The Firebird (41 page)

Truthfully, Anna was happy enough to keep out of the crush of the day’s celebrations. Russian Easter was a very big affair, the most important holy day in all the year, so much so that the Empress had sent heralds with their trumpets and their drums all through the city to announce that, for all Holy Week and Easter Sunday too, the men were not to wear full mourning dress but put on coloured waistcoats with their black coats and black breeches, and the ladies of St Petersburg were all to wear white hats.

The general and his wife and all their other children had looked very fine as they had headed out this morning to the little church on Greek Street, with the brown-robed friar following behind them.

Father Dominic had sat with Anna earlier that morning and had led her through the prayers that were best suited to the day, so that her soul would not be any way neglected from her absence at the church. To do likewise for Katie, Anna sat now at the bedside of the little girl and read to her the words of the apostle John, to help her understand the day’s importance.

She’d begun her reading with her favourite part, the night of the Last Supper and the promises that Christ had made to those whom he’d so loved, and who had followed him: ‘And if I shall go, and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and will take you to myself; that where I am, you also may be.’

When Anna had first read those words herself, she had felt her eyes fill suddenly because it was a lovely promise, one that Captain Jamieson had made to her, and one she’d badly wanted to believe. It would not happen now, of course, but still the words felt warm within her heart, and gave her comfort of a sort, as did Christ’s words two chapters on: ‘So also you now indeed have sorrow; but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice; and your joy no man shall take from you.’

Those words reminded Anna that she
would
see Captain Jamieson again, if not in life then in that place where none were ever to be parted, where his daughter and her father had already gone before.

She turned the page, and went on reading. At the moment of the crucifixion, Katie raised a protest.

‘But,’ she said to Anna, ‘He did nothing wrong. Why are they being cruel to him?’

The concept of Christ’s suffering in payment for the sins of others wasn’t something Anna could make Katie understand. No matter how she tried explaining it, the little girl seemed more and more perplexed. ‘But why?’ she asked again.

There was no simple answer, Anna reasoned, but she sought to put it into simple terms. ‘Because he loved us very much. And when you love somebody very much, you do what you must do to keep them safe.’

A sudden loud explosive boom made all the windows rattle in their frames, and Katie gave a shriek and clapped her small hands to her ears.

Smiling reassurance, Anna quickly set the Bible to the side and reached for Katie’s hands, to draw them down and hold them fast within her own. ‘There’s nothing you need fear. ’Tis but the guns of both the fortress and the Admiralty, set off at once. Did you not hear them earlier this morning?’

Katie shook her head, still wide-eyed and uncertain.

Anna told her, ‘Well, I heard them well enough, for it was only four o’clock and fully dark outside. I leapt so high out of my bed I’m half-amazed I am not on the ceiling still.’

That brought, as she had hoped it would, the first suggestion of a giggle from the little girl, but did not take the worry from her eyes. ‘Why do they fire the guns? Is there a war?’

‘Of course not. No, the first time that the guns went off this morning, it was only to make sure we all did waken for this special day. And this time, it was telling us the Empress and her family have now finished with their service at the church, and it is time for all the people of St Petersburg to come and pay her court now, at the palace.’

From memory, Anna painted a bright picture with her words so that the child might see the whole of what was happening right now – the merry groups of noblemen and ladies all descending on the Winter Palace, where the Empress and the princesses were waiting to receive them.

Katie asked, ‘And will my father go there, too?’

‘Yes, for your father is a most important man.’

Katie looked well pleased by that, and snuggled back into her bed while Anna carried on describing how the Winter Palace would be looking on this Easter morning, with the court musicians gathered all before it, playing drums and trumpets, flutes and oboes, and the kettledrums that rumbled in one’s chest behind the breastbone like a roll of regal thunder.

‘And,’ said Anna, ‘when the people greet each other, there will be the giving of the painted eggs, which is great fun. Do you give eggs to one another in Livonia, at Easter?’

Katie, being little, could not say with any certainty.

‘Well, here in Russia, there are painted eggs – some red, and some with all the colours of your mother’s jewels, in clever patterns, and most beautiful to see.’

‘And do you eat them?’

‘Yes, eventually. First, though, people give them to each other, and receive an Easter kiss. Like this.’ She held up an imaginary egg, and said to Katie, ‘First I tell you, “Christ is risen”, and your answer should be, “Truly he is risen.”’

Katie parroted the words.

‘Good. Then you take the egg from me, that’s right, and kiss me three times, starting here.’ She put a guiding finger to her left cheek, leaning close down to the bed to let the little girl perform the triple kiss: the left cheek, then the right, and then the left again.

‘Must you kiss everyone?’ asked Katie.

‘Yes, it is the custom. If you’re greeted in this way, then you cannot refuse the kiss,’ said Anna. ‘Nor the egg.’

‘I wish I had a real egg.’

From the open doorway just behind, a man’s voice said, ‘Will this one do?’

The light in Katie’s face, all on its own, would have told Anna who it was that stood there, had she not already recognised his voice.

And as she always did in Edmund’s presence now, she put on mental battledress, composed her features carefully to be polite but only just, and straightened without haste to turn and face him.

He had leant one shoulder jauntily against the door frame, with his black wool coat left open to reveal the yellow waistcoat worn beneath, all edged with braid. She’d never seen him in a colour, only in the plain black coat, or in the plain white of his shirtsleeves; never with this vibrant dash of light that made him seem a bit more human.

In his hand he held an egg that had indeed been painted with a rainbow’s colours, red and blue and gold and green. ‘My landlady did give this to me earlier this morning, with instructions that, as soon as Mass had ended, I should give this to the princess, and exchange it for a kiss. And I could think of but one princess in all Petersburg,’ he said to Katie, ‘so now, Princess Katie, will you—’

Katie cut him off, blonde curls dancing as her face mingled delight and firm denial. ‘I’m no princess, Ned.’

He paused, and feigned confusion. ‘Are you not?’

She was decided. ‘No. Your landlady meant the Imperial Princesses. They’re at the palace.’

‘I see. Are you sure about that? Well, they’ll have so many eggs by now,’ he said, ‘they’ll not miss mine. Here, you can have it.’

‘No,’ she put him off again, but for a different cause. ‘You have to do it properly.’

‘How’s that?’

‘Like Mistress Jamieson was showing me. You have to tell me, “Christ is risen”, then I answer you, and then you give the egg to me, and then I kiss you.’

Edmund schooled his face. ‘It seems a lot of effort,’ he told Katie, ‘for a kiss.’

‘It is the custom,’ Katie told him, very solemnly, in a near perfect imitation of the way that Anna had just said those very words, and Edmund’s mouth twitched faintly.

With a shrug he came away from the door jamb and crossed to the little girl’s bedside, and Anna moved out of their way, standing back several paces to watch while the Irishman bowed very gallantly low to the child and announced, ‘Christ is risen. Now, take the damn’d egg.’

‘Not yet. First I must tell you, “Truly he is risen”,’ said Katie, and looking to Anna, asked, ‘Is that right?’

Any notion Anna might have had of telling Edmund not to curse in Katie’s presence fell away then, for she saw the child herself was not at all affected by it. Innocence, she thought, was often blind to other’s wickedness. And Edmund did not look so very wicked at the moment.

He looked much as he had looked when she had watched him with the children in the yard, nearly two weeks ago: a gentle man, a stranger to her eyes, without a trace of the sardonic, cutting wit he liked to turn on her when they were in a room together.

Seemingly mindful that Katie was still weak from illness, he leant lower still for his kiss and received it at last, saying, ‘Three kisses! Sure, that’s a generous reward.’

‘Mistress Jamieson says every egg gets three kisses.’

‘Indeed? Well, I’ve no doubt she’d tell you the truth.’ He was standing again at his full height and looking at Anna, as though he were trying to guess at her thoughts. ‘Mistress Jamieson, you appear troubled.’

She said, ‘Hardly that. I was only admiring the egg.’

‘Oh, yes? I’ve another just like it.’ Drawing a second egg out of his coat pocket, he held it up in full view as he levelled his gaze on her own, and the glint in his eyes told her she was a fool to have ever believed him not wicked. He said, ‘Christ is risen.’

He was seeking to amuse himself at her expense, she knew, for he’d be well aware that there was no one she’d want less to kiss in friendship than himself. But this had naught to do with friendship. He was offering the egg, but he had not, as any gentleman would do, come near to give it to her. No, his stance demanded that she cross the length of floor that lay between them, put her pride aside, accept the egg and kiss him, because custom and tradition gave him power to demand it. Anna damned his dark and laughing eyes in silence, taking care to keep her face composed. She would not let him triumph, any more than she would disappoint the little girl who watched them.

With her head up she approached him calmly. ‘Truly he is risen,’ she replied, and took the egg from his scarred hand.

He did not bend for her, as he had bent for Katie. He stood straight and tall, his downward-angled gaze an open challenge. She had never let a challenge yet defeat her, so she raised herself on tiptoe and began the kiss.

She would have given all three kisses quickly and been done with it, but needing to stay balanced on her toes she had to slow her movements, and her senses then had time to notice things that Anna would have been more comfortable not noticing. Like how his skin smelt pleasantly of shaving soap. And how his jawline tightened when he … what? When he did what? She could not see what he was doing, and so she was unprepared when Edmund turned his own head slightly, at the last, as though by reflex more than conscious thought. She felt the feather of his breath against her own skin as the corners of their mouths just barely brushed.

She could not say which of the two of them was first to pull away from that brief contact, but they both stood rather stiffly for the moment that came afterwards, till Katie, from the bed, asked, ‘Do you have a third egg in your pocket, Ned?’

‘No.’ He cleared his throat and looked at Katie, and became himself again. ‘But if my princess does command me, I shall go back out into the town and kiss as many maidens as I can, to win you more.’

He bowed, as Katie nodded eagerly and answered him, ‘Yes, please.’

She had a heaping bowl of painted eggs beside her bed by supper time, and Anna had the fair beginnings of a headache.

Mrs Lacy, who had come to sit as well by Katie’s bed, said with concern, ‘I hope you have not also caught the illness.’

Anna had since set aside the Bible in exchange for a more adventurous book from General Lacy’s shelves, that being Mr Pope’s translation of
The Iliad of Homer,
but she could not seem to concentrate upon it, so she marked her place and closed the book and smiled at Mrs Lacy. ‘No, I’m sure that I have not. ’Tis but an aching head.’

The older woman, nodding at the bed where Katie lay now fast asleep, said, ‘Likely it was not helped by her chattering all afternoon.’

‘I’m pleased to see her well enough to chatter.’

‘I am, also.’ Mrs Lacy’s eyes grew serious. ‘I feared it was the smallpox, to begin with. We’ve been fortunate so far, to have escaped it, but each time one of the children does complain of feeling ill, or has a fever, I confess I fall to worrying.’ Her belly was no more than slightly rounded yet, but still she laid a hand on it protectively. ‘I could not bear to lose a child. In truth, I know not how the Empress Catherine has endured it.’

Nor did Anna. Of the dozen or so children that the Empress and the late Tsar had been blessed with, only three had lived above their first few years, if that long. And of those three, there were but two remaining, now that young Princess Natalya, only seven years of age, had sickened following the Tsar’s death and succumbed, and had been buried with her father. It had not been the Tsar’s coffin, with its host of sad attendants, that had tugged at Anna’s heart when she had stood upon the river’s ice and watched the long procession of the funeral passing by, but the much smaller coffin following behind it, for she’d known well that a mother’s hopes lay buried there.

Small wonder Empress Catherine had retreated from her social ways, and kept herself apart from those who earlier had freely gained her company.

‘The Empress is a very special woman,’ Anna said, in full agreement. And remembering what Colonel Graeme had once said about the sons he’d lost, she added, ‘I do pray she’ll find some consolation in the princesses yet living.’

Mrs Lacy gently said, ‘A living child may be a consolation, to be sure, but it cannot replace the child that was lost.’

Anna wondered if her mother thought the same, in her home far across the sea with her new husband, her new children. With her head bent she replied, ‘I have no children, so I cannot know.’

‘You will have children one day,’ Mrs Lacy said, and as though that reminded her of something she continued, ‘Mr Taylor of the English Factory greeted us this morning in the street. He is a nice young man.’