The Crown's Game Part 2

Finally, they finished and tottered on their merry, unfettered way. Only when their sloppy footfalls receded did Nikolai allow himself to exhale.

He worked at a quicker tempo thereafter and found three more books in the wrong sections. Only one misplaced t.i.tle remained. But Nikolai was no longer the only person on the street. It was now a quarter after five, and others had begun trickling past. Nevsky Prospect was, after all, one of the busiest streets in the city. And those people had begun casting strange glances at the well-dressed young gentleman who stood as if in a trance on the corner of Nevsky Prospect and Sadovaya Street.

A flower girl across the street eyed him. She waved over a man carrying several crates of apples.

Now or never, Nikolai thought. There were only thirty or so books that needed to be checked. He was not powerful enough to handle the movement of an entire library of books, but surely he could handle thirty? He clasped his hands even tighter in front of him and murmured, almost to himself, "Return to your proper places! All of you!"

Inside the library, two dozen books shot straight back into their s.p.a.ces. Five or six, on the other hand, whizzed through the air, a couple nearly colliding with each other, and weaved their way through the library, back to their correct rooms, correct aisles, correct shelves.

Nikolai dropped his arms to his sides and blinked when it was done. All he could do now was hope that the misfiled books he'd found included the five Galina had shuffled herself.

The apple man set down his crates and began to march toward Nikolai. Nikolai spun on his heels and hurried down the street. "You! Sir!" the apple man yelled, not at all polite despite his use of the word "sir."

Nikolai did not turn around. Instead, he careened around a corner and darted into an alleyway. He checked around him-left, right, up, down-to make sure no one was watching from a doorway or window. Then he pa.s.sed his hand over the length of his body from head to toe and cast over himself the illusion that his gentlemanly clothes were actually those of a working man. Top hat to crushed bowler hat. Frock coat to suit of coa.r.s.e flannel. Cravat to stained handkerchief. And so on, down to the frayed laces of his worn brown boots. When Nikolai emerged from the alley, the apple man ran right by him.

Nikolai exhaled for the thousandth time since Galina had dragged him out into the night.

And now, finally, he could go home and sleep. That is, if Galina did not have another surprise there waiting for him.

CHAPTER FIVE.

Yuliana glided down the halls of the Winter Palace, past white columns and crystal chandeliers and all manner of gold gilt on the walls. If she were any other fifteen-year-old girl, she would run, but she was the grand princess of Russia, and royalty did not run. Well, actually, her older brother, Pavel Alexandrovich Romanov, was running down the hall ahead of her, even though it was unbecoming of a crown prince.

But Yuliana was not Pasha-that was what his family and closest friends called him-in almost every way. Yuliana cared about economics and politics (she was carrying an enormous, rolled-up map at this very moment), and Pasha cared about hunting and reading. He was quick to smile and chatty with all the servants, whereas she had the propriety to maintain the hierarchy of her royal rank. And his hair was always a mess! No, Yuliana was nothing like Pasha, and thank goodness for that. The Russian Empire needed at least one Romanov in this generation with her head screwed on straight.

Pasha waited for her at the heavy gold doors that marked the entrance to their father's study, not even out of breath. Two members of the Tsar's Guard stood at attention, one on either side. They had likely already bowed to Pasha-he was the tsesarevich, after all-but they bowed again when they saw Yuliana.

"Is Father occupied?" she asked one of the guards.

"He is meeting with the tsarina, Your Imperial Highness."

"Then we'll come back later," Pasha said.

"No, we won't." Yuliana shoved open the doors before her brother or the guards could protest. Not that they would. They'd long ago learned that it was better to allow Yuliana her own way than to suffer her wrath.

The tsarina jumped in her armchair at the sound of the doors flinging open, then burst into a fit of coughs. The tsar merely looked up from his desk and sighed. "Yuliana, how many times have I asked you to have the guards announce you properly? Look what you've done to your mother. Elizabeth," he said to the tsarina, "are you all right?"

Yuliana glanced at the tsarina. A pale-blue handkerchief was pressed to her even paler face, her elegant hands shaking as she convulsed. "My apologies, Mother. I didn't mean to frighten you." Yuliana turned back to the tsar. "But Pasha has just returned, and he has much to say about the Kazakh steppe. It's rather alarming."

Pasha came up laughing behind her. "Only slightly more alarming than the way you enter a room."

Yuliana shot him one of her famous scowls.

It only made him laugh more. Ugh. Brothers.

The tsar sat back in his chair, which, although simpler, seemed as much a throne as the one in the official throne room. "Your mother was in the middle of discussing plans for Pasha's upcoming birthday," he said. When he frowned, he looked a lot like Yuliana. Or Yuliana looked a lot like him. Severe blond statues, straight out of ancient Rome.

"It's all right," the tsarina said, having finally stopped coughing. She gathered her voluminous silver skirts and rose. "I was finished."

"Mother," Pasha said, "don't go. What I have to say can wait."

"It really can't," Yuliana said.

The tsarina smiled and kissed Yuliana on the top of her carefully coiffed ringlets, then stood on her tiptoes to peck Pasha on the cheek. "It's fine, love, talk to your father." The tsarina smiled at the tsar, too, and she departed the room.

Yuliana set her map-still rolled up, for now-against her father's desk and sat in the armchair her mother had vacated. It hadn't a trace of warmth, as if it were too much to ask the tsarina's tiny, sickly body to produce enough heat to warm the cushions. But Yuliana pushed that out of her head. What was important right now was the Kazakhs and getting the tsar to do something about them.

"Father, what I-"

The tsar put up a hand. "Yuliana, why don't you let Pasha speak? It's he who was on the steppe, was it not?"

"Yes, well . . ." But she gestured at Pasha, for this was why she'd dragged him here in the first place, even though he'd wanted to go out to see his friends as soon as he'd arrived back in Saint Petersburg.

"So," the tsar said to Pasha, "I received word that Qasim refused to sup with you?"

"Indeed, Father," Pasha said, raking a hand through his hair, tousling it in that casually defiant way that all the girls of the n.o.bility seemed to love. "Like waves of gold," Yuliana had overheard Baroness Zorina's daughter say at a recent tea. Yuliana had wanted to punch her in her vapid face.

"Although I abolished their khanate," the tsar said, "the Kazakhs still look to Qasim as their leader. I sent you to dine with him for a reason, Pasha. I needed you to gather information for me, especially after the Kazakhs attacked our Cossack detachments earlier this year."

Pasha leaned against one of their father's bookcases, his elbows behind him as support. "But I learned what we needed to know, even without meeting with Qasim."

"How?" the tsar said.

"I have my ways." Pasha smiled.

The tsar rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. "I don't think I want to know your methods," he said.

"No, Father, trust me, you do not." Yuliana tried not to smile-in general, she did not believe in smiles-but she couldn't help it, because her brother brought them out of her. And Pasha had already told Yuliana the how of his espionage.

Pasha was notorious for slipping out of the palace in plain clothes, masquerading as one of the common people so he could waste his time playing cards with fishermen on the dock or frequenting taverns with his friend Nikolai Karimov. It was no different on the Kazakh steppe, where Pasha had left his officer's uniform at the army's camp and sneaked out in a plain tunic and trousers. Then he'd wandered through the main trading post, posing as an innocent traveler.

He pa.s.sed stalls full of brightly colored caps, flat on top and intricately embroidered on the sides. There was a table that specialized in dried apricots. And another with sacks full of grain.

It was around the corner from the butcher's stall, however, that Pasha stopped and loitered. A cl.u.s.ter of men gathered around the butcher, who held a cleaver over a side of lamb. The butcher was the youngest among them-twenty-five at the most-but he seemed to hold court over the others. Perhaps it was his hatchet of a knife that did it.

"The Russians are a pestilence," one man said.

"Yes, a pestilence, a plague," another added. "They think they can draw arbitrary borders and forbid us from migrating across them. We will not stand for it."

"Patience," the butcher said. "The plans for revolt are underway. Qasim's men are prepared."

"I hope so," the first man said.

"Without a doubt," the butcher said. He raised the cleaver over his head. The blade fell swiftly onto the lamb with an earsplitting thwack. "We will crush the Russian plague."

"I heard the tsar sent his son here bearing gifts and empty promises," one of the men said.

The butcher swung his cleaver, and it again hit the meat with a resounding smack. "Bring the tsesarevich to me, and I'll show the tsar what we think of their gifts. I'll skin his son like a lamb and send his carca.s.s back with a bow tied on top."

The men had whooped and roared. Then they had discovered Pasha, and he'd tried to convince them he wasn't a Russian spy. When they didn't believe him, fisticuffs ensued (Yuliana had stopped listening as carefully when Pasha got into the gory and glorious details of his fight), followed by a mad dash through the trading post, and Pasha successfully evading the last of his pursuers to return safely to camp.

The Imperial Army had left the Kazakh steppe soon after that.

Now Pasha winked at Yuliana, then wiped the roguishness from his face and cleared his throat to address their father. "The Kazakhs are incredibly unhappy with our reforms. They do not like our officials or our attempts to give them land for farming; they're nomads and believe we are forcing our culture down their throats. No amount of promising that we wish to strengthen the empire with them as our partners will work, in my opinion. Qasim's men are preparing for revolt."

"You are certain?"

"Yes, Father. I heard it with my own ears, and my men, in their reconnaissance, confirmed."

"Well, then."

"You see?" Yuliana said. "I told you it was of the utmost importance-"

"Am I done here?" Pasha asked, looking to the door.

"No," Yuliana said, at the same time the tsar said, "Yes."

"Wonderful," Pasha said. "Then I'm off." He pushed away from the bookcase and opened the door.

"Don't forget the Imperial Council meeting this afternoon," the tsar said.

Pasha paused.

"You will be there, Pasha."

He turned back to face the tsar. The brightness that usually danced in Pasha's eyes went out. "Right. Of course I will, Father."

Yuliana very much doubted Pasha would make an appearance. He'd been on the Kazakh steppe for over a month, which far exceeded her brother's capacity for official duty. Not that he wasn't responsible; he was. It was just that Pasha did not like doing things a tsesarevich was supposed to do. Especially in uniform. And under the tsar's command.

Pasha slipped out of the study to his freedom. The guards again shut the door.

Yuliana scooted to the edge of her chair and picked up the map of the Kazakh territories she'd brought with her. She began to unfurl it on the tsar's desk.

The tsar raised his hand. "That will be unnecessary."

Yuliana scrunched her nose. "All right." She rerolled the map. "Then what are you going to do?"

"I'll decide after Pasha's birthday."

She whacked the map on the edge of the desk. "Father! You can't sit around and wait. An uprising is brewing-"

"Yuliana." The tsar rose from behind the desk, slowly, purposefully. With every inch, the shadow on his face grew darker. Every second it took for him to reach his full height felt like a year. "You are not tsar. I am. And that means I am the one who knows best what to do for our empire."

But Yuliana met his steely glare with her own. "Perhaps you're right, Father. But let's suppose, for once, that the day comes when you are no longer tsar. At least prepare Russia for it. At least lay the groundwork to protect Pasha and me." She marched around to the tsar's side of the desk, then past him, to the corner of the blue-and-gold rug that covered most of the study's floor.

"What are you-?"

But the tsar stopped his question as Yuliana rolled up a yard or so of the rug. Beneath it lay a trapdoor in the wood floor. She pulled a couple of pins from her hair and picked the lock within moments. The trapdoor opened with a creak and a puff of stale air.

"Commence the Crown's Game," she said as she retrieved a small but heavy chest from the hidden compartment. It looked, amazingly, like it had been painted and lacquered yesterday, as if magic repelled dust from its shiny surface. In fact, it probably did. "Give Russia an Imperial Enchanter, Father, so we can fight if we need to. Do it for Pasha, for his birthday, even if he doesn't know."

The tsar gripped the armrests of his chair. "But how do you know about enchanters, let alone that there are two now? That information was closely guarded and limited to myself and those who practice magic themselves. How could you know about the Game?"

Yuliana crossed the rug and set the chest on the tsar's desk. Inside the chest, the ancient Russe Quill and Scroll lay dormant but ready to record the next Crown's Game when the need arose. She glanced at her father's throne-like chair.

"I know many things." She didn't tell him that when she was very little, she used to hide in the large cabinet behind his desk and eavesdrop on his conversations, including the ones he'd have with himself when he thought the rest of the palace was asleep, about subjects like enchanters and the Game and a mysterious "tsars' collection" (which Yuliana had deduced to be a library of ancient texts on magic-and presumably where her father had learned about enchanters and the Crown's Game in the first place-though she had never been able to locate this so-called "tsars' collection").

"Pasha may be heir," she said to her father, "but when you're gone-heaven forbid-he won't be able to rule Russia with charm alone. He'll need me. And he'll need an Imperial Enchanter."

"It's been peaceful in Russia for years."

"The peace we've known since Napoleon's end will soon be no more. Pasha's report is proof. And the Ottomans are rising again in the south. So will you do it? Will you declare the start of the Game?"

The tsar hesitated for a heavy minute.

"Do it for Pasha," Yuliana said. And she meant it. She loved her brother ferociously, as much as the tsar did. They'd both lay down their lives for him.

"How old are you again, Yuliana?"

"Fifteen, Father."

"But you act like you're-"

"Fifty. I know."

The tsar chuckled. "For Pasha, eh?" He touched his finger to the lid of the wooden chest. It was the one thing that Yuliana had never been able to pick open, and now she understood why: it was governed by magic that would unlock only at the tsar's touch.

The lid eased itself open, as if lifted by an invisible hand. A long, majestic black feather-plucked from the wing of a sea eagle centuries ago-and a yellowed parchment scroll floated into the air.

Yuliana gasped, for even though she knew of magic, she'd never actually witnessed it. "So does this mean you'll commence the Game?"

The tsar nodded.

She stared at the Russe Quill and Scroll. They spun lazily above the desk, the records of all past Games and so much of Russia's history, just hovering. "But we probably shouldn't tell Pasha," she said.

The tsar nodded again. "It's why I've never told you about the existence of enchanters and magic. I knew this generation would require a Game. And I didn't know if the two of you-Pasha, really-would be able to stomach its viciousness."

But Yuliana could. Her mouth curved up at the corners. Her smile was both a fierce and wistful thing.