by K L Conger
Taras scooted closer to Inga, wrapping his arms around her again. “Don’t worry so much. She won’t be put out.” He thought of the old woman who’d directed him to Liliya. She’d been too old to work anymore when Taras spoke to her, but still living in the palace. “Even if she can’t work as much, she’s given many years of loyal service. Everything will be all right.”
Inga shook her head. “That may have been true in the past, but the Tsar is so angry, now. He finds reasons to make everyone’s lives miserable. The head clerk doesn’t like Yehvah. He scrutinizes her, looking for something to report.” She huffed out her breath and snuggled closer to him. “I’m going to take on more of her work. If everything’s getting done as it should, he’ll have nothing to complain about.”
Taras nodded. He didn't like the idea of Inga having to do more work, but he had no argument. She had the right of it. The best way to keep Yehvah safe was to make sure no negative reports sprung up. He wondered if Nikolai knew of the situation and made a mental note to discuss it with him in the morning.
With a shiver, Inga let her head roll to the side, so her forehead rested against him. He bent and kissed her. She wrapped trembling arms around his neck.
“It’s all right,” he whispered, stroking her hair. “It’ll all be all right.”
Chapter 11
THE NEXT DAY, AN ICY chill settled on the Kremlin. Spring had hardly arrived, and winter storms blew through, defying the transition to warmer seasons. When late afternoon came, Inga made her way toward Taras’s room. It was mid-afternoon and she wouldn't need to help with dinner for a few more hours. Yehvah had already napped. When she woke, she told Inga to take a few hours respite. Most of the palace had shut down. The frigid temperatures kept people in their rooms, close to the fireplaces. Even the corridors felt like cemeteries today.
The instant she entered Taras’s room and shut the heavy wooden door, warmth flooded up against and around her, enveloping her and evaporating her gooseflesh.
Taras's head came up from his place in front of the fire. A thick bearskin draped his shoulders, the hide spread out around him on the hearthstones. He looked solemn. Parchments littered the ground beside him, but he paid them no heed.
“It’s frigid out there,” she said. “Yehvah gave me a couple of hours before dinner.”
He smiled his beautiful smile and held out an inviting hand to her.
Kicking off her wooden clogs, she hurried toward him. He held open the bearskin and she nestled into his embrace, resting her head on his shoulder. Wrapping the skin around both of them, he pressed his face into her neck, smiling against her skin as she snuggled closer to him.
Inga turned her face to look up at him. “What are you thinking about?” His smile faded. She could guess where his thoughts lay. “Your mother?”
He shrugged. “My father. Both, I suppose.”
“Did you find something else out?”
“Not anything specific.” He went silent, his eyes far away.
She touched his face and he gazed down at her again. “Taras, tell me.”
His eyes shifted to stare past her, into the fire.
“Someone told me...it was because of him. My father. Mother died because of something to do with him, or something he did.”
Inga didn’t know what to say. She could see he was troubled. “Tell me your thoughts,” she whispered when the silence became unbearable.
He searched her face. “I’m wondering if he could have helped it. If he had any control over it.”
“What difference does that make?”
“I don’t know,” he sighed in frustration. “Maybe none.”
He tightened his grip on her as he stared into the fire. When he spoke, his voice was soft, almost a whisper. “Why do men always end up fighting the wars of their fathers? Is one lifetime not enough to end a conflict?”
Inga pressed against his chest harder, thinking, while he rubbed her shoulder. The silence stretched between them.
“Maybe,” she said softly, “that’s part of what makes us human.”
“What is?”
“Maybe one of the reasons we have children is to pick up the mantle of those battles we ourselves don’t have the strength to finish.”
He stared at her for several seconds, then pushed some hair back behind her ear, trailing his knuckles against her cheek. Cupping her face with his hand, he brought it within inches of his. “You should have been a scholar.” She smiled up at him. His eyes looked haggard, but he smiled back. “Do you have a surname, Inga?”
She shook her head. “None to speak of. I suppose the only one I can boast is Russovna.”
“Daughter of Russia?”
She smiled sheepishly. She'd given herself the name, and wondered if it sounded silly to him. “I know it doesn’t say much about who I am—no history—but it’s all I have.” She studied his shirt as she talked.
He lifted her chin with his finger. “Inga, it says everything.”
Inga smiled again. His answer pleased her for reasons she couldn’t define. “What’s brought on these thoughts of yours, Taras? Did something happen in your investigation?”
Taras related his conversation with Lady Zakharin the previous night.
“Don’t read too much into what she said, Taras,” Inga said. “The boyars are...self-serving. Always. If your father refused to...bend to the will of a powerful family—even if what they wanted him to do was unethical—many boyars would still see it as his fault for not doing what they wanted. It doesn’t mean your mother’s death was his fault or that he put her in danger.”
“I know,” Taras ran a hand through his white-blond hair. “I only wish I knew what she meant.”
“What will you do now?”
“I don’t know. It feels like my investigation has hit a wall more steadfast than the Kremlin. Maybe I’ll never get the answers I seek.”
“What if you don’t?” Inga asked. “Will you let it rule your life?”
Taras met her gaze with troubled eyes, then blinked, looking away. “I understand what you’re saying. I can’t let it rule my life. I won’t. Not forever. At the same time, Inga, I’m not ready to give up yet.” He scrubbed his face roughly with his hands. “I feel like I’m so close. Like the answers wait on the other side of an impenetrable wall. If I could only...find a way through...”
Inga put a hand on his arm, wishing she could comfort him. “At least spring has come. Summer is always better than winter in the Kremlin. Maybe it will bring you more opportunities to find answers.”
Taras glanced out the window doubtfully. “Spring? Are you certain?”
Inga grinned.
Taras’s smile faded as he put a hand on her neck. “Thank you,” he whispered.
“Of course.”
Her eyes fell on the parchments beside him. They weren’t official documents, as she’d originally supposed, but his sketches. Taras often drew on parchment with charcoal. His ability to capture frozen images was simply remarkable.
“You’ve been drawing,” she murmured.
He released her from the embrace and pulled back to pick up the parchments. “It soothes me,” he said.
One of the pictures showed a Russian soldier who bore suspicious likeness to Nikolai, astride his horse. Another showed the jagged mountains against the Russian skyline. The exact view seen from Taras’s window. The third was of the Tsar, sitting on his throne and looking haggard, as he had since Anastasia's death. The final one captured Inga—just her head and shoulders—sleeping against a pillow, her hair fanning out to one side.
Inga’s face and neck grew hot. “When did you draw this?”
“Just now.” He grinned and her cheeks heated further. “I’ve seen you sleeping enough times to draw it from memory.”
Inga put her finger in the air over the picture of the mountains. She didn’t dare touch it because the charcoal smudged easily, but tracing the skyline in the air above the picture made her feel like she could truly touch those moun
tains somehow. “It’s amazing, Taras,” she said softly.
“Do you want to try?” he asked.
“Try what?”
“Drawing.”
“Uh...” Fear sprang up at the thought of him seeing anything she might draw. Surely it would turn out hideous. “I...don’t know how.”
“I’ll show you.”
Inga shook her head. “Taras, I don’t think...” He'd already pulled out a fresh sheet of parchment and picked up a piece of charcoal with a point on one end.
Turning her so she sat in his lap with her back to him, he put his arms around her and, laying the parchment atop a book in her lap, positioned the long, skinny stick of charcoal between her fingers. “What do you want to draw?”
“I don’t know.”
He gazed at her, waiting for an answer.
“Um...a horse?”
He smiled and focused on the parchment. With his hand enveloping hers, he pressed the charcoal along its surface. Trying not to tremble, she allowed his hand to guide hers. He drew the long curve of the horse’s neck and back. Then the plump, half-circle of its underbelly. The strong lines of a funnel shape became a muscular neck, and he used lightly drawn circles to shape its head and nose. From time to time, he pulled the charcoal up from the page and used the side of his hand to smudge the lines to make them look like shadows.
As the wild-looking stallion took shape under their hands, Inga's chest filled with amazement. From absolutely nothing a beautiful creature took shape. It seemed so lifelike, she wanted to reach out and stroke its full, untamed mane. Taras drew the horse throwing its head and stomping its feet. Inga could almost hear the spirited whinny. Did Taras always feel this way when he sketched?
When he finished, he set down the charcoal and picked up a damp piece of cloth, which he used to clean the charcoal stains from both their hands.
Inga couldn’t tear her eyes from parchment. “Taras, it’s beautiful. It’s...so real.”
Taras smiled, looking pleased.
“I never knew it felt so...I don’t know.”
“Satisfying?” he asked, and she nodded. He nodded in answer. “When you create something, you have complete control of it, unlike in real life. Does it surprise you that this is what I do when I’m troubled?”
Inga’s eyes went back to the horse picture and she shook her head. “Not anymore.”
He laughed.
She turned in his lap and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Thank you,” she whispered. When she pulled back, he kissed her softly. They wrapped each other up in another embrace and he pressed her down to the warm hearth stones, kissing her more deeply.
Chapter 12
MOSCOW, SEPTEMBER 1549
Aleksey Tarasov arrived at the cathedral in a timely manner. He knew better than to dawdle when the Tsar called. Despite the inconsiderately short notice, fear had quickened his footsteps.
A short, plump altar boy informed him the Tsar still knelt at prayer. The boy led him inside, to a comfortable place where Aleksey could wait for Ivan.
A thumping on the door of Aleksey’s apartments not an hour before had awakened him, sending his heartbeat racing. The Tsar wanted to speak to him directly after the morning service.
Aleksey stood close to the throne of Russia, but the Tsar calling for him with such abrupt urgency still felt odd.
Aleksey donned a satin shirt with a matching coat, soft, warm britches made of rabbit pelts to hold the growing cold at bay, and a sable cloak—his more casual attire. When being seen in court, Aleksey always dressed to outdo the other boyars. For a private audience with the Tsar, one did not want to look too showy. The Tsar might take it as an insult. Or worse, a self-elevation. Where once such elevation would have only been an offense, it could mean death these days.
The past three months had been uneasy for everyone at court. The war with Livonia had been won, for all intents and purposes, at great cost. Stories of dark deeds and the twisted tactics of Ivan’s army made their way to the Kremlin. Aleksy had never shied away from violence, especially if plunder stood to be collected, but the stories set even his teeth on edge. Especially because Ivan never bothered to hide his glee over the incidents.
Meanwhile, after sending Adashev to the war as a voivode, Ivan decided to try him for treason, declaring Adashev could not aid in his own defense. “The man is poisonous as a basilisk,” Ivan declared, as if Adashev might cast some sort of spell over the court.
Aleksy never liked Adashev. Or Sylvester for that matter. Pariahs, both of them, feeding off Ivan’s good will. Still, Adashev possessed an affable temperament, and despite his dislike, Aleksy felt sorry for the man. The metropolitan, Mackary, tried unfailingly to intercede with Ivan on Adashev’s behalf, but to no avail. Ivan imprisoned Adashev at the beginning of summer. Aleksy had received a note two days before from his spies, reporting that Adashev had died in his cell with his face to the wall.
He wasn’t the only recent death. Anyone who openly opposed the Tsar’s policies or decisions disappeared within days, never to be seen again. People whispered to one another during the day about the screams coming from the dungeons or the dog yards at night. Granted, plenty of prisoners rotted in the dungeons—some Livonian, some Tatar, some merely Russian criminals—but the Tsar deciding to systematically torture them didn’t make sense. No, it was the screams of courtiers and their families that echoed in the darkness. Those who'd somehow displeased the Tsar. The Kremlin had become a place of fear and death.
Now the Tsar called for him Aleksy. He prayed the Tsar didn't want his head. With a shudder, he forced his thoughts to more positive things.
The cathedral stood, majestic and beautiful. Cushioned pews sat between vast wooden columns, thrown into regal shadow by the light streaming through colorful plate glass windows, showing scenes from the bible. Aleksey didn’t have to wait long. Within a quarter hour, Ivan emerged from the priest’s private chambers, where he had, no doubt, been praying in front of an ornate, guided alter.
Aleksey leapt to his feet. As the Tsar approached, face stone hard, Aleksy fell to one knee.
“You sent for me, Your Majesty?”
“Yes Tarasov. Rise.”
Aleksey obeyed.
“Aleksey, I have a special mission for you.”
“I am honored, Lord Tsar. Ask of me anything you wish.”
Ivan smiled grimly, and Aleksey fought to keep from shivering. The Tsar barely looked human these days.
“Good. I don’t remember all the work you did for my father, but multiple sources have told me you can be counted on to do, shall we say, grim work.”
Aleksey bowed his head in calm acquiescence, though his heart sped up of its own accord. It surprised him. After so many years of mundane living, Aleksey thought the thrill of the kill had left him. Now, it came again, in all its vivacity.
“It has been many years since I’ve been called upon to do such work, my lord, but I am ready to serve, as ever.”
“And eager, by the sound of it.”
Aleksey didn’t answer. Ivan glanced at him and nodded, as though he'd expected as much.
“Good. As for the ‘many years’ since you’ve done this sort of thing, don’t think I am a simpleton, Aleksey, or uninformed. I’ve heard tales of your exploits in the city. Many of the dames who come to your bed don’t come willingly, or so I am told. With some of them, you don’t even make it to your chamber.”
Aleksey frowned, careful to keep his eyes on the ground. Did Ivan condone or condemn? A long silence followed. The Tsar seemed to want some sort of reply.
“Pushing barmaids around in alleys is far different from the...other work I did for your father, my lord.” He glanced up. Ivan’s face remained unreadable. “The first is of little consequence, your grace.” Another long silence followed. Aleksey could think of nothing more to say.
Finally, Ivan nodded. “I suppose you're right. Not all men would agree, Aleksey. That is precisely why I know I can come to you with this. You, and your son
after you, have always been efficient enough to get the bloodiest work done. I know you worked as an assassin for my father, which is why your family has always been so highly favored, despite low connections.”
“Is this the kind of work the Tsar wishes me to commence now?”
“Not exactly.” Ivan held out a roll of parchment, too thin to be a long document.
Puzzled, Aleksey took it. The Tsar made a twirling motion with his finger, so Aleksey unrolled the scroll. On it, written in the Tsar’s hand, were a dozen names. Those of prominent boyar families in and around Moscow.
“I’m afraid I don’t understand, Lord Tsar.”
“Aleksey, walk with me.” Ivan moved toward the door of the cathedral and Aleksey fell in beside him. As they walked out into the bleak morning light of an overcast sky, Ivan’s voice dropped, becoming conspiratorial.
“Aleksey, I’m going to tell you something I’ve told no one else, not even the priest. The heads of each of those households are traitors.”
Aleksey stopped in his tracks, feeling as though his feet had bolted themselves to the ground. Ivan turned, eyebrow raised.
“Forgive me, my lord," Aleksey sputtered, trying to regain his composure. "I am merely surprised. These families are well known and have always claimed loyalty.” He began walking again and the Tsar matched him, stride for slow stride. “Would my Lord Tsar mind if I asked how he came by this knowledge? Not that I doubt it, of course. I am merely curious how such traitors stepped wrong enough to be found out.”
“They did not step wrong, Aleksey, but men cannot hide from God. When I am at prayer in the mornings, the Lord whispers the names of the traitors to me. I have heard these names over and over again. God wants them dead. Who are we mere mortals to question him?”
“Of course, my lord. What, then, are my orders?”
“Round them up, Aleksey. Use whatever means necessary. They will be executed three days hence. A public execution. In Red Square. Let the people see what disloyalty brings.”
“Of course, my lord. Shall I put together a posse of my own?”