Maid of Baikal: A Novel of the Russian Civil War

“Does the accused swear to tell the truth as to every question asked of her?” Bishop Fyodor began, peering down from the dais as if she were a small and helpless animal.

“I agree to tell the truth, Your Honor, but only so much of it as my Voices will allow,” the girl answered.

“That is preposterous,” the bishop declared with a contemptuous wave of the hand. “You will answer each and every question, without exception, or be convicted by default.”

“But I don’t know yet what your questions might be,” she replied in a tentative voice. “Perhaps you will ask a thing they will not permit me to answer.”

The judge rolled his eyes and held a brief discussion with the chief examiner, seated two places to his left. When it was finished, he gave a resigned nod to his two fellow assessors and spoke again.

“Very well,” he said. “The accused will answer to the very best of her ability. Let the chief examiner begin his questioning.”

Father Leo, the scholarly bishop from Moscow, appeared the physical and emotional opposite of Bishop Fyodor: tall where Fyodor was short, lean where he was fat, impassive where he was irascible, wily where he was blunt. The chief examiner arranged his papers before him with long bony fingers before raising his long face to the Maid, a reptilian smile visible behind his graying beard.

“Zhanna Stepanovna, do you maintain before this court that you have received personal revelations from God? If so, can you tell us when they first began?”

Zhanna met Father Leo’s gaze and gave him a close examination before raising her voice to speak.

“It happened when I was thirteen years old,” she answered. “I heard a voice in my father’s garden. At first, it gave me simple advice on everyday matters. Then, when I was seventeen, it said, ‘Go, Daughter of God, travel to Samara and drive the Red Army from the Volga! And bring Siberia’s leader there, so that he can be elected leader of a new Russian republic.’”

“And how did you answer?” Leo asked.

“I replied that I was only a schoolgirl from a small place very far from the war. But the Voice persisted. It told me, ‘Go, go to Samara at once and I will send you aid!’ So I agreed, though I didn’t know at all how to set about it.”

“Whose voice was it?”

“In the beginning, it was simply a voice without form or name. Later, St. Michael identified himself to me, and after that, St. Marina and St. Yekaterina showed themselves, as clearly as I see you now.”

“And what made you believe that they came from God?”

“I came to know this over time because they were kind and wise, and commanded me to do only good.”

“And why do you suppose God would choose to reveal his heavenly saints to a young girl like you and not, say, to a high minister of the Holy Church?”

“God makes revelations to whom He pleases,” she answered, looking about the chapel and shifting her weight from foot to foot. “His reasons lie beyond my grasp.”

“Then you claim no divine capacity or privileged relationship with our Divine Maker?”

“As you say, I am but a young girl, Your Honor,” she responded, fixing the Chief Examiner with her gaze.

“That implies innocence. Do you therefore claim to be in a state of grace?” the cleric pressed.

“If I am not, may God put me in it,” she answered with a shrug that gently rattled her chains. “And if I am, may He keep me there.”

The question was a doctrinal trap well familiar to the examiners, as church doctrine held that no mortal being could ever be certain of being in God’s grace. But the Maid’s ease in dodging his snare seemed to vex Father Leo, because angry sparks suddenly flamed up and died away in his pale blue eyes. Several of the examiners exchanged knowing glances, as if to acknowledge a point scored for the Maid. Perhaps sensing that he had come off as the loser, Leo turned away from the Maid and addressed the judge in a languid voice.

“The accused goes round in circles, Your Honor. That will be all for now. You may call on another examiner, if you wish.”

“Let the deputy examiner step forward,” Bishop Fyodor declared.

Father Leo’s deputy was a monk in his early thirties from a monastery at Nizhni Novgorod. He was a small man with the lean, sinewy figure of a leopard and a predatory air to match. He looked down upon Zhanna with a devouring gaze.

“Zhanna, I am Father Nestor, and I wish to put a most solemn question before you,” he began in a voice laden with drama. “Take care with your answer, for your very life and salvation may lie in the balance.”

“The saving of my soul is my own business, thank you,” Zhanna replied with an insouciant look, as if suddenly infused with new energy. “It belongs neither to you nor to the church.”

“What you say is blasphemous!” Father Nestor exploded. “If you don’t care for your soul, young woman, then at least consider your mortal life!”