The Tsarina's Daughter

by Ellen Alpsten

  I had neither family nor a true friend to turn to left. If the memory of Buturlin came into my mind, I pushed it straight back out.

  It was late September when Schwartz arrived back from the Winter Palace where he gave Maria Menshikova singing lessons; he playing his divine melodies and she cawing away. The big man carefully put down his cello case – it was big enough for me to hide inside! – and opened it, untying one of the many small pockets and compartments within.

  ‘I have a gift for you,’ he said with an almost tender smile.

  ‘A gift? From whom?’ I rose from a seat by the window and replaced my silky-furred black-and-white colobus monkey in his cage as he liked to grab anything within reach and tear it up. He retreated to his swinging bar, sucking his teeth like an indignant old woman.

  In a convent, watching the icicles freeze on the wall was all the entertainment I should have.

  ‘Buturlin,’ Schwartz said, lowering his voice even though we were on our own. I could not help but rush up to my music teacher. Not everybody had forgotten about me then!

  ‘What is it?’ I could not help feeling excited. ‘A letter?’

  ‘I do not have Buturlin down as a poet and a writer. Do you?’ Schwartz grinned. ‘No. He was out riding this morning, he said.’ Schwartz handed me a squashed little bouquet of flowers, holding it almost tenderly in hands that could easily bend a horseshoe.

  ‘Oh,’ I sighed. Buturlin had picked for me a bunch of the last of the late summer and autumn flowers blooming on the Karelian Plains – September jasmine and autumn asters. The thought of the blossoming meadows went straight to my heart, even though the carefree people we had once been were long gone. I had not yet turned twenty but felt weighed down by all I had lived through. What utter nonsense Lestocq’s Tarot cards had been, predicting suffering and even the hangman for Buturlin. His career had prospered since he had become Petrushka’s most cherished chamberlain; he was considered irresistibly handsome and adored by all at court – or so I heard. A man like him was probably a fool for love for another woman by now, though could he perhaps be a friend to me? Hope is a treacherous ally, unreliable as quicksand, fickle as dust. I chose a dainty vase of Venetian crystal for the flowers and, once they wilted, pressed them to dry and flatten in one of Father’s encyclopaedias, to be framed and remembered.

  I should thank Buturlin for them in due course.

  Herr Schwartz, who despite his size and weight slipped so easily between worlds with his celestial playing, had more surprises to spring. On one of the last days of September, he arrived early for my music and dance lesson, in which I rehearsed steps on my own, dancing with invisible gentlemen, laughing at imagined pleasantries, while he played his beautiful Stradivari. That day he lingered in the doorway, blocking my view into the corridor, and said: ‘Your sister the Duchess of Holstein is here to see you.’

  I tugged at the icon of St Nicholas so that the leather strings cut into my neck.

  ‘Ask her in.’ I braced myself.

  *

  Anoushka stood by the window of my apartment’s small, cosy living room, head held high, shoulders covered in the shimmering yellow satin of a splendid mink-trimmed cloak; her dark braids were twisted onto her crown and adorned with pearls, shimmering softly like dew. She looked over to the opposite shoreline, where sunshine lit a pale fire on the palace’s flat façades. The Neva’s intense almond-green light flooded the room; Father had had the panelling painted in the same shade, to enhance the effect. I halted on the threshold, taking in the sight of her: she was a Duchess, happily married to the possible heir to the Swedish throne. As she turned, I caught my breath. She wore her gown unlaced and a neat bump had appeared at her hitherto slender waistline.

  Her happiness was to be complete.

  40

  ‘Duchess.’ I curtsied to her, steadying myself and expecting a cool and measured reply. Instead she flew to me, arms outstretched. Her embrace was so fierce that I warned her, ‘Careful! What about the child?’ As I held her, we both started to cry, and our tears washed away the humiliation she had made me suffer. Since meeting Augustus, I understood how she must have felt when Menshikov had told her about Karl, her longed-for suitor, seemingly favouring me. Since then, I had tried to forget her husband’s transgression; it had been early morning and he had been drunk and tired. Anoushka and he were happy; he honoured her as a good husband should.

  ‘Don’t cry, Anoushka. What is it?’

  I gently folded one arm around her, leading her to a yellow-and-grey-striped silk sofa. The samovar murmured, low and comforting, and I poured us both some hot chai. Little in life cannot be cured by a good, strong cup of it, preferably laced with a shot of vodka. Anoushka settled, spreading her exquisitely embroidered skirt, one hand resting on her bump as she blew on her chai with her gaze lowered. Her long, dark lashes cast shadows on her pale cheeks. Her tears did not surprise me: women in these circumstances could be a bit tetchy. I had no direct knowledge of pregnancy, but she was possibly four or five months gone. God knows how Maria Menshikova would behave once Petrushka made her with child – what an unpleasant thought! Anoushka placed her cup of blue and white Meissen porcelain in its saucer. ‘It is so good to see you, Lizenka,’ she said stiffly, as if needing to recover from our embrace.

  ‘It is. I think of you every day,’ I said truthfully.

  ‘That is so like you. Quick-tempered, though always ready to forgive. You are just like Father.’ She tried to smile, but her lips trembled. ‘I so wish he still lived and that he could witness this… ’

  ‘He’d be delighted. Just imagine – his grandchild!’ I squeezed her hand, beaming. ‘Congratulations. I shall offer the boy my finest stallion and all my riches – well, not that I have any.’

  ‘Yes, a grandchild, of course. That too,’ she mumbled, her white slender hand once more brushing her belly. She wore a dark, long-sleeved gown; her wedding ring was her only jewellery. ‘I was thinking of Menshikov. I wish Father were here to deal with him.’

  Clearly, this talk needed more than just chai to fuel it. ‘Vodka?’ I said, fishing the bottle from its secret hiding place behind the settee. She smiled, knowing all about thieving, drunkard servants, and raised her cup. ‘Yes, please. A good shot.’

  ‘What is Menshikov up to that angers you so? I thought Karl – you and he – were good companions,’ I said carefully, after checking that all the doors were closed. I had no doubt that the servants in my household were on Menshikov’s payroll. He was just waiting to strike.

  Anoushka snorted. ‘Companions? I regret every day what he made me do to you – fool that I was! Can you forgive me?’

  I nodded and she continued speaking. ‘What is Menshikov not up to? He has pilfered our inheritance and even requisitioned Mother’s carriages and horses, which should have taken us to Holstein.’ She fingered one bare earlobe regretfully. ‘Our birthdays have been excluded from the court calendar, Lizenka. No official prayer still includes our names. Karl has lost his office as head of the Guards in St Petersburg. My dowry is spent. I have sold my dresses and my diamonds. Meanwhile Menshikov’s daughter is to be the Tsar’s wife. What next? I dare not wait and see. If I carry a son, he will be in mortal danger from the day of his birth.’ She cradled the bump. ‘I feel my child quickening, Lizenka. It will be a strong and healthy son for Russia.’

  Her sudden openness, after all this time spent shunning me, was surprising. But what does family mean, if not forgiveness and forgetting? Still, I was on my guard. ‘I suffer the same slights and penury, Anoushka. Who knows how long Lestocq and Schwartz will stay by my side? I shall be a spinster for who will marry me now? I am a nobody and a penniless one at that. Though just one day after Augustus’ death, Menshikov drew up a list of new suitors for me.’

  ‘The swine! He shall pay for it.’

  ‘Yes, but how and when? Who is to protect me if he sends me to a nunnery, shorn and clad in a hair shirt? At least you have Karl. He must be so proud that you will have his son.�
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  ‘Proud?’ she asked. ‘Let me show you something.’

  The air in the small living room grew stifling, be it from the rays of the last September sunshine reflected from the golden parquet or else the strange glow in Anoushka’s eyes as she unbuttoned her sleeve, her pale fingers wrestling with the buttons. One by one, they revealed red and blue patches beneath – traces of violent pinching – and even purple flaming bruises on her ivory skin. The worst mark was a round dark spot, at her wrist, just where the veins showed blue. I had seen similar stains on tablecloths and napkins many times over, bearing witness to my parents’ heavy feasting. It was the burn mark of a cigar.

  ‘Please don’t say it was Karl who—’ I started, and held onto the icon of St Nicholas, the way a drowning sailor might to a piece of driftwood. I choked with silent rage as I remembered Karl’s greedy, careless lips grinding against my mouth. No. Not Anoushka. Not my sister!

  Anoushka swallowed hard, struggling with her pride, yet her eyes begged for my understanding as she nodded. I knew what it cost her to be here. She must be at her wit’s end. She cried again, sobs strangling her. Her bruised wrist dropped into her lap.

  God, I hated Karl then, the thin German with his coarse, clammy hands – the hands he’d hurt me with, the hands he’d dared raise against my sister! – hated him with such a passion that it took my breath away. For Anoushka’s sake I had given him the benefit of the doubt. ‘Remember what he was like at first – so polite, gallant and romantic? His musicians played beneath your window. His barge was drawn by swans harnessed in silver. He scattered ivy and belladonna on the waves of the Neva… ’

  ‘That was what he wanted us to see. As soon as he had me, he changed tack. When he is drunk – which is all the time – he is abominable. Even this child… If you knew how it came to be!’ She curled over in shame.

  ‘Anoushka!’ I leaped up to embrace her. The thought was unbearable. A Tsarevna, mistreated like a housemaid? She gave in to my tenderness, her heaving body as brittle as a branch after a long, hot summer, ready to snap.

  ‘Is there nothing that can be done?’ I asked. Breathing in hurt me, such was my shock: would Augustus, too, have become a wife-beater and a rapist, after wooing me with his ease and charm? If I believed that, my memories of him would be tainted. I could not allow it to happen.

  ‘No. Karl and his Holstein friends drink and gamble every evening into the early-morning hours. Failing that, they roam the St Petersburg brothels,’ she said. ‘Whom could I tell if not you?’

  ‘We will always have each other. Ekaterinenhof is not far away. I shall visit whenever possible or perhaps move in with you after all?’

  Anoushka sat up straight, folding her hands. ‘That is another reason why I came to see you. We are to leave Russia. The child is to be born in Holstein. Our departure is planned for the end of the month before I am too heavily pregnant.’

  ‘Can’t you stay?’ I begged.

  ‘Why? For Menshikov to kill my son? Look at Ekaterina Ivanovna, who is merely suffered and who does not belong anywhere, ever again. I have no choice. I am married and pregnant with an heir to the Russian throne. I must follow my husband and protect my son. We sail in two weeks, Lizenka.’

  I watched Anoushka depart to her waiting carriage. She walked heavily, weighed down more by sorrow than by pregnancy. She was to give birth to the child of an already estranged husband in a faraway land. We both faced loneliness, which any Russian fears as the Devil shuns Holy Water. We are a communally minded people, perpetually divided between mistrust and dependency. As the carriage door was closed, the Holstein coat of arms flashed in the low autumn light: stark red, yellow and blue, depicting lions and a swan. Her coachman cursed, chasing away beggars and children, chucking gravel at them for good measure. She leaned out to look at me; when her slim, pale hand waved goodbye, the cuff of her dress was tightly buttoned again, long sleeve guarding the terrible secret beneath. The horses pulled away, their hooves trampling my heart. Autumn closed in. The Neva’s surface rippled as a gust of wind chased the leaves lying ankle-deep on the quays. In the mottled sky, leaden clouds hung low.

  I sank to the floor, weeping. In the short space of six months, I had lost both my mother and my fiancé; now, my sister was to depart at the very moment we had found each other again. I lay there until I had emptied myself of tears. Finally, I sat up, wiping away all traces of them. Crying would not help me.

  41

  While Karl von Holstein had boarded the ship before I was forced to take leave of him politely, Anoushka clung to me, her body heaving. ‘Pray for me and for my child,’ she begged before two maids helped her up the plank, keeping her balanced. Her husband could not be bothered to help. I stood on the quay, watching how the anchor was lifted and the sails were rigged, the canvas beating in the wind with the sound of gunshots. Slowly, the ship turned up the Neva estuary. Anoushka was a dark, ever-smaller figure on deck, raising her arm in a last goodbye. I was furious at my helplessness and blinded by tears when the frigate disappeared over the horizon, its sails blending with the billowing clouds. Flocks of seagulls accompanied it, filling the sky with their cries. A Russian sailor Semyon Mordvinov had agreed to carry our letters between St Petersburg and Holstein.

  I asked Lestocq for more money and he was wise enough to give it without enquiring after its purpose, trusting my decisions. In the gostiny dvor on the Nevsky Prospect, I had a small scarlet leather cap made: Molniya, the beautiful peregrine falcon Petrushka had given me when he was a lonely little boy, had grown into my finest hunting companion. She killed swiftly, and silently. No prey – be it hare, fox or ermine – ever heard her approach or escaped her claws’ frightening precision. Would she strike larger game as well? I wondered, smiling to myself. Menshikov jealously guarded his power and position as any ambitious man would, wary of soldiers’ swords and swagger. Yet he was blind to a woman’s strategies.

  When the cap was ready, I caressed Molniya’s tawny feathers and fastened a silver bell around one delicate ankle. I called for Herr Schwartz, the dance teacher, to assist me in the next stage of my plan. It felt like sending a child out into the world.

  He came huffing and puffing up the narrow, steep staircase. A footman carried his Stradivari violin-cello. ‘Herr Schwartz, good morning. When you go to the Winter Palace today, will you take Molniya here with you? She is a gift for the Tsar. Please ask Alexander Borisovich Buturlin to pass her on to His Majesty,’ I said.

  ‘But—’ Schwarz broke into even more of a sweat as I pushed the thick leather glove over his chubby fingers; God knew how he played such magical music with those paws! The bird was perched on his wrist and he kept it at a safe distance, gingerly, arm outstretched like a scarecrow’s. Molniya sensed his lack of confidence, flexing her claws and cocking her head.

  ‘Don’t be afraid!’ I said. ‘You are too big for her to bring down.’

  ‘What about my fingers?’ he moaned.

  ‘They do look very appetising,’ I teased. ‘Just keep them out of sight.’

  ‘How can I carry my violin-cello if I have the bird with me?’

  ‘That might be one of the many reasons why God has given you two arms.’

  On his wrist, Molniya spread her wings as if ready to fly. ‘Hush, my beauty.’ I tenderly stroked her bony head beneath the leather hood, which was as vermilion as the Imperial seal. Tears stung my eyes. ‘We shall see each other again soon, I promise.’

  ‘Any other message for Buturlin?’ Schwartz sighed. ‘Or the Tsar himself when he receives the bird?’

  ‘No.’

  When Schwartz had left with Molniya, I kneeled down in front of the little altar in my room: more than ever before, I needed God on my side.

  *

  ‘When? Just say when, beautiful Lizenka!’ Petrushka exclaimed, his broken voice deep as a man’s now. He barged into the library a couple of days later, holding Molniya on his wrist, just as I was checking on Buturlin’s flowers. They were not quite ready to be mounted
on cardboard and framed. Was the gift of my bird all it had taken to make him disobey Menshikov and come to see me? I had lacked the strength to act earlier.

  Petrushka’s arrival was a joyous, invigorating whirl of overlong legs and gangly arms. There were pimples on his face among the first hairs sprouting there, but he’d grown into a handsome young man, bearing Alexey’s fine features and tawny colouring. His pack of baying hounds bounded around outside in the fresh autumn air, and his large entourage was dressed in gloriously coloured hunting clothes of velvet and leather.

  His guards positioned themselves at the door; Prince Alexis Dolgoruky politely kept his distance. He looked smug, I noticed: his growing influence with the Tsar heralded the rise of the Old Believers. I only hoped that Petrushka saw the wisdom in Father’s reforms, despite all the hurt and humiliation he personally had suffered. At least none of Menshikov’s household was to be seen, though lingering behind Dolgoruky I spotted a stunningly beautiful young woman. Just then the dwarf d’Acosta somersaulted into view; the silver bells attached to the jester’s ankles and wrists jingled merrily. Petrushka had inherited him from my parents. Time wilted any average person but age suited the little people, their faces becoming gnarled like wise old trees. D’Acosta circled the room, flapping his arms like wings and calling hoarsely like a bird of prey, eyes beady when he looked at me. Was he, who had survived two Tsars already and now served a third, my friend or foe?

  ‘Petrushka.’ I rose to my feet, smiling at him: he was like the little brother I had never had, wearing his finery and new office with ease. Luckily, I had chosen my best silk scarf to accentuate my waist and riding had tanned and shaped my arms. As Petrushka stooped to embrace me, I smelled vodka and tobacco on his breath. I wanted to back away and curtsy to him as I should, but he held me there, cupped my face in his hands and kissed me on the lips. I first froze at the intimacy of the gesture, then made light of the situation. ‘I ought not to call you Petrushka any more. Welcome to your Summer Palace, Your Majesty.’