Darker Jewels (19 page)

Khelmani did not quite sigh, though he looked up at the low, grey clouds scattering their snowflakes like gelid petals over Moscovy. It was already turning colder and in another two hours the sun would be gone. He wanted to be back in the inn before night came.

In an hour Rakoczy had approved all but one of the mares and was aware that both Anastasi and Lovell were waiting for him impatiently. When he had taken four perfect diamonds from his wallet, he studied the two men who accompanied him. “It wasn’t necessary for you to wait with us, Duke,” he said to Anastasi. “But I am grateful for your courtesy.”

Anastasi was begining to ache with cold, but he forced his icy face to smile. “There is no reason to say so, Hrabia. As the man who brought you here I could scarcely leave you without causing great distress to Khelmani.” He, himself, was unsure what distress this might be, but he plunged on. “How was he to know that you would deal honorably.”

“It is a risk with strangers,” said Rakoczy seriously.

“Truly.” He crossed himself. “And yet all has come to a satisfactory conclusion. You and Doctor Lovell have your horses and Khelmani has been very handsomely paid.” As he said this he thought again of the great beryl Rakoczy had given Czar Ivan, and envy rose up in him, so powerful that he feared it would be visible to everyone.

“It would not be wise to do anything else,” said Rakoczy as he watched Khelmani finish tying all the horses to the same lead, which he then handed to Rakoczy; Lovell already held his two Karabairs on a lead, where they danced and feinted with each other in an effort to keep warm.

Anastasi decided to make the most of this opportunity. “Come. I will have visnoua and malieno brought, with cakes and fried meats.”

Rakoczy had just got into the saddle and was bringing his restive Furioso to order, holding her with calves and steady hands. He took the lead from Khelmani and said to Anastasi, “That is very gracious of you, but I think it is growing too late to impose on you. These horses must be put into their new quarters as soon as possible, and given warm mash against the cold.” He stared direcdy into Anastasi’s shiny blue eyes. “Perhaps another time.”

“Very true, the horses must get out of the weather as soon as possible,” agreed Lovell, his teeth chattering a little. “And so must I.” This confession was offered merrily enough, but with a note of underlying desperation that made Rakoczy look sharply in his direction.

“Are you all right?” he asked in English.

“Just a bit chilled,” answered Lovell, too uncomfortable to notice the change in language.

Rakoczy switched back to Russian. “Come along with me. I’ll see that your horses are stalled. My manservant will prepare a bath for you, and that will warm you.” He offered Anastasi a wide smile. “I regret we will not be able to accept your kind invitation.” He bowed in the saddle and half-saluted before starting his horse back toward the gates of Moscovy.

Lovell was quick to follow after him, tugging on the lead to bring his new horses with him; he was still not sure how he had come to buy them, or why Rakoczy had wished it.

Watching them go, Anastasi was tempted to spur ahead of them and inform the Guards at the gate that these foreigners were to be refused entrance. The notion was sweet. But if Czar Ivan ever learned of it, Anastasi’s head would hang over the Beautiful Market Square just outside the Kremlin, and his cousins would laugh at him until all the flesh was gone from his skull and only his empty grin remained to mock them. It was not worth the brief satisfaction to risk such a result. There would be other times, Anastasi reminded himself as he started back toward the southern gate. As long as the foreigners were in Russia, he would find a way to exact the whole price of his humiliation from them, as he would claim it from his more noble relatives. For the time being, he had one chance left to him still to bring Rakoczy into his hands, and he would remind Vasilli of it before nightfall, so that it would be fresh in Vasilli’s mind when he attended Ivan’s council tomorrow morning. He mused on this last possibility in greedy anticipation as he entered the city walls and nudged his red roan in the direction of the Kremlin, where Vasilli was waiting for him.

By the time Anastasi reached the Beautiful Market Square, Rakoczy had at last put all the new horses into fresh-bedded stalls and supervised their first feeding. His groom, a taciturn Livonian, listened to Rakoczy’s instructions with no change of expression but with increasing doubt in his grey eyes.

“What is it?” Rakoczy asked when he had finished. “Nemmin, what is the matter?”

The groom required some little time to frame his answer. “I do not wish to interfere. You are master here.”

“And you are groom,” said Rakoczy at his most reasonable. “What is it that troubles you?” He looked steadily at the man, and although the groom was more than half a head taller than Rakoczy, the alchemist was not disadvantaged by this.

In order to escape the keenness of Rakoczy’s eyes, Nemmin stepped back, looking toward the stalls with their new occupants. “It isn’t right, treating horses like that.”

There was a lessening of tension in Rakoczy’s face, a subtle shift of expression that indicated that this was the least of his worries. “You do not approve of the mashed grain for supper and the potion for their hooves,” he guessed. “You think they are too pampered.”

“It makes them weak,” muttered Nemmin. “They will have no strength when you need them to carry you through the cold.”

“It will not harm them,” said Rakoczy patiently. “I may be foreign and have a title, but I know a few things about horses. I rode here from Poland, and to Poland from Bohemia and Transylvania.” He did not mention the places he had been before that: India, China, Africa, Europe, Egypt.

Nemmin nodded twice in agreement. “And may God not punish you for permitting the horses to pass one day without tasting the whip.” He set his lantern jaw. “They will turn on you if you do not whip them each day. They fotget their stripes and then they cannot be controlled.”

Rakoczy made a gesture of dismissal. “I have told you before: I will not tell you again. I do not want my horses cowed. I do not want them beaten. They are to be treated with respect.”

“You are—” Nemmin spat and made a sign against the Evil Eye.

“I am an alchemist,” said Rakoczy with weary patience. “And I am foreign. I do things in foreign ways.” The way of raising horses he had learned so long ago in lands where the Ottomites now held sway. Those memories were not so painful as many others, more recent and more distressing.

“It will shame you if it is learned.” Nemmin kicked at the loose straw underfoot with a force that revealed his emotions more truly than his voice. “They will know you are a sorcerer.”

Rakoczy spoke gendy. “And who is to tell them, if I do not and you do nod”

Nemmin was already four more steps away from Rakoczy. “I will tell nothing. I will not bring infamy on this house, though it is foreign.”

Listening to Nemmin lumber away, Rakoczy realized that the groom might yet change his mind. For as long as Czar Ivan held him in favor, Rakoczy knew that he was safe; as soon as that favor ended, all the suspicions and loathing that had been silent would become a relendess cry. He made a last check of his new horses and the two Karabairs, then took the covered hallway back along the side of his house to the side door where Rothger was waiting for him.

“The English scholar is almost finished with the bath,” Rothger informed him as he stepped into the muted lamplight of the antechamber.

“Good,” said Rakoczy a little distantly. “Is there food to offer him?”

“It’s been arranged,” said Rothger. “And I have set out a kon- tush for you, so that you can sit with him while he eats.”

Rakoczy paused, looking directly into his manservant’s eyes. “Do you think that is .. . advisable?”

Rothger answered obliquely. “You tell me that this scholar was for a time a companion of Madame Clemens’. He may not have your secret, but he must be aware that those of your blood are . . . idiosyncratic.”

With a rueful chuckle Rakoczy acquiesced. “Very well,” he said, knowing that someone would report this to the Czar and all the others who were at pains to watch him. “Bring me the kontush; I will change clothes in my chamber and I will spend an hour with the English scholar.”

Proclamation issued by Czar Ivan in Russian, Greek, and Polish.

At the time of the Nativity when we reward the service and prayers of our servants, I, Ivan the Fourth, called Grosny, Czar of all the Russias, wish to show gratitude to theforeign alchemist Ferenc Rakoczy, Hrabia Saint-Germain, of the embassy from Istvan Bathory, King of Poland.

Be it known that it is my intention to show thanks to this remarkable man in a way appropriate to all he has done and how I have come to value him. Let no man say that there is any reason beyond this for what I have decided.

It is my decision that Ferenc Rakoczy, Hrabia Saint-Germain, will, on the 27th day of January, the Feast of SaintJanis Chrysostom, in the Cathedral of the Dormition, marry the noblewoman Xenya Evgeneivna Koshkina, of the household ofDukeAnastasi Sergeivich Shuisky.

The wedding is to be celebrated with allpomp and finery, and there will be a banquet to celebrate the marriage that will serve a thousand men. A thousand women will be permitted to dine behind screens for this splendid occasion.

Word of this glorious union will be sent to Istvan Bathory of Poland as soon as the way is clear in spring, at which time he will certainty rejoice in his servant’s good fortune.

This is my iviU and the will of Heaven.

Ivan IV Czar

PART II

PART II

Xenya Evgeneivna
Koshkina
Bride

Xenya Evgeneivna
Koshkina
Bride

T

JLext of a letter from Father Casimir Pogner, S. J., to Ferenc Rakoczy, Hrabia Saint-Germain.

Thou pernicious traitor:

Not content to ignore the warning I haw sent you in the hope that you could be recalled to some sense of honor, you now seek to complete the disgrace of yourself and this mission by carrying through with the ludicrous marriage you claim the Czar has forced upon you. How can you contemplate so egregious a union as this one? Your insistence that the Czar has demanded it can have no bearing on you, for you are here at the behest of Jstvan Bathory, your countryman and King. The orders of the Czar cannot bind you, especially one that smacks so much of subornation. By taking this bride you have shown yourself to be Ivan’s lick-spittle.

Your protestations of your innocence ring false, Rakoczy. I have it on excellent authority that you sought this marriage to ensure your position at Court and to claim for yourself estates and lands in compensation for those taken from you by the Turks. How can you seek so putative an alliance? You are succumbing to something worse than treachery in this perfidy, you are embracing apostasy if you go through this wedding to one who is of the Orthodox rite. I will have no choice but to excommunicate you for this action if you undertake this felonious marriage. As it is, I can no longer regard you as a trustworthy part of this embassy. Through your actions you have

shown you are not one of us any longer, if ever you were. It is most distressing that I, as a priest, must inform you of certain things about your bride: you know the woman is compromised, don ’tyou? You claim you know nothing of her except her name, but I have information that convinces me this is not the case. You have made a point of finding a woman who could not be expected to refuse you. Did you realize how great her sin is? Or have you made that a part of your filthy bargain? Was it your intention to find a woman who could not complain of you, no matter what indignities you heap upon her? Did you seek a woman who could not object to your courtship and whose family would be forced to welcome you because it allowed the woman to preserve some little dignity in theface of the loss of her honor? What sense have you abandoned that you could consider taking such a creature to wife as this one? And how have you overcome the family’s scruples to permit her to toed you in the first place? Has another of the Pope’s jewels gone to further your ambitions? I know certain of her relatives are overwrought at this forthcoming marriage for they dread the return of the shame she has brought to them. That you would use so unworthy a weapon as her disgrace to win this bride is beneath contempt. Your continued protestations that you did not seek and do not want this marriage lack true conviction, and your claim that you cannot defy the Czar without drawing the entire embassy into danger is surely a scurrilous lie, told to frighten us into acquiescence. We are assured by those of the Court who have made it their business to inform us that neither of these things is true and that you have misrepresented your desires and our dangers in order to gain your ends without opposition.