The Ice King (5 page)

“The only thing about the incident which could—" he hesitated a moment, seeking a less emotive word than 'hurt', made his choice and continued deliberately, "affect me would be the knowledge that you had let it spoil your first ball, so pray dismiss the matter from your thoughts and enjoy yourself. The ceiling of this room is particularly fine, don't you think?”

Tanya gratefully seized on the escape route which he offered and looked up. There appeared to be a number of heavy-looking nudes lounging among the painted clouds, fortunately not very clearly visible against the dazzle of the chandeliers.

“Very fine," she agreed, "if one admires the Baroque I style, that is." She felt very much as if he had lifted her out of a quicksand and placed her safely on the firm ground of a familiar topic on which she could speak with confidence.

“The one in the long gallery is equally fine," Prince Nikolai continued firmly, "you will see it when we go out to supper.”

Tanya gave him a grateful smile and continued to discuss the finer points of Baroque architecture with him. He seemed to know a great deal about it, and mentioned several fine examples in places in Europe which he had visited.

As the waltz neared its end, he steered her unobtrusively towards a man standing at the edge of the floor, who was watching them with some interest. He was even taller than Prince Nikolai, and wore the dark green uniform of an Infantry regiment, with the cross of St. George on its black and orange ribbon pinned at the neck. He had very black hair, a large moustache, and no visible expression at all.

When Tanya and Prince Nikolai had finished curtseying and bowing respectively, the Prince said, "May I present Colonel Vladimir Sergeivich Karachev?”

The Colonel brushed his moustache with one finger and bowed. "Countess Kirova," he said abruptly, and Tanya thought, "He's shy," which made her warm to him. It then occurred to her that Countess Maria's little arrangement with her cousin seemed to be working very well, for he obviously knew who she was without being told.

Of course, the Colonel asked her to dance, and as they moved into position for the polonaise, Tanya correctly identified the division of his regiment by the number on the metal crescent on his shoulder-straps, the red colour of which also told her that it was the senior regiment of that division. After a few moments' thought, she surprised him still further by naming his regiment.

Vladimir Karachev was not used to young ladies who knew anything of military matters, and said so, but when Tanya explained the peculiarity of her education he said, "Oh, your Great-Uncle must have been old General Kirov! Of course! I met him once."

“Professionally?" Tanya enquired.

“Very. On a battlefield. Borodino," Vladimir replied, the polonaise rhythm making his speech even more jerky than usual.

“He was really retired long before that," Tanya said, "but he felt that he had to go back to help when the French invaded. Were you a Colonel in 1812? Surely you'd have been too young."

“Only Acting-Major then," the Colonel replied. "Nikolai Ilyich was our Colonel. Finest in the Army, and one of the youngest."

“I didn't realise that Prince Nikolai was a military man," Tanya remarked.

“Not now. He was wounded at Borodino. Badly. Ribs smashed. We had a devil – sorry, deuce – of a job to keep him alive. Didn't really want to, I suppose – live, I mean. It was months before he was fit again. Still has trouble at times. I wish I was half as good. The men still remember the Little Colonel.”

Tanya decided that dancing the polonaise really left too little breath for conversation. The Colonel made no attempt to say anything unless she spoke first. She wondered a little at the phrase "Little Colonel" – Prince Nikolai was nearly six feet tall.

At the end of the polonaise, Vladimir returned Tanya to her place and stayed there to talk to Countess Maria, while Fedor claimed Tanya for the next dance.

“I began to think I'd never get near you," he said. "You are dancing well, you know. No one would dream you were new to it.”

Tanya laughed. "The more credit to my teacher and my partners!"

“Well, Cousin Nikolai, of course," Fedor agreed. "Anyone could dance well with him. He does it to perfection.”

Tanya, detecting a note of hero-worship in his voice, could not resist a joking, "But Cousin Nikolai does everything to perfection!"

“You may laugh," Fedor replied seriously, "but it's quite true, in fact. He had an extraordinary father, a great giant of a man with fierce blue eyes and a loud, deep voice. I remember him quite well – he frightened me, and I thought he was Peter the Great! He brought Nikolai up himself and made him do all sorts of difficult things to make him strong and brave and clever, and if he made a mistake, or hesitated, his father beat him and made him do whatever it was again until he got it right, even if it took all night."

“How dreadful!" Tanya cried.

“Oh, I don't think Nikolai minded all that much," replied Fedor, who was not very imaginative. "He was a quiet, studious boy, I believe, so I suppose he managed the studying part well enough, and he's certainly very good at riding and fencing and so forth." He executed a few rather showy steps which he had recently learned, and Tanya was hard put to follow him, and so the conversation lapsed.

Boris passed with another pretty blonde, and widened his eyes flirtatiously at Tanya. Fedor saw him, and said, "Don't mind Boris Mikhailovich. He's a shocking flirt, but he's quite harmless.”

The next dance was the supper dance, and Tanya was surprised and flattered to find three partners approaching her to claim it – Boris, Count Alexei, and Prince Nikolai. The Prince cut the others out without apparently being aware of their intentions, or of Countess Maria's little exclamation of surprise. Tanya was, however, very much aware of the exclamation, and of the startled expressions on the faces of the other two men, even the Colonel going to the length of raising his eyebrows. She placed her hand on Prince Nikolai's proffered arm, and was immediately acutely aware of the flesh and bone within his sleeve in a very unfamiliar and disturbing way. She went with him from the ballroom, keeping her eyes on the floor in front of her to avoid seeing any other signs of interest or surprise on the faces of the guests moving towards the supper-room, and more than half wished that either of her other would-be partners had reached her first.

Prince Nikolai glanced sidelong at her once or twice as they moved along the gallery, past the head of the stairs.

“You must find Petersburg society remarkably noisy and intimidating after your quiet life in the country," he observed.

Tanya, who had been trying to think of something to say, responded at once, a smile of relief lighting up her face and eyes. "It is intimidating!" she said. "People here are very kind and easy to talk with in ones and twos, but there are so many of them, all beautiful and confidently at home in their own milieu, and every now and again I feel that I might be about to do something dreadful through sheer ignorance, and they will all turn round and
look at
me . . .”

Prince Nikolai was looking at her, his head tilted a little, and a muscle twitched slightly at the corner of his mouth. For an instant she thought he might be about to laugh at her, but his eyes were quite serious and showed only a courteous attention to what she was saying. Somehow she doubted if he ever laughed.

“I expect I shall become used to it," she said, uncertain again.

“Don't lose that lively interest in curiosities and things of beauty," he said quietly., "You are very much alive, and too many of us here 'are dead, in spirit at least, or lacquered over with
ennui."
They entered the supper-room at that moment, and he continued, a gesture indicating the magnificent proportions and decorations of the long room, "How much more worthwhile it is to enjoy the beauty of this room, and the ceiling I told you of, as we take supper, than to gossip about the misfortunes of our acquaintances, as almost everyone else will do. Shall we sit here?”

He had chosen a small table with two gilt chairs to one side of the room, and as the chattering guests flooded in to occupy the other places and the servants scurried about among them to serve a very delectable supper, Tanya turned her eyes away from her companion and studied the ceiling, wondering whether his apparently kindly speech about her "lively interest" had been a warning against being too 'alive' for propriety in this different world of Petersburg.

“The strawberries are quite good," Prince Nikolai observed after a while.

“Strawberries?" Tanya exclaimed, suddenly descending from the painted clouds. "In January?"

“Hothouses," Prince Nikolai explained with a brevity worthy of his friend the Colonel.

Tanya felt another wave of selfconsciousness sweep over her and wondered why. If Boris, or anyone else had heard that little betrayal of ignorance, it wouldn't have mattered in the least, but those expressionless blue eyes seemed to have an oddly disturbing effect on her, and she was glad to return to her study of the ceiling after tasting only a little of the food before her.

She was soon absorbed in an attempt to identify all the Olympians disporting among the clouds, by means of the assortment of clues in the form of peacocks, thunderbolts, olive trees and so forth obligingly supplied by the artist. Prince Nikolai seemed quite content to sit there while she did so, occasionally supplying assistance when she requested it, and she thought fleetingly that it was really quite easy to talk to him once she had embarked on a suitable subject. It was only some time afterwards that she realised that whenever she glanced at him to ask a question or make a comment, he was looking at her in his grave, melancholy fashion, and never at the ceiling or the people around them.

As they returned to the ballroom, Prince Nikolai remarked, "My father knew your Great-Uncle quite well, I believe. It's odd how retired Army officers seem to have such decided and eccentric views on the education of the young. My father made me learn some quite extraordinarily useless things, and was for ever worrying that I might be delicate like my mother. General Kirov seems to have been determined to turn you into an architect."

“I'm glad he did," Tanya replied. "At least I can appreciate all the fine buildings
I shall see while I'm here, and remember them in the years ahead. I shall be able to fill a few dull moments by calculating how much powder it would take to hit that little dome on the Winter Palace with a cannon ball from the Petropavlovsky Fortress.”

For a moment, Prince Nikolai's expression lightened and he almost smiled. "Don't let Vladimir Sergeivich hear you say that! He might think you meant it, and you'd not see much of Petersburg shut up in a cell in one of his casemates!”

Tanya looked puzzled, and the Prince explained, "The First Battalion of the Regiment is providing the garrison for the Fortress for a few months.”

Boris claimed her for the next dance, and then Vladimir Karachev, , who seemed to have taken a liking to her, not only danced with her himself, but also presented some young officers from his Regiment, and it was almost the end of the ball before Tanya had time to sit down beside Countess Maria again. Almost immediately, Prince Nikolai came to ask her to dance again.

“Nikolai!" Countess Maria murmured to him. "It's very obliging of you, but is it wise?”

Tanya, who had risen to her feet, hesitated, but the Prince replied equally quietly, "I'm in no mood to be either obliging or wise, Maria. I'm sorry," and led Tanya on to the floor.

She gave him a troubled look, but he said without any particular expression in his face or voice, "There's always a great deal of gossip at a ball, and afterwards, about who danced with whom, and how often. It's best not to pay much attention, unless some enamoured fellow tries to claim you for
every
dance, of course."

“How many is allowable?" Tanya asked. "With the same partner, I mean?"

“Three or four," Prince Nikolai replied vaguely. "Unless he's a relation, of course.”

They circled the floor without any further conversation, but there was no longer any feeling of constraint in the silence. Tanya still felt that unsettling consciousness of his nearness, his arm about her waist, and the formal clasp of his gloved hand, but it seemed to meld with the gliding sweep of the dance and add an exhilaration which was quite enjoyable. It was
a
relief to be quiet for she had never talked so much in one evening before in her life.

As she dropped her curtsey at the end, Prince Nikolai said "Sweet silence," in a thoughtful tone, and as Tanya was uncertain whether he referred to her or to silence in general, she contented herself with thanking him for the dance in her usual composed manner, and was very surprised when he gave her a very faint but quite unmistakable smile.

THE next morning Countess Maria and Tanya both slept late, and did not appear at the breakfast table until the rest of the family had gone about their affairs, except for Irina, who lingered to ask her mother about the ball.