Heart of Iron - Ekaterina Sedia [76]
“Shhh,” I hissed. “I was thinking . . . the letter from Wong Jun is addressed to the Manchu officials, and to the Qing emperor himself.”
“Yes.” Jack stretched and yawned. “Is this why you woke me?”
“Yes. No. I mean, I woke you because maybe we shouldn’t be talking to the Manchu. Maybe instead we need to make alliance with the Taipings—looks like they just might win this. They’ve taken Nanjing, and looks like it’s only a matter of time before they advance further north.”
“They are barbarians,” Jack said. “At least, the Manchu are civilized.”
“They are a hated foreign government. I am just not sure that Emperor Constantine should make an alliance with such a tenuous power.”
Jack laughed. “The Qing have been in control for centuries. My dear, empires are all about hated foreign governments.”
I laughed too, stretched, and looked at the fir forest whizzing by the window, so close to the train tracks that I could’ve touched the branches if I had opened to window. “I do see your point.”
“Make no mistake about it,” he said softly. “When we visit Turkestan, you’ll see. Emperor Constantine, of whom you seem so fond of for some reason, is as hated there as the Manchus are in Canton.”
“Emperor Constantine is a good man,” I said. “He is being misled by his brother and his advisors, but I think—”
Jack threw his hands into the air. “What is it with you people! Even you, Sasha, and I thought you were smarter than most. The entire country seems to believe in some imaginary good tsar, as if nothing is ever his fault. From the sixteenth century to today, you all mumble about how your ruler doesn’t mean to do anything bad, he or she is just being lied to by corrupt boyars. Do you realize how silly it sounds?”
I did, but was not yet ready to admit to it, so I just turned beet red and stared out of the window, seething, and imagining suitable insults for Queen Victoria, even though I suspected that they would never wound Jack as deeply as his words had wounded me.
It was three days before we reached Yekaterinburg, and by then I had moved beyond vague dissatisfaction and into a ravenous lust for a hot bath and a meal that was not bought on a platform from portly peasant women bundled up in shawls and kerchiefs all the way up to her eyes. They sold sauerkraut and boiled eggs and hand-sized minced meat pies of dubious freshness but nevertheless a welcome relief from the monotonous bread, butter, and two-days-old soup from the restaurant carriage. But even those treats were starting to grate, and I would kill for a pancake or a plate of pelmeni.
The conductor informed us we were to stop for a few hours in Yekaterinburg, and recommended a tavern where we could take a room and, I fervently hoped, find some hot water. And pelmeni.
“Perhaps it would be better to stay on board,” Jack said when I expressed my plans excitedly. “It may be wise to avoid being seen.”
“We are much more obvious on this train,” I pointed out. “Besides, this train is the fastest thing in the country—how can they catch up to us?”
Jack shrugged. “There are ways. What does the train need to stop for anyway?”
“Pick up more coal and tea and water and food,” I said. “I was bored this morning and stopped by the engine compartment—it is rather horrifying. All those half-naked freedmen, covered in coal dust, black as devils, shoveling coal into the maw of the furnace . . . scary to think one furnace is what’s driving the entire train, isn’t it?”
“Fire and steam,” Jack mumbled under his breath. “It is staggering to think how much the two of them reshape the face of the land.”
“I suppose.” I stared out of the window, impatient for the sight of the city or any human habitation, but so far nothing but a spruce forest and a bridge over Chusovaya River broke the monotony of snow and sky. “Quite a bit of reshaping going on lately. I still wonder if we should take our offer to the Taipings.”
“You have no connection to them. Wong Jun’s letter would be a liability to their eyes.”
I sighed and continued staring. It felt like we were doomed to variations of this