25
If the whole city was celebrating, and even the newly freed ships kept launching fireworks without pause, there was somebody who wasn't enjoying himself in that pandemonium. Not anymore, at least.
Nonna had long since learned to trust her gut feelings.
And what her guts had been telling her from a few minutes was far from positive. Ever since the Russian fleet had returned to the pier she hadn't been able to meet up with Katyusha, not even once.
At first she had thought that she didn't want to be found, preferring to savor the victory from the peace and quiet of some hiding place, but when nobody, not even her commanders, had been able to tell her where she had gone, that was when the worry inside her had begun to rise at an alarming pace.
She looked for her everywhere, from her old headquarters to the storerooms, up to the hold of the flagship.
"Hey, Lev." she said, when she bumped into Tolstoj, rather tipsy but still able to answer her. "Have you seen the General?"
"The General? I just saw her a few minutes ago. She was going towards His Highness' quarters."
"His Highness' quarters?!"
The last months of her life went past Nonna's eyes in a few heartbeats, and that ill feeling turned into holy terror.
"My God!" she wailed, running away.
Brother and sister stared at each other with no words being exchanged for quite a long time, with Aleksandr looking somewhat weirded out but not that surprised; not as much as one would usually be, upon being held at gunpoint by his very sister.
"Might I know what do you think you're doing?" he said, calmly and without a trace of fear.
"Precisely what I said, brother." replied Katyusha in the same way. "I am arresting you."
"Might I inquire as to the reason why?"
"For high treason and consorting with the Empire's enemies. But the list is rather long."
"Would it mean anything if I told you I haven't got the slightest idea of what you're talking about? Have you forgotten? I am the Tsesarevitch. For what reason should I conspire against an Empire that is to be mine one day?"
"You might, if it were to make things quicker for you. We both known that our father might reign for many years still. Perhaps longer than what you can tolerate."
Aleksandr gritted his teeth under his moustache.
"Your accusations are rather serious, little sister. Maybe even too much, for someone who has thrown her own honor to the wolves and stained for God knows how long Russia's reputation before the whole world."
"Never as much as you, someone who sold out to our enemies.
I am quite sure that there's your hand behind my kidnapping attempt as well, isn't there?"
"Correct me if I'm wrong, but shouldn't you ask your handmaid about that?"
"Nonna was just a tool in that. She, like many others that you manipulated. But I've long asked myself how that dapper Scotsman had managed to reach the foot of the Kremlin with no issue. Our father had turned paranoid after your departure, and the surveillance in Moscow had been trebled. Only someone with great knowledge about the secret passages and the hidden coves of the Moskva might have told him what was the only free route, or give them the necessary papers. All things considered, you are in no position to preach about honor."
"There are many people who know about those passages. What makes you think that it was me who told them? A good enemy agent is more than able to find them on his own."
"The truth is within." said Katyusha after taking a deep breath-
"What?!"
"Since this whole mess started, I kept thinking over the words of that fire-eater Padre Ansaldi, or whatever his true name was. Now I get that he had realized it all. He had understood that there had to be a traitor among us. Maybe when he talked about 'within', he meant somebody very close to the Tsar, because even he couldn't guess that we'd have to look inside our very family."
"Even if you were right, say, if your mentor hadn't thought of me as a potential traitor, what reason could you have for doubting me?"
"The attack that your British friends mustered against us at Balaklava. I asked a few things to General Liprandi; the operation had been kept a close-guarded secret to the last, even the soldiers ignored where they were going. Only someone very close to our father and his advisors could know everything in such detail: how many troops, where they were going, even the rough date of arrival."
"You amaze me, little sister. I don't have to remind you that the court is the realm of gossip. In a way or another, the thing could have leaked."
"And that's why a discreet rumor about an imminent increase in activity in the Caucasus operations had been floated."
This time, the Prince's eyes bulged, betraying his shock.
"What?!"
"An idea of General Gorčakov. I had heard of that myself. General Liprandi confirmed it; your hurry to get into the enemy's good graces was your mistake.
Go on, then. Tell me I'm wrong, if you can."
A new, long silence ensued, almost as if everything in that room had been frozen in place, immobile in time and without the slightest noise.
Then, to Katyusha's own surprise, an almost amused smirk appeared on the face of his beloved brother, followed by a shrug.
"At this point, I guess it would be pointless and childish to deny the facts."
"I thought I meant something to you, brother. And yet you didn't hesitate to give me up to the British."
"If it means anything, I had had specific guarantees that you wouldn't have been touched. It was the indispensable condition to get my support, and that of the others."
"Others?!"
"Do you honestly believe that this one before you is the lone traitor? You can't even imagine how many people in our country would be more than happy to see our father ousted from the throne.
They came to me asking for help, and I agreed to that."
"The Uigur assassins, the kidnapping. Even the assassination of Mr. Parson. All your doing?"
"The Uigurs were your maid's idea. About Parson... he had begun to raise inopportune questions, and he had discovered our interference in the arrivals of the American weapons."
Katyusha dearly loved her brother, like few other people in the other world, and yet the rage she felt right then was pretty much boundless.
"All this for a crown? Was your ambition so great?"
"Ambition?!" thundered Aleksandr with the same vehemence, almost insulted. "Do you actually believe that I have done all this, betrayed my family and endangered you, for something so petty?"
"What?!" let out the girl, her eyes going wide.
"I respected and honored our father as well as any other son. But as much as I can love him, I am and remain a prince of Russia, and I cannot allow my personal feelings to overcome what I feel it's best for my nation!"
"I don't see how conspiring against the Tsar qualifies as being the best for the nation!"
"Don't you see? But you have to! Take a look around! Look at what we're turning into! We're victims of the ego of a man anchored to a dying age! The world is marching towards new conquests, and it's not acceptable to remain behind just because the Tsar is unable to accept the changes that cannot be denied!"
At that, a light shone in Katyusha's eyes, as she remembered the evening in which everything had began, in the dining room of the palace. The words that her brother was saying were pretty much the same that she had thrown at their father.
Her armed hand trembled for a moment, but she didn't waver-
"Our father's ambition dragged us into this hell." continued Aleksandr. "All this wouldn't have happened if he had been just a bit far-sighted. Something he never was, but that nobody who calls himself a leader cannot not be. He still believes that everything will be solved over gunfire. That's why I had to do what I did. So that everyone could see what kind of man he could be."
Katyusha all but needed that to realize the great scheme that had brought her there.
"The kidnapping..." she whispered in a broken, pained voice. "It was just a pretext. You had me kidnapped... so to strike at him-"
"Believe me, I long hesitated before going along with this plan. Involving and endangering you was the true last resort for me. I never actually believed he would have accepted to negotiate; had he done so, if he had sacrificed the city and the conflict for you, he would have lost the support of the military men who are always going on about him. Instead, everyone would have seen him as he really is: a warmonger, capable of throwing away his very family to win a war!"
"Thousands of people died because of your scheming, brother. Don't you care for any of them?"
"Less than what are doomed to die each day this war goes on. And I'm not just talking about Sevastopol, about the Caucasus or the Danube. Have you ever peeked out of the palace, little sister? Have you seen in which conditions wallows our country? The glorious empire always on the tip of our tongues is an immense slum. The countryside is filled with serfs who work themselves to death, ambitious and faithless governors who steal everything they can, and while we squeeze the poor for every tax we can, the eggheads at Saint Petersburg fatten up their horses.
I love my father, but I love Russia first and foremost! And I couldn't keep on sitting there and look at her rot! And if, for the greater good, I have to cover myself of infamy and scheme against my family, so be it! It's a price I'm willing to pay!"
"Stop it!"
Katyusha's scream, broken by sobs, silenced the prince instantly, and almost broke his heart as he saw his sister glaring at him, trembling and with shining eyes.
"What you did may seem justified to you, but I don't care what reasons you could have. Betrayal remains such, no matter what."
"I don't rejoice in what I did, little sister. But I don't regret it either. The love for Russia spurred me to do that, nothing else. I would happily renounce the throne if I could get in exchange the promise that I would see my nation strong once and for all. But maybe you won't be able to believe me. I wouldn't blame you."
Katyusha took a few steps forwards, her pistol always aimed at her brother, but with the hand quivering so much that Aleksandr thought that a shot could be fired at any moment.
Then, as if her emotions had been shut down on command, the fragile and meek Grand Duchess disappeared, and was replaced once more by General Katyusha, who had just humiliated the two greatest armies of the whole world.
"You might as well know, I just received some news from Moscow. Our father is dying."
"What?!" the Prince let out, astonished.
"A rider told me a few hours' ago. His lung issues have taken a turn for the worse. He'll live for now, but it's likely he has mere months left."
Aleksandr took a few seconds to realize that he had done the worst thing a prince could have ever done for nothing, and the weight of such realization was such that he almost fell on his knees.
"But, in any case, it's not up to me to judge you. He will take care of that."
Luckily, the desperation hadn't completely deprived the Prince of his eye and of his reflexes; only because of that he managed to glimpse, in the corridor behind the door, an incoming threat.
"Look out!" he shouted, and as he pushed his sister away a gunshot echoed everywhere.
Fortunately, the shot went wide, with no greater damage than a scratch in Aleksandr's shoulder.
Katyusha, whose conflicting emotions had dulled her senses, was clueless, at least until she saw her brother kneeling on the floor, his uniform bloodied.
"Brother!"
"Don't move!" thundered a familiar voice.
Automatically, the girl acquiesced, and turning towards the door her gaze met that of Lord Cardigan, clad in a Russian warrant officer uniform, standing right by the entrance with a revolver aimed at her.
In his eyes there was no determination nor dedication; only hate. A hate that scared Katyusha to no small degree, well aware of what such a man could do.
"Drop your weapon, and kick it away." he ordered her, and she immediately accommodated him.
"It's over, Lord Cardigan. Lord Raglan and Admiral Dundas surrendered, and the siege is over. You can still save your honor if you stop right now."
"Honor?" he growled, his face purple with rage. "What honor? I have nothing left; and you were the one who took it away!"
As consumed by anger as he was, Cardigan was still lucid enough to be aware of his surroundings to a degree; that's how he managed to avoid Nonna's sabre, who appeared behind her and almost cut off his arm.
He tried to shoot her, but the girl with another blow ripped the weapon out of his hands; with that, Cardigan too drew his sword, beginning a ferocious duel to which Katyusha, frozen in place and in disbelief, could only be a spectator of.
Despite being past his prime Cardigan proved a master swordsman, enough to be more of a match for someone like Nonna, who was almost immediately forced on the defensive.
Her weariness, compounded by having run through half the city in a few minutes, soon became apparent, and as she parried a blow the girl stumbled, her side dangerously exposed; Cardigan, taking advantage, tried a decisive lunge, but with dazzling speed Nonna was able to sidestep and, with a well-aimed kick, to push him away, his sword clattering to the floor to boot.
The Earl stumbled backwards, barely able to stand, and even before he could thing about resuming the duel his eyes noticed something on the floor; on the other hand, Nonna had come out of the last clash with an almost broken ankle, and thus she didn't get what was happening until she lifted her gaze and saw Cardigan brandishing Katyusha's gun, aimed at her chest.
"Nonna!"
In an instant that seemed to stretch for a whole lifetime, Nonna was barely able to glimpse something obscuring the sight of the pistol right before it fired; afterwards, what she saw was Katyusha at her feet, on a side and motionless, on the wooden floor that was slowly turning red.
"Katyusha!"
If Nonna was quick to get to her knee and scoop Katyusha onto her arms, Cardigan and Aleksandr were rooted to their spots, unable to say anything or move. And, unfortunately for the former, the Prince was the first to recover.
"You bastard!" he screamed at the top of his lings, and disregarding any rule or custom he lunged towards Cardigan, slashing open his chest with a single blow from his sword, and dropping him dead.
With that, as soon as he regained a tiny bit of self-control, he too ran to see for himself the conditions of her sister in Nonna's arms.
Katyusha was still and barely conscious; the bullet had struck her right in the chest, blood pouring out of the wound and her mouth and staining everything red, and Nonna's attempts to blot it were for naught.
"Sister!"
Only then, alerted by the noise, a pair of guards deigned to show up; with them there were Tolstoj and Olga as well, who were left speechless by what they saw.
"General!"
"Katyusha!"
"What are you waiting for, call for a doctor! Now!" ordered an enraged Prince to the guards, who ran away before they could even fully comprehend what was happening.
"Katyusha!" Nonna kept ranting. "Please, hold on!"
With a great struggle, Katyusha opened her eyes, looking around with slow bursts of movement.
"N-Nonna..." she said, coughing up blood. "Are you alright?"
"Katyusha... why did you do that? I didn't deserve that."
At that, the lips of the Grand Duchess curled into a smile; maybe, she was the first to realize how it would end.
"Don't cry..." she said, still smiling. "We... we won... that's what matters."
"Little sister, you have to hold on." said Olga, holding her hand. "The doctor is coming. Stay with us."
"I'm afraid... it's going to be dif-difficult..." Then she turned towards Aleksandr, who almost turned away from her out of shame. "Brother..."
"Forgive me, Ekaterina. Forgive me."
But she, with difficulty, raised her hand towards her brother, who instinctively held it among his.
"I leave Russia... in your hands... take care of her..."
"Don't say that, sister. You'll make it. We'll lead Russia together."
She smirked.
"I would have... liked that."
A violent spasm cut what was left of her breath, and when she could open her eyes again, everyone couldn't say a word out of wonder at how much light was inside them.
It was not the light of oblivion, or the dimming lights of death; it was the light of a fearless spirit.
Katyusha began to feel strange, while everything around her was becoming unfocused. It was the same feeling she had felt so many times in her dreams; and yet now, unlike the past, she wasn't afraid, or worried.
Quite the opposite.
She turned towards Nonna, who had held onto her hand the whole time.
"Do you think... I might live my dream... now?"
"Yes." Nonna replied, her eyes and her cheeks filled with tears. "And it will be a beautiful dream; the best you have ever had."
It was what she wanted to hear.
With an almost reassured expression, Katyusha let go, allowing the light that was coming from everywhere around her to claim her for itself.
"Katyusha..." she heard when she was plunged into an endless void of whiteness. "Katyusha!"