Prince Ivan Read Free Page A

There’s more to the world than is read in a book.”
    “So and indeed. Then we wait.” Silence hung heavy as the seconds crawled by, for no one dared speak when the Tsar had plainly not finished. But his wife, the Tsaritsa Ludmyla Ivanovna, touched her husband lightly on the arm and without saying a word, showed him that there was another matter to bear in mind.
    It was the look in the eyes of his daughter as she gazed at Prince Fenist the Falcon. Tsar Aleksandr’s breath caught in his chest, and a smile moved beneath his moustache before he hid it behind his hand. He had seen such a look in a young woman’s eyes before: in the eyes of her mother, his wife the Tsaritsa Ludmyla, when he first met her and knew they had fallen in love.
    That same look was in the Tsaritsa’s eyes now, as she took his hand between hers. It had never left them, not since that first time, but only changed and softened and gentled during the passing of years. The Tsar smiled again, and this time didn’t trouble to hide it, as he decided not to wait for any report on what was or was not in the treasury.
    But before Tsar Aleksandr could say anything, at that moment the servant returned, breathless and panting. “Majesty,” he gasped, “and my lord Steward, I returned without waiting for the Exchequer clerks to assay or to count, so I could tell you that… That there’s a stack of bullion on the treasury floor they say wasn’t there this morning! They estimate it must weigh almost six poodiy !”
    Tsar Aleksandr blinked. “Prince Fenist,” he said, and inclined his head graciously, “two hundred pounds of silver is most generous. More generous, I fear, than any dowry I might have offered with the Tsarevna, had you not preferred the old ways. I am—”
    “No, Majesty,” said the servant, interrupting despite a warning glare from High Steward Strel’tsin, “I didn’t say silver. I said bullion! It’s gold !”
    Overhead, in perfect punctuation, the hole in the ceiling slammed shut like the lid of a box, and for the first time in his life Tsarevich Ivan saw his father completely nonplussed. The Tsar opened his mouth like a fish, then closed it again without any sound coming out. Even Dmitriy Vasil’yevich Strel’tsin could find nothing to say appropriate to the circumstances, for though all of Khorlov was familiar with magic to one degree or another, such lavish squandering of power and wealth left each and every one of them staring in wonder as to the source of it.
    Only Ivan had begun to suspect something of the sort, thanks in large part to the skazki tales he had been told were such a waste of time. Only he was in sufficient command of himself to bow very slightly then burst out in a peal of laughter. It wasn’t because of the much-needed gold in the treasury, but at the perfect timing of the joke. Fenist the Falcon laughed with him, until everyone present was wiping the tears of delight from their cheeks.
    Only Katya wasn’t laughing aloud. Instead she was gazing at Fenist with a small smile on her lips, and all of her soul in her eyes.
    *
    The Metropolitan Archbishop Levon Popovich was summoned to perform the wedding ceremony, at once and without the publishing of banns, for as Tsarevich Ivan was heard to observe, the town and the people of Khorlov had been awaiting such an event for quite long enough. The comment displeased the Archbishop – as Ivan had hoped it might – and he said several things about the bridegroom’s dubious arrival and still more dubious repair of the damage he had caused, things that were not in the best Christian traditions of forgiveness and tolerance. They were things that provoked Tsar Aleksandr to say a few words of his own, with such force that Metropolitan Levon completed the marriage service then took to his bed.
    Thus he missed the sight of Tsarevna Yekaterina driving away with her new husband, very fine and splendid in a smart carriage that was all blue and silver, drawn by grey horses.