The Ice Swan by J’nell Ciesielski

The warm drizzle soaked through the top of Svetlana’s shawl and puddled in her hair before dribbling down her back. Rain should have been a relief to tamp down the summer dust, but the droplets struck the hot ground in sizzles, turning the congested city into a swamp.

Standing on the steps of a tenant building four streets over from the church and a world away in culture, Svetlana batted away an errant drop careening into her eye and met the reluctant Frenchwoman’s stare.

“We will pay whatever you ask. We will not cause you any trouble.”

“As I explained, chere, we only have room for a single occupant to rent.”

“My mother, sister, and I do not mind sharing a small space. Look.” Svetlana stepped onto the small stoop and pulled a bulky handkerchief from the pocket in her skirt. Inside nestled Mama’s favorite citrine diamond earrings. “A gift from Empress Dowager Maria herself.”

The woman’s eyes widened as she ogled the precious gems. Slowly, she shook her head. “They are très belle, but I am sorry. There is no room. You are better to stay where you are.” Stepping back into her darkened hall, she closed the door. A lock quickly echoed.

Another rejection. Ten so far, barely before noon. Each with a different reason, but all equating to no. A distasteful word that grated on the ears. Svetlana had heard it more often since escaping Russia than in the entirety of her life. She didn’t care for the change one bit.

Rewrapping the earrings and returning them to her pocket, Svetlana descended the short flight of stairs to the cracked sidewalk. A grand carriage should have been waiting for her. And a footman dressed in immaculate livery to open the door so she could sweep into the cushioned confines, dry and comfortable with perhaps a small vase filled with lavender to drive away the fusty scents drifting up from the streets. A crack of the whip would urge on the matching bays and off they would go to the palace.

This avenue was a far cry from the grandness of carriages and livery. Perhaps under the rule of the Sun King these imposing buildings had stood in refinement, but the years sagged against the structural lines as the paint chipped wearily away. Though they were not without color. Canon smoke and gunpowder drifted into the city on brisk winds, coating roofs and lampposts with black dust and drawing the war that much closer. Miles separated them from the frontline, but no matter the distance, no one was safe.

Pulling the shawl tight over her head, Svetlana hurried away with toes squishing in her soggy stockings.

“No luck from old bird, Vashe blagorodiye?” The formal address spoken in common Russian stopped Svetlana in her tracks. A woman dressed in pre-war fashion stepped out of the shadows of a neighboring stoop. A cigarette dangled between her fingers.

“I beg your pardon. We have not been introduced for you to address me.”

“Forgive lack in manners. It is war. Takes what gentility we have and tosses to dump heap.”

“In that you are correct.”

The woman clomped down the steps. She appeared close in age to Svetlana, but a harsh survival etched itself into the lines around the woman’s eyes and mouth. Rouge, the call sign of a less than upright woman, smudged her lean cheeks.

“What mean is, French don’t know true value when see it. Not as we do. Not when you offer such lovely bauble.”

“I carry no such thing.” Svetlana moved to walk around her, but the woman wasn’t so easily put off.

She fell in step with Svetlana. “Ladies like us always spot genuine article. Your courtly senses no disappear back in Russia, Vashe blagorodiye. Neither did mine.”

“What court did you find yourself in? Nearer the docks or the soldiers’ barracks?”

The woman laughed and ground her cigarette into the pavement with a heel in desperate need of black polish.

“That what I like about you, Vashe Svyetlost. Sense of humor.”

At least Svetlana was moving up in the ranks. First a mere Well Born and now an Imperial Highness. If she kept the delightfulness going, she might hold the title of Empress before the conversation was over. She rounded a corner in hopes of shaking loose her undesirable companion.

“Please do excuse me. I’ve a rather busy schedule to attend.”

“Looking for place to stay, da?”

An older gentleman holding an umbrella approached, his gaze casting with interest between Svetlana and the woman, who smiled enticingly in return. Svetlana raised one eyebrow in scathing rebuke, and he scuttled across the street to the opposite sidewalk.

“I need learn that trick. Old men not bathe often.” Wrinkling her nose, the woman drew a fresh cigarette and match from her beaded handbag, lit the fag, and puffed. The cherry glowing end hissed as the drizzle splattered onto the paper. “I know few places. French snobs waste of time. Need you ask around Rue de la Néva and Pierre le Grand.”

Those streets were within a stone’s throw from the church, but Svetlana wasn’t about to lead this stranger to where her family lived.

“Those streets are tiny with barely enough room for shops.”

“It heart of Russian neighborhood. Always room for another son and daughter of beloved motherland. You need know who ask.”

“And you do?”

“I know every Russian in Paris. It privilege of living here five years. Before I gave up duchess tiara in Moscow.” The woman laughed and weaved her arm through Svetlana’s as if they shared a secret.

“What is this I hear of Moscow, Tatya?” Moving like an oil-sleeked seal, a man appeared in front of them holding an umbrella. He cut a lean figure with dark hair combed to the side and a tailored blue suit with crisp edges not often seen during the war years.

Tatya’s smile tightened as she tugged the front of her dress. “Pyotr, meet new friend. Russian lady of quality.”

“Is that so?” Assessing and quick, his gaze cut over Svetlana like a jeweler’s would a gem. He bowed before angling the umbrella over her head. Tatya was forced to make do with her drooping wool hat. “Privyet, gentle lady. My name is Pyotr Argunov.”

“Zdrastvuytye,” Svetlana replied in the more formal greeting. A lifetime of unfortunate circumstances could be hidden beneath a well-tailored cuff, but speech was a revelation to one’s true breeding. One had it or one did not. For all his trimmed collars and buttons, Pyotr Argunov did not. All the better for her to remain guarded.

“May I ask your name?”

“You may ask if you are so inclined.”

Tatya snorted through a puff of smoke. “All class, this one.”

“So I see. Could do very well for us.” Pyotr pulled the cigarette from Tatya’s mouth and flicked it in the gutter. “Why don’t I take the two most beautiful women this side of the Neva River out for a drink? Catch up on old times with the tsar, determine the best place to find stroganoff, and pour a glass of vodka for the comrades we left behind.” His arm slipped around Svetlana with a light touch to the small of her back. Leading in a dance she had no desire to join.

Having reigned a lifetime in ballrooms armed with the noble art of avoidance, Svetlana sidestepped his nefarious intentions with ease.

“As I’ve told the duchess here, I have my own errands to see to.”

Tatya leaned forward, poking her head just under the protection of the umbrella. “That right. She looks place to stay. I show her Sheremetev place.”

Pyotr tilted the umbrella more over his own head and away from Tatya. “Ah, Sheremetev. The man who knows everyone and everything happening from Paris to Petrograd. Whatever you need, he has it or the ability to procure it.”

Whatever Svetlana needed. The promise of hope so near at hand crooked its beckoning finger at her, enticing her with deliverance from fear. Could it be so simple as knowing the right man’s name? Such information never came without a cost, but it was a fortune she would gladly pay to keep the Bolsheviks from finding them.

“Where might I find this Sheremetev?”

“A stroke of fortune in that I’m heading to the White Bear now to meet him. I’ll introduce you.” A smile slicked across Pyotr’s wide mouth as he no doubt imagined himself landing his prize.

But she was no game piece to claim in victory. He’d overplayed his hand from first introduction, and it was high time he learned a lesson in civilized defeat.

“I will produce my own means of introduction should I find myself in need of such services. Yours are not required.”

“No need to be cold, printsessa.”

The careless tossing out of her rightful title stung. She had a right to claim it and rebuke his insolence, but no longer were they at the imperial court. No longer did her title carry clout. It was a death warrant in the wrong hands, and if her instincts were correct, Pyotr’s hands were far from clean.

“If I were as cold as you claim, you would have been frozen to the spot long ago. As such, I’ll thank you to remove your hand and never dare touch a lady again.”

He stepped closer. Spiced wine fouled the air. “I’ve met tyolka like you before. Braying about, thinking you’re better than everyone.”

“I try not to presume such a claim, but in your case I’ll make an exception.”

“We’re not in Russia anymore. Your kind are toppling.”

“A shame if your kind were crushed in the rubble.”

“Move away from the lady.” Wynn’s voice cut through the building tension. He thrust himself into the space between Svetlana and Pyotr. Anger rolled off him in heated waves. “I said, move away.”

Tall as she was, Svetlana saw little beyond Wynn’s wide shoulders. They blocked everything from view. She peered around him.

“Who are you to interrupt so rudely a conversation that does not concern you, anglichanin?” Pyotr sneered, nearly knocking Wynn in the head with his umbrella.

Wynn didn’t flinch. “I’ll ask you once to move along.”

“Or what?”

“It’ll end with broken bones and they won’t be mine.”

Aiming a disgusting spit at Wynn’s feet, Pyotr grabbed Tatya’s arm and yanked her away. Tatya’s feet skipped to keep up. Passersby stared at the uncivilized behavior before shrugging it off as wont to do for a girl of her working station. She cast a pitiful look over her shoulder at Svetlana before she was hauled around a corner and out of sight.

Wynn turned on Svetlana, thick eyebrows crushed together. “Why is it I always tend to find you in verbal altercations on random footpaths? Is the church cellar so dull that you seek out entertainment elsewhere, never mind the notoriety of these little run-ins?”

She dismissed his indignation as the triviality it was. “It is none of your affair.”

“A lady being assaulted on the street is my affair.”

“His lack of manners was the only assault to me. It was not the first time I’ve deflected boorish attacks.”

“This isn’t some fancy salon where a rap on the man’s knuckles with your fan will do the trick. Men like him don’t stop at the word no.”

“You know this how?”

“Work in enough hospitals and it’s easy to learn the type when you’re patching them up from pub fights.” Shifting a parcel under his arm, he popped open his umbrella and angled it over Svetlana’s head. The drizzle had turned into a mist that thickened the air with a cloying dampness.

“What is this pub?”

Wynn released a gusty sigh that loosened the tense line between his eyebrows. “A public house. A tavern, barroom, saloon. A place where drink inflates men’s egos and they duke it out in the back alley defending said ego.”

“I would never dare step foot into a place of debauchery.”

“Good. That rules out half of Paris the next time I’m forced to find you out wandering on your own.”

This man and his high-handed ways. As if he held the right to intrude on whoever and whatever he pleased. She had more important matters to occupy herself with than wondering when he would next show up. Or what color the light would turn his eyes. Today, touches of brown.

Svetlana plucked at the shawl clinging to her head to ward off her study of him. “No one has forced you to do anything. I do not understand why you are here in the first place.”

“The chemist a block over was able to secure a specially made stethoscope for me.” He jostled the package under his arm. “Upon picking up my order, whom should I see but Your Serenity making new friends.”

“I did not realize that upon our brief acquaintance I am required to provide a list of names of whom I should be conversing with. Might I also note that these persons were not sought out but came to me. Most uninvited.”

“Does that include me?”

“Increasingly so.”

His mouth cocked up at one corner and he rocked back on his heels. The amused reaction felt far more intimate than the generated distance suggested.

“Why is that? As far as I know, I’ve been nothing but polite and helpful, yet you’re determined to make a nuisance of me. Some might call that ungratefully snobbish.”

The barb hit quick, its defiance slicing past years of defense erected against its sting. All her life she’d stood apart, followed every rule and protocol for the sake of propriety, never once accepting an offering that was said to be beneath her. It was the expected nature of a princess. It had served her well, but she was not immune to the whispers behind drawing room doors: cold, conceited, condescending. She’d taken them in stride as petty jealousies, but the man before her had no reason for spite. If she’d learned anything about him in their short association, she knew he was not a bluffing man.

She turned away. “I will not stand here and be insulted on the street.”

His hand locked around her elbow, halting her departure. “Before you get on that high prancing horse, let me stop you there, Princess.”

“I do not require your halting, marquee.”

“It’s marquis, but let’s not get tangled on semantics. I said some people might call you that. I would call you a woman who’s had the path ripped out from under her slippered feet and has fallen back on old world habits. The problem is, this is a different world and old habits won’t survive here. We have to adapt else we lose the fight.”

Svetlana flushed hot. His blatant philosophy insulted the very essence of tradition her life had been built upon. The foundation of who she was. Without it there was no purpose. She had no purpose. And he had the gall to make a point of it.

She wrenched from his grasp. “Who are you to speak to me thus? No one speaks to me in this manner.”

“A shame because they’re doing you a disservice.”

“And you think you’re the one in service, do you?”

“If it weren’t for me, you’d be having pickle juice ladled down your royal neck to cure a leg injury. Babushka showed me a jar of mushrooms.” He shook his head. “I never realized how many things can be pickled.”

He shifted topics quicker than a tiara on wet hair. Could he not allow her righteous outrage to simmer longer?

“Peasants pickle everything. It lasts longer.”

“Do they pickle humor? There seems to be a shortage of it.”

“Unlike Englishmen who abound with the sentiment.” She spiked her eyebrows in pointed disapproval.

“The English? No, dry as a peat bog in a drought, that lot. My charm comes from pure Scottish roots.”

“I believe your roots may have hit bedrock.”

Glancing up and down the street at the people hunkered into their collars against the wet, he leaned down close to her ear. “Careful, printsessa. Your humor is unearthing itself.”

“Only with you it seems.” She tugged the shawl ends closer around her neck, warding off the heat radiating from him.

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

The heat threatened the logic in her head. Not to mention his clean scent of wool splashed with cologne. Svetlana moved away before it proved too great a distraction.

“And I shall take my leave.”

He didn’t perceive the hint and moved along with her.

“Excellent idea. I was heading that way myself.”

“Your hospital is the other way.”

“Some days I prefer the long route. Prettier scenery.”

“I prefer to walk alone.”

“If the lady insists, but I hope you don’t mind me following a few paces behind. Take my umbrella. I’ve got a hat to cover me and you’ve not more than that soaked shawl. Don’t need you catching a chill.” He held out the umbrella to her. “Funny how I’ll take a patient with a broken arm over a fever any day. There’s nothing worse than having to watch a person wait it out of their system and not be able to mend it straightaway.”

“You are an impatient man.”

“Only when it counts. Other things, well, I’m considering they might be worth waiting for.” His gaze settled over her in a direct manner that combed through her tightly woven insides, spinning them out to singular threads humming with awareness.

She tamped the vibrations into submission. He was a stranger. No one could be trusted, especially not a self-professed charmer. The survival of her family remained paramount to any unwanted entanglements. Entanglements that confronted her with golden-green eyes that deepened under the brim of his hat.

As if delighting in the inner chaos he created, the edge of his mouth curled. He handed her the umbrella, brushing her fingers as she reached for it. The unraveled threads sang. Traitors to her very dignity. She had no better control of herself than an ingénue standing at her first barre.

She clutched the handle. “Thank you.”

“Pozhaluysta.”

The Russian word rang in her ears as she turned and walked on. How did he manage to manipulate a single word—spoken in a language deemed fit only for peasants, no less—into a flirtatious invitation? More vexing, why did she notice?

She pushed the unsettling thoughts away, but the man himself was not so easily ignored. His footsteps fell in line behind her. Bits of water from the tips of his shoes sprayed against her skirt with each step he took. She dared a peek over her shoulder. He smiled and tipped his hat.

He was entirely too cheerful. Very unRussian. And also very wet. Her desire to remain distant warred with her polite breeding. She wouldn’t dare claim it as a spark of humanity lest it flame out of control and she suddenly discover herself ladling at a soup kitchen. Best to pass over a few coins in such a situation, but she had no coin at present. Only a soggy man ridiculously smiling at her and, for the life of her, she could not leave him that way.

“Join me under the umbrella.”

“I’m sorry. Would you repeat that?” He cocked his head to the side as if he hadn’t quite heard.

Svetlana gestured impatiently. “Join me.”

“Is that a command or a request? Difficult to tell in all this rain.” As if to emphasize his point, he frowned and held out his hand for raindrops to plop against his palm.

He’d heard her perfectly well and they both knew it.

“Would you care to join me out of the weather under this umbrella you have so thoughtfully provided?”

“Don’t mind if I do.” He took shelter under the canopied protection, or rather, the right side of him did. The wide expanse of his left shoulder and back remained exposed to the elements. “Is it back to the church or do you have a few more clandestine characters to meet around the next corner?”

“I have no one to meet. Not in this neighborhood.” Svetlana curled her hand around the gems in her pocket. “Snobbish French. They do not trust us Russians. They are afraid we will bring our revolution to their streets. A hypocritical concern considering their own history with Madame Guillotine.”

Bam!

Gunshots. Feet pounding on pavement followed by shouts.

Bam-bam!

The terror that had scorched Svetlana’s nightmares since that burning October night clawed for breath. The revolutionaries. They were coming for her. They were here.

A man barreled out of the alleyway ahead of them. His jacket flapped around him as he twisted his wild-eyed stare over his shoulder. His foot caught. Down he went, smacking the sidewalk with his shoulder. Up and down the street people scattered and screamed like pigeons in a park.

Bam!

The man jerked and cried out. Red seeped from his shoulder.

Svetlana dropped the umbrella and spun away. The revolutionaries.

They’d found her.