The Firebird

by Susanna Kearsley

  When a real hand settled on her shoulder, Anna turned to meet Vice Admiral Gordon’s knowing gaze. He said, “You need not do this, if your mind has changed. You’ve but to say the word, and I will take you home again.”

  She shook her head. “I have not changed my mind.” And then, because that sounded rather too determined, like a soldier setting out to face the worst, she found a smile that looked half-natural, and said, “You need not worry. I am sure I will be happy here.”

  A man’s voice added cheerfully, “If she is not, I’ll know the reason why, and see it settled.”

  General Lacy was a tall man, and his high wig made him duck his head as he came through the doorway from the room beyond, to greet them. “A good day to you, Vice Admiral.”

  “General.”

  As the men shook hands, Anna was given her first close view of the general. She had seen him in the street, from time to time, but from a distance, and she never had been close enough to notice that his eyes were blue, like Gordon’s, with the same deep creases at their corners, showing that he likely smiled more often than he frowned. He was handsome, though not quite as handsome as Vice Admiral Gordon, to her eyes. His nose was slightly overlong, his eyes a trifle heavy-lidded, but his charming smile and dimple chin would doubtless turn the heads of many women, nonetheless.

  And there was something else about him, some rare force of personality that drew the eye and held it. Anna was not certain whether General Lacy had gained this from being in command, or whether it was this unspoken quality that made him such an excellent commander in the first place, for she knew that even Charles, who had small patience with the officers who ordered him about, considered General Lacy the best general in all Russia.

  She had heard about his exploits in the recent war with Sweden, how he’d led his men in lightning raids all up and down that country’s coast with devastating thoroughness, relying on the galleys that could row him close to shore and speed him off again before the Swedes could move their troops to stop him.

  Vice Admiral Gordon had kept busy in that war as well, and now both men were highly ranked and sitting daily in the colleges the late tsar had established for the running of the government—Gordon in the Admiralty, and Lacy in the College of War.

  On any other day the men might easily have turned their talk to business, but today the general kept his handshake brief, and turned to Anna. “Mistress Jamieson, you honor us indeed. I am so pleased you did decide to come and be companion to my wife and children, for I fear I am myself poor company.”

  She doubted that. His eyes betrayed the quickness of his wit, and his good humor came through in the voice that yet retained the accent of his Irish homeland. She curtsied to him when he took her hand, and she addressed him with the proper title for his rank: “Your Excellency.”

  Lacy smiled. “It sounds a bit grand, does it not, for such a one as me? Let’s not have that, within the house. You have my leave to simply call me ‘General,’ as does this man here.” He gave a nod to Gordon, and then looking Anna up and down more closely asked, “And do you never feed her, sir? ’Tis well for her she’s landed in my household, for when Lent is done in two weeks’ time she’ll find our table generous, and she does appear to want a little fattening.”

  “She grows like that,” said Gordon drily. “Feed her as you like, she’ll eat it all and more besides and stay as slender as a reed. It will be books you must supply her with, for truly she reads more than any lass I’ve ever known.”

  The general’s eyebrows lifted as he asked, “Indeed?”

  Vice Admiral Gordon answered with affection, “Aye, she fills her mind as she does fill her stomach, with whatever is to hand. I have found her as deeply engrossed in accounts of the methods for training good soldiers and seamen as in any lighter diversion.”

  The general turned to Anna. “So you have an interest in our military ways?”

  It was not ladylike, she knew, to wish to learn about such things, but she did not feel judged by General Lacy’s gaze, and so she answered him, “I find such things of interest, General, yes.”

  “Then I shall very much enjoy your stay with us,” he said.

  A woman’s bright laugh sounded from the doorway just behind him. “You must not encourage him,” she said to Anna, “for he has been known to lay the dinner table out as a great field of battle, so that he can illustrate his tactics.”

  The general’s wife was pretty for her age, which must have been approaching forty. Even in her mourning dress she made a lively figure, and her tone and dancing eyes were just as friendly as her husband’s. As she offered her small hand to Anna, she remarked in Russian, “You will doubtless think us very odd, and wish to reconsider your decision when you’ve been with us a few days.”

  Anna doubted it, and said as much aloud, in Russian also, adding, “Truly, I am honored by your invitation, and I’m very pleased to help in any way I can.”

  The general’s wife glanced upward at her husband, and they shared a private smile before she told him, still in Russian, “You were right.”

  “Did I not tell you?” Switching smoothly into English, he advised his wife, “Sir Harry does not praise without good cause.” And then to Anna, he explained, “Sir Harry Stirling told us yesterday at dinner that your Russian was as clear as any Muscovite’s.” The general looked at Gordon as he added, “He did also bring us news from his associates in London’s Russia Company. It seems our friend’s suspicions were correct, and we may yet receive a less than welcome visitor.”

  Vice Admiral Gordon’s frown appeared more thoughtful than displeased. “Do we know when?”

  The general shook his head. “It is but in the wind, at present. But we can continue to prepare. Have you the time to sit awhile, and smoke a pipe? Then come, my friend. No doubt the ladies will be happy to be rid of us.”

  With that he bowed and took his leave, and Gordon brushed a kiss on Anna’s cheek and warmly squeezed her hands, and searched her eyes a final time as though to reassure himself that she was fine with the arrangement. “Send word if you have need of me,” he told her, in the brusque voice that she knew was how he masked his deep emotions. “I will call on you a few days hence to see that you are settled.”

  And with that he turned and left the room, discussing something in low tones with General Lacy while the general’s wife regarded Anna with an understanding smile. In a gentle voice she said, “It is a hard thing, is it not, to leave one’s home and come to live with strangers?”

  Anna thought of all the times she’d done exactly that: The first time that was lost to her, obscured within her earliest of memories, when her mother had released her to the care of others who could guard her safety… and the time when she’d been swept up in the arms of Captain Jamieson, and carried from her cottage in the snow, along the cliffs above the Scottish sea… and when those same strong arms had last embraced her as he passed her to the sole care of the Irish nuns at Ypres… and when she’d journeyed to Calais in Father Graeme’s care… and when she’d climbed aboard the carriage heading from that town, with Gordon sitting at her side, and half a year of grueling travel yet ahead of her. So many homes, she thought. So many strangers. And yet all of them had brought her something she would not have missed for all the world, nor yet exchanged for idle comfort and security.

  She gathered up her bundle of small treasured things more closely and replied with perfect honesty, “’Tis not so hard, with people who are kind.”

  The general’s wife seemed pleased by that. She gently laid her hand on Anna’s arm and said, “Come then, and let me show you to your room.”

  ***

  She felt faintly confused when she woke. Not because she was in a new room, with the windows and furnishings in unfamiliar positions, but because she had the certain sense that she was not alone.

  She rolled against the blankets, looking warily around, and met a pair of large blue eyes that peered with curiosity from just above the level of the mattress.


  When her heart had leaped and settled once again within her chest, she drew a breath and smiled. “Hello.”

  She had not yet met any of the children. Or at least, she had not yet been introduced to them. She’d heard them last night, certainly, but they had supped in private with the servant who was charged with taking care of them. “My dear,” the general’s wife had said, when Anna had inquired about the children, “it would never do to have them all descend on you at once, for though I love my children dearly, they are rather overwhelming.”

  Anna had returned the smile.

  The general’s wife, she’d learned, was from Livonia, and of high birth, and owned her own estate there that she’d shared with General Lacy since their marriage. She had lived there until lately with the children while the general led his army on campaigns, but since he’d now been two years in St. Petersburg and it appeared his duties would require him to be here awhile longer, she’d decided that the family should come join him. “Children need to have their father near,” she’d said, and it was clear that General Lacy loved his children, for he’d spent much time in speaking of them, with so much enthusiasm Anna could now scarce recall the blur of names and ages and accomplishments.

  She looked now at the wide blue eyes that watched her from beside the bed, and said again, “Hello.”

  The little girl did not smile back, but asked her in a hopeful tone, “Can you catch a bird without hurting it?”

  Anna was fully awake now. She raised herself up on her elbows and focused more fully on the child who stood beside her bed—a pretty little girl with white-blond hair still tightly plaited down her back, and in her night shift. She could have been no more than five or six.

  Anna said, “I have never attempted it. Why?”

  “There’s a bird in our room.”

  Anna blinked. “Is there?”

  “Yes. It flew in through the window and it won’t go out,” she said. “None of the servants will help, only Ned, and we can’t fetch Mama because she’s lying down. She lies down in the mornings, she doesn’t feel well in the mornings because of the baby inside her, so Michael and Ned have been chasing the bird, but they’re going to hurt it.”

  Anna sat up. “You say none of the servants is helping?”

  “Just Ned. Da’s already gone out, and the rest said that having a bird in the house was bad luck.”

  “Nonsense. Rather worse luck for the bird,” Anna said, as she rose and shrugged into her colored silk morning gown, wrapping it closely around her long night shift and tying the sash before holding her hand to the child. “Show me where.”

  The child led her down the empty corridor. The general and his wife had bedchambers downstairs, and Anna was grateful for that, since the noise spilling out from the children’s room could not have helped but disturb Mrs. Lacy if she had been trying to rest closer by. There were scuffling sounds and a high girlish shriek and the clatter and thud of an overturned chair, and a man’s voice cursed lightly in words that should not have been said before children.

  She opened the door on a scene that she might have thought comic if not for the worry that showed on the varied young faces all fixed on the gray-and-black crow flapping panicked from window to wall. There were four other children besides the one holding her hand, and all still in their nightclothes. The eldest, a boy, was already quite gangly and tall, on the brink of abandoning childhood, and clearly his father’s son down to the feature; the next eldest would have been either the girl with the ringlets of gold or the boy at her side, who both looked to be nine or ten years of age, although the boy was a little bit smaller, all elbows and knees and continual motion. The youngest child, younger than even the girl who had come to fetch Anna, sat huddled on one of the beds with the blankets drawn tightly around her head, not looking up as the bird swooped and fluttered.

  “Now, drive it to me, Michael, just like before,” said the man who could only be Ned, the one servant who’d come to the aid of the children. Anna hadn’t expected that he would be Irish, although she supposed it was not such an odd thing for men such as Lacy to want to employ their own countrymen. Vice Admiral Gordon had once had a Scottish valet, and a coachman from Scotland besides, but they’d both been much older than this man.

  She judged him to be not yet thirty, a lean man but broad shouldered, with dark brown hair fastened back at the nape of his neck and his jaw darkly roughened with the morning’s beard that he had not yet shaved. He wore neither waistcoat nor coat, only his unlaced shirt half-tucked into his breeches, and from the rapid rhythm of his breathing and his look of set determination Anna guessed that he’d been at this for some time.

  The bird swooped once more and he dove for it, swearing again.

  Anna said, “Will you please mind the use of your language in front of the children?”

  He looked at her then, for the first time, his dark eyebrows lifting a little before he turned back to the task at hand, keeping his eyes on the bird in its flight.

  The small girl at her side urged her into the chamber and shut the door firmly behind them before she announced, “I have brought Mistress Jamieson.”

  Not looking round, the man said, “Aye, she’ll be a grand help, I can see that.”

  Anna, stung by his sarcasm, found herself in the uncommon position of not knowing how to reply. The servants of her own house, and Dmitri in particular, had sometimes given voice to their opinions, but they’d never shown her open disrespect.

  She felt her temper rise, and when the man had tried and failed twice more to grab the crow as it flapped past, she told him archly, “You will never catch it that way.”

  “Will I not?” His last great lunge had winded him. He stood now half-bent over with his hands braced just above his knees, and turned his head to look at her. His face was not unpleasant, and might even have seemed handsome to some women, but she only saw the challenge in it.

  “No,” she said. “It is too badly frightened.”

  At her side the little girl looked up and let out a small cry. “It’s hurt! It has a hurt leg, look!”

  The crow was trying now to perch and settle, but no matter where it came to rest, it could not seem to grasp the surface, and its one leg dragged so awkwardly it threw the bird off balance, sent it flapping to the ceiling once again.

  In calm tones, Anna told the child, “Go to your little sister, now, and tell her not to be afraid. ’Tis but a bird and does not mean you harm.”

  It was, in fact, a hooded crow, with black wings and a vest of ashen gray, and had she shared the superstitions of the servants she might well have shared their fears as well, for hooded crows were widely seen as heralds of ill fortune. But she did not hold to superstitions, and she only saw a wounded and exhausted creature, losing strength.

  She told the children, “Will you all sit down, please. Be as quiet as you can.”

  The boys, as boys would do, looked first to Ned to see his own reaction, and a moment passed before he gave a silent sort of laugh and settled in a nearby chair to watch her with the certain eyes of one who thinks to see another fail.

  When all were seated, Anna stood alone and waited for the crow to calm.

  Ned murmured, “Well, what now? Will you then charm it with a song, to fly down to your hand?”

  Again his tone amazed her, and she briefly dropped her gaze to him, and told him, “You are insolent.”

  “Aye, frequently.” His eyes were laughing at her now, and too familiar.

  Anna looked away, refusing to allow him satisfaction. For a minute more, the crow flapped round the ceiling in confusion, and then all at once it dropped down with a flutter to the floor, and hopped and limped and dragged its leg in ever-smaller circles, till at length it came to rest not ten feet from where Anna stood, collapsing there in weariness.

  She tugged once at the loose end of the sash of her silk morning gown, and slipped it from her shoulders as she took a cautious step toward the bird, and then another. It flapped once, and shuffled
farther off, and might have taken once more to the wing if she had not, in one swift motion, tossed the morning gown on top of it and knelt to wrap the fabric round and gather up the crow with care, while speaking soothing words to it.

  “There now,” she said. “There now, you will be well, there is no need to be afraid.” Securely swaddled in the folds of colored silk, the bird tipped its head sharply up to look at her with one bright eye, its long beak moving silently as though it sought to speak.

  The room was silent, too, until at once the children started speaking all together, and pressed round her for a close look at the captive crow. This was not at all, thought Anna, how she’d planned to meet the general’s children, yet she likely could have done no better for a first impression, since it was soon obvious that all of them, from half-grown Michael to the smallest of the girls, now brave enough to venture from her blankets, thought what Anna had accomplished was no ordinary feat.

  The oldest girl said, “But we cannot put it out of doors again, not in the snow, not till its leg has healed.”

  The brother closest to her age was in agreement. “Can you fix it, Ned?”

  The children parted for the man as he came forward. Close, he seemed much taller. Anna did not wish to meet his gaze and so encourage any further insolence, nor was there any safer place to focus her attention, for his chest was covered only by a Holland shirt and that unlaced. Instead she looked down as his hands reached, not to take the bird away from her, but simply, and with unexpected gentleness, to turn the wrappings slightly so that he could peel a fold of cloth away to see the injured leg.

  His hands were browned as though from being in the sun, and strongly shaped, and in a line across the knuckles of his left hand rose a narrow ridge of scarring that she could not seem to look away from.