Dancing With Bears - Michael Swanwick [76]
“Monsieur Ambassador de Plus Precieux. Quelle surprise! I have caught you away from your duties—and all those beautiful young ladies of yours.”
“They are hardly mine, in any sense, and as to beauty… Well, when I first came to Russia, I was warned that I was bringing coals to Newcastle, and here before me is the living proof of the truth of those words.”
The baronessa smiled in a way that indicated she appreciated a man who understood the art of flirtation. “Have you met my cousin, Yevgeny Tupelov-Uralmash?”
“A pleasure, sir,” Yevgeny said, with a friendly flash of teeth and a firm handshake.
Surplus responded in kind. “You have been shopping, I see,” he observed, offering his arm to the baronessa. She took it and they strolled onward, in the direction of Goom. “I trust I’m not keeping you from anything.”
“Well, I was making a few last-minute preparations for a little get-together at my pied-à-terre.” She nodded toward Yevgeny’s overladen arms. “A few bottles of wine, some caviar, those crackers you can only get direct from that bakery in Chistye Prudy…Trifles, really, but for some things one doesn’t want to rely on a servant’s judgment. Not when close friends are involved.”
“It sounds delightful. Is this a girls-only affair, or might I dare hope to accompany you there?”
The baronessa looked amused.“It would be rather a dull event without men, to my way of thinking.” Then, thoughtfully,“It’s meant to be strictly invitational, and I’ll catch hell from my social secretary if I bring along an unannounced date. Still…You are something of a social catch. And one of my male guests has indicated that he’s unlikely to be able to attend…”
“I still have hopes,” Yevgeny said.
“Yes, we all know what you hope, dear boy. Oh, don’t sulk! If he shows up, you’ll just have more of his attention to yourself.” She turned back to Surplus. “So—yes, I believe you’ll make quite an adequate substitution. Anyway, I’ve been curious to learn if it’s true what my female friends say about you.”
“You astonish me madam. Whatever can the ladies possibly find to say about a simple civil servant such as myself?”
“Nothing but good things, I assure you, Ambassador.”
“Please. Call me Surplus. Will the baron be in attendance?”
Her eyes widened. “Oh, no. I don’t think it’s his sort of thing at all.”
As soon as Chortenko had scolded and lectured his thugs up the stairs and out of her presence, Zoësophia turned her attention to her cage’s lock. She almost felt insulted. The device was a pin tumbler with only six stacks and a straightforward keyway slot. Removing two hairpins from deep within her elaborate coiffure, she swiftly picked it open. It was as simple as, earlier, it had been to mislead Chortenko by behaving like an imbecile and regulating the flow of blood in her face.
A basic principle of espionage was that men possessed of special talents they thought nobody knew about were particularly easy to deceive.
The door at the top of the stairs opened and she swiftly moved to one side, where she could not readily be seen.
A guard came down into the room, saw the empty cage, and spun about in alarm. Calmly, Zoësophia stepped forward and snapped his neck. Soundlessly, she lowered his corpse to the floor.
“Well!” Zoësophia said aloud, amused. “This is not exactly how I had hoped to make my social debut in Moscow. But it will have to do.”
The guard’s death had excited the dogs and set them to howling and barking and launching themselves against the doors of their cages again. But of course nobody would pay any attention to that.
At the foot of the stairs, for just an instant, she hesitated. Her sympathies were all with the imprisoned and mistreated dogs. But her first duty was to escape. Anyway, she was not entirely sure she could fend off so many animals if they all attacked her at once. As they surely would if she