The Coronation (11 page)

The briefing was extremely sensitive in nature and, having ascertained that everything necessarywas on the table, I thought it best to withdraw. The sensitivity arose not so much from the secrecy of the information as from the intimate family tone that the conversation assumed. His Imperial Majestywas actually not all that quick at absorbing what he was told, and his most august uncles began losing patience with their nephew, sometimes employing expressions that might perhaps be permissible between close relatives but are unthinkable in the presence of servants.

Well, I had my own guests, who might be less eminent but were far more demanding. Having installed Mr Fandorin, Colonel Karnovich and Prince Glinsky in the large drawing room, where my assistant Somov served them coffee and cigars, I went to the servants’ parlour, a small, cosy little room located beside the kitchen on the ground floor. The governor general’s butler Foma Anikeevich, the senior grand duke’s butler Luka Emelyanovich, His Majesty’s valet Dormidont Seleznyov and Fandorin’s Japanese servant Masa were taking tea there. I had asked Mademoiselle Declique to look in on my guests from time to time to make sure that they did not feel abandoned – and also to give the poor woman, who was crushed by the misfortune that had overtaken her, something to keep her occupied. I know only too well from my own experience that at moments of such moral suffering there is no better medicine than performing mundane duties. It helps one to keep control.

On entering the servants’ parlour, in addition to the pale but evidently quite calm governess, I also found Mr Freyby there, sitting a little apart from the general group with his interminable book in his hands. But there was not really anything to be surprised at in that. It was raining outside, the English gentlemen had gone for their enforced promenade, and Mr Freyby had no doubt grown bored of sitting in his room. Every butler knows that the servants’ parlour is something like a drawing room or, to put it in the British manner, a club for the senior servants.

For a brief moment I was perturbed by the Englishman’s presence, since I was intending to hold my own secret council meeting with my guests, but then I remembered that Mr Freyby did not understand a single word of Russian. Very well, let him sit there and read.

We were served by the new footman Lipps, whose experience and level of training I had not yet had time to ascertain. He himself understood perfectly well the importance of the examination to which he was being subjected, and he did everything immaculately. I observed him with as critical an eye as possible but failed to spot any blunders. I told Lipps to wait outside the door, for the conversation was not intended for his ears, and when something had to be brought in or taken away, I rang the bell. The man from the Baltic did what was required quickly but without hurrying – that is exactly as it should be done, and disappeared behind the door again.

You could probably not find judges of the servant’s art sterner and better informed than my guests anywhere in the world. And that applied in particular to the venerable Foma Anikeevich.

I ought to explain that we servants have our own hierarchy, which does not depend at all on the status of our masters, but exclusively on the experience and merits of each one of us. And in terms of this hierarchy beyond all doubt the most senior among us was Foma Anikeevich, butler to Simeon Alexandrovich, the youngest of His Majesty’s uncles. Luka Emelyanovich and I were approximately on the same level, while Dormidont, for all the brilliance of the position that he held, was regarded in our circle as still an apprentice. He knew his place and sat there modestly without leaning back in his chair, trying to listen to everything and not speak too much. The general opinion concerning him was that he was competent, observant, capable of learning and would go a long way. He came from a good court servant family, which was obvious from his given name and patronymic – Dormidont Kuzmich. At christening we hereditary servants are all given the simplest of the old names, so that the order of theworld will be preserved and every human will have a name to suit his calling. What kind of servant or waiter could be called Vsevolod Apollonovich or Evgenii Viktorovich? That would only cause hilarity and confusion.

In the year and a half of the new reign Dormidont had grown tremendously in the opinion of court connoisseurs. For instance, there was the important incident in Livadia, immediately after the death of the previous sovereign, when the new emperor, being in a rather distraught state, almost received the visitors who had come to pay their condolences in his shoulder straps and without his black armband. Seleznyov caught His Majesty by the elbow when the doors were already open, and in five seconds changed the straps for epaulettes and even managed to attach mourning crêpe to His Majesty’s shoulder knot. What an embarrassing faux pas that would have been!

But of course he still has a long way to go to reach the level of high-flying eagles like Foma Anikeevich or the late Prokop Sviridovich. Foma Anikeevich endures the heavy cross of being attached to an individual like Simeon Alexandrovich. In a word – his lot is not to be envied. The number of times that Foma Anikeevich has saved His Highness from shame and scandal! If the governor general’s rule still possesses any authority in Moscow, it is only thanks to the Grand Duchess Elizaveta Feodorovna and his butler.

And our circle tells legendary stories about Prokop Sviridovich, who served as a valet to Tsar Alexander the Liberator.

Once, during the Balkan campaign, in the middle of the third battle of Plevna, a stray Turkish grenade fell right in front of the sovereign, who happened at that moment to be taking his afternoon snack. Prokop Sviridovich was standing close by, just as he ought to have been, holding a tray on which there was a cup of broth, a bread roll and a napkin.

Suddenly this ball of fire appeared out of nowhere! It fell into a small hollow overgrown with grass, hissing, hopping up and down and spitting smoke, all set to go off bang at any moment. The entire entourage froze and the butler was the only one not to lose his head: without dropping his tray, he took two short steps towards the hollowand poured the broth onto the grenade! The fuse went out. The most remarkable thing is that His Majesty, engrossed in his snack, did not even notice this incident and was only surprised at how little broth there was in the cup that was served to him. Kommissarov was awarded a noble title for deflecting the would-be regicide Karakozov’s pistol, but Prokop Sviridovich ended up, as simple folk say, with twice nothing because none of the witnesses – the duty generals and aides-de-camp – bothered to explain anything to the tsar. They were ashamed that a butler had proved pluckier and more resolute than them, and Prokop Sviridovich was not one to boast of his achievements.

However, this outstanding servant demonstrated even greater bravery on the front of intimate relations. You might say that he saved the peace and tranquillity of the imperial family. On one of the empress’s saint’s days His Majesty committed a serious blunder: as he took her present out of his pocket – it was a ring with a large sapphire in the form of a heart and the empress’s initials – he dropped another ring that was absolutely identical except that it bore the initials of the Princess Tverskaya.

‘What’s that, Sandy?’ the empress asked, peering short-sightedly at the small round shape that had gone tumbling across the carpet and taking her lorgnette out of her handbag.

The sovereign was dumbstruck and had no idea what to say. But Prokop Sviridovich quickly bent down, picked up the ring and swallowed it on the spot, after which he politely explained: ‘I beg your pardon, Your Imperial Highness, I dropped one of my catarrh lozenges. I have been having terrible trouble with my stomach.’

That’s the sort of man he was. The surgeon Pirogov himself cut the ring out of his stomach later.

Itwas precisely Prokop Sviridovich’s example that inspired me last yearwhen, as I dare to think, I rescued Georgii Alexandrovich from an almost identical delicate situation involving a letter from the ballerina Snezhnevskaya. Thank God, paper is not sapphire, and so no surgical intervention was required.

When I joined the honourable company, they were discussing the imminent festivities. Dormidont, who was clearly excited, and no wonder – he did not often have an opportunity to speak in such company – was telling the others something interesting about the sovereign. Foma Anikeevich and Luka Emelyanovich were listening benignly. The Japanese was drinking his tea from the saucer, puffing out his cheeks and goggling wildly. Mademoiselle was nodding politely, but I could see from her eyes that her thoughts were far away – I believe I have already mentioned that, for all her self-restraint, she did not have much control over the expression of her eyes. Mr Freyby was puffing away comfortably on his pipe and leafing through the pages of his book.

‘. . . toughen their characters,’ Dormidont was saying just as I walked into the servants’ parlour. When he saw me he sat up respectfully and continued: ‘They themselves are very superstitious, but they want to get the better of destiny, at any price. They deliberately arranged the arrival in Moscowfor an unlucky day, the festival of St Job the Long-Suffering, and the move from the city to the Kremlin for the thirteenth, although it could easily have been earlier. I think it’s all wrong – what point is there in tempting fate? You’ve seen for yourselves how Saint Job’s day turned out yesterday.’ And he gave me an eloquent glance, evidently feeling it was inappropriate to comment in greater detail on the disaster that had overtaken the Green Court.

‘What do you say to that, Luka Emelyanovich?’ Foma Anikeevich asked.

Kirill Alexandrovich’s butler, a stolid and dignified man, thought for a moment and said: ‘Well now, strengthening the will is no bad thing for a monarch. His Majesty could do to have a firmer character.’

‘Is that what you think?’ Foma Anikeevich asked with a shake of his head. ‘I think it’s not good. Ruling is like living: it should be done naturally and joyfully. Fate is kind to people like that. But if someone calls down misfortune on his own head, Fate heaps the dark clouds up over him. Our state isn’t exactly a cheery place in any case, and if the sovereign himself starts prophesying gloom and doom . . . And then again, Her Majesty has a heavy and joyless character. When the tsar grows a bit older and stronger, he’ll choose ministerswho are just as gloomy and unlucky. Every one knows the tsar’s kennel man is just like the tsar.’

I was astounded, not by the fact that Foma Anikeevich spoke so freely about His Majesty (that is perfectly normal in our circle, and it is a good thing for the work) but that he was not in the least bit wary of an outsider – the Japanese. Obviously in my absence Fandorin’s servant must have done something to win Foma Anikeevich’s special trust. He is a perspicacious man who sees right through people and understands perfectly what can be said in front of them and what cannot.

The Oriental’s smooth, impassive features gave no clue as to whether he understood what the conversation was about or was simply filling himself up with tea.

‘And what is your opinion about this, Afanasii Stepanovich?’ Foma Anikeevich asked me, and I realised from his quizzical glance that the question actually meant something quite different: did I think we could discuss the most important subject, or should we limit ourselves to conversation on abstract themes?

‘Time will tell,’ I replied, sitting down and ringing the bell for Lipps to pour me some tea. ‘There have been cases in history when extremely weak-willed successors to the throne have proved to be most worthy rulers in time. Take Alexander the Blessed, for instance, or even Franz-Josef.’

We spoke about one thing and thought about another: did I have any right to mention the decision that had been taken upstairs?

The Japanesewould learn about it from his master in any case. Mademoiselle could not be kept in ignorance either – thatwould be too cruel. Foma Anikeevich and Luka Emelyanovich could give useful advice. The only awkwardnesswas occasioned by the presence of Mr Freyby.

Catching my glance, the Briton raised his eyes from his book and mumbled something incomprehensible, with his pipe swaying up and down.

‘I know everything,’ Mademoiselle translated into Russian, pronouncing the word ‘efrything’. ‘My lord has told me.’

The butler stuck his nose back in his book to let us know that we need not take any notice of him.

Well then, so in England gentlemen had no secrets from their butlers. So much the better.

I briefly told my comrades about the letter, the sinister doctor and the decision that had been taken at the secret council. They heard me out in silence. It was only when I told them that Doctor Lind never returned his captives alive that Mademoiselle broke downand gasped, clenching her firmlittle fists above the table. To assist her in mastering her understandable agitation, I digressed briefly to talk about the remarkable self-control shown by Georgii Alexandrovich. But, as was often the case, Mademoiselle’s comment took me by surprise.

‘Georgii Alexandrovich has six sons from Heh Highness and two from a young ballehina. If Doctor Lind had abducted His Highness’s only daughteh – O, he would have behaved quite diffehently.’

I must confess that I was flabbergasted – both by the judgement itself (which might not have been entirely unjustified, since Xenia Georgievna really was Georgii Alexandrovich’s favourite) and by the tactless reference to Miss Snezhnevskaya.

Foma Anikeevich changed the subject and smoothed over the awkward moment.

‘Is there not anything that we servants can do, for our part?’

There you have a genuine butler – with only a fewscantwords he swept away the dross and defined the most important point. Compared to him we are all of us mere dwarves.

‘Pardon me for saying this, Afanasii,’ Foma Anikeevich continued with his unfailing politeness, ‘but we are not talking here just about the life of Mikhail Georgievich, but about even more significant matters – the fate of the monarchy and of Russian statehood itself. If you take all our internal upheavals, disorder and vacillation, as well as the sovereign’s obvious weakness and lack of experience, then add a blow like this, with the whole of society, the whole world looking on . . . The consequences are quite unimaginable. We, the servants of the Romanovs, must not allow it to happen.’