The Reverend Father Andrei had visited him thrice a day, whenever it was mealtime, and commanded that Rasputin say the Lord's Prayer a hundred times before he would be allowed to eat.
Rasputin refused for a week until a different hieromonk had brought him some bread and water to keep their game of "priest and acolyte" going.
After his continued refusal of the Lord’s Prayer, the hieromonk had brought him a stack of theological texts and he was instructed to begin his course of study.
The Reverend Father continued to make his visits daily and would attempt to test Rasputin on the knowledge. Rasputin refused to open a book and the sick game continued.
"If you will not read of the works of God," the priest arrived one day, "then perhaps you shall feel His might."
He pulled a golden and gem-encrusted crosier from his robes, only pausing for a moment before swinging it like a club and hitting Rasputin in his side.
In his already weakened state, he barely cried out but managed to look up at the man with the same contempt he only shared for one other person: the murderess, Anastasia.
Rasputin ended up staying in the wine cellar for almost six months, to which time was lost to him entirely. His body had deteriorated to almost nothing, his beard had grown out, and his hair hung in dirty shambles to his shoulders.
It was only when the priest had grown tired of their game that he allowed Rasputin to be given a small room near the other novitiates.
In the end, all it took was for Rasputin to respond to the name for the priest to tire. He refused to open a text or transcribe a word of Latin in that cell where they held him, and he kept it up as they tried to force him to study and take his vows.
After five years of wreaking havoc and suffering through enough beatings to drive him to the point of near-death, both sides seemed to call a ceasefire. Rasputin was moved into a separate shed on the outskirts of the property and began working as a handyman for the monastery.
The Reverend Father still accosted him whenever he had the chance and had propositioned him on more than one occasion when he was drunk.
For the next ten years, Rasputin listened, watched, and waited for every opportunity to learn about what was happening in St. Petersburg.
He became well-versed in the way that the clergy seemed to operate, how they hid and manifested their sins, their gambling dens, and their drunken orgies. He even began to recognize the telltale signs of when acolytes would be preparing to perform dark rituals in the tunnels underneath the monastery.
He watched and he waited, his youth stolen from him day by day at Solovetsky until he was a bitter, angry man who had one goal in mind: revenge.
Rasputin was monitoring the movements of some of the priests on the grounds, watching as they chatted with an emissary who had arrived in a royal carriage.
Glancing at the crest on the side, he tightened his grip on the ax he had been holding, praying that God had finally made himself known and he could take his revenge right here, right now.
His blood ran cold as he saw the priests turn towards him, waving Rasputin over. He froze for a second and wondered if a god had truly heard his thoughts.
“Rasputin,” one of the priests nodded his head in greeting, “it seems that the time has come for you to leave us.”
As much as he tried to keep his composure, Rasputin dropped the ax he was holding and it made a dull thud against the semi-frozen ground. He stared at the priest in disbelief, who merely nodded and continued.
“You’re being beckoned back to the palace to return to the Tsar’s service. It seems that God has a plan for you after all. The Tsar is requesting you specifically to tutor the Grand Duchess Anastasia.”
Rasputin paused, unable to comprehend the words that he was hearing. He hadn’t been able to leave Solovetsky for fifteen years and now, he was being ushered back to serve the Grand Duchess herself, as if they had forgotten what he knew.
Selfish pigs,he thought,must have been drunk for over a decade.
He was ripped from his thoughts as he felt the priest clap a sturdy hand on his shoulder.
“God speed.”
Rasputin nodded in response and slowly brought a hand up to rub the stubble on his chin, his mind beginning to move at a dangerous pace.
He watched as the priests began walking back to the monastery; the carriage awaited him to grab his things and depart.
To pick up the last fifteen years of his life like it had been a short tenure and return to their chandeliers and sturgeon.
I’m going to kill the Grand Duchess Anastasia.
7
