Chapter 33: Bloody Sunday (3)

Before Bloody Sunday, the authority of the Tsar in Russia had been nothing short of absolute.

Legally and religiously alike, the Tsar was the autocrat of Russia in the truest sense of the word.

[The Emperor of All Russia is an autocratic and unlimited monarch. Obedience to his supreme authority, not merely out of fear of punishment but as a matter of conscience, is commanded by God Himself.]

That was the wording planted, of all places, right there in Article 1 of the Fundamental Laws of the Russian Empire.

The people, too, regarded the Tsar as something close to a demigod, and followed him in the belief that he was the father of every subject.

It was simply that Nicholas II, a man who held all that immense power and still could not command a single person around him and ran the country into the ground, was on another level entirely.

But this time, even so, the case was different.

Before the eyes of tens of thousands of citizens, the Grand Dukes had defied the Emperor’s order to his face and been arrested, an event for the history books.

On top of that, the Emperor had crushed the Grand Dukes’ orders to open fire on those same citizens and had even promised to improve the workers’ conditions.

How must the people who had witnessed such a thing with their own eyes have felt?

“So the Tsar, he actually…!”

“I’m telling you, the Tsar ordered those damned bastard Grand Dukes arrested!”

“Ooooooh! Great Tsar!”

Nicholas II was not the only man whose dopamine had exploded harder than at any other point in his life.

Every citizen who had been there began, the moment they dispersed, telling everyone they knew about what had happened that day.

How could anyone hold it in?

They had become witnesses to something they would never see again as long as they lived.

It was only natural to pass on what they had seen and heard and felt to family, friends, relatives, to anyone they had the slightest connection with.

“Young Master, the workers who gathered for the demonstration have all dispersed for now. According to Father Gapon, opinion favorable to His Majesty is in the overwhelming majority.”

“Of course it is. They saw all of it with their own eyes.”

Something close to rapture lit Section Chief Yakov’s eyes.

“Young Master, we must not let this opportunity slip. We have to ride the momentum, drive out every last one of the Grand Dukes, and set His Majesty’s authority upright again. The day Russia returns to what she ought to be is truly close at hand.”

“You’re right. We’re almost there. Though there is still exactly one piece of the puzzle left.”

“One piece, you say…?”

I looked out the window and ran briefly through the state of things.

With three Grand Dukes arrested on the spot, every basic requirement for a purge was now in place.

The truth was that so long as he had a clear pretext, the Tsar had the authority to cut down even a Grand Duke.

The Tsar of Russia was a genuine autocrat with unlimited power, after all.

-Niki actually banished a Grand Duke once for going off and marrying whoever he wanted. The authority itself is no joke, is what I’m saying.

Punishment itself was possible, certainly, but if he used this as grounds to strip away every scrap of their real power and push all the way to confiscation of property, sympathy would slowly begin to raise its head among the nobility.

The workers would of course be shouting long live the Tsar, but the Tsar had no choice but to care rather more about what the nobles thought.

To the nobility, peasants and workers were creatures who deserved to be trampled and exploited and bled dry, and now a man was to be saddled with treason merely for ordering a few shots fired at such lowborn rabble?

Setting aside the question of who was right and who was wrong, the problem was that a fear of ‘if they’ve brought down a Grand Duke this time, aren’t we next?’ could spread like a contagion.

“Section Chief, where do you think the proper line is?”

“Frankly, I would count us fortunate to strip them of their real power and shove them into sinecure posts. For men holding the rank of Grand Duke, even that much punishment would be unheard of.”

Certainly, even that much would be received by the world at large as an enormous punishment.

Yakov’s judgment was not wrong.

By any common-sense measure it was a perfectly reasonable line.

But I had no intention of stopping there.

Having set a stage this large and played a hand this extreme, ending it with nothing more than a transfer to some sinecure would leave embers behind without fail.

If a man draws a gun and levels it at his opponent and then settles for putting a round in an arm or a leg, there is no law saying a hole will not one day be blown through the back of his own head.

-Right, if you’re gonna start it, finish it properly. Besides the three you bagged this time, there’s still two more left, isn’t there?

“Section Chief, what are the Grand Dukes who weren’t caught up in this doing?”

“They are quiet for the moment. Still… I imagine they will be feeling out the mood and trying to work up sentiment among the nobility that too harsh a punishment would be a pity.”

“That’s what I thought. In that case, we had better throw them some bait.”

Nicholas II, a reed of a man who changed his mind three times in a single day, would obviously go soft the instant the nobles began stirring up opinion.

He was the very definition of a pushover, a man who believed that a true Christian ought to seek God in prayer and then forgive.

So, to make certain that nothing whatsoever could shake my father’s resolve, you lot are going to jab the Tsar’s raw nerve for me.

* * *

Three Grand Dukes had been arrested at the scene, but two more remained who had not yet been put behind bars.

Nicholas Nikolaevich and Alexander Mikhailovich.

Nicholas Nikolaevich had not been present on the day of Bloody Sunday, which placed him outside any direct charge of insubordination, and Sandro, whose younger brother Mikhailovich stood with the Tsar, found himself straddling an oddly neutral zone.

But neither man could possibly be at ease.

Vladimir, Kirill, and Sergei had been arrested.

They had been on the same side, so how could they not know they were next?

“If we’re dragged off like this, it’s finished. We have to make some kind of bargaining chip.”

Seated across from one another in Nicholas Nikolaevich’s mansion, both men wore expressions of the utmost desperation.

“With the mood as it is, we can hardly defy the Emperor to his face… The best we can manage is to draw out an agreement that ends this at removal from office, wouldn’t you say?”

“That is true, but the problem is that an agreement requires something to offer in return… What is there that we can put on the table just now?”

“Well… a rather interesting piece of information came to me recently.”

Nicholas Nikolaevich lowered his voice.

It was confidential intelligence he had stumbled upon by chance after mobilizing every informant he had planted in the palace, on the off chance of getting a grip on some weakness of the Tsar’s.

“That boy from the Odoyevsky collateral line whom Niki is so fond of. An intelligence report came in that there is something strange about the child’s origins.”

“Strange how?”

“The Odoyevskys are a house whose direct line died out, are they not? And then a boy from a collateral branch, parents conveniently deceased, pops up with impeccable timing? The very fact that Grand Duke Mikhailovich was the one who brought him in is suspicious. There is every possibility the lineage was fabricated.”

Sandro narrowed his eyes and nodded.

Mikhailovich was his own younger brother, certainly, but he was in no position now to let sentiment shackle him.

Reviewed objectively from beginning to end, the Odoyevsky boy’s very existence was indeed a little suspect.

“So what is it you propose we do?”

“Not touch the boy directly, but offer to smooth the matter over. If rumors about the child’s origins begin to circulate, Niki will find himself in an awkward position, won’t he? An offer to stop that could serve as bargaining chip enough.”

And one more thing on top of it.

“Tsesarevich Alexei’s health can be used in much the same vein.”

“His health, meaning….”

“Everyone has guessed it, have they not. Hemophilia. And if we were to go spreading it about outside, it is the Tsar who would be in trouble.”

Nicholas Nikolaevich raised a finger.

“We shall quiet the rumors concerning the Odoyevsky child. We shall also keep the mouths shut of those slandering His Imperial Highness the Tsesarevich over his health. Attach those two as our conditions, and given Niki’s temperament, a man who wants above all to avoid conflict, surely he will bite?

Sandro thought it over for a moment, then nodded gravely.

“…Not bad. Since it takes the form of an offer of assistance from beginning to end, it will not come across as a threat, either.”

The hemophilia was an open secret among the imperial family in any case, so it hardly amounted to a threatening remark.

The one that might feel like a threat was the boy from the Odoyevsky collateral branch… well, if they were offering to quietly handle a matter that might humiliate the Tsar, he was unlikely to take great offense.

The two men’s calculation was simple and sure.

The Niki they had known until now could not help but waver at this much.

The boy’s identity leaking out, the Tsesarevich’s hemophilia becoming common knowledge, from the Tsar’s position he would want neither of those things, not for anything, after all.

They were proposing an agreement in the first place, so what could there possibly be to object to?

A few days later, their course decided, the two Grand Dukes requested an audience with the Emperor.

Entering the audience chamber, the pair maintained the deferential manner they had prepared beforehand and gently broached the subject.

“Your Majesty, we too have been sick with worry, for it seems the dignity of the imperial house has been greatly diminished by this affair.”

“Hmm… is that so.”

“Yes. We fully acknowledge that there are matters for which we must answer ourselves. Only, for the sake of the imperial house’s stability, must the turmoil not end here?”

The Tsar’s expression wavered slightly, but he did not throw the two of them out.

Which surely meant he was willing enough to hear what they had come to say.

“Your Majesty, as members of the imperial house ourselves, and by way of helping to settle this commotion, there is one service we should like to render Your Majesty.”

Nicholas Nikolaevich leaned forward slightly and dropped his voice another notch.

“Of late there have been some ill-omened rumors circulating concerning the child of the Odoyevsky collateral line whom Your Majesty holds dear. That his origins are doubtful, that the lineage was fabricated… We shall cooperate actively in keeping mouths shut so that such malicious nonsense does not spread.”

For an instant, the Tsar’s eyelids trembled faintly.

“And one thing more, Your Majesty. There are also those who would spread petty slanders regarding His Imperial Highness the Tsesarevich’s health. We shall lend our strength to putting that to rest as well.”

Sandro carefully added a word of his own.

“Who would dare wag his tongue about Your Majesty’s family? We Grand Dukes shall be a shield for the imperial house.”

It was framed, from beginning to end, as an offer of help. This was not a threat but a proposal.

The Niki of before would have wavered here.

But the two Grand Dukes did not know where this information had leaked from.

Nor, naturally, could they know the true identity of the boy from the Odoyevsky collateral branch.

For it was beyond imagining that Nicholas II, that devoted family man whose love for his wife and daughters knew no bounds, could possibly have an illegitimate son.

How could they ever have guessed that an offer to stabilize the Tsesarevich’s succession, with the Odoyevsky business smoothed over on the side, could reach the Tsar’s ears as nothing but a threat to take both of his sons hostage?

The air in the audience chamber turned abruptly cold.

The Tsar’s quivering gaze changed.

A dark, knife-edged light settled into eyes that had been merely heavy a few seconds before.

“So. You would lay hands not only on the authority of the Tsar, but dare to touch my children as well. That is what you are telling me.”

“…I beg your pardon? No, Your Majesty. Touch your children? What can you mean by that? It is nothing of the sort. We wish only to offer unstinting help in stabilizing His Imperial Highness the Tsesarevich’s succession….”

“Will you not shut that mouth!”

A shout close to outright cursing, the like of which had never once been heard from Nicholas II’s mouth, tore out of him.

The two Grand Dukes, of course, could not understand it.

No… surely the fact that Tsesarevich Alexei had hemophilia was an open secret within the imperial family.

It was not even being used as leverage, it was a proposal to come to terms, nothing more, so what reason was there to rage like this.

“Your Ma….”

“I meant to bear with you because you are the elders of this house, and yet you insist on trampling the last line of my patience. If that is your wish, I shall grant it. I promise you in the name of the Emperor. I will see you tried for treason, thoroughly, without fail.”

Without a single exception, all five Grand Dukes.

With those words, Nicholas II shoved back his chair and rose.

Like a beast whose young had been threatened in its own den.

~~~

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