Part 9

“’Tis below, excellency, by the chapel; we can reach it by this stairway,” and he darted to the head of the flight of narrow stairs which had escaped my eye.

I followed, and in a moment we were down a short, stone stair and stood in a narrow gallery richly and gaudily painted in the Turkish fashion. It was empty; at the end was a door that I knew opened into the chapel, and I hurried to it and peeped in. All was quiet; the priest stood waiting in the dim light. I turned and found the dwarf at my heels.

“Quick!” I said in a whisper; “can we cut off his entry here?”

Maluta skurried ahead of me, without pausing even to reply, and we had passed through a door at the other end, into a small room that had one window on the Red Place, before either of us paused.

“Must he come this way?” I asked hastily.

The dwarf nodded, and I turned and, locking the door behind me, put the key into my pocket; then I went to the only other entrance and stood waiting. Here too, as luck would have it, the key was on the inside. Maluta stood watching me. I looked around keenly for one object that I desired, but saw it not, and then my eye alighted on the wide scarf at the dwarf’s waist.

“Take off your sash,” I said sharply; “tear it into four strips, so--knot them together--we shall need a rope.”

He obeyed, his eyes twinkling, and had scarcely tied the last knot before I heard someone coming. I listened--would there be more than one? No, it was one footstep--an eager and a hasty one--and it came on swiftly. I waited quietly, holding Maluta’s pistol in my right hand.

The door opened violently, and the Boyar Kurakin entered, so hastily that he did not perceive us until I had closed the door with my left hand, and locking it, thrust the key into my bosom with its fellow. Then he saw me and stopped short and stared. To him I was only the apprentice who had played him the trick with the miniature, and the recollection of that douche of hot soup brought a scowl to his forehead. It was a handsome, evil face, as I saw it now, and I remembered the Princess Daria’s cry, “I can die--I would gladly die!”

“What brings you hither, knave?” he asked with fierce scorn, “to brave your betters?”

“Or to spurn my inferiors, rogue,” I retorted; “’tis for me to ask what brings you here to torment a noble lady?”

His eyes blazed; he lifted his clenched hand to deal me a blow and found the muzzle of my pistol in his face. He recoiled, cursing me furiously.

“What do you mean, assassin?” he cried, feeling desperately for a pistol, and finding none, as I saw, though he had drawn his sword.

“Down with that weapon,” I said coolly, “and up with your hands--or I will send you into eternity!”

But his blood was up; he made a wild pass at me and I fired, knowing that the tumult without would account for any noise. I had aimed at his sword hand, and so neatly that the ball grazed his thumb and forefinger and he recoiled again; as he did so, Maluta sprang, like a cat, on his shoulders, and struck the weapon out of his wounded hand.

“Curse you!” cried Kurakin, “what devil is this that you have for an accomplice?”

“No devil,” I replied, “nor do I wish to kill you; but one instant more of opposition and I put a bullet through your heart.”

He was trying to throw Maluta off, but he might as well have sought to cast off a monkey; the little creature wound his long arms around him and clung to him fiercely. Kurakin stared at me savagely.

“I will kill you for this!” he said, between his teeth.

“On the contrary, I will kill you,” I retorted, my foot on his sword, and my pistol at his breast.

He turned white to the lips, his eyes started, the perspiration stood out in beads on his forehead; he liked death as little as most men.

“Will you die or live, monsieur?” I asked pleasantly.

He cursed me and he cursed Maluta, but his lips shook.

“You prefer to die?” I asked, still politely.

“Nay,” he replied, between his teeth, “I will not die.”

And, with a sudden leap, he threw Maluta off and flung himself upon me, seizing my right wrist, and wrenching it backward in his effort to get my pistol. His onslaught, quick as a tiger’s spring, bore me toward the wall and my foot slipped; for a moment I thought that I had lost and he had won, and then we clenched and rolled over on the floor, he struggling to turn my pistol away and I, to use it--to his death. In brute strength he was a match for me, but he had not my training as a wrestler, a sport that I had loved as a boy, and twice I had him under, and twice he struggled half-way to his knees. His eyes were wild, his breath burned hot on my cheek, and his bare hands tore at me with the strength of fury. Back and forth I twisted that wrist and he held it like a vise, and I could not use my pistol. Then, I got him down and my knee on his breast, though he still gripped my right arm and cursed me, but I tore my left hand free, at last, and changing the pistol from right to left, I dealt him a blow on the head that stretched him senseless. And, as I did it, Maluta came creeping up, holding his own temple, for the boyar had flung him against the wall and the monkey-like face was drawn and shrivelled, but he was ripe for vengeance, watching me for his instructions, and I knew by his look that he would gladly kill his erstwhile master, but I had no such design.

“Strip off his long robe, Maluta,” I said briefly.

A look of blank amazement crossed the dwarf’s face, but he obeyed me with his usual alacrity, and I helped him unfasten Kurakin’s belt and remove his long brocaded gown--a marvellously fine affair too--for his wedding, doubtless! His high cap had fallen in the struggle and lay in the corner.

“His shoes also,” I said to Maluta.

The dwarf jerked them off with vicious haste, watching me with his sidelong glance, his head down.

“Now tie his hands with your scarf,” I told him, and he obeyed.

In a few moments we had him bound securely, hand and foot, and dragging him--a dead weight--to a heavy settle, we fastened him to that with my belt and Maluta’s. We had not finished our task, however, before the boyar began to revive, and opening his eyes, stared at us, in a dazed fashion, but I did not heed him. On the contrary, I picked up his cumbersome robes.

“Quick,” I said to my follower, “I must become the boyar.”

The dwarf had, by this time, divined my design and helped me strip off my own coat and shoes and put on the Russian dress. Kurakin and I were nearly of a height, and the long robe completely disguised my figure, while the collar, which was high and standing, partially concealed my face, the cap completing the disguise. I wore my hair about the length of the boyar’s and, wearing his clothes, I could easily pass for him in a dim light--the light of the chapel. Maluta danced about me, clapping his hands, while the Russian stared, gradually recovering his senses, and the white of his face turning to purple with impotent rage; he began to dimly suspect my purpose, and I never saw before such passion and despair pictured on a man’s face. He writhed, but his bonds held, and he felt himself a fool, and began to curse me feebly, while I put my pistol back into my bosom and, taking his sword also, bowed graciously to him.

“_Au revoir, monsieur!_” I said, and kissed the tips of my fingers, and then, in Russ; “the bride waits, sir.”

He sputtered--too far spent to give voice to his wrath, and fury blazed in his untamed eyes.

I unlocked the door of the painted gallery, and then spoke to Maluta.

“Go to the czarevna and tell her that the Boyar Kurakin waits in the chapel,” I said; “after that, return and watch him here--as a cat watches a mouse--and if he cries out, gag him and wait until I whistle for you.”

Then I crossed the gallery swiftly. I could still hear the outcry of the mob; in fact, at that very moment there were rioters in the banqueting-hall, insulting the Czarina Natalia.

I laid my hand on the chapel door. It had been scarcely twenty minutes, and I was sure that the czarevna had waited. But did the priest know Kurakin--or did he not?

It was a momentous question, and on it hung the fate of my daring enterprise, on that--and on the Princess Daria. But there was no time to pause; I must win or lose. I had staked all upon the venture--life itself--and, without another thought, I opened the door and entered the chapel.

_XVII: CROWNED WITH RUE_

THE priest had placed the taper and the book and the two crowns upon the table in the centre of the chapel, and stood himself before the iconostase awaiting the arrival of the bride and bridegroom. As I entered he looked up and full into my face, and though the light was dim, I drew my breath, expecting a challenge. But he looked at me as one stranger looks at another, and showed no surprise, betraying thus his ignorance of the Boyar Kurakin.

“Are you Mikhail Ivanovitch?” he asked formally, and there was neither interest nor excitement in his tone, though Mikhail Ivanovitch was the more familiar form of Kurakin’s name.

The priest was a young man, tall and thin, and wore the full canonicals of the Greek church. I replied in the affirmative, in my best Russ, knowing that my accent even was a danger. He took no further notice of me, however, but, instead, looked up through the lattice at the czarevna, and that other figure beside her and the dwarf, Maluta. My eyes followed his and I saw Maluta bow, his hand on his heart, and then the Princess Daria walked very slowly to a little wicket that opened on the stair which descended into a corner of the chapel. Sophia, meanwhile, stood at the lattice looking down, and I could see her face in the light of the upper gallery; it was set in rigid determination and deeply flushed.

As for me, the crucial moment had come; I must meet a bride who expected Kurakin. I went across the chapel and waited for her, where we were happily hidden from both the czarevna and the priest by a screen at the foot of the staircase. She came down slowly, though Sophia cried out to her to hasten, and I thought every step cost her a pang, but her white face--never more lovely--told me nothing, and she did not look at me; her hands were clasped before her, her eyes cast down, and her lips moved as if she prayed. Slowly, very slowly, she came down. I dared not speak; I feared the sudden sound of an unexpected voice would startle her beyond her self-control, and again, I did not know--it flashed upon me then that, between the two, she might have chosen Kurakin, but no Russian girl ever had the right to choose, and this thought relieved me. When she reached the foot of the stairs I held out my hand, but, without looking up, she swerved aside, avoiding my touch, and walked--like one in a trance--toward the priest. And I followed, sick at heart at the sight of her agony. The whole passed in a moment, but we were not quick enough for the tyrant behind the lattice.

“Make quick work, batyushka,” Sophia called to the priest. “I have no time to waste upon them; affairs of high moment call me hence!”

The priest hurried forward and took his place; the taper flared up in a lean red flame in the dusk; there was not even the accustomed offering of fish, fried meat, and pastry. Far off I heard the voice of the mob and the tolling of the bells of Ivan Veliki. I looked anxiously at the girl beside me, but she stood like a statue, frozen in one attitude, her eyes on the ground, her hands wrung so tightly together that I saw the white pressure on the flesh of her fingers, as they locked each other. Her long ungirdled robe was of some soft, pale blue material, and there was the gleam of silver embroidery at the hem and on the edges of the long, full sleeves that fell away from inner ones that outlined her perfect arms, and a white, filmy mantle half veiled her head and face. My heart throbbed heavily against my bosom and I felt my breath come short; I stood there as her bridegroom, and she had not looked into my face.

We were standing on a square of red taffeta, according to the usual custom, but there was no one to hold a canopy over our heads, though the priest gave us two crowns of gold and silver leaves and bade us put them on, and then began to mumble the service rapidly, omitting when he could, stumbling ahead when he dared not condense, and binding us hard and fast, and I followed him as well as I could. Happily, I had stolen in to witness a marriage in the Cathedral of the Annunciation, and was not entirely ignorant of the part I had to play, and the priest heeded me very little; while, fortunately, the uproar in the Red Place served to distract the attention of that one fierce witness behind the lattice.

Having elevated the sacred image above our heads, the priest took my right hand and her left in his, and asked us three times, in a loud voice, if we married of our own free will and consent, and three times I answered, yes. Then, the Princess Daria looked up and her eyes met mine. For an instant I thought that she would cry out or fall in a faint, and so betray me, such wonder and amazement dawned on her face, and some other emotion--whether dismay or not I could not divine. She stood quite still, her pale face grew even more deathly, and for a moment her slender figure swayed like a reed, and I feared the worst, but she recovered her nerve as suddenly and then----

I held my breath; would she repudiate me? Even the priest suspected something unusual; he stopped and looked at us, for she stood gazing at me with a rigid face, but becoming suddenly aware of the pause she turned quietly toward him and, to my amazement, went on with her part of the service, answering his questions in the affirmative without another sign of recognition. A moment afterwards, her hand, ice cold, lay in mine, and--I could not help it--involuntarily, I stooped and kissed it, and looking up, encountered a singular expression in her eyes. But I could not read her thoughts; she had a greater self-control than I ever saw before in woman. The priest had joined our hands and he began now to chant the one hundred and twenty-eighth psalm. We should have responded, repeating the alternate verses, but we did not, and he heeded our silence very little. Now and then the noises without drowned his voice and I lost a verse, but much of that psalm was burned into my brain on that day.

“‘For thou shalt eat the labour of thine hands; O well is thee, and happy shalt thou be!

“‘Thy wife shall be as the fruitful vine upon the walls of thine house.

“‘Thy children like the olive-branches round about thy table.’”

He held our hands united and slightly lifted, and his chant rose shrill and clear:

“‘... Thou shalt see Jerusalem in prosperity all thy life long.

“‘Yea, that thou shalt see thy children’s children, and peace upon Israel.’”

With these words, he lifted two garlands of rue and placed one on her head and one on her shoulders, because Kurakin, being a widower, could not be crowned with rue. I felt her hand quiver in mine as he pronounced the final solemn, “let no man put asunder,” and raising a great goblet of claret held it out for us to pledge him three times. I drank of it, and she barely touched it with her lips and then the priest emptied the glass and gave it again to me, and I flung it on the floor, breaking it in pieces and trampling it, repeating, as I did so, the saying I had heard in the Cathedral:

“‘May they thus fall under our feet and be trod to pieces who endeavour to sow division or discontent between us!’”

There was a solemn pause. I stood looking down at the shattered glass and the red wine stains on the floor. It was over; the Princess Daria was my wife and I held her hand firmly. She was mine, and mine she should be, against the world; I swore it, in my heart, before that altar.

But I had yet to face the czarevna, or I thought I had, but fortune favoured me. Sophia trusted Kurakin; she did not attempt to come down into the chapel, but spoke to us through the lattice, raising her voice that we might hear her, where we stood.

“Mikhail Ivanovitch,” she said, “take your wife away--out of the palace--if you can; use my signet, if need be, and I have promised to protect her father; he is below in the Golden Hall, and I will send a message to him; the rest I leave to you. I must go down to the czarina; I have lost too much precious time already. Much happiness I wish you!” she added spitefully, and laughed.

And happily, without waiting for my reply, she abruptly left the lattice; and disappeared in the direction by which she had entered first, which was also a great good fortune, for I had fully expected that she would go by the room where Kurakin was bound, and so discover, at once, the fraud that had been practised upon her.

When she had gone the priest smilingly congratulated me, but, I think, he dared not speak to my bride. He knew, doubtless, that she was an unwilling one--forced marriages were of frequent occurrence in Moscow--and he contented himself with a profound obeisance when I handed him some gold pieces that I had upon me.

Then I turned to the rigid figure at my side. I must get her away, and yet I did not know how far she would consent to be guided by me. In the presence of a third person, though, I did not now fear betrayal. I held out my hand with as easy a manner as I could assume.

“We will go this way,” I said. I was going to call her my bride, for form’s sake, but something in her look froze the words on my tongue.

She would not take my hand, but signified by a gesture that she would follow me and, in this fashion, I, a new-made bridegroom, led the way into the painted gallery, and then, as the free air of heaven, blowing in through the open casements, touched her face and the light of day shone on her, she stood still and looked at me. And I waited, my heart in my throat--I confess it. But she was not thinking of me, or of herself.

“My father,” she said; “it is my duty to go to him--to save him.”

“So you shall,” I replied, with distant courtesy, “if mortal man can help you. Wait here but a moment; I go for the signet, and to secure your enemy.”

She gave me a keen look and went and leaned on the window, her face like death.

“Go then, sir,” she said bitterly; “it seems I have no choice; though I am a princess!”

I bent low before her.

“Madame,” I said firmly, “you are not only a princess, but you are a queen, and I, your subject to obey and serve you!”

Then I turned to go for the signet and to save her, if I could. And as I passed out of the painted gallery, I saw her still at the window, a beautiful, passive figure, with a colourless face, and eyes that seemed to burn with some suppressed emotion as they followed me--with a look of deep perplexity and doubt.

_XVIII: AN HOUR OF PERIL_

WHEN I opened the door into the apartment which held Kurakin I found Maluta sitting on the floor, cross-legged, his elbows on his knees, his sharp chin in his hands, and his ferret-like eyes fastened on our prisoner with an expression of malice that reminded me that he had once been cast off by this boyar. The Russian nobleman, meanwhile, remained where we had bound him to the settle. It was true that his position was one of peculiar humiliation, and I could not blame him for any violence of feeling against me. I, in his place, would undoubtedly have meditated murder, and I knew that he did, when I saw his savage, bloodshot eyes. Moreover, afraid of an outcry, the dwarf had gagged him with a handkerchief, and his discomfort added to his rage. I think he had divined the trick that I had played upon him, or Maluta had twitted him with it, for the expression of his flushed and distorted face was that of a man goaded to the border of madness, but he could not speak and I could not remove the gag. A shout for help might have ruined us, and the only alternative, assassination, while it might have suited the dwarf, was not to my taste, so I left the gag in place. I looked at his hands at once, however, for the signet, and saw it, conspicuous enough, although he wore many rings, but this one bore the imperial arms, and I took it from his finger without more ado. The Princess Daria’s life and my own might hang upon it, and it was no time for squeamishness.

“Pardon me, monsieur,” I said calmly, “but I must even borrow the czarevna’s signet, in a matter of life and death; your clothes, too, serve the same purpose, so I must leave you to your reflections. It is wiser, monsieur, to avoid intrigues and to eschew all attempts to coerce a noble lady.” I said this, having myself just married one without her consent.

He sputtered; he could do no more with the gag, but I never saw such hatred before or since, in a man’s eye, or--thanks be to the Virgin--in a woman’s. But I wasted no time on him; signing to Maluta to follow me, I went out again into the painted gallery, and locking the door on the outside, thrust the key into my bosom. I still wore the boyar’s dress, and thought it best to wear it until I could get out of the palace.