The Masters Read online

  Anna scrambled back up the ladder, and gazed to the east in consternation. The Lusignan, maintaining a high cruising speed, had drawn well away from the Japanese ships; there was now a gap of several miles between them. But yet they could still make out the pall of smoke rising above the Japanese ship which had spoken with them, and which had clearly just fired her two big guns. “What are they shooting at?” Anna asked. Robbins handed her his glasses without a word. Anna focussed them on the merchantman, which could be seen to be both burning and listing, her funnel belching smoke, while men threw themselves into the sea.

  “Pretty accurate shooting,” the captain remarked.

  “But that is murder!” she cried. “That ship carries no guns that can be used.”

  “It sure is an act of war,” Robbins agreed.

  The Japanese warship was firing again. “We must put back!” Anna said.

  “We don’t carry guns either, Mrs Cromb.”

  “Those men are drowning!”

  Robbins nodded, his face sombre. “But there’s nothing we can do about it, without risking getting shot at ourselves. I reckon we’re the witnesses to the start of a war.”

  The entrance to Port Arthur was known as the Tiger’s Tail, from the way in which the sea-facing cliffs overlapped, to give a tortuous and totally protected entrance. The harbour itself was invisible from outside, but as the Tail was penetrated it unfolded a huge area of sheltered water, ringed with hills, at the foot of which, at the waterside, there was a large town. Residential villas climbed the slopes to either side, but the peacefulness of the scene was overlaid by the forts, both on the heights above the entrance and on the hills behind the town.

  There was a good deal of shipping to be seen, varying from fishing boats to sea-going junks as well as a couple of small steamers. Some of it was alongside, but the Lusignan dropped her anchor some distance off, where lighters and bumboats were already waiting to surround her. And, as usual, customs officials waiting to come on board. The head customs officer wore a flowing red and green robe and a matching round hat, was taken straight up to the bridge to receive Captain Robbins’ report. Anna let them get on with it. She still felt vaguely sick, a mixture of outrage and horror, and she could tell that Duncan was pretty affected as well.

  To Anna’s surprise, a steward came down to ask her to join the captain on the bridge, before the formal customs’ business began. The Chinese official bowed to her. “Mrs Cromb. I am Wong Sun-li. I wish to say that I am truly sorry, madam.”

  Anna frowned at him. “Sorry? Well, I hope you’re going to do something about it.”

  Wong Sun-li looked puzzled. “I think Mrs Cromb is referring to the tragedy of the Kowshing,” Robbins said quietly. “That apparently was the name of the ship the Japanese sank, Mrs Cromb.”

  “An act of war,” Wong declared. “Oh, we shall make them pay.”

  “So will the British, I hope,” Anna said.

  “Ah, well, you see, gracious lady, the ship was on charter to my government. We do not need British assistance to deal with the Japanese. But the business of Prince Bolugayevski...”

  Anna’s head came up. “What business?”

  Wong glanced at Robbins; he looked truly distressed. “I am sorry to have to tell you, Mrs Cromb,” the captain said, “that Prince Bolugayevski died four days ago.”

  Anna sat down. Her brain seemed to have gone numb. Duncan, who had followed her up to the bridge, held her hand. Robbins signalled a waiting steward. “A glass of brandy for Mrs Cromb.”

  “You did not know he was ill?” Wong asked, solicitously.

  Anna shook her head, sipped the brandy, and felt slightly better. “No. No...he sent...he asked for me to visit with him. He didn’t say why. But that was months ago.”

  “I believe he has been ill for months, Mrs Cromb.”

  “Is the Princess still here?” she asked, keeping her voice low and even with a supreme effort.

  “Oh, indeed, Mrs Cromb. And her family.”

  “Then I wish to go ashore. Now.”

  Wong bowed. “Of course. My launch is waiting. I know the Princess will be pleased to see you.”

  “I’ll see your luggage is sent ashore later, Mrs Cromb,” Robbins volunteered.

  “Thank you. Thank you for everything, Captain.” Anna stood up, still holding Duncan’s hand. “I’ll go now.”

  *

  “Aunt Anna? Do you remember me?”

  “Peter? Can it really be you.”

  The man was tall and big, a true Bolugayevski. He wore the green uniform with the red facings of an officer in the Preobrashensky Guards, Russia’s premier regiment of foot, with a black arm band on his sleeve. His face was boldly handsome, his hair yellow; in these he took after his mother, Dagmar. Now he was thirty-nine, and with his father dead, he was the twelfth Prince Bolugayevski! “You are as beautiful as ever, Aunt Anna.”

  She made a move. “I am old and tired. This is your cousin Duncan.”

  The new Prince Bolugayevski clicked his heels and saluted, then shook hands. “I am sorry we meet for the first time at such an unfortunate moment, cousin. The trap is over here.”

  He handed Anna up, and sat beside her. The driver was Russian, young and strongly built, out of place, because of his size, amongst the thronging Chinese on the waterfront, gawking at the white lady. “How many of the family are here?” Anna asked, as they moved off.

  “Nearly everyone. Father sent for them as soon as he knew.”

  “You mean...” Anna swallowed. “I did not know anything was the matter.”

  “A cancer,” Peter Bolugayevski explained. “He was told he did not have a year to live, last Christmas.”

  “If only I had come sooner,” Anna said. “If only I had known...”

  They were out of the town now, following a roadway through a pine forest, the waters of the harbour sparkling through the branches on their right, the hills rising to their left. “Do you know what happened today?” Duncan asked, seeking to change the subject.

  “What happened today?” Peter queried. Duncan told him, and Peter whistled. “Then there will be war. This is what Father always feared.”

  “What was your father doing in Port Arthur?”

  “Why, he was Russian chargé d’affaires.”

  “One of the premier princes in all Russia, consul in this remote spot?”

  Peter’s face stiffened. “He was appointed to the post by the Tsar. I can say no more than that.”

  The Princess Jennie Bolugayevska was almost exactly as Anna remembered her, tall and slender, her mass of auburn hair loose on her shoulders. Her face, always lovely but a trifle serious, was merely more serious. But she smiled at Anna. “Oh, my dear,” she said, and hugged her. “And this is your Duncan. How good to meet you, after so many years.” She presented her cheek for Duncan to kiss, hesitantly.

  “I am so terribly sorry,” Anna said.

  “I know,” Jennie acknowledged, truthfully. “You remember Georgei, Anna?”

  Indeed Anna remembered Georgei, who was her dead brother’s son, by Jennie. And he was clearly Bolugayevski, heavy and blond; he wore a dark suit and an intense expression. “Aunt Anna.” He bent over her hand.

  Anna embraced Georgei. He was a year older than Peter, but being illegitimate, was merely an appurtenance to the princedom.

  “And Olga?” Jennie beckoned the dark woman forward. Another of Colin’s mistresses, and equally part of the family Jennie ruled so serenely.

  “And Catherine?” Catherine, Olga and Colin’s daughter, was also dark, and small, and anxious. But she was all but forty, and, like her equally bastard half-brother, unmarried.

  “And now for three you do not know,” Jennie said. “Alexei.” The young man stepped forward. At twenty-nine, he resembled Colin in build and his fair complexion, but he was clearly Jennie’s child. He also wore uniform; it was traditional for Bolugayevski men to enter the army. Georgei was the exception.

  “Sophie,” Jennie was saying. The young
woman was three years younger than her brother, and was even more definitely Colin’s daughter, slightly heavy of build, with a chin big enough to prevent her features being beautiful, and tumbling yellow hair.

  “And the afterthought,” Jennie said, leading her youngest daughter forward. “We named her Patricia, after my grandmother.” Patricia Bolugayevska gave a little curtsey.

  Anna caught her breath in surprise. The girl — she was only seventeen — was the image of Jennie when she had first been brought to Bolugayen, a tall, slim, but strong body, exquisite features, and above all, the straight auburn hair lying against the white skin of her neck.

  “They are lovely children,” Anna said. “You must be very proud.”

  Anna was introduced to Father Sergei, the family priest —the Prince of Bolugayen and his family had to be Orthodox in matters of religion, and then the two women took tea on the verandah, looking down through the trees at the water. The house was not really Anna’s idea of a Bolugayevski residence: there were neither enough rooms, nor enough servants — and most of those were Chinese. While there seemed very little land. “Of course it is only rented,” Jennie explained. She glanced at her girlhood friend. In many ways the pair thought of themselves as sisters-in-law, although there was no blood between them — they had merely slept with the same men. But of course there was blood, if not between them, then spilled about them. An ocean of blood.

  “I wish I had known,” Anna said.

  “It was Colin’s wish that you should not know until you arrived. He did not want you to worry.” Jennie smiled. “And he did not intend to die until you came. I suppose that was one of the few failures in his life. He always loved you, you know.”

  “As I suppose I always loved him. You do not mind my saying that?”

  “Why should I? You should be sitting where I am.”

  “You have every right to be there,” Anna said. “But here, that I do not understand.”

  “I do not know the truth of it either,” Jennie confessed. “There was a rumour that Colin had quarrelled with the Tsar, and virtually been exiled to this place. But Colin never acted as if he had been exiled. Rather was he very interested in everything here, so...I sometimes wonder if there was not some deep scheme afoot.”

  “To do with what happened this morning?”

  “It sounds terrible. Will there be a war?”

  “Between China and Japan? It seems certain. When are you leaving?”

  “I do not know. I have telegraphed St Petersburg with the news of Colin’s death. But I have not yet received a reply.”

  “You mean you cannot leave without the Tsar’s command? You have no official post here, surely.”

  “We were sent here by the Tsar.”

  “Colin was. You merely accompanied him.”

  Jennie gave a little shiver. “You do not know this Tsar. He is not like his father. Some people say that he is as harsh as he is because his father was murdered. But Colin always said Alexander was like this even as a boy.”

  “And no doubt he remembers that you were one of his father’s mistresses,” Anna commented.

  “Certainly he remembers that. Which is why I cannot afford to offend him.”

  Anna reflected that if Tsar Alexander III was to attempt to take any sort of action against all the women who had graced Tsar Alexander II’s bed he would have very little time for anything else. “What of the boys?”

  “Oh, they must return, now that their father is dead. They have asked me to ask you if they can take passage on board your ship.”

  “Of course they may. She sails tomorrow. But...we could all go on her, you know.”

  Jennie shook her head. “I cannot, at this moment. It is just a matter of waiting for the Tsar to acknowledge the position and send a replacement. Then I will be summoned home. How I long to go home.”

  “So do I. Do you think I could come with you?”

  “Well, of course you can,” Jennie said. “I would be grateful for your company. We have been away from Bolugayen for three years. There will be so much to be done.”

  “Then I hope we do not have to wait for too long,” Anna said, and got up to walk to the verandah rail. Even this distance out of town they could hear the constant crackle of the firecrackers, the deeper booms of the rifles, being fired at random, as the Chinese worked themselves up to fight a war.

  “Will you stay with me?” Jennie asked.

  “I will stay with you for as long as you need me,” Anna promised.

  There was so much she wanted to know, so much she wanted to ask. But she had no wish to upset any of the family while they were in such grief, least of all Jennie. She was concerned by the strange absence of in-laws. Peter, she knew, had married some ten years before. And his wife had died in childbirth. No doubt that had affected him deeply, but still, as the heir to the princedom, he had had a duty to marry again, more successfully. But he had not. He had even more of a duty, now.

  He could perhaps wait a year or two still, she supposed. Georgei, Colin had confided in one of his letters, was not interested in women. Well, that was his business. Anna was never one to pass moral judgements on others — she was hardly in a position to. But she would have thought Colin would have found a wife for Catherine rather than let her grow into an old maid.

  And Sophie...she was no beauty, but she was the eldest legitimate daughter of a prince. She should certainly have been married by now. All questions to be answered —when the moment was right.

  “They’re saying that if there is a war, the Japanese will attack Port Arthur, ma’am,” Collins said, as she brushed Anna’s hair.

  “Who are saying?”

  “The servants, ma’am.”

  “I wouldn’t pay too much attention to servants’ chatter, Collins. Port Arthur is impregnable. They call it the Gibraltar of the Far East. There is no navy in the world could force its way through the Tiger’s Tail. And there are no enemies to the north.”

  “They say there is already fighting in Korea.”

  “Korea is a long way away,” Anna told her.

  “I sure wouldn’t like to be caught up in no war,” Collins said. “Specially where they’re all yellow.”

  “I imagine you’d find they bleed red just like anyone else,” Anna said. “Thank you, Collins. That feels fine.”

  Collins laid down the brush, retreated to the door, and gave a little curtsey, closing the door behind her. Anna remained seated, contemplating. What had a man like Colin MacLain, confidant and most trusted agent of the late Tsar, been doing in a backwater like this? She got up, and went to the window. It was a warm night, and it was necessary to have the windows open. The open window permitted the cacophony from the port to enter.

  She stripped off her nightgown, poured herself a glass of water from the carafe beside her bed, and returned to the window to sip it, allowing the cool breeze off the sea to caress her body. Port Arthur, she gathered, was a place of extremes, and could be quite cold in the winter. But the port was ice-free. She remembered Charles telling her that he considered it one of the great strategic ports of the world, not only because of its enormous natural strength but because it was ice-free, even in February. “It is the natural home of a great navy,” he had said. “Of course, the Chinese don’t have a navy; just a couple of old battleships.” But the Japanese have a navy, Anna thought. Would it be called a great navy? Or did they just have that in mind for the future? It was certainly a most aggressive one. A navy which would cherish an impregnable, ice-free base from which to dominate the western Pacific.

  Then she remembered that Russia also had a navy, and a very powerful one — but one which entirely lacked a base in the Pacific. She got into bed and turned down the lamp, leaned back with a sigh, and listened to a gentle tap on her door. She sat up. “Who is there?”

  “It is Trisha, Aunt Anna. May I come in?”

  “Yes. Is there something the matter?”

  The door closed gently behind the girl; in the gloom Anna could s
ee only the white nightgown. Now Patricia came closer to the bed. “I...” She hesitated.

  “Come here,” Anna said. “Tell me what troubles you.”

  “I just wished to...” Kneeling on the bed, she could not help but touch the older woman. “Oh!”

  “Does nudity disturb you?”

  “I...” She was close enough for Anna to see her lick her lips. “I don’t know.”

  “You mean you have never encountered it.” Anna lay down. “What did you wish to speak with me about, Trisha?” There was no immediate reply, and Anna smiled. “Now you are terribly embarrassed. I always sleep naked. Didn’t your mother tell you this? I am sure she has told you of me.”

  “Yes, she...is everything she said of you true?”

  “I don’t know what she has said of me.”

  “That you were...that once...”

  “I was assaulted by more than a dozen men? See how proper I have become? Once I would have said raped. Yes, once I was raped by more than a dozen men. But you see, I survived. It is possible to survive anything, if you are determined enough.”

  “I wish I could have lived as you.”

  “Well, you are very young, so you have time. Although I do not think you would have enjoyed that particular experience.”

  “Will you speak of it?”

  Anna looked down at the head which was now resting on her shoulders. “Why are you so curious about that?”

  “Because...I have never experienced anything.”

  “What should you have experienced, at seventeen? Perhaps I will speak of it. But not tonight. Will you show me the peninsula?”

  “Oh, yes,” the girl said enthusiastically. And perhaps you will tell me some of the family secrets, as well, Anna thought.

  *

  Next morning Jennie showed Anna Colin MacLain’s body. It had been embalmed, and lay in its coffin in a sealed outhouse, awaiting transportation back to the family cemetery on Bolugayen. As Anna had supposed, he had put on a little weight, but otherwise was unchanged. “I have written to his family, in England,” Jennie said. “But he was estranged from them for so many years —they still regard him as a traitor for marrying a Russian woman while Britain and Russia were at war — that I do not regard them as having any claim on his body.”