited from the kitchen entry. The gardener on the far side of the lawn glanced up. Olga sent out for produce and other needful items almost daily. He saw nothing so unusual in the scene and went back to his work without another thought about it. One of the two was rather heavyset, and wore a thick babushka about her head that shadowed her face from view. Each carried a basket, and by all appearances were bound for market. The driver, an old man whose wits had more than half left him years ago, sat behind the horses, staring straight ahead, oblivious. He knew horses, and he knew the way to the market, which was all he needed to know, on this or any other day.

  Misha paid no heed as the small, rickety carriage bumped and clattered its way toward the street. He did send a quick glance in its direction just as it left the grounds, but no one was close enough to detect the light in his eye, and he quickly brought his gaze back to his duties closer at hand.

  65

  Katrina had never before ridden in the servant’s droshky, with its hard wooden seats and straw-strewn floor.

  It was not comfortable, but her forbearance would have raised her greatly in the esteem of many of the servants, especially those who remembered the spoiled young girl of a few years earlier.

  It was equally difficult for Anna, who had to behave as an equal to her mistress. Once they were on their way, however, she was able to resume her usual demeanor.

  “Do you wish a blanket, Princess?” she asked.

  “To sit on, perhaps, but not to put over my legs. The day is already warming up.”

  “I wonder if all this sneaking about is too much,” said Anna as she helped Katrina arrange a blanket where it would do the most good. “I do not like to see you so uncomfortable.”

  “But you do have implicit faith in your Cossack, do you not?”

  “Of course. I suppose I must remind myself of Basil Anickin’s face to remember how important it is that no one knows your whereabouts.”

  “Otherwise, it would be quite a lark, wouldn’t it, Anna?” Katrina’s eyes swept over her attire. “Wearing disguises like fugitives in a melodrama! Passwords and codes and Polya talking away to an empty carriage.”

  Anna smiled. “The
re is one good thing to come of all this. I will at last be able to share my home with you, Princess. How I have wanted my mama and papa to meet you!”

  “If I make it that far,” added Katrina, placing a hand on her stomach. “I fear I am already past my time, Anna.”

  “Perhaps we should remain at your home,” said Anna nervously.

  “No, no—my mind is made up. I would not be able to relax for a wink of sleep while in the city. We will just pray it will delay another few days.”

  Anna sighed. She didn’t like the sound of Katrina’s feigned confidence.

  “I am looking forward to seeing your Katyk,” Katrina went on. “I suppose as I grow older, some of the glamour of St. Petersburg society begins to dim somewhat. There is much to be said of the quiet country life. My papa always extolled it, though he never did anything about it beyond hiring servants from the country. Maybe he would have been better off if he had. Perhaps the terrible pressures of court life would not have . . . have brought him to this unhappy end.”

  “End, Princess? You see no hope for him?”

  “What hope can there be, Anna? Will Mother come back? And Sergei? Papa will always carry his guilt with him. And now even I have to sneak from the city without telling him!”

  Katrina sighed. “He might have been helped,” she went on after a moment, “if he still had his work. It would give his life some purpose. But even that has been taken from him. I wonder if our tsar ever knew the full results of his vindictiveness. I wonder if he cared!”

  “Perhaps if he had lived . . .”

  “The assassins’ bomb created more casualties than Alexander himself. But I can’t necessarily hate them, Anna. The tsar’s power is too great, and too corrupt. My father was always a loyal servant, yet look what happened to him and those he loved. His loyalty could not spare Sergei from his fate, nor could it rise above court intrigues and vendettas. Even if Sergei hadn’t been caught in the imperial web, my father would still have fallen from favor eventually. He was too honest, too forthright. He hung on in the previous reign because Alexander II was a human enough man to appreciate—for a time at least—a man like my father. But the new tsar and that regent of his would have sent him packing in posthaste even had it not been for Sergei’s trouble.”

  She let out a long, melancholy sigh.

  “No, Anna,” she went on, “your little Katyk seems a paradise to me now. I’m sure we will find it difficult to return to the city. That is, if—”

  She crossed herself suddenly and said no more. She did not want to risk her melancholy mood bringing more calamity upon them. No sense in voicing any additional fears.

  “What is it, Princess?”

  “Oh nothing. Do you think, Anna, we will ever be happy again as we used to be?”

  “Yes, Princess. I’m sure everything will turn out happily—just as God intends.”

  “He does not always make things turn out happy, does He, Anna?”

  “No, I suppose not . . . but when we trust Him, I think they do turn out as He intends.”

  “Well, at least we shall be happy in Katyk. I only hope Dmitri will come quickly. I’m not so well acquainted as you are with Polya, Anna . . . are you certain—”

  “I gave her your sealed envelope with strict instructions to hide it in a safe place in your house, and to give it to the count the moment he appeared.”

  Katrina seemed satisfied and leaned back against the hard seat and closed her eyes, at peace for the moment.

  Her brief rest was soon interrupted.

  The droshky stopped a short distance from the market at the door of a little tea shop on Vladimir Avenue, off Nevsky Prospect. The street was lined with antique stores and several bookshops, with many outdoor stalls crowding the sidewalk. At that time in the morning, the street was buzzing with activity, and one more poor droshky more or less caused no notice.

  “What are we doing, Anna?” asked Katrina, opening her eyes.

  “We are going to have some tea, Princess . . . and wait,” replied Anna, stepping down to the street. Suddenly, to her great surprise, there stood Misha at her side just in time to help down Anna’s mistress. Like a child living out her part in a strange fairy tale, Katrina obeyed without further question. Feeling a little pale and faint, she took Anna’s arm as Misha led them inside.

  “But . . . how did you get here?” asked Anna incredulously.

  “Who do you think has been driving your droshky all this time?” smiled Misha.

  “But what became of the other man, the old servant?”

  “He is waiting at the market to take the carriage back to the house. He is none the wiser about any of it. Now, the two of you have some tea and I will be back for you inside an hour. I must first change back into my uniform, pay a visit to the police station, and arrange for a leave from my duties at the palace.”

  For the first time it dawned on Anna why Misha looked so different. She had never before seen him out of his stunning red and black uniform of the Imperial Cossack Guard. Now he wore the royal blue servants’ livery of the Fedorcenko house. But nothing could make his appearance less striking and handsome. That, and his fierce Cossack visage, should have told even the most casual observer that this fellow could be no mere humble coachman.

  The two women went into the tea shop, ordered a pot of tea, and found seats at a wobbly little table. The proprietor had no sooner brought their steaming pot and cups before the Fedorcenko droshky, still parked in front, was boarded by two women, one somewhat thinner than the one who had exited a short time before. But no one on that busy avenue noticed. The royal blue liveried driver on the box called to the horses, and the carriage jerked away at a leisurely pace.

  They drank their tea slowly, talking softly. Anna was concerned for her mistress. It was clear she was tired already, and their journey had not yet even begun.

  Fifty minutes later, Misha appeared again, entering through the back door, garbed in a red peasant’s tunic, brown homespun trousers, and worn lapti laced to his knee. He paid the owner. Anna thought he gave the man more rubles than a mere pot of tea was worth, but this day had already contained enough twists and surprises that she was not about to question her friend. She willingly placed her life and that of her mistress in the Cossack’s capable hands. Sergei had done the same before he left for Central Asia. And though no one had thought that debt would ever be called upon, Misha now seemed bent on carrying out the promise he had made with painstaking dedication.

  The two women rose and followed Misha through the tea shop and out the back door.

  In the back of the shop, another droshky waited, one of considerably higher luxury than the carriage they had recently left. Misha helped Anna and Katrina inside. He leaped into the driver’s box and urged the horses forward.

  How he had arranged everything, Anna could not guess. But she was confident that not a soul in all of St. Petersburg could possibly know that Princess Katrina was leaving the city in a plain droshky, dressed as a servant, and traveling upon dusty highways and rutted wagon roads south to Gatchina. There they would spend the night in a comfortable inn, and, if the princess was able, board the southern train in the morning. Dressed as peasants, no one would pay the least attention to three travelers bound for Pskov.

  After a second night at a local inn, Misha would hire another carriage, this time to complete the journey to the village of Anna’s birth.

  66

  The chief of police watched the back of the man’s uniform with a placid expression as the guard exited his office. But when the door closed, slowly a thin smile of satisfaction spread across his face.

  He looked down at the report he had just hastily filled out at the man’s request, then leaned back in his chair. Gradually the smile turned to a chuckle, which led in turn to outright laughter.

  Cyril Vlasenko could not have scripted a more perfect scenario had he tried! The demise of the House of Fedorcenko was nearly complete!

  He had followed the case of the young prince wi
th quiet glee—his banishment to the Asian campaign, his trouble with his superiors, his trial, and his exile. He had sent all the perfunctory condolences at Natalia’s death. His own wife had truly grieved, but his attentions had been on Viktor’s pain and suffering.

  And now this—to learn that an attempt had been made on the daughter’s life! How could it be that tragedy would strike so perfectly all in the same place!

  He would do just as he told the fellow—initiate a search for Anickin, keep a close watch on the estate, everything his official position demanded. He would not search with too much diligence. It wouldn’t do to find Anickin before he had finished with his business. But to round up one more revolutionary, and a murderer besides, would be a fine addition to his dossier in the eyes of the new tsar.

  Of course he understood the gravity of the danger, he had nodded seriously as Grigorov explained Viktor’s “unstable” condition. The prince was not well just now, and every precaution must be exercised. Yes . . . yes . . . he grasped the situation perfectly. He would do everything possible to use discretion in the protection of the former tsar’s trusted minister.

  Ha, ha! laughed Vlasenko. So it was true, after all! Viktor had at last slipped over the edge! It was too delicious! Ha, ha, ha!

  He had heard rumors, but he had never allowed himself to believe they could actually be based on fact.

  What the Cossack’s position was in the whole thing remained unclear. A friend of the family, he had said. Cyril thought he knew everyone who was connected with the Fedorcenko estate, and he had never seen or heard of this fellow. But he wore the uniform of the tsar’s personal retinue at the Winter Palace, so it would hardly be wise to question him too scrupulously. Probably some friend of the girl’s ne’er-do-well count of a husband.

  “Where is the count?” Vlasenko had asked the Cossack, eying his reaction with sly circumspection.

  “Away on matters pertaining to his position,” the guard had answered without hesitation.