“No, I’m not.”
“Why not?”
“I haven’t the right.”
“What! What does that mean, a Cossack without the right to be enrolled in a Cossack regiment! You wear a cherkesska. And Cossack boots and fleece cap. What kind of nonsense is that?”
The men began to murmur and mill about me. I wondered if they had guessed I was a girl, an impostor. As they pressed closer, I wondered if hands would reach for me, pulling me off my horse.
“I am not a Cossack,” I said.
“Well, then who the hell are you?” demanded the colonel. “Why are you in Cossack uniform and what do you want?”
“Colonel,” I said, reining Alcides away from the men who gathered close beside me, “I desire the honor of being enrolled in your regiment until such time as we reach the regular army.”
The murmurs grew louder.
The colonel grunted. “But just the same I have to know who you are, young man. And are you not aware that nobody can serve with us except native Cossacks?”
There was a growling laughter from the men. I felt my childish dreams shatter.
No! I cannot have risked so much to be refused!
“And I have no such intention, Colonel. I am only asking you for permission to travel to the regular army in the dress of a Cossack serving with you or your regiment. As to your question about who I am, I will only say what I can. I am from a noble family. I have left my father’s house and am on my way to serve in the army without my parents’ knowledge or volition. I cannot be happy in any calling except the military. If you won’t take me under your protection, I’ll find some way to join the regular army on my own.”
The colonel took in my words. Something I said must have struck a chord. “I haven’t the heart to refuse him,” said the colonel, turning to another Cossack who had remained silent, seated in the shadows. “Anatoli! What shall I do?”
The Cossack rose. He was one of the tallest men I had ever seen. He looked at me with shocking green eyes. I felt as if I had been shot.
The tall man scrutinized me, drinking in my features as his eyes ran across my face, my body. I saw his nostrils flare, the muscles of his face tense.
Then the faintest trace of a smile.
“And why should you refuse him? Let him come with us. He is but a boy.”
“He might make trouble for us.”
“Let him join us. His parents are nobility. They will be grateful to us for giving him refuge. With his hardheadedness and inexperience, if you turn him away he will surely come to grief. These forests are dangerous, especially for one as young as he.”
I saw the tall Cossack was giving me an advantage. I plunged in. “I will ride alone if you do not take me. I shall not turn back, I swear it!”
The colonel looked at me, shaking his head.
“Very well, young man. But I warn you that we are now on our way to the Don, and there are no regular troops there in the Ukraine.”
“I don’t care. I beg you to take me with you.”
“Shchegrov! Give the lad a horse from our stables.”
“Yes, sir,” said a small man beside him.
The tall Cossack moved toward Alcides and me. He ran his hand over Alcides forelegs and then his hindquarters. Alcides quivered under his touch.
Then he moved to take my horse by his reins. “I’ll take him, lad. I like Circassian bloodlines.”
“Get your hands off my reins,” I snapped at him. He looked into my eyes with anger. I met him with the same.
“Colonel!” I said. “I have a horse, a good one here. Circassian. I’ll ride my own, if you will permit it.” The colonel burst out laughing.
“So much the better, so much the better. Ride your own horse. What’s your first name anyway, my gallant lad?”
“Aleksandr Vasilevich Sokolov,” I lied, taking my father’s and brother’s name in one mouthful and inventing the surname.
“Aleksandr Vasilevich, on the march you will always ride with the first troop where I can keep an eye on you. You will dine and be quartered with me. Go on now. Eat some kasha to warm yourself. My orderly will take your horse for water and forage. We will be moving out almost immediately.”
The tall Cossack finally let go of my reins and I surrendered my horse to Shchegrov, who had another inferior horse in tow. I felt the tall Cossack’s eyes scrutinizing Alcides’s conformation as he was led off.
Alcides whinnied at parting with me.
“A fine horse,” he said. “He likes you. I trust you are a good enough rider to do him justice?”
“We do all right together,” I said.
How will we do in the battlefield? What do I really know about a Cossack regiment?
“Aleksandr Vasilevich Sokolov,” said a voice. It was the burly cook who gave me a metal cup full of steaming buckwheat. I took a wooden spoon from his hand, shoveling the porridge into my mouth. Never had anything tasted so good.
Half an hour later I was mounted with a heavy saber in my hand. It was nothing like the imaginary weapon I had wielded, running through our gardens in Sarapul, shouting, “Charge!”
My muscles were not accustomed to such weight. Every muscle shook with exertion. I could not hold my saber properly but tried with all my might to lift it high when the colonel and captain rode by me.
The strange dialect of the Cossacks, their laughs, and jokes were foreign to me. They spat and cursed. Every once in a while I’d see a soldier’s hand reach for his privates, scratching an itch.
As I urged Alcides forward, he pranced, flicking his ears at the new sounds of the horses around him, the flapping banners, and the lance point on his right flank.
“You sit your horse well, Aleksandr,” said the green-eyed Cossack from my left flank. “You have a fine Circassian waist that sets off the horse.”
The other men laughed.
“He does indeed! Comely as a girl,” said one rider.
I blushed, the rising heat scorching my neck and cheeks. I turned around in my saddle to see my tormenter, the green-eyed Cossack, as tall as Peter the Great.
He laughed, riding his horse flank to flank with Alcides.
“Aleksandr Vasilevich, indeed!” he whispered in my ear.
My blood froze.
He knows I am a girl. A single word from him and I will be sent home. This man, this one could ruin my life.
“Who are you?” I asked him.
“Your worst nightmare, Aleksandr Vasilevich,” he said, spurring his horse forward. He called over his shoulder, “My name is Anatoli Denisov. Don’t you remember me?”
“Should I?”
Denisov threw me a curious look, his brow furrowed. Then he laughed.
“To the right by threes!” shouted the captain.
The men in the front section burst out in song, their rich voices singing the Don Cossacks’ favorite song, “The Soul Is a Good Steed.”
Despite the cold morning, dust spun up on the road under the horses’ hooves. Alcides arched his neck, sensing the excitement. He was my only connection to home.
As we moved southwest toward the Don plains and the Cossacks’ homeland, I left my childhood behind forever.
The officers and I were all quartered together. The canvas tents were set close to one another. I was assigned to the colonel’s tent.
I waited until dark to make water. I felt as if I would burst even though I had been careful not to drink too much from my canteen. I walked from camp in the cover of night to make sure no one could catch sight of me as I squatted in the woods.
As it was already late autumn, I did not worry about undressing in front of the two captains and the colonel who shared the tent. I hoped that I would not dream or call out in the night. I fingered the short tufts of my hair reassuring myself that I looked more boy than girl.
No one spoke when the lantern was snuffed for the night. The men passed gas freely, insulted each other coarsely, and laughed in gruff voices. But there was no real talk. My companions fell asl
eep immediately. I listened to their raucous snores until I, too, fell into a deep sleep.
Before light had pierced the canvas, men stirred beyond our tent flaps. I heard the gurgle of the water poured into the enormous samovars for tea and boiling kasha, and the crackle of the fire. I could hear the stamp and snort of the horses, tethered to their picket lines. As I rubbed the sleep from my eyes, I heard the creak of the hinges of the hay wagon as the feed was pitched to the nickering horses.
My new life had truly started.
I walked down to the stream to wash the soot and dirt from my face. I cupped my hands into the icy water, dousing my face and neck in water. Far downstream I saw a movement. In the pale sunlight was a nude figure, clothes in a heap beside him. It was Denisov bathing. He shook the water from his blond hair like a dog and began rubbing himself dry with his tunic. His muscles formed knots in his back between his shoulder blades, his waist curved in like a scimitar. His left ribs were marked with a pink scar, running from his chest to his back.
I turned my back on him, splashing my face until my cheeks stung. When I looked back he was gone.
We had little time to eat. The kasha was mostly millet and buckwheat, but every day it was different depending on what had been procured from villages as we passed through. Just like the horses’ fodder, our diet depended on what could be requisitioned along the way from begrudging farmers. Often enough our kasha had bits of twigs and chafe in it, even sand and small pebbles.
Still the grains sustained us and I grew lean and muscled. The first few days I saw little of Denisov since he was, as I learned, a scout who rode ahead of our regiment.
At night he squatted in the shadows beyond the light of the campfire, watching me silently, his green eyes hungry as a wolf.
Chapter 19
St. Petersburg
November 1801
Alexander’s bedroom at Mikhailovsky Palace looked out over a grove of linden trees. The torches on the drawbridge below leapt, flaring with gusts of wind. The dancing flames reflected in the dark waters of the moat, orange-yellow against black.
The young grand duke moved away from the cold window and returned to his book, Voltaire’s Brutus, a play greatly admired by his old tutor La Harpe.
Voltaire, the old radical, had maintained a friendship and correspondence with Catherine the Great. Wistful both for his grandmother and for the guidance of his tutor, Alexander read the play to while away the long Russian night.
Now he drew a deep breath, expelling it into the cold air of the room. He remembered a long-ago night, a father and his young son nestled snugly under bearskins, their ears and noses red with the cold.
Alexander was yanked from his reverie by the crash of doors flung open. He jumped to his feet, lunging for his sword. He recognized two personal servants of his father.
And right behind them, the Tsar himself burst through the doorway.
“What are you up to?” demanded Paul. “Planning my demise?”
“Father!” Alexander said, dropping the sword. “All I am doing is reading!”
“Ha! Let me see,” said the Tsar, seizing the book. He scanned the spine. “Ah! Just as I suspected. Voltaire, my mother’s old friend. I know the play too well.”
“Perhaps you can tell me the ending, then,” said Alexander, shaking with both fear and rage. “For I have not finished it, Papa!”
Paul ignored him, flipping through the pages. His hands were brutal, like a dog scratching wildly to unbury a bone.
“Ah! Here it is. ‘Rome is free: that is enough… . Let us give thanks to the gods!’”
“I beg your pardon, Your Majesty?” said Alexander, his fingernails digging into the palms of his hands. “What has that got to do with—”
“Treason! Words to incite rebellion—are you plotting along with others?”
Paul hurled the book to the floor and departed.
Alexander stood stunned, staring at the little book on the Persian rug. He picked it up, holding it with trembling hands.
My father is truly mad!
A few minutes later, Ivan, Paul’s servant, returned.
“Pardon my intrusion, Grand Duke. The Tsar has commanded that I read you a few pages from The Life of Peter the Great.”
“Now?” asked Alexander.
“Yes, Your Excellency. At once.”
Alexander sat down in a chair as the servant remained standing.
“The tsarevitch resented his father…” he began in French.
Alexander immediately recognized the passage. The story of the Tsarevitch Alexis, accused of rebellion against his father, Peter the Great.
“You do not have to finish. I know very well what became of Prince Alexis! I am not wholly ignorant of my family’s—”
The servant continued his reading.
“Tsar Peter persuaded his son to return from sanctuary in Austria under the care of Charles—”
“Yes, yes. The tsarevitch is duped and returns to Russia, thinking his father has forgiven him. Alexis is imprisoned and tortured. He dies in prison. By Christ’s name, stop!”
But Ivan did not pause in his reading until he had finished the passage detailing the exquisite torture and death of Tsarevitch Alexis. When he was done reading the gruesome scene, he closed the book with a thump and bowed as he backed out the door.
Alexander slept little that night. He thought of Pahlen’s conspiratorial whisper, Panin’s glittering eyes.
My father may be mad, but he is right. A plot is afoot, I can smell it. I should join them, what choice do I have? My father will never abdicate. He will murder me first.
My dearest Elise,
I send my brother with this missive in the utmost confidence. My lips pressed the paper in anticipation of touching your beloved hands.
How I grieve not to be by your side and stroke the black curls of our darling baby girl.
My brother tells me that she indeed looks like me, an identical image.
Our baby girl! Never have I had such joy as you have given me. How I long to hold my daughter in my arms again. To hold you, my dearest Elise.
Sardinia’s charms lie not in the court, but the enchanting blue sea that surrounds this island. And the green hills dotted with white sheep remind me of Tuscany.
If only we could walk hand in hand here. I walk the coast alone, the wind tugging at my jacket. I look north, across the sea toward Russia. The wind here blows from the west, but occasionally it turns and comes from the north, fresh and clean—from St. Petersburg, I fancy. It is your breath it carries in its whistling sigh.
Ah, and when I was in Rome—its grand beauty—I thought constantly of you. As I did when I walked along the Arno in Florence. Let me take you to every great city on this planet!
Alexander has written me of another plan, should he become tsar. He wishes to abdicate the throne, not to Constantine but to Nicholas! Then he would divorce you and marry Maria Naryshkina. They would sail on to America where they could live in peace.
And we would be free to marry, my darling Elise, and remain in Russia—or Poland if I could so convince you. I would live anywhere with you, my love.
Please be my wife.
Yours in love always,
Adam
The little Ethiopian door servant was ordered to stand outside the grand duchess’s door. In her hand Elizabeth clutched Adam Czartoryski’s letter, shaking it in rage in her husband’s face.
“Alexander!” The grand duchess began, her voice rising in anger, as soon as the last servant had left her bedchamber. “How dare you confer with Adam Czartoryski before you address me with your plans!”
Alexander walked toward his wife, taking the letter from the grand duchess. He cupped her hands in his.
“What news do you have of our mutual friend? Has he proposed to you?” said Alexander, a broad smile on his face.
Elizabeth dropped her mouth open, aghast.
“Is this really how you intended to break the news of a divorce? How dare you—”
<
br /> Alexander squeezed his wife’s hands gently.
“Elizabeth! I have been honest with you from the beginning. I have no wish to be tsar. I see what it has done to my father—he’s raving mad, crazed with power! I want to live a simple life.”
Elizabeth stared at her husband, incredulous.
“Along with Adam Czartoryski, I have no truer friend than you, ” he said.
Elizabeth tore her hands from his as if they were on fire.
“I don’t want to be your friend, Alexander! I don’t want to be left behind in Russia, a divorced empress. Take me to America, not that Polish whore!”
“I will not allow you to insult her, Elise,” said Alexander, the kindness melting from his face. “She and I live together as man and wife. She will have a child soon.”
Elizabeth turned away, hiding her face.
“How you torture me, Alexander! You do this because I cannot conceive with you. But you are so rarely in my bed, how can I?”
Alexander’s face contorted in anguish.
“Elise!” he groaned. “How can I make you understand! I do this because I am not meant to be an emperor. You know me, my darling. I am not the strong man Russia craves, the iron fist she needs!”
“But what of the reforms you planned?”
For a moment, a smile touched his lips.
“Yes, Russia needs reforms … badly. Oh, Elise! Don’t torture me. You know how I love my country.”
“Yet you talk of abandoning it!” she said. “And running off with a Polish countess who is already married.”
“I can’t stay here and rule. I’m not my grandmother, strong and ruthless. I’m not even my father, who is an impossible tyrant. Russia has grown accustomed to a rough hand on the reins.
“I want to live a simple life, free from the wars and the politics that a tsar must contend with every second of his life. And I want to be monogamous—”
“Oh, Alexander! How long will that last?” Elizabeth jerked her tear-damp chin up at him. “Until you see a pretty actress or a new lady at court you have not bedded down?”
Alexander’s jaw tightened. He began to pace the room, his hands clasped behind his back.
He stopped, looking into his wife’s eyes.
The Girl Who Fought Napoleon: A Novel of the Russian Empire Page 9