Page 18 of The Tsarina's Favorite
Drook and Klessa accompaniedme to the gathering hall the next night.I half-feared that Drook would announce me to the assembled the same way he had announced me to Klessa the night before, with great pomp and expectation.But maybe it would be better to get it over all at once.
“You can take the mask and hood off,” Klessa leaned in to tell me as we entered.“Gloves too.Whatever you like.”
“This is where we are ourselves,” Drook said, “and not the roles we are required to play.”
I slid back the hood and unfastened the buckles on the beak to give my wounds a moment to breathe.I tucked the mask under the padded suit.Klessa had given me the ointment to keep in my basket nest, and Drook had taken a knife and a flame to the unfinished edges of the mask to smooth them out.There was nothing to do about the costume itself, dirty and unsightly as it was, or the collar that assaulted me with feathers and jingles at every opportunity.
Like any polite gathering, people spread across the room, gathered on chaises and chairs in small groupings, some playing cards in a corner, others at a dining table with food and drink before them.Most furniture, while as beautiful as to have a place among the rest of the palace, was rendered in miniature.Anyone unable to fit into the diminutive finery had the option of pillows on the floor, accommodations of which a few people of various heights availed themselves.
As we passed, ladies lowered their fans and men paused their conversations to see the new person in their midst, necks arching and fingers pointing.Drook brought us over to a small gathering around a low table with nearly every seat, settee, and chaise occupied around it, several others of average height occupying pillows on the ground.Klessa took an available cushion.
“All,” Drook said before finding a seat himself, “Mikhail has finally decided to join us.”
Drook rattled off names as he went around the gathered circle.
“Thank you for having me,” I said, executing the niceties the way I would at any other party or event.“I pray I am not intruding on your conversation.”
“Glad to have you!”A man whose name I had already forgotten gestured to the table laden with food and then a cushion.“Eat, converse, whatever you wish.”
“We thought you might never join us,” a woman said, her fan folded and forgotten with the new distraction of my company.
“I did not realize that I might be welcome.”
“I have been hoping you would come,” said a lady, her name something like Agra or Agara, who wore a pearl kokoshnik.“I said to my husband the other day — didn’t I, dear?”She tilted her head toward the man beside her.“I said, that poor man!To have no one for company but those wretched nobles.And the tsarina worst of all.That is a punishment beyond any I can imagine.I think we’re all so relieved that you’ve finally joined us so that we can stop worrying about you from afar.”
“Fortunately, my role has been reduced to ornamental oddity and kvass-bearer, so that has significantly limited the expectation of interaction.”
“Ugh, kvass,” the woman said while wrinkling her nose, “I don’t know how anyone can drink that stuff, especially not in the quantities she does.It’s so sour.”
“Doubtless,” I said, “that’s why her face looks like that all the time.”
Several of the group snort-laughed while others grinned.
“You will fit in well with us, Mikhail,” said one of the men who laughed.
“He cannot be Mikhail among us,” said another.“He needs a name.”
“Is there something wrong with Mikhail?”My name had served me admirably for over four decades with only brief interludes of bearing a translated version of it in other countries.
“That is a name that is your own,” Klessa explained.
“You will keep that your whole life, prince or jester, and it will be used by all, friend or enemy,” said the pearl kokoshnik lady.“You need another name, one just for us, to be used only by us.”
This moment of acceptance among the group twisted my belly with the dreaded possibilities.I had gone through so many changes already in such a short time, and I did not relish another reminder of my pitiable state.
They tossed around a few suggestions, most of them innocuous, thankfully, and far afield from the role of chicken I had no choice in playing, but none of the nicknames caught much attention or approval.
When it seemed that all potentials had been offered and dismissed, Drook spoke up.“Mikhail rightfully pointed out that the kvass complements the tsarina’s perpetual disposition.As that is so, I propose ‘Kvasnik’ — the server of sourness!”
“I like that!”said the first man.
Murmurs of approval spread through the group.
“And may she never know a sweet cup until her mood changes,” Drook added.
Several of the group lifted their glasses in acknowledgment.
“A worthy proposal and toast,” said another.
