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Inga walked the corridors in the east wing, making yet another trip for dinner supplies. With the return of the Tsar and his army from Novgorod, the meals would return to their previous volume. She sighed, a hundred worries on her mind.
Taras acted so differently since his return. He’d told her some of what he saw in Novgorod, but she sensed he left out the worst of it, to spare her the horror he felt. What he did say more than terrified her. More than once, he’d awakened violently in the middle of the night, sweating and crying out. Despite everything they’d been through in the last few years—the fire, Kazan, the exploits of the Oprichniki—he’d never been bothered by it like this before. She wondered what would become of them all.
“Inga.” Yehvah’s sharp call brought her out of her thoughts. She and Anne strode toward Inga from an intersecting corridor. Inga changed directions to meet them.
“Where are you going?”
“I’ve been sent to the supply closet at the far side of this wing. We need to pull more linen out of storage before supper.”
Yehvah nodded. “Let Anne do it.” Without a word Anne walked by Inga, giving her a worried look as she passed, and headed in the direction Inga had been going.
Inga studied Yehvah’s face, her expression unreadable. She only looked that way when she brought bad news, gave tongue-lashings, or tried to hide her emotions. Inga wondered which it would be.
“What is it, Yehvah?”
Yehvah’s mouth settled into a straight line. “Something’s happened. Come.”
Yehvah strode away and Inga followed. She knew better than to badger Yehvah with questions when her face looked like that. As they walked, a strange, cold fear settled in the pit of Inga's stomach. Whatever Yehvah had to say, it couldn’t be good.
They went all the way back to the servants’ quarters. Inga hadn't visited them in some time. The room stood empty and silent now, all the maids out working hard. Inga ran her eyes over the rows of hard, plain beds and shivered. Taras’s room was so much warmer than this place. Not only because his bed held thick animal pelts and his room, a huge fireplace, but because he lived there, always putting his arms around Inga and breathing in her ear.
Yehvah walked calm circles around the perimeter of the room. Her eyes swept the area behind curtains, in closets, and any other shadowy places. Making certain they were alone, Inga realized. Such precautions meant Yehvah's news was both serious and dangerous. Inga wanted to press her, but Yehvah would make her wait until she felt satisfied the conversation was private, so Inga kept her silence. Yehvah finally completed her sweep.
“Yehvah, what’s happened?”
“Sit down, child.”
“No. Tell me.”
Yehvah took a deep breath, her gaze steady on Inga’s face. “I've come from speaking with Nikolai. He found me in the courtyard, frantic.”
“Why?”
“Taras has killed Aleksey Tarasov.”
All feeling drained from Inga’s fingers. Her tongue went numb and she felt sick to her stomach. “Sergie’s father?” The words came out slurred, as though she was drunk.
“Yes.”
“But...why has no alarm been raised?”
“The body hasn’t been discovered yet. It still lies in his chamber. No one knows, Inga. Not yet. We must keep it that way as long as possible.”
Inga nodded. “So, you think no one will suspect Taras?”
Yehvah gave her a sympathetic look. “Of course they will, Inga," she said softly, then sighed. "Even if they didn’t, it wouldn’t matter.”
“Why not?”
“Nikolai told me that, while in Novgorod, Taras became angry. Enraged. He wanted to kill the Tsar and he said so.”
Inga's mouth fell open.
Yehvah went on. “Nikolai restrained him, of course, but several men—Oprichniki soldiers—heard his words. They probably added his name to the death lists that very night. His time here would have been short, anyway.”
Inga shook her head, trying to sort through the implications. “He...didn’t say anything...and what do you mean ‘anyway’?”
“Inga—”
“No. Why are you sure they’ll know it was him? Why wouldn’t it matter?”
Yehvah put her hands on Inga’s shoulder and stared straight into her eyes. “Taras has been marked for death. Think about it. Only days after his name goes on the list, Tarasov is murdered? A man as high as one can be in the Oprichniki? And after Taras said something treasonous in front of witnesses? Inga, it will be all too obvious. Once the Oprichniki have a name, they don’t care about proof or fealty or anything else. It’s over for him.”
Something wet and cool slid down Inga's jaw. She didn’t realize she was crying until the tear cooled and reached the bottom of her face. She wiped it away from the underside of her chin. “There has to be something—”
Yehvah made calming gestures. “Hush. Not so loud. Inga, he can’t stay here anymore. He’ll be dead in days if he does. Nikolai has convinced him to leave.”
Leave. Taras would leave. Of course he would. He’d spoken of it since he arrived. Inga’s legs gave out. She collapsed onto the bed she stood beside. Inga didn’t want to be without Taras, but the thought of leaving the Kremlin terrified her. It wasn’t so much that she felt nostalgia for this place—her life had been cold and sadness, for the most part—but a deep fear of what lay beyond made her tremble. At least here she knew what to expect, what others expected. Life in the palace could be difficult, but Yehvah taught her to be grateful that she had a roof over her head and food in her stomach.
Taras didn't think like that. He’d set out from England on horseback with a bit of spare change in his pockets. He’d ridden all the way to Russia, stopping to work along the way. He was independent and freer than she'd ever been, the antithesis of everything in her life. Perhaps she loved him for that. Despite the differences, she trusted him, more than she’d ever trusted any other human being, except perhaps Yehvah. No doubt he would ask her to trust him now.
She didn’t know if she could.
“Inga, listen to me.” Yehvah knelt down in front of her, putting her hands on Inga’s knees. “When Nikolai thinks it’s safe, he’s going to send you out to speak with Taras.”
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know. Nikolai does. He’s hiding somewhere outside the city. He must lay low to avoid arrest. Inga, when you go to him, he’ll ask you to go with him. I’m sure of it.”
Inga studied her hands in her lap until Yehvah used a finger to lift Inga’s gaze to hers.
“Inga, I’m asking you not to.”
Cold settled on Inga. It didn’t rush in with a sudden shock, but drifted over her like curtains of snow carried by the wind. Choose between Taras and Yehvah? Between the only man she’d ever loved and the only mother she’d ever known? Between Ivan’s brutality and the unknown terror beyond the Kremlin wall?
She couldn't think deeply enough, couldn’t comprehend all the consequences of either path. She needed time to consider. She knew she'd only get minutes—an hour at most.
“Why not?” she asked softly.
“You don’t know what’s out there. You don’t know if he can take care of you. He’s a good man, but this is the heart of winter. If you go, you could be dead in weeks.”
“If he doesn’t go, he’ll be dead in days.”
Yehvah shut her eyes, letting the lids push tears down her cheeks. “Yes. Inga, if you go, I’ll never know what happened to you.” Yehvah’s voice broke and Inga tears fell afresh. “Inga," her voice remained thick with tears, "you don’t know what you mean to me. I know I don’t show it enough. I don’t know what I’d do without you. Even physically, you know I can't keep up. Between my injuries and how many of the servants have simply disappeared...”
Inga took Yehvah’s hands. “You have Nikolai now. He won’t let them throw you out.” Even as she said it, she felt ashamed. She didn't want to rationalize Yehvah’s loneliness.
Yehvah dropped her face toward Inga’s lap. When her head came back up, her eyes looked bleaker, more vulnerable than Inga had ever seen them. “I had Nikolai once before. When I lost him, it nearly killed me.” She smiled suddenly, beautifully. “And you saved me, Inga.”
Inga frowned. “What do you mean? What happened between you and Nikolai so long ago? Why twenty years of silence between you two?”
Yehvah sat back on her knees, her face resigned.
“When we were young—not much older than you are now—I fell in love with Nikolai. He was a young, dashing courtier. He saw me in the palace and pursued me. We loved, we bedded. He said he loved me too. His father still lived then and insisted Nikolai marry. His marriage needed to be one of prudence, one of fortune, to further the wealth and power of the Petrov family. Nikolai had to make a choice: marriage or disinheritance. He’d lived his entire life as a boyar. He didn't know how to survive on his own. The thought of poverty terrified him. I’d been a servant my whole life, so it didn’t frighten me, but what did I have to say about it? I had nothing to offer except a life of servitude.
His father arranged a match with a beauty from an outlying boyar family. They’ve since fallen out of favor. Nikolai said he loved me. He said he didn’t want to marry. He wanted me to stay with him, as his mistress. Married nobles commonly kept lovers, but I couldn't bear the thought of sharing him with another woman.
“Not that it ended up mattering anyway. Nikolai’s father noticed our relationship. He understood our closeness—that Nikolai truly loved me—and took the choice from us. He thought such a relationship dangerous, both to his family and to his son’s future. He forced Nikolai to give me up. Which he did. Nikolai married. I felt abandoned.”
Inga marveled. So much history she'd known nothing about. Surely no one except Yehvah and Nikolai remembered it anymore. For who in the court cared for the plight of a maid? Yehvah would be remembered as nothing more than a dalliance Nikolai once indulged in, if anyone remembered her at all. Inga supposed if the unseen things in people’s hearts were revealed, the entire world would marvel.
“What happened to the lady?”
Yehvah wiped her tears. “She died in childbirth.”
Inga’s eyebrows shot up. Another surprise. “Nikolai has a child?”
Yehvah shook her head. “His son died during the birth as well. He lost them both.”
A deep sadness for Nikolai tightened Inga's chest. Poor man. How lonely he must have been. Inga stayed silent for a moment, letting Yehvah gather herself. “Then what happened?” she finally asked.
Yehvah gazed up at Inga, smiling sadly. When she spoke, her voice sounded heart-wrenchingly lonely. “Nothing. Over the first year of their marriage, before her death, Nikolai grew fond of his wife. She was sweet and gentle and unassuming. She saw he was in pain. I don’t know if she knew why—if he ever told her—but she was...kind to him." Her voice broke again. When she went on it was an octave higher. “I felt grateful because I loved him even as I hated him.” Yehvah sniffed and took a deep breath.
Inga wiped tears from her own cheeks.
“When mother and child died, Nikolai grew angry, disillusioned with life. He told his father he wouldn't marry again. His father insisted Nikolai take another wife, and threatened disinheritance once more. Nikolai asked for time to mourn, which his father granted. In truth, Nikolai merely wanted time to find some way to support himself, so he didn't have to live by his father’s purse anymore.”
Understanding dawned on Inga. “He took up soldiering.”
Yehvah nodded. “Yes. His father died suddenly a year later, and Nikolai inherited everything anyway. I don’t know if he wanted me back at that point. He probably thought I wouldn’t forgive him. Back then, he was right.” She smiled and Inga cried. “He stuck to his soldiering and I to my work. What happened between us seemed finished. I felt lonely, Inga. So lonely. I contemplated jumping into the Moskva.”
Inga gasped. Yehvah and her no-nonsense air? She thought anyone who contemplated suicide foolish and in need of some good hard work to bring them back to their senses. To find out she'd once considered it herself shocked Inga.
"One day, I decided to do it. What did I have here? I went into the city to assist in a birth and stayed all day and part of the night. I needed to get back to the palace that night, though, because I had breakfast duties in the morning. I took my leave close to midnight, and walked alone through the dark, winter streets. As I passed a certain alley, I heard a ruckus. My curiosity took over and I peeked in. I found a small child, in a ring of blood, being kicked to death by the tavern-owner.”
Inga’s head came up, shock quaking her heart. The night Yehvah found her? She hadn’t thought of it in years. “Me?”
“Yes. You. I found a reason to live. Something to hold onto. Inga, you saved me in ways I couldn’t possibly convey to you. The deepest, darkest recesses of a person’s soul can only be revealed to God, but the battles I fought with myself during those days were bigger than me. Bigger than this," she glanced around the room. "Bigger than life." She sighed. "You were so ill when you arrived, I feared you would die. If you had, I would have laid down and died beside you, and let Nikolai shoulder the guilt for the choices he made. But you lived. So have I. Please, don’t abandon me now.”
Inga leaned forward until her head touched Yehvah’s. She’d never felt closer to Yehvah, more like her daughter, than she did at this moment. “I won’t. I promise.”
