Heart of Iron

Chapter 8

The excursion to the opera occurred sooner than I had expected. My bare mention of the possibility to Eugenia provoked a terrifying outbreak of enthusiasm and emotion. She was tired and disheartened, desperate for a distraction as the first snow, angry and biting, sifted from the clouds. Her fruitless daily visits to various offices and failure to make any progress were humiliating by themselves, but she was also not used to being rejected. She had always had access to the emperor, and now that it had suddenly taken away angered her. Her usual stubbornness left her no recourse but to continue knocking on locked doors. What she hoped to achieve, she never told me. I wasn’t the only one with secrets then.

So the opera seemed like a salvation, but preparations were needed. Usually indifferent to clothes, Genia insisted that we have new dresses sewn for the occasion. We found a seamstress she felt suitable, but the woman charged twice as much as others. Eugenia, contrary to her usual level-headedness, decided she would be the one. Her name was Maria Verbova, and she commanded an entire army of girls, all dressed in plain but well-made checkered dresses and white caps. Her atelier had appearance of efficiency and expensive simplicity.

Eugenia was usually thrifty, but the prospects of attending the opera excited her into ordering two very expensive dresses (although she did note they would serve as ball gowns as well). She kept to her usual widow’s black, and I wondered if she wore it on my mother’s behalf. I do not remember my mother wearing anything but pastels; she grieved for my father deeply when he passed away, but did not seem to think that changing the color of one’s clothing made a difference.

For me, we decided to go with a silver-gray taffeta, with just a hint of pearly sheen. I never understood how people could become so enchanted by fabric until that day — looking at that taffeta was like looking into the autumn sky over St. Petersburg, at clouds so low they tore on the cathedral crosses and the Admiralty spire; it was like gray river reflecting that sky. I asked for white lace, to remind me of the frothy water whipped by the rising submarine hulls. They made my skirts wide and flounced, and the bodice clung to my shoulders, while mercifully covering most of my chest with lace and ruffles.

“It’s very nice,” Eugenia said. “A good color for you — it reminds me of a sword blade.”

That week, I went to my usual classes and for fittings afterwards. By Saturday Eugenia and I had new dresses, and tickets had been procured. Despite Eugenia’s humiliation and disgust with everything, she made sure our tickets were for the balcony, to the right of the emperor’s private box.

Getting dressed took longer than usual — the dress required an unreasonable number of starched petticoats, and Anastasia had to spend a few minutes making sure that the lace of the hem lay evenly. I ruffled the lace at the neckline, making it looked even more like foam.

We arrived to a full house, and I was simultaneously dismayed and thrilled to see that Dame Nightingale, Mr. Herbert, and Jack were present as well. They were seated in a balcony across from ours, and I smiled and nodded to them. It was a perfect opportunity to point Jack out to Eugenia and I did so.

She squinted at the trio through her lorgnette, and whispered to me, “Is this the Englishman who always walks you home?”

“Yes,” I said. “What do you think?”

“A bit stringy,” Eugenia said. “Then again, I don’t suppose you’re intent on cooking him, so it shouldn’t matter all that much.”

I laughed and covered my face with my fan — I didn’t want Jack to think I was laughing at him, even though I was. “And that lady in pearls and a blue dress is Dame Nightingale,” I said to Eugenia. “She’s with their Secret Service.”

“She is one of the spies then,” Eugenia said and gave a slow, bitter laugh.

“She is,” I said. “I got the impression that the man next to her is the reason. She is doing it to help him.”

“Surely there are other ways to help loved ones,” Eugenia said, frowning. “Besides, a little selfishness in certain people would be a blessing to the world.”

“I’m sure some are saying the same about you,” I said.

She laughed. “Indeed, I’m sure some people would be quite happy if I left the public sphere. But I am getting better — I have decided to only concern myself with matters that affect my blood relatives.”

“Funny you should mention it,” I said. “But I was going to ask you to interfere on behalf of Wong Jun.”

“I’ve been trying.”

“You haven’t been giving bribes or pulling favors.”

Eugenia looked shocked, and her lorgnette trembled. “Sasha! How can you even suggest that!”

I shrugged, feeing my shoulder slip out of the taffeta and then dip back again. “It doesn’t matter, Aunt Genia. No one is playing by the rules anymore, not the emperor, not the English. You’re the only one who perseveres.”

“Sometimes one’s integrity is the only thing one has left.” She turned away, sighing, and pointed her lorgnette at the orchestra tuning their violins in the orchestra pit. I thought the time was right to talk to her about my expectations for her help.

“Yes,” I persisted, “but let’s try to save more than our integrity alone. Jack may be able to obtain proof the English are planning a war — but you will have to do everything you can to get it in front of Constantine.”

“He would do that?” She laughed softly. “Just be careful you don’t put your trust in those who are not worthy of it.”

I was about to reply, but the first bars of the overture sent a hush over the theater. I knew from experience that Eugenia took her music seriously, and it would be wise not to annoy her by talking during the performance. Besides, I thought, it would be good for her to consider my request.

I sat back in my chair and watched the velvet-draped figures bumping against each other and singing in Italian. Someone jumped off a papier-mâché wall, and then they sang some more. I could never follow an opera (probably because I never bothered to read the programme that helpfully explained the plot), so I just tried to enjoy the music, while watching Jack out of the corner of my eye. Between studying and dress preparation I had not had time to talk to him of late. He also seemed preoccupied with concerns of his own. Exams were drawing closer, and I surmised he was working on getting the documents from Nightingale. I couldn’t wait to show him Wong Jun’s letter.

During the intermission, Eugenia and I went to the foyer, where unobtrusive waiters dressed in white weaved in and out of the crowd with trays of Champagne glasses. Eugenia and I nodded to a few acquaintances but kept to ourselves — primarily, to spare the Obolensky and Orlov families the embarrassment of finding excuses to avoid us. I had been so engrossed in the life of the university that I had not noticed how the position of my family had deteriorated; it wasn’t any specific misdeed or overt scandal, but a cumulative effect of Eugenia’s unorthodoxy and my own small and unwomanly trespasses, coupled with the withdrawal of the emperor’s support. We were now considered somewhat less than desirable company.

“So what,” I whispered to Eugenia. “We don’t need those people.”

“Those people used to be my friends,” she said, and drained her Champagne flute in one long swallow.

“Mishkin still is,” I said. “Look, Aunt Genia. You told me yourself that you get to know who your friends are when things are not going well.”

She shook her head, sadly. “This is how one learns that one has very few friends.”

The end of second quarter and exam week came quickly and unavoidably. Beyond them yawned the abyss of the unknown — China. I’d soon embark on an important mission, more dangerous but only slightly less terrifying than the season with its social visits and occasional ball. Still, I thought myself lucky to be given this opportunity. I did not concern myself with idle thoughts of from whence it came — God, or destiny, or some other unknowable entity.

By the time classes ended, I was feverish with excitement, and Olga and Dasha both insisted that I looked consumptive. I was less worried about the exams, although I did study, than about the approaching journey.

To my surprise, Eugenia had agreed to assist us, and did not argue with me going to China. I wished she had; I wish she had some of my mother’s irrational protectiveness that would make her cling to me and beg me not to go. But Eugenia only sighed, and wrote letters for me to carry to bureaucrats in Moscow and every major city east of it. She cried at night, when she thought I could not hear her.

Jack and I were supposed to take a train to Moscow and then proceed east. Anastasia insisted on coming along, but really, there was no point in dragging silly Anastasia with us. She was a good, hardworking maid, but I decided she would be better off keeping the place fit for my return a few months hence.

“You cannot go dressed as yourself,” Eugenia told me two days before my exams.

She did have a point: a young woman traveling alone with a man would surely attract attention. Moreover, if Jack was to succeed in his thievery, both the English Secret Service and the homegrown Nikolashki would surely be looking for us. Traveling as a married couple on a honeymoon was briefly considered but discarded because, rings or not, the police would not be fooled. However, Eugenia very sensibly suggested no one would not be looking for two men.

“But men’s clothes are so drab!” Anastasia exclaimed. “No offense, miss, but you have to glitter.”

Leaving aside that mysterious pronouncement, I considered the gist of her words. “I need a military uniform,” I said, finally. “A grenadier, perhaps.”

Eugenia shook her head. “Don’t be a fool, Sasha, you’re not built for infantry. You will pass as a young hussar, or a Guardsman officer.”

“Why not a dragoon?”

She sighed. “In our apartment, there’s a chest of old clothes. Your father’s guardsman uniform is in it still, as well as your uncle’s — he was a hussar. You can try them on, and see what fits best.”

“Uncle?” I asked, confused.

“My older brother,” Eugenia said. “Pavel Menshov. He was killed during the Napoleonic invasion, but he was a small man. His uniform is old-fashioned, but surely we can use his sword and insignia.”

Eugenia told me a little about my dead Uncle Pavel — he was young when he died, she said, barely more than a boy. His uniform, had it been wearable, would have fit me. It was strange for her, an old woman now, to think of him as her older brother. She told me how hard she cried on the day she realized she had forgotten his face.

Maria Verbova, my aunt determined, could sew me a uniform quite similar to my dead uncle’s; moreover, Eugenia predicted, since the woman charged so much she must be used to keeping secrets. My aunt was proven correct. When I stopped by the atelier and requested Madame Verbova make me a hussar uniform, the seamstress only nodded and asked me if I would need to have my hair cut too.

“Yes,” I said. “In a week.”

She smiled then, dark lids hooding eyes that seemed too old for her well-kept face. “If you let me cut off a lock now, I will have a mustache ready for you as well,” she said.

I laughed at the idea but conceded it was a good one, and with a swift clip of scissors she sheared a lock of hair near my temple. “You’ve done this before, haven’t you?” I asked.

She inclined her head. “As you can imagine, there are many reasons for women to disguise themselves as men and men as women. If you wish, I will make you a corset to flatten your chest and thicken your waist.”

“That would be helpful,” I said.

“Don’t worry,” Maria assured me. “You are paying me enough to take care of it personally — my girls are quite reliable, but sometimes it is better to be safe than sorry.”

The fittings at Maria Verbova’s atelier evoked an almost sinister but giddy mood. The hussar uniform was still wide in the shoulders, but the corset (a disturbing-looking contraption of satin, whalebone, and cork with metal grommets) was designed to widen my shoulders, and its weight, aided by a set of particularly strong hooks and laces, pressed my bosom until it was as flat as a boy’s. The cork-and-whalebone bodice surrounded my waist, thickening it. It had joints that allowed me to bend, and generous padding made the device surprisingly comfortable.

The breeches, white and tight fitting, took a bit of getting used to — I felt naked without my petticoats and skirts, but soon enough I discovered the trousers were quite comfortable as were the tall boots that squeaked with every step. The blue jacket, its chest stiff with gold braid, and a fur-trimmed pelisse completed my attire; a tall bearskin hat gave me much-needed height. My uncle’s saber hung off my belt, its sheathed tip knocking reassuringly against my left boot, and Eugenia and Maria both agreed that I made a youthful but convincing hussar: short, squat, and broad shouldered.

Maria kept her word and made a mustache out of my hair. I was secretly hoping for an elaborate concoction, like the one decorating Commandant Mishkin’s face. Instead, Maria produced several thin strips of sheer fabric covered in sparse hairs and a small bottle of glue. When she glued it to my face and held up the mirror, I laughed. As a woman, I was plain, but as a boy hussar with a nascent mustache, I looked… handsome. Maria nodded, pleased. “You look like you are about seventeen,” she said. “Don’t tell anyone you are older or no one will believe you. If your mustache gets dirty, replace it promptly; the glue dries fast. Now we need to work on your walk.”

I just had to think of the way Eugenia moved around the manor in Trubetskoye — with long, hasty steps, her footfalls loud and haphazard, and tried to do the same. Maria nodded, smiling. “You’re good at it,” she said. “Have you practiced before?”

“No,” I said.

I did not ask the questions on my mind, foremost among them my conviction that Maria herself had helped many women appear to be men, and perhaps had done so herself. I could see the advantage, of course, but I had no idea that such behavior was in any measure common. As it seemed impolite to ask, I practiced walking like a man late at night, after all the seamstresses were sent home, in Maria’s vast and empty atelier. I weaved among the gypsum dummies, most wearing half finished dresses and frocks, sack jackets and evening coats, several drowning in a sea of handmade lace. I walked among them, practicing bowing and shaking their imaginary hands. I practiced talking.

“Don’t try to make your voice too low,” Maria advised. “It will sound artificial. Just lower it comfortably, and the rest will be attributed to your youth.”

I waited to have her cut my hair until the last day of the exams.

I think my lack of nervousness helped with the examinations, for my grades were better than the previous quarter. I was pleased and Eugenia ecstatic; nonetheless, my thoughts were with Jack.

We had it all planned out. On the night of the last exam, Jack was to obtain the papers and then I was to meet him at the Moscow Train Station. Eugenia took me to Maria’s to have my hair cut, and helped me pack when we returned to the dormitory — I had some civilian clothes as well as spare britches, six shirts of good cotton, and my underclothes. It all fit into a single satchel. Anastasia cried a little, worried I would need all the dresses and lace and pretty things I was leaving behind. In truth, I too felt like crying, even though I kept reassuring the silly girl I would be back soon.

Eugenia, always preoccupied with practical matters, gave me some last minute instructions. “You’re Alexander Menshov now,” she told me. “No need for fancy aliases, and it was easy enough to get you papers in this name. I’ll tell your mother you are visiting classmates in Crimea — it is warmer there, she’ll understand. You know how to handle yourself, so I won’t nag you without need. But tell that Englishman that if he dare lays a hand upon you or shows any disrespect, I shall have his hand and his heart brought to me.”

“Aunt Genia,” I said, sighing. “You do love melodrama too much.”

She stared at me. “Fancy that,” she said after a few silent minutes. “Now I’m starting to think this is exactly what Pavel looked like.”

She dabbed at her eyes as I searched for something to say. “Don’t worry,” I finally managed. “I am not he. I will not die, I promise.”

She sobbed outright at that, and hugged my padded body to her chest. “You have no idea, Sasha, how frightened I am. The situation here now, the possible threat of war looming… you are too young to remember the Bonaparte, but I do. The terrifying thing is, if there is a new war, young people will be fighting it, and we, the old ones, we’ll mourn and watch and relive our past losses and then lose even more. So you make sure it doesn’t happen.”

I pulled away. “I’ll do what I can, Aunt Genia.”

She dried her eyes and smiled then. “Time for you to go, young hussar. You’ll miss your train.”

“I’ll try to avoid wars,” I said, and picked up my satchel.

Everyone was asleep when Eugenia and I snuck out of the dark and quiet house, and walked to the Palace Bridge where we hailed a coachman. She kissed me goodbye once more, and I was on my way to the station.

At night, the building of dark granite and light gray marble towered against the sky pale with moonlight and impending snow. The station seemed deserted, but once inside, I discovered there were quite a few people, some stretched out on the wooden benches asleep, others sitting on their sacks and parcels. A few urchins played marbles by the far wall, away from the ticket windows and the gates leading to the tracks. I drew my pelisse around my shoulders, moved my satchel from one white-gloved hand to the other, and went to buy my ticket.

At this dead hour of the night, only one train left the station — a train to Moscow that ran primarily for the convenience of business travelers. It departed St. Petersburg at one in the morning and arrived in Moscow at one in the afternoon, early enough to conduct necessary business and possibly head back the same day. In my childhood when we visited relatives in Moscow, the journey from St. Petersburg took more than a week, and I felt nostalgic. One had to be determined to travel in those days. Nowadays, it seemed almost too easy, too casual.

That was Eugenia again, speaking in my mind, and I shook my head, dislodging her. With all her love of progress, she did miss those days, and Mishkin was correct about her essential old-fashionedness. I, of course, was happy with the speed of modern travel — it meant we would arrive to China in two weeks’ time. If everything went well, we would be back before February when the next quarter started. Oh, how I hoped we would avoid complications! I let my hand slide over the front of my jacket. Under all the gold braid and over the whalebone, I could sense the faintest rustling of paper, the theater programme with Wong Jun’s message. The message he promised would make our task possible.

I paid for the ticket and looked for a place to sit. A gangly young man, a student by all appearances, slept stretched out on one of the benches. I remembered I was currently a man in military service. I cannot describe the satisfaction I felt when I dislodged the young man’s scuffed shoes with a swift kick of my polished boot.

He woke up and glowered, but when his gaze fell upon my uniform his grumbling turned into a loud yawn and he sat up, surrendering half a bench with an almost apologetic expression. I settled down and smiled to myself.

The clock above the ticket window showed half past midnight, and I hoped Jack would be on time. As the minute hand crawled closer and closer to twelve, I prayed the train would be delayed. But a man in a tall red hat announced the train, and passengers woke up and stretched and shuffled wearily toward the gaping mouth of the gates, beyond which I could see only the glow of a gaslight and the white sifting of another snowstorm. Jack was still not here.

We had decided long in advance that if one of us was to be delayed, the other was to go to Moscow anyway and wait in an appointed place. We had selected a tavern Jack knew of not too far from the Kremlin. I had memorized the simple directions to it. Waiting in St. Petersburg would have been too dangerous, especially if the missing one was caught or found out. After waiting three days in Moscow with no sign of the other, the one who was still free was to continue on to China alone. I did not like that idea — even with Wong Jun’s letter, I lacked any proof of my words. Worse yet, I had nothing to bargain with — and it would not be unreasonable to expect bargaining, for one’s life or freedom at the very least.

I settled in an unoccupied compartment of the last carriage, and watched the platform through the thickening snow as it fluttered about, whipped by the wind into elaborate whirlwinds and eddies; occasionally it even looked as if it was falling upward. Every time I saw a human figure, I clung closer to the window, but was rewarded with nothing but disappointment — it was never Jack.

I could picture him so clearly, with his gangly frame that concealed his superhuman strength and agility so well, one hand on his hat, a satchel in his other hand… possibly a briefcase, for all the papers. Oh, how I feared Dame Nightingale then, how certain were the moments when I thought Jack captured by her and imprisoned. I hoped if that were the case he would be important enough for Alexeevsky Ravelin.

The locomotive chugged and its whistle sounded one piercing note that became quickly muffled by the snow and the night. Clouds of steam fogged the windows and obscured the view, my heart jumped to my throat when I had to seriously consider that even if I waited three days, I might never see Jack again. The thought constricted my throat — I had lost too many friends lately, and to be completely honest I would’ve liked some company on such a perilous journey.

The locomotive was gaining speed and I felt restless. Unsatisfied by the view from my window, I went to stand by the door — I was in the last carriage, and the back of it was occupied by a door with a large square glass window. In the snow that seemed to fall faster as the train sped ahead, I could discern nothing but the endlessly receding rails behind us, glinting in the starlight. It was quiet, save for the train whistle and an occasional crow cawing. I glimpsed an intermittent palimpsest of one building or another — black against speeding dark — but had no hope of identifying them. Beyond the overwhelming feeling it was the second time in less than a year I had left behind everything I knew, I was so overcome by nostalgia and self-pity that at first I did not notice a quick shadow moving behind on the rails behind the train.

Curiously, the shape did not disappear from view but remained — as if it were impossibly following the train and matching its speed. Then it began to grow larger, and I realized it was gaining. It resolved from a dark speck into a figure of a man. I gasped, and clasped my hands to my throat. There was no one in the world who could run like that — except Jack.

He was close enough now for me to see his breath pouring out of his mouth in one continuous ribbon, the mad pumping of his arms. He had lost his hat, it seemed. As his feet struck the crossties, the frozen wood groaned and splintered, geysers of pebbles flew into the air.

He had almost caught up, and I struggled to open the door for him. Of course he could not see me — the train was dark inside, and he was too preoccupied to notice me struggling with the lock. He jumped, and I barely had enough time to get out of the way.

I threw myself into the empty compartment on my left, just as the glass shattered with the impact and Jack… There is no way to describe it. He did not fly or break through or do anything else comprehensible. For a moment, it felt as if time had stopped: jagged fragments of thick glass hung in the air, frozen, shining like Christmas tree ornaments. Jack was suspended amongst them, a sleepwalker with one foot in front of the rest of his body and the other behind, both of his arms folded in front of his face to protect it.

Then I heard the tinkling of broken glass as it rained to the floor. Time resumed its flow and Jack landed on his feet, crouching, not a yard away from me.

His gaze lingered on my prostrate form, confused and apprehensive, and I remembered he had not yet seen me in my hussar disguise.

“Jack, it’s me,” I said, and sat up on the floor.

He laughed, delighted. “Sasha?”

“Of course.” I stood up and waited for him to unwind from his crouch — he had remained in it since landing. “Now, let’s go — I have a compartment claimed, and the conductor has not yet come by.”

He looked behind him, at the shattered window. The look in his eyes struck me — he seemed confused and a bit apprehensive, disoriented. He was like a man who woke from a dream and found himself on the roof of his house in a nightgown with no idea how he got there. “What will I say about that?” He pointed at the jagged hole in the door, like a guilty child.

“If you come with me right now,” I said, “we can act as if you were in the compartment the whole time. There is no one else awake in this carriage, and the train is too loud for people to have heard the glass breaking.”

He followed me, his satchel clasped so tightly in his hand that — when I finally managed to pry his fingers open — I saw his nails had cut semicircles into his palm.

Jack seemed in a state of shock, and I wondered if that was common in cases of extreme exertion. I had not noticed it before, but then again, I never witnessed him chasing a train for miles. His first instinct seemed to be to retreat into himself, and I let him. I even went as far as to ask the conductor, when he finally came by, for two glasses of hot tea.

“Yes sir,” he said, and adjusted his billed cap, the red stripe going around it the only color on his entire person. He was dressed in a gray overcoat and even his hollow face looked gray in this light. “It is very cold in here, sir. Perhaps you would like to change cars? Some hoodlums seem to have broken the door.”

I nodded. “Yes, we felt a draft. Perhaps we will move later. My companion is feeling somewhat ill, so for now, my good man, just the tea.”

“I’ll see about some blankets then,” he said.

The conductor brought us tea and two woolen blankets. Jack drank his tea and soon resumed his customary demeanor, although he kept looking at me and my uniform.

“Unbelievable,” he said. “Who would’ve thought that the best disguise would be so… colorful?”

I shrugged my new masculine shoulders. “As long as it’s a change, it doesn’t matter what one changes into.”

We occupied a couchette carriage. Jack and I each claimed a seat, opposite of each other, and attempted to sleep the rest of the night. At first, I thought I would never fall asleep with the chugging of the train, its whistling, and the desperate cries of crows overhead. But before I knew it, I was in another train, in my proper clothes, and talking to Chiang Tse who drank his tea in a seat next to me. I dreamt of his knee accidentally brushing against mine, and woke with a start.

The sun was well up and the locomotive sped along the gleaming tracks, a black line singing through the expanse of white snow walled in by naked black trees. It was vertiginous, to think of my gigantic, flat, frozen country, crisscrossed with the black lines that connected Moscow to St. Petersburg to Sochi to Minsk, every single city in the empire. I imagined a multitude of metallic spiders weaving this web, ensnaring smaller and smaller towns, until no white snow was left.

“Sasha?” I looked up to see Jack, stretching and yawning on his bench. He sat up — or rather unrolled his long spine into a sitting position. “Did you sleep well?”

“Yes,” I said. “And you… you are better?”

He nodded, still eyeing me cautiously. It seemed that with my disguise I had become a new person to him, and we had to get reacquainted. “I obtained everything we need last night,” he said. “Do you wish to see?”

Of course I did. He handed me a sheaf of papers from his satchel, and I leafed through copies of submarine diagrams and long letters detailing boring but apparently important diplomatic details. Much of it revolved around Nightingale’s instruction to her spies, and Herbert’s hopeful letters to Her Majesty back in England.

Some of the letters were private correspondence — these were tied together with an ice-blue satin ribbon that reminded me strongly of Dame Nightingale. Without even looking at the signature, I recognized the meticulous, precise handwriting as hers. Interspersed with her letters were offers written with loopy, generous, words running off the page — surely Mr. Herbert’s. As revolted as I felt about reading private correspondence, I peeked with one eye, and blushed. The letters were passionate — an emotion I could see in her, boiling and bubbling like a tar pit deep beneath the icy surface. They made me jealous, too — I wondered if I were capable of such love, not to mention detailing it so fearlessly on paper. Among the fiery confessions, the muffled cries of longing and desire, were references to the post of Secretary at War, to the Ottoman negotiations, and to war with Russia.

It felt almost obscene at times, the way she toyed with the fate of nations in letters interspersed with proclamations of passion, where longings of lovers forced to be apart lashed out at the entire countries, a forbidden love that raged against the world and promised to destroy it. The seas that separated them were to be conquered by the navies and submarine fleets, the impossible expanse of land was to be crossed in airships of stolen designs, to be marched across by armies in red and gold of Britain and Ottomans. Dame Nightingale was denied, and it was the world that would have to pay for it.

“We’ll have to send these to Eugenia.” I gathered a sheaf of letters and a few other papers that made it clear that Nightingale and quite a few frequent visitors to the Northern Star had been using their positions to gather information and to use it for military planning. “I’ll hire a reliable courier in Moscow.”

Jack nodded.

“My God,” I said, blushing even more, and handed the letters back to Jack. “They love each other so much. And yet they are so proper when they are together.”

“Mr. Herbert is married,” Jack said.

“I guessed as much.” I looked out of the window. “And yet, she would turn the world inside out to please him.”

“This is what love does,” Jack said. He leafed through the letters, absent-minded. “I wish I could have had a chance to drop them off with your aunt last night,” he said. “But… ”

I remembered his mad run, something from a nightmare, not a waking memory. Something my mind tried to forget it even saw. “Does she know? Dame Nightingale, I mean.”

He nodded. “They chased me.”

“So they know where you went?”

Jack yawned and stretched, smiling. “I don’t think so; I jumped over the roofs and doubled back a few times, so I am fairly certain I’ve lost whatever pursuit was sent my way. “

“We still have to be careful.”

“Yes.”

We spent the rest of the morning in private ruminations. Jack’s thoughts were of course a mystery to me, but my own contemplation ran toward the possibility of pursuit. They would figure out he had left the city, and they would look for him in Moscow sooner rather than later. Our only hope was to continue moving, not attracting notice. Keep running, I thought, in rhythm with the wheels; keep changing trains and cities. It occurred to me there was a seductive danger about such life, the temptation to keep moving and never look back, and to never arrive at the final destination.