‘Who were the Streltsy soldiers? And why should Peter love Menshikov for executing them?’ I nicked a piece of roast pheasant from Sheremetev’s plate. Its skin was hot, crispy and tasted a bit sweet, as it had been marinated in mustard and honey. I licked my fingers, listening to Sheremetev.
‘The Streltsy guard was once the most respected regiment in Russia. When Peter was born, they feared the hold that his mother had over old Tsar Alexis, especially after she had given him a healthy son. On Alexis’s death, they stormed the Kremlin and at the Regent Sophia’s order killed Peter’s uncles and foster father and made the boy watch: both men took two days to die, spiked on halberds.’ I closed my eyes in horror. Ernst Gluck’s words came back to me: ‘Sophia kept him in the Kremlin, at least until he set fire to it . . .’ Sheremetev’s voice continued: ‘The Streltsy called Peter a son-of-a-bitch and spat in his mother’s face, letting them live, just about, and hailing the Regent Sophia. So when Menshikov beheaded them after that second uprising, he was in truth exorcising Peter’s demons – or some of them at least.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘There are others and they make him ill, torment him with fits and seizures,’ Sheremetev said. His face was very close to mine. ‘But, you know, I could never have done what Menshikov did. Killing on the battlefield is one thing, but executing a man with my own hands? Never.’
I huddled deeper into the cloak. How strange the Russians were, forever caught between a zest for life and seeking penance for their sins; filled with deep religious belief, yet capable of heathen violence and full of disdain for common decency, swaying between hair-raising cruelty and deep, tearful regret that might haunt them for years. A Russian soul knew no calm, no balance and no peace, ever.
I touched Sheremetev’s arm: ‘No, Boris Petrovich. You are too good a man for that. You save girls who are being raped. Who knows? Menshikov might have joined in with those loafers.’
‘Who knows indeed?’ he said and downed his vodka.
27
Sheremetev and I spoke until the morning hours of that early-autumn night. Eventually we were alone in the main tent, the other guests having staggered away, grateful for some rare hours of rest before sunrise.
‘God, girl, all of this is just the beginning,’ Sheremetev told me. ‘The Tsar says that travelling has opened his eyes to how backward Russia and its people are. Ever since his return from Europe he is a man possessed, as if time is running out for him to achieve everything he has planned. Nothing is safe from his meddling, be it matters of pleasure, agriculture, education, religion, administration, marriage and heritage, the army, food – just about anything that touches a Russian’s everyday life, he will pounce upon. Russia is Peter’s dough, yet the yeast doesn’t quite want to rise . . .’
‘But does he really need to do all this? It’s such an effort, the war and all . . .’
‘This war is a struggle for the life or death of Peter’s realm. It forces us into the future, but the Tsar lacks the money, men and equipment to pursue his plans, which were needed at best yesterday or rather last week. War is terrible but it also brings progress,’ Sheremetev said, and gently prodded me when my eyes closed. ‘Stay awake and drink some more, Marta. I love talking to you. You listen so well to an old man’s chatter.’
The beer did refresh me and I licked the foam off my lips, keeping them moist and shiny. Sheremetev’s gaze lingered on them, before he averted his eyes.
‘I see no old man. Go on, tell me more.’
‘You flatter me.’ He smiled at me warmly. ‘Russia is like an old mill wheel, rotting away in a backwater, until a new young miller takes over, wanting to grind more grain or sell more sacks, and makes the water rise. The wheel spins faster and faster, until the blades break and even the millstone cracks.’
I chuckled. He had a way of putting things that even I understood.
‘You laugh, but Peter won’t stop at anything. The country is not up to his demands. His orders can’t even reach the people – we have the voivody, the councils and the tax collectors, but since Peter keeps on asking for more of everything – men, money, planning, leadership and support – they can’t keep up. He is looking for new sources of wealth at the same time as kicking the existing fields of manufacture into new shape. Every family, be it a serf’s or a nobleman’s, has to give him their sons, either as workers or to travel abroad and study, learning for Russia and bringing their knowledge back home. Have you heard that the Tsar is building a fleet? A fleet! Fifteen years ago nobody here had so much as seen a ship. All a Russian knew of them was from using a ferry to cross a swollen river or, possibly, a fishing boat. His will is our fate, even if it might take a hundred years for us to thank him for his efforts,’ the general said bitterly.
‘But the war is over, isn’t it? You have beaten the Swedes?’
He rubbed his eyes and I felt his tiredness. ‘Marienburg was just the beginning. The Tsar wants a harbour that is navigable throughout the year and not hampered by ice in winter. He wants the conquest of the West, a pact with other European powers. As long as both Charles and Peter live, they’ll go on fighting, even if the war lasts twenty years. We count for nothing in this. Do you know what Peter did after the trouble with the bad cannon at the Battle of Narva?’
‘No.’
‘He had all the church bells melted down in order to cast bigger, better weapons.’ I gasped – a man who touched the sacred possessions of the Church? Sheremetev saw my shock and said: ‘Yes. I, too, wonder what is still sacred to him.’ He lowered his voice. ‘And then this idea of his to build a new city in the middle of the swamps of the Bay of Finland . . .’
He stopped mid-sentence. The curtain to the side room was torn aside and Peter swayed into the main tent, belting his breeches and tucking his sweaty shirt into the waistband. Did he see us sitting so close, side by side in the shadow of the tent post, or didn’t he care? A man like him was never truly alone, I thought, and to acknowledge people or not was surely a matter for him to choose. The last of the candlelight drew shadows on his face, making it look gaunt and tired. His bright blue eyes lay deep in their sockets; he rubbed them, his forehead glistening with sweat.
Sheremetev and I sat still as though watching a shy animal. The Tsar slumped into a chair, which buckled under his weight, and stretched out his legs before grabbing a jug from the table next to him and drinking deeply. He closed his eyes, let his head tilt forward and hummed a little song, then fell silent and started breathing heavily. Was he asleep?
Sheremetev and I looked at each other: it was time to retire, he to his tent and I to whichever corner I might roll out my bedding in, as Daria’s room was busy. I was about to get up when Sheremetev grabbed my arm. Peter had started from his slumber and sat bolt upright, his eyes unblinking and wide open. He flung the clay jug at a tent post. It smashed, splashing beer onto the rugs and cushions below. Peter bent over and buried his head in his hands, moaning and whimpering, then rose, roaring like an angry bear. His eyes rolled until I saw only their whites, and he leant heavily on the table, which gave way and broke. In a clatter, plates, glasses and bottles fell to the floor. He stared and then his knees buckled; he cradled his head in his hands and sobbed, foam bubbling on his lips, before he reared up, thrashing about, hitting the furniture and writhing in his fit.
Sheremetev held my arm and pulled me back.
Peter groaned, ‘What have I done, Mother? What have we done?’
The mighty man bent double, tongue protruding between his lips and teeth. I thought of Grigori and felt no more fear: there was no time to lose, we had to help him.
‘Hold his legs, I’ll take care of the rest,’ I said, and stepped away from Sheremetev, who had shrunk back in horror. I was not afraid. To me at this moment Peter was not the mighty Tsar who had ravaged my homeland and destroyed my life. He was just a helpless man who was suffering. If I hadn’t been able to help Grigori, I could at least help Peter.
He lay curled at my feet, sl
avering and foaming, his eyes wide and rolling. Sheremetev grabbed his boots and weighed him down, but the Tsar instantly jackknifed and lashed out at his much smaller general, smacking him so hard that he groaned but didn’t let go. I took a deep breath and lunged between those thrashing, bulky arms, grabbed the Tsar’s twitching head, pulled him close and forced his forehead between my breasts, holding his ears and neck so tightly that he couldn’t move away. We sank to the ground and his breath rattled, his body cramping up a couple of times before he lay still. His breath was hot on my skin and he sucked in my scent before he grabbed me around the waist, so that I could hardly breathe. After a long time he lay still and his breathing steadied. I dared to look at his face: he had fallen peacefully asleep. I rocked him like I would a baby.
‘This was bound to happen,’ Sheremetev sighed, slowly taking his weight off Peter’s feet. ‘The long ride, the girls and all this drink. Peter likes to see himself as a Titan, but he is just a man.’
I had no idea what a Titan might be but put one finger to my lips in warning. Peter’s face was drenched in sweat and his hair smelt of dust, smoke, leather and the love he had made to the Arsenjevas. His curls stuck to his temples when I tenderly stroked his head, blowing some air against his face. He sighed and burrowed himself closer into me; his breathing grew heavier again and he held me even tighter than before. I never stopped caressing him and perhaps even kissed his forehead without thinking. Peter started to cry.
When Sheremetev got up, I saw the Tsar’s feet: like his hands, they looked too dainty for his huge body.
‘Don’t let go of him, Marta, will you? Everything rests on him,’ Sheremetev said before he slipped out into the darkness, which was still alive with fires and songs from all over the vast Russian realm: melodies that started slow and sullen, before gathering speed and culminating in clapping and chanting. Peter’s arrival had rallied the men’s spirits; they took fresh courage from it and gained new strength. Voices asked Sheremetev questions before all fell quiet.
My back hurt from holding the Tsar so steadily, but only when he seemed truly asleep did I dare to reach for some cushions. Yet when I shifted, he grabbed my waist so hard that I gasped for air. ‘Stay,’ he murmured. ‘Stay with me. Hold me tight, matka.’
‘I will, starik,’ I answered in German, with a little smile. If I was his old girl, he’d be my old man: that seemed only fair. His eyelids fluttered and he looked at me in surprise but then fell back asleep, this time deeply and calmly. I grabbed all the cushions I could reach, stuffing them behind my back and under my bottom and thighs. The darkness in the tent had paled with the dawn when I, too, fell asleep, holding the Tsar of All the Russias in my arms as if he were a baby. Just before my eyelids closed I remembered a supper from days long gone by, and Agneta Gluck’s high-pitched voice asking, ‘Is it true that the Tsar of Russia is a two-headed giant who eats children for supper?’
I woke on my own, feeling drowsy after the all-too-short and uncomfortable hours of sleep. There was no sign of the Tsar anywhere, but the tent was swarming with people clearing up after the night’s feast and packing things away, with chests open and everything piled topsy-turvy inside. For a moment I wondered if I had dreamt all that had happened. Neither Menshikov nor the Arsenjevas were anywhere to be seen. All the flaps were fastened open and a fresh breeze swept the tent: when I stepped outside I shivered, the blue, cold morning light blinding me. The camp was in upheaval and Daria and Varvara watched hawk-eyed as their maids loaded all their treasures onto carts, even though we’d need sledges soon. I tried not to look at Varvara’s throat, where she wore her love bites as proudly as trophies of war.
She arched her eyebrows when I approached. ‘Ah, Marta, too, is finally awake. What a lazy little thing you have found for us, Daria.’ My friend looked up, surprised. Varvara had not been exactly friendly to me before this, but not outright hostile either. What had got into her? ‘You really are unlucky, missing out on everything like that: the Tsar is long gone, without taking his leave from anyone. When I awoke, he had already left my bed,’ Varvara added. With her shining auburn hair and glittering eyes she looked like the cruel, cunning vixens in the forests of my childhood. ‘You’d better be off now, Marta. A maid like you has her hands full when the camp is being packed up,’ she chirped, and reached out her fingers for me to kiss.
Daria was embarrassed, not knowing which side to take: ‘No, Varvara, Marta, really, please don’t . . .’
I kissed Varvara’s fingers. I might be in Daria’s favour, I might have spent the night with the Tsar, but it would serve me well to remember that I was a maid here and everything could go horribly wrong for me in the blink of an eye.
I met Varvara’s grey gaze. She knew about Peter, I could tell. I didn’t know how, but she knew. Who would protect me from her?
Peter’s new marching orders were a surprise to everybody. The Russians had to take the fortress of Nöteborg on the shores of Lake Ladoga, which was surrounded by vast, empty marshland. ‘Must we?’ wailed Daria while her dresses were folded away into oak chests. ‘I swear, nothing good comes from there. In summer, countless gnats eat you alive, while in winter the River Neva rises and the whole place becomes a revolting swamp. What fun!’
But the fortress’s dank walls and high turrets were key to controlling the estuary. The siege took Menshikov two weeks, until it fell after a skirmish at sea. Peter, I heard, was bursting with pride: he had won his first naval confrontation. Menshikov was made Governor of the strait – Obergshathalter – and the Tsar changed the fortress’s name to the Schlusselburg as it was key to the future as he saw it. Menshikov had Peter’s letter to him read aloud at dinner every evening for days on end following the victory: ‘By God, this nut was hard to crack, but you have done it, my beloved brother.’
When the first snowflakes fell, Daria’s steady complaining about the wet and the cold – it snowed and snowed – paid off and Menshikov gave in to her nagging. He sent her, Varvara, his sister Rasia and me back to Moscow to get ready for Yuletide. While I helped Daria to pack, I wondered if the Tsar, too, would return to Moscow then, which was foolish, of course. What was I to him?
INTERREGNUM, 1725
The snow fell like a curtain, slanted and silent, shrouding streets, quays and prospects, up to the axles of the carts already making their way into town for the morning market despite the awful weather. Outside the city walls, beyond the reach of the lantern-light, paths and roads had disappeared. It was awhile still until the late and heavy dawn that wedged a brief day between the hours of darkness, its arrival marred by the steady snowfall and the dullness of the black ice on the river and the roads.
Your city knows, Peter. Your death is our secret. The high houses with their flat façades mourn their master’s passing in silence; the waters flowing underneath the three hundred bridges murmur their loss. Only the winter winds, untameable as ever, chase down the Nevsky Prospect and defy my orders; carrying the news with them to the utmost corners of the realm. The vast, endless plains of your empire always have had to endure the whims of batjuschka Tsar; your people followed orders they could not hope to understand. The Tsar was as God-given as day and night, winter and summer, the sun and the moon; there was no questioning him.
In the wan morning light, all the bells of Russia will toll. Your people will drop whatever they are doing and kneel, cap in hand, tears streaming down their faces, praying for your soul, crossing themselves with three fingers. It would make you happy to see how Europe, too, will pay you, and your city, its respect. This is what you always wanted, isn’t it, for St Petersburg, your paradise?
Thanks to Feofan Prokopovich there is no lack of legends about how you chose the spot for it. Was it true that Saint Alexander Nevsky had beaten the Teutonic hordes in battle here? Or were you hunting, my love, when an eagle circled above your head, settling on your shoulder, showing you the way with its beady eyes and its hoarse cries? Might you have wandered through the swamps of Lust Eland – as one would neve
r do, really – when the bird guided you to the island’s heart and you cut a cross from beech branches, marking a spot and shouting, ‘In the name of Christ the Almighty, I shall build a church and a fortress here to honour the Saints Peter and Paul.’
None of this happened, of course. The truth was much simpler and much grander: to strengthen his hold over the Neva strait, Peter built a Russian fortress. The hard-fought-for new lands should never be lost again. The Tsar chose Lust Eland as the driest spot in all the Ladoga swamps. When Peter had the bones of Saint Alexander Nevsky re-entombed there, clouds of gnats set upon us. During the endless hours of the ceremony we went on swatting and cursing the useless serfs who were told to kill them before they bit us and flew off, their bellies heavy with our blood. Peter alone stood without blinking, never moving, watching stone-faced as the saint’s coffin was lowered into its new tomb. For him, this marked the beginning of a new Russia.
In the evening, I treated my many bites with kefir and Peter went on talking about the paradise he’d build. By then I was ready to take every step along the way with him, even though I was only one of many girls to whom he’d toss a coin or two after a night of merriment. I smiled and urged him on; his first wife Evdokia’s sour face and her unwillingness to follow him in his flights of fancy had been her downfall.
Prokopovich’s claims that the Tsar’s chosen land was empty, waiting for his blessed touch, is untrue as well: Swedes had settled all around the shores of Lake Ladoga in big, well-to-do farmsteads and I spotted many mir like my own. The first real house in St Petersburg was a hut, Peter’s and my cosy home. He left the fort one morning, walking all alone into the forest, his axe on his shoulder. Menshikov had sent out guards to follow him, as bands of marauding Swedish mercenaries had been sighted, but Peter threw stones at them, cursed and even kicked them when the men came too close.
Tsarina Page 15