David Golemon: Primeval

The elder watched as the fingernail moon rose into the sky, and in the distance, he thought he could hear the sound of wailing. Humanlike in tenor and woman-sounding, it gave the old man chills as he knew there was anguish etched in those cries.

The man lowered his head. They would move on tomorrow, furthering themselves from their ancient homeland, distancing their hunger, and keeping pace with the easily moving herd. However, for some reason the man could not fathom, he felt the days of They Who Follow were at an end. Why the great creature had saved one of their own, he would never know, and now he would think on it no more that night.

As he watched the men build up the fire and the women tend to the injured girl, the old man turned to the west and listened as the sad sound of death continued to fill the night. The strange noise of many large sticks slamming into the ground and the few trees on this small, thin plain joined the wailing. The constant beat sounded as if a herd of creatures ran through the night. Both the thumping and the cries unnerved the group of men.

The clan of giants had lost one more of their kind and was fast dwindling to almost nothing. The beasts, unlike any animal in the world, had an instinct — not unlike that of man — about the inevitability of death. With little hope of finding the new world to the east any better than the barren land they left behind, the giant humanlike animals, the most intelligent creature next to evolutionary man, could soon vanish from the face of the earth. However, the elder was wrong about one thing: The clan of giants was now attached to his band of wanderers, and they would forever seek the companionship and warmth of men.

The royal family was allowed out of the confines of the house to enjoy the morning air. Crown Prince Alexei was bundled heavily against the chill, while constantly being attended to and pestered by the family doctor. His father watched from a distance. They were in the large courtyard, and he never liked being far away from the children. He watched two of the Bolshevik guards as they strolled lazily by his four daughters, giving them a quick appreciative glance, then knowing they were being watched by the royal family, the guards continued on their way with a sneer and chuckle as might be expected from the lowborn men they were. Last year at this time, these very same men would have been shot for their arrogance.

Tsar Nicholas II accepted his fate as the last tsar of the great Romanov dynasty — however, he did not have to accept that same disgraced destiny for his children.

He waited by the tall wall, and was tempted to shift his weight from one foot to the other in nervousness, but finally he forced himself into stillness. He looked without turning, catching the small dark eyes of Commissar Yurovsky watching the family from the ground-floor window of the large farmhouse. The small man was paying particular attention to the tsar, but that was no surprise; the beady ferret eyes of the commissar were forever watching, studying.

Nicholas saw the tall man walking toward him down the garden's lone path. The tsar could tell that the big man also knew the eyes of the commissar were scrutinizing his comings and goings in the courtyard — therefore the large man paused to converse with the girls, nodding as they spoke to him, smiling in the coquettish way they always had. His daughters found the blond-haired Bolshevik irresistible. He was able to put everyone — highborn and lowborn — at ease. It was a talent Nicholas himself had never attained through his many years of rule in Russia.

Finally, the tsar saw Yurovsky turn away from the window and he relaxed — to a point — as he knew there were several other sets of eyes watching from places he could not guess. The large man, Colonel Iosovich Petrov, was respected even among the ruthless guards, largely because they feared what he was — a member of the dreaded Cheka, the secret police of the new Communist Party. What the Bolsheviks did not know, however, was the fact that at one time the handsome colonel had been on the payroll of Tsar Nicholas himself.

The large man with the easy gait, standing tall in his knee-high polished boots and splendid green uniform, nodded his greeting to the tsar, half bowing, a simple gesture that the guards saw as mocking the royal, but it was actually a sincere greeting as taught to him by his superiors while he was training in exile with Vladimir Lenin. This did not stop him from moving his blue eyes to the far window, looking for the pinched features of the commissar.

"Young man," the tsar greeted in return. That simple gesture was something new to him — something that should have been incorporated long before his abdication. Small things like that little greeting, employed over his reign, may have been beneficial to his understanding of the classes that were far beneath his station. Creating a road to understanding his own people is exactly where he had failed so miserably.

"Sire," the man said as he straightened his hat, "your family looks well this morning."

Nicholas cleared his throat, raising his gloved hand to his mouth, and then nodded once. "Thank you… comrade — uh, that is the proper word these days? Comrade Colonel?"

Petrov smiled. "Yes, but just Colonel will do for the time being… as in the old days?"

The tsar turned and started walking, the uniformed colonel, without hesitation, walked along casually with him, towering over the smaller Nicholas. They both placed their hands behind their backs. The colonel, without turning to face the tsar, spoke in low tones, saying what he had to say.

"I was only able to get the one girl from Tetrovisk. Your cousin's family, including his daughters, had already left the country from the port of Vladivostok in the east three weeks ago. The one daughter I have was left behind in the local hospital; she was too ill to travel with the rest of her family. She is just recovering from pneumonia. She has fully recovered and I have explained to her the task ahead. On your behalf, she has agreed to cooperate — it must be nice to still have loyalty, even among your lower relatives."

The tsar was quiet, ignoring the thinly veiled reference to his royal nieces and nephews. Instead of commenting, he closed his eyes in an effort to fight back the despair he was suddenly feeling at Petrov's news. He swallowed, then smiled as best he could and forced himself not to look the part of a dejected and desperate father. The news meant that only one of his precious daughters would survive their possible black fate. As ruthless as the plan was — the killing off of relatives to save his own children — was the only hope of having his direct bloodline survive the madness that had swept his country.

"The boy?" he finally asked, looking out of the corner of his eye at the two guards watching from the garden's main gate. He desperately tried to keep from choking up as he waited for the fate of his son to be announced.

"There, I was able to secure you some good news. The British intelligence service was much helpful in getting us the son of your cousin's mistress — the little man even has the same blood type as the crown prince."

"Does he resemble my son?" Nicholas asked through clenched teeth, an almost desperate question.

The tall man smiled and looked over at the guards, and then he lowered his head so his lips could not be seen.

"It was as if I were looking at the bastard son of a mistress of yours… Your Highness."

The tsar closed his eyes and fought a desperate battle with his rising anger, as again he had to endure the insults to his royal dignity.

"Apologies… very rude of me — yes, the boy looks like Alexei. They could even be twin brothers."