Like princesses in one of the dear tales the Brothers Grimm set down, she thought. Though thank the good Lord they have not had to go through great perils.
Alexei looked well, too. The days of rest, the return of the doctor’s strict regimen, seemed to help. Nicky had been right about that. Father Grigori did so shake the poor child up.
Turning to her youngest daughter, she snapped, “Stand straight, Anastasia. And fix your ribbon. A grand duchess does not slump. We must shine tonight. Shine.” She turned to her first maid, the one she’d brought with her from Germany all those many years ago. She spoke quickly in a German dialect. “Honestly, Greet, sometimes I worry she will be mistaken for a peasant.”
Greet did not reply to that. She had been long in service to Alexandra, largely due to her ability to not reply. Alexandra liked impertinent servants even less than she liked Jews.
“Is it a party, Mama?” Alexei asked, once the fuss about Anastasia’s comportment was done with.
“More than a party,” the tsarina said. “A secret as well.”
“I love secrets,” Alexei said.
“And can keep none of them,” Anastasia whispered at him fiercely. Well, she certainly couldn’t talk back to her mother. It wasn’t allowed. Besides, she’d made the mistake once of telling him something as they played, and he’d scattered it about to the servants and Father Grigori, which meant everyone at the palace soon knew about her crush on Vasili, the portrait painter. Every time Vasili had come into the room, she had blushed the color of sunrise after that, guessing he knew about it, too. She had never forgiven Alexei nor spoken to the portrait painter again.
“Can, too,” Alexei said, thinking about all the secrets told to him by Father Grigori he’d never told anyone. And the stories. But he would someday… when he was tsar and there were no consequences to what he did and said. Only obedience.
He would know everything about everyone just as his father did. Everything.
Chapter 22
Shoring up my co-conspirators had been tougher work than I’d imagined it would be. Really, they have no stomach for this stuff. Aristocrats are ever prepared to pronounce sentence but rarely willing to carry out that same sentence themselves. Unless it is in a stupid duel. Assassination should be short, brutal, and the outcome without question. Not two men of equal strength and ability flailing about with swords!
Washing my hands in the large basin as these thoughts banged about in my head, I began to giggle at the overwrought metaphor.
“I am not Herod,” I told the mirror. I forced myself to stop giggling. It wouldn’t do to be overheard laughing alone, talking to myself. It would give my wife ammunition to fight any separation.
Then, remembering that Ninotchka was out at some women’s gala, and the servants dismissed for the evening, I felt immediately relieved and finished the thought, though quietly, in case the walls were thinner than I believed. “And the mad monk is no Christ!” There! I’d said it aloud.
It was not that I enjoyed getting my hands dirty. Well, perhaps in this exceptional case….
“Still, if you really want something done,” I said to my image, “occasionally you have to be the one to do it.” The image stared back, stern, unyielding. I would have to be certain to carry that face with me to Prince Yusupov’s party.
The others wanted the monk dead almost as much as I did. The prince even called him “a meddlesome priest.”
But the worry was still with me—could I count on them completely? I shrugged rather dramatically, ran fingers through my hair, then thought: I have to be certain they do not make me the one to take the blame for Rasputin’s death.
My mind whirled with possibilities. Other than the poison—and it’s enough to fell a bull and its cow besides—their plans are ludicrous. Each has told me privately they will have knives in their boots, revolvers in their waistbands, so that if need be, they can finish the job properly. Stupid aristos. This will only alert him. He has the cunning of a wild creature. He will nose such things out. Besides, once the body is seen by the authorities, it must seem like an ordinary death. The poison is undetectable. Knife wounds and bullet holes scream assassination.
On the other hand, he thought, Rasputin himself is the incalculable part of the equation. He has that dark magic on his side. He is a Mesmer. He can make anyone believe that which he tells them to believe.
I bit my lower lip, thinking the worst of thoughts now:
I cannot presume the others have the will to actually use their weapons.
“Better to be prepared myself,” I told the mirror. “It will steel my will.”
In just a few hours, the mad monk will be dead. I repeated this to myself until I believed it. And after that—all worries will disappear.
Hands dried, hair practically as polished as my boots, I found my late father’s old dagger that he had never used for anything but opening walnuts. Placing it in the bosom of my shirt, I gave a sudden shudder. I had no pistol.
Everything rested in God’s hands now.
An awful thought crept past my wall of confidence: And the monk has the ear of God.
“Do not fear,” I whispered to myself. “Never fear.” It was merely that the sheathed blade was unexpectedly cold against my chest. As if death rested there. Plus, I was now profoundly aware of it.
It is good I am aware of it. I bit my lower lip thoughtfully. It will remind me to have courage.
I squared my shoulders and went out into the palace hallway, shutting the door to the apartment behind me with a satisfactory snick.
To my extreme horror and surprise, I saw the misbegotten son of a Siberian peasant marching down the hallway toward me. The mad monk in his best embroidered blouse, black velvet trousers, and shiny new boots.
“Rasputin!” I said under my breath, as if I watched a dead man walking. Why is he here? What is he doing? Where is he going? My thoughts raced as the confidence I had worked so hard to build fled like Russian columns before German infantry. It was too early for the monk to be ready for the evening party. What if he got there too soon and discovered our plans?
“Good evening, Father Grigori,” I said as calmly as I could when we drew nearer together, all the while thinking, What is he doing here? Perhaps he is going somewhere else instead?
Now I was all but babbling in my head. Too early or not at all? I don’t know which is worse. Could Rasputin dare either? Both? Could he believe he could get away with insulting the prince? Is Rasputin that powerful?
My hands began to tremble, and I had to will them to stop. Then I subtly put myself into Rasputin’s path, so that he would either have to pull up or plow me down.
For a mad moment, I was afraid, thinking he would march right over me. But at the last second, he stopped, looming over me, and I am not a tiny man.
That was when I smelled something odd, a miasma of some sort. It took me a moment to place it. Cheap soap. I could barely keep myself from wrinkling my nose. This was no magician, this was a charlatan!
“Out of my way, lackey,” Rasputin said, as if the two of us had never been introduced. His eyes were as cold as his mother’s breast milk must have been. “I have important news for the tsar.”
Now I was truly close to panic. What news could the monk have to cause him to miss his dinner and insult me openly? Surely he had uncovered our plans! Surreptitiously, I reached inside my jacket, my fingers touching the hilt of the dagger. It should have given me courage, but all it seemed to do was raise more doubts.