The Last Tsar's Dragons

Chapter 9

The tsar sent a letter home the day after getting to the front. The tsarina opened it with shaking hands.

She wondered what she might write in return. That Alexei was slowly recovering? That the conversations among the various European courts were slowing down during these days of war? That because of the war, no Russian princess’s hand could be offered to the Germans, which ruled out many of her closest cousins.

She thought, as she often did, of the last year at this dark, cold, time, when their daughter Sonia had fallen ill with a noise in her lungs. Remembering with an ache in her heart, standing by Sonia’s bed and watching as the doctors put two cups on Sonia’s chest. And Sonia taking no notice, hanging like a lump in the two maids’ arms. And then watching as Sonia, wreathed in prayers, died, but calmly and in a state of grace.

“Oh my darling child,” the tsarina whispered. It was unthinkable, a child like Sonia—so good, so kind—was taken while others she could name—though she wouldn’t, being both a good Christian woman and a princess and tsarina as well—lived on. Sometimes, believing in a benevolent God was a stance she found hard to maintain. Something else she would have to offer up to Father Grigori in confession.

When, this year, she herself had come down with an illness, she had felt no such calm, and little grace, but battled mightily to stay alive because she had to run the country with Nicky away. This roiling, troublesome, ungrateful country full of rebels and a culture that consisted of potatoes, hard drinks, and a peasantry that was always a problem.

A bit like England’s Ireland, only without the poetry.

In her illness, the doctors had cupped her, too, and Father Grigori sent up many prayers for her safety. Her strong English and German constitution stood her in good stead, plus those prayers.

She certainly hadn’t wanted to trouble Nicky with that, in the war with his terrible commanders. He would only have fretted, fearing that she, too, was dying, even if the letter was written in her own firm hand. But he always said he could not go on without her. Did not want to leave her side, ever. So why was he away on a front in an unwinnable war? Why had he left her to be a ruler in a land that didn’t want her? Had never wanted her? Even after she had done so much for it.

And then she thought that she didn’t really know how she would bear it if Nicholas should die before her, out on that cold, unyielding front. She only hoped he came safely home to her and that they could go to Heaven together when their time came.

Then suddenly she knew what she could actually write to him: that his filthy dragons were eating up the treasury, stinking up the castle from the ground up, and killing no Jews, which was hardly the bargain she’d expected, nor had he. She would even send a curse on the dragons in German. Ein Fluch auf ihrem schmutzigen Drachens! It would make him laugh and be strong.

And settling on this at last, she began to write.