Maid of Baikal: A Novel of the Russian Civil War

“The Secretary will see you now,” the receptionist announced on his return a few moments later, holding the door open for the two officers to enter.

Kolchak’s assistant was a short man of about thirty, with steeply sloped shoulders, protruding belly, double chin, and a severely receding hairline, but intelligent and penetrating eyes. He had held several junior managerial posts in the imperial administration before joining the Provisional Siberian Government and, later, casting his lot with the Kolchak regime. Guins rose from his desk with a welcoming smile and bade his guests take a seat on the sofa a few feet away.

“Your fame precedes you, gentlemen,” he announced with a lighthearted chuckle. “I’m informed that you arrived last evening from Irkutsk with the much-talked-about Maid of Baikal. General Volkov was most pleased to wash his hands of her, I hear.”

“Zhanna Stepanovna is nothing if not persistent,” Ivashov conceded with a knowing smile. “The governor’s parting words were: ‘If Admiral Kolchak can keep her away, he is a better man than I.’”

“That issue remains open for the moment,” Guins answered, cocking his head in a thoughtful pose, “We have made inquiries about the girl, and the Admiral is of two minds about receiving her. One of them reflects the disapproval of Major General Lebedev, Archbishop Sylvester, and some government ministers. The other view is more tolerant, leaning toward my own opinion and that of General Dieterichs, the Admiral’s senior military advisor. Of course, none of us wishes to show disrespect to Governor-General Volkov or the good people of Transbaikalia.”

“Well enough,” Ivashov replied. “All the governor asks is a fair hearing for the girl. Is there anything we might do to improve her chances of gaining an audience with Admiral Kolchak?”

“I am holding open some time in the Admiral’s schedule tomorrow evening,” Guins revealed. “We have until then to decide. Why don’t you begin by telling me what you know about this Maid of Baikal and how she managed to persuade Governor Volkov, as shrewd a politician as has ever skated across thin Siberian ice, to send her here?”

Ivashov and Ned spent the next half hour recounting Zhanna’s story, after which Guins complimented Ivashov for his sagacity in handling Governor Volkov, and Ned for his fluency in Russian. They spent another quarter of an hour chatting idly over tea, after which Guins told them to return the next afternoon around four.

“And if the girl has the relationship with God and his angels that she claims,” Guins added, “I suggest she pray for God to move Admiral Kolchak’s spirit in her direction.”

* * *

Zhanna was delighted to hear that she had been invited to appear at Liberty House the following evening. That night her host’s wife insisted on washing and pressing her jacket, shirt, and trousers so that she would make a good impression. The next morning she dragged Paladin off to attend the Divine Liturgy at Omsk’s Assumption Cathedral. After a light lunch, she spent the next hour in prayer until the sleigh arrived to convey her and her companions to Liberty House.

The same staff lieutenant met them in the outer office, but this time he rose with an ingratiating smile to greet Zhanna and escort her and Paladin to an adjacent waiting room, offering them tea from the steaming silver samovar behind his desk. Ned noticed the man’s change in attitude at once and wondered what might have prompted it.

The lieutenant turned to Ned and Ivashov next.

“Georgi Konstantinovich asks that you follow me,” he announced before leading the two captains through a pair of oversized wooden doors into a vast high-ceilinged room. Tall windows extended across an entire wall, with an ornately carved double-pedestaled writing desk at one end of the room and a low table surrounded by neoclassical carved-wood armchairs at the other. Ned immediately spotted Admiral Kolchak standing behind the desk, wearing a British dress uniform, and poring over maps and papers beside Chief of Staff Lebedev and another high-ranking officer. The latter was a strikingly handsome man in his mid-forties, with jet-black hair and a broad mustache, dressed in a brown wool parade tunic with the green and white epaulets of a Siberian Army general.

This, Ned reckoned, was Mikhail Konstantinovich Dieterichs, a Russian of Bohemian ancestry who had made Kolchak’s acquaintance during the Russo-Japanese war. Since the revolution, Dieterichs had fought with the Czech Legion to drive the Red Guards from Siberia and, more recently, had led the official Siberian inquiry into Tsar Nicholas II’s assassination.

Guins led Ned and Ivashov directly to Kolchak, presenting them as the official escorts of Zhanna Dorokhina, the Maid of Baikal, who sought an audience with the Supreme Ruler. Guins then introduced the two captains to Dieterichs and to Archbishop Sylvester, primate of the Russian Orthodox Church in Omsk, who sat quietly nearby reading a newspaper.