So few words had actually passed between them, yet she knew how he had felt, and she also knew, only too well, her own feelings. But what would prison have done to him? She had seen men who returned from Siberia, some of them scarcely human after the hard labor and punishments. Yet there was something about Jean that seemed indestructible.
There had been so little. The warmth in his eyes, the pressure of his hand, their bodies close together in the bouncing, jouncing tarantas. She had loved a man for the first time, and she had lost him. Her husband had always been more like a kind father, tender, thoughtful, and considerate, and she had loved him for this. But it was nothing like her feeling for the tall, dark, dangerous-looking man with the scar whom she had loved with a love that bridged the bitter months and made them seem an age. If this was being a fool, then she was a fool, and she had come across Siberia again, and across the ocean, merely on the hope that he would be here, and that he would still care.
Prince Maksoutof was questioning himself Kas to why she was here. Both the Prince and Princess had tried to find some clue from her conversation or her guarded replies to questions.
The Russian American Company still operated in Sitka although its charter had not been renewed. Something was impending, some change of which she could find out nothing. So far as she had been able to discover, the plan to sell Alaska had failed at the last minute. There were rumors of negotiations and rumors of the collapse of negotiations.
From the beginning of Jean’s disappearance she had corresponded with Robert Walker. In his last letter he had hinted that Jean, as a convict, might be transferred to Sitka. She knew from here an escape might be arranged and she was perfectly prepared to do her part in making the arrangements. A schooner that had come in only last night had brought news that a Russian ship was due in today, and Murzin was down in town even now making friends. If anyone could help Jean escape it was the former thief, that wiry, narrow-faced man who had never left her service since that meeting on the trip across Siberia with Jean.
At breakfast she had been gay, chatting cheerfully of St. Petersburg, the court, that handsome Count Novikoff, and the last ball at the Peterhof. She had told them of San Francisco and its warm green hills, sometimes misted with rain. She had talked of everything but the ship that hour after hour, minute after minute, was drawing nearer to Sitka. Even now it might be coming up the bay through those beautiful islands that resembled so much the islands of the Adriatic. A warmer sea, but never a more lovely one than this. She went down the steps slowly, not wishing to reveal her excitement. If Jean was aboard she must help him escape, and that before the revisor came on his inspection trip. Maksoutof had told her the man was coming, but nobody knew when.
“Helena,” Princess Maksoutof suggested, “why don’t we go to the teahouse and watch the people land from the ship? They will come up the street and if we get in the right position we can see them leave the dock.” She got up, almost too quickly. “I’d like a walk,” she said. “I’d like it very much.”
Although from the teahouse they could see little, Helena forced herself to wait quietly, knowing whatever news there was would first be known here, long before it was heard on the Hill.
The waitress was excited. “They are bringing convicts ashore! They are to work here!”
“Irina”—Helena could wait no longer—“let’s go down and watch them come in!” They came, preceded by soldiers, in a column of twos, the gray-clad prisoners marching in slow, even steps swaying as though to a soundless rhythm. The first two were a red-bearded giant and a slender man with a twisted face. They blinked their eyes against the light after standing for some time in the shadowed warehouse. There was one man, tall, whose head was bowed. It could be Jean.
“Helena!” Irina caught her arm. “Look! Isn’t he magnificent!” He stood straight and tall, and he wore his chains in this town where he was remembered as another man might have worn a badge of honor. His face was shaggy with beard and his hair was long … he was much, much thinner! But he stood tall and he walked tall. He carried his head up and his eyes were clear. How could she ever have imagined they could break or tame him? He was one of the untamed, and so he would ever be.
He walked beside a shorter man who was also bearded, but Helena had eyes only for Jean. She moved to the edge of the walk, hoping he would see her, hoping he would know she was here to help.
“Jean!” She must have whispered it, for Irina turned suddenly to look at her.
“Do you know him?” Irina’s eyes were bright with excitement and curosity.
“Yes … yes, I know him. I know him well. I love him.” “You needn’t have told me that. I can see.” Irina looked at Jean again. “Yes, without so much beard, and if his hair was cut—“ She glanced around at Helena. “Is that why you came? Did you know about this?”
“I came on hope,” she said.
Jean hunched his shoulders inside the thin coat. His eyes swung to the crowd, and suddenly he saw Helena.
An instant, a step only, he paused. Their eyes met across the heads of the people and suddenly there was a great smile on his face and Helena started forward. Irina caught her arm. “Not No, Helenal You mustn’t! I’ll arrange—“ “Whatever you arrange”—the voice was cool, amused—“do it quickly. He goes on trial tomorrow.”
Baron Paul Zinnovy was heavier, his thick neck had grown still thicker. There was in his eyes more cynicism and cruelty than Helena remembered. “What are you doing here?” she demanded. He had been ordered back to Siberia, to Yakutsk. She remembered that. It could have been only a few months after Jean was captured.
“Why, I am the revisor,” he said, “here to rectify mistakes, conduct trials and discharge incompetent officials, but most particularly, to conduct trials.” “Haven’t you done enough to him? And to me?”
“To you?” His eyebrow lifted. “To you, Princess?” “You murdered my husband.” She spoke deliberately, coldly, and heard Irina’s startled gasp. “I shall not be able to prove it, but you murdered him, and we both know it.”
“It is a weakness of women to be overly imaginative, but if you wish to see reality, you may come as my guests to the trial of Jean LaBarge for theft, for smuggling, and for murder.”
36
The room was packed with spectators. As Sitka had little entertainment, the prospect of a trial conducted by Baron Zinnovy as revisor held an unusual interest. And the man on trial was as well known to them, by name at least, as the Baron himself.
LaBarge was seated, still in chains, inside a small enclosure. He had been allowed to shave, and his clothing had been carefully brushed. Here and there in the crowd he saw familiar faces, but there was no welcome on those faces, no expression of sympathy. He was alone here.
Yet he had seen Helena. Did that mean that Count Rotcheff had never left Sitka?
Or had he too returned again as Zinnovy had?
He had seen American ships in the harbor but there was no activity around them, and he had seen no Americans ashore in the town. His thoughts returned to Rotcheff. If he was here he could do nothing, for LaBarge had been long enough in Siberia to know the power of the revisor. Appeal from his judgments could be made only to the Minister of the Interior or the Czar himself, and all such appeals were reviewed by the Ministry. Siberia had made him suffer, but it had been a few months only, and this recall to Sitka had given him hope. If he could do nothing else, he could kill Zinnovy. He needed no weapon but his hands, and once those hands were on Zinnovy’s throat nothing, nothing at all would stop him. He would kill Paul Zinnovy. It would be absurdly easy. He could see where Zinnovy must sit, and he, LaBarge, must rise to receive sentence. His guards would be behind him, but the distance he must travel was short and they would not dare shoot at first for fear of hitting Zinnovy. Afterwards they would shoot him, but it would be better than Siberia again. Or the knout. He kept thinking of that. Yet somewhere Rob Walker would be trying. By now he would know what had happened and Rob would move swiftly. No doubt he was working even now, and had been working, but it was too late. It was up to him, LaBarge, to do what he could. He saw Prince Maksoutof and the Princess take their places, and Helena with them. Her face was pale, the circles under her eyes testifying to a sleepless night. Maksoutof had been pointed out to Jean by one of the guards. He was now the company director here, and governor of the colony. But even he could be removed by a revisor. The prison grapevine had a rumor that the Company had sent Zinnovy as revisor, appointed by somebody in the Ministry of the Interior who was a stockholder, to wipe out all evidence of the graft, cruelty and outright theft the Company officials had been perpetrating here. Jean’s mouth was dry. He was tired and the room was warm. His clothing stank of prisons and of unbathed bodies. This was an end of it then, the end of all his dreams, hopes, and ambitions. Rotcheff, the only friend he might have expected here, was not present. Helena could not help him, and Busch was not present: the merchant must have returned to Siberia. He was alone … alone. What could be done? Being familiar with Russian courts, he knew that a trial was actually no trial at all but merely a hearing to air the crimes of the accused and pronounce sentence. The very fact that a trial was called meant the prisoner had been convicted.