Servants entered to turn on the lights. Chavadzy bowed and went away. The Tsar stood up from his chair.
"Tea is officially over," he announced, "but I suggest a variation in our routine as this is the only time we shall have with our friends. Tomorrow, they depart in one of our railway cars to hook up to the Trans-Siberian Express. I have canceled appointments this evening, and shall devote myself to those I love."
The Tsaritsa likewise arose.
"No tiddly-winks tonight or reading aloud," she said, "or embroidering, or singing around the piano as I play. No, we shall ask Miss Romy and the lieutenant to join us in telling little stories we would all like to share. In this way, we can come to know one another better and shall have memories to carry with us for the rest of our lives."
"Oh," Alexis cried, "may I tell my favorite story of Doctor Bart's? May I, Mama?"
The Tsaritsa smiled and stroked his hair. "Of course, my darling."
He took his mother by the hand, and led her to a divan. "I can only tell it on your lap."
They sat that way.
"How beautiful you look together!" declared Romelle. "Olga, have you a pad of drawing paper, and a pencil or two? Perhaps some water colors? I would like to sketch this pretty scene while Alexis tells his tale."
"Tatiana draws nicely," Olga replied. "She has lots of paper lying about, and, Anastasia, I know you have a box of water colors."
The girls left the room.
As they left, a servant brought a glass of Magic Wine on a tray.
Alexis drank it.
The Tsar noted the question in Romelle's eyes.
"My son is a hemophiliac," he stated with devastating simplicity. "This is perhaps the greatest state secret of the Russian Empire. As a young man, Chavadzy was the doctor in charge of my father's infirmary. He studied at Edinburgh with your father. He also knew your mother. He is a distant cousin of mine. At the beginning of my reign, I made him chief of my secret police. It was he who had the idea, after Alexis' birth in 1904, to ask your father to research the mysteries of Oriental medicine for help in healing my son. These are the reasons that I am, perhaps, more forgiving of him than of almost anyone outside my immediate family. Perhaps you do not know that hemophilia allows a delay in the clotting of the blood, leading to perilous hemorrhaging after even the most minor injuries. The pain can be dreadful."
Romelle gazed at Alexis with new understanding.
"Your brilliant father," continued the Tsar, "experimented endlessly at his laboratory in the southern extremity of the Yablonovy Range, at Dragon's Heart. Within a year, he had developed the mysterious 'Magic Wine.' Thus, he is very precious to me."
"As he is to all of us!" seconded the Tsaritsa.
The girls came back with the art supplies.
"Please, Romy," suggested the Tsaritsa, "begin your sketch. We are all anxious to see it."
The Tsar continued speaking, looking directly at Brad. "I have given you most damaging information, Lieutenant, but you would have discovered it eventually, considering your connection to Romelle. Have I misplaced my trust? Will this go into your intelligence report?"
Brad returned his gaze steadily. "No, sir, it will not. May I ask how you arrived at this disclosure?"
Nicholas smiled grimly. "Russia is the largest country in the world. The nature of my position as its Caesar, its Czar, is that I must have eyes and ears everywhere...yes, Lieutenant, even in the White House."
Brad glanced at Romelle. Listening, she had stopped sketching, but her pencil was still poised in the air.
"I am, indeed, the President's man," Brad admitted quietly. "I am in the secret service of William Howard Taft. He chose me from Marine Intelligence upon his entry to the White House. I had previously served President Theodore Roosevelt."
Romelle's pencil dropped to the floor.
"Sir," Brad proceeded, "I am not a spy. My mission here is solely to protect Romelle. The President has given me full rein to accomplish that, regardless of time and expense."
Romelle folded her hands on the drawing pad.
"Not until the news of my grandfather's marriage circulated around the world did I learn she was alive," he reported. "My relief was so great, I approached the President and asked for permission to go to Cap Martin. He consented, knowing of my grandfather's many great services to our country. He arranged for the American consul in Nice to take the wedding register to the Empress, with me as driver, so that I could attend the ceremony uninvited. And then the tragedy struck."
"Yes," Nicholas acknowledged, "tragedy, but...you saved Romelle's life."
"Not the President of the United States," declared the Tsaritsa, "but God put you there!"
Romelle's eyes were brimming with tears.
"Thank you, Your Majesties," Brad said. "Later that day, I wired President Taft an affidavit renouncing any claim to my grandfather's estate. I felt it would clarify my honorable intentions toward my sister."
Romelle spoke for the first time. "I need no affidavit to prove that your love is very real, Brad. Nor will it hinder me from issuing the order that your portion of the estate is available to you from this moment on. Uncle Nicky, perhaps I could sign a document to that effect before we leave, and you could forward it to the Empress Eugénie at Farnborough Hill. She is in charge of everything until my return."
"Of course, Romy," the Tsar replied. "That's generous of you, Romy," responded Brad, "but I really don't want a penny. I came to give, not to take. When I found out you had disappeared from Villa Cyrnos the following morning, I nearly went out of my mind with worry. I contacted the President again. He ordered every Marine in Europe to look for you and Rebel. He's a fine man, Romy. You'll have to thank him, someday."
The Tsar smiled. "I'll do it for her. I'll send for the American ambassador after you've gone tomorrow. I'll ask him to inform President Taft of our appreciation, and that you are both under my personal protection."
"Thank you, Uncle Nicky," said Romelle, resuming her sketching.
"May I tell my story, now?" Alexis insisted.
"You may, son," said the Tsar. "Which one? Doctor Bart has told you so many...the one about the Phantom General who rides out of nowhere with his troops to attack the Manchu caravans, and then disappears?"
"Oh, no, Papa! That's a story for Marines, like the lieutenant, not for girls! I'm going to tell about the Golden City of Kublai Khan and the Christian Queen!"
Alexis addressed himself to Romelle. "Have you ever heard of Prester John?"
She thought for a moment. "Wasn't he a Christian prince who is thought to have ruled a rich kingdom in Africa or in Asia? No one is sure he lived at all."
"I'm sure!" declared Alexis. "Doctor Bart said Prester John was a great missionary in olden times. He went to Mongolia and told everybody about Jesus and Mary, and they all became Christians. Doctor Bart says Mother Mary probably looked just like my mama."
He twisted in the Tsaritsa's lap and stroked her cheek. The look that passed between them flowed through Romelle's fingers into the sketch.
"Prester John got lost in a snowstorm, and found a beautiful valley deep in the mountains that God had carved from a volcano. Down at the bottom it was like spring! There were fruit trees for food and clear streams for water. Prester John liked God for being so good to him. To say thank you, he built a Christian church and monastery on a cliff overlooking the valley. It's not Christian anymore, though. It's...Mama, what is it now?"
"A lamasery, darling," replied the Tsaritsa, "a temple and a home for lamas, or monks, of the Lamaist religion."
"A form of Buddhism," Olga contributed.
"This is my story, Olga!" scolded Alexis. "Then, after Prester John died, another kind of Jesus was born in India. His mother was a flower and his father was a ray of red light from Heaven. He took his religion to Tibet and Mongolia, but the Christians in Prester John's valley sent him away. They loved their Jesus and Mary."
The Tsarevich looked again at his mother and smiled.
"After that," he continued, "a great warrior became the King of the Mongols. That was Jink...Kinka....."
"Jenghiz Khan," volunteered the Tsaritsa.
"Yes, Jenghiz Khan, and he went to war against everybody, even Russia. He killed the Russian royal family - like us!"
A shudder ran through the room.
Caught up in his story, Alexis babbled on. "Jenghiz Khan had a grandson named....."
"Kublai Khan," Anastasia interrupted.
Annoyed, Alexis shook his finger at his sister. "I can remember! Yes, Kublai Khan, and he became the Emperor of China. His mother...his mother...oh, Mama, I can't remember her name!"
Anastasia stuck out her tongue, but Alexis missed the vengeful gesture, his brow knit in deep concentration.
The Tsaritsa flushed, looking to Olga for help.
Olga came through.
"Princess Sorghaktani was a Nestorian Christian, of the sect founded by Prester John. She came from Karakorum, Jenghiz Khan's capital in the middle of Mongolia. Karakorum was lost to history until someone found it five years before I was born. It's in ruins, but it was beautiful seven hundred years ago. Kublai Khan practiced four religions, just to be safe. He was a little bit Christian, a little bit Muslim, a little bit Jewish, and a little bit pagan. Actually, this was wonderful because he enforced toleration of all religions."
"That's enough, Olga!" Alexis protested. "Here's where Marco Polo comes in! He went to China and became Kublai Khan's friend. The Emperor's mother liked him, too. When she got old, and tired of living in China, she wanted to go home. So her son built her a city in Mongolia, near Prester John's church, and his friend Marco Polo took her there to be the Queen!"
He sat up proudly in his mother's lap. "It's a good story, isn't it, Miss Romy?"
Romelle was adding touches of color to her pencil sketch. "Oh, yes, Alexis, it was thrilling!"
"It's not finished yet!" he chortled. "The city was made of ivory and gold. Jewels like Mama's hung from the trees. Like this....."
He touched his finger to a large diamond brooch pinned to his mother's breast. "And your red stone, and green ones, and blue, and all kinds of jewels. It must have been a very pretty place. But, Miss Romy, it disappeared! Doctor Bart says it's still there, no matter what anybody says, and Kublai Khan's mother is, too. She's still the Queen! So that's the story of the Golden City! I'm finished now."
"A wonderful story!" exclaimed Romelle, setting down her sketch to lead everyone in applause. "To think that my own dear father told you that! Oh, you have all made me so content. I shall try not to be sad anymore. I owe you so much."
She looked at each in turn. "Uncle Nicky, I feel my father through you. Aunt Alix, you are a mother to me. Brad, you are the past come to support me in the present. Children, you are the promise of a happy future!"
She stood. "May I present this to you, with my love."
She held up the colored drawing of Alexis and his mother. They had been captured as Madonna and child.
The Tsar rose and took it from her. "I shall place this in my study. I shall have it framed in a mirror so that when I look at it with my daughters, we shall all be in it together. Thank you, Romy."
He kissed her on the cheek.
Anastasia rushed to see it closer. "A violet instead of your name? Oh, Miss Romy, what a lovely idea!"
Romelle smiled, telling them about her mother's taste for wood violets and of her own use of the flower as a signature. She showed them the earrings from the Empress and the engagement ring from Philo, which she kept in her purse with Annie's pearls. They laughed at her story of Lucien strolling about the Place Dauphine whistling Sempre Libera and calling her "Violetta."
The Tsaritsa went to the piano and played the waltz from La Traviata with verve before transposing it into her own key for singing. Her voice, a vibrant contralto, had been honed on difficult German lieder.
"Tonight I shall write in my diary that I have spent an evening as sweet as any in my life," she said upon conclusion. "Now, it is time for Romy and Brad to retire. The morning will come quickly. The adventure begins."
Romelle embraced her. "My adventure began, Aunt Alix, the moment I entered your home. I stepped into a world I'd never have known had it not been for Uncle Nicky, your children, and you."
Alexis requested that Rebel be allowed to sleep in his room. "Nagorny says he can even come up on the bed with me for awhile, till I close my eyes. Then the two of them will stand guard over me all night. Rebel says that's alright. He can sleep tomorrow on the train."
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