CHAPTER THIRTEEN The Frozen Lake
“Geiiiiiiiiiii!”
Ivan had the whip. Princess Volkonskaya tore the reins from his hands, laughing, and let the horse have his head.
The furious snort of Viflyanka, the jangle of the bells, corresponded to the lurch of the vozok on the snow.
The girls hung on to each other, their shawls tied tight around their faces.
Sophie felt invigorated by the crisp, freezing air and being driven at such speed through the tremulous half-light, though she had reasoned it must be mid-morning by now.
The windows of the palace slipped by, and Sophie turned her face upward to the light, snowflakes spiraling down onto her face and the bearskin that covered the girls.
They had been woken by the princess herself, already dressed in a long coat, a white mink turban on her head.
They had breakfasted on spiced apples, the princess telling them to hurry, and before they could finish, she had led them through corridors, tying lace, rather than a shawl, across her face against the cold.
As Ivan had opened the wide front door to the morning twilight, the snow sparkled and the wind sighed. Sophie had thought about the wolf she had seen the night before. Should she say something? Surely, if there was a wolf in the woods, they would need to know?
Then why didn’t she say something? Why did she want to keep the knowledge to herself?
This morning, she told herself, she couldn’t be sure what she had seen.
Had there really been a white wolf, or was it just her imagination?
Had she been affected by the romance and savagery of the palace’s history, the mesmerizing presence of Princess Anna Feodorovna?
What was it about her? Sophie wondered as she watched the woman climb into the driver’s seat.
Why did the princess affect her in such a way?
She wanted to be always in her company, felt bereft when the princess wasn’t looking at her, yet almost frightened by that penetrating gray gaze.
“Stop staring,” Delphine had whispered as they were called forward to climb into the back of the vozok. “The princess will think you’re being rude.”
The vozok lurched around the corner of the palace now, and Delphine and Marianne squealed in alarm.
Viflyanka headed for the woods, charging past the stables set behind high, ornate railings.
Sophie glimpsed the dilapidated buildings where Viflyanka must sleep.
She thought of the boy, Dmitri, and as if she had conjured him out of the air with her thoughts, he walked across the deep snow, an ax in one hand, a large metal bucket in the other.
Yes! It was the boy! Dmitri! They raced past, and he looked up at the sound of the bells and Ivan’s cries of encouragement to the fast-moving horse. His face was alight with curiosity.
Sophie wanted to wave and laugh and tell him they’d be back soon, that they were going skating with the princess, and she didn’t care that she wasn’t supposed to talk to him …
But she didn’t dare, even though the princess was looking straight ahead, intent on making Viflyanka charge even faster toward the forest. Sophie remembered the look on her face when she had called the boy a dirty domovoi.
Dmitri stood quite still, watching them. He had a kind expression, Sophie thought. Like the best sort of older brother.
“That’s the boy from yesterday,” she said to Marianne.
“What’s he doing with an ax?” At least, that was what Sophie thought she had said. It was hard to hear above the bells and with shawls across their faces and ears.
She watched him take something out from the bucket.
It was wrapped in burlap. Then he stood back, and raised the ax with a loose, practiced swing.
She thought he must be chopping wood. But when he brought the ax down, she saw it was not wood at all, but the limb of a dead animal.
She turned her face away, horrified, just as the vozok lurched to one side.
Ivan put his hand on the princess’s arm as if to restrain her.
She shook it off. “Leave me alone, Ivan!” she cried. “I drive this vozok better than you!”
The girls looked at each other.
“How can she think that?” Marianne said in a low voice.
“It doesn’t matter what she thinks,” Delphine replied. “She’s a princess. She can do what she likes.”
“No one can do what they like all the time,” Sophie said.
“Maybe you can if you own all this.” Delphine looked at the forest looming ahead of them. She pulled down her shawl and leaned forward to speak to the princess. Her nose was already pink with cold. “How large is the estate?”
The princess, reining Viflyanka in to a brisk trot as they entered the woods, shrugged. “It goes on for many miles,” she called back. “No one really knows anymore.”
Sophie looked deep into the scarred trunks of the silver birches. Was this where the wolf had run to last night? Was he in there still, watching them?
“The Volkonskys came here to hunt.” The princess flicked the reins. “Wolves … and bears …”
“Wolves?” Sophie said. “But Ivan said —”
“Has Ivan been telling you stories about the Volkonsky wolves?” The princess didn’t sound amused.
“Princess, I —” Ivan began.
“The next story he will tell you” — she took a moment to wrestle with Viflyanka, who was sweating, waves of white foam on his neck — “is about the Volkonsky diamonds!”
“Diamonds?” Delphine looked interested. “There are diamonds?”
The princess was quiet for a moment, then said, “The Volkonskys owned a necklace of priceless diamonds — long enough to hang a man. It was given to the last princess by her adoring young husband on the occasion of their marriage.”
“Will you show it to us?” Delphine asked.
“Perhaps,” the princess said, looking at Sophie over her shoulder. “If I find it.”
Ahead was a clearing in the woods and what looked like a small circular temple with a frozen ornamental lake in front, surrounded by birch trees.
Smoke rose from the temple’s domed roof.
Sophie was struck once more, not only by the extravagant architecture tossed carelessly into a Russian forest, but by the thought that some long-forgotten Volkonsky had wanted such a building as a simple skating hut. It seemed romantic rather than foolish.
Ivan turned around, his beard rimed with frost. “You see?” he said. “I have had the stove lit. We will not freeze on our skating pond!”
The princess pulled Viflyanka to a halt. “He goes well, this little horse of yours, Ivan.”
“But you would do well not to let him have his head so much, Princess.” Ivan collected up the reins she had thrown carelessly to one side. “He is fast … but he is not steady. You should be more careful.”
“Careful? Did you hear that, girls?” The princess stood up. “Ivan wants me to be careful!” She jumped down into the snow, laughing, then held a hand up to Sophie. “Fetch the picnic, Ivan! We will soon be hungry.”
Sophie threw back the bearskin and took the princess’s hand to jump down. Ivan pulled a thick blanket over Viflyanka and unloaded wooden crates from the back of the vozok without saying anything.
The princess hurried the girls into the little temple.
Inside, the walls had been covered in tiny diamond-shaped mirrors.
A tiled stove in the corner gave off plenty of heat, and a large round table was already laid with a crisp white cloth.
It was as if the room itself were waiting for its guests, pleased to be used after years of neglect.
Delphine gasped. “It’s so pretty!”
“Like stepping inside a crystal,” Marianne said, stamping her feet on the floor to shake the snow from her boots.
“Another example of Volkonsky madness, you mean.” The princess was looking through a pile of ancient skates in a box; the blades were rusted, the leather cracked and dry.
“We must find you skates!” She seemed to be speaking more quickly than yesterday, as if the ride through the woods had excited her as much as Viflyanka.
Her eyes glittered like the gray diamonds on her fingers as she pulled off her sealskin gloves with her teeth.
“Here, Delphine” — she handed her a pair of skates by their tangled laces — “these should fit you.” Sophie watched the princess’s reflection refracted in the tiny mirrored panes as she started rummaging through the pile once more.
“Marianne? I think your feet are slightly smaller than Delphine’s.
” She picked up a battered pair of brown skating boots.
“You’ll need to put them on outside.” The two girls tramped outside into the snow.
“As for you …” She looked up at Sophie’s face, as if Sophie’s expression might tell her the size of her feet. “I think you can take these.” The skates were like little brown ankle boots with slim blades attached to the bottom. “They belonged to the last Princess Volkonskaya.”
“The one who escaped? With her child?”
“Who told you that? I thought you didn’t know anything about the Volkonskys.” The princess looked sharply at Sophie.
Sophie hesitated. Had she said something wrong? “I don’t, except what Ivan told us. How could I?”
She wondered why this should have upset the princess so much. Perhaps there were things in the Volkonsky family she didn’t want Sophie to know about. Things she might be embarrassed about. But how could that be? Everything to do with the Volkonskys was so fascinating, if sad.
“He seems very keen on telling you the Volkonsky history.” The woman tossed Sophie the skates. “When I think perhaps he should mind his own business! What about your family?”
“I don’t have a family,” Sophie said. “My father —”
“He died?” the princess cut in. “Do you remember anything about him?”
Sophie was taken aback. “Just strange things. Blurred pictures. Sometimes the sound of his voice.” She didn’t mention that she had heard it since she’d been here in Russia.