Heart of Iron - Ekaterina Sedia [120]
I sighed happily and caught up to Eugenia, throwing one arm around her shoulders. “Dear Aunt Genia, I’m so glad you’re here. I feel like everything will be right now.”
Genia’s thin hand—traversed by blue, delicate veins—patted mine. I felt a surge of pity at her fragility and the sudden realization that she was getting old. “Well,” she said. “I do not know if everything will ever be completely ‘right,’ but I can promise you this: if your prolonged absence gets you expelled from the university, the emperor himself promised to intervene on your behalf.”
“Really?”
“Really.” She smiled. “He said so himself before he stuffed me into a submarine.”
“Is that how you got here so quickly?”
She nodded, pleased. “I felt rather like a sardine, but it took me from St. Petersburg to the Kara Sea and to Yenisey to Baikal quick enough. Then they found me an airship.”
I shuddered at the thought. “The submarine sounds awful. I hope we get to travel by air rather than water. But I suppose we have to go and find out if we are required to take any messages with us.”
Chapter 18
There were no messages, but General Feng informed us that Hong—the new ruler of China, if the treaty the Qing signed abdicating the throne could be believed—had decided to send an emissary to St. Petersburg, to bring the offer of an alliance and treaties to sign. We were invited to join the emissary, and Feng promised we would be sent by air, and reach St. Petersburg in no time.
Another surprise awaited me on the morning of our departure. The airship was positioned in the Sea of Flagstones, the open square before the building called the Hall of Supreme Harmony. The canal running in a semicircle around the square was frozen solid, and the footpath and the tiny bridges paved with multicolored blocks shone with frost. The roof of the Hall blazed in the sunlight. A small solemn army of Taipings had gathered to watch our departure; I was relieved to see Kuan Yu and Liu Zhi among them. I regretted I had too little time to explore this wonderful place—there were so many palaces and halls and pagodas, small hidden gardens, and the wells with poetic names Lee Bo told me and I immediately forgot. One, I thought, had something to do with concubines.
I also regretted not seeing Chiang Tse—I regretted it probably more than anything else, but I had difficulty admitting it to myself, not to mention talking to Aunt Genia or Lee Bo about it. And now it was too late. I tried to focus on getting home, on saving Jack, on seeing my mother, on going to the university again—anything but the sucking regret in the pit of my stomach. I stood by one of the tiny bridges, erect and straight-faced, my uniform clean and mended and my pelisse trimmed with new fur. All my belongings had been transferred into one of Eugenia’s leather valises as my old satchel had been falling apart from all the abuse I subjected it to. I watched with dry eyes as an airship, of a design similar to the one that had brought me to Beijing, descended into the square and landed on its sturdy wheels with engines chugging.
The machine was much bigger than Lee Bo’s, but I suspected it was born in the same Siberian factory. The seating was allocated to the belly of the ship instead of the flimsy freezing tiny gondola under it. The entire ship was more streamlined, with wider wings and narrower hull. Its front end was shaped as a snarling dragon snout, and the hull was painted with red and gold scales, as if reflecting the roofs of the palaces around us. I was by then thoroughly charmed by the architectural excesses of little towers and pagoda roofs all stacked on top of one another, and painted such bright red and gold and copper and green. Not even winter could dull these colors.
We waited for the emissary. When he appeared I could not, at first, see him as he was preceded by a sizeable entourage. Some of the Taipings waiting in the square joined it as well, including Kuan Yu. I was glad he was coming with us. “Is it one of the generals?” I whispered to Eugenia.