For many years past this had become an accepted ritual, and in a flash, Roger realised that he had been through it, with the only exception that, Potemkin being away at the wars, in this case the change of favourites was being made without his knowledge.
Raising Katerina Ivanovna to her feet, he said, a little breathlessly: "It is then to you, Madame, that I owe this sudden elevation?"
She leered at him. "I knew Her Majesty to be wearied of Momonof, and saw the moment that you were brought before her that she was taken with you. I have been her confidant for so long that I know her every mood. I had but to drop a word in her ear and arrange for suitable people to be at last night's supper party, and the result was a foregone conclusion."
As he did not reply, she went on: "For many years past the favourites have been no more than puppets dancing to Prince One-eye's tune. But unless I have lost the art of judging men you will prove different. Her Majesty still leans greatly on his advice, but there are times when she resents his dictatorial manner to the point of vowing that she will be rid of him. You are handsome enough to become another Lanskoi; but you can become greater than he. If you can establish yourself firmly with the Empress during Potemkin's absence, with my help it should not prove beyond you to unseat him on his return. Then you and I will rule Katinka and Russia between us. Now, what say you to my proposition?"
Roger had been thinking swiftly, and he was quick to realise that it would be madness to antagonise this evil, ambitious woman; so he replied: "I like it well, Madame, and I shall rely upon your guidance in all things."
"You are a youth of sense," she cackled. "We will talk more anon, but now I must leave you. Not more than five minutes remain for you to prepare yourself; then go you up the stairs to reap an Empire."
She curtseyed again, glided to the door and slipped through it with barely a rustle of her laces, leaving him to his wildly whirling thoughts.
The prospect she had offered him was so tremendous that he found it difficult to grasp. Potemkin's drunken, dissolute life had aged him shockingly, and everyone said that he was far from being the man he had been when he first became the Empress's lover. Roger had enormous confidence in his own abilities and believed that, if he could protect himself from assassination, and retain the goodwill of Katerina Ivanovna, between them they would prove more than a match for the one-eyed prince. She evidently believed that too, and she had far better grounds for forming an accurate judgment of the situation than he had. If the intrigue proved successful he would, within a few months, find himself virtually seated on the throne of the greatest Empire in the world.
In such a position his power would be almost limitless. He could change the face of Europe if he would. But better, he could serve his own country infinitely more effectively than his wildest imaginings had ever led him to hope, by making Russia the keystone in a Grand Alliance for the permanent preservation of the peace of Europe. That was the one certain way of saving Britain's substance from being wasted away by future wars. With Russia's might upon the land and England's on the seas, in firm alliance to curb the ambitions of other powers, young Mr. Pitt's great dream of peace and prosperity for all could be made to come true.
But there was a price to be paid for all this. His thoughts reverted to the stocky, elderly woman from whom his power would be derived. She was very far from being evil, and the scope of her mind was infinitely greater than that of any other living ruler. She was courteous, gentle and beneficent by nature. As a girl she had come to a country which was still considered to be outside Europe and peopled almost entirely by savages. In a quarter of a century she had brought it permanently within the family of nations which composed the civilised world, and launched vast educational schemes which had now brought a degree of literacy to the whole of her nobility and more prosperous subjects. She had subdued the wild tribes of Asia and established a Pax Romanaamong them. At her instigation costly missions of exploration, headed by able scientists, had been sent to China, Persia, and the Arctic. On learning that great tracts of her fertile lands were unpeopled, she had financed whole tribes of industrious Germans and Magyars to migrate and colonise them. Under her sway religious toleration had been established with a completeness unknown to any other country in the world. She had abolished torture and the terrible "crying of the word," which, before her time, had made every Russian go in constant fear that an enemy might denounce him for some crime he had not committed, and that, although innocent, the rack and thumbscrews would be applied with the object of wringing a confession from him. She had fought smallpox with inoculation even in the remote villages of the Steppes, and while other rules hypocritically endeavoured to ignore venereal disease she had established clinics where sufferers could be treated without the shame of having to acknowledge their ailment publicly...
She was great, brave, cultured and generous, and, if he would, he could take his stand beside her, help her further to improve the lot of her thirty million subjects, and guide her future foreign relations to a point where he could initiate the lifting of the scourge of war for ever from suffering humanity.
But there was a price to pay—a price to pay; and it was he who must pay it.
Suddenly, at the thought of that fat jelly-bag of a body pressed against his own, his healthy young flesh revolted. He could not do it— no, not even if it was to bring about the reign of Heaven on Earth.
Frantically now, he cast round for the means to escape. He felt sure that Katerina Ivanovna had not locked the door behind her, and it was unthinkable that guards would have been placed to keep the new favourite a prisoner in his own apartments. He was a free man again and could walk out when he wished; but he had neither money nor weapons, and he knew that it would be impossible for him to get very far without either. Unless he could hold up someone for their money, or had the means already, with which to bribe a nearby cottager to hide him for the next few days, the soldiers whom the Empress was certain to send in pursuit of him would run him down in no time.
The long suite of lofty rooms was hung with priceless tapestries and fine paintings; the chests, cabinets and tables furnishing them were of rich lacquer, rare marbles and ebony inlaid with ivory; a ton of precious embroidered silks draped the windows and fauteuils, the parquet floors were covered with carpets and rugs of the most costly close-woven designs. One tenth of their price would have kept hin in affluence for a life-time; yet there seemed nothing there that he could seize upon which was readily convertible into cash.
As he moved round the foot of the big four-poster bed his eye suddenly fell on a small pile of luggage, topped by a long sword. Instantly he recognised them as his sword, his money-chest, his travelling trunks, and realised that they must have been brought that day from Schlusselburg for him.
Running to them he snatched up the sword. He was just about to buckle it on when he heard a footfall at the top of the spiral staircase, and a soft voice called: "Chevalier, why do you tarry?"
The voice was that of the Empress. Roger hesitated only a moment. It was too late to fly now. If he attempted it he would be a prisoner again within five minutes, and she would send him back to Schlusselburg. Worse, stung to the quick by the insult he had offered her, it would not be to the comfortable room he had occupied there, but to that ghastly dungeon.