The Girl Who Fought Napoleon: A Novel of the Russian Empire

by Linda Lafferty

  “Hot water!” cried both young dukes.

  “Our good empress has declared you shall bathe in hot water to start your Christmas Day.”

  Alexander sighed happily.

  He splashed his face with the hot water. Accepting a linen towel from Boris, he looked out at the frozen yards of the vast Winter Palace, shrouded with thick blankets of snow. The snow clung to the gilded moldings adorning the palace’s windows and columns.

  Despite the fire in the stoves, he shivered.

  The prospect of his father’s visit unnerved him. He thought of the wolves that his Swiss tutor La Harpe taught him had once roamed the city, eating the corpses of the serfs who died transforming the Finnish swamp into St. Petersburg. His father, Grand Duke Paul, reminded him of one of those hungry wolves. He skulked around the perimeter of St. Petersburg in his estate of St. Michael’s or in the summer palace in Gatchina, watching hungrily for the death of his own mother, Catherine the Great, so that he might ascend the throne.

  “Your comb, Master Alexander.” Boris interrupted his reverie. Alexander looked in the mirror, parting his blond hair. The winter sun hunted the red glints he had inherited from his German Holstein grandfather.

  “Will my father be joining us for all Christmas Day?” he asked, as Boris helped him into his uniform jacket.

  “I believe the grand duke and grand duchess are only here for Christmas luncheon, then he must return to Gatchina.”

  “It will be pleasant for you to see your mother,” said Boris, buttoning his charge’s jacket. “She dotes on you, Duke Alexander.”

  Alexander sighed but said nothing.

  “And your baby sister, Ekaterina. Such a beautiful child. She dotes on you.”

  Alexander’s face broke into a smile at the thought of seeing Katia. Her high spirits and mischievous nature enchanted him. She represented the heart of the family he had never known.

  Alexander and Constantine had no sooner been born to Catherine’s son Paul and Maria Feodorovna than they were whisked away to the Winter Palace and sequestered in Empress Catherine’s personal apartments. The two boys were raised and educated under the watchful eye of the empress herself.

  Empress Catherine disdained her son, who had neither her looks nor her wisdom. Paul resembled a mad bulldog with his bulging eyes and wild expression. There were rumors that he had inherited the mental instability and cruel nature of his demented father, Peter III. Like Alexander, Paul had been whisked away from his mother as an infant, not to see her again until he was six years old, and so Paul grew up hating his mother, sensing her disappointment in him.

  Alexander tried to please his grandmother, of course, but he also desperately wanted to curry favor with his father. But that favor was hard to find: Paul had heard the rumors that his mother meant to skip a generation and crown her grandson Alexander as tsar. And, indeed, those rumors were true. Catherine had no intention of ever letting her son inherit the Russian throne but instead groomed Alexander for that eventual future. Should any misfortune befall Alexander, his younger brother Constantine was prepared to take his place.

  This was a burden that weighed heavily in the heart of a lonely twelve-year-old boy. Being under the same roof with his father and grandmother was a stormy proposition.

  Entering the long portrait-lined marble hall, Alexander saw his parents and his grandmother waiting at the end of the corridor. Behind them, closer to the Christmas tree, were Alexander and Constantine’s younger sisters—Alexandra and Elena—who stood quietly at attention but cast anxious looks, longing to open their Christmas presents. Alexandra, the elder, was six. She was dressed in white lace with navy blue ribbons, her hair held back a satin band. The little girl made a pouty face at her older brother, for all this ceremony was delaying her pleasure.

  Ekaterina was held by a lady-in-waiting. Still a baby, she was nevertheless mesmerized by her eldest brother. She gave a shriek of joy, holding her chubby hand toward him.

  Alexander’s father was dressed in a green military uniform with a red sash crossing his chest; his mother, in an emerald-green velvet gown embroidered in seed pearls and silver. Her blonde hair was pinned up gracefully, emphasizing her beauty, even though she had given birth to six children.

  He kissed his grandmother’s cheeks and bowed.

  “Merry Christmas!” said his mother, Maria Feodorovna, extending her white-gloved hand. Alexander bowed to kiss it.

  “You look splendid, Alexander!” she said. She looked as if she longed to embrace him—every atom of her flesh trembled to take her eldest son in her arms and cover his face with kisses.

  “Merry Christmas!” said Paul. Son and father clasped hands with a crisp, agitated motion. Then they moved a half a pace apart as if on cue, a practiced dance.

  “You have not been to Gatchina in months,” said Paul. “We shall expect you to pay us a visit soon, if the empress grants permission. I should like to show you the new maneuvers with the horse soldiers.”

  “And me, Papa?” said Constantine, emerging from behind his brother. “I want to shout orders and drill the soldiers.”

  “Oh!” said the grand duchess, seeing the fair-haired boy. She placed her hand to her heart. “Oh, Constantine! My dear son—”

  Her husband turned to her, raising an eyebrow. He shot a look at his own mother, whose face stiffened at the show of affection.

  Maria Feodorovna regained her composure.

  “A very merry Christmas … Duke Constantine,” the grand duchess said, gazing sadly at the marble floor.

  But the young boy was looking past her to the tree and the floor spread with presents in intricately painted wraps and satin bows. The fir tree’s boughs sagged with Christmas bounty, red ribbons holding gifts, sweets, and wooden soldiers, painted in brilliant colors.

  “Constantine,” said Catherine. “Your mother, the Duchess Maria Feodorovna, has addressed you.”

  Constantine’s head snapped back, looking at his grandmother. Then the little boy turned to his mother, making a curt bow.

  “Duchess Maria Feodorovna, madame. I wish the same to you. A very merry Christmas.”

  Maria Feodorovna flinched as if the little boy had slapped her. Tender words between mother and son would never be uttered in vast halls of Empress Catherine’s Winter Palace.

  The grand duchess watched silently as her son tore open his Christmas presents.

  Chapter 3

  On the Cavalry March

  June 1785

  Astakhov became my tutor from the day my mother hurled me from the carriage window. The flank Hussar was always at my father’s side either in quarters or during a march, but now I was his chief duty. He was assigned my care and education, even my swaddling and feedings.

  As a baby I rocked along in open wagons, gazing up at the sky and the green shimmering leaves of the birches as they swished over my head. As I grew older, Astakhov would lift me from my cradle, swing me in front of him on the pommel of his saddle, and point out the faults of other soldiers’ riding and the virtues of horses that rode rhythmically in formation. The motion of the horse at a walk lulled me to sleep. I would awake in a cradle mounted in a flat wagon, nestled against the sweet-smelling bags of grain.

  Astakhov would bring me to the squadron’s stables, setting me up on horses’ bare backs. He gave me his unloaded pistol as a toy, wrapping my baby hands around the butt even before I had the strength to lift it. He brandished his gleaming sword, slicing the air with the blade while I clapped my hands in joy.

  At night my bed was near the campfire. The crackling of the burning wood accompanied the music of the balalaika, the instrument of the Russian heart. Vodka-soaked soldiers’ voices singing ancient ballads mingled with the smoke, rising into the starry sky. This was my lullaby.

  Astakhov would wait until I fell asleep to bring me into the tents or temporary quarters. If I caught sight of my mother I would howl, clinging to his neck.

  As I grew older Astakhov taught me drill commands and maneuvers. I r
an through the fields at a mock gallop on an imaginary horse, executing charges against an invisible enemy. I tossed hay with a miniature pitchfork Astakhov whittled for me, and I grained the horses when we could procure oats, wheat, rye. Sometimes we fed them roasted buckwheat.

  “Grain can sustain a horse but it makes him hot and difficult to ride. Oats are as good as gold,” said my tutor. “But a Russian horse must learn to live on whatever Mother Earth offers, especially in war. Kasha sustains our soldiers—it can sustain horseflesh as well. Roof thatch and birch bark will do when there is nothing else. But grains—every kernel is precious in nourishing a warhorse.”

  I thought of grains as coins of gold, the currency of life. I was eager to feed the squadron’s mounts. I loved the silky slide of oats between my fingers, the dry rustle they made in the bucket as they spilled against the side.

  My father smiled when he saw me in the stables, taking my lessons with Astakhov. It was Astakhov who taught me to read and write, using a rough slate and a stub of chalk. As I grew older, I was eager to decipher the cavalry manuals and learn more about horsemanship and battles.

  “She knows military maneuvers as well as I,” Astakhov told my father.

  “Dry fare for a little girl,” said my father. “But if she reads, good.”

  “Horosho, Nadya,” Papa said, chucking me under the chin with his crooked finger.

  My mother was not amused, however, when I returned to our quarters for visits. I galloped down the hall and into the parlor, swinging a stick saber. “Charge!” I screamed, attacking the invisible Turks and other Ottoman infidels who disguised themselves brilliantly as sofa and chairs.

  “Stop that this instant, Nadezhda!” said my mother. She pulled me by the ear to my room, making me stand in the corner until my father returned home at supper time.

  “Her wild antics weaken my heart,” she told my father. “I simply cannot abide her unruly nature.”

  Send her away. Pick her or me. I could feel her unspoken demand on my father.

  By the time I was two she was pregnant again, and—desperate to produce a son—she continued to have baby daughters every two years or so, until my brother Vasily’s birth in 1799. My sisters were more obliging and feminine than I. They gave great comfort to my mother, who could not tolerate me as an infant—even less so when I grew into a wild young girl.

  One afternoon during a bivouac, I lay on my blanket near the picket lines, the horses’ swishing tails lacerating the air. My father ordered naps for me whenever possible, for I was a still a young child.

  That particular afternoon, I felt sick to my stomach and my head throbbed. Astakhov came to wake me but instead looked sternly at my face.

  “What is it, Astakhov?” I asked. “Why do you look at me this way?”

  His hand swept over my forehead, he looked into my eyes.

  “Open your mouth, Nadya.”

  I found my jaw slow to unhinge. His hand, smelling of leather and horses, lifted my chin gently.

  “That is a good girl. Open as wide as you can, dorogaya.”

  I loved him when he called me sweetheart.

  He examined my mouth and found ulcerations. He called gruffly to a Cossack near him.

  “Call Captain Durov to come, immediately!”

  He smoothed his rough hand over my forehead and temples.

  “Can you see me?” he asked. “Can you hear me, Nadezhda?”

  “Yes, I hear. But you are—smoky,” I said.

  “She cannot focus her eyes,” he muttered to someone near us.

  “I am so sore,” I said. “My stomach aches. My head …”

  Within minutes my father appeared, dismounting and handing the reins to the Cossack.

  “What is it, Corporal?”

  He whispered a word I had never heard before. I would never forget after.

  “Smallpox.”

  My father sucked in his breath. “She must be quarantined immediately. Requisition a house. No, two. One for my wife and other children. One for Nadya and …”

  He opened his hands, supplicating the heavens. He could not assign our one maid to take care of both houses. She had to remain with my younger siblings and mother.

  Astakhov answered. “I will take her into quarantine and remain by her side, Captain Durov. I will make all the arrangements. If Nadezhda has smallpox, surely others in the regiment do as well.”

  At that time we were in the new Lithuanian lands near Vilna, seized for the Russian Empire by Catherine the Great. The Lithuanians despised the Russians, their oppressors. To requisition a house—in this case, two—meant not only that the families who lived in them were thrown out, but also that the one that served as quarantine would have to be burned when we left.

  A cavalry must march. Although an extra day’s bivouac was ordered to make quarantine arrangements for me and four soldiers also stricken with the disease, my father would have to leave us to our destiny come the following sunrise.

  I remember little of the wooden house where I was sequestered, except for a traditional Lithuanian adornment. Over the top of the gable were two white flying horses, a blessing to all who lived under its roof.

  The old withered grandmother, the matriarch of the requisitioned house, spat at Astakhov, cursing him in poor Russian flecked with Polish and Lithuanian.

  “You filthy Russian pigs bring disease into the house. Can you not leave us to starve alone under this roof? You have taken everything we have, killed our men, raped our women!”

  The babushka rushed for him to scratch his eyes, but her grandson stopped her, dragging her away.

  “Grandmother, they will kill us. Please, Grandmother!”

  The woman continued to scream. “Russian pigs!”

  Astakhov raised his hand, signaling a soldier. “Show her Nadezhda.”

  I was in the shadows and the old woman was nearsighted. When she realized that there was a little girl being brought into the house, she stopped her tirade, wiping the spittle from her lips. I could hear her rasping breath as she approached me, looking at the red pox that covered my face. Her hand shook as she held it inches above my face, in a sweeping caress. I felt that hovering power as if she had pressed my face with kisses.

  The babushka pointed to a small room—the only other room—in the house. There were the warm embers of a fire there, a folding cavalry bed, and a coverlet. She spread the blanket over my body, tucking the corners under my thin shoulder blades. The old woman did not take her eyes off mine, never focusing on the pox. Then she shuffled out the door.

  A little while later she returned, bringing me a bucket of fresh water from the stream. She dipped a rag into the pail and began bathing my feverish forehead. Her touch was as light as a fairy’s, gentle as the loving mother I never had.

  From then on, she did not try to attack Astakhov, though she gave all the soldiers the evil eye. She kept the fire burning, sitting on a low stool, poking embers with a stick. She ordered her grandson and his wife to put their children to work gathering wood. She watched the soldiers boil the village chickens, feeding their sick men and me, while she licked her lips at the good smell of food she would not eat.

  A strong smoke permeated the tiny bedroom where I lay on the canvas bed. Astakhov administered cool, wet cloths to my forehead, begging me to cling to life.

  “Ah! When you are well again, we shall ride together, Nadezhda.”

  I tried to open my eyes to focus on his face.

  “One day I shall buy you a horse, dorogaya, my dearest. One of the Cossack breeds from the high mountains in the east. Sure-footed and swift, you will see. But first you must get better, little one.”

  He tried to force spoonfuls of chicken broth between my ulcerated lips, but I gagged. I could not drink enough water. No matter how much I tried, I was consumed by thirst. I tossed with fever and delirium, my skin on fire. All the time, Astakhov stayed at my side. He told me stories of the cavalry and brave horses who charged into battle.

  I heard the moans and
retching of the four sick men stretched on pallets throughout the house. I smelled the sour pails of potato vodka that the cavalry had left us, the only medicine we had to combat our pain.

  Rough-spun sheets partitioned the stricken. The coarse cloth would flutter when my door was opened, giving me a glimpse of the makeshift infirmary. A small stove heated our little room, though Astakhov insisted on opening the windows to let the sickness leave.

  One night, I heard one of the sick soldiers cry out, calling for his wife and children who remained behind in Moscow.

  “Marina! Marina, come to me!”

  “It is all right, Corporal. You are here amongst your comrades.”

  “No! Marina, bring me my pipe. Bring the babe—let me. Let me. Let me hold her.”

  “You are hallucinating, Corporal. Bring more blankets,” ordered another man’s voice. “And a wet cloth for his head. Vodka! Bring—”

  “Marina! For our Savior’s sake! Bring me the child!”

  “Shhh! Corporal, you wake the house and other sick patients.”

  “Get away! You stink of death and fire! Let my woman bathe me! Take me to the River Don, to my father’s house. I will kneel and ask his blessing, I—”

  “Shhh! Shhh!”

  Near dawn I heard no further calls.

  “What has happened to the corporal?” I asked the babushka who hovered over me. In the weak light of sunrise I saw her eyes watching me. Astakhov lay on his pallet, sleeping.

  The old woman answered in her pidgin Polish-Russian but I did not understand the word she used.

  “What? I do not understand. What has happened to the soldier who was screaming?”

  She searched for another word that I might understand.

  “On spi,” she said. “He is asleep. Asleep forever.”

  I turned and looked out the window at the falling snow.

  “The soldier who tends you. He tells you stories of horses, little one?” she whispered.

  “Astakhov?” I said, turning slowly to look at her.

  “Shhh! You wake him. I hate the Russians. Ah! But the stories …”