The Grand Duke's Remorse
Sunlight poured through the window, turning the dust motes in the study into flecks of gold. The air carried the rich, nutty aroma of freshly brewed coffee mingled with the faint mustiness of old leather bindings. It was a peaceful morning.
“Your Highness.”
The old servant Sergei approached as silently as a shadow and carefully poured black tea into the teacup. “The weather is truly fine today.”
“Is it?” Alexandr answered absently, eyes never leaving the newspaper. The political pages were the usual drudgery—tedious lists of the Emperor’s daily movements and ministers engaged in equally empty debates. The economic section was marginally better. Reports of strong grain yields in the southern empire or announcements of new inventions at least helped swell his own portfolio.
Out of habit he flipped to the society pages. The usual drivel: noblewomen in the capital coming to blows over a Texas Hold’em game, the son of some upstart merchant family dying in a carriage race. Alexandr clicked his tongue as he scanned the gossip. Young people these days, the thought rose unbidden in his throat.
He was about to turn the page, unwilling to dirty his eyes any further, when his gaze snagged on a small, crude illustration tucked in the corner. A mob of people swarmed a liquor bottle like ants gone mad, their faces twisted with greed and frenzy. On the bottle was a vivid red label.
Mikhail.
“Hah.”
A dry chuckle slipped from Alexandr’s lips before he could stop it. His brow furrowed. The headline beneath the drawing was even worse.
Wholesalers are under siege. Citizens camp outside liquor merchants and snatch up every box of Mikhail the instant it arrives. They peel off the labels on the spot, then sell the whiskey at half price to nearby taverns or donate it outright to poorhouses. The result is nonstop drinking parties in the pubs and ecstatic howls of joy from the drunks in the almshouses. Even nobles have joined the frenzy, dispatching servants to sweep the shelves clean. Their true target is singular: the label itself—and the promise of instant fortune it carries.
The Eternal Special Membership Card.
Alexandr read the article slowly, tasting every word. The deeper he went, the tighter his frown became and the more firmly his lips pressed together. The report matched every rumor he had heard, yet somehow it was worse. The madness had spread further than he realized.
This was no longer simple commerce. It was turning the entire empire into one vast gambling den, driving people to frenzy over a scrap of paper. Even the nobility—too proud to queue in person—were sending servants to do their dirty work. All for a single label. All for the dream of sudden, unearned wealth.
To Alexandr, the Eternal Special Membership Card was no mere ticket. It was a new kind of peerage, backed by imperial blood. A sacred contract of loyalty and benevolence. To treat something so grave as a lottery prize was nothing short of blasphemy. It shook the very foundations of the empire.
He set the newspaper down. Or rather, threw it. The crumpled pages made a sharp, irritating rustle.
“Sergei.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“What on earth are young people thinking these days?”
His voice had sunk low and cold. Sergei offered no reply. He simply waited, knowing his master’s mood without being told. Anger, yes—but sharper still was disappointment, and beneath that, a heavy tide of remorse.
In Alexandr’s mind rose the face of a woman. Skin pale as snow on a mountain peak, hair blacker than the night sky, eyes deep and clear as the lakes of the northern plains. Alexandra.
Sold into slavery over her father’s debts, the unfortunate woman who had caught the Emperor’s eye and become his concubine. She had lived in constant fear. The brief favor she received earned her nothing but the poisonous jealousy of the other women. So she kept her head down, stayed quiet, never drew attention. She tried to live like a shadow. Yet she could not escape the palace intrigues. A cup of poisoned tea ended her short, tragic life.
Poor child.
Alexandr closed his eyes. Behind his eyelids appeared her son. A boy who took after his mother—gentle, beautiful. Once so kind he had been called the Duke of Benevolence. Mikhail.
That boy had watched his mother cough blood and die before his eyes. After that, everything broke. Grief and rage drove Mikhail mad. Of course it did. He never learned the killer’s identity, and even if he had, what revenge could a powerless prince exact on someone powerful enough to poison an imperial consort?
In despair the boy drank himself senseless, smashed palace property, and hurled abuse at the servants. The gentle youth vanished, leaving only a hopeless wastrel. In the end he earned the Emperor’s disgust and was exiled to the distant Far East Maritime Province.
Alexandr had done nothing. As an elder of the imperial family he should have embraced the boy, guided him. Instead he looked away, protecting himself amid the storms of palace politics. That failure had weighed on his heart like an unpaid debt ever since.
So that was why.
When he first heard Mikhail was producing and selling liquor under his own name, Alexandr had felt genuine relief. Better than drinking and causing scandals. Even if a merchant girl was leading him by the nose, at least the boy was trying. He had even bought several cases of the blue label in quiet support.
When news came of the casino, he had frowned but tried to understand. Developing that frozen backwater might require unsavory measures.
But this? This he could not accept.
Turning the whole empire into a gambling table. Driving people to collective madness. This had crossed every line.
“Sergei.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“Bring parchment and a pen. No—fetch the best parchment.”
Alexandr had decided. He could no longer stand aside. As an elder of the imperial family, as the boy’s grand-uncle, he would scold his foolish descendant and set him right.
“What quality would you like?”
“The finest.”
Sergei bowed silently and left. Soon he returned carrying a heavy oak box. Inside lay snow-white premium parchment, a perfectly trimmed swan-quill pen, and an inkwell of deep, lustrous color.
Alexandr lifted the quill, feeling its balanced weight. Without hesitation he dipped it deep and wrote the first line.
Alexandr to Mikhail.
And then the pen stopped.
He could not write the next word. His mind was a hopeless tangle. At first he had meant to deliver a stern lecture—on dignity, on the honor of the imperial family, on the duties of royalty. The sort of grave, solemn words an elder should speak.
But would the boy even listen?
Mikhail was not the sort to accept scolding. He would probably sneer and ask, Now you speak?
Then perhaps an appeal to emotion. Think of your dead mother. Would Alexandra in heaven not grieve to see you like this?
Cowardly.
A bitter smile rose unbidden. Using his own dead family as a tool to lend weight to his words—nothing but the act of a spineless old man.
Above all, the most fundamental question echoed in his skull.
Do I even have the right?
What had he done when Alexandra was poisoned? What words of comfort had he offered while Mikhail fell apart? Nothing. He had done nothing at all. Only watched in silence.
What right did such a man have to lecture the boy now?
Self-loathing crashed over him like a wave. The quill in his hand suddenly felt heavier than lead.
For a long time Alexandr simply stared at the blank parchment. The helplessness pressing down on his shoulders made it hard to breathe. Elder of the imperial family? A fine title. In truth he was nothing but an old, powerless, cowardly bystander.
Still…
I cannot let this continue.
Before the matter grew any larger, before it reached the Emperor’s ears, he had to issue some kind of warning. That was the bare minimum—the last duty he could still perform.
Yet his mind remained fogged. No words came. No sentences formed.
With a soft tap, Alexandr laid the pen down.
In a voice heavy with exhaustion he spoke to the servant beside him.
“Sergei.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“Bring me a glass of brandy. The one from the Borderi region.”
The same brandy Alexandra had once given him, long ago.