The wanton princess rb-8

by Dennis Wheatley

  'Indeed! But I take it that British travellers are still free to come and go without interference?'

  'Provided they behave themselves, to interfere with their liberty, either in peace or war, would be an unheard-of barbarity. But I would advise that you keep a guard upon your tongue, and so give the Secret Police no cause to apprehend you for “Lese-majeste".'

  The chaplain was a bachelor so there were only the two of them at supper, and over the meal the Reverend James gave Roger an account of Paul I's earlier life and of the frustra­tions that it was generally accepted had caused his weak mind to brood for years upon revenge then, when he had at last ascended the throne, had made him a tyrannical despot.

  It was not until he was forty-two that he had succeeded his lecherous, but great and liberal-minded mother. From boy­hood she had kept him in a state of tutelage and denied him any say in the government of the country. For years the great nobles and ambassadors had fawned on Catherine's lovers while treating her Heir Apparent with ill-concealed contempt. She had even taken his children from him and permitted him no say in their upbringing.

  The only liberty she allowed him was to play at soldiers. Like his father, Peter III, he was fascinated by the military achievements of Frederick the Great: so Catherine had per­mitted him to form his own regiment of Marines at Gatshina, his country place at which he passed a good part of the year.

  There he had spent eight to ten hours a day drilling his miniature army on the Prussian model and enforcing the harshest discipline.

  When he succeeded his mother in November '96, he had at once sent for his Marines, infiltrated them into the Brigade of Guards and promoted their officers to senior commands in these elite regiments. Before the nobles who officered the Brigade fully realized what was happening they found that they were under the thumbs of the newcomers. All leave was abolished and favoured courtier-officers, who had attended only one drill a year, were ordered to march up and down the barrack squares for hours at a stretch. Those who resigned were promptly sent into exile.

  Once firmly in the saddle, Paul had changed the aspect of the Court overnight and, out of hatred for his mother, reversed all her policies. Her last favourite, Pluto Zuboff, had been deprived of most of his possessions and exiled to his country estate. Rastopchin had been one of the few ministers to retain his place: but only because formerly he had had the forethought to solicit the favour of wearing the uniform that Paul had designed for his Gatshina regiment.

  Under the new regime, familiarity with Gatshina or past loyalty to Paul's father had become the only passports to promotion. The latter had never been crowned, so Paul had his body dug up, crowned in its coffin and laid in state beside that of the dead Empress who had instigated his murder; then the whole Court was required to kiss the hands of both corpses before they were buried side by side.

  In the first months of his reign he gained some reputation for clemency by liberating the great Polish leader Kosciuszko and a number of other people whom his mother had imprisoned but, being strongly opposed to revolutionary ideas, he had initiated a ferocious and senseless persecution of the French exiles living in Russia; and had banned the use of French books, furniture, cooking and fashions, to the intense annoyance of his nobility whose culture was almost exclusively derived from France. Another of his pointless and infuriating orders had been that all carriage-owners had to buy a different type of harness and equip their coachmen in the German style. The Russian coachmen refused to part either with their kaftans or their beards; and the price of new harness soon became prohibitive, because the Czar had instructed his police that, after a fortnight, they were to cut the harness of any carriage on which the old style Russian harness was still being used. The upper classes had even greater cause for rage when he revived an old ukase decreeing that whenever a Czar or Czarina drove through the streets, everyone within sight must immediately abase themselves. This meant that even ladies in carriages must stop them, jump out and prostrate themselves in the snow or slush.

  The lower classes, too. had cause for complaint. One of Paul's inexplicable idiosyncrasies was a hatred of round hats, and these were the general wear of the masses in Russia. After decreeing their abolition he gave orders to his police that any round hat they saw was to be snatched from the head of its wearer and destroyed: and many of the poorer people could not afford to buy others.

  More recently, following his revival the previous summer of the League of Armed Neutrality, he had prohibited all trade with Rritain. As Russia was almost entirely an agricul­tural country she had to import nine-tenths of her manufac­tured goods, and for close on two hundred years by far the greater part of these had come from England. Their present dearth was inflicting a considerable hardship on all classes of people and greatly increasing the rancour against the Czar.

  Having listened to all this and more, Roger could only wonder that the Russians had put up with their crazy monarch for so long; but on reflection he realized that the masses, being bond slaves, would have been put down immediately by the military with the full backing of the nobility had they attempted to revolt, and that it was so ingrained in the upper classes to think of 'The Little Father' as almost an embodiment of God that they would never dare unite and openly defy him. Clearly the only hope of bringing his tyrannical reign to an end was by a coup d'etat carried out inside the Palace by a few courageous men.

  When Roger entered the city, the early winter darkness had already fallen, so it was not until the following morning that he again saw it by daylight. Unlike Paris, London and other ancient capitals, St. Petersburg having been built less than a hundred years before by Peter the Great, instead of having narrow, tortuous streets with the upper storeys of the houses nearly meeting overhead, had fine, broad boulevards lined with splendid mansions of stone.

  As he was driven at a good pace along the Nevsky Prospect in a droshky. while enjoying the crisp clean air he recalled the names of several of the owners of the palaces but noticed that most of them were now shut, and that in the streets there was not a quarter of the handsome equipages that were to be seen in Catherine the Great's day.

  He was carrying on him a letter from Count Simon Vorontzoff to his elder brother, Count Alexander, and when he reached the Vorontzoff palace he was considerably relieved to find it still occupied. Having left his letter at the door he spent an hour driving round the city, made a few purchases and returned to the Factory. That evening a running footman brought him a reply in which Count Alexander invited him to breakfast the following morning.

  There were several people present at the meal and, as Russian gentry used Russian only when addressing their ser­vants, habitually using French. English or German among themselves, Roger had no difficulty in entering into the con­versation. For a pleasant hour they talked of general topics or of mutual acquaintances, cither that Roger had met on his previous visit to St. Petersburg or that Count Alexander had made when for a short while during the reign of Peter III he had been Ambassador in London. Then, as Roger was about to take his leave he asked the Count in a low voice if he would give him a private interview, to which Vorontzoff replied softly, 'By all means. Leave with the others and return in half an hour.'

  When Roger again entered the house he was taken to a small writing room, and there he told the Count the purpose of his mission.

  As soon as he had finished, the Russian said. 'Mr. Brook, I must warn you that you are courting very grave danger. Should the faintest suspicion of your intentions get out you would find yourself locked up in a fortress for life.'

  Roger smiled, ‘I am aware of that, sir; and having had some experience of similar affairs you may be sure that I shall exercise the utmost caution. But, I pray you. tell me your view of the prospects of achieving such a coup.'

  'Many people would welcome it. There can be no doubt about that. His Imperial Majesty is mad beyond question, and now dangerously so. For the sake of Russia he should be deposed. In fact if he is not, the country will be utterly ruine
d. I take it you are acquainted with the history of his short reign?'

  'As far as a foreigner can be, sir. I know, of course, that he began by being ardently anti-French and sent his army under your great General, Suvoroff, to reconquer Italy; then, after Suvoroff's brilliantly successful campaign, the Emperor of Austria so misused his army that the Czar broke with the Austrians and recalled his forces. After the breach ...'

  'Do you know what has happened to General Suvoroff since?' the Count put in.

  'No, sir, I have no idea.'

  'When he was bringing his army back to Russia, His Imperial Majesty decreed that the General's entry into St. Petersburg should be a triumph equal to that any Caesar had enjoyed, made him a present of many thousands of serfs and loaded him with decorations and jewels. When Suvoroff reached Riga he received a despatch by courier. It told him that the Czar had deprived him of the command of the army, of his rank as a Field Marshal, of all his decorations and of all his property. And this without any reason what­soever. Suvoroff followed his army back a broken man. He refuses to see anyone or receive help from his friends, and now lies dying in a hovel.’

  'Can this be true?' Roger exclaimed aghast. 'The great Suvoroff! The Empress Catherine's most successful General! The hero that all Russia has taken to its heart! I wonder that the whole army did not mutiny at such treatment of its beloved veteran leader.'

  Vorontzoff shrugged, "Tis true enough, and it's not that alone that the army has to complain about. Formerly the troops wore a comfortable uniform suited to campaigning in all weathers: a pair of roomy pantaloons with the ends tucked into boots of soft leather, a loose jacket and hair cut short at the back of the neck below a round helmet. Under such a costume they could wear either thick underclothes or only a thin shirt as was best suited to the climate. But our crazy Czar has altered all that. He has put them into uni­forms of the German pattern, such as he designed for his Marines at Gatshina. Now they must wear tight tail coats and skin-tight breeches, whether or not they shiver in the cold, long gaiters that cramp the legs, tall shakos that do not balance easily on the head and, a thing they hate above all, grow their back hair long then bedaub it with grease and flour to make it into a queue.'

  'Then 'tis certain we'd meet with no opposition from the army.'

  'From the army. no. But it is scattered far and wide. The capital is garrisoned by the Brigade of Guards. There are ten thousand of them and the majority of the officers and non­-commissioned officers were formerly Gatshina Marines, so are loyal to the Emperor.'

  'Then,' said Roger, 'if 'tis to be done at all, as I expected, it will have to be concerted within the Palace and the troops presented with a fait accompli. What is the situation there?'

  Vorontzoff sadly shook his head. 'In recent years it has changed from a gay and happy meeting place, where the Empress Catherine gave a warmer welcome to artists, philosophers and literary men than they received at any other Court in Europe, into a vast, gloomy fortress hedged about with every form of defence against surprise attack. And through the empty corridors there now stalk bigotry, suspi­cion, cruelty and fear.'

  'Your description implies that the Czar already fears that the people may revolt against him.'

  'I imagine so; why otherwise these defences he has caused to be erected round his palace? One thing is certain. Fearing the same fate that befell his father may overtake him, he is now suspicious of everyone—even of his wife and sons.'

  'Think you, sir, that they might be glad to sec him put where he can do no further harm, and so be inclined to assist us?'

  ‘I greatly doubt it. The Czarina Maria has suffered much. While at Gatshina he used to keep her sitting for hours upon a horse, often in pouring rain, upon a hill-top, simply as a marker of the place he wished his Marines to attack in some mock battle. She is one of the most lovely women at the Court of St. Petersburg, but he pays her scant attention. Nevertheless, she is of a faithful disposition and I think it unlikely that she would ever participate in a conspiracy against him. As for his sons, the Czarevitch is a charming young man. He could become an admirable ruler, but he is of such an upright nature that I feel sure he would not lend himself to deposing his father. His brother, the Grand Duke Constantine, I urge you to beware of. He is a fool and a loud­mouthed braggart, so all the odds are that by some indiscre­tion he would betray you.'

  'What of Mademoiselle Niledoff?' Roger asked. ‘I have heard it said that after having been the Czar's mistress for many years she has recently been displaced by a Made­moiselle Lopukhina. Out of jealousy, might she not perhaps give us her aid?'

  'Have you ever met her?' the Count enquired with a smile.

  'No, sir. I was little more than a youth when last in St. Petersburg, and that was near thirteen years ago.'

  'You have lost nothing then. She is ugly and diminutive; squints, spits while she is talking and swears like a trooper. Apparently such conduct appeals to our military-minded master and after a day's manoeuvres they often get drunk together. But despite the Czar's new fancy for the Lopukhina, the Niledorf still has a hold on him; and without him she would be nothing, so it would be ill-advised to approach her.'

  'Has he men favourites as well as women?'

  'Indeed, yes. Apparently it gives him pleasure to raise up low-born servants and watch them being insolent to their betters. There is one in particular, his Turkish barber, a man named Ivan Pavlovitch. The fellow was a slave brought up in his house but now the Czar will do nothing that does not meet with this creature's approval, and has actually made him a Privy Councillor.'

  'What of his Ministers, sir? Do you believe them to be loyal to him?"

  'They would be as mad as he is did they not wish for a change of master. When in his presence the unpredictability of his mind keeps them in a state of constant fear. On being received in audience, should they fail to kiss his hand so fervidly that the smack of their lips on it is heard throughout the chamber he may impute to them a secret reluctance to pay him proper homage, fly into one of his violent rages and instantly deprive them of their fortunes. During this past year he has sent not a few but hundreds of officials into exile.'

  'That being so there must be much suitable material to our hand.'

  Vorontzoff shook his head, 'Perhaps to yours, Mr. Brook; but not to "ours". You must not count on my aid in this, because my circumstances are peculiar. Under the Emperor Peter I was a Minister and served him faithfully. I played no part in the coup d'etat which led to his death, neither did I support his wife Catherine's usurpation. For that she never forgave me: so during her reign I lived in retirement. Upon the present Czar's coming to the throne, he recalled my loyalty to his father and on that account behaved most hand­somely to my house, showering both myself and my brother with rich gifts.'

  'My brother's situation is somewhat different from mine. Having lived for fifteen years in England he has become much enamoured of your country and has made the cause of Britain his own. As long as Russia continued to be at war with France he was entirely happy: but then, as we must in fairness admit, the Czar had some grounds for becoming dissatisfied with his ally. As the elected Grand Prior of the

  Knights of Malta, to become sovereign of that island meant a great deal to him; but your country refused him that satisfac­tion. There was then the matter of the Russian force sent to Holland and its shocking mishandling by the Duke of York. Those, too, who succeeded in getting away with such English as escaped were sent to the Channel Islands and have since been treated as little better than prisoners. On that head I may mention that Bonaparte acted very differently. The Rus­sians captured by the French in Holland were, in truth, prisoners of war; yet the First Consul not only sent them home without requiring an exchange, but had every man furnished with a new uniform before doing so.'

  Roger smiled. 'Such a gesture was typical of both the generosity General Bonaparte displays at times and of his cunning. Agreeing, though, that the Emperor Paul had some grounds for dissatisfaction with Britain, and has now
become so bewitched by the First Consul that he is determined to join him in his war against us, that has no bearing upon the facts, admitted by yourself, that the Czar is no longer competent to govern and has become a menace to his people.'

  'There I agree. I was pointing out only that whereas my brother's love of England has overcome his gratitude for the benefits his master has bestowed upon him, so that he has at least tacitly encouraged you to undertake your present mis­sion, I still consider myself bound by the benefits I have received from H's Imperial Majesty to keep aloof from any attempt to bring about his ruin.'

  'I appreciate your scruples, sir.' Roger replied quietly. Then, feeling that in the circumstances it would not be right to ask the Count for the names of any highly-placed men who might aid him, much disappointed, he shortly afterwards took his leave.

  Tile next day being Sunday, he borrowed a pair of skates and went down to the Neva where a considerable number of people were skating on their own or propelling ladies in sledges swiftly over the ice. He had not been there long before he ran into a Captain Muriavieff, whom he had met the previous day when breakfasting with Vorontzoff. When they had talked for a while as they glided over the ice side by side, the Captain invited him to a stag party that he was giving that evening, and Roger gladly accepted.

  On his arrival at Muriavieff's apartment he found a dozen or more men assembled there, most of whom were officers of the Semenourki Guards. The Punch was mixed and they gaily set about an evening's drinking. By eleven o'clock they were on their fifth bowl of Punch, singing lustily and already slightly tipsy. It was then that a newcomer entered and, as he came into the room, a sudden embarrassed silence fell. Won­dering at its cause, Roger looked at the tall, pale-faced young man, who was obviously very drunk indeed, and saw that although he was wearing the uniform of an officer it lacked both sash and epaulettes.