The Girl Who Fought Napoleon: A Novel of the Russian Empire

by Linda Lafferty

  This was not the end of the adventure. After the maneuvers, Major General Dymchevich, the battalion commander, sent for me. He rode with me apart from the other cavalrymen.

  “Alexandrov! You fell off your horse!”

  “Sir, the horse threw me. Captain Podjampolsky mounted me on a half-broke stallion! The scabbard tore from—”

  “Alexandrov! You fell from your horse. A Hussar only falls with his horse, not off it!”

  I made up my mind to ride only Alcides from that day on. To hell with these other nags!

  I wrote to Count Lieven to ask the emperor for leave. It had been three long years since I had left my father’s house. I knew that since I had been so recently attached to the Mariupol Hussars, there was little chance of being granted leave without some special intervention.

  I took my chance writing to the emperor, but he had instructed me to let him know of any desire I had.

  This did not play well with the new commander in chief, Baron Egor Meller-Zakomelsky. He ordered me to headquarters, asking why I had bypassed the chain of command to apply for leave to the emperor himself.

  “The emperor requested—no, sir, ordered!—that I keep him informed of any requirement. I knew that this was the only way I could be granted leave as soon as possible.”

  The commander in chief was astonished at my candid reply. How could he argue with the Tsar? He was left sputtering.

  “Report to Count Suvorov in Dubno for your travel orders.”

  As I left, I heard the commander remark to his orderly: “Lieutenant Alexandrov hides behind the Tsar’s coattails.”

  The remark struck me like the flat side of a saber.

  I vowed then and there I would never depend on the emperor’s protection again. I would be my own man.

  I reported to Count Suvorov, still embarrassed about my last encounter with him when I had disappeared down the Lutsk road astride old Lop Ear.

  “Ah, Alexandrov! We meet again,” he said, clapping his hand around my shoulder. “Yes, I have your travel orders. But they won’t take effect until the day after my grand ball. You shall be my special guest. It is a Moroccan affair, you see. No chance I will let you slip away before that!”

  He clapped me once more on the back and strode away.

  Indeed there was much going on about us as we spoke. Dust spun with the sweeping and cleaning of the mansion. I joined many officers of my regiment, and we stood drinking tea.

  “Please move back, gentlemen,” said a serf.

  “What now?” said a colonel next to me.

  To our surprise a cartload of straw was unloaded in the room. Serfs raked the straw evenly, and then Moroccan rugs were spread on top of it. Velvet cushions were strewn here and there. Suddenly we stood in an Arabian palace!

  I thought of how playful this count was, how eccentric. His father, the best-known general in Russian history, had defeated the Eastern invaders, while now his son entertained his troops and Polish and Ukrainian society with Arabian trappings.

  The count charmed everyone. The Polish women, fine ladies dressed in their evening gowns, flocked around Suvorov, despite his occasionally bizarre statements. He did not seem to censor anything he said.

  Noticing me not dancing or even approaching the beautiful women, the count inquired what was the matter with me.

  Before I could answer, my commander, Stankovich, interjected.

  “Alexander Alexandrov approach the ladies? Oh, no, Count. He is afraid of them, you see. I think he knows nothing of relations with them.”

  I blushed purple. Stankovich winked at the count.

  “You see!”

  I shall kill you in your sleep, Stankovich!

  “Really?” said the count. “Well come along with me, Alexandrov. We will have to remedy the situation.”

  Oh, God of mercy!

  I followed the count as he approached one of the most charming ladies there, the young princess Lubomirska.

  Bowing to her, he presented me saying, “À la vue de ses fraîches couleurs vous pouvez bien deviner qu’il n’a pas encore perdu sa virginité.” With one look at his fresh color, you can easily tell he has not yet lost his virginity.

  I winced, shrinking up inside my uniform like a scalded snail.

  The princess took this all in jest, a faint smile visible on her lovely face. She rapped the impertinent count on his forearm with her fan.

  The first chance I could find, I retired from the ball. It was well after midnight and I was exhausted—and frightened. Stankovich was right in saying I feared women. I really did. A woman seemed able to stare at me for only a minute and guess my secret.

  I was determined to try to avoid contact with them. My future in the cavalry was too much at risk from women’s prying eyes. I hurried away from the hall, anxious to return to my pallet, taking refuge in sleep.

  That night I dreamt of the stranger again, the strange images and sounds returning.

  Hands grope for me in the dark, seeking my nipples through my nightdress. “You play at being a boy astride a horse,” he says. “I’ll show you how much a woman you are.”

  He kisses my lips, my neck, my breasts. I shiver in the cold mountain air.

  I don’t refuse. I am transfixed. No one has ever shown me such passion. Ever.

  He cups my buttocks with his hands, pushing himself into me. I throw back my head and cry out, but the only sound is the sudden flutter of wings of the frightened birds overhead, roosting in the thick foliage of summer.

  My nightgown is torn and bloody. I don’t know how I will explain this to my maid Ludmilla or to my mother.

  But all I can think of is, will I ever see him again.

  Dreams so real I could swear they were truth.

  Chapter 40

  Sarapul, Russia

  March 1810

  Three and a half years had passed since I left my father’s home. Riding Alcides in the darkness, I reached the hill looking down on the town of Sarapul. It was after midnight but still far from dawn. The stars shone bright and clear over the silent town and the slow-moving river.

  I reined in Alcides, gazing down over the sleeping town.

  “Do you remember when we left this place, Alcides?”

  Obviously he did. He pawed anxiously with his left hoof.

  I gave him a loose rein and he trotted ahead, knowing the way home.

  We arrived in pitch darkness. The gates were locked. I tied Alcides to a post and prowled the walls. Along the palisade I found my old escape hole, where four stakes were loose.

  The memory of a little girl in a white linen chemise slipping out in the night … I smiled as I crawled in my Hussar uniform through the gap. Now I was swarthy from the sun, my face more oval and my body muscular. I had lost any traces of softness and femininity I had in my youth.

  I brushed the soil from my precious uniform and unlocked the gate. I put Alcides in the stall and made my way up to the house.

  All the windows and doors were locked. I didn’t want to rap on the shutters of my little brother or sisters’ room as I would scare them.

  Our two dogs, Mars and Mustupa, charged me, but their growls dissolved into joyful squeals of recognition. They leaped up to lick my face, entwining themselves in my legs. I knocked on doors as the dogs scratched the wood. After long minutes, Natalja, my mother’s maid, answered.

  “Who’s there?”

  “It’s me, Natalja! Nadezhda.”

  She opened the door, then froze staring at me.

  Her eyes wondered from my saber to my Hussar uniform to my face. Then back to the uniform.

  “Aren’t you going to let me in, Natalja? Some homecoming!”

  “Is it really you, mistress?”

  “Don’t you recognize me, Natalja?”

  “Recognize you?” she gasped. “Never! If it weren’t for your voice, I would not believe it to be you at all. What rich clothes! Are you a general?” She reached out to touch my gold braid and fur-lined collar. Her fingers lingered on my uniform
as if she were blind.

  “Natalja … Please. Could you make up a bed for me? I am cold and exhausted.”

  “Tea, miss … Madame? Oh, dear … what shall I call you?”

  “What everyone else does. Sir.”

  She gave a worried look. “I don’t think I shall ever get used to that, miss. Or sir.”

  She wandered off, muttering, to prepare the tea and see to the bed.

  In the morning, after a few hours’ sleep, I went to the parlor in my white uniform with gold braid. My father sat in his old embroidered chair, drinking his tea. He gasped as I entered.

  I fell to my knees, embracing his feet. I kissed his hands. Overcome with emotion I could not utter a word.

  He pulled me to his breast and hugged me tight. “You don’t look like a woman at all, Nadya! How you have changed! Your uniform—the Cross of St. George!”

  My little brother Vasily came in. He threw himself into my arms, his eyes wide in wonder.

  “Look at how you’ve grown, little brother!” I said. “In three years time, I’ll take you with me to join the Hussars!”

  “Will you?” he cried.

  “No,” said my father. “God forbid! You have followed your chosen path, my daughter. Leave Vasinka here with me for the consolation of my old age.”

  I pressed my lips together tight. I felt the emptiness in the house, the palpable absence of my mother.

  “I’m sorry, Papa,” I said. “I never told either of you good-bye.”

  As I turned to leave the room, Vasily whispered in my ear. “I will go with you!”

  I nodded my head, not uttering a word. After all the heartache I had caused my father, I was going to take his only true son away to war.

  Chapter 41

  Winter Palace, St. Petersburg

  January 1811

  A blond boy rides his pony alongside a black-clad stranger. No matter how he tries, the boy cannot not see the face hidden under the stranger’s dark hood. They ride to a knoll overlooking a battlefield.

  Bloody corpses lie strewn in the early summer grass. Crows circle overhead, a few daring to light on soldiers’ bodies. The cannons blast, blowing holes in the ground, unexpected geysers of black earth. Horses and cavalrymen disappear into the clouds of dust, erupting from the blasts. When the dust settles, horses and riders lie still, like wooden toys knocked down by an angry fist.

  Then there are no soldiers, no horses. Only silence and death.

  The boy turns, hearing the three-beat gallop of a single horse.

  A single slender-waisted uhlan rides his mount forward through the ghostly plain, screaming, “Hurrah!”

  The boy looks up to the hooded horseman, his brow knit in inquiry.

  “Who is he?”

  Finally the shrouded man speaks: “One who deceived her father, but did not murder him.”

  The boy draws back in horror, his heart thudding in his chest. He looks up at the shrouded man.

  The rider draws back his hood, exposing his battered face and a fat, purple tongue that slurred his words. “You hold the reins, my son. What is your plan?”

  The boy looks down and sees the reins crumble to chunks of mud in his hands.

  “Was it worth my sacrifice?” wails the man. “Now you have made peace with Napoleon, just as I did!”

  Alexander woke, choking out a half-born scream. His eyes snapped open to see a white flash and then a dark shadow scuttle just beyond the foot of the bed.

  “Who goes there?” he shouted.

  The guards always present at his door heard his shout and burst into the room, guns and flashing sabers at the ready.

  “Your Majesty!” said one. “Is everything all right?”

  The valet sleeping in the adjacent room turned up the wick in the gas lamp, sending giant shadows of the guardsmen leaping on the walls of the bedchamber.

  “A dream, I think,” said Alexander. He ran his fingers through his hair, trying to collect his thoughts. “Yes, a nightmare. Send for—”

  “Your Majesty?”

  “Send for—”

  Adam Czartoryski.

  “No one. Never mind!” said the Tsar, running his fingers through his sweat-drenched hair. “I am fine. Leave me.”

  There was no one to tell. Alexander had dismissed his three most trusted ministers. His Committee of Friends was dissolved. Adam Czartoryski was banished to Poland.

  There was no confidant—other than the tsarina—whom he trusted with so intimate a memory.

  Alexander’s hand shook with rage as he held the letter from his sister Ekaterina.

  My Dearest Angel Brother,

  What are we to do? The monster Napoleon has seized the duchy of Oldenburg from my father-in-law. We have become French subjects overnight! What of my family, my children? You can see that appeasement and overtures to this French beast have rendered us helpless. Did you not secure a guarantee that Oldenburg would remain free?

  What can be done? For my children’s sake!

  Your loving sister who adores you above all others,

  Katia

  Alexander’s teeth clenched until his jaw ached. Despite their accord, Napoleon had pushed further to the north and east into Poland, and now the duchy of his sister’s husband.

  Two can play at duplicity. The devil with Napoleon!

  Chapter 42

  Palais de Tuileries, Paris

  January 1811

  Sleet panged against the tall narrow windows. Napoleon looked out at the puddles forming on the brick pavement. Long wet fingers of water running down the glass distorted the view of the trees and the perfect symmetry of the Tuileries gardens just beyond the gate.

  At the entrance to the palace, horses had left mud behind on the bricks as they returned to the stable. Their hooves had carried soft, wet earth from some unpaved Parisian street to the very doors of his palace. The muck was shaped into small pools from the impression of horseshoes. The emperor smiled as he gazed down at the small muddy mounds smeared across the pavement.

  He thought of the thousands upon thousands of hoofprints, churning up the loamy soil and grass of the battlefield.

  Napoleon sniffed the air of the palace and wrinkled his nose.

  The air is stale. Even the potpourri smells ancient, like the incense in Notre Dame. Old and dead.

  I am not a man for palaces. I wrap myself in red velvet and ermine and wear a crown for a portrait. I am the emperor of France! But my bones ache to lie in a canvas bed, close to the snorting horses, soldiers’ talk, and the crackling fires the night before a battle.

  Too long in Paris, I become Samson shorn of his hair.

  Napoleon touched his fingers to his scalp.

  I must return to the battlefield. I need to smell the piss of horses, the acrid smell of gunpowder. I need to hear “Vive l’empereur!” from the soldiers, dying for me, for France!

  The emperor swallowed and moved his tongue in his mouth trying to taste the pungent flavors of war, of battle. That taste, gunpowder and smoke, had always meant victory to him. Napoleon had a craving for that sweet savor.

  A deadly craving.

  Coming back to Paris after a victory filled Napoleon with satisfying glory, like a good meal filled his belly. Seeing his pretty young wife, Marie Louise, and their infant son—the king of Rome—gave him a depth of pleasure and tenderness he thought he was not capable of, a battle-scarred general in his forties.

  But after a fortnight or two he found himself longing for the sounds, scents, and sights of the battlefield. He felt his stature shrink, a small man in Paris. Astride a horse he was taller and mightier than any general alive.

  I shall invade Russia, damn them! If I do not conquer the northern bear, our Grand Armée will at the very least decimate its troops. Then I shall have no more trouble with Tsar Alexander.

  Summer. Early summer, when the rivers have thawed and our army can live off the land. We’ll be home in Paris before autumn.

  Napoleon smiled down at the wet bricks below. The mud had
diluted in the downpour, its last traces slowly washing away.

  Armand de Caulaincourt, the French ambassador to St. Petersburg, was recalled to serve as aide-de-camp to Napoleon. The emperor needed his intimate knowledge of Russia and Tsar Alexander in order to plan his new war.

  For five hours, Caulaincourt tried to dissuade the French emperor.

  “Your Majesty! The Russians, their devotion to nation—they are like no others. They will never capitulate. Never, Your Majesty!

  “Alexander has capitulated before. He shall again.”

  Caulaincourt bowed. “With all respect, sire. I think it will be different if we invade their homeland. The tsar is sure the serfs and all Russians alike will fight in militias in addition to the regular army.”

  “What impertinence! Did you sit in the tsar’s presence and let him prattle on? Tell me you objected, or I shall think you do not represent France’s dignity!”

  “Tsar Alexander said, ‘I shall not be the first to draw my sword, but I shall be the last to sheathe it.’ I excused myself from dinner at these words, but the sentiments are clear.”

  “Empty threats! I know Alexander. He hasn’t the character nor courage to withstand the Grand Armée. He has proved that more than once.”

  Caulaincourt shook his head. “My emperor, I dare say Alexander has changed in the years since Tilsit. He challenges you by aligning with England and breaking the embargo. He stands up against us for the duchy of Oldenburg. I beg you not to underestimate him or the Russian people. Or the Russian winter.”

  “We shall attack quickly and defeat the Russians. I will wait until summer to commence. The Grand Armée will not feel the pinch of a Russian winter for we will have finished the war long before the leaves change. One good battle, a decisive thrashing, will see the end of all your friend Alexander’s fine resolutions—they will be battered like sand castles under a wave!”

  Napoleon poured himself a glass of cognac, draining it without offering Ambassador Caulaincourt a drop.

  “You seem to have become more Russian than French in your lengthy residence in St. Petersburg. What else did your precious Alexander say regarding possible war?”