The Crown's Game Part 16

"The very one."

"Mon dieu! What a state Russia is in these days."

Nikolai turned around, curious as to the ident.i.ties of the speakers. But both the men were masked, and one of them, upon seeing Nikolai, said, "Let's not discuss this tonight," before he herded his friend away.

If only they knew about magic and the Game, Nikolai thought wryly. Then they'd truly wonder at the state of Russia these days.

Nikolai brushed aside the men's talk-it was not only Galina's set that liked to whisper about gossip and scandal-and began to scan the crowd again in search of Pasha. Surely he was here in disguise.

But before Nikolai had looked at an eighth of the room, a familiar swirl of braids caught his attention. She wore the same gray tunic as the rest of the servants, although she shouldn't have, for she did not work in the Winter Palace. She did not belong here at all. Nikolai strode across the ballroom and caught her arm.

"What are you doing here, Renata?"

"Nikolai!"

"What are you doing here?" he repeated.

Renata wrenched free of his grip and maneuvered so that a divan stood between them. "What do you think?"

"If the girl tried to make a move in the Game tonight, there would be nothing you could do to stop her."

"I could try."

"By doing what? Distracting her by reading her tea leaves?"

Renata's face crumpled, and she looked away.

d.a.m.n it. Again with the clumsy words. And this time he didn't have vodka to blame. Nikolai reached across the divan and put his hand on Renata's arm, gentler this time. In the background, the waltz and its music came to a close. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to belittle your abilities."

"It's all right." She rested her hand on his. "I know you're under a great deal of pressure. I thought I could help by coming and keeping watch on her."

"Vika will be in costume. It will be hard to keep watch on anybody tonight."

Renata inhaled sharply. "Since when did you start saying her name?"

Nikolai dropped his hand from Renata's arm and stepped back. Had he said the girl's name? He hadn't meant to. Until now, it was a boundary he hadn't crossed. The Game would have been easier if she were unnamed, if she remained a stranger.

But it was already too late for that. From the moment she'd charmed the ca.n.a.ls, it was too late. And then she had spared him from the lightning storm, and he'd made her the Imagination Box. . . . Yes, it was much too late. In more ways than one.

Renata stood on the other side of the divan, awaiting his reply.

He cleared his throat. "How did you get into the palace in the first place?"

She gave a melancholy laugh. "Servants are interchangeable. They don't keep track of us. I slipped in through a service entrance and picked up a tray, and they pointed me in the direction of the uniforms without even looking at my face."

Nikolai frowned. It wasn't that long ago that he'd been mistaken for a servant at one of Galina's fetes, back when he wore whatever rags she scrounged up for him, before he learned to make his own clothes. And if Galina had never plucked him off the steppe, he could have been someone in a gray tunic, permanently. So it seemed patently unfair to Nikolai that he could be here, on one side of the ball, while Renata, his loyal confidante, could be on the other, wiping up spills and serving tea.

"Come with me." He had an idea. Perhaps not a wise one, given his suspicions of how Renata felt about him, but he could not let her spend the evening slaving away when she had come for his sake.

"Where are we going?"

"Nowhere, and at the same time, somewhere better than this faux cafe."

He came around the divan and led Renata farther into the corner. Then he raised his arm above them both and cast a shroud, such that if anyone looked in their direction, they would see only the curtains.

"What are you doing?" she asked, but her voice was steady, her eyes large and curious rather than afraid.

Nikolai untied a peac.o.c.k feather from one of the garlands and gave it to Renata. "Hold this."

She clutched it to her chest, and he pointed his fingertips at it, then lifted his right hand up and pressed his left, down, as if stretching the feather to Renata's full length.

"If you are going to be here at the ball, you might as well enjoy it," he said.

Renata looked down. "Oh, Nikolai!" Her plain tunic had metamorphosed into a green lace bodice and a skirt composed entirely of peac.o.c.k feathers. Her shoes were patterned to match.

"And of course you'll need gloves and a mask." He clasped his hands, and when they opened, white gloves and a mask of green, gold, and blue glitter appeared.

She picked them up as if they would vanish if she handled them too roughly. She slipped on the gloves, and Nikolai helped her fit the mask on her face.

He bowed and offered her his arm. "May I have the honor of dancing with you?"

"I-I don't know how."

"I will show you."

The shroud covering them faded away, and the harlequin led the peac.o.c.k to the center of the ballroom, where the floor manager was filling the next set of dancers for a waltz. They took their places, and Nikolai rested Renata's left hand on his right shoulder and wrapped his arm around her. With his other hand, he clasped hers and pulled her close. She held her breath.

"The beat is one-two-three," he said quietly. "But don't worry. All you have to do is follow me."

As the orchestra began, Nikolai led Renata forward, sideways, backward, whispering, "One-two-three, one-two-three," for the first few counts. She caught on quickly, and as they glided around and across the room, he dropped the count. "You're dancing beautifully."

Renata blushed.

They rose and fell with the music, whirling up and down and all around, and when the song ended, Renata asked, "Can we do that again?"

Nikolai shook his head. "Not immediately. It would be terrible etiquette if I monopolized your attention."

"Besides," a boy's voice said behind him, "I would like a turn with the beautiful peac.o.c.k."

Ah, there he was. Nikolai knew it was Pasha without even looking. For all of Pasha's claims that he wasn't any good at planning ahead, he was masterful at it when it involved sneaking out, or, in this case, sneaking in. "I knew you would come early," Nikolai said.

"I had to, before you stole the hearts of all the pretty girls."

Renata blushed again.

Pasha stepped up from behind Nikolai to join them. He was an angel-white dress coat, white waistcoat, white s.h.i.+rt, white cravat, white trousers, white shoes, white gloves, white mask. The only things not white were his silver wings and the gold halo nestled in his hair.

"Renata, may I introduce-"

"Dmitri," Pasha said. He winked at Nikolai. "Dmitri Petrov."

Nikolai tilted his head in a question. But then again, why not? It was a masquerade, after all, and tonight was the one night Pasha could truly get away with being someone else. Just like Renata could be more than a servant girl.

Dmitri the Angel bowed, offered her his arm, and whisked her back to the dance floor. Nikolai watched them go. Then he retreated back to the edges of the ballroom, to wait for the real reason he had come.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE.

When angelic Dmitri finished his dance with Renata, he led her off the floor, where she was immediately swept up by a pirate. The angel stayed a minute to confirm she was amenable to the pirate's attentions, and then, having ensured that she was, Pasha took advantage of his disguise and invited another young lady to dance. And after that, another. And another, and another. Because as the tsesarevich, he never got to do this with such freedom, but as Dmitri the Angel, he could. Perhaps this would be the first ball ever at which he would dance with more girls than Nikolai did.

Eventually, the orchestra needed a break, and Pasha, flushed but content, decided to seek out Nikolai again. But his friend seemed to have disappeared from the ballroom.

What's gotten into him lately? he thought as he made another pa.s.s by the dance floor, the refreshment station, and all the divans around the room. Nikolai couldn't have left. It seemed unlikely that there would be another event tonight more compelling than the masquerade, and even more unlikely that Nikolai would have abandoned Pasha on the night of his birthday. Could he have? Pasha scanned the ballroom again.

However, his search was halted by the majordomo banging his staff at the entryway. The servants ceased their clearing of plates in the cafe area, and the guests around the dance floor stopped their chattering to turn to the entry of the ballroom.

"The Grand Princess Yuliana Alexandrovna Romanova!" the majordomo announced.

"What?" Pasha said. Beside him, a mermaid and a clown frowned.

Right. He shouldn't disrespect his sister. And since he was in costume, the mermaid and clown didn't know Yuliana was his sister. But he could not be here when she arrived.

The entire room stood rapt as they awaited the grand princess's arrival. Only Pasha ignored the announcement and slipped out a side door.

He ducked in and out of the service pa.s.sageways, deftly avoiding the servants carrying trays of sandwiches and fresh coffee to the ballroom, and reemerged through another service door into a small chamber his mother occasionally used for holding audiences with those who wished to speak to her.

The room was simple by Winter Palace standards-a cherrywood desk and a few cus.h.i.+oned chairs, lilac-painted walls, and cream drapes held back from the floor-to-ceiling windows by gold ta.s.seled rope. It was unfussy and very much his mother's style, and Pasha could breathe here, so he paused for a moment and tried to shake the tension from his shoulders. Then he continued onward, out the door and into a proper hallway, until he'd circled back around to the entrance outside the ballroom.

His father and mother stood there, tall and proud, her hand on his arm. Yuliana must have already entered, and the majordomo was giving her due time to enjoy the guests' attentions before he announced the tsar and tsarina. Upon hearing Pasha's footsteps, they turned.

"Oh, darling, thank goodness you're here. They are about to announce us." His mother wore a deep ruby gown brocaded in gold, with glittering diamonds and sapphires on her ears, neck, and wrists, and a crown studded with diamonds and pearls on the blond ringlets atop her head. She waved a jeweled red-and-gold mask on a baton, holding it as regally as if it were a scepter. She looked every bit the role of tsarina. If it weren't for the cough that racked her body every few seconds, Pasha would have smiled. She had had the cough for months now, and it was not getting any better. Worse, actually.

"Are you sure you're well enough to attend the ball?" he asked. "Perhaps you ought to rest instead."

"It is your birthday, my love. I wouldn't miss it if it killed me."

"Mother."

"Darling, don't fret. It won't kill me. I promise." She released the tsar's arm and glided over to smooth Pasha's hair, which must have gotten unruly from the dances he had snuck in.

"Where have you been?" the tsar asked. Unlike the tsarina, he did not move to greet his son. He had also made no effort to change his usual attire for the masquerade; he'd donned his ceremonial military uniform as always. "Your Guard has been frantic, yet again, and frankly, I am weary of it."

Pasha bowed low to the ground. "My apologies, Father. I required some time to myself before the festivities. I do not have your natural ease at being in the public eye."

The tsarina patted Pasha's arm. "It will come with time, my dear."

"He turns seventeen tonight," the tsar scoffed. "The time to grow into his position has long since come and gone." He turned to Pasha. "You have already been inside the ballroom, haven't you?" He scowled at Pasha's hair. That traitorous, traitorous hair.

Pasha looked at the floor, in part to avoid his father's glare, but mostly to avoid the disappointment he was sure had settled on his mother's face. The scene of horses and soldiers woven into the carpet had never seemed so interesting before.

"You do realize how inappropriate your actions are, do you not?" The volume of the tsar's voice remained low and steady, but the tone had picked up a bitingly sharp edge.

"Yes, Father."

"Even the lowest-ranking n.o.bility must be announced."

"Yes, Father."

"There are rules governing with whom you interact and how. Your sister has never had a problem comprehending this. And yet, after seventeen years, it has somehow still not been impressed upon you that the conventions and ceremony of the tsardom matter. You are the tsesarevich of all Russia. I suggest you start acting like it."

"Yes, Father."

"Now go upstairs and change."

Pasha looked up from the carpet. "What? Why?"

"For a mult.i.tude of reasons, the foremost being that you have already been seen in that ridiculous costume, so if you march in as an angel now, the whole of Saint Petersburg's n.o.bility will know that you had previously slunk among them, unannounced, like a gutter rat. And also, your costume is unbecoming for a man of your station."

"But it's a masquerade. . . ." Pasha's voice wilted. There was no fighting the will of the tsar, and he knew it. He had always known it, which was why he tried to live so much of his life when his father was not looking.

"It is a masquerade for all of them." The tsar flung his hand in the direction of the ballroom doors. "But it is an imperial state function for you."

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO.

Nikolai had seen Pasha slip out a service door, but he had not antic.i.p.ated such a long delay between the announcement of the tsar and tsarina and the official announcement of Pasha's arrival. But when he saw his friend come down the marble steps, he understood the reason why: he was no longer the playful angel Dmitri but was instead the staid heir to the throne, complete with a forced smile and formal military uniform. No mask.

"The Tsesarevich, Pavel Alexandrovich Romanov!" the majordomo shouted.

Poor Pasha.

After he descended the stairs, Pasha turned and bowed to the tsar and tsarina, who were sitting in a balcony above the rest of the ballroom, not unlike a box at the opera, well separated from the ordinary people. Yuliana hurried to Pasha's side, her movements somehow graceful and graceless at the same time, and he kissed her hand. And then half the guests abandoned their current conversations and rushed to give their birthday wishes to the tsesarevich, no longer caring whether their masks fell and their true ident.i.ties were revealed. In fact, many of them purposely ripped their masks off their faces, the better for the tsesarevich to recognize them and take note of their show of loyalty.

If only they knew that Pasha was likely not keeping track.