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correctly.”
    We sleighed a moment in silence, me gambling that I’d deepened our relationship with honesty. I’ve encountered enough powerful people to know that they are just that, people. Marriage at fourteen to sixteen-year-old Alexander eventually turned the German princess Louise of Baden to Elizabeth, Tsarina of Russia, but ruling is a heavy fate. Many of the great are melancholic, and Elizabeth is no exception. Her dynastic union with the tsar is, by all reports, joyless, each finding romantic partners elsewhere. Her tyrannical mother-in-law still intimidates the tsar. Alexander’s wanton mistress takes pride in Elizabeth’s humiliation. So when the tsarina’s gaze strayed sideways to look down the river, her pretty lips sagged. She’s in a gilded prison.
    “I think I trust you,” she finally decided. “So this outing is our secret, and we’re both tempting fate. Here, hold my hands for warmth and tell me how you met your infamous husband.”
    “I was a slave in Egypt,” I began, knowing the admission jolts the listener. To be born fortunate doesn’t interest people, but to rise above low station intrigues them. “But before Ethan freed me I was educated by my Egyptian master.”
    “Favored for your beauty?”
    “Not in the way people assume. My elderly owner showed no romantic or sexual interest. He longed for companionship. He appreciated my looks as a man appreciates a flower, but he courted my mind.”
    “An unusual master, and a fortunate slave.”
    “It came to pass that my master was shooting at Bonaparte in Alexandria during the French invasion, and I was reloading his guns. Master was killed by a cannon shot and Ethan found me in the rubble. At first I assumed him a conquering mercenary with a man’s idea of repayment, but he, too, actually listened.”
    “You must be able to seduce with words.”
    “I recognized Ethan’s good character before he recognized it himself. We eventually fell in love along the Nile.”
    “How romantic!” Elizabeth sounded wistful. “Like Antony and Cleopatra.”
    “There was no royal barge, I assure you. We eventually had to separate, but I was pregnant with our son. Fate in the form of pirates reunited us, and destiny has driven us since. Just recently he rescued me again, or I rescued him—I suppose it was both. And then the tsar invited us to Russia. Your court has been very kind.”
    She laughed. “Surely you’re the first to ever say that!”
    “You listen too, tsarina. I’m flattered.”
    “What stories swirl around you, Astiza! You’ve been called a fortune-teller, a priestess, a sorceress, a witch, a philosopher, and a seeker.”
    “I’m proudest of being a mother.”
    “Which I envy. My own daughter, Maria Alexandrova, was a child of love.” She meant her child by Czartoryski, not the tsar. “But she died at little more than a year old.”
    “There’s no greater tragedy.” I squeezed her hands under the fur.
    “So now I’m going to tell you a secret.” The tsarina squeezed back. “I may be pregnant again. Can you confirm it with your powers?”
    “I have no powers. I know only what I’ve learned from reading. Nor am I a midwife or doctor. But I share your excitement, tsarina. I hope your suspicion is true.”
    “Women understand, don’t we?”
    “If we’re wise.” I wondered who the father was this time. Her captain? “Is this why you’ve asked me here? I can’t cast a fortune for the unborn.”
    “No, no. I simply trust you with this secret, as one mother to another. A favorable fortune suggests my suspicion is true. Can you look at my palm and see if it says anything about this pregnancy?”
    I was again reluctant. I prefer not to deliver bad news, and had promised to tell the truth. But I’d trapped myself in her sleigh. I brought out her right palm and studied its lines. These can be interpreted a hundred different ways, and yet her heart line actually intrigued me. I bent to examine it more closely and then