Page 31 of The Tsarina's Favorite
“Perhaps, given the circumstances, you can forgive me just this once for being raised a blithering idiot prince.”I bit my lip and looked at her.“I am terrified.”
She squeezed my hand.
“And —” My voice cracked, and I turned away when the tears started flowing.“I won’t even get to die wearing my wedding band.”
She pulled my chin back around and grabbed my arm.She yanked me to her, embracing me through the bars.All the months of misery and humiliation finally crashed into me.The tears flowed like a flood from a broken dam, and Klessa clung to me through it all.
“I’m sorry,” I finally whispered when I reached the hiccupping, snotty stage.“I know how you disdain such weakness.Please don’t despise me for it.”
“Never, Kvasnik,” Klessa said as she withdrew.She took my hands in hers and held them.“We love you.”
XI.
The lock clicking openwoke me.The hinges whined when the door swung out.All my lethargy fled.There could be no mistake about the meaning of an open cell door.
Today, I would die.
Four guards greeted me, two in front and two behind.No one shackled or bound me.Perhaps they knew that they could have simply invited me to the scaffold, and I would have skipped up with a bounce in my step.We marched along, not to any of the darker private rooms below the palace as I had expected for a beheading and not to a side outer courtyard where a block might have been prepared, but through the corridors and up into the palace itself.There were not many people about: servants, a minister rushing through the halls with scrolls and books under his arms, secret lovers returning to their apartments.No one gave us attention.
Could a more public execution be planned?Or maybe, instead of the beheading given to nobles, I had misjudged, and I was to be hanged like any commoner since my title had not been reinstated.Perhaps the palace only retained silence because the majority had assembled elsewhere, awaiting me.Would I have a final moment to speak?Should I have been coming up with a speech while imprisoned?Surely the tsarina would know better than to give me another public platform to voice my impertinent grievances.
But we did not head towards courtyards, gardens, or public spaces.We climbed the central staircase, upward to halls more expansive and sumptuous in decoration than the last.My bones and muscles recognized the passageways before I did, and I nearly stumbled.Hair prickled on the back of my neck.My hands trembled, and I clasped them to keep from betraying my fear.
The guards walked through an open doorway, the room beyond illuminated by candles and the pale light filtering through uncurtained windows.They paused in formation in the center of the room.The two leading guards stepped aside, allowing a full view of the tsarina at a desk, piles of state documents in front of her.
She only looked up from her work when she finished reading the top document.She examined me briefly before shifting her attention to the guard in charge.
“Leave us now, but stay at the door.”
The guards bowed and turned, the lead giving me a skeptical once-over before departing.
“Facial hair suits you,” she said by way of greeting.“I might have to rescind the laws that prohibit it.”
I didn’t bow or speak.
“What a headache you are,” she said at long last.“Do you see all of these?”She gestured to the piles of documents and letters.“These are all the petitions I have received on your behalf since the ambassador's visit.”
