by Jane Feather
His hands slipped to her shoulders, rising in soft ivory from the low neck of her gown. Fingers curled like spines as he continued to smile at her in the mirror. “My dear wife, it is not for a serf to decide where and when he is needed. He will be brought back. And when he is, he will suffer the punishment of a runaway.” Did he imagine that minute tremor in the skin beneath his fingers?
Make no response, Sophie told herself. There was no reason to suppose they would catch Boris, and she must show only the most casual interest in the affair. Were her hands trembling? She smoothed down the skirt of her turquoise taffeta gown, lowering her head as if to concentrate on the task. When would he take his hands from her creeping flesh?
“If you are to accompany me, Paul, had you not better change your dress?” It was unusual for her to make such a definite statement, but she could think of nothing else to do. To her relief, he appeared to show no surprise at such directness.
“Yes, you are right, my dear. We should leave within the half hour.” He went to the door. “I will join you in the drawing room at half past four.”
The door closed on his departure, but still Sophie must maintain the impassive front before the spy, Maria, who had become both more vigilant and increasingly hostile since her whipping. Sophie could hardly blame the woman, but now, when she wanted to pace the bedchamber, giving vent to the agony of apprehension for Boris, and for herself, she must dab perfume behind her ears, flutter her handkerchief, check the contents of her reticule. At least, at a thronged court reception she could perhaps let her guard relax just a little. Paul could not watch her constantly. She would be able to talk naturally, to laugh, even to dance; and in these ordinary activities she would find momentary surcease from this overpowering apprehension.
Maybe Adam would be there…maybe he would dance with her. It would not look strange for him to do so, quite the reverse. And during the dance, words could be exchanged without audience. She rose from the dresser stool. “Thank you, Maria.” Her voice was cool, distant. “I do not know how late we shall be, but you will wait up for me.” With that slight, but satisfactory exertion of authority, Sophie swept from the room. Maria would wait up for her anyway, just as she would sleep across the door to the corridor, but it still gave Sophie the illusion of control.
All evening, she was on the watch for the tall, lean figure, immaculate in dress uniform, for the deep gray eyes that would rest upon her for a second of warmth and complicity. Her ears strained through the chatter, through the melodious plucking of strings, to identify the light tones, carrying just the faintest hint of accent, yet it was so faint one could hardly call it an accent. It was more of an intonation, more noticeable when he spoke Russian than French. But then, of course, French was the language of the aristocracy in Poland as well as Russia, so he would not have had to learn that language when he had been transplanted to St. Petersburg all those years ago.
These irrelevancies flitted in and out of her head throughout the evening, yet they were not really irrelevancies, because they related to one of the two subjects that absorbed her, body and soul. In Adam’s presence, some of her anxiety about Boris would be relieved simply by sharing it.
But he did not come to the Winter Palace that day.
The czarina greeted her former protégée kindly, but the sharp eyes noted the absence of the previous glow and vibrancy. The early days of marriage were a cross all young women had to bear, Catherine reflected. Perhaps the princess was pregnant. That would account for the slight listlessness, the pallor. Her husband, on the contrary, appeared mightily pleased, and kept a most flatteringly close and uxorious eye on his bride. If she were carrying his long-awaited heir, it would certainly explain such care and attention.
Catherine dismissed the question when she dismissed Sophia Alexeyevna with the instruction to enjoy herself amongst the friends she had made at court before her marriage. Before her instruction would be obeyed, however, Prince Dmitriev took his wife home.
Only Prince Potemkin, with the sensitivity drawn from his vast experience of women and their ways, was uneasy. There was something about the lowered eyes, the set of her head, that bespoke trouble. Potemkin knew General, Prince Paul Dmitriev better than did his empress. They were both soldiers, after all, and Dmitriev had served under Potemkin on more than one occasion. Potemkin did not care for Dmitriev’s style of command, any more than did Adam Danilevski, but like Adam he was obliged to recognize success. He stood staring with his one eye and scratching his chin; then he shrugged. When all was said and done, a man’s wife was his own. Sophia Alexeyevna had shown no reluctance for the marriage, and she had had time enough to become acquainted with her prospective bridegroom. No, it was probably the unfamiliarity of wedded bliss that had disturbed her…that and the heat. Whatever had possessed Dmitriev to keep her in St. Petersburg throughout the summer? Shaking his head, Potemkin went in search of vodka.
It was noon of the following day when the nightmare began. Sophie was in the mausoleum of the drawing room, made even darker by the rain scudding from a leaden sky beyond the windows, where, as in all St. Petersburg palaces, mica substituted for glass. She was seeking consolation and distraction from anxiety in her usual fashion. Her husband did not appear to find anything potentially subversive in reading and, indeed, ignored her pursuit of this leisure activity. She was now deeply absorbed in a volume of the letters of Madame de Sévigné when the sounds of disturbance came from the hall. Voices were raised—an unheard-of occurrence in this deadened house. The great front door slammed, footsteps scurried, clattering across the marble floors.
A cold sweat broke out on her forehead, trickled down her back; her hands began to shake uncontrollably; nausea rose in her throat. She knew what was happening even before her husband flung open the drawing room door and stood looking at her, silently, a mixture of rage and triumph in his eyes.
“I have managed to retrieve my property,” he said in his customary calm tones. “Unfortunately for him…although most fortunately for me…he met with some delay on the road so the pursuit was able to catch up with him without difficulty.” The thin lips flickered in a snake’s smile. “Come into the hall, my dear. Boris Mikhailov has something to return to you.”
Sophie wondered if her legs would bear her weight, if she would manage to swallow the nausea, or if she would collapse upon the rich Persian carpet, vomiting in helpless humiliation as the fear became uncontrollable. But strength came from somewhere. Slowly, tentatively, she rose from her chair. There was no point pretending she did not understand what had happened, that she knew nothing of the letter; and there was no point attempting to conceal her fear, even had she been able to do so. Her legs somehow obeyed the order to move. She walked past her husband, politely holding the door for her, into the hall.
Despite the leg irons and the manacles, Boris Mikhailov held his head high. His lip was swollen, crusted with dried blood. One eye was closed, purpling with a great bruise. His shirt was torn and bloodstained, drenched with the rain that dripped from his hair and beard.
“You have something that belongs to the princess, I understand, Boris Mikhailov,” came the silkily smooth tones of Prince Dmitriev. “Return it to her.”
Between his manacled hands, Boris grasped the letter. Now, painfully, he extended his hands toward her, holding out the paper. Moving as if through a blanket of fog, she stepped forward, unable to meet his eyes, which held a plea for forgiveness, as if the failure of his mission was entirely to be laid at his door. She took the paper, and for an instant her fingers closed over his.
“Perhaps you would read the letter to me, my dear wife,” requested the prince. “Just to refresh your memory.”
To be obliged to read aloud the catalog of hurts and mortifications to the one who had visited them upon her was a refinement of cruelty beyond belief, she thought distantly. “Have you not read it yourself already?” she heard herself say. Amazingly, her voice sounded quite steady.
“I would like to hear it from you
,” he replied, looking at her with that snake smile, reminding her of one of those reptiles, which, having paralyzed its prey with venom, can take its time before delivering the final blow, enjoying the victim’s dreadful helplessness, the terror of anticipation.
Slowly, she unfolded the document, quietly began to read it in the hushed hall. She kept her voice as low as she could so that the men guarding Boris would not hear clearly, but the humiliation was still so great she did not know how she managed to endure it.
Adam Danilevski stood in the shadow of the staircase at the rear of the hall. Obeying an ordinary summons from his general, he had entered the house from the rear, having left his horse in the stable. The minute he walked into the building, a breathlessness in the atmosphere had told him that something more than ordinarily unpleasant was happening. Instinctively, he had rejected the escort of an overly nervous Nikolai and had made his way, almost stealthily, to the front of the house. Now he stood concealed in the overhang of the staircase, watching this ghastly scene unfold before his eyes. He could be of no service to Sophie or to Boris by showing himself, could only wait and listen.
Sophie finished reading. She folded the letter again. Blood smeared the back of the paper. Boris Mikhailov’s blood. That thought came from a great distance as she stood immobile before her husband, waiting for the next stage of the nightmare to be revealed.
“Chain him in the stables,” the prince now said, cool and dispassionate. “He may spend the afternoon in contemplation of the punishment for a runaway—fifty blows of the great knout.”
Violently, Sophie was jerked back from her distant plane. A man of Boris’s stature and strength could conceivably survive fifty blows of the ordinary knout, but no man could live through such torture from the great scourge. In essence, Boris Mikhailov had just received a sentence of “cruel” death. Paradoxically, a sentence of “simple” death by hanging or beheading was not permitted the master of serfs, but he could condemn to torture, and if it resulted in death then that was simply a misfortune.
“You cannot order such a thing!” she exclaimed, wringing her hands in horror. “Boris is my serf. He was in my service, obeying my instructions—”
“Then he and you must learn that only I give orders in this household, Sophia Alexeyevna. And the only serfs under my roof are mine.” Dmitriev brought his face very close to hers, so that she could feel his breath on her cheek, was impaled by the ferocious cruelty in his eyes, the invincible power of some hatred that she knew was directed at her, yet she knew not why.
“No…no, please, you must not.” She was begging now, slipping to her knees on the hard marble floor, heedless of shame. “The offense is mine, not Boris Mikhailov’s. It is upon my back your lash should fall—”
“My dear, you are not very clever.” Her husband interrupted her coldly, looking down at her as she knelt in front of him, the dark eyes imploring in her upturned face, deathly white. “Do you think I do not realize that you would heed your own punishment less than you would heed his, earned for you?” Contempt laced his voice. “Maybe this last lesson will teach you to understand what it means to be my wife. But believe me, Sophia Alexeyevna, if further lessons are required, you shall have them.” He gestured to the guards. “Take him away!” Turning his back on the still-kneeling figure, he marched for the stairs.
Adam kept himself hidden only with the exercise of supreme control. He wanted to run to her where she knelt, head bowed in defeat, skirts heaped around her, sunbright yellow, a shocking, incongruous burst of color in the rain-dark gloom of the hall. But Boris Mikhailov could not be saved if Adam’s presence at the scene were revealed. No one must know he had been a witness. Silently, agonizingly, he left her alone in her grief and despair, melting into the shadows as he slipped from the house by a side door.
He sauntered into the stable yard some ten minutes later, when he was sure sufficient time had elapsed for Boris to be chained and the excitement of his recapture had died down a little.
“Do you wish for your horse, lord?” A groom came running as the count entered the yard.
“No, I left something in the saddlebag,” Adam responded easily. “I would prefer to fetch it myself.” A note of sharpness in his voice, an eyebrow raised with a hint of derision, and he managed to convey the perfectly reasonable impression that he did not trust anyone in Dmitriev’s stables to meddle with his possessions. The man bowed, returning to the tack room.
Adam went into the long, low stable block. The rain beat down upon the roof, which had sprung several leaks so that water splattered noisily into iron buckets set beneath the holes. The floor was wet beneath his feet, the straw soggy, and the stables’ occupants hung their heads in the resigned patience of their kind. Boris Mikhailov was in the last stall, an iron collar around his neck fastened to a ring in the wall, shackles on wrists and ankles similarly fastened. Adam barely glanced in his direction as he passed, seemingly in search of his own horse, but the look showed him what he had hoped to find. The keys to the chains hung upon a hook set into the wooden partition of the stall.
“Hey! You, there!” Imperatively, he summoned the only other free occupant of the building, a young lad mucking out a stall across the gangway from him.
“Yes, lord.” The lad dropped his spade and came running, tugging his forelock.
“Look at this!” Adam gestured into the stall that held his horse. “Is this the way you treat animals belonging to your master’s guests?” He allowed his voice to rise with anger. “It seems to me Prince Dmitriev cannot be aware of such insolent negligence.”
All the color drained from the boy’s face; he began to stammer wildly. “Please…please, Your Honor, I didn’t realize. It wasn’t my fault, Your Honor. I didn’t stable him, I didn’t, lord…It wasn’t me—”
“Fetch fresh hay at once!” snapped the count. “The water in the trough is dirty, and there is nothing but bran dust in the manger!”
The lad scuttled off, fear and bewilderment on his face. He could see nothing wrong in the stable, but it was the master’s prerogative to find fault and no right of the serf to disagree.
Adam ran to the stall holding Boris. “I will create some sort of a disturbance in the next few minutes,” he whispered, swift and low, fitting the key into the locks on the chains. “I cannot promise to draw attention for long. But try if you can to make your way to my house. Take this.” He slipped from his finger an intricately worked signet ring, tucking it into the muzhik’s hand, still held against the wall. Boris said nothing, but his fingers curled over the ring. “Show this to my butler and he will take you in.” There was no time for further words. The chains were unlocked although still in place; they would pass casual inspection.
Adam was going through his saddlebags when the lad hurried in with a pail of fresh water and an armful of straw. “What the devil…!” Adam bellowed, and the lad dropped the pail. “There was a pouch of rubles in here.” Adam grabbed the collar of the threadbare shirt. “Who else has been in here?”
The boy began to wail piteously. To be accused of theft was the ultimate terror for a serf. Men boiled into the building as Adam’s accusations gathered volume and momentum and the lad’s cries of innocence grew more frantic.
“Who is in charge around here?” demanded Count Danilevski, staring around at the stunned circle of heavy peasant faces. “Someone has stolen a pouch of rubles left in my saddlebag.”
“No…no, lord, no one would have done such a thing.” The head groom, whom Adam had last seen guarding Boris, stepped forward, trying to sound calm and strong, but they were all jumpier than usual as a result of Boris’s flight, his recapture, and the appalling knowledge of what was to happen to one of their number in the courtyard that evening.
“Outside! All of you!” Adam instructed brusquely. “I can see nothing in here.” He hearded them out into the pouring rain, where they stood miserably, turning out their pockets, knees knocking, feet shuffling, fear and dread on every face. And while they did so, Bori
s Mikhailov slipped loose from his bonds, gritted his teeth as the pain from his fractured ribs stabbed sharply, and inched his great bulk through the window at the rear of the building, melting into the rain to make his way to the house where he had visited Khan.
Adam, in a most credible imitation of his commanding officer, managed to intimidate the group of stable hands to such an extent they no longer seemed to know what day of the week it was. Those gray eyes seemed to see into their very souls, and the questions were barked in an endless stream, allowing no time for reflection, demanding answers whether they had them or no. After five minutes, although the search had turned up nothing, they were all so demoralized, so utterly convinced that they were about to be convicted of theft by this terrifying soldier, that they would be quite unable to reconstruct the events of the last half hour, if asked to do so when the disappearance of the captive serf was discovered.
Adam kept them quaking in the yard until the noon dinner gong rang. Then he dismissed them, confident that they would not think to check on the securely chained prisoner in the stable after the ordeal they had been through, and with the prospect of the main meal of the day cooling on the table. He was unable to quash a guilty stab as he stalked out of the yard, threatening further investigation after he had talked with Prince Dmitriev. But the sacrifice of those poor, petrified souls had been necessary. The image of Sophie, on her knees in front of the cold, brutal bully she had drawn as husband, her softly despairing pleas, the head bowed in submission, would not leave him. Never had he known such a murderous rage, and he did not know how he was to conceal it from Dmitriev. But he had to keep the appointment, had to appear oblivious of anything untoward in the household, had to hope that in the uproar when Boris’s escape was discovered Nikolai would not see any relevance in the fact that Count Danilevski had actually been admitted to the house once already. It was not unreasonable to expect Nikolai to have forgotten such an insignificant fact in the extraordinary turmoil. And if nothing more was said about the alleged theft from the count’s saddlebags, the stable hands would breathe a sigh of relief. They would not bring it up, praying instead that the incident would remain buried. They would have no reason to draw any connection between a runaway serf and the general’s irate aide-de-camp. No one would, except Sophie.