The Ice Swan by J’nell Ciesielski

One more dance for the night and she could finally rip off this wretched costume of feathers and pearls. Costumes were meant to invoke the possibility of being someone else to live out a dream. This was a straitjacket, created to restrain the wearer into submission. Svetlana had become nothing more than a dancing bear set to the tune of whatever music Sheremetev played. And play he did as her act brought in more patrons to drink his vodka and gamble at his tables than before the war broke out. All of Paris wanted to see the Swan Princess and she had no choice but to comply.

Choice required money, and money she did not have.

Influenza had decimated half the city, and only a few remained in the church basement. There was nowhere else for them to go. The walls and floors had been scrubbed and every linen boiled in hot water, but contamination was difficult to prevent in such squalid conditions. Nearly a week ago Mama had retired to their quarters after another mandatory scrubbing and discovered their cache of money and jewels gone. She’d looked everywhere, but not a ruble or franc or necklace had been spared. Their only salvation were the loose gems still sewn into their corsets. Just as the Romanov women had done before they were exiled.

After begging Sister Elton to look after Marina, which the old nurse gladly agreed to, Svetlana had swallowed what remained of her pride and gone straight to Sheremetev to beg an introduction to Monsieur Diaghilev of the Ballets Russes, but the master had traveled to America in hope of procuring new investors and wasn’t expected to return for some time. With no option left, she had pleaded more dancing opportunities at the White Bear in order to hasten the payment of their debts. She said nothing of the theft. When she wasn’t dancing, she was at the hospital. Marina was improving but wasn’t yet well enough to be discharged. Where would she go? Back to the dank basement where newly infected cases sprang up despite the careful cleaning? By some miracle, or more likely Wynn’s strict instructions on cleanliness, Mrs. Varjensky and Mama had not been touched.

Most heart-wrenching were the banknotes Wynn tried pressing into her hands each time she came to the hospital. She refused and tried to avoid him, not wishing him to see the depths to which they’d plummeted. The building, however, was only so big, and he knew every room of it. There was no hiding. She’d told him in the broadest of strokes that their funds had disappeared, not revealing how much or how little remained. She could not bear to be pitied, especially not by him.

Taking a break backstage at the White Bear between performances, she startled when a door at the end of the hallway swung open. Moonlight from the back alley spilled over darkened figures kicking a lump in the middle of their circle. The lump moaned and cried. A man! Seized with fear, Svetlana looked all around backstage for one of the security men, but found none.

Shaking now, she stepped toward them. “You there! I command you to stop beating that man.”

The figures halted for a second and shouted back at her in angry Russian. Curses like she’d never heard filled her ears. Then a new figure, this one larger than all the rest, came through the door and shut it behind him with a firm click.

Sheremetev. “My dear princess. Why are you not onstage? You were to start five minutes ago.” He walked toward her, his ruby stickpin glowing like blood in the backstage light and his walking stick tapping staccato on the wood floor.

“Those men need to be stopped at once.”

“Those men work for me as security. They found that miscreant sneaking around.”

“Beating him is not an appropriate response.”

“During war it is. We can never be too careful, people in positions such as you and I. There is always the rabble lot wishing to overthrow us.”

The blood drained from her head. “Is he a Bolshevik?”

Sheremetev pulled a pristine handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his hands. “Soon enough we’ll know. On the stage with you. I’ll handle everything, my dear.”

Svetlana couldn’t control the cold numbing her from head to toe as she performed to yet more shattering applause. Had the Bolsheviks found them? Barely scratching the surface of survival and with Marina bedridden, would they be forced to flee once more? How would they survive another escape?

Legs shaking as she rounded the curtain backstage, she collapsed against the wall. When would the fear finally stop?

“No well, Duchess?” Tatya sat perched on a barstool between a stack of crates smoking a stumpy cigarette. If possible she looked more haggard than the last time. “Look fainting.”

Svetlana straightened. “The dance takes much out of me.”

“I know feeling.” Tatya laughed harshly and dropped her cigarette on the ground, grinding it out with her toe. As she leaned forward, the dim light caught blackness rimming her eye.

“What happened there?”

Tatya jerked back. “Nothing.”

“Are you hurt? Do you need to see a doctor? I know a man—”

“Knight who save you from rain? With golden hair and shiny umbrella?” She laughed again, this time a hollow sound as if the energy to care had been rubbed out of her. “Knights no for me. Only duchesses. I get animals.” Her fingers raised to her cheek, then dropped lifelessly into her lap.

A door along the hallway, opposite from where the ladies entertained, opened and out came a handful of men dressed in loose dark clothing much like the kind factory workers wore in Russia. They were the same voices she’d heard from the kicking figures. As the last man came out, he pulled a red band from his arm and shoved it in his pocket before looking down the corridor at the women.

“Tatya. Come.” Pyotr Argunov. Tatya’s sleazy handler of irreputable liaisons. “Ah, Princess. Looks like you didn’t need my help making introductions to Sheremetev after all. If only you’d told me you needed work. I know the perfect street corner for you.”

Tatya eased off her barstool and leaned close to Svetlana. “Careful. They dangerous men. Black Claw.”

Svetlana’s head whirled as she was left alone in the hallway. Bolsheviks, prostitutes, merciless alley beatings. The Black Claw. It was a name she’d heard only once before, but once was enough to know of the evil men it represented and their nefarious underworld dealings. All spokes in a terrifying circle with Sheremetev at the center. Had she escaped the horrors of Russia only to run headlong into the evil lurking within what was supposed to be sanctuary?

“Here again? You make it easy for me to find you.” Were his ears burning? Sheremetev stood at the top of a wide set of stairs that led to his second-floor office. He beckoned her up. “Please, join me.”

Sick at the thought of going anywhere near him, she started to back away. “I must return to Marina.”

“There is business I would like to discuss. It will benefit your entire family and situation.” Leaving no room for argument, he turned and stepped inside his office.

Every sensible bone in her body screamed for her to run as far away as possible, while the desperate side of her fairly salivated at the mention of a benefit. If he canceled their debt, they would be free of this place once and for all. They could leave without the threat of consequences looming at their backs. She tired of being hunted like an animal.

“Anton, help the princess,” Sheremetev called from the den of his office.

Anton, one of the many bodyguards, appeared from the shadows and practically shoved her up the stairs, closing the door behind her. It was a spacious room lined with dark oak panels, heavy furniture of the Rococo style, and thick red drapes. Sconces dotted the walls to cast a warm glow across the plush Persian rugs. A royal sanctum for a man of power.

Having lived in a palace and visited the Romanov estates every week for tea since she was a child, Svetlana was left unimpressed by his attempts at bought taste.

“Who were those men?”

Sheremetev paused from filling a tumbler with amber liquid poured out of a crystal decanter. “As I said before, there are numerous security risks—”

“They wore red armbands. Like the revolutionists.”

He returned the stopper to the decanter and swirled his drink. “You must be mistaken. I do not allow politics to enter my premises. Bad for business. Which leads me to my proposition for you. Won’t you sit?”

“I cannot stay long.”

Smiling, he took his time drinking down his glass before walking behind the massive desk and pulling open a drawer. “The situation in Russia grows worse by the day. Executions, riots, theft, lack of jobs, poor rationing. It has become uncivilized. A princess of noble blood should not have to live in fear of such things, and returning is not an option. Have you considered how to support yourself and your mother and sister in the long run?”

“My father and brother will join us soon.” And Sergey, God willing. She didn’t want to think of him in an airless prison cell or a freezing gulag on the Siberian tundra. Or worse. “We will decide then.”

“What if they do not? Forgive me. Sadness I do not wish to bring you, but you must contemplate the possibility. Gemstones will get you only so far. Once they run out . . .” He let the thought trail straight into her fears. Fears for a future she did not want to envision.

“I appreciate your concern, but my family’s business is our own.”

“That’s not quite true, is it? Right now your family owes my business money, a business that is thriving with you at the glittering heart of my show.” Pulling a small box from the drawer, he came around his desk. “There is a way to sign the debts as paid. A way to provide your sister with the medications and help she needs. To see you safely guarded, never having to look over your shoulder again. Security for the rest of your life. To continue to dance for years to come with the whole of Paris bowing at your slippered feet.”

Lifting the lid to the box, he held it out to her. A ring with a ruby the size of a marble surrounded by flashes of diamonds winked blood red.

Svetlana gasped as she remembered the last time she’d seen the ring on the hand of Alexandra, empress of all Russia. “It can’t be.”

“Isn’t it exquisite? The cost of smuggling it from Yekaterinburg was beyond reckoning, but I consider it mere kopeks to grace the hand of the most magnificent woman in my life.”

Chills sprayed across her flesh. Yekaterinburg was where the imperial family had been imprisoned and executed. She stared at the ring in horror, imagining stains of blood as it was pried from the lifeless finger of the tsarina. And now this man wished to place it on her finger. Wynn was right—had been right all along. She never should have trusted Sheremetev.

“No,” she whispered, backing toward the door. Her faltering footsteps were swallowed in the plush carpets.

“The prestigious name of Sheremetev and the noble bloodline of Dalsky. As my wife you will continue to dance here, drawing in crowds from all over to witness the splendid swan you are while their money is easily parted from them at my gambling tables. Think of the power we will wield together as the new king and queen of Paris.”

“I see. Disappointed that you cannot grab a dowry from me, poor as I am, you wish to draw funds from me another way—by presenting me onstage every evening in your seedy club. A dancing milch cow. You have ripped the beauty from my dance and twisted it into something ugly and sordid.”

Box held out to her, he followed. “There is no need to be crass. Cow, indeed. I would not make this offer to you if you were not the most striking woman I have ever seen, and I do enjoy being surrounded by beautiful things. You will be the most glorious gem in my crowning achievements, and what better than to collect a gem that pays dividends?”

“You never intended to introduce me to Diaghilev, did you?” What a fool she’d been to believe the lie, but her hope had been so wasted that she couldn’t help clinging to the one sprig of dangled happiness. More than anything, she’d been a fool to believe she could pay back the debt with no strings attached. “I have no desire to be an ornament for anyone’s crown, and I most certainly do not and will not stay in this place a minute longer.” The doorknob jammed into her back.

“You may run, but you do not have a choice in this matter. I will catch you, make no mistake. If you proceed to be difficult, those men with the red armbands will take great pleasure in learning who you truly are. A firing squad will be the least of your troubles compared to what they will do to you. And your sister and your mother.”

“You are a monster.”

Quick as a snake, he grabbed her chin and squeezed. His eyes receded farther into the bags of skin, cutting them to mere slits. “I am a man who gets what he wants. By whatever means necessary. You belong to me.”

“No.” She fumbled for the door handle.

He squeezed harder, his breath sour in her face. “Svetlana, my Ice Swan, my princess. You will marry me.”