The Tsarina's Daughter

by Ellen Alpsten

  Karl received her dowry of 30,000 roubles ahead of the wedding. While sitting in his pew listening to Feofan’s blessing of the engagement, Father’s broad shoulders heaved and Mother, too, dabbed her full, rosy cheeks. As we kneeled to pray for the couple’s health and happiness, I clutched my icon of St Nicholas, which I wore strung on a short, twisted skein of gold. My eyes were dry. I forced my heart to be calm and trusting. Yet I could not fight off the burning worry I felt for my sister. Even if her body should soon belong to her new bridegroom, I prayed her soul would be forever close to mine – and that Karl would learn to love Anoushka as much as I did.

  On the way back to Menshikov’s palace, where we fêted the engagement at his expense – which, as always, delighted Father – the Tsar refused to wear a cap despite the icy wind. When a sudden gale made him lose his wig, too, he roared with laughter and for good measure tore his jacket open while he chased his sled over the ice.

  The next day, he had contracted a vicious cough and a fever that could not be brought down. Whenever I wanted to see him, a throng of courtiers blocked the entrance to his apartment. Amongst them I spotted Petrushka’s godfather, Alexis Dolgoruky. Of course he had to be here, as opposed to Father’s reforms as he was, and rooting for Petrushka. Was he lobbying for supporters? I ignored Dolgoruky but sensed the suspense and fear that thickened the air. A Tsar on his deathbed made even time hold its breath. The country hung in the balance between past loyalties and new allegiances.

  Menshikov was heard saying to Mother: ‘The Tsar made Anoushka and Lizenka Tsesarevny. That does not mean he has designated his heir.’

  Russia was ignorant as to who was to be its fate.

  28

  On 8 February 1725, Peter I of All the Russias, died in the upper reaches of the Winter Palace. He was not on his own, as no ruler ever is; yet he was lonelier than ever. The church bells had fallen silent, as if gathering strength to give tongue once more when the moment came to carry the word out into the vastness of his realm. In the sickening suspense of those days, I was shocked to see my beloved Father retreat into the shadows, while the Tsar still breathed. The ruler obliterated the man.

  The Tsar has died, long live the—

  Menshikov was right: Anoushka and I were Tsesarevny, but the Tsar had not designated either of us his heir. On the contrary. You are not to rule, he had said in Peterhof.

  ‘The Tsesarevny are to stay in their rooms,’ Menshikov advised Mother. ‘Too much is at stake.’ While Anoushka obeyed and spent those days in Karl’s company, I slipped through the corridors of the Winter Palace late in the evening, when the number of courtiers waiting outside the Tsar’s death chamber had diminished. Who was Menshikov to keep me from my father’s side? As I was about to open the door to the private apartment, a man called out to me.

  ‘Tsesarevna Elizabeth Petrovna—’

  Alexis Dolgoruky rose from a chair and hurried over to me.

  ‘Has the Tsar designated his heir?’ he asked with a cursory bow, cutting straight to the chase. He must have been waiting for a while: his clothes looked dishevelled, his greying hair tousled and his eyes bloodshot. No wonder he felt tense: his young godson was the only surviving male Romanov heir. Influencing the young man in Dolgoruky’s own antiquated ways would be easy and profitable for him.

  ‘No, Prince Dolgoruky,’ I said curtly. I despised him for preferring the former half-Asian Muscovy to Father’s semi-European Russia. ‘I must hurry. As you say – I am the Tsesarevna.’

  ‘What about Petrushka?’ he quickly asked, but I hurried on.

  In the Tsar’s death chamber, the fire burned high. Father abhorred the cold. He had spent too many nights in a freezing tent during the Great Northern War. Candles were lit and the thick velvet curtains drawn. The air was scented by liniments and camphor as well as frankincense and myrrh, but I sensed another sickly-sweet note, as if death were already spreading its shroud. Feofan Prokopovich stood at Father’s head: he prayed seemingly without ever drawing breath, for hours on end, his eyes closed, his parched lips moving ceaselessly. Three times he took Father’s dying Confession and gave the last rites. The Tsar’s giant body was resisting death.

  Myriad other people hovered at his bedside. I had to fight my way through them. The three German doctors perched alongside it like the crows Father had feared so much. In my dark cloak, I blended in with them and nobody paid me any attention. Mother, Menshikov and Ostermann stood at the head of the bed, whispering together and urging the doctors to further treatment: relieving his bladder, wrapping him in linen drenched in the Neva’s icy water, applying another cure of mercury. Finally, they retreated to the shadows in the corner of the room. Instinctively, I joined them. Hours seemed to pass. Mother and Menshikov took turns to sit by Father’s side, watchful of his every slight movement, while Ostermann slipped in and out of the room. Governing Russia allowed him no respite.

  ‘Tsaritsa, take heart. We will end this as we have started it: together,’ I heard Menshikov say to Mother. He kissed her fingers. Tears were blurring my sight. I stood on tiptoe to glance over at the bed. Father looked waxen, his chest rising in short, pained gasps, the interval between each lengthening painfully. If Mother did not rush to dab his parched lips with a moist cloth, she clasped Menshikov’s hand, shaking and clinging to him for support.

  ‘I long for rest,’ she cried. ‘He suffers so much.’ Her eyes lay deep in their sockets and she looked white and drawn.

  ‘You must stay. Nothing has been decided yet,’ Menshikov countered.

  At that moment, Father whispered something.

  ‘What does he say?’ Mother urged as Menshikov lunged forward, pressing his ear to Father’s lips. ‘Who is it to be?’

  ‘Silence!’ Feofan Prokopovich hissed.

  We held our breath.

  ‘Anoushka. Bring me my eldest—’ Father whispered.

  Feofan’s prayers picked up again. Menshikov hesitated. What was he playing at?

  ‘My love,’ Mother said, holding Father’s hands: ‘Tell us what you want.’

  He clasped her fingers. ‘A scroll,’ he said. ‘A quill, ink… ’

  ‘Get the scroll. Now! Only then will his soul depart in peace,’ Feofan ordered. I felt like training Father’s knout on Menshikov until he rummaged at the Tsar’s desk, which as always was in utter disorder. Finally, he returned with a scroll and a quill dripping with ink.

  ‘Here, my love. Be free,’ Mother whispered, and helped Father grasp the quill. Ink splattered the soiled sheets. Mother held down the scroll. With the last of his strength, Father began to write. He gasped. The quill scratched on the paper. Menshikov turned to us, thundering: ‘Out, everyone!’

  Mother nodded, her eyes serious.

  In the corridor, I lingered in the shadows, waiting, while the courtiers dispersed.

  After a while, all was silent inside his room. Anger seared me. Tiredness and grief devoured me. Menshikov could not keep me away one more moment. I was about to lose my father. Once I was back inside, Mother, Menshikov and Feofan Prokopovich were nowhere to be seen. Father’s bedside was deserted. He lay like a felled tree. My heart pounded: however precious a solitary moment alone with him had been in life, on his deathbed it would be rarer still. His eyes were shut and his mouth closed; the chin raised as if to face a final challenge.

  ‘Father,’ I whispered, and reached out to touch him with trembling fingers. His hand was cold. No breath stirred his mighty chest. I recoiled, instantly understanding. I had come too late. Only now did I spot the thin strip of gauze that bound his chin. He looked calm and composed, as he had never done in life. I reached out and with unsteady fingers stroked his hair. It felt wispy, like skeins of silk. I cupped my mouth, aghast at my loss. I had come too late, chased out by Menshikov. The thought almost suffocated me as I sank to my knees, clutching my father’s already unyielding fingers.

  ‘Father,’ I sobbed. Any other word caught in my throat. What else was there to say? I pressed his hand to my lips, the skin
waxy and ingrained with tobacco and ink. The nails were bitten, cuticles torn; its back was veined and mottled. His palms felt hard and callused, bearing witness to the life he had led: from learning how to build ships in the Netherlands to constructing the first cabin in St Petersburg; from guiding a horse in battle to performing the sabrage of thousands upon thousands of Champagne bottles. Already his once-gigantic figure was beginning to resemble a wax effigy from his Kunstkamera, shrunken and bloodless. This was not the man like quicksilver I had known and that Russia had feared. I fought for air as if tight chains were squeezing all the air from my lungs. Curling up next to his deathbed, I let out one long, pained wail.

  I let go of his hand and instead grasped his shroud, crying uncontrollably, sobbing and shaking until everything ached. My whole being was seared by pain: it felt like breathing in lead. As I opened my eyes, I looked at his hand once more. Only now did I notice how curiously bare it was. The ring bearing the Imperial seal, a huge ruby engraved with the Russian royal double-headed eagle, had disappeared. The sight was like a slap to me: his fingers had always borne the sign of the Tsar’s absolute power.

  What, or who, was to follow Peter the Great?

  That thought marked an end to everything I had previously known. All my life I had been the Tsar’s daughter. Who was I to become now?

  From next door, in Father’s little library, I heard voices: a murmur rising like the Neva’s tide, ready to erode the foundations of all we had built our existence upon. Russia had a new ruler.

  What had Father, with his last, dying breath, decreed?

  29

  I edged closer to the door, which was only pushed to and not shut, peering through the gap. The fire was burning high and hushed voices filled the room. I saw Mother and the Privy Council – the men whom Father had entrusted with advising him on his rule over Russia: Tolstoy, Menshikov and Ostermann. I held my breath and pressed the back of my hand against my trembling lips, tasting salt.

  ‘Petrushka is the last male Romanov, Alexey’s son. Surely he should reign?’ Ostermann spoke up for his ward and pupil. ‘He is twelve years old and in good health. We can declare his majority in three years… ’

  ‘The Tsar had ample opportunity to name Petrushka as his heir,’ Menshikov interrupted. ‘Did you not see his godfather Alexis Dolgoruky lingering? We all know who will really reign if the boy comes to power. The Prince is an Old Believer who will reverse the dead Tsar’s reforms. Moscow will be the capital once more and St Petersburg abandoned. The fleet will become firewood. The Baltics will be lost, one by one, in skirmishes against the Swedes, if not secret deals with France and England.’

  ‘Never! Not an inch of the Baltics is to be given up, ever. It is soaked with Russian blood. No higher price could be paid,’ Mother decided, honouring Father’s words. Her determination calmed me. If one pillar of my existence had broken, two others remained: Anoushka and my mother, my father’s crowned companion.

  ‘True. But above all it is you, Menshikov, who will be undone, if Petrushka comes to power,’ Tolstoy added.

  I held my breath. Who could be mighty enough to topple the powerful Menshikov? It was unthinkable.

  Tolstoy said: ‘Weren’t you the first to sign Alexey’s death sentence, albeit with a cross, as illiterate as you are? The Tsarevich died with your knee on his head! You pushed the Tsar on, feeding his fear and hatred. You never minded leading him deeper into excess, be it in drink or deed—’

  I cupped my mouth in horror. Would my half-brother possibly still be alive without Menshikov’s interference?

  ‘Let the past rest. We are all guilty – you, too.’ Mother sounded pained when she rebuked Tolstoy. ‘Nobody touches Menshikov as long as I live. I do not forget a friend as each of you well knows.’

  Menshikov purred: ‘Your wisdom allows only one way forward.’

  ‘And which way would that be?’ Ostermann asked, careful not to betray any emotion. ‘The Tsar had hinted that the Tsesarevna Anoushka—’

  ‘A hint is not enough on which to inherit Russia. She is to marry a foreign duke. Do you want Karl of Holstein to rule here? Hardly. No!’ Menshikov thundered. ‘Who has forever influenced the Tsar with her mildness? Who is in every way suited to complete his task?’

  I straightened up, listening hard. We live in times of great change. If Anoushka’s name was mentioned, yet her claim discarded because of her betrothal, then the next in line would be – me, whose engagement had not yet been confirmed

  Me.

  The world fell silent.

  ‘I doubt that the princes, the boyars and the Church would condone that,’ Tolstoy objected. There! He was right. How would Russia welcome an inexperienced maiden as its ruler and absolute monarch? I clasped my hands – could they bear the weight of the Imperial seal?

  Menshikov snorted: ‘Any heathen believes speedily enough at the sight of guards with fixed bayonets. Call the regiments to take the oath. Whoever has the regiments, has Russia.’

  Trust Menshikov to suggest brute force as the best way forward. I closed my eyes, picturing all Russia had to offer: forests and tundra, brooks and plains, mountains and endless, changeable skies. Where should ruling it begin and where would it end? The task had made Father rise before dawn and retire long after midnight. I shivered. Russia was timber, sand and lime. It was ore, diamonds and gold. Coal, salt and copper. Fish, fowl and furs. Oats, wheat and barley, feeding its vast populace of aristocrats, landed gentry, merchants, workers, peasants and serfs – millions and millions of people. Taxes must be raised, fees and fines upon everything stemming from the country’s bounty: paints, inks, dyes, oils, gems, perfumes, spices, drugs, jewellery, furniture, books, candles, paper, rope, rugs, tapestries, canvas, hides, leather, horn, feathers, bristles, fabrics, wool, gunpowder. As the vastness of the task dawned on me, I clutched my icon of St Nicholas, Russia’s patron saint, in mute prayer.

  There was no further time for me to think. The library door was flung fully open. Tolstoy barged past. I stepped forward, leaning on the door frame, squinting in the candlelight. Mother turned to me, hair tousled and face swollen from crying. Behind her, by the fire, cowered d’Acosta, grey-faced from his vigil by my father’s bed. Mother reached out to me and opened her hand, her tender smile reeling me in.

  In her open, flat palm, close enough for me to take, lay the Imperial seal, its ruby flaming.

  30

  Menshikov was the first to kneel, followed by Ostermann. Mother’s smile widened as she first clutched the ring and then slipped the Imperial seal onto her own finger. It sat tight, stuck at a swollen knuckle. The men took turns to kiss the seal, taking the Oath of Allegiance. As both men rose – Ostermann gasping with gout and Menshikov grinning – they saluted her: ‘Long live Catherine I! The Tsar is dead – long live the Tsarina!’

  I stood dumbfounded, hiccupping with tears and surprise. Morning had still not broken, but Russia’s destiny had been decided.

  I had not been ready.

  ‘Did Father designate you as his heir?’ I asked.

  ‘The Tsar died before writing down a name,’ Menshikov said, showing me the scroll. I read what Father had scrawled: Give everything to – before his quill had slipped in a last, deadly fit. ‘We could guess his last bequest.’

  ‘Lizenka, come to me!’ Mother opened her arms, tears welling anew. I wanted to fly towards her, but first curtsied and also took my Oath of Allegiance; the Imperial double-headed eagle veering towards my lips. The ruby’s fire was as cool seen from close up as the lions’ eyes in Kolomenskoye. Mother pulled me to my feet. I read fear in her face; yet there was a glint in her eyes, like the warmth of a fire that a lone traveller kindles deep in a Siberian forest, determined to survive the night.

  ‘Mother.’ I kept my voice low, yet Menshikov shamelessly hovered nearby. ‘How will you cope? Are you not afraid?’

  She rubbed her face and then gave a short, almost hysterical cry, which she muffled behind her cupped hands. ‘Afraid? I am absolutely terrifie
d. How can we live without him? How can we all live without him?’ She shivered. ‘But perhaps it is no harder than when I was a serf and had to sweep a long staircase.’

  ‘How does that compare?’

  ‘I never looked to the end of the staircase, only ever at the next step. The corridor that lay beyond would come soon enough.’ She folded her hands. ‘Your father is dead. The past is forever still. I need to take care of the living and the future,’ she said, tenderly stroking back my messy curls.

  ‘But Father said back in Peterhof that a woman cannot rule Russia?’

  ‘Russia has changed. We have changed. I have been crowned since,’ she said, and I recognised the spirit that had led her from a serf’s izba to the Winter Palace. Now she would be the first woman ever to rule Russia in her own right: a crowned Tsarina. My pride in her was fierce enough to burn. ‘All I can do is try and continue Father’s work, Lizenka. What does your dance teacher always say?’

  ‘Practice makes perfect.’ I conceded the point then asked: ‘Where is Petrushka? And how will you keep Alexis Dolgoruky at bay?’

  ‘Very alert as ever, Tsesarevna Elizabeth,’ Menshikov cut in. ‘The Old Believers are becoming ever-more powerful. They cannot wait to destroy your Father’s work. I will keep Petrushka safe in Oranienbaum, away from any poison that might be dripped into his tender ear. His chamberlain Buturlin will keep him company there. Oranienbaum is a wonderfully healthy home for a boy.’

  I weighed his words. Petrushka was to be Menshikov’s prisoner, however he presented it. This thought made me profoundly unease, as did his standing so close to us, listening to our every word. At least my nephew would have Buturlin for company – which meant that I would not. The thought touched me deeper than I had expected: I had grown accustomed to his dashing ways and daring spirit. Nothing was ever too daunting for him.