‘But . . .’ Blumentrost began.
I raised my hand. ‘It cannot become known that the Tsar has passed away. Not yet.’
Peter would have approved of my tone.
‘As you command.’ Blumentrost bowed.
‘Good. You shall be paid later today. The same goes for your colleagues.’
Menshikov swayed a little. Was it tiredness that made him unsteady on his feet, or fear?
I walked ahead of him into the cosy little library. Menshikov followed, but only after seizing the tall carafe of Burgundy he had been drinking from, as well as two Venetian goblets. ‘This is no moment to be either sober or stingy,’ he said with a lopsided smile before kicking the door shut like a common innkeeper. The fire had burnt down in the grate, but the wood-panelled walls retained its heat. The colourful silk rugs we had brought back from our Persian campaign – easily adding a dozen baggage carts to our train – depicted all the flowers and birds of God’s creation in their full splendour. The plain chairs standing by the desk, the fireplace and near the shelves, had all been made by Peter himself. Sometimes I would hear him lathing and hammering far beyond midnight. Carpentry drove out his demons and gave him his best ideas, he used to say. His ministers feared nothing so much as a night Peter spent doing carpentry. He would fall asleep, exhausted, across his workbench. Only Menshikov was strong enough to hoist the Tsar onto his shoulders and carry him to bed. If I were not there waiting for him, Peter would use the belly of a young chamberlain as his pillow. He always needed skin against his skin to keep the memories at bay.
The high windows were draped with lined curtains that he had bought as a young man on his visit to Holland, long before the Great Northern War, those two decades of struggle for survival and supremacy against the Swedes. The shelves sagged beneath the weight of the books, which I was told were travelogues, seafaring tales, war histories, biographies of rulers and books on how to rule, and religious works. He had leafed through each and every one of them time and time again. It was a world where I could never follow him. Scrolls still lay open on his desk or piled up in heaps in corners. Some books were printed and bound in thick pigskin; others were written by hand in monasteries.
On the mantelpiece stood a model of the Natalya, Peter’s proud frigate, and above it hung a painting of my son, Peter Petrovich. It was painted months before the death that broke our hearts. I had avoided this room for years because of it, the painting was too real; as if at any moment my son would throw me the red leather ball he held in his hands. His blond curls tumbled onto a white lace shirt; his smile hinted at a row of little teeth. I would have given my life to have him here, now, and to be able to declare him Tsar of All the Russias. Still a child, certainly. But a son of our blood, mine and Peter’s. A dynasty. Isn’t that what every ruler wants? Now there are only daughters left, and a dreaded grandson, little Petrushka.
The thought of Petrushka took my breath away. At his birth Peter had cradled him in his arms and turned his back on the unhappy mother. Poor Charlotte. She had been like a nervous thoroughbred, and like a horse her father had sold her to Russia. Where was her young son now? In the Dolgoruki Palace? In the barracks? Outside the door? Petrushka was only twelve years old and Peter hadn’t even granted him the title of Tsarevich, but I feared him more than I feared the Devil.
In the library, Menshikov conceded: ‘You did well, calling for the Council and getting rid of Feofan, the old fool.’
I turned to look at him. ‘We’re the fools. I hope he keeps his word.’
‘What promise did he give you?’ Menshikov asked, astonished.
‘You see! You only hear what is spoken, but so much more than that is said.’ I seized him by the shirt collar and hissed: ‘We’re both in the same boat. God have mercy on you for every second you waste right now. I saw neither Petrushka nor his charming friends in the corridor, did you? And why is the rightful heir to the Russian Empire not here at his grandfather’s deathbed, where he belongs?’
Menshikov looked uncertain; he wiped his forehead.
‘Because he’s with the troops at the Imperial barracks, where soon they’ll hoist him on their shoulders and give him three cheers when they find out the Tsar is dead. What will happen to us then? Will Petrushka remember the people who signed the judgment on his father, albeit with just a cross next to their name because they couldn’t write?’
I let go of him. Menshikov refilled his goblet and took a long slug of wine, his hands trembling, strong fingers weighted down with heavy rings. His natural wiliness was blunted by fatigue, but I was not yet finished with him: ‘Siberia will be too good for us in their eyes. The Dolgorukys will feed the four winds with our ashes. No one but us knows that the Tsar is dead,’ I whispered. ‘That buys us time.’ Time that might save us. We couldn’t keep the Tsar’s death secret for too long; it would be out by morning, when a leaden dawn broke over Peter’s city.
Menshikov, the man who had turned so many battles in his favour, whose neck had slipped so many times from even the most perilous of nooses, seemed dazed. My dread was contagious. He sat heavily in one of the armchairs, which Peter had brought from Versailles, and stretched out his still-shapely legs. A marvel that the dainty piece of furniture was able to bear his weight! He took a few sips and then turned the coloured glass this way and that in front of the fire. The flames warmed the goblet’s smooth, tinted surface; it looked as if it were filled with blood. I sat down opposite him. Tonight was no time for drinking games.
Menshikov raised his goblet to me in jest. ‘To you, Catherine Alexeyevna. It was well worth gifting you to the Tsar, my lady. To you, my greatest loss. To you, my greatest gain.’ Suddenly he laughed so hard that his wig slipped down over his eyes. It was like the sound of wolves in winter: high and scornful. He pulled the wig off and flung it away. I calmly took his insolence while Peter would have had him flogged for it. Menshikov was suffering like a dog: it was his lord and love, too, who had died. What was in store for him now? His anguish made him unpredictable. I needed him desperately. Him, the Privy Council and the troops. The Tsar’s last will and testament was wedged up my sleeve. Menshikov’s face was red and bloated under his shaggy, still dark-blond mop of hair. He stopped laughing and eyed me over the rim of his glass, his gaze unsteady.
‘Here we are. What an extraordinary life you’ve lived, my lady. Divine Will is the only explanation for it.’
I nodded. That’s what they say about me in all the courts of Europe. My background is the running joke that always puts envoys in a good mood. But for Peter, whatever he willed at any given time was normal and so nothing was extraordinary any longer.
Menshikov’s glass slipped from his fingers, his chin dropped onto his chest and the wine spilt, leaving a large red stain on his white lace shirt and blue waistcoat. The last weeks, days and hours caught up with him. A moment later, he was snoring and hung as limp as a rag doll in the chair. I could grant him some rest before Tolstoy and the Privy Council arrived. Then he would be carried back to his palace to sleep off his stupor. Menshikov already held the Order of St Andrew, as well as far more serfs and titles than I could grant him. There was nothing left to promise him. He had to stay of his own accord: Nothing binds people more powerfully than fear for their own survival, Catherine, I could hear Peter say.
I walked over to the window, which looked over the inner courtyard. The golden icons sewn to the hem of my dress tinkled with each step. When little Princess Wilhelmine of Prussia saw the way I dressed on our visit to Berlin, she had laughed out loud: ‘The Empress of Russia looks like a minstrel’s wife!’
I pushed aside the heavy curtain that kept at bay the inky chill of a St Petersburg winter night – our city, Peter, our dream! Alexander Nevsky Prospect and the Neva were shrouded in the darkness that now held you forever in its arms, the darkness that hid the breathtaking beauty of what you had created: the icy green shade of the waves blending to perfection with the rainbow hues of the flat façades of both palaces and houses, such a novelty twenty
years ago. This city that you raised out of the swampy ground, by the sheer strength of your incredible will and the suffering of hundreds of thousands of your people, nobles and serfs alike. The bones of the forced labourers lie buried in the marshy earth as the city’s foundations. Men, women, children, nameless and faceless; and who remembers them in the light of such magnificence? If there was a surfeit of anything in Russia, it was human life. The morning would break wan and cool; then, later, the palace’s bright, even façade would reflect the day’s pale fire. You lured the light here, Peter, and gave it a home. What happens now? Help me . . .
Candlelight moved behind the windows of the fine, tall houses, gliding through rooms and corridors as if borne by ghostly hands. In the courtyard below, a sentry stood hunched over his bayonet, when with a clatter of hooves – sparks flying off the hard cobblestones – a rider dashed past him and out through a gate. My fingers clenched the catch of the window. Had the doctors obeyed my order? Or had the rider left to confirm the unthinkable? What would happen to me now? Volya – great, unimaginable freedom – or exile and death?
My mouth was dry with fear: a feeling that knots the stomach, turns sweat cold and bitter, and opens the bowels. I hadn’t felt it since – stop! I mustn’t think of those things now. I could only focus on one thing at a time, whereas Peter, like an acrobat, would juggle ten ideas and plans.
Menshikov was mumbling in his sleep. If only Tolstoy and the Privy Council would come. The whole city seemed to be lying in wait. I bit my fingernails until I tasted blood.
I sat down again close to the fire and took off my slippers, stiff with embroidery and jewels. The warmth of the fire made my skin prickle. February was one of the coldest months in St Petersburg. Perhaps I should order some mulled wine and pretzels instead of the Burgundy; that always gave me a swift boost. Was Peter warm enough in the room next door? He couldn’t stand the cold and we had always been freezing on the battlefield. Nothing is frostier than the morning after a battle, be it lost or won. I could only keep him warm at night when he sought refuge in the folds of my flesh.
People asleep look either ridiculous or touching. Menshikov, snoring open-mouthed, was the latter. I drew Peter’s last will from my sleeve and the scroll lay in my lap, so close to the flames. Its letters blurred as my tears came: real, heartfelt tears, despite the sense of relief. I still had a long day and longer weeks ahead of me and I would need to shed many more tears. The people, and the court, would want to see a grief-stricken wife with tousled hair, scratched cheeks, a broken voice and swollen eyes. Only a show of love and grief from me could make the unthinkable acceptable, my tears more powerful than any bloodline. So I may as well start weeping now. The tears weren’t hard to summon: in a few hours I might be either dead, or wishing I were, or else I’d be the most powerful woman in All the Russias.
1
My life began with a crime. Of course, I don’t mean the moment of my birth nor my early years. It’s better to know nothing of life as a serf, a soul, than to know but a little. The German souls – nemtsy, property of the Russian Church – were more wretched than you can ever imagine. The godforsaken place in which I grew up is now lost in the vast plains of Livonia: a village and a country that no longer exist. Do its izby – the shabby huts – still stand? I neither know nor care. When I was young, though, the izby that lined the red earth of the village street in rows, like beads on a monk’s rosary, were my world. We used the same word for both: mir. Ours looked just like many other small villages in Swedish Livonia, one of the Baltic territories under the rule of Stockholm, where Poles, Latvians, Russians, Swedes and Germans mingled and lived together, more or less peacefully – in those days.
Throughout the year, the road through the village held our lives together like the belt on a loose sarafan. After the spring thaw, or the first heavy rains of autumn, we would wade knee-deep in slush coloured like ox-blood from our izba into the fields and down to the Dvina river. In summer, the earth turned into clouds of red dust that ate its way into the cracked skin of our heels. Then, in winter, we would sink up to our thighs in snow with every step, or slide home on ice as slick as a mirror. Chickens and pigs roamed the streets, filth clinging to their feathers and bristles. Children with matted, lice-infested hair played there before they came of working age, when the boys stood in the fields, chasing away the wild birds with rattles, stones and sticks, and the girls worked the monastery’s looms, their delicate fingers serving to make the finest fabrics. I myself helped in the kitchens there from the age of nine. From time to time a loaded cart, pulled by horses with long manes and heavy hooves, would rumble through the village to unload goods at the monastery and take other wares to market. Apart from that, very little happened.
One day in April, shortly before Easter – the year 1698 according to the new calendar the Tsar had ordered his subjects to use – my younger sister Christina and I were walking down this road, heading through the fields towards the river. The pure air was scented with the greatest wonder of our Baltic lands: the ottepel or thaw. Christina was dancing: she spun around in circles, clapping her hands, her relief at the end of the darkness and cold of the winter palpable. I clumsily tried to catch her without dropping the bundle of washing I was carrying, but she dodged away.
Throughout winter, life in the mir was on hold, like the shallow breathing of a bear who lives off the fat beneath its fur until spring. In the long season, the leaden light dazed our minds; we sank into a listless gloom, soaked with kvass. No one could afford vodka, and the bitter, yeasty drink fermented from old bread was just as intoxicating. We lived on grains – oats, rye, barley, wheat and spelt – which we baked into unleavened flatbreads or made into pastry on feast days, rolling it thin and thinner, before filling it with pickled vegetables and mushrooms. Our kasha, the gruel on which we subsisted, was sweetened with honey and dried berries, or salted with bacon rinds and cabbage; we prepared vast amounts of this vegetable every autumn, chopping, salting and pulping it, before we would eat it every day. Every winter I thought I’d be sick if I had to eat sauerkraut one more time, but we also owed our lives to it. It helped us withstand a cold that would freeze the phlegm in your throat before you could hawk it up.
Just as the snow and frost were becoming unbearable, they would slowly fade away. First, it might stay light for a moment longer, or the twigs straighten under a lighter load of snow. Then, at night, we woke to the deafening crack of the ice breaking on the Dvina; the water spurting up, free, wild, and tearing huge slabs of ice downstream. Nothing could withstand its power; even the smallest brooks would swell and burst their banks, and the strong, scaly fish of the Dvina leapt into our nets of their own accord. After a brief, scented spring, feverish summer months followed and our world was drunk with fertility and vigour. Leaves on the trees were thick and succulent; butterflies reeled through the air; bees were drowsy on nectar, their legs heavy with pollen, and yet in too much of a hurry to linger on any one blossom. No one slept during the white nights; even the birds sang throughout, not wanting to miss any of the fun.
‘Do you think there’s still ice on the river, Marta?’ Christina asked me anxiously, using the name I was known by back then. How many times had she asked me this since we’d left the house? The Spring Fair was tomorrow and just like her I longed to scrub off the stench of smoke, food and the dull winter months in readiness for what was to be the highlight of the year. There would be amazing sights, delicious foods of which we might afford some, and the arrival of all the people from the neighbouring mir, as well as the odd handsome stranger, a thought that was never far from Christina’s mind. ‘Shall we race each other?’ she asked, giggling. Before I could answer, she set off, but I tripped her up and just managed to catch her before she stumbled and fell. She shrieked and clung to me like a boy riding a bull at the fairground, pummelling me with her fists; I lost my balance and we both fell onto the embankment, where primroses and rock cress were already blooming. The sharp young grass tickled my bare arms and
legs as I struggled to my feet. Oh, wonderful – the clothes were strewn all over the dusty road. Now we really had good reason to wash them. At least we could work beside the river: only a few weeks ago, I’d had to smash the ice on the tub behind the izba with a club and push the icy lumps aside as I scrubbed. My hands had frozen blue with cold, and chilblains are painful and slow to heal.
‘Come on, I’ll help you,’ said Christina, glancing back towards the village. We were out of sight of the izba.
‘You don’t need to help me,’ I said, though the laundry was heavy on my arm.
‘Don’t be silly. The quicker we wash it all, the sooner we can bathe.’ She took half the washing from the crook of my arm. We didn’t usually split the chores because Christina was the daughter of Tanya, my father’s wife. I’d been born, nine months after the summer solstice, to a girl in the neighbouring village. He was already engaged to Tanya when my mother fell pregnant and he had not been forced to marry her: the monks had the final say in such matters, and they, of course, preferred to marry my father to one of their girls. When my mother died giving birth to me, Tanya took me in. She had little choice: my mother’s family had stood on the threshold of the izba and held my bundle of life towards her. They would have left me on the edge of the forest as fodder for the wolves if she had refused. Tanya didn’t really treat me badly, considering. We all had to work hard, and I got my share of our provisions such as they were. But she was often spiteful, pulling my hair and pinching my arm over the slightest mistake.
‘You’ve got bad blood. Your mother would spread her legs for anyone. Who knows where you really come from?’ she’d say if she was feeling malicious. ‘Look at you, with your green, slanted eyes and your hair as black as a raven’s wing. You’d better watch your step.’ If my father heard her, he wouldn’t say anything, but just look even sadder than usual, his back hunched from working in the monastery fields. He could only laugh his toothless chuckle when he’d had a few mugs of kvass, which brought a dull light to his sunken eyes.
Tsarina Page 2
