CHAPTER TEN The Winter Palace
Ivan had called it “a diamond in the snow,” which had made Sophie think of vast frost-white rooms, glittering and cold.
But what they stepped into was a palace of shadows, of twilight, everything cobweb-colored.
The hard, freezing air of the park outside had been replaced by the smell of dust and time-shredded fabrics, as if no doors or windows had been opened for decades.
They stood in an atrium flanked by tall gilt mirrors, the glass spotted with pools of black, and chairs covered in dust sheets.
Candles, almost burned down to the wicks, flickered from drunkenly arranged sconces on the walls.
A grand staircase twisted up and up, into the shadows, winding around a chandelier as large as a boat.
Sophie could just see it underneath a cloud of ripped and frayed muslin.
It didn’t look like a “palace of dreams,” either. Perhaps this was the real reason it would not appear in any guidebook. Who would make the journey to come here? It was so dilapidated.
Sophie saw Delphine’s face settle into a sulky frown. This clearly wasn’t the sort of grand country house she was used to visiting. But Sophie didn’t care that the building looked half forgotten. To her, that made it more precious, like finding something that no one else much cared for.
“I thought Dr. Starova said we were going to a dacha,” Marianne muttered.
“And I thought Ivan said the Volkonskys had a fortune,” whispered Delphine.
Ivan seemed to sense their unease. He stamped the snow off his boots rather too enthusiastically. “Make some noise!” he shouted, his voice echoing around them. “No Russian likes to leave snow on their shoes!”
Obediently, the girls kicked the snow from the toes of their valenki.
“Apart from a few servants,” Ivan spoke gravely, looking at Delphine, “the palace has been empty and locked up for nearly a century.”
A draft sidled up to them then, as if the palace were sighing, and the candles quivered, throwing extraordinary shadows that looked like prancing animals. Some larger movement caught Sophie’s eye at the top of the staircase, but when she peered up she saw nothing.
“Why did the Volkonskys leave?” she asked.
“The revolution,” said Ivan simply, as if that were explanation enough. “One dreadful night in 1917 destroyed the family forever.”
“That was when Russia got rid of the Tsar,” Marianne said, seeing Delphine’s incomprehension. “It caused the downfall of the Russian Empire and led to civil war and the birth of the Soviet Union.”
“How do you know?” Delphine looked suspicious. “We haven’t studied that in history.”
“I read the guidebook,” Marianne said. “It’s important to know about the country you’re visiting.”
“Those are the facts,” Ivan said. “But they hardly describe the reality.” He sighed.
“When I first arrived here, shortly after the princess had taken up residence, I was heartbroken that such a gem, such a jewel, had been so badly treated.” He shook his head.
“Any true Russian would feel a deep and heavy sadness when they walked along corridors that had once echoed with music, parties, and happy family life.” Then he smiled.
“But the Princess Anna Feodorovna Volkonskaya has sworn to change the fortunes of the palace or die!”
He smiled awkwardly as the girls looked at each other. “The princess decided you would be most comfortable in the old nursery. It is a part of the palace where the heating still works.”
They followed Ivan up the staircase. “Please,” he said quietly as they climbed past a section of the balustrade that had fallen away, “watch your step. The soldiers ruined so much the night they hunted down Vladimir, the last Volkonsky prince.”
“What do you mean?” Sophie whispered.
“Twenty revolutionaries on horseback broke into the palace, intent on murdering the young prince. He knew they would come, of course: Such acts of violence had happened across even this remote province. But Prince Vladimir did not meet his would-be murderers with prayers. He strolled down the stairs in the uniform of the Imperial Hussars, a decanter of vodka in his hand. When told he was an enemy of the people, he spat on the boots of the commanding officer. And then he said that he would be happy to speak to them, but only with his family around him. He ran up this very staircase, and they chased him on horseback. Can you imagine what it must have felt like to have twenty horsemen gallop up these steps after you?”
Sophie turned and looked down the broad stone stairs. She would never have been able to run up them fast enough to escape twenty horsemen. “But why did he do that?” She suddenly wanted to know why the young man had behaved in such a foolhardy manner. “Why didn’t he hide? Or try to escape?”
“A good question, young Sophie,” Ivan replied. “And one that shows a finer understanding of the prince than that of those who pursued him. For why would he — the bravest man in the Tsar’s army — run away?”
They had reached the top of the stairs. Ivan turned to them.
His eyes shone in the candlelight. Ahead of them was a wide corridor, which the stubs of candles in the few sconces barely illuminated.
“The prince ran down this corridor to the gallery, where there is a painting of almost every Volkonsky that ever lived.” Ivan sighed. “There he waited for the horsemen.”
Sophie stared down the corridor. In the distance she could see a pair of double doors, lyres painted on the panels, and the same fierce creature she had seen painted on the door of the train.
The pairing of those small harps and the snarling wolves seemed odd, as if someone expected the wolves to sing.
She could almost hear the snorting of the horses, their hooves on the stone, the yells of the men.
“He must have been so afraid,” she whispered. “What happened then?” She simply had to know.
“Without ceremony or respect for his rank, observed only by the family portraits,” Ivan said, “they shot him.”
Sophie gasped. She felt almost sick.
“That’s dreadful,” said Delphine solemnly.
“They said that, as the soldiers raised their rifles,” Ivan continued, “the prince offered them all a cigarette and laughed.”
“He doesn’t sound very clever,” Marianne said.
“Not clever?” Ivan looked insulted. “He was the most passionate, intelligent man! A poet. A musician. A mathematician. And that was why he could laugh when confronted with those rifles. Because in those last few moments,” Ivan said, “the prince knew he had not died in vain: He had given his young wife and child time to escape into the forest.”
“So he did it to help them?” Sophie said. “But it’s still awful. Because the princess must have left the palace knowing that he would die, that she would never see him again.”
And as she said these words, she thought again of a figure walking through a frozen forest. But was it a dream, or a memory of her father’s story? The more she tried to fix it in her mind, the less solid it seemed, dissolving just as her vision of the palace had done.
“Not awful!” Ivan replied. “Noble!”
He stopped in front of a pair of carved doors, the panels warped and peppered with small holes.
There were painted cartouches of young girls in togas carrying flutes.
The handle was a brass animal’s paw. Ivan reached into his pocket and brought out another key, much smaller than the one to the front door.
It was dark and rusty and wouldn’t, at first, fit into the lock.
Muttering under his breath, Ivan freed the mechanism and the doors swung apart.
“It is not the largest bedroom in the palace, but I trust you will be comfortable.”
The room might once have been grand, but like the rest of the palace it seemed to have been locked up and forgotten about for years.
On each of the three narrow metal beds, made up with fur rugs and clean, fat-looking pillows, were a pile of clothes and a piece of white paper with a name on it.
Sophie could see that the writer had used the English alphabet, but the hand was unmistakably foreign, with loops and curlicues.
Her bed was next to the window, just as it was at school.
Between the beds were small bedside tables.
A few chairs stood awkwardly in the empty space, and leaning against a wall was a long plain mirror, cracked down one side.
Seeing Delphine frown at the clothes, Ivan explained. “I will bring your luggage this afternoon, Miss Delphine. However, the contents of your cases will not be needed immediately. The princess loves her guests to dress up. I know you will want to please her.” He bowed. “I will return shortly.”
Delphine waited until Ivan had closed the door before saying, “I can’t meet the princess if I haven’t got my clothes! I just can’t.”
Marianne pulled off her sealskin gloves. She stared at her hands as if they were entirely new to her, and sank down onto a bed. It creaked as the rusty metal gave under her weight.
“We’ll need to help each other change,” Sophie said, taking Marianne’s name off her pile. “Ivan got us into these coats and he’s not here to help us get out of them!”
Delphine scrunched the piece of paper with her name on it into a ball, then stroked the rich fabric thoughtfully. “These clothes are very old,” she said. “I wonder who they belonged to? Do you think it was one of the Volkonsky princesses?”
What if it was the last Volkonsky princess? Sophie thought. The young woman who had left the palace with her child on the night that had shattered the history of this family?
She unfolded a heavy, wine-colored tunic, covered in embroidery, from the pile of clothes on Marianne’s bed.
Delphine traced the intricate patterns with her finger. “I’ve never seen stitches so small,” she said. “Come on, Marianne — let’s see how it looks.”
The two girls wrapped Marianne in the long tunic and slipped her stiff feet into pointed shoes.
“It’s called a sarafan,” Marianne said.