The Firebird (47 page)

She’d told them one thing true: her convent days at Ypres were long ago and past, but still she felt the bars. She felt them even here, today, more strongly in the yard, where she could see the sun and breathe the open air yet on all sides was caught by walls that she could not escape, and whose deep shadows ever chased her heels.

It seemed that for her sins, the penance God had chosen for her was the bitter curse of memory, and that, too, created bars that she could not escape. She saw her uncle’s face through them, the face that might have been like her own father’s, and she heard his voice demanding of the nun, ‘Whose child is this?’

They had done better, Anna thought, to tell him she was no one’s child.

The tears spilt over once again. She turned her steps towards the shed, to seek at least the sympathetic company of one who knew the feeling of captivity, but when she reached the cage she found it empty with the wire door swung open on its hinges, all abandoned.

She was not completely sure when she first noticed she was no longer alone, but she was well aware of it for several moments, and of who it was that stood behind her, before Edmund spoke.

‘I must apologise,’ he said, and she could not recall when she had heard him say those words as he did now, without an edge of mockery, but perfectly sincere. ‘I did not know that you had not … I did not know it was a secret.’ He was standing not three steps behind her, speaking very quietly, so none could overhear them from the house. ‘I must confess,’ he added, ‘that the very fact you
did
tell me convinced me it was not a secret, for I hardly guessed you’d hold me in your confidence. Believe me, had I known it to be otherwise, I never would have mentioned it.’

She drew a slightly shaky breath, and steadied it, and asked, without forgiving him, ‘What happened to the bird?’

‘Her leg had healed, so I released her.’

‘Did you never tell the children?’

‘They had lost all interest. Truly, they’d forgotten she was here.’

‘But you had not.’

‘’Tis not a thing I’m likely to forget.’

She thought on this a silent moment. Then she said, ‘I’m glad she flew away.’

‘Aye, so am I. Some things weren’t meant to live in cages.’ He paused, too, then said, ‘I’m truly sorry, Anna, that I so betrayed your confidence. I promise it will not be done again.’

She did turn, then, and faced him. ‘No,’ she said. ‘No, it will not. I should never …’ Her voice, against all her best efforts, still broke on the words that were more about what she had done in the past and could never undo. ‘I should never have spoken.’

Edmund’s gaze searched her pale face. ‘This cannot be entirely my fault. You were upset by something long before I made my comment.’

She had wiped away the wetness from her eyes, and yet she knew she could not make them clear of shadows, so she told him with faint stubbornness, ‘I have a headache.’

‘Do you? Well, I have a cure for that,’ he said. ‘I’m sent to Vasilievsky Island, on an errand for the general. Will you come with me?’

She looked at him, to see if he were serious or teasing her. ‘Why should I?’

Edmund shrugged. ‘Because I’m sorry and you know it and you wish to show forgiveness. Or you’re sorry in your turn that I have none else who can bide me, and you wish to show me charity. Or maybe, Mistress Jamieson,’ he said, ‘because you need to.’

She’d have sworn that, when he looked at her like that, he saw her inner self stripped bare of its disguises and defences. Yet she did not know if he were speaking of her nature or his own, when he remarked a second time, with force, ‘Some things weren’t meant to live in cages.’

All she knew was, when he held his hand to her, she took it willingly, and went with him.

Rob grinned. ‘A sneaky way of getting ice cream for your breakfast.’

‘Well, he did say that his errand was on Vasilievsky Island, and we could hardly have just followed them across. There were no bridges, in those days. They’d have to cross by barge.’ With that justification, I leant happily against the waist-high granite wall that ran along the Strelka, and looked out across the Neva to the Hermitage, its windows brightly glittering with morning sunlight.

Clouds were hanging low off to the west, above the distant Gulf of Finland, past the far edge of the island, but the day so far was starting fair, and warmer by a few degrees than yesterday. I didn’t need my jacket.

Rob, his own ice cream in hand, and looking more awake than I was, leant beside me. ‘There’s your mobile,’ was his warning in the instant before it began to ring.

I told him, ‘Show off,’ and the crinkles showed a moment at the corners of his eyes as I took the call.

When I rang off, Rob had finished his ice cream.

I said, ‘That was Yuri. They’re hanging the rest of the paintings this morning, but Wendy Van Hoek won’t be there until three, so I’ll meet with him then.’

‘At the Menshikov Palace?’ he asked. ‘Which is where?’

‘Just down there.’

‘On this island?’

I nodded, and Rob said, ‘Well, that gives us plenty of time.’ In a casual voice, he remarked, ‘You’ve had no calls at all from your boss, in a while.’

‘No.’ I’d noticed that, too.

‘Does he ken that I’m with you?’

‘Of course not.’ I said that a little too quickly, then kicked myself, trying to make it sound less rude by adding, ‘Sebastian and I don’t share details about our own personal lives, as a rule.’

Rob accepted this with a brief nod. ‘Well, I guess he can manage without you, when he puts his mind to it.’

I tried to
not
try to read deeper meaning in that, nor to wonder if he spoke from his own experience. I only shrugged and said something about the new receptionist suiting Sebastian, and how we were none of us so irreplaceable.

‘Speak for yourself,’ Rob said lightly. ‘I’m one of a kind. You’ll find no other man who would work all these hours for so little food.’

I’d find no other man like him ever, I thought. Full stop.

‘Nick?’ He was watching my face. ‘Are you ready?’

It took me three seconds to realise that he was just asking me if I were ready to try to find Anna. I nodded, and turned so he’d not see me blush like an idiot.

Only a few steps behind where we stood there were white benches ringing the Strelka, beneath the clipped line of the trees, and we chose the one second along the curved path, with a lamppost beside it and little inquisitive sparrows that scattered around our feet when we sat down.

‘D’ye want to give this one a go?’ Rob asked.

I shook my head. ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘All new gravel and ground, all young trees … I’ve got nothing to touch.’

‘Have ye not?’ he replied. And then made me a liar by laying his arm on the back of the bench so it settled in warmth on my shoulders.

I had searched out the paintings and sketches and coloured engravings last night, in my grandfather’s book, that showed how different places had looked in St Petersburg in the first quarter of the eighteenth century, so I already expected to see the great Custom House, and the long warehouses, guarded by soldiers, that stood all along the exchange, where the merchants all met to do business each day. The exchange looked a lot like a very long, very wide promenade built all of wood, that extended out over the edge of the land so it served as a broad landing stage for the smaller ships moored all along it, their masts bobbing gently in time with the current, all waiting to take on new cargo or discharge the ones they had carried upriver.

Anna stepped carefully onto the wooden stairs set at the waterline, lifting the hem of her petticoat clear of the river as Edmund, who’d climbed up first out of the boat, bent to help her, his hand strongly holding her own.

‘I am not like to fall,’ she assured him. ‘I’ve spent half my life getting on and off ships and small boats.’

‘’Tis your blood,’ Edmund said, ‘same as mine.’

Anna let go his hand as she stepped to his level, and smoothing her skirts asked him, ‘What do you mean, sir?’

‘You Scots and we Irish, and even the English, we’re islanders all.’ Edmund looked to the river, alive with its traffic, and narrowed his eyes to the sun. ‘We’re surrounded by seas and we’d seek to know what lies beyond them, and where those wide waters might carry us.’

Anna could not but agree with him, for from her earliest memories she’d looked to the sea and the distant horizon. She never had outgrown the thrill of sailing the half-day downriver with Vice Admiral Gordon to the naval port of Cronstadt, where the great ships of the Russian fleet all jostled at their anchors, and the Gulf of Finland stretched away towards the larger Baltic Sea. She’d always loved the sound of creaking timbers and of sails that snapped and fluttered as they rose and filled with wind; the ropes that strained and stretched as though the whole ship were a living thing impatient to be free upon the waves.

She looked at Edmund now, his face still turned into the wind, and wondered if he felt the same. ‘And where would you be carried, if you had a ship that you could steer?’ she asked.

He answered without hesitation. ‘Home,’ he said. ‘To Ireland.’

And then, as if he felt that showed a weakness, he looked down at her and found his old sardonic smile. ‘But I cannot attempt it. I’d be hanged before I left the beach, or else transported off to the Americas, for having served King James. I have heard tell the Prince of Hanover, whom some would call King George, is not forgiving of the men who chose the Stewart cause, so I shall have to see our own King back upon the throne before I ever see my home again.’

She said, ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Why should you be like to pity me?’ he asked. ‘You are as homeless as myself, and have no true kin I can see to give you comfort.’

Anna bristled at his bluntness. ‘Aye, I have a home. And family, though they may not be my own by blood.’

‘I did not mean—’

‘There is a strength, Mr O’Connor, in a family that is chosen, and not merely thrust upon us. From my birth I’ve lived with others not my kin, but not by sufferance, by their choice and invitation, while Vice Admiral Gordon’s late wife’s daughter, Jane, had family who were hers by blood and high of rank, yet were most cruel to her, and treated her with nothing but neglect, and it was not their arms that held her when she breathed her last. Vice Admiral Gordon,’ Anna said, ‘would do the same for me as he did do for Jane, and well I know it, so you will forgive me, sir, if I do not agree that I’ve no family.’

Edmund stood beneath her speech with all the dutiful attention of a schoolboy being lectured, but his eyes took a keen interest in her features, and when she had finished speaking, his reply was only, ‘Do you know, that when you’re in a temper, your Scotch accent grows more strong?’

She gave a feeling sigh. ‘I should have stayed at General Lacy’s house.’

‘But then you would have missed the peaceful pleasure of my company.’ The brown eyes danced. ‘And look, here comes good Mr Taylor. Surely, you’d not wish to miss the chance to speak to him?’

Anna sighed again, and turned, and greeted Mr Taylor with a curtsey while he bowed, but he seemed in a hurry and in no mood to converse. He asked her, ‘Is Sir Harry still with General Lacy?’

Anna told him, ‘He was there when I did leave, not half an hour ago.’

‘Good. Is this your boat? May I engage it? I have news to give Sir Harry, and it cannot be delayed.’

With interest, Edmund asked him, ‘Is it news of Captain Deane?’

The Scotsman turned to look at him. ‘It is, aye. Do you know of Captain Deane, then?’

Anna said, ‘He was a topic of discussion over dinner.’

Mr Taylor told them, low, ‘I’ve just had word that he’s expected into Cronstadt on the day after tomorrow, so Vice Admiral Gordon will be wanting to sail there himself, I should expect, so that he can delay Deane if he’s able to.’

‘The vice admiral,’ Anna said, ‘was also dining at the general’s house, and was there still when we did come away.’

‘Then you’ll excuse me,’ Mr Taylor said, and gave a hasty bow to them, ‘I will away myself, and pass the message.’

Edmund watched the boat depart, then turned and gave his arm to Anna. ‘He’s a good man, Mr Taylor.’

‘Yes, he is.’

‘And Scottish, like yourself.’

‘He is.’

‘And I daresay that he does hop and bound, when he does dance the minuet.’

Her mouth curved, though she turned her head so that he would not see it. ‘Yes, all gentlemen of quality,’ she said, ‘do hop and bound, sir.’

‘So I’m told.’

They crossed the broad exchange, and left the timber walkway for the hard-packed ground of the great square that stretched between the line of warehouses on one side, and the longer line of Colleges that faced it to the west, where General Lacy came each day to work, as did the other great men of the city.

There were soldiers here as well, some standing guard while others strode amongst the throngs of people and the carriages and wagons. Anna looked at Edmund. ‘Where must we go now, to do your errand?’

‘Mr Trescott’s tavern.’

Anna stopped. ‘You’re never serious.’

‘It is all right.’ He urged her on. ‘We are not going in.’

The tavern stood, a low and wooden building, at the edge of all that was respectable. The smells of stale tobacco and spilt wine and drunken men came wafting outward through the door each time it opened, and the men who spilt out also looked unsteady on their feet.

Anna did not mind their looks – they were as likely to be clerks and writers from the Colleges as seamen from the wharves – but it was not the sort of place she cared to stand alone, so she was reassured when, having looked but once at Edmund, all the men in the vicinity retreated by a pace or two.

He smiled at her, and said again, ‘We are not going in.’ And with a coin he paid the nearest man to vanish through the door and re-emerge with Mr Trescott in his wake.

The owner of the tavern was a pleasant man, an Englishman, with traces of the West Country still clinging to his speech. His head did not quite reach to Edmund’s shoulder though his arms were thick with muscle and, in his own day, he’d earned a fearsome reputation as a fighter. ‘Now then, Mr O’Connor, and Mistress …’ He had forgot her name, she knew, though likely he remembered her attachment to Vice Admiral Gordon, for he was acquainted with the best part of the naval men. ‘In what way can I serve you?’