Kremlins Boxset

by K L Conger

  He’d even told his boyars he desired to retire to a monastery and they should choose another in his stead. Indeed, without the Tsarevich, Ivan had no direct heir. The boyars refused, begging Ivan not to abdicate. He agreed with expressions of great weariness.

  Inga didn’t blame the boyars for refusing. She remembered all too well when Ivan nearly died years before. Those who’d expressed anything except devout loyalty to him had been severely punished. Given the Tsar’s penchant for bizarre games over past years, they probably assumed this to be a test of loyalty, and feared to take Ivan up on his offer.

  Perhaps they should have. Perhaps Ivan felt truly sincere this time. He’d shown similar behavior to this when Anastasia died. Now an old man, perhaps the boyars should have chosen a new ruler. Ivan’s own actions kept him from the peace he desired.

  Inga found herself feeling a strange, small sympathy for Ivan, though she knew it to be misguided.

  She couldn’t be sorry the Tsarevich no longer lived. Young and on a path destined to be worse than Ivan, his reign meant another forty years of violence and depravity for Russia. Perhaps whoever ruled after Ivan would prove just as dark—no way to be certain—but Inga felt only relief that Ivan V would not be king of Muscovy.

  The final traveler she’d seen, nearly a week before, brought news that both shook Inga to her core, and also validated her decision to finally leave the Kremlin behind. Ivan was dead. His health and eccentricity grew steadily worse over several weeks after the Tsarevich’s death. Then Ivan simply toppled over during a chess game. Ivan IV, whom people named Terrible, was gone.

  Inga didn’t know what the atmosphere in the Kremlin would be without Ivan to rule, but she felt relief that she’d left before it happened. There could only be chaos and violence now as a hundred eager boyars clawed their way toward the throne. It would be a time of great trouble, and Inga would be nowhere near it.

  Inga watched the tranquil cabin scene below her for a long time, allowing her thoughts to wander, though in truth, she merely stalled, afraid of what she’d find in the valley.

  The frigid wind blew her clothes out behind her and made her shoulders ache. She ignored the pain. Even her platok loosened, but stayed in her hair, more a habitual decoration today than an actual covering. Inga felt sure that wind brought winter into Siberia. She shivered in its wake.

  Movement caught her eye. She noticed a figure moving toward her. A man, by the build, he must've come out of the cabin, though she didn’t notice him until he moved some distance from the porch.

  Taking a deep breath, Inga walked toward him as well. Whoever this man turned out to be, he no doubt lived in the cabin and wanted to know her identity. If it wasn't Taras, she prayed he’d be a decent sort of man who would do her no harm. Then again, Inga had become an old woman, now. If her life ended today, she could be satisfied that at least she’d attempted to find Taras and done her best to fulfill his wishes. It came too late, but at least she made the effort.

  As she and the figure drew closer, the hope she tried desperately to suppress rose bit by bit. The clothing and the way he walked—with a severe limp—were foreign to her, but the figure soon became unmistakable.

  Taras.

  His hair, like hers, had turned mostly white. Scars like large claw marks covered one eye, and his hands look gnarled. Still, he stood there in front of her. He lived. More than that, he still lived here. Had he waited all these years for her?

  Surely not. Surely he’d married a Siberian woman and raised a family. True, Inga had not done so, yet she'd mothered Ekaterina. Taras could not possibly have lived alone all these years.

  Inga stopped perhaps ten feet in front of Taras. She didn’t dare go farther. She felt a fleeting desire to rush forward and hug him, but what if he didn’t even remember her? He stopped when she did, peering across the small distance at her. She couldn’t read his expression.

  They stared at one another for long seconds. She thought his eyes glistened. Were those tears, or just a trick of the daylight? Or perhaps the wind made them water. Her chest churned with eighteen years of yearning and emotion.

  "You're here." The sound of his voice made Inga jump. It sounded deeper and more gravelly than when he’d been young. Still, she remembered that voice from her youth. Tears filled her eyes.

  “You're still here," she said softly.

  He nodded.

  "I'm sorry it took me so long," she said.

  He took a step closer to her. "Why did it?"

  She’d thought about that question during the entire journey from Moscow to Siberia. She thought she had an answer but didn’t know how to convey it clearly. "I...wasn’t ready before. I needed to become something...other than what I was. Needed to overcome my demons.”

  Taras merely stared at her.

  Inga thought of Ivan and how he’d looked when he tried to kill Ekaterina. “I vanquished a demon, intent on killing people I cared about,” she said.

  Taras raised an eyebrow at her. When he spoke, he said the last thing she expected. “So did I.”

  He said nothing more, offered no more detail. Perhaps a story for another time.

  Inga took a step closer to him, desperation entering her voice. She did not try to suppress it. "I don’t know what kind of life you've built, Taras. I don't know if you have a family or can accept my being here. I only know I needed to try. Needed to come find you. To see if you kept your promise to wait.” She sniffed and wiped the moisture from her eyes before continuing.

  "Nikolai is dead. And Yehvah, and Bogdan. Everyone we loved in Moscow. Anne disappeared into the north years ago—" Inga stopped abruptly because Taras's eyebrows jumped at the mention of Anne. She frowned, wondering why.

  Taras took another step toward her. "Anne's grave is here, behind my cabin."

  Inga’s mouth fell open. She wouldn't have thought much remained in the world that could shock her. "It is? How?"

  He smiled sadly. "It's a long tale. The demon I slew took her from me first." Regret entered his expression, and he said no more.

  Inga stepped forward again. They now stood only a few feet apart. She had more to say to him, and felt determined to say it. "I know I broke your heart, Taras. I broke my own. I don't think I could have come until after...everything that's happened. Until after I mothered a daughter, survived two burnings of Moscow, fought beside a great general, watched him die...." She sniffed and wiped a tear from her cheek. She gazed up at Taras and forced a smile. "I stood up to Ivan the Terrible...and won."

  Taras’s expression, somewhere between gravity and sadness, didn't change. When she didn’t speak again, he stepped forward. "Then you did what I never could. I don't pretend to know God's plan, Inga. Or by what design we’ve lived apart for so many years. But we’re both here, now. And God, in his heaven,“ his voice dropped to a whisper, ”must be merciful."

  Inga scoffed, and Taras raised an eyebrow at her. "After all we've lost, how can you find mercy, Taras? Especially in this desolate place?”

  Taras step forward, closing the final distance between them. His clothes flapped in the wind, as hers did, and the two sets of fabrics brushed against one another. Taras reached up and ran the back his knuckles over her cheek. "Because you're here."

  More tears bubbled up in Inga’s eyes. She didn't brush them away this time.

  "What are the chances,” Taras said, “of us standing here? Meeting here? On this patch of ground, eighteen years after I left Moscow? Someone up there,” he glanced upward, “must be presiding over our story.”

  Taras slid his fingers softly down her arms, sending warmth through her, until they reached her hands. He slid his fingers into hers, entwining them on both hands. “He looked down, and saw an English boy who went to Moscow to live with his parents.”

  Inga nodded, willing to play along. “He saw a little Russian girl, on the verge of death, and saved by a palace maid.”

  “He watched the boy and girl meet in a vacant room one morning, and cross paths again durin
g a snowball fight that changed their fate.”

  A tear slid down Inga’s cheek as Taras pulled her hands, still entwined with his, up to his chest. It felt warm against the cold Siberian wind.

  “He saw the boy lose his mother,” Taras drew in a deep, shuddering breath, and stared down into Inga’s eyes. "He saw the boy fall down on his mother's grave and vow to avenge her death. Saw him leave Russia, but return as a man, looking for answers.”

  “He watched the boy and girl move toward each other,” Inga offered. “During a great feast, when Ivan Grozny was crowned.”

  Taras nodded. "He watched you move toward me, Inga, and back again. Watched me speak to an old woman who told me the truth about my mother. Watched me kill the man who killed her, and Sergei, to keep you safe."

  Inga nodded. "He watched me be too afraid to go with you. Watched me break your heart. He watched the Russian girl mother a daughter, survive a battle, lose the only mother she knew, and conquer the Supreme Tsar of Russia.”

  Taras nodded. “Just as the English boy built a cabin, and a home, raised a son, and conquered a demon tiger to save some villagers.”

  A son. Inga felt the slightest twinge of jealousy. She thought all such passions burnt out with her age, and yet the tiniest spark surfaced at the thought of Taras being with another woman.

  Taras heaved a deep breath. “The girl trained maids, while the boy trained villagers. Through it all, God watched them, smiled with them, cried with them, and waited. I’ve asked Him many times to take me home Inga, but he’s always shook his head at me. He knew you would move my way once more.”

  Unable to stand it any longer, Inga yanked her hands from his and flung her arms around his neck. He wrapped his arms around her waist and pressed his face into her neck.

  A moment later, he pulled back, took her face in his hands and gazed down into her eyes. Then he kissed her. A kiss for past love, young and passionate. A kiss for yearning, melancholy love during all the intervening years they’d been apart. A kiss for present love, a wise and aged thing that survived the years, the wars, the blood, the hate, and the loneliness.

  The kiss ended, and they wrapped themselves around each other again. “Oh Taras,” Inga murmured into his ear. “You’re still mine, then?”

  Taras pulled back and pressed his forehead to hers. “Inga, I’ve been yours for a long, long time.” His face crumpled and his voice broke as he said it. His legs gave out and he fell to his knees on the frozen Siberian soil. Inga crawled into his lap, wrapping herself around him and straddling his legs.

  He kissed her again, more deeply. The tears leaking down her cheeks froze halfway down in the frigid wind.

  "I can stay with you, then?" Inga asked. She knew the answer, but still needed to ask the question.

  Taras let out a soft laugh. "Please, stay with me always, Inga. As for where, how do you feel about Poland?" He laughed again when he said it.

  Inga didn’t understand why, but she laughed with him. She didn't care where they lived as long as they live together.

  Minutes later, Taras rose to his feet, helping her to hers. With an arm around her waist, he guided her down into the little valley of Anechka.

  And for the first time in her Russian life, Inga didn't feel the cold.

  End of Kremlins saga

  Want to hear more about Nikolai and Yehvah’s past relationship?

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  Love in the Kremlin is beyond complicated...

  Yehvah is a no-nonsense maid in training in the medieval Kremlin. Nikolai is a rich boyar trying to extricate himself from his father. The two are destined for tragedy. And love.

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  Want More By K.L. Conger?

  A pilgrimage to the Holy Lands. A chance rescue on the road. The origins of the legendary Order of the Knights Templar...

  Cristiana must accompany her father and her betrothed on a pilgrimage to the Holy Lands in order for her father to approve her marriage. A sudden attack by highwaymen outside of Jerusalem turns her world upside down. A gallant knight saves her, but also inadvertently does her great harm, and she cannot bring herself to be grateful for his service, no matter how handsome he is.

  Terrowin accompanies his father and his lord, the Baron, to Jerusalem to save all their souls. Once there, they find things in the Holy Lands are not as tranquil as most of the world believes. After rescuing the lovely Cristiana, Terrowin finds he can't stop thinking of her, despite having promised himself to a girl back home in Gascony. Or about the situation on the road to Jerusalem.

  Turks and other bandits stalk the roads, looking to rob, rape and slay the Christian pilgrims traveling toward the holy shrines. Though Christians control Jerusalem, Cristiana and Terrowin find themselves caught up in the logistics of a centuries-old religious war that still rages in the Outremer. What draws them together may tear them apart. Then again, what tears them apart may draw them irrevocably together.

  Award-winning author K.L. Conger, author of the Kremlins trilogy, brings you the origins of the legendary Knights Templar and the romance that inspired them.

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  Acknowledgements

  Thank you so much to everyone who supports me in my writing. As always, my family is first and foremost. They’re always excited for my new books and cheer me on. Thanks to my three sisters, my eight brothers, all the in-laws and kids that come with them, and my wonderful parents.

  Thanks to all my friends who also lend support, especially in the SZ and other parts of the TWD Community.

  Thanks to my critique group, Jernae Kowallis, Bryan Walke, and McKella Sawyer for all your help and advice. It’s truly priceless.

  Thanks to all authors willing to share their knowledge and experience with others. I’ve learned so much from authors online this year in various FB groups and other forums.

  Thanks to Clarissa at Yocla Designs for the beautiful cover art.

  And thanks to all my wonderful readers and fans. You’re the reason I do this! I hope you’ve enjoyed this journey through medieval Russia as much as I have.

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  About the Author

  L.K. Hill is an award-winning author who writes across three different genres. Her historical fiction is published under the pen name, K.L. Conger. Her sci-fi, fantasy, and dystopian are written under her full name, Liesel K. Hill. And her crime fiction is written under L.K. Hill.

  A graduate of Weber State University, she comes from a large, tight-knit family and lives in northern Utah. She is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and cherishes her faith, her family and her country. (http://www.lds.org) She plans to keep writing until they nail her coffin shut. Or the Second Coming happens. You know, whichever comes first. ;D

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