Wintermourne (2/6)
Bargain
Nadya spun flax into thread for three days.
Each morning, she woke with aching fingers and swollen knuckles. The light from the tall window was dim and blue, filtering through frost patterns etched like runes on the glass. She ate little—bread and weak tea left by a silent maid. Slept less. Her shoulders burned from the endless motion of drawing, twisting, spinning.
Each evening, Rasputin visited. He stood near the hearth, his unblinking stare making her skin crawl, like moss creeping over stone, as if the Tura River itself had taken form to watch her.
On the afternoon of the second day, Nicholas arrived at her room to check her progress.
"Your majesty," she said, rising from her chair.
"No, no," he said. "Sit and continue your work."
He examined the thread. It was fine work, but Nadya knew there was nothing special about it.
The Tsar frowned and then looked at her.
She held his gaze, and his frown softened.
"It's fine work," he said. "Whether it is celestial or not, time will tell."
She wanted to confess, but she held her tongue.
"Do you need anything? Anything at all?" he asked.
"No, sire," she said. "Just time."
He nodded and turned to leave, but he stopped at the door and looked back at her.
"Nadya?"
"Yes, sire?"
"Thank you for trying so hard to fulfill your father's claim."
"You're welcome, sire."
On the third night, her hands trembling from hours at the wheel, she broke the silence.
“I don’t make celestial thread,” she said, her voice flat. “I make ordinary linen.”
Rasputin tilted his head, firelight carving shadows across his bearded face. “No one expects miracles from a peasant girl, Nadya. Not even your father, whose tongue outran his wits.”
She stopped the wheel, her knuckles red and raw, the flax fibers slipping from her fingers. “Then I’ll be executed. The Tsar will see my failure and—”
“Will he?” Rasputin interrupted, his voice soft as snow falling. “Nicholas is distracted. The court buzzes with talk of Stolypin’s reforms—peasants claiming land, nobles clutching their estates, the Duma snarling like dogs. The Tsar clings to his mystic visions, to me, while his ministers whisper of betrayal.”
Nadya frowned, the name Stolypin vaguely familiar from her father’s grumbling about taxes. “What does that have to do with me?”
“Everything,” Rasputin said, stepping closer. “Nicholas seeks signs of divine favor. Your thread, if it shines, will be his proof that God still guides him—not Stolypin’s laws or the Church’s sermons. He may yet spare you, Nadya. But a Tsar’s heart is a fragile thing, and I know how to turn it.”
Her stomach twisted. She wanted to ask what he meant, but the words caught in her throat. Instead, she whispered, “What if I agreed to your bargain? My first child for your help?”
Rasputin’s smile was slow, almost tender. “Then I’ll replace this wheel tonight with one from the elder world, carved from Tura birch and quickened by river frost. It will spin thread that hums with starlight—celestial enough to soothe a Tsar’s doubts.”
“But?” she pressed, her voice barely audible.
“It requires a pact in blood,” he said, as if discussing the weather. From his robes, he drew a folded document, its edges gilded, its Cyrillic script curling like smoke. “Prick your finger on the spindle’s pin and press it here.”
Nadya stared at the paper. The ink seemed to shift under her gaze, alive. “And if I refuse?”
“Then you spin alone,” Rasputin said, his voice dropping to a whisper. “And when the Tsar sees your ordinary thread, he’ll turn his wrath on your family. The court will demand blood to drown their own fears—of Stolypin, of revolution, of me.”
She swallowed, feeling the thread of her resolve fray. The fire crackled, and for a moment, she thought she heard the rush of a distant river. “I need time to think.”
“Time is a luxury you don’t have,” Rasputin said, but he stepped back, his smile unchanging. “The wheel can be here by dawn. Choose wisely, child.”
He left, the door closing with a soft thud. Nadya sat, the spindle heavy in her lap. She imagined her father’s face, her mother’s tears, her brother’s laughter—gone, if she failed. But a child? Her child? The thought was a stone in her chest.
The next afternoon, Rasputin came to visit her.
"The Tsar does not favor you," he said. "As I thought. He does not believe you can spin celestial thread. It's only a matter of time."
Nadya’s hands froze on the flax, her breath catching. She thought of the attic at home, where she’d spun late into the night, the spindle’s rhythm her only comfort. Could she really surrender a child she might never have? Or was her family’s blood already on her hands? “What kind of man asks for a child?” she asked, her voice shaking. “What do you want with one?”
Rasputin’s eyes gleamed, unblinking. “A soul to guide, Nadya. A child to carry the old ways, when the world forgets them. You think me cruel, but I offer you salvation—for your father, your mother, your brother. One life for three. Is that not fair?”
“Fair?” she snapped, surprising herself. “You twist my heart like thread on that cursed wheel. If I say yes, what becomes of me? Will I ever be free?”
He leaned closer, his voice a low hum, like the river she’d heard in the fire. “Freedom is a dream, child. But power—power is real. This wheel will make you a miracle in the Tsar’s eyes. Your name will echo in the palace. Refuse, and you’re nothing but a peasant’s daughter, buried with her kin.”
Nadya’s throat tightened. She saw her brother’s face, his gap-toothed grin, and her mother’s weary eyes. She saw the Tsar’s cold gaze, the axe waiting. “And if I never have a child?” she whispered, clutching at a final thread of hope.
“Then I lose,” Rasputin said, his smile sharp. “But you will not escape the Tsar’s wrath. Choose, Nadya. Now.”
Her fingers tightened on the wheel, the wood cold under her palms. The attic, the spindle, her family—they were slipping away, like flax pulled too thin. “My fingers are worn to the bone. My hands are sore,” she said, her voice breaking. “I don’t know how much longer I can do this.”
"Allow me," he said.
Rasputin took his hands in hers. A feeling of chill entered her, but her hands grew stronger, and the pain subsided.
“Give me the document,” she said, her voice hollow, the weight of her choice settling like snow.
He withdrew it from his cloak again, with a flourish.
Nadya withdrew the pin from the spinning wheel and pricked her finger, wincing for a moment.
Rasputin held out the paper.
She pressed her finger to it, staining the page with drops of her blood.
"It is done," he said, almost gleefully.
He rolled up the paper, smearing her blood on it, tucked it into his cloak, turned on his heal, and left her alone.
She did not spin that day.
But, the next morning, a new spinning wheel stood in place. It looked older than the palace itself—twisted, lacquered black, with silver inlays tarnished nearly green. Nadya hesitated before touching it. The wood pulsed faintly under her hand, warm and alive. Yet it worked with eerie ease, whirring quietly, responding to her touch like a living thing. Sometimes it felt as if it guided her hands, not the other way around.
But she spun. And she spun. And she spun.
Her body ached, but she felt lifted, as if the work were pulling her through time.
The thread it produced seemed to shimmer in the sunlight—so smooth, so fine, it felt like liquid silk. She did not know if it was truly celestial. But it was not of this world. By dusk, linen yarn filled the corner of the room—more than should have been possible, glowing faintly in the candlelight.
She lost herself in the rhythm. By the second day, her fingertips tingled constantly. The wheel vibrated beneath her feet with a low, warm hum. At times, the air in the room seemed to warp, carrying the scent of pine and fire, and her breath came faster, like she was standing too close to a lightning storm.
In the evening, she was so exhausted she moved like an old woman. When Rasputin came, she did not rise. She only looked up at him, her eyes hollow with fatigue.
"Come, child," he said. "And I will heal you of your hurts."
His touch was chill again, but it relieved her aches. He placed one hand on her brow and another on the base of her spine, murmuring words in an ancient forest tongue she did not recognize. The pain slipped away, like water seeping from a cracked bowl.
She wanted to ask what he was saying. She wanted to pull away. But her limbs would not obey. The language was thick and green, like moss pressed into her bones.
When he finished, he nodded once and left without another word.
Nadya sat in silence, the hum of the wheel still lingering in her ears, the warmth of Rasputin’s spell settled deep in her marrow.
But her sleep was restless, and the cold room had no answers, so she fashioned a bed from the thread and slid it nearer to the hearth to warm her bones.
By the end of the third day, she had filled nearly half the room with luxurious thread, ready for weaving.
"I need a loom now," she said out loud, as she collapsed into the comfortable fibers and promptly fell asleep.
Around midnight, there was a knock on the door.
She stirred, still exhausted, but then she felt the fibers surge around her, giving her unexpected energy. It was almost as if they whispered to her, and she rose in nearly a dream-like state.
A second knock at the door stirred her to open it.
She expected Rasputin.
It was Nicholas.
He entered hesitantly, his military coat dusted with snow.
The hearth roared to life, surprising both, and Nicholas removed his coat, placing it on the chair beside the spinning wheel.
"You asked to see me?" he said.
She shook her head. "No, Your Majesty. I didn’t."
He held up a hand. "Ah. Forgive me. I—I thought you had."
His eyes moved to the mound of thread behind her. His breath caught. "Oh my..."
He stepped closer, hands outstretched, touching the fiber as if it might vanish.
Just then, the moon rose. Pale light spilled through the frost-crusted window.
The flax began to shimmer.
It thickened, twined, almost breathing—no longer thread, but yarn, spun from frost and starlight.
Nicholas dropped to his knees.
"It’s true," he whispered. "It’s all true."
Nadya knelt beside him. She buried her fingers in the glowing heap. It was so soft it stole her breath.
She laughed, unable to help herself, and fell into it, sinking like into a bed of clouds.
Nicholas laughed too and followed her.
They lay there, breathless. Smiling.
He looked at her. "You’re a wonder."
Heat rose in her cheeks.
"My advisor told me how magnificent you are," he said. "He was right."
The wheel, forgotten in the corner, spun once on its own, casting a shimmer about the room.
Nicholas looked at her, his expression dazed. “You’re beautiful,” he said, his voice hollow.
“Your majesty?” she asked.
The Tsar stopped short, and the wheel stopped with him. He sat up, trembling.
"My apologies. I don't know what came over me. It’s not proper for us to be like this."
He stood, grabbed his coast, and departed.
Nadya lay in the heap of golden yarn, stunned.
High above, hidden in the shadows of the rafters, Rasputin growled silently. The opportunity missed. The Tsar's love for his wife was not so easily overcome.
"Let the wheel take her then," he whispered.
Unseen, he whispered in the old tongue.
The wheel spun on its own, through the night, as Nadya grew weaker.
In the morning, she did not wake, nor any more thereafter. Something had robbed her soul of life, though her body lived on.
For a time, the clothing woven for the Romanov children did keep them in good health, particularly their only boy, Alexei.
Outwardly, Rasputin lamented the loss of Nadya, but inside, he was biding his time until the Tsar should be weakened and isolated so that he may bring them together again to conceive a child when the time was right.
This came to be accepted among the Romanovs, who—out of deference to their devotion to Rasputin—kept Nadya at the Winter Palace even through the summers, where she remained in a sunlit chamber overlooking the Neva, pale and unmoving. Her hair was brushed daily by handmaids who spoke to her as if she might one day reply.
The court called it a wasting sickness. The priests called it divine punishment. Rasputin, in hushed tones, called it a love too great to survive the waking world.
He tended to her. She breathed, she swallowed, but her eyes never opened. He called it a divine trance. Each week, he laid hands upon her, muttering in the forest tongue, claiming to “keep the breath inside her.”
Handmaids fed her broth and honey-water daily, believing her touched by God.
Nadya slept for four years.
Stephen B. Anthony is the author of Transmigrant, an epic science fiction thriller, available on both Amazon and Audible. The first seven chapters are available on this website for free.