I avoided Peter’s gaze when Shafirov said, ‘Marie Hamilton has stolen from the Tsaritsa more than once and has sold the jewels to my Uncle Blumenthal. It was only this especially beautiful and rare piece that aroused his suspicion.’
‘How many jewels did Marie Hamilton bring you, Blumenthal?’ I asked haltingly. The implications of the whole story dawned on me only slowly.
He weighed his answer carefully. ‘She usually sent her German servant, Alice Kramer. She came often. Sometimes with just a ring to sell, sometimes with chains, chokers, earrings or belts.’ I no longer wanted to hear. Suddenly I realised how many of my belongings had gone missing in recent months. How careless I had grown about it, thinking a maid had mislaid a belt, or that my earrings had slipped off my lobes during a wild dance. I who used to own nothing in the whole wide world.
Peter tilted the woman’s head up and stared into her one eye. ‘Tell me, old hag, before I have your tongue torn out of your filthy mouth. What gender were the children you took from Marie’s body?’
She looked at him coldly and chuckled, obviously not afraid of what fate had in store for her. ‘If I am to die anyway, my Tsar, I might as well tell you. They were all boys – splendid, strapping sons. And how she sniggered, the Hamilton, when she saw the tiny, chopped up bodies. You know what she said, more than once?’
I wanted not to hear, but Peter nodded.
‘I might be a whore, but I can do over and over again what the Tsaritsa can’t do even once.’ She toppled backwards, howling and bleeding from her nose as well as her mouth, as Shafirov struck her with his clenched fist.
58
It was a grey, overcast day when Marie Hamilton mounted the scaffold. Both the Crown Princess and I were pregnant again, but Peter had ordered us nevertheless to witness her execution. Waiting at the execution site outside the Peter and Paul Cathedral, we’d heard in the distance the jeering and whistling as Marie mounted a sledge at the Neva gate of the Peter and Paul Fortress. I had asked for her not to be tortured, for I had forgiven her both her thieving and her slight to me. Was she not to be punished harshly enough in any case? Peter would not be swayed from his judgment: Marie had spilt possible royal blood and she must pay for that.
Her sledge, which was strewn with rotten straw, drew nearer; snowflakes fell, and the sturdy ponies slipped on the icy cobblestones. The crowd, who had been waiting since before dawn, shouted obscenities and threw rotten vegetables, laughing and screaming. Marie neither ducked nor blinked when the first rotten cabbage leaf hit her face. Was she crying? I was too far away to tell, but thought I saw traces of ill treatment on her face as well as a burn mark on her shoulder. Crude hands had shorn off those tumbling auburn locks, which had aroused many a man’s desire, and on her bald head cuts and bruises festered.
‘God be merciful upon her poor soul,’ muttered the Tsaritsa Praskovia, crossing herself with three fingers. She, too, had begged Peter in vain for mercy for Marie. Charlotte lowered her eyes and clasped her fingers, while next to her Alexey nonchalantly stretched out his legs and munched an apple. He spat out the seeds, hitting his wife’s silk shoes.
The wardens lifted Marie from the sledge and took her shackles off; she held herself very straight, as if she was on her way to a ball. A woman pushed through the rows of soldiers and spat in her face. ‘Whore! Child killer! Witch!’ The saliva trickled down Marie’s cheek, but she gracefully unfolded the wide skirt of the white silk dress that Peter had made her wear for her very last hour. Small black bows adorned the shoulders and waist, but it hung loose on her gaunt frame. Her gaze skimmed the crowds until it found me: she curtseyed very low and I saw her praying for forgiveness, before the prison wardens dragged her to the scaffold. Her knees and shoulders bumped on the steps up to the executioner’s block, where they dropped her like a sack of barley. She tried to get on her hands and knees, looked up, and gasped: Peter awaited her there. She pressed a hand to her lips in horror and shrank back, but a soldier stopped her, laughing and saying,
‘You did not expect that, my girl, did you? The Tsar fears he might fall out of practice.’
The crowd howled. I shifted restlessly on my throne. Peter gallantly offered her his arm and helped her stand. I saw hope flashing in her eyes: would he pardon her after all? No. The Tsar led her the couple of steps to the executioner’s block and his hand on her shoulder pressed her down. Her knees buckled and I saw Peter’s lips move. Marie sobbed, bowed her head and leant forward. Her white throat shone against the rough, dark wood of the block. Peter turned, raising his hand. The assembled crowd fell silent and his eyes sought out mine. I shivered and pulled my fur cloak tighter around my shoulders.
‘I cannot mitigate this most severe of all judgments, for that would be against divine and human law. Marie Hamilton, may God forgive you,’ he cried.
Tears streamed down Charlotte’s face and Alexey looked sidelong at her, briefly and coldly. He was in a bad mood. Peter wrote him angry, threatening letters every day on just about every subject: his studies, beliefs, duty to become a fitting heir to the throne, and of course the state of his marriage. Marie’s execution did not seem to touch him in the least. In his retinue I spotted the Finnish girl for whom he had professed his love, Afrosinja. She curtseyed to me but I looked back at the scaffold. It was too horrible and yet I could not help but watch.
The executioner adjusted his hood and then lifted his sword at Peter’s nod. The blade caught the wan light and I heard the crowd gasp. With a single blow he beheaded Marie; a stream of blood was sent high up in the air and her head rolled into a basket filled with straw. The people cried out; the scent of roast meat reached me on my pedestal: the merchants of St Petersburg profited from the masses and their holiday mood to do good business.
Peter seized Marie’s head from the basket and the crowd sighed when we saw her wide, terrified eyes. Very slowly and tenderly, the Tsar kissed Marie Hamilton’s dead, open lips. Charlotte gagged, and I gave Alice Kramer, who had replaced Marie as my lady-in-waiting, a sign: she stooped and spoke calmly in German to the Crown Princess. Alexey watched Alice with a glint in his eye: was it desire or curiosity? Whatever, I slapped his arm with my fan made of ivory and silk, lest he had any ideas. I could have been Alice Kramer once and I was going to protect her if I could.
59
I was not far from the Tsar when he turned to Tolstoy during a feast in Menshikov’s palace for the name-day of our daughter Elizabeth. ‘You have always given me the right advice. Help me this time, too,’ Peter said darkly, and Tolstoy moved closer.
‘What is it, my Tsar? Has somebody wronged you?’
I leant back in my cushions. My hour was only weeks away, and all my limbs were heavy and swollen. ‘Yes. My son Alexey. Everything he does. Merely by being, he wrongs me,’ Peter spat. ‘In England, a king once called into the ranks of his knights, “Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?” ’
‘And? What happened to the troublesome priest?’ Tolstoy asked with a lopsided smile, as Peter drank deeply of his Tokay.
‘The knights went to the cathedral where the man was preaching and slew him in front of the altar.’
Tolstoy weighed his answer for a moment and warned, ‘Do not act in haste, my Tsar. Both Alexey’s wife and the Tsaritsa are with child. We might be lucky and then nothing need be done. Otherwise . . .’
‘But I can no longer bear it,’ Peter cried, then lowered his voice as some of the foreign envoys had looked up. ‘He is an insult to me, not a son.’ He glowered. Even Elizabeth stopped playing with her little dog and looked questioningly at her father. I smiled at her soothingly, and then met the ambassadors’ eyes until they lowered their gaze. For good measure, I sent them the cup-bearer and his two companions with a vat of liquor. Campredon, the French Ambassador, grimaced when his eagle cup was filled to the brim.
Peter groaned. ‘The thought that Russia might pass to Alexey haunts me. Let’s do something. Now!’
But Tolstoy was not to be swayed: ‘Please, w
ait. For how demanding can Alexey be, if he has a son and a brother?’
Yes: if, I thought, and checked myself as I had done a hundred, thousand times before. Did I feel different during this pregnancy to when I had expected my daughters? Was my belly more pointed than round; was I more or less sick in the morning; more beautiful or uglier? Was I sad or jolly? Then I tried to chase out these old women’s tales, the myths and all the laymen’s advice, and meet all the questions and doubts in my heart with prayer.
The Tsar studied Charlotte, his brow furrowed. Neither marriage nor her blessed state had enhanced her looks. She hardly ate and always asked for fresh lemonade, which annoyed him. Wouldn’t vodka and Tokay do? Her skin was grey and blemished with unsightly pimples; her hair had lost the last of its shine and body and would not stay in soft curls. I pitied her, thinking of her last letter, which, thanks to Peter’s secret service, had never reached her father’s court of Brunswick. ‘I am a lamb, which is slaughtered senselessly on the altar of our house. I shall die a slow death, from sorrow and loneliness,’ she’d written. Makarov had read it aloud to me.
‘Sister-in-law of the Emperor of Austria or not, I do not know how my stupid son has impregnated this grasshopper again. I would not get a hard-on with that bag of bones,’ Peter muttered. and Tolstoy replied, ‘Alexey is said to have been helped by his mistress.’ He made an obscene gesture and the two men almost choked with laughter.
I turned around, looking for Alice Kramer. ‘Where is the Tsarevich tonight?’ I asked her under my breath.
‘He dines alone with Afrosinja. Every evening. They are always together; the Tsarevich gave her a big apartment.’
Peter lifted his tankard and shouted, ‘A toast to the welfare of my unborn son! And a toast to my unborn grandson!’ Everyone rose; I smiled at Charlotte as she sipped the wine politely with pale lips. Then I, too, drank deeply, for wine drove my worries away.
I paced my little Chinese study, its walls covered in silk and dark red lacquer, to ease the last days of my pregnancy. Persian incense burnt in copper pans as it was a clammy, damp October day; even the flames in the fireplace cowered in the draught. For the first time ever, I feared giving birth. I was so big: was I expecting twins? Two sons for Peter, possibly? I forbade myself any sort of hope or daydream.
‘Listen, matka,’ he said, and read to me what he had just written to Alexey. ‘“My son. It hurts me more and more to address a lowly being such as you. I have spared neither my life nor my strength for Russia and my people. So why should I spare your life, which is so unworthy? I’d rather give my throne to a worthy stranger than to an unworthy son.” ’
‘Is not that a bit harsh? Don’t send the letter just now. Think about it: let us wait for the birth of Charlotte’s child. Perhaps he will improve . . .’ I said, against all reason. I still could not, and would not, give up on Alexey so easily. He had not become the way he was all by himself.
‘Oh, you, with your heart of gold. No one can ever be so bad that even you might see the evil in him. If I so much as think of Marie Hamilton . . . but if it had been left to you, she’d still be alive.’ Peter tousled my hair in mock reproof.
I shrugged. ‘Life is too short for us to be vindictive. Hatred and anger only burden the heart.’
There was a knock on the door then and Alice slipped in: ‘Peter Andreyevich Tolstoy asks to be admitted. The Tsarevna Charlotte is in labour.’
‘Is it not too soon for her?’ I asked, but Peter ordered,
‘Let him in. What are you waiting for, girl?’
Peter Tolstoy came in together with his handsome Moorish slave, Abraham, whom he had bought at the slave market in Constantinople. Tolstoy himself looked pale and drawn. ‘I cannot stay long, my Tsar. The Crown Princess is in labour. Blumentrost says it’s far too early, but –’ His voice trailed off, and Alice shot me a worried glance.
‘How can that old quack be so sure about it? Was he present at the moment of impregnation?’ Peter laughed mockingly and kicked the logs in the fireplace. Sparks shot upwards before settling in the embers.
Tolstoy shuffled his feet uneasily. ‘Rumours are going around the Crown Prince’s household,’ he began.
Peter looked up. ‘What kind of rumours?’
‘The Crown Princess is said to have fallen down the stairs. She has bruises all over her body and some of her ribs are broken, according to Blumentrost.’
I sat down, stuffed a pillow behind my back and put my feet on Peter’s thighs. Charlotte fallen down the stairs? She hardly moved anymore. I feared the worst. Peter began to knead my swollen ankles. ‘Spit it out, Tolstoy,’ he ordered. ‘What has really happened?’
Tolstoy looked browbeaten. ‘If you so command: Alexey kicked and punched Charlotte so hard that she threw herself down the stairs. Now labour has set in, many weeks too early.’
‘My God,’ I gasped. ‘That’s impossible.’ What had we all allowed to happen?
Peter pushed my feet aside, got up and went to the small desk. He pressed his seal into the soft lump of wax at the end of his letter to Alexey. When he looked up, his gaze settled on my belly in a silent plea. ‘The prince must decide. Either he behaves as befits his rank or he retreats to a monastery.’ Peter’s voice sounded choked and hoarse. ‘Or –’ He broke off. Neither Tolstoy nor I dared to look at him. Or – ? I placed my hands on my stomach. The child hardly moved anymore and I had grown so big. My hour was close.
‘Call the messenger,’ Peter commanded, folding the letter.
I knew that this was Alexey’s last chance.
60
On a rainy day at the end of October, Charlotte gave birth to a healthy boy. The Tsar was present at the birth and held his grandson up in the hazy light.
‘Look at him: my heir. Petrushka!’ he cheered, eyes shiny with tears as the child wriggled and clamoured for his first feed. He was well formed and in good health, I saw, stronger-looking than my sons had ever been at the moment of their birth. Peter bathed and swaddled Petrushka himself, laughing and cooing, before laying him in the arms of the buxom wet-nurse he had brought in from the German Quarter of Moscow. The little prince was to soak up the principles of the new, open Russia with his milk.
‘Well, let’s get on with it, shall, we, my little one?’ she asked tenderly, and Petrushka snapped at her large red nipple.
The Tsar whooped: ‘Wonderful! He’s already as strong as a bear.’
Behind us, Charlotte stirred in her fever. Blumentrost wanted to bleed her and stood ready with his cursed heated glasses in his hands. ‘Stop it. You are bleeding the life out of her. Serve her hot chicken broth with red wine instead,’ I ordered, and knelt next to her as best I could despite my belly. ‘Charlotte?’ I asked softly. She turned her head. Her eyes were glassy, a veil of grey sweat dulled her skin, yet her cheeks glowed an unhealthy shade of crimson. Her fingers twitched briefly before going limp in mine. ‘Mutter . . .’ she whispered. A maidservant spooned some of the broth I had ordered into her mouth, but the princess could not keep it down.
‘See to it that she is not too tightly covered. Open the windows. Dried fruits soaked in warm wine and bowls of chicken broth will strengthen her. Burn camphor in the room. That cleans the air,’ I told her bored retinue.
Charlotte did not stop bleeding; her fever rose and of the six doctors Peter had sent to her, each was as useless as the other, standing in the corner, muttering and shaking their heads. On his last visit to her apartment, when she was trembling and her teeth rattled, Peter had to be supported by two of his footmen, for he had celebrated the birth of his grandson in the past days a bit too thoroughly and could scarcely stand for flatulence. I myself did not see Charlotte again, so that no curse and no evil eye should lie on me when my own hour drew close.
‘You go,’ I said to Alice. ‘Speak German to her in her last hour, will you?’
When she returned, her eyes were swollen and her face worn with grief. I told my reader to stop instructing me. ‘And? Sit down. Drink from the hot win
e and then tell me everything.’
‘Her end is near. Charlotte is an angel. In her last confession, she forgave Alexey everything. She – ’ Alice’s voice broke. I stared into the flames in the fireplace. Our world was no place for angels.
‘What exactly did she say?’ I asked.
Alice swallowed hard. ‘She could speak no more, but nodded her assent when her priest asked if Tsar Peter had been kindness himself and Alexey always a loving husband to her.’ She slid closer to me, digging her fingers into my skirt and burying her face in the folds of my robes. ‘Forgive me, Tsaritsa, but please, do not send me back there. I can’t bear it.’
Her delicate body trembled and I stroked her hair. Alice was not yet twenty, yet a shadow of the merry girl I had encountered in Sheremetev’s house. She raised her head and sobbed. ‘The Tsarevna kissed the Tsar’s hands. When Alexey came into the room, he threw himself at her feet, kissed her and fainted three times with grief – until the Tsar kicked him and dragged him out of the room by his hair.’
Just then, the bell of St Isaac’s church began to toll, deeply and steadily, before the other bells in the city took up the call, carrying the sad news far out into Russia all through the long, dark night: the Tsarevna Charlotte was dead. I crossed myself with three fingers. ‘May God give peace to her soul.’ Alice sat motionless at my feet, face buried in her hands. The child in my body lay still, as if listening with us to the bells of St Petersburg.
Peter himself dissected Charlotte’s corpse to put an end to the rumours that she had been poisoned, studying her organs with great interest. While the princess lay in the morgue, the Tsar held his grandson Peter Alexeyevich over the font. Like that, he chose the boy publicly as his successor, though he did not yet give him a title, neither Tsarevich nor Prince of Russia. I knew he was waiting and praying.
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