‘What?’ she asked me.
‘Is it safe?’
The Winter Palace
I WAS STRUGGLING to stop myself from trembling too visibly.
The long, third-floor corridor of the Winter Palace, where the Tsar and his family made their home when they were in St Petersburg, stretched out coldly on either side of me, its golden walls fading into an intimidating darkness as the candles dimmed and flickered in the distance. And at its centre was a young boy from Kashin, who could hardly breathe for thinking of all those who had passed along these hallways in the past.
Of course, I had never witnessed such majesty before – I had scarcely believed that such places existed outside of my imagination – but glancing down, I could see the knuckles on both my hands turning white as they clutched the arms of my chair in a tight embrace. My stomach was alive with tension and every time I halted my right foot from tapping upon the marble floor in anxiety, it lay still for only a moment before beginning its nervous dance once again.
The chair itself was an object of the most extraordinary beauty. Its four legs were carved from red oak, with intricate detailing flowering along the ridges. Set into the wings were two thick layers of gold and they, in turn, were encrusted with three different types of jewel, only one of which I recognized, a dotted trail of blue sapphires that sparkled and changed colour as I examined them from different angles. The fabric was wrought tight against a cushion heavily stuffed with the softest feathers. Despite my anxiety, it was difficult not to emit a pleasurable sigh as I rested upon it, for the previous five days had offered no consolation, save the unforgiving leather of the saddle.
The journey from Kashin to the capital of the Russian empire had commenced less than a week after the Grand Duke Nicholas Nicolaievich had journeyed through our village and suffered the attempt on his life. In the days that followed, my sister Asya had changed the dressing on my shoulder twice daily, and when the discarded bindings were no longer spotted with blood, the soldiers who had been left behind to escort me to my new home announced that I was fit for travel. Had the bullet entered my body a little more to the right, my arm might have been paralysed, but I had been fortunate and it took only a day or two for harmony between the shoulder, elbow and wrist to be restored. From time to time, a stinging pain just above the healing wound offered a sharp rebuke as a reminder of my actions and I grimaced at such moments, not out of tenderness but in consideration for how my impetuous actions had cost the life of my oldest friend.
The body of Kolek Boryavich had remained where the soldiers had hanged him, swinging from the yew tree near our hut, for three days before the soldiers gave permission to his father, Boris Alexandrovich, to cut him down and allow him a decent burial. He did so with dignity, the ceremony taking place a mile or so from our village on the afternoon before I left.
‘Do you think we could attend the interment?’ I asked my mother the night before, the first mention I had made to her of my friend’s death, so guilty did I feel at what I had done. ‘I’d like to say goodbye to Kolek.’
‘Have you lost your reason, Georgy?’ she asked, her brow furrowing as she turned to look at me. She had been attentive towards me over the last few days, showing more consideration than she had over the previous sixteen years, and I wondered whether my brush with death had caused her to regret our virtual estrangement. ‘We would not be welcome there.’
‘But he was my closest friend,’ I insisted. ‘And you have known him since the day that he was born.’
‘From that day until the day he died,’ she agreed, biting her lip. ‘But Borys Alexandrovich… he has made his feelings clear.’
‘Perhaps if I spoke to him,’ I suggested. ‘I could visit him. My shoulder is healing. I could try to explain—’
‘Georgy,’ she said, sitting down on the floor beside me and placing her hand flat against the muscle of my uninjured arm, her tone softening to a point where I thought she might even be moved towards humanity. ‘He doesn’t want to talk to you, can’t you understand that? He isn’t even thinking about you. He has lost his son. That is all that matters to him now. He walks the streets with a haunted expression on his face, crying out for Kolek and cursing Nicholas Nicolaievich, denouncing the Tsar, blaming everyone for what has happened except himself. The two soldiers, they’ve warned him about his treasonous words but he doesn’t listen. He’ll go too far one of these days, Georgy, and end up with his head inside a noose too. Trust me, it’s best that you stay away from him.’
I was tortured with remorse and could hardly sleep for guilt. The truth was that I didn’t really believe it had been my intention to save the life of the Grand Duke at all, but rather I had hoped to prevent Kolek from committing an action which could only result in his own death. The irony that in doing so I had cost him his life was not lost on me.
To my shame, however, I was almost relieved by his father’s decision to refuse me an audience, for had I been allowed to speak I doubtless would have apologized for my actions, which might have resulted in the guards realizing that I was not quite the hero that everyone believed me to be and my proposed new life in St Petersburg might have come to an early end. I couldn’t allow this, for I wanted to leave. The possibility of a life outside of Kashin had been placed before me and as the week drew to a close and the moment of my departure loomed, I began to wonder whether it had even been my intention to save Kolek at all, or whether I had been hoping to save myself.
On the morning that I emerged from our hut to begin the long journey towards St Petersburg, I could see my fellow moujiks staring at me with a mixture of admiration and contempt. It was true that I had brought great honour on our village by saving the life of the Tsar’s cousin, but every man and woman who watched me gather my few belongings together and place them in the saddlebags of the horse which had been left behind for my journey had watched Kolek grow up on these very streets. The fact of his untimely death, not to mention my part in it, lingered in the air like a stale odour. They were loyal subjects of the Romanovs, this was true. They believed in the Imperial family and the right of autocracy. They credited God with putting the Tsar on the throne and believed his relatives to exist in a state of glory. But Kolek was from Kashin. He was one of us. In such a situation, it was impossible to decide where loyalties should lie.
‘You will come back for me one day soon?’ Asya asked as I prepared to leave. She had been negotiating with the soldiers for several days to allow her to accompany me to St Petersburg, where she, of course, hoped to begin her own new life, but they would hear nothing of it and she was facing up to a lonely future in Kashin without her closest confidant at hand.
‘I will try,’ I promised her, although I didn’t know whether I meant this or not. I had no idea, after all, what lay in store for me. I could not commit to making plans for others.
‘Every day I will await a letter,’ she insisted, clutching my hands in hers and staring at me with imploring eyes that were ready to spring forth with tears. ‘And with one word, I will set off to find you. Don’t leave me here to rot, Georgy. Promise me that. Tell whoever you meet about me. Tell them what a worthy addition I would be to their society.’
I nodded and kissed her cheek, and those of my other sisters and mother, before walking over to shake my father’s hand. Daniil stared at me as if he did not know how to respond to such a gesture. He had made his money off me finally, but with his profit came my departure. To my surprise, he looked stricken by this fact, but it was too late for reparation now. I wished him well but said little more before mounting the fine grey stallion, offering a last goodbye and riding out of Kashin and away from my family for ever.