Boris Akunin - The Coronation

‘I have genuine lions in the Department of Security,’ the governor general of Moscow immediately retorted. ‘And they know the city very well, unlike your Tsarskoe Selo carpet scrapers.’

‘I b-believe it would be best if I were to take on the role of the intermediary,’ Erast Petrovich said quietly. ‘Naturally, in some kind of disguise. I know Moscow very well, and I know Lind’s habits too.’

Kirill Alexandrovich put an end to the argument by declaring firmly: ‘We will decide this later. The important thing is that now at least we have some kind of plan of action. Nicky, does it have your approval too?’

The questionwas clearly asked for form’s sake, for His Majesty had never been known to object to anything that had been approved by his eldest uncle.

‘Yes, yes, Uncle Kir, absolutely.’

‘Excellent. Sit down, Colonel, take the code and write this message . . .’ said His Highness, clasping his hands behind his back and striding across the room. ‘“Agreed. We need a respite of seven days. For each day we are willing to pay a hundred . . . no, two hundred thousand roubles. Payment by daily instalments, in any place at any time, but the prisonermust be produced.” Well, how’s that?’ he asked, not addressing the question to his royal relatives, but to Fandorin.

‘Not bad,’ Fandorin replied most impudently to the commander of the Imperial Guard. ‘But I would add: “Otherwise there will be no deal.” Lind must understand we acknowledge that he has a strong hand and are prepared to pay a high price, but are not prepared to jump to his every beck and call.’

Our exalted visitors did not go home even after taking this difficult decision, for Fandorin expressed the opinion that a reply from Lind would follow almost immediately, either by semaphore light signal, telegraph – there was an apparatus in the Alexandriisky Palace – telephone call or some other, entirely unusual means. He said that on one occasion in similar circumstances a message from the doctor had come flying in through the window, attached to an arrow fired from a great distance.

Just imagine it – the autocrat of all Russia, the admiral-general of the fleet, the commander of the royal guards and the governor general of Moscow waiting patiently for some adventurer to deign to reply to them! I’m sure that nothing of the sort had happened in Russian history since the negotiations with the Corsican at Tilsit – but at least Bonaparte was an emperor.

In order not to waste time, the grand dukes began instructing their nephew the emperor in how to receive the foreign ambassadors and monarchswho had arrived for the celebrations. These meetings constituted the main political significance of the coronation, since it is quite common for extremely delicate questions of interstate relations to be decided, highly responsible diplomatic initiatives to be launched and new alliances to be concluded under the guise of ceremonial audiences.

His Majesty definitely still lacked experience in such subtleties and was in need of guidance and instruction. Not to mention the fact that the late sovereign, not having a very high opinion of the tsarevich’s intellectual abilities, had not felt it necessary to initiate him into the secrets of higher diplomacy. For example, not until he had already ascended the throne, and even then not immediately, did the newemperor learn that in some mysterious fashion the direction of Russian foreign policy had been completely reversed: although to all appearances we remained a friend of His Majesty the Kaiser, we had concluded a secret defence pact with France, Germany’s most bitter enemy. And this was by no means the only surprise awaiting the young successor to the throne.

The briefing was extremely sensitive in nature and, having ascertained that everything necessarywas on the table, I thought it best to withdraw. The sensitivity arose not so much from the secrecy of the information as from the intimate family tone that the conversation assumed. His Imperial Majestywas actually not all that quick at absorbing what he was told, and his most august uncles began losing patience with their nephew, sometimes employing expressions that might perhaps be permissible between close relatives but are unthinkable in the presence of servants.

Well, I had my own guests, who might be less eminent but were far more demanding. Having installed Mr Fandorin, Colonel Karnovich and Prince Glinsky in the large drawing room, where my assistant Somov served them coffee and cigars, I went to the servants’ parlour, a small, cosy little room located beside the kitchen on the ground floor. The governor general’s butler Foma Anikeevich, the senior grand duke’s butler Luka Emelyanovich, His Majesty’s valet Dormidont Seleznyov and Fandorin’s Japanese servant Masa were taking tea there. I had asked Mademoiselle Declique to look in on my guests from time to time to make sure that they did not feel abandoned – and also to give the poor woman, who was crushed by the misfortune that had overtaken her, something to keep her occupied. I know only too well from my own experience that at moments of such moral suffering there is no better medicine than performing mundane duties. It helps one to keep control.

On entering the servants’ parlour, in addition to the pale but evidently quite calm governess, I also found Mr Freyby there, sitting a little apart from the general group with his interminable book in his hands. But there was not really anything to be surprised at in that. It was raining outside, the English gentlemen had gone for their enforced promenade, and Mr Freyby had no doubt grown bored of sitting in his room. Every butler knows that the servants’ parlour is something like a drawing room or, to put it in the British manner, a club for the senior servants.

For a brief moment I was perturbed by the Englishman’s presence, since I was intending to hold my own secret council meeting with my guests, but then I remembered that Mr Freyby did not understand a single word of Russian. Very well, let him sit there and read.

We were served by the new footman Lipps, whose experience and level of training I had not yet had time to ascertain. He himself understood perfectly well the importance of the examination to which he was being subjected, and he did everything immaculately. I observed him with as critical an eye as possible but failed to spot any blunders. I told Lipps to wait outside the door, for the conversation was not intended for his ears, and when something had to be brought in or taken away, I rang the bell. The man from the Baltic did what was required quickly but without hurrying – that is exactly as it should be done, and disappeared behind the door again.

You could probably not find judges of the servant’s art sterner and better informed than my guests anywhere in the world. And that applied in particular to the venerable Foma Anikeevich.

I ought to explain that we servants have our own hierarchy, which does not depend at all on the status of our masters, but exclusively on the experience and merits of each one of us. And in terms of this hierarchy beyond all doubt the most senior among us was Foma Anikeevich, butler to Simeon Alexandrovich, the youngest of His Majesty’s uncles. Luka Emelyanovich and I were approximately on the same level, while Dormidont, for all the brilliance of the position that he held, was regarded in our circle as still an apprentice. He knew his place and sat there modestly without leaning back in his chair, trying to listen to everything and not speak too much. The general opinion concerning him was that he was competent, observant, capable of learning and would go a long way. He came from a good court servant family, which was obvious from his given name and patronymic – Dormidont Kuzmich. At christening we hereditary servants are all given the simplest of the old names, so that the order of theworld will be preserved and every human will have a name to suit his calling. What kind of servant or waiter could be called Vsevolod Apollonovich or Evgenii Viktorovich? That would only cause hilarity and confusion.