The Firebird

by Susanna Kearsley

  “Rob?”

  I was hit by a hard wave of something like hurt, then he closed off his thoughts. To the static, I said again, Rob?

  It was no use. He’d shut me out. Raking a hand through his hair, he said carefully, “I thought, when you said you’d tell her… I thought…”

  I caught up in a rush. “You thought I was going to tell her what I saw?” I read the answer plainly in his eyes. “Oh, Rob, I’m sorry. Really sorry. But I can’t, you know I can’t. Besides, there isn’t any need to, like I said. I can convince her it’s a forgery without all that.”

  “Convenient.” There was bitterness in that one word I hadn’t heard from Rob before.

  I said, “This isn’t like you. You’re supposed to understand.”

  “Aye, well, I thought I did. I thought I understood, last night.” He exhaled hard. “You’re right, you can be difficult to read sometimes. I got it wrong.”

  “That isn’t fair.”

  “I’m done with fair.”

  “I’d lose my job,” I told him bluntly. “All the clients, all the people that I work with, and Sebastian, they’d all think that I was lying, or they’d think I was a—” I bit back the word, but Rob supplied it.

  “Freak.” The hard twist of his mouth was nothing like a smile. “Was that the word that ye were wanting?” When I didn’t answer, he went on, “Ye ken this for a fact, then, do you, that they’d all react so badly?”

  “I can’t take that chance.”

  “Aye, you can. It’s a choice. We choose most things in life, ye ken. Whether we live it or watch it go past. Even whether we’re happy.”

  I looked down. “It’s easy for you.”

  He gave a hard laugh. “Because this is so easy.” He threw his unfinished ice cream in the bin at the side of the bench, and asked, “If I had some other ability, if I could sing, or put a football in the net, would you have been ashamed of that, as well?”

  “I never was…” Words failed me for a moment, and I focused on the sparrows that had gathered round our feet until my voice returned. “I’m not ashamed of you.”

  “You’re feart that I’ll embarrass you,” he said. “That’s why you’ve kept me hidden from these people that you work with here, because you’re feart I might just be myself, and read a mind or two in public.”

  He’d hit close to home with that, and I could tell he knew it when he saw my face. I turned defensive.

  “Would it really be so hard,” I asked, “to hide what you can do? To keep it private?”

  Rob looked down at me. “Short term? Like this? No, not so hard. But over time? Aye, then,” he said, “I’d find it near impossible. It’s what I am.” He held my gaze. “It’s what you are, as well.”

  “I hide it.”

  “Aye,” he said, “and look how well that’s working for you.”

  Round our feet the sparrows hopped and chattered, all oblivious to what was going on between us. For a moment Rob looked down at them in silence, too, and when he spoke again there was no anger in his voice, nor even bitterness, but just the smallest hint of something sad.

  “If we cannae be what we were born to be, the whole of it, we die a little on the inside, every day we live the lie. I’d die for you in every other way,” he told me quietly, “but not like that. I’m sorry, Nick.”

  I thought that I’d known every kind of pain, until I watched Rob walk away from me. He didn’t touch me, didn’t kiss me, didn’t say good-bye. It would have been a touch of melodrama if he had, I guessed, since we’d be flying home together on the plane tomorrow. But I knew he’d left me, all the same.

  The whole world blurred. I felt the searing heat of tears and closed my eyes as tightly as I could so that they wouldn’t fall, and out of nowhere I was struck by a deep stab of anguish answering my own, yet not my own.

  I thought at first it might be Rob—that his control had slipped enough to let me in for that brief instant. But it wasn’t him at all. The pictures rose and raced by in a blur behind my eyelids, stopping of their own accord and widening so suddenly the bright light left me blinded, till it flared and settled into the warm sunlight of a summer afternoon.

  I was above the Strelka, wheeling like a bird upon the wind that smelled of salt and sea and ship timbers and canvas sails. Below me lay the Custom House, the line of merchants’ warehouses, the long and broad expanse of the exchange, and to the west the row of colleges. Between them, in the dusty square, the people walked in pairs and threes. A carriage drawn by four matched horses, with a little dog that ran behind it, swung by jauntily and passed a heavy wagon, moving slower with its creaking wheels and plodding team of oxen.

  And as always, there were soldiers in the square. As I gradually came down to their own level I could see them clearly, many standing guard around the Custom House, and others strolling on patrol, and one lieutenant talking to a younger woman who stood very still and straight amid the chaos, in her black paduasoy gown.

  ***

  Anna held herself with care. “Charles, it is not true.”

  His eyes held sympathy, but they were sure. “I had it from a man who had no reason to invent it. He was there.”

  It was a strange thing, Anna thought, how her world could so completely shatter in the small space of one brief heartbeat, and with sunshine warm upon her shoulders, and the flow of people all around, uninterrupted. She tried to hold the broken pieces in their places, as though willing it could make it whole. “He often is accused of things he did not say or do. You know he is.”

  Charles said nothing to that, only looked at her as though he wished there were some way that he could have spared her what kindness and duty had bound him to say.

  Anna focused her gaze on the masts of the merchants’ ships, just past his shoulders, and blinked at the brightness. “This friend of yours… is he entirely sure Captain Deane was the man to whom Mr. O’Connor was speaking?”

  “He knew Deane himself, from before. Well, not knew him, exactly, but yes, he’s entirely sure.”

  “And why did he not say something earlier? Deane has been gone from this place for a month.”

  Charles defended his friend. “He did not know that I was acquainted with Mr. O’Connor. It was not until this past hour, when we dined at the tavern, and Mr. O’Connor was there, that my friend told me what he’d observed. What he’d heard.”

  Anna nodded, still watching the masts of the ships as they danced on the river, not wanting to think of the details of what Charles’s friend claimed he’d overheard in Trescott’s tavern, the day before Deane left St. Petersburg: that Deane and Edmund had talked as though friends, and that Edmund had told Deane, without any prompting, that Captain Hay had come from King James’s court with instructions for Sir Harry Stirling to buy several ships here, supported by money from Spain and the Pope, and that Edmund was sure he’d have more information in time he could pass on to Deane.

  Charles watched her. “Anna, I—”

  “Maybe your friend heard things wrongly, and misunderstood.”

  “Anna. Look at me.” When she did, he told her, very soberly, “Deane tried to buy me, too. Trescott reminded him of the divisions between the vice admiral and my mother, and Deane approached me, to see if I’d spy for him.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “I told him to go to the devil. But he was an active man, while he was here, and I know he found others more willing,” Charles said. “Mr. Trescott, for one. I am told he agreed to find probable men for Deane’s purpose and make introductions.”

  She would not have thought Mr. Trescott dishonest. “For payment?”

  “Not in money, but Deane promised him an English education for his son,” Charles told her. “Even good men can be made to turn from their own conscience for a price.”

  “What was Mr. O’Connor’s price?” Even asking the question was painful.

  “I do not know. Faith, I’d have called him outside on the spot and discovered it, but I thought only of coming to f
ind you, and tell you. My uncle should know.”

  “Yes.” Her eyes stung again, and she blinked fiercely as Charles went on.

  “I did not think to find you so close,” he said. “What business brings you across to the island?”

  She had to think hard, to remember herself. “Mrs. Lacy is large with her child and she finds it uncomfortable sitting so long. She desired an outing, and having not yet seen her husband’s new office she thought to come visit it.” That seemed an age ago. “She’s with him now.”

  “Well, it was my good fortune you waited out here, else I might not have found you.”

  She gave a distracted nod. “Yes, very fortunate.”

  “Are you all right?”

  Anna nodded a second time.

  Charles said, “And so you will tell him?”

  “Tell whom?”

  “Tell my uncle,” he said, “about Mr. O’Connor.”

  She nodded again. Then she thought for a moment and asked, “Will you do something for me?”

  “Of course, if I’m able to.”

  “Will you wait here in my place? If the general’s wife comes, and I have not yet returned, please see she gets home safely.”

  “Anna…”

  “Charles, please. Please just do it. For me.” And she gave him no choice but to do it by turning away from him, crossing the great square with blindly swift steps that by chance and pure providence steered her without any incident through the confusion of feet, skirts, and carriage wheels.

  She did not slow her pace till she had reached the tavern. Then she stopped, and searched among the faces of the men who stood outside it for an honest one, and offered him a coin. “Sir, if you please, there is a man within to whom I must speak urgently.”

  The man brought Edmund out to her.

  He came out laughing, dark eyes gleaming just enough to tell her he’d been drinking, with his jacket wafting scents of whisky, wine, and pipe tobacco. When he saw her, though, the change in his expression let her see he was not altogether drunk.

  “What is it? What has happened?” In concern, he took a step toward her. “Mistress Jamieson, what’s wrong? Is someone injured? Mrs. Lacy, or the children?”

  That his first thoughts should be for the general’s family made her instincts war more desperately against her reason, for it seemed impossible that such a man could do what she’d been told he’d done.

  She shook her head. “They’re well. But I must speak to you.”

  He looked around. “This hardly is the proper place to—”

  “Edmund, please.” Her words came with more force than she’d have liked, but nonetheless they reached him, for he frowned and came the final steps toward her, reaching one hand out to guide her by the arm along the path that led toward the river’s edge.

  “What is it?” he repeated.

  She could not reply yet, only walk along with him in painful silence, as though with every step she trod on knives.

  He brought her to the shore, where marsh reeds bent before the currents of the river, and the spindly trees leaned out across the water, and small birds sang while all around them unseen insects buzzed and hummed like nature’s summer orchestra.

  Exactly where the soft ground changed to mud, he turned her to him and asked once again, with gentleness, “What is it?”

  “I have heard something.” She gathered up her courage and then took a breath and looked him in the eye. “I have heard something that I do not believe, nor will I yet believe it until I have heard it from yourself, sir.”

  She’d imagined it, she told herself. She’d only just imagined that he’d stiffened in response to that, the way a man might brace himself against a coming blow.

  She said, “I’m told that you did talk to Captain Deane, the day before he left St. Petersburg. And that you did inform him of some things that you should not have, and did promise to inform him further.”

  Edmund let her go, and turned a little from her so she could not see the whole of his expression, though she saw enough to know his face was serious. “Who told you this?”

  She asked him, “Does it matter?”

  He looked down at that, and she could see the faint edge of that half-smile that was not a smile, the one that held no humor. “No,” he said. “I don’t suppose it matters much at all.”

  Her voice betrayed her with a tremor. “Is it true?”

  He turned his head then, and his eyes found hers. “You really don’t believe it?”

  “I confess that I cannot.”

  Why that should make his eyes turn sad at first, then darken into anger, Anna could not claim to know, but he controlled the anger as he asked, “And why is that?”

  “Because,” she started, but he had turned fully back toward her now and come a slow step forward, and she faltered. “I…”

  “Because you saw me looking at a child once, and you think you know my nature?” Leaning in, he brought his face to hers and told her, “Look again.”

  She still saw only Edmund, but she felt the heated pricking as her eyes began to fill, and with an oath he straightened to his full height.

  “’Tis the truth. You’ve heard correctly.”

  Anna forced the tears back with an effort, looking up at him, unable to look elsewhere for a few long, painful seconds. When her hand moved, she was almost unaware of it. Until she heard the slap, and felt the stinging of her palm, and saw the red mark spread along his jaw. She slapped him once again, still harder, and he stood there silently and let her do it.

  Nothing in his face changed, nor his stance, and Anna had the strong impression that he would have stood there for as long as she desired to hit him, without ever moving to defend himself. She wondered if he’d stood like that, so stoically, when as a boy he had been whipped in punishment until his hand was cut and bleeding, for a crime that was not his. Except this time, she told herself, he was not being noble. This time he deserved the blame.

  She let her hand drop. Turned away before the tears spilled over.

  She did not ask for details, for in truth it hardly mattered. But there was one thing she wished to know. “What did he offer you?” she asked. “What was your price?”

  The silence stretched. And then he said, “A pardon, Mistress Jamieson. A pardon from King George.”

  She gave a nod, and in a small voice told him, “Well, then. Now you can go home again.”

  And without looking back, she walked away.

  Chapter 44

  The reception was nearly half over before I arrived. I had spent a long time in the shower, just standing there, letting the water wash over me, thinking. I’d spent even longer deciding what I ought to wear. But the longest time had been spent willing my own feet to carry me, step after step, from the hotel and down to the river and over the long bridge back onto the island, the same way I’d walked there this morning with Rob.

  I had not seen or heard from him. I knew he’d closed himself off and he wanted to keep it that way, so I hadn’t intruded. I didn’t know whether he knew that I’d done a whole vision without him, alone. Had it happened a day ago, I’d have been wanting to tell him about it, exchanging my pride for his praise, but today it had been such a hollow victory, and what I’d seen had been so sad, I’d felt no sense of triumph or accomplishment.

  And now I stood in the beautiful Great Hall upstairs in the Menshikov Palace, a full and untouched glass of wine in my hand, and tried taking an interest in what everybody was saying, and I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t.

  “Hey.” Wendy Van Hoek nudged my shoulder. “Are you OK?”

  With her striking looks and a pair of truly amazing high-heeled shoes, she managed somehow to make a plain cream-colored pantsuit look more glamorous than my black cocktail frock. Even though my wine was white, I held it with new care, remembering Sebastian’s disaster.

  I forced a smile. “I’m fine.”

  “Good. Your timing was perfect, you’ve missed all the speeches,” she said with a smile. “W
e’ll be heading downstairs in a moment, to tour the exhibit.”

  Terrific, I thought. I did drink the wine then, if a little too quickly.

  Downstairs, Yuri took his turn giving the guests several insights into the selected works, slipping from Russian and French into English with laudable ease so that everyone there had a chance to appreciate what he was saying.

  “This was a great strength of the Peredvizhniki, their portraiture. They moved it from the realm of privilege, the family portrait or the portrait of great persons, to the universal, yes? Their art was not for private viewing, it was for the public, and their subjects were the ordinary Russian people. This was very new, very exciting. Here you see it, in this study from a mural done by Surikov.” He stopped, to my dismay, in front of the one painting in the whole room I’d been doing my best not to look at. “When he painted this, Surikov was just beginning, just from the Academy, but you can already see what will come in his portraits. This face, this is not done for anyone’s vanity, is it? It’s real.”

  Rather too real, I thought. Bishop Gregory, reading his famous oration at Constantinople, in front of the people who’d shunned what he had to say. Bishop Gregory, who’d told the council when he had resigned that he would gladly be another Jonah, bringing news that nobody was keen to hear, like Jonah in the Bible—the unlucky prophet who had chosen not to give the message God had sent him with, because it was too difficult to tell. And who had suffered for his choice.

  I heard Rob telling me in anger, “It’s a choice. We choose most things in life…”

  And standing here right now in all my misery, I knew I’d made the wrong one.

  Breaking into Yuri’s speech before I could think better of it, I said, “It’s a forgery.”

  You could have heard a pin drop. If I’d never felt a fool before in all my life, I felt one now. But still I pushed ahead, with all eyes on me, and continued, “It was never done by Surikov. A forger made it, sometime in the 1960s, I would say.”

  Beside me, Wendy turned and arched an eyebrow, looking not at all impressed. “My father had this piece authenticated.”