two if the first one don’t turn ’em away.”
“I…”
Yevgeny knew what he should do. He knew what General Zvyozdny-Gorodoka would demand of him, were she here. But he could not fire upon his cousin. They had played together as children. As adolescents they had competed for the same lovers. He had been the witness at her marriage to that overbearing oaf of a husband of hers.
Yet he had to. It was his duty.
Yevgeny drew out his snuffbox and flicked it open, feigning a confidence he did not feel. “Is everything ready, Sergeant?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Very well, then.” Yevgeny took a dip of snuff, marveling at how steady his voice was. His stomach was a lump of ice. He face felt numb. He did not know how he would survive this decision. “In that case, you may…” “Sir?” “Yevgeny’s mouth moved, but nothing came out. “Sir, are you ordering me to fire?” “I-”
“Stop! Cease! Do not fire!”
Yevgeny spun about and saw, speeding up Okhotny Ryad ulitsa, the least likely Angel of Mercy imaginable- none other than Chortenko himself-leaning from the window of his notorious blue-and-white carriage. The servile coachman drove its horses up so mercilessly that the carriage rattled and leaped and threatened to shake itself apart. “Do not fire!” Chortenko shouted again.
The servile pulled back on the reins and the carriage clattered to a stop alongside the artillery piece.
Without descending, Chortenko said, “I am ordering you to withdraw. The city is in danger of conflagration. You must use your cannon to knock down the buildings that are afire before the disaster spreads.”
“Sir. Yes, sir,” Yevgeny said, vastly relieved. But then something perverse within him caused him to add, “But what of the mob, sir? Their treasonous slogans?”
“This is no time for you to be engaging in political activities.” Chortenko whipped off his glasses, revealing his buggish eyes. “You have your orders. Will you obey them?”
“I am a soldier in the service of Muscovy, sir,” Yevgeny said, feeling almost as offended as he did relieved.
“Answer the question! Yes or no?”
Yevgeny could not trust himself to speak. So, instead, he clenched his teeth and nodded.
“Then get to work.” Chortenko looked up at the servile. “Take me to the Alexander Garden and then, after you have dropped me off, return to the coach house and rub down the horses.”
The carriage left. Yevgeny stared after it in astonishment. Then he turned back to his crew. “Well? Get a move on. We’ve got a fire to fight.”
They did.
Arkady was trudging down a narrow and lightless street, hoping against hope that it would soon open into a road that would take him to the Kremlin, when he realized he was not alone. There were footsteps matching his, stride for stride.
He broke into a trot. So did the second set of footsteps. He started to run. So did they. And then-disaster! The doorless and windowless wall of a brick building loomed up before him. He had come to the blind end of a cul- de-sac.
As Arkady stumbled to a stop, the other footsteps did the same. An echo? He almost laughed. Of course. It could be nothing else. Arkady’s heart was pounding so hard he feared it would rip free of his chest. He found himself gasping for air. In the darkness, somebody matched him wheeze for wheeze.
“It’s just an echo,” he said aloud to reassure himself. “Nothing more.”
“… just an echo. Nothing more.” The voice came from directly behind him. “Or is it?”
He shrieked, and was seized from behind. Arms and legs wrapped themselves about his arms and chest, rendering him helpless. Arkady’s knees almost buckled under the weight of a human body. “Sssssso!” a witchy voice whispered into his ear. “You’re not afraid of the dark, are you? Not afraid of the ancient thing from the graveyard, don’t believe in the night hag, think you can’t be ridden, eh?” Crisp teeth nipped his earlobe. It stung so sharply that Arkady knew the bite had drawn blood. “You know for a fact that your flesh is too bitter for my taste? You find it hard to believe that I’d like to break open your skull and eat your brains?” The hag’s limbs tightened about Arkady like the coils of an anaconda. “You’re absolutely sure I wouldn’t crush you dead if you disobeyed my orders?”
He couldn’t breathe! Arkady found himself panicking. Then the hag loosened her grip. “Breathe in, boy. Savor the air. That’s Baba Yaga’s gift to you. Now thank me for it, as politely as you know how.”
Arkady gulped in the air, genuinely grateful, absolutely terrified. “Thank you, Baba Yaga. For letting me breathe.”
But wasn’t Baba Yaga a fairy-tale creature? A figure out of myth? Of course she was. So what was this thing on his back?
“Tonight you are my steed,” Baba Yaga said. “Don’t try to escape me.” (As if he could!) “If you turn around to look at my face, I’ll gouge out your eyes and suck their juices.” (As if he wanted to see her!) “Now run. Run like the wind, and if we don’t get where we’re going fast enough…well, the horse that can’t run can always be rendered down for glue.”
Bony heels dug into his flanks.
Arkady couldn’t actually run, but he did manage to achieve a trot, which seemed to satisfy the madwoman on his back for the nonce. “Where are we going?” he asked fearfully.
“To our destination.”
“And where’s that?”
Baba Yaga laughed wildly. Then she seized a mouthful of Arkady’s hair with her teeth and ripped it out by the roots.
He screamed and ran.
The crowds exploded into sheer noise when the troika entered the Alexander Garden before the west wall of the Kremlin. Hats flew into the air like flocks of birds. Louder the cheering grew and louder, until it merged into one astonishing roar so overwhelming as to move beyond mere sound to become a constant and deafening pain. All faces were turned toward the carriage. Every hand stretched out reaching for it. Everywhere, torches, flags, and kerchiefs were in constant motion, a blur of color, as if all the world were on fire. Being in the driver’s seat was like sitting at the center of a flaming whirlwind.
It was easily the most amazing moment in Baronessa Avdotya’s life.
Intellectually, she understood that none of this was her own due. But it felt like it was, and that was the important thing. It filled her with a sense of destiny and purpose. She could not help turning from side to side, nodding and smiling luminously.
She craned around to look behind her and saw Tsar Lenin standing upon the seat. His balance was preternaturally perfect as, hand in air, he acknowledged the applause with a dignified hint of a bow, the tiniest twitch of his wrist.
Now those closest to the tsar unharnessed the horses and led them away. Others seized the carriage by its rods and pulled it by hand through the adoring throngs.
A speaking platform had been set up at the foot of the causeway leading up to the Trinity Tower gate. Bleachers stretched the length of the Alexander Garden’s back wall. In between, all the park was already filled with marchers from the three invasions which had by prearrangement arrived earlier than Tsar Lenin’s group. More people than Avdotya had ever in her life seen in a single space struggled to catch a glimpse of the great man, and screamed in ecstasy when they did.
Lenin stood straight and proud on the carriage seat, accepting their adulation.
Then, as lightly as he had climbed up, the new tsar leapt down and walked without hurry or effort through a riotous ocean of humanity which parted before him like the Red Sea before Moses, and closed solidly behind him like the gates of history clanging shut. Baronessa Lukoil-Gazproma ran quickly after Lenin, leaving Irina behind (indeed, forgetting her completely), and slid her arm through his.
Tsar Lenin did not object.
The Royal Guard appeared out of nowhere to close ranks behind and to either side of them, a bodyguard that Lenin surely did not need, but which did much to emphasize the legitimacy of the once and future ruler, freshly returned from the graveyard of the past to claim his land once more.
