The Romanov Empress

by C. W. Gortner

  I’d waited until the afternoon tea had concluded, until my granddaughters had visited with me, Olga and Tatiana still pale from the events in Kiev. I’d admired Alexei’s latest drawing of a horse and covertly assessed his thin but otherwise unbruised leg in its brace. I’d smiled and made polite conversation with Alexandra, who was out of her chair and appeared less fretful, perhaps because she believed Stolypin’s murder had served her well. Our late prime minister had attacked her mystic, but she needn’t fear a dead man. However, Nicky showed integrity by appointing Kokovtsov, Stolypin’s well-respected associate and a senior cabinet member, as his new prime minister. Kokovtsov wasted no time in offering Rasputin a substantial sum to disappear—an offer the mystic rejected.

  The moment Alexandra accompanied her daughters outside for a stroll in the September sunshine, I turned to Nicky, who gazed at me over his cigarette with a forlorn expression.

  “She will not hear of it,” he said. “He made a prophecy to her, that should he be harmed by anyone in our family, it would be the end of our dynasty. She believes him.”

  “Do you? A debauched peasant, who let her own letter be made public, prophesying our end to suit himself?”

  “Father Grigori did not intend for any letter to—”

  “I don’t care what he intended. I care only for what you intend to do about it.”

  Before he could respond, Alexandra said from the sitting room doorway, “If you have anything to say about my affairs, Mother dear, please do so. To me.”

  I shifted in my chair as she walked past me to her settee. “It’s too cold for a walk,” she explained. “I left the girls with Alexei and their servants upstairs.” She pulled her coverlet over her legs with a resigned air, as if preparing for an unavoidable assault.

  “It is not your affair any longer,” I said. “It is Russia’s affair now.”

  “Not that it matters to those who reside there, but St. Petersburg is not all of Russia.”

  I held up her letter. “Shall I read it to you so we can see whose affair it is?”

  “I wrote it. I am perfectly aware of what it says.”

  “Are you?” I recited aloud: “My beloved redeemer and mentor, how tiresome it is without you! My soul is quiet and I relax only when you, my teacher, are sitting beside me. I kiss your hands and lean my head on your blessed shoulder. Oh, how light, how light do I feel then. I wish for only one thing: to fall asleep forever in your arms. What happiness to feel your presence near me. Come quickly, I am waiting for you and I am tormenting myself for you. I am asking for your holy blessing and I am kissing your blessed hands. I love you forever.”

  I watched her face tighten. Glancing at Nicky, who sat cross-legged, his cigarette smoldering to ash between his fingers, I saw he was horrified, but I couldn’t tell if it was with dismay at his wife’s words or at my effrontery for reading those words aloud.

  “ ‘Fall asleep forever in your arms’?” I echoed. “Would you have us ridiculed before the entire world and sow the seeds of our destruction with that unholy profligate?”

  She did not speak. Nicky cleared his throat. “It’s an intolerable violation of our privacy. Kokovtsov ordered that our name not be associated with—”

  “Your name isn’t associated. The letter is signed ‘M.’ For Matushka. It is her privacy that has been intolerably violated. And by her own hand, no less.”

  With glacial calm, Alexandra said, “Are you finished? I am tired and wish to rest.”

  “I am not finished.” Enraged by her disregard for her own humiliation and Nicky’s evident unwillingness to speak up in my defense, I came to my feet, waving the letter like a flag. “You think you can ignore this and it will blow over like so much else to which you turn a blind eye? Stolypin told me there are other letters, from your own daughters. I dread to think what they wrote, for they only follow your example. As long as you continue to let him advise you and rest your head on his blessed shoulder, our entire family will dwell in this storm, until they’ve had enough and storm our gates! He must be banished. I demand it.”

  Alexandra’s jawbones clenched under her skin. “You demand it?” she whispered, and in that moment, the brittle veneer of cordiality we’d maintained for Nicky and the children’s sake disintegrated like the false façade it was. “I appreciate you bringing this appalling breach of decency to our attention, but your demand is inexcusable.”

  “What is inexcusable is this!” I flung the letter aside. “What is inexcusable is how you refuse to see what is before your very nose.” I whirled to Nicky. “He has been disavowed by the metropolitan. Use it as your excuse and exile him.”

  Nicky’s cigarette crumbled into dust. Wincing, he went to the cabinet by the wall, extracting a new package. As he opened it, Alexandra said to him in a honeyed voice that harbored a hidden blade, “Please tell Mother dear that she needn’t worry. The other letters were found and returned to us. Tell her, Nicky.”

  He didn’t look at me as he muttered, “It’s true. We have them in our possession.”

  “Were copies made before they were found?” I said, unable to comprehend how they could pretend to be so indifferent. I knew they were not. Alexandra’s letter alone was damning enough. Had I not known her as well as I did, with her disapproving sensibilities, I’d almost have believed she was in love with that filthy peasant.

  When Nicky didn’t reply, I added, “Of course, you don’t know. But you’ll send the Okhrana baying after them, so they’ll not dare publish any copies even if they have them. We might thank God Almighty the newspapers still fear something, if not you.”

  He looked up abruptly then, his pride touched. I noted with satisfaction how he squared his shoulders, turning to Alexandra. “Perhaps it is time to send him away.”

  She went still, her face blank save for angry splotches reddening her cheeks. “And what shall we do then? How will we protect our son? When has anyone in Russia thought well of me? When?” She leveled her gaze at me. “Let them say whatever they like. Without Father Grigori, we have no hope. Only he can heal my son.”

  As I returned her stare, I understood. Before the Duma, before the people, before the family or Russia, Rasputin came first. She was in love with him, I realized with a sickening twist in my stomach. She was in love with the illusion he pandered, an offering wrapped in a mystical promise that while he was there, whispering in her ear, Alexei would survive. To defend that tenuous hope, she’d fight for the very man whose drunken carelessness had permitted her letter to fall into the wrong hands and dragged her name through the mire. She had gone beyond reason. Her guilt and fear for her son had indeed blinded her.

  “Some time away,” Nicky finally said into the chasm between us. “We’ll send him to visit his family in Siberia. Only for a time, Sunny,” he added, lifting his voice against her protest. “Alexei hasn’t had another incident. We’ll keep close watch over him, as we always do. We have the upcoming events in Moscow, then we’re due to depart for Livadia and on to Spala for the hunting season. A few months apart will do no harm. We mustn’t ignore how this looks.”

  “How does it look?” Alexandra drew her shawl about her, as if to enclose herself in a cocoon. “He never asks for anything. He seeks only to serve and spread God’s word, to ease suffering in Christ’s name. No one with any sense would believe such foul things of him.”

  “Everyone already believes it, sense or not,” I said. “Unless you do something about it, they’ll continue to believe it—and more.”

  I wasn’t happy with Nicky’s suggestion. Exile was preferable, but at least he’d stated an opinion, making me think that under his passive exterior, he shared my condemnation. He may not believe there was anything more here than an anxious mother’s unseemly gratitude to the mystic she believed could heal their son, but he couldn’t have heard that letter without it wounding deeper than his royal pride. His pride of manhood must
smart, too, for when had this woman he’d married ever shown such passion for anyone but him?

  “I think it would be best.” He tried to smile. “Let me see to it.”

  She turned away, from him and from me. “If you think it best,” she murmured.

  Nicky led me out to his study. In a mere hour, he seemed to have aged years beyond his forty-three. “Will you stay?” he asked. “Your apartments are always ready for you.”

  “No. My train is waiting at the station. I must return to Gatchina. She will want time without me now, and I intend to give it to her. As much time as she needs.”

  “Mama,” he said, as I turned to the door. “I know how difficult this was for you. You were right to speak as you did. Rest assured, he’ll be sent away. You will still come with us to Livadia? The children are looking forward to it. I want you with us.”

  I made myself nod, though I wasn’t sure I should. “Yes, of course.”

  How I’d be expected to endure a months-long vacation with Alexandra, however, wasn’t something I cared to contemplate.

  * * *

  I DIDN’T HAVE to contemplate it. As we prepared to embark on our trip to Livadia, word came that after ruling Denmark for only six years, my brother Freddie had died from a paralysis attack. Accompanying me to his funeral in Roskilde Cathedral were Olga, who was in a state of nervous collapse over the frustration with her estranged husband, as well as Misha, Natalia, and their son. Alix came from England. Soon after the funeral, Freddie’s eldest son was crowned Christian X.

  Misha and Natalia proceeded to Nice for a holiday. Olga, Alix, and I went to Hvidøre. The loss of Freddie was compounded by news from Greece, where my other brother Willie had been evicted due to an uprising that plunged his realm into violent conflict with Turkey. Willie, his wife, and their seven children had fled to Italy, from where they were negotiating their return by agreeing to strict terms.

  As Olga embarked on aimless walks along the beach, reminding me of Sasha’s perambulations after our George was diagnosed and sent away, I railed in my drawing room with Alix.

  “The entire world is turning against us,” I said, undone by the successive blows.

  Alix gave sorrowful assent, barely hearing me, for I couldn’t bellow at her with a staff of thirty servants now attending us at the house.

  A few days later, I received a telegram, summoning me to Spala.

  My grandson Alexei was dying.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  I’d been to the Bialowieza Royal Hunting Lodge of Spala in Poland with Sasha many times; each evening, the carcasses of the slaughtered animals were laid out on the ground for the guests to admire, the hunters proudly pointing out their prey as the ladies pressed perfumed handkerchiefs to their noses to ward off the smell.

  I arrived at the remote stone-and-wood-paneled lodge after a week of travel, bruised to my bones from jolting carriages over unpaved roads. The air stank of charnel as I dismounted, limping from my sore back to the lodge with Olga lending me her arm.

  In the main hall, festooned with antlers and mounted stag heads, the invited guests enjoyed aperitifs and discussed the morning’s stalking as if nothing were amiss. Surprised by my entrance in my cloak and veiled hat, they surrounded me with greetings and condolences on my brother’s death, as I tried to fend off their solicitous onslaught to inquire where my son the tsar was.

  Finally, just as I thought I might have to gulp a cognac and take up a shooting rifle, Alexandra’s newest lady, Anna Demidova, hastened down the main staircase. In a shrill voice, she declared, “Your rooms are prepared, Majesty. Their Imperial Majesties wait to receive you. Come, come.” She gestured at Olga, who stood dazed among our pile of luggage in the entryway. “Leave your bags. A footman can bring them up.”

  I scowled at her. Of course a footman must bring them up. Did she expect us to lug our bags up a flight of stairs by ourselves? But Demidova was like that other Anna who’d befriended Alexandra and introduced her to Rasputin: not what I’d have deemed a superlative example of intelligence. Hefty and blond, resembling the daughter of a prosperous merchant that she was, she’d earned favor for her unstinting loyalty and shrinking disposition. Alexandra preferred her servants as docile as possible, and Demidova fit her requirements.

  As soon as we reached the landing, the conversations of the guests below muted, I snapped, “What is the meaning of this? My son sent a telegram. I was told the child is—”

  Olga gripped my arm, propelling me about. At the far end of the corridor, Nicky was standing by an open door. He had a finger to his lips.

  “You stay here,” I said to Olga, realizing that in my anger, I’d almost let the secret slip out. All those people downstairs, the ambiance of genial comradery before the afternoon killing started—it had seemed to me as though I’d been lured all this way on false pretext.

  “I know,” Olga whispered in my ear. I froze. “Alicky told me. I know about Alexei.”

  I couldn’t even look at her.

  “Xenia does, too. I told her. Now, go.” Putting her hand at the small of my back, Olga pushed me forward. The passageway seemed to stretch before me. As I neared, I saw that Nicky was like a specter, his countenance hollow and his eyes rimmed in pockets of shadow.

  “Be very quiet,” he said. “He’s finally asleep. He’s been given laudanum, but the effect…it wears off too fast. The pain, it—” He turned aside, allowing me to step into the room.

  Derevenko stood in the corner, as Alexandra sat on a stool by the narrow bedstead. Spala was hardly luxurious by our standards. Only recently equipped with electricity, the dim lighting did little to relieve its rustic décor, intended to enhance the pretense that we, accustomed to luxury, could live like ordinary people. She didn’t turn to me as I approached. She didn’t have to. I already knew she too must resemble a ghost, for Alexei appeared already dead.

  He was so thin and colorless, bluish veins could be traced under his skin—those weak veins that were his purgatory. His left leg, the same from his previous hemorrhage, was elevated on a stack of pillows, his nightshirt hiked past his stomach, his undergarments drooping about his genitals. The exposure was obscene, but it paled in comparison to the monstrous swelling in his groin, like a fist pushing against inflamed skin.

  His sleep was restless. He made piteous mewling sounds, a film of sweat beading his limbs. Alexandra had a cloth on his brow and a basin by her chair. When she removed the cloth to wring it out, I half-expected to see blood dripping from it.

  “He will not die,” I heard her say. “He cannot. He cannot. He cannot…”

  I reeled away, my cry scraping at my throat. I could hear the guests tromping outside for the hunt, marshaled by the steward to adhere to the schedule. After Livadia, the girls had returned to Tsarskoe Selo under the care of their servants, as hunting wasn’t a suitable pastime for them. Otherwise, everything must proceed as normal. No one in that party leaving for the slaughter had any idea of what was happening right over their heads.

  “How?” I said, as Nicky took me to my room at the opposite end of the corridor.

  “Boating in Livadia. He hit his leg on the oar.” My son’s voice had no emotion; he was drained of the capacity to express it. “Botkin examined him and confined him to bed for two weeks. But the bruise faded. He balked at the inactivity. He kept saying he wanted to go outside, that we were on holiday and he felt fine. It didn’t hurt, he said. He kept telling us it didn’t hurt.” Nicky fished in his pocket for his cigarette case. “It’s my fault. I insisted we keep to our itinerary. Alexei was so excited to come here, I never thought…” He faltered. Tears filled his eyes. “Botkin says there’s a severe risk of peritonitis from the inflammation. He’s advised me to issue a public bulletin to prepare the people. He believes Alexei will not survive it.”

  “Can’t he operate?” I burst out, and then I realized my folly. An operation would unleas
h a deluge of blood. My grandson would die from the surgery itself.

  “Nothing can be done,” said Nicky. “Nothing now, save pray.”

  “I will pray. Later.” Pulling off my hat, I tossed it onto my bed; Olga stood by the bed opposite mine, our luggage having been brought up. She was helping Demidova to unpack. Both acted if they didn’t hear a word being said. “But first I must relieve Alexandra. She cannot sit there for—how long has it been?”

  “Nearly twenty-one days,” he replied.

  “Blessed Savior have mercy. She must rest. Eat. Change her clothes. You have guests. What are they saying?”

  “I view the kill every evening and dine with them every night. I went out hunting with them yesterday but sent down my excuses today that I was indisposed. They don’t know. Sunny hasn’t appeared, and no one has asked after her.”

  They wouldn’t. They knew she didn’t like to appear if she could avoid it. She might not appear until they left, and no one would think anything of it.

  “I will assume her place at his bedside, if only for an hour or so.” As I started to step past him, he said quietly, “She’s waiting.”

  I met his eyes. “For what? The priest?” Last Rites must be administered; she’d of course want to be there when Alexei drew his last breath.

  “For a message from Siberia. She believes our friend will send word.”

  “How? By carrier pigeon? We’re miles from the nearest telegraph station.”

  “She says he will know. He will sense it. He knew about Stolypin; he saw him in a dream, in his carriage in Kiev driving to the opera house. He woke up shouting that death pursued the minister.” Nicky sighed. “So, it came to pass.”

  I didn’t know what to reply. Traversing the passage to Alexei’s room, I set my hand on Alexandra’s shoulder. “Let me watch over him. I promise to call for you when he wakes.”