Catherine studied the abbess for a moment. Then she said casually, “Valerian, you and Plato Alexandrovitch may leave us now.”
“But my beloved Highness …” said Plato Zubov in a voice that closely approximated the whine of a small child.
“Do not fear for my safety, my dove,” said Catherine, patting his hand, which still rested upon her shoulder. “Helene and I have known one another for nearly sixty years. No harm will come to us by being left alone for a few moments.”
“Is he not beautiful?” Catherine asked the abbess when the two young men had left the room. “I know you and I have not chosen the same path, my dear. But I hope you will understand when I tell you I feel like a small insect warming its wings in the sun after a cold winter. There is nothing to raise the sap of an old tree like the caress of a young gardener.”
The abbess sat in silence, wondering again whether her initial plan had been well chosen. After all, though their correspondence had been warm and frequent, she had not seen her childhood friend in many years. Were the rumors about her true? Could this aging woman, steeped in sensuality, jealous of her own power, be trusted with the task that lay ahead?
“Have I shocked you into silence?” Catherine laughed.
“My dear Sophia,” said the abbess, “I do believe you enjoy shocking people. You remember when you were only four years old, during your presentation at court to King Frederick William of Prussia, you refused to kiss the hem of his coat.”
“I told him the tailor had cut his jacket too short!” Catherine said, laughing until tears came to her eyes. “My mother was furious with me. The king told her I was entirely too bold.”
The abbess smiled benevolently at her friend.
“Do you remember when the Canon of Brunswick looked at our palms to predict our futures?” she asked softly. “He found three crowns in yours.”
“I remember it well,” replied the other. “From that day forward, I never doubted I would rule a vast empire. I always believe in the mystic prophecies when they complement my own desires.” She smiled, but this time the abbess did not return her smile.
“And do you remember what the canon found in my hand?” said the abbess.
Catherine was silent for a moment. “I remember it as if it were yesterday,” she replied at last. “It is for that very reason I’ve awaited your arrival with such a sense of urgency. You cannot imagine my frenzy of anticipation when you did not come for so long.…” She paused hesitantly. “Do you have them?” she said at last.
The abbess reached into the folds of her abbatial gown, where a large leather traveling wallet was strapped to her waist. She withdrew the heavy gold carving, caked with jewels. It portrayed a figure dressed in long robes and seated in a small pavilion with draperies drawn back. She handed the piece to Catherine, who held it in her cupped hands in disbelief, turning it about slowly.
“The Black Queen,” whispered the abbess as she watched Catherine’s expression closely. The empress’s hands closed about the gold and jewel-encrusted chess piece. Gripping it tightly, she held the piece to her bosom and looked at the abbess.
“And the others?” she said. Something in her voice made the abbess wary.
“They are hidden safely, where they can do no harm,” was the reply.
“My beloved Helene, we must reassemble them at once! You know the power that this service holds. In the hands of a benevolent monarch, there is nothing that cannot be accomplished through these pieces—”
“You know,” interrupted the abbess, “that for forty years I have ignored your entreaties to search for the Montglane Service, to remove it from the walls of the abbey. Now I shall tell you why. I have always known precisely where the service was hidden—” The abbess held up her hand as Catherine was about to erupt with an exclamation. “I also knew the danger of taking it from its hiding place. Only a saint could be trusted with such a temptation. And you are no saint, my dear Figchen.”
“What do you mean?” cried the other. “I’ve united a fragmented nation, brought enlightenment to an ignorant people. I’ve wiped out the plague, built hospitals and schools, eliminated warring factions that would split Russia apart, making her prey to her enemies. Do you suggest I am a despot?”
“I thought only of your own welfare,” said the abbess calmly. “These pieces have the power to turn even the coolest head. Remember that the Montglane Service nearly split the Frankish empire apart. After Charlemagne’s death, his sons went to war over it.”
“A territorial skirmish,” sniffed Catherine. “I cannot see how the two things were related.”
“Only the strength of the Catholic Church in central Europe has kept this dark force a secret for so long. But when the news came to me that France had passed the Bill of Seizure to confiscate Church property, I knew my worst fears might come to pass. When I learned that French soldiers were proceeding to Montglane, I was positive. Why to Montglane? We were far from Paris, hidden deep in the mountains. There were wealthier abbeys close at hand that would be simpler to loot. No, no. It was the service they were after. I spent my time in careful calculation, to remove the service from the abbey walls and scatter it across Europe so it could not be reassembled for many years—”
“Scattered!” cried the empress. Leaping to her feet with the chess piece still clutched to her bosom, she paced the room like a caged animal. “How could you have done such a thing? You should have come to me, called upon me for aid!”
“I tell you I could not!” said the abbess, her voice brittle and frail from the exhaustion of her journey. “I learned that there were others who knew of the location of the service. Someone, perhaps a foreign power, had bribed members of the French Assembly to pass the Bill of Seizure, and had directed their attentions toward Montglane. Does it not seem coincidental that two of the men this dark power tried to bribe were the great orator Mirabeau and the Bishop of Autun? One was the author of the bill, the other its most ardent defender. When Mirabeau fell ill this April, the bishop could not be dragged from the bedside of the dying man until he breathed his last. No doubt he was desperate to obtain any correspondence that might incriminate them both.”
“How do you come to know these things?” murmured Catherine. Turning from the abbess, she crossed to the windows and gazed at the darkening sky, where snow clouds gathered upon the horizon.
“I have their correspondence,” the abbess replied. Neither woman spoke for a moment. At last the abbess’s voice came softly in the dim light. “You asked what mission had kept me so long in France, and now you know. I had to discover who it was that had forced my hand, who had caused me to wrench the Montglane Service from its hiding place of a thousand years. Who was the enemy that stalked me like a hunter until I was flushed out from the cover of the Church to seek across a continent another safe refuge for this treasure entrusted to my care?”
“And have you learned the name you sought?” said Catherine carefully, turning to face the abbess across the expanse of space.
“Yes, I have,” replied the abbess calmly. “My dear Figchen, it was you.”
“If you knew all this,” said the stately czarina as she and the abbess strolled along the snow-covered path to the Hermitage the next morning, “I do not understand why it is that you came to Petersburg at all.”
A troop of Imperial Guard marched at twenty paces to either side of them, trampling the snowy fields beneath their high-fringed Cossack boots, but far enough away that the two women could speak freely.
“Because, despite all evidence to the contrary, I trusted you,” said the abbess with a little twinkle in her eye. “I knew you feared the government of France would crumble, the country would fall into a state of anarchy. You wanted to assure the Montglane Service would not fall into the wrong hands, and you suspected that I would not concur with the measures you were prepared to take. But tell me this, Figchen, how did you plan to relieve the French soldiers of their booty, once they’d removed the service from Montglane? Short of invadi
ng France with Russian troops?”
“I had a cadre of soldiers hidden in the mountains, to stop the French troops at the pass,” said Catherine with a smile. “They were not in uniform.”
“I see,” said the abbess. “And what inspired you to such dire measures?”
“I suppose I must share with you what I know,” the empress replied. “As you are aware, I purchased the library of Voltaire upon that gentleman’s death. Contained within his papers was a secret journal written by Cardinal Richelieu, explaining in code his researches into the history of the Montglane Service. Voltaire had broken the code, and I was thus able to read what he discovered. The manuscript is locked into a vault at the Hermitage, where I’m taking you now. I intend to show it to you.”
“And what was the significance of this document?” asked the abbess, wondering why her friend had not mentioned this before.
“Richelieu had traced the service to the Moor who’d given it as a gift to Charlemagne, and even beyond that. As you know, Charlemagne had fought many crusades against the Moors both in Spain and in Africa. But on this occasion, he’d defended Córdoba and Barcelona against the Christian Basques who threatened to topple the Moorish seat of power. Though the Basques were Christian, they had sought for centuries to smash the Frankish kingdom and to seize control of Western Europe, most specifically the Atlantic seaboard and the mountains in which they had held sway.”
“The Pyrenees,” the abbess said.
“Indeed,” replied the czarina. “The Magic Mountains, they called them. You know that these same mountains were once the home of the most mystical cult that has been known since the birth of Christ. The Celtic peoples came from there, and were driven northward to settle in Brittany and, at last, in the British Isles. Merlin the Magician came from these mountains, and also the secret cult we know today as Druids.”
“This much I did not know,” said the abbess, looking ahead at the snowy path as she walked, her thin lips pursed together, her wrinkled face resembling a stone fragment from an ancient tomb.
“You’ll read it in the journal, for we are nearly there,” said the other. “Richelieu claims the Moors invaded this territory and learned the terrible secret which had been protected for centuries, first by the Celts and then the Basques. These Moorish conquerors then transcribed their knowledge into a code which they themselves invented. In effect, they coded the secret into the gold-and-silver pieces of the Montglane Service. When it became clear that the Moors might lose their grasp of power in the Iberian Peninsula, they sent the chess service on to Charlemagne, of whom they were in awe. As the mightiest ruler in the history of civilization, they thought he alone might be its protector.”
“And you believe this story?” asked the abbess as they approached the massive facade of the Hermitage.
“Judge for yourself,” Catherine said. “I know the secret is older than the Moors, older than the Basques. Older, indeed, than the Druids. I must ask you, my friend, have you ever heard of a secret society of men who sometimes call themselves the Freemasons?”
The abbess grew pale. She paused outside the door they were about to enter. “What do you say?” she said faintly, grasping her friend by the arm.
“Ah,” said Catherine. “Then you know that it is true. When you have read the manuscript, I will tell you my story.”
THE EMPRESS’S TALE
When I was fourteen years old, I left my home in Pomerania, where you and I grew up side by side. Your father had recently sold his estates adjoining ours and returned to his native France. I shall never forget my sadness, my dear Helene, at not being able to share with you the triumph we had so long discussed together, the fact that I might soon be chosen successor to a queen.
I was at that time to journey to the court of the Czarina Elizabeth Petrovna at Moscow. Elizabeth, a daughter of Peter the Great, had seized power through a political coup, casting all her opponents into prison. As she’d never married and was past childbearing age, she’d selected her obscure nephew, the Grand Duke Peter, to succeed her. I was to be his bride.
En route to Russia, my mother and I were to stop at the court of Frederick II in Berlin. Frederick, the young emperor of Prussia whom Voltaire had already dubbed “the Great,” wished to sponsor me as his candidate in uniting the kingdoms of Prussia and Russia through marriage. I was a better choice than Frederick’s own sister, whom he could not bear to sacrifice to such a fate.
In those days the Prussian court was as sparkling as it was to become sparse in Frederick’s later years. Upon my arrival, the king took great pains to charm me and make me feel at ease. He clothed me in gowns of his royal sisters and seated me at his side each evening at dinner, amusing me with tales of the opera and ballet. Though a mere child, I was not deceived. I knew he planned to use me as a pawn in a larger game, a game he played across the chessboard of Europe.
After some time I learned that at the Prussian court existed a man who’d recently returned from spending nearly ten years at the court in Russia. He was court mathematician to Frederick, and his name was Leonhard Euler. I made so bold as to request a private audience with him, thinking he might share his personal insights about the country I was so soon to visit. I could not have foreseen that our meeting would one day change the course of my life.
My first meeting with Euler was in a small antechamber of the great court at Berlin. This man of simple tastes but brilliant mind awaited the child who was soon to be queen. We must have made an odd couple. He stood alone in the room, a tall, fragile man with a neck like a long bottle, large dark eyes, and a prominent nose. He looked at me in cockeyed fashion, explained by the fact he had been blinded in one eye by close observation of the sun. For Euler was an astronomer as well as mathematician.
“I am unaccustomed to talking,” he began. “I come from a country where if you speak you are hanged.” This was my first introduction to Russia, and I assure you it served me well in later years. He told me how the Czarina Elizabeth Petrovna kept fifteen thousand dresses and twenty-five thousand pairs of shoes. She would hurl her shoes at the heads of her ministers if she disagreed with them slightly and send them to the gallows on a whim. Her lovers were legion and her drinking more excessive than her sexual habits. She did not permit opinions that varied from her own.
Dr. Euler and I spent a good deal of time together once I’d overcome his initial reserve. We took quite a liking to one another, and he admitted that he longed to keep me at the Berlin court to take me as a pupil in mathematics, a field in which I showed strong promise. Of course, this was impossible.
Euler even admitted that he did not care much for the Emperor Frederick, his patron. There was a good cause for this, other than Frederick’s poor grasp of mathematical concepts. Euler revealed his reason to me on the last morning of my stay at Berlin.
“My little friend,” he said as I came into his laboratory on that fateful morning to bid him adieu. I remember he was polishing a lens with his silk scarf, as he was accustomed to do when working out a problem. “There is something I must tell you before you depart. I’ve studied you carefully these last days, and believe I can trust you with what I have to say. It will place us both in great danger, however, if you reveal these comments unwisely.”
I assured Dr. Euler that I would guard any confidence with my life. To my surprise, he told me that might indeed be necessary.
“You are young, you are powerless, and you are a woman,” said Euler. “For these reasons, Frederick has selected you as his tool in the vast, dark empire that is Russia. Perhaps you are unaware that for twenty years that great country has been ruled exclusively by women: first Catherine the First, widow of Peter the Great; then Anna Ivanovna, Ivan’s daughter; Anna of Mecklenburg, who was regent to her son Ivan the Sixth; and now Elizabeth Petrovna, Peter’s daughter. Should you follow in this powerful tradition, you will find yourself in great danger.”
I listened politely to the gentleman, though I began to suspect that the sun had blinded more than
his eye.
“There is a secret society of men who feel their mission in life is to alter the course of civilization,” Euler told me. We sat there in his study, surrounded by telescopes, microscopes, and musty books scattered across the mahogany tables and littered over with a thick disarray of papers. “These men,” he continued, “claim to be scientists and engineers, but in effect they are mystics. I will tell you what I know of their history, for it may be of great importance to you.
“In the year 1271, Prince Edward of England, son of Henry the Third, went off to the shores of North Africa to fight in the Crusades. He landed at Acre, a city near Jerusalem of ancient heritage. There, we know little of what he did, only that he was involved in several battles and met with the Moslem Moors who were chieftains. The following year Edward was recalled to England, for his father had died. Upon his return he became King Edward the First, and the rest of his story is known from history books. What is not known is that he brought something with him from Africa.”
“What was it?” I was more than curious to know.
“He brought with him the knowledge of a great secret. A secret that goes back to the dawn of civilization,” Euler replied. “But my story gets ahead of itself.
“Upon his return, Edward established in England a society of men with whom, presumably, he shared this secret. We know little of them, but we can follow their movements to some degree. After the subjugation of the Scots, we know that society spread to Scotland, where it lay quiet for a time. When the Jacobites fled Scotland at the beginning of our century, they brought the society and its teachings with them into France. Montesquieu, the great French poet, had been indoctrinated into the order during a sojourn in England and with his aid was established the Loge des Sciences at Paris in the year 1734. Four years later, before he became king of Prussia, our own Frederick the Great was initiated into the secret society at Brunswick. In the same year, Pope Clement the Twelfth issued a bill to suppress the movement, which had by now spread to Italy, Prussia, Austria, and the Lowlands as well as France. So strong was the society by then that the Parliament of Catholic France refused to register the pope’s order.”