Chapter 2 #2
“Boy,” a sharp voice cut through his thoughts and rapidly brought him back to the present. The cloying incense of the palace stung his nose.
A priest stood at the end of the hall, his long robes trailing behind him, his kamilavka crooked. Mikhail nodded in greeting, having learned long ago never to speak back when addressed.
“Follow me,” the man’s voice was slurred with liquor. He waved two fingers in a beckoning motion before retreating down the hall.
Heat gathered in Mikhail’s hands as he wished for the opportunity to punch the drunken man in the mouth. Often, the only thing that stopped him was the premise that his mother would likely get fired, too, and he’d hang beside her.
Mikhail hesitated. Any number of things could be waiting for him.
His curiosity won out, and he picked up his steps, following the man down the hall before the intoxicated steward pushed a tapestry back from a wall and revealed a hidden door.
There were innumerable hidden passageways, doors, and chambers in the Winter Palace. Nearly everyone at court was staging a coup or a religious uprising of some sort, and they needed the space to do it in. Mikhail had never been privy to any of these meetings.
His fists loosened, and his heart started to hammer in his chest. The man ducked inside without a second thought and disappeared down a winding set of stairs.
There were candelabras on the walls, but only a few of the candles were lit, leaving Mikhail to make his way after the priest in relative darkness.
Soon, he could hear the raucous sounds of others, the last thing that he expected to hear in this nearly inhospitable passage.
A sudden bright light nearly blinded him as the priest opened a door in front of them, revealing a rather unholy tableau.
If the scene in front of Mikhail were found in the Bible, it would depict Sodom. A handful of other men were in the room, cramped around a small table where they seemed to be playing baccarat, even though it had been outlawed.
Three of the men were dressed in various orders of religious dress, and two were wearing the trappings of dvoryansvo.
The entire room smelled like stale liquor and sweat; it took Mikhail only a few seconds to take stock of the empty vodka bottles littering the floor like tiles. It was yet another disgusting example of wealth in the most forlorn of places.
He spied several oil paintings as large as a man stacked up against the walls and a discarded marble bust in one corner as if the tsarina had decided that one wasn’t up to par. Statues were lining the other side of the room, the marble itself valuable enough to feed an entire village.
The men were yelling and laughing at one another at a volume that could only be explained by intoxication, and it took Mikhail a few seconds to realize there were women in the room.
Two servant women, both of whom he knew by sight, were perched on the lap of a priest and another lord. He could see their disgusted expressions every time the men leaned over the baccarat table and inevitably touched it with their sweaty hands.
He was about to intervene and pull the servant women out of the room when the other priest’s booming voice cut through his thoughts.
“Who is this now?” He slurred between cackles, his reddened cheeks betraying the constitution of a very unhealthy man, who was very, very drunk. The priest who had summoned Mikhail took his seat at the table and laughed.
“Someone strong enough to move some of those paintings for us. I’ll send the second one to Ksenia as a present.”
Mikhail saw red. These were men of the cloth who wreaked havoc on Russia — drinking, bingeing, gambling, and pulling him into their den to haul paintings as presents for their mistresses.
“Now listen—” Mikhail started, getting ready to grab the servant girls and leave, before he was interrupted by the third priest, who had remained silent up until this point.
“He is strong,” the priest chortled, his voice sounding like oil and his face greasy to match. “Are you sure we can’t find a better use for him?”
The priest’s hand dropped below the table suggestively, and Mikhail felt his blood run cold at the insinuation. The men in the room all burst into laughter as if this were a very ordinary suggestion.
Without thinking, Mikhail grabbed the wrists of both girls and, as gently as possible, pushed them towards the door. The men yelled in protest as the women fled up the stairs quickly, Mikhail blocking the door.
“You insolent little prick,” one of the lords sputtered, pieces of pork stuck in his beard.
“Those were the tsarina’s maids,” Mikhail lied on the spot, “and she is particularly picky about her cabinet. I have a hard time believing she’d accept you,” he nodded at the scene set out before him, “…pulling them from their duties.”
Mikhail watched as the drunks immediately began nodding, accepting the lies before sitting back down and resuming their game as if nothing had happened.
Mikhail turned to leave, bile rising in his chest when the original priest stopped him.
“I’d still like that painting brought upstairs,” he snapped his fingers. “Take it to the carriage house and have it dispatched to my home.”
Mikhail's fists curled. He imagined striking a match and dipping it into their bottles of vodka. He could already hear their screams, but stopped himself when he saw his mother’s face in his mind. They would all burn. But not today.
“Of course, sir.”