Boris Akunin - The Winter Queen

An awkward silence fell.

"But you won't dare banish me from the house," Akhtyrtsev declared in the same familiar tone. "I would say I have earned the right to speak my mind freely."

"And how exactly, may I inquire?" interjected a stocky captain in a guards uniform.

"By getting plastered, the snot-nosed pup," said Hippolyte (whom the old man had addressed as "count"), deliberately attempting to provoke a scandal. "With your permission, Amelia, I'll take him outside for a breath of fresh air."

"When I require your intervention, Hippolyte Alexandrovich, you may be sure that I shall request it," Cleopatra replied with a hint of malice, and the confrontation was nipped in the bud. "I'll tell you what, gentlemen. Since there is no interesting conversation to be got out of you, let's play a game of forfeits. Last time when Frol Lukich lost, it was quite amusing to see him embroidering that flower and pricking his poor fingers so badly with the needle!"

Everyone laughed merrily, apart from one bearded gentleman with a bobbed haircut whose tailcoat sat on him slightly askew.

"Well, my dear Amalia Kazimirovna, you've had your fun at the old merchant's expense… Serves me right for being such a fool," he said humbly, with a northern provincial accent. "But honest traders always pay their debts. The other day we risked our dignity in front of you, so today why don't you take the risk?"

"Why, the commercial counselor is quite right!" exclaimed the lawyer. "A fine mind! Let Amalia Kazimirovna show some courage. Gentlemen, a proposal! Whichever one of us draws the forfeit will ask our radiant one to… well… to do something quite extraordinary."

"Quite right! Bravo!" The cries came from all sides.

"Could this be rebellion? Pugachev's revolt?" Their dazzling hostess laughed. "What on earth do you want from me?"

"I know!" put in Akhtyrtsev. "A candid answer to any question. No prevaricating, no playing cat and mouse. And it must be tête-à-tête."

"Why tête-à-tête?" protested the captain. "Everybody will be curious to hear."

"If 'everybody' is to hear, then it won't be candid," said Bezhetskaya with a twinkle in her eye. "Very well, then, let us play at being candid — have it your way. But will the lucky winner not be afraid to hear the truth from me? The truth could prove rather unpalatable."

Rolling his r like a true Parisian, the count interjected: " J'en ai le frisson d'y penser. * BORIS AKUNIN Translated by Andrew Bromfield THE WINTER QUEEN To hell with the truth, gentlemen. Who needs it? Why don't we have a game of American roulette instead? Well — not tempted?"

"Hippolyte, I believe I warned you!" The goddess hurled her thunderbolt at him. "I shall not say it again! Not a single word about that !"

Hippolyte instantly fell silent and even spread his arms wide as if to show that his lips were sealed.

Meanwhile, the adroit captain was already collecting forfeits in his cap. Erast Fandorin put in his father's cambric handkerchief with the monogram P.F .

Plump Anton Ivanovich was entrusted with making the draw.

First he drew out of the cap the cigar that he himself had placed there and asked ingratiatingly, "What am I bid for this fine thing?"

"The hole from a doughnut," replied Cleopatra, with her face turned toward the wall, and everyone except the plump gentleman laughed in malicious delight.

"And for this?" Anton Ivanovich indifferently drew out the captain's silver pencil.

"Last year's snow."

Then came a medallion watch ("a fish's ears"), a playing card ( " mes condoléances ), some phosphorous matches ("Napoleon's right eye"), an amber cigarette holder ("much ado about nothing"), a hundred-ruble banknote ("three times nothing"), a tortoiseshell comb ("four times nothing"), a grape ("Orest Kirillovich's thick locks" — prolonged laughter at the expense of an absolutely bald gentleman wearing the order of St. Vladimir in his buttonhole), a carnation ("to that one — never, not for anything"). Only two forfeits remained in the cap: Erast Fandorin's handkerchief and Akhtyrtsev's gold ring. When the ring gleamed and sparkled in the caller's fingers, the student leaned forward urgently, and Fandorin saw beads of sweat stand out on the pimply forehead.

"Shall I give it to this one, then?" drawled Amalia Bezhetskaya, who was clearly a little bored with amusing her public. Akhtyrtsev rose halfway to his feet, unable to believe his luck, and lifted the pince-nez off his nose. "But, no, I don't think so — not this one, the final one," their tormentress concluded.

Everyone turned toward Erast Fandorin, paying serious attention to him for the first time. During the preceding minutes, as his chances had improved, his mind had been working ever more frantically to decide what he should do if he won. Now his doubts had been settled. It must be fate.

And then Akhtyrtsev jumped to his feet, came running over to him, and whispered fervently, "Let me have it, I implore you. What is it to you … you're here for the first time, but my fate depends on it… Sell it to me, at least. How much? Do you want five hundred? A thousand? More?"

With a calm decisiveness that surprised even him, Erast Fandorin pushed the whispering student aside, walked over to their hostess, and asked with a bow, "Where shall we go?"

She looked at Fandorin with amused curiosity. Her stare set his head spinning.

"Over there will do — in the corner. I should be afraid to go somewhere alone with anyone as bold as you."

Disregarding the mocking laughter of the others, Erast Fandorin followed her to the far corner of the hall and lowered himself onto a divan with a carved wooden back. Amalia Kazimirovna set apakhitosa in a silver cigarette holder, lit it from a candle, and inhaled deliriously.

"Well, and how much did Nikolai Stepanich offer you for me? I could tell what he was whispering to you."

"A thousand rubles," Fandorin replied honestly, "and then he offered more."

Cleopatra's agate eyes glinted maliciously. "Oho, how very impatient he is! So you must be a millionaire?"

"No, I'm not rich," Erast Fandorin said modestly. "But I consider it dishonorable to sell my luck."

The other guests grew weary of trying to eavesdrop on their conversation — they could not hear anything in any case — and they broke up into small groups and struck up conversations of their own, although from time to time every one of them kept glancing over at the far corner.

Meanwhile, Cleopatra surveyed her temporary lord and sovereign with frank derision. "What do you wish to ask about?"

Erast Fandorin hesitated. "Will the answer be honest?"

"Honesty is for the honest, and in our games there is but little honesty." Bezhetskaya laughed with a barely perceptible hint of bitterness. "I can promise candor, though. But please don't disappoint me by asking anything stupid. I regard you as an interesting specimen."

Fandorin hurled himself recklessly into the attack. "What do you know about the death of Pyotr Alexandrovich Kokorin?"

His hostess was not frightened — she did not flinch — but Erast Fandorin imagined that he saw her eyes narrow for an instant. "Why do you want to know that?"

"I will explain afterward. First answer the question."

"All right, I will. Kokorin was killed by a certain very cruel lady." Bezhetskaya lowered her thick black lashes for a moment and from beneath them darted a rapid, scorching glance at him, like a rapier thrust. "And that lady goes by the name of love."

"Love for you? Did he used to come here?"

"He did. And apart from me I believe there is no one here with whom to fall in love. Except perhaps Orest Kirillovich." She laughed.

"And do you feel no pity at all for Kokorin?" asked Fandorin, amazed at such callousness.