Part 6

I went at the top of my speed to the Voronin palace, pausing for no man, scarcely conscious of the passers in the streets, and once in the court-yard I knocked boldly at the door, where I had been so ridiculed on the occasion of my former visit. But I met no ridicule now; scarcely had I knocked before the door flew open, and old Piotr, grave and stern, stood on the threshold eyeing me in a forbidding fashion. But I did not heed it; instead, knowing that he could be trusted, I told him of the gravity of my errand and that I must see the Princess Daria without delay. At the mention of the czarevna and the visit of the two young girls to the workshop, his face clouded yet more deeply, and I thought that he was strongly agitated, though he answered me soberly enough.

“Sir,” he said gravely, “the princess is not at home; she is in the Kremlin.”

At this I started, deeply alarmed, and I saw my anxiety mirrored on his face.

“We have not a moment to lose,” I said, almost fiercely, “to the Kremlin, man, with me to find her.”

He shook his head, pointing inwards. “I dare not,” he replied, very low; “the prince is here.”

“But his daughter’s safety, man!” I cried impatiently, “let me in to tell him all.”

Old Piotr looked at me, much as he would have looked at a madman.

“Never tell him,” he said; “never betray her excellency--if you do!” he lowered his brows, he curled his lips back from his strong white teeth, like a wolf; “if you betray Daria Kirilovna, I--I, Piotr, will surely kill you, so help me Saint Nikolas of Mojaïsk,” and he lifted both hands over his head, swearing by the saint before whom all Russians pledge their fidelity.

The strong old man, his grey head lifted, his hands also--with the palms up--was a striking figure.

“I will never betray her,” I said heartily, and held out my hand.

He took it and pressed it lightly, not wholly trusting me. Then I left him, for I had no time to lose. To the Kremlin--that was my one thought as I sped. As luck would have it, at the very gate I stumbled on Maluta. The dwarf looked at me keenly and began to follow me, and I, impatient of him and not minded to be troubled with him, turned sharply.

“Be off, Maluta,” I said. “I have no time for you now--or use either.”

But he still followed. We were entering the Red Place and a second time I ordered him off, but he came on and plucked at my coat.

“You seek her,” he said, peering at me, white-faced and ferret-eyed; “you seek the Princess Daria?”

I started; was the thing unnatural in mind as well as body?

“Yes,” I said, “O astrologer, I seek the princess.”

“She is in the gardens of the Kremlin, serene excellency,” he said, bowing low.

I stared.

“Do you mean it, goblin?” I cried. “Is she really there? If this is a piece of your acting--of your trickery, you will pay dear for it!”

He laid his hands on his heart and then his forehead.

“Did not your excellency give me life?” he said. “By the great saint over the gate, by----”

“Yes, I know, by the Saint Nikolas,” I said. “Where is she?”

“Follow me, O excellency,” he said eagerly; “she is in the gardens, she and another, her cousin Vassalissa Feodorovna.”

“By Saint Denis!” I exclaimed, under my breath, “what absolutely gigantic luck! The little varlet is an angel in disguise. Lead on, O prophet!” I added; “lead and I follow.”

He smiled and, turning sharply on his heel, led me toward the gardens. We walked so rapidly that in a few moments we were following a path amidst the trees and shrubbery of the Kremlin pleasure-grounds. The green of the spring was here and the sunshine; I heard a bird singing overhead, I saw the splash and glimmer of a fountain. There was the faint sweetness of early flowers, delicate, thin in essence, the first breath of the northern summer. The place was very quiet, the turf green and soft under foot; there was a grove of slender young trees before us, their branches feathered with spring, their stems tall and sparsely grouped, framing a pathway where the sunshine made a mellow light. In it I saw two tall young figures in long cloaks, and each wearing the _fata_--a veil like a nun’s--to hide their faces, but I could not mistake the taller figure; the bearing, the very gait had been graven on my mind. It was the Princess Daria.

_X: IN THE GARDEN OF THE KREMLIN_

AS the girls drew nearer I caught a glimpse of a third figure in the rear; my friend the duenna was following slowly, leaning on her staff. Meanwhile Vassalissa had stopped at the sight of me and plucked at her companion’s skirts, but the princess did not heed her, she came steadily toward me, stepping so lightly that I do not believe a blade of grass was crushed beneath her feet. She would have passed me, responding but slightly to my salutation, but I barred the way; with uncovered head.

“I must speak with you, Princess,” I said firmly, “of a matter that concerns your safety as much as that of Maître le Bastien.”

She halted at that, though the duenna began to chatter objections and shake her staff at me, but Daria silenced her by a gesture.

“Speak on, sir,” she said to me, and through her veil I could see her beautiful eyes regarding me gravely.

I plunged at once into my story, telling her--as briefly as I could--of the summons to the Kremlin, and of Sophia’s anger, and of her determination to solve the problem of the lost miniature. While I spoke I saw that Lissa was listening with evident agitation, clinging to her cousin’s arm, but I could not read the thoughts of the princess. She heard me to the end, without the slightest interruption, and once or twice she glanced in the direction of the palace and then back at my face, but her composure was entirely unshaken.

When I had finished my recital Lissa could be restrained no longer; she broke out impetuously, and in a frightened voice.

“It is all my fault, Daria,” she said. “Oh, forgive me! What shall we do? Of course, the fat creature is furious!”

The fat creature! Oh, if Sophia had heard her!

The princess cast an impatient glance at her cousin.

“For myself it does not matter, Lissa,” she said quietly, “and I, too, am to blame--but, look you, here is the good goldsmith in peril for our sakes.”

“I know,” said Lissa, nodding her head at me, “I know--but we must get him out of this trouble.”

“Can you give me the czarevna’s picture, Princess?” I asked. “If you can, I will undertake to straighten the matter for you.”

She looked at me absently, apparently lost in thought.

“Of course, he can have the picture, Daria,” Lissa cried eagerly.

“Yes, he can have it,” the princess replied calmly, “but that will not matter--it is only the beginning of the end. It was folly, it was madness----” She broke off, and stood looking at the ground, an expression of great perplexity upon her face. She had pushed her veil aside and I saw that she was very pale.

Lissa looked at her, clinging to her hand.

“Oh, I think it will not matter so much, Daria,” she said. “Uncle Kirill will straighten it for us.”

The princess smiled sadly and shook her head.

“If you will trust me,” I said, addressing her, “I will take the miniature to her highness, and I will so bear the matter out that you shall not fall under the shadow of a connection with the change of portraits. You may trust me, mademoiselle, on my honour as a French gentleman.”

She gave me a swift, searching glance, and with her hand on Lissa’s lips checked that young girl’s impulsive reply.

“Sir,” she said gravely, “you cannot understand how serious this matter is. It began in a moment of folly--a jest upon Prince Galitsyn, but I had repented of it--and all would have been well but for the--the accident that gave the locket back to him, and through him to the czarevna.”

“Surely, mademoiselle, not by his free will,” I said, “if he is the brave man that men call him.”

She coloured deeply. “I think not by his free will,” she said, “for he must know the peril of it for me, and for mine. Howbeit, I am no coward,” she added proudly, “and I must face it to the end. But you must have the miniature, if only for Maître le Bastien’s sake, and”--she stopped and glanced at me almost shyly, more girlish in her aspect than I had ever seen her--“and for yours, monsieur.”

I bowed gravely. “Consider me not at all, Princess,” I said softly, “except as your servant.”

“I thank you,” she replied, with simple dignity. “I will send at once for the miniature.”

“Let me go!” pleaded Lissa; “let me do this much to atone, Daria.”

“So you shall,” replied the princess, clapping her hands softly, and as she did so another attendant, a tall, raw-boned lad, in a serf’s dress, appeared.

“Take Konrat and go,” she said to Vassalissa, “and let your feet be fleet as the raven’s wings, Lissa, for a good man is in trouble for our folly.”

Her little cousin needed no second bidding, but ran off, with the serf, in the direction of the Bielui-gorod. And the Princess Daria, after a few words to the duenna, walked a little apart on a mossy bank below the fountain, and then signed to me to follow her. I supposed that she intended to question me about the czarevna, but she did not. The sun was shining on her, as if it loved her, and her veil made a filmy white hood above her charming face.

“You are from France, sir,” she said softly; “will you tell me something of that far-off land--more than I have learned in books? Is your home in that great city where the king lives?”

“Nay, mademoiselle,” I replied, surprised and pleased, “my home is in a province of France, called Normandy, and from the turrets of my house I can see the waves sweep wild and free on a long stretch of hard, white beach, and the smell of the salt is in the air, and there is ever the deep boom of the ocean. When the day breaks there is a whiteness on the sea, and when the night falls, a shadow, and the stars shine on the water. And the turf is green there, and the trees and flowers come to an earlier budding, and I think, too, the birds sing more sweetly. And there are orchards, and fields of grain, and you can see the cattle standing, ankle-deep, in the stream that runs across the meadows below the château, and----” I broke off; presently I should tell her more than I cared to have her know.

She had listened attentively, her eyes on the distance, and as I paused, she sighed softly.

“It must be a fair country,” she said. “I see you love it, sir--but I thought you were a goldsmith from Paris,” and she darted one of her keen looks at me.

It was now my turn to redden. “I am from Paris last, Princess,” I said, “but I am Norman-born.”

“I understand,” she said. “’Tis so here also. We are from different provinces; from the north and the south, from Great and Little and White Russia, from Kief, and Novgorod, and Kazan, and Lithuania, but,” she added softly, “we all love the White Mother Moscow. Is it so with Paris?”

I shook my head, smiling a little. Our brethren south of the Loire had not loved Paris much since Saint Bartholomew, and there were others. I remembered that I had thought it an evil star which took me to Paris, but now I began to think differently.

“Paris is a very great city, mademoiselle,” I said, “and emulation and jealousy and strife are there--in secret places--just as turbulence and strife are brooding here to-day in Moscow.”

She opened her eyes and looked at me in surprise.

“I do not understand you, monsieur,” she said.

“I mean the Streltsi, mademoiselle, and the jealousy between the Naryshkins and Miloslavskys. The soldiers seem ripe for rebellion.”

She shrugged her shoulders with a disdainful smile.

“They would not dare,” she said haughtily; “what are they? Nothing but moujiks, and the sons of moujiks; there is no aristocratic blood there to lead.”

“Sometimes the _canaille_ can do much mischief, Princess,” I replied, “and what if these moujiks are secretly led by royalty itself?”

She glanced at me quickly, a little startled, but she had an aristocrat’s contempt for the mob.

“I cannot believe they would be,” she said. “He who turned the rabble loose would be in the greatest danger himself. Besides, the government has conceded so much to these soldiers; too much, my father says.”

“That is precisely the point, mademoiselle,” I replied; “it has conceded so much that it can no longer command; it is entreating them.”

Her expression changed and grew grave. Then, after a moment, she smiled and seemed to cast the whole matter to the four winds.

“Where is my bracelet, sir?” she asked suddenly. “Have you mended it?”

“Not yet, mademoiselle,” I replied, as glibly as I could, “but it shall be mended in a manner worthy of the arm that is to wear it.”

“You have never mended bracelets!” she said, looking at me from under her long lashes.

“If I mended one for anyone, it would be for the Princess Daria,” I replied, with gallantry.

She blushed. “You are long about it,” she retorted, pouting. “I want my bracelet!”

“’Tis hard to part with it, Princess,” I said daringly.

She bridled, and I know not what she would have replied, for, at the moment, Lissa came running up, breathless, with the miniature, which she thrust into my hands.

“Go, go!” she cried, “and save your master and save us too!”

“Yes,” said the princess gravely, “there is no time to lose, master goldsmith!”

It was hard to go, but I knew also that time was precious; I concealed the miniature on my person, and bowed profoundly to the two young girls.

“To hear you is to obey, Princess,” I said, looking straight into her eyes, and she blushed furiously and dropped her veil over her face.

“Then go, sir,” she said imperiously.

“At once, mademoiselle,” I replied, and turned away.

I had gone, perhaps, ten or twenty yards, when I heard the patter of feet behind, and Lissa came running after me.

“Do not mind her,” she panted. “Daria is not really cross, only she will play the princess. But, oh, do smooth the matter over with that dreadful czarevna, for it was all my fault! I gave the trinket to Galitsyn; you know he is half mad with love of Daria? Oh, there! I have told too much----” She clapped her hands over her rosy lips, her eyes dancing.

We heard the princess calling sharply: “Lissa, Lissa!”

“I come, I come!” cried the girl and to me, “there--do, do it, sir, do help us!”

“Trust me, mademoiselle,” I said, smiling; “not only for her sake--but for yours, too.”

“I thank you.” The girl poised on one foot, ready to run back to her cousin; “and--and I do not believe you are a horrid old goldsmith either!” and she was off, fleet as a young fawn.

_XI: THE PLOT THICKENS_

WITH the miniature in my possession again I had not a moment to lose. It was necessary to take it to Sophia at once, and I could not release the chamberlain Kourbsky until I had seen the czarevna. Indeed, I did not know how I could let him out at all, for he would surely stir up a great commotion. Yet it had been absolutely necessary to get rid of him, or to betray Daria. And as I sped toward the Red Place again, I made up my mind to think no more of the chamberlain until Sophia was satisfied with her picture, and then to find some way out of the other difficulty. That he was wild with rage in that little turret room I did not doubt, and thinking of him as I saw him last, sitting in a cloud of dust, I laughed aloud--but I laughed too soon.

Maluta had waited for me in the garden, and was at my heels now, and, having found him so useful, I suffered him to follow me still. It was fortunate that I did, for as I drew nearer to the palace it occurred to me that, without Chamberlain Kourbsky, I had no means of reaching the private audience chamber of the _terem_, and while casting about in my mind for an expedient that would help me, I bethought myself of the dwarf’s former place at court. Calling him to me, I told him that I wanted to enter the _terem_ and see the czarevna, mentioning my former interview with her, an hour or more before, and explaining my anticipation of difficulty in obtaining admittance. Maluta listened attentively, looking up at me sideways, his forehead wrinkled and his great ears standing out. As I finished, he nodded knowingly.

“You cannot enter by the public way,” he said, at once, “but there is a way--follow me, excellency.”

We were at the foot of the Red Staircase; above us rose the palace. It was about two hours before sunset, and the shadows fell long across the court of the Kremlin. It was the 24th of May, and the aspect of the place was singularly peaceful; the bells of the Church of Saint Basil the Blessed began to ring sweetly and softly.

I looked down at the tiny creature at my side.

“You belong to the court no longer,” I said. “How can you obtain admittance?”

He laughed, malicious mischief peeping out of his sharp eyes.

“They do not know,” he said; “not one usher in fifty knows one of us from the other, and the dwarfs are always running the secret errands of their czarish majesties. Trust me, my master. I will take you there. Why, there is not a secret,” he held his finger up to his lips, “not a conspiracy up yonder, that we do not know; they cannot deceive us--not they!”

I believed him, looking at his sharp, malicious little face. How often do princes pay for spies upon themselves, and nourish vipers in their bosoms! I shrugged my shoulders.

“Go on, then,” I said, “and be quick!”

He led on past the Red Staircase, skirted the walls of the palace, came to the rear and there, at a little postern, stumbled upon a crowd of dwarfs. At the sight of their comrade they yelled shrilly and made strange gesticulations, but Maluta silenced them by signs, laying his finger on his lips, his forehead, and his heart, and then pointing at me. They fell away and let us enter, staring at me, and swarming in after us, as I have seen bees swarm into a hive. It annoyed me; I wanted more elbow room, but remembering the difficulties before me, I tried to endure these little creatures with patience. Once in the palace we began to ascend a narrow flight of stairs,--the back stairs of the _terem_,--where many a secret, whether of joy or sorrow or sin, had crept up and down for years; crept until the marble steps were worn and lustreless, and the very arches, fluted and dim above us, were darkened by an atmosphere of secrecy and fear. The pattering of many little feet behind began to grow more distant and ceased altogether when we left the swarm at a turn of the stairs, below a landing, where we came suddenly upon a sentry. He lowered his staff across the narrow space and would not let us pass, but Maluta threw out his little chest and strutted, as I have seen game-cocks in the _halles_ of Paris, and reaching up on tip-toes, he whispered to the soldier, two words that--for the next few days--were magic in their effect.

“Sophia Alexeievna.”

In an instant the staff was raised, the man saluted, and we passed safely on, through a dim gallery where, behind closed doors, I heard the murmur of subdued voices. There was something in the very air of this part of the palace that choked an honest man; it was a place for the toads that live upon the sovereign’s bounties and betray him. I was glad when the dwarf finally entered a wide corridor, lighted by windows that looked out upon the Red Place, and I saw the sun shining on the wall beside me, and felt the breeze from an open casement. Halfway down the corridor we found an usher on duty, and to him Maluta used the same password, and he opened the door and bowed me into the ante-room of the very chamber where Sophia and Maître le Bastien still awaited me. The dwarf’s cleverness had served me well indeed, but I had no time to thank him. Sophia sat in the carved chair, waiting for me with a face like a thunder-cloud; and the goldsmith had aged six months in two hours.

“You are long about your errands, sir,” snapped the czarevna as I advanced, her little eyes searching me, as keen as two needles. “Where is Vasili Ivanovitch?”

“He will be here presently, your highness,” I replied evasively; “but I have brought the miniature,” and I presented it with a profound obeisance.

I think she was surprised, but she showed no sign of being pleased. She took it with much deliberation, and turning it over and over in her hands, examined it jealously, as if she feared either deception or some injury to the precious picture, but she failed to find even a scratch upon the ivory. Relieved by this turn of affairs, Maître le Bastien found his voice.

“If your highness will permit me to take the picture and the locket back to my shop,” he said, “I will replace the miniature in its former position with such care that it will not show its removal.”

She cast a strange glance at him over her picture.

“Do you suppose I wish to have it replaced?” she asked scornfully.

“I thought so, madame,” he replied, in evident perplexity.

“Well, I didn’t!” she said acidly, and she looked at the locket viciously. “Have I not evidence here?” she added.

Maître le Bastien caught my eye, and an expression of deep concern clouded his face. To both of us came terrible misgivings; the woman--jealous, powerful, and malicious--was hatching some mischief; what, we could not easily divine. We stood looking at her, both stricken dumb, and feeling the helplessness of our position in her hands, and she eyed us fiercely and keenly, a gleam of amusement on her face. No one spoke, and for a few moments there was profound silence and then--suddenly an uproar in the corridor. The czarevna turned her head sharply and listened, alert and eager, and Maître le Bastien and I listened, too, for we had an intuition of some impending catastrophe. We heard doors slam and feet skurrying across the ante-room, and then a puffing, gasping sound that smote my ear with singular familiarity.