The Winter Palace by Eva Stachniak Read Free Book Online

short.
    The Chancellor pointed at a spying hole in the paneling.
    “Stay here and watch,” he said. “When I come back, you will tell me what you’ve seen.”
    Alone in the service corridor, I looked eagerly through the spyhole. I glimpsed the shadowy figure of a woman, sitting alone at her escritoire, reading by candlelight. There was nothing remarkable about her appearance or actions, and after a while I found it tedious to keep watching, but I did. An hour later, the woman put the book away, yawned, extinguished the candle, and left the room.
    I thought of abandoning my hiding place to follow her, but I didn’t know my way out of the secret corridor, so I stayed where I was. The day had been hot; the corridor was stuffy. My throat felt raw from breathing in the dusty air. A rivulet of sweat was running down my spine. I kept pinching my arm to keep myself awake.
    The Chancellor asked me many questions when he came to fetch me. Did the woman wear a beauty spot? On which part of her face? Did she toy with her bracelet as she read? With her chatelaine, perhaps? How many buttons were there on her sleeves? How often did she turn the pages of the book?
    With each unanswered question, my hopes sank. I felt tears sting my eyes. Nothing would ever change for me, I thought, bracing myself for my dismissal.
    But the Chancellor of Russia lifted the sleeve of my dress, to display the bruises my pinching had left.
    “Impatience is the only flaw you cannot afford,” he said, smiling. “Everything else I can teach you.”
    There had been many lessons since that first one. Soon I knew how to pick locks with a hairpin, how to tell by the grain of wood where concealed drawers were hidden. I knew how secret pockets could be sewn into belts and traveling sacks, letters hidden in secret compartments of clocks or in the lining of shoes, tucked away in chimneys, the vents of stoves, beneath windowsills, inside cushions, or in the bindings of books.
    I learned how to trail someone without being seen, to tell the true smiles from those that masked treason, to sneer at the flimsy hiding places underneath loose floorboards or under the pillows, places even the least apt of thieves could find.
    I learned the virtues of distraction and the blessings of routine. I learned how to make my face blank, how to fade into the background.
    Being invisible, I learned, was a virtue of spies.
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    A secret passage, narrow and steep, led up to the Chancellor’s rooms. When he wanted to see me, a red kerchief appeared under my pillow, but on this chilly August night the Chancellor of Russia had sent one of his own footmen for me. I shivered with anticipation. The Empress had just moved back to the Winter Palace after the summer months spent at Peterhof. Could it be that the Chancellor would finally take me to her?
    Quietly, careful not to wake the sewing maids, I slipped into my best dress, of white muslin, one of my mother’s. The seamstress my father had hired before he died had to take it in, but when I caught the glimpse of myself in the mirror, the dress looked as if it was made for me. The shoes I wore were less accommodating. My mother’s feet had been smaller than mine, and my toes felt pinched.
    He was waiting for me in his chambers, the Chancellor of Russia, sitting in an armchair by the window, watching with narrowed eyes as I approached. He had taken off his wig, and I thought that without it, his head looked smaller, less imposing. I took in a bald patch on top of his head, the thick golden ring on his finger. I decided that the black velvet with silver trim suited him more than red, and that the lace collar looked particularly fine.
    Was he the powerful man from my mother’s dream?
    “Come, palace girl.”
    There was a playful note in his voice that made me feel important, marked for grand things. My timidity peeled off like onion skin. Now he will take me to the Empress, I decided, but I knew enough to hide my joy. Hadn’t he once said