Heart of Iron

Chapter 7

Thwarting the impending war turned out to be more complicated than I imagined. While Eugenia was getting nowhere with her petitions and being irritably sent from one waiting room to another and then back again, I suffered under the uncompromising instruction of Professors Ipatiev, Zhmurkin, and several of their assorted colleagues. Physics caught up with me rather unexpectedly, and I realized that to pass the exams I would have to study more than previously. And of course I was not going to abandon my studies, so the entirety of my campaign would have to be confined to my winter recess. Or so I thought.

Jack presented another problem — after his passionate confession, he seemed to consider the matter closed, and we returned to our amiable walks after philosophy class, with an occasional outing to a concert of chamber music, of which Jack was inordinately fond, or an engineering exhibit. I felt uneasy about those, even when they featured something as innocuous as the piano-playing automaton. I could never forget he was there to observe closely and report.

He too seemed to be aware of the awkwardness — at least, he never made any further incursions into romantic territory, to both my small relief and greater disappointment. A man in love was easier to manipulate, and I was prepared to feel only a modicum of guilt about it.

Because of him, I had also gained access to the Northern Star — the English favored it, and I discovered that even though the smoking room adjacent to the main hall was off limits to everyone female, the library on the second floor was available for my use. Jack spent much of his time there, and I started to occasionally join him, while procrastinating or simply looking for a quiet place to study.

My natural curiosity had driven me to explore the heavy oak shelves and bookcases in the library. The selection of novels was decent but not breathtaking, featuring some old books and some newer ones, such as George Henry Borrow (I flipped through one that looked like a gypsy romance, and decided to save it for later). What interested me most however were thick sheaves of newspapers—The Times of London, going decades back, all stitched together and bound into massive tomes.

I was able to read them only when there was no one else in the library — I did not want to attract attention to the fact that I selected newspapers between last year and five years previous, and combed through them looking for reports of arrests. Jack might have shown me himself if asked, only it did not seem right to inquire. Besides, I rather enjoyed the sense of secrecy, the feeling it was I who spied on him. It somehow fulfilled my sense of justice.

Because of this situation, I only learned of Jack’s past in brief snatches, in short but illuminating glimpses between the creaking of floorboards and consequent slamming shut of heavy volumes. Garnered in this constant atmosphere of vertiginous trespass, his tale seemed all the more marvelous. I tried to reconstruct the chronology, from the first brief report of a robbery and two drunk eyewitnesses swearing they saw the robber leap onto a nearby roof of a three-storied townhouse and sprint away, jumping from rooftop to rooftop, to much more detailed accounts, dozens of witnesses — a growing and calamitous impossibility of denial.

One of the more recent stories struck me as especially telling: it spoke of a hansom cab hired to transport a jeweler and two men he employed to protect his person and the diamonds and gold he had with him. The valuables were in a heavy chest held together by three iron strips that ran the circumference of the chest. The chest was locked, and the key was hidden under the jeweler’s jacket, cravat, and shirt, hanging from a plain velvet cord. The newspaper was especially insistent in listing all these details.

Eyewitnesses reported that a man fell out of the sky, landing on both feet with such force that his knee had to touch the ground to absorb the impact, and that the cobblestones on which he had landed splintered with the shock of his arrival (I did a quick calculation in my mind, trying to figure out the force of a falling human body, and decided that — by itself — it was not enough to split stone, but the newspaper was quite adamant about the fact. The image of Jack splintering stone consequently haunted my dreams.) The horses spooked and reared, upsetting the cab and rendering the jeweler and his bodyguards ineffectual. As they struggled to free themselves from the cab and avoid the horses, the man who fell out of the sky grabbed the chest and heaved it over his head — which was a feat in itself, as the chest was quite heavy. He then brought it down with such force the strips of metal holding it together broke as easily as violin strings, and the wood burst into a shower of long splinters. Gold and jewels showered the street, and the man shoved a few handfuls of the treasure into the pockets of his long overcoat, leaving the rest for gawking onlookers and the street urchins, who fell on the bounty like scavenging magpies. No one saw what happened to the robber, although most felt that he probably jumped onto a nearby roof and was gone in his usual manner, taking one roof after another with his gigantic, inhuman strides.

I felt exhilarated just reading the story, but did not understand why. I supposed that it was the sheer fact of Jack’s existence, the very impossibility of there being a man such as he — impossible, I whispered, impossible. A man who could jump atop buildings now studied philosophy in the same class as I.

The London newspaper dubbed him “Spring Heeled Jack,” and the nickname made me laugh at its levity and simultaneous accuracy.

I heard footsteps, and quickly slammed the volume shut. I shoved it into its nest on the shelf, while grabbing for something else to read. By the time Dame Nightingale peered over my shoulder, I appeared to be quite absorbed in my reading and gave a little start when she said, “Ah, Pride and Prejudice—a fine work indeed, and offers much for a young lady such as yourself to learn.”

“Quite,” I agreed. I expected Dame Nightingale to point out how everyone in the book married, as if it somehow bore relevance to my life, but instead she sighed and rested her long, well-shaped hand on the crease of my white sleeve.

“You see, Alexandra,” she said in a tone of soulful intimacy, as if we were best friends sharing secrets, “it is good for a girl your age to understand that not all people are suitable for your friendship. There are rough beasts masquerading as gentlemen; I wish I could tell you that the reverse is also true. However, those who seem as beasts are bestial, and so are some of those who seem as gentlemen. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” I said. I did understand her words, although the reason behind her saying them escaped me — unless she meant to intimate that Jack Bartram (which was not his real name, as I had surmised) was a beast; but then again, I already knew as much.

“Very good,” Dame Nightingale said, and nodded at me as if dismissing a class. I reacted as if it were exactly that, and left the library, book still clutched in my hands, even though nothing could be further from my intentions than reading.

I found Jack in the hallway — an open corridor that ran along the front wall of the building, its wide windows offering a view of the Nevsky Prospect and the moody dark river. I stood for a bit, as I always did, captivated by the wide expanse of water. More than ever-present, the River Neva did not merely run through the city, the city arranged itself along it — every palace, every cathedral had a connection to it, or to one of the smaller rivers such as the Moyka and Fontanka.

Jack finished his conversation with Mr. Herbert and some other gentleman I had not previously met, and smiled at me, his hat in his hand, ready to depart. Always willing to walk me home or to the club or to the embankment, wherever I wanted to go, he was right there next to me, my gangly criminal shadow.

“Such a nice view,” I said to him.

He nodded. “I almost feel bad,” he said. “I mean, that we English have taken this club over. We really do not deserve that view.”

And there it was, that elusive quality in him I could never understand — on one hand, he was considerate of others to an enormous degree; yet, if newspapers and his own words could be believed, he had no trouble robbing people and scaring the daylights out of them. I avoided thinking of the darker tales, where the victims claimed Spring Heeled Jack beat them or committed some other violence. Perhaps I was foolish, but I was not afraid of him.

“Mr. Bartram,” I said as he escorted me across the bridge, back to Vasilyevsky Island, “I have a favor to ask of you.”

He looked down at me, quizzical. “What is it?”

“You have informed me of your… special capabilities,” I said. “You think that I would not be believed if I were to tell anyone. But it is still quite a risk, no matter whether I am believed or not. What if I were to tell Dame Nightingale?”

“You wouldn’t.”

“No, I would not.” I would not give the dreadful woman the time of day if it could be avoided. “But there are those who know of them. I have read about you.”

He smiled. “In the newspapers?”

“Indeed. It was very thoughtful of you to show me where they were.”

He laughed. “You seem to enjoy sneaking behind my back.”

I blushed a little. “I could not be sure if you wished me to discover more about you, so I had to finish my readings before I told you. And now you are laughing about it.”

He grew serious then. “Not at all,” he said. “Although you are right. I did want you to know about me. But to tell you straight out did not seem right.”

We stopped in the middle of the bridge. The wind was especially cutting there, and the black water churned below, occasionally silvering and growing choppy with the silent passing of submarines underneath its surface. I watched Jack observe their movement, and a quiet certainty grew within me. All this time I had agonized about ways of swaying him to my side, but he wanted nothing more. This is why he told me about the Crane Club. He could not help but tell me, yet he could not tell me all. Nor could he ask of me what he wished to ask.

“What is it that you want from me?” I asked.

He smiled, started saying something jocular, but then his eyes met mine and he stopped.

“You want me to free you,” I said. “Correct?” It was starting to feel like a parlor game, where a summoned spirit could answer only yes or no; all that was missing was a medium and table rapping.

He nodded, turning back to stare at the river. A submarine surfaced, and a freedman wrapped in an overcoat of sheepskin and shod in felt boots climbed out of the hatch awkwardly, and tinkered with something on the tail end of the contraption.

“These submersible craft are rather complicated,” Jack said. “Very interesting, really.”

“Of course you have plans of their inner workings,” I guessed. “You stole them, just as you stole the Chinese airship models.”

“And some other war machines,” he said. “When all of those documents travel to London, the British Empire will be impossible to oppose.”

“Especially if you have the Ottomans on your side,” I said. At that point it was a mere supposition, even though I had seen a Turk or two in the Northern Star, their red fezzes as visible in the crowd as blood on the snow.

“Yes,” Jack said. “I’m afraid there is nothing to be done about all that.”

“And you hate being a spy.”

“I was compelled. One cannot help but resent any sort of indentured servitude, be it slavery or something a little more genteel.”

“So if I were to offer you something else?”

“I would consider it,” he said. “Only what can you offer that Nightingale won’t take away?”

“Who is she, really?”

“The head of Her Majesty’s Secret Service,” Jack said. “She supervises all the spies.”

“So she has access to everything any of you bring along.”

Jack nodded. “Mr. Herbert, her… friend, is hoping to head the War Office, and she will do anything to help him get there. She calls herself his ‘helpmeet,’ if I recall correctly.”

“That is from your King James’s version of the Bible, I think.”

“Probably.” He sighed, still looking at the freedman and his bushy beard, at his thick clumsy fingers adjusting the membranous fins of the submarine’s tail and the lattice of bronze rods and gears that held them in place. “Everything she says is from somewhere.”

I pondered. It made sense that Nightingale would keep all the intelligence — copies or originals — gathered by her spies. Knowledge is power and she intended to gain such for her Mr. Herbert. “Do you know where she keeps her documents?”

He nodded. “A safe.”

Neither of us said it aloud, but Jack had experience with safes. The man who stole display cases from the Chinese students’ club could just as easily obtain all the secret materials from the British spymistress. The question remained what to do with them.

“She will not be leaving St. Petersburg before Christmas, will she?”

He stared at me. “I don’t think so. Why?”

I sighed, feeling petty and selfish. “I have exams to take. When I’m done, I think you should take those documents from her.”

“She’ll get them back. She has many men under her command, and your family can’t help you.”

“No.”

The freedman had finished his tinkering, leaving one of the fins hanging aslant, clearly broken. Cursing under his breath, he crawled through the hatch and the submarine sank from view, leaving only a small trail of silver bubbles in its wake, like a drowning man.

I continued along the bridge and Jack followed. “My family,” I said, thinking aloud more than addressing him, “may not protect me, but if anyone can make the emperor listen, it’s my aunt. It may take her a while, but she will find a way.”

“I hear she’s in disfavor.”

I shrugged. “She is, but in his heart the emperor knows she always speaks the truth. He may try and ignore her, but he won’t succeed. We must make sure she has proof the British… that you are spying and planning an alliance with the Ottomans. Can you obtain such proof? Something even a delusional man can not argue with?”

“A delusional man can argue with anything,” Jack answered, catching up to me with no effort and walking so close his arm brushed mine. “However, I can provide your aunt with enough that the emperor will have to admit he is delusional to ignore it.”

“That would do,” I said. “And I will help you avoid Nightingale.”

He made an amused face, but I could not miss the savage hope that flashed in his pale gray eyes. “And how would you do that?”

“You will come with me to China,” I said. The plan had just formed in my head — rather, all the sleepless nights and musings and political conversations with my aunt had crystallized into this solution, as perfect as it was simple, or idiotic, depending on one’s viewpoint. All I knew was that I liked it.

“China,” Jack repeated, not bothering to affect amusement any longer. “To do what, exactly?”

“To avoid Nightingale,” I said cheerfully. “We can find those men you freed that night, remember? I need to see Wong Jun first, to ask him where we can find them and who else would help us. My aunt will work on the emperor here, while we convince the Chinese that they need to ally with Russia against Britain. We can bring the documents, the diagrams of the airships. We will take submarine plans to them as well, as a bargaining chip.”

“Seems risky,” Jack said. “Although I do not suppose Russia would have much to fear from the Chinese — the British East India Company would surely be their main concern.”

“And submarines would help against China’s ships,” I concluded. “Really, it is disgraceful what Britain is doing with the opium trade.”

“I wish I could argue,” Jack said, “but you are correct — and you are correct about traveling to China.”

I couldn’t help but smile at his docile readiness to follow me across an entire continent the same way he followed me to my dormitories, protective and yet defenseless. I, of course, had to admit that fear of Dame Nightingale probably provided a stronger motivation than whatever attraction he felt toward my humble person, but enjoyed the realization nonetheless. Besides, I had read enough James Fenimore Cooper and Alexander Dumas in my youth in Trubetskoye to appreciate the challenges of our lonesome heroics. We were two noble friends standing against the cruelty and small-mindedness of the world, and we had no choice but to do what we believed in, circumstance be damned. I almost felt guilty about still worrying about my exams, and my secret hope that it will take us long enough to gain access to Wong Jun for me to finish the exams. One thing I did not worry about was my aunt’s compliance — I knew that she would have nothing but agreement with my proposition.

One day in mid-November Eugenia arrived at my apartment with an expression of triumph on her red, chapped face.

“Don’t ask me how I did it,” she said as she pulled off her gloves and gestured to Anastasia to get the kettle on, “But I got you an appointment with your Chinaman friend.”

I ignored the explicit prohibition — more of a dare or an invitation, really. “Who did you bribe?”

She took off her hat and bustled into the kitchen, rubbing her cracked, rough hands and pulling her shawl tighter around her shoulders. “Never you worry about small indignities — you have an aunt for that.”

I had to smile, sure this is what she told my mother — my mother who was comfortable and content in the family home, with a tabby cat purring in her lap and her knitting in her hands. “Thank you, Aunt Genia. Where is he?”

“They stuck him in the Petropavlosk Fortress,” she replied. “On Zayachiy Island. Apparently, he’s important enough.”

“Of course he is,” I replied. “He is a Manchu.” It was silly to feel such a sense of pride, but I felt flattered that someone I knew warranted an imprisonment at the place that housed only the most notorious and highly regarded among political prisoners. Then again, the fact that no one had ever escaped from it filled me with gloom. I sighed.

“He’s in Alexeevsky Ravelin.” Eugenia shook her head, troubled. “So many good people have perished there — I only thank God there weren’t more. Every time I think of your father and his friends’ rebellion, my heart almost stops when I consider what could have happened. Can you imagine what would become of them if they had failed?”

“Ravelin,” I guessed. “How am I getting there?”

“I’ll hire you a coach — unless, of course, you would like me to come with you. Or do you have another escort?”

“I think I should go by myself,” I said. Anastasia had finished her preparations for tea, and Eugenia and I drank with great enjoyment, trying to chase away the bitter, wet cold that settled deep into our bones.

Eugenia drank in large gulps. By all rights the scalding hot tea should have peeled the epithelium right off her esophagus, but she had apparently trained it to withstand temperatures hot enough to melt lead. “Is that so? Still enjoying solitude?”

I blew on my tea and waited for it to cool down. “I think that a young woman alone tends to invoke the instinct of protectiveness in men — and I am assuming that I will be dealing with the guardsmen and the commandant of the fortress. I do not want them to wonder about my purpose, I just want them to be concerned and to want to help me.”

Eugenia gave a short incredulous laugh. “Oh dear niece. Not even three months you’re away from home, and already you’re plotting and calculating like a government official. This city has bureaucracy in the bones, and black ink for blood.”

“When is my appointment?” I asked.

“Tomorrow,” Eugenia replied. Before I could object, she held up her hand, commanding. “I know, I know, you haven’t missed a day of classes yet. I’ll send Anastasia to your professors so they know we had an urgent family affair only my heiress could deal with. And I’ll make sure those friends of yours come for tea after and tell you everything they learned. Which probably won’t be much, what with the way they’ve been filling their heads with dresses and men and nonsense, but enough to get you by. You’re so much smarter than any of them, I swear.”

I knew my aunt well enough to recognize this praise as disguised question — she wanted to know whether I was filling my head with nonsense. I suspected that dresses she wouldn’t have minded so much, but Jack must have been a concern to her. I still had not told her about her expected role in my designs, reasoning that the less time she had to contemplate my request, the less likely she would be to decline it. Despite her many eccentricities, Aunt Eugenia was not insane. Rather she possessed the courage and iron will to stand up to the emperor or anyone in his court. But she lacked the ability to ignore the facts and barrel through — her hope hitched to that least reliable of movers, expectation of luck and simple refusal to think through one’s actions and their unavoidable outcome — against all odds.

If I were to think everything through as thoroughly as Eugenia, I would not go to the Petropavlovsk Fortress, or made plans to travel to China. My ignorance and optimism sustain me when sober reason fails; I am not convinced that I like this conclusion, but I cannot deny it. Whatever the case, I had decided to conceal my intentions from Eugenia for as long as my conscience would allow me — and it was proving to be surprisingly robust.

Eugenia touched my hand. “What are you thinking about?”

I realized I hadn’t answered her question, so I laughed. “Rest assured, Aunt Genia, I am not interested in dresses or men. Or rather, I am interested in the man in Alexeevsky Ravelin, but my interest in him in strictly political.”

Eugenia smiled with visible relief.

I shrugged. “I have my education to worry about.”

Eugenia had never been stupid, and she sat up, looking at me closely with her piercing eyes. “And pray tell, why are you so interested in it all of a sudden?”

I could never lie to her about these things, and yet I had trouble articulating why I had undergone such a change of heart. She knew, of course, that I had first gone to the university out of obedience rather than enthusiasm. And now, as much as I would hate to disappoint her if I quit, the drive to stay and to excel was entirely mine. “I am not sure,” I said after some soul-searching. “I suppose this is one thing that is entirely mine.”

She raised an eyebrow at me, but finished her tea and stood. “The coach will be here tomorrow at eight in the morning. Be ready.”

I slept surprisingly well that night. I suppose I should have fretted and been concerned for Wong Jun’s wellbeing and for my own impending and perilous trip. If there were to be a trip, if Jack managed to steal the necessary papers and we escaped the unpleasant attention of Dame Nightingale. Instead, I stretched like my mother’s tabby cat and went to sleep, not a worry in my mind…

… and it was morning with Anastasia whispering fiercely for me to wake up, wake up, miss, please wake up.

She got me dressed — I chose a sophisticated two-piece tweed ensemble trimmed with lace that simultaneously signaled refinement and naiveté—and made me breakfast. Eugenia had already gone for the day, and I wished I could talk to her a bit before leaving. Instead I had to content myself with admonishing Anastasia to not forget to take the message to all my professors, and not to spend too much time gabbing with Natalia Sergeevna.

The coach took me along the University Embankment, all the way around the eastern tip of Vasilyevsky Island, and turned north toward the Tuchkov Bridge to Petrovsky Island. I briefly considered the folly of building a city on several islands, and the dangers spring floods always presented. I had heard a few stories of the Neva and other rivers overflowing their banks despite the tall containment walls; hundreds of people drowned. I supposed the trick of living so close to water was to never contemplate the damage it could cause longer than strictly necessary. I stared out the window instead.

The coach traveled east and north, along Bolshoy Prospect, a crowded, noisy avenue that was not nearly as pleasant as Nevsky, and much dirtier. The northern wind brought clouds of acrid smoke and exhaust from the factories by the Malaya Nevka River, and I covered my nose and mouth with my handkerchief. The scent of lilac sachet was comforting and far less objectionable than the air. We turned east and traveled over a small wooden bridge to Zayachiy Island. The carriage stopped at the gatehouse of the fortress — a place of grim aspect — and the coachman assisted me out.

“I’ll wait for you here, miss,” the freedman driver said. “Here, on the outside.”

I could not blame him for not wanting to go into the fortress. I hesitated myself, suspicious this was all a ploy to lure me here. I soon realized that was rather irrational. Surely, a simple arrest would get me into jail just as securely and more efficiently than laying an elaborate trap. I knocked on the small side door by the gate.

A guardsman in full uniform the epaulettes as large as his face let me inside, and I admired the trees and the carpet of orange and red leaves lining what in the summer was likely to be a very soft lawn. The guardsman escorted me to the commandant’s house.

Commandant Mishkin, a stout, mustachioed man in shining black boots and very thoroughly pressed uniform, checked my papers and asked me a few perfunctory questions. As he walked me along one of the many twining paths toward the Ravelin itself, he smiled. “You know,” he said, “this fortress is quite prestigious, far as jails go. Some of the brightest minds have stayed with us at one time or another.”

I found the idea that the caliber of a prison was measured by the talents of those unjustly contained within terrifying and funny at the same time, a comical nightmare. I managed not to betray my thoughts but only nodded thoughtfully.

Commandant Mishkin smiled. “We have been undergoing some wonderful renovations. The emperor is very concerned about the humane treatment of prisoners. We just finished expanding the cells and introducing all possible amenities. I think you will be pleasantly surprised.”

My suspicions revived again. “How do you mean? Surely, you do not expect me to evaluate these amenities by myself?”

He laughed, a great belly laugh suitable to a man much bigger and more rounded. “I should’ve known,” he said between guffaws. “You take after your aunt. She always makes me laugh.”

“You know her?”

“We are old friends,” he said, as if it was an obvious fact that should’ve been known to me. “I owe my position here to her — not in a direct way, of course, but still. It took her long enough to call on our acquaintance.”

“Why is that?”

“She always tries to do things the right way, no bribes, no calling in favors — unless there’s no other way, of course.” Mishkin stopped mid-stride to cross his eyes and give his mustache a critical look. He wetted his thick thumb and forefinger with his tongue and twisted the mustache tips into points. Satisfied with the results, he continued. “She is old fashioned, your aunt, no matter how much she loves progress. She still expects things to be as they used to — as they ought to. Only you and I, we both know that progress has its price, and this price includes the cost of doing business.” He winked. “And here we are.”

If there ever existed such a thing as a cozy jail, Alexeevsky Ravelin was it. Gone were the stone walls weeping cold and moisture from cracks in crumbling mortar, and the hallway between the doors — all padded with cheerfully colored cloth — was straight, well-lit and dry. Mishkin was not lying about Constantine’s humanitarian inclinations.

I followed him along several corridors, almost losing my footing when he turned the corner abruptly and entered another one. It was like traversing a labyrinth, and my suspicions intensified once more. The smell inside was also starting to bother me — not the clean cold smells of the river that surrounded the fortress like mother’s embrace, but a tepid, faintly rotted miasma that was bound to breed consumption and fevers.

Mishkin stopped outside of a door no different from any other. There was an observation slit in the door at eye level, and another one just above the ground, no doubt for passing through meals or other objects. I peered through the observation slot, steeling myself for the worst.

Wong Jun looked quite comfortable, sitting on his bed with a book in his hands. There was a wooden door separating his room from a small stall in the back — a garderobe, I assumed. Overall, it was rather more civilized than I expected.

Wong Jun was wearing a long silk robe in green and yellow, a bit frayed at the collar. His face was paler and gaunter than I remembered, and his mustache, still long, looked as frayed as his collar. In addition, his beard had been growing without much care or grooming, which gave him a slightly mad and hermitlike appearance. To be expected out of a political prisoner, I supposed.

I nodded to Mishkin and he let me in. He locked the door behind me, and I briefly wondered if he would be right outside, eavesdropping. “Wong Jun,” I said.

He looked up then — I supposed the clanging of the door was not unusual or promising enough to attract his attention.

Wong Jun startled at the sound of my voice, and his book fell to the floor. He jumped up and grabbed my hands as if I were a dear friend, not someone he met only a few times and spoke to once. But I found myself overcome too. After a moment when we both were at a loss for words, tears forced their way out of my eyes. Wong Jun embraced me and cried too.

“I am so sorry I couldn’t come and see you before,” I said. “When I made inquiries, they arrested me… ”

“And yet you are not in prison,” he interrupted, then grinned. “I apologize. It was not my intention to imply anything but my sincere joy that you remain free.”

“I had assistance,” I said.

He nodded. “I must say I am surprised to see you. I did not expect any visitors at all, except perhaps for a wayward Chinese diplomat who might remember I was in this godforsaken city. But tell me, what of Chiang Tse and Lee Bo?”

“I have not seen them,” I said. “I heard they escaped unharmed — I only pray they have reached their… your homeland by now. The man who saved them and me is my friend; he’s English. I don’t understand all of it, but the English are more influential in St. Petersburg than Russian aristocracy.”

He shook his head, mournful. “There are only two ways in which the English relate to the world — they either take what they want or they destroy what they don’t.”

“Not Mr. Bartram,” I said, rather defensively. “You see, he agrees the Opium War was a disgrace for his countrymen. In fact, he is helping me, and we are going to go to China, and… ”

“You must speak more slowly,” Wong Jun said. “And keep your voice down.”

I hesitated, realizing that if Wong Jun had a chance to buy his freedom in exchange for information, everything I told him could be just as well printed in the newspapers. Still, there didn’t seem to be anything to gain by not asking questions he had answers to. I sighed and related the plan Jack and I had devised with, omitting the details and keeping the general thrust — that is, our need to go to China and to reach someone in the position to gain the emperor’s attention.

Wong Jun listened thoughtfully, his eyebrows doming occasionally as if he were troubled. He made a sound only once — a small, disappointed moan when the fate of Crane Club slipped through my lips.

“I’m so sorry,” I said then. “But you do see why it is important. The English have your airship models.”

He looked at me as if my words made no sense. “Those were not secrets, they were there for display. No one had to steal them, they could go in and see.”

“But if they want to make something that works, they would need the models,” I said. I remembered my visit with Eugenia to the factory in Tosno, the illfated airship. I wondered what happened to it, if there were any more.

Wong Jun nodded. “I see. If something isn’t a secret, it doesn’t mean it cannot be stolen and used. I do have to say I think your idea to ally our countries against the British is a good one — China would certainly benefit from not having Russia as an enemy. And I will be able to help you. Do you have any paper? I used up my monthly allowance on poetry.” He gave a dry smile. I wasn’t sure if he was joking or not.

I rifled through my handbag, and found the programme from a chamber music concert Jack and I had attended recently. Fortunately, the reverse side of it was blank, and I handed it to Wong Jun. Under his bed, he kept an inkwell filled with black ink and a brush — just a piece of bamboo splintered into fibers on one end. With these simple implements, Wong Jun started drawing symbols similar to those I’d seen at the Crane Club, but of course could not read. When he was finished, he handed me the paper and I folded it, feeling rather like either Rosencrantz or Guildenstern.

“What does it say?” I asked.

“Just show it to any official you see,” he said. “Or rather any who wear Manchu robes — Ming loyalists and most other Han are idiots, and they may decide this letter has better uses than helping two Europeans, one of whom is… English.” He said “English” as if it was the most distasteful word in the world. “But you need to get to a real official with that, understand? They will take you to the Xian Feng Emperor — I wrote that it is the matter of our country’s very survival. I wrote that you would help us stop the East India Company. Don’t make me into a liar.”

His smile, hidden by his beard so that only the corners of his eyes creased and his mustache lifted a bit, was unexpected but welcome. I had not realized how tense my back was, how tightly my hands clenched on my jacket sleeves until I smiled back and heaved a sigh of relief. “It’s a tall order, but we will do our best. Meanwhile, my aunt will keep asking for your release.”

“Please convey my deepest thanks to your aunt.” Wong Jun smiled still. It struck me, how stoic he was, how accepting and yet how brave. If I were imprisoned, I would be throwing myself at the door and screaming, I would be hitting my head against the walls that enclosed me… the violence of my reaction surprised me, as if the very thought of being imprisoned was enough to drive my imagination wild and make me panic with the possibility.

“I will,” I promised. “The commandant is a friend of hers, and I think he is a good man. Let me know if there is anything you need—”

“To be set free.” He gave a mournful smile. “But I suppose this is rather asking too much.”

“My aunt is trying.”

“Other than that, I am being treated well,” he said. “What is interesting to me is that no one is interrogating me. I was arrested and delivered here, and then left alone. If they really believed I was a spy, they would have at least asked me some questions, don’t you think? Instead, it’s just this.” He spread his fingers and raised his hands palms up.

“At least it is… agreeable,” I said.

“It’s a prison.”

“I know. I’m trying to be comforting.”

“You’re trying to absolve yourself from guilt of leaving me while you and your friends ran away.”

It was true, I realized, even though it was something I tried not to think about for a long time now. “I couldn’t have done anything to help you,” I said. “You know that.”

He kept quiet, smiling.

“Is there anything you can do to help us?”

The look he gave me was a hair short of annoyed. “I am doing what I can, but as you can see, I am rather limited by current circumstance. I will however offer you this advice: you Europeans have an unfortunate tendency to assume the rest of the world exists to assist you and to help you. But please remember as you travel that the Chinese people you will encounter have excellent reasons to neither trust nor help you. And the emperor — you must have compelling reasons for him to approve of your proposed alliance, he has his own problems, what with the East India Company and the Taipings. He is quite busy; but if you will, please let him know that I am well and my rescue is not an urgent matter, although I do hope he could get to it eventually — if your aunt’s attempts do not succeed, of course.”

I blushed — I could feel my cheeks heat up and glow crimson. “I did not mean to imply that I consider myself in any way more important than you.”

“Your Englishman certainly does,” Wong Jun said.

Just then there was a knock on the door, and Mishkin’s round, smiling face that reminded me of an especially ripe and red apple looked in. “I’m afraid I must interfere,” he said. “This visit had gone on longer than I agreed to, and the lady must be going.”

I took Wong Jun’s pale hand in mine and gave it as strong a squeeze as I could. “I promise I’ll do anything I can.”

“I believe you,” he said, gripping my hand firmly in return.

As Mishkin escorted me through the winding corridors in reverse order, I felt lightheaded and barely answered his prattle. Wong Jun’s letter nestled safely in the pocket of my jacket, and I could not help but brush my fingertips against every now and again, just to make sure the feel and rustling of the paper and the smell of ink remained real. I was still foggy on Wong Jun’s relationship to Qing dynasty, but the fact that he expected the emperor to know him made me feel optimistic. I had decided even before I left the Ravelin that the letter was a cause for celebration, and promised to take Eugenia to the opera as soon as it was practical, and before of course I had leave the country and start peace negotiations with China.