The Lost Crown (8 page)

I wonder if it would make any difference if the men knew we aren’t encased in gilt and velvet, that my sisters and brother and I have slept in nickel-plated camp cots with flat pillows and taken cold baths every morning since we were children. What if they knew we have allowances so small we have to scrimp even to give our parents notepaper and cheap perfume for Christmas? But would I also have to tell them that bathtub full of cold water is made of solid silver, engraved with the name of every imperial child who has been bathed in it? Would I have to admit my sisters and I receive one pearl and one diamond every year on our birthday, and even our pets’ collars are hand enameled by Fabergé, the imperial court jeweler? Still, we aren’t lavish like Cousin Irina’s in-laws, the Yusupovs, with bowls of uncut gemstones decorating the end tables.

“You are so pale,
dorogaya
,” Tatiana says, breaking into my thoughts. “You look as if you will be sick again.” She lays the back of her hand across my forehead, then presses it to my cheek. She means to comfort me, but I know her nurse’s mind is also measuring my temperature and pulse. “You have probably become anemic,” she reasons, “the way you exhaust yourself here without enough nourishment.”

My sister is right in a way, so I let her go on about iron pills, valerian drops, and arsenic shots. Nourishment is exactly what I need, but I don’t have the heart to tell Tatiana that I won’t find what I crave on my dinner plate or in a medicine vial.

As much as it troubles me, I wouldn’t give up my time in the lazaret for nearly anything in the world. Our good friend Ritka Khitrovo, who’s been one of Mama’s ladies-in-waiting, works the wards with us, and as much as I love my sisters, seeing Ritka and the other nurses is delicious as cracking open a new book every day. The lazaret stands hardly a verst beyond Anya’s house, and the security agents always shadow us, but motoring there and back on our own beguiles us with a taste of freedom until I can’t resist trying to carve a slice of it for myself.

As we leave the lazaret I eye the waiting motorcar. “Tatya, let’s stop in town. We could go to Gostiny Dvor to look at the shops and Mama would never know.”

Tatiana doesn’t break her stride. “Stop joking. You know we are not allowed to wander the streets.”

I snag at her sleeve like a beggar. “It’s practically on our way home, barely two blocks from Anya’s. We visit there all the time.”

She points an eyebrow at me. “
Konechno
, with Mama, and an escort from the Life Guards regiment.”

“We won’t be in any danger.” I nod toward the security agents. “They’ll be right behind us, and we’re in our Red Cross uniforms, not court dresses and
kokoshniki
with pearls. Please, Tatya. Seeing something new would be like a tonic for me.”

Guilt nips my tongue. It isn’t fair to beg this way when I know how worried she is over me, even if what I’ve said is true. Still, I shut my mouth and manage to look my sister in the eye as she weighs the circumstances.

“All right,” Tatiana decides. “But not for long. And no place but Gostiny Dvor.”

“You’re a treasure.” I link my elbow through hers, and the two of us walk ahead like a court procession. The security agents’ voices scuffle together as Tatya and I stride past the motorcar and across the street with giggles clamped behind our teeth, but the men don’t dare stop us.

Out in the streets, people bustle all around us, and we bump among them like a pair of dice. I grin so wide my teeth must show—it’s thrilling, being part of a mass of people instead of watching them scatter and bob like a flock of ducks in the wake of the
Standart
.

When we reach the plaza of Gostiny Dvor, the crowd swarms in and out of the yellow and white archways and across the courtyard market. Tatiana steers me into the nearest shop. From her tug on my arm, I’m guessing it will be the only one we visit.

Immediately a display of postcard portraits of my sisters and me halts me just inside the door. “Aren’t they lovely?” the shopkeeper says. “They’re from right before the war, but they’re the latest official portraits of the imperial children, except for the ones of the elder two in their Red Cross uniforms. Grand Duchess Olga has become quite a lady, but Grand Duchess Tatiana is still the beauty, if you ask me.” A blush curtains my cheeks. The woman takes no notice. She hardly even takes time to breathe. “I hope they’ll make a new formal set soon. Those dresses they wear are so much more fashionable than nursing habits, don’t you think? Besides, I’m eager to see how the younger two are turning out. Lately the children’s portraits are selling much better than the tsar and tsaritsa’s. All this bad news, if you ask me.” Even in my nurse’s wimple I don’t dare raise my face, though I doubt the woman will be able to see past her own wagging tongue.

“Oh, Olga, look at this scarf!” Tatiana calls, and I rush to her side before the shopkeeper can begin to realize the coincidence. “How beautiful.” Tatiana holds up a length of sheer lavender covered with tiny whorls of velvet shaped like lilac blooms. “Mama would love this.”

“At least as much as you do,” I tease.

She pats her pockets. “Do you have any money?”

“Not a kopek. I dare you to ask the security agents for the loan of a few rubles.”

Her hand flies up to capture a giggle. “Olga Nikolaevna, you are absolutely wicked!” she whispers through her fingers. “Those poor men are going to have an apoplexy as it is.”

My merriment drains in the space of a heartbeat. In my impulse, I didn’t think of what our excursion will mean for the people responsible for us. There’s more than a scolding from Mama at stake if we’re found out—these men could lose their jobs regardless of whether we get home safe. We’ve already made all sorts of extra work for them. The moment we leave, they’ll be bent over the counter with their notepads, interrogating the shopkeeper who spoke to me. The flush on my cheeks crawls down my neck and across my chest at the thought of it.

“Tatya, let’s go home. We can send Nyuta back with our pocket money to fetch the scarf for Mama.” I glance at a shelf full of books at the back of the store and press my lips between my teeth.

Tatiana lays the scarf aside at once. “Are you ill again,
dorogaya
? You look feverish.”

“No. But those men—it’s cruel of us to risk their jobs so we can look at trinkets. We should go back.”

Realization douses Tatiana’s face. She crosses herself and nods.

No one says a word all the way back. The security agents would never presume to lecture us, but their looks of relief when we leave the shop tamp my spirits down until the guilt smolders like a pipe full of tobacco. Even the driver mops his brow and the back of his neck when we climb into the motorcar. We don’t even dare tell the Little Pair about our adventure.

After that I content myself with the inside of the lazaret. So many of the soldiers are kind to us—and good- looking, even in their hospital-issued dressing gowns. We tease Mashka, but Tatiana and I both have our favorites, the way we always pick out officers to flirt with on the
Standart
. But now we aren’t just little girls frolicking on holiday with Papa’s staff. Many of the young men in the lazaret are only a year or two older than my sister and I, and they know it as well as we do. There’s Nikolai Karangozov with his cane and dark mustache, who loves having his picture taken. Tatiana has her sweet Volodya from the Caucasus, and handsome little Dmitri Malama. For me, there is none but dear golden Mitya Shakh-Bagov.

Together we sit and talk, drink cocoa, and play
bloshki
. Sometimes Mama lets my sister and me telephone the lazaret in the evening to talk to our soldiers. From time to time when they’re well enough, Anya invites them to tea with the four of us at her house. Volodya and Mitya always humor the Little Pair with their photo albums and chatter, but I know they have a special fondness for Tatiana and me. Even after weeks in the lazaret, sweetheart Mitya’s cheeks flush pink when he sees me coming. We both know it isn’t fever.

Such a dear boy he is, shy as a little girl, but I can see his feelings painted plainly on his face. And yet we never talk of what we feel for each other, perhaps because we both know nothing can come of it. Even in my Red Cross uniform, even though he calls me simply “Olga Nikolaevna” or “sister,” never “Your Imperial Highness,” I am still a grand duchess, eldest daughter of the tsar. I am free to say no to the crown prince of Romania, but I can’t say yes to an army officer from the Caucasus. Mitya is no freer to ask than I am to answer. I wonder if I were only Citizen Romanova? But what can it possibly matter? My fate is as uncertain as Mitya’s, and all the other men we’re sending back to the front.

11.

MARIA NIKOLAEVNA

December 1915
Tsarskoe Selo

P
oor Mama had only just returned from her dear friend Princess Sonia’s funeral when the telegram about Aleksei came. Together we gather in the lilac boudoir, Mama cradled in her chaise with letters and pictures of Papa and Aleksei stacked high on the lemonwood table beside her. Tatiana sits poised in the big armchair with Mama’s heart drops at her fingertips, while Olga burrows into the sofa among the built-in bookcases. Anastasia and I toy with Jemmy on the pistachio-colored carpet.

Just being in this room makes me feel better. Mama chose the striped silk on the walls especially to match a favorite sprig of flowers Papa gave her when they were young, and it always smells of lilacs here, no matter the season.

“‘Because of his cold Aleksei has had bleeding at the nose at intervals the whole day,’” Mama reads to us.

My heart kicks in my chest. A nosebleed! Mama lays the telegram in her lap and smiles sadly at the photo of Aleksei in his uniform. I can’t understand why she seems so calm. One sneeze puts Aleksei in a pickle worse than a cut, as bad as a bruise. You can’t tie a bandage around a nosebleed.

“Don’t look so grim, girlies.” Mama creases the telegram and slides it into her pocket. “Dr. Derevenko will take fine care of our Sunbeam. And Papa wants me to come to
Stavka
on the sixth. Won’t that be lovely? Olga, you’ll come with me, won’t you, dearest?” A little smile blooms on Olga’s face, and for a tiny moment I forget about Aleksei. I can’t remember the last time I saw Olga smile and mean it. “I’m going to send him a wire this minute,” Mama continues. “Come along. We’ll stop at Anya’s on our way. The air will do you good.”

As Olga passes by me, I snatch up her hand in mine and tug it to my cheek. “You’ll kiss Papa for me, won’t you?”

“
Konechno
, sweetheart Mashka,” she says with a good strong squeeze. “A hundred times over.”

“Tatya, what’s going on?” I ask once they’ve gone. “Why isn’t Mama worried?” Not worrying feels like not breathing when Aleksei is ill.

“She is going to see
Otets
Grigori at Anya’s house,” she says over her shoulder as she straightens up Mama’s chaise and table.

“What makes you so sure?” Anastasia asks. “Mama doesn’t even know if he’s there.”

“I imagine he will be by the time she arrives,” Tatiana says. “Anya will see to that. You saw Mama put the telegram in her pocket. She will show it to
Otets
Grigori, and he will tell her whether or not she needs to worry. We might as well do the same. It is all in God’s hands.”

She sounds just like Papa:
Tak i byt,
he’d say.
So be it.

“I don’t see why Olga gets to go to Anya’s
and
to
Stavka
, and we have to stay here and wait,” Anastasia grumps, slouching onto Olga’s empty place on the sofa. “And don’t say it’s because she’s the oldest.”

“She needs it more than we do,” Tatiana says, her voice sharp. I shrink back against the chaise and chew at my lip. Tatiana glances at me, takes a breath, and begins again. “Seeing Papa and
Otets
Grigori will do her good. Besides, waiting makes Olga nervous, and her nerves have all they can handle right now.”

“Well, I’m not staying in this old room. I’m going to take Jemmy for a walk,” Anastasia says, grabbing up the little dear and flouncing out, “before she ‘does the governor’ in here and
you
have to clean it up.”

Tatiana sits down on Mama’s chaise, folding her hands between her knees with a sigh.

“Jemmy is always Nastya’s dog, until she makes a mess,” I say, trying to laugh as I climb up beside Tatiana. “Then she remembers who Jemmy really belongs to.”

Tatiana’s lips waver a bit, almost smiling. She puts her arm around me and squeezes my shoulders. “I would rather have you, my fat little Bow-Wow, than any dog, no matter how darling.”

I lean in close and hug her back. “She’s being a beast,” I admit after a moment. “A jealous little beast.”

“She is worried too, Mashka.”

“Are you?” I ask quietly, tracing the embroidered edging of the red cross on her uniform. This close, I can smell her jasmine perfume over the iodine and alcohol from the lazaret.

“No. Not for Aleksei. He has Dr. Derevenko, and Papa, Nagorny, and Monsieur Gilliard to look after him.” She pauses. “I do worry about Olga, though. She still seems so fragile.”