I did not see what this had to do with anything. Eventually he said, amused, “I do not see what you are jealous of, really. She does not get to share my bed, and she has not the equipment I like to make me happy, as you do.”
I was so angry and jealous I could feel my heart pounding overfast in my chest. “But shewill—I mean, share your bed, not grow a cock.”
He sighed. “Nikolai Hartmann, you are no fun to tease at all. You are too savage entirely. We have nointentionof wedding.We never had. She and I are in very harmonious accord on this subject. She had to marry and was sent to Hesse-Davia. I had to beget heirs and met her as my potential wife. We met; we talked. We both discovered we had no wish whatsoever to marry anyone and decided that our engagement would be very convenient. We will one day run out of excuses why the marriage is delayed so often, but so far everyone is happy with the arrangement as we are both still young. There, are you satisfied? God’s breath. I was going to spin this out all day to annoy you, but she said I was cruel and that you should be put out of your misery.”
I could hardly take any of this in, as the blood pounding too fast in my body made me stupid and my ears ring, but I fastened on this last with horror. “She knows! My God, you have told her about us! About—that I—with—” I could finish no coherent thought for the images that rose in my mind of the images that must be rising in hers every time she looked at me. Or not. How much had he told her? How much would a girl her age know? My God.
“Oh, don’t look like that. God save us, you are never going to be able to look her in the face again, are you?”
But I’d moved on, my thoughts now spinning away to his earlier declaration. “I don’t believe that she does not want to marry you. She’s lying, tricking you. How could she not?”
He was still laughing at me, darting me little amused looks. “Am I so adorable? Would you marry me, Niko?” He leered over, making kissing sounds.
“Don’t be so….” I made to kick Xavier to fly away from all these emotions that I could not tolerate, but Aleksey caught the bridle.
“Wait. I’m sorry. Anastasia is not like other women, Nikolai. She does not want marriage or children. Today she wants to captain her own ship; last week she asked Johan if she could join his army. She longs for something more but cannot have it. She would not marry me if I were—”
“Beautiful and a king?”
He laughed. “No, not even then. Niko, listen, do you remember when I first came upon you in the forest?”
“Yes, of course, I thought you a very arrogant, annoying baby, and I have not changed my opinion since.”
He snorted. “That is not what you said last night when you had my… anyway…. In the forest, do you remember that you did not see Johan or Gregory at first?”
“What does this have to do—”
“They blended in with their surroundings and went unnoticed. Anastasia is my camouflage, do you see? And I hers. As far as the court is concerned, I am not out riding with my beloved today but with her, my betrothed.” He saw me frown, trying to work this out, and slapped my arm, annoyed. “You!You, you dullard, are my beloved!”
“Oh.” I glanced at our companion, some fifty feet or so behind. “I still do not see why she has to join—” Aleksey spurred Boudica to flight, so he was spared my sulking.
ARRIVINGATGregory’s, we must have appeared an odd group—strung out and not speaking with each other. No one commented, though; I think they expected us to be eccentric. Our situation was rather unique, after all.
I discovered why Anastasia wanted to be one of our group when she poured forth her ideas. She had hundreds of ideas about what she wanted to do to make the lives of the poor people better, and nearly all of them were very good indeed. She saw life slightly different to the rest of us, being female, so her plans centered on improving the lives of women. And she did have a point. I had seen the added degradation that the women, with their burden of childbearing and rearing, suffered in this country.
But it is hard to go from seething jealousy to approval in the course of one evening over dinner, however good a cook Gregory was. Anastasia appeared to see something in my expression—perhaps the clench I had on my jaw, perhaps the wrinkle of my nose or the eye roll at her suggestions—and commented sharply, “If you improve the lot of women, Colonel, you raise the whole family. Give money to men, and they will spend their good fortune in wine and loose women—or some of them will….”
I could not tell if she was allowing that some men were not wastrels or making a far more subtle observation that loose women were safe from some men.
I expected Aleksey to leap in and prevent me answering her—he often did this with other people when he feared I was about to speak my mind, but he was studiously listening to Johan and pretending not to be aware of our imminent spat.
I pursed my lips for a moment, thinking, and then replied, “A woman should not have authority over a man. She should remain quiet.” I left a tiny pause, not enough for her to interject, and added, “So your Christian Bible says.”
“Quite right, Colonel.” She did not seem the least put out by my attempt to annoy her. I didn’t know why I was doing it, for I was not a Christian and agreed with her about the women. “It also says whoever would be great amongst you must be your servant. I’ve always taken that to mean men should be subservient to women.”
I sensed I was outclassed and retreated from the field to lick my wounds.
Pia had joined us, and she and Anastasia now formed a small, militant group of two on the other side of the table from our more rational, mature group. I was tempted to tell Anastasia this was how I viewed her, but my moral high ground was low enough as it was.
I got my revenge on Aleksey for his lack of support when Anastasia asked him, seemingly in all innocence, whether he was aware of any houses of ill repute in the city. She believed he should extend his plan of an orphanage for boys to include girls as well and thus save many from a potential life of moral ruin. As a direct beneficiary of the moral ruin of women, Aleksey was somewhat stumped for a reply.
Johan was the only man at the table that night spared Anastasia’s wit and wrath. He, likewise, didn’t engage with her once. He seemed entirely unsure what to make of her.
One thing we all agreed on was that most of the poverty and ignorance in Hesse-Davia could be directly linked to the unhealthy influence of the church.
All of us saw that poverty and excessive power of priests were the flip side of the same coin. Not only did the church demand huge tithes from the peasantry, it peddled superstition so its power stayed absolute.
Aleksey wanted to lessen the power of the church by divorcing his rule from its influence, but this desire, unfortunately, coincided with the return of his uncle, Prince Harold, to court.
