The Romanov Empress

by C. W. Gortner

  * * *

  ALEXANDRA HAD THE forethought to ban all bystanders from her chamber at the Alexander Palace, so although I returned as promised, I wasn’t present to witness my grandchild’s birth. Only Nicky was allowed to stand by as her pangs lengthened into fourteen agonizing hours.

  Word came to me via the Winter Palace that Her Imperial Majesty was delivered of a child. Before I could count the traditional gun salutes from the fortress—three hundred for a boy, one hundred and one for a girl—I’d boarded my train for Tsarskoe Selo. As soon as I reached the Alexander Palace and entered Nicky’s study, I knew.

  “A daughter,” he said as I kissed him, wrinkling my nose at the pungent stink of tobacco on his breath. “Botkin tells us she’s perfectly healthy. A girl now, but a boy next time. Alicky and I are still young. We’ve plenty of time.”

  He spoke as if rehearsed, as if he’d uttered these words before, no doubt to her. He also had the disjointed movements of a man who’d been on his feet too long, his fingers twitching at his sides, fiddling with items on his desk before he reached for his cigarettes.

  “Give me one,” I said.

  He gave me a startled glance. I shrugged. “Why not? We’re alone.” He lit and passed the cigarette to me. “How is she?” I asked, inhaling deeply.

  “As you can imagine.”

  “I cannot. Enlighten me. And, please, sit down.”

  He sank into his leather armchair, his hand curled at his face, the smoke from his cigarette diffusing through his beard. His pale eyes were red-rimmed, watery from lack of rest. “She is very tired. She’s sleeping now.”

  “Yes. Well, I can imagine that much, after fourteen hours to deliver a babe.”

  He was so tired himself, he failed to notice the sarcasm in my voice. Nothing was easy with her, not even the most natural of functions. Even her first delivery had to be epic.

  “I’m not sure how she feels about it,” he suddenly said. “When the midwife handed Olga to her—we’ve decided to name her Olga, as Sunny loves that character in Onegin—she seemed…disinterested.”

  Or disappointed. She had much to prove, as my gala had thrust home. A son and heir would have gone a long way toward achieving that respect she lacked.

  “As you said, she’s tired. Once she recovers, she’ll fall in love. The first child is always very special.” I smiled at him. “You were, and still are, to me.”

  “I think so, too.” He didn’t sound convinced. “It was so terrifying, Mama. She looked as if she might die; there was more blood than I expected. Everyone kept saying it was normal, but I had to leave the room. I was starting to feel ill.”

  “It’s not a man’s business. No man except the doctor should be allowed. Your father hated watching me give birth. After you, he refused to be in the same chamber.”

  He smiled weakly. “That sounds like him.”

  “But the child is well formed and healthy, yes? Then there’s no reason for concern. Give her time. She’ll be an excellent mother. I know she will.”

  It was all she had, I nearly added. If she failed as a mother, she would fail utterly.

  “You should go see her,” said Nicky. Ash tumbled from the tip of his cigarette onto his chest. He brushed at it, smearing it over his lapel.

  “You should wash and get some sleep,” I replied. “I’ll not disturb her. The last thing a newly delivered woman needs is her mother-in-law poking her nose in to wake her.”

  “Not Alicky,” he said. “Little Olga. I think she looks like you.”

  * * *

  —

  SHE WAS CHUBBY, kicking and howling, battling with her wet nurse to clamp onto the nipple. The moment I saw and heard her, I felt as though my legs might give way under me. I hadn’t realized until now how much I’d dreaded a weak example of Alexandra’s blood, but my first granddaughter by her and Nicky had a pair of defiant lungs like Sasha’s.

  “Like a Romanov,” I heard myself say.

  The wet nurse gave a weary nod. “She’s always hungry, Majesty. From the hour of her birth, she’s done nothing but demand.”

  “Good for her.” I took the wiggling bundle in my arms; as my granddaughter beat small, surprisingly strong fists at my chest, I kissed her still-misshapen crown and smelled the milky scent of her—of hope and possibility, of life before the years take their toll.

  She went quiet all of a sudden. Her eyes were slits but appeared to be blue-gray, like Nicky’s, though most babes’ eyes were that color before they matured.

  The wet nurse smiled. “She certainly knows who her grandmother is.”

  “She should.” I held her close. “Welcome, Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna.”

  * * *

  AS I’D PREDICTED, once she recovered from the birth, Alexandra showed intense interest in her daughter. She seized the opportunity to persuade Nicky to take permanent residence in the Alexander Palace, where she devised an intimate familial environment, importing a British nanny recommended by Victoria to assist her with Olga’s rearing.

  I protested to Nicky. “Tsarskoe Selo is too far away. You must let yourself be seen.”

  “It’s only an hour or so to the city by private train,” he pointed out. “Papa moved us to Gatchina, which is farther, and the government adapted.”

  “We adapted,” I replied. “Nicky, it was done for our safety, and I never liked it. How will you know if a threat arises until it’s too late? Your place as our tsar is in the capital.”

  “Sunny doesn’t want to live in the city. She thinks it’s too insalubrious, with the overcrowding and outbreaks of disease. She wants to keep Olga safe.”

  “I don’t understand. We’ve all raised children in the city—” Then I paused, recalling the death of my babe, little Alexander. Seeing Nicky’s expression turn inward, as it invariably did when confronted by my frustration with his wife’s unfathomable need to isolate herself, I forced myself to say nothing more. Regardless of the distance between the Alexander Palace and St. Petersburg, we both knew that she wasn’t motivated solely by concern for her child. Alexandra had never wanted to assume the social obligations required of her, and now she had the perfect excuse not to do so.

  “I was thinking of commissioning an Érard pianoforte for her as my gift for Olga’s christening,” I said instead. “Do you think she’ll like that?”

  “Oh, yes,” he said eagerly, grasping at any effort toward reconciliation on my part.

  And she did like it. She expressed delight and promptly set pots of violets all over the expensive satinwood lid, proceeding to play the piano, Nicky told me, every evening. Again, I stifled my resentment. Providing she was content in her new abode, let her care for her daughter and get with child again. We needed a tsarevich.

  * * *

  SIX MONTHS LATER, the May sky over Moscow gleamed like steel, crows circling with raucous caws as Nicky and Alexandra proceeded to their coronation.

  Judging by her countenance as she suffered through the ceremony, she was counting the minutes until she could return to her palace. As I watched Nicky set the diadem on her head—the same one Sasha had bestowed on me—emotion welled inside me. I excused myself from attending the gala held in the Kremlin that evening, telling Xenia to assume my place.

  My daughter didn’t rebuke me when I said that just hearing the music made me feel as if Sasha’s tomb were being plundered. I stayed in my drafty apartments—the Kremlin needed updating—and then retired to bed to cover my head with my pillows. Not even my cruel envisioning of Alexandra in her finery, forced to greet thousands of well-wishers, assuaged me. For the first time since my husband’s death, I couldn’t abide not being the tsarina.

  To oversee his coronation, Nicky appointed his uncle Sergei as Governor General of Moscow. The city’s burgeoning industrialization and resultant miseries had attracted its share of radicals, for while the Nihilist movement was
no more, its ideals still thrived. Sergei had enforced the arrests of demonstrating students, of which Moscow apparently had hundreds, and evicted the Jews, making himself widely unpopular. And poor Ella had wept to leave St. Petersburg for Moscow. Having no children of her own, she’d become a devoted aunt to her Romanov nephews and nieces, especially Maria and Dmitri, the children of Sasha and Sergei’s youngest brother, Grand Duke Paul; Paul’s wife—my niece by my brother Willie—had died giving birth to Dmitri.

  When Nicky invited me to participate in the ceremonial gift distribution at Khodynka Field the day after the coronation, I had to agree because I’d not attended the other events, though I dreaded the reminder of my own time there with Sasha. On the appointed day, I was still dressing when Tania rushed into my rooms in a panic.

  I turned to her so precipitously that the bonnet Sophie had affixed to my head flew off. “What is it? Dear God, tell me nothing has happened to my son!”

  “No, not His Majesty,” said Tania hastily. “He is safe, but we’ve just received word from His Highness Grand Duke Sergei. There’s been a calamity at the field.”

  Seizing my shawl, I started for the door. Sophie cried out, “Majesty, your bonnet!” and flung it at me as I hurried with Tania to my carriage. Though it was springtime, there was a nip in the air. Tania fussed over me, fastening my bonnet and pulling down its veil, covering my legs with a blanket as I gave the order to depart. Not until we were jolting upon the route to the field did Tania breathlessly relate what had occurred.

  Rumor had spread among the populace that there weren’t enough souvenir goblets and plates. In a spontaneous rush, the crowd had broken through the fences to ransack the pavilions by the dais. Used as a military training ground, the field was pitted with trenches barely covered in loose earth. As people plunged into these, shattering bones, others trampled them in their zeal to reach our largesse. Cossacks on horseback, armed with their nagaikas—a short, thick whip—slashed through the upheaval to curtail the looting, rousing a terrified stampede.

  I couldn’t breathe as my carriage drew to a halt on the road, blockades curtailing my passage. Tarp-covered wagons lumbered past, with a dangling foot in a crushed red boot here or an arm in a blood-spattered peasant blouse there. Wagon after wagon trundled past me as I sat, horrified, in my carriage, clutching Tania’s cold, gloveless hand.

  Someone must have recognized me and sent word, for Sergei came cantering to us on his black steed, erect in his uniform, his sharp face with its incised cheekbones over his groomed dark-gold beard set like stone. Only his narrow green eyes showed any sign of life as he swept his gaze over me—and it was icy life I saw, removed from the devastation that had occurred under his authority.

  “Majesty.” He inclined in his saddle. “You must turn back. The festivities have been canceled. It was my understanding you’d been informed.”

  I gaped at him. Struggling for my voice, I said, “How many?”

  “It hasn’t yet been determined. Under the circumstances, we may assume the casualties are substantial.” He grimaced. “With such a crowd, these things happen. Rebels and malcontents, spreading chaos wherever they infest.”

  “Has Nicky been told?” I swallowed my ire. I’d always liked Sergei, perhaps because so few did, but now I felt actual revulsion as I heard his pejorative explanation for this public tragedy that should have been a celebration of my son’s coronation.

  “I went at once to inform him. Now, Your Majesty, I must insist. It is not safe here.” He started to order my coachman to turn the carriage around when I lifted my voice. “He is coming in person? He and Alexandra will come to console the survivors?”

  Sergei did not reply. Kicking his spurs against his mount, he charged away. My carriage made the awkward maneuver to turn about and return me to the Kremlin. By now I was trembling. As I met Tania’s eyes, she said, “I did inform you, as soon as he sent word.”

  I nodded. “Coming here was my doing. One of us had to.”

  For I already knew Nicky would not.

  * * *

  —

  CHANGING INTO MY black mourning, I went to the Moscow hospital where they’d transported the injured. I didn’t attempt to see Nicky, knowing he’d be besieged by his ministers and officials and, no doubt, outcries against Sergei for not erecting stronger barriers to impede the populace. The carnage at the hospital resembled a battleground; every available cot contained a broken body—men, women, and children, come from all over Russia to partake of the entertainment and crushed or flayed to the bone by the whirling nagaikas as the Cossacks savagely determined to restore order. Many would later die of their wounds. The official estimate would cite over a thousand dead, making Nicky weep. Sergei had not informed him of the gravity, and his pronouncement to me that “with such a crowd, these things happen” was overheard—and maliciously misinterpreted. It made its way throughout the empire and abroad like an ominous prophecy, attributed to Nicky, who was condemned for his indifference.

  When summoned to explain himself, Sergei intoned that he’d had no idea of the gravity, for he’d gone first to the tsar before proceeding to the field to assess the damage. He shifted the guilt to his Moscow subordinates charged with overseeing the event.

  “He offered to resign as governor general,” Nicky told me, his face pale when he came to me that evening. He wore his white uniform with its black sable trim, his diamond emblems and imperial sash. “I refused. Sandro and his brothers demanded it, saying Sergei was at fault. But Vladimir, Alexis, and Paul shouted at them that they were acolytes of Robespierre, for how could Sergei have foreseen it?”

  “No one could have,” I said, relieved I’d elected not to go to him and bear witness to the grand dukes tearing into one another. I thought he’d be wise to accept Sergei’s resignation, if only to calm the storm yet to erupt in the newspapers. But I was too exhausted from my vigil at the hospital to argue, and when he remarked, “You’re not dressed,” I must have looked bewildered.

  “Mama, the ball in our honor at the French embassy. We’re expected to attend.”

  “After this?” I stared at him in disbelief. “Cancel it. We have dead subjects to bury.”

  “France is our ally. Sunny says we must go, for diplomacy’s sake.”

  “Since when has she cared about diplomacy? She’ll not be appreciated for it, dancing in Catherine the Great’s tiara with our people’s blood still wet on that field.”

  He turned to the door.

  “Nicky,” I said, and he paused. “Please.” My voice caught. “Your people need you. You must listen to me. Cancel the engagement at the embassy and issue a proclamation of national mourning. We cannot appear indifferent at a time like this. Alexandra may not understand it, but she’s not one of us.”

  “She understands me,” he replied.

  Wrenching open the door, he walked out.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  On June 10, 1897, the fortress cannon thundered. One hundred and one salutes: My second granddaughter by Nicky, christened Tatiana, also in homage to Pushkin, had been born. Another beautiful and healthy child, two years after the first, but not a son.

  I wasn’t present. I’d been summoned urgently by my father. At almost eighty years old, Mama was failing. When I arrived in Fredensborg, where Alix awaited, I found our mother crooked and brittle as a twig, confined to a wheeled chair. She’d suffered a stroke, her twisted figure with her chin bobbing against her shriveled chest a specter of the stalwart mother we’d known. When she passed away in her sleep the following year, Alix and I returned for her funeral. We were disconsolate, even if we knew it was better this way. Mama would have despised her own frailty.

  Papa took to his chamber and refused to come out.

  “Next year,” Alix whispered when we said goodbye. There was no feigning that we’d ever enjoy another family reunion, the gardens and palace bustling with our children. A
s crown prince, Freddie would assume most of Papa’s duties. Papa himself wouldn’t last long without Mama, but until he was gone, Alix and I must return every year to see him.

  “Sisters forever,” I said, holding her close.

  “Forever,” she said, but as she went to her ship, I wondered how long forever would be. I was nearly fifty-one, not so young anymore. And with each loss, death was dismantling the world I had known, leaving me anxious about what might arise in its stead.

  * * *

  “WHAT A LOVELY gesture.” I tried to muster a smile as Nicky stood before me in my Anichkov. He had come to the city on state business, after Alexandra had given birth to their third daughter two years after Tatiana, as if on an immutable timetable. “Is it truly her idea?”

  He nodded, discomfited. “We realize you’re only just out of mourning for Grandmère Louise, but Sunny says it would be an honor to christen our new daughter with your name.”

  “My name is Dagmar,” I reminded him, trying to keep judgment from my tone. “Maria is my Orthodox name, not the one with which I was christened.” Then, as I saw his eyes dim, I said, “But tell her I’m indeed honored. As I said, it’s a lovely gesture.” I did not add that seeing as his daughter had been born two months ago, what I thought was of no importance; they had already decided on the child’s name and only now elected to inform me.

  A fleeting smile crossed his face, then we heard the clatter of the telegraph machine in Sasha’s old study. It was a new contraption, recently installed in my palace, as Nicky had one in Tsarskoe Selo, but I disliked its static sound and had it set up in a room I never used. After a moment, as we both strained to hear if Obolensky had retrieved whatever message came through, Nicky said, “It might be from Sunny,” and he strode out.