City of Silence (City of Mystery) by Kim Wright Page A

theater and slipped through the double doors which led to
the performers’ level, where the dressing and rehearsal rooms were located.  She
found the stage below her flooded with light, each bulb glowing as if the room
had been lit for a grand performance.  She walked to the top of the staircase
and scanned the floor below - the box where the royal family gathered, furs
tossed around their feet and legs, the entrance doors, the pulleys with the
platforms which raised and lowered props, the stage itself. 
    No
Konstantin.  
    At
the bottom of the staircase lay the lovers, as yet unmoved, although any number
of men were buzzing about their bodies, presumably members of the palace
police, a separate division from that of her husband.  The brains, not the
muscle, of the large force which existed solely to protect the imperial
family.    
    “Who
are they?” she called. 
    The
theater was acoustically perfect.  Although she had barely raised her voice,
each man below her turned and stood.  She doubted that any among them recognized
her face, but something in her clothing, or perhaps her bearing, seemed to
convey well enough from which part of the palace she’d come. Thus they were
prepared to humor her questions, at least for a few minutes.
    “Dancers,”
one of the men answered.  “Do not come any closer, please. Not until we’ve
finished.”
    Tatiana
gazed down at the bodies.  Both slim and fair, the dancers could have passed for
siblings as easily as tragic lovers, and they lay in the pose which concluded
their scene in the performance.  This final bit of juvenile theatricality made
their deaths all the sadder, although not for the reasons they’d likely
intended. 
    “I
can see that they’re dancers,” she said. “What I’m asking is their names.”
    The
request, while simple, gave pause to the men beneath her, who clearly did not
think of the bodies in such specific terms.  If she had ever doubted Konstantin’s
claim that the dancers in the royal troupe were all anonymous, interchangeable,
as replaceable as flowers in a vase, the reactions of these men were surely
proving him right.  Even in death these children were not to be granted the
dignity of a name.
    “Don’t
worry,” one of them called back up, a man who had removed his hat to reveal a
bald head and heavy-boned face.  “We shall all be out of the way far before
your rehearsal time. This incident shall not affect the imperial waltz.”
    Good
god, he thinks I have come here because I’m worried about the waltz scene,
Tatiana thought and her eyes swept the room again, more slowly and carefully
this time.  Konstantin still did not appear.  But then again, he did not sleep
with a member of the tsar’s private guard.  Perhaps he did not yet know that
this “incident” had even occurred.
    “I
believe she asked you for their names,” came a voice behind her. Cold,
self-assured.  Tatiana turned to see Grand
Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna, sister-in-law
to the tsar, and known as Ella to the court, also making her way down the
staircase.  Tatiana
sank into a curtsy and Ella nodded distractedly.  Her focus was on the scene
below them. 
    Everyone
claimed that Ella had been the prettiest princess of Europe, courted by royals
from every corner of the continent, but Tatiana had never considered the Grand
Duchess especially beautiful.  Or perhaps it would be better to say that her
beauty was not the sort of dainty femininity that Russians men generally admired. 
There was a stony quality to Ella’s features, which were prominent and even a
bit masculine.  This severity was echoed in the face of her attendant, another
Englishwoman, this one sent by the Queen, presumably to quell her granddaughter’s
loneliness in this land so far from her birth.  Despite the fact that Ella’s
acknowledgment of her curtsy had been perfunctory, Tatiana remained in her pose
of supplication, looking up through her eyelashes.  The woman above her was
born