The Tsarina’s Favorite

Chapter 1

I.

I should have been afforded a change of clothing and some small allowance of hygiene before being presented to the empress.

How kindly could she possibly look upon me if I did not offer her the version of me she preferred?

The bedraggled, sleep-deprived, filthy cell-resident ill-fitted with the standard she demanded of court.

Maybe, however, my pathetic state might inspire sympathy and mercy.

Sympathy and mercy for what transgression, I had no idea, but the charge little mattered when the tsarina could perceive anything as a slight.

The other nobility avoided me and my guards as we paraded through the halls.

I purposely avoided gazing into any of the mirrors that lined the walls, certain that I did not wish to see any reflection of mine in this sorry state.

Maybe a good clean would be my last request, if indeed whatever my transgression was merited a last request. Surely, the empress couldn’t deny me that?

When we entered the long hall of the audience chamber, my escorts paused with me.

No one paid mind to our little group. Advisors and attendants swarmed around the tsarina at the far end of the hall.

Courtiers occupied the edges of the cluster, creating a less dense but no less intent layer of devotees.

Smaller groups in smaller clusters dispersed beyond that layer.

Alexei slipped out from his group when he saw me, careful not to draw the attention of the others. His urgent stride carried him over to us in less than ten paces, his robes flying behind him in a style more dramatic than he likely wished while trying to be covert.

“Mikhail,” he whispered, his panic evident despite the lowered tone, “I thought you were in Varnasia. You look a mess!”

No one would have known that my cravat had once been of the finest Jeanvian white lace, tatted by the reclusive residents of the Great Holy fortress, Our Lady of Weeping.

No one would have guessed that my shirt had been composed of the finest Nypatian linen and hand-stitched by Varnasian master tailors.

The fabrics had browned by grime and body oil.

Fleas and lice would have found an admirable home in my current ensemble.

I denounced my brilliant blue coat as a lost cause with the gash in the shoulder from rough handling.

My shoes, scuffed beyond repair, might also get tossed into a fire when I finally procured another pair.

“My apologies for not changing into a new shirt before my arrival,” I shot back at my brother. “My company,” I directed my eyes askance to the guards, “couldn’t wait.”

Alexei turned his attention to the guards. “Is there a charge?”

The guard addressed only said, “The empress requested Prince Mikhail’s presence.”

“It’s not uncle this time,” Alexei said to me. “She had him executed while you were gone.”

“It could be anything.”

“Not anything serious,” he insisted. “She was likely in one of her moods.”

Her moods. About anyone else, I might have quibbled as we all had moods, but the tsarina had power to accompany them, and that boded ill for all.

A call from the other end of the chamber echoed around the room.

“Prince Mikhail!”

Everyone’s attention, not just mine, fixed all the harder upon the tsarina.

She rose from her throne, her satin skirts billowing out and shining like mirrors themselves.

She caught up one side with her left hand and descended the dais almost in a hurry.

The layers of assembled persons peeled away as she progressed through the crowd, the instinctive choreography of her subjects offering her an expansive corridor through the middle of the room.

Alexei retreated from my side.

“Mikhail!” The empress moved as if to embrace me and then stopped just a few steps in front of me, thinking better of it. “What a state you are in!”

“The laundering services are sorely lacking in prison, Your Majesty.”

She laughed and held out her hand for me to kiss.

I stepped forward, took her hand, and bowed, kissing the back of it as silently instructed to do.

“I should have thought to get you a change of clothing. Still, I shall see to it forthwith.” She waved off my guards, glanced over her shoulder, and addressed the crowd. “I shall return.”

She began walking out the doorway through which I had just arrived and beckoned me to join her. I glanced at Alexei, and he glanced at me, both sets of our brows lifting in apprehension. Still, I followed, and she grabbed my arm once we were out of the main audience chamber.

“You have been gone forever,” she chided me.

“Five years only.”

“That’s forever,” she insisted. “So much has happened.”

“I heard about your nephew passing. I’m so very sorry.”

“I’m stuck with his wife, though.”

“She’s Altanian. Send her home.”

“That’s what she wants,” the tsarina grumbled. “But I wasn’t allowed to go home when my husband died. I refuse to let her either.”

I refrained from offering any additional ideas, and the tsarina continued so that I would not have to devise any additional topic of conversation.

“There were riots not long ago,” she continued.

“I don’t understand why. We’re winning our campaign in the south.

The Ilyichians should be happy, and yet, I fear, they are only happy when they are miserable.

I have had to suppress so many demonstrations and issue countless executions.

Thank The Kind and Fair that the empire is so vast, or I might run out of subjects! ”

I could not speak to her direct experience, but if being a sovereign meant taking such human suffering in stride and becoming callous to it, I would never have made a good one. Even when in the military, I had not savored issuing punishments for the transgressions of my men.

“We had several more sightings of the firebird,” she added when I did not comment on the state of the country. “Do you remember when I wanted the white jackdaw? I thought that was something special. Can you imagine what a coup having a firebird would be?”

“You have everything now, ma’am,” I said, gesturing to the palace. “If you caught the firebird, what wish would you have it grant?”

“I would ensure that you never parted from me again,” she teased. “But you won’t, will you? Of course, you won’t. You’re back now.”

Anything safe I could say would have been a lie, so I kept silent.

“And, in other good news,” she continued, “my engineers finished the designs for my ice palace so I can make a marvelous tribute to The Kind and Fair this winter. The Royal Academy of Science even requested to use it to study the weather, which, of course, I’ll allow.

Every region of the empire will send representatives dressed in their traditional clothing to form a procession unlike any other seen before in the city.

The ice palace will have everything made of ice, down to the furniture!

Even with tufted upholstery and blankets.

We have hundreds of sculptors lined up for the project. ”

The expenditure, the frivolity, the pointlessness of such an endeavor struck me as an affront to the people of the city who already despised the nobility as unconcerned with their plight.

Festivities would be a distraction, but only for a short duration.

Their hunger and discontent would still be there when the festivities ended.

I settled on, “That sounds like a lot of planning.”

“Almost the entire time you’ve been gone. You spent all that time in Varnasia?”

“I went to Alfinia first, Talvia, Allemandia, then south.”

“And you forgot all about me.”

She directed us towards doors that led out to a courtyard and garden, the fountains bubbling, the birds singing, several people walking the gardens, laughing together over a shared joke.

Even in the fading spring, the Ilyichian chill crept into my bones.

“Never, ma’am,” I assured her. Nightmares refused to let me forget her.

“I had to arrest you to ensure your return to me.”

“I would have returned if I had but a little more time,” I lied.

“I have had to satisfy myself with my Allemandian in your absence.” She pushed a long dark ringlet strand behind her shoulder. “Long-standing though he is, he isn’t you.”

“I had obligations, ma’am.”

“Mmmm.” Her tone soured. “I heard you married again. A Varnasian wife.”

“Yes.”

“A Varnasian wife who worshipped the Great Holy.”

“Yes.”

She fell into silence, her quiet a dangerous calm that heralded a pending disaster.

We strolled through the garden, the other courtiers sliding glances at me. She noticed and nodded her head at them when they dipped into curtsies.

“It seems no one has seen the beautiful and elegant Prince Mikhail so disheveled before,” she said after we passed them.

The tsarina stopped us in our walk as soon as there was enough distance between us and the other strollers and turned her face up to me, her mouth tightening, her brows drawing together.

“Mikhail, I have been very angry at you in your absence. You broke many a lady’s heart when they heard of your marriage. ”

Could the tsarina be speaking about herself?

“I only intended on doing the honorable thing,” I assured her, “not wound anyone. It’s been eight years since Marfa passed. I need heirs.”

She raised her hand and placed it on my face, brushing my cheek with her thumb.

Although not an old woman, she wore her age poorly, the creases of displeasure and dissatisfaction deeper than I recalled, the creases around her mouth betraying a lifetime of scowling even if she currently schooled her face into something attempting pleasant.

“I have missed you so,” she admitted. “My Allemandian’s skills pale in comparison to yours.”

“Skill can be acquired.”

“But he can’t acquire your humor or your bite.”

“Give me but a few days and I can show you a dozen witty, elegant men in your court.”

“They won't have your beauty.”

“It is fading.”

“Good thing I still want you even without it.”

I shivered.