Great Palace Guards assumed responsibility for the party, led them up a marble staircase, and directed them onward.
“It seems odd we must go through one palace to get to another,” Surplus remarked.
“Nothing is straightforward in this land,” Chortenko replied.
They passed under twin rows of crystal chandeliers in Georgievsky Hall, an open, light-flooded room of white pillars and parquet floors in twenty types of hardwood, then through its great mirrored doors to the octagonal Vladimirsky Hall with its steep domed ceiling and gilt stucco molding. From whence it was but a short walk to the entrance of the most splendid of the Kremlin’s secular buildings, Terem Palace.
Two eight-foot-tall guards, whose genome was obviously almost entirely derived from Ursus arctos, the Russian brown bear, loomed to either side of the entrance. The blades of their halberds were ornamented with ormolu swirls, and yet were obviously deadly. They bared sharp teeth in silent growls, but when Chortenko presented his papers (for the fourth time since entering the Kremlin), they waved the party within.
Surplus took one step forward and then froze.
The walls were painted in reds and golds that were reflected in the polished honey-colored floor, leaving Surplus feeling as if he were afloat in liquid amber. Every surface was so ornately decorated that the eye darted from beauty to beauty, like a butterfly unable to alight on a single flower. Somewhere, frankincense burned. From one of the nearby churches he heard chanting. Then, small and far away, a church bell began to ring. It was joined by more and closer bells, climaxing when all the Kremlin’s many churches joined in, so that his skull reverberated with the sound.
“This is quite grand,” Surplus heard his own voice saying, in the aftermath. It was all a bit overdone for his plain, American tastes and yet, somehow, he wanted to live here forever.
“I completely approve,” Zoesophia said warmly-though by the shrewd look in her eyes, Surplus judged that she was taking mental notes for changes she would make once she came to power.
A messenger hurried by. From his unblinking gaze and rapid stride, it was clear that he was a servile. Another passed, going the other way. “Come,” Chortenko said. His bland, round face showed no expression at all.
They followed.
The Duke of Muscovy’s chambers took up the top floor of the palace.
The room was dominated by a nude statue of a sleeping giant. It stretched from one end of the building to the other. The giant lay gracefully sprawled upon a tremendous couch with mahogany legs as thick as tree trunks, and red velvet upholstery tacked down with nails whose gilded heads were forged in the shape of double-headed eagles. He was magnificently muscled, and his face was that of a god-Apollo, Surplus speculated, or possibly Adonis. One could gaze upon him for an hour.
The giant shifted slightly, tossing his head and throwing back one arm. His eyes did not open
Surplus’s heart sank. In a strangled voice, he said, “This is the Duke of Muscovy?”
Chortenko’s smile reached no further than his lips. “Now you understand why so few people are allowed to see him. The great man has cognitive powers superior even to those of the fabled Utopian computers. He is the perfect ruler for Muscovy in all aspects but one. He is orderly in his thoughts, analytic in his assessments, loving in his intentions toward his subjects, ruthless toward his enemies, decisive when it comes time to act, patient when all the facts are not yet in, and absolutely without personal interest or bias in his decisions. Alas, he cannot appear in public. The citizenry would reject him as a monster.”
Zoesophia sighed. “He is the most perfect expression of male beauty I have ever seen, not even excepting Michelangelo’s statue of David in the Caliph’s private collection. It is ironic. He is as desirable in his way as I am in mine-and yet he and I are perfectly useless to one other.”
“Does he never wake?” Surplus asked.
“Were he to stand, his great heart could only support the body for a matter of hours before bursting,” Chortenko said. “So, of necessity, the Duke of Muscovy reigns in a state of perpetual sleep.”
There was the sharp click of heels as a servile messenger hurried by and mounted the steps of a railed platform by the duke’s head. He leaned forward and in a rapid monotone began reciting a report. When he was done, the duke nodded wordlessly, and he left.
“Now that all of your questions have been addressed,” Chortenko said, “I shall go to learn the answers to my own. Do not attempt to approach the duke, for the guards will not permit it.”
As always, Chortenko felt a secret thrill of excitement as he mounted the stairs to the dais by the sleeping giant’s ear. There was no telling what he might learn, if only he asked the right questions. He gripped the wooden rail, worn smooth by many a thousand hands, and said, “Your Royal Highness, it is your servant Sergei Nemovich who speaks.”
“Ahhh… yes… the ambitious one,” the duke murmured quietly, as does one who speaks in his sleep. His voice was astonishingly small, coming from such a titanic body.“It was you who arranged matters so…that none of my other…advisors…could approach me.”
“True, Majesty. It was you who told me how.”
“I slept. Awake, I would not…have aided your conspiracy.”
“Since you will never awaken, that is irrelevant. I have brought with me the Byzantine ambassador, and one of the women the Caliph sent you as a present.”
“I have been dreaming… of food riots in Uzhgorod. Wheat must be sent… to prevent…”
“Yes, yes, that is most commendable. But it is not what I have come to speak with you about.”
“Then speak.”
To the far side of the room, Chortenko saw one of Surplus’s ears twitch slightly and had no doubt that, though an ordinary human could not have overheard him from such a distance, the dog-man could. The woman he was not so sure about. She appeared to be lost in thought. Well, let them eavesdrop. Nothing they heard would give them much comfort. Choosing his words carefully, he said, “Our friends below are coy about their plans. When will they make their move?”
“The market for tobacco is down slightly, while the demand for illegal drugs of all sorts has declined steeply… Absenteeism in the officer class is up, prostitution is booming, and there are reports of vagrants seen pushing wheelbarrows full of human feces. Taken together with various promises that have been made, you can expect an invasion of Moscow within days. Possibly as soon as tonight.”
“Really!” Chortenko, who had thought it a matter of months at a minimum, could not have been more astonished. But he composed himself. “What preparations should I make that have not yet been done?”
“Eat well and rest. Move all artillery units out of the city and make sure that all known rakes and libertines have been flensed from your own forces. Have Baron Lukoil-Gazprom killed.”
“Good, good.” Chortenko rather liked the baron, insofar as he liked anybody, for the man’s blunt, bluff predictability. But he could see how the baron’s twin propensities for unthinking action and reflexive assumption of command in an emergency might get in his way.
The Duke of Muscovy’s preternaturally handsome face twisted briefly, as if in pain. “Your scheme… endangers…my city.”
“It is worth the risk. Tell me, would it cause trouble with Byzantium if its ambassador were to disappear?”
“I dreamed of Baikonur… and wolves…”
“Try to pay attention, Your Royal Highness. I spoke with Gospodin de Plus Precieux as you directed, telling him of the rumors that the lost library of Ivan the Terrible had been discovered. As you predicted, he showed no surprise. Then, when I proposed a conspiracy to defraud the state, he assented immediately, without requiring even an instant’s thought.”
“Then he is…nothing more than a confidence trickster who has somehow displaced the true ambassador. You may do with him as you wish.”
“He also brought a woman with him,” Chortenko reminded the duke. “One of the Byzantine sluts.”
“Only…one?” “Yes.”
“Then she is a spy…and her, too, you may…do with as you wish.”
This pleasant news Chortenko received with just a touch of regret. More to himself than to his master, he murmured, “So it is nothing but a sad and shabby story all around. A pity. I would have liked to have found the Tsar’s lost library.”
