“It would take some time to spell out the workings of the operation in which I am engaged. Suffice it to say that I have a trusted associate who will pretend to set a trap for me. The great powers of Muscovy will bait that trap with what I trust will be enormous wealth. And in the natural course of things, there will come a fleeting, magical moment when that bait is solely in my associate’s control. The rest, I trust, you can work out for yourself.”
“You’d better watch out your pal doesn’t grab everything and skip out on you.”
“My associate has proved himself a hundred times over. This is what I was trying to explain to you earlier: Not that friends are unreliable, but that a reliable friend is a pearl beyond price. I would walk through fire for him. As, I truly believe, he would for me.”
“Yeah, well, I ain’t walking through fire for nobody,” Kyril said intensely. “I’m not putting myself out for nobody ever again.”
“Then you’re not half the fellow I believe you to be. Incidentally, did you bring today’s papers with you?”
“Don’t I always? I set ’em down over there.”
“And there’s my proof! Even in your heightened emotional state, you have demonstrated your reliability. Look here. It is true that this is a very bad world. It is true that the strong feed upon the weak, and the weak feed upon each other. But not all the weak are content to remain so. Some few-such as you and I, Kyril, you and I!-employ our wits to better our lot and to regain some fraction of what was stolen from us long before we were born.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“I shall be leaving you soon, and without so much as a word of farewell, as often is necessary in our trade. But before I do, I would like to impart to you a few words of fatherly wisdom. If…” Darger stopped, thought, and began again. “To do well in this world, this is what is required of you: First of all confidence, patience, and the ability to keep your head when those around you are mad with hysteria. You must learn to present a bland face in the presence of lies and hatred. Let others underestimate you. Take care not to look too good or to sound too wise. Spin dreams for others, but don’t get caught up in them yourself. Plan for triumph and prepare for disaster. There will be times when you lose all you have; pick yourself up and start over again, and don’t whine about it afterward.
“Most of all, live life with all your heart and nerve and sinew. If you can talk with the common bloke without putting on airs and walk with the nobs without letting them relieve you of your watch and wallet… If you can enter a strange city dead broke and leave with your pockets stuffed with cash…Why, then, old son, you’ll be a confidence man, and all the Earth and everything in it will be yours.”
Face screwed up with disgust, Kyril turned and left without saying a word.
“Well,” Darger murmured. “I thought I understood young boys. But clearly I do not.” His hand hesitated over the Telegonia, but instead moved on to the papers. Kyril had brought both major dailies, the Moscow Conquest, and the New Russian Empire. Darger carefully read through the social notes in each. There had been time enough for the Muscovy officials to approach Surplus with plans to catch his errant secretary and claim the library for themselves. As soon as they did, Surplus was supposed to announce a masked ball.
But there was still no news.
Chortenko came out to greet the carriage personally. “Gospozha Zoesophia! What a delightful surprise.” He took her gloved hand and kissed the air above it. Then he offered Surplus a hearty, democratic handshake. “I have informed the duke you are coming, and he looks forward to the meeting with his usual attentiveness.”
“He does not seem to get out of the Kremlin much,” Surplus observed, retrieving his walking stick from the carriage.
Chortenko’s mouth quirked upward, as if he were secretly amused. “The great man’s work is his life.”
At that moment, a door opened and closed somewhere in the mansion so that briefly the yelping of hounds could be heard. “You have dogs!” Zoesophia cried. “Might we see them?”
“Yes, of course you shall. Only not just now. I have arranged for the Moscow City Troop to escort us to the Kremlin, and they are forming up on the other side of the building at this very moment. Shall we take my carriage or yours?”
“I am always keen for new experiences,” Zoesophia said, “whether they be large or small.”
But every hair on Surplus’s body was standing on end. His hearing was acute, as was his sensitivity to the emotions of his dumb cousins. Those dogs were not barking out of ordinary canine exuberance, but from pain and terror and misery. Surplus’s ears pricked up and his nostrils flared. He could smell from their pheromones that they had been extremely badly treated indeed.
Chortenko’s spectacles were twin obsidian circles. “You look alarmed, my dear fellow. Has something startled you?”
“I? Not at all.” Surplus turned to his coachman and with a dismissive wave of his paw sent their equipage back to the embassy.“Only, sometimes I am struck by sudden dark memories. As a man of the world and a sometime adventurer, I have seen more than my share of human cruelty.”
“We must trade stories someday,” Chortenko said amiably.“Those who appreciate such matters say that if you have not seen Russian cruelty, then you do not know cruelty at all.”
Chortenko’s carriage was painted blue-and-white, like his mansion, so that it resembled nothing so much as a Delftware teapot. When it was brought around, Zoesophia and Surplus were given the back seats, while Chortenko and his dwarf savants sat facing them.
Bracketed by horsemen, they started for the Kremlin.
“Tell me, Max,” Chortenko said, turning to the dwarf on his left. “What do we know about the tsar’s lost library?”
“In 1472, the Grand Duke of Moscow Ivan the Third married Princess Sofia Paleologina, a niece of the last Byzantine emperor, Andreas, more rightly known as the Despot of Morea. Despotism is a form of government where all power is embodied in a single individual. The individual self does not exist. As her dowry, Sofia brought to Moscow a wagon train of books and scrolls. Moscow was founded by Prince Yuri Dolgurki in 1147. Soddy podzolic soil is typical of Moscow Oblast. It is apocryphal that the books were the last remnants of the Great Library of Alexandria.”
“Of course, anything labeled apocryphal may also be true,” Chortenko mused.
“The Italian architect Aristotle Fioravanti was commissioned to build a secret library under the Kremlin. Fioravanti also served as a military engineer in the campaigns against Novgorod, Kazan, and Tver. Kazan is the capital of Tartarstan. Tartar sauce is made from mayonnaise and finely chopped pickled cucumber, capers, onions, and parsley, and was invented by the French to go with steak tartare. The last documented attempt to find the library was made by Tsar Nikita Khrushchev.”
“Yes, well, we seem to have gotten off the subject.” To Surplus, Chortenko said, “Have you heard the rumors? They say that the library has been found.”
“Really? That would make a splendid present for the Duke of Muscovy, then. One worthy of a Caliph.”
“That is true. Yet one cannot help wondering what would happen were the secret of the library’s location in private hands. Surely that lucky person-whoever he might be-would find himself in a position to claim an enormous reward, eh?”
“Unless he was a government official. Then, of course, his reward would be the simple knowledge that he had done his duty.”
“Indeed. Yet a private citizen would not be in a position to know whether the reward he was being offered was worthy of his heroic discovery. Perhaps the best possible arrangement would be a partnership involving somebody highly positioned within the government and somebody who was not even a citizen of Muscovy. A foreigner, possibly even an ambassador. What do you think?”
“I think we understand each other perfectly.” Surplus settled back into the cushions, warmed by the abrupt conviction that all was right with the world. “I think also that it is about time that the embassy had a masked ball. I shall advertise the event in the newspapers just as soon as I get back.”
The troops clattered up the great causeway to the Kremlin, driving before them businessmen, mendicants, office-seekers, and assorted riffraff unfortunate enough to have chosen that day to petition favors from the government. At the Trinity Tower gate, they were halted and then, their jurisdiction extending so far and not an inch farther, turned back. After an examination of credentials, the carriage was allowed to pass within, accompanied by an escort of Trinity Tower Regulars. At Cathedral Square they alit and, after their papers were presented again, the Inner Kremlin Militia escorted the party to the entrance of the Great Kremlin Palace. There, the
