Moscow, Russia
1874
I'm beginning to wonder why I chose to go to Moscow when I could have gone to either India or Australia. The former would be considerably further from London, but at least it would be warm. Australia, however, was filled to the brim with creatures that would love to kill you any chance they get, whether you were a prisoner or a native. (I still don’t know why most people were sent to Australia for their petty crimes, as most of them were so poor they could barely keep themselves and their families fed.
Since when was being poor a crime?)
Anyway, with my decision to become Leopold's mistress, I have been met with scorn from many other women who had been hoping to become his fourth mistress. Megan Kroger especially didn't like me, as I was everything she was not, and Marcilla and Vardina were anything but kind to me. Plus, the fact that they only had daughters served to fuel their jealousy towards me, as I could easily have a son at any time.
As for old George Shapiro, he was constantly butting heads with Sir David and a werewolf by the name of Magorious Hoffelbax. According to several servants who lived and worked in the palace, Magorious was cruel and unforgiving; to get on his bad side was to have a death wish. I made certain to stay away from him as often as I could.
Also, Slavena was the eldest of George’s children; she, her sister Lizena, and brother Sergio were always in poor health, as was their late mother Catelyn. I wondered what would possess George to force Leopold to marry his daughter when she wasn’t in the best of health. I don't think there's any way Slavena could possibly give birth to any children, not with her bad health. But Leopold was forced to marry her, even if he told everyone in the Russian imperial court that I was his latest mistress. To add insult to injury, the czar had agreed to the marriage. But mother wasn't happy with how Leopold was being treated, not with his promise to keep me safe from Amanuel, who was furious upon coming to Rome and find out that we weren't there.
But just because I had temporarily helped the family escape from certain doom didn't mean we were safe; we had to change our names once again. This time, I called myself Saba Adinew Mekonnen, which had been mother's family name. Barnabas took the name Ephraim while Debebe and Lemma took the names Yelena and Elizabeth. (Mother insisted that we stay close to her at all times to keep ourselves safe.)
Anyway, with my reputation as the court healer, I was granted free access to Leopold’s and Slavena’s bedroom. admittedly, I used that access to my advantage, where Leopold and I slept together in one room while Slavena slept in a tiny bed tucked away in a corner of a small room. If anyone complained about Leopold and his mistresses, the czar did nothing, not while he and Sir David had three small girls to dote on.
I also found myself getting involved with the royal family, in particular the 6-year-old Grand Duke Nicholas (the oldest child of Czarevitch Alexander and his wife Dagmar of Denmark). The boy seemed to latch onto Leopold as an uncle and Sir David as a grandfather. He was especially close to Megan Kroger, who had safeguarded him since he was born (her only child, Emaria, was a year younger than him).
While Nicholas didn’t interact very much with Marcilla (as she took a husband and lived with him and their children some miles from the Alexander Palace) and Vardina (she was often away from the palace taking care of her sick mother), he did see me more often than not. Nicholas was a curious boy, as all boys were, and it often fell to Megan and myself to keep him out of trouble.
Although Alexander didn’t like it whenever Nicholas played with Emaria, Radmila, and Vavara, he was secretly pleased by this; rumor had it that he was plotting to marry Nicholas off to Emaria when they turned 15 and 16 years old. (These rumors didn’t make Megan very happy.)
At the same time, I noticed that the czar himself was declining, as his relationship with his wife and children was deteriorating. According to Sir David, Alexander had had several mistresses before while he was faithful to his late wives Selena Drake and Noelle Kohl. (Most people in the imperial court pretended that his relationship with Flora Regnard (the mother of his daughters Josseline and Bernadette) never happened. I never knew why.) But this time, Czar Alexander II was so determined to drive everyone he knew off the deep end, as he introduced a young woman named Catherine Dolgorukov as his newest mistress at a dinner he hosted in honor of Sir David’s 55th birthday.
If that insulting act didn’t cross the line, I didn’t know what would.
Sir David ranted and raved while Leopold retreated to his chambers. Megan (whose father was a Roma gypsy) was so hot-blooded, she attacked several servants who had allowed the affair to happen. Slavena (who was recovering from a terrible cold when the incident happened) suffered a relapse. Emaria, Radmila, and Vavara grew listless and became unnaturally quiet. Even my mother said that she felt ill.
But that couldn’t compare to how the imperial family reacted when they found out what their father had done. The czarevitch Alexander was permanently estranged from his father, as were several of his siblings. (The czarevitch later told me that the affair truly began some weeks after his older brother Nicholas’s unexpected death; Nicholas was the czarevitch before Alexander claimed the title. He had named his son Nicholas after his brother, who he was close to.)
Yet that particular knowledge (as important as it was) didn’t make me feel any better.
There were times when I had a difficult time waking from my sleep due to how low the mood of everyone in the palace was. Even Leopold suffered from slight chills and a fever, as he had been fostered by the czar himself and he had lived with the imperial family. There were days when he couldn’t get out of bed, as the pain from the czar’s betrayal was so bad. I often found myself tending to both him and Slavena (who reported an unexpected pregnancy despite her poor health). So much drama had occurred in the imperial court that I believed the Czar’s title of "Czar-Liberator" had now become something of a joke to the Russian people.
But that was nothing compared to an unexpected fainting spell that I had experienced one fine day...497Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡk7G4MBbRUk
I was pregnant.
With my mother and the palace doctor's confirmation, I found out that I was pregnant. (I could blame that on weeks of unnecessary stress due to the fallout that followed the czar introducing his mistress to the Trichenberg family on Sir David’s 55th birthday; Leopold and I had several intense lovemaking sessions during that fallout.)
With the knowledge of my pregnancy being revealed, mother told me that I now needed to think about my future child. Not only was Amanuel still out there looking for us since he had failed to catch us in Rome in 1873, or so it seemed, but there was a chance that some unsavory rumor about me being pregnant would spread out all over the court. Plus, knowing that the czar would find out about my pregnancy, I made sure to keep quiet about it as long as I could. (There was no need for him to be involved in my family drama.)
As Slavena’s pregnancy progressed and was being monitored by the palace doctor and a team of healers and gossiped about by various courtiers, I made sure that I was never seen in court, especially when my body began to show evidence of my pregnancy. As a result, many people were convinced that Leopold’s current mistress was in seclusion due to a mysterious illness (which suited me just fine).
Of course, the Shapiro family was pleased to know that Slavena was pregnant; George Shapiro began to boast that his faithful daughter had cured Leopold Trichenberg of his sinful ways, something that irked Sir David to no end. If only that foolish old man knew the truth about what was happening behind closed doors (such as Leopold keeping a pregnant mistress (me) hidden in his bedchambers), he would be singing a different tune.
"Let him wallow in his delusions; whatever he says or does will not change the fact that my Leo is with you," Megan snapped as she stood in the doorway to my bedchamber. "The fool has tried and failed to get rid of myself and my Leo's other women, so he can't get rid of you so easily."
"Are you aware that the Shapiro family is very rich?" I said in turn.
"They are rich, but they're not as rich as the Trichenbergs," said Megan. "No one can top their wealth, not even if you were to work for 100 years. As for George Shapiro, he is most certainly on his way out, and when he goes, the rest of the family will follow suit."
The way she said that made me feel uncomfortable; I knew she was part Roma, but she could be a bit scary sometimes. I soon realized that she had been expecting a second child with the czar's secretary, but she suffered a miscarriage and the man died of a heart attack soon after; which was why she doted on her daughter Emaria along with Radmila and Vavara. That was also the reason she watched over me with hawk eyes.
"I'm telling you, nothing good will come from my Leo and his marriage to Slavena Shapiro," Megan continued as if I was listening to her. "Either she'll lose that baby or she'll die before the baby is born. George should have realized that when you mess with a Trichenberg, the tiger bites back. And this tiger is going to bite him hard, that's for sure. Just you wait and see."
While she ranted about what she would do to George once his grandchild or daughter was confirmed dead, Lemma (who was visiting me from Athens, Greece) said, "I don't know about that woman, but she's insane."
"That's because she came from the Kroger stock," I said.
"I feel sorry for her," said Lemma. "Her mother was sold to the Gypsies and her brother was sent to that hospital, where he died. Her sister is in Columbiana and is doing a better job of her life."
"Such a shame that that Bernard Kroger will die all by himself instead of being surrounded by his children and grandchildren, as we all should," I said in turn. "Do you remember what happened when our father died?"
"I can remember it as if were yesterday," said Lemma. "I had always assumed that someone from Amamuel's mother's family had poisoned him, which was why he was all bloaty and purple the last time we saw him alive."
"Indeed," I said. "And my money is on that Tewolde Danichew Abdi. I never liked that man. He was much too shifty for my taste."
"And the fact that our brother was willing to hand you over to him was just disgusting," said Lemma. "Which was why mother blamed him for father's death."
"And after that, she took us and we went to Rome," I said back. "I bet she didn't want to have anything to do with any more villages or the cities in Ethiopia, not after how they treated her there. and if you should ask me my opinion, i say she made the right call by getting us out of there when she did."
"Yet Amanuel and Tewolde are looking for us," said Debebe (who was also visiting me from Barcelona, Spain). "It's too bad that once they find us, we'll be useless to them. Lemma and I have married wealthy men and you're the mistress of Sir Leopold Trichenberg. I'm sure they're no match for him."
"No they're not, thank God," I said. "and if they dare show up, they'll have more than just Leopold and us to deal with."
"I'm sure that if we set Megan Kroger on them, they'll back down immediately," said Debebe. "No one will be messing with our family, not while we still draw breath."
Yet, dealing with a cruel older brother who was after you for being born to a woman who wasn't his mother (also known as his father's second wife) wasn't the only problem we had, as we also had to hide my pregnancy from prying eyes and to deal with Sir Bernard Kroger (who was still causing trouble for everyone). There were also the issues concerning the Russian imperial family and several assassination attempts against the czar, which Sir David expertly deflected. (So many people were afraid to stand up to him because they heard what he had done to the man who tried to kill President Abraham Lincoln back in 1865.)
As the months passed and a new year began, I was highly aware that my brother Ephraim was becoming very ambitious, as he had become a strong and powerful leader during his years in exile. Knowing that Amanuel had never married or had children (he has a younger brother named Kaleb, who was 18 months older than me; Kaleb was denied his place as crown prince after Amanuel became chief of our village), the people of our village were now clamoring for Ephraim to return and take his rightful place as the leader. (Amanuel's mother's family wasn't too happy about that at all; they hated my mother for marrying my father, but you already knew that!) I'm just thankful that the czar doesn't have time to think about my family problems.
Which was too bad because in the middle of my 8th month, everything that I had run away from when I was 12 years old had come to a head...
Before we continue, lets go over what we have so far:
Saba's father dies and her mother takes her and her siblings and they leave Ethiopia. They later settle in Rome.
At the same time, Saba's mother is recruited by the Atlantean Army to be a field nurse in Newport, Rhode Island, where Saba meets Sir David Trichenberg and his son, Leopold. Saba sees American solders who were wounded during the American civil war and discovers that not all was well in America. She remains in Fort Adams and vacations in Rome during the summers until 1865, when King Ihon Fitzgerald of Eirebul's airships launch a firebombing attack on the Confederate States. (Before the firebombing happens, Saba and her family are sent back to Rome to prevent their deaths.)
After the civil war ends, Saba and her family relocate to London, England, where Saba's mother works in the Eirebulan royal court and Saba is trained to be a healer. She works at a local church in London upon turning 18 years old.
In 1872, Saba is next seen working the front lines at a local hospital after the infamous church bombing in Gillamoor. At the same time, Leopold is in Gillamoor to attend the funeral of his stepmother, Selena Drake Trichenberg, who was killed in the bombing. Leopold and Saba reunite after several years apart. On Christmas Day of the same year, Leopold and Saba begin their relationship while Saba's family is forced to leave London to avoid being captured or killed by Saba's half-brother Amanuel. They later relocate to Moscow, Russia, where Saba and her mother become healers in the Russian Imperial court.
When Czar Alexander II insults Sir David by bringing his mistress instead of his wife to a party for his 55th birthday, things begin to deteriorate in the Russian court. Saba (now Leopold's mistress) becomes pregnant with all the stress accumulated from the scandal. (It should be noted that Leopold's (unpopular) wife, Slavena Shapiro, is also pregnant.) After that, Saba goes into seclusion while the cruel Shapiro family gains influence in the court.
This is where we leave off, as Saba prepares to give birth to her first child. She must also deal with the czar (who was furious that she did not publicly announce her pregnancy), the Shapiro family (who is trying (and failing) to control Leopold, and even her own half-brother Amanuel (who is still pursuing her and her mother instead of helping his own people). Before this story ends, though, Saba will learn a harsh lesson about why it's probably not a good idea for ANYONE to mess with the Trichenberg family.
And on that note, let's begin!
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