Chapter Twenty-Two
Shinyo Maru
Aboard the Shinyo Maru
Most of the passenger ships of the world, along with a good many of its freighters, were busy carrying troops, supplies, and equipment to the great war raging in France. Russia itself had only ever had a couple of passenger liners, and those, too, had been impressed by one ally or another. Even had they not been impressed, they’d been home-based on the Atlantic while the only safe route for the two younger grand duchesses had been across the Pacific.
Japan, however, still had one or two free, while a tramp steamer had been found at Vladivostok to bring the party to Yokohama. There they’d booked passage on the Shinyo Maru, a Nagasaki-built liner of some thirteen thousand, four-hundred twenty-six Gross Registered Tons. As a Japanese ship, the Katori was both spotlessly clean and yet lacking in creature comforts.
Anastasia shivered and pulled her cloak closer around her as she stepped out of her cabin. It wasn’t the same fur-lined hooded cloak she’d had as a child when they’d go out on her father’s yacht, but it was made of good wool and did the job. Though she’d meticulously tied her hair back, the ocean wind whipped around her, teasing strands free to float about her face as she walked.
They’d had a company of guards for the trip across Siberia to Vladivostok, a company and a great many men of the Czech Legion being dropped off to secure the railway. Now they had a few guards and Dostavalov, who had possibly been their dead sister’s lover; none could say. Rather, of the two people who might have known, Dostavalov had, so far, kept his own counsel, while dear Olga was dead to a Red’s bullets.
Underneath the girl’s cloak, one hand fingered and caressed a slightly scarred piece of jewelry, built around a large blue sapphire, with the pearls of a choker emanating to either side. She could hardly put into words the affection she held for that bright blue, faceted stone. To call it a good luck charm was wholly inadequate.
This journey felt like it was stretching on forever. It had only been a few weeks since she’d last embraced her eldest remaining sister and departed on this next adventure. She’d been so excited to leave Imperial House, she remembered, for newly won Yekaterinburg where Tatiana would set up the new but temporary court, when she arrived, and where the two younger sisters could get passage east.
She couldn’t forget the prison Imperial House had been. Nor how helpless she’d felt seeing her parents, her sister, her brother die at the hands of Bolshevik murderers . . .
Anastasia shook her head and pushed such dark thoughts away. She turned and focused her blue eyes on the steely gray horizon and the white-streaked water all around them. The old Anastasia had been a helpless child. She was no longer that girl.
She could not afford to be that girl.
Antastasia fought off another shiver that had nothing to do with the temperature and squared her shoulders. This Anastasia was more than just a mischievous princess. She was her sister’s heiress, though it had not been publicly announced yet. If, God forbid, something happened to Tatiana, Anastasia would be Empress, and the weight she’d noticed on her sister’s shoulders would be hers to bear.
“Dreaming of a handsome prince, Nastenka?” Maria’s voice, light and playful, drifted over on the breeze. Anastasia smiled and turned to her fellow “little,” where “little pair” and “big pair” had, in days past, referred to her and Maria, on the one hand, and Olga and Tatiana, on the other.
She slipped the sapphire and pearls into an interior pocket of her cloak.
“Not exactly,” Anastasia admitted. “I was watching the sea and thinking about adventures.”
“You’re still such a little girl.” Maria’s gentle tone and ripple of laughter took any sting or rebuke out of the words, but Anastasia felt her usual mulishness begin to stir anyway. She held herself stiffly as Maria joined her at the ship’s rail and threaded her arm through Anastasia’s.
“But that’s all right,” Maria went on. “For you are only seventeen.”
“You’re only two years older,” Anastasia shot back.
“Yes, and I’m the same age Grandmama was when she married.”
“Tatiana said the same thing.” Anastasia let out a sigh and leaned her head down to rest on her taller sister’s shoulder. “She said I should have to grow up quickly.”
“The Tsarina speaks truly,” Maria’s emphasis held the gentle note of disapproval that had become something of a constant whenever she spoke to either of her sisters. “We are all alone in the world without our sainted parents. We must conduct ourselves as grown women and Imperial Grand Duchesses ought.”
“We have Grandmama,” Anastasia pointed out. She felt herself smile at the thought of their grandmother. They’d not spent a lot of time together when Anastasia was a child, due to the fact that the Dowager Empress and the Tsarina were often at odds. So while Maria Feodorovna was not a complete stranger, Anastasia had only had vague memories of glittering jewels, kind hands, and beautiful eyes.
However, in her letters, Maria Feodorovna communicated a quick intelligence and deep, passionate loyalty to the cause of Imperial Russia. She’d given them some preliminary plans and provided some basic—though sometimes quite cutting and funny—dossiers on the individuals they would meet in Britain.
“I think it very likely,” Grandmama had written in a joint letter to Maria and Anastasia, “that His Majesty King George nurtures a hope that the Prince of Wales might form an attachment to one of you two girls. Our families are closely related, it is true, but such an arrangement might very well suit everyone involved. His Highness is a handsome, intelligent man, to be sure, and he could not do better than a daughter of Imperial Russa as his future queen.”
Maria had gasped and clutched the papers to her chest when she’d read the letter out to Anastasia in the privacy of their shared cabin. Her eyes had shone with tears and hope, and she’d been unable to think or talk about anything except “Cousin David” since.
Anastasia didn’t say anything to dissuade her sister from her increasingly fervid obsession. If Tatiana wished to strengthen ties with Britain by making Maria Princess of Wales, then it wasn’t her place to object. But still, in the back of her mind, Anastasia couldn’t help but wonder if His Highness was really the paragon that the news reports and Maria’s fantasies made him out to be.
“Shall we take a turn about the deck?” Maria suggested, recalling Anastasia’s thoughts to the present. “You will want to keep up your exercise, lest you become too pudgy to receive any attention in London at all!”
“I am a Romanov Grand Duchess,” Anastasia said, her tone dry. But she let Maria pull her into motion. “I could be an absolute warthog and I would still receive attention.”
“That would have been true if Papa were still alive,” Maria said. “But you must know that our situation is much reduced. You will want to look your best if you’re to attract a powerful husband.”
“I’m sure you’re correct,” Anastasia said, though privately she disagreed. People would be interested in her for the novelty, if nothing else. And as Tatiana’s heiress . . .
Well. Perhaps it was better not to think too much about that at the moment.
“Besides,” Maria went on, “the people will love you more if you’re beautiful. The newspapers do not like to comment on ugly princesses, but they will spend paragraphs on a beautiful girl’s gown. Grandmama would agree. You saw how she wrote of the importance of making a good first impression, not just on your husband and his family . . . but on his people as well. If they love you, they will support you. Think how our people loved her and our dear mama!”
Only they didn’t love Mama. Anastasia stumbled as the thought impacted her with the force of a slap. They loved Grandmama, but Mama was too withdrawn and shy . . . and she took too long to have Alexei.
Anastasia had loved her mother, of course, but she’d always known that she had been a disappointment to her shy, sickly, withdrawn parent. Alexandra Feodorovna had rarely spoken to Anastasia except to scold or correct her . . . rather like Maria since their rescue. But while Maria was still gentle and loving in her corrections, Mama had been more and more waspish as years of strain and illness had taken their toll on her fragile nerves.
And the people hated her, Anastasia realized abruptly. They hated her and they hated Papa enough to give the Bolsheviks a foothold for their “revolution.” I cannot—We cannot be the same. The Russian people must love us if we’re to survive.
That’s why Tatiana defied everyone to fight in that horrid battle. That’s why her coronation regalia included a rifle and a helmet! The Russian people will—and do!—love her for her courage.
How can I make them love me?
Once more, Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova turned her eyes to the unrelenting emptiness of the ocean. While her sister chattered on about gowns and hairstyles and the importance of proper deportment and propriety, Anastasia realized something. It wasn’t a husband she needed to woo. It was a population. More than one, perhaps.
Somehow, she needed to make not just one man, but the entire world fall madly in love with her. Enough that they would send men and weapons and money to support Tatiana’s war against the Bolsheviks.
Enough that her sister, her family, their dynasty would survive.
And she was only seventeen.