Heart of Iron (35 page)

“Why are you traveling in this litter?” I asked Eugenia. There were so many questions vying for my attention and struggling for primacy, but it looked like the least important had won out.

Eugenia laughed and hugged me again. “They let me meet the Qing Emperor, only he was not happy that the envoy was a woman, and the Taipings — whom I had to deal with mostly — insisted on keeping me separate from everyone else, so I’ve been carried in this litter all over the Forbidden City and the palace — which is quite large; much larger than it looks from the outside. I guess it is easier for everyone to cope if I am hidden away in this little coffin with rails.”

“They did have an empress,” I said. “Dowager, I mean, but an empress nonetheless.”

“The Russians have had more recent empresses,” Eugenia pointed out sensibly. “The great world of good it did us.”

“I gave Jack’s documents to the Taipings,” I said. “They seem like better allies.”

“Yes, since they are winning,” Eugenia agreed. “Come with me, Sasha, come for a walk in a garden. We need to talk.”

The garden that lay just behind the palace and surrounded a small shrine with a round roof was quiet and white, graceful black branches outlined against the snowdrifts and walls. I wondered at my ability to even notice such things, even admire them, as so many other concerns should’ve been closer to my heart. “I worry about Kuan Yu,” I said. “I hope Feng got it sorted out with his people at the gates.”

“I’m sure your friends will be fine,” Eugenia said. “You’ve done well. I received your message, and I was able to finally talk Constantine into listening to reason.”

“How did you manage that?”

Eugenia smiled, sly. “I do have friends, and I followed your advice. Apparently, being old-fashioned and honorable doesn’t get you anywhere, but being friends with the empress’s former beau who still has some of her less discreet letters will assure you her help.”

“Brilliant,” I said with respect. “So she helped you get Constantine’s ear.”

“Apparently, men do listen to their wives.” Eugenia stepped off the stone path and crouched down, black as a crow on the white snow. She picked up a handful of snow and rolled it in her hands absently. “The snow is so heavy and wet,” she said. “Great for the crops, and I think a warm spell is coming.”

I crouched down next to her. The stone of the path felt so heavy that I put my hand on it, to feel its aged-cold surface, worn smooth by so many generations of feet, and yet it managed to retain the tiny bumps and cracks on its surface. They made me think of the moon and the dark blemishes and long sinuous fissures one could see on it some nights in June. “Do you think we’ll be back in Trubetskoye by the time they start sowing?” I asked.

“Depends on what else we have to do. I think the Taipings will accept the invitation from the emperor I’ve delivered, and you and your Englishman friend certainly helped to sweeten the deal… Where is he, by the way?”

I told her about Jack and his initial disappearance and his capture, of the way he kept close and yet managed to distract Nightingale and her contingent.

“I never liked that woman,” Eugenia said. “I always keep thinking we women ought to stick together, and I keep telling it to the empress — because if we do, we can stand up to the men and to the way they run things. But the empress and that Nightingale, they value men’s opinion over those of their own kind. And I don’t know what to do about them.”

“I don’t know about the general principle,” I said, “but I certainly would be quite comfortable with destroying her. Not killing, just making sure she would never interfere with my life again, and that she wouldn’t hurt Jack.”

“Where would they take him?”

I shrugged. “Maybe to London, and maybe to St. Petersburg. Is Mr. Herbert still there?”

“I believe so. I think I saw some mincing dandy the last time I was at the Winter Palace, who kept lisping into Nicholas’s ear.” Eugenia straightened and spat. “I swear it is a miracle that I managed to get myself sent here — Nicholas is in the pocket of the English and the Turks, and he has no inkling they are not his friends.”

I stood too. “He does seem both dim and unpleasant. But I am really thinking that I should probably go do something about Jack before he is executed as a traitor and a criminal.”

Eugenia gave me a long look and continued down the path, leaving tracks of snow clumps on the clean dry stones. “You keep some dubious company.”

“I suppose. Will you come with me, at least some of the way?”

“Of course, dear. How far do you think they could’ve traveled?”

“If they took the train, they are at least three days ahead of us.”

“Then I suppose we will have to convince Mr. Feng to lend us an airship. Otherwise, we will never catch up.”

I sighed happily and caught up to Eugenia, throwing one arm around her shoulders. “Dear Aunt Genia, I’m so glad you’re here. I feel like everything will be right now.”

Genia’s thin hand — traversed by blue, delicate veins — patted mine. I felt a surge of pity at her fragility and the sudden realization that she was getting old. “Well,” she said. “I do not know if everything will ever be completely ‘right,’ but I can promise you this: if your prolonged absence gets you expelled from the university, the emperor himself promised to intervene on your behalf.”

“Really?”

“Really.” She smiled. “He said so himself before he stuffed me into a submarine.”

“Is that how you got here so quickly?”

She nodded, pleased. “I felt rather like a sardine, but it took me from St. Petersburg to the Kara Sea and to Yenisey to Baikal quick enough. Then they found me an airship.”

I shuddered at the thought. “The submarine sounds awful. I hope we get to travel by air rather than water. But I suppose we have to go and find out if we are required to take any messages with us.”

There were no messages, but General Feng informed us that Hong — the new ruler of China, if the treaty the Qing signed abdicating the throne could be believed — had decided to send an emissary to St. Petersburg, to bring the offer of an alliance and treaties to sign. We were invited to join the emissary, and Feng promised we would be sent by air, and reach St. Petersburg in no time.

Another surprise awaited me on the morning of our departure. The airship was positioned in the Sea of Flagstones, the open square before the building called the Hall of Supreme Harmony. The canal running in a semicircle around the square was frozen solid, and the footpath and the tiny bridges paved with multicolored blocks shone with frost. The roof of the Hall blazed in the sunlight. A small solemn army of Taipings had gathered to watch our departure; I was relieved to see Kuan Yu and Liu Zhi among them. I regretted I had too little time to explore this wonderful place — there were so many palaces and halls and pagodas, small hidden gardens, and the wells with poetic names Lee Bo told me and I immediately forgot. One, I thought, had something to do with concubines.

I also regretted not seeing Chiang Tse — I regretted it probably more than anything else, but I had difficulty admitting it to myself, not to mention talking to Aunt Genia or Lee Bo about it. And now it was too late. I tried to focus on getting home, on saving Jack, on seeing my mother, on going to the university again — anything but the sucking regret in the pit of my stomach. I stood by one of the tiny bridges, erect and straight-faced, my uniform clean and mended and my pelisse trimmed with new fur. All my belongings had been transferred into one of Eugenia’s leather valises as my old satchel had been falling apart from all the abuse I subjected it to. I watched with dry eyes as an airship, of a design similar to the one that had brought me to Beijing, descended into the square and landed on its sturdy wheels with engines chugging.

The machine was much bigger than Lee Bo’s, but I suspected it was born in the same Siberian factory. The seating was allocated to the belly of the ship instead of the flimsy freezing tiny gondola under it. The entire ship was more streamlined, with wider wings and narrower hull. Its front end was shaped as a snarling dragon snout, and the hull was painted with red and gold scales, as if reflecting the roofs of the palaces around us. I was by then thoroughly charmed by the architectural excesses of little towers and pagoda roofs all stacked on top of one another, and painted such bright red and gold and copper and green. Not even winter could dull these colors.

We waited for the emissary. When he appeared I could not, at first, see him as he was preceded by a sizeable entourage. Some of the Taipings waiting in the square joined it as well, including Kuan Yu. I was glad he was coming with us. “Is it one of the generals?” I whispered to Eugenia. “I hope they don’t send a military man to negotiate such matters.”

“No, Feng is pretty smart,” Eugenia whispered back. “It is one of Hong’s newly appointed governors.”

“Which province, do you know?”

“Gansu,” she whispered back, and this simple word made me see a black sun and white sky.

Chiang Tse had changed little — his queue was of course gone, but he had kept his gentle and dignified demeanor, and his dark eyes remained downcast even as he approached us. I agonized at first over whether he would recognize me; but surely Lee Bo must have told him.

He bowed to Aunt Eugenia. “It is a pleasure and an honor to travel with you,” he said softly, and the sound of his voice tugged at my heart gently, like one of the large red-and-white carps that lived in the ponds in the imperial palace nibbling on my fingers. “It is my humble hope that as persons gifted with the trust of our rulers we can discuss the common interests of our countries, and come to a mutually beneficial set of agreements.”

Eugenia seemed pleased. “We will indeed do so,” she assured him. “Shall we?”

Chiang Tse smiled and nodded, and offered her his arm in a European fashion. His clothes, however, were that of an official, and his robes bore a patch with two embroidered cranes on them. Lee Bo explained its meaning, and even though I was hazy on the details, I gathered cranes were indicative of high rank.

Eugenia took his arm and they walked to the airship side-by-side with me following them and ten or so men of Chiang Tse’s retinue bringing up the rear. I turned and saw Kuan Yu over my shoulder; I smiled and he grinned back. So much for a humble fur trader, and I was glad to have him travel with us again.

We settled on the benches that were refreshingly padded and rounded. They felt more like cradles than the hard wooden benches of the train or other airship. This trip was promising to be altogether more comfortable, and I sighed and stretched.

Chiang Tse and Eugenia spoke softly. I sat behind them, and could only make out the animated bobbing of Chiang Tse’s head, agreeing with something Eugenia proposed.

Finally he turned around to face me. There was no recognition in his dark eyes, and I smiled.

He offered me his hand. “Chiang Tse,” he said. “I am the Governor-General of Gansu.”

I shook his hand. “Poruchik Menshov,” I said.

He smiled then. “My friend Lee Bo told me you were the one who brought the evidence of the treacheries planned by the English.”

I couldn’t contain myself any longer. “But I see he failed to remind you of our previous acquaintance.”

Chiang Tse smiled politely, and his eyes showed no recognition, which to me seemed the very height of hilarity. He squinted at me as I kept laughing, too overcome to say anything. Finally, I managed to pull my fake mustache off my lip, and his eyes lit with recognition — he forgot his dignified bearing and official position as he vaulted over the back of his bench to sit next to me and grasp my hands with a gesture so sincere that my reverse corset felt like a slab of rock, pressing on my chest and not letting me breathe.

“Sasha,” he said.

I do not know what his retinue thought after that — but I am sure they had been selected in part for an ability to not talk about things they witnessed. Whatever the case, I did not care whether anyone was watching as I embraced Chiang Tse with an ardor that was perhaps a mite excessive for mere camaraderie. He gasped and held me too, and his quick breaths told me that he was as overcome as I. A moment later a hot wet drop on my neck told me he was crying.

If Eugenia noticed anything, she was of course too well brought up and too mindful of my happiness to turn around, and instead busied herself with her knitting. She rarely knitted, and I suspected the shapeless, dingy brown thing she worked on was the same one she had started when I was a child.

“I thought I would never see you again,” Chiang Tse whispered and let go. His face was slightly reddened and more emotional than I had ever seen. “I worked so hard on letting go of the very thought of you, and yet I begged Hong to send me to St. Petersburg.”

“I missed you too,” I mumbled, the words a pale shadow of my protracted longing and the upsurge of happiness I experienced when I saw him again.

We traded further inarticulate expressions of our delight for a while, and Chiang Tse would not let go of my hands.

“I guess you’re not taking this separation of genders tenet too seriously then,” I said.

He laughed. “I think it is acceptable as long as you’re dressed as a man.”

I wasn’t sure but I thought I saw Eugenia’s shoulders shaking with laughter.

With Chiang Tse, it was easy to talk about Jack and what we should do about him. Chiang Tse remembered Jack as the one who — along with my own modest efforts — allowed for his and Lee Bo’s escape that night at the Crane Club. He was eager to return the favor.

I had favors to return as well. I felt overwhelming gratitude to Jack for all his help and self-sacrifice; yet, I felt burdened by my debt to him. I did not know if the same feeling motivated Chiang Tse, but for me helping Jack carried a two-fold purpose. I hoped that didn’t make me a bad person.