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“And Alexei. He’s the one who will be taking this—treatment. He will not abide such a thing—he won’t.”
“Even to be healed, once and for all? To know that he must rule after his father, so Russia will grow in strength and power under his hand?”
The czarina paced, at last coming to a stop at the window. She looked out upon the courtyard. Only her coachman was there, feeding the horses. If she agreed to this, would she be cursed into eternity? Yes, she knew she would, it was horrifying. How could she allow such a thing, how?
The young boy said from the chaise set close to the fire, “Mother, I do not want to die, and you know I will. One careless prick, and I will bleed to death. Please, Mother, I do not know what this method is, but I wish to try it. Let him.”
She hadn’t heard Alexei speak with such passion for a very long time, her poor boy, weak, pale, his skin stretched so tightly over his bones. To look at him smote her. Some days she didn’t think she could bear it another minute, another hour. He wanted this? But he didn’t know. She went to him, kneeled beside the chaise, and took his small wasted hand. “Alexei? You don’t know what it is you ask.”
The boy said simply, “I want to be well. I am tired of being ill. I am willing to try anything.”
“But this method, it is wrong, it is accursed.”
Alexei sat up, his pale face filled with excitement, with determination, and in that moment she could see the future czar. “Mother, you will listen. I have decided. I do not want to die. I do not care if the method is cursed. Do what you must, Rasputin. And give me the pages. I should like to read them.”
Rasputin stilled. He said slowly, “Most cannot read them, they are a mystery. Do you think you can?”
Alexei gave him a faint smile, and her boy’s voice sounded suddenly full of conviction. “Of course I can read them. Even now I can hear them speaking to me from across the room.”
The man called the Mad Monk, demon, and spawn of Satan, bowed his head. He believed the boy. Hadn’t he only understood what herbs to mix when he thought of him? And the blood, its directions so clearly coming into his mind?
He watched the czarina slowly get to her feet. She looked at him. Slowly, she nodded.
Rasputin bowed to her. “It will be done. I will come to you at midnight.” He was aware the boy stared at the pages as he placed them back into his black bag.
It was only after Rasputin left that Alexandra explained to her son what Rasputin would give him. She’d fully expected him to draw back, horrified. To her shock, he had not. He leaned close. “The pages, Mother, they already told me what I must do. If the monk were to bring me a goat, it wouldn’t matter.” He smiled at her, took her hand between his thin ones. “I will drink the potion, I will drink the blood, and then I will be well, Mother. I trust the pages. I will be well.”
And she said nothing more, but he saw a tear running down her face.
“Mother, I know you do not wish to believe in magic, and thus you believe me mad to claim the pages Rasputin has brought speak to me.” He shrugged a thin shoulder. “If I hear the pages speaking, then they can hear me, they understand what is wrong with me. The pages tell me I can be cured.”
Still she fretted and paced, wondering how such a thing could be possible. Alexei hearing pages speaking to him? It was his illness, finally it was in his head, in his brain, yet he had spoken with such clarity of thought and so logically. Were the pages telling him what to say to convince her?
When she turned back to him, he said, “Mother, I feel so weak, I know I will die. How can I lead our magnificent country if I am dead?”
She had no more arguments. Though her fear, her revulsion, was great, at the appointed time, she took her son to a small room in the basement of the lodge, far away from the servants and the guards.
Rasputin was there.
The girl with him was pale as fresh cream, with dark hair and fear in her glazed eyes. Alexei stared at her, felt something deep inside him stir. He heard the pages, softly singing to him. He knew what he would do to her. And suddenly, he wanted it very badly.
He said in a formal voice, “Mother, I wish you to wait outside. When it is done, I will come out to you.” Rasputin opened the door, waited for her to slowly walk from the room, one last look at the girl and her son. When she was gone, the door locked, Alexei said simply, “Let us begin.”
Her blood was so warm, like heated silver and salt. Rasputin had fed her opium to keep her calm, and so she was. The very pretty young girl sagged against Alexei as he drank, and drank, and drank from the cut in her neck. The opium in her blood went to his head, making him dizzy with swirling colors bleeding into each other, colors so bright they burned his eyes, and suddenly he was flying in bright skies filled with low-lying clouds dripping golden drops of rain to the fields below. And birds, so many he didn’t recognize, in all colors and shapes, were all singing to him. And it was beautiful, and he was happy.
Just as suddenly, Alexei felt himself thrown from the present back, back, into the past, where a French soldier, no he was far more important than a simple soldier, he was a long-dead emperor and he w
as listening to an old man with a white mane of hair and brilliant blue eyes telling him a tale of two boys, twins, one strong and one weak with the blood disease, like him. And then he saw piles of dead and fires burning entire villages, heard screams and saw the emperor’s face, pale as death, and he was riding away, surrounded by soldiers.
Then he was thrown into the future, but he saw nothing at all, only whiteness, but he heard clearly the pages singing to him as he drank. Of life, of death, of simply being. And he rejoiced. It seemed to take forever, but perhaps it was only moments, Alexei did not know.
When it was done, and the girl was dead, Alexei didn’t want to let her go. She was part of him, her lifeblood filling him, giving him a future. He rocked her against him, kissed her white slack mouth. Rasputin finally pulled her away.
He studied Alexei. So little amazed him, but this did. The pages, the pages had wrought this miracle. The boy glowed with health, his cheeks were fuller, his eyes bright, his shoulders straight. He was weeping. “Please, don’t take her away, not yet.”
“I must,” Rasputin said. “I will see she’s properly taken care of.”
Rasputin then examined Alexei, listened to his heart and lungs, checked his pupils. He stepped back, nearly tripping over the girl’s body.
