“Is it about the tsar’s dragons?” Alexei asked, slipping his hand in the monk’s.
“It is about….” Rasputin thought quickly, remembering the tales he’d heard from the old women in his native village. “About a dragon. But not your father’s.”
“Oh.” The boy sounded disappointed. “I don’t wish to hear about Chinese dragons.”
“But these are Russian dragons.”
“There are no Russian dragons that aren’t my father’s,” Alexei said imperiously.
“Not anymore,” Rasputin said, mysteriously.
“Tell me, tell me,” Alexei begged, not a royal command but a boy’s plea.
“As we walk along,” Rasputin said, knowing the walk would be good for the boy.
The boy looked up expectantly yet silently, so Rasputin began the tale.
“There once was a snake that lived a hundred years, and so turned into a dragon. This was in Russia, not China, so it turned into a giant dragon, not a small wyrm like we have now.”
“My father’s dragons aren’t small!” Alexei said petulantly. “They are the tsar’s dragons, which means they are the biggest—”
Rasputin smiled down at him. “Of course not,” he agreed, because disagreeing openly with royalty was never a good idea. “But compared to the Russian dragons of old? Tiny things.” He waited until the boy nodded in agreement before continuing. “After one hundred years a snake, this dragon was wild, as well. Untamable. He razed villages. Burnt whole provinces to ash.”
“Was there no tsar to stop him?”
“Of course there was! Your grandfather’s grandfather’s grandfather was tsar,” Rasputin said, having no idea if it was true. “He rode out to slay the dragon.”
Alexei made as if to speak, but Rasputin held his hand up to stop him. “I will never finish if you keep interrupting, my prince. The tsar rode out in his shining armor and, avoiding the flames, plunged his great sword deep into the beast’s chest.”
The boy couldn’t help himself. He burst out, “He killed the dragon!”
Rasputin smiled. “No. Because the dragon was not only large and fierce but clever, as well. He had taken out his heart and hidden it far away, where none could find it. Or so he thought.”
“Did the tsar find the dragon’s heart? Did he save the land?”
Rasputin laughed and scooped up the young prince— but gently. They neared the entrance to the barns. “Of course, he did.” And since they were at the barns now, added, “But that is a story for another day.”
They went down to the barns, but the dragons were sleeping, or so the barn boys said. And even a tsar’s son—warned Rasputin—dare not wake them. They saw only the tops of the dragons’ sleeping heads. Alexei was more than satisfied.
Rasputin was relieved.
Chapter 15
The tsarina was waiting for them impatiently, her ladies buzzing around her like bees around their queen. The monk and the boy were an hour past the doctor’s appointment, which had to be rescheduled for after the evening meal. The tsarina was not amused.
“Insufferable….” she began, tapping the gold watch pinned to the bib of her dress, but then she saw Alexei’s face. It was suffused with excitement, not its usual bleached complexion with fever spots on either cheek. She said more quietly, “My dear son, where have you and the good father been?”
“To the dragons, Mama,” he said, adding quickly, “and I learned about my great-great so many times great grandfather, who saved the land from a great dragon. He was so heroic. I want to be like that.”
She turned to Rasputin, “What nonsense have you been filling his head with?”
“Heroism in a princeling is never nonsense, Majesty,” he answered solemnly. “And it gives him much to live up to, don’t you think?” He gazed down at the boy fondly, his hand familiarly on the child’s head.
“And look, Mama,” Alexei said, holding something up to her in an unusually grimy hand. “A strand of hair from one dragon’s head. I should like it in a locket to wear beneath my shirt always, to remind me to be brave.”
“Remind you….” She looked at her child, who was already braver than she had ever had to be. She hoped he never had to have more courage than to face the doctors with their little probes. Or the sudden losses of blood that came with the terrible disease her ancestors had gifted him with. And the swollen limbs and bruises as large as summer plums.
“Of course,” she said, careful not to shudder as she held out her hand for the dark hank of hair, before handing it quickly to one of her ladies. “Kita will have it set in a golden locket for you, a masculine locket. Yes?”
Kita curtseyed and held out her hand for the disgusting piece of hair. She, poor thing, had no ability to control her shudder at the touch. The tsarina gave her a look that might have frozen a dragon in its tracks.
Then the tsarina turned. “Such lateness will not happen again, Father Grigori,” she said to Rasputin. But her voice was warm enough to tell him he had been forgiven.
He put his hand over his heart and bowed, gifting her with that wonderful smile, and a wink for Alexei.
It was an unorthodox thing for a priest to do. But Alexei looked so happy with his whole adventure, the tsarina didn’t have the heart to scold further.
But as the evening wore on, she thought more and more about her precious Alexei being brought down to the dragon pens. It really was the height of arrogance and irresponsibility for the monk to expose him to such beasts. For beasts they were, and useless beasts as well, now that they never seemed to find any Jews to kill. How could Rasputin—her beloved Rasputin—betray her like this?
She didn’t know the answer to that, of course, but she knew who would.
Nicky, my darling, Nicky.
She would tell him of the monk’s overreach when he returned from the front. He would tell her what they should do.
Chapter 16
Bronstein was exhausted. The dragons were needy, greedy things, big as cattle now but with the manners of kittens. Soon that last would change. He had to train them before then.
And they were so endlessly hungry!
He spent most of his days gathering food for them: scraps from the fishmongers, offal from the slaughterhouse, bones from the butcher. Even chickens, alive or newly dead. His excuses were varied: hounds to feed, dinner parties, food for the poor. A few of the butchers may have guessed at the truth, but it was too outlandish an idea to be believed. A Jew raising dragons? Now tell us about the German who hugged his children, or the Cossack who hated vodka. So what if it was the only answer that made sense? It still made no sense at all. So to stamp out any last doubts, Bronstein had to make some of that true so as not to start even more rumors. He made sure to be seen throwing parties and feeding the poor—but never so much that there wasn’t anything left over for his dragons. And once he was even seen running a pack of hounds—stolen of course, and fed to the dragons after—like some English lord a-hunting. It seemed endless, the subterfuge, the drudgery, the fear, though he knew it was not.
The dragons honked at him when he returned and butted him with their bullet-shaped heads. After feeding them, he had to fix the fences they’d trampled or burned and collect the larger dragons who had wandered off. He had a few boys from the village who helped him, but it seemed that the only ones trustworthy enough to recruit were mostly useless when it came to the actual work.
And there was so much work!
Bronstein was not afraid of work. But this wasn’t his kind of work. Writing, editing, running a newspaper—he could do that for sixteen, eighteen hours a day. But this was peasant’s labor, all sweat and slop, so much heaving, hoisting, and hosing down… it was really too much!