The Witches of St. Petersburg

¹⁸ 31 October 1905, Znamenka, Peterhof

‘That’s it!’ declared Militza to her sister as she entered the Red Salon in Znamenka.

Stana looked up from her sewing. She was embroidering handkerchiefs for injured soldiers returned from the front. It was not something she enjoyed doing, in fact it bored her tremendously, but after the terrible traumas of the last year one had to be seen to be doing one’s bit.

And what traumas they were. There was the mistake of Bloody Sunday when lines of Cossacks and Hussars opened fire on a peaceful demonstration of workers, led by Father Gapon, all marching towards the Winter Palace in the hope of meeting the Tsar.

Poor Nicky, it broke his heart. Not least because no one told him about the worker’ rally and the terrible overreaction of his troops. The stories of death and blood on the streets of St Petersburg were appalling, the tales of the bullet holes that riddled the workers’ icons and their portraits of the Tsar made worse by their cries: ‘The Tsar has abandoned us,’ ‘The Tsar will not help us,’ and worst of all, ‘We have no Tsar any more.’ These traumatized and haunted Nicky as he sat drinking his tea and reading the reports in his study at Tsarskoye Selo.

Father Gapon wrote Nicky a letter.

And it wasn’t long before the first blood was spilt.

Three weeks later the Tsar’s uncle, Grand Duke Sergei was assassinated in Moscow. He had just said goodbye to his wife, Alix’s sister, Grand Duchess Elizabeth Fyodorovna, at the Kremlin and, as he travelled through the gate in his horse-drawn carriage, a bomb was thrown directly into his lap, killing him instantly. Ella heard the explosion from the apartment and came running. After first comforting the dying coachman, she then proceeded to crawl around in the snow, trying to find as many pieces of her husband as she could, so as much of him as possible could be buried together. She collected small fragments of his skull, his arm, his torso, but his fingers, still wearing his rings, weren’t found until a week later on a rooftop nearby.

Alix was distraught for her sister and Ella never really recovered. She wasn’t allowed to go to the funeral because it was perceived as too dangerous and, announcing fairly quickly after the assassination that she wanted to take Holy Orders, she proceeded to sell all her jewellery.

It was all so very traumatic. But as Militza pointed out to Stana, Spirit himself had predicted the assassination that night at Countess Ignatiev’s salon. ‘Why else had he repeated the name Sergei, over and over again?’ she said.

Over that summer they were forced to convert part, or all, of their palaces in the Crimea into makeshift convalescent hospitals for soldiers coming home from the Front. Militza quickly realized they had to move with the times or look out of place. The Russo-Japanese war was lost, the naval fleet destroyed, there were strikes in schools and factories and the murder of policemen and Cossacks, as well as riots in all corners of the land. There was a mutiny of sailors in nearby Odessa on the battleship Potemkin. They had apparently thrown the officers over the side – along with the rotten meat they’d been served – and then trained their guns on the city. They were only stopped from ransacking other towns up and down the Black Sea coast when the ship ran out of fuel.

There was distinctly more than a whiff of revolution in the air. It was a stench. Like the smell of smoke before a fire, people could sense it coming.

Tensions had been running so high at Znamenka that they’d spilt over into a stand-up argument between Nikolasha and Nicky. Dinner had been a little protracted and some wine had been drunk, but that was not to say that the sentiments weren’t heartfelt. Militza was shuffling her Cards of Marseilles, preparing for a little after-dinner tarot, as it had been a few weeks since Nicky had dined with them. He’d come on his own as Alix was once again bedridden, this time with her bad heart.

They were discussing the plans drawn up by Sergei Witte, an older advisor of Nicky’s father, to quell the tides of discontent. Witte had suggested there was a plain and simple choice between a military dictatorship and a constitution and Nicky was debating between the two with Nikolasha, who had recently been given charge of the St Petersburg Military District. The discussion became progressively heated. And while Peter kept his counsel and made sure their glasses were full, Militza kept them in fresh supplies of cigarettes as they argued into the night about the increased hostility, the widespread terror – so much so that when they took their own train back from the Crimea they were advised to travel without the lights on in case they were mobbed.

Then, suddenly, Militza remembered, Nikolasha leapt off the divan in the Red Salon, where they’d gathered after dinner, took his pistol out of his holster and declared dramatically, ‘If the Emperor doesn’t accept the Witte programme, if he wants to force me to become a Dictator, I shall kill myself in his presence with this revolver. We must support Witte at all costs. It is necessary for the good of Russia!’

‘What’s it?’ asked Stana, grateful to put down her embroidery.

‘The boy is bleeding again, from the navel – it’s a haemorrhage. The doctor has been called to the palace forty-two times in two months.’

‘Forty-two?’ Stana’s face blanched a little.

‘Alix has been crying on the telephone this morning, saying the child is crawling, trying to learn to walk, and he’s had a bang. But what can you do? It is only going to get worse.’

‘Much worse,’ agreed Stana.

‘The blood can’t be blamed on Gunst and her bandages forever. We need to find a solution, for if that boy dies, what will happen to us?’

‘Us?’ Stana frowned.

‘Our power will disappear overnight.’ Militza walked across the salon, plucked a cigarette from a silver box and lit it. A long grey plume of smoke curled out from between her lips. ‘Perhaps we need to find someone new, as Philippe predicted?’

‘New?’

‘Someone to restore her faith?’

‘What about John of Kronstadt? He has the power to heal through prayer?’

‘He is tied up with helping the poor and the needy. He would not come for a bump or a tumble down the stairs. No. We need someone else. Brana has been on the lookout. She’s looked over St Petersburg, trawled the monasteries outside. If only…’

‘If only Philippe were still alive?’ Stana said. ‘If only…’ She looked a little wistful. ‘It’s been two months since he died and I miss him terribly. Remember him predicting his own death? 1905, he said. Do you remember? And it happened, just as he said. Everything happened, just as he said. I miss him so. I miss his counsel, his wise words. The letters were never enough. I can’t believe we didn’t manage to see him again before he died. I shall always regret that. He was such a dear friend to us all.’

‘He said someone new would come,’ said Militza. ‘But this time we need someone of our own making, someone who we can control. Someone who is entirely ours, who answers to us and only to us, who has no past to haunt us. We have Father to think of, our country to think of – and we are not going to let all that we have worked for trickle through our fingers like grains of sand.’

‘And how do you propose to do that?’ Stana demanded, looking at her sister with more than a little irritation. She picked up her sewing and started to stitch. Whatever her sister had in mind she wanted none of it. She was becoming increasingly bored with Militza’s lust for power. They had been at the heart of court life for the past five years and frankly, now that she had fallen into the arms of Nikolasha, she had become a lot less interested.

Not that their relationship had been allowed beyond the walls of Znamenka, which was where Nikolasha was now living and where Stana was a persistent visitor. Unable to stem the growing love between them, Militza had decided it was safer and easier to allow them the confines of the Red Salon. However, she was amazed how a glimpse of happiness had diminished her sister’s ambitions. When Stana was with Nikolasha, little else mattered, least of all the politics of empire. The Montenegrin army had fought alongside the Russians in the Russo-Japanese war – surely that was enough to cement their countries together? Granted, the outcome had been neither short nor victorious and it had only exacerbated Russia’s internal problems, rather than solved them. But they had fought shoulder to shoulder: they were brothers in arms and no new guru was going to improve on that.

‘I have told her we’ve found someone already,’ Militza said. ‘So now we have to…’

‘Don’t bring me into this. The boy needs a doctor, not a guru.’

‘The doctors don’t know anything. They treat his haemophilia with endless amounts of aspirin. They think it is the new drug to cure all ills. But no one knows what it actually does. What is aspirin? And is it good for weak blood? Weak blood that doesn’t clot?’

‘How do you know it is haemophilia?’

Militza stared at her sister, her dark eyes narrowed. ‘Even the Pharaohs had the good sense to ban women from having any more children if their firstborn died from a small wound that never healed. How else can you explain what is happening to Alexei? She is Victoria’s granddaughter. He has the “royal disease”, that much is sure. Her brother Frittie died of it – she told us how he fell and they couldn’t stop the bleeding. We have both seen it spread through the royal families of Europe, taking princes whenever its caprice fancies.’ She shook her head. ‘I can’t help but think Empress Maria Fyodorovna made a terrible, appalling mistake with Alix. Of all the brides to choose. It was stark neglect, of her and of the Russian Court in finding a wife for Nicky!’

‘You know Alexei won’t live beyond the age of five?’ said Stana.

‘He must.’

‘And how do you propose to make that happen?’

‘We’ll manifest someone.’ Stana put down her sewing and looked at her sister. ‘And tonight is the most auspicious of nights.’

‘Tonight?’ Stana was looking nervous.

‘All Hallows’ Eve.’ Militza took a long drag on her cigarette. ‘The best night of the year to raise someone.’

‘Or something…’ Stana paused. ‘Do you have any idea what you are doing?’

Militza nodded slowly as she exhaled steadily. ‘Perfectly. We’ll use the “Price”.’

Stana shook her head. ‘Militza, you can’t consort with the dead and expect to be left alone.’

‘Says who?’

‘Do you think you’re the only person who can dance with the Devil and expect him to listen when you ask to stop?’

‘I have looked the Devil in the eye.’ Militza raised her eyebrows, sounding pleased with herself. ‘All those séances, all those times we have used the Ouija board, where do you think I went?’

‘You are scaring me now.’

‘Don’t be so weak. You have known about our power all your life; it goes back centuries. Now is the time to use it.’

‘But you will open Pandora’s Box!’

‘And then…’ said Militza, stubbing her cigarette in a silver ashtray, ‘I shall close it.’

That night, the three of them gathered in the library.

Stana had spent the rest of the day begging her sister not to perform the manifestation, but her pleas fell on deaf ears. Militza had promised the Tsarina that she should have someone ‘new’ and she, Militza, would provide him. Her logic was that if she manifested him, if she asked Spirit to provide him, then he would forever be in her thrall. She wanted someone truly powerful, who had control over life and death; and as she would provide him, she would be the one to control him. He would be her little monster. And she would keep him to heel.

So that fateful All Hallows’ Eve in 1905, while Peter and Nikolasha went into St Petersburg to see Chekhov’s play The Three Sisters, the two sisters and Brana took out the ancient bowl from the trunk Militza had brought with her from Cetinje and filled it with herbs, henbane and hashish. As the bowl began to crackle and smoke, Brana brought out a large carpetbag which she placed in the centre of the room.

Militza stood in the far corner of the library and peeled back her eyelids. Staring into the small hand mirror she had brought with her, she administered the belladonna drops: each squeeze of the pipette causing her to wince at the stinging pain. Then she began to chant, swaying from side to side with her eyes closed, inhaling the smoke, repeating her mantra, calling for her spirit guide. Her nostrils flared and her breath grew deeper, her bosom heaving as she felt him enter the room. The candles flickered and the curtains billowed and her chanting grew more frantic; over and over she said the words, biting her bottom lip, trying to control herself. Her shoulders quivered and her back arched as she let out a small, ecstatic sigh, she gripped on to the table with her slim white hands when he did finally enter her. She exhaled at last and opened her eyes. Her mouth open, her lips engorged, she kept hold of the table to steady herself.

‘He is here,’ she said gently, smiling, caressing her own soft cheek with her warm hand. ‘And he’s excited.’ She paused. ‘Brana,’ she said, as if trying to gather her thoughts. She exhaled deeply. ‘Gosh,’ she said, her eyes rolling in her head, as she slowly circled her hips. ‘I am not sure I have ever felt him this strongly before… Brana?’ She exhaled again, her eyelids fluttering. ‘Is it nearly midnight?’

‘Almost,’ the crone said.

‘Then we have no time to waste.’

Brana delved into her bag and brought out a glass bowl, a square of pink wax, a pot of dust, then out of a net amulet around her neck, she produced a small wooden cross. Militza placed on the table the icon that Philippe had given her of St John the Baptist.

‘You can’t use that!’ said Stana, looking horrified.

‘Why not?’

‘It’s against God, against Nature.’

‘To hell with that!’ Militza replied.

‘But it is sacred.’

‘All the more reason to use it.’ Militza smiled. ‘Quick, you fill the bowl with water; Brana, you warm the wax.’

The women worked quickly and soon the bowl was full, the wax soft and malleable in Militza’s hand. Her fingers were dexterous as she pulled and teased and the figure of a man slowly began to emerge from the wax. It was a simple effigy; she didn’t have to time to make individual legs.

‘He can wear robes,’ said Militza, as she fashioned his feet. ‘Oh,’ she smiled. ‘We must not forget this.’ She pulled at the wax between his legs. ‘Every man must have a member!’

‘But so big!’ said Stana.

Militza giggled. ‘Don’t be so prudish! And she made it a little longer, just for fun. The hashish must have been stronger than usual. ‘There!’ she said as she dropped it into the bowl. The little wax doll bobbed around in the water, the candlelight dancing with him. He looked part baby, part monk, part holy satyr. ‘Now,’ she continued, ‘the dust from a poor man’s grave.’ Brana handed her the small pot. ‘Collected at dawn this morning?’

Brana nodded. ‘From a grave in the village, an old horse rustler, I think.’

Militza took a pinch of the dust and sprinkled it into the bowl. As she did so, she began to chant.

‘Koldun, Koldun come to me, Koldun, Koldun come to me. Koldun, Koldun come to me and together we can set the Tsarina free.’

The little figure continued to float and bob around in the water.

‘Next, the cross. The icon. And the mirror – the invention of the Devil himself!’ she laughed.

In one swift movement she slammed the icon face down on the table. Stana closed her eyes. She could not bear to look. Next Militza dropped the wooden cross on the floor and she began to grind it under foot. As she did so, she placed the mirror next to the bowl so that it reflected the candlelight and intensified it, like a bright moonbeam, on to the bouncing figure.

‘Koldun, Koldun come to me,’ she began again as she stamped her foot up and down on the cross, pulverizing it under her heel. ‘Koldun, Koldun come to me. Koldun, Koldun come to me, and together we can make the Tsarevich better be.’

Still the small pink figure bounced up and down in the water.

‘And now the “Price”!’ Militza turned and smiled at Brana.

Brana nodded and she bent down, opened up her carpetbag once more and brought out a large, leather-bound Bible. She opened it and gently pulled apart the pages to reveal what looked like a blackened, crisp, oddly shaped piece of paper. Stana inhaled in horror.

‘The “Price”!’ Militza’s eyes shone. ‘What better way to summon a magician, a sorcerer, a Koldun? What better way than to use the unshriven, unblemished soul of a dead baby? It doesn’t get more perfect than that. To create life, you must take it – and here is a life taken.’

‘Are you sure?’ asked Stana, her hands shaking, her mouth twitching.

‘I have never been surer of anything!’ her sister said as she plunged what remained of Grand Duchess Vladimir’s miscarried foetus into the water.

‘Koldun, Koldun come to me…’ She swirled the water around the bowl. ‘Koldun, Koldun come to me.’ The water gradually began to turn red, blood red, as the foetus slowly began to disintegrate and finally dissolve. ‘Koldun, Koldun come to me, and together we can all powerful be.’

The curtains at the window began to sway and the table started to vibrate. Eventually, the whole room was shaking, as if hit by an earthquake. The noise was intense. The three women held on to the table so as not to be thrown over. Militza laughed, hugely, loudly, her mouth wide open, her larynx vibrating. It sounded diabolic. Stana screamed but Brana merely stood her ground. And then, as quickly as it arrived, it was gone. All that remained was an empty bowl of bloodied water.

‘Where’s it gone?’ asked Stana, staring into the empty bowl, her heart pounding.

‘Don’t worry.’ Militza smiled. ‘It will be back.’