The Jewel of St Petersburg Read Online Free PDF Page A

She didn’t know she was crying. She rested her cheek against her sister’s hot arm, and it felt like a furnace under her skin.
    “I, Valentina Ivanova, caused this,” she murmured under her breath, so that her ears as well as her mind would bear witness to the words. She scraped away her tears and said loudly, “Katya, it’s me, Valentina.”
    No response.
    She kissed her sister’s filthy hair. “Can you hear me?”
    No response.
    “Please, Katya.”
    A gray-gold eyelash fluttered.
    “Katya!”
    A slit of blue showed in one eye.
    Valentina leaned closer. “Hello, privet, my sweet.”
    The slit widened a fraction. Katya’s lips moved, but no sound emerged.
    Valentina placed her ear to her sister’s lips and felt a faint whisper of breath. “What is it? Are you in pain? The doctor has...”
    “I’m frightened.”
    Valentina’s throat closed. She kissed the soft cheek. “Don’t be frightened, Katya. I’m here. I’ll look after you and keep you safe. For the rest of our lives.” She squeezed her sister’s small hand and saw a slight movement at the side of her tight bruised mouth. A smile.
    “Promise me,” Katya breathed.
    “I promise. On my life.”
    Slowly Katya’s eyes fell shut and the narrow slit of blue vanished. But the edge of the smile stayed, and Valentina cradled her limp hand until they came and made her leave.

Three
    ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIA DECEMBER 1910
    G IRLS, MESDEMOISELLES, TODAY IS A GREAT HONOR FOR OUR school. A day to remember. I expect the best from each of you. Today you must shine brighter than...”
    The headmistress stopped in mid flight. Her neatly drawn eyebrows rose in disgust. The girls held their breath, waiting to see on which wretched creature her wrath would fall. In her somber dress with its high neck and cameo brooch, Madame Petrova was marching up and down in front of the benches in the grand hall of the Ekaterininsky Institute, eyeing each pupil with the unbending scrutiny of a general reviewing his troops.
    “Nadia,” she said crisply.
    Valentina’s heart sank for her friend, who had dropped ink on her clean pinafore.
    “Sit up straight, girl. Just because you are in the back row doesn’t mean you can slouch. Do you want the broom handle tied to your back?”
    “No, Madame.” Nadia straightened her shoulders but kept her hands discreetly over her soiled pinafore.
    “Aleksandra, remove that curl from your cheek.”
    She glided farther along the ranks.
    “Emilya, put your feet together, you are not a horse. Valentina, stop fiddling at once!”
    Valentina flushed and stared down at her fingers. They were drumming on her knees, desperate to keep warm. She couldn’t play with cold fingers. But she folded them obediently on her lap. Her heart was hammering. It was always like this before a performance, but she had practiced the Nocturne till it accompanied her through her night dreams, the way the sound of screaming horses still did. She hadn’t ridden a horse since the day of the explosion and had no intention of ever doing so again, but still the sound of them wouldn’t leave her, however hard she thundered across the piano keys.
    “Valentina.”
    “Yes, Madame.”
    “Remember who you are performing for today. The tsar himself.”
    “Yes, Madame.”
    This time she would play Chopin’s Nocturne in E Flat better than ever before.

    J ENS FRIIS GLANCED AT THE DOMED CLOCK ON THE WALL. The afternoon was crawling past as though it had frostbite in its toes, and he was tempted to yawn.
    He stretched out his legs and shifted position with irritation. He was tired of the interminable poems and songs, as well as uncomfortable on an absurd chair that was not built for someone like himself with limbs like a giraffe’s. Worse, he was annoyed with Countess Serova for dragging him to this schoolgirl frivolity when he was short of time. He needed to study the blueprints of the new construction that had only come in this morning and, damn it, it was cold here in this