The Witches of St. Petersburg

¹² August 1901, Znamenka, Peterhof

Militza remembered the summer of 1901 as a blissful few months. She and Peter were happy. She knew he loved her, for he told her often, not in so many words, but by his deeds. He was kind, protective and he adored his children, was forever trying to engage them in his favourite subject of architecture. However unwilling, Marina, Roman and little Nadejda were well and thriving. Even Stana was content. George was in Biarritz, of course, but she and her children had become so used to his absence that no one questioned where he was any more.

Perhaps it was the calm before the storm? Although, truthfully, no one really knew then that there was a storm brewing, or what a terrible storm it would be. Granted, the spark of unrest was being heartily fanned in the countryside and the city was increasingly crowded and fractious, but out in Peterhof, idyllic Peterhof, surrounded by the gentle, lush forests, rocked by the cool breeze off the gulf, there appeared to be few concerns. The weather was not unduly hot and the afternoons were bathed in a glorious golden glow, the evenings light and languid – and the Tsarina was an almost daily visitor.

Her morning telephone call from Lower Dacha was generally followed by the loud sound of her carriage wheels as they came up rattling the drive, usually in time for tea. She was very fond of tea, as were her girls. English tea with milk and sugar, not the usual Russian jam. Sometimes she would bring all of the girls with her, including the baby Anastasia, so that they might amuse themselves with Marina, Roman and Nadejda as well as Stana’s Sergei and Elena. (George’s son Alex was thankfully away serving with Hussars.) Sometimes the Tsarina would just bring along the ‘bigs’, Olga and Tatiana; sometimes she would come on her own. And if she didn’t manage to come – if her back was hurting her, or more recently her heart, or one of the children was unwell – then she would always make another telephone call in the afternoon. A lengthy telephone call, where all manner of intimate minutiae was discussed. It was as if the sisters had become her daily fix and, like a laudanum addict, she could not manage without them.

Much to the consternation of the Dowager Empress, whose previously frosty behaviour towards the ‘Black Spiders’ as she now called the sisters, became increasingly hostile. Minny could not stand to be in the mere presence of either Stana or Militza and would quite often refuse to attend any function she knew they might attend. Militza was fascinated by the withdrawal of the Dowager Empress. How unlike Maria not to have to put up more of a fight, she thought at the time. The Dowager Empress, along with the Grand Duchess Vladimir, might still control pockets of St Petersburg, but she had totally lost control over her son. The Tsar and Tsarina’s circle was now so small, and the influence that the two sisters now exerted so strong, that no one dared cross them. Helped in part by Dr Badmaev and his regular supply of hashish and his cocaine elixir – of which Militza was growing increasingly fond – the sisters’ grip around the couple became very tight indeed. Along with that, the gossip became increasingly vicious and slanderous.

‘You will enjoy what I heard yesterday at the Yacht Club,’ pronounced Peter, as he lit a cigarette at the breakfast table one morning and slowly stirred his coffee. ‘You and Alix are having an affair. Or was it Stana? I am not quite sure.’ He chuckled and twisted the ends of his moustache. ‘And Philippe is in the bedroom with you both! Or was it all three of you? I had rather too much claret to remember. But it was jolly amusing, nonetheless!’

‘Fascinating,’ replied Militza, dressed in a pale blue silk morning dress, as she slowly punctured two raw egg yolks with a silver fork and whipped them into a light froth at the bottom of her glass. ‘One should never underestimate the creative power of jealousy.’

She put her lips to the rim of glass, opened her throat, and swiftly swallowed the medicinal cocktail. She was not overly keen on her early morning egg potion but since the Grand Duchess Vladimir had been overheard extolling its health-giving properties, all the ladies of the court, including Alix, were drinking raw egg for breakfast.

Militza slowly pressed the corners of her mouth with her napkin as she tried to calm herself. The mere mention of her closeness with Alix made her heart beat faster. She had not kissed her again since that hot, heady afternoon in her bedchamber, but she had thought about it, relentlessly, as she lay in bed, the images churning around in her head, the smell of Alix’s flesh, the touch of her bosom, the taste of her. Militza had become so intimately familiar with Alix, her moon cycle and her desperate desire to have a son, that she now knew of every occasion she was penetrated by the Tsar and how and for how long, and whether he mounted from the left, or the right, or from behind, that there were times when she felt herself flushed with a hot, fiery emotion that was hard to explain.

All she knew was that it was a dangerous emotion, for it clouded her judgement. She’d made that mistake once before and she was not going to let it happen a second time.

A footman bringing a letter on a silver salver disturbed her thoughts. She plucked it from the tray and turned it over and over in her hands. She’d recognize that script and seal anywhere.

‘Who’s that from?’ asked Peter, with vague interest, looking over the top of his newspaper. Sporting his navy silk dressing gown and monogrammed maroon velvet slippers, he had yet to dress for the day.

‘Father.’

‘What does he want now? Not more guns? I am intrigued to know what he did with the last forty thousand. And quite how you managed to procure those I have no idea.’

‘They were a present from a grateful Emperor on the birth of his fourth daughter.’ Militza smiled at her husband as she opened the letter.

‘No one is grateful for four daughters,’ replied Peter, taking a sip of coffee.

‘Queen Victoria had five,’ retorted Militza. ‘God rest her soul.’

Peter coughed. ‘What does your father want?’

‘Money… Grain… More money.’ Militza skimmed the letter, turning over the pages. ‘He wants to build more roads.’ She put the letter down, before adding with a small shrug. ‘He is trying to drag Montenegro into this new twentieth century.’

‘A lofty ambition, I am sure,’ agreed Peter, twisting the corners of his dark brown moustache. ‘But a little hard to do with one hand tied behind your back financially.’

‘That’s why he has daughters in high places.’ Militza smiled, breaking off a small piece of black bread. ‘I heard someone call him the father-in-law of Europe the other day!’

Peter looked less amused. ‘Why can’t he ask your sister? Why is it always us Russians who end up paying?’

‘Well, Zorka is dead so I am not sure she is of any use.’ Militza held the piece of bread to her lips and stared defiantly down the length of the highly polished rosewood table at her husband.

‘There is no need to be sarcastic. I am well aware your sister died…’

‘Along with her son.’

‘Along with her son,’ repeated Peter.

‘Andrei was his name. And she was twenty-five!’ Militza’s laugh was a little hysterical. ‘But such is the lot of us women. You either burn us at the stake or drown us along with all our healing properties and our worldly powers. Or you try and kill us with children. And if we don’t die having them, then we kill ourselves trying to have them.’

Peter ignored his wife. He’d heard this little speech quite often, especially late at night when the two sisters got together with their tarot de Marseilles, reading palms or runes and they always returned to the land of witches, mavens and wanderers where women were once revered for their intuition and powers and not burnt at the stake for witchcraft.

‘Actually, I was thinking more of Elena, now that she is Queen of Italy,’ he eventually replied.

‘She’s only been Queen for just over twelve months!’

‘Even so,’ continued Peter, slowly squeezing the white tip of his cigarette between his thumb and forefinger before extinguishing it in the malachite ashtray in front of him, ‘it isn’t good to ask too often, for too much. People start to begrudge you. It’s annoying. Especially when your position is so precarious.’

‘Our position,’ corrected Militza, as she fixed her husband with a dark stare. ‘Ours, my darling, for you and I are linked. Our position is linked. Our privilege is linked, as is our access. We ride high together.’

She reached across to a small scarlet bottle sitting next to her empty glass. She picked it up, removed the lid and carefully squeezed the rubber-topped pipette, drawing up some liquid from the bottle, before swiftly delivering a river of droplets on to the surface of her own protruding, curled tongue. She sucked the tincture back, with a relishing hissing sound, half closing her eyes.

‘High? But for how long?’ Peter put down his newspaper. ‘Your friend—’

‘“Our Friend”, that’s what Alix calls him now. And I rather like it.’

‘“Our Friend” is not terribly popular, you know. There are mumblings, there’s talk.’

‘There is always talk. That’s all there is – talk.’

Militza pulse was beginning to race. It was difficult to ascertain whether it was her growing irritation with her husband, or merely the powerful effects of Dr Badmaev’s cocaine elixir.

‘There is no need to be so bad-tempered,’ continued Peter. ‘I was just passing on what I had heard.’

‘What? Snippets you picked up at the banya while chewing gherkins and drinking vodka? I am not sure those sources could possibly compare to the Tsar himself – to my source, the apex of power!’

‘Well, you probably know the other rumours then?’

‘Probably.’ Militza shook her head. She inhaled, expanding her chest, preparing to enjoy whatever her husband said.

‘That Maria Fyodorovna has sent a team of spies to France to find out about Our Friend. The Tsar’s mother doesn’t like the way like Badmaev is with her son, doesn’t like the way he has managed to get such a position at court, doesn’t like the secretive meetings, the furtiveness of it all; and she doesn’t trust him.’

‘The Dowager Empress has sent spies?’

‘Secret agents. They’ll report back to her.’

‘When?’

‘Soon. And the problem is, we both know what they’ll come back with…’

Militza was shocked. This was news indeed. She reached forward to pick up the red bottle again. More elixir. She needed to think and she needed to think fast.

‘I think you should stop taking so much of Mr Badmaev’s bloody potion.’ Peter nodded towards the bottle. ‘I hear he’s prescribing half of Countess Ignatiev’s salon, these days. It’s ridiculous. The man doesn’t seem to be able to cure anything except stubborn nervous diseases, mental maladies and disturbances of the female physiology.’

‘Tell that to the Tsar and all those patients he’s put forward for ministerial posts. And anyway, he’s a doctor,’ she replied, raising her fine, large, black brows. ‘Dr Badmaev, if you please. Not Mr. He knows what he is doing.’

‘Well, everyone trusts a doctor! Don’t they?’

Militza nodded, staring out of the window towards the large fountain in the garden and the calm sea beyond. ‘Yes, they do,’ she said slowly. ‘I think I have an idea.’

And as with all ideas, Militza had always found it much better for the person in question to come up with it themselves. So it was a few days later that Alix announced, while taking a small walk through the fragrant rose garden just to the left of the long terrace at Znamenka, that she’d thought of something simply splendid. The fact that Stana had planted this suggestion in her head when she’d visited for luncheon the day before was neither here nor there.

‘I think,’ Alix declared, as she spun her parasol, ‘I think that Nicky should make Our Friend an honorary doctor.’

‘Oh!’ Militza stopped in her tracks and clutched her heart in ostentatious excitement. ‘How clever of you! That is such a good idea.’

‘It just came to me,’ continued Alix, with a small shrug and a curl of a smile. ‘He has been so incredibly helpful and loyal, he deserves something. Don’t you think? It seems such a shame that he has not been recognized.’

‘Absolutely.’

‘I suggested it to Nicky at breakfast this morning and he wasn’t completely sure, but I explained it would help with Dr Ott, and the others… It would be nice for him to have a position. An official role. I feel they look down on him sometimes. I see their faces when he speaks. I know he has an appalling southern accent, but then I speak Russian with such a terrible thick accent too! And no one thinks any the less of me for that!’

‘No,’ agreed Militza, fighting the smile on her face, ‘I think most people find your accent… charming.’

‘Yes,’ Alix nodded. ‘Charming.’

How could she not hear the sniggers and the titters when she opened her mouth to speak Russian? Militza wondered. Had she become inured to the antipathy at court? So used to the frosty reception she received that she no longer felt it? Is it possible to have one’s feelings so hurt that one ceases to feel any more at all?

As they continued their walk, arm in arm, down the gently sloping lawn, through the thick line of cedar trees, towards the sea, Militza remembered a story that Alix once told her about her early days in Russia and about how she’d always felt ‘quite alone and in despair’. She’d described an afternoon’s drive that she and one of the more unpleasant ladies of the court, Countess Vorontsov, had taken along Nevsky Prospekt, when they’d come across a beggar asking for alms. He’d approached the carriage with his hands outstretched and she, Alix, had been so touched by his plight and his kind eyes, she’d given him a few coins from her purse. The beggar had smiled gratefully at her. ‘That was the first smile,’ she’d told Militza, ‘I’d received in Russia.’ And she had been there for over a year.

Now even the beggars don’t bother, thought Militza, as they paused on the brow of a hill to catch their breath, staring out to sea. Perhaps it is preferable, then, that she no longer notices.

‘Perhaps we could ask the French?’ suggested Alix. Militza stared at her blankly. ‘To give Our Friend a doctorate?’

‘I don’t think that is a good idea,’ Militza said hurriedly.

‘Oh?’ Alix looked a little surprised. She was not a woman used to being contradicted.

‘The French…’ Militza’s mind was whirring. How could she tell her that Our Friend had in fact been arrested five times in France for practising without a licence? Not that there was any doubt that Monsieur Philippe had special powers. Of course he did. It was, Militza reasoned, just a great shame that the French authorities were the last to realize them. ‘I think a Russian doctorate, a Russian medical diploma, would be much more fitting for services in Russia, to the Russian court, to the Russian Tsar himself,’ she declared. ‘Rather than anything Our Friend achieved in Paris. Although he has clearly achieved a lot in Paris, and in France, the whole of France, of course,’ she swiftly added.

‘Yes,’ sighed Alix. Her voice suddenly sounded a little weak. ‘You know best.’

‘Let’s ask him tonight,’ suggested Militza.

She turned away from the sea and looked up the hill towards Znamenka. Its huge neoclassical façade stretched expansively before her. Three stories high with a large domed roof tower, plus endless bedrooms, ballrooms, salons, dining rooms, servants’ quarters, its own glasshouses, stables for one hundred horses, cellar, and kitchen gardens, it was an impressive and imposing sight. The weak afternoon sunset made its yellow and white frosted pillars glow a pale orange and, if she squinted slightly, she could see several white dots, the children, playing on the terrace. Militza smiled to herself and sighed with a gentle contentment.

She turned back. Alix was looking pale in the wind. Over her shoulder, the sun dipped behind a thick cloud gathering on the horizon. She shivered; her white chiffon ensemble rippled against her.

‘I am cold,’ she said, closing her flighty parasol and wrapping her arms around herself. ‘And tired.’ She looked up at Militza. Her pale blue eyes appeared to be fighting back the tears.

‘Are you all right?’ Militza moved swiftly, placing her hands on Alix’s shoulders.

‘Yes, yes,’ she replied breezily, avoiding looking Militza in the eyes, as the wind whipped loose stands of hair around her face. ‘Just tell me,’ she stammered, fighting to get the words out, as her lips shook and her nose started to run. Try as she might she could not stop her tears. ‘Tell me…’ She was inhaling and exhaling, shivering and stammering, trying to keep in check the bubbling brook of emotion that was desperately bursting out of her. ‘Tell me, it will be all right. Tell me it will.’ At last she sobbed and at last she cried, but instead of cleaving to Militza she stood there on the clifftop, rigid, her fists clenching, her pale golden hair flying around her face, biting her bottom lip as the tears streamed down her face.

‘Yes, it will,’ Militza said, moving towards her and wrapping her a tight embrace. ‘It will all be fine.’ She slowly kissed Alix on the cheek and then on her soft, sensitive mouth.

‘Goodness gracious!’ announced Alix, pulling away swiftly and rapidly searching in her pocket for her handkerchief. ‘Look at me.’ She stared down her damp, milk-soaked shirt. ‘Even my breast is weeping.’