The Jewel of St Petersburg (5 page)

His gaze moved dutifully to the
institutka
who was singing. Pleasant enough voice, nothing special, but the song was dull, one of those tedious German
lieder
he loathed, the ones that go on forever. He glanced at the door and wondered what the chances were of escape.

“Jens,” Countess Natalia Serova whispered next to him. “Behave.”

“I fear such elitist delights are above my churlish brain.”

She gave him a glare from steady blue eyes, then turned away. He could smell her perfume. Most likely from Paris, like her hat, a frivolous confection of silk and feathers that made him smile. Her long fitted coat in the palest of greens showed off her girlish figure though he guessed she must be about thirty, and emeralds glittered at her ears and throat. She had exquisite taste, no doubt about that. As the son of a Danish printer, Jens had grown up in Copenhagen with the stink of ink forever in his nostrils, but now at twenty-seven years old he was learning to appreciate the finer fragrances on parade in St. Petersburg.

“You are very provoking. Listen to Maria,” she murmured under her breath.

Ah, so this songbird was Maria, the countess’s niece. Vaguely he recalled her from the time the countess had dragged him to a concert here two years ago, when Jens had the honor of meeting Tsar Nicholas for the first time. Countess Natalia Serova had introduced him, he must not forget that. He owed her much, even if her husband did make good use in return of Jens’s skills as an engineer to do work on their estate.

This time Tsar Nicholas was sitting bolt upright in a high-backed chair in the center of the hall, and it was impossible to tell whether he was bored or amused. The muscles of his face were so rigidly well trained. He was a small man and hid his weak chin behind a prominent chestnut beard, in the same way that he hid his slight frame inside a series of bulky military uniforms designed to impress. Today he was resplendent in a peacock blue jacket weighed down by an abundance of medals and gold braid.

Jens was not the only one who believed that Tsar Nicholas Alexandrovich Romanov was the wrong man in the wrong job, unlike his big brash bullying father, Tsar Alexander III, a man who had stood six feet six inches in his bare feet and thought nothing of behaving like the iron fist of God. But now, more than ever before, Russia was in danger of slitting its own throat, in desperate need of a leader of wisdom and strength.

“Bravo,” the tsar called out. “Well done, Mademoiselle Maria.”

Applause burst out around the hall. The niece had finished, thank God. Jens breathed a sigh of relief because now he could leave and get back to work. But a grand piano that dominated the far end of the room suddenly stirred into life and music started to flow throughout the high-ceilinged room. Jens groaned inwardly. It was something by Chopin, one of his least favorite composers, always so plaintive, so full of despair, whining in your ear like a cat in heat.

He glanced at the pianist and saw that she was a slight young creature with a mane of dense dark hair pulled back from her face by a black hairband. About sixteen, he’d guess, maybe seventeen. She wore the Ekaterininsky Institute uniform and should have looked as shapeless and anonymous as all the other girls. But she didn’t. There was something about her that caused his eyes to linger, something in the way her hands moved with hypnotic grace. As if they were part of the music itself.

She had small strong fingers that flowed over the keys, connecting to something he couldn’t see, something that was part of her private world. The music soared, rising in a minor chord and flooding his senses with its beauty, then without warning, when he was totally unprepared, ripped his heart out. He closed his eyes, aware of the music alive inside him. Of its notes touching places within him, secret corners. With an effort of will he forced open his eyes and studied the girl who could transform music into such a weapon.

Her body didn’t sway dramatically on the stool. Just her hands. And her head. They moved as if they belonged to the music, rather than to her body. Her skin was palest ivory and her face almost expressionless except for her eyes. They were huge and dark, full of an emotion that to Jens looked closer to fury than rapture. Where had a girl so young found such powerful feelings? As if she drew them in with each breath.

Finally the music sighed to an end, and the girl hung her head. Her dark hair curtained her face from view, and she placed her hands quietly in her lap. Only one telltale tremor shook her spine, and then silence filled the hall. Jens looked at the tsar. Tears were rolling unchecked down Nicholas’s face. Slowly he raised his imperial hands and began to clap, and immediately applause echoed around the hall. Jens looked again at the young pianist. She hadn’t moved but her head was turned to one side and her luminous dark eyes were directed straight at him. If it weren’t too absurd to be true, he’d have sworn she was angry with him.

“Mademoiselle Valentina,” the tsar said, his voice thick with tears, “thank you.
Merci bien.
That was a magnificent performance. Unforgettable. You must come and play for my wife and my dear daughters when they are next at the Winter Palace.”

The girl rose from the stool and dropped a deep curtsy. “It would be a great honor,” she said.

“Pozdravlyayu.
Congratulations, my dear girl. You will be a great pianist.”

For the first time she smiled,
“Spasibo,
Your Majesty. You are too kind.”

There was something about the way she murmured it that startled Jens. He almost laughed out loud, but the tsar seemed not to notice the faint rustle of mockery in her words.

“So,” Jens’s companion whispered. “At least you enjoyed the Chopin, if not the singing.”

Jens turned to Countess Serova. “I did.”

“Friis, good heavens, man, what are you doing here?”

It was Tsar Nicholas. He was strutting over to his entourage to stretch his legs before the next performance. Everyone rose to their feet. He was considerably shorter than Jens and had a habit of rocking up and down on his toes. The women ruffled their finery in greeting and the men ducked their heads in acknowledgment of his attention.

“Friis,” Tsar Nicholas continued, “you’re not here to flirt with the girls, I hope.”

“No, Your Majesty, I am not. I’m here as a guest of Countess Serova.”

“Shouldn’t you be hard at work? That’s what I expect of you, you know. Not to parade in front of Petersburg’s elite young ladies.”

Jens bowed, a crisp click of his heels and a dip of his head. “Then I shall take my leave.”

Nicholas’s manner became serious. “You are needed elsewhere, Friis. I can’t afford to waste a good man on”—he waved a jeweled hand at the school hall—“on this frippery.”

Jens bowed again and turned to leave. As he did so, he cast one more glance around, seeking out the pianist. She was still watching him. He smiled but she didn’t respond, so he tipped his head to her and walked out of the room. As the door closed behind him he felt as if something of himself still lay on the hall’s polished floorboards. Something he valued.

J
ENS!”

He stopped midstride. “Ah, Countess. As you see, I am in a hurry.”

“Wait,” she called. Her footsteps echoed along the school’s empty yellow corridor, hurrying to catch up with him. “Jens, I’m sorry. I didn’t intend that rebuke from the tsar to happen.”

“Didn’t you?”

“No. Forgive me.”

“Countess Serova,” he said, lifting her gloved hand and pressing it to his lips, “there is nothing to forgive.” But his voice was brittle with irony.

She exhaled sharply. “Don’t be so arrogant, Jens,” she said. “Not with me.”

She stretched up and placed a kiss full on his mouth. Her lips were soft. Tempting. But Jens stepped away. She gave him a reproachful gaze and walked back the way she had come.

Damn the woman. Damn her.

J
ENS WRAPPED HIS HEAVY RIDING CAPE TIGHTLY AROUND HIS shoulders. The dismal gray mist clung to his clothes and hair and even to his eyelashes. On horseback he drifted like a ghost through the city, over bridges that were illuminated by streetlamps day and night now it was winter. Carriages rattled past unseen in the fog and cars blared their klaxons at each other, while pedestrians kept a firm hold on their purses and wallets. It was a day for pickpockets and thieves.

The temperatures were harsh this year, harsher than usual in St. Petersburg. The Moika Canal had frozen over and the Neva River disappeared in a deathly pall that swallowed the city. It was a winter of bitter strikes in the factories and of shortages in the food shops. Unrest slid and slithered through the streets, workers gathered on corners and smoked their cheap
makhorka
cigarettes with resentful fury. Jens heeled his horse into a canter and swung away from the wide boulevards, leaving behind the fashionable Nevsky Prospekt with its sables and its silks.

The streets grew narrower, the houses meaner till dirt and despair hung in the damp air. A pack of three feral dogs snapped at the horse and received the tip of Hero’s metal shoe in exchange. Jens gazed along the street at the pinched faces and the blackened buildings. The cold was so intense it had cracked windows.

This was why he was here. Places like this. Streets that stank. No water to wash. Just wells that turned sour and backed up in the rain, and pumps that iced over. This was why he was here in Petersburg.

I
T WAS FOUR O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING WHEN VALENTINA tapped the door with her fingertips.

“Vkhodite,
come in, my dear.” The voice was soft and welcoming.

She turned the handle and entered Nurse Sonya’s private quarters, where shadows had settled on the carpet like tired dogs in the dim light.

“
Dobroye utro,
good morning,” Valentina said in greeting.

The nurse was in her fifties, seated in a rocking chair and tapping the floor with her foot in a steady rhythm to keep it in motion. Her large form was engulfed in a battered old housecoat and a Bible lay open on her lap, her finger trailing over each line she read.

“How is she tonight?” Valentina asked at once.

“She’s sleeping.”

Sleeping? Or just pretending? Valentina knew that Nurse Sonya was not good at knowing the difference. Katya had endured three operations in the last six months to try to repair her shattered spine, and since the last one her mobility had definitely improved, but still she was unable to walk. Not that she ever complained. No, Katya wouldn’t. But purple hollows gathered under her eyes and a sallow bruised look to her face betrayed when the pain was bad.

“What have you given her?” Valentina asked quietly.

“A little laudanum, the usual dosage.”

“I thought you were cutting back on it.”

“I tried,
malishka,
little one. But she needs it.”

Valentina made no comment.
What do I know about laudanum? Just what I see in Katya’s eyes.

The nurse stilled the rocking chair and studied Valentina’s face with a look of gentle concern. “Guilt is a terrible thing, my dear.” She shook her head, and her hand trailed across the wafer-thin page open on her lap. “God forgives us.”