The Green He Wanted to See

Mikhail stood on the hill and gazed out over the endless plain. In one place where his eyes settled, people thronged and moved with tireless industry. Behind those who swung pickaxes into the earth, a line cut across the plain. The railway.

He watched the tracks being laid. The central plains of Novgorod were still a place few human footsteps ever reached. Vast as they were, the climate was far too cold for crops to grow properly, so the only life that clung here was a moss-like plant that barely rose to ankle height and the beasts that fed upon it.

Mikhail looked across the plain and let out a short sigh. It was a landscape he had seen countless times, yet today it displeased him. That dull green. He summoned a transparent, brilliant green in his mind—a vivid color so pure that merely imagining it felt refreshing.

Where had I seen it?

Had the trees of Sokolov been that shade? Mikhail snorted. Since when had he become the sort of man who grew sentimental over colors?

His gaze swept the dark-green plain once more.

This, too, was a sight only possible as summer approached; once winter came, it would all vanish beneath the snow. For more than half the year this land was buried in cold no human could endure. Railway work was therefore possible only during the five months from spring through early autumn. That was why Novgorod’s railway ventures had always crawled forward so sluggishly.

Most of the principal trading nations lay to the west, and the sea routes were faster besides, so shipping thrived in Novgorod far more than any railway ever could. Outside the concentrated cities of the west, rails were rare. When Mikhail first declared he would drive a line straight across the central plains, people had called him mad.

“Mikhail!”

Igor was struggling up from the foot of the hill. As Mikhail glanced down at him, a heavy pain rose from his right side.

“……”

Mikhail frowned. Panting, Igor reached the crest, took one look at him, and sighed as though he had expected nothing less.

“Honestly—if you’ve taken a knife to the gut, stay in the carriage and rest. Must you come all the way up here to supervise? Sergei was grumbling that you don’t trust him, so I had to send him five crates of good vodka just to shut him up.”

So that was the racket he had heard below—haggling. Mikhail glanced at the shirt beneath his coat. Fresh red blood had already soaked through the fabric.

“There, you see! I knew the wound would open again!”

Igor raked his fingers through his hair in pure irritation. Mikhail only chuckled.

“Anyone watching would think you were the one who got stabbed.”

“That’s exactly why I’m more furious! I ought to pack your dinner with sleeping draught and haul you straight back to Sokolov!”

At Igor’s grumbling, Mikhail looked down at the wound. The injury was a week old.

So that’s why the Empress Dowager has been so quiet lately.

While he was still at Edenhurst, word had reached him together with the crates from Ilenka. The Emperor had suffered another seizure.

The Dowager was always hypersensitive about the health of the Emperor, the very foundation of her power. Mikhail had assumed she would grow anxious again—yet while he was inspecting a shipyard some distance from Sokolov, the attack came.

It began with guns; when that failed, it turned into close combat. The cold blade that sank into his side left a deep wound and a sharp, lingering pain. Without a moment’s hesitation Mikhail drew the dagger he kept hidden and drove it straight into the attacker’s throat.

An attack to the side? Are they joking?

At the very least they should have aimed for the neck or the eyes.

Mikhail had even been generous enough to dispose of the corpse. The previous night Sergei had dug three holes near the railway line. He had done such thorough work that even knowing the exact spots, one could not tell them from the surrounding earth. Those men would sleep quietly in this plain. And Sergei had earned his five crates of vodka.

His life was in no danger, yet he had no wish for word of the attack to spread, so Mikhail kept to his original schedule. Across the central plains a horse was faster than any carriage. Because of that the wound, endlessly jostled on horseback, refused to close and kept tearing open.

But rest was impossible. This railway venture was of the utmost importance to him. Beyond the central plains to the easternmost edge of Novgorod—Mikhail intended to bind the empire’s east and west completely together.

The purchases are all finished.

With the war against Schweik in the south making the southern detour unusable, land prices in the empire’s east had become so much waste paper.

The eastern reaches held no proper cities, only sparse little villages. Most of it was permafrost, land where farming was impossible and everything depended on the sea. After the war even the few who had remained could no longer bear the poverty and fled, leaving the territory essentially ownerless.

Mikhail had bought it all up under the Dowager’s very nose. Many had sold tracts the size of Sokolov itself for a mere handful of gold coins. They had almost certainly acquired the land for even less.

The transactions were scattered under various names, yet in the end the greater part of the east had passed into his hands. Mikhail had not bought that land as though he were picking up refuse.

Coal. Iron ore. And gold.

Dozens of other minerals as well. All of it lay buried in the empire’s east. He had sent the finest geologists again and again to confirm it.

The reserves will be dozens of times those of Ils.

The empire imported every scrap of coal needed for its factories and trains from the north of Ils. Half of Novgorod’s entire import expenditure went toward buying Ils coal, people said. Mikhail recalled the coal samples that had arrived at his office. Far superior in quality to anything from Ils. What would happen once he began to mine and supply it?

As Mikhail wiped the blood away with his handkerchief, Igor spoke.

“Please rest properly once we return this time.”

The advice was sincere. Igor had already spent more than ten years at Mikhail’s side. In all that time he had never once seen the man take a single day of rest. Mikhail not only traveled without holidays; he moved according to schedule until the very moment sleep claimed him.

Even if this was the prime of his physical strength, working like this was bound to break something eventually.

“I’ve been stabbed more than once or twice. Why the fuss?”

“Who said it’s because of the stabbing? Well—yes, that too—but you’re getting married soon, aren’t you? You need to start paying attention to Edenhurst.”

Igor pictured Edenhurst, which by now must have completely collapsed. They would be suffering a poverty they had never known in their lives. And the Countess would believe the Dowager had ordered it. In truth, every thread of it had been Mikhail’s doing.

“Ah. Edenhurst.”

Mikhail murmured the name as though it had only just come back to him. And then he remembered. He knew at last what green he had been longing to see a moment earlier.

That woman.

Anastasia Lauderdale. The woman who had briefly caught his interest in the dull, unremarkable estate of Edenhurst. The green he had been thinking of lived in her eyes.

When Mikhail remained silent, Igor seized the opening and spoke quickly.

“Since you’re marrying, why not take a longer rest? You’ve already sent people, and with the Emperor’s seizures growing serious the Dowager will be careful. Besides—if you rest for any other reason, people will wonder whether something’s wrong and grow wary. Rest after the wedding and they’ll simply assume.”

“Assume what?”

“What else? That Mikhail Sokolov is finally trying to produce an heir. It’s a good thing. You can wipe away those sodomy rumors while you’re at it.”

“Ah—the rumor that I make you and Yury bend over on the bed every night and take turns with you?”

“Aaaaagh!”

Igor scrubbed furiously at his arms as though the mere image were unbearable.

“Anyway, you do need to have children eventually.”

“I don’t know. I’ve never really thought about it.”

Mikhail started down the hill, still pressing the handkerchief to the wound.

Children. That was something Mikhail truly had no interest in. What happened after he died did not concern him. He simply found growing his businesses entertaining.

A woman to give him an heir.

Mikhail pictured Elizabeth’s face. She was the very model of a noblewoman—beautiful features, refined speech, bearing without a single flaw. The woman who would bring him a count’s title.

His thoughts ended there. He felt neither liking nor dislike toward her. Having children with such a woman… Considering future ties with other noble houses, children would certainly be useful. The more of them, the more families he could bind to himself. But…

“Doesn’t do it for me.”

Unsuitable words slipped from that handsome face.

He would marry, yet he felt no particular desire to take her in his arms. He could if he had to—but was there any real need?

Erasing Elizabeth’s face from his mind, another woman’s image took shape: the woman who had lain on the bed he himself was meant to sleep in.

A gaunt body, ruined feet, a haggard face. While she lay there Mikhail had opened a book beside her and begun to read. Yet no one knew that throughout that entire time not a single page of the book had turned.

The moment the woman rose and their eyes met, Mikhail had unconsciously drawn closer and simply looked at her.

What if that woman came into his bed?

If he held her as she was, she would probably faint before anything properly began. A body that seemed ready to break if he gripped too hard could never endure him.

Then I’d have to get her body recovered first, wouldn’t I?

He had learned that even while the Count still lived she had received no proper education, spending entire days alone in a room doing nothing but pray. After the Count’s death she had grown up under neglect that bordered on abuse, not even fed properly. In essence she was a near-idiot who could not survive outside Edenhurst.

Mikhail tried to recall Anastasia’s face. He remembered the look of terror and the face wet with tears, but he did not think he had ever seen her smile. What kind of face did that woman make when she laughed?

About to mount his horse, Mikhail stopped and glanced downward for a moment.

“Ha.”

A self-mocking laugh escaped him. Apparently his body was aroused by something new.

He swung into the saddle and immediately spurred the horse into a gallop.

“Where are you going!”

Igor, who had scrambled down after him, shouted from behind. Mikhail gave no answer, only drove the horse on. Where the horse’s head pointed lay someone’s paradise.

Mikhail looked at his bloodied fist.

He had ridden without rest from the central plains all the way back to Edenhurst, and the moment he entered the forest path of the estate a scream rang out. Ignoring the throb of the still-unhealed wound in his side, he ran toward the sound.

And the instant he grasped who was there and what was about to happen, he threw the punch without hesitation. The fist that flew straight at the vital center of the face was thick with murderous intent.

With a single blow the man who had been disgustingly undoing his trousers collapsed sideways.

Startled by the sound, Anastasia opened her eyes—and their gazes met. The transparent, clear green eyes he had wanted to see all the way from the central plains looked up at him, wet.

Mikhail swallowed dryly and thought:

I have to hold this woman.