Fall of Giants

He was about to tell her that they had to leave tomorrow when he glanced out of the window and stopped short.

The room was at the front of the house and had a view over the park and the fields beyond to the nearest village. What had caught Fitz’s eye was a crowd of people. With deep foreboding he went to the window and peered across the grounds.

He saw a hundred or so peasants approaching the house across the park. Although it was still daylight, many carried blazing torches. Some, he saw, had rifles.

He said: “Oh, fuck.”

Bea was shocked. “Fitz! Have you forgotten that I am here?”

“Look at this,” he said.

Bea gasped. “Oh, no!”

Fitz shouted: “Jenkins! Jenkins, are you there?” He opened the communicating door and saw the valet, looking startled, putting the traveling suit on a hanger. “We’re in mortal danger,” Fitz said. “We have to leave in the next five minutes. Run to the stables, put the horses to a carriage, and bring it to the kitchen door as fast as you can.”

Jenkins dropped the suit on the floor and dashed off.

Fitz turned to Bea. “Throw on a coat, any coat, and pick up a pair of sensible outdoor shoes, then go down the back stairs to the kitchen and wait for me there.”

To her credit, there were no hysterics: she just did as she was told.

Fitz left the room and hurried, limping as fast as he could, to Andrei’s bedroom. His brother-in-law was not there, nor was Valeriya.

Fitz went downstairs. Georgi and some of the male servants were in the hall, looking frightened. Fitz was scared too, but he hoped he was not showing it.

Fitz found the prince and princess in the drawing room. There was an opened bottle of champagne on ice, and two glasses had been poured, but they were not drinking. Andrei stood in front of the fireplace and Valeriya was at the window, looking at the approaching crowd. Fitz stood beside her. The peasants were almost at the door. A few had firearms; most carried knives, hammers, and scythes.

Andrei said: “Georgi will attempt to reason with them, and if that fails I shall have to speak to them myself.”

Fitz said: “For God’s sake, Andrei, the time for talking is past. We have to leave now.”

Before Andrei could reply, they heard raised voices in the hall.

Fitz went to the door and opened it a crack. He saw Georgi arguing with a tall young peasant who had a bushy mustache that stretched across his cheeks: Feodor Igorovich, he guessed. They were surrounded by men and a few women, some holding burning torches. More were pushing in through the front door. It was hard to understand their local accent, but one shouted phrase was repeated several times: “We will speak to the prince!”

Andrei heard it too, and he stepped past Fitz and out into the hall. Fitz said: “No-” but it was too late.

The mob jeered and hissed when Andrei appeared in evening dress. Raising his voice, he said: “If you all leave quietly now, perhaps you won’t be in such bad trouble.”

Feodor shot back: “You’re the one in trouble-you murdered my brother!”

Fitz heard Valeriya say quietly: “My place is beside my husband.” Before he could stop her she, too, had gone into the hall.

Andrei said: “I didn’t intend Ivan to die, but he would be alive now if he had not broken the law and defied his prince!”

With a sudden quick movement, Feodor reversed his rifle and hit Andrei across the face with its butt.

Andrei staggered back, holding a hand to his cheek.

The peasants cheered.

Feodor shouted: “This is what you did to Ivan!”

Fitz reached for his revolver.

Feodor raised his rifle above his head. For a frozen moment the long Mosin-Nagant hovered in the air like an executioner’s axe. Then he brought the rifle down, with a powerful blow, and hit the top of Andrei’s head. There was a sickening crack, and Andrei fell.

Valeriya screamed.

Fitz, standing in the doorway with the door half-closed, thumbed off the lock on the left side of his revolver’s barrel and aimed at Feodor; but the peasants crowded around his target. They began to kick and beat Andrei, who lay on the floor unconscious. Valeriya tried to get to him to help him, but she could not push through the crowd.

A peasant with a scythe struck at the portrait of Bea’s stern grandfather, slashing the canvas. One of the men fired a shotgun at the chandelier, which smashed into tinkling fragments. A set of drapes suddenly blazed up: someone must have put a torch to them.

Fitz had been on the battlefield and had learned that gallantry had to be tempered with cool calculation. He knew that on his own he could not save Andrei from the mob. But he might be able to rescue Valeriya.

He pocketed the gun.

He stepped into the hall. All attention was on the supine prince. Valeriya stood at the edge of the throng, beating ineffectually on the shoulders of the peasants in front of her. Fitz grabbed her by the waist, lifted her, and carried her away, stepping back into the drawing room. His bad leg hurt like fire under the burden, but he gritted his teeth.

“Let me go!” she screamed. “I must help Andrei!”