Chapter One Thousand Six Hundred Ten
5th January 1964
Moscow, Russia
“We’re going to let your mother sleep” Fyodor said to Alexei as he fed him from a bottle. The boy had already proven that he had an appetite which the nurses said was a good thing. He tired out sweet Sasha though. When Fyodor had heard the idea of naming him for Sasha’s dead uncle, he had instantly saw the importance of it. The people would think that she had broken the curse that had bedeviled her family for decades with that single action. He might have said that it was tempting fate, but when the Doctors had finally risked taking a blood sample, they had discovered that Alexei had a normal level of clotting factors in his blood. The curse had either never been passed to Gia from her mother, or else they had beaten the odds. That had been a great ease to Sasha because while she had said very little about it, she had been worried about what would happen if she had children for her entire life.
“Welcome to the world Alexei Fyodorov” Fyodor said “It’s great big wonderful and terrible place. Perhaps one day we will have your grandfather and uncle in the room at the same time without them trying to kill each other.”
Having to juggle the schedule so that Arkadiy and their father were never in close proximity had been a real bother. Added to the mix was Georgy, who seemed to have taken a personal interest in Alexei. When Alexei came of age, he would become the Grand Duke of Transbaikal, an action that signaled just how important the Siberians had become to the Czar’s hold on power. Most of them were like Fyodor in that while they held no formal title, they had grown wealthy with the opportunities that had opened up in Siberia. Mostly, that would change with time. Sasha was the Imperial Grand Duchess of Russia like her mother, Tatiana Nikolaevna, before her.
Fyodor just knew that he would eventually have the pleasure of teaching Alexei how to play chess. The rest of it would work itself out in time.
Rural Silesia
The Wisent seemed to be happy to not have to dig through the snow to get to the fodder that was being laid out for them. They were part of the Graf’s long-term project of restoring the lands that he owned to as pristine a condition as possible. He had convinced the Reichstag of Silesia to incorporate the forest bison into the State flag and giving the animals protected status. Ilse thought that they were fun to watch. Like the various types of deer that Graf kept careful track of, one could learn a lot about the seasons by watching them. Ilse had to remind herself that these were wild animals because of how the small herd gathered here during the winter. They seemed tame until angered, then they were capable of dismantling whatever bothered them; predator, person or even vehicle.
The Graf watched from the cab of one of the lorries as the foresters worked to shovel the fodder out of the bed. Rust was sitting beside him. As always, it was difficult to tell what he was thinking in situations like this. Was he lamenting the protected status that he had gotten for these animals considering how much he had enjoyed hunting though out his life? Or was he like Ilse in that he would run with them if he could?
“Enjoying the show?” The Graf asked when he rolled down the window to the cab.
“Big animals eating?” Ilse asked in reply.
“Biology at its most basic” The Graf said, “That only leaves intercourse and defecation. Then you would have all your bases covered. Wouldn’t you?”
If Ilse didn’t know any better, she might suspect that the Graf had just made a joke knowing that she had Doctorate in Biology.
Kreuzberg, Berlin
Agreeing to meet them in church felt like some sort of cosmic joke that Kiki didn’t quite get. While she was standing there during the service, the Metropolitan was delighted to see her. The Russian Sisters thought that this was the best place to meet her, far from untrustworthy eyes in their perspective. Afterwards, she was led to an apartment building on a back street somewhere in Kreuzberg that felt eerily like if she had stepped a couple thousand kilometers east as opposed to being only a few kilometers from home.
Entering a kitchen, Kiki had a cup of tea thrust into her hands. “It is wonderful to have the daughter of Kira Kirillovna in my house” The woman who was hosting her said, “Though you do favor your father in appearance.”
“That is not what is important” One of the other sisters said, “She is one of us.”
Looking around, Kiki saw that they varied in age. Some of them were elderly while others were teenagers, probably daughters of the original sisters who had found themselves in Germany during the war. They trusted her enough to allow her access to this place, but not enough to give her their names. Not yet anyway.
“You all heard the story about what she told von Papen when he threatened to cut her off and what she has done since” One of the sisters said, “She might have grown up very distant from her roots, but against all odds the Germans somehow ended up with a Russian Princess in their Royal family.”
“I am glad you reached that conclusion” Kiki said, contrary to what Vicky believed, someone had been impressed by how she had been living. “But what is this about?”
“We figured that you deserved to see this” One of the sisters said, “And know what to do with it.”
A sculpture had been wrapped in a blanket and they obviously didn’t like it. It depicted a scene that Kiki had become very familiar with over the last year, Mithras engaged in the ritual slaughter of a bull. She could only think of a few reasons why someone might want something as grotesque as that in their house. Unless it was someone with a deep interest in antiquities, they would have a lot of explaining to do.
“You need to tell me just who this belongs to” Kiki said.
