Tears hung on Alexis’ thick, dark lashes. ‘I do not know yet,’ he said, and picked up his bundle, leaving us. The Frenchman held me back from following. ‘Stay. Would you want him otherwise? Wait. The answer will come to you.’
As the stable door closed behind Alexis, a sliver of warm light and steaming animal breath escaped into the freezing night. There was no certainty, only hope.
76
I do not know how long I had slept, utterly spent. It was still snowing when I woke, the thick flakes drowning out the day and swathing the park’s statues – delicate figures bought in Italy and Greece – with shapeless white shrouds. The paths were buried beneath feet of snow and crows scored the sky like lead pellets. Silence clawed at my soul and I gladly drank from the bottle of laudanum that Lestocq sent me daily. It blunted my pain.
How could I live without Alexis by my side?
Days or weeks later, I had no idea, there was a soft knock at the door – was it the hour for breakfast? Probably, though I did not care for the food – usually a silver jug filled with hot chocolate; warm bread with molten salty butter; boiled eggs, smetana and caviar – nor could I abide a maid’s senseless chatter. ‘Come in,’ I mumbled as a footman entered, hands full, back turned, kicking the door shut with his heel. Clumsy fool, couldn’t he pay more attention? I dug myself deeper under my thick eiderdown, longing to stay hidden from the world.
The footman fussed about, turning the tray this way and that on a small table.
‘Put it at the foot of my bed and be gone.’ I sat up.
He turned to me.
My heart stalled.
His smile revealed deep dimples and his eyes were the dark blue of a midnight summer sky.
‘God, you women are fickle. Didn’t you just ask me to stay?’ Alexis said, settling the tray carelessly. I leaped up and flung my arms around his neck, soaking his collar with my tears. ‘Was the stable no good?’ I laughed and cried.
‘No,’ he said. ‘Not good enough.’ I noticed the dark shadows underneath his eyes.
‘No sheep there, I gather?’ I teased.
‘No sheep. And no parlour maid either to feed me salty kulich. Or would that be caviar?’ he asked, pointing to the tray.
‘Sod the caviar.’ I embraced him, out of breath with happiness. ‘I’ll have you.’
77
The Chinese delegation left before the ottepel when travel on the still-icy roads was swift. Upon their return, Peking dispatched a gift laden into 500 chests to be carried across Siberia. Hundreds of gemstones and 6,000 silver pieces, thousands of rolls of satin, silk and brocade, as well as thousands of gowns, dresses and costumes plus skeins of untwisted and twisted silk, were heaped at Anna’s feet. The letter called the gifts: ‘a sign of gratitude to the lesser classes of the Russian people, who welcomed the five Manchu so kindly’. Anna laughed, as delighted as a girl, seizing as much as she could hold in both her hands before de Biron took his share. When she invited her closest family to take their pick, her sister Ekaterina Ivanovna was unable to attend. All ideas of an illicit affair had been forgotten as her stomach had now swollen to the size of a cushion; then, suddenly, she could keep down no food. The illness stripped all the flesh from her bones. My cousin writhed in pain, almost squashing my fingers as I held her hand for the sake of that sunny day in Peterhof, ten years and a world away, when Anoushka and I had been made Tsesarevny.
Christine had to be forced to her mother’s bedside. She cupped her mouth and nose, barely concealing her relief and hatred. Even when dying, Ekaterina Ivanovna refused to remove her fake ivory teeth. Twice she almost suffocated on the yellowed pieces, which had come loose from her shrinking gums. When I could stand the sight of her suffering no more, Lestocq dosed her with so much laudanum and vodka that she died sighing and smiling, her spirit eased into a better place.
78
Twice a week the Tsarina ordered the damy of the Court to the Countess de Biron’s apartments where we embroidered an enormous tapestry together. The fire burned high, the sweets provided were delicious – crisp pastry filled with curd, nuts and candied fruit – and the chai intoxicating, so no one much cared how quickly the work proceeded. As I entered one day in December, two years after Alexis had stayed for good – my new way of reckoning time – the Tsarina was kneeling with de Birons’ sons close to the tapestry frame, spinning a colourful wooden top. The children clapped for joy as I stood mesmerised, seeing the three figures’ eerily similar smiles. Anna greeted me with a nod: I was keenly aware that every day more foreigners arrived in Moscow, ready to make their fortune – and I was still not her official heiress.
‘Catch it,’ Anna said, pushing a hoop down the hall, and the boys chased after, laughing. The Tsarina watched them, enchanted, then sat down by the fire. The Countess de Biron, too, looked on. Was she pregnant again? She, like the Tsarina, wore her dress unlaced.
‘You come in time for our last session here, Lizenka,’ the Tsarina said casually, as we both took up needles and thread, bright, colourful silks that had been part of Peking’s gift. ‘The court is moving.’
‘Where to?’
‘Back to St Petersburg. De Biron wants a proper riding school. In Moscow there is no good spot for it.’ She turned to Mrs Rondeau, wife of the British envoy. ‘As an Englishwoman you know the value of a good riding school, don’t you? I have such an earnest desire to make your Queen’s acquaintance that I might even travel to meet her halfway. In St Petersburg that is almost the case.’
St Petersburg! When had I last seen my city, the symbol of everything Father had given his country: a strong new thread in Russia’s sacred tissue. But I took great care to hide my joy. ‘Your wish is our command,’ I said gamely.
‘Indeed.’ Anna frowned at the last, botched stitches. ‘Twenty-three years ago, I left St Petersburg as a bride to my beloved husband the Duke.’ Her ladies duly dabbed their eyes and made sobbing sounds as Anna said sternly: ‘You know nothing of the joys of marriage, dear Lizenka.’ Despite living with de Biron, she was eager to keep face: her court was to be known as a virtuous one. ‘A woman needs a husband and Russia needs heirs. Anything that results from your relationship with that shepherd-singer – oh, yes, I know, of course I do! – can’t be either.’ She cast a brief glance at the Countess de Biron, who gathered to her the boys with their raven Saltykov hair.
Russia needs heirs. Never before had Anna alluded to making me her heiress or to me bearing Russia children. The air crackled. Maja watched me, her face tense. Julie von Mengden looked up, alarmed. Word would reach Count Ostermann tonight, I was sure. Mrs Rondeau made a mental note to tell her husband later on: if I were to be Tsesarevna once more, London would start courting me immediately. I touched the icon of St Nicholas, finding Augustus’ leather strings brittle from wear. ‘If I only ever do half as well for Russia as you, my Tsarina, I am blessed.’
She had to be pleased with my answer. My heart raced. I would be Tsesarevna. And this time I would rule.
A couple of weeks later, the Countess de Biron gave birth to a daughter. She paraded little Hedwig around, a buxom German wet-nurse in tow. The Tsarina was not to be seen for a week or two until she appeared at court again, smiling, her dress still unlaced. She smothered Hedwig with love, as if she were her own daughter.
The court was in shock at the discomfort and expense of the move back to St Petersburg. As my sled left Annenhof shortly after Epiphany, I turned back to look one last time. It was the best example ever of the Russian art of Skorodom, where a timber structure of any size could be made and moved to wherever it was desired. Russian carpenters would have spirited the palace along for Anna, raising it anew on the Neva if she had wished. Yet Annenhof was left behind, uninhabited, amid its luscious park and placid canals and sparkling fountains. Guards and sentries took position, ready to desert the place once their pay ran out, which would be in a couple of weeks, knowing de Biron’s grand St Petersburg riding school plans. Soon, vagrants would join owls, bats, foxes and badger
s in the vast, vacant halls, warming themselves on a little fire and a little more vodka, falling asleep in a stupor. One night stray sparks set the splendour alight; Annenhof, the timber palace, was lost in an almighty blaze; a fire so fierce that not even the Domovoi’s river of tears at the loss of so much timber could quench the flames.
Although it had been neglected during the past five years, St Petersburg had grown; too much had been achieved here for the city to revert to marshland. The city embodied my father’s vision and willpower; its inhabitants prospered on this inheritance.
‘What is this habit of keeping the carriage windows open?’ Lestocq moaned, looking up from the game of dice he was playing with Alexis. The night in Annenhof, when we bared our souls, had changed things between us. We felt linked by destiny.
‘I want to see everything,’ I laughed excitedly.
‘I think you are the only one who has been looking forward to returning to St Petersburg, Lizenka,’ Alexis said, casually shaking the cup, sending the dice rattling, and tossing a brilliant throw. He waved Lestocq away as the Frenchman reached for his purse, sour- faced. ‘The courtiers moan like children.’
‘You don’t say.’ Lestocq collected the dice. ‘I wonder how many of my possessions will arrive safely this time. Will only fifty, or possibly all, my Champagne bottles break? At least I was never ordered to build in this swamp. Elsewhere age might make ruins; in St Petersburg they are made to order.’
‘So watch out, Alexis. And you, Lestocq, should mind your tongue,’ I said. ‘Tomorrow we will be home.’ I fell back into the plump cushions and toasted the men with some of the splendidly chilled Champagne Lestocq had conjured from his bags. At least this one bottle had survived unscathed. Herr Schwartz drank the most, refilling his glass again and again.
‘I see it!’ The next morning, I tore aside the curtain at the sled’s window. ‘Look, just look!’ I pointed to the brightly gilded, pointed spire of the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul, relishing its contrast with the bulbous Byzantine cupolas found everywhere else in Russia. Seagulls pierced the sky with their cries, diving down in the Neva’s glitter, making the horizon and the waters blend in a sudden splash. I held Alexis’ hands. ‘I am looking forward to showing you all of this,’ I said. ‘It was my father’s finest hour when he built St Petersburg.’
‘More like a million finest hours,’ Alexis said, and Lestocq crossed himself.
‘And a million souls buried in its foundations.’
‘Lestocq!’ I said sharply. ‘Careful. I am not joking.’
‘I apologise. I wish for the city one day to witness your finest hour as well. It can’t be long now, can it?’ We all knew what he spoke about, yet merciless whipping was the mildest punishment that Anna’s Secret Office of Investigation could mete out for any comments that were made about her accession, my right to the throne or the state of Russia in general. I struggled to reconcile Feofan’s role in the Secret Office of Investigation with his calling as a man of God; he passed the sentences but left the dirty work to others, hidden in the confines of the Trubetzkoi Bastion.
In the Winter Palace the plumbing was gone, the roof leaked and gusts of icy wind ripped open the windows where panes were broken. Still, eighty people sat down with the Tsarina for dinner and, following the banquet, we rose for a ball. The court’s gaze was upon me. Did the return to my father’s city also herald my rise to the role of heiress to the throne of All the Russias? I danced, wearing a pale pink dress encrusted with pearls and rhinestones that Lestocq had offered me, and ended the night in Alexis’ arms: he did not even take the time to undress me or unlace my stockings. As the sun rose over St Petersburg, my glorious, beautiful city, I could not have been happier: yet who amongst us has never mistaken dusk for dawn?
79
It was the fourth year of Anna’s reign. Had Russia changed, or had I? Possibly both of us: in St Petersburg, Alexis gave me the calm and the strength not only to look, but to see, as if for the first time ever: ‘Make her become who she is.’ What sort of country was I to inherit?
The question was almost as dangerous as the answer was distressing.
My return to St Petersburg started inauspiciously. At a ball shortly after our arrival, Anna set the sky alight with a glorious firework display. People were often injured or maimed by wayward rockets, but this time one crashed through the palace windows, causing shards to fly, gashing my forehead deep above my right eye. The pain was like a lightning bolt; a gush of blood blinded me. I tumbled and fell; it was de Biron who caught me and cleaned my face.
Alexis kissed the bandage that Lestocq had placed on my forehead. ‘It doesn’t mar your beauty. Nothing ever could, even if you live to be a hundred.’ Yet I read in his eyes that he, too, was shocked.
The incident was the worst possible omen. Julie von Mengden had said loudly for anyone to hear, ‘This can mean only one thing. Bloodshed for Russia! Beware of the Tsarevna Elizabeth!’
Her words rang true, though unwittingly so. A letter from Mr Rondeau, the British envoy, was intercepted by the secret police. It read, ‘The Masquerade is at the door and the court’s talk is only about amusement at a time when the common people have tears in their eyes. We are on the eve of some sad extremity; the misery increases from day to day… ’ Feofan read it to me, once the cut to my forehead had healed into a neat and, as Alexis said, charming little scar in the shape of a half moon. We spent a couple of days out at Feofan’s dacha as the city’s summer heat was stifling. The ride to the house in Nadykino – a large estate lying between Peterhof and Menshikov’s Oranienbaum – was an insight into all of Russia’s woes and it broke my heart. No animals were to be seen in the villages or fields, neither mice nor rats, and no cats, dogs or horses, let alone proper livestock. The people were skin and bone, lying listlessly in the shade of their miserable izby. Earlier in the year, an unusually strong spring sun had drained what floods the ottepel had brought, and a couple of months later, the scorching heat set the corn in the fields alight, kindling walls of fire and blinding people with smoke, rendering them unable to fight the flames. A famine more devastating than any that had scourged my country throughout her history followed. Travellers only moved in groups for fear of ending up in a stew. Children were sold by the roadside. People made it to Moscow with the last of their strength, dropping dead in the streets, attracting wolves and bears to come into the city and feast on the corpses. More than 100,000 people had starved to death already.
‘Does the Tsarina do nothing about this?’ I asked, sitting at Feofan’s table.
He cast a warning glance over to the footman. ‘The Secret Office of Investigation has slit noses, torn out tongues and knouted people senseless for lesser questions.’
‘Who should ask if not I?’ I countered. Alexis gave a proud smile.
Feofan sighed. ‘She tries. She recognises the problems but fails to follow through and solve them. She ordered both Church and court to allow their serfs access to streams and to provide them with seeds. In vain. Her cousin Saltykov was to distribute bread to beggars; all five thousand loaves ended up in the bellies of noble families.’ He shook his head. ‘Russia’s enemies are our own hesitation, our laziness, inefficiency and dishonesty.’
‘What will come of this?’ I asked, chasing away the memory of Julie’s remark – Bloodshed for Russia! – while the servant ladled chilled borscht into my bowl of beautiful Meissen porcelain. The ruby-coloured soup shone like blood through the delicate rim. My stomach churned.
‘Good intentions are in vain if nobody sees them through. Candles that were to be handed out to inmates in prisons, now light de Biron’s riding school instead, all night long,’ Feofan said, sounding short of breath. ‘Listen to this extract from a letter sent home by the Prussian envoy. “Discontentment could not be any greater, but there is no rebel leader. This humble nation is so accustomed to slavery, and fear is so great: nothing will happen during this Tsarina’s lifetime, whose rule can be likened to that of Ivan the Terrible.”’
He rummaged in his pocket. ‘I have lost the letter from the Spanish envoy, but I know his words by heart. “Everything here is ripe for revolution. The revenues of the Crown lands have fallen, trade is languishing, the exchange rate is sinking steadily—”’
‘This is awful! What can be done to change things?’
‘Very little. We have to wait and see. When, for example, did you last hear anything good about the war?’
I looked up, surprised. ‘Which war?’
‘Exactly. Russia is now fully involved in the Polish War of Succession, championing the useless Elector of Saxony. Yet the fighting might as well be going on in the Americas instead of in Poland, right next door as it is. When there are victories to report, parades are held and church bells rung. Silence buries what lies in between. Be assured that the ordinary Russian in a far-flung mir knows nothing of the terrible suffering of our soldiers.’
I shifted uncomfortably. This talk was treason. Feofan had achieved everything he could expect to and might now be ready to go. I and Russia, though, still had so much to live for and so I weighed my words carefully. ‘What is happening? I heard nothing when I visited the barracks yesterday.’ I tried to sound informed: politics and statesmanship were a perpetual dance in which I must demonstrate my skills.
‘Well done. Keep the regiments close, that is what I always say. But what would your father have made of a conflict which cost millions of roubles and almost a hundred thousand young soldiers’ lives, without gaining Russia an arshin of ground? Anna’s forces were slaughtered like cattle. Soon Russia will have no sons left. The big estates are deserted, the nobility impoverished.’
‘Can things get worse?’
‘My dear, things can always get worse.’ Feofan looked up expectantly as his servants brought in a whole suckling pig, its crackling all shiny and dripping, served with kale, stewed apples and buckwheat pancakes. His gnarled fingers, their skin parched from hours spent in his library, enclosed mine. ‘Let us pray, Lizenka.’
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