by Sarah Ash
She caught sight of him in a window seat overlooking the lake, staring into the distant reed beds, lost in thought.
“Doctor Kazimir?”
He started. Below the window black swans glided past on the lake.
“Madame.” He rose to his feet. “I’m so glad you came. I wanted to apologize.” He was neatly dressed today, clean-shaven, with his fine fair hair combed back off his face. With relief she saw there was no sign of the drunken, disheveled Kazimir she had met above the Orrery tavern. She prayed this meeting would prove more fruitful than the last.
“No need to apologize, Doctor,” she said. “You have been through a terrible ordeal. And I caught you at an inopportune moment. I should have sent a letter. It’s just that I’ve been so worried about Gavril.” She sat down at the little table. “And I must confess, what you told me about your discoveries did little to allay my fears.”
“Will you try the ices, madame? They’re the best in Mirom.”
“Ices?” Ice cream had been the last thing on Elysia’s mind. “Oh, yes, thank you,” she said distractedly.
A waitress came past, and Doctor Kazimir beckoned her over. “Two sundaes,” he said. When the waitress had gone, he leaned forward and said in a low voice, “There is something else you should know.”
“I’d hoped there would be more to this meeting than ices,” Elysia said, unable to resist smiling.
Kazimir glanced around, as though checking they were not overheard. The general noise of conversation and clinking spoons on glasses was enough to afford a little privacy.
“I may have mentioned Lilias Arbelian,” he began, but broke off as the waitress appeared with two glass dishes filled with scoops of the brightly colored ices.
“You said she was Volkh’s mistress,” Elysia said bluntly. She picked up her spoon and began pressing the pistachio ice with it.
“I’m sorry I was so unsubtle.”
“No, no. Plain speaking. That’s what I prefer.”
“What I didn’t tell you,” and Kazimir leaned forward across the table, “is that she was working for Velemir.”
“Count Velemir?” Elysia said, genuinely surprised.
“Ssh.” Kazimir glanced around uneasily again. “His agents are everywhere.”
“You mean she was officially representing Muscobar’s interests in Azhkendir?” Elysia sampled the red raspberry sorbet; the flavor was both sweet and refreshingly sharp.
“Lilias?” An ironic little smile twisted Kazimir’s lips. “Good heavens, no, there was nothing official about Lilias. I mean she was sent to spy.”
Elysia laid down her spoon in the saucer. So the charming Count Velemir was Muscobar’s spymaster. Suddenly she found she had lost her appetite for ice cream.
“You didn’t know, madame?”
“No.” All Velemir’s talk of diplomacy and embassies was merely a cover; how could she have been so blind? She tried to dismiss the sense of betrayal from her mind, but somehow she felt cheapened, naive. “But what was so important to Muscobar about Volkh?”
“His powers, of course.”
“I don’t understand.”
“They thought your late husband had developed a weapon of massive destructive potential. They heard the stories of explosions, blue fire; hundreds, thousands dead. So they were more than a little perplexed when they heard the true explanation.”
“It does defy rational analysis, doesn’t it?” Elysia said wryly.
“They had hoped for the recipe for a new kind of gunpowder that could be manufactured here and used to defeat Eugene’s armies. Instead they were spun fairy tales about flying dragons and shape-shifting wizards.”
It was all so ludicrous that Elysia wanted to laugh. She clapped one lace-gloved hand to her mouth to hold the laughter in.
“But your son, Gavril. He is in a decidedly tricky situation.”
Sobered, Elysia nodded.
“Did I tell you Lilias was pregnant?”
“Pregnant? With Volkh’s child?” The possibility had not occurred to Elysia till now. She was not sure how she felt about the news.
“Well, no one was entirely sure whose child, including Lilias herself.” Kazimir’s expression had become cold and distant but Elysia sensed a slow simmering of suppressed emotion. “But she made certain everyone thought it was Lord Volkh’s.”
“You think it might be your child?” Elysia said, with a sudden rush of understanding.
Kazimir did not reply but beckoned the waitress over. “Vodka,” he said.
“And for madame?” the girl asked.
“Nothing else for me, thank you,” Elysia said with a sigh. Vodka again. Was this where the conversation ended, just when it was beginning to prove fruitful?
Kazimir was silent until the vodka came in a slender glass bottle; he poured a measure and swallowed it in one gulp. Elysia watched, not knowing what to say.
“Lilias is a dangerous woman,” he said at last. “Manipulative, clever . . . and very beautiful.”
“You are in love with her.”
“Was,” he corrected.
“In what respect is she dangerous?” persisted Elysia.
“She’s ambitious. She wanted to be Drakhys, mother to the heir of Azhkendir.”
“And still spying for Muscobar? Oh, please!”
“I said she was dangerous. Dangerously fickle. Now that Lord Volkh is dead, do you think her aspirations have changed? Her son is to be Drakhaon.”
Kazimir reached for the bottle again but she put out her hand, covering the top. She wanted him to be lucid, not to slide back into inebriated incoherence. To her surprise, he did not protest.
“I should never have let myself be tempted. I should have been stronger. But she was lonely and I was lonely. You know what a dismal place Azhkendir can be in winter. . . .”
“Yes,” Elysia said, remembering. “I can see it would have been indelicate of you to stay.”
“I begged her to come away with me. But she refused! She didn’t love your husband. She admired him, in her own warped kind of way, for his power—and his cruelty. Oh yes, that appealed to Lilias. But love?” His voice trembled. “She doesn’t understand the meaning of the word.”
He pushed back his chair, turning away from Elysia to gaze out over the mist-gray lake. Elysia thought she saw the glisten of tears in his eyes. In spite of herself, she found that she felt a little sorry for him.
“She must be a bewitching woman, this Lilias,” she said softly.
“And that is why your son, madame,” he said, clearing his throat, “is doubly in danger. He is a threat to her ambitions.”
“Are you saying she is ambitious enough to try to kill my son?”
“I believe she used me, manipulated my affections, with the sole purpose of gaining access to the elixir. And then I believe she used it to poison Lord Volkh.”
“Lilias?” Elysia exclaimed.
“Now I’ve alarmed you. I’m so sorry. That was never my intention, madame, I assure you. I only wanted to—”
“Yes, yes.” Elysia nodded, angry with herself for showing any sign of weakness. “But you haven’t really answered my question, Doctor Kazimir. How can you help Gavril?”
“Altan!” A man’s voice rang out above the buzz of conversation. Heads turned to stare.
Elysia looked up and saw to her annoyance that the man she had met in Kazimir’s room was forcing his way toward them. Matyev.
“Altan, where the hell have you been? Had you forgotten the meeting? Of the philosophical society?”
“Oh, sorry, Matyev, I must have lost all—”
Matyev picked up the vodka bottle; now he set it down hard on the table.
“And you’ve been drinking again! What use are you to our philosophical society if your brain’s soggy with alcohol?”
Matyev had ignored Elysia during the whole exchange. She looked coldly at him.
“M-may I present Madame El—”
Matyev turned to stare at Elysia.
“We’ve met,” he said curtly, turning away.
“Elysia Andar,” Kazimir finished.
Matyev turned back. “Andar? You are the portrait painter from Vermeille,” he said, eyes burning. “You work for the Orlovs.” The scornful way he pronounced the name left Elysia in no doubt of his feelings. “The gardens are crawling with his men. How can you be sure she’s not in his pay as well?”
“If you have an accusation to make, sir, at least make it to my face,” said Elysia, affronted by Matyev’s belligerent manner. “Do I take it to mean that you suspect me of some kind of double-dealing? Because—let me assure you—my meeting with the doctor here is of a purely personal nature. And none of your business!”
“Madame is a friend—” Kazimir began.
“Altan, Altan, why still so naive? Friend? When she keeps company with Butcher Velemir?” Matyev’s voice trembled with anger. “Haven’t you heard, man? Stepan is dead.”
“D-dead?” Kazimir looked up, stricken.
“Stepan?” Elysia murmured.
“The official version is that he hung himself in his cell. But they won’t let anyone see the body, not even his wife Natalya. I say they put him to the question—and botched the job.”
“Do you think he talked?” Kazimir said, suddenly agitated, shaking hands reaching for his glass. “Mentioned n-names?”
“Listen, you drunkard.” Matyev’s hand clamped down on his wrist, stopping him raising the glass to his lips. “Are we going to let this pass? Another ‘suicide’ in custody? Another unofficial execution?”
“The regime is corrupt, we all know it.” Kazimir said. “But what can we do?”
“Do? What can we do?” Matyev repeated in a harsh parody of Kazimir’s tone of voice. “I’ve just come from Stepan’s house. Natalya’s distraught, half-mad with grief. Four children to raise and her husband dead.” He glanced up and glared at Elysia. “And now I suppose you’ll go running back to your friends at court and blab all this out?”
“I can see why you have no reason to trust me,” Elysia said with chill disdain.
“You’re in a privileged position. You could be of use to us.” Matyev’s voice dropped, low and confidential as he leaned toward her across the table. “You know details, intimate details of the Orlov household. Who will leave the palace, by which gate, at which times—”
“Matyev, no!” Kazimir interrupted.
“You’re asking me to betray the confidentiality of a patron?” Elysia said, her voice brittle with contempt. “Do you think I have no professional ethics?”
“You see?” Matyev said with a shrug which said all too obviously what he thought of her professional ethics.
That was enough. Why should she stay only to be insulted? Matyev might be passionate about his beliefs, but he was a boor. Elysia rose. “It’s getting dark; I must be going.”
“M-madame, I—” Kazimir struggled to stammer out an apology.
“Thank you for the ices, Doctor,” she said crisply. She had no wish to hear his excuses. She had wanted his help, and he had let her down. “They were most . . . refreshing.”
She had the distinct impression as she threaded her way through the crowded tables that Kazimir had made a blundering move to come after her, but that Matyev had held him back.
Twilight had faded into night, and the Water Gardens were shrouded in the gloomy autumnal fog that Elysia had already come to associate with Mirom. She shivered, pulling her cloak up to cover her mouth so that she did not breathe in too much of the damp, chill air.
That infuriating man Matyev! Twice now he had interrupted her meetings with Altan Kazimir—and twice now she had come away frustrated, with only glimmers of answers to her questions.
Lamps had been lit along the paths but their thin light illumined little. As she hurried under the black, dank foliage and dripping branches, she began to wonder if she had taken a wrong turn. She had been walking briskly for some minutes and had come no closer to the gates.
Surely they would not lock the Water Gardens, with so many people still inside the Tea Pavilion?
A man loomed up out of the fog. She slowed her pace, glancing behind, to see if there was anyone else on the path. To her dismay, she realized she was quite alone. She turned around and began to hurry back the way she had come.
The man’s pace hastened to catch up with her.
The path divided into two ahead; she grabbed her skirts and broke into a run, taking the left fork.
Mustn’t panic. Try to retrace steps . . . find the Pavilion . . . be safe there.
She had lost all sense of direction now, but she could see the glow of a lamp up ahead. She began to hurry toward it—and ran straight into the arms of the shadow pursuing her.
“Steady there,” he said. The dim lamplight illuminated the warm brown eyes of Feodor Velemir.
“Count Velemir?” she cried. And then anger replaced relief and she shook herself free of his steadying grip. “What were you doing? Following me?”
“Protecting you, madame,” he said with a wry smile.
“Am I so important that the spymaster of all Muscobar must devote his valuable time to following me?”
“Ah. So Kazimir told you.”
“I wonder why you never thought to do so yourself.” To her annoyance she found she was trembling like a frightened schoolgirl. Pull yourself together! she told herself. Was she trembling with fear—or anger? “But was it really me you were protecting? Or were you trailing someone else?”
He did not answer.
“I came to you for help, count. I have answered all your questions with complete candor. And in return I have received nothing but evasions.”
Still he said nothing. The fog seemed to grow more dense around them. Then he said, “Tell me what it is you want, Elysia.”
“I want to return to Vermeille. My work here is done. It’s obvious to me that no one here can—or will—do anything to help Gavril. Perhaps one of your agents, count, could send word to my housekeeper, Palmyre, to tell her I am coming home?” And, pulling her hood closer about her head, she set out again along the path.
Velemir hurried after her, blocking her way again.
“Do you doubt me, Elysia? I made you a promise—and I always keep my word.” He spoke in a low, intense voice that sent a shiver through her. “But these matters take time. And there have been distractions. Unwanted distractions.”
“What do you mean, distractions?” she said, exasperated. “If you mean what happened to Stepan—”
“Stepan?”
Shadows loomed up out of the fog, people coming toward them from the Pavilion.
Suddenly he swept his arm around her, pulling her close as if about to kiss her. His breath was warm on her cheek, faintly sweet with anise. Too surprised to twist away, she heard him whisper, “Forgive me, Elysia.”
The men walked on past—and when the sound of their footsteps had died away, he took her arm and began to hurry her along the path.
“Isn’t it customary for the woman to slap the man’s face in these circumstances?” Elysia said breathlessly.
“It was unpardonable of me to take such a liberty.” He spoke to her in a quiet, intimate voice, more the tone a confidant or lover might use. “It was essential that I should not be recognized. Here, of all places.” He stopped, his hands still enclosing hers. “Listen to me, Elysia. I don’t know what you’ve heard or who told you. But I beg you, do not condemn me until you have learned all the facts.”
“Facts!”
“My carriage is waiting at the gates of the Gardens. The fog is growing thicker by the minute. At least let me take you back to the palace in comfort.”
Elysia sat in silence as Count Velemir’s carriage rolled away from the Water Gardens into the drifting fog.
“You met our friend the doctor again?” Velemir said.
“Since you know everything about my comings and goings,” she began, “it is hardly necessary for me to confirm or—”
“What�
��s that noise?” Velemir raised the carriage blinds, leaning out.
Elysia listened. It was the same roar of shouting she had heard outside Saint Simeon’s, the roar of an angry crowd.
“The street’s blocked ahead,” the carriage driver called down. The carriage slowed to a standstill. “Hundreds of people.”
Elysia looked out from her side of the carriage. The foggy darkness had turned from black to flickering red and gold. Torches. They had run into a torchlit procession.
“They’ve filled the Palace Square, excellency. We may not get through.”
“Drive on, coachman!” Velemir ordered. “I want to see what this is about.”
The shouting was louder now, the glow of torches brighter. Elysia thought she could identify words and a name.
“Stepan! Stepan!”
“Stepan the Cobbler?” she said. “The one who died in your custody?”
“Stepan the assassin,” Velemir said coldly. “Remember? He tried to stab the Grand Duke.”
The street wound down toward the Winter Palace. The coach slowed to a crawl as they reached the square in front of the palace. People pushed around them, past them. From the coach window Elysia could see that the square was filled with a vast crowd, many bearing flaming torches whose glare cast red shadows on the white stucco walls of the palace. More ominous still, behind the high palace railings—behind the elaborate ironwork grilles with their spread-winged sea-eagles—the White Guard was ranged. The shouting of the crowd had become deafening.
“We shouldn’t go any farther,” Elysia whispered.
“Look.” He had not heard her. “There’s the ringleader.”
As she followed his gaze she saw a man climbing up to stand on a herring barrel outside the main gates, immediately beneath the gilded Orlov crest. The shouting slowly stilled as he raised his arms, and some of his words carried to them across the square.
“Our brother Stepan dared to strike a blow for his comrades.”
“Stepan!” roared back the crowd.
“Now we must strike a blow for him. To honor his memory.” The rough, strident tones were familiar. She recognized him.