Part 5

But I was not heeding him; my ear had caught the clang of the outer door, the skurry of feet on the stairs, and the next moment Michaud opened the door, breathless, and before he could enter, one of the court chamberlains pushed in. A big man with a long grey beard and a portly front, swelling with his own importance, and in his long, gorgeously embroidered caftan and high cap, he looked like some Eastern eunuch. Maître le Bastien was inclined to treat him civilly enough, but he took a high tone.

“Your presence is required immediately at the palace, master goldsmith,” he said, in a deep tone, rolling out the sonorous Russ like a big bass drum; “my orders are not to return without your person.”

Le Bastien, ever cautious, looked startled and perplexed.

“By whose authority?” he asked, gravely polite.

The chamberlain stared, stupidly as an ox, blowing out his cheeks angrily.

“By the order of her serene highness the Czarevna Sophia Alexeievna,” he said, “and it behoves you to make haste, my master.”

“I have ever been ready to serve her highness,” said Maître le Bastien, in an aggrieved tone; “these peremptory orders are uncalled for, monsieur.”

A flash of intuition illumined the situation for me, and I determined not to desert him.

“I will accompany you,” I said to him, in French, “and carry the image yonder--as an excuse for my presence. It may be well to have a witness.”

His brow cleared and he thanked me hastily, the chamberlain scowling meanwhile, for he could not follow our French, and could only reiterate his orders to us to make haste. There seemed indeed no reasonable way to evade him, nor cause for it, for neither of us had done anything to merit the displeasure of the all-powerful princess, and therefore we prepared to accompany the portly old gentleman back to the Kremlin. But when we got to the door and found that he had a guard there of five or six of the Streltsi, we began to fear that we were under arrest, and said as much to each other in French, yet we could not anticipate any legitimate reason for it, and were forced to put as good a face on the matter as we could, trailing along in the chamberlain’s wake, with a file of savage-looking soldiers on either hand. True to my character of apprentice, I carried the little waxen image of our Lady of Kazan, and Maître le Bastien, being empty-handed, plucked nervously, first at his short velvet cloak and then at his lace cravat. I never saw the good man so distraught over what seemed, at most, a small matter. Meanwhile, our silent companions eyed us askance, as the Russian always eyes the foreigner, and finding little reason to converse, we fell silent, and there was only the tramp of our feet as we traversed the streets. In this quarter they were deserted, but once or twice a woman peeped cautiously out of an upper window at us, or a group of children skurried out of our way like so many rabbits. It was broad sunshine, and as we drew near the sacred picture of Saint Basil, on the wall, I saw the pigeons nestling and cooing on its canopy. There was a huge lamp, which burned perpetually, suspended before the shrine, under the protecting roof of the canopy, and the gaunt figure and dusky face of the saint looked grimly down upon us. Before it knelt a moujik, in a long sheepskin caftan, his legs bound up in cloths, and his feet in bast shoes; he was kneeling on the flint pavement praying, with the devout indifference to the world which is common to the Russian peasant. And as the chamberlain and his six tried friends drew near they also humbly saluted the sacred picture and passed it with bared heads, for these fellows were, like their humble countryman, very zealous in their religion, and held the Pope of Rome in as little reverence as did our brethren beyond the Loire.

Some excitement in the outskirts of the town had drawn off the people from the Kremlin, for when we crossed the Red Place it was nearly vacant, and only a crowd of dwarfs peeped at us as we ascended the Red Staircase and entered the palace. We left our six ruffians in the guard-room and, conducted by our fat friend, the chamberlain, we were led up the back stairs to a gallery of the _terem_, where we were left to wait, at a safe distance from the private apartments of the women. I remember to this day seeing a dark-eyed, curly-headed boy of nine, cross the gallery with an attendant and stop to stare at us with frank curiosity. A large child for his years, with a bold port and keen eye. It was the little Czar Peter, and it was said that he was ever eager to learn new lessons, and to see strangers. While we waited, neither Maître le Bastien nor I cared to talk, but once he turned to me.

“I fear that this concerns that trinket of yours,” he said very low, with an anxious eye.

“So I think,” I replied and smiled.

My life in Moscow had been flat, stale, and unprofitable, and the thought of danger was ever a sweet taste in my mouth.

The goldsmith looked troubled. He was a man whose life lay in pleasant places, and he could not contemplate the thought of intrigue and violence with my complacence. He shifted his position uneasily and fell to watching the door through which the fat man had vanished. Meanwhile I had deposited my wax model on a window ledge and, walking about the room, stopped to examine a painting that hung on the wall at one side. It was a picture of Saint Olga on a loose piece of canvas, and would scarcely have held my eye long if I had not noticed a curious flutter and movement to it, as if it was swayed by a current of air, and lifting the end I suddenly discovered that it concealed a narrow slit in the wall, un œil-de-boeuf, through which I could look down into the room below. Nor was the room vacant; one glance interested me so much that I silently signalled to Maître le Bastien to come, too, and behold my discovery. It was a good-sized apartment, and in the centre of it stood a woman, short, stout, singularly striking in appearance, and before her were grouped seven or eight fierce-looking soldiers of the guard, Streltsi; some knelt at her feet; all were eager and attentive, and she was addressing them, her voice rising and falling, with a thrill of eloquence, and her expression and gestures were as eloquent, though we could not hear what she said. I glanced a question at Le Bastien, and he nodded.

“Sophia is meddling with the Streltsi,” he said, very low and disconsolately. “’Tis as I thought,--as most people have feared,--there’s not a Naryshkin fit to match her, unless it is the Chancellor Matveief, and even he----” The goldsmith shook his head dolefully. “There is a Russian proverb,” he said, “that ‘a woman’s hair is long, but her understanding short,’ but the saints defend me from a manœuvring woman!”

His ejaculation was so pious and so heartfelt that I laughed and dropped the canvas, just in time, too, for our friend the chamberlain came waddling in again to inform us that her imperial and serene highness would see us in five minutes. He proceeded, therefore, to conduct us, by what seemed to me an entirely new route, to her presence, I wondering all the while if she would receive us and the Streltsi together. But my speculations on that point were soon satisfied, for when we entered the ante-room we passed her friends coming out, fierce-eyed and keen-set as a party of wolves, and when the chamberlain opened the door of the room we had looked down upon, and bowed low at the threshold, we found the czarevna quite alone, and seated in a great carved chair at the further end of the apartment. The official announced the name of Maître le Bastien, goldsmith of Paris, with great solemnity, and then, closing the door upon us, left us to face the daughter of the czars.

_VIII: THE GREAT CZAREVNA_

WHEN we entered the room the Czarevna Sophia remained seated, and the light from a window at her side fell full on her face and figure, revealing them sharply. She was twenty-five years old at this time, but already very stout, with an enormous head, and a homely fat face, with small, keen eyes that were alert and searching. She still wore deep mourning for her brother Feodor, and her black robe falling loose and straight, after the prevailing fashion, only increased her apparent bulk. Her plump, short-fingered hands were, however, extremely white, as they lay on her black draperies, and, unquestionably, there was something in her glance and bearing that was imperial. The woman was a power, and we felt it as soon as we came in contact with her. She bent a singular look upon us as we advanced and made our salutations, and as we drew nearer I discovered that she was holding some object concealed in her hands. I had not long to wait before I learned what it was. She addressed Maître le Bastien, taking no notice of me, evidently putting me down as an apprentice.

“So, master goldsmith, you’ve come at last,” she said in Russ, her tone as acid as vinegar. “I find that you have not been idle in Moscow.”

Le Bastien, as cautious as an old fox, felt his ground.

“I have endeavoured to labour diligently, your highness,” he said suavely, “and I think I may venture to say that I have accomplished something. The great vase is now nearly completed, if your highness will but come to view it, and here is a model I have been making of a figure of our Lady of Kazan, to be executed in gold and jewels.”

As he spoke he signed to me to advance, and display the model, which I did with the more alacrity because I wanted a nearer view of the princess, but I was so awkward in handling the image that the goldsmith took it himself and displayed it. But Sophia looked at it with a cold eye; it was plain that her thoughts were elsewhere.

“In gold with jewels; it would cost too much,” she said severely, “and we have not paid our soldiers. I know not why the Czarina Natalia should encourage such extravagance.”

Maître le Bastien, accustomed to consideration from all the great men of France, and the patronage of our munificent monarch, flushed hotly at her tone and handed the image back to me.

“The conception was altogether mine, madame,” he said, in dignified displeasure. “In my country princes delight in all the elegancies of art; pardon me for not considering merely the question of cost.”

He meant a rebuke, but it was lost on her highness; she merely shrugged her shoulders. She had no conception probably of the greatness of France, seeing nothing beyond her own horizon but the edge of the world; the pride of these Muscovites is something truly amazing.

The display of the model coming off so poorly, the goldsmith stood silent and, for the moment, the interview seemed a flat enough matter, and then the czarevna suddenly struck to the root of it. She held out her hand, and in the palm of it lay the Princess Daria’s jewelled pear. We both started, and Maître le Bastien turned from white to green; the good man seemed for the time chicken-hearted.

“You have recently handled the locket, master goldsmith,” Sophia said slowly, “and for whom?”

I could hold my tongue no longer; I feared his loss of nerve.

“Tell her it was left in your absence,” I said, very low and in French.

She darted a tigress look at me, but remained silent, waiting on Maître le Bastien. He repeated my lesson by rote.

“Who was in your house to receive it?” she demanded sharply, then suddenly pointing at me, “that man?”

“I suppose so,” faltered the goldsmith, the cold perspiration starting in beads on his forehead.

“Can you speak Russ?” she asked, turning on me.

“A little,” I replied, afraid to leave it in Maître le Bastien’s hands.

She held up the pear. “Who brought this to your master’s house?”

“A man, I think,” I replied stupidly, rubbing the back of my head like a clown.

She uttered an exclamation of impatience.

“What man?” she cried fiercely. “Are there not hundreds and thousands of men? What manner of man, stupid, and of what condition? A varlet or a gentleman? A serf or a freedman?”

“He might have been one, and he might have been the other,” I stammered slowly, as if the Russ tied my tongue. “I do not rightly remember, your highness.”

She rose from her chair at this and stamped her foot at me, calling me, _durak_, which may be interpreted as “ninny,” and then she swept up to Maître le Bastien and opened the locket so sharply before his face that he started back as if she had snapped a pistol under his nose. She held up the trinket, displaying the beautiful face of the Princess Daria.

“How dared you take mine out for this?” she thundered, fixing her little eyes on him with the fierceness of a tigress, ready to spring.

“Tell her that it was a mistake,” I whispered in French, “that it was intended for another setting.”

“Hold your tongue, varlet,” said the czarevna, casting a fierce glance at me, though she understood not a word.

“Many things are brought to me, madame,” said Le Bastien slowly; “this miniature must have been put in the wrong locket. I have two apprentices, and sometimes, between us all, errors are made.”

“Where, then, is my portrait?” she demanded, fastening her eyes on his face, as if she meant to read his very soul.

Here, in spite of her rebuke, I interposed, bowing profoundly.

“Pardon me, your highness,” I said blandly; “I think I know where the picture lies safely at Maître Bastien’s quarters, if we may be permitted to look for it.”

She turned on me sharply. “You know where it is, then?” she said. “Ah, I perceive, it was you who had the pear and hid it from the Boyar Kurakin.”

Saint Denis! it was M. Kurakin then! Like a flash I saw how we had been betrayed; but how had she got the trinket? There was the riddle.

“The pear was brought for us to mend, madame,” I said simply.

She scowled at me, black as a thunder-cloud; she was far too keen not to suspect us, but she had no means of pinning us to the wall.

“I am determined to know how this miniature was substituted for mine,” she said in a more even tone, though her small eyes glittered like two knife points; “if either of you trifle with me or deceive me, you shall receive first the _pravezh_ and then----” She drew her hand across her throat with a significant gesture.

Then, for the first time, Maître le Bastien fully recovered his composure. Her speech had made my blood boil, and it brought his to his cheek.

“Serene highness,” he said proudly, “you forget that we are both Frenchmen, and subjects of the greatest monarch upon earth, his most Christian Majesty, Louis, King of France, and we are here under the safe conduct of the Russian government.”

She shot a look at him that defied all law and all authority but her own; it was the look of the royal tigress at bay.

“We are in Moscow, master goldsmith,” she said tartly, “the King of France rules not here.”

“His arm is long, madame,” retorted Le Bastien coldly.

She laughed, and it was such an unpleasant laugh that I saw the goldsmith wipe the perspiration off his forehead. There were torture rooms in the Kremlin, and he knew it.

“If I may be permitted to return to my lodgings,” he said, “I will undertake to restore the miniature to your highness--to rectify the mistake.”

“You are under arrest,” she replied shortly, and stood looking at him much as I have seen a cat watch a mouse.

“Perhaps she will let me go,” I suggested in French.

“Will your highness allow my apprentice to go for the miniature?” Le Bastien asked, in a dignified tone.

She hesitated. I think she began to suspect me more than the grave, elderly goldsmith, but she was determined, and she did not believe in the story of the mistake. She took two short turns across the room, stopping once to look out of the window, and then she touched a bell on the table. Immediately my fat friend, the chamberlain, appeared, as if she had conjured him from the subterranean regions.

“Vasili Ivanovitch,” she said to him, “you will accompany this goldsmith,” she pointed at me, “back to his lodgings; you will wait there until he makes a search for a picture of me; you will bring him back, with or without the picture. You will not let him escape.”

“It is well, Sophia Alexeievna,” replied the chamberlain, bowing profoundly.

She turned a strangely malicious glance upon me. “You may go,” she said calmly.

I made my obeisance, but I could have laughed at the irony of fate. The miniature was in the keeping of the Princess Daria, and what in the world could I do with this fat old fool at our quarters? Verily, my falsehood seemed likely enough to stick in my throat and be the ruin both of Maître le Bastien and of me. I cast a look at him and saw that he was as pale as ashes, but I could give him no comfort,--there was none to give,--though I went out behind my portly friend, with thoughts of such a nature that, had he divined them, he would scarcely have walked in front of me, even on the Red Staircase.

_IX: I MAKE A PRISONER_

WE went back very deliberately to Maître le Bastien’s house. It was not the chamberlain’s habit to walk rapidly, and I dragged purposely, not only to gain time, but to plan some way of ridding myself of my companion. Vasili Ivanovitch, as Sophia called him, but more commonly Chamberlain Kourbsky, was determined to keep me close under his eye, and I was equally determined to evade him. How, it yet remained to be seen. We walked along, therefore, in grim silence, each busy doubtless with his own plots, each watchful of the other. But slowly as we walked we got to the house at last, and by that time I had made my plan, but I know not whether he had his or not; if he had, it miscarried for the time.

We entered the lower hall and I called loudly for Michaud, but the varlet, taking advantage of his master’s absence, had gone out; neither could I find Maluta; only Advotia came to stare at us stupidly, so there was nothing left but to go on up the stairs with my friend the chamberlain. And on the way he was suddenly seized with a sense of his duty.

“You must haste, Master Goldsmith,” he said pompously; “the czarevna waits.”

“Precisely,” I replied, nodding my head and passing the door of the workshop; “you will follow me, sir.”

He stared a little, having halted at the shop, supposing that the miniature was somewhere there amidst the litter of Maître le Bastien’s work.

“It is not there,” I said, replying to his glance, “it is necessary to secure the valuables. Ascend, monsieur.”

He sighed and followed me up the second flight, narrower than the first, and we reached the _terem_. This part of the house, occupied now only by Advotia and a female scullion, was bare and poor enough, and I saw him stare about in astonishment, but I was not yet done with him.

“Higher, monsieur,” I said blandly, and led the way to the little stairs that went to the turret, which contained one small room with three narrow, slit-like windows.

He followed, obstinate as a bull, but I heard him pant as he laboured up. The stairs were steep and narrow, and at the turn he nearly stuck fast, and I heard him mumbling some incoherent ejaculations. Up I went and he followed, blowing now and puffing out his cheeks. I was well ahead, and slipped the key from the inside to the outside of the lock; then I went into the little chamber and waited for him. On one window-sill some pigeons sunned themselves, I could see the belfry of the great tower of Ivan Veliki. I heard Kourbsky come up, blowing now like a whale. There was a chest in the room, under one window, and, as he entered, I pretended to be trying the lid. He stood getting his breath, his face as red as blood, for he was very angry.

“The lid sticks,” I said. “Will monsieur take hold of the farther end? The miniature is here.”

He bent reluctantly, grasped the end of the lid, and commenced to pull with all his strength. As he did so I let it fly up and back, and he fell over backwards, sitting down on the floor with a crash, and the dust rose in a cloud about him. In a trice I was out of the room and had slammed the door, and locked and bolted it on the outside. I had caught my enemy, and for a moment I leaned on the stairs laughing, hearing him bellow all the while within.

Then I looked down and saw Michaud staring up at me, with a strange expression; he heard the chamberlain’s shouts and ejaculations as plainly as I. Indeed, the great man’s voice seemed to shake the house to its foundations, and his threats were blood-curdling. I went down the stairs and touched Michaud on the shoulder.

“Follow me,” I said.

He obeyed, curious enough to know the meaning of it.

“Where were you when I came in?” I asked sharply, when we reached the workshop.

“I came in a moment ago,” he answered sullenly.

I eyed him sharply; I had no time to waste upon him and saw no great reason to distrust him. I told him, therefore, of Maître le Bastien’s arrest, of his peril, of the necessity of keeping the chamberlain in the house until I could return, and I watched him narrowly, all the while, to see how he felt about it. That he was alarmed and sorry for Maître le Bastien, I could not doubt; he showed it plainly, and my first doubts of him began to slumber. Besides, he knew no Russ, and hated the Russians, and I had the key of the upper room in my pocket. I felt that I could trust him for an hour. I pledged him, therefore, on his honour, to guard the upper room, to keep Advotia away from it, and to let no one in at the front door in my absence.

“Remember that the master’s life may depend upon your faithfulness,” I said severely, as I went down to the lower floor, feverish to be off to the Princess Daria.

“_Sapristi!_” he replied, “would I fail the good man now? Have no fear, monsieur.” He dragged a little on the word in a way I did not like, but I knew his temper and thought little of it; besides there was no time to lose.