Forever in Your Embrace (75 page)

Ladislaus hesitated as he glanced toward the door and dared to ask the Englishman for another request. “Colonel, I’d like to speak to Alyona for a moment. If I don’t come back, I want her to know that I’m at least trying to make a better way for the two of us and our child.”

Tyrone approached the portal and, opening it, beckoned for Synnovea and the midwife to come out on the porch for a few moments. Ladislaus dipped his head in a nod of appreciation before slipping inside. Tyrone closed the door behind him and extended a hand toward Synnovea. She smiled in response and, laying her own within his, allowed him to draw her to the far end of the porch. Unable to find the words to tell her that he’d be leaving again and might not be coming back alive, Tyrone gathered her close against him and held her with a growing sense of gloom that immediately conveyed itself to her. She had only to glance around at the soldiers readying their gear to know what was coming.

“You’re riding out again?” she queried worriedly, leaning back in his arms to search his face. When she looked past his arm, she realized that weapons were being given to the highwaymen. “What terrible thing has happened to set you in league with thieves?”

“We’ve sighted a renegade regiment nearby. They seem to be riding hard toward Moscow, for what end I’m not as yet certain, but ’tis my earnest belief that they plan to enter by stealth into the Kremlin and either kill the tsar or take him hostage. It isn’t the first time they’ve tried to seize control of the country by such a plan.”

“But how can such a feat be accomplished?” she questioned in amazement.

“By subterfuge—and more than a goodly share of boldness. If they’ve positioned spies or accomplices inside the Kremlin, then they’ll likely be able to enter secretly with none the wiser.”

“Be careful,” Synnovea pleaded desperately, letting him gather her close against him again. “You haven’t yet given me a child, and if it’s ever meant that we should be parted by death, I’d like some part of you to remain with me.”

Tyrone plied her soft lips with a gentle kiss and then, drawing back, smiled down into eyes brimming with tears. “We’ve had so little time together, my love, I hope we’ll be allowed several decades to spawn many admirable confirmations of our devotion.”

Ladislaus strode from the house, prompting Tyrone to crush a fervent kiss upon his wife’s lips before he, too, crossed the porch and descended the steps. It caused some confusion for both men when they realized they had halted beside the same horse.

“This is my stallion!” Tyrone declared emphatically, gathering the reins. “Your horse was shot, remember?”

“But we made a trade,” Ladislaus tried to argue. “Mine for yours, yours for mine.”

“Yours is dead!” Tyrone stepped between him and the horse and swung up into the saddle, from whence he grinned down upon the man as that one growled in protest. “From now on, Ladislaus, you’re going to have to limit yourself to your own possessions. I have a serious aversion to sharing my treasures, especially with the likes of you.”

Tyrone reined the high-stepping mount about, close enough to allow the animal to flick its tail across the brigand’s face, evoking a loud snort of displeasure from the giant. Accepting his helmet from the grinning Grigori, who urged his own horse alongside, Tyrone settled it on his head. Then he lifted his arm and swept it forward in a command for all to follow. It was the chortling Petrov who led a rather shaggy-looking horse to Ladislaus as his leader muttered sourly after the colonel.

“You forgot, maybe, it was your horse you tell me shoot.” Petrov inclined his shining head toward the animal he had brought near and grinned. “Maybe this beast not so fine as his or the one I shot, but better than walking, I think.”

The foreign regiment rode over the hill and was halfway across the valley before a sudden warning shout rent the silence. The men gaped in sharp surprise as a solid line of mounted, uniformed Hussars, appearing as if from out of nowhere, halted their steeds on the next rise ahead of them. As they watched in paralyzed awe, cannons were hastily rolled to positions on the brow of the hill, interspersing the cavalry unit, while the officer in command slowly raised his sword.

Shouted orders sent a swelling tide of confusion rippling through the foreign ranks, turning their haste into a mad scrambling dash as they sought to bring up the artillery and spread it out in a more impressive line than the one they now faced. Clearly having the larger force, they hoped to counter the threatening attack and roll the foolish ones back upon their heels. Several musket shots rang out from their ranks, and a pair of Hussars toppled to the ground, but in the next instant the Russian cannons began to bark with deafening intensity. Recoiling in large plumes of smoke, they sent leaden balls hurtling through the air to bombard the intruders. The shots landed, eliciting startled shrieks from both man and beast as large geysers of dirt were spewed upward in front of them. When a second barrage was unleashed, it punished them severely for the dead Hussars. A wealthily garbed nobleman shouted at the commander, who, in frustrated rage, snarled out orders in rapid succession to his men. Obeying, those hearties bared their swords and spurred their steeds forward in pursuit of vengeance, just as a cannon lobbed a leaden ball down upon the princely one.

The Hussars seemed to wait on the hill with unswerving patience as their opponents charged toward them. The rival force of mercenaries quickly gained the first upward slope of the knoll, but just as they did, out of the corners of their eyes they caught movements to their left and right. In sudden alarm they glanced askance betwixt the two, and their hearts filled them with fear as they saw other men, dressed in all manner of array, swarming down upon them. The Hussars seemed to come alive as their commander swept his sword forward in a signal to charge. He led his men at a thundering pace, lifting his saber high and rending the air with a warbling wail that raised the hackles of friend and foe alike. The intruders considered their plight forthwith and came swiftly to the determination that it was foolish to stand and fight against such odds. Expeditiously they wheeled their steeds about, intending to flee, but they soon found themselves caught in a box from which they would find no successful escape, for another surge of outlandishly garbed fiends was charging up from the rear.

A pair of darkly cloaked figures crept stealthily through the trees near the Kremlin wall until they saw a wagon carrying fodder for horses moving briskly toward the tower known as the Borovitskaia. The two hastened to reach the path as the cart rumbled past and flitted alongside it until the farmer halted the conveyance at the gate, where he greeted the sentry with the warm cheer of a close friend and laughingly conversed with him, allowing the wraiths to slip inside unseen.

The two continued on, one leading the other as if by rote through the trees. They came to a spot near the edge of the Kremlin hill where they had been told to wait until a quarter stroke of the hour. At that appointed time another cloaked shade, this one noticeably smaller than the two, moved away from the Blagoveshchenskii Sobor and cautiously approached them.

“What are you two about this eventide?” a subdued voice asked from the deep cowl as the slight one neared the two.

A gruff voice issued an answer. “We’ve come a-gaming for that fanciful dish tsars are wont to seek.”

The shorter one dipped his head in acknowledgment and made the expected reply. “And what is that but a royal seat upon the throne?” The three came together, and the smaller one promptly lowered his tone to a whisper. “Your men have been given their instructions?”

The one with the harsh voice gave the information while his companion stood stoically mute. “At the appointed hour, they will create a diversion for us and start fires throughout Moscow, to which the tsar’s soldiers will be dispatched. By then Tsar Mikhail and Patriarch Filaret will have gone into the Blagoveshchenskii Sobor to pray. We’re to join ourselves with the rest of our men and kill the castle guards who have come to stand watch. We will then slay the patriarch and the tsar in the chapel and hold the Kremlin until the rightful tsar takes the throne and kills the boyars who are wont to reject him.”

“Good! I assume your men are waiting inside the Kremlin to help you in this endeavor.”

“All is in readiness, my lord.”

“The other matter is arranged also?”

“What matter is that?”

“Surely you’ve addressed yourselves to the safety of the new tsar and have found a place here in the Kremlin where he can hide until he’s ready to make an appearance, have you not?” The pointed question was met with a tense silence that demonstrated the perplexity of the two. The small man became incensed. Completely infuriated at the dim-witted simplicity of the dullards, he threw back his hood in a vivid display of rage and advanced upon the pair with a snarl contorting his pockmarked face. The back of his short-fingered hand swiped forcefully across the wide chest of the taller one, who stood the closest to him. “You fools! He’s the most integral part of this whole plot! Where is he?”

“Where any rightful pretender should be, Ivan Voronsky,” the taller one finally answered.

Ivan’s mind halted in sudden shock. Though the man had spoken Russian, the words had been accentuated with an English accent, allowing a sharply goading fear to seize the cleric’s mind. He remembered precisely where and when he had last heard it, and that had been weeks ago at the military parade held in the Kremlin.

“Rycroft!”

The tall man approached him, sweeping back the hood of his own cloak. “Aye, Ivan Voronsky, ’tis Colonel Sir Rycroft, at your service.” Tyrone swept a hand toward his companion as he casually introduced him. “And my good man, Captain Grigori Tverskoy, to aid you in all your endeavors. Your Polish friends were found out ere they reached Moscow, and I fear your intended tsar was blown to bits by the careless aim of our artillerymen. A tragedy, to be sure. I’m sure Tsar Mikhail would have preferred to see him beheaded alongside you.”

Ivan snatched forth a dagger and raised it high, intending to sink it into the chest of that stalwart one who addressed him with scorn, but his wrist was seized in a steely grasp and wrenched around to a painful height behind his back, startling a cry from him as an agonizing jolt of pain wended its way from wrist to shoulder. Almost casually, Tyrone plucked the knife from Ivan’s hand, eliciting another highly indignant screech from the grimacing lips. At the sound, there quickly arose from the area of the Palace of Facets a confused burble of voices which soon was overridden by shouted commands that compelled the guards to seek the source of the noise.

Ivan’s heart began to hammer as he realized he wasn’t going to escape from the trap the two had laid for him. All the money the invaders had put aside for him suddenly seemed a paltry sum in view of the price that would be exacted from him for treason against the tsar.

“I’ve got gold! I’ll give you all of it if you’ll just let me go!” Ivan pleaded frantically over his shoulder. He had to be gone before the palace guards reached them or it would be too late to make good his escape! “It’s more than both of you will ever make in your lifetime! Please! You must let me go!”

“What portion does Princess Anna receive from what you promise to us? She is your accomplice, is she not?” Tyrone queried as he leaned over the cleric’s shoulder.

“Princess Anna? Why, she was merely a pawn I used in my attempt to enlist the aid of wealthy boyars to the cause.”

Grigori clasped his fingers in the cleric’s lank hair and lifted that one’s head to peer leeringly into his sharply honed features. “Have Russian boyars also promised you gold to make it worth your while?”