Cyril Vlasenko slammed his fist down on the solid oak desk at which he was sitting.
“Fools!” he said quietly to himself through clenched teeth. He had asked for a complete report, and they brought him this! He picked up the single sheet of paper again, glanced at it briefly, then tossed it aside. How could he get anything done in this God-forsaken outpost when they sent him nothing but incompetents?
He rose, pushed away his chair, and walked toward the window of the small office. His boots echoed on the hard wood floor, reminding him how alone he was here. All his life he had worked hard and aspired for something better for himself than his father had achieved. Yet with the emancipation of the serfs, he had been stripped of any remaining notion of power, and no more doors had opened upward for him. He was stuck here, probably until the day he died, in this miserable town, in this miserable office.
When he walked the streets, to be sure, the peasants trembled, and well they might. He was the chief of the state police for the entire region. He wielded plenty of power over them! But who were they, these peasants who feared him? They were nothing . . . nothing! They mattered not a straw in the events of magnitude in which the world spun.
St. Petersburg . . . so close! If only his father had been wealthy enough . . . a few more bribes . . . a favor done to one of Nicholas’s generals rather than the mere captain whose life his father had saved . . . if only . . . if only!
His life had been filled with the bitterness of being so close to the halls of real power, yet so distant. He had never even met the tsar! Who was he? Nothing but one of thousands of low-level officials in the gigantic Russian bureaucratic machine. His realm might be a mere three hundred versts away from the Winter Palace itself, but it may as well have been two thousand! The barren countryside between Luga and Pskov could have been Siberia, for all the difference such proximity to the capital mattered to his sorry and failed life!
Yes, that was the question—who was he? Who was Cyril Vlasenko, but a cur, a meaningless nobody, no better off than the miserable peasants who scratched the hard ground out there? He had served his country and his tsar faithfully. And for what? For this! This hole of an office, whose staff he had to drag out of the local tavern and fill with strong tea before they could even listen to his instructions. He had to work and share bribes with a fat magistrate who was hopelessly lenient on the peasants and who lied to him about his receipts. And to have to do it all in this . . . this ridiculous place the tsar didn’t even know existed!
He sighed and turned back to face his desk. Money . . . wealth . . . they provided the keys to unlock the doors of power in St. Petersburg. They said this was a new and modern age—the age of free serfs and railroads and enlightened ideas. Bah! Modern age or no, he knew that money still greased the cogs that ran the world. For the right price, he could be transferred to St. Petersburg next week; for a high enough price even perhaps into the court of Alexander himself.
That’s what was so annoying about this report. He knew there was dirt to be had on his cousin. He could feel it—he could taste it! He had paid good money for it to be unearthed, but the incompetents had discovered nothing.
Viktor Fedorcenko. The man’s very name turned Cyril’s stomach! Born to wealth . . . friend of the tsar . . . man of power and reputation! With a tenth of his money, Cyril could leave this pit of desolation forever. But what was most galling of all was that Viktor had never needed his money! He had grown up with Alexander. Everything in his life had fallen together in just the right way, while he, Cyril, had to watch from the outside—with neither wealth nor prestige nor power. Where was the justice in it? Were they not both descended from the same noble stalk from many years back?
Viktor may have been close to Tsar Alexander. But Cyril knew the fickleness of their leader. One hint of suspicious leanings or friendships on the part of his cousin, and Cyril knew the tsar would turn on him as if they had never known each other. And once he possessed the information that would give rise to such a rumor, he would be able to make Viktor do anything for him. Viktor would help even his hated country cousin to save his own skin!
But he had to be sure of his information. Otherwise Viktor could well turn it back and use it against him. It had to be something to make that high-stepping, proud aristocrat squirm and sweat! Something about one of his other friends, some financial impropriety . . . a rumor linking Viktor with revolutionaries! But it was impossible; Viktor may have been occasionally a bit too moderate, but he was a loyal Russian despite how much Cyril hated him.
Vlasenko sat down again in his chair, his anger calmed for the moment. He had thought about trying to plant someone in the Fedorcenko household, but no such opportunity had yet presented itself. He had to get inside those St. Petersburg walls somehow!