Read The Trojan Icon (Ethan Gage Adventures Book 8) for Free Online

betray worry, jealousy, or greed. Your features are good.”
    “Only good and not perfect?” She was teasing.
    “This world does not permit perfection,” I risked.
    “Neither does court gossip! You’re not just a seer, you’re a truth teller. A formidable combination.”
    “At personal peril, tsarina. Historically, many fortune tellers have found it wisest to bend the truth to prevent execution.”
    “Don’t worry, I only imprison.” Her amused tone was much lighter than at the reception.
    “I’m relieved.” We both smiled.
    “Seriously, continue with the truth. A royal has difficulty differentiating between truth and flattery, and between friends and seducers. The fate of the mighty.”
    “The fate of everyone. All of us want things from each other.”
    “Especially love. Now. Would you like a teacake?”
    “I actually have another means of fortunetelling that uses your cake.”
    “Oh my. I hope the baker knew.”
    I reached into my satchel as we glided beneath several bridges and emerged onto the broad white Neva, its ships and boats frozen in place until spring. St. Petersburg is built on an archipelago on the Gulf of Finland and so water serves as the city’s highways. Light snow was falling this day, making the city a fairyland. The Winter Palace and Admiralty were foggy bergs, and across the river was the glacier of the new Stock Exchange. The Peter and Paul Fortress was a softened gray mesa punctuated by the steep golden spire of the cathedral in its middle. That bell tower rose four hundred feet, highest in the city. Instead of the usual onion domes, Peter the Great had chosen a Dutch-style steeple as sharp as a needle.
    We aimed for the fortress pier, which was somewhat disquieting since the fort also serves as a prison. Was the Tsarina really joking?
    “What test?” Elizabeth prompted.
    I brought out a goblet and flask and poured water. “This is liquid from the Fountain of Epidaurus in Greece, where people flocked to Asclepius the Healer.” The water was actually from our neighborhood well here in St. Petersburg, but truth can be embroidered. “In ancient times, people would come to the fountain pool and cast bread to see if it floated or sank.”
    “And what did each result portend?”
    “Try it first. Toss in a bit of cake.”
    The fragment bobbed as I expected. Always rehearse your magic.
    “It floats. Good fortune, again.”
    She glowed. “You are the most delightful companion!”
    “And I’m thrilled you believe my prophecies. So many doubt these days. My own husband, a Franklin man, likes to tell the story of an ancient army which came upon an augur watching a bird in a tree. The prophet said that birds fly closest to heaven, and thus reflect the gods’ will. So the general gave the fortune-teller a coin to tell which way the army should go. The augur explained that if the bird flew onward, the army should advance on the enemy. If the fowl flew the other way, the army should retreat. If it flew toward the other cardinal points, the army should go that way.”
    “What did the bird do?”
    “Nothing. It wouldn’t fly. Thousands of men sat to wait. Finally an impatient lieutenant took up his bow and shot the animal dead. ‘What are you doing?’ the general cried. ‘If that bird was so prophetic,’ the lieutenant replied, ‘why didn’t he foresee
that.’”
    Elizabeth smiled. “So you don’t really believe our games.”
    “On the contrary, tsarina. I am
not
a Franklin man and, as much as I love my husband, I don’t always agree with his skepticism. Like many men, he’s blind to mystery. It seems to me that fortune is determined largely by chance, that the world has an order that implies divine intelligence, and that any sensible person thus recognizes both destiny and free will. I tell this amusing story to be fair, but I tell fortunes because they come true.”
    “So the signs still seem positive?” I’d made her anxious.
    “If I’m reading them