by K L Conger
He and Nikolai had spoken at length about all that happened at the outlying estate, and had little more to say until Nikolai spoke with his contacts. They dismounted in silence, handing the reins of their horses to the capable stable boys with instructions for their care.
As they headed out of the stables, Taras noticed a lean figure in a dress walking brusquely toward them. Even at this distance he recognized Yehvah’s no-nonsense gait—more noticeable since she’d picked up a limp from an animal attack in Kazan. She angled toward Nikolai, who'd noticed her too. Taras flung his saddlebags over one shoulder, gave Nikolai a quick nod, and made for the palace, wanting to give them some privacy.
“You stay right where you are, Master Taras,” Yehvah snapped.
Taras’s eyebrows rose. He glanced at Nikolai whose face reflected the surprise. Yehvah’s ire brought everyone up short, but she rarely addressed Taras so directly.
“Where on God’s green earth have the two of you been?” She tried to glare at them both. They stood far enough apart as to make it difficult. Taras realized the three of them stood completely alone on the green in front of the stables. All stable boys and other nearby workers disappeared quietly when they caught sight of Yehvah.
Nikolai gaped at her. “Following up leads. I told you we’d be gone a few days—”
“You’ve been gone over a week now, Nikolai Petrov! That’s entirely different than a ‘few days!’”
“Yehvah, what’s wrong?” Taras asked, stepping closer. Even a tongue-lashing about the extra time wouldn’t be this bad unless something else was.
Chest heaving, Yehvah swallowed. “The Tsarina is ill. The Tsar is calling for all his loyal followers, including the chosen council, to be at his side. There have already been questions about where you two are and what you’re doing.”
Taras and Nikolai exchanged glances. That didn’t sound good. Nikolai opened his mouth, but Yehvah threw up a hand.
“No! Listen! The two of you go straight to the Tsar and explain. Tell him you visited acquaintances and lost track of time. Tell him your horse threw a shoe. Tell him you went whoring. I don’t care what. Something that will pacify him. Then fall on your knees—both of you—and profess undying devotion to him and the Tsarina. Make these suspicions go away! Understand?”
She spread her glare between the two of them until the both nodded.
“Good.” She turned to Taras. “After that, get to your rooms as soon as you can.”
Taras frowned. “Why?”
Yehvah heaved a deep breath, looking weary. “Inga was attacked this morning.”
A deep, still cold settled across Taras’s chest. “By who?”
“Who do you think?” Yehvah said quietly. He barely heard her voice over the moaning wind.
“But...is...” Taras sputtered.
“She’s all right,” Yehvah said. “Relatively. She fought him off. Even managed one decent kick that sent him limping away. But not before...he broke her arm.”
“He broke her arm?!” Taras snarled so loudly, Yehvah looked taken aback. “Where is he?”
Nikolai stepped forward, his voice full of warning. “Taras—”
“I said, where is he?” He kept his eyes on Yehvah.
“He’s not here,” she said firmly. “He left to go hunting this morning with a party of boyars.” Her voice dropped to a low mutter, as though speaking to herself, though Taras still heard clearly. “I’m surprised his father allowed it, but I suppose after the attack, Aleksy would want his son out of sight for a while.”
Taras stepped back, chest heaving.
“Go see the Tsar,” Yehvah’s voice was utterly calm, and she included Nikolai in her stare. “Then go see Inga,” she said to Taras. “You can’t do anything about Sergei today. Inga needs you. She should stay in bed for a few weeks to let her arm heal properly. If the Tsarina’s health doesn’t improve soon, she won't be able to.”
“Is the Tsarina so bad?” Nikolai asked.
Yehvah’s mouth settled into a grim line. “It came on quickly and it’s getting worse.”
Nikolai nodded. “We’ll go to the Tsar.”
HOURS PASSED BEFORE Taras made his way toward his rooms.
The Tsar received Taras and Nikolai, but shouted at them for half an hour about their tardiness. Ivan looked haggard. He obviously hadn’t slept much since Anastasia took ill. His red hair was unkempt, his beard unshaven. Above sunken cheeks, dark circles had taken up residence under his eyes, which looked feral.
Taras and Nikolai listened to him rant, heads down. When he ran out of breath, he sank to his knees and apologized, of all things.
“I’m sorry,” Ivan murmured, clapping a hand over his eyes. “I only...Anastasia. She’s so...and I need my loyal counselors around me.”
“Of course, my lord Tsar,” Nikolai said quickly. He, as well as several other boyars who stood in the reception hall watching, looked mildly alarmed at the sudden sincerity in Ivan’s countenance. He didn't use the royal we when addressing them. A sure sign of his fatigue. “You are completely within your rights to berate us, Majesty,” Nikolai went on. “Lord Taras and I were remiss in our duties and it will not happen again. We wish for the Tsar to know we are unfailingly loyal to him and the Tsarina Anastasia. If there’s anything we can do to prove our loyalty, or to help the Tsar carry his burden, we are his humble servants.”
Taras waited until Ivan raised his head to them before nodding and bowing his head lower.
Ivan took a deep breath and straightened, seeming to collect himself. “Are all members of my councils present, now?” He aimed the question at Sylvester, who stood off to one side, looking impeccable as ever. Dark, shoulder-length hair combed flawlessly into place and perfectly groomed beard sat above his priest’s vestments, which swayed as he stepped forward.
“They are, my lord. Many of the boyars are arriving from outlying estates to show their support as well.”
Ivan nodded. “It will not happen again, Lord Nikolai. Lord Taras. But you are forgiven. We know she was not ill when you left.”
“Our deepest thanks, my lord Tsar,” Nikolai said, bowing lower. Taras followed suit.
He and Nikolai stood, moving to the side of the room, when to Taras’s dismay, Sylvester stepped forward again, saying that several of the arriving boyars also wished the Tsar to receive them.
Taras couldn’t very well leave. His hasty exit would be noted. Especially after the Tsar so magnanimously pardoned them, it would be seen as distasteful.
Representative after representative of the great boyar families came forward, announcing their loyalty and condolences on the Tsarina’s condition and offering to do anything in their power for the Tsar during this difficult time. Ivan accepted the offerings with bored grace. He constantly threw glances toward the corridor, as though perhaps he could discern Anastasia’s state of health.
He grew more agitated as the minutes passed, but Sylvester kept sending more nobles in. Taras couldn’t understand why. Maybe the priest thought more professions of loyalty would lift Ivan’s spirit. From where Taras stood, it had the opposite effect.
“Enough of this!” Ivan finally jumped to his feet. “We have listened to enough and will hear no more. Our wife is ill and needs us.” A fearful silence settled on the room as the Tsar stormed out.
The man about to be shown in was Prince Dmitry Kurliatev. Nikita Funikov stood directly behind him. It couldn't have been lost on anyone that the boyars Ivan refused to listen to were ones who refused to swear fealty to the tsarevich when Ivan lay on his sickbed months before. Taras sighed. The situation was worrisome. It would become dire if Anastasia didn’t recover.
Taras said a silent prayer for the Tsarina’s return to health, then he headed for his rooms.
As he arrived, pushing through the heavy door, his eyes immediately fell on Inga. She sat at the end of the bed, looking miserable. Her right arm hung in a sling secured at the nape of her neck. Her headscarf was nowhere in sight, and her long, shimmery hair fe
ll in waves over her arms and shoulder. All color had drained from her face, which had a drawn, pinched look to it. Her eyes looked watery. Not red, as from crying, but far away, like distant ocean waves.
Someone straightened beside the fire as Taras walked in. Anne. Inga’s friend and fellow maid. She replaced the fire poker she held and crossed the room to him. “Are you staying, Lord Taras, or do you have duties to attend?”
“No, I’m staying.”
Anne nodded. “Then I will leave you. There is a tray for her by the fire. She has no appetite, but try to get her to eat something. I will have Bogdan send one of his boys with a tray for you as well.”
“Thank you,” Taras murmured, keeping his eyes on Inga. As Anne swept passed him, he put a hand on her arm. “How is she, Anne?” he asked quietly.
Anne shrugged. “She’ll be laid up for a while. That arm won’t be useful for weeks. But she’ll recover.” He nodded. He hadn't meant her arm, but he supposed Anne wasn’t the person to ask.
The door shut quietly behind her and Taras went to kneel on the ground in front of Inga. He took her hand and peered up into her face. Her eyes filled with tears. Taras moved up onto the bed beside her and wrapped his arms around her. “I’m so sorry, Inga. I’m so sorry this happened. I should have been back sooner.”
She shook her head against his chest. “It’s not your fault.” She sniffed and pulled back. “You can’t be beside me every second of every day. You have...work to do.”
Taras brushed her hair back from her face, rubbing tears away with his thumb. “You’re more important than my work,” he said quietly.
“I’m truly all right,” Inga whispered.
“Inga,” he put his face down close to hers, “your arm is broken.”
She smiled then. A sad smile. “Yes. It will heal. I only need to sleep.”
Taras stared at her, wishing he knew her thoughts. “Yehvah says you fought back.”
Inga nodded, hanging her head. “I’m not sure I should have.”
Taras raised an eyebrow. “Why not?”
She shrugged. “A servant does not disobey boyars, much less attack them. Yehvah said they sent Sergei away. I’m lucky his father didn’t ask for my head.”
“Even if he had,” Taras shook his head, “it wouldn’t happen. You know I'll always protect you.”
She frowned doubtfully before shifting her eyes away.
“What is it?” he asked.
She swallowed. “I don’t think it’s that simple, Taras. You think you can protect me. I’m not sure you can. Sergei said...”
“What did Sergei say?” It came out more harshly than he’d meant it to and Inga swallowed again.
“He said you asked the wrong questions, and too many of them. And you would...disappear.”
Taras leaned back, confused. “Sergei said that?”
She nodded and Taras frowned. He and Sergei were enemies because Sergei wanted Inga. The Tarasov clan had never been allies with Nikolai’s family. According to Nikolai, the whole lot of them were sadistic demons. After witnessing Sergei’s behavior in Kazan, Taras believed it. But why would Sergei care about Taras’s investigation into his mother’s death? It didn't concern him.
“What else did he say? Anything more?”
Inga shrugged uncomfortably, refusing to meet his eye. “He said it would get you killed, and then nothing would keep me from him.”
Taras sighed, pushing away the gnawing anger, and gazed toward the fire. Perhaps it had less to do with the investigation than it did with Sergei hoping Taras angered the wrong people and got himself beheaded. Then Sergei could have Inga. The thought put a cold pit in Tara’s stomach and anger rose again like bile.
He must ask Nikolai if the Tarasovs gained anything by his mother’s death.
Taras took the hand of her uninjured arm in both of his. “Inga, look at me. Sergei’s gone and Nikolai doesn’t think he’ll be back for...a while. If any plans are made to bring him back, Nikolai will know and warn us. If Sergei does ever show his face in the palace again, I intend to...pay him a visit.”
Inga opened her mouth to protest. He put a hand up to stop her.
“No, listen to me. I think you’re safe for the foreseeable future, but I want you to promise me something. If anyone—whether Sergei or anyone else—ever attacks you or tries to get you to do something you don’t want to, promise me you’ll defend yourself.”
Inga looked away, doubt in her eyes.
“Inga.” He turned her face back, forcing her to look into his eyes. “Promise me. You can find safety here. With me, with Nikolai, with Yehvah. Bogdan and most of the other servants will protect you. I’ll kill anyone who lays a hand on you, Sergei included, but you must protect yourself first. If you don’t, there won’t be much anyone else can do either.” He dropped his voice to a whisper and put his hand on her neck, pulling her face closer to his. “Promise me.”
Inga shut her eyes, releasing narrow rivulets of water. “I promise.”
With a sigh of relief, he got to his feet and moved to turn down the bed. She rose and stood beside him as he worked.
“Can I ask you something?” she said quietly.
“Of course.”
“Ever since Kazan, you’ve been...angrier with Sergei. Why?”
“He attacked you today, Inga.”
“I know. I’m not saying he doesn’t deserve it, but I’ve felt like...like you feel differently toward him than you used to.”
Taras sighed and turned to her. He led her to the edge of the turned-down bed so she could sit, and sat next to her. “I do feel differently about him. I always knew he wasn’t honorable, but what he did in Kazan...he’s a monster, Inga. Worse than I’d imagined.”
“What did he do in Kazan?”
Taras barked a laugh. “What didn’t he do? Murder. Rape. Plunder.”
“Most of the army did that,” she objected.
“That doesn’t make it right, Inga.” Taras rubbed his face with his hands, feeling exhausted. The past week’s travel was taking its toll. “Back when I soldiered in England, I wouldn’t have condoned many of the daily practices of Ivan’s army. War is always ugly, but I'd never experienced the level of brutality present in Kazan before. By staying here in Russia, I’m condoning things I never thought I would.”
“You couldn’t have stopped the army’s plundering, Taras,” Inga said quietly. “Any more than you could have stopped an ocean swell.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “A black ocean swell that would have drowned me had I put myself in its path. I still could have refused to be part of it. I could have walked away.”
“Why haven’t you?” Inga asked quietly.
“I still need answers, for one thing, about my mother. He gazed at her. "Then there’s you. I’d never willingly leave you, Inga.”
That brought a small smile to her lips.
“By staying here in the Kremlin, by remaining part of the army, my actions say I accept those kinds of tactics.”
“Not every part of the Kremlin is evil, Taras.”
He breathed out a soft smile and wrapped his arm around her waist, kissing her forehead. “That’s true.”
When he looked down at her again, fresh tears pooled in her eyes. He put a hand on her neck, tilting her chin up with the other. “If you’re so all right, why the tears?”
She wiped the tears from under her eyes. “I’m sorry. It’s everything.”
“Everything?”
“The last time this happened—”
“The last time what happened?”
“When Ivan’s mother died, it felt this way. People were afraid. Ivan was a child, terrified of losing his mother. Now he’s terrified of losing his wife. After Elena's death, the Kremlin was all terror and people vying for power. Yehvah protected me, but it was a time of uncertainty and darkness. The thought of it happening again...”
“Yehvah is still here. So am I. Things always feel scarier when you’re a child. It doesn’t have to be that way.”
“You weren’t here then, Taras. You don’t know how bad it got. Ivan was a monster before he married Anastasia. You never saw that side of him—not fully. You don’t know what he’s capable of.”
“What does it matter? Anastasia will get better, and Ivan won’t go back to being that man. She always keeps him grounded.”
“But what if she does die? Will we go back to death and upheaval? A different kind of terror every week? Children hiding from assassins in closets?”
Taras’s eyebrows climbed at the last statement. He’d have to ask for more details about that story. He would have pressed her for them now if she hadn’t looked so exhausted. “Inga, I’m here with you. I won’t let anything happen to you. If it gets that way again, if it becomes too dangerous for us to live in the palace anymore, we’ll go somewhere else. We’ll simply leave.”
She'd been studying the buttons on his coat, but she stared up at him then, eyes vaguely alarmed. “Why are you always talking about leaving?”
He lifted an eyebrow. “If things are about to get as dangerous as you say, wouldn’t you want to leave?”
“Taras, this is my home.”
“I understand, but what if it becomes too dangerous to be anyone’s home? Would you want to stay if your life is in peril? If men like Sergei are running rampant?”
She winced, then turned partially away from him. “You’re talking about going somewhere outside the Kremlin wall.”
“There’s a whole world outside that wall, Inga. Why does it frighten you so?”
Inga sighed, frustration dancing across her delicate features. “I can’t explain why, Taras. I’ve lived here my entire life. I’m tied to this place, body and soul. I was born in the shadow of the Kremlin. I always imagined I’d be buried in its bowels. I’m...chained to it somehow.”
“Only if you choose to be, Inga.”
Inga shrugged. “I can’t explain it to you. It simply is.” She looked small and vulnerable.