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The statement was probably nothing more than a rebuke over the fact that Filip had remained
dry-eyed among the wailing of the others, but for a moment Filip’s blood had run cold. He had taken
the handkerchief and nodded briskly, a gesture which seemed to satisfy Gregor, but then Filip’s gaze
had fallen on the equally dry-eyed Vlad who was leaning against the plaster wall. Watching and
listening, just as he always did. A pesky mosquito, that one.
Within the palace, the death of the dancers had attracted little interest from his fellow officers,
who had either been fooled by the flourishes of his staging or too unimpressed by the stature of the
victims to care. Just the damn British woman, another of those watch and listen types, another
mosquito begging for the palm of a hand. Her interference had been unfortunate and her death, he
feared, might still arise to haunt him, especially in light of the nearly simultaneous arrival of a
contingent of her countrymen. If the British should decide to investigate…
once.
Which is why he had decided that attention must be deflected to Konstantin Antonovich at
There were those, he knew, who liked to gossip that Filip’s pretty little bird had flown. He had
heard the guffaws behind his back, the suggestions that his wife and the dance master waltzed below
the bedsheets as well as above. But Filip knew these whispers were not true. There were few
certainties in life, but he was sure that Tatiana would never betray him. She was too grateful. Too
aware of what awaited her if he should ever decide to send her home in disgrace. She had married
him in a gown with its hem stained a dark rust color, for when a woman is the daughter of a butcher,
even her best dress has absorbed the blood of the slaughterhouse floor. No, his Tatiana had seen no
end of dreadful things before she turned ten years old. A woman who goes to the altar in a bloodsoaked
dress is, if nothing else, a realist. She would do nothing to risk his wrath or to jeopardize her
hard-won position within the palace.
Most people would have found it surprising that a man like Filip should have ever joined the
Volya in the first place, much less remained loyal for enough years to rise in their ranks. He was not
typical of their membership. Older than most, as broad as a wall, and from some hopelessly obscure
little town in the countryside. But appearances can be deceiving, so they say, and Filip knew that his
lumbering form and graceless lack of manners gave off the impression he was stupid. He was not.
When he had first entered the tsar’s guard he had learned the three additional languages of the court
with a rapidity that he knew was not typical of his fellows. This is what had inspired him to go to the
university, where those in service to the imperial family were allowed to sit spectator to the classes,
an advantage few within the Romanov court pressed. What act of fate had carried him into the
classroom of Professor Tomasovich and first brought him into contact with the words of Karl Marx?