I hesitated. “They’re fine, Tsarina Alex. Forgive me, I am not myself.”
“What is wrong?” I looked at the Tsar and he was lost in a world of dreams, had retreated from reality.
“I’m not sure what I can do, Tsarina. I’m only one man. And not even a full grown one at that.”
“Whatever you can do, Sevgi. We don’t care about ourselves but save my children.”
“I’ll do my best, Tsarina,” I swallowed. “What’s the date?”
She looked at me oddly and told me what I didn’t want to hear. I had less than twelve hours to save what I could of the Russian royal family. In twelve hours, soldiers from Marx would storm into these rooms, gather them all into a smaller room and obliterate them all in a haze of bullets and then spend hours carting off the bodies to hack them to pieces with hatchets and burn what was left before throwing that down an abandoned mine shaft. Only to dig them up and hide them further.
“I have money, jewels,” she offered, tearing at her clothes.
“It’s not that, Tsarina,’” I whispered. “I have no time to plan anything. I need confederates, some escape plan.”
“I thought you said you had everything ready?”
“I did? Tell me,” I said and she outlined a plan so outrageous, I knew that whoever I was before I’d dropped into this role, I had not been a sterling character.
“Anastasia trusts you, Sevgi. And Alexei.”
I laughed bitterly. “Did I take money from them, too?”
She looked at me. “You look different, Sevgi. Your eyes. I never noticed their color before. They’re lavender, like gemstones. Do you have English in you?”
“I am English, Tsarina. And my name is not Sevgi but Aidan. Aidan Argent. I’m from Cornwall and in another hundred years, you and I are distant cousins through your cousin Victoria.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I’ll do whatever I can. Fate has played me a nasty trick. I must see what I can do to tweak her back. God is with you.” I sneaked back out and returned to the Grand Duchesses and the tsarovitch; they looked up in terror until they saw my face.
“Sevgi,” they cried gladly. “Is it safe now?”
Before I could answer, the door burst open and the soldiers, my comrades entered the room shoving me roughly aside and began beating the girls, paying particular attention to the boy. I saw blood splatter the walls and rage consumed me. I attacked, opened fire on them and heard their cries of outrage and disbelief. A blue haze filled the room, the smell of cordite, blood and faces so strong that I gagged. Only two of us were left standing, the sergeant and I. he held his stomach together from which entrails were hanging. He cursed me.
“I knew you were still too much the spoiled aristocrat, Sevgi and not a loyal comrade. I hope you rot in hell with the other royal cunts. Your blood isn’t blue or theirs.”
He collapsed and I looked down at my own torso to see a purple stain grow on my uniform. Weakness made my legs tremble. I was sinking to the floor when I heard a faint groan. It came again and with a sudden burst of strength, I pulled corpses from each other to find a body covered in blood and white lace.
She groaned, her eyelids fluttered and Anastasia pushed her white hands into me. Her face wore a look of horror even as tears fell from my eyes. “I was too late,” I whispered. “I’m sorry.” I collapsed on top of her sisters, unable to help any of them.
Chapter 21
Anastasia had managed to dress herself in one of the dead guard’s uniform and greatcoat, drag me outside, and put me in the coal barrow. She’d pushed me as far as the woods before she’d collapsed and was huddled near me covered with a snow-crested blanket.
Snow falling on my face had roused me, my belly and side were on fire, and the rest of me was numb. “Anna,” I whispered, trying to get my feet on the ground.
“Sevgi. You’re alive,” she sobbed in relief. “You’ve lost so much blood.”
“Thirsty. Cold,” I moaned. “Help me up.” Between the little help I gave her and her own considerable aid, I was able to slide out of the cart and onto my feet.
“There’s a woodcutter’s shed about a quarter kilometers in. I think we can make it,” I said. “I need something to pack the holes.”
“I did that with my dress and under things,” she said frankly without blushing. “You have three holes across your stomach and chest.”
“We’d better hurry then. Blood leaves a bright trail in the snow. Are you hurt?”
“Something hit me in the head. I was leaping to protect Alexei when you pushed me aside. Otherwise, these holes would be in me.” Her blue eyes were wide, calm, and unafraid. My hand rose to the bullet crease on the top of her head that had seared off her hair and left a narrow furrow.
“You remember your name, Grand Duchess?” I asked as she pulled my arm over her shoulder and we staggered off into the forest.
“Anastasia Romanov, Sevgi.” She began to hum a chant she’d heard us marching to and the silly tune let me keep my feet moving when I wanted to lie down and die.
It took us hours to make the quarter kilo trek and only an innate sense of direction got us there. I’d stashed an old motorbike in the shed and to my relief; it was still there along with the cache of rubles I’d accumulated. We rested; she started a fire in the fireplace and set a kettle of snow on to melt. I pulled off my greatcoat, lifted my tunic and slowly eased the wad of blood soaked lawn and lace from my stomach.
Four blue stained purplish holes with puckered edges stared back at us. Two of them had the bullets visible from under the skin and with my pocketknife heated until it was red, I pried them out. The other two were deeper, past muscle and God knows how far inside me.
My attempts to reach them left a fresh blood flow and fire flaring like angry tigers gnawing on me. She took over, poured melted water and carbolic on the punctures, held me as I shrieked in agony and passed out.
I woke in a princess's arms and her tears bathed my face. “Sevgi.”
“Princess, my name is Aidan, not Sevgi,” I breathed. “I was born in 1957 in Cornwall. My father is Lord Griffon Argent, the Earl of Bowden and I am the Honorable Aidan Michael Darancourt Griffyn Argent.”
Her face above mine was calm, beautiful; strong as her mother’s and not lost in fantasy like her father’s. She said nothing, just stroked my face as sweat made me feel suddenly soaked.
“Fire’s hot,” I mumbled. “Warm in here. We can’t stay. They know about this place. Look here soon.”
“Can you drive that thing?”
“In my sleep,” I grinned. “Where’s my coat?”
She helped me sit up, stand and pull on the heavy wool greatcoat issued by the Bolshevik Army and in the inside pocket, I pulled out the silver flask given to me by one of my former comrades. Filled with harsh, homemade vodka, I’d dumped it out and replaced it with Napoleon Brandy from the Tsar’s own supply.
Three or four nips and the fire in my belly were replaced with another kind, the kind that warms your blood and stiffens your spine, makes you a lion instead of a mouse.
I stood up on the seat, kicked the starter and the beast of a machine grumbled to life in a belch of blue smoke. The Grand Duchess, unrecognizable in ugly soviet uniform and coat climbed behind me, gingerly holding her arms around my waist. One of her tiny, surprisingly strong fingers found one of the bullet holes in the wool and touched me. The warmth was electric, sent a jolt through me that I felt to the top of my head. She felt it too, and thought she had hurt me. “I’m sorry, Sevgi. I mean, Aidan.” She switched to English. “I learned my English from a French tutor,” her accent was French, light and pleasant.
“Jetu.”
“You speak French, too?”
I pushed the bike off and we traveled slowly through the trees until I found a deer trail that eventually became a road out of the woods but was never more than a simple lane graded by animals and sledges. The interstate highway system was a thing of the far future; you made your way cross-coun
try literally by cross-country, making roads as you went.
“I speak French, English, Russian, Polish, German, whatever we need to speak,” I answered finally. We rode until I couldn’t stand or hold the bike up anymore and she helped me push it into an old barn to hide it. We burrowed into a haymow and slept like the dead. I had no dreams not even of falling into bed with a princess.
She woke me by her soft, subtle crying. I woke, groggy and disoriented, couldn’t remember where I was until I saw her golden head bent over her hands.
“Anna,” I said quietly. “I’m sorry. How long did I sleep?”
She wiped her cheeks; I saw blood on her hands and hoped it wasn’t hers. She saw me looking, smiled faintly, and said, “I checked your stomach. You stopped bleeding except when I pulled the dressing off. You slept for about four hours. Dawn’s coming.”
I could see the first hints of it through the slits in the barn siding. “Anything to eat around here?” I asked, looking round. Scythes hung from the rafters along with harnesses so old and brittle they would disintegrate if you touched them. Logging chains lay coiled on the floor, old wooden hay forks. No animals and any manure I saw was so old it had dried out. The people who had lived on this farm had most certainly eaten their livestock to survive the Russian winter.
I looked in the potato bin and it was bare, too. Even the oats were scraped down to the bottom and mice ate the few grains left. At that point, I would have been happy to eat a mouse. You couldn’t even cook grass, it was buried deep under the snow, and there wasn’t any to be found in a forest. Grass didn’t grow under the trees.
“I saw a pond out back,” she said hesitantly.
“Cattails?” I asked, hopeful and at her nod, I was able to creep out with her help.
It had stopped snowing which meant the temperature had dropped, the sky above the crowns was a pure cold blue, and crimson tipped where the sun rose. It bathed the small pond in molten gold and silver, reflecting off the ice.
I could see cattails around the edges but I wasn’t sure if the ice was thin enough to break and reach the roots. Cattail bulbs were edible, sort of like a starchy potato.
She had found a pick bar and between the pair of us, was able to hack a hole in the edge of the water and dig out four or five tubers.
Twenty minutes later, we were gnawing on the roasted tails if not with enjoyment, at least with grim satisfaction.
We left the deserted farm an hour later, on a road that had seen some travel. The ruts were deeper and more numerous, hand lettered signs pointed the way to Minsk. I wanted to reach the Caspian Sea or the Elbe and take a boat rather than risk travel overland.
Chapter 22
By the time we crossed the Danube, I was nearly out of my head with fever and infection. The wounds had festered and smelled foul. I wouldn’t let her touch them and was afraid to stop until we were out of Russia. How I was still alive was a miracle; clearly, one of the holes in my stomach had punctured my intestines. She managed our food, money and travel, asking me what the next step should be. Sometimes, I made sense. Others, I rambled insanely and she was on her own.
She had booked us a cabin on a steamer that ran upstream on the river towards Munich and I had protested so violently she’d changed it for England. I’d tried to explain that the war had made these countries too treacherous for travel.
I’d managed to stagger on board and to our third class berths before collapsing onto the bed and passed out completely. She went in search of the ship’s surgeon and brought him in.
His exclamation of horror and his poking cold hands roused me. He spoke in French, the language of the Russian nobility.
“How long has he been like this?” he demanded harshly.
Anna’s voice was soft, “Seven days. He would not let me treat him or stop to let a doctor see.”
“He’s going to die,” he said. “This is a mortal wound. It’s terribly infected. He has blood poisoning. See the red streaks? The foul odor? He’s gangrenous. I’m amazed he’s survived this long. What’s his name?”
“Aidan Argent. The Honorable Aidan Argent. His father is the Duke of Bowden.”
“He’s English?”
“Cornish, actually,” I whispered. “Who are you?”
“Ship’s surgeon. Marcus Whyte. Look, I can help you with the pain but I’m afraid there’s not much else I can do.”
I smiled faintly. “I know. I wasn’t meant to survive. Thought it’d be quick, though. Will you see Anna safe? Send her to America, not stay in Europe. Too many events will happen here. America is safer.”
“Who is she?”
“Anastasia. Russian princess,” I mumbled but I wasn’t sure he heard or believed me.
“You came…Russia…delirious….drink this…Aidan…”
Darkness. Firelight. The smell of carbolic. Cedar. In my mouth. Mothballs and tepid water.
Hands rolling me. Hot compresses on my belly, pain that ate through me. I prayed to die, cried for my mother. Soft hands that gave me some respite from the pain.
Bitter drafts forced down my throat and brought back the darkness. Rocking motion that lulled me. Smell of food, raw, rank and long past its prime.
I begged for surcease, asked to put me out of this misery, heard a woman sobbing. Sunshine on my skin. Burned worse than fire. Shivers wracked me. All my joints felt frozen stiff like a rusted bolt.
“Aidan,” a girl’s voice, soft with a pretty French accent. “Open your eyes, Aidan.”
A man’s voice. I didn’t know it. “It won’t be long now. His heart rate is dropping, blood pressure falling, skipping. He’s septic. Aidan. I can give him some morphine. It’ll depress his breathing; make him go quicker, easier, in less pain.”
“No! He can’t die!”
I struggled to come back, to open my eyes, to comfort her, the last of her family. “Anna,” I managed.
“Aidan, we brought you to Bonn, a pension near the river. The doctor has been treating you. It’s time to wake up, Aiden. I need you. Without you, I can’t go on. Please, don’t die.”
I felt my heart stutter, slow and that same endless stretching as my essence left this body and went searching through the river of time for another.
I remembered at that moment that Anna would jump into the river and try to kill her only to be rescued by a soldier who would take her to England and she would have suffered a head injury forgetting her name, her language, her journey, and me. She would wind up in America as Anna and only then would claim to be the Grand Duchess.
I wandered in a void, lost in the river of time, found myself watching as my five year old self spent that lonely time in the group home. Neglected, barely cared for, and mostly ignored, I was grateful I had not been aware.
I found myself drawn to the farm and even in this spirit form; I was not allowed to enter the area and spy on my own family.
I could and did follow Suzy. Saw her frantic search after I disappeared, how she wore herself to an early grave mourning for me rather than treating the cancer that ate her lungs.
She died five years after I was murdered, never knowing what happened. She’d approached Tom, Schnee, and Harry to look for me and begged them not to stop until I was found. A deathbed promise they made her.
Tom and Cammy had buried me after a fancy funeral, he did it under my adopted name and with surprising sensitivity, and he placed me in a crypt next to Suzy which he had paid for, too. Both of them came often to the grave site and Tom often spoke to tell me what he was doing.
He died some ten years after my death, in a bomb attack at Heathrow Airport. I wasn’t there to save him but Cammy lit a candle for both of us, anyway. I drifted an existence not unlike being in the womb. I waited for re-birth.
Chapter 23
This time, I woke up in bed in a dormitory. I didn’t move except to open my eyes and stare around at a long room of beds made up the same with the same covers, same sheets, and same lumps asleep underneath. The only differe
nce I could see was the color of the hair on the heads except where the person had pulled the sheets over themselves.
On the pale blue walls were various posters of rock stars, soccer players and other athletes, and photos of family.
The windows were many and here, too had individual curtains obviously the beds occupant’s preference.
“You awake?” the boy next to me asked in a quiet voice. His accent was odd, I identified it as Saudi, and the face I looked at was dark skinned, dark eyed and young. About sixteen.
I lifted my covers and stared; I was in boxers of the British royal flag and grimaced at my choice. No T-shirt and saggy socks. My body was taller and more mature than I remembered; I had definitely gone through puberty. I looked about sixteen this time and I’d wake with an obvious hard on. I blushed, threw the covers aside, and went running down the row of beds to where my subconscious said was the restrooms.
Here were a row of stalls and sinks, mirrors over the porcelain tubs and a long counter. Plush towels and washcloths were stacked neatly in an armoire.
The showers were one room over, another row separated by shower curtains and tiled floors with drains. This boys school was exclusive from the appointments I could see. I rushed into the closest toilet and went with evident relief.
The Saudi boy followed me in and he wore royal purple PJs with gold piping and a crest on the breast pocket. He leaned on the sink and watched me. Slowly, he pushed the stall door closed, his hot eyes made me uneasy.
“Any more dreams, Aidan?” he asked finally and his English sounded very Etonian with Arabic overtones.
“Dreams?” I shook the last drops off and tucked myself back in. coming out; I washed my hands and stared at myself in the mirror over the sinks. I saw an average height teen with fair hair and purple eyes with thick dark lashes, a straight patrician nose, lips on the plump side, dimples, high cheekbones, and porcelain fair skin.
“Too pretty,” I muttered and he laughed.
“You say that every time, Aidan. Glenellen tries to bugger you every chance he gets but you’ve managed to avoid him.”
I gave him a look. “Oh, don’t worry. I like you but not that way. I prefer girls.”
“Khalid, right?” I asked suddenly, his name popped into my head.
“Same as it was last week when you met me.”