Princes and Peasants Read online

  PRINCES AND PEASANTS

  THE TSAR’S DRAGONS: BOOK TWO

  CATRIN COLLIER

  The second volume in the epic tale of John Hughes, who founded a city on the Russian steppe – Hughesovka – and the people who followed him there.

  For people like Hughes’ right-hand man, Glyn Edwards, who has found love in a new country, and Anna Parry, a Welsh orphan who has found fulfilment working in Hughesovka’s hospital, the city is a chance to build a new life – but fresh arrivals from their hometown have come to cause trouble and threaten the peace and stability of that new existence. Meanwhile, for ambitious Russians like Alexei Beletsky, the city offers a chance to change their homeland for the better – but Alexei still has to deal with the prejudices of the locals as he marries a Jewish girl, Ruth, and the new couple make enemies both Russian and Jewish. Alexei’s cousin Sonya, meanwhile, must choose between love and security – not such an easy choice to make for a woman in her position…

  For Alan and Hazel Bryant –

  wonderful and special friends who are always there for us whenever we most need someone

  When one has nothing left … but memories, one guards and dusts them with especial care.

  Saki (H. H. Munro)

  The Wolves of Cernogratz

  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Epilogue

  The Tsar’s Dragons

  The Long Road to Baghdad

  The Daughters of Hastings

  The White Ship

  Other Accent Press Titles

  Prologue

  Owen Parry’s ironworkers’ cottage, Broadway, Treforest, Pontypridd

  1956

  Every morning I wake surprised to find myself still on this earth. Is it because I have not yet completed the tasks appointed to me by fate? So many files to read – so many papers, letters and photographs to archive – so many years to record. And not just years – an entire history, not just of a people, but a town – or is it two towns?

  First there was the one named for John Hughes, the man the Russians christened ‘The Iron Tsar’, for bringing industry and railways to the country, catapulting it into the modern age. He imagined the town before a single brick had been laid, nurturing it through the dangerous early years into a wealthy, full, and hedonistic mature life. Then in 1924, in the aftermath of the bloodiest war in history and the revolution it spawned in Russia, John Hughes’s town on the steppe, which had evolved into a city, was renamed for a new Tsar. Stalino.

  Some say it was named for the steel it produced, not the leader of the state. But either way it will never be Stalino, not to me. It will always bear the name Mr Hughes endowed it with, Hughesovka. My Hughesovka.

  I rest my notebook on the frame my great-grandson made so I can work without leaving my bed, and read the pages I’ve already written.

  As I sift through dry, brittle letters, diaries, age tarnished albums and photographs – Glyn Edwards’s photographs – so lovingly composed and captured for posterity – scents rise from the papers and the long dead flowers pressed between their pages. The perfume of old summers fills the air, drifting through the mists that shroud the years, evoking memories of my Russia more vivid and redolent than those conjured by mere words alone.

  I pick out Glyn Edwards’s letters. Some were written before Mr Hughes imported the Welsh metalworkers and colliers, long before the gamblers and adventurers flocked to colonise the Iron Master’s new town. Men and women who saw the possibility of making their own fortunes in the enterprise of Mr Hughes’s New Russia Company. They came, first in their hundreds, then their thousands.

  Salesmen, shopkeepers, hoteliers, priests, whores and whoremongers, murderers, thieves, the moral and the downright criminal of every nationality, all crowded into a few square miles. Forced to live next to, if not to respect, their neighbours. Every one of them drawn by one man’s vision of a brave new industrial town that promised freedom, equality, wealth, and a better life for all who had the strength to work and the courage to join him, no matter what their class, creed, or lineage.

  John Hughes had the vision but he couldn’t have realised it alone. I look at these papers and see the men and women around him. Men like Glyn Edwards, six and a half feet tall in his stockinged feet, heavily built, as handsome and swarthy as a gypsy. Russian aristocrat Alexei Beletsky with blond hair and mischievous blue eyes that belied his angelic features. Nathan Kharber and his sister Ruth, both slight and dark, with Jewish features and eyes that could pierce the soul. Dr Peter Edwards, who journeyed to Russia only to find death waiting on the steppe. Count Nicholas Beletsky, cold and arrogant, self-serving aristocrat to the core. My brother, Richard Parry, just out of boyhood, with the dark curly hair and blue eyes of the Irish – and myself, Anna Parry, the youngest, smallest, and least significant emigrant, taken to Russia as a charity case because I was the subject of salacious gossip in Merthyr Tydfil.

  The women who became closer to me than sisters: Sarah Edwards, healer, mentor, friend; the Cossack Praskovia who could have modelled for Titian with her voluptuous figure, red hair, and emerald eyes; and Sonya Tsvetovna, who saved us all in the end with her self-sacrificing unconditional love.

  Every one of us overshadowed by John Hughes, who strode over the steppe and through life with the air of a medieval king: born to govern, command, and, above all, to build…

  Now, when the only new experience that awaits me is death, I can truthfully say that I’ve had a good life. A long one, richer in every way than the one of poverty and bondage to iron and coal that I was born into. I’ve seen and done things and travelled to places beyond most people’s imagination. I’ve lived like royalty in a St Petersburg Palace and cowered, a hunted animal, in a burrow in the ground, without a kopek or crust to my name. I’ve broken more commandments than I care to dwell on, including Thou shalt not kill. But I feel no remorse for that sin – if sin it was. Some men are evil and deserve death; if writing that makes me a poor Christian then so be it.

  Perhaps that is why I’ve lived so long. Ninety-nine years on this earth and still God doesn’t want me in his heaven. Possibly He’s asked Satan to prepare a place for me but the Devil is also reluctant to extend an invitation.

  I sense my thoughts meandering into philosophy: the hobby of the ancients, the bane of the young. I’m not so decrepit that I can’t recall my irritation when I was on the receiving end of lectures from my elders. I believed I knew everything then, just as my grandchildren and great-grandchildren do now. They sit next to my bed with grave unlined faces, solemn-eyed in the face of my old age and impending death, so sure of their knowledge and themselves.

  They try to fool me, and themselves, that I have a future. That my life isn’t coming to an end.

  It is, but it’
s not over … not yet, not while I can still hold a pen and dream of the past. My last and most precious possession.

  I’ve often wondered if memories and emotions, like disease, can be transmitted from one person to another. If so, that would explain why I’ve always felt so acutely the pleasures and pain of those I’ve loved.

  I can pick out his voice above the others in the garden. The language is different, but not the voice. It is his great-grandfather’s.

  I turn back to my book

  September 1871: the month Sarah Edwards and my brother Richard married in a simple ceremony in the Anglican Church in Taganrog, two days before they came face to face on the Taganrog quayside with Edward Edwards, Betty Edwards, Alice Wilkins, and my brothers Morgan and Owen Parry.

  September 1871: the continuation of the early wild years when no lone unarmed woman – or man – was safe on the streets of Hughesovka; when a visiting Moscow journalist wrote, ‘Hughesovka – all the dregs of mining industry life gather here. Everything dark, evil and criminal – thieves, hooligans, all such, are drawn here. You cannot go out at night without risking violent death.’

  Chapter One

  Reception, Hotel Bristol, Taganrog

  September 1871

  ‘The entire third floor?’

  The receptionist looked over his spectacles at the German standing in front of the desk. The blond man was slim and imposing, with an undeniably aristocratic air. His black travelling suit, hat, and cape were expensive and immaculate. He could have just stepped out of a St Petersburg tailor’s, not off a boat in Taganrog Harbour

  ‘Prince Roman Nadolny took a liking to the suite on the third floor that overlooked the gardens the last time he was here, he recommended it to me.’

  ‘The suite is free, but the other rooms…’

  ‘I am Hans Becker, the prince’s confidential private secretary. The other rooms will be needed by my associate, and Grand Duke Konstantin’s private secretary and our valets, for however long it will take our escort to assemble to take us from here to Hughesovka.’

  ‘But there are guests in the rooms.’

  ‘Move them.’

  The warning the manager had given him when the receptionist had been given his post echoed through his mind: ‘Aristocratic servants are always more imperious than aristocrats.’ He steeled himself for argument. ‘But they have paid in advance…’

  Hans Becker waved the receptionist’s ‘but’ aside. ‘No matter. I will recompense them for any inconvenience. You have Cossack officers and troops staying here?’

  ‘Yes, sir. They are waiting for an important shipment to be delivered into the harbour for Mr Hughes’s new town.’

  ‘A message for their commanding officer. To be delivered as a matter of urgency.’ Hans Becker handed the receptionist an envelope. ‘Grand Duke Konstantin’s secretary and our valets will be disembarking from Prince Roman’s yacht shortly, as well as the prince’s associate. Please have rooms ready for the five of us for one, possibly two or more nights. We will be leaving for Hughesovka with the Cossacks. Have the prince’s carriages arrived from the Crimea?’

  ‘I think so,’ the receptionist stammered.

  ‘Think so?’ Hans repeated. ‘Either they have or they haven’t. Which is it?’

  ‘I believe the senior groom took delivery –’

  ‘Order one of the carriages to the quayside immediately to pick up the passengers from the prince’s yacht.’

  Overwhelmed by the mention of both the prince and Grand Duke Konstantin, it was as much as the receptionist could do to murmur, ‘Yes, your Excellency.’

  ‘I am Herr Becker, not “your Excellency”. We will require a meal. Place menus in all five rooms. The Grand Duke’s staff, like the prince’s and his associates’, never eat in public dining rooms.’

  ‘Yes, your … Herr Becker.’

  ‘I’ll need a bellboy to carry my luggage to my suite.’

  ‘Yes, Herr Becker.’

  ‘And a key.’

  ‘Certainly, Herr Becker.’ Still flustered, the clerk finally began the process of registration.

  Richard and Sarah Parry’s suite, second floor, Hotel Bristol

  September 1871

  ‘Do you want to eat here tonight, or go down to the dining room?’ Richard Parry moved away from Sarah, settled back on the pillows and lifted her head on to his shoulder.

  She glanced at the clock on the bedside table. ‘Isn’t three o’clock in the afternoon a little early to be thinking about dinner?’

  ‘We didn’t have a very substantial lunch.’

  ‘Only because you suggested we forego dessert and opt for soup and salad, which were already prepared,’ she reminded.

  ‘Entirely your fault for looking so appetising, and thank you for that very lovely dessert. Pity we have to actually eat, which necessitates leaving this bed. Although we could telephone down for room service…’

  ‘It’s not only food we need, but exercise.’

  ‘If that’s an invitation …?’

  ‘There’s more than one kind of exercise, and that tickles,’ she laughed as he ran his fingers lightly down the full length of her body.

  ‘This is the only kind of exercise I want to indulge in.’ He slid his head beneath the bedclothes and kissed her breasts. ‘How people find the time to sightsee when they’re on honeymoon is beyond my reasoning.’ His voice was muffled by the blankets.

  ‘I can’t hear you.’

  He emerged from the tangle of linen. ‘You don’t really want to travel back to Hughesovka when the boat comes in from England, do you? We could stay another week.’

  ‘And travel through the countryside without a military escort as well as risk snow delaying us? If this cold wind keeps up, winter could hit the steppe early.’

  ‘Everyone in Taganrog agrees the weather is unseasonable and bound to change for the better. Look out of the window. The sky’s blue…’

  ‘And the air freezing.’ She snuggled closer to him under the covers, wrapping her arm around his bare chest before moving her hand lower.

  ‘Do you know what you’re doing to me, wife?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So I’m not the only one who wants second helpings of this particular dessert?’ He bent his head to hers, and kissed her lips.

  ‘Talking of dessert, if we’re going to dine in the suite tonight we should put our order in early.’

  ‘We’ll compromise.’

  ‘By starving?’

  ‘By asking that a ten o’clock supper of dolmas be prepared and served to us here. Shortly, in an hour or so – or whenever you decide to let me go – we’ll visit the fish restaurant on the wharf and go on to the pancake café afterwards. I fancy a plate of oysters followed by double helping of cherry blinis with whipped cream.’

  She cupped his face in her hands. ‘If it’s not one appetite it’s another.’

  ‘I love you, Mrs Parry.’

  ‘That name is going to take some getting used to.’

  ‘You’ve already had two whole days.’

  ‘It will take longer than that for me to stop thinking about you as a beautiful boy.’

  ‘Husband, not boy, Mrs Parry.’ He moved towards her. Within minutes the only sounds in the room were the ticking of the clock accompanied by their short quick gasps of breath.

  The Wharf, Taganrog

  September 1871

  ‘Have you given a thought as to where we’re going to live when we return to Hughesovka?’ Sarah asked Richard as they strolled towards the café from the fish restaurant.

  ‘I envy Alexei being able to move into his own place with Ruth, but we have no choice but to return to Mr Edwards’s house. I realise it might not be easy for you to carry on living with your first husband’s brother, but I thought we could use your bedroom and turn my room into a sitting room to give us and Mr Edwards and Praskovia some privacy. Anna will still have to live there, and as she’s my sister I feel responsible for her, so we should invite her to sit wit
h us in the evenings when she’s not working.’

  ‘We’re both responsible for her,’ Sarah emphasised, ‘and when we buy a house, Anna will move in with us.’

  ‘I’m afraid our own house will be a dream for a few years yet. I’ve managed to save some money but nowhere near enough for a house,’ said Richard. ‘When Mr Hughes starts building houses for his workers, I think we should consider taking out one of the preferential mortgages he’s offering, but we’ll need more than I’ve banked with the company before we’ve enough for a deposit.’

  ‘I have enough money to hire builders now. All we need is the land. I recall Glyn saying something to Peter and me about Mr Hughes earmarking plots for house-building and leasing them at a low rent to company employees. We should choose one as soon as we get back.’

  Richard stared at her. ‘You have money?’

  ‘I have money,’ she revealed cautiously, concerned by his tone.

  ‘I know you’ve worked as a nurse for some time but it’s not that well-paid. I didn’t think you’d managed to save enough to buy a house, not after paying for your board and lodge.’

  ‘I have some savings, but Peter earned far more than me, hardly surprising as doctors are well-paid compared to nurses. He invested in Glyn’s collieries, which is why they’re called the Edwards Brothers Collieries –’

  ‘You own shares in Mr Edwards’s collieries?’ Richard was shocked.

  ‘The same number as Glyn. He and Peter split ownership. Why are you so surprised? It’s usual for a man to leave his worldly goods to his wife when he dies. Peter also took out insurance when we married. He left me with a sizeable annuity as well as a lump sum.’

  ‘I had no idea. People will think that I married you for your money.’

  ‘They’ll think nothing of the sort. We’re having a child, or have you forgotten?’

  ‘I can’t believe this is the first time you mentioned this annuity…’

  ‘Would it have made any difference if you’d known I had money?’ she broke in.

  ‘It might have.’

  ‘When?’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘That first night we made love.’

  ‘I would never have dared.’