The Crown's Game (The Crown's Game, #1)(9)

He passed stalls full of brightly colored caps, flat on top and intricately embroidered on the sides. There was a table that specialized in dried apricots. And another with sacks full of grain.

It was around the corner from the butcher’s stall, however, that Pasha stopped and loitered. A cluster of men gathered around the butcher, who held a cleaver over a side of lamb. The butcher was the youngest among them—twenty-five at the most—but he seemed to hold court over the others. Perhaps it was his hatchet of a knife that did it.

“The Russians are a pestilence,” one man said.

“Yes, a pestilence, a plague,” another added. “They think they can draw arbitrary borders and forbid us from migrating across them. We will not stand for it.”

“Patience,” the butcher said. “The plans for revolt are underway. Qasim’s men are prepared.”

“I hope so,” the first man said.

“Without a doubt,” the butcher said. He raised the cleaver over his head. The blade fell swiftly onto the lamb with an earsplitting thwack. “We will crush the Russian plague.”

“I heard the tsar sent his son here bearing gifts and empty promises,” one of the men said.

The butcher swung his cleaver, and it again hit the meat with a resounding smack. “Bring the tsesarevich to me, and I’ll show the tsar what we think of their gifts. I’ll skin his son like a lamb and send his carcass back with a bow tied on top.”

The men had whooped and roared. Then they had discovered Pasha, and he’d tried to convince them he wasn’t a Russian spy. When they didn’t believe him, fisticuffs ensued (Yuliana had stopped listening as carefully when Pasha got into the gory and glorious details of his fight), followed by a mad dash through the trading post, and Pasha successfully evading the last of his pursuers to return safely to camp.

The Imperial Army had left the Kazakh steppe soon after that.

Now Pasha winked at Yuliana, then wiped the roguishness from his face and cleared his throat to address their father. “The Kazakhs are incredibly unhappy with our reforms. They do not like our officials or our attempts to give them land for farming; they’re nomads and believe we are forcing our culture down their throats. No amount of promising that we wish to strengthen the empire with them as our partners will work, in my opinion. Qasim’s men are preparing for revolt.”

“You are certain?”

“Yes, Father. I heard it with my own ears, and my men, in their reconnaissance, confirmed.”

“Well, then.”

“You see?” Yuliana said. “I told you it was of the utmost importance—”

“Am I done here?” Pasha asked, looking to the door.

“No,” Yuliana said, at the same time the tsar said, “Yes.”

“Wonderful,” Pasha said. “Then I’m off.” He pushed away from the bookcase and opened the door.

“Don’t forget the Imperial Council meeting this afternoon,” the tsar said.

Pasha paused.

“You will be there, Pasha.”

He turned back to face the tsar. The brightness that usually danced in Pasha’s eyes went out. “Right. Of course I will, Father.”

Yuliana very much doubted Pasha would make an appearance. He’d been on the Kazakh steppe for over a month, which far exceeded her brother’s capacity for official duty. Not that he wasn’t responsible; he was. It was just that Pasha did not like doing things a tsesarevich was supposed to do. Especially in uniform. And under the tsar’s command.

Pasha slipped out of the study to his freedom. The guards again shut the door.

Yuliana scooted to the edge of her chair and picked up the map of the Kazakh territories she’d brought with her. She began to unfurl it on the tsar’s desk.

The tsar raised his hand. “That will be unnecessary.”

Yuliana scrunched her nose. “All right.” She rerolled the map. “Then what are you going to do?”

“I’ll decide after Pasha’s birthday.”

She whacked the map on the edge of the desk. “Father! You can’t sit around and wait. An uprising is brewing—”

“Yuliana.” The tsar rose from behind the desk, slowly, purposefully. With every inch, the shadow on his face grew darker. Every second it took for him to reach his full height felt like a year. “You are not tsar. I am. And that means I am the one who knows best what to do for our empire.”

But Yuliana met his steely glare with her own. “Perhaps you’re right, Father. But let’s suppose, for once, that the day comes when you are no longer tsar. At least prepare Russia for it. At least lay the groundwork to protect Pasha and me.” She marched around to the tsar’s side of the desk, then past him, to the corner of the blue-and-gold rug that covered most of the study’s floor.

“What are you—?”

But the tsar stopped his question as Yuliana rolled up a yard or so of the rug. Beneath it lay a trapdoor in the wood floor. She pulled a couple of pins from her hair and picked the lock within moments. The trapdoor opened with a creak and a puff of stale air.

“Commence the Crown’s Game,” she said as she retrieved a small but heavy chest from the hidden compartment. It looked, amazingly, like it had been painted and lacquered yesterday, as if magic repelled dust from its shiny surface. In fact, it probably did. “Give Russia an Imperial Enchanter, Father, so we can fight if we need to. Do it for Pasha, for his birthday, even if he doesn’t know.”