Tsarina

by Ellen Alpsten

  He sighed. ‘All right then. If I must spell it out: the Tsar has syphilis. I’m trying to treat him to the best of my knowledge, but there’s no cure.’

  ‘Syphilis.’ I sat rigid, unable to move. It won’t happen to me, Peter had always reassured me when I’d dared to mention other cases in court circles, as though for entertainment’s sake. A direct warning would not have been tolerated. But had he not seen his own courtiers suffering from the French Disease, their skin covered by ulcers, feverish madness clouding their minds before they died like dogs? He had and had not, always believing himself to be beyond its reach. Fear swallowed me, holding me captive as surely as the dark cells in the Trubetzkoi Bastion.

  ‘Should we not have known earlier?’ I asked.

  ‘We did,’ the physician said sheepishly. ‘I was not allowed to speak of it to you.’

  ‘How did the disease made itself known in the Tsar?’

  ‘Well, to start with, a burning feeling when urinating, blood in the excrement, pus in the –’

  I raised my hand, stopping him short. ‘Has Peter caught the illness from me? Am I to blame?’

  ‘No, Your Grace. When I examined you after the last birth, you were perfectly healthy. You are as strong as a horse, it’s a miracle. No. The Tsar has caught the illness from a certain Boi-Baba.’

  ‘Boi-Baba? But she is one of my maids and pregnant with the Tsar’s child.’

  ‘Not anymore. The Tsar had her whipped after the delivery of a daughter, before banning them both to Siberia.’

  ‘He had her whipped?’ I asked in disbelief, feeling faint. ‘After giving birth?’

  ‘Yes. As punishment for having given him the illness. Her husband and her other seven children, too, have been exiled to Siberia.’

  This had happened in my court, right under my nose. I read sadness and pity in Blumentrost’s eyes.

  I straightened my back. ‘Can the Tsar be treated with a different cure? Surely there must be something other than mercury you could try? A new discovery, possibly?’

  The physician shrugged. ‘There is no cure. One can only slow the course of the disease, no more. It is in God’s hands. As for yet unconceived children –’

  ‘Yes?’ I asked, my voice hoarse. He avoided my gaze.

  ‘If Your Grace falls pregnant at all, and if there is no miscarriage in the early stages or a stillbirth, it would be miraculous if any surviving children were strong and viable. But we ought to believe in miracles, oughtn’t we?’ he added quickly.

  I felt myself drifting deep under icy winter water and drowning: the surface above me lured me to light and life, but I was doomed, incapable of ever getting there. I saw sorrow and compassion in Blumentrost’s eyes, which made his words even more unbearable. I leapt to my feet and rushed to the window, tearing it open. The spring air flooded my lungs and the blue sky arched far above the dark Sea of ​​Azov. Yet on the horizon, storm clouds gathered and smaller boats took down their sails so as not to have them shredded by the wind. The seagulls surfed in the strong easterly, piercing the air with their shrieks, mocking me with their beady eyes.

  I skimmed my belly with my hands: Blumentrost did not yet know that I was pregnant again, for the sixth time. I closed my eyes and cooled my feverish forehead on the glass pane, clenching my fists: I would give the Tsar a healthy son. This was perhaps my last chance to do so.

  ‘Yes, Blumentrost,’ I said, turning to him, smiling and gathering my dignity. ‘One should never cease to believe in miracles.’

  ‘Your Grace –’ he began to say. I merely raised my hand and wiped a tear from my cheek. He bowed and retreated; I heard the door being gently pulled shut. Good. No one should ever again see tears running down my face.

  47

  The truth about the Battle of Poltava is simpler and sadder, but also much more glorious and grander, than any of the folklore surrounding it.

  I stood in the entrance to our tent on that morning in June 1709 and watched as Peter mounted his Arabian steed Finette, a gift from the Scotsman James Bruce. Clouds hung stubbornly and potbellied in the sky; not even the wind that bent the treetops could drive them away. Menshikov held the Tsar’s stirrups and then kissed Peter’s hand; the Tsar embraced Alexander Danilovich in turn. I saw them whisper: ‘For God and for Russia, today!’

  When Peter straightened and raised his arm, all of the Tsar’s generals as well as forty thousand soldiers knelt like a single body. His silent gaze scanned the sea of ​​faithful men; a gust of wind caught the red feathers of his hat before the breeze settled in the folds of his mantle, just when the cloud tore open and a single ray of sunshine touched the Tsar’s head. I held my breath: God had blessed him. A stunned, reverent murmur rose from the rows of kneeling men, many of whom made the Sign of the Cross.

  Finette pranced and Peter drew breath. Only I knew that he had sat together with Feofan Prokopovich until late last night, writing this speech, polishing every word, until it was shiny and perfect.

  ‘God in Heaven,’ Peter cried, the wind carrying his words to the very last of his men. The hairs on my neck rose and my skin prickled as I felt destiny close in.

  ‘The fate of Mother Russia is in your hands: doom or glory – men! You decide whether our country shall be free forever, or forever enslaved by the Swedish devil. Today, you’re not taking up arms for me. Neither my vanity nor my quest for personal glory send you into battle. No. God in His grace has entrusted Russia to me, Peter Alexeyevich Romanov. But a decisive moment has come, and that decision rests in your hands, not mine.’

  Peter steadied Finette for a moment before his voice echoed over the battlefield once more. ‘Do not be fooled or scared witless. The Swedish soldiers have no miraculous powers. Their hearts beat, their blood flows, their bodies die. Everything else is a lie and there is only one truth: God is with Russia. And if I know only one thing for sure, it is this.’ He stopped short, and forty thousand pairs of eyes sought out him alone. ‘I shall give every drop of my blood for the greatness, the glory and the fear of God of All the Russias!’

  Finette reared, the wide eyes in her delicate head rolling, and Peter spurred her on. He raced ahead, crouching in the saddle, galloping past his men, who crossed themselves with three fingers. A hoarse cry rose to the sullen sky, and the mass of people as well as the wide horizon swallowed up Peter’s retreating figure; a vision in a flowing red cloak, sparks flying from Finette’s pounding hooves. I knew that if he was to fall today, I had witnessed his finest hour.

  The Generals Sheremetev, Ronne, Menshikov and Bruce followed suit and their troops fell into formation, taking up their positions against the Swedes. Only Peter, or so I later heard, was everywhere at the same time, hounding Finette across the battlefield, shouting orders, encouragement and insults into the foaming mass of fighting men. The Tsar was to be seen always, and everywhere: I am sure that only my prayers led the three bullets intended for him astray. One tore the felt of his hat; the second dug itself deep into Peter’s pectoral cross made of solid gold, rubies and emeralds, a gift from the monks of Mount Athos, and the third bullet stuck in his saddle’s wooden frame. Peter himself was unharmed, as if by a miracle.

  I know nothing of the battle itself, as when the first wounded soldiers were brought into the camp, I was kept too busy with tending to wounds, ladling out dulling vodka to deal with the horror, or holding hands and drying tears of sorrow. Only once I had the Tsar’s letter, which he had hastily sent to me, read aloud, did I understand: ‘Catherine Alexeyevna: matka! God, in His grace, has given us the victory over the King of the Swedes. We have kicked the enemy into the dust; all I want now are your kisses to congratulate me. Come immediately! In the camp, 28 June 1709, Peter Alexeyevich Romanov.’

  I wept and downed a goblet of Hungarian wine, offering one to the messenger as well, before I neatened my plaits, washed the blood, pus and sweat from my hands and face, took off my dirty apron, slipped into my boots and had my horse saddled.

  My mount flew over the plains in
the amber light of the afternoon and I felt the child in my body stirring, strong and healthy. My son, too, was celebrating this victory of his father: Yes, you should always believe in miracles, Blumentrost. I laughed into the wind and spurred my horse on further.

  I shall never forget my horror at first sight of the battlefield of Poltava. The plains outside the fortress walls were covered with corpses or the maimed remains of what had once been human beings. Vultures already circled in the sky and crows cowered in the trees, waiting patiently for their turn. Wild dogs dragged body parts away, fighting over limbs. I slowed my mare, afraid to trample any still-living, but wounded soldiers. Bloodstained hands reached out to me and men begged for a kind word or pleaded for a sip of water, a doctor, a last sight of their beloved or their mother.

  One man managed to get hold of my skirt; he lay on his stomach and his breath was heavy and strangled. ‘Please, milady. Water,’ he whispered, and I got off my horse. The sight of his wounds was so sickening that I had to fight down the bile in my throat before searching for the water in my saddlebags. When I turned to him again, the man had died.

  A bitter cloud of gun smoke gathered sluggishly over the windless plain, soaking up the sweet, sickening battlefield smells like a sponge. I wrapped my braids over my mouth and nose so as not to breathe in the odour of death a thousandfold. My eyes were fixed on the way ahead lest I would either weep or be well and truly sick. Peter, at this moment of his greatest victory, should find me nothing but beautiful, proud and radiant: his greatest prize.

  The Swedish soldiers who lay nearest to my path, bloodied, starved and dying, looked to be no better than skeletons. Scorched earth and the two Russian winters had finished their gruesome work, I thought, choking on tears: I knew that Peter had done what a Tsar had to do to save Russia. Still, nearly seven thousand of Charles’s men had fallen that day, and three thousand more went into Russian captivity. Ten thousand men for whom, somewhere, a woman such as I waited and mourned; a daughter like mine, or a son like Alexey, were orphaned; never to know what had happened, never to receive word again. Still, at least for those prisoners the war was over, as opposed to their comrades who had fled alongside King Charles, the haunted man whom God had punished them with as a ruler. The horse carrying the wounded king had been shot dead underneath him, but he had succeeded in getting away unscathed.

  I spotted Peter from far away, standing tall and proud outside Poltava’s walls, surrounded by his generals. A mass of prisoners knelt around him, their faces empty and exhausted, with gazes dull as animals’. There were soldiers as well the retinue of the Swedish King: servants, musicians, scribes, cooks, doctors, priests and pharmacists. Captured Swedish flags were stuck crookedly in the ground, their proud blue and gold cloth hanging dirty and torn in the slowly settling dusk.

  Peter spotted me and waved, excited as a child: his hair was dishevelled, his mantle torn, and the blue sash around his chest, with the diamond-adorned Order of St Andrew still attached to it, sullied by blood and smoke. His face, too, was blackened by soot and mud, but his blue eyes beamed with pride and joy as he embraced me, before pulling me over to the Swedish troops.

  ‘Come, and look at this, matka. What a haul of prisoners, eh? A marshal, ten general majors, fifty-nine senior officers and eleven hundred juniors. And to top it all off, the king’s chief adviser, Minister Piper himself.’ He seized a small, bald man by the scruff of the neck and forced him to his feet. Minister Piper barely came to Peter’s elbow. He kept his eyes squeezed shut and trembled with the fear of imminent death. ‘Well, Piper, we’ll find something to do for a smart man like you. Many streets have to be paved in St Petersburg, don’t they, Catherinushka? Or shall we send him to the mines in Siberia?’ Peter kissed me and I tasted leather, sweat and gunpowder. The Swedish officers averted their eyes; they themselves had been separated for so many years from their families and loved ones, but Peter cried, ‘Look, you damn Swedes. This is the kind of woman who will bring victory to a man.’

  Then his gaze fell on the Swedish marshal who knelt among all the others. Peter frowned. ‘Are you Marshal Rehnskjöld?’

  The man understood only his name. He nodded, seeming hesitant and confused.

  ‘Get up,’ Peter shouted at him. ‘On your feet, Swedish swine!’

  The Swede looked confused as he stumbled to his feet. Silence fell. All eyes turned towards the Tsar and the Swedish marshal, who had fooled Peter for so many years and made him suffer throughout the drawn-out campaign, defeating his army left, right and centre. Sheremetev and Bruce exchanged a worried glance and I folded my hands in silent prayer. Please, God, let Peter not sully his glory, his joy and his victory through a vile, capricious crime. The battle was over; killing Rehnskjöld now would be heinous murder. The marshal met Peter’s eyes calmly.

  ‘Now kneel again,’ the Tsar snarled.

  Goose-bumps formed on my arms as Rehnskjöld obeyed, disdain on his face. He was ready to meet his maker, having always fulfilled his duty, however high the price he had to pay.

  I dared not breathe: even the wind had all but ceased and clouds drifted slowly in front of the setting sun. First campfires were being lit on the hills around the city and the air reeked even more strongly of smoke and death. Peter slowly drew his bloodstained sword from its sheath, which I myself had embroidered for him in Kiev. The last rays of sunshine caught on the steel, making it sparkle, as he raised the weapon high above his head.

  Rehnskjöld had his eyes closed and his lips moved. I recognised the Lord’s Prayer, which I had so often recited in the Glucks’ house.

  Peter! I wanted to plead, but bit my tongue. The Tsar lifted the marshal’s head by the hair, forcing his eyes open. ‘Rehnskjöld. Do you know how much you have made Russia suffer? A warrior like you is rarely born. In Narva one of your bullets narrowly missed me,’ he growled.

  I wiped my moist hands on my skirt. When the marshal replied, his eyes were as blue as the skies over St Petersburg. He spoke quietly in the language of Johann: ‘I ask God for forgiveness for my sins. I’m ready for death, Tsar Peter.’

  His voice was full of fatigue and Sheremetev closed his eyes, ashen-faced. Menshikov crossed himself with three fingers. Rehnskjöld turned and said some last, encouraging words to his men, then lowered his head. Some of the Swedes sobbed, burying their faces in their hands.

  Peter raised his sword high and higher, then paused and took one of the marshal’s limp hands, closing his fingers around the sword’s pommel. ‘Take my sword as a sign of my respect, Marshal Rehnskjöld. You are a true soldier.’

  Marshal Rehnskjöld, the fearless hero of countless battles, sank to the ground, dropped the sword, buried his face in the damp, dewy grass and cried like a child, his shoulders heaving. None of his men dared to touch him, but looked on in mute shock. Menshikov, Bruce and Sheremetev relaxed, and I laced my fingers through Peter’s.

  He shrugged and shook his head. ‘Really. The Swedes are softer than I thought. What is his problem?’

  48

  We rode slowly back to the camp. The surviving men followed us in the dying light of the day in a more or less orderly train, together with thousands of ragged, limping and starving Swedish prisoners. As I took a last look back at Poltava, people poured out of the besieged city’s gates to plunder the corpses and the mortally wounded, even breaking the gold teeth out of dead men’s mouths.

  Our camp was lit and people were singing, dancing, clapping and celebrating the victory. Peter had barrel upon barrel opened, serving wine, beer and vodka to his men, and Felten robbed the cellars of the town and the barns of the surrounding villages to roast enough oxen, lambs, pigs and chickens, and find enough salt fish, cabbage and flour. At the table, Peter threw away his cutlery and grabbed my greasy hands, holding them up for all to see. ‘Tonight we shall eat only with our hands. If I catch one of you carving with his knife, he will be in trouble. Have I made myself clear?’ Then he kissed me and served me a crackling piece of pork, dripping with gravy and stuff
ed with fruit.

  The Swedes sat in our midst like islands in a raging sea: they reminded me of Johann’s gentle manners. None of them farted or burped while they ate, nor did they spit on the ground, but politely turned to one side to pick food out of their teeth. I had Felten, who hated the Swedes, play the role of the Swedish King that evening. The humiliation drove tears of anger into his eyes. Peter laughed so much that he fell off his chair, pulling everything from the table in an enormous racket – cloth, cutlery and crockery.

  In the early-morning hours, when the soldiers and generals clung exhaustedly to their chairs, Peter handed out the spoils to the victors: Sheremetev got more land and souls around Kiev. Shafirov – ‘my favourite little Jew’ – was made Vice-chancellor, a count, and each of his daughters was to marry a prince. Shafirov kissed the Tsar’s knees, which made Menshikov even more jealous than he already was, but I calmed him, winking at him and saying: ‘Alexander Danilovich, surely the light of Peter’s grace shines brightly enough for all of us?’ Though the more Menshikov got, the more he wanted; such was his nature. Peter himself was promoted as well, and he kissed me. ‘Now you are the companion of a Vice-admiral. Are you proud of me?’

  In the morning, the child in my body lay quiet. I thought of Blumentrost’s words and clenched my fists: the infant was my Prince of Poltava, a miracle in himself. We left two days later, as the surrounding land and villages could no longer feed our army, and the stench of death and decay suffocated all merriment in our tents.

  The victorious soldiers of Poltava entered the Red Square in a whirl of thick snowflakes, the ice mirroring their triumph. I myself was not stand on the balcony of the Kremlin on that day as I was to give birth in Peter’s house at Ismailov: ‘Give me a healthy son to celebrate Poltava. Please!’ he had whispered as he helped me from the sleigh, tears in his eyes. Moscow was alight with life and joy. Waiting for the hour of birth bored me to tears. I messed up my embroideries and drew figures in the ice crystals on the windows.