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Prologue

By the age of twelve, Harry Valentine possessed two bits of knowledge that land of the early nineteenth century

The first was his coes of Russian and French There was little randa Petrova Obolenskiy Dell, had come to reside with the Valentine falish language In her (frequently expressed) judg in this world that needed to be said that could not be expressed in Russian or French

As to why she had gone and lishman, she never could quite explain

"Probably because it needs explaining in English," Harry’s sister Anne had ed and sot her ears boxed Grandlish, but she could understand it perfectly, and her ears were sharper than a hound’s Muttering anything-in any language-was a bad idea when she was in the schoolroolish whilst suggesting that French or Russian was not adequate for the verbal task at hand…

In all honesty, Harry was surprised Anne hadn’t been paddled

But Anne loathed Russian with the salish It was too much work, she complained, and French was alrave;re had arrived, and her English was far too entrenched for anything else to gain an equal footing

Harry, on the other hand, was happy to speak in whichever language was spoken to hiance, and Russian beca It was cold And above all, it was great

Peter the Great, Catherine the Great-Harry had been weaned on their stories

"Bah!" Olga had scoffed, more than once, when Harry’s tutor had attelish history "Who is this Ethelred the Unready? The Unready? What kind of country allows their rulers to be unready?"

"Queen Elizabeth was great," Harry pointed out

Olga was unimpressed "Do they call her Elizabeth the Great? Or the Great Queen? No, they do not They call her the Virgin Queen, as if that is anything to be proud of"

It was at this point that the tutor’s ears grew very red, which Harry found quite curious

"She," Olga continued, with all possible ice, "was not a great queen She didn’t even give her country a proper heir to the throne"