“Can you reach the Golden Hall and carry a message to Prince Voronin?” I asked him, growing to depend upon the strange little creature more and more.
He nodded, looking from me to the princess and back again, his head on one side, his brows wrinkled.
“Then you must go to him and ask him where he can meet us. But first pilot us down to the postern by which we entered yesterday, for I hope we can get out by that way,” I added doubtfully, consulting him as much as my own wits.
His face sobered in an instant, and he cast a grave look at the princess, and I think she felt his eyes upon her, for she turned and regarded us earnestly.
“Will you take me to my father?” she asked with simple dignity, as if that question tested me.
I felt it so and bowed gravely. “If it can be done at all, I will do it, madame,” I said.
And she, noting that “mademoiselle” had become “madame,” flushed crimson.
Meanwhile the tumult in the court below had somewhat subsided; not because the worst was past, but because there was a satiety of blood for the moment, and the rioters were at that very time searching the lower rooms of the palace and the adjacent churches for two victims whom they were determined to immolate, the czarina’s brother, Ivan Naryshkin, and the Jewish physician of the late czar, Dr. Daniel von Gaden. But I had only one object, to get the princess safely out of the palace before Kurakin was discovered and all was lost. Our fate hung by a hair on this event, and I had no light task before me to get her out of the palace, at such a time, and unaided, too, save by a dwarf. Yet I could not risk an hour’s delay; discovery was dogging my heels, and I could divine the fury of Sophia when she found herself duped. I touched Maluta’s arm impatiently.
“Come,” I said, “this is no time to stand gaping; show us the way to that back staircase that you and I ascended yesterday.”
But he showed every sign of reluctance, looking askance at the princess, as if he thought that her presence carried evil fortune in its train.