The Witches of St. Petersburg

by Imogen Edwards-Jones

  “And the tsarina?” asked Militza.

  “In heaven!” he replied. “And he is feeding well already. He suckled the breast almost immediately. What an appetite! He’s so perfect and I can’t wait for you to see him. He has blue eyes!”

  “All babies have blue eyes when they are born,” said Militza, handing over her hat and gloves.

  “Not as blue as these!” Nicky shot back as he bounded towards the stairs. “They are as blue as the Caspian Sea! As deep as Lake Baikal. Hurry up! Alix is desperate to see you! Desperate to thank you! What a wonderful day! It’s a sign, you know; our luck is changing. His birth will bring about a speedy and victorious end to the war in Manchuria. In fact”—he stopped at the top of the stairs—“I am going to make all the soldiers, the entire army fighting at the front, Alexei’s godparents!” He stood, grinning, his arms outstretched. “What do you think?”

  “I think it’s a perfectly capital idea!” replied Peter as he climbed the stairs behind the tsar. “That’ll boost morale.”

  “And I shall send them all icons. Icons of St. Seraphim, Russia’s greatest saint!”

  “Amen,” added Stana.

  At the top of the stairs the four grand duchesses, dressed in matching frocks, giggled and jostled with excitement.

  “Out of the way, girlies!” said Nicky, sweeping them aside in a rustle of white chiffon. “They’ve come to see Alexei!”

  The party reached the top of the stairs and paused for breath.

  “I think,” said Peter, “perhaps ladies first?” He gestured towards the closed bedroom door. “And perhaps you and I should have a little brandy?”

  “A glass of champagne,” corrected Nicky. “I think we have cause for it.”

  AS THE TWO MEN RETIRED BACK DOWNSTAIRS TO NICKY’S study, Militza and Stana knocked on the door.

  Inside the room, the curtains were drawn, and behind a screen of white with blue cornflowers lay Alix. Propped up in bed, on a mountain of soft pillows, surrounded by numerous glittering gold icons and dressed in a white frilled shift, she smiled broadly as they entered, a look of soft joy and elation all over her face.

  “Stana! Militza!” She spoke softly, shaking her head in disbelief. “He is here! At last. Can you believe it? My son. How can I ever thank you? How can I ever thank Philippe? I know it was that night, bathing in the waters. I felt it. I felt everything change. I hoped. I prayed. I believed. And now God has, at last, given me a son. A son to rule Russia. I am so happy.”

  Tears welled up in her eyes, and she did not bother to hold them back or disguise them in any way. She held out her hands. Both Stana and Militza leaned forward and kissed them. “My sisters,” she said. “My very beloved sisters. Please tell Philippe how grateful I am. Please let him know what he has done.”

  “What you have done!” enthused Stana, squeezing Alix’s hand.

  “What we all have done,” corrected Militza.

  “Yes, all of us,” said Alix. “Together.”

  “Together,” repeated Stana.

  “But write to Philippe,” said Alix, “for I no longer know where to find him.”

  “I will do,” reassured Militza. “He resides in Paris now; his health is not good.”

  “But this news will cheer him greatly,” added Stana.

  “Tell him he was right, he was right after all,” Alix said, smiling.

  “Where is he?” asked Militza. “Where is Alexei? May we see him?”

  Alix pulled back the covers slightly, and there, lying tightly swaddled and fast asleep, was Alexei. The tsarevich, the naslednik, the future they had all been waiting for. Here he was. Militza half expected the heavens to sing, the voices of angels to burst suddenly into song at the very sight of him. The sisters leaned in, holding their breath, almost as if, by breathing on him, they might cause him to disappear. This child was so precious, a child of prayers. The hopes and fears of millions of souls rested on his not-yet-day-old shoulders. Alix put her finger to her lips as she pulled back the sheets a little more.

  “Isn’t he perfect?”

  “He’s beautiful,” replied Militza, for he was. He was plump and pink, and he had wisps of blond hair that were already beginning to curl. “How are you feeling?”

  “Me?” Alix smiled. “I think I now know what it is like to die and ascend to heaven. I am floating.” She laughed. “And that is nothing that Dr. Ott gave me. In fact, the birth was so easy.” She shrugged her shoulders. “I had none of the problems that I had with the girlies, none at all. I had barely finished my luncheon before he arrived. A little early,” she said and shrugged, “although we all know not early enough! But I am blessed. I feel blessed. I am so happy.”

  “May I touch his face?” asked Militza. She too laughed a little, for it was truly a miracle. “I just want to make sure that he is really there and is not some form of sorcery or witchcraft!”

  Militza stretched out her hand. It was shaking a little as she curled her index finger and touched his fresh, soft cheek. It felt like warm, smooth silk. She let out an involuntary sigh.

  “I know,” agreed Alix. “Look at his lips! His ears! And his beautiful neck.” She began to undress him, removing the tightly swaddled cloth that wrapped him.

  “Oh, don’t. Really!” said Militza. “There is no need. Don’t disturb him. He’s asleep.”

  “Oh, no, I want you to see him, see quite how perfect he is!” insisted Alix. Now her hands were shaking as she tried to undo the bandages. “He is so beautiful, you have to see him. You simply must.” She pulled at the cloth, and the baby began to moan. “Shh, my angel. Shh, my beautiful boy,” Alix hushed as she continued to unwrap him. Round and round the bandage went. “Oh, my goodness! What has Gunst done!” she said, laughing a little. “So much cloth!” The more she unwrapped the baby, the more agitated he became. “Hush, hush!”

  “Honestly, there is no need!” said Militza, her heart beginning to race.

  “Don’t carry on,” agreed Stana. The two sisters exchanged anxious glances.

  “I insist!” replied Alix, her eyes shining. “You simply must see how beautiful he is!”

  And as the final bandage came off, the tiny newborn baby screamed in pain. His cry was so shockingly loud, so agonizingly visceral, that both Militza and Stana recoiled in horror. And there, in among the mewling, screaming, kicking baby and the swaddling and the bandages, were clots and blots of blood.

  “Oh, my God!” exclaimed Stana, leaping off the bed.

  The baby’s legs went rigid as he inhaled to scream once more. He opened his toothless mouth and cried out once more in pain. His whole body shook, and his tiny face crumpled and went bright pink with agony.

  “He’s bleeding,” said Stana.

  “It’s Gunst,” said Alix, swiftly trying to gather up all the bandages. “She’s bound him too tightly. Far too tightly. What a stupid woman! Stupid, stupid woman. Hush, little one. Hush.” But Alix’s fingers fumbled; she was shaking too much to pick up the bloody cloth scattered all over the bed.

  “Shh,” said Militza, taking hold of Alix’s hand. “Calm down. If you panic, the baby will too. Let me help you.”

  “What’s going on?” A heavyset nurse, smelling of soap, ran into the bedroom, her head covered in a tightly wrapped scarf. “Why is he crying? Why is he undressed?” She looked from one sister to the other, her small accusatory eyes darting back and forth. “Who undressed him? He must be bound. It is the only way to stem the flow. Who did this?”

  She gently gathered up the screaming, naked baby and snuggled him into her large bosom, and without saying another word, she took him straight out of the room, leaving Alix sitting helpless in bed. Militza looked at the bloodied bandages lying on the top of the bed. Some of the stains were crimson fresh, others a dried dark brown. Despite the airless warmth of the room, she suddenly felt cold. She had seen this before. She turned to look at Alix. Her eyes were wide and terrified, and yet her jaw was rigid and strangely defiant.

  “Gunst must have swad
dled him too tightly,” stated Militza, picking up the cloth.

  Alix stared at her, and her gaze did not flicker. “I am sure she will not make the same mistake again.”

  Chapter 18

  October 31, 1905, Znamenka, Peterhof

  THAT’S IT!” DECLARED MILITZA TO HER SISTER AS SHE entered the red salon in Znamenka.

  Stana looked up from her sewing. She was embroidering handkerchiefs for injured soldiers returned from the front. It was not something she enjoyed doing, in fact it bored her tremendously, but after the terrible traumas of the last year, one had to be seen to be doing one’s bit.

  And what traumas they were. There was the mistake of Bloody Sunday, when lines of Cossacks and hussars opened fire on a peaceful demonstration of workers, led by Father Gapon, all marching towards the Winter Palace in the hope of meeting the tsar.

  Poor Nicky, it broke his heart. Not least because no one told him about the workers’ rally and the terrible overreaction of his troops. The stories of death and blood on the streets of St. Petersburg were appalling, the tales of the bullet holes that riddled the workers’ icons and their portraits of the tsar made worse by their cries: “The tsar has abandoned us,” “The tsar will not help us,” and, worst of all, “We have no tsar anymore.” These traumatized and haunted Nicky as he sat drinking his tea and reading the reports in his study at Tsarskoye Selo.

  Father Gapon wrote Nicky a letter.

  The innocent blood of workers, their wives and children lies forever between you and the Russian people . . . May all the blood which must be spilled fall upon you, you Hangman!

  And it wasn’t long before the first blood was spilled.

  Three weeks later the tsar’s uncle Grand Duke Sergei was assassinated in Moscow. He had just said good-bye to his wife, Alix’s sister Grand Duchess Elizabeth Fyodorovna, at the Kremlin, and as he traveled through the gate in his horse-drawn carriage, a bomb was thrown directly into his lap, killing him instantly. Ella heard the explosion from the apartment and came running. After first comforting the dying coachman, she then proceeded to crawl around in the snow, trying to find as many pieces of her husband as she could, so as much of him as possible could be buried together. She collected small fragments of his skull, his arm, his torso, but his fingers, still wearing his rings, weren’t found until a week later on a rooftop nearby.

  Alix was distraught for her sister, and Ella never really recovered. She wasn’t allowed to go to the funeral because it was perceived as too dangerous and, announcing fairly quickly after the assassination that she wanted to take holy orders, she proceeded to sell all her jewelry.

  It was all so very traumatic. But as Militza pointed out to Stana, Spirit himself had predicted the assassination that night at Countess Ignatiev’s salon. “Why else had he repeated the name Sergei over and over again?” she said.

  OVER THAT SUMMER THEY WERE FORCED TO CONVERT PART, OR all, of their palaces in the Crimea into makeshift convalescent hospitals for soldiers coming home from the front. Militza quickly realized they had to move with the times or look out of place. The Russo-Japanese War was lost, the naval fleet destroyed; there were strikes in schools and factories and murders of policemen and Cossacks as well as riots in all corners of the land. There was a mutiny of sailors in nearby Odessa on the battleship Potemkin. They had apparently thrown the officers over the side—along with the rotten meat they’d been served—and then trained their guns on the city. They were only stopped from ransacking other towns up and down the Black Sea coast when the ship ran out of fuel.

  There was distinctly more than a whiff of revolution in the air. It was a stench. Like the smell of smoke before a fire, people could sense it coming.

  Tensions had been running so high at Znamenka that they’d spilled over into a stand-up argument between Nikolasha and Nicky. Dinner had been a little protracted and some wine had been drunk, but that was not to say that the sentiments weren’t heartfelt. Militza was shuffling her cards of Marseilles, preparing for a little after-dinner tarot, as it had been a few weeks since Nicky had dined with them. He’d come on his own as Alix was once again bedridden, this time with her bad heart.

  They were discussing the plans drawn up by Sergei Witte, an older adviser of Nicky’s father, to quell the tides of discontent. Witte had suggested there was a plain and simple choice between a military dictatorship and a constitution, and Nicky was debating between the two with Nikolasha, who had recently been given charge of the St. Petersburg Military District. The discussion became progressively more heated. And while Peter kept his counsel and made sure their glasses were full, Militza kept them in fresh supplies of cigarettes as they argued into the night about the increased hostility, the widespread terror—so much so that when they took their own train back from the Crimea they were advised to travel without the lights on in case they were mobbed.

  Then suddenly, Militza remembered, Nikolasha leapt off the divan in the red salon, where they’d gathered after dinner, took his pistol out of his holster, and declared dramatically, “If the emperor doesn’t accept the Witte program, if he wants to force me to become a dictator, I shall kill myself in his presence with this revolver. We must support Witte at all costs. It is necessary for the good of Russia!”

  “WHAT IS IT?” ASKED STANA, GRATEFUL TO PUT DOWN HER embroidery.

  “The boy is bleeding again, from the navel—it’s a hemorrhage. The doctor has been called to the palace forty-two times in two months.”

  “Forty-two?” Stana’s face blanched a little.

  “Alix has been crying on the telephone this morning, saying the child is crawling, trying to learn to walk, and he’s had a bang. But what can you do? It is only going to get worse.”

  “Much worse,” agreed Stana.

  “The blood can’t be blamed on Gunst and her bandages forever. We need to find a solution, for if that boy dies, what will happen to us?”

  “Us?” Stana frowned.

  “Our power will disappear overnight.” Militza walked across the salon, plucked a cigarette from a silver box, and lit it. A long gray plume of smoke curled out from between her lips. “Perhaps we need to find someone new, as Philippe predicted?”

  “New?”

  “Someone to restore her faith?”

  “What about John of Kronstadt? He has the power to heal through prayer?”

  “He is tied up with helping the poor and the needy. He would not come for a bump or a tumble down the stairs. No. We need someone else. Brana has been on the lookout. She’s looked over St. Petersburg, trawled the monasteries outside. If only . . .”

  “If only Philippe were still alive?” Stana said. “If only . . .” She looked a little wistful. “It’s been two months since he died, and I miss him terribly. Remember him predicting his own death? Do you remember? He said 1905. And it happened just as he said. Everything happened just as he said. I miss him so. I miss his counsel, his wise words. The letters were never enough. I can’t believe we didn’t manage to see him again before he died. I shall always regret that. He was such a dear friend to us all.”

  “He said someone new would come,” said Militza. “But this time we need someone of our own making, someone whom we can control. Someone who is entirely ours, who answers to us and only to us, who has no past to haunt us. We have Father to think of, our country to think of—and we are not going to let all that we have worked for trickle through our fingers like grains of sand.”

  “And how do you propose to do that?” Stana demanded, looking at her sister with more than a little irritation. She picked up her sewing and started to stitch. Whatever her sister had in mind, she wanted none of it. She was becoming increasingly bored with Militza’s lust for power. They had been at the heart of court life for the past five years, and frankly, now that she had fallen into the arms of Nikolasha, she had become a lot less interested.

  Not that their relationship had been allowed beyond the walls of Znamenka, which was where Nikolasha was now living and where Stana was a persi
stent visitor. Unable to stem the growing love between them, Militza had decided it was safer and easier to allow them the confines of the red salon. However, she was amazed how a glimpse of happiness had diminished her sister’s ambitions. When Stana was with Nikolasha, little else mattered, least of all the politics of empire. The Montenegrin army had fought alongside the Russians in the Russo-Japanese War—surely that was enough to cement their countries together? Granted, the outcome had been neither quick nor victorious, and it had only acerbated Russia’s internal problems rather than solving them. But Russia and Montenegro had fought shoulder to shoulder: they were brothers in arms, and no new guru was going to improve on that.

  “I have told her we’ve found someone already,” Militza said. “So now we have to . . .”

  “Don’t bring me into this. The boy needs a doctor, not a guru.”

  “The doctors don’t know anything. They treat his hemophilia with endless amounts of aspirin. They think it is the new drug to cure all ills. But no one knows what it actually does. What is aspirin? And is it good for weak blood? Weak blood that doesn’t clot?”

  “How do you know it is hemophilia?”

  Militza stared at her sister, her dark eyes narrowed. “Even the pharaohs had the good sense to ban women from having any more children if their firstborn died from a small wound that never healed. How else can you explain what is happening to Alexei? Alix is Victoria’s granddaughter. He has the ‘royal disease,’ that much is sure. Her brother Frittie died of it—she told us how he fell and they couldn’t stop the bleeding. We have both seen it spread through the royal families of Europe, taking princes whenever its caprice fancies.” She shook her head. “I can’t help but think Empress Maria Fyodorovna made a terrible, appalling mistake with Alix. Of all the brides to choose. It was stark neglect, by her and by the Russian court, in finding a wife for Nicky!”

  “You know Alexei won’t live beyond the age of five?” said Stana.

  “He must.”