The Crown's Game (The Crown's Game, #1)(24)
Pasha crammed the hat back onto his head, even though the ferry captain had shown no sign of recognizing him, likely on account of Pasha’s (temporary) mustache and sideburns. “No, sir. Well, actually, I’m looking for someone, rather than somewhere.”
The old sailor snorted and jerked his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of a poorly paved street branching away from the harbor. “Then you’ll wanna head up over thataway. Look for Cinderella Bakery. Ludmila Fanina, the baker, knows everybody as well as every piece of gossip in town. She also makes a hearty Borodinsky bread. That and a coupl’a pickled herring, and you’ll be filled up for days.”
Pasha dipped his head. “Thank you, sir. I suppose I’m off to the bakery, then.”
“Last ferry to the mainland leaves at dusk.” The captain waved and continued the other way toward a ramshackle dock building.
Pasha walked up the street the captain had pointed out, his boots kicking up the layer of dust on the road. This close to the harbor, there were few buildings, although the landscape was dotted here and there with izbas, small log houses, all very plain except for the detailed wood carvings of deer and fish around the windows and shutters. He strolled up the path, enjoying the cool morning air and the ability to walk in the open without fanfare and people bowing at his feet.
Once in town, the Cinderella Bakery was impossible to miss. For one thing, the whole of the village was only three streets long and two streets wide. For another, the bakery had no ordinary shop front, but, rather, an elaborate orange exterior shaped like a bulging pumpkin. That and the rich, tangy smell of rye and sourdough told Pasha he had arrived.
He opened the door and stepped inside, only to be greeted immediately by the curious stares of a half-dozen middle-aged women waiting in line.
He removed his hat and nodded his head. “Bonjour, mesdames.”
The most elderly of the women performed a complicated curtsy, involving lifting the hem of her skirt and crisscrossing her legs several times, then bowing back and forth several more times, rather like a broken jack-in-the-box. Pasha’s eyes widened. Was this some sort of country greeting? The other women in line tittered.
Or were they poking fun at him? Pasha frowned.
“Oh, leave the poor boy alone,” a plump woman behind the counter said in Russian. “He can’t help it if he was born with a silver spoon and a croissant in his mouth.” She laughed, a robust laugh as rich as the vatrushka pastries on the shelf, but she winked at Pasha.
Ha! Fair enough. He had greeted them in French, clearly not the right language for the countryside. Pasha smiled good-naturedly back at the baker, and at the women around him, as well. Then he tried again, this time in Russian. “Dobre dehn.” His accent was quite good; there was only a shred of French lace at the edges. (His German, Spanish, English, Finnish, and Swedish were excellent as well. Palace learning was good for something, after all.)
The woman behind the counter still had her broad smile plastered across her face. “You don’t mind if I serve him first, do you?” she asked the other customers, although it really wasn’t a question. “It’s not every day Cinderella Bakery is honored by such a handsome young man. What can I do for you?”
“Are you Ludmila Fanina?” Pasha asked.
“I am.”
“Then I need your assistance, if you please. I’m looking for a girl.”
Ludmila puffed out her generous bosom and held a long loaf of bread suggestively. Mischief sparked in her eyes. “A girl? Why, I am a girl. I can be the one you seek.”
The women burst into another fit of giggles.
Red flushed across Pasha’s face, all the way to the tips of his ears. He didn’t even have a hat on to hide it. If his Guard were here, they would seize Ludmila and send her to the stocks for her insolence. No one would ever dare make such a salacious joke to the tsesarevich; no one would ever embarrass the tsesarevich. . . .
Ah. Right. They didn’t know he was the tsesarevich. I have to act like a normal boy. Or, rather, I have to act like myself, but the version of myself I would be if I weren’t the tsesarevich. And as soon as Pasha got that through his imperial head and let go of being offended, he grinned. He could play their game.
“But my lady,” he said to Ludmila, who was wagging the loaf of bread at him, “although you are as beautiful as Aphrodite, and your way with words as poetic as Calliope’s, I must regretfully decline your invitation. I would not want to anger your husband.”
The women in the bakery hooted and cackled, the eldest one did a little jig, and Ludmila clutched her substantial middle, her entire body jiggling as she laughed. She slapped the counter a few times in her hysterics.
Finally, when she had almost caught her breath and the other women had settled down to only occasional giggles, Ludmila said, “Touché, Frenchie. Now, about the girl, who is she?”
The other women quieted completely and looked up at him for his reply.
“Well, you see, therein lies the problem,” Pasha said. “I don’t know.”
“What does she look like?”
“She has red hair, like the most hypnotizing part of a flickering flame, and her voice is both melodic and unflinching.”
The women sighed, and if he saw correctly, the eldest one batted her eyelashes at him.
Ludmila smiled kindly, all jest in her expression gone. “Ah, to be young and in love.”