“Mikhail Kurakin should be there now, in the chapel,” she said
impatiently. “When I see him enter, then you will go down that stair
yonder at the end of the gallery, and I watch here, that there may be
no mistake--no slip--oh, you shall be wedded tight and fast, by book
and taper, Daria Kirilovna--never fear!”
“He will not come,” said the princess, clasping her hands as if in
prayer. “Our Lady of Kazan will deliver me, Sophia Alexeievna, from the
bad man and from you--even on the staircase, he will be stayed.”
The czarevna looked at her, in surprise at first, and then laughed
mockingly.
“Who shall deliver thee, O Daria?” she said. “Hark--your lover’s
footstep is even now in the painted gallery!”
I stopped to hear no more; I grasped Maluta by the collar and softly
and swiftly we passed through the door--the czarevna’s back was
happily toward it--and on through the room where the princess had been
confined. In the hall beyond I stopped and shook the dwarf violently.
“Where is the painted gallery?” I cried; “quick, fool!”
Intelligence of the keenest flashed into those ferret eyes.
“’Tis below, excellency, by the chapel; we can reach it by this
stairway,” and he darted to the head of the flight of narrow stairs
which had escaped my eye.
I followed, and in a moment we were down a short, stone stair and stood
in a narrow gallery richly and gaudily painted in the Turkish fashion.
It was empty; at the end was a door that I knew opened into the chapel,
and I hurried to it and peeped in. All was quiet; the priest stood
waiting in the dim light. I turned and found the dwarf at my heels.
“Quick!” I said in a whisper; “can we cut off his entry here?”
Maluta skurried ahead of me, without pausing even to reply, and we had
passed through a door at the other end, into a small room that had one
window on the Red Place, before either of us paused.
“Must he come this way?” I asked hastily.
The dwarf nodded, and I turned and, locking the door behind me, put the
key into my pocket; then I went to the only other entrance and stood
waiting. Here too, as luck would have it, the key was on the inside.
Maluta stood watching me. I looked around keenly for one object that I
desired, but saw it not, and then my eye alighted on the wide scarf at
the dwarf’s waist.
“Take off your sash,” I said sharply; “tear it into four strips,
so--knot them together--we shall need a rope.”
He obeyed, his eyes twinkling, and had scarcely tied the last knot
before I heard someone coming. I listened--would there be more than
one? No, it was one footstep--an eager and a hasty one--and it came on
swiftly. I waited quietly, holding Maluta’s pistol in my right hand.
The door opened violently, and the Boyar Kurakin entered, so hastily
that he did not perceive us until I had closed the door with my
left hand, and locking it, thrust the key into my bosom with its
fellow. Then he saw me and stopped short and stared. To him I was
only the apprentice who had played him the trick with the miniature,
and the recollection of that douche of hot soup brought a scowl to
his forehead. It was a handsome, evil face, as I saw it now, and I
remembered the Princess Daria’s cry, “I can die--I would gladly die!”
“What brings you hither, knave?” he asked with fierce scorn, “to brave
your betters?”
“Or to spurn my inferiors, rogue,” I retorted; “’tis for me to ask what
brings you here to torment a noble lady?”
His eyes blazed; he lifted his clenched hand to deal me a blow and
found the muzzle of my pistol in his face. He recoiled, cursing me
furiously.
“What do you mean, assassin?” he cried, feeling desperately for a
pistol, and finding none, as I saw, though he had drawn his sword.
“Down with that weapon,” I said coolly, “and up with your hands--or I
will send you into eternity!”
But his blood was up; he made a wild pass at me and I fired, knowing
that the tumult without would account for any noise. I had aimed at his
sword hand, and so neatly that the ball grazed his thumb and forefinger
and he recoiled again; as he did so, Maluta sprang, like a cat, on his
shoulders, and struck the weapon out of his wounded hand.
“Curse you!” cried Kurakin, “what devil is this that you have for an
accomplice?”
“No devil,” I replied, “nor do I wish to kill you; but one instant more
of opposition and I put a bullet through your heart.”
He was trying to throw Maluta off, but he might as well have sought to
cast off a monkey; the little creature wound his long arms around him
and clung to him fiercely. Kurakin stared at me savagely.
“I will kill you for this!” he said, between his teeth.
“On the contrary, I will kill you,” I retorted, my foot on his sword,
and my pistol at his breast.
He turned white to the lips, his eyes started, the perspiration stood
out in beads on his forehead; he liked death as little as most men.
“Will you die or live, monsieur?” I asked pleasantly.
He cursed me and he cursed Maluta, but his lips shook.
“You prefer to die?” I asked, still politely.
“Nay,” he replied, between his teeth, “I will not die.”
And, with a sudden leap, he threw Maluta off and flung himself upon
me, seizing my right wrist, and wrenching it backward in his effort
to get my pistol. His onslaught, quick as a tiger’s spring, bore me
toward the wall and my foot slipped; for a moment I thought that I
had lost and he had won, and then we clenched and rolled over on the
floor, he struggling to turn my pistol away and I, to use it--to his
death. In brute strength he was a match for me, but he had not my
training as a wrestler, a sport that I had loved as a boy, and twice I
had him under, and twice he struggled half-way to his knees. His eyes
were wild, his breath burned hot on my cheek, and his bare hands tore
at me with the strength of fury. Back and forth I twisted that wrist
and he held it like a vise, and I could not use my pistol. Then, I got
him down and my knee on his breast, though he still gripped my right
arm and cursed me, but I tore my left hand free, at last, and changing
the pistol from right to left, I dealt him a blow on the head that
stretched him senseless. And, as I did it, Maluta came creeping up,
holding his own temple, for the boyar had flung him against the wall
and the monkey-like face was drawn and shrivelled, but he was ripe
for vengeance, watching me for his instructions, and I knew by his
look that he would gladly kill his erstwhile master, but I had no such
design.
“Strip off his long robe, Maluta,” I said briefly.
A look of blank amazement crossed the dwarf’s face, but he obeyed me
with his usual alacrity, and I helped him unfasten Kurakin’s belt and
remove his long brocaded gown--a marvellously fine affair too--for his
wedding, doubtless! His high cap had fallen in the struggle and lay in
the corner.
“His shoes also,” I said to Maluta.
The dwarf jerked them off with vicious haste, watching me with his
sidelong glance, his head down.
“Now tie his hands with your scarf,” I told him, and he obeyed.
In a few moments we had him bound securely, hand and foot, and dragging
him--a dead weight--to a heavy settle, we fastened him to that with
my belt and Maluta’s. We had not finished our task, however, before
the boyar began to revive, and opening his eyes, stared at us, in a
dazed fashion, but I did not heed him. On the contrary, I picked up his
cumbersome robes.
“Quick,” I said to my follower, “I must become the boyar.”
The dwarf had, by this time, divined my design and helped me strip off
my own coat and shoes and put on the Russian dress. Kurakin and I were
nearly of a height, and the long robe completely disguised my figure,
while the collar, which was high and standing, partially concealed
my face, the cap completing the disguise. I wore my hair about the
length of the boyar’s and, wearing his clothes, I could easily pass
for him in a dim light--the light of the chapel. Maluta danced about
me, clapping his hands, while the Russian stared, gradually recovering
his senses, and the white of his face turning to purple with impotent
rage; he began to dimly suspect my purpose, and I never saw before such
passion and despair pictured on a man’s face. He writhed, but his bonds
held, and he felt himself a fool, and began to curse me feebly, while
I put my pistol back into my bosom and, taking his sword also, bowed
graciously to him.
“_Au revoir, monsieur!_” I said, and kissed the tips of my fingers, and
then, in Russ; “the bride waits, sir.”
He sputtered--too far spent to give voice to his wrath, and fury blazed
in his untamed eyes.
I unlocked the door of the painted gallery, and then spoke to Maluta.
“Go to the czarevna and tell her that the Boyar Kurakin waits in the
chapel,” I said; “after that, return and watch him here--as a cat
watches a mouse--and if he cries out, gag him and wait until I whistle
for you.”
Then I crossed the gallery swiftly. I could still hear the outcry
of the mob; in fact, at that very moment there were rioters in the
banqueting-hall, insulting the Czarina Natalia.
I laid my hand on the chapel door. It had been scarcely twenty minutes,
and I was sure that the czarevna had waited. But did the priest know
Kurakin--or did he not?
It was a momentous question, and on it hung the fate of my daring
enterprise, on that--and on the Princess Daria. But there was no time
to pause; I must win or lose. I had staked all upon the venture--life
itself--and, without another thought, I opened the door and entered the
chapel.
_XVII: CROWNED WITH RUE_
THE priest had placed the taper and the book and the two crowns upon
the table in the centre of the chapel, and stood himself before the
iconostase awaiting the arrival of the bride and bridegroom. As I
entered he looked up and full into my face, and though the light was
dim, I drew my breath, expecting a challenge. But he looked at me as
one stranger looks at another, and showed no surprise, betraying thus
his ignorance of the Boyar Kurakin.
“Are you Mikhail Ivanovitch?” he asked formally, and there was neither
interest nor excitement in his tone, though Mikhail Ivanovitch was the
more familiar form of Kurakin’s name.
The priest was a young man, tall and thin, and wore the full canonicals
of the Greek church. I replied in the affirmative, in my best Russ,
knowing that my accent even was a danger. He took no further notice
of me, however, but, instead, looked up through the lattice at the
czarevna, and that other figure beside her and the dwarf, Maluta. My
eyes followed his and I saw Maluta bow, his hand on his heart, and then
the Princess Daria walked very slowly to a little wicket that opened
on the stair which descended into a corner of the chapel. Sophia,
meanwhile, stood at the lattice looking down, and I could see her face
in the light of the upper gallery; it was set in rigid determination
and deeply flushed.
As for me, the crucial moment had come; I must meet a bride who
expected Kurakin. I went across the chapel and waited for her, where we
were happily hidden from both the czarevna and the priest by a screen
at the foot of the staircase. She came down slowly, though Sophia cried
out to her to hasten, and I thought every step cost her a pang, but her
white face--never more lovely--told me nothing, and she did not look at
me; her hands were clasped before her, her eyes cast down, and her lips
moved as if she prayed. Slowly, very slowly, she came down. I dared not
speak; I feared the sudden sound of an unexpected voice would startle
her beyond her self-control, and again, I did not know--it flashed upon
me then that, between the two, she might have chosen Kurakin, but no
Russian girl ever had the right to choose, and this thought relieved
me. When she reached the foot of the stairs I held out my hand,
but, without looking up, she swerved aside, avoiding my touch, and
walked--like one in a trance--toward the priest. And I followed, sick
at heart at the sight of her agony. The whole passed in a moment, but
we were not quick enough for the tyrant behind the lattice.
“Make quick work, batyushka,” Sophia called to the priest. “I have no
time to waste upon them; affairs of high moment call me hence!”
The priest hurried forward and took his place; the taper flared up in a
lean red flame in the dusk; there was not even the accustomed offering
of fish, fried meat, and pastry. Far off I heard the voice of the mob
and the tolling of the bells of Ivan Veliki. I looked anxiously at the
girl beside me, but she stood like a statue, frozen in one attitude,
her eyes on the ground, her hands wrung so tightly together that I saw
the white pressure on the flesh of her fingers, as they locked each
other. Her long ungirdled robe was of some soft, pale blue material,
and there was the gleam of silver embroidery at the hem and on the
edges of the long, full sleeves that fell away from inner ones that
outlined her perfect arms, and a white, filmy mantle half veiled her
head and face. My heart throbbed heavily against my bosom and I felt
my breath come short; I stood there as her bridegroom, and she had not
looked into my face.
We were standing on a square of red taffeta, according to the usual
custom, but there was no one to hold a canopy over our heads, though
the priest gave us two crowns of gold and silver leaves and bade us put
them on, and then began to mumble the service rapidly, omitting when he
could, stumbling ahead when he dared not condense, and binding us hard
and fast, and I followed him as well as I could. Happily, I had stolen
in to witness a marriage in the Cathedral of the Annunciation, and was
not entirely ignorant of the part I had to play, and the priest heeded
me very little; while, fortunately, the uproar in the Red Place served
to distract the attention of that one fierce witness behind the lattice.
Having elevated the sacred image above our heads, the priest took my
right hand and her left in his, and asked us three times, in a loud
voice, if we married of our own free will and consent, and three times
I answered, yes. Then, the Princess Daria looked up and her eyes met
mine. For an instant I thought that she would cry out or fall in a
faint, and so betray me, such wonder and amazement dawned on her face,
and some other emotion--whether dismay or not I could not divine. She
stood quite still, her pale face grew even more deathly, and for a
moment her slender figure swayed like a reed, and I feared the worst,
but she recovered her nerve as suddenly and then----
I held my breath; would she repudiate me? Even the priest suspected
something unusual; he stopped and looked at us, for she stood gazing
at me with a rigid face, but becoming suddenly aware of the pause she
turned quietly toward him and, to my amazement, went on with her part
of the service, answering his questions in the affirmative without
another sign of recognition. A moment afterwards, her hand, ice cold,
lay in mine, and--I could not help it--involuntarily, I stooped and
kissed it, and looking up, encountered a singular expression in her
eyes. But I could not read her thoughts; she had a greater self-control
than I ever saw before in woman. The priest had joined our hands and he
began now to chant the one hundred and twenty-eighth psalm. We should
have responded, repeating the alternate verses, but we did not, and he
heeded our silence very little. Now and then the noises without drowned
his voice and I lost a verse, but much of that psalm was burned into my
brain on that day.
“‘For thou shalt eat the labour of thine hands; O well is thee, and
happy shalt thou be!
“‘Thy wife shall be as the fruitful vine upon the walls of thine house.
“‘Thy children like the olive-branches round about thy table.’”
He held our hands united and slightly lifted, and his chant rose shrill
and clear:
“‘... Thou shalt see Jerusalem in prosperity all thy life long.
“‘Yea, that thou shalt see thy children’s children, and peace upon
Israel.’”
With these words, he lifted two garlands of rue and placed one on
her head and one on her shoulders, because Kurakin, being a widower,
could not be crowned with rue. I felt her hand quiver in mine as he
pronounced the final solemn, “let no man put asunder,” and raising a
great goblet of claret held it out for us to pledge him three times.
I drank of it, and she barely touched it with her lips and then the
priest emptied the glass and gave it again to me, and I flung it on the
floor, breaking it in pieces and trampling it, repeating, as I did so,
the saying I had heard in the Cathedral:
“‘May they thus fall under our feet and be trod to pieces who endeavour
to sow division or discontent between us!’”
There was a solemn pause. I stood looking down at the shattered glass
and the red wine stains on the floor. It was over; the Princess Daria
was my wife and I held her hand firmly. She was mine, and mine she
should be, against the world; I swore it, in my heart, before that
altar.
But I had yet to face the czarevna, or I thought I had, but fortune
favoured me. Sophia trusted Kurakin; she did not attempt to come down
into the chapel, but spoke to us through the lattice, raising her voice
that we might hear her, where we stood.
“Mikhail Ivanovitch,” she said, “take your wife away--out of the
palace--if you can; use my signet, if need be, and I have promised to
protect her father; he is below in the Golden Hall, and I will send a
message to him; the rest I leave to you. I must go down to the czarina;
I have lost too much precious time already. Much happiness I wish
you!” she added spitefully, and laughed.
And happily, without waiting for my reply, she abruptly left the
lattice; and disappeared in the direction by which she had entered
first, which was also a great good fortune, for I had fully expected
that she would go by the room where Kurakin was bound, and so discover,
at once, the fraud that had been practised upon her.
When she had gone the priest smilingly congratulated me, but, I
think, he dared not speak to my bride. He knew, doubtless, that she
was an unwilling one--forced marriages were of frequent occurrence
in Moscow--and he contented himself with a profound obeisance when I
handed him some gold pieces that I had upon me.
Then I turned to the rigid figure at my side. I must get her away, and
yet I did not know how far she would consent to be guided by me. In the
presence of a third person, though, I did not now fear betrayal. I held
out my hand with as easy a manner as I could assume.
“We will go this way,” I said. I was going to call her my bride, for
form’s sake, but something in her look froze the words on my tongue.
She would not take my hand, but signified by a gesture that she would
follow me and, in this fashion, I, a new-made bridegroom, led the way
into the painted gallery, and then, as the free air of heaven, blowing
in through the open casements, touched her face and the light of day
shone on her, she stood still and looked at me. And I waited, my heart
in my throat--I confess it. But she was not thinking of me, or of
herself.
“My father,” she said; “it is my duty to go to him--to save him.”
“So you shall,” I replied, with distant courtesy, “if mortal man can
help you. Wait here but a moment; I go for the signet, and to secure
your enemy.”
She gave me a keen look and went and leaned on the window, her face
like death.
“Go then, sir,” she said bitterly; “it seems I have no choice; though I
am a princess!”
I bent low before her.
“Madame,” I said firmly, “you are not only a princess, but you are a
queen, and I, your subject to obey and serve you!”
Then I turned to go for the signet and to save her, if I could. And as
I passed out of the painted gallery, I saw her still at the window, a
beautiful, passive figure, with a colourless face, and eyes that seemed
to burn with some suppressed emotion as they followed me--with a look
of deep perplexity and doubt.
_XVIII: AN HOUR OF PERIL_
WHEN I opened the door into the apartment which held Kurakin I found
Maluta sitting on the floor, cross-legged, his elbows on his knees,
his sharp chin in his hands, and his ferret-like eyes fastened on our
prisoner with an expression of malice that reminded me that he had once
been cast off by this boyar. The Russian nobleman, meanwhile, remained
where we had bound him to the settle. It was true that his position
was one of peculiar humiliation, and I could not blame him for any
violence of feeling against me. I, in his place, would undoubtedly
have meditated murder, and I knew that he did, when I saw his savage,
bloodshot eyes. Moreover, afraid of an outcry, the dwarf had gagged him
with a handkerchief, and his discomfort added to his rage. I think he
had divined the trick that I had played upon him, or Maluta had twitted
him with it, for the expression of his flushed and distorted face was
that of a man goaded to the border of madness, but he could not speak
and I could not remove the gag. A shout for help might have ruined us,
and the only alternative, assassination, while it might have suited the
dwarf, was not to my taste, so I left the gag in place. I looked at
his hands at once, however, for the signet, and saw it, conspicuous
enough, although he wore many rings, but this one bore the imperial
arms, and I took it from his finger without more ado. The Princess
Daria’s life and my own might hang upon it, and it was no time for
squeamishness.
“Pardon me, monsieur,” I said calmly, “but I must even borrow the
czarevna’s signet, in a matter of life and death; your clothes, too,
serve the same purpose, so I must leave you to your reflections. It
is wiser, monsieur, to avoid intrigues and to eschew all attempts to
coerce a noble lady.” I said this, having myself just married one
without her consent.
He sputtered; he could do no more with the gag, but I never saw such
hatred before or since, in a man’s eye, or--thanks be to the Virgin--in
a woman’s. But I wasted no time on him; signing to Maluta to follow me,
I went out again into the painted gallery, and locking the door on the
outside, thrust the key into my bosom. I still wore the boyar’s dress,
and thought it best to wear it until I could get out of the palace.
The princess still stood in the window; I do not believe she saw
anything of the scenes below, however, or heard the noises; her face
was as still as chiselled marble, and it seemed to me she scarcely
breathed.
I turned to the indefatigable dwarf.
“Can you reach the Golden Hall and carry a message to Prince Voronin?”
I asked him, growing to depend upon the strange little creature more
and more.
He nodded, looking from me to the princess and back again, his head on
one side, his brows wrinkled.
“Then you must go to him and ask him where he can meet us. But first
pilot us down to the postern by which we entered yesterday, for I hope
we can get out by that way,” I added doubtfully, consulting him as much
as my own wits.
His face sobered in an instant, and he cast a grave look at the
princess, and I think she felt his eyes upon her, for she turned and
regarded us earnestly.
“Will you take me to my father?” she asked with simple dignity, as if
that question tested me.
I felt it so and bowed gravely. “If it can be done at all, I will do
it, madame,” I said.
And she, noting that “mademoiselle” had become “madame,” flushed
crimson.
Meanwhile the tumult in the court below had somewhat subsided; not
because the worst was past, but because there was a satiety of blood
for the moment, and the rioters were at that very time searching the
lower rooms of the palace and the adjacent churches for two victims
whom they were determined to immolate, the czarina’s brother, Ivan
Naryshkin, and the Jewish physician of the late czar, Dr. Daniel von
Gaden. But I had only one object, to get the princess safely out of
the palace before Kurakin was discovered and all was lost. Our fate
hung by a hair on this event, and I had no light task before me to
get her out of the palace, at such a time, and unaided, too, save by
a dwarf. Yet I could not risk an hour’s delay; discovery was dogging
my heels, and I could divine the fury of Sophia when she found herself
duped. I touched Maluta’s arm impatiently.
“Come,” I said, “this is no time to stand gaping; show us the way to
that back staircase that you and I ascended yesterday.”
But he showed every sign of reluctance, looking askance at the
princess, as if he thought that her presence carried evil fortune in
its train.
“Wilt go, blockhead?” I whispered to him angrily, shaking him by the
shoulder.
“Yea, O my master!” he said, with something like a whimper, “but the
woman--I know not what to do with her!”