Rasputina and the Witch's Tsar

Chapter Fifteen

"You do not fancy my nephew-in-law? Prince Felix?" Tsarina Nikola smiles and nods regally at one of the statesmen we pass. She doesn't fool me. I know what lies beneath the grinning mask. It's freezing ice. Hardened snow and the smell of smoke and gunpowder.

"Tsarina, I respect everyone in your favor."

"Do you presume yourself to be in my favor?"

"At the very least, I'm in Alexei's."

"Enough of this chatter. One cannot play diplomat on an empty stomach." The tsarina pauses to turn at the end of the hall, dressed in a smart pale blue jacket with wide-set shoulders. Her hair's pulled tightly back, all the better to emphasize her piercing gaze. Her eyes gleam as the servants open the door into the dining hall.

Platters piled high with meats, cheeses, and buttery pastries. Pitchers flowing with stout liquor, water so cold you'd swear it was from the Neva. She goes to her seat, the place of honor for a true-blooded Russian monarch. It's a wonder that I'm only three seats down. Close enough to see the feather-fine dusting of golden stubble on Tsar Alexandr's face. Close enough to have a sullen Duke Dmitri on my other side. Ah well, at least he's not staring at my chest.

But the two places beside him, presumably where the missing Prince Felix Yusupov and Princess Irina were supposed to sit, those seats are empty.

"Ahem," it's Duke Dmitri again. He shifts a little in his seat, addressing my left ear since he refuses to look directly into my eyes. "Tell me how you came to be in the tsarina's service."

I look at his face, studying it. Blandly handsome, with straight-across brows and pale lips. He's strong enough, athletic, explaining the faint scent of sweat beneath the cologne. Still, for all his plainness, there's something about him I do not like. That's unsurprising though; I don't much like any of these statesmen, courtiers, or fattened nobles in this palace. I only make exceptions for those I respect: the tsarina, the tsar, and the beautiful children, sweet Alexei foremost. Perhaps it is their position of power that allows them to be so authentic. But these... pretenders. Who can respect that?

"Tsar Alexandr was..." No, I couldn't tell Dmitri of Alexei's illness. The Russian monarchy's position was tenuous enough as it is. To reveal their child's weakness, it would damn them. "The royal family heard of my abilities as a strannik,a pious wanderer. They respected my position as a holy person, well-versed in the magical and spiritual arts. Athens. The Holy City, Jerusalem."

"A wanderer, how quaint." Dmitri picks at the first dish, a leek potato soup, mixed with some sort of French cuisine. It's not my place to know where the food comes from. Leave that to the higher-ups. I only wish to enjoy it to the best of my abilities, life's pleasures, you know. "Tell me, did you do any training? You know, properly. I'm only curious, you understand. I've only ever seen strannik from afar. You know, in poorhouses and insane asylums."

The soup nearly dribbles onto my chin. Did this jackass just insult me with every breath? Dmitri, though glancing at me from the peripheral, smirks. Not just a sweaty brute after all. Also a clever one.

First, I demure. Let him think he's won. "Of course, your Grace. I first trained at a monastery of Verhoturye. St. Nicolas, it was called. The monks were patient with me, taught me reading from sacred texts. How to write as well as one of yourstature, even..." And here I grab for a slice of bread. The duke frowns, a minor breach of etiquette, that I did not wait to be served. "I received every bit as good an education as anyone. Some would argue it was superior. You know, being able to walk the same paths as prophets in the Holy City, it changes a person. Learning the patience of fasting forty days in the desert. Controlling every part of one's own self, including," I tore into the bread with a smile, "one's eyes and venomous tongue."

A bit of soup dribbles past from his spoon, falling from his tightly pursed lips. I hand him a napkin. "Pardon me." He says.

"Pardoned?" I only smile at him. "People like you always are."

We finish our meal in relative silence, that is, until the evening's entertainment is brought in. The lights dim and a woman, fashionably clad, giggles on the arm of a man in a dark black suit. Everything about them is over-the-top. The woman wears enough makeup that she could be mistaken for one of Misha's girls. The man has a curled moustache.

"Circus performers." Dmitri remarks, eyes never leaving the entertainers' too-wide-beaming faces. "Magicians."

"What?" I watch them too. The man reaches his hand into a hat, pulls out a set of roses. The girl takes them and hits him over the head with the stems, rejecting his gift. The nobles titter politely. The tsarina yawns, bored. "The tsarina doesn't appear pleased."

"The show isn't meant for her." He glances to the nobles. Laughing, laughing, laughing, at the foolish tricksters who deign to call themselves magicians. "Art is a funhouse mirror that reflects reality. Even gaudy entertainers like this reflect something."

"What do they reflect?"

Dmitri pauses a moment when the servants swoop in. Replace our dishes with more sweets and liquor. Cigars, trimmed to a point. "Ourselves." The magician lifts a saw, threatens to cut the poor woman in half. Screams, but then laughter. She's alright. But Dmitri, his eyes have never left the shining, deadly silver.

A fake guillotine is rolled out, a grim reminder of another time where nobles had to watch their necks after taking without giving for so long. Long enough for retribution to have caught up with them. A simple trick. The magician has to escape before time runs out.

And it all comes tumbling down.