The Kitchen Boy

over. Its roots had been lifted up and there was a den of sorts beneath that. It was into this dark corner that I placed the Grand Duchess. As carefully as I could, I laid her down on the soft dirt floor. She moaned, but nothing more.

“I’ll be right back,” I whispered.

Wasting no time, I returned to the Heir, whom I also gathered in my arms. I carried him too. With my jacket over his head, I carried his lifeless body all the way to the hidden den, and there I likewise placed him.

Turning to the Grand Duchess, I touched her on the shoulder, and said, “I’m back. I brought your brother.”

But there was no response of any kind. She’d lost so much blood that she was no longer conscious. And I understood she was dying. I didn’t want to leave her again, but I had no choice. She needed medical attention. She was dying and needed care that I didn’t know how to give. And so I hid Maria and Aleksei. I covered the opening of the den with branches, and departed once again.

I raced along, thinking I would go directly to Father Storozhev. But as I approached the city, I looked down and saw that my shirt and pants were smeared with blood. There was no way I could go into the center of Yekaterinburg looking like that; I’d be picked up by the Reds in an instant. So I had no choice. I went to my only other friends, the only others I could trust. I went all the way around the edge of town to the monastery, where I found the good Sister Antonina and Novice Marina, who had already tried that morning to bring foodstuffs to The House of Special Purpose. Instead of being able to deliver their goods, however, they were turned away and told never to return. Not ever. A few hours later the entire town was abuzz, everyone saying that something horrible had happened to the Tsar and all the rest of us.

Upon seeing me and my blood-stained clothes, Sister Antonina gasped and crossed herself, whereas Novice Marina, who’d assumed me dead, all but screamed.

“Leonka, my child!” cried the sister, crossing herself. “What’s happened?”

I started to cry. Immediately the sister took me into a windowless chamber, and it was there that I explained the events of the night. I sobbed. Sure, with tears in my eyes I told them of the murders, of how I’d found Aleksei and Maria, of what I’d seen at the mine, and I begged for their help, begged for them to come at once.

“I don’t know how much longer Maria can last!”

They wasted no time. Sister Antonina and Novice Marina flew into action. They gathered up bandages and other medical things, and I led them around the edge of town and into the wood. All the way there Sister Antonina kept chanting prayers, begging for God’s mercy and crossing herself. It seemed to take forever, and I worried the whole way that we would be discovered, but finally we made it to the hidden den, whereupon we found the first light in the nightmare.

20

When I lifted aside the boughs I’d placed over the hidden den, the light of God cut through the day and struck her face. Immediately the girl’s eyes opened and the slightest of smiles graced her face.

Upon seeing us Maria said, “What, brought others to see me, have you, Leonka?”

“Everything’s going to be all right,” calmly replied Sister Antonina.

At once the sister, so short and round, descended into the den, and with her merciful hands she started treating the wounded young woman. First she carefully examined the gash on the side of Maria’s head, next she checked the bullet wound in her leg.

“You did very well, Leonka, very well, indeed,” muttered Sister Antonina with approval, for somehow I had managed to stem the flow of blood.

She then turned to Aleksei, his head covered by my jacket. And it was just as I had told her, the poor boy was hopelessly dead. This she verified. The sister lifted up a corner of the jacket, gasped, made the sign of the cross, and covered him once again. There was no time to waste in grief, this the old sister clearly knew, and she beckoned her assistant into the den.

“Come, Marina.”

The young novice descended, and thereupon the two of them set upon Grand Duchess Maria, cleaning her wounds, bandaging her arm and thigh, and comforting her with their few supplies. The two women of the cloth made an easy team, and their hands worked quickly and confidently. Much to my surprise, it was soon apparent that Sister Antonina knew about the corset of diamonds.

“Let’s get this thing off you, dorogaya moya,” my dear, said the nun, untying Maria’s undergarment. “Lying on all those stones can’t be comfortable.”

Immediately Maria twisted to the side, and she protested, “But…”

“Don’t worry, they’ll be perfectly safe, just like the rest.”

At first it didn’t make sense. Sure, I knew that Maria, like her sisters, was covered in brillianty. But I didn’t understand how Sister Antonina knew about them as well, not at least until the following day. Only then did I learn about everything else, all the jewelry that had been hidden away. The suitcases of Romanov jewels. While one had remained in Tobolsk, the second, weighing over a pood – some thirty-eight pounds – had already been brought to Yekaterinburg.

Without turning to me, Sister Antonina ordered, “Leonka, my young one, we’re going to have to cut away the young woman’s corset. Please turn away.”

I wasn’t in the little den. The space just wasn’t that big. I was simply looking in through the roots. But rather than turn away, I covered up the little entrance. I laid branches back on the opening and left the sister and novice to attend to the Grand Duchess, which they did very well. They spent a long time cleaning and dressing her wounds and administering what medicaments they had brought. They fed her water too. And broth. And bread.

During this entire time I hid in the wood, but I did not sleep. Nyet, nyet, nyet. I watched. I hid in brush and watched for the Reds, who were sure to sweep the area, searching for the two missing young ones. But the Reds never did come. No. They furiously searched the road and the town, but they never ventured that far into the wood. And in an attempt to cover up his gross error – imagine, he’d lost two bodies! – Yurovsky conceived of the famed Yurovsky Note in which he claimed to have burned the two missing bodies. This, however, was yet another clean lie, for virtually no sign of any bodies was ever found, not even a single bone. It was a stupid lie too, for it is impossible to completely burn bodies over an open flame.

I finally settled against a birch, slumping against its peeling bark. Nearly an entire hour passed before Sister Antonina and Novice Marina emerged from the hidden den.

“How is she?” I asked, rushing up to them. “Will she live?”

“She rests comfortably now,” replied Sister. “And with the grace of God, all will be well.”

“Slava Bogu.” Thank God.

“Now it is time to bury The Little One. Would you be so kind as to fetch him, Leonka?”

And that I did. I fetched the body of my friend and master, the Heir Tsarevich Aleksei Nikolaevich. His sister Maria had fallen into the deepest of sleeps, and so it was just the sister, novice, and I who blessed him and gave him back to the earth. I carried him out of the den and laid him on the ground. As the two women cleaned and comforted his horribly damaged body – Sister Antonina ripped away part of her own garments and wrapped him in it – I carved his grave in front of a clump of three white birches. But it was not a deep grave, merely adequate, a shallow wound, since all I had to dig with were several branches and my bare hands. Then as the sister chanted prayers and blessings, Novice Marina and I buried the boy, though we did not make a cross.

“Better that we not mark the spot,” recommended Sister Antonina.

And she was right at that. We put the boy to rest there in the soil of his Holy Mother Russia, the very soil which he himself had been born to protect, then covered him and hid the grave beneath branches and leaves so that the Reds could never find him, never bother him again. And he lies there hidden in that wood, undisturbed today, of that I am quite sure.

Then Sister Antonina scurried off to check on Maria. Like a mole dressed in black, the sister crawled into the hiding spot beneath the tree roots. When she emerged a few minutes later, however, the concern was rippling across her face.