by Bob Mayer
“There were horrid images in my dreams. An eagle falling. A dead lion. The dead climbing out of their graves. Battles above in the clouds between warriors. Blood falling on the Senate roof. The screams of dying men. A slut crying out. I am most frightened my Lord.” Calpurnia looked at Spurinna. “Close enough?”
“Not quite what I told you to say,” Spurinna said. “It might have been best not to mention Cleo—”
“That name is not permitted in this household,” Calpurnia snapped. “This.” She pointed down. “Is my home.
“Apologies,” Spurinna said. “It might have been best not to mention the Egyptian slut because men are prone to anger at harsh words and in anger do not think straight.”
Calpurnia scoffed. “There are things besides anger that keep men from thinking straight.”
Moms jumped in. “But you told him not to leave?”
“No is the answer to your question, protégé. He is not in the house. Why did you ever think he would pay attention to me?” Calpurnia asked Spurinna. “As you instructed, I told Caesar I had already sent word to Antony that he was ill and would not be attending the Senate. He laughed. He walked out and his last words to me were: ‘Caesar goes forth.’ As if there were someone else walking out the door. It is fortunate his mighty head was able to pass through the doorway.”
“So he is gone,” Spurinna said. “Despite my warning and your entreaty.”
“He does not bear the words of women well,” Calpurnia said, going back to her knitting. “Except for that Egyptian slut.”
Petrograd, Russia, 1917.
DOC WANDERED AIMLESSLY, quickly learning that the only part of the palace that still had heat was the family wing. He’d yet to meet another person. No guards, no servants. He wondered who was stoking the boilers to keep this area warm. He knew the Tsar was in here somewhere, having been brought back on the 9th of March after drafting his abdication on the 2nd in his Imperial train car, idled at a siding in Pskov. A document that had gone through revision after revision by the Bolsheviks, who were unwilling to allow a transfer of the monarchy, but wanted it finished. Today was the day it would officially be terminated.
Revolutionary soldiers surrounded the palace, but they were keeping their distance, under orders not to provoke an incident until it was decided what would be done with the royals.
He had some time to reflect now that he was done with his mission. The time travel had been just as Roland had described, painless and instant and utterly confounding to Doc, who wanted a scientific explanation for everything.
On top of that, Roland being right was almost as surprising as being here, inside Alexander Palace in what Doc had to assume was 1917.
Not understanding the science was going to drive him crazy. Doc knew the danger, but because he was an intelligent man, he had to stop his mind from careening down the blind alleyways of ignorance searching for enlightenment.
He did his best, remembered Nada reeling him in on so many missions, slamming him back into the real world and the real problem. Usually just before they would have gotten killed if they’d followed Doc’s scientific inquisitiveness rather than Nada’s survival instincts.
The palace was quiet. Far too quiet for a palace. He’d watched Downton Abbey and knew even a great house was full of noise, never mind an Imperial Palace. But not a sound. There were no guards at any of the many doors he could see.
Glancing out a window Doc could see the massive boulevard leading up to the palace. It was empty in the mid-day light. No inflamed hordes of the peasant working class coming to finally take down the bourgeoisie. Strange to think he was in the midst of the most significant revolution of the modern era and it was so quiet and still. He could see some guards in the distance, gathered round a fire, more intent on staying warm than guarding.
The download flooded his brain with information, so much that Doc couldn’t move, mesmerized an almost orgasm of data. While the Palace in modern days was considered part of St. Petersburg, technically it was outside the city, at Tsarskoye Selo, 15 miles south of the city that helped explain the lack of crowds outside.
But St. Petersburg had been renamed Petrograd in 1914 at the start of Russia’s involvement in World War I to get rid of the German dangler: Burg. Doc imagined Peter the Great, who’d founded the city in 1703 after capturing the area from the Swedes, wouldn’t have been too happy about that. Peter the Great had wanted a year-round port and it fit the bill so he took it from the Swedes. He eventually moved his capital here from Moscow and, searching for a name, decided on the simplest solution: name it after himself.
Petrograd, as a name, wouldn’t last long, with its ties to the Tsarist past, and would be renamed Leningrad in 1924, just five days after the namesake passed away. But then Lenin’s communist legacy eventually passed away and in 1991, it went back to St. Petersburg.
The cycle of history, Doc thought. He looked back at the wing where the Tsarina had ensconced herself and her children. Like many people in huge mansions and palaces, the Tsarina spent most of her time in one small room, the antechamber off her bedroom. A tiny enclave in this football stadium of marble and gold and paintings and sculptures and tapestries and tall, closed doors. Doors that should have two Imperial Cossack guards with lances flanking them.
But didn’t.
Those days were gone and the revolutionaries controlled the area, making the grand palace a grand prison. He took a turn, following the floor plan from the download, not quite certain why he was drawn to these rooms; perhaps it was the unnatural attention that Anastasia had directed at him?
He paused at a door, marked with a small lilac. Doc opened it, peering in. Afternoon light filtered through a dirty window, revealing a bedroom. The beds were un-made, clothes scattered about.
The download informed him that the Duchesses shared rooms. The eldest, Olga and Tatiana, in one, while Anastasia shared hers with Maria.
Compared to their mother’s boudoir, the girls lived austerely. The beds could hardly be called that, more a cot with no pillows. A single desk with a chair on either side.
Doc shut the door. He opened the next one. Another bedroom, two cots, but everything in its place. Blankets folded. A book was open on a desk. Intrigued, bored, against his better judgment, he slipped in the room.
The book was a diary.
Like the download he couldn’t turn off, Doc was drawn to it. He leaned over. A pencil between pages marked a spot further in the diary, but Doc read the open page:
I know that I’m a princess, but I don’t want a prince. How funny that I’m the only girl who doesn’t want a prince, but rather desire an ordinary boy who loves me and not the shoe which I leave behind. I want no pumpkins, which turn into carriages, and certainly no wicked stepsisters as my sisters are enough for any lifetime. I want a true friend in a boy who will always care for me like papa cares for mama and combs my hair and laughs at my little stories and tell me over and over that I’m the prettiest when I know I’m not.
I don’t want a prince at all and I’m so lucky because I’m the youngest and will be able to have a real marriage for love and not for country or position or for treaty. I know those are needed, but mama said no to the first who was presented to her by her grandmother. To defy the great-grandma Victoria! Even her own son would not do so. But mama did and great-grandma granted her wish to be with papa.
And if she had not? I would not be here. I would not be writing this. So strange.
But once mama met papa, he was all she had room for in her heart.
Still, papa was a prince. If only he’d been a farmer. I’d still be here, mama would still have a full heart, but all these troubles would not lie on our heads.
If only.
If only.
If only HE had not come into mama’s life because of little brother. HE is not real. HE is not of us. I know it but I cannot tell anyone. They would think me crazy, even though they should see that HE is the crazy one. All the country can see it, but not mama. Even Papa
knows it, but he gives way.
Doc stared at the word: HE
He had no doubt who Anastasia was referring to: Rasputin.
He re-read: HE is not of us.
What did that mean? What had happened here? But Rasputin was dead and his legacy already a part of the future history. If Rasputin was a time traveler—and he wasn’t Time Patrol, even Dane wouldn’t forget to mention that little nugget—then?
The Shadow. It had already sown its seed of change well before Doc’s arrival. He’d been just in time.
Doc flipped through the pages, skimming the whimsy of a teenage girl, searching for more reference ‘HE’.
He found another dated December 1916.
HE sent a letter to mama, which caused her great consternation. She threw it to the fire, but I retrieved it before it was burned. I copy HIS words, so that someone who reads this after I am gone may know:
Doc swallowed, sure there was no way Anastasia meant a time traveler, but rather someone reading her words later on. But still—
He read the transcription of Rasputin’s letter:
I write this letter, the last letter, which will be left after me in Saint Petersburg. I have a premonition that I will die before 1 January. I speak to the Russian People, to Papa, to Mama and Children, to all of the Russian Land, what they should know and understand. If I will be killed by ordinary people, especially by my brothers—the Russian peasants—then you, the Russian Tsar, should not worry about Your Children. They will lead in Russia another hundred years.
But if I am murdered by the boyars and noblemen, if they spill my blood, and it stays upon their hands, then twenty-five years will pass before they will be able to wash my blood from their hands. They will have to flee from Russia or die. Brother will kill brother, everyone will kill each other and hate each other, and at the end of twenty-five years, not one nobleman will be left in Russia. Tsar of the Russian Land, if You hear the ringing of the funeral bell at the death of Grigori Rasputin, then know this; if in my death are guilty someone of Your relatives, then I tell you, that none of Your Family, none of Your children and Relatives will live more than two years. And if they live, they will pray to God for death, for they will see the disgrace and shame of the Russian Land, the arrival of the antichrist, pestilence, poverty, desecrated temples of God, holy places spit upon, where everyone will become a corpse. Three times twenty-five years will the black bandits, servants of the antichrist, destroy the people of Russia and the faith of the Orthodox. And the Russian Land will perish. And I perish, I have perished already, and I am no longer among the living. Pray, pray, be strong, think of Your Blessed Family.
The download was already casting doubt on the validity of the words Anastasia claimed were written by Rasputin. There had always been rumors of such a prophecy, but scholars had disputed it, claiming that the language in it was not such that would be used a Russian at that time.
Unless Rasputin wasn’t of this time, Doc thought. There was no reason for Anastasia to be making this up. She was here. Now. Historians weren’t.
Anastasia’s brief comments following the transcription indicated her thoughts ran in the same direction:
I fear HE is right. I have always known HE is not of us. Not of now. HE knows things he should not. HE does things no one should be able to do. I fear for all of us.
I would pray to God as Mama, and especially Papa, do. But God would never have allowed HIM to come here. I have prayed for Papa but it does not stop what is happening. I wonder, and I would never say this: Where is God? Why has He abandoned us?
Doc checked the rest of the diary, but there wasn’t another reference to HE. Not even a mention on the 30th of December 1916, when Rasputin was killed.
Doc went to the most recent entry and the first sentence chilled him, even though the room was heated.
When she died, she was only a teenager.
Doc forced himself to continue reading.
There was a boy somewhere who loved her, without ever having met her. But he knew her very well. He would never be able to tell her that he loved her, because now she was dead. But he thought, and she thought, that in another life, whenever that will be, that they might meet and fill each other’s heart.
Goodbye. Do not forget us.
Nothing more.
Doc glanced over his shoulder at the door. He felt as if Anastasia were watching him, even though the door was closed and he was alone.
Palos de la Frontera, Spain, 1493 A.D.
“THERE’S ANOTHER BAR HERE, RIGHT?” Mac asked.
There was movement on the deck of the ship, but no one had disembarked. A small boat with two men and a woman holding up a baby had rowed out not long ago. She’d called out, holding up the baby. A man had come to the side and there had been a conversation, too distant to make out, then the rowboat had come back, the woman looking none-too-pleased.
Geert was surprised at the question. “It is a harbor town for sailors. Of course, there is a bar. But our vows preclude—”
“Your vows,” Doc said.
Geert was quiet for a moment, then pointed. “Come. We will choose one where the Swiss are not.”
Mac walked alongside Geert to town, which was so small it wouldn’t have qualified for a single stop sign if there were cars. A dark opening beckoned in one of the buildings facing the waterfront and Geert ducked in. Mac glanced over his shoulder and noted that one of the Centre Suisse was following.
The tavern was crowded, sailors and fishermen discussing the appearance of just one of Columbus’ ships. They’d been gone since the 3rd of August the previous year. There was much speculation, and concern, over the missing Santa Maria and Pinta and their crews.
Geert made his way to a dark corner and Mac followed. Then they jostled each other, both wanting to sit with their back against the wall, until they settled on bracketing the corner, each with a wall behind them. A young boy came by and Geert ordered something.
“The town had to help pay,” Geert said, indicating the men.
“Pay for what?”
“For Columbus’ expedition. Ferdinand levied a tax on the town to help finance it. They all have a stake. Not that they will see any reward. It is the nature of Monarchs to demand money, rarely to give it. The town paid with the Nina and the Pinta and a large part of their crews. Captained by two brothers from here, the Pinzon’s. It is an interesting story and I have had nothing else to do this past week than listen to stories.”
Mac saw the Swiss Guard enter, check the interior, and after ascertaining Mac and Geert’s location, taking a seat where he could watch them. Nothing subtle about it at all.
“Columbus got Isabella and Ferdinand to assist in financing,” Geert said, “and that was in no small part due to Father de Cisneros from the Friary. He is Isabella’s confessor. Who knows what secrets he has hidden in heart that she has whispered to him, eh?”
The boy brought two mugs and Geert immediately drank half of his. Mac saw no reason not to follow suit.
“And, yes,” Geert said, “I see the Papal pig over there. One has shadowed me every time I left my room at the Inn. They are most suspicious of any strangers in town. Where was I?
“Ah. The ships. The King and Queen ordered the town to provide two vessels. The town refused. Father de Ciscneros cajoled them and they finally agreed but only on the conditions it was two of their own ships, with their own crew, with their own trusted Captains. Thus the Pinzon brothers and the Nina and Pinta.” Geert leaned close to Mac, his breath foul. “Some say that Martin Pinzon, the older brother and captain of the Pinta, had already found landfall to the west four years ago, but if so, there is no official acknowledgment of it.”
The download confirmed the rumor, but not the fact.
“Now all are worried where their sons and husbands and fathers are.”
Mac knew their fates. After ‘discovering’ San Salvador on the 12th of October the previous year, the small fleet moved on and made landfall in Cuba on the 28th. At which poin
t, Martin Pinzon parted ways with Columbus, taking the Pinta in search of a place he’d learned of from the natives that was supposed to be full of gold.
Then Columbus’ flagship, the Santa Maria foundered. Columbus was rescued by the Nina, which he made his new flagship. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough room on the smaller ship for both crews, so Columbus left forty men ashore, with orders to use the wreckage of the Santa Maria to build a fort.
Columbus sailed further along the coast and, amazingly, linked up with the Pinta along the coast of Cuba. A fierce argument ensued between Columbus and Pinzon, not only over Pinzon’s disappearance, but the stranding of the forty men, many of them from Palos de la Frontera.
Over Pinzon’s objections, the fleet, now down to two ships, headed back to Spain, leaving the men in Cuba. The ships were separated in a storm on Valentines Day. As far as Columbus and everyone else knew at the moment, Pinzon and the Pinta had been lost.
Geert had been silent for a little bit, leaving Mac to his thoughts, but he picked something up from Mac’s expression. “They are all lost?”
“No,” Mac said. Which was true and not true. The forty men Columbus had left behind? None survived to the next year. But the Pinta? Was he breaking Rule One by telling Geert what would happen any minute now? “Not all of them.” Of course, Mac, thought, what if the Pinta didn’t show up? Then things had already changed and—
Mac picked up the mug and drained it. “Another,” he said to Geert.