The Witches of St. Petersburg

by Imogen Edwards-Jones

  “Are the Yusupovs in town?” asked Stana.

  “Everyone is in town, my dear. And besides, Zinaida and Minny are very dear friends. Everyone’s saying that it’s Minny who’s actually done the list, anyway. She and Freedericksz.”

  “I am amazed we’re on it,” muttered Militza.

  “Why didn’t the new tsarina do the list?” asked Stana.

  “She doesn’t know anyone, does she?” replied Peter. “And she hasn’t made any effort to meet anyone. No one has seen much of her since the tsar’s funeral, and that was over a year ago.” He paused. “That’s no way to enter the city, is it? Next to a coffin pulled by eight horses caparisoned in black. It’s no wonder thousands of mourners crossed themselves as she passed. It’s a bad omen, everyone says so.”

  “‘She has come to us behind a coffin. She brings misfortune with her.’” Stana laughed. “Listen to you, Peter! Talking omens! You’ve been married to my sister far too long!”

  “And the wedding a week after the funeral, with no banquet, no ball, and Minny weeping copiously throughout,” Peter continued.

  “Was she weeping for the loss of her husband or the loss of her son? That really is the question,” declared Militza.

  “Your guess is as good as mine,” replied Peter, taking another drag on his cigarette. “And then they’ve been shut away in those six little rooms at the Anichkov ever since, so it is hardly surprising that the Dowager Empress put herself in charge of the list. Alexandra doesn’t know a soul. And she never will if she remains locked away.”

  “My goodness, the square is nearly full,” interrupted Militza.

  Peter looked out. “I told you. Half of Moscow is here.” He paused. “Oh, look! How delightful to see the Vladimirs ahead of us. I’d know that dear discreet little carriage anywhere!”

  With their coachmen dressed in their distinctive scarlet livery and their coat of arms emblazoned in gold across the side of their carriage, the Grand Duke and Duchess Vladimir were not a couple who chose to blend in with the crowd.

  “I presume she is wearing that tiara?” mused Militza, looking at three freezing coachmen huddled around a brazier. Their red faces were barely visible through their hats, wraps, and the haze of frozen breath. She watched as they passed around a small bottle of samogon between them.

  “Of course, she’s wearing that tiara!” replied Stana, her face pressed closer against the glass. “I can see those enormous swinging pearls from here.”

  “They can see them in Vladivostok,” observed Peter, taking another drag on his cigarette. “What is it with that woman and her jewelry? Why does she have to be so completely vulgar?”

  “Monsieur Delacroix told me she’s ordered a gondola from Venice to moor on the embankment,” giggled Stana.

  “Lord!” exclaimed Peter, rolling his eyes.

  “You’d think that woman had never seen a ruble in her life!” added Stana.

  “Well, she hasn’t really, not where she’s from.” Peter grimaced. “Tell me, where is George tonight? Doesn’t he know what he’s missing! He can’t still be in Biarritz?”

  “Isn’t he always?” replied Stana, digging deeper into her sable muff and hunching her fur-clad shoulders.

  “When is he coming back?”

  “I am the last person who’s privy to his plans,” Stana replied, looking firmly out of the window.

  “I can’t think what keeps him there,” mused Peter. “It’s such a dreary little town. Especially out of season.”

  “Good evening!” announced a footman as he opened the carriage door. His frost-blasted nose poked over the top of his gray coat. “Your Imperial Highnesses . . .” He bowed low, holding on to the top of his heavy astrakhan hat. He held out a sturdy black-gloved hand to help Stana out of the carriage first, followed by Militza and finally Peter.

  In front of them the dark red walls of the Winter Palace were illuminated from every window like an overblown Christmas tree. Outside, the thick snow and the cold air swallowed the noise of the arriving carriages, yet as they approached the door, the excitement was palpable, the entrance hall abuzz. Who was here? Who was not? Who had made the cut?

  The guests entered the palace according to rank, and the grand dukes used the Saltykov Entrance. Once inside, Peter, Stana, and Militza deposited their coats and furs with the white-stockinged footmen and changed into their silk party shoes.

  “Right.” Stana braced herself as she handed over her fur. The two sisters faced each other. “How do I look?”

  “Beautiful,” declared Militza, taking in her younger sister’s pale skin, fine nose, and deep black eyes. Even at twenty-eight years old, Stana still drew admiring glances with her fresh face and unusual coloring. “So, we try to make her acquaintance tonight.”

  “Two or three words?” asked Stana, reaching into her bag, thinking to add a little more rouge.

  “More. She may not make friends easily, but every queen needs a confidante.”

  “Or two!” added Stana with a wry laugh.

  After briefly pausing to rearrange their jewelry in the large gilt-framed mirror on the wall, they left the cloakroom to rejoin Peter, and all three proceeded towards the grand Jordan Staircase. Flanked by crimson-coated footmen in velvet breeches, their hair powdered white and stiff with a thick paste, they slowly made their way towards the Malachite Hall.

  “I wonder who the tsar will favor with a few words tonight?” Militza mused to her husband, plucking a glass of champagne off a silver tray.

  “I imagine it will be impossible to engage in any sort of conversation with dear Cousin Nicky. Every aristocrat in the country will be buzzing around him like flies,” replied Peter with a vague indifference as he began to scan the crowd.

  “Are we not to be introduced?” quizzed Stana nervously.

  “Hush!” Militza shot her a frosty look. “Oh, Maria Pavlovna! How very lovely to see you,” Militza said and nodded charmingly.

  “Militza Nikolayevna.” The Grand Duchess Vladimir nodded briefly in reply, and the three women looked at each other in silence.

  Despite her fine fashions and exquisite jewels, the parties, the late nights, and the years were beginning to take their toll on Maria Pavlovna. Her waist had thickened, and her skin no longer glowed, yet her lust for power and position remained undiminished. In fact, rumor had it that she was contemplating converting from the Lutheran to the Russian Orthodox faith to advance her eldest son, Kirill, closer to the crown. It amused Militza to watch the grand duchess’s irritation at bumping into them. Her keenness not to be delayed by two women so low down in the pecking order at court was obvious. Maria Pavlovna actively twitched as she desperately surveyed the crowd, searching for her exit.

  “Looking forward to meeting the new tsarina?” ventured Stana.

  “Meet her? I have known little Alix since she was a child at Hesse-Darmstadt,” replied Maria, looking over Stana’s shoulder. “Such a quiet, mousy little thing. She speaks practically no Russian at all.”

  “I suppose it’s all happened so quickly, what with the tsar’s sudden death. I don’t suppose she thought she’d be on the throne that soon,” replied Militza, her eyes fixed on the grand duchess.

  “Yes,” she said, glancing around the room.

  “I hear her English is good,” added Stana brightly.

  “She is virtually English,” Maria replied, her eyes closing with a jaded boredom that verged on disdain. “She’s Queen Victoria’s favorite grandchild and spent many summers with her English cousins.”

  There was another pause.

  “I do think your new tiara is quite delightful,” enthused Stana.

  “The pearls and diamonds are fashionably large,” agreed Militza.

  “Thank you.” Maria’s head swung contentedly. “It was very expensive. Ma chère . . . !” she declared loudly at a passing guest. “Comment ça va?”

  “Sometimes I wish you’d left that appalling woman to die,” Stana whispered to her sister, taking a sip of champagne as she
watched Maria disappear into the crowd.

  They walked along the high-ceilinged corridors, the air redolent with the smell of pine from the festive evergreen boughs overhead, plus the sweet scent of a thousand perfumed candles. Huge floral displays of exotic blooms shipped in from the Crimea filled the alcoves, along with potted palms and fragrant orange and lemon trees. Music, played by string quartets and roaming gypsy bands, competed with the loud noise of conversation. The farther they walked through the marble, jasper, and russet porphyry columns, the denser the crowd became and the greater the heat. Princes, princesses, dukes, barons, diplomats, and government ministers, all dressed in their brightly colored military uniforms, their chests sagging with medals, traded nods and greetings, mingling among the haze of pale blue cigarette smoke.

  In the bottleneck at the doors to the Nicholas Hall, Peter bumped into his favorite relative, Grand Duke Nikolai Mikhailovich, fondly known as Uncle Bimbo, sipping iced vodka and talking to the French military attaché; they immediately engaged in conversation.

  “Make way for the Yusupovs,” whispered Stana as Zinaida and her husband, Count Felix Yusupov, barged through in a rustle of silk and a shimmer of expensive stones. “Honestly, Militza, I give up sometimes! These people . . .”

  “Don’t you feel it?” declared Militza, suddenly taking hold of her sister’s wrist. A powerful pulse coursed through her body and her nostrils flared. “Can’t you sense it?” She inhaled as if smelling the sweetest, headiest scent, her eyelids fluttering with intoxication.

  “What?”

  “Look around you.” Militza’s black eyes darted left and right. “Don’t you see? The old guard are in retreat. The hierarchy is changing. An era is over. Nicholas is very different from his father. He is new. He is young. He never expected to come to the throne this soon. The wind . . . Listen!” Militza pushed her sister gently up against a pillar. “Father managed to use his friendship with the last tsar to the benefit of our country, and now that the old tsar is gone, it is up to us.”

  “But how?”

  “I don’t know yet, but I can feel it. Look.” Militza proffered up her right arm. All the thin black hairs were standing on end.

  The sisters chose two more flutes of champagne from a footman’s heavy silver tray and passed a group of Cossacks dressed in scarlet coats and dark breeches with a red stripe down the side. They approached three of the tsarina’s ladies-in-waiting who, wearing their special encrusted diamond-framed brooches with the tsarina’s portrait, were standing near a table of chilled beluga caviar. The ladies looked across and, flapping out their fans, immediately began to whisper.

  Stana took a step forward.

  “Don’t!” hissed Militza. The women recoiled slightly. One of them stepped behind a plant as protection. It was clearly amusing to gawp and giggle at the Goat Princesses from afar, but saying anything straight to Stana’s determined face was obviously something else.

  “Oh, at last! I was hoping to bump into you,” began a large bustling woman. Her elderly-looking court dress was slightly faded and yellowed around the neck. “I have been searching the halls, looking for you both. I am dying to invite you to my salon!” She beamed, flapping a substantial ostrich-feather-and-mother-of-pearl fan in front of her flushed face. “I’m Sophia Ignatiev!”

  Militza and Stana smiled. Everyone knew about the Countess Ignatiev and her thrice-weekly salons, where the enlightened, the mysterious, and the divorced would meet and exchange ideas. It was a veritable crossroads for mystics and healers, a place to discuss radical theories, exchange ideas, and indulge in a little table tipping and some coffee-ground reading. The Countess Sophia Ignatiev’s reputation did indeed precede her.

  “Enchanté,” said Stana, holding out a white-gloved hand to the countess. “We know exactly who you are.”

  “Oh, do say you’ll come!” said the countess, enthusiastically taking hold of Stana’s hand. “I know you’d enjoy it.”

  “You do?” asked Militza.

  “Oh, yes.” She smiled, encouragingly. “There are so many people I want to introduce you to.”

  “We shall be sure to attend,” replied Stana.

  “As soon as you can!”

  “Of course.” Stana smiled.

  “You two would be such an exciting addition!” exclaimed the countess, silently clapping her gloved hands together. “I shall send over my card. I am at 26 Kutuzov Embankment.”

  “We should hurry,” said Militza, glancing towards a large gilt clock in a nearby alcove. “It is nearly nine, time for the procession.”

  THE SISTERS WOVE THEIR WAY THROUGH THE MASS OF EMBROIDERED dresses and brocaded uniforms towards the Malachite Hall, where the atmosphere of anticipation was growing as courtiers, counts and countesses, princes and princesses all maneuvered themselves into better positions. Large palms were pushed out of the way as everyone readied themselves for the arrival of the tsar and his new wife.

  “Ah!” said Peter, taking his wife’s hand. “I have been looking for you.”

  “As soon as the tsar passes, we follow on behind,” whispered Militza to Stana.

  “Are you sure? I think we should hold back,” she replied, looking nervous. Not only was Militza asking her to push to the front, which was neither their place nor their position to do, but she was also suggesting Stana parade through the halls on her own, advertising the absence of her husband.

  “Nonsense,” hissed Militza. “We need to assert our affiliation early. We need to start as we mean to go on.”

  “But—” Stana’s heart was racing. She could not walk behind the tsar and tsarina alone. People would talk. They’d ask questions.

  “My brother is here to hold your hand for the polonaise should you so wish?” suggested Peter, reading her mind.

  “Grand Duke Nikolai?” Her face lit up.

  “At your service,” replied Nikolai, clicking his heels together and bowing his head slightly. Dressed in a red hussar’s uniform, he looked even more attractive than the day he’d escorted her down the aisle. Elegant, a little bronzed by the sun, and so very tall, he exuded the clean health of a man fond of fresh air. “No George tonight?”

  “He’s in Biarritz.” She smiled.

  “Biarritz?” he replied. “I can’t think what keeps him there. It’s such a dreary little town.”

  “So they say,” said Stana, her voice a little clipped.

  “Nikolasha has just come back from a hunting trip outside Moscow. He’s got some of the most beautiful borzois you have ever seen. He breeds them,” enthused Peter, looking up at his elder brother. “You should go and see them, Stana.”

  “I’d like that.” Stana smiled, offering up her hand.

  “It would be my pleasure,” replied Nikolasha, gently kissing it.

  It was odd, thought Militza as she watched his lips press against her sister’s white glove, that a man of his standing should not yet be married.

  “Are you looking forward to this evening, my darling?” asked Peter, looking his wife up and down.

  “I am a little nervous,” whispered Militza.

  “I’ll look after you,” he said, smiling.

  The grand marshal of the Imperial Court, Count Benckendorff, appeared and thumped his ten-foot ebony staff, embossed in gold, on the wooden floor three times. The hall fell silent.

  “Their Imperial Majesties—the tsar and tsarina!”

  The two six-foot-four Abyssinians, wearing exquisite twisted golden turbans, heaved open the great mahogany doors inlaid with gold, and the tsar and tsarina slowly appeared. She shimmered with silver thread and the light of a thousand diamonds and pearls, while he was dressed in a red hussar’s uniform, covered in the thick golden ropes and tassels of various orders and honors.

  Militza stared at them. The tsarina was indeed beautiful, with her exquisite pale eyes, her delicate features, and her red-gold hair, but she had not expected the young tsar to be so attractive. She had made his acquaintance on several occasions before, where she’d alway
s found him a little frivolous and perhaps a little short, but now, standing within a few feet of her, dressed in his uniform, in his new role of tsar—ruler of the largest and richest country on earth—she felt the unmistakable allure of power. She held her breath as his pale eyes scanned the room and then rested on her for a moment. She smiled and slowly curtsied, careful to lower her thick, dark lashes last of all.

  “Your Imperial Majesty,” she breathed.

  The tsar and tsarina stepped forward. A deferential wave of bowing and curtsying swept through the hall and out into the corridors beyond. The orchestra struck up the lugubrious “God Save the Tsar” as the imperial couple began to walk through the hall.

  Behind them, there was a mad scramble among the most well connected in the land as each couple vied for position, prestige, and proximity to the royal couple. The Vladimirs were in first, the Yusupovs not far behind. Momentarily, a gap opened up. Militza saw it and seized her chance. She grabbed hold of a deeply reluctant Peter, dragging him in her wake.

  “What do you think you are doing?” he hissed, his face flushed with embarrassment. “This is not the way it is done!”

  “Trust me!” she replied. “Come on, Stana!” She pulled on her sister’s arm. And she and Grand Duke Nikolai had little choice but to follow.

  “There they go,” muttered someone. “Scylla and Charybdis, pushing their way to the front.”

  “Ignore them,” said Militza, holding her chin aloft as she stepped forward in time to the music.

  THE PROCESSION BEGAN TO WEAVE ITS WAY THROUGH THE Winter Palace. Led by the tsar and tsarina, it graced every room with its magnificence as the lengthy column danced three times around the building. Only several steps behind the empress, Militza could feel her heart pounding with adrenaline as she gripped her husband’s hand. It was the tsarina’s first outing, and here she was, so very near to her! Yet her moment of triumph was somewhat dissipated by the tsarina’s evident discomfort.

  The expectation, the anticipation, the examination, the scrutiny of thousands of pairs of eyes were all proving too much for her. A virulent rash started to spread up the back of Alexandra’s neck and across her shoulders, and her ears began to throb a bright scarlet. The bowing crowds began to mutter and whisper their disapproval as she passed. And the more they muttered, the brighter the rash became. As the tsarina turned a corner, Militza could see the bright pink blotches all over the empress’s face. She did not look like a proud, glamorous Imperial Majesty, parading in front of her adoring public, but more like a nervous young woman on the verge of tears.