“We wandered for years, waiting for someone to give us asylum. When William Hearst offered a temporary refuge to the tsar and his family, the rest of us disembarked as well. A few of us went to the Hearst ranch with the royal family, but he hardly wanted all of us to camp around it. At least the tsar found a barracks for us to stay in, down where the palace is now. Many of the sailors had died—were dying—from the influenza. We scrubbed out a building and lived in it. We didn’t exactly have American permission, but no one told us we couldn’t.” Felix smiled to himself, though nothing about the story was funny. “Then America cracked apart, and California needed its own government, and behold! There was a true hereditary ruler on California soil, and the Romanovs had become the favorites of the rich and of the movie industry. Finally, someone offered Alexei a job he was qualified to do.”
That was debatable, considering the state of his realm now. But I would not open that can of worms.
“Did you know the Savarovs?” I said.
As Felix put the food on plates, he nodded. “I knew Eli a little. We were both magic users. His mother and father were invited to San Simeon; the children weren’t. Prince Savarov wasn’t going to miss the opportunity to bond himself to the old tsar and Alexei, who was thirty by then. So he left Eli and the girls in the barracks with us. Veronika had a connection, Maria Orlova, an aristocratic old lady with a lot of dignity. She hired Maria Orlova to keep an eye on her children, and she hired my mother to help Madame Orlova. My father was busy helping to clean out the barracks, and we needed the money.” Felix shook his head. “I don’t know how Madame Orlova managed with the two oldest, Eli’s half brothers. I think she more or less washed her hands of them. They were thugs. But Eli, Peter, Lucy, and Alice were good children, or as good as children ever are. I helped my mother keep track of them, keep them busy. I would take Eli with me when I tried to earn a little extra money, so we could eat. Even before the tsar was asked to rule here, Rasputin founded the school, though he didn’t have a building at first. When the starets founded the school, it saved my life. And by then, I knew Eli had the power and saw the possibility in Peter.”
Felix had had enough. I opened my mouth to ask one more question, but he shook his head.
“You’ve learned enough about me and the Savarovs,” he said, finishing his food to point out that his mouth was busy doing something else.
“Where’s your carpet sweeper?”
Felix pointed to a closet. I got his carpet sweeper out and ran it over the rug and the wooden floors. It looked better by the time I was ready to put the sweeper away.
Felix had been right when he told me I needed to eat. I washed the dishes to show I was grateful.
He didn’t protest.
“So, what’s your plan?” I asked, sitting down opposite him.
“I must explain a few things,” Felix said. “First off, the tsar has secret police, the same way his father did in Russia. Their job is to look for plots. Anything that goes against the government is an affront to the tsar. It’s not as dreadful as it was in Russia, but there are penalties.”
I nodded.
“Alexei may very well be ignorant of the fact that Eli is in jail. But if we break Eli out of his cell, we’ll be disrupting the law, and we may face very unpleasant consequences.”
“Even though Alexei has every reason to like Eli and trust him.”
“Alexei does like Eli. He’s used to Eli sitting by him when he’s sick, Eli arranging for the transfusion. And the blood comes from donors Eli tracked down.”
“So why hasn’t the tsar asked where Eli is?”
“Eli’s father was a traitor. Even though Prince Savarov’s plot was foiled, even though his older sons made amends and vows and gave gifts, even though Prince Savarov died mysteriously far from home …” Felix arched an eyebrow at me.
I looked out the window.
“Alexei’s favorite minister urged Alexei to remove Eli at least temporarily, to show he wasn’t soft. That even favorites would be punished if they were connected to treason. Bogdan and Dagmar were likewise banished from court for a time, even for all their gestures of atonement and protestations that they were not involved in their father’s plot.”
“I bet that’s a lie.”
“I know it is. Bogdan and Dagmar are much more like their father than his second family. Veronika is a better woman than the prince’s first wife, though she isn’t of as high a birth. Vladimir’s first wife, Evdokia, was a real Lady Macbeth, for sure. More to the point, Evdokia was the niece of Grand Duke Alexander’s second wife.”
I didn’t know who Lady Macbeth was, but I could figure she’d been a bad woman in some book. Seemed like she was from Shakespeare. Mother had made us read Romeo and Juliet in school, and I think one other one.
“Evdokia was too mean to live, I have been told. But she died a natural death, in childbirth, with a baby who also died,” Felix said.
Eli’s family history made my own seem simple. “It still doesn’t make sense, if the tsar likes Eli, and the tsar believes Eli didn’t have anything to do with the plot, and Eli helps to keep Alexei alive, that the tsar doesn’t know where Eli is. Is he even looking for him?”
“No, it doesn’t make sense.” Felix sat back, his small bony hands clasped behind his head. “Sometimes I think that the backers of the grand duke have a point. Alexander would never be ignorant of one of his followers being jailed.” He was looking up at the ceiling. I followed his gaze. He needed to get him a broom and go after those cobwebs.
“But Alexei is the rightful tsar,” I said, testing the waters. I didn’t care who was tsar. I cared about Eli’s safety and freedom. Under Grand Duke Alexander, Eli would be doomed.
“If only Alexei were more forceful and his wife more popular,” Felix muttered.
“What’s wrong with his wife?” I’d been told this before, that she wasn’t a hit here in America. She was a far cry from his first wife, a very wealthy girl from Dixie who had died without giving him a child. Caroline was royalty (one of the Scandinavian countries), and she’d had a son by Alexei. Her position should be solid.
“Caroline.” Felix kept his head tilted back, but his eyes were on me. “She’s not a bad sort, and if she was in Russia, back when things were the way they were, she’d be fine. But Caroline has no clue that she actually needs to be popular. I also know that she thinks her family sold her off to get rid of her since she was soiled goods. But rather than being grateful that she’s managed a good marriage to an emperor from a pure line, Caroline apparently feels she deserves a better country than the Holy Russian Empire.”
Sounded like Caroline deserved a swift kick in the pants.
“In fact,” Felix said, and he straightened and focused to make sure I was listening. “In fact, Caroline is taking a walk tomorrow in the botanical gardens, her grigori guard tells me. And you should, too.”
I must have looked blank.
“Just go,” Felix said, clearly irritated with my stupidity. “You’ll know what to do when you see it happen.”
“And that’s your plan? I show up in the gardens and wait to see what happens?”