The Dragon Book (17 page)

Bronstein snapped his fingers. That was it! Arrogance compounded by blind stupidity. They didn’t know enough to be afraid of the dragons. Or of Lenin.
Or
—he thought carefully—
of me.

“My apologies, Comrade Bronstein.”

He didn’t sound sorry.
The man is an entire library of negatives,
Bronstein thought.

Maybe-Koba went on. “We shall let you return to your work. Comrade Lenin will be here within days. Then we shall release the Red Terror to cleanse this land. Lenin has said it, and now I understand what he means. Come, Kamo.”

Koba it is, then,
Bronstein thought, adding aloud, “Cleanse it of what? Of Russians?”

Bronstein knew that Koba—or maybe Kamo. Did it matter?—had been a Georgian Social Democrat and nationalist, and, some whispered, a separatist before joining Lenin to free the entire working class. Some said that Koba—or maybe Kamo—still was. The fractures in the revolution made Bronstein’s head hurt. Without realizing it, he rubbed his cigarette-stained fingers against his temples.

Koba stared at Bronstein with no trace of emotion on his face. “Of the Tsar. And his followers. Are you feeling ill?” As if a headache dropped Bronstein even further in his estimation.

There was something hard about Koba, Bronstein decided, like his innards were made of stone or steel rather then flesh and blood. But the men followed him. Followed him without question. Not that the men who followed Koba asked a lot of questions. They might fight for the workers, but they looked like idlers and ne’er-do-wells to Bronstein. Actually, they looked like thieves and murderers, and most likely anti-Semites, but sometimes those were the kind of men you needed.

Revolution was a dirty business.

He grunted. So was tyranny.

“I will provide the dragons, Koba, and you provide the men. And together we will
free
this land.”

“Comrade Lenin will be here soon. He will say if there will be freedom or not. Make sure his dragons are ready.”

With that, Koba turned and left, Kamo right behind.

Lenin’s dragons?
Bronstein’s hand twitched.
Who stayed up nights with the beasts? Who imprinted them? Who fed them by hand?
How he would have loved to wring the necks of these interlopers. But that was not his way. Besides, one of the dragons chose that moment to bite the finger of a young man who was grooming him, and Bronstein had to run and help wrench the digit out of the dragon’s mouth before it was swallowed.

Lenin will be here soon,
he thought, smacking the dragon on the top of its stone-hard head until it opened its mouth. The finger was still on the creature’s tongue, and Bronstein snatched it out before the jaws snapped shut. He tossed it to its bleeding and howling former owner before wiping his hands on his shirt. Perhaps the doctor could sew it back on. Perhaps not.

Fingers, dragons, revolutionaries,
his thoughts cascaded.
There’s no way we’ll be ready in time.

I had to admit, it was a masterful plan. Especially since my presence was necessary at its execution. I giggled at my play on words, and Ninotchka glanced at me coldly. Her face was as powdered as her hair, which made her look surprisingly old. And haggard.

“Did I say something to amuse you, my husband?”

She’d grown distant over the last weeks, probably due to my spending long hours pulling the threads of my plot together into a web that Father Grigori could not hope to escape. He could neither refuse the invitation nor survive the meal I had planned for him.

And I
would
be there. Nothing on earth could keep me from seeing the look on his arrogant face as he realized who the architect of his destruction was. Did he think he could cuckold me without a response? I had destroyed better men than he in the service of the Tsar. Occasionally I had even killed them on the Tsar’s orders. Not with my own hands, of course. But with a word in the right ear, with a bit of money passed carefully. Knowing the right men for such tasks
is
my job. And it seems that I am very good at what I do. If the monk’s mad eyes seemed to look through me whenever we met in the palace halls—well, I would soon see them close forever.

“No,” I said to Ninotchka. Having planned to dispose of Rasputin on her behalf, I now grew tired of her sniping. A man does what he must to protect his spouse, and if she is especially unappreciative of his efforts, he may very well find himself a new wife who is. “No, you say
nothing
that amuses me these days.”

Taking pleasure in the wide-eyed look of surprise she gave me, I spun smartly on my heel and quick-marched from the sitting room, my boots tip-tapping a message to her with every step.

After all, I had a group of high-level men to shore up. Just in case … just in case the borscht-cum-poison didn’t kill Rasputin on the first go-round.

A week later, in his apartment, Rasputin looked in the great mirror. He grimaced at his reflection, his teeth so white compared to the smiles of the peasants he had known. Brushing his fingers through his beard, he loosened a few scattered bits of bread stuck in the hairs.
Always go to a dinner full,
his mother had warned.
The hungry man looks like a greedy man.
He had no desire to look greedy to these men. Hard, yes. Powerful, definitely. But not greedy. A greedy man is considered prey.

“Prince Yusupov’s house in Petrograd at 9,” the invitation had read. He knew that Yusupov’s palace was a magnificent building on the Nevska, though he’d never before been invited to dine there. He and the prince had parted company some time ago. He’d heard it had a great hall with six equal sides, each guarded by a large wooden door. This morning, after receiving the invitation, he’d played the cards and saw that six would be a number of change for him. He was ready. But then, he was
always
ready. Didn’t he always carry a charm around his neck against death by a man’s hand? He never took it off, not in the bathhouse, not in bed. A man with so many enemies had to be prepared.

And really, Yusupov is but a boy in man’s clothing,
Rasputin thought.
He got his place at court through marriage. He needs me more than I need him.
Still, going to the palace would give him the opportunity to meet the prince’s wife, the Tsar’s lovely niece, Irina of the piercing eyes. He had heard many things about her and all of them wonderful. Rasputin had not yet had the pleasure.
Well, it would be her pleasure, too.

That dog, Vladimir Purishkevich, was picking him up in a state automobile. He supposed that he could abide the man for the time it took to drive to the prince’s palace. Then he would turn his back and mesmerize the princess right there, in front of her husband and his friends. They’d make a game of it. But it would not be a game. Not entirely.

Really,
he felt,
no one can stop me.
He began to laugh. It began softly but soon rose to almost maniacal heights.

A knock on the door recalled him to himself.

“Father Grigori,” his man asked. “Are you choking?”

“I am laughing, imbecile,” he answered, but gently, because the man had been with him since the days of the flagellants, and a man of such fervid loyalty could not be found elsewhere.

The door opened and Father Grigori’s man shuffled in, hunched and slow. “My … apologies, Father,” he stuttered. “But I have news.” He hauled one of the dragon boys in with him. The boy had a nose clotted with snot, and he sniveled.

Rasputin waited, but the man said nothing more.
He really is an imbecile,
the mad monk thought. The boy said nothing, either. Waiting, Rasputin assumed, for a sign from his elders. And betters.

Raising an eyebrow, Rasputin finally cued the man. “And this news is …?”

It was the boy who spoke, trembling, the clot loosened, snot running down towards his mouth. “Your Holiness, I … I have found the red terror.”

Rasputin stood and waved them fully inside his chambers. “Quickly, quickly,” he said. “Come in where we will not be overheard. And tell me everything.”

“It is about dragons, Father, and there is a man called Lenin who will free them, but he will not be here until the month’s end. Three days from now. When the moon is full. Only when he comes …”

“Dragons …” Rasputin’s voice was calm, but underneath his heart seemed to skip a beat. Soon he would be able to tell the Tsar.

SHORING up my coconspirators had been tougher work than I’d imagined it would be.
Really, they have no stomach for this stuff. Aristocrats are ever prepared to pronounce sentence but rarely willing to carry that same sentence out themselves.
Not that
I
liked to get my hands dirty, either—but if you really want something done, occasionally you have to be the one to do it. And these men wanted Father Grigori dead almost as much as I did. And now, a week later, they had knives in their boots and revolvers in their waistbands so they that could finish the job properly if needed. But I could not presume that they would actually
use
their weapons. Better to be prepared myself.

In just a few hours, the mad monk will be dead,
I thought.

I practically skipped down the halls of the palace thinking about it. Though first I had a few administrative duties to deal with, afterwards I’d be there to watch Rasputin die.

Except instead of sitting down to drink a beet stew full of poison, that son of a Siberian peasant was marching quickly down the same hall as me, dressed in his best embroidered blouse, black velvet trousers, and shiny new boots.

“Good evening, Father Grigori,” I said as calmly as I could.
What is he doing here? He dare not insult the men I set him up with openly. Is he that arrogant? Or is he really that powerful?
My hands began to tremble, and I willed them to stop, to freeze.

Subtly, I put myself into his path, so that he would have to either pull up or plow me down. For a moment, I thought he was going to march right over me, but, at the last second, he stopped, looming above me, uncomfortably close. He smelled of cheap soap. I barely kept myself from wrinkling my nose.

“Out of my way, lackey,” he said, eyes as cold as his mother’s breast milk must have been. “I have important news for the Tsar.”

I was close to panic. What news could he have to cause him to miss his dinner and insult me openly but that of my plans for him? I reached inside my jacket surreptitiously. Got my fingers on the hilt of a dagger I kept hidden there.

I may have to cut him down here in the hall,
I thought. I wasn’t sure I could. He was far bigger than I and certainly stronger, and if I missed with my first stroke, he could probably snap me in two with his huge peasant’s hands.