The Tree of the Romanovs - Part I

    Prussta's prince walked the early morning streets of his city, the acrid smell of smoke now fading on the damp wind from the south. He strode surely over the slick cobblestones of Princes Street, two steps ahead of his wizard, Morhared. This latest spate of unusual fires was starting to strain the resources of the city's newly organized fire brigade.

Boris Romanov's recent ascension, or really, reclamation of his family's ancestral throne, had affected the entire country, not the least the city-state of Prussta. The prince knew his duty — hold Prussta, rebuild her as quickly as possible, fortify his claim to her throne, and send every spare resource to Kiev for the war effort. Twenty years of, well, if not actual friendship, then surely alliance between their houses, both junior houses of illustrious lines, had taught Prussta much about Boris Romanov. He knew him to be a man of his word — even when those words were not…nice. He'd also learned that one must never, never dissemble, that loyalty meant life, betrayal death, and that initiative was highly valued.

He'd been nearly abed when the call had come up from the Western District just as dawn broke in the east. A week of strange, unexplained fires had set the city slightly on edge, yet he knew immediately that this fire meant something; and so did his men. He'd rushed to the city to seek answers from the smoking remains of house and inhabitants.

Seven smoke-stained knights clustered around two wet, grey-faced men. They stood at the still-standing gate of what was once one of the older great houses of Prussta. Koriar House, once a gracious, two-winged city house of honey-colored stone, sat like a corpse, no, a skull, its broken, black windows like soulless eyes staring blindly into the cul-de-sac.

Prussta and his cohort — twelve guards and his wizard — paused at the gate to take in the scene. The top floor had completely burned away; even the seven famous chimneys no longer stretched into the brightening sky. Instead, they were like stained, broken teeth, no, like a broken, demented crown. The wide, double front doors were splintered along the winding walk. Smoke hovered in a greasy black cloud over the wreckage. Prussta wasn't the only man to shiver.

"I say, my lord, it all becomes so much easier when traitors reveal themselves. Don't you think?"

Prussta turned to Captain Molaretov.

"Gallows humor, Captain? How…unlike… you."

A quiver of laughter shook the men, dispelling the weight of smoke and death.

"Who are these men, Molaretov?" Prussta asked, nodding toward the bedraggled pair behind the knight.

"My lord, Caspar Olegov and his son, Genya, members of the local fire brigade. They were among the first on the scene, sir."

"Gentlemen, the city owes much to you and yours during these long days and nights. You have her thanks. Now, then, tell me what troubles you so?"

The two men bowed as one, exchanged a glance thick with meaning. The older man tipped his chin to his companion and seemed to move ever so slightly back.

"Sir, my lord, Highness," began the younger Olegov. "When the warning bell rang my father and I were only two streets away. As the captain says, we were the first on the scene. This house was already engulfed by flames, my lo- Highness, glass windows on the upper floor were beginning to pop and shatter." The youth paused for breath.

Prussta reined in his impatience. The lad would talk in his own time, and surely he hadn't been called forth to hear the details of how a noble house fell to conflagration. He glanced meaningfully at Morhared, who responded by slipping away.

"Almost immediately the roof caved in — this is common, as I'm sure you know, sir. But then, sir, then bodies began falling, sir, like apples from a tree. Silent they fell, lord, nine of them, aflame. But the grass wasn't set afire. And the people, sir, didn't die from the fall or from the fire or smoke. Their throats were cut." Again the lad paused.

"And sir, once the bodies hit the ground…sir. Highness, then the fire went out."

Prussta stifled a weary sigh. It'd been a week and a half of small unusual fires. Small. Unusual. But normal, every day fire. Mysterious, yes, but no hint of the mystical.

"Thank you both. Is there anything else?"

Genya and his father exchanged another meaningful glance.

"Gentlemen?"

"Your highness, if you would permit me?"

Prussta nodded, adding an impatient hand wave.

"My son remained outside. I would ask you, Highness, if he might be excused from the rest of this conversation. Please, sir, the lad is yet innocent."

Genya started at that, "Father, Father, I —"

"No, boy. Listen to your old dad and go."

"Father, Father, no." The youth's voice dropped to a whisper.

Olegov looked directly into his new prince's shrewd eyes.

"These are new days, Yevgeny. And you have the honor of serving on the Prince's own fire brigade. Leave the clean up to greyer heads. Join our fellows at "The Willow" and await me there."

Another argument hovered on the boy's lips for a moment, then, with a stiff nod to both his father and his prince, he turned and walked calmly through the gate.

"You've a fine young man there, Caspar Olegov."

"Aye, he will be, Highness. He's learning, though he's got too much of his mother's soft heart."

"What have you to…show me, then, now that your boy has left? And who else has seen it."

"I have, my lord," Captain Molaretov supplied.

"Then join us, Yuri, and we'll see what we must see."

The three men walked carefully through the smoldering ruin. Nine shrouded bodies lay beside the verdant hedge to the right. Morhared bent over them, grim-faced.

Prussta walked behind Olegov, walking in his footsteps as the shorter man led them through to the heart of the house. If he hadn't been watching he wouldn't have noticed the tension rise in Olegov's shoulders as they pushed through the blackened slabs of the ballroom's folding doors.

To a man they stopped, transfixed. There, in the center of the ballroom stood…what? What is that?

"It's a painting, my lord," came Molaretov's sardonic reply.

"Shut up, Yuri," Prussta sighed.

What a painting it was. Larger than a man, framed in warm, golden wood. Warm, golden unsinged wood. The painting was utterly flawless, its colors still vivid, its figures so lifelike as to suggest they were about to draw drew breath as if ready to speak; the canvas neither sagged nor strained on its frame. Prussta tore his eyes away from the golden-haired figure on the right then stifled a gasp.

Yuri's grave look fled as their eyes met. He raised one dark brow and Prussta sighed again.

"Caspar Olegov, do you know who that is, that child there in the painting?"

Olegov's eye's met his and Prussta saw more than a touch of dread there.

"Yes, my lord." Olegov's jaw tightened. "Though I don't like to say."

"Do you know, Caspar Olegov, to whom this house belongs? Not who lives here, no, but what man holds the deed."

"Yes, my lord, I do."

"You shall tell that truth to any man who asks. Your prince commands this, do you understand?"

"I…," The man struggled for a moment. Then something very like fire burned in his faded blue eyes. "Yes, my lord. I surely do."

"As for what survived here, well, nothing survived here. Do you understand?

"Yes, Highness."

"Go now, then. The good captain and I can find our way out. Ah, but before you go, send in two, no, four, of my guardsmen — guide them if need be, then go along."

That weary good man bowed to his prince, nodded to Captain Molaretov and left.

"So, Yuri. Must have been you who sent word so quickly. Was it not, cousin?"

"Aye, so it was." Yuri himself sighed then — a most unusual sound coming from that most jaded of men. "I recognized Romanov at once. The eyes, you know. What will you do?"

"Do? I shall return it. Send it immediately to Kiev. I don't know how we came by it, and frankly, I don't want to know. I've known Romanov nearly half my life, and he knows that if I or mine had ever stolen anything from him and his it'd be quickly sent home again. With an abject apology and a very candid account of the circumstances surrounding the item's absence." He rubbed his tired, stinging eyes with a smudged hand. "Damn. I don't need this right now, Yuri. We don't need this."

"No, but at least it breaks up the monotony."

Prussta's bark of laughter gave Yuri a start, and a slow grin crept up his scarred left cheek in response.

"Really, Prussta. You forget yourself."

"No, Yuri, I don't forget myself. And neither do you. And neither does your cousin, my sister."

"You will send Jonnetta to Kiev then?"

The answer his mind had been searching for blossomed like a fireflower. "Yes. Yes, I think I will."

"Will she go?" Yuri snorted.

"You know, I think she will. She will know what to say. And when to say nothing. Kiev will appreciate that I sent family to return his family's treasure. And though he doesn't know her, he will not think I sent my still-beautiful widowed sister to distract him. Jonnetta is plainspoken and unsentimental and painfully shrewd. And when she discovers her favorite niece has been dabbling in treason and dark magics she'll need to do…something. Better to set her on the Western road."

Yuri nodded thoughtfully at that.

"Now, then, cousin, lend me your cloak."

Prussta slipped the intricate platinum clasp on his own fine, dark green cloak. Taking up Yuri's elegant blue cloak he carefully covered the gleaming portrait. Kiev didn't know it yet, but his family was coming home.

This story began with a painting I envisioned more than a year ago. For all that is was - and is - the focal point of my thoughts, I've struggled with how best to represent it. Dry dissertation and description of its figures? Someone viewing? A character struggling to understand all it has to say? Its actual creation? In the end, I decided to approach it in a way I hoped would best please you, pique your interest, perhaps intrigue you. For truly, you have certainly give me twenty years of pleasure, piqued interest and intrigue. May we all share twenty, thirty, forty more. Happy Birthday.