309828-0830-3333

understand, no matter how determined you are to not understand it.”
“You are the one who is being willfully foolish,” Victoria said, with ever the slightest hiss to
her voice on the word “foolish.” “Your pedigree trumps that of anyone within this palace and yet you
have somehow let yourself forget from hence you sprang. Heaven knows, on your father’s side you
can trace your lineage all the way back to Charlemagne and any present power you have, any at all,
stems from the fact that your grandmother is Queen of England.”
“And you may as well know that I have at last made the decision to convert to Orthodoxy,” Ella
plowed on, ignoring the fact that at, at least in the eyes of Trevor, the Queen was scoring the majority
of points in the debate. “For it is the faith of the realm and thus the people expect it of me, especially
on the high holy days. Oh, and don’t look at me like that, Alix,” she added a bit guiltily to her sister,
whose mouth had dropped open at this latest declaration of defiance. “It is not really all that different
from being Lutheran. We worship the same God and the same Christ, do we not? And is that not what
truly matters?”
“It is as different from Lutheranism as two faiths can possibly be,” the Queen said. She had
grown so angry that Tom was staring at her and his own hands gripped the sides of his chair. Whether
he was merely surprised to find his normally stolid monarch in such agitation or feared for the health
of an elderly patient, Trevor could not say. “The rituals of Orthodoxy,” the Queen continued, “are
contrived to dazzle a peasant populace, not to encourage the development of a rational mind. You
may as well announce that you intend to throw you head back and bay at the moon.”
“When we are in England, you control us all and you marry us off to suit your needs,” Ella said
coldly. “But what you fail to realize is that once we are indeed married, in that very instant we move
beyond your control. The continent of Europe is not your personal chessboard.”
A beat of silence. And in it the Queen’s face changed from angry to sad.
“If I saw the continent as a chessboard,” Victoria finally said, with a tender simplicity, “do you
honestly imagine I would set forth you and Alix as pawns?”
At the softening of her grandmother’s voice, Ella’s shoulders slumped, as if all the fight had
suddenly gone from her as well. She paused in her pacing and considered the small, round woman
seated before her. “Darling Granny,” she said. “I’m so happy you’re finally here and I don’t wish us
to open our visit with this sort of distressing discord. But you simply must accept that Serge is my
husband and that Russia is my home.” Then she turned abruptly toward the others and said “But I fear
I have been rude. We’ve been so caught up in our family tussles that I have neglected to formally