News of the entire royal family's assassination spread through the city as if it had wings. Barely before noon on the day after our ballet's premiere, the streets clogged with men, women and children, all cheering and holding signs crudely painted with slogans and the Vigilant Men's mantra. They began celebrations in the street, offering free beer to any who passed and would toast the Common Army with them.
Yet, even as they yelled at the tops of their lungs that the tyrant had fallen, none cared to crow too loud about how the prince, princess, and queen had been found shot in the nursery by an unknown zealot. Perhaps they realized that the murders of two innocent children were not going to increase their chance of drawing others into their cause.
Even still, they had the majority of the city under their thumb. Nobles and the rich didn't dare exit their mansions for fear of the mobs. No one knew when or which house would be targeted by the workers. There was no order, there was no system. Just men and women choosing a mansion and breaking in to haul the family out. A few stories emerged of Vigilant Men executing any titled noble they stumbled upon, but the Common Army soon squelched the spreading of those tales with vicious fines and public punishments.
The Lennox Company did not rehearse for the first time in years. Instead, Mr. Lennox left us at the boarding house, barricaded in and guarded by the landlord and his son holding guns, while he disappeared into the city until nightfall. When he reappeared with the setting sun, he held a smile on his face.
"Where did you go?" I asked.
Mr. Lennox sat on one of the dining room chairs, unwinding his scarf and setting his hat on the table. Snow slowly melted on his black jacket.
"I paid a visit to Doctor Alkaev," he said. "You remember him?"
I nodded.
"He was eager to see the ballet we danced for the king."
The ballet he had commissioned from Mr. Lennox in the first place. I still had no idea why the Common Army wanted a story of a goddess and a creature. Nonetheless, a shiver ran down my spine just thinking about dancing the same ballet the nobles loved so much in front of the men who very well could have been the ones to shoot them in the streets.
"Surely a ballet is not really something that anyone would want to see during such a time as this? The king is still hanging from his front gate," I said.
"Doctor Alkaev wants the ballet, and we're going to give it to him," Mr. Lennox said. "To some, we may look as if we were loyal puppets to the king. We need to show them that we fall on the right side."
The right side being the winning side. Surely, the Common Army couldn't fail to see that was what he did. Move from side to side, always making sure he did not fall with the people he once professed to ally with. But perhaps Doctor Alkaev would be enough to secure our place in the new order.
The performance was set for the next week to give Doctor Alkaev and the Common Army enough time to sketch out a skeleton government to support the hole left by the monarchy. So, when we arrived at some archduke's home that had been converted into the Common Army's headquarters, we were met with the news that Doctor Alkaev had taken temporary charge of the kingdom. Our neighboring kingdoms—Lenotskaya and Prest—had not yet fallen to revolution. But the longer the Common Army held Rumonin, the more inevitable it became that the workers in the other two kingdoms would soon follow. With this in mind, Doctor Alkaev stood a good chance of being elected as Rumonin's official representative permanently. It was his mind, after all, that was behind the overthrow of the king in the first place. Who better to lead all three cities in throwing off the shackles of crowns and blood lines?
Despite the Common Army's stance on the evils of wealth, the production was just as glamorous and grand as before. New sets and costumes were even ordered, and from what I could catch glimpses of, they were just as colorful and plush as the old ones.
Our audience that night was an entire roomful of generals, commanders, and officers of the Common Army. White uniforms swam before my eyes in a dizzying blur. A few men sat uncomfortable in their Common Army uniforms. Though they did not do much to physically show it, their discomfort was easy to read in the way they seemed to almost exude a lost feeling in wavering clouds above them. These had to be the men who, until very recently, had been in support of the king. Naturally their talents were better spent on establishing the Common Army's hold rather than being squandered by being senselessly executed, but each carried with them the knowledge that the Common Army could change its mind whenever it chose. To the minds of the great Common Army, once a royalist you never could quite wash the taint from your soul.
Doctor Alkaev, General Masha, and Matveev sat in the front row. To Matveev's right a row of men in plain clothes pinned with white roses pursed their lips and crossed their arms. Matveev did not look too far from their mood.
The show started, and it was much the same as when we first started. The corps had been dramatically expanded with the best non-noble dancers from the now disbanded Rumonin National. It leant a much more dramatic tilt to the dance to have a stage full of girls. However, their presence did not do anything to change the story of the ballet. That did not come in until my character, the village girl, rose to become the powerful goddess. Either way, they were stunningly good dancers, and I knew Mr. Lennox was intensely enthusiastic about the skill level our company finally rose to.
As my costume change came, I ran off-stage and was half-dressed in my next costume before I noticed the changes to the ballet. At first I thought I might have grabbed the wrong dress, but the stagehand insisted it was the right one. Instead of the heavy and regal gown that had been inspired by the queen's, I now wore a loose and light shift of white, with the medals and insignia of a Common Army soldier across the bodice. When I followed my cue on to the stage, I saw the entire corps dressed in their own white shifts and holding aloft the golden flags of victory.
Stunned by the change, I tried not to show it on my face as I moved through the steps that now were not around thrones and crowns but instead fake bonfires and banners that bore the Common Army's name in bold, black script. When I stopped by a bonfire to await the creature, I felt a shaky sense of relief that I would soon see Ferdinand. A piece of stability in this suddenly uncertain atmosphere.
When he stepped onto the stage, I immediately noticed his face. The makeup of the creature was gone, replaced with a dramatized version of the aristocracy. His cheeks and lips were stained a garish red and his eyes were ringed with blue powders. Instead of the creature's rags, Ferdinand now wore a navy uniform and a black sash across his chest. While it once had been a very fine uniform, someone had ripped it and frayed the cuffs, making it look shabby and old fashioned. Clutched in his right hand, he held a bottle of wine and pretended to drink of it jollily.
As he came close and the girls in the Common Army uniforms began to taunt him, fear bubbled in the pit of my stomach. I had not noticed until he drew nearer, but he gripped in his other hand a tarnished crown, painted with red paint to simulate that it dripped in blood.
He was supposed to be the king. Mr. Lennox had made this ballet into a show about the riots and the revolution. I was not a village girl any longer. I was a worker, rising to become the face of Liberty. So this was the true ballet that Dr. Alkaev had commissioned. My skin rose into bumps and I struggled not to shiver in the sudden cold.
Mr. Lennox had changed Ferdinand's choreography once again, into a weak and mincing mockery of the dignity of the royal family. He still slammed into the girls and their blows, and each time a slap rang through the air I felt the wrongness of it. The king and his family were hardly even cold, were not even buried yet, and here Ferdinand was being dressed up as our dead monarch and beaten by girls dressed as soldiers. When it came time for me to join in, I did so with mostly closed eyes. My throat tightened and my steps faltered.
"Get to the end, Nadia," Ferdinand whispered as we passed close by.
With his words in my ears, I bolstered myself until the music slowed and I took my spot at the front of the stage. My hand rose as it did when I was just a goddess, yet now it held the weight of a revolution behind it. The corps behind me, inflated in number, raised their flags, shouting as the popular marching tune of the Common Army played.
"May Liberty light our way!" Their voices echoed throughout, and were joined with the swelling pride of the real soldiers in the audience.
I was just about to lower my fist when I heard a small explosion behind me, and smoked curled around my shoulders. The smell of sulfur filled the air. The audience cheered and surged to their feet, clapping and stomping their boots. Confused, I whirled on the spot to see a man dressed in uniform of a general in the Common Army standing with a revolver in his hand. At his feet lay the prone and motionless body of the king, Ferdinand, face down.
My knees gave for a moment before I could catch myself.
The curtain fell on us as the music finished, and I stumbled toward the edge of the stage in the darkness. As I rushed down the steps, afraid I might collapse at any moment, Mr. Lennox caught my arm and spn me around to face him.
"The bows," he said, but I wrenched free without a word and ran into a dark hallway to throw up what little had been in my stomach.
It couldn't possibly have been a real gun. It couldn't. Would Mr. Lennox do something like murder in cold blood? Or maybe the soldier acted on his own. Or was it part of the play? I couldn't tell. My head swam in whirlwind of heat and panic.
I stumbled down the hallway more, hoping to hide myself before anyone could stumble upon me or seek me out. All I wanted was air that might reach my lungs more readily, but no matter how far I walked from that stage all I could suck into my lungs was the smell of gunpowder and smoke.
Before I could do anything about it, I found myself suddenly back in the wings. The group of corps girls were just descending and Mr. Lennox followed them closely. The hallways were still confusing to me, and I must have circled around. I tried to slip back into the shadows, but Mr. Lennox's eyes found mine. His stare felt like a reminder of the weight that would soon press down on my left third finger. My worry was drawing his ire, and I couldn't let him see.
Panic rushed through me, though I felt more scared by it than anything else. Mr. Lennox was my mentor, the man who saved me. Why did I feel such terror when he looked at me in such a way, and why did I think he would murder a boy on the stage? How ungrateful could I be that I thought him capable of killing Ferdinand for merely sharing a kiss with me once, a long time ago?
Guilt, fright, and a fuzzy mind screamed at me to leave. I ducked into the group of corps girls, hiding myself in their chatter and numbers, knowing that Mr. Lennox would not try to wade through their silly banter. I was safe from him for now.
When we reached the safety of the dressing room, I slunk to my corner and slumped into my chair. By now my lungs were heaving for any bit of air they could get, and sweat stood out on my forehead. A quick glance in the mirror revealed a pale face and flushed cheeks. I didn't have the energy to try and hide it.
In the half-shadows, I waited until Rachel looked my way and then beckoned her over. She came with a raised eyebrow.
I gripped her hand, which felt curiously warm in mine. "Rachel, I have to ask you for a favor," I whispered.
"All right..." she said. "But what's with all this secrecy?"
"It's nothing," I said, a little too quickly. "I mean, I'm not being secretive."
"Whatever you say."
"Listen, I wanted to know if you could find Ferdinand for me?"
Both of her eyebrows shot up at this. "Ferdinand? What do you need him for?"
"Just, please, Rachel. Can you please just go find him and ask if he can meet me at the place where we danced?" If he was dead, he wouldn't be able to get any message from Rachel, obviously, but perhaps she might see him there and raise the alarm.
Rachel shook her head in bewilderment, but shrugged her shoulders. "Fine. Let me get dressed and I'll go be your little pony express."
"Can you go now?" I asked, thinking that if he was injured or dead the sooner it was discovered the better.
"Nadia, I'm covered in sweat and my feet are about to burst out of these slippers," she said.
"I can't go myself, and I really need to see if he's all right."
She laughed and put her hands on her hips. "Wait, do you think that the shot was real? Honestly, Nadia, I thought you were naïve, but not to this extent! It's just a prop gun! There weren't any bullets in it, and besides, why in the world would anyone want to kill Ferdinand in front of a bunch of soldiers and officers?"
"I'm not saying it makes sense," I gasped. "I've tried telling myself all the reason it's stupid to be worried, but I can't help it. Please look for him."
She sighed heavily, searching my face intently. I tried to keep the growing fear from showing, not wanting her to see how much I longed to fly from the room and just look for him myself.
"You know, for being someone else's fiancée, you certainly are always so desperate to see our little prodigy."
I wanted to protest, have her stop saying things like that where anyone might hear, but thankfully she was already heading out the door. I followed her to the threshold, leaning into the hall to catch her attention.
"Don't tell anyone?" I asked.
"So much for no secrecy," she said, but she held up a hand to let me know she wouldn't spread my request for Ferdinand around.