by K L Conger
Slipping into the hallway, she waited for her eyes to adjust to the dimmer light, and searched for movement. Nothing. She sprinted across the large intersection where she first saw the assassin and kept running.
TWENTY MINUTES LATER, Inga hurried back, walking behind Yehvah and Agrafena. Royal nursemaid to the two princes, Agrafena was their nurturer and true mother. When Inga found her, she’d been searching frantically for the boys. If anyone found out Agrafena lost the princes, it could mean the woman’s head on a pike.
The grand princess would not have come anyway, so Inga alerted Yehvah and together they found Agrafena. Now a ring of armed guards, two of which carried torches to light the way, surrounded them. The guards were told a stranger had been seen in the part of the palace where the princes were playing—not that the princes had been lost.
The group reached the intersection, the shadows retreating before the dancing flames.
“That door, just there,” Inga pointed. She addressed Yehvah, but everyone listened. Two of the guards, one with a torch, entered first. When Inga peered around the guards, her heart sank. The doors to the bureau had been thrown open. The boys were gone.
Agrafena whirled to face Inga, her eyes accusing. Stark fear contorted her face. Inga tasted bile in the back of her throat. “They were . . . they were here . . .”
“IVAN . . .” the nurse shrieked.
A muffled sound came from Inga’s right. The bed. A tiny hand stretched out from beneath it. Inga breathed in relief. They'd gone back to their original hiding place. Agrafena rushed forward and pulled Ivan into her arms. “Oh, thank you, Lord,” she said, smothering the small boy in her arms. “Where’s Yuri?”
Ivan struggled to pull away from his nurse’s embrace. “Under there.” Agrafena knelt and pulled the younger boy out from under the bed.
“Are you both well?” the nursemaid asked. Ivan nodded, burying his face in Agrafena’s shoulder. Yuri remained silent, starring dumbly at the wall. Inga didn’t think he had any idea of what had happened. He hadn't felt the imminent danger, much less the relief of rescue.
“Come,” Agrafena said. With Ivan on her hip and Yuri’s hand in hers, she walked swiftly from the room. The guards stayed with her, and Inga ran to catch up with Yehvah, who beckoned her to hurry.
A wave of exhaustion hit Inga. She’d not been tired when Yehvah sent her to fetch the silver, but she was now. Though the day drew toward its close, she still had dinner and plenty of cleaning to do before she could drop into bed. She rubbed her eyes.
Yehvah patted her shoulder. “You did well today, Inga. I’m proud of you.”
Inga tried to smile. It had been so long since she’d felt safe—since anyone had. She wondered if life would ever feel sane again.
Chapter 8
MOSCOW 1538
The scathing shriek shattered the silence of the early morning. Inga jumped so violently that she dropped her small stack of stoneware plates. They shattered at her feet, spewing jagged debris in every direction. Bogdan, standing across from her in the kitchen, peered at her with wide, frightened eyes.
What did a scream like that mean?
They both listened intently for a few moments. The silence stretched. Bogdan went back to his task, loading a large pot onto a swing arm over the fire to prepare breakfast. Inga glanced over her shoulder in the direction of the scream, wondering if she should go investigate. She shivered and bent to clean up the broken dishes. Distracted and unnerved, she cut a trembling finger on one of the shards.
“Ouch!” She sucked the sprout of blood from the tip of her middle finger.
“Inga,” Bogdan chided, coming around the counter to help her, “pay attention. We have too much to do to have you injured.”
Inga glared at him, but said nothing. She gazed over her shoulder again.
“Inga,” Bogdan snapped, “Focus. Clean this up.”
Inga barely paid attention.
“I can’t.” She looked back in time to see his eyebrow go up. “I mean . . . I will. I only need to go check something.”
Bogdan wasn’t fooled. “It came from far away—perhaps from the royal rooms. It’s not our concern.”
“You think it was the grand princess?”
“No. I think it’s none of our concern.”
“Bodgan,” Inga straightened. “What if it was one of the maids, or other servants? I’m responsible for them. I must go make sure they are all well.”
“Even if it is one of them, they most likely caught sight of a rat.”
Inga spun to face him, crossing her arms, fighting down a sudden surge of anger.
“We maids aren’t that jumpy, and you know it.”
Bogdan dropped his gaze, sufficiently chastised, and Inga headed for the door before he could argue again.
“I’ll be right back,” she said over her shoulder. As she left, he muttered about some maids who were jumpy. She ignored him.
Hurrying through the hushed corridors, Inga peered down each hallway she crossed, searching for anything out of place. Still too early for anyone except a few servants to be out of bed, the passages were mostly empty. Finally, Inga glimpsed Anne down a corridor to her right.
Anne claimed more years than Inga, and a prime example of why Yehvah had put Inga in charge, despite her youth. When something as simple as a missing tablecloth went wrong, Anne couldn’t handle it. She was likely to go into labored-breathing fits in the corner. She would never be able to shoulder the amount of responsibility Yehvah had given Inga. Now, the woman leaned against a thin table beneath a green and red tapestry showing the ancient Viking prince Oleg conquering Kiev. Anne’s hand rested on her stomach.
“Anne, what happened?”
Anne seemed to be carefully controlling her breathing. Inga waited for her to answer, resisting the urge to tap her foot.
Anne pointed up the corridor, the way Inga already faced. “The cry came from that way.”
Inga nodded. “Everything’s fine, Anne. Go back to work,” she called as she headed down the corridor. She passed several servants with similar expressions to Anne's. They pointed her in the right direction, and she told them to go back to their tasks. Inga marveled that the scream reverberated so loudly in the kitchens from so far away.
She ended up in the antechamber to the grand princess’s rooms. The doors were flung wide. Inga could see the princess’s torso and legs laid out on top of the covers. Doctors milled about the room, while half a dozen boyars paced the anteroom in circles. Yehvah stood off to Inga’s left, her face the color of the clouds in summer.
To Inga’s right stood Ivan.
The small boy, now eight years old, screamed and thrashed, walking in place against the strong hands of two boyars who held him there. Inga did not register the moisture in her eyes until the tears spilled onto her cheeks.
Ivan did not scream for his mother. Instead, he cried out for Agrafena, who stood a few feet from him; he wanted her. Elena had been a distant mother, more concerned with preserving power for her son’s future, keeping him physically alive, and bedding her lover, Obolensky, than being a nurturing mother to her children. Agrafena was Ivan’s only friend. Yuri stood stoically beside his thrashing brother, observing everything but comprehending nothing.
A movement caught her attention: Yehvah motioning to her. Inga walked to where Yehvah stood, and Yehvah pulled her into a secluded corner so they could speak.
“Is she—?”
“Dead. Yes.”
“How, Yehvah?”
“The doctors don’t know. She has been fighting a lung infection these past days, and that could be it. There is also talk of poison.”
Inga glanced around the room. Boyars, servants, doctors. This new information made them all look suspicious. “But we are so careful with her meals.”
Yehvah sighed. “Truthfully, it’s amazing she’s kept herself alive this long. Five years since Vasily died, and not one day has passed that an attempt has not been made on her life. This only means someone
finally succeeded.”
Ivan’s wails grew in pitch. His howls dug into Inga’s spine, running along her veins with a horrible prickling sensation. Even her fingertips ached for him.
“What will happen to Ivan now? Elena was the only thing between him and assassination.”
Yehvah stayed silent for a long time. It barely registered with Ivan’s screams in the background. Inga turned her back on the scene, trying to drown out the misery. Yehvah watched Ivan, but Inga didn’t think she truly saw him.
“I think he is safer than ever, Inga.”
Inga’s head snapped up. “Why would you think that?”
“Elena represented the true power behind the throne. It was she the boyars wanted dead. They went after Ivan because, without him, there would be no one she ruled for, no forthcoming grand prince. A woman by herself cannot rule Russia. Now, with Elena dead, Ivan and Yuri will be swept under a rug, forgotten for the present.”
“Are you sure?”
Yehvah pursed her lips, not answering, and Inga took it as a no.
“Who screamed earlier?”
“Elena’s lady in waiting. She found her when she came to wake her.”
“What is happening with Agrafena?”
Yehvah didn’t answer right away, and Inga turned to look at her. Pain lined Yehvah’s face.
“Obolensky and Elena were lovers. The boyars will kill him, now, without her protection. Agrafena is his sister, so they are sending her to a convent.”
Inga shut her eyes, trying to dispel the horror of it all. No wonder Ivan was screaming.
Two armed guards entered the anteroom and took Agrafena by the elbows. As they headed for the corridor, little Ivan escaped his guards by ducking underneath their arms. He threw himself onto Agrafena’s skirts, crying. One of the guards pushed him roughly away, and the Boyars who’d been holding him grabbed him again.
“Please, sirs,” Ivan called after them, “have pity. She’s done nothing wrong. She is not her brother. LEAVE HER!” They paid him no heed, hurrying Agrafena down the corridor. Agrafena gazed longingly back at Ivan, tears on her cheeks. Inga knew Ivan would never see his nurse again.
Worse, Ivan knew it.
The doctors and boyars in the anteroom grew tired of Ivan’s wails, so one of the men holding him back picked him up and carried him out of the room, though not unkindly. Ivan’s skinny arms reached around both sides of the man’s neck, thrashing and clawing for his nurse. His screams echoed through the palace, fading until they finally fell silent.
The following silence sounded loud by comparison. Inga wrapped her arms around herself, feeling the cold of the day. Yehvah’s hand rested on her shoulder, her eyes empathetic.
“Better get back to the kitchens, Inga. Bodgan will need you.” Inga nodded and hurried from the room. She did not want to be there anymore.
The initial scream awakened much of the palace, and many of its occupants had donned robes and come into the corridors, trying to find out what had happened. Most of them stood far above Inga’s station and ignored her. Several servants stopped her, asking what she knew. She told them to go back to work.
Inga neared the kitchens when she crossed an intersection and Natalya skidded into her. She grabbed Inga’s arms and swung her around so they faced one another.
“Inga, what’s happened?”
Normally, Inga would have pulled Natalya into a nearby corner and explained, but she'd passed the rooms of a boyar—Nikolai—who stood out in the corridor, looking on. Bare from the waist up, he stood right outside the door to his rooms, not six feet from them. He’d ignored Inga as she passed him, but if they talked, he might be able to hear. “Go back to work, Natalya.”
“No. You know what’s happened. I see it in your face. Tell me.” Inga glanced up at Nikolai. She thought he concentrated too hard on the far end of the corridor, but Natalya would not take “no” for an answer. Inga dropped her voice, praying he could not hear.
“Elena is dead.”
Nikolai’s head snapped around, all pretense dropped. He crossed the space between them in a single stride and took Inga roughly by the arms.
“What did you say, girl?”
“I . . . I said Elen . . . the grand princess . . . has died.” She kept her eyes down, but he held her close to him, looking aggressively down into her face. This meant she could not put her eyes below his chest, which made Inga blush because he wore no shirt. Nikolai’s eyes searched her face, his grip on her upper arms tightening and relaxing over and over again. She wondered what he thought he could find in the contours of her features.
Nikolai was not especially tall, as men went, but he stood tall enough to Inga’s short stature. Inga claimed fourteen winters now, and had most likely attained her full height. It was nothing to a grown man. Besides, tall or no, Nikolai’s arms were bigger around than her waist.
Finally he released her, pushing her back from him. Natalya half caught her as she stumbled backward. They both stood, eyes on the floor in front of him.
“Go about your work.”
They curtsied as one and hurried in the opposite direction. Thirty feet farther on, they turned the corner, headed for the kitchens, and Inga risked a look back.
Nikolai did not look at them. He gazed down the corridor toward the Royal rooms, his face deeply lined.
Even the boyars feared this kind of political upheaval.
When they entered the kitchen, Bogdan carried a bucket of water toward his pot, which now hung above a well-stoked fire. He’d cleaned up all the broken plates. He stopped when they entered. Their faces must have said a great deal.
“What is it?”
The two girls glanced at one another. “Elena is dead,” Inga said.
Bogdan dropped his bucket. The water spread out over the floor, leeching toward where Inga and Natalya stood. When Inga cut her finger on the broken plates, some of the blood must have remained unseen on the floor. As the water fanned out, a wispy line of red grew out of the place where the plates had broken. It reached for Inga as the puddle grew toward her. She stepped back from the spreading water, and it stopped just shy of where she stood. Natalya frowned at her questioningly, then at Bogdan.
They stood silent for a long time. Inga wrapped her arms around herself, unable to control the trembling of her shoulders.
Chapter 9
MOSCOW, SPRING 1543
Inga paced in the kitchen doorway. She glanced up to see Bogdan glaring at her. She put her head down and paced some more. What kept Natalya? She rarely ran this late.
Bogdan chopped vegetables so fast, she couldn't see his knife. Inga always wondered if he would cut himself. He never did. He finished an entire table full and put them into a pot before turning to her. She cringed, waiting for the lecture. Bogdan shifted his weight to one foot and put his fists on his hips.
“Inga, where is she?”
Inga threw her hands up. “I don’t know, Bogdan. She should have been here by now.”
“I need those things from the market within the hour, or dinner for the dignitaries will be late. Get going.”
“I can’t carry all the supplies back by myself, Bogdan. I have to wait for Natalya.” Inga paused, debating. Natalya never forgot the time; it was unlikely she simply lost track. Servants were beaten for such things. Likely she'd been cornered into another duty and could not get away.
“I’ll go and look for her.” Inga slipped out of her clogs and hung her shawl on a peg next to the door.
“Look for her? What if you pass her? Then she’ll be waiting for you.”
Inga sighed in frustration. Bogdan was being a pest today. “I’ll only be gone five minutes. If I don’t run into her, I’ll come back and see if she’s here. Is that acceptable?” Bogdan grunted, but the scowl remained.
Before Inga made it through the kitchen door, he stopped her again. “The dignitaries are filling the corridors. You can’t go out there looking like that.”
Inga looked down. She'd been working outside all
day. Spring had arrived, which meant work on the grounds. Dirt, soot, straw, and gravel covered the front of her smock.
“You’ll have to go around, through the courtyard,” Bogdan intoned.
Inga hedged at the idea. She would be more likely to miss Natalya, who would come through the palace to get to the kitchen. Besides, Ivan’s current behavior made everyone want to avoid the courtyard. All the same, Inga thought Bogdan might explode if she argued with him further, so she put her shawl and clogs back on and headed out the door.
Outside a brown stain glared up from the stone walkway. A week ago, one of Ivan’s “projects” had been found there. The servants buried it, but the bloodstain remained. Shivering, she hurried toward the courtyard.
Ivan spent his childhood hiding in closets and fighting for his right to exist. After his mother died and he lost his nurse, things became immeasurably worse. He’d taken to torturing baby animals. Plenty of stray dogs and cats roamed the palace grounds, and he liked to slice open their bellies while they still lived, to see how their insides worked. He claimed mere curiosity. Inga thought he took more interest in watching them die than in how their bodies functioned. It was blasphemy, but Inga secretly hoped Ivan would never take the throne.
Rumor had it that, a month earlier, he'd committed his first rape in a village outside the Kremlin Wall. He simply threw a woman to the ground and did it in front of everyone. Such occurrences were common among boyar men, but Ivan only had thirteen winters. Some servants whispered that the men of his retinue congratulated him on having such control of his manhood at such a young age.
More recently, Ivan had been rounding up boys his age to pillage the nearby villages for fun. They burned, plundered, and terrorized as they went. Ivan showed no interest in politics yet, but if he ever did . . .
The stone-inlaid courtyard stood empty today, unlike yesterday. Inga had been excited to see all the dignitaries arriving with their horses, trunks, servants, and other belongings. That had been before she realized the amount of work that would accompany the new arrivals.