The Secret Language of Stones

Chapter 30

As I took a seat and waited for the staff to serve us, we made small talk. The effort of pretending all was well proved almost as painful as the burns on my fingertips, which I tried to keep hidden in my lap. Briggs came in with the food and offered us a choice of cold chicken or meat pie. There was also wine, but I was afraid to take more than a few sips lest it affect my alertness. I sensed I needed to keep my wits.

“How is the talisman coming?” Grigori asked me.

“Almost finished,” I said. “There’s some burnishing and polishing to do.”

“Did you get any information on the fate of the family?” Yasin asked.

“I can’t tell anything until I’m with the person connected to it. Do you think they are alive?”

Yasin shook his head. “I don’t think they are.”

“Why is that?” I was looking for a clue, wanting him to say something to give me some insight into their plans. And at the same time, I tried to appear naïve. My only chance of saving the Dowager was to keep these men from thinking I knew anything. I had to be able to walk away from them when tea was over and summon help. If I seemed nervous or asked the wrong questions, if I made them suspicious, they might trap me too.

“Why would they kill the tsar and keep his family alive?” Yasin asked, rhetorically.

“The children and the empress were, after the tsar, the manifestation of the corrupt royal system,” Grigori added. “The Bolsheviks would have no use for them, other than the pleasure of destroying them.”

Was he saying it with relish? Whenever we’d spoken of this before, I’d always thought he repeated the Bolshevik propaganda in order to explain the atrocities that were occurring in his homeland. But I’d been wrong. It was clear to me now that Grigori Orloff believed in the Bolshevik cause.

The conversation drifted to other topics. The men demolished the pie and the chicken. When we were done, Briggs came in to ask if we needed anything else.

I eyed him. Was he as safe as I thought? Or had he been lying too? Was he in on the plan to kidnap or murder the Dowager? And what of me?

Back in my room, I walked back and forth in front of the windows. And then, reminded of Grigori’s incessant pacing, I stopped. I sat down and worked. And worked. The basket weave I’d chosen was taking much longer than expected. The complicated pattern of gold threads lacing over and under one another occupied my mind and at the same time allowed it to wander, to try to come up with a plan I could execute on my own.

By ten o’clock, I was desperate to take action, but still not sure what I should do. If I could get to a telephone and not be overheard, I could call the local police. But I hadn’t seen a phone and I didn’t know how to go looking for one without arousing suspicion when, for all I knew, everyone in the household was part of the plot.

Still weaving, I must have fallen asleep at the table. When I woke, long past midnight, the moon shone through the windows, illuminating the finished talisman. The crystal looked alive; the gold glimmered. I picked it up. I couldn’t hear any voices but sensed they were indeed there, waiting until a connection could be made via a loved one before imparting their terribly sad information.

It was the first time I’d ever made a piece of jewelry in search of proof of death, and I hated having done it. If I ever saw the Dowager again, if in the morning I figured out a way to help her, to free her, she was sure to ask. How could I be the one to deliver this horrible news?

I barely slept and went down to breakfast early, hoping I might find Briggs alone and talk to him, try to get a sense if he was indeed innocent or part of Grigori and Yasin’s band of thugs.

But both men were already at the dining table, half done with their breakfasts, and I couldn’t figure out how to get the butler alone.

“Did you sleep well?” Grigori asked.

“No, I didn’t. Too anxious about today. About giving the empress the talisman. About what it will tell us.”

“I’m afraid it won’t be possible for you to spend a long time with her,” Yasin said. “We’ve received a message from London and they want her to leave as soon as possible.”

I nodded as if everything made complete sense, but I was confused. Was I really going to meet with her?

“I’ll come and get you as soon as Madame is ready.”

What game was this? How were they going to bring me to the Dowager? How were they going to get her to pretend she was all right when she’d spent the night in a dungeon tied to a chair? Or had she? Was the scene I’d witnessed some kind of torture to get information from her? Had they decided to let her go? But they couldn’t-she’d seen their faces.

At ten o’clock, Grigori knocked on my door and told me the Dowager was ready for me. Together we walked to her rooms. Yasin opened the door and led me inside, through her sitting room into her bedroom. The heavy forest green damask drapes were drawn. Only a small lamp was lit. The room and the woman sitting by the window were shrouded in shadows. Dressed for travel, the Dowager was all in black, with a hat and veil covering her face, black gloves on her hands.

I walked toward her, but Yasin stopped me before I came too close.

“Can I have the talisman?” he asked. “I will give it to Her Highness.”

I handed it to him. He crossed the room and handed it to the Dowager.

She held it in her palm and looked down at it.

“What should she do?” he asked.

“I need to show her,” I explained. “I need to hold it as well.”

He seemed concerned but then nodded and gestured.

I approached and stood close to her. I tried to peer through the veil and into her eyes, but her glance was cast down, looking, it seemed, at my handiwork.

“If Your Highness would hold on to the talisman, I need to put my hands around yours.”

She nodded and did as I asked.

I put my hands around her gloved ones.

I’d expected children’s voices to come all at once. Was sure of it. But I heard only the distant ticking of a clock and waves hitting the rocks. Maybe I’d been wrong. Perhaps I hadn’t sensed the children’s souls waiting for their chance to speak to their grandmother.

“They… your family… your grandchildren… they aren’t talking to me, Your Highness. They are still alive.”

I expected her to say something. Just a few words of thanks. Someone of her breeding would have acknowledged my efforts. But she remained silent.

I released her hands. She dropped the talisman on the table.

How odd, I thought. Wasn’t she going to take it with her? Her grandchildren’s memorabilia was contained within the crystal. How could she leave it behind?

Yasin appeared at her side, helping her up.

“The car is waiting,” he said to her, and then turned to me.

“I believe you have something for Her Highness?”

Pavel had told me only to give her the second necklace, the necklace with the emerald eggs, if she was alone. But we weren’t alone. And moment by moment I was becoming less and less certain she was the Dowager at all, but an imposter. Could the real Dowager have left the talisman behind? Wouldn’t she have clutched it to her chest, cherishing it and the hope it had offered?

“Yes, I do,” I said, and took off the chain with the ruby eggs dangling from it. As I gave the decoy necklace to her, I prayed my hand wouldn’t shake. “Monsieur Orloff wanted me to give these to you and tell you they are from your son. A gift he planned on giving you himself one day.”

I watched the woman pretending to be the Dowager take the piece of jewelry and barely glance at it as she slipped it into a black satin reticule.

Together they left the room. I watched their backs as they walked through the sitting room and stepped over the threshold and into the hallway. I watched as the stranger dressed in the Dowager’s clothes turned the corner. As she walked out of sight, the panic inside of me bubbled up and soured my stomach and then I did start to shake. From head to toe. My fingers worst of all.