Page 8 of The Tsarina's Favorite
“First,” the tsarina considered, “some kvass.”
I glanced over at the array of refreshments on the marble-topped gilt console along the wall across the room.I struggled to my feet, working around the new bulk of my costume and fighting the stiffness of my legs from having been tucked in my basket nest all morning.Some of the ladies turned their faces away while others stared even more intently, waiting for me to do something particularly humiliating, as if my current predicament did not provide enough amusement.
The tsarina was of the latter group, although her stare came from an aloof observational demeanor.She studied me from her throne as I lumbered to my feet, ambled over the basket side, and began my progress to the refreshment table.
The burning gazes from the crowd added to the unbearable warmth of my costume, the fabric against my skin already soaked through.Perspiration dripped off my nose inside the beak mask.
A smaller insulated circle of women near the console table discussed me too.Though the hushed words came out with less bite, they still reached me as I hunted for the pitcher of kvass.
“I told you it was horrible,” said Countess Ekaterina, a classic Ilyichian beauty with ivory skin and pale blonde hair, a woman who had once tried to capture my attention and an offer of marriage before I left for Varnasia.She doubtless counted herself fortunate now for having not succeeded.
“Doesn’t it scare you?”asked a woman I did not recognize.
I tried to be surreptitious in my glance towards the small gathering.The speaker, uncharacteristically dark-skinned for an Ilyichian and extremely short for any adult, fingered the pearls around her throat.Although she had her black hair coifed in an elaborate style around her kokoshnik and she wore the latest of Ilyichian fashions, nothing could hide her foreign accent and unfavorable looks.
“I don’t think he’s scary, Princess Alaina,” another woman said.
“Of course not,” added one of the other ladies.“He’s just ridiculous.”
Princess Alaina.The tsarina’s niece-by-law.I could see now why the tsarina, and her nephew too, had despaired over the match despite the potential political gains.From all accounts, the princess was situated to inherit the throne of Altania when her childless brother died.I had not met her or seen her before, having already emigrated to Varnasia by the time of the wedding.
“No, I didn’t mean it like that,” the princess said.“It scares me that this can happen.This could be any of us if we misstep.”
“You’re as good as the tsarina’s daughter, and, dare I say, the heir apparent of Ilyichia,” a lady said.“It could never happen to you.”
“And he was a prince, from one of the wealthiest and most powerful families in the empire.If it could happen to him....”The princess cast a not-so-subtle glance at me before returning her attention to her ladies.“Could you imagine being so degraded in front of your peers?”
“I would rather die,” the countess said.
“He probably would too,” the princess observed with another momentary glance at me.
I lowered my eyes and returned to my task of pouring kvass so that I would not have to see any others of the group look my way.Between the mockery and the pity, I could not decide which stung more.
The princess was right, of course.Mounting the scaffold to an executioner’s block and facing the headsman’s axe would have brought with it its own shame and embarrassment, but there would have been an end to it.A swift, sudden, immediate end.None of this indefinite torture.
I brought the glass of kvass back to the empress and stood to the side and behind her so as to keep her attention only on her current conversation.I held the glass in front of me, to the periphery of her sight, so that she would see that and nothing else.
When the conversation bounced to two of the officers in her gathering, she took the glass and asked, tone lowered so that only I could hear it, “Do you regret your decision yet?”
“What decision would that be, ma’am?”I stared at the gilt wood finial of her chair, wishing to set it on fire with her in it.“I have made so many that you hold against me.”
“The one where you turned down my offer of a better position than your current one.If you reconsidered, I might be persuaded to listen to your petition, so long as you made it worth my time.”
“I would have to be a fool to do such a thing.And just because you’ve dressed me like a fool and given me the title, do not mistake me for one.”
“Is that so?”A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth.She waved her hand and beckoned me forward, hushing the crowd around her as she did so.
“I require an entertainment,” she told the group.“Mikhail, entertain us.”
I stepped forward, obeying her gesture and bearing the unwanted attention of former friends and acquaintances.Portions of my soul continued to shrivel and die.
“What would you have of me?”
“I would have your humor.You’re always so funny.”
“He’s the funniest thing of all,” Sergey said, a rat-faced courtier of my age who imagined women owed him something and whose company I had never been able to tolerate.
“Clearly, you have not looked in a mirror lately,” I shot back at him.
