Dancing With Bears - Michael Swanwick [138]
To be chosen for one of the Kremlin troops was a great honor for a Muscovite soldier and one that only the best received. However, when the naked giant came crashing through the government buildings, supernatural dread had gone before him in a great wash of terror. Warriors who would have stood their ground in the face of superior forces and fought to the death, broke and ran. Those charged with defending their nation’s very center of power scattered in a panic.
In their wake, Surplus drove Chortenko’s blue-and-white carriage up the Trinity Tower causeway and parked it before the Armory.
Surplus knocked hard on the door with the heavy silver knob of his cane. Then, when there was no response, he pushed the door open. “This way,” he said, and entered the unguarded building.
Arkady followed a step or three behind him, carrying the carpetbag of makeshift burglar tools and from time to time murmuring, “the Duke of Muscovy,” in the manner of a man trying to keep in mind some desperately important fact or duty.
The Armory had from Preutopian times been kept as a museum of Muscovy’s and before that Russia’s greatest treasures. There was much to see here. But Surplus moved swiftly past the larger luxuries and won-ders—the gilded coaches and carved ivory thrones and the like—straight toward the Diamond Fund. “Come briskly, young man. We might as well get some use out of you…as a mule, if nothing else.”
“The Duke of Muscovy,” Arkady mumbled. He shivered convulsively
“You’re cold! And your coat is sodden. Have you been rolling about in puddles?” Surplus removed Arkady’s overcoat and replaced it with a ceremonial greatcoat that was thickly woven, intricately embroidered, and worth a fortune in any bazaar in the world. “There. That will keep you warm,” he said. Then, “Dear Lord! That awful grimace! Every time I look at you it gives me a fright. Here.” Using his cane, he hooked down a medieval helmet with a serene silver face-mask from the wall. He placed it over Arkady’s head, cinching the straps with particular care to the lad’s comfort. “Now try to keep up. We haven’t much time.”
Down the lightless gray halls they scurried, pausing every now and again so Surplus could pick a lock (the tools taken not from the satchel but from the pocket case, which he had planned to use at the Pushkin) and so select some choice item. It would have been easier to smash the glass of the vitrines. But that would have been vandalism, and Surplus was no vandal.
Quickly, he loaded down Arkady with the best of what he saw: the Imperial Crown, which was covered with nearly five thousand diamonds and topped by a red spinel, the second-largest such gemstone ever found; Catherine the Great’s scepter, which contained the famously large Orlov Diamond; a jewel-encrusted armored breastplate that he didn’t recall having read about but which looked respectably gaudy; and much more as well. Arkady’s greatcoat pockets he stuffed to overflowing with cunningly made jeweled eggs.
“Can you see?”
“The Duke of Muscovy.”
“Yes, yes, most admirable. I commend you for your sense of duty. Try to focus on the moment, however. We have serious matters which must be dealt with first.” Surplus heaped Arkady’s arms to overflowing with damascened swords, platinum goblets, jewel-hilted daggers and the like. For himself, Surplus was careful to keep his arms unencumbered and his wits sharp. But whenever he came upon loose gems, he slipped them into his pocket, until he had a good solid handful.
Arkady’s load would make Darger and him rich beyond belief. The loose stones were only insurance.
A museum was a spooky place at night, lit only by bioluminescent columns. Those small random noises indigenous to any old buildings were all too easily assigned patterns by a nervous mind. So when Surplus, who was far from a coward, first heard what might have been distant footsteps, he ignored them.
Then came the sound of breaking glass.
Surplus froze. Someone else had entered the Armory with the same intentions as