The Firebird

The day had been dazzling. It had all begun, officially, that morning at eleven with the grand procession to collect the bridegroom, with the open phaeton of the wedding marshal in the lead and all two dozen of the groomsmen riding two by two on horseback with the trumpeters amongst them, and the day had grown in richness and in wonders ever since. The Duke of Holstein and the princess, glitteringly royal in their wedding clothes of silver brocade, made a most impressive couple. Anna, being as she was included in Vice Admiral Gordon’s family, had by virtue of his high rank been admitted as a guest, and so had watched with her own eyes the wedding vows be given in the great Church of the Holy Trinity, and joined with all the other guests who’d crossed the river back again by barges to the gardens of the Summer Palace.

Here, close to the corner where the Neva met the smaller Swan Canal, a brand-new banquet hall had only just been built for this one joyous celebration. Designed by one of the chief architects, the speed of its construction had been overseen in person by Prince Menshikov, the late Tsar’s boyhood friend and closest confidant, who’d even stayed to sleep within it these past days, to make sure that the workmen did a proper job of finishing.

The end result was beautiful – a building with a fine, enormous central room, and more than fifty windows all around it, decorated on the outside walls with rows of pilasters and vases set on pedestals, and on the inner walls with painted murals showing battle scenes, the sculpted forms of Mars and Neptune set to guard the southern doors that opened to the tree-lined pathways of the Summer Garden.

They’d been banqueting for hours now, on a feast that had begun with two enormous pies set down before the newly married couple, and from those pies two dwarves had sprung, a man and woman who had danced a measure for the entertainment of the guests.

The lively music had continued, and each toast had seemed to draw an answer in the roar of guns fired from the Admiralty, the fortress, and the regiments of guards outside, as well as from the Duke of Holstein’s yacht upon the river.

Anna could not mind when she’d enjoyed a better time, in the bright company of both Vice Admiral Gordon and his daughters and across from General Lacy and his wife, the children having been assigned to the kind eye of Father Dominic at home, since he’d had no desire to come among the common people on the meadow that adjoined the Summer Garden, where those who were not formally invited to the wedding could yet join the celebrations.

Anna had enjoyed the day still more because she had been able to relax, without the ever-watchful eye of—

‘Edmund,’ Mrs Lacy said, ‘is missing a delightful day. A shame he could not join us.’

General Lacy shrugged. ‘He will be fed upon the meadow. And it was by his own choice that he is there, and not with us at table.’

On the other side of Gordon, next to Nan, Sir Harry Stirling turned his head. A Scotsman of an old and noble family, he displayed the easy elegance of one who had been born to better things. His clothes were always finely cut and fitted him well, his wig in keeping with the latest fashion, and his lean face showed the quick intelligence and wit that had attracted more young women than just Nan, though Nan, of late, appeared to be the only one who held any attraction for Sir Harry.

‘This would be your kinsman?’ he asked General Lacy.

‘Aye, that’s right. Mr O’Connor. We’d expected him this morning, but he sent a note to say that he regretted his appearance might reflect ill on the family, for it seems he had an … altercation, yesterday.’

‘He’s the man who fought the harlot’s husband, then.’ Sir Harry grinned. ‘It was the talk of all the merchants’ wives last evening.’

‘But,’ said Mrs Lacy, ‘not the kind of talk we wish to have today.’ Her tone was gracious, but the look she sent her husband stopped that line of conversation cold.

‘Indeed,’ he said. ‘I should have liked him here, though, as a witness to my honour.’ And he tapped, with pride, the scarlet ribbon with its military decoration newly hung across his heart, the star of the new Order of St Alexander Nevsky, that the Empress had awarded to a handful of her finest subjects earlier today, with her own hand.

Anna was well aware that it had wounded Gordon’s pride that he had not received the Order also, when two other of the vice admirals had been so honoured, but he’d masked his disappointment with congratulations, and dry wit.

He looked across at Lacy now and said, ‘I expect, with all you’ve talked of it this afternoon, the news will by this time have reached the meadow.’

Lacy took that in good sport. ‘When you’ve expelled the Swedes from Russia and been wounded in the process, you may have a star upon your chest to talk about as well, Tom.’

‘I have heard much about this wound,’ said Gordon, ‘yet I’ve never seen the scar.’

‘And that,’ said Mrs Lacy, firm, ‘is also something most unfit to be discussed at table. And,’ she added, to her husband, ‘if you do attempt to show it in this company, I warn you I shall leave.’

He hid his smile.

Sir Harry, rising cheerfully to General Lacy’s aid, remarked, ‘Poltava was indeed a victory worthy of remembrance, and a man who had a hand in it should be allowed to crow from time to time.’

General Lacy gave a nod that aimed for dignity. ‘My thanks to you, Sir Harry. And in truth, ’tis only just. I had but little time to crow about it when the battle happened, for three months after that my brother died at Malplaquet.’ As though remembering the youth of some around him, and what Anna had remarked when he’d first spoken of Poltava at the house, he said to her, ‘You were a babe for that one, also.’