The Tsarina's Daughter Read online

  ‘That is Karl, Duke of Holstein,’ she said. ‘He might also be heir to the Swedish throne, if things go just a little bit his way.’ My mother lazily licked her fingers clean of the damson Schnapps and honey marinade in which Father’s cook had lathered three hundred hares, before slow-roasting them in the colossal fireplaces of the fortress’ kitchen. The dark flesh flaked off the bone deliciously.

  ‘After twenty years of the Great Northern War and Russia fighting against Sweden, the heir to its throne is sitting at our table. It’s truly an era of great change,’ I said, choosing some pickled green walnuts from a crystal bowl.

  ‘He might do more than that.’ Mother raised her glass to him, a gesture he gallantly returned. When he then also toasted me, his pale gaze skimmed my bare shoulders and throat: I wore a beautiful emerald collier with matching earrings. Each gem was as large as an acorn.

  I nodded coolly to him. ‘What else could he ask for?’

  ‘How about a Tsesarevna’s hand in marriage?’ My mother smiled.

  ‘A Tsesarevna?’ I teased, as the Duke held out his eagle cup – the chalice that Father had designed for his drinking games, standing an elbow-span high – for a third refill. Did he really have the stomach for this? Possibly one had to be Russian to live, eat and drink like us. ‘Either of us will do. Anoushka or me?’

  ‘Oh, Lizenka.’ Mother simply kissed my forehead, leaving me mute with surprise. She must be mistaken. Father would never sell us off as he had our cousins Ekaterina and Anna Ivanovna, to be beaten up and maimed, or widowed and lingering in poverty.

  Karl von Holstein bit his fingernails and gulped down his Tokay. A skinny little man with shaky prospects, he was not exactly what I had had in mind when I had dared to climb into the Golosov Ravine and seek out the Leshy spirit, even if he might one day rule Sweden. Yet such a mismatch might make the evil creature laugh all the harder.

  ‘Well, I will marry the King of France, of course,’ I observed.

  ‘Hmm. Yes. We shall see. Talks with Versailles are still proceeding,’ Mother said carefully. ‘The French have come up with a new obstacle to the match: they object to you keeping your faith. Father will never give in on that. In Versailles, too many cooks clearly spoil the broth.’

  I sullenly sipped my wine. So much for celebrating this Yuletide as the Royal French bride-to-be.

  In the hall the musicians played on, battling against the brawling and shouting, while servants skidded in puddles of wine, vodka and vomit. ‘Louder, you lot!’ Father shouted, chucking a pewter goblet at the conductor, hitting the man on the shoulder. ‘What am I paying you for? I want this to be a civilised dinner, not a herd of pigs around the trough!’

  Karl von Holstein rose and came straight to our table, but God, was he plain: he was visibly bow-legged even in his high, obviously new boots, and his fine linen shirt hung awkwardly from thin, stooped shoulders.

  ‘Tsesarevna,’ he said in a hard German accent. He fixed his moist gaze on me and then bowed. I kept a straight face. No doubt his palms were sweaty too. ‘Would you do me the honour of opening the dance with me?’

  ‘What don’t I do for Russia?’ I said under my breath to Mother, rolling my eyes at Anoushka while I began to get to my feet.

  But my sister beat me to it. ‘Gladly, Your Grace,’ she cooed, and swiftly gathered up her peach-coloured damask skirts. Her cheeks were flushed as she rose and fixed her shiny gaze on Karl.

  The Duke of Holstein did not miss a beat but gallantly took Anoushka’s outstretched hand and led her into the dance.

  16

  ‘Listen to it, Elizabeth!’ Anoushka seized my wrist, making me replace my parrot hurriedly on its perch before she pulled me along. ‘Isn’t it just divine? It sounds like, like… ’ She listened rapt with pleasure to the din beneath the Winter Palace’s windows where a concert was in progress. I just about refrained from pressing my hands to my ears. To me, it sounded as appealing as little Christine scratching her nails over the windowpanes out of boredom and anger. A thin silver thread of a melody hung suspended in the air.

  ‘Come, let us have a look,’ I said and opened the window. We both poked our heads outside, the cold air greeting us like a slap. The palace’s façade sparkled in the waxen late autumn sun, its frosty rays turning the courtyard’s cobblestones to myriad mirrors. We craned our necks: the musicians sat in the main thoroughfare, dwarfed by the soaring building. Icy gusts hit them, cruelly lifting jacket tails and turning lips blue. The drummer’s fingers froze to his sticks; the harpsichord player’s fingertips stuck to the ivory keys. He grimaced before playing on, which was too funny for words. Best of all, courtiers, servants and supplicants, unable to pass by, jammed the passages and walkways all around while sleds were forced to wait in line, unable to move on. The reluctant observers shouted and shook their fists.

  ‘Move, you morons!’

  ‘I’ve got a mind to take a whip to you.’

  ‘Bloody foreigners, always the worst ideas!’

  ‘How divine – and so romantic, Lizenka,’ Anna sighed before this ill-devised spectacle. ‘Why would Karl do that? There can only be one reason, can’t there? He wants me to be his Duchess of Holstein. And – ’ she winked at me ‘ – he is not exactly a German farmer! He might one day be King of Sweden. Imagine, then we will both be Queens.’

  As the music stopped, traffic through the main gateway picked up, people and sleds spilling out onto the vast square in front of the palace. The musicians were served mulled wine as well as pierogi filled with dried berries and thick smetana: I recognised my mother’s wisdom in that gesture as the men’s contented chatter rose to our window. They should return to Holstein having only the best things to say about the Tsarina of All the Russias.

  ‘Such a surprise!’ Anoushka’s cheeks were flushed from both the cold and her excitement. ‘Just imagine, if I had not chanced upon you in here, I would not have heard any of it. I had better go to the banja. A good whipping with a birch branch will make my skin glow for the ball tonight.’ She blew me two excited kisses and then left, gracefully manoeuvring her wide skirts through the doorway, which Father had had built larger than ever before in Russia, to accommodate the Western style of dress.

  I waited until the sound of her steps, which gathered pace until she was running like a little girl, had faded away. The concert, a surprise? I retrieved a note from the folds of my dress. My maid had slipped it to me as I returned from my morning ride on the Karelian Plains. I had read it while soaking in my bathtub, the water’s heat soothing my aching muscles, its rosewater scent heightening my senses. The elegant, obviously well-bred hand that even I could read well, had become smeared with steam and droplets, making the stilted words dissolve before me. But not before I had read the message secretly delivered to me.

  Tsesarevna Elizabeth,

  It is my pleasure to invite you to a concert of the best music my country has to offer. May each of our days be as sweet as their melodies.

  Karl von Holstein

  I did not know which pained me more: the fact that the carefully worded message had clearly been dictated to the prince by an over-cautious adviser or Anoushka’s excitement. Her mood these days was as ebullient and capricious as the hundreds of butterflies that briefly settled to suck nectar from the buddleia bushes in Peterhof.

  I flattened Karl’s note on the windowsill before folding it into a dart as an equerry in Kolomenskoye had once taught me to do. It looked like a bird with wings, just magic. I let it fly; it sailed across the room, straight into the fireplace. What a shot! The flames rose, taking hold of the paper. With a pop and a crackle it curled in futile resistance, glowing blue and then orange before crumbling to ashes.

  Anoushka would never know.

  17

  If Aunt Pasha ever wrote to her daughter Anna Ivanovna, Duchess of Courland, about Anoushka and me being made Tsesarevny, I did not know. Mother and daughter were never to meet again. Aunt Pasha, who habitually slept with her window open, fell ill as a chil
ly October took hold of St Petersburg. She at first coughed lightly, then soon brought up blood. As her fever rose, Father ordered Ekaterina back from Izmailov, where she had chosen to live with little Christine. ‘St Petersburg,’ she had decided, thinking of her estranged husband, ‘is still much too close to Mecklenburg. The brute may reach it in three days’ forced march and give me my last hiding.’ An ebony horsehair wig now hid the bald patches on her scalp and, to make amends for the match he had forced on her, Father had had fake ivory teeth carved for her, which she squeezed into her gums.

  Anna Ivanovna in the Courland capital of Mitau, however, was notified too late. Aunt Pasha dictated a last letter to Anna, her voice rasping and her body wracked by coughing, not wanting to bear a grudge into the afterlife: My ailments increase hourly; I suffer so greatly that I despair of life. Pray for me, Anna; I have heard that you consider yourself under a curse from me, but I forgive you everything and absolve you from every sin you may have committed before me.

  As Aunt Pasha lay in state, Ekaterina Ivanovna’s wailing scared little Christine into hiding in my skirts. I embraced her, wondering how she could still be so scrawny; Father’s cook said that she stole the food off everyone’s plate, given half a chance. I offered the child my monkeys and parrots to divert her, while Pasha’s harelipped maid Maja took up position at the foot of her mistress’ deathbed. When Christine saw her, she hissed in German: ‘Ungeheuer! Fahr’ zur Hölle!’

  ‘Hush now,’ I scolded her, needing no translation: she had called the poor woman a monstrous creature who belonged in Hell. Ekaterina pulled Christine close, eyeing Maja, both of them whispering and pulling faces.

  ‘Shall I send to Izmailov for the Tsaritsa Praskovia’s priest to conduct her wake?’ I asked Maja, using Aunt Pasha’s real name and formal title out of respect.

  Maja’s face was waxen with grief. ‘No. I beg to stay with my mistress on my own. She was placed in my care as a toddler. I accompanied her to the Kremlin Hall of Facets where her beauty bewitched Tsar Ivan. I have assisted at each of her childbeds and dressed her daughters, the Tsarevny Ivanovna, for their own weddings. Now my prayers shall see the Tsaritsa Praskovia into the afterlife.’

  ‘So be it.’ I hesitated. ‘What will you do after the funeral? Will you join Ekaterina in Izmailov?’

  Maja shook her head, snot and tears mingling on her face. Her ragged breathing sounded as if iron chains had wrapped themselves around her heart, which had beaten only for Aunt Pasha and her family. I touched my cheek: I had taken my own beauty for granted as long as I lived. ‘Bring a jug of vodka and keep it filled. Unleavened bread and salt to ease my aunt’s passage,’ I ordered a pageboy. Maja curtsied and kissed my hand before crouching at her mistress’ feet, at first crying silently and then wailing in a high, ululating sound that raised the hairs on my neck.

  If I had not been able to save our nurse Illinchaya in Kolomenskoye, I could at least help another loyal servant. Following Pasha’s funeral in the Saints Peter and Paul Cathedral, I arranged for Maja’s journey to Courland, where Aunt Pasha’s younger daughter, my cousin Anna Ivanovna, should welcome her.

  I was sure never to see the wretched woman again.

  18

  ‘Lizenka!’ Petrushka called out as I stepped into his little study. Sunshine and fresh air flooded the stuffy room in my wake and the boy flung down his quill. Count Ostermann peevishly tightened his silk cravat against the draught. ‘My gout, Tsesarevna,’ he murmured.

  ‘If anything, springtime is good for your… er, gout, Ostermann,’ I teased. His ailment mysteriously manifested itself only when it suited him, especially in his right hand when asked to sign unwelcome documents. At other times he could write easily enough. I cast an eye over Petrushka’s desk, which was covered in dissertations, mostly written in Ostermann’s own slanted hand. No Russian ever wrote like this – if he could write at all.

  ‘I have been praying every night that you would come. I have been praying for so long!’ Petrushka lunged at me; we had not met since Anoushka’s and my elevation to Tsesarevny. I struggled in his almost suffocating embrace, and then held him close, remembering that moment. If Father’s hostility must be wounding for him, he showed no bitterness against us. Good. Anoushka and I were young women, ready to further Russia’s interests by marrying and giving life to sons. The more heirs the realm had, the better. Only Russia counted.

  ‘Well, here I am. Do you still want to be captain of a boat?’

  He nodded.

  ‘We will have to wait until the last ice floes melt but we can do some training in advance, if you are game?’

  ‘Oh, I am!’ Petrushka was taller than me already, but the dark, deep shadows underneath his golden eyes had taken up permanent residence. God, did that boy ever see the sun? Father was too cruel. How could he make a child pay for its father’s sins? Giving the boy Ostermann as a tutor had been a gesture of mercy on Mother’s part, but the broadest and best education was not worth looking like a maggot. ‘Enough studying, Ostermann,’ I decided, ignoring the German’s sour look. Surely he feasted every morning on a bottle of vinegar straight after rising from the hard, folding field bed he slept on.

  ‘I take my orders from the Tsar,’ he said icily, gathering his papers.

  ‘As you should. You have everything to thank him for,’ I said and kicked the door to the study shut. Petrushka and I skipped out into the corridor, holding hands, but he was quickly out of breath and coughing. I could not recall having visited this end of the Winter Palace before: the high windows let in draughts and the floorboards were warped with damp. Why was Petrushka left to linger here; did Father want him to die of consumption? The thought was too horrible to consider.

  ‘Let us race,’ I said, eager to leave. ‘Whoever reaches the Tsar’s antechambers first, wins.’

  ‘I am not admitted there,’ he said, holding back. ‘The Tsar has not called for me ever, since… Peterhof.’ He still reeled from the humiliation. I looked at him sympathetically, yet I would not lie to him. The boy expected more from me. Petrushka continued, ‘The Tsar killed my father because he was a traitor. But my godfather Alexis Dolgoruky told me the truth. My father wanted to save Russia from Grandfather’s wicked Western ways.’

  ‘Where on earth did you hear that expression? Better listen to Ostermann instead of your godfather Dolgoruky,’ I warned him. Ever since Alexey’s death, Petrushka’s godfather had been the most eminent of the Old Believers. How did he gain access to my nephew? ‘Never – ever – say that again!’ I suddenly felt terrified for his young life if somebody heard him speak like this. ‘Let us go. I will make sure the Tsar doesn’t see us.’ I took his hand. ‘Ready, steady – go!’

  Petrushka shrieked as I set off. He chased behind me. At first our footsteps echoed under a simple stucco ceiling, but after that we slid down the banisters of grand staircases and crossed the chessboard marble floors of vast staterooms. ‘Come on, let us play hopscotch!’ I laughed. We reached the Tsar’s antechamber, panting and flushed. Here, Father stored the artworks that had been purchased for him, but not yet properly displayed.

  ‘How about a round of Kokolores?’ I eyed the broad windowsills, high skirting boards and the chairs stacked with canvases. A table piled high with bottles and glasses was surrounded by antique statues; above it hung three sturdy chandeliers. Perfect: they should take my weight.

  ‘I don’t know the rules. Is it similar to chess?’

  I sighed. ‘What is Ostermann teaching you? How can you be captain of a boat if you don’t know Kokolores?’

  ‘At the moment I am not even a simple sailor,’ he said, matter-of-fact. ‘If Grandfather was allowed, he should cast me overboard, declaring me useless ballast.’

  ‘Don’t ever say that again!’ I was shocked.

  My nephew shrugged, tears welling up, his pale face waxen.

  I could not help but embrace and kiss him. ‘Well, knowing Kokolores might come in handy at any time. The rules are easy. You have to cross the room with
out touching the floor, as if swinging on the ropes of a ship.’

  ‘The whole room?’ His eyes lit up.

  ‘Yes. And if you hesitate too long, I will make you cross it twice,’ I giggled. ‘Go!’ I leaped onto a chair, which skidded on the shiny inlaid parquet, making a painting topple. As I seized the frame, it broke and, with a sharp ripping sound, my hand went straight through the canvas: it was a Dutch painting by an artist with an unpronounceable name, Van this or Ver that, showing a buxom parlour maid pouring milk from a jug in the hazy morning light. I let my fingers wiggle in rabbit ears above her head and Petrushka laughed so hard he hiccupped. His turn: he climbed on a chest of drawers and swung from a gilt wall sconce, before reaching for the velvet curtains. He kicked over a statue of a young man, who was naked but for a pair of winged sandals. It smashed to pieces, the severed head’s expression one of reproach. Petrushka was catching up with me! I lurched for one of the crystal chandeliers. It creaked and swung as I gained momentum. My feet aimed for the big table, strewn with vodka bottles, glasses and chewing tobacco. From there I could make it to the door and take the game.

  ‘I’ll win, little snail,’ I laughed, just as brisk footsteps and voices approached, echoing down the corridor. I froze, still hanging from the chandelier. ‘Silence now,’ I mouthed. Petrushka cowered on the windowsill, half hidden by the embroidered velvet curtains, pale and witless with fear. What Father might do when he caught him here was anyone’s guess. A flogging would be getting off lightly.