The Tsarina's Daughter

by Ellen Alpsten

  ‘You and your incessant quest for amusement have brought this upon him,’ Ostermann accused me, when I met him with Menshikov in the corridor leading to the Tsar’s apartments. I sensed their puzzlement: how come, despite their best efforts, I was back at court, and so close to the Tsar?

  ‘What nonsense! If anything, exercise in the fresh air is good for anybody,’ I countered, ignoring Menshikov’s dark looks.

  When neither of them was paying attention, I forced the Imperial quacks aside and asked Lestocq to give me his opinion on the Tsar’s health.

  ‘His lungs are impaired. We will have to keep him safe and warm.’

  ‘Of course we will,’ I said, determined to guard Petrushka with my life.

  *

  As always, travel was easiest before the onset of the ottepel. In the bleakest and coldest days of early January, the court left St Petersburg for Moscow. Once more, 30,000 people were on the road for a Coronation, this time Petrushka’s. Katja Dolgoruky, Buturlin, Petrushka and I shared a sled, while Maria Menshikova travelled with her family, so as not to cause any scandal before she was married to the Tsar. Also Menshikov, who himself was as strong as a horse – had I ever see him so much as sneeze? – abhorred illness or any show of weakness. Petrushka lay slumped in Buturlin’s arms to be carried to the large Imperial sled. My nephew looked like a man of glass, all thin limbs and translucent skin, against my lover’s tanned face, broad chest and strong arms. Inside the sled, I covered Petrushka with bearskins and velvet blankets, stuffing a cushion under his head and placing a closed copper pan filled with hot coals at his feet. Finally, I kissed his clammy forehead, smiling and saying: ‘You have to get healthy, darling Petrushka.’

  By the time we reached Tver, Petrushka was steadily coughing up blood. Even though Menshikov refused my demand for a break, I took the advice of both Lestocq and the Imperial physicians and halted our train of carriages and wagons.

  ‘You might be held responsible for this,’ Lestocq warned me.

  ‘I hope,’ I answered, ‘this is about saving the Tsar’s life.’

  Instead of staying at a filthy inn, I requisitioned a dacha, which sat snugly in its own grounds and was shrouded in snow. Its low roof, the smoke rising from the chimney and the large terraces where birds came to feed, made it look like a house from a fairy-tale. However, the dacha was not intended for winter living: no second set of windows could be placed inside the frames, the well was frozen solid, and the tiled ovens battled against the steady draughts. The floorboards had finger-thick gaps between them. Wet, green firewood smoked up the rooms, worsening Petrushka’s condition. I had camphor burned in warming pans in the Tsar’s room and added dried mint to bowls of steaming water, watching the leaves unfurl before placing them next to his bed as well as below it. The scented steam should ease his breathing.

  While the Imperial bride Maria Menshikova stayed away, terrified of falling ill herself, Menshikov himself turned back, having already reached Moscow, when he heard of our pause.

  ‘Who has defied my order, and what are you doing dithering here?’ Menshikov barked, barging uninvited into Petrushka’s sickroom. His face was crimson from the hard frost, his cloak of velvet and wolfskin still steaming and his muddy boots sullying the white floorboards and colourful rugs. His burly frame filled the room and I was glad of the other men’s presence: Buturlin leaned on the windowsill, d’Acosta squatted before the oven, poking at the embers, and Lestocq, overseeing the Tsar’s treatment, sat with me by Petrushka’s bedside.

  ‘You will travel straight to Moscow. Now!’ Menshikov ordered. ‘The Coronation is proceeding as planned.’ He cared only for his own ambition. If Petrushka died, his daughter’s wedding would never happen, yet this would only make him more dangerous; then Menshikov himself would go for the throne. Russia was caught between a rock and a hard place.

  ‘Good day to you, too, Alexander Danilovich Menshikov. It was I, Tsarevna Elizabeth Petrovna, the Tsar’s aunt, who ordered this halt so that he might rest and recover,’ I said, keeping my seat and steeling myself to meet his gaze. This was the man who was truly to blame for my half-brother Alexey’s death. I knew how ruthless he was. Menshikov stepped closer. Petrushka lay between us, his thin body barely showing beneath the many layers of blankets piled on him. His glassy eyes were half-closed, and his breathing laboured.

  At the sight of the Tsar, Menshikov swallowed a rebuke before kneeling to kiss the Imperial vermilion seal, which hung slackly on Petrushka’s finger. His hands were skeletal; he kept down no food, bar a couple of sips of the thick soup prepared according to a secret recipe that had strengthened Mother after each time she had been brought to bed.

  Menshikov turned to Lestocq. ‘Is it so bad?’

  ‘Worse,’ he said. ‘The next few days will decide if he lives or dies. If all goes well, I suggest a summer stay at Peterhof following the Coronation. The salty air of the Baltic seaside will do wonders for his lungs.’

  ‘His Majesty is welcome to Oranienbaum, my summer house next to Peterhof,’ Menshikov decided. ‘It’s the same salty Baltic air there, surely?’

  Lestocq bowed. ‘The Tsar’s health clearly benefits from the Tsarevna Elizabeth’s care. And she is in Peterhof.’

  ‘As your French Court of frog-eaters clearly hopes to benefit from your attention to her care,’ Menshikov growled. ‘I know who pays for the tsarevna’s household. Foreigners!’

  ‘Since she is deserted by her own people.’ Lestocq smiled thinly. ‘We eat frog’s legs, you like fish eggs. There is no major difference, is there?’ He gathered his black calfskin doctor’s bag and in a silent warning, placed a fingertip to his lips: Petrushka had finally slipped into a restless slumber. Sweat glistened on the Tsar’s forehead and his parched lips opened and closed soundlessly.

  Menshikov slipped his gloves back on and turned to me. ‘You might be sitting by his bedside now but do not get your hopes too high. Both Count Ostermann and I will see that there is no marriage between the young Tsar and his wily aunt.’

  ‘My regards to Count Ostermann. What nonsense are you alluding to? All I am doing is serving my sovereign.’

  Menshikov grabbed my wrist, pulling me to my feet and speaking through gritted teeth. ‘I know what you do. You are a disgrace to your house.’ He shot a look of knowing contempt at Buturlin, which chilled my soul. Yet I said: ‘Let me go. Now. And never dare touch me again.’

  Menshikov left behind him an impression of callousness and hatred. Ever since he had assumed power, I had only seen him raging and haunted. If legitimacy cloaked a ruler, then Menshikov stood as bare as a sinner on Epiphany, ready to plunge into the icy waters in the hope of absolution. There was no such hope for him. He had betrayed my family too comprehensively. I swapped glances with Buturlin: Menshikov, whose ambition, power and greed were constant threats to my life, knew about us. If only I could speak to Anoushka. But not even my private letters to her were safe from prying eyes.

  ‘Tsarevna, may I have a word?’ Lestocq asked, as I fought to hide my concern. He clutched his doctor’s bag to his chest.

  ‘Buturlin, d’Acosta, you guard the Tsar,’ I ordered. The dwarf rose from the oven-top where he lay curled up like a dog. He wriggled his stubby fingers, making all the bones crack, before he leaped to the floor and shuffled up to Petrushka’s bedside, his withered face worried. I felt an odd tenderness for the funny little creature who had been around all my life: he had loyally and unquestioningly served my family, for better and for worse. When I turned back on the threshold, the dwarf was shyly stroking the Tsar’s slack hand, his own skin ruddy with health compared to Petrushka’s glassy pallor.

  45

  In the corridor, Lestocq stuffed his thin, long pipe carved from ivory with tobacco, his expression pensive. Behind him, Schwartz’s burly frame filled the narrow space. Buturlin slipped out of Petrushka’s sick chamber – against my orders! – closing the door firmly behind him. I drew my embroidered Persian shawl tighter, relishing its light softness: it w
as draughty in the passage and icy patterns of otherworldly beauty clung to the windowpanes, through which milky blue light seeped into the corridor.

  ‘Schwartz, what are you doing here? I thought you were in Moscow already. Though a merry tune might help the Tsar. And you, Buturlin, were told to stay inside,’ I said, already understanding: these men formed a Council of sorts, which was not meeting for the first time.

  ‘Extraordinary circumstances call for extraordinary measures, Tsarevna. Schwartz is waiting. I am waiting. We all are waiting,’ Lestocq said, looking me straight in the eye.

  ‘Waiting? We shall reach Moscow soon. The faster Petrushka is crowned, the better it will be. Summer in Peterhof will benefit the Tsar,’ I said. ‘I will do whatever it takes to restore him to health.’

  ‘I am neither speaking about travelling further nor about His Majesty’s convalescence,’ Lestocq said bluntly.

  ‘Why? Is there no hope for him?’ I remembered my doctor’s blunt but accurate judgment when Augustus lay dying.

  ‘There might well be. We are waiting for you.’ Buturlin’s gaze was lit by pride and belief in me, warming my heart.

  ‘What I am to do?’

  ‘I would like to bleed the Tsar,’ Lestocq said.

  ‘Bleed him?’ I peered at the door behind which Petrushka lay as pale as the linen that covered his gangly limbs, too weak to move, eat or drink. Bleeding him would make the life drip from his veins. The thought stirred me deeply, remembering Augustus’ final hours. I shook my head. ‘No. Never. That would kill him.’

  Lestocq’s gaze held mine; Schwartz shuffled nearer, standing closer to my physician than France and Austria ever were. Buturlin leaned against the wall, crossing his arms, his face sombre. ‘Yes. It would,’ he said slowly. Lestocq squinted at the smoke that rose from his pipe. It thickened the dacha’s soupy air further, making it unbreathable. ‘Must we spell it out?’ he asked, his voice hushed.

  I pressed my hands to my throat, feeling the St Nicholas icon. My half-brother Alexey had died at our father’s hand, bringing years of suffering to our family. In reparation I would shield Petrushka from all evil. This I had sworn to myself and I would not go back on my word, determined that no further drop of Romanov blood would be spilled. ‘How dare you suggest this to me?’ I protested. ‘My nephew is Tsar of All the Russias. To lay your hand on him is to flout the Divine will.’

  ‘The Tsar is neither crowned yet nor anointed with the sacred oil,’ Buturlin countered.

  ‘You have sworn allegiance to him!’ I hissed, raising my fists. ‘Shame on you, soldier.’

  Lestocq checked over his shoulder and spoke on, low and urgent. ‘The Tsar is terribly ill. Great things are at stake here. If God decided to call young Petrushka to him, who would inherit the throne? Menshikov? You cannot possibly want that. You are next in line. Give Russia the stability it yearns for. Your father’s work is far from finished. Make his dreams come true. Set his legacy in stone. If the Tsar lingers on like this, Menshikov will seize power and then God have mercy upon your country – and you.’

  I closed my eyes, put my hands over my ears and shook my head. ‘I can’t. It’s against everything I was raised to believe in.’ I had stepped into a circle of traitors and regicides! Schwartz, no longer the harmless musician he’d seemed to be, urged me, ‘Tsarevna Elizabeth, do you even know the state this country is in? The coffers are empty. No ruling is done. Everybody in any sort of authority fills their own pockets. Of a hundred roubles in tax, only twenty reach the Imperial administration. Alexis Dolgoruky will move all offices, privileges and duties back to Moscow. Russia will once more become everything your father feared and fought – closed to the world, small-minded and centred on Moscow.’

  Despite the corridor’s chill, I felt sweat gathering in my armpits. You are next in line. I had always been a second daughter, loved and spoiled but of no real importance – other than as marriage material. Then, Mother had worn the Imperial tiara, slipping the almighty seal onto her own finger. So, yes: what if Petrushka perished, here and now? I fought the prospect with all my might: it was the Devil tempting me.

  ‘You can’t be serious, Lestocq. Is this what Versailles rewards you so royally for?’ I needed to buy time. ‘France can’t wish me to rule. It didn’t even want me as its Queen, preferring the dour daughter of the deposed King of Poland,’ I reminded him. The old wound still festered.

  ‘You will be better as reigning Tsarina of Russia than as a subdued, breeding Queen of France. Versailles knows that. De Campredon was no fool.’

  ‘So does Vienna,’ Schwartz cut in. ‘Let us not forget that Austria signed the Pragmatic Sanction, making Maria Theresa the Habsburg Crown Princess. She will rule, as might you.’

  ‘The Tsar and Maria Theresa are cousins,’ I said.

  He bowed in a pre-emptive gesture of mourning and respect. ‘Vienna would deeply regret the young Tsar’s passing. But you are so young and so beautiful that many an archduke is ready to learn Russian and even convert to the Russian Orthodox faith.’

  Lestocq frowned but his hands were tied. King Louis XV had had his chance. My physician beat his pipe against the raised sole of his boot. Burned tobacco fell in dark clumps on the whitewashed floor, thick as curdled blood. ‘What if Russia wants you?’

  ‘Who is to know what Russia wants?’

  ‘You do,’ Buturlin said simply. He pushed off the wall and kneeled down in front of me, seizing both my hands. His expression was adoring, his fingers warm, their gentleness known to me. I almost yielded; the intensity of his gaze was hard to bear. ‘You are Russia. Your father was the Tsar anointed by Heaven, your mother the Tsarina, a daughter of the land. Legend and lore, law and logic, are combined in you. The Russian people worship you. For any soldier, you are the Tsar’s daughter. But more so, you are the Tsarina’s daughter! Your mother has reigned. Why shouldn’t you?’ He kissed my fingers then placed his hand on his heart. ‘The regiments are with us, I promise.’

  ‘Whoever is favoured by the Russian regiments, is favoured by fate,’ Menshikov had said. The air thickened with tension. A mere nod of my head given in the frosty corridor of a far-flung dacha, somewhere between St Petersburg and Moscow, would suffice for Tsar Peter II of All the Russias to be bled to death. Yet I needed to think further. We were in the middle of nowhere and Menshikov on his way back to Moscow, where thousands of soldiers manned the barracks. He could beat me in claiming control in the event of Petrushka’s sudden death. That would mean the end of the Romanov Dynasty. I weighed the thought, barely able to breathe.

  What should I decide?

  Petrushka the lonely boy, had become the even lonelier man, lying desperately ill on his sickbed: if he had ever loved and trusted someone, it had been me. I had been all the family he had known. All around us, the dacha creaked. It felt like my nephew himself: frail and brittle, not made to withstand a winter, but in need of summer sun and gentle winds. Lestocq, Buturlin and Schwartz were serious. If I took Petrushka’s death on my conscience, I should be no better than Menshikov, the day he had pushed my father to kill Alexey. My uncertainty gave way to anger.

  ‘Get up, Buturlin! On your feet, soldier. Your limbs should be broken on the wheel for your treacherous thoughts, your entrails fed to the crows. What you think… worse, what you say… is punishable by death. I shall not betray my own blood, ever.’

  Buturlin stumbled to his feet, shocked by my outburst. Lestocq’s fox-like face frowned. I clasped my thick shatosh to me, pulling it tighter around my shoulders. ‘You have served Russia well, gentlemen. I put your words today down to worry and shall forget and forgive. The Tsar is not to be bled.’

  I turned back to Petrushka’s sick chamber. Buturlin opened the door, slipping into the room after me. ‘Lizenka!’ he whispered but I raised my hand, stopping him, fighting tears. He looked at me mutely, bowed and went to lean on the windowsill, once more standing there with a sentry’s patience, his gaze fixed on me. I longed for his embrace but settled at Petrushka’s
bedside instead.

  D’Acosta shifted his tiny backside, making space for me, still holding his ruler’s hands and humming songs, as if the Tsar were a sick child. Petrushka’s face was as waxen as the candle next to his bed, its light slicing the cool blue air. I patted the dwarf’s salt-and-pepper curls. ‘Go to the kitchen, d’Acosta. The hunters have brought back some hares and a wild boar. See if you can get yourself some of the grilled offal.’

  ‘Yes, go and stuff your greedy little dwarf face, creature!’ Buturlin snapped jealously.

  D’Acosta put out his tongue at him and slid out into the corridor: Schwartz had disappeared and Lestocq retreated. The slight of him impregnating d’Acosta’s daughter and not marrying her surely not been forgotten, knowing the dwarf. Once the door had closed and all the footsteps had faded, I clasped Petrushka’s hands, ready to pray for his life. I felt a slight pressure against my fingers and opened my eyes, meeting my nephew’s amber gaze: It was the first time he had woken fully in days. His freckles looked like dark poppy seeds on yeast dough. ‘Lizenka. Thank you,’ he whispered. ‘Was that Menshikov shouting at you earlier? He must not, ever. Did he make you sad? Tell me… ’

  I kissed Petrushka’s hands, my tears falling on his parched skin. ‘He harasses me to no avail,’ I said stoutly, though the fear I felt was monstrous. With Petrushka’s life hanging by a silken thread, one snap of Menshikov’s fingers would suffice to get rid of me. ‘But I will not give in. Nothing but your health counts for me. We will spend the summer together in Peterhof.’

  His face lit up. ‘Will we? Just the two of us? Together in Peterhof? I promise to get healthy. If I can only be with you… ’