Bastions of Blood by K.L. Conger

Author:K.L. Conger
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical Fiction, History, Historical Romance, Russia, Medieval, Ivan the Terrible
Publisher: Liesel Hill
Published: 2017-05-23T00:00:00+00:00

ANATOLY, STAYING IN a small hut not far from Natalya, also heard the first stirrings in the earth that marked the sound of many hooves. Having lived his entire life in the Kremlin, Anatoly had learned to obey his instincts. The soft, thundering sounds made fear blossom in his chest, and he reacted quickly.

A few days after leaving Taras’s service and moving into the hut on the Andreev estate, he'd discovered a secret compartment of sorts in the hut. A section of planks making up the floor came easily away. Underneath, a hole had been dug in the earth. Large enough to hold two or three men, he supposed it was meant to be a cellar. Especially during the winter, the earth stayed cold enough to keep food from spoiling.

Anatoly suspected the last tenants of the hut hadn't known of its existence. Cobwebs and mold showed disuse. Anatoly served as a Russian soldier in his youth, before his family went bankrupt and he was forced into servitude. His powers of observation never left him.

Not that he had anything to use it for. He certainly wasn’t privileged enough to have food to squirrel away in a hidden store. An old man, he required little to sustain him. At the time, he merely filed the secret spot away in his mind, storing it up against future need.

When he awoke to the thundering of hooves, deep in the night, he knew something was amiss. There might be legitimate reasons for soldiers to come in the darkness, but given the Tsar’s moods of late, and the violence in the city, Anatoly knew better than to trust to good fortune. Without hesitation, he grabbed his clothes, boots and the blankets off his cot, and secreted himself under the floorboards. Realizing he’d forgotten the box on his washstand, he emerged again to find it. Anatoly owned few physical possessions. All he had—mostly sentimental mementos of no value to anyone except him—were contained in the box. By taking the box and the blankets, the hut would appear vacant to the casual onlooker. The only other furniture was the washstand and a stool by the fire. Anatoly only brought one set of clothes with him, so he did not even have a chest of drawers.

He dressed quickly and silently in his hiding place. Or as quickly as his injury allowed. It had healed somewhat since the riot, but not completely. He'd begun to suspect it never would. Once dressed, he sat with the blankets wrapped around his frail body, and waited. Long minutes passed. Voices, screams, and gunfire came from outside.

The door of his hut burst open, rebounding against the wall.

Heavy boots clunked slowly across the wooden floor above him. When the boots came to stand atop his head, right over the loose floorboards, small motes of dust fluttered down, peppering Anatoly’s face with dirt.

The boots moved back and forth for several minutes, as if the man was unconvinced of the hut's vacancy. From the motes of light

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.