Ted Bell - Tsar

There was never any vehicular traffic at these infrequent crossings, ever. No trucks, no cars, no tractors. Were there simply no combustion engines outside the cities? None at all? A few hours earlier, they’d slowed for a crossing, and he’d seen a mule cart with an ancient driver on his box, bundled against the freezing north wind, the reins clenched in his frozen fingers. The man was so still on his perch that Hawke feared he might have simply frozen to death while waiting for the long train to pass.

The train slowed further, and he guessed by the hour that they might finally be approaching his destination, a tiny country station on the way to nowhere.

He stood and gathered his few belongings. He was already wearing his long black woolen greatcoat against the cold and his thick black cashmere scarf and his Russian fur cap, purchased from a kiosk at the St. Petersburg station. He reached up to the top shelf for his luggage.

He had with him his old leather Gladstone portmanteau, primarily because of its twin false bottoms. The two visible compartments were filled with clothing and shoes and his few books. Two secret compartments contained one pistol each, twin SIG Sauer 9mms, plus enough Parabellum ammunition to start a small war. Another, smaller compartment housed his powerful Iridium Globalstar satellite telephone. The guns and the phone had been waiting for him in a luggage storage locker at the St. Petersburg train station.

The train lurched to a stop, and he leaned over to peer out his window. The window framed what looked like a charcoal sketch. There was the tiny station house with its puffing chimney. Beside it were birch trees, laden with hoar frost. Their branches, like smoky streaks of candle wax, looked as if they wished to lay down their snowy burdens on the building’s steeply pitched roof.

The dimly lit sign over the doorway read “ Tvas .” The stationmaster’s office was lit from within, and inside the yellow room, he saw the silhouette of a tall woman bundled in furs, pacing back and forth. His heart leaped at the sight of her, and he raced from his compartment, careened down the narrow corridor to the platform, where he jumped from the train.

Her face was at the stationmaster’s window, peering out at the arriving train, as he grasped the doorknob and pushed inside, instantly grateful for the warmth of the small stove glowing in the corner.

Anastasia turned from the window and smiled at him.

“You’ve come” was all she said.

She was covered head to toe in white sable, an abundant coat reaching the tops of her snowy boots. Her head was covered with a matching sable cowl, and her golden curls fell beside her cheeks, still rosy with the cold. Her hands were clasped inside a white fur muff, which she let drop as she moved quickly toward him across the scuffed wooden floor.

“Oh,” she said, suddenly remembering the stationmaster who stood beside his counter. He was a small fat man who wore a grey Tolstoyan shirt with a broad leather belt, felt boots, and trousers bagging at the knees. He looked a kindly enough fellow, but a tiny gold pincenez on a wide black ribbon quivered angrily on the end of his nose.

“Nikolai, this is my new friend whom I’ve been telling you about.”

The Russian bowed, saying something under his breath to Anastasia.

“He says you’re very handsome but that I shouldn’t have come all this way for you on such a night. He’s very protective. I’ve known him since I was no taller than a poppy.”

“Come here,” Hawke said to her, dropping his portmanteau to the floor and spreading his arms wide.

She ran to him, and he enfolded her in his arms, burying his face against hers inside the warmth of her furry cowl, inhaling the fresh outdoor scent of her, the perfume of her skin, finding her lips and kissing them, at first softly and then with a sudden urgency that surprised even him. He’d struggled mightily to banish her from his mind for all the long hours on the train, and now he was overwhelmed at the strength of the feelings suddenly welling up inside.

“You look so-beautiful,” he said, aware of the word’s ridiculous inadequacy, holding her away from him so he could look into her brightly shining green eyes, hardly able to believe anyone could ever be or look or seem so lovely.

“And you, handsome prince.” She laughed. “Come to Mother Russia at last, have you? Come along, now, we’ve got a long journey yet.”

“Are we walking?” Hawke said. “I saw no sign of a car. Or a road, for that matter.”

“A car?” She laughed again. “You think an automobile could travel two feet in snow this deep? Get your bag and follow me, bumpkin.”

She bent to retrieve her dropped white muff, then hurried to the still-opened station door, turned and said good-bye to the stationmaster, then rushed outside. Hawke grabbed his bag and followed her, catching up with her under the single lamp illuminating the snow-covered platform. It had begun to snow again, snowflakes coming down one by one. They spun slowly and hesitantly before finally settling like fluffy white dust on the sparkling blanket of already fallen snow.

“Kiss me again,” she said, and he did, standing under the lamppost, aware of old Nikolai peering out at them from a corner of the window. She saw him, too, and pushed Hawke away.

“Now, follow me, sire. Your carriage awaits.”

He followed her, matching her determined march through the deep snow stride for stride, their boots making a great crunching sound. They made their way around the side of the station house to the rear, their angular shadows preceding them across the new-fallen snow. There in the moonlight, three white stallions stood abreast of each other, harnessed to a magnificent gold and blue sleigh. A troika.

He hurried toward this apparition, having never seen a conveyance quite so marvelous in his life.

He ran his hand along the steaming, glistening flank of one the three enormous stallions. The restless horses were snorting great clouds of white steam from their flaring black nostrils and pawing the snow impatiently. As he approached the sleigh and ran his fingers over the bodywork, he could see that it was a dark blue decorated with shooting stars and comets, all the wonders of the heavens, carved into the wood and picked out in gold leaf.

“My God, Anastasia, what a lovely thing.”

“Isn’t it?” she said, climbing up into the sleigh. “It was a gift from Peter the Great to one of my more illustrious ancestors. Baron Sergei Korsakov gave Peter a billion rubles to help him defeat Louis XIV. Luckily for us, Peter won. As a reward, the Tsar also built for us the roof you’re going to be sleeping under tonight.”

Hawke laughed and slung his bag into the rear of the sleigh behind the leather-upholstered bench seat. The sleigh was smaller inside than he’d imagined, just room enough for two, filled with blankets of sable and mink. He climbed up and joined her inside, pulling a mink blanket over both of them.

“I’m fast,” she warned him, taking up the four reins.

“Fast is good,” Hawke said, watching her carefully and inspecting the unusual rig. He’d never seen a troika up close and was fascinated at the complicated arrangement of the horses. “Usually,” he added, striving for nonchalance.

“Shall we go?” she asked him, smiling, flicking the reins lightly.

“Ever onward.”

She spoke a few urgent words to her chargers, and they were off at breakneck speed, careening wildly through the trees and then racing down across the face of a broad, snow-covered meadow. At the bottom of the vast meadow, a narrow lane led off into the hills to the south. The tinkling sound of the many silver sleigh bells added to the magical quality of their journey, and Hawke was content to remain silent, sucking the cold air down into his lungs and watching the girl, the horses, and the white clouds scudding across the face of the fat yellow moon.