The Russian Cage Read online

  “Girls, English,” Veronika called.

  “I’m sorry,” Lucy said. “You look lovely. That was what we were saying.”

  Alice nodded with a lot of force. “Yes!” she said.

  “Thanks.” Who doesn’t enjoy hearing that? We were at the bottom of the stairs. I turned to Veronika. “I appreciate all the work you put in, and the clothes. I’ll let you know what happens.”

  “Please,” Veronika said, and for a moment she looked as afraid as I felt. She pulled something from her pocket and hurried after us to press a card into my hand. I glanced down. Her name, telephone number, and address—I guess in case I forgot where I’d been and whom I’d borrowed clothes from.

  “Good, thanks,” I said, and we were out the door and into Felix’s old car.

  I wanted to ask Felix for advice as we drove to the palace, but two things stopped me. First, I thought Felix himself had never been to court. Second, maybe it would be better if I made no bones about being an outsider. I might as well be traveling to the moon, this was so far from anything I’d heard of or read about. I was only sure this was my best chance at getting Eli out of jail.

  “There are three ways to get on the imperial island,” Felix said, maybe because I looked nervous. He glanced over at me to make sure I was listening. “It’s not really an island but an isthmus.”

  I’d never heard that word, and I guess I looked it.

  “It’s attached to the mainland by a thin strip of land,” Felix explained. “South of here. But that’s heavily guarded, and only official vehicles involved in the building and maintenance of the palace and the homes being built are allowed to use it. Cars—aristocrat cars—going to the palace use the bridge. I figure we should use that one, since you’re visiting the tsarina. So that’s where we’re going.” Felix looked pretty grim about it, but then, Felix almost always looked pretty grim.

  “Okay. What about the servants and the building workers and so on?”

  Felix smiled. That had been a good question. Give me a peppermint. “There is the ferry. It crosses several times during the day and at shift changes. The guards check the identification cards against the faces of the workers before you are allowed on the ferry. Same happens when you return. If you try to swim, you are shot.”

  “I’m not the best swimmer anyway,” I said. “I guess I won’t get in the water.”

  We had to pull up before we reached a big guardhouse on the San Diego side of the bridge. The bit I could see of the bridge itself was new and pretty and arched over the water like… I don’t know, it was a nice curve. As Felix talked to the guards, I watched the people coming off the ferry docked at the pier. Looked like off-duty soldiers and servants, all happy to be going somewhere more interesting.

  The guard talking to Felix bent over to have a good look at me. I didn’t know how I was supposed to respond, so I just looked back. After a talk with his fellow guards, all male, we got a jerk of the rifle in the direction of the island, so we were good to go. Felix didn’t say anything, but he had an air of relief.

  Felix drove across the bridge and stopped at the next gatehouse, on the island end. Armed soldiers came to both car windows. Were we supposed to have been replaced by hostiles on our way over?

  “Hello,” I said to the man who’d gestured that I should lower my window. “My name is Lizbeth Rose. The tsarina invited me to visit her this afternoon.”

  He had a thick brown beard and wore a pecan-colored uniform, like all the other access guards. He had never heard of smiling. He looked at a clipboard he was carrying, and he spoke (in Russian) to his buddy, who was standing at Felix’s window. They had a long back-and-forth.

  The Russians seemed to be hell on maintaining checkpoints and on requiring uniforms that advertised the wearer’s job.

  While they had their discussion, I peered out at what was going on. At least there was plenty to see.

  North Island, now Imperial Island, was an anthill of activity. While Veronika had been grooming me, she’d told me a version of the same story Felix had related. When the Russian royal family decided to stay in California, the former USA military base, now almost empty after the flu, had been allocated for (or abandoned to) all the Russian emigrants. It was surrounded by water, so there was room for all the ships and boats and whatnot, and there was housing, though not exactly Russian royal standard. On the other hand, if you’d been on the water in cramped quarters for years, US naval housing looked pretty good. This had been where Felix and Eli and their siblings had lived after the tsar had been invited to San Simeon.

  When the island had been chosen for the new royal family’s base of operations, naturally, the higher-ranking court members had wanted to live nearby. They were building houses all along the road that led in from the mainland. In the meantime, the palace was under construction. Also more barracks for the soldiers who guarded the tsar.

  Since there was no US government any longer, everything on the base was ripe for the picking, too… especially for a government in exile, not exactly rolling in spare money. Veronika had said the lots on the road in had gone for astronomical sums. The tsar had been the seller.

  I’d never seen so much big equipment in one place. There were workmen swarming all over. At least construction workers didn’t have to wear uniforms.

  Seeing all the activity, I couldn’t believe there were so many unemployed men in the city. With so much shoreline and so many people coming over from the mainland every day, how did the guards maintain security?

  By forbidding strange grigoris to come in, I found.

  “You may enter, but this man must stay outside,” the guard by my window told me. I saw Felix had expected this. The tsarina’s invitation had not included him.

  “I will be in this parking area when you return,” Felix said. “I have a book to read while I wait.”

  “Good-bye, then,” I said, trying not to sound as jangled as I felt. I got out of the car before I could worry any longer. While one guard was making sure Felix knew all the rules for sitting in a car, the guard on my side raised his hand.

  That turned out to be a signal for another car. In a few seconds, one pulled up, polished and gleaming despite all the dust on the site. Naturally, the driver wore a uniform. The guard held open the door to the back seat, and I climbed in, trying to mind my skirts. The second the door shut, off we took down the road, a clear alley between scenes of brisk activity.

  We passed another car returning to the parking lot as we were approaching the royal residence. I tried to imagine driving back and forth between two fixed points all day. I shuddered.

  I don’t know what the palace had been in its previous life—maybe an officers’ club or the commander’s home? Or both? What I knew about navies and military bases would not float a boat.

  With a showy swerve, my driver turned to present my side of the car to another guard post. The man who opened my door was also in a pecan uniform, but waiting by the steps was a woman (in a blue suit, didn’t know if it was an actual uniform or not) who escorted me into the building.

  I wondered what the palaces they’d had in the old country had looked like, because they’d done a slap-up job with the new place. There were huge vases in many colors and patterns, benches every now and then, curtains, and so on. I’d never seen anything like it. There was no point trying to act like this was something I took for granted.

  I got handed off from one blue-suited woman to the next. They always murmured to each other, as though I was a parcel destined for one person. I was supposed to pretend I didn’t hear this. Wasn’t any point paying attention to the words; what was interesting was the language. All the inside servants spoke Russian. I was sure some of them had been wandering around with the tsar and his court until Nicholas had received the invitation from William Randolph Hearst.

  My stepfather had read me pieces in the newspapers about Hearst’s land in California and the place he was building on it. During their extended stay at the Hearst Ranch in the larges
t guesthouse, the tsar and his family were enchanted by the opulence, if not by the isolation. It was like things used to be, on some level, for the royalty, who’d been close to starving at points in their long journey.

  And when Hollywood had discovered how excited people got by newsreels of the Russian royals, how the two remaining unwed grand duchesses and the young tsar-to-be were fascinating to all Americans, it had seemed almost natural when California had broken off from the US to ask its resident royals in exile to step in and be royals in residence once more.

  The death of Nicholas and his state funeral had been the subject of every newsreel and on the front page of every newspaper for days. Rasputin had been alive then. In every picture of the new tsar, the magician had been a few steps behind, his beard streaked with white and his steps a little uncertain.

  I had plenty of time to remember all this. Felt like I could have walked home to Texoma in the time it had taken my guide to lead me to the room where the tsarina was.

  I’d assumed Caroline would be by herself. Not only was the tsarina surrounded by the same ladies who had been with her this morning (now all wearing different clothes, sure enough), but there were even more. They were all seated in chairs dotted around a salon-type room. They were all admiring the performance of a children’s choir.

  The first person I saw standing in the front row of singers was my little sister, trilling away in a clear soprano.

  I was startled on a lot of fronts. I hadn’t known the Rasputin School had a choir. I hadn’t known my sister could sing. And I sure hadn’t known the choir would be here today. It seemed like a massive coincidence. I hardly ever believe in coincidences, massive or tiny.

  I was ushered to the back of the group of women, where a few men had been shunted, too. My guide murmured, “When the children have sung, I will let Her Imperial Highness know you have arrived.”

  I nodded and gave my attention to the children. Felicia spotted me after another minute, and her whole face lit up. The people seated in front of me turned a little to discover whom the smile was aimed at, and I beamed back at Felicia so they’d know. I was proud of my little sister.

  CHAPTER TEN

  When the singing was over, Felicia came over to me as quickly as she could, considering that everyone rose and started milling around at the same moment. She had to stop every foot or two to accept compliments and to curtsy, which was something I would never in my life have believed Felicia would learn to do. When she threw her arms around my waist, she said, “Where’d you get the dress? Why are you here?”

  “Saved the tsarina,” I said, as low as I could and still be heard. “She got attacked this morning.” It was a bad time to explain the attack had been a setup by Felix to maneuver me into the presence of the tsarina, who was now obliged to me.

  “That was you?” Felicia looked up at me, her face alight with so many things. Triumph, pride, and the other shoe dropping, primarily.

  I nodded. “I got to go present myself,” I said, and took her hand. We went to the knot of women surrounding Caroline, who was wearing a real pretty blue dress that matched her eyes and some diamonds that sparkled like water. Of course, her blue dress was in no way the same blue as the women attendants.

  The ladies parted like the Red Sea as I approached. Caroline was looking straight at me and Felicia, and she was mighty curious.

  I had no idea how to do this, but I bowed as low as I could, and Felicia curtsied, and I said, “If I’m not greeting you correctly, I apologize, Your Imperial Highness.” Felix had told me that was the right way to talk to her.

  “Quite all right,” Caroline said.

  Felicia stood straight. “Your Imperial Highness,” my sister said, “this is my half sister, Lizbeth Rose.”

  “We met this morning,” Caroline said, and the ladies managed to produce a little gust of laughter all at the same time. “Miss Rose, it’s good to see you again under less terrifying conditions.”

  I had no idea how I was supposed to act or what I was supposed to say. “Yes, ma’am,” I said. Let Eli loose, let him out of jail.

  Felicia seemed to have mastered court etiquette in a very short stretch of months, but I’d always known there were depths to my little half sister that I might never plumb. Now she tugged on my hand to make sure I was paying attention.

  “My sister came all the way from Texoma to see me,” Felicia told the tsarina, and the ladies cooed because Felicia was so sweet and lovely. (They sure didn’t know her.) But I had to agree with them: Felicia looked real pretty. You would never have known her hair used to look like a dusty black bush.

  I smiled down at my sister. “I’m glad I did, but I also came on an errand,” I said, figuring that was what Felicia was aiming for.

  “Please explain. I’m so interested,” Caroline said clearly, and I understood, more or less, that she wanted me to speak with the same volume and clarity. Caroline wanted me to explain my goal, for whatever reason, all over again.

  “My friend Eli Savarov is in jail here. His mom has no idea why. I’d sure like to visit him. I’d like to get him out even more,” I said. I’m sure that everyone in a ten-foot radius heard me.

  “I had no idea that was the case,” Caroline said, still at a good volume. “I’m appalled to hear it. What charges are against him?”

  “Ma’am, I was hoping you could tell me.” I bent my head, waiting for her next move. Caroline was aiming this at someone, and I moved my eyes around without moving my face. Everyone was riveted, because, after all, this was the tsarina speaking to a commoner. But a face set in iron—a man in his thirties, with thick graying hair—was the target. And as I took in the grandness of his uniform and the pride of his stance, I knew he was an enemy of Caroline’s and therefore an enemy of mine, at least for now.

  When Caroline had decided to make a soapbox out of this, I wished she’d taken my inexperience into account.

  But Felicia squeezed my hand. “Vasily, son of Alexander,” she said, I swear without moving her mouth. So Proud Man was the son of the grand duke who wanted to give Alexei the heave-ho.

  “I will do my best, Miss Rose. Captain McMurtry,” the tsarina said, only slightly more loudly.

  An American-born man popped up at the tsarina’s side. “Tsarina?” he said, with absolute attention. He was a handsome man, lean-faced, with reddish hair. He was wearing a blue uniform covered with ribbons on the chest. He looked good in it.

  “Captain McMurtry, this is Miss Lizbeth Rose, who saved my life this morning in the gardens. Can you find out why Prince Ilya Savarov, who spent so many days and nights in my husband’s service, is in jail? And why his family has not been notified of the charges against him?”

  “Of course, Tsarina.” The captain bowed as if he’d been born with a hinge in his spine. He was gone from the room so quickly it was like a magic trick.

  Now that I had put in my two cents, I had nothing to say to Caroline. Luckily, she felt the same way. She turned to chatter to one of the other ladies, this time in a language that wasn’t either Russian or American.

  Xenia Alexandrovna, the white-haired woman from the park, took pity on me (needless) and felt it her duty to ask me questions about my trip to San Diego and what life was like in Texoma. Then she slipped in a question about Eli, whom she called Prince Ilya. “You must have known Ilya for some time, you’re so dedicated to his freedom,” she observed, and looked at me expectantly.

  We were both surprised when Felicia answered. “Eli owes my sister his life, as do I,” Felicia said. “My sister is famous.” She sounded as proud of me as I was of her.

  I had to concentrate on holding my face still. I wanted to grin down at her. For someone I’d wronged, Felicia was being a great advocate for me.

  “Famous?” the white-haired woman said gently. But the way she looked down at Felicia was not gentle. I pulled my sister a little closer to me and put my arm around her.

  “Lizbeth is a great shot,” Felicia said. “That’s why she’s a professio
nal.”

  “A professional… shooter?” Xenia Alexandrovna did a good job of looking puzzled.

  “Yes,” Felicia said simply.

  The lady looked up at me in polite inquiry. “I’m a gunnie,” I said. From her blank look, she didn’t understand. “I get hired to shoot,” I said.

  “At targets? In a circus?” Xenia Alexandrovna was incredulous.

  “To protect people. Or things. Sometimes that involves shooting other people. Naturally,” I added, because it was.

  “So under other circumstances, you might be the person hired to attack the tsarina.”

  “Under no circumstances. I am not an assassin.”

  “But if you were sending your beautiful necklace,” Felicia said, “perhaps as a gift to your sister or your daughter, you would hire my sister to make sure no one snatched it along the route.”

  The grand duchess’s necklace was pretty, for sure. I’d never seen pearls before, but I thought that was what they were.

  Xenia Alexandrovna looked from Felicia to me thoughtfully. “I see. That’s a fine distinction.”

  “However, it’s real clear to me,” I said through my teeth. I was still smiling. But it was beginning to be a strain.

  Felicia reached up to my hand, which was resting on her thin shoulder. She squeezed it. No gentle pressure, either. A real pinch. That brought me back to earth. “Of course, it really doesn’t matter what you think of me. What happens to Eli is the important thing. That’s why I’m here.” Back on track.

  “But why?” persisted the white-haired lady. “Why is saving Eli your mission?”

  “He brought me from Mexico to here,” Felicia said. “My sister always pays her debts.”

  I nodded. “That’s true,” I said. As far as it went, anyway. Felicia was a smooth liar.

  I was real glad to see Captain McMurtry appear at the tsarina’s side. He had to wait for her to finish her conversation with a very young woman, then he had to bow when she turned to him, and all those moments I was burning to hear what he had to tell her.