The Romanov Empress

by C. W. Gortner

  Botkin led him out, back to his carriage and the train station, for I did not want him in the villa. Then I tried to collect my disintegrating composure and went to Sasha’s room.

  He sat on his chair, his swollen feet propped on a stool.

  “Don’t say it,” he whispered as I clasped his hand. “Be calm. I am calm.”

  * * *

  THERE WAS NO way to hide it. Word spread fast in times of crisis, and the grand dukes were becoming agitated. Detaining me in the corridor one morning after I’d spent a terrible night tending to Sasha, Vladimir declared, “We must issue a public bulletin. Everyone is talking about my brother’s imminent demise.”

  “Let them,” I retorted, but as I made to push past him, he did something he’d never have previously dared—he grasped me by my arm. As I whirled to him, he said, “Nicky is not prepared. He told Sandro he doesn’t know how to rule and never wanted to be emperor. But he knows what he does want. He summoned her by telegram. His bride is on her way as we speak.”

  I shook him away and prowled the villa, eventually locating Nicky in the colonnaded gallery with Xenia. When he caught sight of me, he froze, his cigarette at his mouth.

  “How could you?” I said. “Is it true? Did you call for her?”

  Xenia said haltingly, “Mama, he needs—” but I glared at her before I rounded back on Nicky. “Did you? Tell me this instant.”

  He whispered, “I asked Papa first. He gave his consent.”

  “When?”

  “Yesterday afternoon, when he called for me.” Tears sprang to his eyes, but I had no mercy or pity. I’d exhausted my reserves of both. “Mama, please don’t be angry. I asked him, and he said yes because no tsar should be crowned without a wife.”

  “Ingrate.” I was trembling. For the first time, I wanted to strike him. “He’s not dead yet. And while he lives, he is still the tsar and he has a wife. Me. Your mother.”

  Nicky lowered his gaze. Xenia implored, “Mama, you mustn’t say such things to him. He’s disconsolate. We all are. He wants her with him. He thinks they should be married before Papa—before he…” She faltered, unable to utter the dreaded words.

  “Not here,” I said. “There will be no wedding here.”

  I marched back into the villa, storming through the dining room and startling the grand dukes, who partook of breakfast in their casual attire, as if their tsar were not dying just down the corridor. Barging into Sasha’s room, I found him upright on his chair, old Ivan having managed to haul him out of bed to wash and change him.

  “Did you tell Nicky he could call for her?” I asked.

  Sasha let out a chuckle through his parched lips. “Vladimir wasted no time, I see.” He beckoned me. All of a sudden, I fell apart. I stood there, his hand extended between us, and I wept with such gut-wrenching sorrow that I felt my knees weaken underneath me.

  “No, Manja, not you. I can endure it from anyone but you,” he said, and I made myself step to him, falling before his chair to set my head on his lap. He stroked me as he murmured, “Send for your sister. You need her now. Alix always gives you strength.”

  Alix returned word that she and Bertie would come as soon as they could and I prayed they’d reach us before Alicky did.

  But God was no longer answering my prayers.

  * * *

  SHE ARRIVED CLAD in a somber gray cloak buttoned up to her chin, with mounds of luggage and three ladies-in-waiting. The villa was filled to capacity, but I had to find room. After she was brought to the bedchamber I’d prepared for her, having evicted Vladimir and sent him to the adjacent villa, Alicky said, “I am sorry to be an inconvenience.”

  My smile felt taut. “Nonsense, my dear. I understand we’re soon to be family.”

  “I thought we already were.” She regarded me through those cool violet eyes, which were so lovely yet also opaque, reflecting nothing of whatever she felt. “My sister Ella is Grand Duchess Sergei, Nicky’s aunt-in-law.”

  “Yes, of course. But now you’ll be family in a way we did not expect.” I walked out on her, my patience tested beyond any ability to remain polite.

  In the afternoon, alerted to her arrival, Sasha called for her and Nicky. His feverish gaze turned bright as they knelt before him and he made the sign of the cross over them.

  “Leave me alone with my new daughter,” he said, and though I was alarmed, I had no choice but to oblige. They stayed closeted together for over an hour. When she emerged, I could see moisture on her pale cheeks from her tears. Nicky took her by the hand and led her away. I never asked Sasha what he said to her, but Nicky later told me.

  “He said he had an angel for his wife, and he prayed she would be the same for me.”

  It was done. Sasha had given them his blessing.

  * * *

  THE FIRST OF November dawned with an overcast sky and a blustering wind that made the casements rattle. Sasha was groaning. When I went to help him upright—for he could no longer recline in bed, because of the pain, and had slumped in his chair during the night—he coughed up clots of blood.

  I did not leave his side. I did not eat or drink, change my clothes, or tidy my hair. I held his hand as he drifted in and out of consciousness, and the family slipped into the room with the priests, who began to chant the prayer for the dying. The children kissed him, one by one: Nicky, holding fast to Alicky, then Xenia with Sandro, followed by Olga, who was distraught, and quiet Misha, who tried to comfort Olga as she wept.

  He did not seem to know they were there, but when a clock somewhere in the villa struck three, he revived. “The windows,” I heard him whisper. “Open them.”

  Holding up my hand to detain Dr. Botkin’s protest, I told Ivan to do it. The distant rumble of the sea flinging itself against the cliff and the smell of salt washed into the room, plunging me back in time to another villa on another coast, where death had awaited me.

  Then Sasha said, “Minnie. My poor Minnie,” and I jolted back to the present, putting my arms around him. “I am here,” I whispered. “I am always here, my beloved.”

  His head slipped onto my shoulder. “It is not forever,” he said.

  Without another sound, my husband left me.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Black crepe caked with snow draped every lamppost, carriage, and store awning. The Neva froze solid, but the people didn’t build ice hills or take to their skates. Beset by sorrow, Russia came to a halt to mourn its Moujik Tsar.

  At the Anichkov, I secluded myself with my younger children and Nicky. As he and Alicky weren’t married, she had to reside with Sergei and Ella in their palace across the street. She’d been present, however, when the Oath of Allegiance was sworn to Nicky and he was proclaimed Tsar Nicholas II. Bewildered and overcome by grief, my son had no capacity to react. It was my brother-in-law Bertie, arriving too late with Alix to say goodbye, who, with tears in his eyes, marshaled the grand dukes to oversee the funeral procession to the imperial ship and the regimental escort for Sasha’s final journey home.

  Alix stayed with me. She gave me Sasha’s final gift, an enamel-and-ruby bracelet for our twenty-eighth anniversary, which fell a week after his death; the bracelet had been entrusted to her by a letter he’d left Bertie. I wept to see it in its Fabergé box, and I railed, blaming myself for not realizing how ill he’d been and regretting the times I doubted my love for him. My sister spoon-fed me broth, had my bath drawn, and washed me herself. She dressed me in the black weeds of my widowhood and undressed me in the evening when we returned from the daily masses and ritual kisses on his cold forehead in the Winter Palace chapel. She gathered me in her arms when I begged to die, keening that I couldn’t live without him.

  Only then did she say, “You have your family to live for. Your children need you. Nicky must wed and be crowned, and you must advise him. It is the way of the world, no matter how savage or unjust it may seem
.”

  She lent me strength, as Sasha had said she would, though I didn’t feel it at the time.

  After the final service, with the chants still in my ears and incense permeating my skin, we witnessed his entombment in the fortress cathedral. I couldn’t bear to watch his casket, draped in the imperial mantle, lowered into the vault, the marble sarcophagus then set in place to cover the last trace of him.

  I couldn’t believe he was gone.

  Nothing in our homes could be changed. I kept his study as he’d left it, his old boots in the closet, his sun-faded hats on their pegs, his chipped walking sticks stacked wherever he’d happened to deposit them. His beloved hunting dog, Sparta, trailed me everywhere, whining when the hour for their walk came and Sasha failed to appear. Like me, everything seemed suspended in time, waiting for him to arrive, to stomp his boots to shed the snow and grumble that his cabinet was comprised of idiots and cowards.

  I heard him sometimes, too. I’d be smoking in my sitting room, not bothering to crack a window, and through the drifting pall I’d hear him say, “Manja. You smoke too much.” I’d bolt to my feet, stumbling over my black skirts to throw open the door, only to find Tania or Sophie in the corridor, my constant guardians, worried I wasn’t eating as much as I should or I might set the house or myself on fire with my incessant cigarettes.

  Eventually, numbness set in. It was better than the talons of grief. I could at least exist if I felt nothing. Alix and Bertie stayed with me, and all the dignitaries and members of royal houses who’d come to Russia to pay their respects also lingered, despite the onset of winter. I knew why they stayed. My parents, both aged now, hadn’t attended the funeral, at my insistence, as Papa’s arthritis was too debilitating to withstand travel. But they replied that they hoped to attend Nicky’s wedding—which drove an invisible knife into me, reminding me why everyone tarried. Although I detested the pitying looks and sympathetic whispers behind my back—poor Minnie—what lay ahead felt worse.

  To keep busy, I sat down with Olga to compose thank-you cards to the avalanche of condolences I’d received. Olga had loved her father more than she did anyone else in our family except Misha, but she was only twelve and had spent herself on such paroxysms of tears that she eventually cried her eyes dry.

  She now frowned as I instructed her what to write on my embossed stationery. “Must we? So many cards. Who are all these people?”

  “People kind enough to write to us. And, yes, we must. It’s the polite thing to do.”

  “They wrote to you.” She squared her jaw in that way she had, which now pierced me with its uncanny resemblance to Sasha. “They don’t care about me.”

  “They most certainly do. They care about all of us.” I heard exasperation in my voice; she never ceased to try me, and for once I welcomed it as a small sign that life might resume. “Now, write. I’ll sign each card after you finish.”

  When we finished, she had ink smears on her hands, her dress, and the tip of her pert nose. I smiled, wetting my finger to wipe it off—an unexpected maternal gesture that made her squirm. Then she said abruptly, “When is Nicky going to marry?”

  “Certainly not before our period of mourning is over. Why do you ask?”

  “No reason,” she said, too quickly. I knew she’d accompanied Nicky on his daily visits to the Serge Palace, as Ella and Sergei’s residence was known, so I held her gaze until she added, “Alicky says he’s the tsar now and she doesn’t think it proper they’re still unwed.”

  “Does she think it more proper to wed after his father has just been laid in his tomb?” I retorted, and Olga, who wasn’t afraid of my occasional outbursts, replied, “I’m just telling you what I heard. You did ask.”

  I wished I hadn’t. “Go wash your face and hands.”

  As she scampered out, I sat at my desk with the piles of cards and envelopes to seal before me. Anguish thick as a storm cloud fell over me.

  My son must marry her. And I’d have to feign my joy.

  * * *

  THE WEDDING TOOK place on November 26, the day of my forty-seventh birthday. In Russia, a birthday wasn’t celebrated; instead, we celebrated Name Days, based on the name of one’s saint, so no one thought it amiss. I didn’t, either. I thought the entire situation amiss, so whichever day it happened to fall upon was irrelevant. His uncles the grand dukes and his ministers had pressed upon Nicky the vital importance of marrying soon, and he capitulated. Or that’s what he told me when he came to ask my permission. I nodded and agreed, telling myself that no matter what I felt about his bride, he had made his decision and I must accept it. Perhaps I was being too overprotective as his mother. Perhaps in time she would prove herself fully capable of assuming my rank and duties.

  I put on the same compliant face as I accompanied Alicky to the Winter Palace for her ceremonial bridal robing. I could see how anxious she was. She looked beautiful but so pale, her profile like an ivory icon as she confided, without prompting from me, that she wasn’t sleeping well.

  “The change in climate,” I said. “The long nights. It takes time to grow accustomed.”

  “I suppose that must be it.” She sighed, looking out the carriage window toward the palace. “But I also know how terribly difficult this must be for you, so soon after…” She shifted her gaze to me. “I wish with all my heart that it were not so. I love Nicky so much, but I never expected any of this. I feel terrible for you, Mother dear.”

  It was her first endearment to me, the first time she’d revealed an emotion. It touched me, revealing her vulnerability and reminding me of how disconcerting my own marriage to Sasha had been, how strange and demanding the etiquette, the endless duties and people I had to please. Only I’d been tsarevna first, with years to learn what was required of me before I was crowned. She had no time. About to be flung into an existence she was completely unprepared for, she was being honest with me in this moment. She had indeed never desired any of this.

  I reached across the seat to take her hand in mine. I held it lightly yet could feel how cold her fingers were through her gloves. “You need fur.”

  She gave me a blank look.

  “In your gloves,” I explained. “Fine leather is lovely for the spring, but your hands will freeze in January without any fur. Frostbite can be very painful.”

  She almost smiled. “I must seem so inexperienced to you.”

  I squeezed her hand. “We all are, at your age.”

  We did not speak more, but as we entered the palace she kept hold of my hand, like a child who feared she might get lost.

  * * *

  —

  THE WEDDING WASN’T lavish. Under the circumstances, it couldn’t be. Yet she wore the silver tissue gown, the side locks and crushing mantle, and the bridal diadem on her head. She moved with grace as she mounted the dais in the chapel. After their vows, she and Nicky turned to me and I kissed them, tears spilling down my cheeks.

  Nicky whispered, “Mama, please don’t cry,” not because he was embarrassed but because he could see my sorrow overwhelming me, the memories of my own wedding day crowding around me in that chapel, thrusting home the realization that I’d never be a wife or an empress again.

  Alexandra Feodorovna, her adopted Orthodox name, was the wife and tsarina now.

  As they proceeded out to the clarion of trumpets, I followed with Alix, Bertie, and my other children behind me. I had to surrender. What had once been mine was hers. She had my rank and my son. God willing, she’d bear my grandchildren. I must resign myself. Though as dowager empress I would hold precedence by court tradition, she was now the first lady of the empire. I must not interfere. I must sacrifice my pride for Russia.

  But promising to forsake my past and actually doing it was not so simple.

  * * *

  OUR GUESTS DEPARTED before they were buried in snow. Alix made me promise to be patient with Alexandra. “Reme
mber, she’s still new to Russia. You must be a mother to her.”

  I hated to say goodbye, but she and Bertie had tarried too long, enduring Victoria’s irate requests for their return. The queen had sent me a letter of condolence and a book of Tennyson’s poems; she considered herself an expert in mourning, and her words and gift were heartfelt, reaching out to me as a fellow widow, so I wrote back to her in gratitude.

  Because the Winter Palace had stood unoccupied for years, the state apartments required updating. The cabinet issued its demand that Nicky reside there for the sake of continuity; while the refurbishments took place, Nicky and Alexandra moved into my palace, after their five-day honeymoon at Tsarskoe Selo. They inhabited the suite of four small rooms below mine that had been his bachelor apartments.

  Xenia and Sandro also moved in with me. Except for George, I had all my children back under my roof, and the loving familiarity subdued my ghosts. Nicky came to breakfast with me every morning in my dining room; afterward, we went into my study, where I began to impart everything I’d learned. His coronation date wasn’t set; in the meantime, he needed to grasp the complexities he now faced as tsar.

  “A constitution,” I advised. “Your grandfather told me it was the only way to safeguard Russia and our dynasty, bringing us into the modern age. You must do it for our people. It is time for us to set aside the autocracy and allow a Duma to guide the state.”

  “Papa never wanted that,” he said. He had lost weight, the strain of the past months showing in his angular face. “Autocracy, nationality, and orthodoxy. That was Papa’s motto. My uncles tell me I must abide by it.”

  “Our situation was different,” I replied, realizing as I spoke that while I’d always upheld Sasha, now that he was gone I’d reverted to my previous trust in my late father-in-law’s policies. I had experienced enough tumult to recognize that, prepared or not, we could not go on as we were. Reform was necessary for Russia, for much as I loved my son, he was not his father. He lacked Sasha’s force of will; he’d never had it, save for his desire to wed Alexandra. “You cannot rule as your father did. We saw your grandfather murdered. Sasha acted as he did to rid us of the Nihilists and crush their movement. They’re no longer a threat, and yours is a new regime. You must move forward with your grandfather’s plan to allow the right to assembly. Your uncles may not agree, but if you do not put a rein on them now, they will run roughshod over you.”