Anna negotiated her way around the tsar’s Winter Palace now with ease. There were certainly many places in the sprawling edifice where she had not been and where she would never go. But within the limits of her experience as a maid to a princess who was a regular guest there, she had managed to become proficient enough.
While her mistress visited with the Grand Duchess, she walked down the familiar corridor to the small library. In the middle of the hallway, she heard a wide set of double doors open. A second later Lieutenant Grigorov backed out, closing the doors behind him, then turned in the direction from which Anna approached.
“Ah, Anna Yevnovna,” he said. In spite of the cheerful words, Anna had seen the dismayed expression he had been wearing as he pulled the doors shut. He tried to mask it quickly the moment he saw her, but his words sounded stilted nonetheless.
“Lieutenant Grigorov,” replied Anna, pausing and curtseying slightly.
The two had seen each other around the palace on several occasions since their first meeting, but not since his return from battle.
“It has been some time since I have seen you, Anna Yevnovna,” he said briskly, recovering his composure. “I am glad to see you are still in St. Petersburg. And you remain with the Fedorcenkos?”
“Yes, Lieutenant.”
“You have not forgotten so soon? It is Misha to you.”
“Then yes, I am still with them . . . Misha,” replied Anna. “Nothing has changed for me. And you?”
“The work of the Palace Guard is getting no easier with all the trouble and threats that have been brewing lately.”
“You mean the violence and discontent in the streets?”
“Yes, and we of the Guard must be much more careful.”
“There is hardly a guest who comes to my master’s home,” said Anna, “without a Cossack escort. But the prince himself refuses to allow a guard near him. He will not give the terrorists the satisfaction, he says.”
“That sounds just like the tsar,” rejoined Misha, “and he is the prime target. Yet still he insists on going about unescorted.”
“Out in the streets?” asked Anna incredulously.
“He refuses to give up his morning constitutional. Oh, he can make my life tense at times!”
“I shall pray for your safety, and the tsar’s.”
“Thank you, Anna.”
“I do not think he deserves such hatred from his subjects. I will not ever forget how gently he smiled at me the evening I saw him here in the palace.”
Misha did not reply immediately, but paused in thought.
“Would you care to walk and talk a few moments, Anna?” he went on with resolve after a moment.
“That would be nice,” Anna replied. “My mistress will not require me for an hour.”
The Cossack lieutenant led her along the corridor, down a flight of stairs, and to one of the garden courtyards outside. It was the very place where Anna and Sergei had walked the night of the New Year’s ball. Anna struggled against a shadow of melancholy that tried to rise at the recollection, reminding her how long it had been since she had seen Sergei.
She tried to smile cheerfully. “I have heard some say that winter is the only bearable season in St. Petersburg,” she said.
“The summer is dreadfully hot and muggy. It is no secret to me why so many nobles make the mass exodus to the south. Winter probably is preferable to that.”
“But the beginning of spring is so fresh and clean. This spring past was my third here, and I still felt a thrill of joy to stand on the English Quay and watch the chunks of ice bigger than buildings floating down the Neva.”
“‘The Giant’s Dawn,’” said Misha.
“Yes,” smiled Anna. “The giant who sleeps under the ice all winter and then wakes up furious to find his home being destroyed.”
“You are right—spring is a pleasant enough time. But you cannot like the summer!” laughed Lieutenant Grigorov. “In a few more weeks, you will remember—heat and dust and murky water . . . and cholera. It is enough to weary even a Cossack!”
“The family usually travels to their estate in the Crimea. So I have only spent the one summer here during the war. Princess Natalia wanted to remain close at hand for any reports. Her husband and son were both involved.”
“Yes, I know. I fought next to Sergei Viktorovich.”
“You did!” exclaimed Anna, an unexpected thrill surging through her at the sound of Sergei’s name.
“Prince Sergei saved my life.”
“I had no idea!”
“That is how he received his wound. I am not surprised that he would keep that piece of information to himself. He is a good and brave man, and I am honored to be indebted to him. I owe him a great deal, though how a poor Cossack soldier could ever hope to repay a wealthy prince, I do not know.”
Anna grinned with pleasure at hearing Sergei spoken of with such praise.
“I am glad to see you are so pleased my life was spared,” laughed Misha. “Or perhaps this look of delight comes because your master’s son acquitted himself so honorably on the battlefield.”
“Well . . . both of course,” replied Anna, flustered that her emotions were so transparent. “That is . . . they have been so very good to me. I am always pleased to hear a good report of the family that employs me.”
“Ah yes, of course—I see.”
They fell silent, walking and enjoying the fresh leaves and bright new shoots of green on the lime trees overhead. The breeze carried on its breath the tangy fragrance of the rushing river that flowed a stone’s throw from where they walked.
“Just a month ago, the blossoms were still on the trees,” said Misha at length.
“In our garden, too,” replied Anna. “It was beautiful.”
Again there was a long silence.
“I have greatly enjoyed this time with you, Anna,” Misha said finally. He stopped walking, and as she paused next to him, he turned a keen gaze directly into her face. “Anna,” he said, “perhaps the next time we meet it could be intentional, and not merely by chance?”
“I . . . I don’t know what—”
“The warmth of early summer does suit you, Anna,” he said, reaching up to finger one of her pale yellow curls. “The sunlight makes you glow. And if—”
Suddenly he broke off in mid-sentence and turned sharply away from her.
Bewildered over Misha’s sudden amorous turn, Anna said nothing.
“It’s no good!” he blurted out in a distressed tone. “I am sorry, Anna.”
Perplexed, Anna stared mutely at the back of Misha’s red tunic.
“You are lovely,” he said after a moment, turning around to face her again. “But too lovely for me to try to use you in such a way. Please forgive me.”
“You have me completely confused, Misha,” she replied with an attempt at a smile. “I do not know what you are sorry about, nor what to forgive you for.”
“Maybe that is my problem,” he replied in a frustrated voice, half-turning and beginning to walk farther.
Anna followed.
“I have never known what to do around women,” he went on. “But that is no excuse. You are too pure and innocent to realize what I was trying to do—and that makes it all the worse!”
He paused, then let out a sigh of self-disgust. “I had intended to try to seduce you, Anna, and make you fall in love with me. But there is nothing lower than a man who would use an innocent girl to make another woman jealous. Or worse, to try to affirm his own manhood! But it appears that is the kind of man I am. I am sorry; I deserve nothing but disdain!”
“I am still confused, Misha,” replied Anna. “But whatever you did of wrong intent, you have repented of it now.”
“I do not deserve to be let off so easily.”
“You asked for my forgiveness, did you not? So there—I forgive you.”
“You are the most wonderful girl I have ever known—leagues better than that self-seeking Countess Dubjago! I do not know why I think she will ever notice me.”
“Now I think I understand,” said Anna gently.
“You must think me a cad and a fool, to waste my affections on a woman who treats me like dirt. Oh, but there is nothing worse than loving someone who does not return your love.”
“Unless it is when they do return your love,” said Anna without thinking.
He stopped and glanced down at her with a puzzled expression.
“I don’t see how that could be. Why, it—”
He stopped all at once and looked at Anna intently, as if seeing her for the first time. Slowly a light seemed to dawn on his face.
“Anna, you speak of yourself when you say those words, do you not?”
Anna could say nothing. She had blurted out the careless words and could not undo them. Her cheeks began to flame.
“I have been so wrapped up in my own troubles, I hardly considered you,” he went on, still gazing down at her. “Still, I don’t see how such a thing could be, unless—”
He stopped himself short again, a look of dawning revelation gradually spreading over his face.
“Of course. Now it is all clear . . . your face lit up when I spoke of him. That could be none other than a look of love. It is Prince Sergei, isn’t it, Anna?”
Denials were useless, and she knew it. She nodded mutely.
“He loves you, but of course it would ruin him to marry a mere servant.”
Anna did not want to try to explain that their love had gone beyond the boundaries of class and position, and that her present heartache came from his mere absence. Still she did not speak.
“And you are an honorable girl,” he went on, “and so remain silent. Poor, dear Anna! I’ve heard it said that ‘love kills happiness and happiness kills love.’ It must be true.”
They walked on a few more paces.
“I would give anything to be finished with that woman,” he exclaimed at length. “But when I see her I get crazy inside. I will never be happy with her, yet I cannot bear to be separated from her. Love is nothing but a fool’s path!”
“In my English lessons I read an author named Thackeray who said, ‘It is best to love wisely, no doubt; but to love foolishly is better than not to be able to love at all.’”
“He surely must not have been acquainted with Countess Dubjago!”
Anna smiled. “I would not trade the short time I was able to enjoy with my mistress’s brother for anything. Not even to be free of the pain of loss I now feel.”
“You are remarkable, Anna. I am glad to be able to count you a friend—I may count you as a friend?”
“Yes, Misha! I am honored that you consider me one,” Anna replied. After a brief pause, she added, “I think it is no coincidence that we have encountered each other as we have. And I am glad you know my secret. I have longed for a friend to share it with.”
“I wish I could do more to help you.”
“Just listening can be a great help sometimes.”
“When is Prince Sergei due to return to the city?”
Anna’s downcast face gave Misha his answer well enough. “No one knows,” she replied slowly. “Of course he cannot write to me personally, and what I gather from the family is scant enough. They hear only sporadically themselves. No one knows even where he is for certain. I know he must be struggling under dreadful burdens left over from the war. He said before he left that he hoped to finish his book—he is writing of his wartime experiences, did you know?”
“No, I had no idea.”
“Yes, and he had high hopes for completing it soon. But no one in the family mentions a word of his writing. I fear perhaps there are more things on his mind, keeping him from his book . . . and keeping him away.”
“I am sorry to hear this, Anna.”
She smiled faintly at his kind words.
“It must be terribly hard for you, not knowing, and hearing nothing from him,” Misha continued.
“Yes, but for one in my position I can expect nothing more. It is enough to be loved by so fine a man, much less a prince. It is more than I deserve, even if I never hear from him again.”
“Do not say such words, Anna. He will come back. And if he is the same Sergei Viktorovich I knew on the battlefield, a man of honor, he will come back loving you just as strongly as ever.”
Again she smiled. “I would like to think you are right, Misha.”
“As for me,” he sighed, “I ought to just forget the countess altogether. I don’t know why I don’t face reality . . . to preserve my sanity! But I suppose I am not as brave in matters of love as you, Anna.”
“Or as foolishly hopeless?”
Misha chuckled lightly. “A good pair we make, you and I, Anna Yevnovna! Star-crossed lovers and all that. We must talk again and commiserate our woes together! But now I must return to my duties.”
“And I shortly to my mistress.”
They returned to the palace slowly, neither in a hurry and both feeling lighter and refreshed. Finding a friend to help carry a portion of the load, if only by lending a listening ear, brought great relief.
Anna would never have imagined the Cossack lieutenant as a confidant. Yet in a way it seemed fitting. Perhaps God had allowed Sergei to save Misha’s life at least partially for her sake.