The Firebird

She told the children, ‘Will you all sit down, please. Be as quiet as you can.’

The boys, as boys would do, looked first to Ned to see his own reaction, and a moment passed before he gave a silent sort of laugh and settled in a nearby chair to watch her with the certain eyes of one who thinks to see another fail.

When all were seated, Anna stood alone and waited for the crow to calm.

Ned murmured, ‘Well, what now? Will you then charm it with a song, to fly down to your hand?’

Again his tone amazed her, and she briefly dropped her gaze to him, and told him, ‘You are insolent.’

‘Aye, frequently.’ His eyes were laughing at her now, and too familiar.

Anna looked away, refusing to allow him satisfaction. For a minute more, the crow flapped round the ceiling in confusion, and then all at once it dropped down with a flutter to the floor, and hopped and limped and dragged its leg in ever smaller circles, till at length it came to rest not ten feet from where Anna stood, collapsing there in weariness.

She tugged once at the loose end of the sash of her silk morning gown, and slipped it from her shoulders as she took a cautious step towards the bird, and then another. It flapped once, and shuffled further off, and might have taken once more to the wing if she had not, in one swift motion, tossed the morning gown on top of it and knelt to wrap the fabric round and gather up the crow with care, while speaking soothing words to it.

‘There now,’ she said. ‘There now, you will be well, there is no need to be afraid.’ Securely swaddled in the folds of coloured silk, the bird tipped its head sharply up to look at her with one bright eye, its long beak moving silently as though it sought to speak.

The room was silent, too, until at once the children started speaking all together, and pressed round her for a close look at the captive crow. This was not at all, thought Anna, how she’d planned to meet the general’s children, yet she likely could have done no better for a first impression, since it was soon obvious that all of them, from half-grown Michael to the smallest of the girls, now brave enough to venture from her blankets, thought what Anna had accomplished was no ordinary feat.

The oldest girl said, ‘But we cannot put it out of doors again, not in the snow, not till its leg has healed.’

The brother closest to her age was in agreement. ‘Can you fix it, Ned?’

The children parted for the man as he came forward. Close, he seemed much taller. Anna did not wish to meet his gaze and so encourage any further insolence, nor was there any safer place to focus her attention, for his chest was covered only by a holland shirt, and that unlaced. Instead she looked down as his hands reached, not to take the bird away from her, but simply, and with unexpected gentleness, to turn the wrappings slightly so that he could peel a fold of cloth away to see the injured leg.

His hands were browned as though from being in the sun, and strongly shaped, and in a line across the knuckles of his left hand rose a narrow ridge of scarring that she could not seem to look away from.

‘Yes,’ he told the children finally. ‘I can fix this.’

Arrogance again, she thought. And yet she felt relief as well, and gladly passed the crow to him, still wrapped within her morning gown. And then, in an attempt to re-establish proper boundaries, she instructed him, ‘Then go and do so, please. And send a housemaid, if you would, to help us set the room to rights before the children’s mother wakes.’

He did not answer straight away, and glancing up she noticed that his eyes once more appeared to be amused, and had a light in them that made her feel aware that she was standing there in no more than a nightshift, with her hair undone in curls about her shoulders. Though she felt her colour rising she returned his gaze with coolness, and he gave a nod that managed to both honour her and mock her as he said, ‘Yes, Mistress Jamieson.’

And with the bird held safely to his chest he turned and left, and Anna had the strangest feeling that, although she’d seemed to score the point, she’d somehow lost the game.

CHAPTER THIRTY

I wasn’t sure why Rob had stopped, until he gave his watch a tap and told me, ‘You’ll be late for your appointment.’

I’d forgotten. It was not a long walk back, but I was glad I’d worn flat shoes and not the high heels I’d been contemplating earlier this morning. As it was, we reached the entrance to the Hermitage with a full fifteen minutes to spare.

The wind off the Neva was sharp, but at least it had scattered the dull bank of clouds and the sun had come out, shining brightly against a great wedge of blue sky. In the sunlight, the Hermitage glittered like something straight out of a fairy tale, one of the loveliest palaces left in the world, with its green and white walls and the gilded trim and those innumerable windows that looked to the river.

Its grand front steps were, as usual, clogged with a great queue of tourists and visitors waiting in groups for admission. Rob hung back.

‘You’ll be working,’ he told me. ‘I’d just be a bother. I’ll wander about, I’ll be fine.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Aye, I’m sure. You can just come and find me,’ he said, ‘when you’re finished.’

I nodded, and went on ahead.

I’d met Yuri, Sebastian’s friend, twice before this. A senior research associate in the museum’s Department of Russian Culture, Yuri had helped me to authenticate the portrait by Makovsky that now hung above my desk, and he’d taken us to dinner once. He was a friendly man, with earnest eyes behind his gold-rimmed glasses, and a wild shock of thick black hair that stubbornly refused to settle into any style. Greeting me with the traditional kiss, he drew back and asked, in Russian, ‘Will we speak Russian or English today?’