City of Silence (City of Mystery)

by Kim Wright

  Emma glanced around, but there was no one else on deck and finally she opened the files in her lap and began to skim, once again, the notes she had been studying since Trevor had announced they would be accompanying the Queen to St. Petersburg. Their first collective meal was scheduled to begin in the dining room within the hour and if she was going to play schoolmistress to Her Majesty the Queen, she had better be prepared. The implications were terrifying. But Trevor had insisted she was the only one fit for the task and, even while she recognized he was using flattery in a clumsy attempt to win her cooperation, she also realized he was probably right.

  The lecture Emma would be required to give had two parts: a brief summation of the last few years of the history of Russia and an even briefer summation of the Russian imperial protocol. The former was straightforward enough but the latter was profoundly confusing, since the social structure of the Romanov court, to put it charitably, was far less linear than that of Great Britain. So much so that even Victoria apparently needed to refresh her memory before her visit and had requested that Emma – whom Trevor had evidently portrayed as some sort of general consult on all matters arcane – should stand before them all and outline the rules of the Winter Palace.

  It would never do for the Russians to realize they were being spied upon, so back in London they all created some plausible role for themselves, some way to explain why they were traveling with the Queen. As detectives, Rayley and Trevor could easily pass as bodyguards. Davy was a bit trickier, but since the Queen maintained excessive correspondence, even while abroad, it might be plausibly explained that she traveled with her own messenger boy to handle the post and telegrams. They decided to place Tom in the circle as royal physician. He was suspiciously young, but they concocted a story that Victoria’s primary physician was too elderly to travel, so his assistant had stepped in for this particular journey. Despite her age and her girth, Victoria was remarkably healthy and did not customarily travel with a doctor of any sort, but the Russians certainly didn’t know that.

  But Emma, how to explain the presence of Emma? Serving as a maid was the most likely ruse, but such a role would severely limit her usefulness once they got to Russia. The Queen had confided to Trevor she already had a Lady in Waiting in surveillance, so a second would be superfluous. Trevor eventually declared that Emma would pose as the governess of Alix, a role which would allow her to interact across a broader social spectrum once they were inside the Winter Palace.

  Emma shifted in her chair and took a big gulp of air. Brisk and refreshing, just as promised. Salty on the tongue. She wished that Gerry was traveling with them. There was no way they could explain an elderly heiress as a true member of the forensics team and Geraldine herself had quickly pointed this out, thus saving Trevor the discomfort of raising the issue. But without Gerry among them, Emma mused, the entire forensics team seemed a little… at sea. Geraldine was possessed of no practical skills whatsoever but still somehow managed to be one of the most useful people Emma had ever known, and her presence would be missed in many small ways. Gerry is my family, Emma thought, pulling the blanket around her and taking another deep breath in an attempt to steady her nerves. By the age of twenty, Emma Kelly had buried her mother, father, and sister and her brother was somewhere in America, likely never to be seen again. Gerry had stepped into the void, serving as an unorthodox but unfailingly compassionate parental figure in Emma’s chaotic life.

  And perhaps these men are my new brothers, Emma thought soberly. We make our family where we find it.

  At precisely nine o’clock the doors opened and they were all ushered into the dining room. For a moment the five of them stood without speaking, as awkwardly silent as if they were in a cathedral. Davy, Emma noted, was pale but otherwise appeared to be in control of himself. Trevor seemed distracted, Rayley anxious, and Tom was precisely as he always was. He winked at her as he wandered over to look at the portraits on the walls.

  The dining room was like all the other public spaces Emma had so far seen on the yacht – neither lavish nor ostentatious, but designed instead for comfort and the most practical usage of space. The checkered linoleum floor was covered with a red carpet, which, judging from its slight undulation, was probably rolled up and stored somewhere when the Queen was not aboard. There were various settees around the wall, all crammed with cushions. Emma was somewhat surprised to see a profusion of potted plants in each corner but the green leaves offered a spot of land in the midst of the sea and were quite pleasing. Above the table dangled a large brass candelabrum of nautical design, which was brightly lit despite the fact that a nearly undimmed sun was still streaming through the windows.

  “Surprising to find seamen on the walls,” Tom said, breaking the silence.

  “I beg your pardon,” Trevor said.

  “The portraits,” Tom said. “Every one of them shows a former captain of the vessel. Fitzclarence, Denman, Seymour, Campbell, and finally Thompson, who according to the dates below his picture, must still be at the helm. Will he be joining us tonight, do you suppose?”

  “I doubt it,” said Trevor. “Princess Alix of Hesse will be present for the meal and then she will retire and we shall converse with the Queen about her expectations of the time in St. Petersburg.”

  Davy shuddered.

  “Steady, lad,” Trevor said. “Her Majesty’s presence can be intimidating at first, as I’ll freely admit, but I urge you all to speak just as you would if we were sitting around Gerry’s parlor. Tom, you might want to hold yourself to five glasses of wine and keep your boots off the table, but otherwise, we must follow our normal routes of inquiry.”

  “Mustn’t we wait for the Queen to speak first?” Emma asked.

  Trevor shook his head. “Not in this case. Her Majesty has specifically requested that we conduct our briefings as we would do in London and raise any questions that come to mind.”

  “Then I shall begin by asking her why the four of us are rolling about in bunks when perfectly fine cabins stand empty,” Tom said.

  “You’ll do no such thing,” Trevor snapped. Even after several months of close acquaintance he was never entirely sure when Tom was joking. “Those cabins are held for Lords and we’re servants of the crown, not titled gentlemen.”

  “But Emma has her own room and she isn’t a Lady,” Tom said with a grin. “No offense intended, darling.”

  “And none taken,” Emma said.

  Just then the double doors wrenched open and, with no announcement, the Queen entered. A few steps behind her came a young girl who was presumably her granddaughter Alix and thus the source of all this extraordinary bother, followed in turn by a servant. Although Emma dropped into a quick and awkward curtsy, she had time to note Alix’s serious expression, her eyes slightly downcast and her mouth slack in a way that seemed vaguely mournful.

  “We shall sit,” said the Queen, and so they did.

  The sole attendant who had come in with the Queen held out one chair at a time, pointedly looking at the person meant to occupy it as he did so. Emma found herself beside Alix, which pleased her. If she was to convincingly pass as the girl’s governess, they should become companionable with each other during their brief time at sea. They were all scarcely seated when the first course, a shellfish soup with cream, was served with admirable promptness and the meal began.

  Thank God for Tom, Emma thought. He might tease Trevor about the seamen and the bunk beds and he might be a bit mercurial in mood, but he can talk to anyone about anything. He immediately gestured toward the portraits and asked the Queen about the various captains the vessel had employed and soon had her reminiscing over past voyages. As a family, the Bainbridges had two inborn gifts – wealth and what Emma’s father used to call the gift of gab. Both came in handy on a regular basis and as Tom and the Queen chatted, a collective calm settled over the table. The soup was finished and replaced by a terrine of vegetables. Wine was poured and poured again. Trevor ventured a comment or two and Rayley chimed in behind hi
m and, although silent and a bit subdued of appetite, even Davy seemed to relax. When the server brought around the bread with tongs, he took a second roll and the Queen approvingly said “Best thing for seasickness, you know.”

  “Yes Ma’am,” Davy croaked. “That’s what me mum says, not that she’s ever been on a boat.”

  Under cover of the chuckle that ran around the table Emma turned to Alix. “How have you passed your time these first two days at sea?”

  The girl hesitated. “Reading.”

  “I like to read too,” Emma said. Despite their difference in rank the girl was clearly shy and the task of sustaining any sort of conversation would therefore fall to Emma. Her face was pretty, her dignity remarkable for her years, but yet it was hard to look at her and immediately imagine what the tsesarevich would see that was so unique and compelling that it would sustain an infatuation over a separation of four years and a thousand miles. “What were you reading?”

  “Paradise Lost.”

  Emma raised an eyebrow. “By Milton?”

  “Is there another?”

  Well that was something. An attempt at humor and, if she were indeed reading Paradise Lost at leisure, the girl must have at least a bit between the ears.

  “I very much admire the poem,” Emma said. “What do you think it means?”

  Alix hesitated again and Emma realized the girl was behaving as if she really was her governess, not a dining companion, and as if this were all some sort of test.

  “Myself, I consider it an analysis of how we each must take personal responsibility for our actions,” she hastily added, to establish that this was a conversation and not an examination. “I most adore the line where God says that he made humans ‘sufficient to have stood, but free to fall.’”

  Alix nodded slowly. “I see it as a tale of forgiveness,” she finally said, glancing self consciously around her at the various servants in the room, who were coming and going with their pitchers and plates of food. “Adam and Eve were the first humans to sin and thus to require the grace of God.” She raised her rounded chin, suddenly looking much like her grandmother. “It is my opinion that salvation is the only proper theme of literature.”

  Emma smiled. It was a very basic interpretation of the text, but not an inaccurate one. The young princess indeed had more possibilities than were evident at first glance.

  “It’s an admirably challenging reading choice,” Emma said, aware that she herself also sounded a little too adult and pious. “Most girls favor romances.”

  “I read those too,” Alix whispered, as a steaming plate of veal was placed in front of her.

  “Salvation of a different sort,” Emma whispered back, picking up her wine glass.

  “Nicky loves the sea,” Alix said, with a return to her normal tone and a rather abrupt change of topic. “He wears the uniform of the Russian navy for all state occasions.”

  The Russian navy, Emma thought. Founded by Peter the Great, the design of their ships all allegedly based on that of a single skiff the first tsar had brought back from a visit to England, thus giving rise to the theory, at least in the universities and shipyards of London, that the success of the Russian navy was the result of science stolen from the British. Emma had been so immersed in reading eastern history over the last three days that these facts slid back to her unbidden. But she merely nodded encouragingly, and Alix went on.

  “His family yacht is far larger and grander than this one,” Alix said, with a guilty look in the direction of the Queen.

  Emma made a noncommittal sort of murmur, wondering if Nicholas possessed the skill to actually captain a craft, even one the size of Tsar Peter’s original skiff. She suspected he did not, which made his pride in wearing a nautical uniform rather affected, like a child playing dress-up. But it hardly mattered. For when she had said the name “Nicky,” Alix’s face had suddenly become alive with light and animation. She was one of those women who could be transformed by joy, who could fly from merely pretty to compelling on the wings of sheer emotion.

  “He is so dashing in his naval uniform,” Alix said. “The trousers are white and the jacket is blue with gold braid on the shoulders and an insignia –“

  “I say,” Tom said, calling down the table as if they were all patrons at a boarding house. Rayley startled with horror but the Queen seemed completely nonplussed. “What holds you ladies so deep in conversation?”

  “We’re discussing Paradise Lost and the nature of salvation,” Emma replied.

  “Good heavens, such gravity,” said Tom with a mock frown. “If your thoughts grow any more ponderous, I fear the very ship shall sink beneath us.”

  “We shall continue our conversation later,” Emma said quietly to Alix, and, on impulse she reached across the table and squeezed her hand. It was doubtless an inappropriate gesture, to touch royalty without their bidding, but the girl flushed with pleasure, clearly happy to have a new friend or at least a sympathetic tutor. She’s frightened too, Emma thought. Unsure of what she’ll find in St. Petersburg or all the changes the years might have brought to her Nicky. To write a passionate letter from afar is one thing; to have something to say to the person when you meet them is an altogether different matter, and Alix knows that she is sailing into an uncertain future. Going to one of the few places on earth where the flag of her grandmother may not protect her.

  And then a violinist began to play from the corner and any further discussion was unnecessary.

  An hour later the table had been cleared, the servants had departed, and Alix too had gone to her cabin, presumably to dream of salvation and men in white trousers. The true business of the night was about to begin.

  “We shall not concern ourselves with talk of protocol until some later evening,” the Queen said. “For Alix will need to be present at that lecture as well. From what I understand from Ella, a German princess is expected to curtsy to a Russian grand duchess, so she will need some direction.”

  A British Queen is expected to curtsy to a Russian tsarina as well, Emma thought, but she supposed the arrogance of the Russian court was indeed a subject best suited for another day. They had enough to cover tonight.

  “Miss Kelly,” the Queen continued, with the tone of one long accustomed to being in charge. “Will you now give us your summation of Russian history? Not the entire dreadful subject but rather just the most recent facts, the ones most pertinent to the matter at hand.”

  “Certainly, Ma’am,” Emma said. “I suppose we should start with the current tsar’s father, Alexander II?”

  The Queen nodded. “A good man, if memory serves.”

  “He accepted the need for reform,” Emma said, striving to keep her voice measured and matter-of-fact. A week ago she had been mending Gerry’s underdrawers and she could hardly fathom the turns of fate which had brought her to this place and time, sipping sherry on the royal yacht and giving a history lesson to the Queen. “The Russian serfs are abysmally poor, which I suppose goes without saying, and Alexander II signed a bill early in his reign giving them the most basic sorts of rights and freedoms. Before that, the serfs were thought to belong to the land they worked and thus could be bought, sold and traded, much in the manner of American slaves. The reforms, limited as they may seem to outsiders, established the reputation of Alexander II as a tsar who was sympathetic to all classes of people and somewhat of a progressive. But many of the serfs did not think the reforms went far enough and, especially in the rural regions, the new rules were not sufficiently enforced. Over time resentments began to build again.”

  “Eventually leading to the tsar’s death,” the Queen said tonelessly.

  Emma paused and took a deep breath. “Yes, Ma’am. The assassination of Alexander II was undoubtedly the most pivotal event in recent Russian history and I believe it would be a mistake to underestimate the impact it has had on the psychology of the present royal family and thus the matter at hand. “

  “The imperial family,” the Queen corrected her. “We are ro
yal, but they call themselves imperial.”

  “Yes, yes of course,” Emma said. “Your Majesty is of course right. It is a distinction we must all take care to remember.”

  “The particulars of the assassination?” Trevor prompted.

  “It’s a sad tale,” Emma said. “One morning the tsar was traveling by carriage through the streets of St. Petersburg. A homemade bomb was thrown at his entourage but missed its mark, in the sense the tsar himself was uninjured. He insisted on stopping to offer aid to wounded members of his guard and as he exited the coach, a second bomb was thrown. This one found its target and the tsar suffered dreadful injuries. The loss of both legs, great gashes on his torso and face.” Emma glanced at the Queen, who sat immobile. “Begging your pardon, Ma’am.”

  “No need to apologize,” Victoria said calmly. “We are speaking of Nicky’s grandfather and, as you say, an event that informed the current state of the Romanov court. Please continue.”

  “The tsar was mortally wounded,” Emma said, “and requested to be taken to the Winter Palace to die. That was just as it happened, two days later. The irony is that Alexander II had not only granted basic reforms twenty years before his death but had also, on the very morning he was attacked, signed an additional bill into law granting further freedoms to the serfs, such as the right to own private property and elect representatives in their rural districts. You might say he was attempting to start Russia on the road to modern government and yet…”

  “He was killed by the very people he was trying to help,” Tom said simply.

  “As is often the case,” the Queen said. “His kindness was his doom. He would have lived had he stayed in the royal carriage and not insisted on disembarking to offer succor to his guard.”

  “His reforms would have lived as well,” Emma said. “For when he learned that his father had been murdered, the tsar’s son and successor, the man we know as Alexander III, went into his father’s office and ripped up the freedom initiative his father had signed that morning. He proclaimed that in attempting to help the serfs Alexander II had tried to pet a rabid wolf and vowed to never make the same mistake. And he has thus been an autocratic and unrelenting ruler, not only recalling his father’s reforms but pulling Russia back into a more feudal way of life. We are speaking, of course, of the present tsar and the father of Nicholas.”