Джейн Йолен - The Last Tsar's Dragons

And she was the wind.

It went on for a week, and the entire court watched it happen, whispered about it, wondered. I could all but hear them think: “Well, she is a German, and you know how they are.”

But I, who was faceless and nameless to so many of them, understood what they did not. This had nothing to do with her being German. It had more to do with him being a man too caught up in love. Never a good idea for an ordinary man. Worse for a prince. Disaster for a tsar. I blame his parents for letting him become weak.

So it was no surprise when he sent for me to gather the dragon boys and meet him and a small contingent of soldiers down in the pens.

He made a hash of it, of course, sending the soldiers in first to shoot the beasts, then changing his mind before they could raise their rifles.

By that point, the dragons were suspicious—they are not foolish creatures. And when the dragon boys went in with their sharp knives to dispatch their charges humanely, they were met with claws and teeth and no small amount of flame. The soldiers had to open fire to save the boys, which, as you might imagine, had mostly the opposite effect.

The barns ran black with dragons’ blood. A dozen dragon boys died in the slaughter.

Standing at the half-closed door to the barns, I escaped the worst of it, but even I was blooded. Even now, my face bears scars from those hot flames. Though I tell people now I got the scars in the war. And in a way, I suppose, I did.

Few dragons died easily. None died silently. The palace walls rang out with their death cries.

The remaining dragon boys wept for both their brethren and their dragons.

The tsarina seemed jubilant and claimed that God had been appeased and her children were safe.

I knew differently. For as the tsar slaughtered his best weapons of war, a messenger came to the palace and passed me a note.

A rebellion had begun. And the rebels had brought their own dragons.

I didn’t pass the message along. There was no time.

I ran to my apartments but did not wake Ninotchka.

All is falling apart , I thought. She will need her sleep .

Prying open the old desk where I kept my treasures, I filled my pockets with gold coinage, my real certificate of birth, my other papers, several strands of rare pearls, my mother’s diamonds, my father’s gold watch and fob. Small reward for the time I had given to tsar and country, but it would have to serve. I left Ninotchka what paltry jewels she had. I had bought them for her, and I knew how little they were worth.

She will need them , I thought. Alas, the tsar will not look kindly on me and mine once the full story of the mad monk’s death comes out. And come out it will. The prince and those other fools will have boasted in private. It’s in the blood. Servants can be forced to tell what their masters will not. I sighed. Better to leave Ninotchka to what fate her beauty can buy her.

Most importantly, I grabbed the stolen plans for the drachometer. Those, more than any money or jewels, would buy me a place in the new order of things.

I planned to cross the lines, find the men who held the new reins of terror. Without dragons, the tsar cannot win. History shows us that. And only a fool fights to the very last in a forlorn hope.

I am no fool. I am a man of action, not inaction. I read history. Every wheel turns and turns again. Revolution is a messy business. But history demands the surefooted .

I said aloud—but not too loud, for I only needed to confirm it for myself before I took the giant step into the unknowns of revolt and revolution—“There is always a need for a good functionary, a secretary, a man of purpose.”

I thought: If necessary, I can kill. My hand can wield a knife. I have done it once, can do it again. My plan had succeeded, even before the dragon coup d’etat.

Yes, I am someone who has much to offer, to moujik or tsar. And I will let it be known—I work equally well with men and with dragons.

It took only a few weeks for Russia to fall. The red dragons saw to that. They didn’t terrorize the countryside, but the palaces and houses of the aristocrats. Many of the aristos fled the country with no more than the jewels on their backs. Some had houses elsewhere—in Europe if they were lucky. They carried their titles with them to be sold when they could. But most, the ones who were property-poor, ended up with nothing.

It took much longer for the tsar to admit defeat, but on the 15 thof March, he finally abdicated his throne. For the safety of his family, he agreed to the rebel terms. He knew that he was now only citizen Nicholas Romanov and practiced that name in front of any bit of mirror he could find. If there was gall in the breath it took to say it, he did it for the children’s sake, and his wife’s. Not, he thought, my own .

But all the while, he tried to send messages to their many cousins ruling in the safe kingdoms of Europe and the United Kingdom.

He got no answers in return.

That silence is as sharp as the spear in our Savior’s side , he thought but kept it to himself. And the bitterness compounded when Sunny scolded him for not letting them leave weeks earlier for Germany.

Soon, Citizen Romanov and his family were moved out to Tsarskoye Selo and placed in protective custody by the provisional government at Alexander Palace. Again he stayed silent for the family’s sake. Making what few bargains he could for better food, or an easier place for the children and Alexandra to sleep. For himself, he found it no longer mattered.

They stayed but a short time at Alexander Palace, and then—after a long and unpleasant boat trip—wound up in a dismal place called Tobolsk in Siberia, a town of twelve thousand peasants. Two thousand miles from Petrograd. More miles from the capital. From the society of their friends. From civilization.

I do not miss civilization , the tsar told himself, or at least not nearly as much as I thought .

“Maman,” the girls whispered to her in French, sure that none of their guards could understand it. “We are under guard, underfed….” And Anastasia added, “underappreciated.” It was not meant as a joke, but still the girls giggled.

The tsarina (ex-tsarina, she reminded herself, Citizen Alexandra Romanov, a name she was coming to loathe) worried less about the girls and more about Alexei.

The trip had been extremely hard on him, especially as it began on his thirteenth birthday. By the end of the first day’s excitement—because the actual reasons for the trip were being kept from the rest of the family—Alexei was exhausted. And exhaustion was never his friend.

The girls had, early on, figured out something was not right, because there were few amenities on the boat, and the boatmen—unlike those on the royal yacht—were rough and grizzled and, frankly, mean.

But it was Alexandra who bore the brunt of the worries, especially as it was likely there would be no competent physicians out there in the back of beyond to heal Alexei.

She worried: What if he should start bleeding again? What if he falls down and breaks a bone… or hits his head and there is a bleed in his brain? He is such an active child. If only he were a quieter, more serious boy. But, though small for his age, and knowledgeable about his illness, he always wanted to be as boisterous as other boys. Her head spun with fears, and with the knowledge that nothing was now under her control, and that surely God had abandoned her.