36
I knew from Peter’s letters that he had left behind the pain and sorrow of the summer. Did he expect the same from me? Just the thought of it hurt so much, like betraying our stillborn child, but it would be dangerous for me to forget how Peter had been bored by Evdokia’s moping and complaining. I painted crimson onto my numb lips, practised being merry until my cheeks hurt and wore a new dress of dark green velvet with golden embroidery. As careless and neglectful as Peter was about his own appearance, it wouldn’t do for me not to look my best.
He sent for me on arrival. His leather breeches were stained, his shirt reeked of sweat, and he was still wearing the boots he had bought as a young man from his first pay at a Dutch shipyard. When he took them off, his stockings were torn and he happily wiggled his naked toes. ‘You see, matka, even my socks miss you. Nobody is darning them anymore. Their holes are as big as the ones in my heart when you are not with me.’
‘Have you missed me?’ I laughed, my heart beating so hard it almost hurt.
He pulled me close and I felt his breath hot on my throat. ‘Very much.’
‘How much?’ I sighed.
‘Well, let me show you how much.’ He lifted my heavy skirt and played with the colourful silk ribbons that held my stockings to a lacy silk bodice. I had feared this moment these last few weeks, more sharply since his arrival was announced. Would I still feel desire? But heat rose through my stomach when Peter kissed me and lifted me onto the table in his living room. He opened my thighs and let his fingertips slide into my wetness, before finding my secret spot and gently caressing me until I moaned and opened myself further for him. ‘It’s time we made another child,’ he said, between kisses.
In the New Year, Charles of Sweden and Louis of France chased away Augustus the Strong and placed their own protégé, Stanisław Leszczyński, on the Polish throne. Peter was consumed with anger, which was not helped by Turkey readying itself to join the Swedish–Polish alliance and fall onto Russia’s back. The country, already exhausted by the Tsar’s efforts, now had enemies on all fronts. Was this not his worst fear? How would we survive?
I travelled together with Daria back to Peter’s young city. The Peter and Paul Fortress had risen on the shore of the Neva since my last visit. There were many more houses being built, too, even though all building materials had to be brought in from far away. The Tsar wanted his city built of stone, and for it to be as different as he could make it from the disorder of Moscow; its houses were to boast high, regular façades and line straight, long streets like pearls on a string, such as he had seen in Europe. Hundreds of thousands of men toiled with bent backs and gnat-bitten flesh, their ankles swelling in the brackish marsh water, fighting to dry out the swamps and force the swelling Neva into canals. Guards did not take their eyes off them as they laboured: attempts to flee this place were common.
Our coach had to slow down when passing them and a suffocating stench gathered in the hot summer air. I examined those hopeless, gaunt faces. Was my father here? Did my brother work among them? But I never recognised anyone. I listened to the men sing to forget their misery. Hammers and hatchets fell against stones and logs to the rhythm of Russian songs full of sadness and longing.
I was back in Moscow, pregnant once again. Caroline allowed me neither to go out nor to drink wine or vodka: ‘You will give birth to this child in perfect health or you will have to deal with me.’
She’d forbidden one more thing, but even her zeal paled in the face of Peter’s passion for me: ‘You are so warm. If it was possible to get enough of you, I surely would try.’
That summer the Red Square sizzled with heat. Even the air in Peter’s house in Preobrazenskoje was stifling. Flies swarmed in its rooms and the beams crackled with cockroaches. Peter was so disgusted that he had all the walls and roofs lathered with fresh boiling tar, which made breathing even harder.
I was pacing the corridors when the front door was pushed open: a welcome draught of air cooled my sticky forehead. It was followed by two soldiers who as good as carried in an exhausted messenger. The man staggered more than walked. Both Caroline and I retreated into the shadows of the hallway.
The men knocked at Peter’s door and when he opened it, I saw the impatience on his face. Caroline and I listened keenly; news could be of triumph or defeat. But not a sound was to be heard from Peter’s room. I felt faint – what could that mean? Just then, the men came out again, their eyes lowered and their faces flushed, and I caught sight of Peter looking forlornly out of the window, his shoulders hunched. My heart went out to him.
‘Show them the stables and the trough. They can wash themselves and then eat in the kitchen,’ I told Caroline before I slipped inside Peter’s room. He didn’t hear me and I held my breath, my hand hovering in mid-air. He was crying. When I embraced him from behind, his heavy body stiffened before he gave in to my embrace.
‘Batjuschka. You cry. What has happened?’ I softly kissed his shoulder and he leant backwards on me; I grasped the windowsill so that my knees did not buckle under his weight.
‘Sophia is dead.’
‘Your half-sister? The Regent?’
‘Yes. She died two days ago in her convent. Finally.’
I buried my face in his back mutely. Sophia, who had relegated her brothers to the shadows of the Kremlin and had ordered both Streltsy revolts – she, the first woman ever to rule Russia. Peter turned and rested his face in my neck. His tears soaked my skin. His whole body was shaken by deep, desperate sobs. But I also felt another, dangerous tremor going through his limbs. Was this a fit? I sank to the ground and pulled him with me. ‘Shhh. Come, sit down. Here, with me. Calm down, just calm down. I’m here . . .’ I held his head between my breasts and rocked him like a child, to and fro. It was a long while before he looked up at me and said, ‘She is to be buried in the convent.’
‘If we can find a coffin big enough for her . . .’ I muttered, risking a joke.
He chuckled while crying. ‘Indeed! She got even fatter in that convent. I wonder who she bribed to bring her more food. And how did her lover ever mount her? But she was shrewd; so fast and so funny. A ruler, through and through. I feared her, always. Before I had her imprisoned, I met her alone in the great hall of the Kremlin. She stood before me. I had not expected her to curtsey. When I asked her, “Why did you not kill me back then when I was a boy?”, do you know what she answered?’
‘No,’ I whispered.
‘“Stupid boy, Peter,” she said. “All that counts is Russia. Do you think I had not seen that our brother Ivan was an idiot? Who else but you should have ruled Russia after me?” Stability. Continuity –’ He wiped his snotty nose with his sleeve, like a boy would. ‘Yes, let’s give her a grave with neither name nor date on the headstone. She is not to be mourned and no one shall ever worship her.’
I kissed him. ‘Make that a very deep grave. Deep enough to swallow all the dread and all the demons she raised in you.’
He held me so tightly that the child in my body moved. ‘Oh, matka, why do I have to be so lonely? Why do I always have to be Tsar? When Menshikov executed the Streltsy soldiers right outside Sophia’s convent cell, decapitating them, or stringing them up by their feet until their heads exploded, leaving their bodies to rot so that vultures circled the square for weeks on end, Sophia just waved at us, smiling. She never had nightmares. Why me, then? Why do I always have to pay?’
I kissed his tears away. ‘You’re not alone. You have us, me –’ I placed his hand firmly on my body ‘– and our son.’
Peter’s generals spent the next two years roaming restlessly through the Baltics, taking crucial strongholds and preventing further Swedish attacks. After they narrowly avoided an offensive from the sea on the still-fragile St Petersburg, Peter spent the whole night on his knees giving thanks.
37
Fortune in the Great Northern War swung from the Swedes to the Russians and back, like the pendulum on a clock. Today the Red Square was alive with spec
tators when the Tsar prepared to celebrate a recent victory: thick, wet snowflakes fell and clung to my lashes and my sable cloak. A thousand torch-bearers lined the square, which had been strewn with sand and gravel, steeping the ground in hues of gold. Cannon fired salutes, fireworks lit up the sky in a rainbow of colours and a steady drum roll almost swallowed up the sound of the thundering steps of Peter’s regiments, which marched underneath hastily erected wooden triumphal arches on to the square, swinging captured Swedish flags, the blue-and-gold cloth torn and burnt. In the evening ten thousand men formed a single body, calling out in hoarse voices for their batjuschka Tsar. Yet Peter himself was in the thick of it all the time, mingling with his soldiers, standing in the stirrups of his German saddle that lay on a blanket of leopard fur and red velvet. He waved to the adoring, cheering crowd and I, too, shouted until my voice was hoarse, but just as Peter had finished his first round of the square, our son decided to be born.
The first pangs of labour almost tore me to pieces; the cramps didn’t build up gradually but hit me like a cart. I gasped for air as the pain cut like a knife into my lower body. Once I was brought to bed – the hastily summoned guards had to carry me – Caroline was with me, forcing me to rise and pace between the worst pains, and encouraging me: ‘Go on, Marta. He will live. It’s a strong and healthy son for the Tsar.’
Her words rang in my ears like the rattle of a prayer-mill while I bit on a piece of sandalwood that Daria had shoved between my teeth. The physician Blumentrost wanted to force me to lie down, but I knew how the women in my mir had given birth healthily, and it was not by lying on their backs. When only an iron band of suffering held me together, I crouched and then followed Caroline’s orders. ‘Push. Breathe. Press. Once again. And again. Breathe. Hold on. Steady . . .’ But still the baby wouldn’t come. Daria and Caroline held me firmly by my armpits, made me sniff camphor when I threatened to faint and gently stroked my belly, easing the baby out. I soaked bundles of linen with my blood, and the midwife carried bucket upon bucket of hot water into the room.
By now Blumentrost was not to be held back any longer. ‘Let me do my work or the Tsar will have my skin as a rug,’ he said. ‘Hold her. Firmer! Push! I can feel his head. He’s close. Push – stop now . . .’
Somebody screamed like an animal. Lights flashed behind my eyelids and the stench of sweat and blood was unbearable when Blumentrost reached into my body. I wanted to kick him, writhing with agony and rage at my own helplessness. He urged me on: ‘Push once more. Yes! A boy. It’s a boy!’ The physician sounded as triumphant as if he was the father: he held the infant up into the fading light of the afternoon, spun him around and slapped him on his bottom, where his skin was still covered with white slime and blood. My son’s first cry was strong and hoarse before a merciful darkness closed in on me.
The room was scented with camphor, sage and myrrh; hot water steamed in the bathtub, and Caroline made my bed with fresh, starched linen and fur blankets, before she opened the window wide, pushing the protesting midwife aside. ‘What a stench! How is one supposed to breathe in here?’
Peter and I endlessly admired the small, perfectly formed fingers and rosy skin of our son. He had strong, straight limbs and a loud voice; last but not least, he drank like a field marshal. Soon, though, Daria handed the little one to a wet-nurse and bound my breasts to keep their firmness and their shape: I belonged back in Peter’s bed.
My son was baptised in the Kremlin chapel and Peter, who sobbed throughout the ceremony, ordered Makarov to enter his name into the yearbook of the Moscow court. Alexey congratulated me in measured words and Peter made me the gift of Kolomenskoye Palace outside Moscow. It was my very own house, the first I had ever owned, a palace with hundreds of rooms and as many windows that sparkled in the sun. Built for Tsar Alexis, Peter’s father, its hunting grounds were vast – much more land than the monks in our mir had ever owned. The thought gave me great pleasure.
That Yuletide was the happiest ever: sometimes I’d change my fancy dress three times a night, appearing first as a Friesian maid, then as an Amazon, then a Greek goddess. When the festivities ended – normally an hour at which inky darkness still hid the Moscow rooftops from my sight – I’d slip through the dark corridors to my son’s room, where he slept guarded by his wet-nurse. I’d lean over his cradle and listen to his breathing, entirely content.
At the thaw, I accompanied Peter into the field. It broke my heart to leave my little boy behind, but there were too many other women who were only too happy to follow the Tsar into his tent. I would not have one calm moment in Moscow. My little boy was to join us as soon as possible, but for the time being I left my four-month-old son in Menshikov’s palace under Daria’s care. I dictated long letters to her along the way and from Peter’s camp, begging her not to forget him in all the disorder of Alexander Danilovich’s household. ‘Do not leave my Petrushka alone in the darkness, as he gets scared. Also, have some warm clothes made, Peter will pay for it. If you need to travel, please make sure my son has enough to eat and drink.’
My little boy died suddenly before Easter of the year following his birth. He had just begun to smile when death took him. ‘We must have another one soon,’ were Peter’s only words. I nodded, fighting to keep the birds of sorrow at bay.
The following year, I gave birth again. My son was small, yet healthy, but barely outlived his brother. The birds of sorrow nested in my soul: whenever I saw how the Tsarevich Alexey grew and prospered, I wondered whether my sons’ deaths were a punishment from God for what the Tsar’s wife Evdokia had to endure.
Daria, who was still unmarried and a maiden by name, gave me some advice. ‘Only love a child once it can walk, talk and is strong enough to overcome the first fever.’
My beautiful daughter Ekaterina Petrovna was stronger than her brothers. Born in spite of Peter chasing warfare all over his realm, she lived past the sad little milestones of their brief lives. She was a dear child, with blonde curls and dimples in her chubby elbows, who walked and spoke early and had an easy, endearing smile. Between battles, Peter dictated loving letters, which his messenger read to me.
‘“Menshikov, too, is not here, and I sorely miss the two faces I love the most in this world. Let our Ekaterina be strong and healthy, so the two of you may join me soon. Yesterday a drunk soldier climbed on a rooftop and fell down: you would have laughed even more than I did at the sight of it. So, yes, I do have fun, but not as much as when you are with me . . .”’
We joined him as soon as we could. While he sat with his men in the evening, sharing his worries about the war and the country with them, Ekaterina hid under the table, spinning the spurs on his boots and humming a song, until he lifted her on his lap and fed her from his plate. She took her first steps on the banks of the Neva and Peter was as proud of her progress as he was of the rise of his new city. In the nights, however, worry about Russia’s future plagued him: he spoke in his dreams, shouting orders, or shot up from a light slumber, standing as stiff as a rod, and tried to slip on his dirty, crumpled uniform. I had to force him back into the pillows, soothing him with songs and kisses, so that he could gather strength for the next day, which again would weigh so heavily on him.
Charles of Sweden marched his troops southwards, where his trusted General Rehnskjöld defeated both the Saxons and the Russians. At first, the Saxons had been ready to welcome their Lutheran Swedish brothers. But word of the true nature of the occupation shocked even the Russians: Charles executed all prisoners on the spot, as he could not feed them. Whole villages were purged; men, women and children dangled from trees, head down and their bellies slit open. The crows pecked their eyes, and the wolves chewed their way up from the neck to the guts. Charles’s men heated cow’s piss and poured it into their bound, helpless victim’s throat until the person burst, or gave no other sign of life, whichever came first. A stream of letters came from Saxony, pleading for help. Peter and his generals were desperate: was the war finally lost? They talked until l
ate in the night, every night. Once when I came to see Peter, bringing him hot milk with cognac and honey, he crumpled up a letter, his face dark with rage.
‘What’s this?’ I asked, picking the paper up from the floor and smoothing it. It looked important.
‘It’s a letter from England, written by His Grace the Duke of Marlborough,’ he replied, gnashing his teeth.
‘You wanted him to mediate between Charles and you, didn’t you?’
‘Yes. But he declined. Declined! And do you know what I had offered him in exchange?’
I shook my head.
‘I gave him the choice between the titles of Prince of Kiev or Siberia. But that was not all.’ Peter wagged his finger, to emphasise his generosity. ‘So, we top that up with fifty thousand Reichstaler for every year of his life, as well as the largest ruby ever found, for his duchess loves jewellery and Marlborough is a gambler with huge debts. But that’s still not enough for an English duke, so let’s also add the Order of St Andrew – but His Grace rejects it all.’ He shredded the letter. ‘Of course he refuses. It is much better to know the Swedes are kept busy here rather than meddling in the Spanish Succession. Russia and I are to be sacrificed to serve as a useful diversion.’
The Swedes settled in Saxony, where Charles waited for his moment. He had more cards up his sleeve: we all knew that. Peter, more worried than I’d ever known him, made reinforcements at the Russian borders, and for the first time in a century the Kremlin, too, was fortified. Though when Peter signed the ukaz enabling that, he murmured, ‘It shall go to hell, this abode of the Devil!’
Only a few months later Charles stood in Minsk, which had not seen foreign fiends since the Kingdom of Rus had taken it, six hundred years before. Were Russia and we lost?
Tsarina Page 23
