‘I do not mourn our enemy. On the contrary,’ she said, in a voice as mellow as a bronze bell.
‘Why then do you grieve?’ Peter towered above her and she rose to her feet, refusing to be dominated. Their eyes locked.
‘I weep because now peace is further away than ever. Only confusion and a struggle for power can follow Charles’s death, my Tsar.’
Peter considered this. I saw him softening. ‘What is your name?’ he asked, before wiping a tear from her cheek.
‘Maria Kantemir, Princess of Moldavia.’
Peter kissed her fingers. ‘Princess, does your beauty surpass your wisdom or is it the other way around?’ Her long black eyelashes shadowed the bloom on her cheeks, I noticed. Peter did not let go of her hand but cried, ‘Let us drink to the wisdom of the Princess of Moldova. And let us weep for peace, which is ever-more elusive.’
Everyone obediently sobbed into their cups and drank, yet I eyed Maria Kantemir. I remembered her well from our campaign on the River Pruth so many years ago. Back then she had been an unbelievably pretty child, but promise of this sort is easily marred by illness or early death. Tonight the feathers of Abraham’s birds paled in comparison with the princess’s beauty, her glowing skin the colour of wild honey.
‘God protect us and give us peace,’ she toasted Peter, never once taking her eyes off him. The colourful birds shrieked, and their cries rose to a screech in my ears, swallowing the music, the cheers and the laughter of the crowd. I had never feared Peter’s other mistresses, or his niece, the child Jekaterina Ivanovna. This woman, I knew, would make me suffer.
71
God gave us peace, though only after the jockeying for power that Maria Kantemir had predicted: the new Queen of Sweden, Ulrica Eleonora, first turned to England for help. Admiral Norris dutifully attacked Russian bastions on the shores of southern Sweden, but a stray dog was the only casualty of that skirmish and a bathhouse burst into flames. The story made both Menshikov and Peter cry with laughter. In the first spring following Alexey’s death, the second Peace Congress of Åland began.
Yet there was no peace in my heart: while the ottepel thawed land and minds, my little son caught a fever. One day after the first angry scarlet spots appeared on the skin behind his ears and down his arms, Peter Petrovich lost consciousness. I did not leave his bedside but set up camp in his nursery, talking to him, washing down his hot skin, kissing his face and fingers, and fanning him with cool air. When I sank onto my mattress on the floor, exhausted, I would pray, offering God a quiet, desperate trade. He could take everything I had, or everything I might ever have wanted to have, if he only left me my little boy. I heard myself whisper despicable words, which might have turned the Almighty even more against me. ‘Take me. Take Anna, my God. Take Elizabeth. Take them both, take us all, but please let him live.’ The sight of his slight, feverish body robbed me of my mind; in those hours my tears never dried.
The Tsar was on his way back from Peterhof: I prayed that he would soon be with me, to help me bear this trial. The next night I never stopped praying, but when day broke, my son could not hear me anymore. His eyes were glassy and he squinted as if the light hurt him. His skin was so flushed that every touch of mine left a white mark on his hot, tender body. Neither my words nor my love reached him; his little fingers lay slack in mine. Blumentrost wanted to bleed him; Menshikov held me back with all his strength so that I did not whip the quack.
In the evening my little son took his last, tormented breath. Peter Petrovich, the Tsarevich, was dead. When his narrow chest no longer rose and fell, I heard someone scream. It sounded like an animal in the slaughterhouse. Only later did I realise that this had been me. I remember nothing else; not scratching my own face bloody nor tearing out tufts of my own hair. My hands and arms were bloodstained from smashing my fists against the walls, breaking mirrors and cutting myself with the shards, all over my body, just to dull the pain in my soul.
It was Peter who brought me back to my senses with his own pain and sorrow: it was impossible for him to find comfort in the belief that this was God’s will; the scale of the loss was too overwhelming. I lay over our son’s body, cuddling, caressing and kissing him. The door flew open. The Tsar still wore his muddy boots and his face was blackened by rainwater and muck.
‘My son!’ he cried, taking us both in his arms and holding us so tight that I gasped for air, before I gave in to the closeness and the pain. When Peter let go, he lifted his son’s corpse carefully, as if our boy were made of glass. Tears streamed down Peter’s face while he pleaded, ‘Tell me that you’re alive, my little angel. Do not leave your father alone. I need you. Tsarevich. Say something!’ Strangled by grief, he stood looking down at the deathly pale small face: our son looked as if he was hewn from ivory. The Tsar drew him close, pressing the slight body against his huge chest before he looked to the heavens and let out a scream that made the priest, crouching in the corner, cross himself with dread.
We sat holding each other and holding our child for a long time. I would not stir, but breathed in the faint scent of Peter Petrovich’s hair that already was starting to fade. His skin turned waxy, but still I squeezed his fingers, hoping he would answer. It was in vain. The Tsarevich was dead, and with him all our hope.
Hours, if not a day later, it was Menshikov who finally dared to take our little boy from us. I slapped, scratched and bit him, but he would not let go of him. Finally, it was the Tsar who led me to my rooms, where my ladies awaited me, already dressed in black and thickly veiled.
Peter himself did not stay: where he went, I did not know.
Alexander Danilovich Menshikov and Peter Shafirov took care of the Tsarevich’s funeral. The Tsar, so I heard later when the madness lifted from my mind, locked himself in his rooms for days, drinking bottles of brandy and vodka. Birds of sorrow nestled in every corner of my soul. More than once I thought of taking my own life. Why could God not leave me this one child, just my son, whose life meant so much to Peter and to me, to a whole country and its countless people?
Russia needed an heir.
Weeks later I woke in the late morning and heard a noise from my study. When I walked over, barefoot and in my nightshirt, Peter was standing by the window. My heart leapt: he was still there; he was still with me. ‘My love?’ I said quietly.
He turned and I was startled: it was Peter, and yet it wasn’t. His face was swollen and his eyes bloodshot with pupils as tiny as needle-heads: he must be drunk or in some other sort of stupor, I thought. He laughed bitterly. ‘Do not worry, Catherinushka. We are both as ugly as the night. Peter Petrovich has taken all beauty with him to his grave.’ He reached out for my hand. ‘Come here.’
He was right, I knew: I only kept the birds of sorrow at bay with vodka, and had to drink vats of it before they sullenly clawed their way back into their nests, leaving me in peace. I stepped up to him at the window, taking his hand. His fingers laced themselves with mine; it felt like old times.
‘What are you watching?’ I asked.
‘Them,’ he said. ‘Alexey’s children.’
Among the rose bushes, Alexey’s son Petrushka played with his elder sister. The children had stretched a rope between two statues and were jumping, playing pony and ringmaster. How healthy they looked; laughing, their cheeks flushed by the fresh air. Peter thought the same as I did: meanwhile, the maggots ate our son.
‘Why is my grandson so strong and handsome?’ he murmured. Since Alexey’s death, nobody had dared to speak of him. ‘And look at his sister. She is pretty. The daughter of that scrawny German cat has shiny hair and straight white teeth.’
I leant in to him. ‘Do not hate them just because they’re his,’ I whispered. ‘Raise them to be good children of your house. They are not to blame for who their father was.’
The children’s joy was comforting to me, but Peter shook his head in dismissal. ‘Their birthdays shall not be part of the court calendar. Petrushka shall never be Tsarevich, let alone Tsar. It’s eno
ugh if he learns to read and write. More education than that is unnecessary. Alexey’s son is never to rule Russia,’ he decreed, his expression implacable. He freed himself from my embrace and stepped away.
‘Peter –’ I began, but he shook his head.
‘God has punished me too much for me to reach an accord with him. I am in Peterhof, should you care to look for me.’
The grief in his voice still hung in my heart long after he had left me. I closed the curtains, shutting out the bright spring light, but the fabric would not stifle the children’s joyful cries. I spooned far too much laudanum into warm wine and went back to bed, in the middle of the day. In my dreams the shrieking of the birds of sorrow sounded like children’s laughter.
Peter barely alluded to the death of our little son in his weekly letters to Europe, but the news spread like wildfire. Of course he knew, as did I and everybody else, what was thought all over Russia and Europe: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a son for a son. The world saw our little Peter’s death as a punishment for Alexey’s suffering, just as we ourselves did. No one dared to say this aloud bar a monk living in one of Menshikov’s monasteries. The man was boiled to death in a great cauldron. The cruel punishment did not hide the bitter truth.
After the Tsarevich’s death, Peter fled from St Petersburg. I knew he would not spend his nights alone, but I had never before felt so frightened of losing everything I had ever cared for.
In autumn, the Congress of Åland failed for the second time to end the Great Northern War. Pavel Jagushinsky, James Bruce and Ostermann blamed Queen Ulrica Eleonora of Sweden. ‘She does not wish for peace and is as stubborn as a peasant girl,’ Jagushinsky said over dinner. ‘A woman on the throne, what an idea! She should have her husband crowned.’
I slapped him playfully with my fan. ‘I do not see why a woman should rule worse than a man!’
He shook his head. ‘I beg your pardon, Tsaritsa, but women cannot keep their minds together. They scatter their thoughts; women are like chickens, jumping at five grains at a time.’
Peter winked at me over his lamb stew, smacking his lips. ‘What do you think, Ostermann?’ he asked his Chancellor, amused.
The German kept his gaze lowered. He never met anyone’s eyes so as not to betray his true thoughts and feelings. ‘I agree. Women cannot tell important matters from trivial ones. As a man, you set your mind to one thing and you succeed. Therefore, the Tsar is the Tsar.’
I did not wish to spoil the merriment but I sensed we all thought the same. The Tsar was the Tsar, but he had three healthy daughters and no son.
Peter’s niece, Duchess Jekaterina Ivanovna, fled Mecklenburg upon the arrival of the British together with her little daughter. I’d heard that her husband had regularly beaten and raped her, so an invading army must have made a welcome excuse to leave. When she happily moved back in with her mother, the Tsaritsa Praskovia, I raised the little Mecklenburg princess together with my daughters. It was a small thank you to Praskovia, who had looked after Anna and Elizabeth so well each time I’d had to follow Peter.
Shortly afterwards, in a brief, private ceremony, their father gave the title of Tsesarevna to both girls. Natalya had to wait for this honour until she came of age. My heart soared for them, now Crown Princesses of All the Russias; Anna, all dark curls and blue eyes like her father, winked at me when I wiped away more than a few tears; Elizabeth smiled, her teeth shiny as pearls and her gaze as lively as a bird’s, when Peter cut the gossamer-thin veil of a mantle from her shoulders, thus marking her as a grown woman. Of course, we all knew that they were only place-holders until another little brother was born, but their bright faces and their proud demeanour gave me endless joy.
In the following May, England retreated from the Baltic Sea for good and peace talks begun for the third time in the Finnish town of Nystad. At that time I had not bled for three months in a row: had the hurried encounters, for which Peter had just about found time and desire, helped me once again to blessed circumstances? I counted on my fingers: yes, it seemed a child was to be born in the autumn. I had to tell Peter the good news – we would laugh and be merry together, just as we used to! I rang the silver bell on my bedside table, and Agneta hurried in, her cheeks flushed and eyes shiny. I swung my legs over the side of the bed. ‘Agneta, you’re getting lazy. If your dead mother knew, she would make you sweep the stove as a punishment.’ Agneta giggled and hid something in the folds of her skirt.
‘What do you have there?’
She blushed. ‘Nothing, Tsaritsa. Just a little book.’
I held out my hand. ‘You are as red as a cherry, so it cannot be quite so harmless. Give it to me, even if I cannot read.’
She handed me the book, which was bound in beautiful crimson leather. ‘Well, there are lots of very colourful pictures in it,’ she giggled.
The cover smelt of jasmine and sandalwood and when I opened the first pages, the pictures were indeed more than colourful. I turned the book this way and that, amused by it myself. ‘Ohhhhhh, that looks very difficult! Do people really do that? Where did you get this from?’
‘It’s from China, and in the gostiny dvor it is worth its weight in gold. Look here, Tsaritsa.’ She opened the book at a page where a man was being pleasured by two girls at the same time.
‘I must show this to the Tsar. He will be enchanted. I’ll give it back to you right away.’
‘Shall I dress you, Tsaritsa?’
‘My cloak will do. I have something to tell him anyway.’
Her gaze skimmed my belly and she beamed.
I paced along the private corridor leading to Peter’s rooms, looking at the other pictures in the sinful book. Unbelievable: I had to try that with him! When I pushed open the concealed door to his antechamber, the footman, who slept curled up like a kitten on the Tsar’s threshold, rubbed his eyes, and stood to attention looking embarrassed.
‘Tsaritsa! I do not think the Tsar is ready to receive,’ he stammered. I slapped him on the shoulder, laughing. ‘Boy, I’ve seen the Tsar very often other than ready to receive, so make yourself scarce and go and eat some hot kasha in the kitchen.’
But he blocked Peter’s bedroom door, blushing. ‘Tsaritsa, I beg you. Come back in an hour.’ A stunned silence reigned. I heard sounds from Peter’s room: laughter, and low talk. Was that him speaking or someone else? My heart chilled.
‘Step aside. I can hear that he’s awake,’ I ordered curtly.
The young man’s shoulders slumped as he obeyed. What else could he do? I pushed the heavy door open, my heart pounding. The room was dusky, the dark green velvet curtains with the golden embroidery soaking up the light. It took a moment for my eyes to grow accustomed to the twilight; I heard Peter mutter, and tiptoed over to the bed. Golden thighs were wrapped around his heaving hips and a pair of hands clasped his neck. His whole body rose and fell; he groaned and panted. The woman spurred him on with endearments that made my ears burn.
‘Batjuschka!’ I said. Just the night before I had put his haste and absent-mindedness with me down to his many burdens when, in truth, he had wanted to save his strength for someone else. ‘Peter!’ I said, this time louder, and he jerked around, slackening at the sight of me. That served him and his whore right!
‘Catherinushka! Who let you in?’ he asked, sounding helpless. He seemed embarrassed. Maria Kantemir let her taut thighs linger on the Tsar’s back, her slender fingers still toying with his frizzled grey chest hair. She smiled at me, full lips parting, and her peculia gold-speckled eyes as narrow as a cat’s. Honey-coloured tresses spread like rays of sunshine over the pillow’s starched linen; her breasts were full, high and round.
She made no effort to cover herself, but said cheekily, ‘Tsaritsa, my everlasting fidelity and devotion. Batjuschka, you giant of a man, you crush me. Let me move.’
‘Of course, my princess,’ Peter stammered. He scrambled out of bed, throwing on his old green dressing gown, and came to me.
‘Matka, why do you visit
me so early?’ he asked unhappily when he saw the tears in my eyes.
‘I wanted to tell you something, my Tsar,’ I said, swallowing my grief. He led me to one of the windows.
‘What is it?’ He glanced back at his bed where Maria Kantemir watched us with raised eyebrows. I leant closer to him.
‘I am once more pregnant with a Tsarevich for the realm.’
He squeezed my arm, ‘How wonderful, Catherinushka. Splendid. Shall we celebrate that this evening?’ I beamed at him, but then he said, ‘Is there anything else you wanted to tell me?’
‘No, but –’
‘Well, then.’
Maria Kantemir lay on her belly, her hands cupping her face. She idly swung her legs, watching us.
‘I will see you in the evening, at table,’ he said, steering me towards the concealed door: I was given my dismissal. My cheeks burnt with shame. From the corner of my eye, I saw my husband approach the bed, where he flipped Maria onto her back and pulled her hips upwards.
The door closed behind me and I asked the young footman: ‘Who gave you the order not to let me in? The Tsar or the Princess Kantemir?’
‘The Princess Kantemir.’
‘And you obeyed her?’
He dared neither answer nor look at me.
Only once I was back in the corridor did I notice that I was still clutching the naughty Chinese book. My knees buckled and I sank to the ground, wiping tears from my cheeks. I remembered the night I had fled from Vassily’s house. True, my shirt was now of silk instead of coarse wool, and the floor beneath my feet was made of fine wood instead of bare earth. But other than that, little had changed for me in the past twenty years. I was helpless against fate. My son was dead, and a younger woman lay in my husband’s bed. The past was gone and there was no future for me. The shadows of the corridor gave life to the colourful pictures in the book: in the flickering candlelight the women’s bodies looked as nubile, taut and shiny as golden coils. I slowly tore page after page from the book, ripping them to shreds.
Tsarina Page 41
