Village,” a lavish compound of palaces and parks, fifteen miles south of St. Petersburg. It was home to Alexander Palace, the royal family’s favorite summer retreat, and the lavish Catherine Palace, the walls inlaid with lapis lazuli or amber.
“Alexei has a real motorcar there at Alexander Palace,” Luba said. “Rides it through the halls.”
“When you are heir to the throne, you can have a motorcar,” Agnessa said.
“Perhaps the tsarina will call on you here,” Father said.
Agnessa smiled at that and settled back into the red velvet. “The tsarina? In Malinov? No. They all prefer the seaside. Perhaps I’ll lure them with a visit to the fortune seer—”
“That poor woman in the woods?” I asked.
“You’ll have callers,” Father said.
“From the village? No one suitable.”
Agnessa’s little dog roused and squinted as if seeing us for the first time. The phenomenon of dog and owner resembling each other was never stronger than with my stepmother and her Russian Toy, Tum-Tum; the slight frame, the amethyst collars tight around their necks, the auburn sable coats, the wet brown eyes, and alert expression. Having birthed no human children of her own, it was as if the dog were a product of her own womb. The size of a plump quail, Tum-Tum would provide no protection.
“There’s town!” Luba called out as we passed the turnoff to the village.
Malinov resembled every other good-sized village in northern Russia, with one main dirt street down the middle bisecting two high rows of simple log homes known as izbas and small shops, the imposing white, onion-domed church in the center of it all.
Just past the village turnoff we passed the old imperial rope factory, a square, brick building, which Father had bought and converted into a linen factory. He’d convinced the tsar to electrify the old place so villagers could work two shifts weaving flax imported from other villages into linen, and he split the proceeds with the tsar. Father smiled as we passed. That factory saved so many peasants from backbreaking days working the fields.
Father craned his neck as we passed. “There are crates stacked up in the yard. I’ll stop by tomorrow and see they’re taken away.”
“Those peasants,” Agnessa said. “They practically live at church but it’s you they should worship.”
Father went back to his paper. “They deserve every kindness.”
Max burrowed into the crook of my arm and slept as I dozed, half alert for bandits. I woke as we drew closer to home, the trees closing in on the road splashed with autumn colors. Luba opened the carriage window and slapped the leaves with her hand.
She sighed. “I do love the life of the dachniki.”
Agnessa slid Tum-Tum’s silk bootie onto his front paw. “This is not a weekend house, Luba. This is an estate—”
“An estate in need of plumbing,” Luba shouted to the trees.
Agnessa looked out her window. “And ice cubes.”
Luba pulled an orange from her own basket, tossed it out the window, and turned to face Agnessa with a smile.
Agnessa slumped in her seat. “Luba. You spoiled girl.”
Luba shrugged. “What a nice surprise it will be for someone. I do it all the time. The local people suffer from a lack of vitamins, which causes scurvy.” She clasped the windowsill with both hands and hung her upper body out of the window. “The gate! I see the gate!”
Home was an estate named Malen Koye Nebo, “Little Heaven,” which the tsar had years ago given to Father as a reward for devoting himself to the imperial family’s finances day and night. Surrounded by uninterrupted expanses of the tsar’s imperial fir forests and flat, boggy steppes—vast, open marshes covered in tall grasses—it was a hunter’s paradise, strictly controlled by our dear gamekeeper Bogdan.
In the mid-1800s, the estate had served as laundry and stable for the tsar’s rope factory and had been converted to a home. The fence, a masterwork of black iron spears, just tall enough for a deer to leap over, extended around the house and outbuildings and had once kept intruders from stealing the tsar’s horses. Each spear stood firm, tipped with a sharp diamond. The gates were almost twice as tall, topped with an archway of iron leaves entwined about brass letters that spelled Father’s favorite phrase, Welcome to Heaven.
“Slow your gallop!” called the coachman as we neared the gates, Afon riding at our side. Two guards stood at attention, members of the tsar’s palace grenadiers, men who served the tsar well enough to earn honorary roles. They stood dressed in the autumn uniform of