A Royal Affair (7 page)

To my great disgust, Anastasia was utterly delightful. She was unassuming, funny, intelligent, and surprisingly independent. She was from Vienna, which helped. She didn’t appreciate Hesse-Davia and its antiquated ways much either, although when I told her some of what I had seen on my journey—obviously not the final and worst horror—she was appalled. Much of the poverty and degradation had been hidden from her. She had gained most of her impressions of the country from her maids, with whom she seemed to have a very forward relationship: they gossiped like sisters.

I had been in the castle almost five hours, and I was beginning to regret my sleepless night and very hurried breakfast. I felt an unreasoned and unjustifiable anger at everything, but I could not discern its provenance other than hunger and fatigue. To say something, rather than allow the silence to say what I did not mean it to, I asked politely, “When is the wedding to be held? Surely not in the winter?”

“Wedding?”

I frowned. “Your wedding to Al—to His Royal Highness Prince Christian.”

“Oh, yes, of course. Forgive me. In the spring. As you say, winters here are very unfortunate. We could not travel on our wedding tour in the winter.”

“Have you been here long?”

“Forever.” She pouted a little and added, “I came here when I was fourteen.” Seeing my hesitation, she helped out, “I have been here five years.”

“Five years!”

She chuckled and patted my arm again. Strangely, it was not patronizing. “I have a very fortunate life, Doctor. God has blessed me.”

I wondered whether she meant by being engaged to Aleksey. I could see how she might think this. I glanced around to see where he was. He was watching us, leaning in a very unroyal manner against the wall, the wolf lying alert at his feet. For a moment I thought Aleksey’s eyes were on me, but clearly they would not be, for I was walking with his beautiful bride to be. I suggested that if we made for the table, some food might appear, and she sighed softly. “I’m afraid we are all waiting for George. Nothing will happen until George arrives.”

She was right. Half an hour later, His Royal Highness Prince George did arrive. He marched in, demanded to know why luncheon was not already served, and sat down at the head of the table. I wondered where he sat when his father was well. Did everyone shuffle down one space every time one of these entitled royals got sick? Platter upon platter of rich food arrived. It was enough food to feed a peasant village for a whole year. I felt sick just watching them eat. Then the reason for my sick feeling washed over me once more. I leaned back, unable to eat even the small amount of food I’d taken.

What had he thought as he’d been dragged naked through the street? Had he looked around for his… lover and, not seeing him, despaired? Was I creating fantasies out of nothing? It was entirely possible he had been a pervert indulging in shameless fornication. I glanced at John. He was eating sparingly, finicky little mouthfuls, patting his lips between chewing. I took up an apple and bit into it savagely. Fornication. Wanton.
Fiancée
. I was a fool. I resolved to keep my thoughts more to myself, guard my behavior around them all, and do the job I was here to do. With this in mind, I suddenly rose, bowed to my neighbor to excuse myself, and left. I shouldn’t be eating and passing the time in idle conversation. I had a man dying in my care. He deserved better, despite being the king of a court of deceiving liars.

Pleasantly cheered by my angry and miserable thoughts as I walked back toward the king’s chambers, I was annoyed to have them interrupted by the cause of them. Aleksey jogged up behind me and caught my arm. He handed me a bread roll with slices of cheese and apple pressed into it. “You didn’t eat anything.”

“Are you a servant now? Responsible for my eating habits?”

He didn’t seem offended. “Your servant is busy fetching your trunk from Mme. Costain’s, and as I suspect it weighs more than he, I felt duty bound to ensure our new physician does not faint on his first day at work.”

“Do I look like someone susceptible to fainting?”

He actually had the nerve to hold my arm, stop, and assess me, rather as if he were buying a horse. I almost expected him to check my teeth. I shook him off and said less irritably, “Stop it. You’re acting like a fool.” I plucked the bread from his hand and bowed deeply. “Thank you for your kind gesture. I am charmed.”

He continued to walk alongside me, his hands plunged into his pockets. I felt like pointing out it was neither a military nor princely look. “What will your examination entail for my father?”

“I will try to make it as noninvasive as I can, but I must examine him mentally and physically, internally and externally.” He made an uneasy face, not uncommon for laymen when medical examinations are discussed.

“You should have someone else in the room with you—not me!” He’d seen my surprised expression and perhaps thought I had been about to suggest
he
stay. “I don’t do sickness.” He shuddered. “But given the circumstances and rumors, I would not like anything to… happen when you were with him alone. Or afterward, come to that.”

“If he dies, you mean, I may be blamed?”

“You do have a habit of speaking your mind, Nikolai.”

I laughed bitterly. “Not really. You’d be surprised.”

I felt his eyes on me and decided to deflect any possible response he might make to this. I’d just broken my new vow to be more circumspect around him. “I thank you for the proposal. But if someone else is present, it should be someone beyond reproach.”

“His priest?”

I laughed, then realized how inappropriate this was. For all I knew, Aleksey was a devout Christian—as well as about to be
married
. I needed to stop making assumptions about him based on things I wished to be true and to treat him according to the things I was finding out about him that were the truth. I knew he was still watching me, so I hastened my step, causing him to fall a little behind. “Doctor Lyons would be acceptable, if you think he would agree.”

“Doctor Lyons is our servant. He does not need to be asked for his agreement.” And there it was again: that swift mood change I’d observed before. One moment he was free and easy, almost too free (one might almost call it a charm offensive; one might even call it flirting), and then the next, he was the cold, entitled, spoiled child again. It was tiring. I stopped and looked frankly at him. He did not appear to like being studied as much as he liked putting me under close observation. “What?”

“We are here. I need to proceed with my examination.”

“Oh.” He frowned, glancing around, as if he genuinely had not noticed that we had arrived outside the royal bedchamber. “My father will be at prayer in his chapel. You will have a long wait.” He was staring at me again.

I felt he wanted to ask me something and was eager to hear what this question might be. It appeared I had a long wait for that too. Finally, sick of his games, I snapped, “Stop it!”

He recoiled. I heard the inevitable low rumble of warning from the creature at his side.

I turned away, aware there were many ears around to hear, should they decide to listen. He caught my arm, though, and I had to turn back or look ridiculous. “What’s wrong? Why are you so out of humor?”

“I do not like being put under your royal microscope, Your Royal Highness.”

He let my arm go, frowning. “My what?”

I sighed. “It’s a new instrument for examining things that are too small for the eye to discern.” I hesitated. “I have one in my rooms, if you would care to see it.”

He grinned, and once again I was subject to that abrupt change of mood. It was like being a little boat tossed around in a storm, one moment in favorable wind, the next fighting to stay upright. “Are you inviting me up to your rooms to see your instrument, Nikolai?”

I jerked my head back a fraction. Could I mistake that for anything other than flirting? Yet it seemed so incongruous that it should be so. Cautiously, but in the same light tone, I replied, “As you have set my rooms directly adjacent to your own, I suspect you will be able to hear me using my instrument, should you wish to listen.”

He thought about this for a moment. To my great annoyance, whatever reply he might have made was forestalled when a priest slid out from the royal chambers. He saw Aleksey and came forward, rubbing his hands unctuously. “Your Royal Highness, His Majesty has begun his prayers. I will return to hear his confession in two hours.”

“Two hours! I need to see him now!”

The priest turned to me with a look as if he’d stepped in me. Aleksey quickly made introductions. Father Cavil made me a small bow and apologized if he had offended me. “I did not realize the imperative nature of your desire to see His Majesty. Perhaps, this once, I could persuade him to curtail his devotions.” He scurried away.

Something was tickling at the back of my mind, but I could not yet bring it to the fore. “Who has access to the king when he prays?”

“No one except God, and I do not think God is trying to poison my father.”

Why not
? I thought.
He’s poisoned almost everyone else he’s had contact with
. Something of this must have appeared in my expression, for I saw a tiny flicker of amusement quirk the corner of Aleksey’s lips. He suppressed the heresy, though, and added, “The chapel is reached from the bedroom. It is entirely without access
except
from the bedroom. We
have
thought of this.”

“But nevertheless, it is the only time he is wholly alone.”

“Yes. You are right. It is the only time we cannot account for him. Perhaps we do need to look at God.”

“Hmm. I would say rather look to the priest.”

He ignored this and suddenly asked me, “Do you know what the punishment for poisoning the king is?”

I raised my eyebrows. “No. I know nothing of your laws. But I suspect it is not a fine and some form of charitable works.”

“No, it is not. It is being boiled alive.”

I recoiled. “You have savage laws.”

“These are savage times.”

“No, Aleksey, they are not. Not in most other places I have lived.”

“You live here now.”

“Until I have helped your father, yes. Then, trust me, I intend to return as quickly as I can to somewhere else. Anywhere else.”

He appeared a little put out by my response. I think I wanted him to be
more
put out by it, and because he wasn’t, I added spitefully, “You and the rest of your family would not be subject to such punishment. I assume you reserve the harsh laws of your country for those of lesser station?”

He looked more frankly at me. “Then you assume wrong. We are all subject to the same law.”

I felt a chill wash over me. “Even the torture I witnessed on my journey? The burning? The… impalement?”

Still watching me with that maddening intensity, he nodded. “Any man caught in such a compromising embrace would be punished according to the crime, yes. You would think that such a law would put any man off such perversion, would you not?”

He was telling me something here of great import. I desperately wanted to be away from him to think it through, but Father Cavil made another unfortunately timed appearance. “His Majesty has graciously agreed to see you, sir.”

I swallowed a retort that, as I was trying to save his life, the king’s graciousness was superfluous. Aleksey turned on his heel and began to stride away back down the long waiting room.

L
ATER
THAT
evening, I sat in my study with a pen and small notebook, trying to order my thoughts. I had given my patient an incredibly detailed examination. In complete privacy, except for the presence of Jules Lyons, I had made the king strip. I examined him closely. I took some samples of his blood, which I planned to look at under the microscope, and I examined his stools and urine and hair. I had no doubt that he was being poisoned, but I was no further forward with determining by whom. I had questioned him more closely about his habits and routines. It was an impossible situation: people surrounded him all the time. I began to suspect that the prayer ritual was more to gain a little peace and quiet for a few hours than it was for devotions. He could not say where his food came from. Even when ordered that it was to be prepared under strict observation, it passed through many hands before it got to his mouth.

Basically, anyone could be poisoning him. I could not, as I had so easily with Lord Salisbury, identify a culprit and isolate him from them. I made a list of suspects. It turned into a list of everyone I had met since I arrived in the castle, with a number of dashes added to represent servants and other people I could not name but who all had unlimited access to my patient. He even had one servant apparently responsible for collecting and replacing his chamber pot on the hour, every hour. Some people’s lives did not bear thinking about.

Beside each name, I noted my thoughts about this person: whether I felt they had any motivation to kill a king. It was depressing. Everyone in some way or other benefited from his death. It was inevitable, I suppose, given he owned everything and controlled everything. It was like my observation at luncheon; the king absent allowed everyone to move up a place at table, metaphorically and otherwise. Assuming, of course, that people wanted to eat closer to the seat of power…. Perhaps they didn’t. What if someone didn’t
want
the increased responsibility of moving up or out of a comfortable niche? Aleksey, for example….

Why did my thoughts always return to him? Perhaps because I could hear him at that very moment in the room next to mine. It sounded like he was bouncing a ball off the wall, but another explanation for the rhythmic thumping had occurred to me. Aleksey, then. If the king died, he would become heir to the throne, a position much more agreeable to some than being second in line, as he currently was. Did he have that much ambition for power? Had not almost his first words to me been
most of us are trying to leave
? Why would he say that about his own country to a complete stranger he had no expectation of seeing again unless it was true? Wanting to leave was very different from committing regicide to gain power. Perhaps I could cross him off my list? But then there was Anastasia. Perhaps she was the power behind a would-be throne. What princess would not rather be queen? Eliminate her rivals one by one? Perhaps she had not been the ingénue she had appeared. Perhaps my pathetic attempt to charm her to annoy Aleksey and appear not concerned by the discovery of his engagement had merely given her the opportunity to fool me and appear what she was not.