The Tsarina's Daughter

by Ellen Alpsten

  Hesitant steps came towards the library: Anoushka appeared on the threshold, clasping her red velvet dressing-gown to her, straight dark hair falling in a sheet over her shoulders. ‘Mother. Elizabeth. What is happening?’ she asked. Her gaze was drowsy yet it darkened with understanding, like a cloud drifting in front of the sun. I had wanted to be at Father’s deathbed and had already sworn my allegiance to Mother while Anoushka lay asleep. I did not want her to feel excluded.

  ‘What is happening? I am the Tsarina’s daughter. And so are you,’ I said, pulling her close and embracing her. We women stood in a tight circle as we had in Kolomenskoye: and before I could help it, the Leshy spirit’s words forced themselves into my mind, all the way from the Golosov Ravine to the Winter Palace. Her first prophecy had come to pass.

  In your end lies your beginning.

  31

  Neither Petrushka nor Buturlin attended Father’s funeral. I forbade myself any thought of the chamberlain, even though in those weeks I badly missed his daredevil attitude and instant attentiveness to my needs and moods. To know he was missing from his regiment, which was amongst the 50,000 soldiers who gathered at dawn on the Neva’s icy surface to escort the Tsar on his last journey, was torture to me. If there had at least been word from Versailles; but de Campredon, the French envoy, steered clear of me: court mourning was not the moment to discuss an engagement. I would wear white for months while the courtiers dressed in mourner’s weeds darker than soot.

  On April Fool’s Day, Mother had all the fire bells rung at dawn. The inhabitants of St Petersburg dashed out of their houses and palaces, terrified by the thought of another conflagration that would ravage the town, shivering in the cold, wearing nothing but their nightshirts and caps. They stared at the peaceful morning, where there was no fire to be seen, but only their Tsarina, watching them from the balcony of the Winter Palace, roaring with laughter and delighted with her own tomfoolery. To make amends, she treated the people of St Petersburg to free vodka for the day. As the last drunken revellers deserted the streets come night-time, she still stood by the window, looking out: ‘It is just not as fun any more without him,’ she sighed, and started crying.

  *

  Anoushka continued to prepare her trousseau: bed and table linen, porcelain, silver, dresses and jewellery. Her household of cooks, scribes, librarians, choirboys, maids, tailors and two Orthodox priests – she would not convert to the Protestant faith – held themselves in readiness for her wedding and eventual departure for Holstein with Karl. On a day in late April, I found her kneeling in front of a chest. The tip of her tongue protruded between her lips as she counted stacks of heavy, embroidered white linen and lace napkins. She could feed the whole of Holstein at her table. I chased away the memory of how Karl had waylaid me – never since then had there been anything untoward between us, if one discounted his quickly averted glances. I sneaked up to her, hoping to lighten our sombre mood for once. I snatched a napkin, twisting it and placing it on my hair like a Dutch milkmaid’s cap; I flapped my hands like a dove and danced about.

  ‘Stop it, Lizenka!’ She leaped up to chase me but I was quicker and chanted in a harsh German accent, ‘I am a Holstein dove. Or a Swedish seagull. Catch me if you can, darling Karl! Let us eat some lutefisk together, the herring you have peed on! Soooo delicious… ’

  ‘Just you wait!’ She lunged at me but I ducked free, hiding behind chairs that I toppled to block her way, giggling. She cornered me as I clung to the curtains. My sister was angry. I was only joking – what was her problem? ‘Cheer up, Anoushka. Waiting a little longer will not harm Karl. He will want you all the more,’ I said as the doors were flung open. Guards positioned themselves, ladies-in-waiting flocked in, and Mother and Menshikov entered the room.

  ‘Tsesarevny,’ Menshikov said, bowing and swapping a quick glance with Anoushka. I paid it no heed as d’Acosta was already copying me, folding himself angel’s wings from the stack of napkins, skipping about like a portly and aged putto.

  Mother, too, laughed when she saw the folded napkin on my head. ‘What is going on here? A play? Why so sour, Anoushka?’

  ‘Long engagements make for unhappy marriages,’ my sister said reproachfully.

  ‘Well, in that case, I have good news. A date for your wedding has been set,’ Mother said. ‘Your father abhorred the dullness of mourning,’ she continued, dabbing her eyes. D’Acosta, who had come to stand next to her, obediently made sobbing noises. ‘You are to be wed on the first day of June.’

  Anoushka’s face lit up. ‘In just a month’s time?’

  ‘Yes. Following that, Karl and you will receive a palace on the shores of Lake Ladoga as well as a yearly stipend of a hundred thousand roubles. You have Menshikov to thank for that.’

  Anoushka gave him a warm smile. Since when was it his privilege to award palaces and stipends? I suppressed a sneer at Mother’s estimation of his service to us. A single swallow did not make a summer. I glanced into his dark eyes: owlish and unforgiving. I shivered. With friends like Menshikov, one needed no enemies. I had always known that but refused to be cowed by him.

  ‘There is one last condition to be fulfilled,’ he announced to Anoushka.

  ‘Which is?’ she asked.

  ‘You must relinquish any right to the Russian throne for yourself. Your son, if God blesses you with one, may always be named Tsarevich.’

  Relinquishing the right to the Russian throne? How ridiculous. I should rather accept that snow could be black.

  Anoushka shrugged: ‘So be it, Alexander Danilovich. That is what Father intended after all.’

  I was dumbfounded. Since our elevation in Peterhof, the world had changed. Our mother was the first Tsarina of All the Russias. Yet Anoushka could give up her right to the throne as easily as if refusing breakfast?

  Menshikov’s ever-present, enigmatic smile deepened. ‘I shall have the agreement drafted today.’

  I took the napkin I had snatched off my head and waved it: ‘Finally! We will both be queens. Queen of Sweden and Queen of France. How wonderful!’

  Anoushka turned to me, eyes as hard as flint. ‘Oh, no,’ she said. ‘You won’t be a queen.’

  ‘Don’t, Anoushka, please,’ Mother said. I clutched the napkin: nuns had adorned each corner with both the Holstein and the Russian Imperial coat of arms. ‘What do you mean?’ I faltered, filled with foreboding.

  ‘Oh, Lizenka. Have you not heard?’ A small, mean smile spread over my sister’s previously sweet face.

  ‘Anoushka, this is not the moment. Relish your own happiness and be charitable,’ Mother rebuked her, but Menshikov touched her elbow, preventing the reprimand from continuing. He watched us, as pleased as if he had set a successful wager on a bear fight.

  Be charitable?

  ‘Heard what?’ I asked. Time seemed to stretch endlessly.

  Anoushka placed her words as carefully as her embroidery needle, piercing my heart. ‘King Louis of France is indeed to marry, Lizenka. But he has not chosen you, who so loves her horseplay with Buturlin. He has just become engaged to Maria Leszczyńska.’

  ‘Maria Les— what?’ I blanched, struggling with the unknown name. ‘Who is that?’

  ‘You may be unable to pronounce her name but she took away your future husband and the throne of France. Her father is the deposed King of Poland, yet she is a Catholic and born in wedlock, legitimately a princess. Not like you, Wolverine,’ Anoushka mocked me. ‘But I still have the chance to become a queen, the Queen of Sweden, and reign at my husband’s side. Karl is mine.’

  Her words clawed my heart. I clung to the heavy curtains, feeling faint. ‘Why are you doing this?’ I asked, incredulous. I did not recognise her any more. What had happened to us since our closeness at Kolomenskoye? The Leshy had driven a wedge between us. Then I met Menshikov’s implacable gaze. Or had we our good friend here to thank for that, always striving to divide us?

  ‘Why? Did you really think I haven’t seen what you were trying to do?’


  Mother had paled. ‘Lizenka, what does Anoushka mean? What were you trying to do?’

  ‘She tried to steal Karl from me,’ Anoushka spat out. ‘He only had eyes for her and she encouraged it whenever she could! What did Buturlin call himself when he played Lestocq’s silly Tarot cards? A fool for love. But not Karl. He has seen your true nature, Lizenka.’

  ‘No! That is a lie. He tried to force himself upon me!’

  ‘Slander!’ Anoushka threw the word in my face. ‘You tried to seduce him and steal him from me. You can’t abide the sight of other people’s happiness.’

  ‘Anoushka!’ Mother called. ‘That is not true.’

  ‘Everything always has to go your way, doesn’t it, Lizenka? At any price! That is why you tempted me into danger. I, too, should know what fate had in store for me… At least, that is what you called it – fate.’

  I paled. My foolishness in taking her with me to see the Leshy spirit came back to haunt me.

  ‘You get what you deserve: nothing. Karl is to be my husband, a reigning duke.

  Harlot!’

  She swept out of the room, leaving a flutter of curtsying ladies-in-waiting and an array of saluting guards in her wake; all of them burning to carry the gossip out into the streets of St Petersburg.

  A pained silence spread like oil on water.

  ‘Is this true, Mother?’ I cupped my burning cheeks, feeling overwhelmed with pain and embarrassment. ‘Have the French humiliated us like this?’

  ‘Oh, Lizenka,’ Mother said sympathetically. Menshikov hovered behind her, watching, listening, hearing it all. His gaze dwelt on me; the scoundrel had obviously known, and probably for a long time. The Secret Office of Investigation informed him first of all their findings, such as the engagement of the King of France to an obscure Polish princess. Yet he had not bothered to soften the blow; he had been too busy dripping poison in my sister’s ear, driving a wedge between us.

  ‘It is my fault, Lizenka. Versailles would never accept the illegitimate daughter of a former washer-maid as the Queen of France.’

  ‘But I am the Tsarina’s daughter.’ I felt raw with humiliation: I had been publicly rejected. Was this to be my reward for stifling my feelings for Buturlin? Who was the fool for love now? ‘What does de Campredon say?’

  Mother shook her head. ‘He requested his laissez-passer the day he learned of the Polish engagement. His ship sailed a couple of days ago.’ She leaned on Menshikov’s arm. ‘I wish your father were here. I miss him terribly… ’ She halted herself, tears welling up. ‘I feel as if all the marrow has been sucked from my bones. Reigning over Russia is so hard.’

  ‘You have me now,’ Menshikov soothed her. ‘Let us share my strength.’

  This was unbearable. I turned to the window and pressed my forehead against the glass, the cool pane soothing my feverish thoughts. On the river’s choppy surface the last floes of ice bobbed. The ottepel ’s force broke them into shards, the sharp planes gleaming like blades. I already felt stabbed to the heart by Anoushka, the sister I had loved and trusted.

  Mother embraced me and my knees buckled. I surrendered myself to her tenderness for a moment, then broke away from her: with a single furious scream, I tore down the heavy curtains, ripping the lining and letting the fabric pool all around me. If Versailles’ betrayal hurt, Menshikov’s manipulation of Anoushka was unbearable. He had struck me at my most vulnerable point.

  ‘Don’t, Lizenka! I bought those curtains for your father back in Holland.’ Menshikov looked aghast.

  I leaped at him then, my nails unsheathed, going for his face, wanting to draw blood. He seized my wrists as I spat my anger at him: ‘You bought them? And who provided you with the funds? Who would you be without my father? Shut up, Alexander Danilovich. Let me go or I’ll have your limbs broken on the wheel!’

  Menshikov let go of my hands and crossed his arms defensively before him. His eyes darkened, weighing me up. ‘Lizenka,’ Mother scolded, and chased away her retinue with a single, ‘Go!’ She kneeled down beside me, rocking me like a baby, her warmth seeping into me. If I wept for my broken dreams, I cried most of all for the loss of my sister. After a while Mother let me go, dabbing my face with the silly Holstein napkin. Menshikov still stood close, but I ignored him.

  ‘Not everything is lost,’ she said, sounding almost cheerful.

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Well, rest for a bit. And then I have someone to present to you.’

  ‘Who’s that?’ I sniffled.

  ‘A cousin of Anoushka’s Karl: Prince Augustus of Holstein. Why waste time?’

  I stared at her. Years of promises, hopes, expectations and lengthy negotiations were dismissed as if they were nothing. I should happily trade the King of France – the King of France! – for an obscure German prince, who, quite possibly, had also asked for any Tsesarevna’s hand? I felt like a filly being trotted out of my stable for prospective buyers to assess at a horse market. As I swallowed, my pride tasted salty and sharp, slicing my soul as a sword might an acrobat’s throat.

  ‘You are but the Tsarina’s second daughter. Better look at Augustus before you stay a spinster forever,’ Menshikov warned me.

  ‘Surely there is another possibility?’ I asked haughtily.

  ‘Oh, there always is.’ He turned to Mother, gallantly kissing her fingertips: ‘My most gracious Tsarina, I request your permission to take Tsesarevna Elizabeth on a journey.’

  ‘A journey? Not abroad, I hope?’ Mother seemed glad to leave all further proceedings to him.

  ‘No, no. Just the Susdal Convent.’

  The Susdal Convent.

  Despite the mild April morning, those words chilled my heart.

  32

  A nun opened the little window in the cell’s door for us to look through before she stepped aside. The stench forced me to keep my breathing shallow. The stale, enclosed air, the reek of sweat and filled, forgotten chamber-pots, filled my mouth with a metallic taste, as if I had swallowed blood.

  Menshikov stooped and peered inside. A smile flitted over his face, like a swallow darting across a courtyard. He stepped aside, inviting me to take my turn, but stayed nearby. The heavy gold chain that fastened his wolfskin cloak glistened in the dull twilight of the corridor; the fur looked sharp and bristly, almost spiked.

  I stood on tiptoe, my heart pounding.

  Inside the cell, a woman sat hunched on a three-legged stool before a low table. There was neither tablecloth or cushion, nor rugs or curtains. On the floor lay rotten straw and she bent to scratch her legs, sighing and carelessly lifting the dark cloth of her robe up to her skinny thighs. Bites festered on her shins and calves, amongst myriad other scratches, bruises and cuts. She had some tufts of hair on her shorn scalp; scars showed where the barber’s blade had slipped. Her bedstead was a sack of straw and a threadbare blanket on a bench of cold stone. The water on the walls probably froze to icicles in the winter.

  The woman rose, standing taller than expected but her robe hung from her meagre shoulders like a limp flag from a pole; wrists and ankles were mere bones. ‘Dunia,’ she said, turning her head. Most of her teeth were missing, I saw. A faint rustle came from the far corner of the cell, as if a sow were burrowing out of the straw, and a hunchback dwarfess shuffled into view. She was dressed in rags, her hair wild and face covered in warts. Her wretched mouth opened like a gash in her withered face with its heavy forehead, beady eyes and flat nose. She slunk up to the prisoner, babbling and fussing over her, tucking at her dress and attempting with pitiful hops to stroke the woman’s bald head, as if coiffing her. I knew why she was forced to babble: slanderers and cheats often had their tongue cut out. Her mistress slapped the creature’s hands away, before sobbing and cupping her own face in her hands. Then she stilled and looked up, straight at the gap in the door: she sensed us spying on her. I felt Menshikov’s breath on my neck.

  I turned away, drained by the sight, pressing the back of my hand against my mouth to fight the rising bile. Me
nshikov watched me, his dark eyes curious and amused. Standing in that gloomy corridor, he seemed to grow taller. I refused to be cowed, yet it took a while before I found my voice again. ‘Who is this? What has she done to deserve such a fate?’

  I pushed myself off the wall and stood before him, spreading my feet to master the trembling in my knees. Before we left, Mother had forced a cloak lined with miniver on me, which had seemed too warm in the May sunshine of St Petersburg. Here, it neither prevented the goosebumps on my arms nor the shiver chasing down my spine. I touched my icon of St Nicholas to steady myself. On Menshikov’s sign, the nun closed the little window in the door, shutting away the pitiful sight. She lingered, holding an iron ring with a dozen similar keys hanging from it. Twelve more unfortunates locked away in this hellish place, I realised, buried alive and swallowed from the face of the earth.

  ‘Do you really want to know, Lizenka?’ Menshikov stood much too close to me, that little smile that never quite left his lips looking mean now. His eyes were as black and shiny as a pig’s that had found a truffle among the shallow hornbeam roots.

  ‘Tsesarevna Elizabeth Petrovna,’ I corrected him haughtily. ‘Why else would I ask?’ Ever since Father’s death, his favourite’s ambition soared and advanced like a wisteria plant that outgrew the flower beds Father had introduced in the style of the West, creeping up towards a bulbous cupola or piercing spine, and finally reaching for the sky.

  ‘This is the Tsaritsa Evdokia, daughter to the powerful Lopukhin family,’ he told me. ‘She was your father’s first wife, mother of your half-brother Alexey. For twenty-five years she has been a guest here. She, too, refused to do what was expected of her. So, yes: there is always another possibility. Wherever, for whomever.’

  I clutched my St Nicholas so hard that the diamonds cut into my palm. The saint was saviour of the suppressed, protector of the persecuted. Yet was even his power enough to shield me from Menshikov?

  Suddenly, I understood his haste to marry me off. He already controlled Mother and Petrushka was his prisoner in all but name. Now, Menshikov only had to get rid of Anoushka and me to reach his ultimate goal: he wished to rule Russia.