Angels and Flies 5: Fate

“Damn them, sir.”

“Damn them.” He conceded. There was a feeble grin.

“I thought I could escape that, by calling myself some dandy from some far off rich family, I have already gathered all the important Russian family's pedigrees, I know who hated who and who is adored, I even know which family are securely far off and would have made myself a convincing third cousin or fourth son of an archduke or boyar. So I would be treated as one of the fair crowd”

“But that shame never came, I could never chance that betrayal of myself. All through all I hoped that I would find a proper lover for me, for my soul. Even if it would take ten years, even twenty. For someone for me.”

“I never realized she would be Peter's one and only weakness.”

~

“...Strange that it happened after I gave up trying anything. Mmmm, I got my first patch of white hair then, must have been five years. Maybe more, forgive me, I cannot remember your highness.”

“Please continue.”

“It was a rather grim and merciless day. A constant of Saint Petersburg, as I came to know after those long cycles of years. Between a quick lunch with the onion breathed Poles. The snow was falling again and the slush and mud...well, has sprayed again all over the bottom of Peter's lovely white palaces, black footed peasant scrubbers kneeled everywhere beside the plank roads as they scrapped the new plater. Another thing that I came to know after those long years.”

“I was brooding as always, clutching a batch of my new essays, all dripped with anger. Academia had became different matter between the curious boy I was and the man I had to be, each paper was a defense of my projects from bored aristocrats, and so called professors who are basically useless aristocrats needing some state sponsored salary. 

Everything is about money, or the suspicion of money. Everything I tried to explain was deemed a ploy to drink from their donations, worse yet, the fake 'professors' agreed with all accusations for nothing else then plain fun with their old rich comrades, 'look, they would say, he's taking it so seriously' ridicule and slights. I must have been fishtailing, for suddenly a pair of flashing mare's teeth almost chomped off my nose.”

“What?”

“A carriage horse, or two I should say. I must have fishtailed into the pair of them, one was deadly enraged and reared its wild buckling legs. It must have been in heat for she spat on me then sent me exploding into the mud. The carriage driver, a court Jew was much displeased and cursed in hideous Yiddish, he crashed his whip into the frantic insane leaping beast, until his long lash bit across my face.”

The princesses eyes widened, their hands cupped their gaping jaws.

“The beast's sound died slowly, till at last its tortured groans died in my blind vision. When I came too...the wagon had been jerked before me, and-”

“It was painted in royal green, tapering with gold floral insseps. Above the canopied wagon roof rose two colorful poles marked in red, yellow and black. A great monstrous hand darted out from the curtains, it was so large it could have been a cyclops. I could tell its wielder was enraged. Its clenching fingers bit so strongly into the wood that the plank cracked and split. Deep riveting veins snaked across its red blushing vestige. There was a repressed snarl, and a confusion of words within. Just then I noticed to my astonishment the great hand wore a signet ring, marked with the Imperial Eagle. I was so frightened I farted in shock.”

Jakob clenched his fish and coughed into it.

“She came before my eyes."

“Long white fingers. The curtain slid, initially only a small aperture, from which a curious eye met my own, then the curtain was drawn more. She was- she must have been kneeling from her seat for she couched above her seat more feline than passenger. She was still arranging her garments.

'It's only a boy'  those were her first words.

'Don't get up” she smiled to her traveling companion and kissed the air before her.

It that second I raced to meet her face. But I was not fast enough, her hands closed the curtain in a flash and a laugh, the royal hand retracted and there was loud bang on the roof of the wagon. The Jew instantly sprang his carriage whip and the wagon raced out off my sight with a geyser of mud. My purple eyes gazed after the majestic craft, it sailed cross the mud roads like some royal barge of color, gold, and glass."

“I bent down and strangely didn't despair over all the ruined papers scattered around me like crushed petals. I was only strangely fixated on the marking on the back of the wagon. It was the markings for the Empress.”

“That's the Empress' wagon.” Dashkova tilted her head, "That means-"

"Oh, my" Catherine gasped, “She was that daring-?”

“That daring.” Concluded Jakob, his hand patted on the glass jar. Like a complement.