The Seeds of Power

by Christopher Nicole

  ‘Some people do, you know. Especially in Boston.’

  ‘Then I shan’t like it. When are you going to fuck me again?’

  ‘Soon. Listen to me. I wish you to behave yourself when I am away. I am not talking about sex. But there are things that are more important. Life and death, to mention only two.’

  She frowned at him, then rolled off him and lay on her back. ‘Colin has been telling tales about me.’

  He rose on his elbow to look at her. ‘He has told me nothing that I should not know, as your husband. Now, I would like you to swear to me, as my wife, that you will never have anything more to do with the Will of the People.’

  He had expected a pout in reply, but instead her face took on a quite unexpected expression: for a moment she looked almost like Anna. ‘You do not understand,’ she said.

  ‘I think I understand more than you suppose. I can understand both that there was a reason for their existence, up till this March, and that you were attracted to their ideals. But you must understand, Alix,’ he went on, ‘that all that is now history. There is no longer any reason for the Will of the People to exist. All that they were fighting for has been achieved.’

  ‘Because the serfs have been freed? Do you call being up to your ears in debt for the rest of your life being freed? The serfs are worse off now than when they were serfs.’

  He squeezed her fingers. ‘I must still ask you to have nothing to do with these people, Alix. You may be right, and very little has changed, for the serfs. But at least it is a step in the right direction. There is light at the end of the tunnel. To attempt to hasten things by revolution or murder is not only criminal, it will be counter-productive. You must see that. That is what is happening in my country now, and has been happening for some years. But now we are going to end it. A great many lives and a good deal of property are going to be destroyed. All because people are not prepared to work patiently for what they are trying to achieve.’

  Alexandra lay down again.

  ‘So will you promise me that you will never again have anything to do with these people?’

  She smiled, and rolled on to his chest again. ‘We are supposed to fuck on our wedding night. Not talk politics.’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN - THE TSAR

  ‘You must write and keep us informed of what is happening,’ the Prince said. ‘What you are doing, and how your war is going.’

  ‘I shall do that.’ Charles squeezed his new brother-in-law’s hands. ‘I owe you a great deal. I shall not forget it.’

  ‘The feeling is mutual. I look forward to your return.’

  Charles faced Dagmar, who had herself come down to bid him farewell. ‘It has been a great pleasure, Your Highness. I look forward to our next meeting.’

  ‘If there is to be one,’ she said coldly.

  Jennie held him close. ‘I wish I could have come with you,’ she said.

  ‘I am sure you still can.’

  She shook her head. ‘This is my home. But just to know you are there, and caring...your visit has made me very happy. Do take care.’ Her eyes were filled with tears.

  He could think of nothing to say to Anna, merely bent to kiss her knuckles, but as he held her hand to do so, was rewarded with a quick squeeze. ‘Do obey the Prince,’ she said, ‘and write as often as you can.’

  Then Alexandra was in his arms, hugging him with all her strength. But she was not weeping. Charles had an idea weeping was not part of this family’s regular behaviour. ‘Do hurry back,’ she begged.

  ‘I shall count every minute.’ He hugged her one last time, then ran down the steps to where Igor was holding his horse. Smyslov was going to accompany him to Poltava, and see him safely on to the coach to Sevastopol. The two men and the four servants walked their horses out of the grounds, pausing at the top to look back down at the valley and the mansion and the people who remained on the porch, waving kerchiefs. Then they were gone.

  ‘And good riddance,’ Dagmar remarked.

  ‘Oh, Dagmar!’ Alexandra said.

  ‘Do you think he will come back?’ Anna asked.

  ‘Of course he will not come back,’ Dagmar said. ‘He came here, was treated like royalty, took Alexandra to bed...what has he got to come back for?’ She looked at Jennie as she spoke, and Jennie flushed, then turned and went into the house.

  ‘That was quite uncalled for,’ Colin said. ‘He will come back, and he will make Alix a good husband. It only remains to be seen if Alix will make him a good wife.’

  Alexandra stuck out her tongue at him. ‘And,’ she said, ‘you can’t cane me. Only my husband has the right to do that, now.’

  ‘I can see it’s going to be a long war,’ Colin remarked. ‘Well, I must go down to the mill; I gather there is something the matter with the machinery.’

  ‘I will come with you,’ Anna said.

  Dagmar snorted and returned to her apartment.

  ‘Well?’ Anna asked, as they walked their horses down the drive. ‘Are you pleased?’

  ‘I am certainly relieved.’

  ‘And you do believe Cromb will come back for Alix?’

  ‘I do believe that, if he is not killed.’

  Anna gave a little shiver.

  ‘That would distress you?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It would distress me very much.’

  Colin looked straight ahead, giving a nod to the people they passed on the road, all of whom bowed before their master. They mounted their horses. ‘How many times did you have him?’

  ‘Just the once. How did you know?’

  ‘I know the look in your eye, my darling. I wonder I do not cane you.’

  She gave one of her delicious gurgles of laughter. ‘Because you know I would enjoy it too much. Anyway, have I no rights? Did I not give you all of this?’

  ‘Yes, you did. And I will never forget it.’

  Another laugh. ‘I will never let you forget it, my darling. Does the thought of Cromb inside me make you want me more, or less?’

  He glanced at her. ‘More.’

  ‘Well, then, have me. Now.’ He looked left and right, and she laughed a third time. ‘We can go into the wood.’ She turned her horse off the road and cantered towards the trees.

  Colin followed. ‘We have something like a hundred beds at the mansion, and you wish to lie on the grass?’

  ‘Why not? It’s romantic. Exciting. Different.’ She ducked her head beneath swaying branches, and looked over her shoulder to make sure they were alone. Not that there was anyone on Bolugayen who would dare interrupt the Prince and his lady, particularly as no one could doubt what they were doing.

  *

  ‘Oh, isn’t it exciting?’ Alexandra craned her neck as she dashed from window to window of the railway carriage. She had been desperately excited for weeks, since their journey had begun. But it had grown to a crescendo when they reached Moscow, and boarded the train.

  None of the sisters, much less the two children—Olga and Catherine had been left at home—had ever been to Moscow before, much less the capital, St Petersburg. ‘Oh!’ Alexandra cried. ‘Isn’t it beautiful?’

  Colin had sent ahead, and their carriage was waiting for them, to take them to their residence in the city.

  The Bolugayevski Palace had been opened and the servants were lined up to greet them. But these were complete strangers, as the house itself was strange, and, because of nearly twenty years of neglect, oddly old-fashioned. ‘All of these drapes will have to go for a start,’ Dagmar declared. ‘And those carpets. You!’ she pointed at the butler. ‘What is your name?’

  ‘Oleg, Your Highness.’

  ‘You heard me. Have these dreadful things out, and new ones in, by this evening.’

  Oleg gulped, and looked at Colin. ‘Do as the Princess commands,’ Colin said.

  Dagmar was already climbing the grand staircase to the first floor gallery, looking into the reception rooms. ‘Everything,’ she said. ‘Who are you?’

  The middle-aged woman curtseyed. ‘
I am Madame Anastasia, Your Highness. The housekeeper.’

  ‘I wish these rooms stripped. Where are the bedrooms?’

  ‘Up here, Your Highness.’ The woman was trembling as she led Dagmar up another flight of stairs. The others merely watched her go, then looked at Colin.

  ‘I think we’ll let Dagmar sort out the housekeeping,’ he said. ‘Would you like to go for a walk?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ they agreed without hesitation.

  *

  The ball was the following week. The three sisters had spent every day shopping and the house was filled with the rustle of taffeta and the cries of comment. Colin had by now sorted out the sleeping arrangements in the completely refurbished house. He occupied the master bedroom, with Dagmar’s room on his right, and Anna’s on his left. Alexandra and Jennie had their rooms further along the hall, and the two boys and their nannies shared another, next door to Yevrentko. If Madame Anastasia found it odd that the Prince and Princess did not choose to share a room, she knew better than to make any. comment; Colin had no doubt that the arrival of the Prince accompanied by four quite beautiful women, even if two of them were his sisters-in-law, was in any event a fruitful source of gossip below stairs and from thence out into the markets and shops of the city.

  Now he waited in the front hall, as they came down the stairs. Dagmar, as befitted her rank and title, led, wearing pale blue, and with a diamond tiara crowning her yellow-brown chignon. Anna was next, wearing pale green, with her hair loose, as befitted an unmarried young woman, although it was kept under control by another tiara, somewhat less resplendent than her sister’s. Alexandra was third, in pale pink; her hair was upswept, and she too wore a tiara. All the sisters’ gowns displayed plunging decolletages, and they wore matching white elbow length gloves. Jennie came last. She had had to be persuaded by Anna and Colin to come at all; it had not ever been her hope to one day meet royalty. She wore dark blue, with her auburn hair loose, held by a plain band rather than any jewellery, and her neckline was modestly high. But she was still the most attractive of the quartet.

  ‘You look lovely, Mama,’ Peter said.

  ‘And so do you, Mama,’ Georgei said loyally.

  ‘You all look lovely,’ Colin told them. ‘Now boys, off to bed.’

  The two boys solemnly shook hands with him, kissed the hands of their mothers and aunts, and trooped up the stairs to where Yevrentko and the nannies were waiting. Colin escorted the ladies to the carriages. He had chosen to use two to avoid any crushing of the gowns; he and Dagmar rode in the first one, and the three younger women in the second. ‘Are you not nervous?’ Dagmar asked, as they moved away.

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘I suppose you met royalty often when you lived in England.’

  ‘As a matter of fact, I never met Her Majesty. But we do not have quite the reverence for our royal family that you have for yours. Don’t worry: I shall treat the Tsar with due deference; you must remember that we have met before. But you are nervous.’

  ‘I have waited all of my life for this moment. Thirty-three years. And now it is too late.’

  ‘Nothing is ever too late.’

  ‘Indeed? When my life has been ruined, and I am virtually a prisoner in my own home?’

  ‘That is surely your choice, my dear.’

  ‘My marriage is a sham. Is that my choice as well? Five years, and you have not been to my bed!’

  ‘I had supposed you might scratch out my eyes, were I to do so.’

  ‘What you mean is, you are afraid Anna might scratch out your eyes. To be ruled by such a whore!’

  ‘That is hardly the way to speak of your sister. And I would argue that she is scarcely more of a whore than yourself, Dagmar. But I would hate us to quarrel, tonight.’

  ‘We shall not quarrel, tonight. I shall be the most perfect wife to you, tonight.’

  *

  ‘Prince Bolugayevski,’ the Tsar said. ‘It is so long since last we met. And in the interim I have heard a great deal about you.’ He was a big man, almost as big as Colin himself; forty-two years old, he wore the fashionable side-whiskers with a clean-shaven chin, to give his already bold features an accession of strength. He was dressed in a white tunic over red breeches. with a crimson ribbon across his chest. Not least,’ the Tsar added, in English, ‘that you are a well-situated man.’ He switched back to Russian. ‘The Tsarina.’

  Colin bowed over the Empress’s hand. She had begun life as Princess Marie of Hesse-Darmstadt, and was thus a German by origin. Once she had been reputed to be a beauty, but he now beheld a somewhat overweight woman with florid features. She apparently liked his looks, however, for she gave him a bright smile. ‘I have heard of you too, Prince Bolugayevski,’ she said archly. ‘And that you are a naughty fellow.’

  Colin wondered just what she had heard of him. ‘May I present my wife, the Princess Bolugayevska?’ he said.

  Dagmar was standing in front of her sisters and Jennie. Her cheeks were pink, and she was breathing deeply. This was, as she had said in the coach, an occasion that should have happened some seventeen years ago. Now she gave a deep curtsey before the Tsar, who held her hands to raise her up. ‘My dear Princess,’ he said. ‘It has been too long.’

  Dagmar seemed unable to speak as she was presented in turn to the Tsarina. By then Alexander was lost in the superior beauty of Anna. ‘The Countess Anna Bolugayevska, Your Majesty,’ Colin explained.

  ‘You mean you are not married, mademoiselle?’ the Tsar asked.

  ‘I am not so blessed, Your Majesty,’ Anna replied.

  ‘Well,’ the Tsar remarked. ‘Well, well, well.’

  ‘Mrs Charles Cromb, Your Majesty,’ Colin said. Alexander gazed at Alexandra, as if unable to believe his eyes that there was yet a third of these magnificent women. ‘Mrs Cromb is also my sister-in-law, Your Majesty,’ Colin explained. ‘But she is married to an American shipowner.’

  ‘Ah,’ the Tsar said. ‘Does he come from the South, or the North of that country?’

  ‘He comes from Boston, Your Majesty. And is there now, I believe, using his ships for the advantage of the northern states.’

  ‘Capital,’ Alexander said. ‘Capital. You are to be congratulated, my dear.’ Alexandra gave another curtsey and passed on to greet the Empress.

  And Miss Jennie Cromb, Your Majesty.’

  This time the Tsar’s eyes positively gleamed as he stared at Jennie. ‘Another sister-in-law, no doubt, Prince?’

  ‘Actually, a cousin by marriage, Your Majesty.’

  ‘By God, sir, but I should like to join you for breakfast one day, indeed I would. Well, Prince, your ladies will certainly brighten St Petersburg for a season. I bid you welcome.’

  Colin bowed.

  *

  It was now possible to take in their surroundings. Their arrival, in the midst of innumerable other carriages, a melee of snorting horses, shouting drivers, bellowing majordomos, high-pitched exclamations, had been chaotic...Their entry, up huge double staircases lined with glittering cuirassiers, had been awe-inspiring, but they had been proceeding as part of a long procession of people. If the Bolugayevska women, with their looks and their jewels, and their very strangeness as no one present had ever seen them before, had attracted a good deal of attention, they had been interested only in the coming presentation, for which they again had had to wait in line for some time, while their fingers had grown increasingly clammy inside their gloves, and Colin had watched beads of perspiration glistening on those swan-like necks.

  But now the ordeal was over, and they could look around them at the hundreds of other guests, who were looking at them as they were escorted to an alcove by one of the flunkeys. Here there was a settee and two straight chairs. Colin sat in the centre of the settee, with Dagmar on his right and Anna on his left. Jennie sat in one of the chairs and Alexandra in the other.

  The orchestra, which had been playing muted music in the background, now increased its volume, and a ripple of sound went through the cham
ber. ‘Do you remember when last we waltzed, Colin?’ Dagmar asked. ‘My God, how long ago it seems. How long ago it was.’

  ‘I will waltz with you now, Dagmar,’ he promised. ‘As soon as it is permitted.’ For they had to wait on the Tsar. But now Alexander rose, and offered his arm to the Tsarina. She gathered her train in her other hand, and descended the steps at his side. They moved together into the first steps, and then whirled their way the entire length of the chamber. As they reached the end, all the other dancers took the floor, a kaleidoscope of brilliant uniforms and bare shoulders, of jewellery and medal ribbons, of gleaming smiles and flashing eyes.

  Colin escorted Dagmar on to the floor, and they danced together, while he kept his eyes on the other three. But they were the three most beautiful women in the room, and within a few minutes they too were dancing. He thought the evening could be pronounced a success.

  Colin danced the second number with Anna. ‘Do you realise this is the first time you and I have ever danced together?’ he asked.

  ‘I did not even know you danced at all.’

  ‘It is part of the training of every British army officer,’ he said. ‘Now, tell me, who was that handsome young guards officer who had you in his arms just now?’

  ‘I really cannot remember. But he asked if he could call, so we shall find out then.’

  ‘You mean you gave him permission?’

  She smiled at him. ‘Of course. I am young, unattached, lonely. I need to be admired and courted.’

  ‘But you said...’

  ‘It is my ogre of a brother-in-law who must see these fellows off. N’est-ce pas?’

  ‘When you are this devilish, I long to kiss you.’

  ‘Patience,’ she laughed. ‘Oh, patience.’ He wondered what all these young bloods, and old bloods too, who were watching them so enviously, would say, or do, if they knew that when the ball was over this gorgeous creature would come to his bed?

  The music ceased, and he escorted her back to their alcove, surprised to find that they had been joined by another woman, who was sitting next to Dagmar and talking most animatedly. The conversation ceased as Colin and Anna approached, but the woman looked up and gave them both a gracious smile. She was handsome rather than pretty, with a voluptuous figure and a wealth of dark hair. ‘Colin, my dear,’ Dagmar said. ‘This is the Countess Dolgoruka, one of Her Majesty’s ladies.’