“Indeed, Madame, it’s not quite the city it was, is it?” he replied with another nod.
“No,” agreed Militza a little wistfully.
He looked from one grand duchess to the other. There was a pause, and they all three looked at each other. “Well, good evening to you both.” He nodded. “I am on my way home.”
And that could have been that. A chance meeting in the Yacht Club, a brief conversation, a quick crossing of paths. And nothing. They could have all disappeared into that gray night without consequence. Except Militza said something. Quite why, neither of the sisters ever knew. The Fates? The gods? Spirit? Perhaps it was all preordained . . . She was compelled to speak, she said later, didn’t have time to think. The request just came flying out.
“Do join us, Lieutenant Rayner,” she said. “It is awfully cold out there and the brandy here is delicious. I demand you stay and have one before you leave!”
Except Lieutenant Rayner did not have one brandy; he had three. And during the process of his drinking, he recounted Prince Felix Yusupov’s last few meetings with Rasputin.
“He’s been ‘curing’ him,” said Rayner, his eyes shining over the rim of his crystal glass.
“I thought Felix couldn’t stand Grisha?” said Militza.
“That much is true. He says Rasputin’s eyes are like ‘two phosphorescent beams of light, melting into a great luminous ring.’” Rayner smirked. “‘They drew him ‘nearer and then further away,’ apparently he was ‘powerless, powerless, in the full beam of his hypnotism!’” Rayner laughed loudly, and the sisters smiled briefly; they liked Lieutenant Rayner. “He is with him at the palace tonight!”
“The palace?” asked Militza.
“On Moika.” Rayner nodded, taking another sip of his drink. “Rasputin’s gone to meet Irina—apparently he’s madly in love with her! As is everyone in Russia, of course. What’s not to be in love with?”
“Irina Alexandrovna Yusupova?” asked Stana.
“Yes, that’s right. He’s desperate to meet her apparently! Weak at the knees! The old dog!” He laughed again.
“But that’s impossible,” said Stana.
“Why?” Rayner’s smile disappeared.
“She is in the Crimea,” said Stana. “I dined with her just before I left. And I arrived only today, so she can’t possibly be here.”
“Oh,” he said and then scratched his head.
“Well, that is odd,” said Militza. “Why would Prince Yusupov lie?”
Oswald Rayner, of the British Secret Intelligence Service, was remarkably garrulous for a man whose job it was to keep secrets. Maybe, as a British spy, he didn’t take the plot seriously. The idea that the effete, spoiled prince he’d met at Oxford, the man he’d befriended at the Bullingdon Club, the man he’d spent wild nights with, drinking and dancing, watching him dress up in women’s clothes and flirt outrageously with fellow students, the idea that he—a ponced-up peacock of a prince—could possibly be the perfect candidate to pull off the political assassination of the century was clearly some sort of joke to him. And the method? Some poisoned cakes laced with cyanide. Cakes? Only children dreamt of killing people with poisoned cakes!
“They’re all there,” he said, checking his watch. “About now!” He drained his glass. “Him and a few cronies, hoping the beast is going to eat a few madeleines and keel over!”
“Well, that won’t work,” said Militza, picking up the decanter and replenishing Rayner’s glass.
“I know, I’ve told him!” agreed Rayner, taking another rather large slug of brandy. “If you want to kill someone, you really have to shoot them.” He tapped his top left-hand pocket. “You need a bloody gun!”
“No, I don’t mean that,” said Militza. “Rasputin is immune to cyanide. He’s been eating apple pips, apricot and peach kernels for years.”
“Mithridatism,” said Rayner, sitting up straight in his chair, suddenly very serious indeed. “Well . . .” He shrugged and scratched his head again.
Militza looked at her sister. Their time was now, right now, and they both knew it.
“Your gun?” asked Militza quite simply. “Is it loaded?” Rayner nodded. “Then come with me,” she said, getting slowly up from the table. “Don’t hurry,” she said with a wide, generous smile, beaming around the room. “There is no need for any fuss.”
Militza led the others straight into the kitchen. If this was to be their one and only opportunity, then there could be no margin for error. It was difficult to explain to the kitchen staff that they wanted herbs. Lots of herbs. Smoking a pistol with a bunch of sage was not a usual request. But the commis chef was Italian and viewed such bizarre Russian behavior as none of his business. Besides, the country was at war—anything was possible. So Rayner looked on as the two sisters burnt the sage over the stove and let the smoke curl around the muzzle of his pistol. They began to chant and mumble and mutter strange words in a language he did not understand; all he knew was something momentous was about to happen and that he, somehow, was going to have a part in it.
They walked out of the club and straight into Militza’s waiting car.
It was two in the morning.
“The Yusupov Palace,” said Militza to her driver.
“Really?” asked Rayner, sounding more than a little anxious.
“Absolutely,” came her firm reply.
They all sat in silence as they drove through the side streets of Petrograd. The moon and stars were hidden, the streets empty save for a few drunks weaving their way home. It was a still night, not a breath of wind to stir the snow-covered pavements.
It was the perfect night for a murder.
“WHAT WERE YOU DOING BACK THERE?” ASKED RAYNER EVENTUALLY as they edged towards Moika. “In the kitchen?”
“A smoked barrel never misses,” said Militza frankly as she stared out of the window. “Here!” she said to the driver. “We don’t need to park outside the palace, it is a good night for a walk.”
“A walk, Your Imperial Highness?” asked the driver.
“Yes,” she stated flatly. “It’s an excellent night for a walk.”
The three of them headed along the two blocks to the palace at 94 Moika. It was hard going in the thick snow, in silk shoes with leather soles, but neither of the sisters noticed. They were calm, focused on what they were about to do. They slowed just as they reached the railings to the courtyard at 92 Moika, adjacent to the Yusupov palace. They glanced up and down the road and across the canal. There was no one on the street. Militza nodded at Rayner, and he slowly nodded back at her, tapping his top pocket, where he’d placed his gun.
Suddenly they heard a door bang and spun around. Through the darkness they could see a figure staggering away from the side of the palace and running towards them. It lurched left and right, its knees buckling, falling and scrambling up again. It was roaring and yelling, screaming in pain like a mortally wounded animal. Suddenly another two figures burst out of the small door at the side of the palace in hot pursuit. One fired a gun, and a bullet whistled through the air, landing in a puff of snow. The next clipped the arm of the first figure, who screamed again in agony. Bang! came another. And finally the first figure skidded and slipped, only to fall right in front of them.
Rasputin lay flat on his back in the snow, blood seeping from his arm, blood seeping from his chest. His eyes were wide-open.
“Mamma,” he whispered as he caught sight of Militza staring down at him. “You came.”
“Shoot him!” she said quite calmly to Rayner.
“Me?”
“Yes, you! Now!”
Rayner whipped his British standard-issue Webley .455-caliber pistol out of his pocket and aimed it at the man lying in the snow. There was nowhere for Rasputin to run, nowhere for him to hide; he was cornered like a rat and about to die like a dog. Rayner’s hand shook and Rasputin whimpered.
“Shoot!” shouted Militza. “Shoot him! In the name of the tsar and all of Russia—kill him!”
&n
bsp; Rayner took aim. He held his breath, closed his eyes. He squeezed the trigger. And then . . . he couldn’t. This was cold blood. An assassination. An execution. His shoulder relaxed for a second. Immediately, Militza grabbed the gun. Rasputin’s eyes narrowed as he stared at her.
“Naughty girl,” he whispered, just as she shot him straight through the forehead.
The screaming was unbearable as it ricocheted about the courtyard. Militza dropped the gun in the snow and covered her ears. The noise in her head and the pain in her heart were unbearable. The crows that had been nestling in the trees behind launched off their branches at the sound of the gun and dived and bombed and screeched around her. She covered her head as she slowly sank into the snow.
It was done.
“Good shot!” shouted Yusupov as he ran over to join them. “You?” He stopped in his tracks, looking stunned. “Militza Nikolayevna, you shot him! You shot Rasputin!” He smiled broadly as he looked down at her in the snow. “Good shot, good shot indeed!” He patted her on the shoulder and then turned to look at the body lying on the ground. “Do you think he’s dead? Oswald?” He looked quizzically at his friend. “You’re a man of the world, you know about these things.”
“He looks dead to me,” replied Rayner, his voice quiet.
Felix slowly leaned down and ripped the golden cross from around Rasputin’s neck. “He was no man of God. He was the devil himself. The devil incarnate. Harder to kill than a rabid dog. Twice we tried—and twice he rose again! For you, Madame,” said Felix, handing Militza the cross, “a small trophy for your pains.”
“Drown him,” mumbled Militza.
“But he’s dead,” said Rayner.
“Drown him!” Militza was still kneeling in the snow. “Drown him.”
“There’s no need,” said Prince Dmitry Pavlovich, who was standing behind Prince Yusupov. He moved forward and kicked the body for good measure, his young, fresh face beaming with delight. “He’s dead. The beast is dead, all right! Long live the tsar! Long live Russia!”
“Drown him,” said Militza, as slowly and as emphatically as her quivering lips would allow.
“Just to make sure?” queried Rayner.
“No,” said Stana, looking down at her sister. “You cannot canonize a drowned man. You can’t make a saint out of those who perish in water. A soul drowned in water can never come back. So do as my sister says—drown him.”
“Where?” asked Prince Dmitry, looking at Yusupov.
“I don’t know,” said Felix, who suddenly shivered and retched dramatically. “I can’t bear to look at him. He’s the devil. Satan himself. Even now, lying there . . .”
In silence they all stared at the corpse, unable to take in what they had done. They were an unlikely group of murderers—two grand duchesses, two princes, a deputy from the Duma, a doctor, and an army officer, accompanied by a British secret agent.
Suddenly, there was a quiet thud and Militza looked to her left to see that Prince Yusupov had passed out cold in the snow. It was all clearly too much for him. It was going to be up to her to think of a way of disposing of the body.
It would be dawn soon. People would start to ask questions, and Rasputin’s followers would be knocking on his door. Even the secret police might start searching the drinking dens of Novaya Derevnaya, looking for their charge. There was no time, no opportunity for depth of deception or any finesse.
“Throw him into the canal,” suggested Rayner. “The ice should hold the body for a few days; that way we can clear our tracks.”
“But where?” asked Prince Dmitry, looking from one to the other.
“Petrovsky Bridge,” suggested Militza. “It is not far and the water is deep.”
“We can use my car,” offered Vladimir Purishkevich.
SO FIRST THEY BOUND RASPUTIN’S HANDS AND FEET WITH A cord they found in the back of Purishkevich’s car. Next they took Rasputin’s fur coat out of the basement salon, where, earlier in the evening, he’d been fed cakes laced with cyanide, and wrapped him in it. And then, finally, in a panic, they tore a blue velvet curtain off the wall in the Yusupov Palace and rolled him up inside it. They placed the body into the boot of Vladimir Purishkevich’s car and drove slowly, constantly stalling, with the body bouncing around, to Bolshoi Petrovsky Bridge. Prince Yusupov, who was not deemed well enough to come in the car, retired to the palace in the company of his valet. Militza also insisted that Rayner take Stana home; her car had been waiting on the corner for some two hours now and was surely about to attract attention. Frankly, the fewer involved in the disposal of the body, the better.
It was still dark when they finally arrived at the bridge. The moon was hiding its face, almost as if it did not want to bear witness to the heinous crime going on below. However, the wind was up, blowing a dank and bitter cold off the Neva.
Militza and Prince Dmitry watched as Purishkevich, Lieutenant Sergei Mikhailovich Sukhotin, and Dr. Stanislaus de Lazovert struggled to throw the corpse over the side of the bridge into the Malaya Nevka below. They removed the blue curtain, but still they strained and pulled and tugged. Eventually, finally, they raised the body high enough to mount the barrier and they pushed it off the wooden railings into the icy water below. As the body fell through the ice, Sukhotin realized a galosh was missing. He scoured the bridge and, finding it, picked it up, and in his panic, he hurled it in the air. It landed on the bank, missing the river entirely.
The body refused to sink. Prince Dmitry had forgotten to load the corpse with the heavy chains he’d packed into the car. So it floated. The fine fur billowed out in the freezing-cold water, like some sort of sail.
Militza stared. Rasputin looked as if he were sleeping, his eyes closed as he lay on the surface.
“God forgive me,” said Militza. “Forgive me, Grisha.”
Her hand was shaking over her mouth as she stood, shivering, on the bridge. The relief, the loss, the horror of what she had done was so overwhelming that she ceased to feel anything. It was all too much to take in. She was numb. She looked down into the deep, dark water. Through the ripples, the cord around Rasputin’s wrists appeared to loosen; his pale gray eyes gently opened and stared up at her as he sank, finally weighed down by his fur coat; his right hand moving slowly up and down, he made the sign of a cross.
Epilogue
MILITZA, PETER, STANA, AND NIKOLASHA AND ALL their children survived the 1917 revolution. They escaped off the beaches of the Crimea with some of their fortune, rescued by the British on HMS Marlborough in April 1919 along with Prince Felix Yusupov, his wife, Princess Irina, plus his parents, Princess Zinaida Yusupova and her husband, Count Felix Yusupov, as well as Grand Duchess Xenia and her mother, the Dowager Empress Maria Fyodorovna.
After a somewhat protracted journey, where they were deposited in Greece while the others continued on to Malta, Militza and Stana and their families ended up living in the South of France, where Grand Duke Nikolai eventually died in 1929, followed by Grand Duke Peter in 1931, and Grand Duchess Anastasia in 1935.
Militza lived on, only to become caught up in the Second World War. She left France for Italy to stay with her sister Queen Elena. But the situation became very unstable, and as the king and queen went into hiding, Militza ended up seeking refuge in a convent close to the Spanish Steps in Rome. A few months later she managed to escape to the Vatican, where she received sanctuary within the walls of Vatican City for three years. Eventually she escaped, along with her sister Elena and the rest of the Italian royal family, to Alexandria, Egypt, where she lived along with a myriad of other deposed royals, including King Zog of Albania, as a guest of King Farouk of Egypt. Grand Duchess Militza died in Alexandria in September 1951, aged eighty-five.
* * *
Several days after his murder, the body of Rasputin was found with a gunshot wound to the forehead. It was pulled out of the river from under the ice at Petrovsky Bridge. His lungs were said to be full of water, as if he had, in fact, drowned, and his hands had freed themselves fr
om the cord that tied them and were raised as if he had been scratching at the ice, trying to get out.
Acknowledgments
ALTHOUGH THIS IS A WORK OF FICTION, THE MAJORITY of the story is true, and I am deeply indebted to my dear friend, the journalist and ridiculously brave war correspondent Nikolai Antonov, who first told me about the “Black Princesses” all those years ago, in 1992, as we sat around his kitchen table in Moscow, drinking strong vodka and eating stronger pickles. His eyes shone as he wove a magical tale about these two beautiful young princesses who arrived from Montenegro, married into the Russian royal family, introduced Rasputin to the tsarina, and brought down an empire. “Power, magic, sex!” he laughed. We charged our glasses, and I promised him I’d write it as soon as I got home.
I didn’t, of course, I ended up writing other things, but Nikolai would not give up. He called me often from Moscow, sharing little bits of information he’d discovered. They were hard women to track down. Being neither the victors nor male, they were usually consigned to the footnotes of history. But I do remember one telephone call from Nik, some ten years later and just days, in fact, before he died: he’d just found out the most fantastic fact and he had to tell me right away.
“The reason they were called the Black Princesses,” he said and paused for dramatic effect, static cracking down the line, “was not because they had black hair, or because they liked black magic, but because they had black eyes! Black eyes,” he repeated.
And I have been haunted by their black eyes ever since. Theirs was a story that would not give up or go away. It gnawed away at my subconscious, a monkey on my back for over twenty years, the sisters with their black eyes, their visions, their powers and what drove them. And the more I read, the more convinced I became of their crucial involvement in this extraordinary part of Russian history. The story of the succession, the tragedy of little Alexei—they were there. They supplied the gurus, the drugs, the spells, the incantations; they were there in the bedchamber; they were there at the parties and the balls. Confidantes, friends, allies, and supporters of a tsarina who must have carried guilt of the Hesse disease around with her like some toxic burden every day. Mother and murderer of her own son? There’s nothing to ease that sort of pain. Not even Rasputin.
The Witches of St. Petersburg Page 41
