The Lost Souls of Angelkov (56 page)

Soso’s chest expanded under Lilya’s hand as he nodded.

“Now what, my darling, my brave man? Now what?” she asked.

“We’ll get more money for the boy.”

“Were the other two really Cossacks?”

“You don’t know them.”

“Not from Angelkov?”

“No.”

Lilya ran her fingers through Soso’s beard. “He’s still alive, then? Mikhail?” she asked casually.

“He’s alive,” he agreed. “Until we get more money, he stays alive.”

“You’ll go to the countess again?”

“No. We’re waiting on Grisha to bring it to us. He’s taking too long.”

“Grisha?”

“He was in on it.”

Lilya jumped to her knees, putting her hands on Soso’s shoulders. “Grisha was part of the kidnapping?”

Soso pushed her hands away. His eyes were closing, and he verged on sleep.

“Soso, sweetheart. Stay awake. I can’t stay long. Talk to me. What has it to do with Grisha?”

Soso rubbed his eyes as he struggled to a half-sitting position, leaning against the rough wooden wall behind him. He looked at her, his eyelids heavy. “You want to help?”

Lilya licked her lips. “I see him—the bastard—every day. There might be some way. As long as I get some of the ransom.”

Soso shrugged. “Lev—one of the Cossacks—and I have decided Grisha must now provide even more money than what he holds from the countess. We want more—much more.” His eyes closed. “The first ransom has already been spent. We need him to get us more now.” The last words faded.

“But Soso,” Lilya said, a little louder, and he opened his eyes again, “if Grisha was in on it, why is he paying you?”

“We just used him as we needed him. But I showed him
I meant business with the horse. He didn’t even get his share from the ransom he brought to us in the forest.” He snorted. “I never thought he was such a fool.”

Grisha is not a fool. Her suspicions were right, then. She knew with certainty, at that moment, why he was trying so hard to get Misha back for Antonina.

“But it better be soon. The priest doesn’t want the boy much longer. He’s hard to control, and stirs up the other boys.”

“Yes,” she agreed, her thoughts tumbling. “Mikhail Konstantinovich is too strong-willed.”
He is in a church, then, or some sort of monastery
. “What priest?”

Soso burped. “Remember Slava Saavich, from our village?”

“Yes,” Lilya said again. Slava Saavich was little more than a wandering pilgrim, his burlap robe tied with string, everything he owned in a sack on his shoulder, begging across the province. He had stopped in their village, where their priest had recently succumbed to typhus and the church needed someone. Soso appealed to the count and Father Saavich had stayed.

“But Saavich left the village, didn’t he?”

Soso spoke slowly, pausing a long time between sentences. “He’s taken over a monastery, training orphaned boys to be village priests. He owes me—I saved his neck more than once. He was persuaded to help me with flasks of vodka and sacks of dried beef and sunflower seeds I took from the Angelkov stores.” He rubbed one hand over his eyes. “Right now, Misha is just another village boy in a poor hermitage. But Saavich knows that if the boy escapes and tells where he’s been, it will be on his head. So he’s very careful. But he’s sick of the Mitlovsky brat now. So are we. With
one more payment—and Grisha must provide a big one—that’ll be the end of it. We’ll all have it good, Lilya.”

“You’re so clever, my sweet,” Lilya murmured. “So with the final payment Misha will be returned?”

Soso made a sound that was almost a laugh. “And tell his mama all about the bad men who took him? He’s seen me, Lilya, and of course he knows Saavich. No, once Grisha brings the last of the money, the boy is gone. For good.” He reached out and touched his bearskin coat, in a heap near the bed. He dragged it closer and fumbled in it for a moment, and then pulled out a pistol. “He’s gone, and the same for Grisha. The finest of Cossack pistols,” he said, waving the weapon about. “Lev gave it to me. Look at the leather on the stock,” he boasted, more awake now, running his hand over it. “So then we’ll all have what we want.” He cocked the hammer and aimed the pistol at the stove. “Boom,” he said, and then clicked the hammer back in place. “I always keep it loaded and ready.”

Lilya looked at the pistol and smiled at Soso, but her mouth was dry. She wouldn’t let Misha be killed; he was a sweet boy, so like his mother. And it would destroy Antonina further. She wanted it to be like before—Misha, the countess, and her. With Konstantin dead and the violinist driven away by Grisha—and Grisha himself dead, as Soso promised—it would be perfect. Perfect. “Put it away, Soso,” she said. “You’re scaring me.”

He smiled proudly and stuck the pistol back in the pocket of the coat.

“How can I help you, sweetheart?” Lilya asked. “I want to be part of this, with you. Let me help you punish that bitch,” she said slowly. “I hate the way she treats me now.”

“Work on Grisha, then. Tell him to hurry up and get the money. Not just what he holds from the countess. It must be hundreds of rubles more. You tell him that.”

“Yes. Yes. I’ll bring him to you with the money, all right?”

Soso pointed a dirty finger at the icon over the stove. “Behind there is a letter from the boy. I got him to write it last week. Lev told me I had to get proof for Naryshkin or he won’t give us any more money. It’s there,” he repeated, pointing at the icon.

Lilya nodded. “I’ll show it to Grisha, and he’ll trust me. And then, Soso, we’ll have enough money to do whatever we want. Where is the boy, then, my darling? He must be nearby, if you saw him last week.”

Soso’s eyelids were heavy again. “You and me, eh, Lilya?” he said finally. “We’re worth more than them up at the estate.”

“Yes. Where is Saavich’s monastery?” Lilya repeated, but gently, in a soothing tone. “Far from here?”

Soso’s eyes were closed. “No. It’s on the outskirts of Pskov city. Ubenovo Monastyr, a godforsaken place.”

Lilya looked down at Soso. It was so easy to see into his mind, especially when he was drunk. She knew she might as well put the pistol to her own head once Soso had the money. Of course he wasn’t going to share it with her.

Soso unexpectedly opened his eyes and gave her a wink. His teeth were mossy. In the next moment he was snoring.

“This way,” Lilya orders Grisha when he comes into the kitchen that evening. She leads him past Raisa and Olga and Nusha, cleaning up from dinner and preparing for the morning.

She takes him into the pantry. It’s a long, high room lined with shelves containing foodstuffs: jars of pickled cucumbers and mushrooms and tomatoes stewed with herbs, bags of flour and oats and bran, sacks of potatoes and onions, sugar cones wrapped in gauze, and canisters of tea.

With no preamble, she says, “I’ve seen Soso. I know he killed Felya—as you do. And I know why. He told me about waiting for the money from you.”

She’s glad to see Grisha swallow, although that’s his only reaction.

“You know where he is, then?”

“Yes,” she says firmly.

“Does he have Mikhail with him?”

“No. But he knows where he’s being kept. And they’re ready to return him, Grisha. They don’t want to keep him through the winter. He’s become nasty and hard to control.”

Grisha doesn’t want Lilya to see how keen he is for her to tell him more. There’s something about her, lately, that troubles him. “How do we get the boy back?”

“You know it’s all about money. But because you’ve held them up, now they want more—a lot more. Soso says, if we bring him enough, he’ll take us to Mikhail.”

Grisha slams his fist onto a shelf so hard the jars rattle. “No. It’s the same story. I’ve attempted to follow their orders, but they don’t hold up their end. Do you even know with certainty that Mikhail is alive?”

“He’s alive.”

“Because the husband you despise says so? And you believe him?”

Lilya pulls the folded note from the boy from within her blouse. She hands it to Grisha. He opens it. Like the others,
it’s in charcoal on the back of a page of music Antonina has transposed.

“Have you shown this to Anto—to the countess?” he asks.

“No. I don’t think it’s wise, just yet.”

Grisha studies the woman’s face. “You don’t think it will bring her comfort to know that her child is alive?”

“And how would I explain that I have it, Grisha? Anyway, it’s just one more payment. Soso has promised me.”

“I’ve been promised the same thing before.”

“But like I told you, Soso says they’re sick of keeping the boy. And they want to leave Pskov for another province. Perhaps to Voronezh, or farther, where they can start new lives.” Soso hasn’t said any of this, but she feels it makes the story stronger. She takes the note back from Grisha, refolding it and putting it inside her blouse. “Apparently Misha isn’t well.”

“What do you mean?”

“Soso says he’s fallen ill.” She’s deep into the lie, trying to make Grisha more desperate to get the boy back. “He can’t survive much longer under harsh conditions, not a delicate boy like Mikhail Konstantinovich.” She watches his face. “Misha didn’t see you, did he? When he was taken from the count?”

Grisha shakes his head. The boy had only seen him as his rescuer.

“Then you will be his hero, his and the countess’s. You will bring the boy back to his mother. She will be forever grateful to you.”

Grisha doesn’t trust Lilya. “What do you mean?”

Lilya smiles, an odd, dark smile, and as she lifts her hand to scratch her neck, he smells attar of roses. Antonina’s scent. “She’ll be so grateful she may even decide she doesn’t have to hide what’s happened between her and you. She may invite you into the manor to stay with her.” This is a long shot, but Lilya is willing to take it. She’s convinced herself that something occurred between Grisha and Antonina the September night they were away together; it was after that night that Grisha’s attitude towards the countess changed slightly. But nothing further has happened between them. Lilya has made sure of it: she knows where Antonina is night and day.

She’s rewarded by Grisha’s reaction. “She told you?” he asks, looking startled.

Lilya ignores his question. “So you must get more money quickly, Grisha. And then I’ll take you to Soso. He’ll lead us to Misha. And if you have to sell your land to get the money, then do it. Do it for the countess.”

“What do you know of land?” His voice is sharp.

“Lyosha told me that soon you will leave here to be a landowner, and he your steward. He and his
wife
.” She says the word with venom.

Grisha hadn’t put Lyosha under a vow of secrecy, and yet he was somehow surprised he’d told his sister the plan. “Have you spoken of this to the countess?”

“Do you think I share servant news with her? Do you think she begs me,
Oh Lilya, sit and talk with me, tell me of your brother, and of yourself. Tell me what you know of Grisha
and his plans
.” There is bitterness in her voice. “Or is the countess too wrapped up in her own thoughts to care about us? Tell me, Grisha, which do you think it is?”

He doesn’t answer. “And you, Lilya? If I agree to what you suggest, what do you get out of this?”

“What do you think? Do you think I’ll help Soso for nothing? I can’t wait to get away from here.” Lilya shrugs one shoulder. “I’m sick of this life. I can have a better one somewhere else, where I’m more appreciated. A clean start, like Soso says. We’ll all benefit. The countess will have her son back. You will have the countess. And for once I will live my own life, without
her
controlling it.”

Now Lilya scratches her shoulder. She was bitten by fleas while in bed with Soso. The note within her blouse rustles at her movement.

Grisha hears it, thinking of the boy, and of Antonina. He doesn’t trust Lilya, or Soso, but he is out of options.

Later that day, when Valentin has once again arrived at Angelkov to visit Antonina, Grisha rides to the Bakanev estate to speak with the prince’s steward about the land he purchased—twelve versts that adjoin Angelkov—over a year ago.