Kremlins Boxset

by K L Conger

  And that was only one of the things her torturers did. After all the stretching and pinching and stabbing and crushing, she doubted her body would ever function quite the same way again.

  Inga found consolation in the fact that she never broke. She never gave Taras up. Only that thought brought any warmth into her numb, unresponsive body. Taras remained safe and unknown, making a life for himself somewhere in Siberia. She even comforted herself that perhaps he’d already gone farther than Siberia. Perhaps he’d gone home to England, or to another place in the world. The idea of him having a wife and children made her stomach churn, but visions of him living a full and happy life, outside Ivan's reach, sustained her through those terrible days and nights in the dungeons.

  After her ordeal, and a week of rest, Inga went back to work. She went through her daily chores with automatic movements. Her days and nights now passed in a blur, which was how she preferred it.

  Rubbing her shoulders, she shrugged. "They're a little sore, but not bad this morning."

  Yehvah nodded and returned a worried gaze to the door.

  Inga gave her a sidelong glance. For the first time since Taras left, curiosity overcame her apathy. She scooted closer to Yehvah and lowered her voice. "I yield. Why do we hide in here?"

  Yehvah’s eyes widened in shock, which was unusual for her. Yehvah felt shock as anyone did, but she rarely showed it. Inga didn't know if the look came because of Inga’s ignorance of events, or because Inga asked the question at all. Yehvah, of all people, must have noticed how withdrawn Inga had become in recent months.

  Yehvah’s eyes returned to their normal width quickly. She glanced from side to side to make sure none of the other maids listened. Then she jerked her head toward the door. Inga followed her to the entrance, but they didn't go through it. They simply stood apart from the others and whispered quietly.

  "The executions are happening today, Inga," Yehvah whispered. "Surely you’ve paid enough attention to know that's happening, haven't you?"

  Inga nodded. "Of course. But Ivan executes people all the time. What's so special about today?"

  Yehvah sighed. “You’ve been so out of touch lately, Inga. You haven’t heard the worst of the gossip. I haven’t sent you out of the palace in weeks. I journeyed to Red Square two nights past to see for myself. Ivan has had seventeen gallows built. A massive cauldron filled with water sits atop a bundle of wood, waiting to be lit. There’s a frying pan the size of a human body, and half a dozen tables set up with the typical instruments of torture. Ropes, hooks, knives, maces—”

  Wrists shackled to the top corners of the cold metal table, Inga groaned. The men each took one of her ankles roughly in hand and pulled until they could shackle them to the bottom corners of the table. Inga felt stretched beyond what her body could sustain. As though her limbs were being slowly torn from her torso.

  “Tell us what you know of Taras Demidov’s location,” the man with the deep voice said authoritatively.

  “Nothing,” Inga gasped.

  A sudden, sharp fire seared across her back. The thick thwap of the whip accompanied it. It knocked the air from her lungs and the feeling from her fingers and toes. Inga didn’t think she would ever breath again.

  “That answer is neither truthful nor acceptable,” the man intoned. He almost sounded bored. “Where is Taras Demidov?”

  “Don’t...know,” Inga gasped. Her voice came out as a barely audible whisper.

  Silence. Stillness. Inga began to recover.

  Thwap.

  Inga swallowed and dropped her eyes as images of her own torture flashed into her mind. Though she hadn’t been cut overly much, she'd been whipped. Her back still carried the scars. Still, her torture had been mostly bloodless. Yet, she'd seen all the instruments Yehvah listed in the dungeons. Placed there to intimidate her, no doubt, into talking. Inga doubted she would ever look at one again without cringing.

  "I'm sorry, Inga," Yehvah said softly. "I didn't think."

  Inga quickly shook her head. "It's fine. I’m the one who asked." As she always did when the pain inside her reared its ugly head, Inga considered two choices: allow herself to wallow in the pain or embrace apathy. She chose the latter, as it kept her functional, and it settled over her in a blanket of numbness. A balm for the pain she desperately hid from. A way to keep her protective walls strong.

  “My point,” Yehvah said, “is that it will simply be worse today than usual. If we merely stay in here until it’s over, I doubt our absence will be noticed. I fear it may be too dangerous for us to be a part of the crowd today.”

  Inga nodded, agreeing with Yehvah’s logic. The Tsar always wanted his spectacles to be witnessed and admired. As long as Muscovite citizens filled Red Square, Ivan wouldn’t care about Kremlin servants.

  Inga and Yehvah jumped in unison when a sharp rap came at the door, inches from where they conversed. Yehvah took Inga’s wrist and pulled her away from the door, stepping between Inga and the heavy slab of wood. The soft whispering of the maids behind them went silent. The fear in the room became palpable. Inga concentrated on her numbness.

  Yehvah opened the door slowly, only enough to peer out. She exhaled with relief and opened wider. Turning her head, she spoke over her shoulder. "It is only Lord Nikolai. Be at ease."

  A chorus of relieved sighs came from the room behind Inga.

  Over Yehvah’s shoulder, Inga saw Nikolai peering worriedly into the room. Nikolai, though not as tall as Taras, still stood head and shoulders above Inga and Yehvah. Like Yehvah, he had white-blond hair, blue eyes, and Russian features.

  Before Taras left, Inga had deeply respected Nikolai, but they’d never been especially close. She would forever be grateful to him, both for helping and protecting Taras, and for what he’d done for Inga herself in that dungeon months ago.

  Inga phased in and out of consciousness. When she slept, she saw only the warm, inviting darkness. When she opened her eyes, the cold inside the dungeon met them again and again.

  She felt a combination of numbness and pain. She couldn’t remember what warmth or comfort felt like. Softness against her skin seemed a sensation of so long ago, it had become completely alien.

  She didn’t pray for freedom. Only death.

  The door of the dungeon opened. She couldn’t see it, shackled as she was to a wall that didn’t have the door in its line of sight, but she knew the sound of the door opening by now. Her torturers had returned. Perhaps they would finally kill her today.

  “Hello, my dear,” the man with the deep voice said. “Shall we start with your fingernails today?”

  Her fingernails? What would they do to her fingernails?

  Inga didn’t care to know, though she thought she’d probably find out in the next few minutes.

  She closed her eyes. For some time, she heard only the soft grating of metal against metal as the torturers laid out their instruments and prepared their grim machinery.

  The sound of male voices wafted to her ears, then. Not all were those of her torturers. She thought she recognized one in particular, but couldn’t identify it, woozy as she was. She strained her ears, trying to focus on the familiar cadence.

  “...has not confessed,” her deep-voiced torturer said.

  “Come, man. It’s been days. She’s a mere maid. Frightened and uneducated. Demidov was a shrewd man. He wouldn’t have told her anything she could tell others to give him away. If he had, she would have confessed it by now.”

  “I have my orders from the Tsar.”

  “Gah,” the voice turned dismissive. “A man such as you has far more important things to do than torture an uneducated wench for no purpose. Tell him you questioned her thoroughly and got out of her what you could. Tell him you’re satisfied with the outcome and move on to more lucrative prospects. Those who give up information and will make you more valuable in the Tsar’s eyes.”

  Silence followed. “You are a shrewd man yourself, aren’t you Master Petrov?”

  “I only point
out the obvious. If the Tsar’s chief questioner cannot get a lowly maid to confess after days and days, the Tsar might begin to look for a new chief questioner who is more...persuasive.”

  “Very well, Master Petrov. But she is yours to dispose of. I will not be bothered.”

  Inga didn’t know how much time passed. She might have passed out again. The next thing she became aware of was gentle hands unshackling her. Strong arms lifted her up and Inga’s head fell back. She didn’t have the strength to raise it.

  “Don’t die on me now, girl,” Nikolai’s voice said softly. “I will take you to Yehvah. She’ll be your nurse.”

  Yehvah turned to her and dropped her voice once more. “I'm going to step out into the corridor and speak with Nikolai. Keep an eye on the other girls?"

  Inga simply nodded. She turned to face the room and leaned back against the wall. Yehvah didn't close the door behind her. It remained open a crack, enough for Inga to hear Nikolai and Yehvah’s conversation.

  "Everything okay?" Yehvah asked softly.

  "You and your girls must come, Yehvah."

  Yehvah gasped. "Why?"

  “It’s not only the palace servants who are hiding. Everyone is. Ivan wants an audience. Even now, the oprichniki ride through the streets, insisting everyone come and watch. He's ordered all the inhabitants of the palace to the square as an example.”

  "I suppose it’s not surprising people would hide,” Yehvah sighed. “Given what happened in Novgorod. Do you think he plans to do the same thing here, in Moscow?"

  Nikolai hesitated before speaking again. Because Inga couldn’t see him, she couldn’t gauge his expression. "Even his favorites are being denounced now, which means no one is safe. But for today, I honestly don't think so. He already has three hundred prisoners to dispose of. He won't have the time or energy for more. Besides, Ivan has instructed the oprichniki to assure the people no one who comes to watch will be harmed. The people are already beginning to trickle out of their homes into the square."

  Yehvah sighed again. "All right. I'll bring my girls."

  "Bring them to the East side of the square," Nikolai said. "I’ll be stationed there."

  "We'll be there shortly," Yehvah said.

  Inga heard a soft, wet, clicking sound: Yehvah kissing Nikolai. Probably a peck on the lips. Inga folded her arms and stared at the ground, feeling a sharp pang of envy tear through her wall of numbness. Not for Nikolai himself, of course, but because she missed Taras so much. She missed his smile and his warmth. His touch and his companionship. She could hardly be angry at Yehvah for having, with Nikolai, what Inga no longer had with Taras. After all, she could have gone with him if she’d wanted. And yet she did feel anger. At whom, she couldn’t say. Perhaps it was simply resentment at what she’d lost.

  Yehvah re-entered the room and explained that they would be walking to the square. The other maids reacted to the news with fear. One and all, their eyes grew wide. Some clapped hands over their mouths or huddled in on themselves, hands clutching their elbows as if they felt cold. A few began to cry softly.

  "Now, now," Yehvah said. "Lord Nikolai tells me the Tsar has promised we won’t be harmed. Lord Nikolai himself will be close by and see to it that we are not.”

  Inga kept her eyes on the ground. If Nikolai turned out to be mistaken, and things turned dangerous, he wouldn’t be able to protect them all from harm. She knew Yehvah was merely trying to comfort and encourage the young maids.

  “Be brave girls,” Yehvah continued. “We must obey the Tsar’s commands."

  "What will we see there, Yehvah?" a young maid, Ekaterina, asked. The girl had only recently come to the palace to train as a maid, and Inga knew she only claimed fifteen winters. In this moment, Ekaterina reminded Inga of herself at fifteen. Frightened, uneducated, and completely at the mercy of her surroundings.

  Yehvah hesitated. "What we see there today...will be awful," she said gently.

  Some of the maids sobbed anew.

  Yehvah’s brow furrowed in distress. "I truly wish I could keep you all from having to see it, but I cannot. We must show our loyalty to the Tsar, or else suffer his punishments ourselves.”

  AN HOUR LATER, RED Square had filled to bursting. Inga, standing beside Yehvah with all the other maids huddled around them, felt the nervous energy emanating from the crowd. They’d been stuffed into the square, shoulder to shoulder around every dais that held gallows or other instruments of death. Everything Yehvah described—the cauldron, the frying pan, the tables full of instruments—gleamed in the midday sun. Huddled so close to so many bodies, Inga should have felt overly warm, but she didn’t. The cold permeated every part of her body. And soul.

  A drum roll announced Ivan's imminent arrival. He rode into Red Square on a magnificent white horse. His clothes were the finest Inga had ever seen, full of silk sashes and embroidery. His saddle glittered with emeralds and seed pearls and over one shoulder hung a quiver filled with gilded arrows.

  Ivan’s eyes looked as sunken and cruel as ever, but this past year also filled him out. He’d taken to glutting himself, not only on violence and women, but on food. His face was creased with the weight he’d gained since returning from Novgorod. He filled out his clothes better than before, though his flabby skin still hung off his bones, as if his body struggled to hold itself together.

  Behind Ivan came a second white horse, carrying Ivan's oldest son by Anastasia, who shared his name. The three-year-old boy rode in front of a streltsi guard who Inga knew had been tasked with protecting the boy. Ivan took his oldest son everywhere with him, giving him a front row seat to Ivan’s depravity. The miniature red-head looked much like his father. Same hair, same eyes, already a royal way of holding himself.

  Inga shuddered. Was Russia doomed to another ruler exactly like Ivan? Would this violence continue for a hundred years?

  Behind the Tsar and Tsarevich marched the black-clad oprichniki. They led a slow caravan of the condemned. Many of the prisoners had been tortured for months. They limped into the square, mutilated, bleeding, bruised. Most looked only half alive. They came without fuss, as though completely resigned to their fate.

  Inga wondered if she’d looked that way this past year, stumbling through life, accepting it rather than attempting to live.

  When Ivan reached the middle of the square, he raised his arms from atop his stallion. "People of Moscow!” His voice echoed through the square. “You will see tortures this day. But those who we will punish are traitors! Answer us: do you find our sentence just?"

  The crowd roared its approval. While it sounded boisterous and sincere to Inga, everyone in the crowd knew if they didn't sound sincere, their names would quietly make their way onto the Tsar's death lists. They cheered as though their lives depended on it. Before long, the crowd began to chant. "Long live the Tsar! Death to his enemies!"

  Ivan, sitting atop his horse, grinned, practically trembling with satisfaction.

  The spectacle began with Ivan magnanimously giving out pardons. The Archbishop of Novgorod, Pimen, was allowed to live, banished to some faraway monastery, the name of which Inga didn’t recognize. Inga didn't know anything about Pimen, except the man looked utterly broken. He perched atop his horse, not truly riding or commanding it, with a hunched back, eyes on the pommel of his saddle. Tufts of his thick, dark hair seemed to be missing, and his movements looked stiff and jerky, as though he were in pain.

  Inga felt a faraway pity for him, though beneath the wall of her numbness, she barely registered it.

  Nikolai stood at one side of the square, his hawkish blue eyes taking in everything. He made his way slowly and inconspicuously through the crowd to stand beside Yehvah. The two of them made no outward show of affection, but they leaned, probably unconsciously, toward one another once they stood side by side.

  Inga did her best to ignore their body language. She peered between their shoulders to where the supreme Tsar’s horse rode in tight circles, surveying Red Square.

  Yehvah lo
wered her voice and whispered toward Nikolai. "Where is Viazemsky? I thought he would be present today."

  Nikolai leaned over to answer, his voice so soft, Inga strained to catch it. "Viazemsky died during the preliminary torture. Ivan was displeased. He wanted to execute him publicly, but the man's body could take no more. Alexei Basmanov is also dead. Ivan forced Feodor to kill his father in prison to save his own life. He forced Nikita Prosorovsky to stab his brother for the same reason. Now he's accusing them of patricide and fratricide. They are both slated for execution today.

  Yehvah looked grim.

  Inga tried to remember the gossip she’d heard. She hadn’t internalized it when it had first been hurriedly whispered. Hadn’t allowed herself to feel or even think much about it. But she still remembered some of what was said.

  Ivan's first act upon returning to Moscow after sacking Novgorod was to prosecute those he perceived as accomplices of Novgorod and Pskov. As in the past, the accusations often bordered on the absurd, and the evidence was almost nonexistent.

  Inga went up on her toes to whisper in Nikolai’s ear. “Athanasius Viazemsky was a close confidant of Ivan’s. Didn’t he even test the Tsar’s medicine for him? Will Ivan truly kill him?”

  Nikolai turned his head just enough to acknowledge Inga, but not enough to attract any notice. “He arrested and tortured them. Why not go all the way? Alexei Basmanov and his son Feodor were Ivan's companions at Novgorod. Nikita Funikov is Ivan’s royal treasurer. He and the clerks Vasiliev and Stepanov, two of Ivan’s favorites, are all slated for execution today.

  Inga’s heels thumped back down to the cold cobblestones. Those men were all Ivan’s favorites. If he proved willing to execute them, what hope for justice did anyone else have while Ivan lived?

  The secretary of the Privy Council, a dark-haired man with Waterfall Disease, which left a white, opaque mist over one eye, unrolled a parchment and read the names of the accused aloud. The chief prisoner Ivan seemed so satisfied to execute was Prince Ivan Viskovaty.