Siberian Red

Pekkala clambered out of the fountain and made his way up the staircase to the palace balcony. With each footstep, water squelched from his shoes.
    It was only when Pekkala reached the top of the stairs that he realised the Tsar was sitting on the balcony overlooking the front courtyard and must have witnessed the whole thing.
    Pekkala walked over to the table where the Tsar was sipping tea in the shade of a large umbrella. He had been out on his horse and still wore tan riding breeches, along with brown knee-length leather boots. The Tsar had taken off his riding coat, revealing maroon suspenders that stretched over the shoulders of his white, collarless shirt. He seemed completely untroubled by the heat.
    ‘Majesty,’ said Pekkala, and bowed his head in greeting.
    ‘Good afternoon, Pekkala. I would offer you something to drink, but you seem to have taken care of that all by yourself.’
    In the moment of silence that followed, Pekkala heard the faint tap-tapping of water as it dripped from his sleeves and splashed on the yellowish-white stone of the balcony. The droplets sank into the stone, as if even the rock was thirsty in this heat.
    ‘What brings you back from Spala, Majesty?’
    The Tsar smiled mischievously. ‘Lena has brought me back.’
    Pekkala had never heard of anyone named Lena before, at least in connection with the Tsar. As far as he knew, the only woman besides his wife for whom the Tsar harboured any affection was the prima ballerina of the royal ballet, Mathilde Kschessinska. ‘I look forward to meeting her, Majesty.’
    The Tsar, who had been sipping his tea, burst out laughing. The delicate porcelain cup slipped from his fingers, fell to the ground and shattered musically on the stones. ‘Lena is not a woman!’ said the Tsar. He glanced at the smashed cup and seemed to be contemplating whether or not to bend down and pick it up.
    Pekkala knew that the smashed cup would be swept up by the palace staff and deposited on a garbage heap near the gardener’s compost pile, close by the palace but hidden from view by a line of tall juniper bushes. No matter how slight the chip or blemish, any piece of imperfect crockery from the royal household was immediately taken out of circulation and could never be used again, by the Romanovs or anyone else. It was one of the quirks of the Tsarina that such a policy had gone into effect. To Pekkala, it seemed wasteful, but even if he had been offered any of these slightly damaged saucers, bowls or plates, he would not have wanted them, preferring wooden bowls and metal enamelware cups.
    The same was not true of Mr Gibbs, the English tutor of the Romanov children, who had been discovered one night, sitting in the middle of the crockery pile and hunting for pieces he could repair and use.
    ‘If Lena is not a woman . . .’ began Pekkala.
    ‘Lena is a place!’ explained the Tsar, rising to his feet. ‘Come with me and I will show you.’
    Mystified, Pekkala followed the Tsar down the long central hallway of the palace.
    One of the housekeepers stuck her head out of the doorway of the kitchen, stared at the wet footprints on the polished wooden floor and glared, beady-eyed, at Pekkala.
    Arriving at the door to his gun room, the Tsar fished out a key and unlocked it. Unlike those of the other rooms in the palace, the gun-room door was double-thick and reinforced with metal panels.
    Inside, the walls were covered with rifles held in place by velvet-padded racks. Some of the guns dated back to the sixteenth century, while others were modern hunting rifles equipped with telescopic sights. The room had no windows, only a table in the centre, covered with green felt, where the Tsar laid out and inspected his weapons before putting them to use on hunting trips or in clay-pigeon tournaments.
    The Tsar closed the door behind them, locked it from the inside, then turned and winked at Pekkala. ‘Almost there,’ he said. Advancing to the centre of the room, he grasped one corner of the table and motioned with his chin for Pekkala to pick up the other end. Together, they moved the table aside.
    Then the Tsar rolled up the carpet which lay beneath the table, revealing a trapdoor in the floor.
    ‘Lena is down there?’ asked Pekkala.
    ‘No,’ replied the Tsar, ‘but what is down there came from Lena.’
    Then, suddenly, Pekkala understood. The Tsar was talking about the Lena mines. It was one of the richest sources of gold in the country, and notorious for the