The Tsarina's Daughter (Reading Group Gold)

by Carolly Erickson

  The first thing Nikandr noticed, when Michael approached him, was the dagger hanging from Michael’s belt.

  “Ah! A khinjal! So you’re a Georgian, are you?”

  “From Daghestan, originally—though my family has lived in Tiflis for nine years now, and we are settled there.”

  “Watch out for Georgians, Tania,” Nikandr teased. “They’re all wild murderers. They fought us Cossacks for a hundred years.” Then turning to Michael, he asked his name.

  “Michael Gradov.”

  “But Gradov is a Russian name, not Georgian.”

  “My father’s clan name was Gamkrelidze, but he had it changed to Gradov.”

  “Very wise. Russians are frightened of Georgians.”

  “That’s what you said, Michael, when you were in the hospital. When you were delirious. You said, ‘Russians fear Georgians.’ ”

  He grinned. “I wonder what else I said.”

  “Michael was wounded in a battle outside of Riga,” I told Nikandr. “He has been at our hospital for many weeks. Now he’s nearly well.”

  “And he wants to make himself useful,” Michael added, interrupting me. “Tania tells me you are shorthanded in the stables.”

  Nikandr sighed. “We are shorthanded everywhere. All the strong men have gone off to the war, and”—here he crossed himself—“hardly any of them have come back. Even my youngest stable lads, may the Lord preserve them, left last fall and only one of them came home, and that one had only one leg.”

  “I have two legs, and two good arms besides. I was born in the saddle, my father likes to say. Tania has heard me repeat this many times. I know horses, and I love them. I’m a fair carpenter as well. I can hammer and saw and wrench out a nail. What do you say, can you use me?”

  “Why don’t we ask the master? Our Imperial Majesty has summoned me to Mogilev, where the army headquarters are. Come along with me. I can use your help with the horses on the journey.”

  Thirty-six

  I had not seen papa or Alexei in months, and had no difficulty convincing mama to let me go to the military command headquarters at Mogilev to visit them. Marie and Anastasia wanted to come too, as they missed papa and our brother as much as I did, but mama said no. Olga professed to miss papa and Alexei but it was obvious that she preferred to stay near Victor, the officer she flirted with and who she thought might marry her. (I could have told her she was wrong about Victor, but it would have been pointless; she would not have listened to me.)

  “There is fighting near the staff headquarters,” mama said when Marie and Anastasia pleaded with her to let them go with me. “I do not want my girls to get hurt.”

  “If Tania goes, she might get hurt,” Anastasia said, “so why do you let her go?”

  “Because she is old enough now to take such risks. Besides, Nikandr will protect her.”

  “And Michael,” Marie added before I could stop her.

  “Michael? Who is Michael?” Mama was suddenly on alert.

  “My patient,” I said before Marie could call him “my love.”

  “The one Father Gregory’s stick healed. He is one of our stable lads now, and will be going with us to visit papa and Alexei.”

  Niuta, who was folding mama’s handkerchiefs in a corner of the room, cleared her throat noisily at this.

  “Yes, Niuta?” mama said. “You have something to say?”

  “No, nothing.” Her tone indicated the opposite.

  “Were you hoping I would send you to Mogilev with Tania?”

  “I will do as Your Imperial Highness commands.”

  Niuta knew all about Michael and me. She had heard about him from Daria, and as soon as she found out from Nikandr that I had brought a handsome young Georgian to see him, she insisted on meeting Michael and judging him for herself. He told me about their conversation afterward, laughing and shaking his head over how she had interrogated him.

  “Your Niuta is worse than the matchmakers in Tiflis,” he said. “She demanded to know if I had a wife, if I had ever been in jail, how I met you, and what my intentions are in trifling with your affections, as she put it. She was not at all happy when I pointed out to her—in a teasing way, of course—that if I were a villain I would hardly answer her questions honestly.”

  In the end all was settled and preparations were made for the journey. Niuta was to accompany me as my maid. Nikandr would gather supplies and fresh horses to be taken to the officers’ camp. It was arranged that a troop of Cuirassier guards would accompany us, as we would be passing through a dangerous stretch of territory where the Russian army was in retreat and a large force of Germans and Austrians was advancing in pursuit of them.

  A warm autumn rain was falling the day we left Tsarskoe Selo, and mists rose before us as we traveled southwestward through marshy country and along the banks of slow moving streams. I rode in a closed carriage with Niuta sitting opposite me, and Michael rode along beside the carriage, a dashing figure in his high boots, tall fur hat and long tunic, his khinjal hanging from his waist. The muddy, unpaved roads were crowded with soldiers and equipment, entire families of villagers with carts high-piled with furnishings, chickens in cages and small children clinging to the swaying loads.

  “Poor wretches,” Niuta remarked, echoing my thoughts. “I know how it is for them. My family had to leave Pokrovsky with everything we owned twice when I was a girl. Once in a terrible winter when the wolves came, and once when your grandfather’s tax collectors were after us.”

  “But you went back.”

  “After much hardship, yes. Both times. In the end we had nowhere else to go. My mother’s cousins took us in and protected us from the wolves and the tax collectors.”

  We were on the roads many days, our progress hindered by the other travelers, their vehicles, their cows and goats—all of them, human and animal, going the opposite way from us. They were all going away from the fighting, we were going toward it.

  The farther we went, the more the countryside showed evidence of war—entire settlements burned to the ground, crops withered and dying in the untended fields, new graves hastily dug and unmarked save for a stark wooden cross.

  “German swine,” I heard the Cuirassiers swear as we passed these horrors, and I thought I detected more than hatred in their outcries, I thought I detected fear.

  As we neared Mogilev we heard, in the far distance, the rumbling and booming of artillery and saw companies of our soldiers on the march. Their ranks were thin, the men were gaunt-faced, dirty and haggard and many had bandaged limbs. They did not look like an army fit to defend a country, much less defeat an enemy army. They looked like refugees from catastrophe.

  Once, when our traveling group had stopped beside a stream to fill the water casks, Michael and I were standing side by side at the edge of the road, watching the ongoing parade of soldiers in ragged uniforms.

  “That could be you,” I said. “Thank heavens you are out of danger.”

  “That was me. And you know better than anyone how close I came to dying. It happened in an open field like that one over there.” He pointed to a wheat field not far from where we stood, the crop trampled into the muddy earth. “We knew the Austrians were close. We sent out scouts but they hadn’t come back to give us the enemy’s position. We were just beginning to set up camp for the night, the men were pitching our tents and starting to dig a makeshift rampart. A few cooking fires had been lit.

  “Then they came. The guns began to boom, and the shells to burst over our heads like fireworks—only these fireworks were deadly. We hardly had time to mount a defense when we heard the rat-tat-tat of their machine guns. Our men began to fall. I heard the whistling of the bullets all around me and all I could think was, I’ll never see my father again.

  “Then they were running toward us, yelling, their cries inhuman. I know I shot some of them, I saw them fall. I had killed Austrians and Germans before but never when they were so close I could see the spikes on their helmets, the mud on their uniforms. I coul
d hear their cries, even though the noise all around me was so loud—the guns, the shouting, the terrified yelling of some of our men—cowards!—who tried to run away, the screams of the horses—oh Tania, it was all I could do to stand where I was, with nothing but an old cart between me and the enemy, and take aim between the slats of the cart, and shoot. My eyes were filling with sweat and tears from all the smoke in the air.

  “Then I felt a thud, as if a huge stone had hit my chest. Only it wasn’t a stone, it was enemy fire. I put my hand up to my forehead—and that’s all I remember.”

  “Oh, my dear, precious Michael!” I clung to him, sobbing and trembling. “My dear, pray God you never have to face another assault.”

  “And mercy on those who must. Mercy on those who die even as we are speaking.”

  He held me for a long moment before we resumed our journey.

  The camp at Mogilev was more rustic than I had imagined, and just the sort of place papa loved. There was an official headquarters building in the town but papa and Alexei had their large tent pitched in a leafy forest several miles from any populated area. There were a dozen or so tents nearby for the staff officers, and others for the cooks and servants, papa’s personal corps of guardsmen and all the laborers—carpenters, blacksmiths, armorers, and so forth—needed to keep a fortified position functioning.

  Papa and Alexei came out to meet us, Alexei eager and happy, papa gratified but obviously weary, and I hugged them both at once, which was not easy. Alexei was getting to be a big boy—I think he was about eleven years old then—and I could hardly get my arms around him and papa too. I heard a gramophone record playing inside the tent, a sultry tango, and all of a sudden I thought, I hope Mathilde Kchessinsky isn’t here.

  “Tania! Come and see Joy!” Alexei cried.

  “Wait! Let me admire you!”

  Father and son were dressed alike in raspberry-colored peasant shirts and wide pantaloons, held up by cords. Papa’s expression was sweet and soulful as always, though his face was grey and more lined than when I had last seen him. Alexei’s cheeks were flushed with excitement.

  “Don’t you both look fine!” I said. “Like fat, prosperous peasants from Belarus.”

  “These clothes were a gift from my townspeople here,” papa remarked. “They have been very respectful, and hospitable to us.”

  Alexei, impatient, grabbed my hand and took me into the tent where a tawny spaniel was curled up asleep on his small camp bed.

  “This is Joy. Isn’t she wonderful?”

  I petted the dog’s soft fur and she licked my hand.

  “Papa, there is someone I want you to meet.”

  He smiled. “He sounds important. Bring him to me.”

  I introduced Michael, who bowed low and addressed papa as “Little Father.”

  “Your daughter is a very skilled nurse, Little Father. Without her care I would not be here.”

  “I understand from one of my wife’s letters that a certain stick of wood blessed by Father Gregory had something to do with your survival.” Papa looked at me, expecting me to confirm what he had said. He had not forgotten my claim that Father Gregory had attacked one of the servants and threatened me—accusations he still preferred to think were the products of my imagination. Now he wanted me to acknowledge Father Gregory’s healing powers.

  “We have all seen evidence of his remarkable healings,” was all I would say.

  A telephone rang, its jarring sound clashing with the tinny tango music.

  Papa swore. “Damn thing! Keeps interrupting me!”

  An orderly joined us.

  “Begging your pardon, Your Imperial Highness. His Excellency the Minister of War needs to speak with you.”

  “Let him wait. Can’t you see I have visitors?”

  “Forgive me, Your Imperial Highness, but His Excellency says it is most urgent that he confer with you.”

  Papa swore again, under his breath this time, and nodded to the orderly.

  “Very well then, if he must.” Uncomfortable and restive, he lit a cigarette.

  “Why do they keep at me?” he said, not really speaking to us. “I’ve already given out several medals today, and I read the report they sent me this morning—at least I tried to. Why must they insist on coming to see me?”

  I started for the open flap of the large tent. “We’ll leave you to carry on with your business, papa.”

  “No! Stay! Please stay. It will be easier for me with you here.”

  Michael brought a chair for papa, and was rewarded with a grateful look.

  Soon the War Minister Ignatiev came in, followed by several secretaries and—to my surprise—Constantin. All bowed to papa.

  “Sire, may I present my new deputy, Constantin Melnikov? He has been with the ministry for nearly a year, and I value his services highly.”

  Papa acknowledged Constantin with a smile and a nod, puffing at his cigarette so that his head was wreathed in smoke, which made him cough.

  The war minister, a short, balding man of fifty, bristling with purpose, began talking rapidly. Knowing Constantin as I did, I could tell that it was all he could do to be patient and listen. He was clearly very perturbed, his high forehead was creased with worry lines.

  “Your Imperial Highness, it is past time that immediate action be taken if Russia is to be preserved. I have sent telegrams, I have telephoned, I have done everything I can to alert you to the most urgent needs of the army and the civilian population of the capital. Yet I have not had any response. So I have come here to speak with you, in person, in hopes of gaining your attention. I respectfully ask for that attention now.”

  “I am listening.”

  But I could tell that he was not listening, not really, and with his free hand he drummed his fingers on the table in front of him while the war minister went on.

  “Sire, here is what needs to be ordered.” He drew a paper from his jacket pocket and read from it.

  “First, we must have six more trains to run between the front and Petrograd. One will travel between Mogilev and Petrograd exclusively.

  “Second, we must have more provisions, or the army will never survive the winter. The men have begun to eat the oats for the horses because they have nothing else.”

  Papa smiled at this, and murmured, “Imagine!” I saw Constantin stiffen as he observed this response.

  “Reserves must be called up at once, sire. The First Army has been weakened beyond fighting strength, and the Siberian Rifle Regiment lost half its effective men in the last gas attack. The Keksholm Regiment simply is no more. There is talk in the ranks of a coup d’état, sire, and desertions are increasing.”

  Papa turned pale.

  “Shall I get you a glass of brandy, Your Imperial Majesty?” It was Michael’s deep, soothing voice.

  “Yes. Please.” Michael went out and found Chemodurov, who I had seen earlier, dozing under a tree. Before long Michael returned with a snifter and a bottle of brandy on a tray. He set it down on the table in front of papa and poured it out for him, as if he had been serving him for a long time instead of just having met him.

  Meanwhile the war minister was going on with his list of urgent matters, citing high casualties in the ranks, the resignation of many ministers, the social anarchy in Petrograd—a long and frightening list.

  Papa, drinking his brandy and lighting one cigarette after another, was increasingly nervous.

  “I really don’t see what more I can do,” he finally said. “I help out as best I can, I read the reports you send me, I listen to you. Haven’t I donated my newest Rolls-Royce to the medical corps to serve as an ambulance? I really don’t see how you can fault me.”

  He turned his face away. “I really do feel like Job, in the Bible, the all-suffering Job who was visited with all the plagues and sorrows and evils of the world. Do you know that my birthday, May sixth, is the festival of Job the patriarch?”

  When his remark met with silence he turned his head slightly back toward us, and look
ed at me.

  “Tania,” he murmured. “Tania, would you be so good as to take my setter for a walk? I usually take her out at this hour. She must be getting restless.”

  “Of course, papa.”

  But as I rose to go I heard a resounding thud. Constantin had pounded on the table with his fist.

  “Tania!” Constantin’s naturally loud voice was even louder than usual. “Tell your father that he must not only listen, he must act! And act now! Before it is too late!”

  Thirty-seven

  Constantin’ s forceful words rang in the air. Without thinking, I rushed to him and tried to pull him away from the table.

  “Stop!” I shouted. “You are only making things worse! Bullying papa won’t do any good. You ought to know that.”

  Constantin was a large and heavy man, and I was far too slight to move him.

  “Ah! Dear Tania, you are good to defend me. But truly, I need no defense. All is in the will of God.” Papa spoke gently, he had not let Constantin’s outburst provoke him. He refilled his brandy snifter and held it under his nose for a moment before he drank, savoring its aroma.

  “This is preposterous!” Constantin spat out. “A country falls, because one man is weak and foolish! What better argument could there be for putting an end to monarchy?” Exasperated and disgusted, he began backing away from the table, while the war minister, open-mouthed, his eyes wide with astonishment, watched helplessly.

  Michael moved so swiftly, and so soundlessly, that Constantin did not hear him until he had come up behind Constantin and pinned his arms behind his back.

  “Sire, shall I call your guardsmen to take this traitor away?”

  Papa sighed wearily and set down his glass.

  “No,” he said at length. “Just sit him down, and I will hear what he has to say. He is an old friend of Tania’s, after all.”

  Michael looked at me. “Is this the man you told me about? The doctor? The one who worked in the clinic?”