Page 4 of The Tsarina's Favorite
“Your uncle forced me to marry Marfa.And whatever you may think, I have never stinted on service to you.”
“Is that so?”
“How may I prove it?”I asked, hoping she would not re-announce her desire to have me as her lover in a crowded room.
“I have been considering this very thing.”She stepped back from me and said, her voice loud enough to get the attention of all others in the room if indeed there were any others not attending yet, “All, do you see this faithful servant of mine?”
Murmurs rippled again.
“By his account, Mikhail has always been my faithful servant,” she said.“And as that is so, I have treated him most poorly.He deserves not the prison, but an honored place at my side.”
“I would settle for a bath and a change of clothes,” I said.
“You always could make me laugh.”She smiled a little too benignly.“But fear not, I have a bath and new clothing already arranged for you.”She raised her voice again, not for me but for her audience.“You see my mercy?Mikhail’s years of faithful service to me have not gone unnoticed.And despite his betrayal of his empress by marrying without consent, and his betrayal of the country by denouncing The Kind and Fair and following the Great Holy for that marriage—”
“Neither action affected you or the country,” I protested.
“Ha!He admits his treasonous actions of his own free will,” she declared.
Treason?Of course, anything she wanted to be an offense could be.But treason?
“And yet, I am merciful!”The tsarina smiled at me, eyes soft, almost kind.“I will not kill him as one who has betrayed me rightfully deserves.”
The breath in my throat suspended there, suffocating me by neither entering my lungs nor being expelled.I took a step forward and guards — when had they returned?— grabbed my arms to keep me from progressing any farther.
“I shall forgive him and allow him to continue to be my faithful servant.Is that not merciful?”
Some of the crowd cheered, although most shifted uncomfortably with the uncertainty of what such a pronouncement might mean.Her words, however generous they sounded, did not bode well for me.
“My dear Mikhail,” she said as she breached the distance between us, “I do not wish to see you die, and I know you will continue to serve me in the future.”She turned away and threw up a hand, inviting the room to rejoice with her as she pitched her voice.“Behold!I have a new jester!”
“What?!” The shout of rage and confusion bellowed out of me before I could consider the wisdom of response.The guards gripped my arms to painful throbbing points with a force that would be visible later.This couldn’t be.“But I am a prince.”
“Oh, didn’t I tell you?”she asked, turning to look at me over her shoulder.“Not anymore.And,” she returned to me and took my left hand, removing the gold wedding band from my finger, “you won’t be needing this.”
“Please,” I begged.“That’s all I have of her.Please don’t take that from me.”
“I think I’ll have it melted down into a brooch.”
“Please, Your Majesty.Please.”
She gestured to someone in the crowd, her thoughts completely distanced from the subject of my ring, and Alexei stepped out, sweating in his finery.
“Prince Alexei, do you wish to join your brother in his plight?”
“No, Your Majesty.”
“Then?”she prompted.
My younger brother’s mouth twisted into a grimace.“Prince Mikhail—”
“Just Mikhail now,” the tsarina corrected.
“Mikhail,” Alexei gulped.“It grieves me that you have betrayed our empress and our country.Neither I nor the rest of our family shall have anything to do with you.You are no longer a Karilitsyn.”
If blood rained down from the sky, the floor turned to wax, the heavens crashed into our mortal plane, I could not have been more stunned.
The tsarina’s attention no longer on my brother, Alexei slunk back into the crowd and escaped while everyone’s attention centered on me.
