Heart of Iron - Ekaterina Sedia [119]
“They did have an empress,” I said. “Dowager, I mean, but an empress nonetheless.”
“The Russians have had more recent empresses,” Eugenia pointed out sensibly. “The great world of good it did us.”
“I gave Jack’s documents to the Taipings,” I said. “They seem like better allies.”
“Yes, since they are winning,” Eugenia agreed. “Come with me, Sasha, come for a walk in a garden. We need to talk.”
The garden that lay just behind the palace and surrounded a small shrine with a round roof was quiet and white, graceful black branches outlined against the snowdrifts and walls. I wondered at my ability to even notice such things, even admire them, as so many other concerns should’ve been closer to my heart. “I worry about Kuan Yu,” I said. “I hope Feng got it sorted out with his people at the gates.”
“I’m sure your friends will be fine,” Eugenia said. “You’ve done well. I received your message, and I was able to finally talk Constantine into listening to reason.”
“How did you manage that?”
Eugenia smiled, sly. “I do have friends, and I followed your advice. Apparently, being old-fashioned and honorable doesn’t get you anywhere, but being friends with the empress’s former beau who still has some of her less discreet letters will assure you her help.”
“Brilliant,” I said with respect. “So she helped you get Constantine’s ear.”
“Apparently, men do listen to their wives.” Eugenia stepped off the stone path and crouched down, black as a crow on the white snow. She picked up a handful of snow and rolled it in her hands absently. “The snow is so heavy and wet,” she said. “Great for the crops, and I think a warm spell is coming.”
I crouched down next to her. The stone of the path felt so heavy that I put my hand on it, to feel its aged-cold surface, worn smooth by so many generations of feet, and yet it managed to retain the tiny bumps and cracks on its surface. They made me think of the moon and the dark blemishes and long sinuous fissures one could see on it some nights in June. “Do you think we’ll be back in Trubetskoye by the time they start sowing?” I asked.
“Depends on what else we have to do. I think the Taipings will accept the invitation from the emperor I’ve delivered, and you and your Englishman friend certainly helped to sweeten the deal . . . Where is he, by the way?”
I told her about Jack and his initial disappearance and his capture, of the way he kept close and yet managed to distract Nightingale and her contingent.
“I never liked that woman,” Eugenia said. “I always keep thinking we women ought to stick together, and I keep telling it to the empress—because if we do, we can stand up to the men and to the way they run things. But the empress and that Nightingale, they value men’s opinion over those of their own kind. And I don’t know what to do about them.”
“I don’t know about the general principle,” I said, “but I certainly would be quite comfortable with destroying her. Not killing, just making sure she would never interfere with my life again, and that she wouldn’t hurt Jack.”
“Where would they take him?”
I shrugged. “Maybe to London, and maybe to St. Petersburg. Is Mr. Herbert still there?”
“I believe so. I think I saw some mincing dandy the last time I was at the Winter Palace, who kept lisping into Nicholas’s ear.” Eugenia straightened and spat. “I swear it is a miracle that I managed to get myself sent here—Nicholas is in the pocket of the English and the Turks, and he has no inkling they are not his friends.”
I stood too. “He does seem both dim and unpleasant. But I am really thinking that I should probably go do something about Jack before he is executed as a traitor and a criminal.”
Eugenia gave me a long look and continued down the path, leaving tracks of snow clumps on the clean dry stones. “You keep some dubious company.”
“I suppose. Will you come with me, at least some of the way?”
“Of course, dear. How far do you think they could’ve traveled?”
“If they took the train, they are at least three days ahead of us.”
“Then I suppose we will have to convince Mr. Feng to lend us an