‘Princess, was the tea Jakovlena brewed you not helpful?’ I asked, sounding worried and kind. Maria nodded, but gagged again.
‘You’re sending her remedies through one of your ladies?’ Peter asked, and I lowered my eyes.
‘Yes, my Tsar. No one knows more about ensuring a healthy birth than my maid. And on a troublesome journey like this, one must take no risks.’
‘Oh,’ Peter said, and burped again. He pulled a fishbone from his teeth before cleaning his fingernails, stained by gunpowder and tobacco, with it. Maria Kantemir poked listlessly at the fish that Felten’s men had caught for us in the afternoon. ‘You mean the journey does not help the princess’s pregnancy?’
My eyes filled with tears. ‘After what I have suffered, I know how strenuous a campaign can be for a pregnant woman,’ I said haltingly. ‘That is why I wanted Jakovlena to look after the Princess Kantemir. It’s for Russia, after all.’
Peter kissed my hand. ‘Do not cry or worry, my wonderful Catherinushka. This child will be born in good health.’
Maria Kantemir stared at me, her eyes as dangerous as a snake’s, but Peter had made his mind up: ‘Dearest, as soon as we reach Astrakhan, you will set up camp there and this Jakovlena will be your attendant.’
She wanted to complain, but before she could I cried out, ‘No, my Tsar, I need Jakovlena. Without her herbal tea I cannot sleep. Do not take her away from me, please, I beg you.’
Peter hesitated, but Maria Kantemir said, ‘All right. I shall settle in Astrakhan together with Jakovlena. Her brew does help me.’
Hot tar dripped from the torches and hit the black surface of the water with a hiss. Peter patted my hand briefly. ‘So you can’t sleep? What a worry. Well, once we are standing in the field, you’ll be so tired that you’ll no longer need Jakovlena and her drinks. Now we must ensure the healthy birth of the Tsarevich.’ The Tsarevich. My heart skipped a beat, and Maria rose and kissed the Tsar with a catty sideways smile for me.
‘Allow me to retire. The prince needs rest,’ she said, laying a slender hand on her stomach. How far gone was she? Four or five months?
Peter and I sat quietly for a moment. The torchlight speckled my skin with golden hues, and I moved closer to him so that he could inhale my familiar scent. As I filled his cup my hair fell loose and shiny over his naked arm, and his eyes gleamed in the moonlight. ‘Who would have thought, Catherinushka, that we would be in the field together once more?’ he said, brushing back my curls and sliding his hands over my neck and down my bosom: its flesh shimmered rosily through the delicate linen of my dress. I slid off my chair and knelt down in front of him; he sighed as I tasted him before climbing on top of him. I rode Peter first slowly and then faster, and he came with a muffled scream, throwing his head back, his gaze searching the moon and the stars.
Afterwards, he raised his jug to me. ‘It will be a son, won’t it, Catherinushka?’
‘Of course, my Tsar. To the Tsarevich’s health,’ I toasted. The clouds across the moon hid the expression in my eyes.
My Jakovlena stayed behind with Maria Kantemir in Astrakhan, the city of a thousand turrets, fragrant fruits and lingering moonlight. I kissed the old woman three times as a sign of peace when she took leave of me. ‘Peace be with you, mother,’ I repeated the Persian salutation the ambassador had taught me.
‘And with you. May God guard you and yours, Tsaritsa. You’re a good woman,’ she replied, heaving two saddlebags heavy with gold over her shoulders. She would be able to retire a wealthy woman. Jakovlena did not turn to look back at me when she left. I knew that I should never see her again.
76
We slaughtered, baked and brewed outside Astrakhan’s walls. The Russian traders, who felt safeguarded by our presence, sent us melons, apples, peaches, apricots and grapes. Nearly twenty-three thousand foot soldiers joined us in the stifling July heat on our march to Derbent on the Caspian Sea. More than a hundred thousand men followed us from further across the country. But fatigue, heat, hunger and thirst robbed them of their senses and our supplies were too puny for all of us, even if we quartered each ration, as a dozen of our flat-bottomed cargo barges had sunk in a storm on the Caspian Sea. Felten and I oversaw the slaughtering of thousands of starving horses. It was horrific, but thanks to their meagre flesh our men had the strength to move on to Baku.
In the evening, after I had treated the last cases of sunstroke and burnt skin, I asked for Peter’s Italian barber to come to my tent,
‘What can I do for you, my Tsaritsa? Do you need fresh talcum for your body? I still have a little bit of powder. But your perfume from Grasse has unfortunately dried up.’ He gladly sipped the cup of cold, sour milk I offered him.
‘None of this, maestro. Cut my hair,’ I ordered.
‘I beg your pardon, my Tsaritsa?’ In his eyes a woman without a long, full mane was not a woman, I understood.
‘My hair hinders me in this heat and in the sun. My scalp steams. Off with it,’ I said. He hesitated, got up and wanted to reach for the jug of water. ‘No,’ I decided. ‘The water is too valuable. Cut it off dry, just like that.’ His fingers stroked my scalp. ‘Go on,’ I encouraged him, smiling at our reflections in the mirror. He raised my tresses and placed his blade at the nape of my neck, where I felt its cool, sharp metal. I enjoyed the snip with which each curl fell to the tent’s bare earth, until the barber cleaned his blade and wrapped it back in its leather sheath. Like a woman of the mountains, I wrapped a scarf around my shorn head in a turban, allowing me to spend the whole day outside with the troops.
By night-time, Peter’s gaze was empty, not even taking in my changed appearance. ‘We cannot go on to Baku, matka,’ he said, exhausted. ‘The men would not survive the thirty-day march. Let’s return to Astrakhan,’ he decided. ‘I shall be with Maria in time for the birth of the Tsarevich.’
‘To the Tsarevich and his mother, the Princess Kantemir.’ I raised my glass and emptied it in a single draft.
The house in Astrakhan lay eerily quiet. No children were playing on the flat roof; no women sat on cushions in its courtyard, sipping tea and chatting. No servants were running errands, filling the air with the patter of their bare feet and the jingle of the silver bells tied to their ankles. Even the princess’s faithful guard of Moldavian soldiers was nowhere to be seen.
Peter and I rode into the shady courtyard, followed by our cook Felten and two dwarves mounted on asses. Birds swarmed through the air; their wings made the mulberry leaves rustle. Water fell into a basin inlaid with colourful, shiny stones. Goldfish swam there, but the surface was covered with green weed. In the heating pans in the corner of the courtyard the ashes were cold.
‘Hello?’ Peter called, but everything remained silent. I got off my horse. In the basin I washed the dust and the heat from the long ride off my face, despite the water’s sour stench. Suddenly I had the feeling of being watched and looked up to the gallery. Had a slight, veiled figure just slipped behind a column there?
‘Maria?’ Peter called and dismounted as well, walking ahead into the house. I followed him through the darkened rooms and his footsteps echoed in my heart. He pushed open the door to the room where he had taken leave from Maria Kantemir so tenderly just a few weeks ago. The suffocating stench of sweat and camphor took my breath away. Peter gasped, covering his mouth and nose. I took a look around: cushions lay scattered on a divan covered with kilim rugs, and on a low table inlaid with ivory stood a silver tray with a cup of mint tea. I dipped my finger in the drink: it was cold and an oily film covered its surface. The marble floor was covered with silk rugs, and in front of a folding screen I spotted a bowl filled with yellow slime. Filthy sheets had been cast off the empty bedstead, as if someone had hurriedly stood up. Peter fought for breath and called again, ‘Maria? Where are you, my love?’
My skin prickled with fear and caution when we heard a noise and spun around: a woman stepped out from behind the folding screen. She was densely veiled and said huskily, ‘I am here, my Tsa
r.’
The veil stifled her voice. When Peter stepped up to her, looking delighted, wanting to lift it away, she seized his wrists. ‘Let it be. I can do that myself. I’m used to it by now,’ she said with threatening calm. I lingered in the shadows; my heart raced when Maria Kantemir threw off her veil and stepped naked into the merciless light of the Persian morning. Peter gasped with horror and shrank back. I, too, only just suppressed a disgusted cry when I saw what Jakovlena had achieved.
Smallpox had had a feast with the stunning beauty of the Princess of Moldavia. Her honey-tinted hair had fallen out, except for a couple of straggly strands, and her bare scalp was covered with scabs and bruises. Her skin was grey and pale, the once even features blemished by deep, crater-like scars. Thin, pale lips barely covered her gums where once there had been an alluring full mouth. The pox had ravaged her body, too: her breasts hung flat and wilted over pointy, sharp ribs; on her arms the illness still lingered – she scratched distractedly at the blisters and pimples on them – and on her legs the ashen skin looked sore over her long bones.
‘What happened to you, Maria? Our child –’ Peter began, scanning her waist. I clenched my fists: her stomach was flat. Maria Kantemir had lost the child she’d expected from my husband, the child that would have put an end to my happiness and life as I knew it. Peter stood blank-faced as if struck by lightning. Suddenly she pounced towards me like a wildcat. One of the soldiers just about held her back, but she fought his grip, spitting and biting with rage, while I ordered curtly, ‘Get the Tsar out of here. He must not contract smallpox.’
Felten and the soldiers dragged Peter out of the house. At the door, he turned back and I saw the expression of sheer dread in his eyes: only he looked at me, and not at Maria. What did he see? A tall, strong woman with her hair cut as short as thistles; the mother of his children, the companion of his years, the Empress of his realm. He left me to it.
‘Hold her,’ I ordered the soldier coldly. He grabbed one of the sheets and bundled the princess into it. I stepped up to her. I had won the game she’d felt so safe playing.
‘Princess,’ I asked gleefully, ‘what has happened to your beauty? And the Tsarevich, the child on whom we had placed such hopes? How dreadful! Who could have guessed that the pox was raging here in Astrakhan?’
She spat at me and I shrank back, just avoiding the poisonous saliva. ‘Devil of a woman! I know your maid passed the disease to me. She bled me one day and afterwards I caught a fever and the smallpox. You are to blame!’ she shrieked, before she was strangled by sobs. ‘My son was to rule Russia.’
‘Save your breath,’ I said. ‘This is less than you deserve. If it is Jakovlena’s fault we’ll have her tortured until she confesses. Where is she?’
Maria Kantemir howled and wanted to strike me once more, but the soldier held her back. ‘She ran away, just like everyone else did, when I fell ill. I gave birth to a stillborn child on my own. Nobody wanted to help me,’ she shrieked. ‘Just look at me!’
‘I am looking at you,’ I said. ‘Is this not what you had in mind for me? Being cast aside and forgotten?’
The soldier pushed her away, wiping his hands in worry and disgust, and we hurried out: Maria Kantemir’s crying and cursing rang eerily through the vaulted gallery as we left.
Peter had already returned to the ship; the courtyard was empty. I myself locked the door to Maria’s house and let the key slip into my pocket where it should be forgotten. With Volynsky’s help I hired an old woman and told her to push plain food and water through a flap in the entrance gate, as if feeding a cat. If the bowls were untouched several days in a row, the house was to be set alight.
But I certainly hoped that Maria Kantemir would live for many years to come.
77
The war against Persia ended the following autumn. A messenger interrupted one of Alexander Danilovich Menshikov’s splendid masked balls with news of the victory at Baku. Before midnight struck, more than a thousand bottles of sparkling wine were emptied.
The only peaceful year of Peter’s rule began.
I so wanted to recognise the man, but after all these years it was almost impossible. He knelt, and I saw only his prostrate back and callused hands. He was partly bald and his sandals were stuffed with straw for want of proper shoes.
‘Look up,’ I said, and he did so, trembling with fear. Peter’s fingers drummed on his armrest. ‘And? Does he tell the truth? If the dog has lied, I’ll have his tongue torn out.’
The man moaned and curled up even more tightly.
‘Let me look at you.’ I stepped down from my throne and stooped over him. Neither the guards nor Peter, Anna, Elizabeth and Wilhelm Mons – without him, my daughter barely took a step – let us out of their sight. The man trembled like pig’s blubber but met my gaze. His thin blond hair reminded me of my father’s, but he had my stepmother’s deep-set eyes and thin lips.
‘Are you telling the truth, man?’ My voice was raw with feeling.
When he spoke, I saw rotten yellow stumps in his mouth instead of healthy teeth. ‘I swear by God Almighty, Marta: I am your brother Fyodor.’
He was a coach–driver’s helper on the road between St Petersburg and Riga, where he travelled strapped to the carriage’s roof, watching the luggage or looking for scoundrels and obstacles. The sun beat down on him in fine weather; he was soaked by rain or his buttocks froze to the carriage in bad conditions. When one day a traveller threatened him with a good hiding, he had shouted, ‘I am our Empress’s brother. If you hit me, you’ll have to pay for it.’ For his temerity, and still in a stupor, he was dragged to St Petersburg to account for his remark.
‘How is Christina? Is she alive?’ I asked. The question tasted of days long gone by.
‘Ach, Herr Gott, she brought us nothing but shame. Mother caught her with a man and gave her a hiding. She ran away and today she is a whore in Riga.’ He looked as if he wanted to spit, but the splendour of the Winter Palace’s marble floor made him change his mind.
‘What happened to the rest of the family?’
He pulled a face. ‘Maggie married a shoemaker in Riga. The man makes a lot of money but he sets the dogs on me when he sees me.’
‘How did Father die?’ I asked him.
‘Our new master killed him, just after the first famine.’
My poor father. ‘And Tanya?’ My voice was hoarse. ‘Your mother?’
Fyodor grinned. ‘She moved in with our new master. He liked her, in spite of her years.’
‘I am still not sure I believe you,’ I said, searching his face. One more question, to quench all doubts, forever. ‘Which animal attacked us, and you crushed its skull with a stone?’
He thought hard, lines furrowing his ruddy forehead. Silence fell in the small throne room. Then his face softened and he said, ‘It was a snake, sister.’
Peter showed generosity: Fyodor and Maggie received a pension, but my pleas on Christina’s behalf fell on deaf ears. He smiled at me sardonically when the soldiers led Fyodor Skawronski out. ‘A whore in Riga? No, really, Catherinushka,’ he mocked me. ‘I’ll send her to a convent where she will be looked after. Now, forgive me, this thief and scoundrel Menshikov has been trying to cheat the Imperial buyers once more. I must attend to it.’ He left, merrily lashing his boots with his dubina as if in readiness to use it on Menshikov’s back. Anna also took her leave; my eyes met Wilhelm Mons’s gaze when he bowed and followed Elizabeth. I quickly looked away. Once they had gone, I waved Jagushinsky closer. ‘Pavel Ivanovich, is it right that the Tsarevna Elizabeth is with Mons at all times? Does that seem disreputable?’
‘It does not seem disreputable, it is disreputable, my Empress,’ Jagushinsky said cautiously.
I pondered his words, rose and smoothed my skirt. ‘I am grateful for his services,’ I decided. ‘But Elizabeth must preside over a household worthy of an adult Tsarevna. Mons is to be my chamberlain from now on. At my age, I should be above suspicion.’ I playfully slapped Jagushinsky’s sh
oulder with my fan. ‘Now off you go, the Tsar is waiting for you. Do not worry: the dubina is already busy enough for today.’
I watched him go, my heart clenching. Was I asking for my own undoing? Nonsense. Wilhelm Mons could easily be my son: my handsome, healthy son.
The yelling and shouting coming from Peter’s rooms could be heard from fifty feet away; I heard Menshikov’s protests and, in between them, the high-pitched voice of Peter Shafirov. I hastened my steps: had Alekasha gone too far this time? Inside, Menshikov and Shafirov were rolling on the ground, kicking, hitting and biting each other like two drunkards in a kabak: fists flew and bones cracked. Peter himself circled the two men and lashed them with his dubina wherever he could.
‘Stop it, you scoundrels! Fighting in front of your Tsar as if I was one of your whores, how dare you?’ he bellowed, when Menshikov grabbed Shafirov by his hair and the latter bit his arm.
I threw myself at Peter, holding him back. ‘Starik! What’s the matter?’
Shafirov sobbed while checking his torn, richly embroidered coat and Menshikov sat down, panting. Pearls and silver threads were scattered all over the room and his wig was messed up.
Peter placed his head on my bosom, gasping for air. ‘Both of them are liars and cheats, Catherinushka!’ he said. ‘Thank God, I can always trust you. Menshikov should have had his bones broken on the wheel a long time ago for all his lies and frauds.’
Menshikov, who could cross Peter’s Empire from Riga to Derbent and spend every night on an estate of his own, pulled himself to his feet. Every Russian knew a different story about his greed, as he wished to be rewarded for every service rendered, be it in roubles or kopeks, a noble horse for his stables or a beautiful girl for the night. He had more titles and honours than hairs on his head, his food was prepared by French cooks, his princely carriage pulled by ten purebreds, and at times Daria wore more magnificent jewels than I did.
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