I did not begrudge Anna Ivanovna the crown. She was of the elder royal bloodline; chosen by God and elected as the Tsar’s heiress, satisfying the law. Doubting the legitimacy of her rule was against everything I had ever been taught. Yet I hated Ostermann for the way he had humiliated me. I clenched my fist in its black kid glove, mended in several places and with buttons missing. I was not able to afford a new pair for Petrushka’s funeral.
It was a couple of days later that I understood the meaning of Dolgoruky’s words: ‘No signature, no crown!’ The Privy Council had drafted a document that severely curtailed Anna’s powers as a ruler, Lestocq told me once we had returned to Izmailov.
‘She agreed that?’
‘What wouldn’t a pauper do in exchange for a great title and a life of luxury?’
‘Careful! You are speaking of the Tsarina of Russia.’
‘Tsarina by name only following her signature. Anna agreed neither to marry, wage war, sign a peace treaty, curtail the rights of the nobility, promote to high rank nor grant gifts of estates, without the Privy Council’s seal of approval. She is also not to command a regiment, which beggars belief.’
I swallowed hard. Anna Ivanovna was signing away her right to rule. Alexis Dolgoruky and his Old Believers were to run things instead, digging their claws into Russia’s flesh, sucking its blood.
‘What else?’
‘Well, it is uncertain whether she can use the chamber pot by herself!’ said my adviser, with a droll expression on his face.
I could not help but laugh before asking: ‘Is Ostermann in on this?’
‘That’s the strangest thing of all. No. Ostermann is said to have been suffering from severe gout ever since the Tsar’s funeral. He has refused to sign Dolgoruky’s draft document. Apparently, his hands are too incapacitated.’ Flames crackled in the fireplace; a log crashed; embers flew. I poked the fire with an iron, pondering the news. Ostermann’s gout served him well whenever he wished to keep his distance from unpopular measures. At some point he would no doubt step out of the shadows, surprising us all. Anna had signed away crucial Imperial rights, dissolving the invisible bond between Russia, her people and their ruler. Delight at her new rank, wealth and privilege could not excuse this. There was the future to consider for this ruler’s heirs. Her heirs… I reined my thoughts in as guessing who might be next in line to the throne was considered high treason. I so missed having a friend and lover to talk to about this. At least I should have my cousin here soon, Anna Ivanovna, by God’s grace, Tsarina of All the Russias.
Once the Imperial messenger had dropped to his knees in the freezing Mitau Castle, pressing his forehead to a floor bare of any rugs or furs, Tsarina Anna made fast work of leaving Courland. ‘Send me ten thousand roubles for travelling expenses, as well as six pairs of the best sables for a muff and a scarf, ’ she wrote to Moscow. Dolgoruky obliged – these were trifles compared to the value of her signature upon his self-serving document. Three weeks after Petrushka’s death, she arrived in Vesevatiskoy, a village where the Tsars rested before their accession, to cleanse their mind for the enormous task that lay ahead.
Anna invited me to join her there: ‘As fast as possible, Lizenka, my dove, little cousin sunshine! ’
I strung the icon of St Nicholas prominently around my throat, tightening the leather straps. It had been her parting gift to me when she was my derided, near-destitute cousin. Today I wore it to welcome her back as my Tsarina. In the past five years, my life had felt like a journey on a river swollen by the ottepel ’s force, borne along by treacherous currents, dashed against boulders and sucked into maelstroms. Anna’s own knowledge of suffering might create a bond of understanding between us. Being granted her protection would be like reaching an island of warm, dry sand, where I could lie in peace and regain my breath.
58
Two guards stood outside the simple country palace of Vesevatiskoy. It dated from my grandfather’s time and built of timber, wattle and daub, with mullioned mica panes in its windows, looked antiquated. The poplar trees surrounding the house lay bare, their branches crooked with snow. In the courtyard, a harras of horses was being led to the stables, fine heads twitching, eyes rolling and breath steaming up the winter air. On the porch, which in summer afforded fine views, stood a high cage securing two plump black and white ostriches, their long necks craning through the bars. Behind my shoddy hired sled the Privy Council’s grand ornamented vehicle skidded into sight, iron-bound skids hissing on the hard-trodden snow. The messenger who descended from it gave me the curtest of nods; I left him in my wake. Nobody could expect to be alone with the Tsarina Elect, not even a member of her family. Yet it was my right to greet her first.
‘The Tsarevna Elizabeth Petrovna Romanova,’ the Imperial steward announced me as I stepped into the palace’s main hall. It had been lying dormant since my father’s and his half-brother Tsar Ivan’s accession. The merciless winter light illuminated the dusty flagstones and rugs worn to the weave; the furnishings consisted of battered sofas and a couple of armchairs, their leather upholstery brittle and torn, fistfuls of straw showing through. No hangings adorned the whitewashed walls, and the room faintly smelled of tar as the ceiling joists had been hastily resealed to keep the cold and moisture at bay. A fire burned in the huge fireplace at one end of the room, which was full of people. Their bodies made it as hot as a banja, but it smelled much worse: animals roamed free. I spotted a porcupine, its spikes almost two feet long. Birds darted about overhead. Already, the high, gilt-framed mirrors were stained with their droppings and the velvet sofas torn by their claws; nightingales, robins, greenfinches and yellow hammers all vied for perches.
‘There you are,’ my cousin Ekaterina Ivanovna said, sliding up to me, pulling her daughter Christine behind her. With increased age, the mutilations Ekaterina had suffered showed up even more: the ivory teeth had loosened in her shrinking gums and her scars were worsened by wrinkles. A splatter of bird lime hit her full on the chest, and Christine bit her lip so as not to laugh out loud, lowering her dark eyes. I winked at her.
‘Where is the Tsarina?’ I asked.
Ekaterina Ivanovna jerked her head ill-humouredly towards the big fireplace. I spotted Anna’s broad back – she towered over them all – but too many people surrounded her for me to see more. I thought I heard a baby wail. I hesitated, feeling Ekaterina’s dark gaze on me, before a tall man approached, arms outstretched, greeting me confidently, as if he were the master of the place, and cordially, as if we were the oldest and best of friends.
‘Biren!’ I smiled at him. ‘You came along. What a nice surprise.’
His ruddy colouring, broad build and beaming smile still made him look like an innkeeper with whom one would not mind sharing a drink or two, having a laugh and listening to the latest gossip. Anna’s lover’s big blue eyes were still hungry for just about everything life might offer him. ‘How could I not? Welcome! I have forgotten neither your grace, nor your beauty and charm, Tsarevna!’ At his booming voice, the Tsarina Anna Ivanovna ever so slightly turned her head, listening in, though she still had not acknowledged me in the turmoil, and I knew I had to bide my time.
‘You haven’t changed either, Biren,’ I said, flattering him as he had doubled in weight. ‘Well, a bit perhaps. For the better,’ I added, eyeing his fine attire. He grinned broadly, smoothing his embroidered waistcoat. Its fabric was so stiff with gold and silver thread it could have stood up on its own. ‘All tailored in Lyons, where they crafted the lace for my shirt, too.’ He made the delicate, frothy lace around his throat flutter, stretched his legs in their cream-coloured silk breeches and turned his shiny leather shoes this way and that. They looked immaculate, having certainly had no contact with snow whatsoever. ‘They were made in Milan. Only the finest soles shall carry me into Russia.’
‘How splendid!’ I said admiringly, all the more aware of my own humble black attire: as usual, I had adorned it with a white collar and wore a bright sash slung around my waist. But
the change in him ran deeper than met the eye. Back at Mother’s Coronation I had sensed a warm animal current of energy in Biren, a willingness to engage with life. Then, the court had derided Anna and him. Now, however, his charisma was unmistakable, like a river breaking through a dam in search of new territory. He carried himself like a man of breeding and power and whoever crossed him did so at their peril.
‘How good of you to accompany the Tsarina to Russia, Biren,’ I said.
‘I should never leave Her Majesty in a moment of need,’ he replied, eyes sparkling.
‘Whose need, I wonder?’ Ekaterina Ivanovna sniggered.
‘I am also not called Biren any more,’ he said sunnily, ignoring her. ‘My name is now de Biron.’
‘De Biron?’ I frowned. ‘Like the French dukes?’
‘Yes. I like the name and have decided to carry on their extinct line.’ He beamed at me. ‘I also adopted their coat of arms. It’s quite pretty.’
‘Why ever not?’ I felt faint. The importance of breeding and nobility had surely been instilled into Anna from an early age. Yet Biren had simply helped himself to one of Europe’s oldest names. I wanted to dismiss this as the action of a simpleton, yet that would make me no better than Ekaterina Ivanovna, whose eyes bored into her sister’s lover with loathing and disdain while she clenched Christine’s slender wrist.
‘Yes, why not indeed?’ another voice said, and I looked into Feofan Prokopovich’s slate-coloured eyes: the Archbishop of Novgorod, whose wise words had helped my father achieve so many of his dreams. Alexis Dolgoruky had imprisoned him and yet he lived and walked free!
‘Feofan! Your Beatitude. What a joy it is to see you,’ I greeted him, my cheeks flushing with joy. His simple black cloak and unruly, wavy hair surrounding a clever pug’s face made me feel like a child again. He had always endured my probing questions with humour and kindness. I seized his hands, delighted: ‘Are you going to crown the Tsarina?’
‘Yes. Her widowed Majesty recalled me from, well, shall we call it retirement?’
I laughed, relieved: few were those who ever left the Trubetzkoi Bastion unscathed. Yet here he was, smiling and rosy-faced, his chubby hands as always fondling the cross on his breast.
‘Will you be returning to Novgorod?’ His diocese was the richest in Russia, owning almost fifty thousand serfs.
‘No. I am needed by Her Majesty’s side. I am to be the head of the Secret Office of Investigation,’ he answered.
I frowned, thinking of Buturlin’s brutal interrogation and what Feofan himself might have suffered in the Trubetzkoi Bastion. ‘How is that? You are a man of the Church… ’
‘There will be inevitable compromises to make. But I will do anything to ensure Her widowed Majesty’s safety. She has suffered enough.’
‘Our widowed Majesty.’ Ekaterina Ivanovna savoured the words. ‘When it comes to suffering, I am surely equal in rank to my sister,’ she said sourly: as the eldest, she no doubt felt better entitled to be Tsarina.
‘At least you have Christine,’ I said. My cousin’s glum dark eyes glowed before she lowered her gaze. Had she learned to hide her feelings or was she devoid of them?
‘Christine? I might as well have a log for company. Sometimes I cannot believe that I gave birth to this bore.’ As Ekaterina raised her fist to cuff her again, Anna Ivanovna stepped up to us and seized her sister’s wrist. I curtsied deeply while de Biron and Feofan bowed their heads.
‘Don’t,’ she commanded.
‘Don’t you tell me what to do! I am the eldest surviving child of Tsar Ivan, and I am her mother!’ Ekaterina hissed.
‘And I am the Tsarina.’ Anna raised her eyebrows. Aunt Pasha’s former maid Maja slid up, keen as ever to guard the family’s secrets and barring the scene from the sight of onlookers. Her cleft lip made her smile look more than ever like a snarl. I greeted her before she curtsied to Ekaterina and Christine. The girl pulled a disgusted expression and turned away, while Maja pleaded, ‘Tsarina, Duchess Ekaterina, please, don’t quarrel – for your mother’s sake.’
De Biron brushed Anna’s elbow. ‘Beloved. You should not excite yourself. And don’t make the most charming guest of today wait unacknowledged.’ He gently nudged me forward.
Beloved. Feofan lowered his gaze. Ekaterina opened her mouth, then shut it again. Maja seized Christine’s elbow and the girl forgot to tear her arm away. A robin darted past and the giant porcupine rustled in its straw. Anna’s dark eyes smouldered in a broad face. Her cheeks were veined and had sagged, her chin tripled. She looked more awe-inspiring than Aunt Pasha ever had: her bosom reminded me of two loaves of bread in a bag, her arms almost burst the seams of her beautiful blue silk dress and her belly strained against her loosely laced gem-studded stomacher. Yet when she smiled, she still showed pretty dimples.
‘Certainly I shall not, if the Tsarevna Elizabeth deigns to greet me properly?’ She straightened her scarlet sash of the order of St Catherine. I, too, had once received the order, but had judged this visit to be an informal one. The Tsarina, though, frowned at my plain appearance.
‘Come closer, Lizenka. My eyesight is not what it used to be. De Biron is right. You are still as lively and beautiful as you ever were. And always in wonderfully high spirits, I hear, despite everything. You have suffered terrible losses. Yet nothing darkens your mood and abates your courage. Would you be a true Romanov woman after all?’
She gave her last words a curious weight; I remembered how Ostermann had stressed her legitimate birth when pronouncing her Tsarina. Had he trickled his poison into her ear? If so, I would not let him have his way, I decided, and raised the icon in my fingers so that her short-sighted gaze could see it. ‘That is because I always wore this, Your Majesty, to protect me and offer me guidance. Whatever happened.’
Anna squinted harder, ostrich feathers bobbing on her piled-up hair. She wore a heavy headband set with glinting sapphires and diamonds; matching earrings brushed her shoulders. Her throat was hidden by a many-stranded pearl choker and a dozen diamond bracelets adorned her wrists. On her ring finger, the Imperial seal stood proud.
Anna frowned, touching the icon. ‘How nice. What is that?’
59
Her sour-cherry eyes were impenetrable. I was aware of all the people watching us. ‘Your Majesty gave it to me after my mother’s Coronation. Don’t you remember? You came into my bedroom in the morning. We spoke about Alexey—’
‘Ah! Alexey. The Tsarevich who was born to the great Tsar’s true wife. God bless his soul.’ The surrounding courtiers dutifully made doleful noises. The great Tsar’s true wife. Was she slighting my mother, who had shown her nothing but friendliness and generosity? No, it was me she was targeting with this insult.
‘I really don’t remember,’ she said with a shrug. ‘It suits you, in any case. A dear little bauble. It is always wise to honour the saints.’
De Biron smiled welcomingly as a slight, richly dressed woman stepped up to us: her face was pockmarked, mouth pinched. Her light eyes looked flighty as a ferret’s. To my surprise, she handed Anna an infant and a second child toddled towards her feet. Anna’s face lit up as she kissed the baby boy: ‘Meet de Biron’s wife and their sons. She stems from the same German village as dear Count Ostermann does. What a bond between us!’
Dear Count Ostermann: obviously they had been in contact. Anna heaved the baby boy higher on her hip; he twisted her splendid necklace, sucking on the pearls, looking at me with curiously dark eyes. She rummaged in the folds of her skirt and then tucked twice at his bib, as if folding something underneath, then smoothed his clothes. ‘Don’t bite my pearls, little one. Do you think they are fake? The Tsarina of All the Russias might do many things, but she does not wear fake jewellery.’
She chuckled, handing him back to de Biron’s wife. De Biron himself kissed the elder boy, who had the same dark eyes as his little brother, and then turned to the door. Anna’s gaze followed his as if attached by invisible ties. At the same time, de Biron’s scrawny wif
e and mewling children moved closer, making any private word with the Tsarina impossible.
‘Where are you going, dearest?’ Anna called after de Biron. ‘Don’t leave me.’
He gallantly bowed. ‘I never would. I am just checking if the messenger of the Privy Council has arrived.’
Her face lit up, mirroring his mood. ‘Ah, yes,’ Anna said. ‘Forgive me, Lizenka. The state calls me away from where my heart would like to stay.’
Dolgoruky’s messenger hovered on the threshold, holding a tray of hammered bronze containing the carefully folded blue sash and diamond-framed brooch with a portrait of St Andrew upon it. It was the realm’s foremost order; yet either to wear or to grant it was another royal right that Anna had signed away.
‘Your Majesty. The Council sends you this order of St Andrew on loan to wear at your entrance into Moscow,’ the messenger said. Anna fixed her gaze on the man, who quailed slightly. I felt heat rising within her as she forced a laugh: ‘The Council is giving me the order of St Andrew on loan? Surely this must be a mistake. It is my due.’ She snatched the sash and pulled it over her head, dislodging the ostrich feathers. The blue fabric twisted across her bosom and belly as she haphazardly fastened the huge, sparkling brooch of St Andrew to her bodice. ‘There,’ she breathed. ‘Perfect.’
‘But – the conditions… ’ the messenger stammered.
She feigned surprise. ‘Which conditions? The weather, you mean?’ She peered outside. ‘It doesn’t look as if it will snow any more today. Also, there is no bad weather in Russia, only a lack of sable coats,’ she chuckled. Then her face darkened. ‘Or are you insulting me, your widowed Tsarina? How could I be in any condition to worry about? God has never blessed me with children. Do not rub salt in those wounds.’
The man fell to his knees. Did he feel his head wobble on his shoulders or his tongue coming loose from his throat? He’d better.
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