The Shadow of Tyburn Tree (53 page)

‘You broke her leg and devilish near killed her.'

‘I care not for that. I love you, Rojé Christorovitch, and was half-mad with jealousy from the thought that you had deceived me; and kept her with you for a full two months without my knowledge.'

‘You wrong me by these base suspicions. She was a virgin when I bought her and is one still. I kept her only out of compassion, because she would have been so shamed had I sent her back to her father.'

Natalia ceased her crying. ‘You do love me then! Oh, St. Nicholas be praised for that! But I could not know that you had already set out and charged her to act gaoler to Erik Yagerhorn. I guessed that only on learning last night how he had been found dead in your room. Then came the news of your arrest this morning. Oh, Rojé Christorovitch, I'll never forgive myself, and I'll die of grief if—it …' Again she burst into a fit of weeping.

Roger did not love her any more. His passion for her had died utterly; but it was clear that she now loved him madly, and in common decency, he strove to comfort her. For over an hour they talked round and round his plight, but saw no way by which he might evade responsibility for the Count's death.

The best line which seemed to offer was for him to admit to have left the Count bound and gagged, but plead that he had died only because the arrangements for his release had miscarried. If the court still judged Roger guilty of murder, Natalia would then use all her personal influence to get the sentence commuted from death to imprisonment. They agreed that if she could be kept out of the affair her hand would be strengthened in that. And, as he did not wish to be placed in a situation where he would have to make love to her again, he persuaded her that it would be wisest to refrain from making further visits to the fortress unless she had definite news to bring him. After a last tearful embrace they summoned the warder, and she departed.

The French Ambassador did not arrive until seven o'clock, and his visit was a comparatively brief one. The shrewd-eyed young Count was evidently far from pleased that one of his nationals should stand accused of such a brutal crime; but, after having listened to Roger's story, he became much more sympathetic.

He said gravely that he did not see how a court could fail to convict, but hoped the sentence might carry a recommendation to mercy. An appeal to the Empress was useless at the moment, as, although at a word she could stop any legal proceedings, there was nothing whatever about the present case which might induce her to do so. However, as the representative of the Court of Versailles he was in a position to draw Her Majesty's attention to any verdict pronounced on one of his countrymen, and could do so the more easily in this case as the Empress had told Roger on his presentation that if he
found himself in any difficulty, he was to apply to her. So, when the time came, he would use his best endeavours to persuade her that death was too harsh a punishment for a crime that had only been in part premeditated.

Within twenty minutes of the Comte de Ségur's departure, the thin-faced magistrate and his clerk again appeared. Roger now agreed to make a statement, and after he had done so, answered most of the questions put to him with complete frankness. When he declined to give the name of the lady who had supped with him before Yagerhorn's arrival the magistrate refrained from pressing him to do so, and even volunteered the opinion that, since Roger had admitted his guilt, it would probably be considered unnecessary to seek out witnesses for the purpose of securing evidence against him.

When Roger was left to sort out his impression of the day he felt considerably more cheerful than he had twenty-four hours earlier. His immediate circumstances were improved out of all recognition and he now thought it unlikely that he would be called on to pay with his life for Yagerhorn's death. There was also the immensely comforting thought that nobody appeared to be the least interested in his movements during his absence from St. Petersburg, or be aware that he had stolen Yagerhorn's
laisser-passer
; and even Natalia apparently saw no reason to doubt his statement that he had been fishing on Lake Ladoga.

Two mornings later the Comte de Ségur appeared again. His news was that at the previous night's Sunday Court the Empress had raised the question of Roger's affair on her own initiative, and said that she had given orders for proceedings to be temporarily suspended, as she had formed the desire to go into the matter herself.

It immediately occurred to Roger that Natalia Andreovna had seized upon some suitable opening to get to work on his behalf; but the Ambassador's next words destroyed this comforting theory.

He said, ‘I find myself quite unable to express an opinion whether this new development is likely to have a favourable or adverse effect on your prospects; and I should be serving you ill if I did not warn you that this signal honour is due to no more than curiosity.' Smiling a little wryly he added: ‘The truth is that in Petersburg you are now accounted a monster, and Her Majesty, ever eager for new sensations, is desirous of having another look at you.'

With this cold comfort Roger had to be content till afternoon, when Dr. Drenke came to see him, bringing more cheerful tidings. Zaria was now pronounced out of danger and had
made a statement to the police. She confirmed all that Roger had said of his instructions to her, and had disclosed that her attacker had been a lady of quality whom she had seen once before but whom she did not know by name.

Roger was much relieved to hear that his little serf was on the way to recovery; but he rather doubted if, in Russia, any great weight would be attached to the testimony of a young girl-slave, who was known to be devoted to him. However, her corroboration of his statement was very much better than nothing, and once again, Natalia Andreovna had escaped implication, which was a mercy, as any charge against her would have seriously impaired her influence when the time came for her to make her plea for him to the Empress.

During the forty-eight hours that followed he received no fresh news at all of his affair, and hardly knew whether to count that a misfortune or a blessing. The food he was given, while by no means luxurious, was plentiful and varied, and he had been allowed to send in to St. Petersburg for his clothes and money, so he was living in quite reasonable comfort. Yet, while he realised that any change in his situation might prove very much for the worse, uncertainty as to his eventual fate kept him in a state of nervous tension, and he was beginning to be afraid that the Empress had forgotten him.

That she had not, became apparent on the afternoon of Wednesday, the 5th of September, when two handsome young men of her Chevalier Guard were shown in to his room. After greeting him civilly they asked him to prepare himself to be taken before Her Majesty. He changed into his best suit, scented and powdered himself as if he were going to a ball, then accompanied them down to the echoing entrance-hall of the fortress. A shuttered carriage similar to that in which he had been brought to Schlüsselburg was waiting outside. The two young men mounted their horses, Roger, his heart beating considerably faster than usual, was locked into the carriage, and it started on its long drive via St. Petersburg to the Peterhof.

They had set out at three o'clock, and with halts for changing horses, it was nearly eight by the time they arrived at the Imperial Palace. Roger was conducted to the inner guardroom and left to wait there for over an hour; then the two officers returned, drew their swords, and placing themselves one on either side of him, marched him across the vast hall and up a great marble staircase. Some way down a corridor six more glittering members of the Chevalier Guard were drawn up before a pair of tall, ornate double doors. A chamberlain tapped upon the doors with an ivory-headed staff, two
footmen threw them open, and drawing himself up, Roger walked forward into the presence of the Empress.

Seated behind a great carved desk she seemed even smaller than he had first thought her, but no less regal. As he advanced he saw that the dark, sly-faced old Katerina Ivanovna, who was both the Empress's personal confidant and the head of her household, was seated just behind her, that her favourite Momonof, looking very bored, was in one corner of the room playing with a spaniel, and that two young ladies-in-waiting, working on some embroidery, occupied another.

As the guards halted, six paces from the table, Roger went down on one knee.

‘Stand up,' commanded the Empress sharply. ‘And give us your account of this heinous crime, which brands you the most abominable of murderers.'

‘August Majesty,' he began. ‘With your own fine mind, great heart and able hand, you gave a new code of laws to Russia. Throughout all the world you are revered for your sense of justice. I pray you, therefore, suspend judgment as to the degree of my guilt until you have heard the stroke of ill-fortune which renders me now a suppliant for mercy at your feet.'

Her blue eyes were hard and her little curved nose imperious, as she replied: ‘You sound a plausible rogue; but think not to curry favour with us by idle flattery. The governance of an Empire leaves us little time for such as you; so be brief and to the point.'

Roger had intended to give a full description of the affair from his first meeting with Yagerhorn in Stockholm, but he now promptly changed his tactics. In a few brief sentences he described how, having a quarrel with the Count, he had used a pretext to get him to his apartment, then set upon him, and how, owing to an entirely unforeseen sequel, Yagerhorn had been left there to die instead of being released the following morning.

‘If this be true,' said the Empress coldly, ‘you are not quite the monster that you have been represented; yet you are bandit enough to have attacked an unsuspecting man, and the fact that your serf failed to carry out your orders in no way relieves you of the responsibility for Count Yagerhorn's death.'

‘Nay, your Majesty,' Roger replied with sudden boldness. ‘That I admit, and a bandit I may be; but, vast as the gulf is that lies between us, we have at least two things in common; and 'tis on this similarity of our natures that I rely in pleading for your clemency.'

‘Such insolence merits the knout,' muttered the Empress and
her thin mouth hardened. But Roger ignored the danger signal. He knew that it was now or never, and he hurried on:

‘I beg you, Madame, hear what led me to this deed and tell me then if, placed in similar circumstances, you would not have done as I did.'

She nodded. ‘Speak then. But if you fail to prove your words your punishment shall be the more severe.'

Roger took a pace forward. One of his most fortunate gifts was the ability to put his thoughts with ease and grace into either writing or speech; and he was making his plea in French, the second language of himself and Catherine, which both of them spoke as fluently as their own.

‘Gracious Majesty,' he began. ‘The two things which we have in common are courage and a love of gallantry. The devastation that your eyes have wrought in innumerable hearts and your amiability to those who are fortunate enough to find favour with you, are too well-known for me to need to dwell upon them. As for your courage, all the world knows that no male ruler has ever taken braver decisions than yourself. Yet there is one example of it that I would recall, for it made me think you braver than any fabled knight or classic hero.'

At last the Empress's glance softened a little, and she inquired: ‘What deed of ours is it that you have in mind?'

‘ 'Twas when the small-pox was raging in Petersburg, and even striking down people of your Majesty's court,' replied Roger promptly. ‘Fearing that your little son, His Highness the Grand Duke, might fall a victim to the fell disease you determined rather on submitting him to the risks of inoculation, a precautionary treatment then entirely untried in Russia. You sent to England for Dr. Dinsdale, and refusing to allow him to experiment first, as he wished, on any of your Majesty's subjects, insisted on his inoculating you with the deadly virus in secret, before he did so to your son and others.'

The Empress shrugged her plump shoulders, but she she smiled.

‘Only a sovereign unfitted to rule would submit a helpless child or a subject to a risk that they were unwilling to face themselves. But if this be courage and we have a natural leaning towards romance, tell us now how these qualities led you to your present pass?'

Without naming Natalia Andreovna, Roger told Catherine then of his love-affair in Stockholm, and of the way in which Yagerhorn had ambushed him. He stoutly maintained that his plan to be revenged had been fully justified, and claimed that he had proved his courage by spurning the thought of hiring
ruffians to waylay his enemy in the street at night. Instead, although the Count was far more heavily built, he had armed himself with only a whip, faced him man to man, and overcome him.

When the tale was done the Empress regarded Roger thoughtfully for a moment, then she said: ‘We will allow that you have some provocation for your act and that you gave Count Yagerhorn the opportunity to defend himself with his superior strength, which was more than he had any right to expect. Yet the fact remains that you deprived him of his life. It is our pleasure that you should remain in the palace while we deliberate upon the matter further. In due course we will have conveyed to you our will.'

Sinking again to one knee Roger threw in his last reserves. ‘May it please your Majesty. Should you decide that my fault merits a major penalty I pray you let me die like a gentleman rather than live like a slave; and should death be the portion you decree for me I have one boon to crave.'

‘What would you?' asked the Empress a trifle impatiently.

Roger rose to his feet and smiled. ‘ 'Tis that, before I am led out to die, I may kiss the hand that sends me to my premature fate, in token of my respect for the august Princess who has done more for her people than any other ruler.'