The Wolf Princess

by Cathryn Constable

  “He doesn’t sound very clever,” Marianne said.

  “Not clever?” Ivan looked insulted. “He was the most passionate, intelligent man! A poet. A musician. A mathematician. And that was why he could laugh when confronted with those rifles. Because in those last few moments,” Ivan said, “the prince knew he had not died in vain: He had given his young wife and child time to escape into the forest.”

  “So he did it to help them?” Sophie said. “But it’s still awful. Because the princess must have left the palace knowing that he would die, that she would never see him again.”

  And as she said these words, she thought again of a figure walking through a frozen forest. But was it a dream, or a memory of her father’s story? The more she tried to fix it in her mind, the less solid it seemed, dissolving just as her vision of the palace had done.

  “Not awful!” Ivan replied. “Noble!”

  He stopped in front of a pair of carved doors, the panels warped and peppered with small holes. There were painted cartouches of young girls in togas carrying flutes. The handle was a brass animal’s paw. Ivan reached into his pocket and brought out another key, much smaller than the one to the front door. It was dark and rusty and wouldn’t, at first, fit into the lock. Muttering under his breath, Ivan freed the mechanism and the doors swung apart.

  “It is not the largest bedroom in the palace, but I trust you will be comfortable.”

  The room might once have been grand, but like the rest of the palace it seemed to have been locked up and forgotten about for years. On each of the three narrow metal beds, made up with fur rugs and clean, fat-looking pillows, were a pile of clothes and a piece of white paper with a name on it. Sophie could see that the writer had used the English alphabet, but the hand was unmistakably foreign, with loops and curlicues. Her bed was next to the window, just as it was at school. Between the beds were small bedside tables. A few chairs stood awkwardly in the empty space, and leaning against a wall was a long plain mirror, cracked down one side.

  Seeing Delphine frown at the clothes, Ivan explained. “I will bring your luggage this afternoon, Miss Delphine. However, the contents of your cases will not be needed immediately. The princess loves her guests to dress up. I know you will want to please her.” He bowed. “I will return shortly.”

  Delphine waited until Ivan had closed the door before saying, “I can’t meet the princess if I haven’t got my clothes! I just can’t.”

  Marianne pulled off her sealskin gloves. She stared at her hands as if they were entirely new to her, and sank down onto a bed. It creaked as the rusty metal gave under her weight.

  “We’ll need to help each other change,” Sophie said, taking Marianne’s name off her pile. “Ivan got us into these coats and he’s not here to help us get out of them!”

  Delphine scrunched the piece of paper with her name on it into a ball, then stroked the rich fabric thoughtfully. “These clothes are very old,” she said. “I wonder who they belonged to? Do you think it was one of the Volkonsky princesses?”

  What if it was the last Volkonsky princess? Sophie thought. The young woman who had left the palace with her child on the night that had shattered the history of this family?

  She unfolded a heavy, wine-colored tunic, covered in embroidery, from the pile of clothes on Marianne’s bed.

  Delphine traced the intricate patterns with her finger. “I’ve never seen stitches so small,” she said. “Come on, Marianne — let’s see how it looks.”

  The two girls wrapped Marianne in the long tunic and slipped her stiff feet into pointed shoes.

  “It’s called a sarafan,” Marianne said.

  “Oh, save us the guidebook nonsense!” Delphine said. She took a step back and looked at Marianne critically. “If you are going to meet a princess — even a princess you’ve never heard of — you need to make an effort,” she declared. “Will you wear some lip gloss? Just this once?”

  Marianne sighed. “It won’t make the slightest bit of difference, Delphine. And it just makes me feel awkward. As if someone’s smeared sticky wax over my lips.” She made a face and jerked her head away as Delphine, ignoring her words, put a glossy finger to her mouth. “Do you think Ivan’s story about the prince is true?” she continued. “I’m not sure how he could know exactly what happened. He described it as if he was actually there.”

  “Perhaps someone saw it — or heard it — and wrote it down,” Sophie said. She wanted to believe what Ivan had said, that Prince Vladimir died laughing. She didn’t want to imagine him begging for his life.

  “Well, one part of it must be true …” Marianne mused.

  “What?” Sophie wanted to go on discussing the extraordinary Volkonskys until they had exhausted every angle of the story.

  “The part about his wife and child escaping into the forest.”

  Delphine walked across to the mirror in the long emerald-green tunic that had been placed on her bed. With her hair hanging loose, she looked like a character out of a fairy tale. “How do you figure?” she said, looking intently at her reflection.

  “Because if he hadn’t managed to save them, there’d be no more Volkonskys. I suppose the soldiers must have thought they’d died in the forest so didn’t bother to follow them.”

  Sophie got out of her shuba, still thinking about the princess. How sad she must have been, and yet how brave. And how had she survived in the forest this far north? The cold was, as Ivan said, as sharp as a wolf’s bite. Someone must have helped her in the woods, given her food, offered her a warm hut to sleep in.

  Sophie peeled off the rest of her clothes and folded them neatly, just as she would have done at school. They looked ridiculous: flimsy and cheap. For the first time, she saw them through Mr. Tweedie’s eyes. No wonder he had been so insistent on her getting a new sweater. She felt ashamed suddenly: She didn’t want to be the girl in the scruffy clothes anymore. She pushed them onto the floor and kicked them under the bed.

  She turned her attention to the clothes that had been left for her. A long skirt, a soft undershirt, and — like the others — a long tunic, which was simpler than theirs but made of the most exquisite silver material. She pushed her feet into silver slippers (how had they known her size? she wondered), then stepped into the skirt, and drew the waist tight with the cords. Then she slid the pale shirt over her head. It smelled of lavender. And then she pulled on the silver sarafan.

  It was cut narrow across the shoulders, with long, wide sleeves. She felt, suddenly, quite remarkable, and yet more herself than ever before. None of Sophie’s clothes had ever been bought with much thought or care; Rosemary had never seen the need for anything but the basics. This tunic, however — cut with precision, sewn with knowledge of the fabric, and somehow, so strangely, of the body that would inhabit it — was unlike anything Sophie had ever worn. She looked down and watched it ripple with light.

  She walked over to the mirror. Could that really be her? She looked like someone else, someone who was used to wearing delicate fabrics cut into clothes that fit perfectly. Would it be too much to hope that she might, wearing this beautiful garment, look a little like a Volkonsky? She raised her arms and the sleeves fell down like a waterfall. How hard it would be to go back to wearing a shabby school uniform after this.

  “Why do you have the best one?” Delphine touched the silver cloth longingly. “Could I try it on?”

  Sophie hesitated. She didn’t want to let go of the sarafan, realizing for the first time that perhaps clothes could be magical in the way they could transform your appearance, the way you felt, and even everything around you.

  “I did swap sweaters when you were in trouble with Mrs. Sharman, remember,” Delphine said as she pulled off her own tunic, placing it on the bed and holding out her hands. “You could take a photo of me? For my visual diary? We’ll swap straight back. Promise.”

  Reluctantly, Sophie took off the silver sarafan and handed it to Delphine, who quickly put it on and then danced away from Sophie, looking as
if she had been cut from moonlight. “Do you think I look like a Russian princess in my sarafan?” she asked.

  Sophie stood awkwardly, Delphine’s emerald-green tunic over her arm.

  There was a smart knock at the door. Ivan appeared. He, too, had changed and was wearing a blue tunic, the shoulders covered in large silver tassels; ropes of silver braid were swagged across his chest.

  “It is time.” He bowed. “The princess will greet you formally in the Winter Ballroom. Please follow me.”

  Delphine’s eyes lit up with excitement. “I love princesses!” she said. “All this stuff about winter ballrooms and formal greetings! My mother is going to be so pleased when I tell her. How much better is this than tramping through Dorset?” She put her head to one side. “Only thing is, there’s no time to change, Sophie. Sorry.” She swished past.

  “You might have known she’d do that,” Marianne whispered. “What a show-off she is.”

  “It does look beautiful on her,” Sophie admitted.

  “It doesn’t fit her properly,” Marianne said. “On you it was perfect.” She smiled reassuringly. “But you’ll look lovely in the green one, too.”

  Sophie pulled on the tunic. It was slightly too big. She didn’t feel the same in it.

  Marianne linked arms. “We don’t care, anyway, do we?” she said. “It’s only Delphine who wants to make an impression.”

  Sophie nodded, but, just this once, she couldn’t agree with lovely, sensible Marianne. She realized that she did want to make an impression on the woman who lived in this forgotten palace, who had given Ivan a new life and had vowed to restore the Volkonsky fortunes. A woman who came from a family where people were happy to die, bravely, to save a child.

  They followed Ivan back down the grand staircase and then through a series of rooms that would once have been beautiful. There were carved gilt pediments at every window, painted ceilings, and ornate tiled stoves. But there was very little furniture and most of what remained was damaged. After shooting the prince, the soldiers must have run through the palace setting fire to things, smashing down doors, and looting.

  But some rooms had hardly been touched, and Sophie found these the saddest of all. In one, curled and yellowed papers had fallen from a writing desk to the floor. In another were a card table still set with a decanter and glasses — the sediment of wine like dried blood — and a chess table with broken pieces. Sophie bent down, blew dust off the white queen, and set her on her square. In these rooms, it felt as if the inhabitants had only just left, as if Sophie — if only she could listen with the right sort of attention — would be able to catch their voices from the next room.

  Outside, the wind sighed. Their heavy garments rustled and Ivan’s boot leather creaked as they walked.

  “What was that?” From somewhere quite distant — the other side of the palace? — Sophie had heard a sound. It was not the voice of a long-dead Volkonsky, even though they seemed so present. No, it was a sound she had never heard before. She strained her ears, willing the wind to die down so that she could really listen.

  “I didn’t hear anything.” Delphine frowned and peered into the shadows behind her.

  “I did.” Sophie slowed down and turned her head slightly. “There it is again.”

  “What?”

  “A moan … or a cry, or something.” How could she describe what she had heard … if she had indeed heard anything? Perhaps she had just been affected by the beautiful sadness of these ravaged rooms.

  “I didn’t hear anything, either,” Marianne said. But Sophie saw her friend shrink back into herself, as if she were frightened.

  Ivan said, “I think it is the wind that you hear, little Sophie.” But his eyes flicked nervously as he said it.

  Sophie knew what the strange moan of the wind sounded like. And this sound was different. This made the hair on the back of her neck prickle and her heart race. It was wilder, more desperate than even the most savage storm. It was the sound of something alive, a desolate cry, and she felt that she had heard it somewhere before. But where?

  Ivan walked quickly on, as if he wanted them to move away from the sound. “Let us not delay!” he cried, striding ahead, and the three girls ran after him.

  Finally, they reached the end of a corridor. Ivan swung open the rosewood doors in front of them and light splashed out. Beyond, Sophie saw a looking-glass world made up of mirrors reflecting candlelight.

  Ivan bowed deeply and announced, “Her Serene Highness, the Princess Anna Feodorovna Volkonskaya!”

  She was wearing a pearl-gray woolen dress with silver embroidered leaves on the sleeves and a high-necked fur collar. Her hair, bright gold and pulled high off a smooth, luminous forehead, was wound in a thick coil, as heavy as a ship’s rope. She wore high-heeled shoes, with long narrow toes like serpents’ tongues. As she paced the scuffed parquet floor, there was a flash of bright red sole.

  “I can’t go in.”

  “Go on, Sophie, please,” Marianne whispered. “I don’t like it when you’re scared. It makes me scared, too.”

  Sophie was going to explain that she wasn’t scared, but overwhelmed. It was Delphine who came back from weekends away and described how she had met a comtesse at lunch or a cabinet minister at tea. Sophie never met anyone, let alone a princess, and she felt this lack of confidence as surely as Marianne would miss her glasses.

  She felt Marianne’s damp hand grab hers and yank her into the wrecked beauty of the empty ballroom.

  All around them, gilt mirrors, and above them, enormous chandeliers, great ropes of crystal strung in extravagant loops, dazzled. Sophie looked up into one as they passed beneath. The way each crystal held the entire room made her feel dizzy.

  She must have faltered, because Marianne’s grip became tighter. Ivan led them toward the woman, who stopped pacing now and turned to face them. Her dark gray eyes settled on each of them in turn — then, without warning, the cold expression broke into a devastating smile. It was as if someone had opened the curtains too quickly on a sunny day.

  “If you only knew how I’ve been waiting for this moment …” She closed her eyes. “It has been impossible for me to concentrate on anything else. My work has suffered.” Eyes open, brighter now. “But that is nothing now that you are here safely, all three of you. It’s almost more than I can bear.”

  Sophie realized she was holding her breath. There was an energy, a brilliance about the princess … a sense that she could explode at any moment, like a firework, in a shower of glittering sparks.

  Sophie caught their reflection in the mirrors. Delphine stood very straight, shaking her hair back from her face. She did look remarkable in the silver tunic. Marianne was flustered and ill at ease, tugging at the sleeve of her wine-colored sarafan. And was that really her in green, all eyebrows and mouth, her face as white as the moon? Sophie stopped looking.

  The princess clasped her hands together under her beautiful cleft chin. Thin white fingers painted with mother-of-pearl polish were covered in a mass of intricately set diamond rings. A heavy scent of tuberose coiled around Sophie’s face as the princess drew nearer. The perfume was intensely sweet, with a velvet denseness that made Sophie’s head spin.

  The princess stopped in front of Delphine. “You are so pretty! I had no idea you would be so pretty!” She put out her hand as if she would touch Delphine’s face, but then checked herself and took a step back. “I like you already,” she declared. “I was nervous that I wouldn’t …” She sighed and the smile broadened. “How silly of me. I should have known.”

  Sophie saw Delphine smooth the beautiful silver sarafan. If only she hadn’t let Delphine wear it! Before she knew what she was doing, she said, “You really were expecting us after all?”

  It was a stupid thing to say, but something made her want the princess to stop staring at Delphine, to look at her instead.

  The princess turned her gray eyes on Sophie. “Of course!” she replied.

  “It’s just, we thought ther
e had been some sort of misunderstanding.”

  Sophie could have kicked herself. She stuck her teeth deep into her tongue. Why had she said that? She was usually good at being invisible, knowing it was better to stay quiet, not to let anyone notice her. But there was something so mesmerizing about the princess … she wanted to grasp the woman’s full attention and have it only for herself.

  “Is it my dreadful English?” The princess put her head to one side, clearly amused. Her English was perfect, with only the trace of a Russian accent.

  “No. It’s not about not understanding what you’re saying.” Why didn’t she keep quiet? But it was so wonderful to have the princess take her eyes from Delphine and look at her, only at her … “It’s just that we don’t understand …”

  The princess’s eyes were on Delphine again. She looked the girl up and down, and her mouth tipped up in a lazy smile, as if she liked what she saw. Delphine blushed.

  Sophie saw all this and felt suddenly shy. Should she speak again? It was clear the princess had no interest in her. But then the woman looked at Sophie once more, as if wanting to hear what she had to say.

  Sophie swallowed hard, stared at her fingers, which were gripping each other for courage, and said far too quickly, “You see, we are here on a school trip. We were supposed to be staying with Dr. Starova in Stary Beloostrov … that’s a suburb of Saint Petersburg, I think … but there was some sort of mix-up. And we got left on the train. We had the wrong tickets and we were made to get off … and our teacher, Miss Ellis … well, I’m not sure she knows where we are …”

  “Or our parents,” said Delphine.

  The princess was nodding slowly, still smiling at Delphine.

  Marianne added, “And we are meant to be at School 59 on Monday morning.”

  The princess raised an eyebrow, as if this was all news to her.

  “It’s just that no one told us about coming here,” Sophie finished.

  “I can see that you are a little confused,” the princess said, although Sophie didn’t feel confused at all. They had explained everything just how it had happened, hadn’t they? The only thing she hadn’t said was that she was sure that Dr. Starova was the woman who had visited her school and taken her photograph in the playground. But perhaps she was not so sure about that anymore. Marianne hadn’t been convinced when she had told her.