Heart of Iron - Ekaterina Sedia [69]
“And this brings me to another concern, dear mother. I know how indifferent to politics you are (I am not talking of the palace gossip here), but please do bear with me this one time. I fear our contempt for our own Asiatic origin has blinded us to who our allies truly are. I wonder how the world would be reshaped if Russia allied itself not with the degeneracy and false superiority of European empires, but with the might of the Orient?”
Just as I wrote these words, the train slowed down and soon stopped entirely. I looked up to peer through the window, and discovered it had completely frosted over. I scratched at the frost with my fingernails, and saw an iced over wooden platform which could not—I hoped it was not—be Nizhniy Novgorod, for its apparent lack of any interesting architecture or cathedrals.
“Why are we stopping here?” I asked Jack.
He shrugged, without looking up from his penny dreadful. “Probably picking up some passengers. Some chose to board in remote regions to avoid the crowded stations for personal reasons. More discreet that way.”
There was a small hut on the platform, as I could discern after pressing my cheek to the frozen windowpane to melt the frost. A pavilion with a flat roof on which the snow mounded like sugar in a sugar bowl, and three wooden walls. Inside it were two figures, bundled up against the cold in what looked like fur cloaks made of the skins of the entire contents of Noah’s ark—no two pelts were alike. The whole gave an impression of a moving cat-and-dog fight as they started to shamble slowly toward the train, dragging behind them two fairly large sea chests.
They came through the doors of our carriage a moment later, and even though the carriage was almost empty, took a compartment across the aisle from us. I studied their chests, covered in intricate carvings of whales and fishes and dragons, and secured by wide leather straps. The two chests occupied most of the floor of the compartment, and the passengers had to carefully arrange their feet shod in heavy boots with fur spats. I couldn’t help but feel they were overdressed for the weather, even if it was frigid outside.
It took the new arrivals a while to unburden themselves from their fur hats, fur gloves, fur everything. Their cloaks were lined with gold-colored silk, an unexpected flash of refinement.
I noticed Jack was watching them too: his pose, while seemingly nonchalant, was wound with hidden tension—his right hand dangled between his knees, still holding the booklet, but his left was thrust into the pocket of his coat. His feet rested flatly on the floor, his leg muscles tightening under the fabric of his trousers.
The strangers were not English, as I had feared, but Chinese—there was no mistaking their facial features and soft voices that spoke in what I recognized as Cantonese. Yet, their hair was not braided into a long pigtail, but hung loosely around their faces, looking as if it had not been cut in some years. The clothing they wore under their furs was made of silk, but tattered and dirty, and I could not decide if they were Han robes. I was certain they were not Manchu.
One of them realized that I was staring. “Kuan Yu,” he introduced himself and bowed, withdrawing his hands into sleeves sporting an unintentional fringe.
“Poruchik Menshov,” I said brightly in English. “Any relation to Admiral Kuan Tien Pei?”
The man laughed then, showing small white teeth. “Not that I know of, but I do suspect the admiral honors Kuan Ti, the god of war, as do I.”
Jack listened to this exchange, visibly relaxing. It occurred to me that he did not lower his guard when he realized our new neighbors were Chinese, but only at