The Witches of St. Petersburg

³² 22 February 1914, St Petersburg

It was not until some months later that the sisters realized quite how duplicitous Rasputin had been.

A few days after listening to his drunken, boastful ramblings in the over-heated, sex-soaked room, Stana and Nikolasha had managed to speak to the Tsar in private. As Commander-in-Chief of the army, Nikolasha’s opinions, ideas and advice were important to the Tsar, no matter what minor tribulations went on between both their wives, so they were invited to a meeting in his office in Tsarskoye Selo, where they fervently pleaded with the Tsar that Russia should commit to helping Montenegro in the Balkan War.

Their argument was quite simple: since Montenegro had backed Russia during the ill-fated Russo-Japanese War, it was now time for the Tsar to honour their alliance and stick up for his staunchest ally, Stana’s father. They were family, after all. They left the meeting, buoyed by Nicky’s response, safe in the knowledge that Rasputin would meet with the Emperor later that day to shore up the plan. After all, they’d left him the letter and had sat, listening attentively, while he’d drained a couple of bottles of Madeira and talked endlessly about himself, for over two hours.

Except, that was not what happened.

In February, while the poor stalked the snow-covered streets looking for food and the threat of war hung ominously in the air, the court celebrated the wedding, not of the decade, but perhaps the entire century.

The union of Princess Irina Alexandrovna, the only daughter of the Tsar’s sister Xenia and Grand Duke Alexander, with Prince Felix Yusupov, the richest and most eligible prince in all of Russia, was quite some match. The beautiful, aristocratic, educated, Irina, the Emperor’s only niece, was regarded as the finest catch in the empire and for her to marry the empire’s richest prince, made the ceremony and the party afterwards, the ultimate social occasion.

Held in the private chapel at the Anichkov Palace, the bride arrived in a state coach pulled by eight white horses. She eschewed tradition and instead of wearing the usual court dress with a kokoshnik, she wore a silk satin gown of the latest fashion, stitched with silver thread, with a rock crystal tiara from Cartier holding in place Marie Antoinette’s lace wedding veil. The groom, as he had no rank in the army or official military roll, wore a dark frock coat embroidered with gold and white broadcloth trousers. She was led down the aisle by the Tsar himself who gave her twenty-one uncut diamonds as a wedding present; he also bequeathed Prince Yusupov unlimited access to the Imperial Box at the theatre, in lieu of his original gift – a position at court – which the young prince had turned down.

It was indeed a splendid occasion. A glitter of expensive jewels, rich silks and dashing uniforms with the receiving line into the reception over two hours long. And while the happy couple stood there, along with their parents, accepting the congratulations from the guests, everyone else sipped champagne, ate spoonfuls of caviar and talked about the terrible increase in hostilities both at home and abroad, while occasionally glancing out of the windows at the canal and the grey streets below.

‘What did you think of the dress?’ asked the Grand Duchess Vladimir, her Bolin diamond pearl tiara quivering.

‘I thought it was beautiful,’ replied Stana, taking a sip of her champagne.

‘I thought it quite dull in comparison to the usual court dress; quite why Xenia let her wear that I have no idea.’ She smiled, before proffering up her small plump hand. ‘Do you like my little Christmas present to myself?’ On her index finger glinted a large cabochon ruby ring, the size of an emperor beetle. ‘Cartier.’ Since her husband’s death almost five years before, Maria Pavlovna had been in receipt of one million roubles a year as a pension, which she had mostly spent on jewellery.

‘It is beautiful,’ said Militza, for it was indeed stunning.

‘I hear your Friend is opposed to going to war,’ Maria said, retracting her hand and taking a large swig from her glass. ‘Don’t look so surprised!’ she continued. ‘I thought you knew? Only the other day he was asking the Tsar not to engage with the Ottomans.’

‘When was this?’ asked Nikolasha.

‘Not long ago,’ said Maria. ‘I heard he was actually lying on the floor, begging him not to support your lot.’

‘Begging?’ asked Nikolasha.

‘That’s what I heard.’ She smiled.

‘Begging?’ he repeated, a look of horror on his face. ‘That man will stop at nothing. Can you believe it?’ He turned to look at Stana. ‘After all that?’

‘He’s moving apartments too,’ continued Maria.

‘Where?’ asked Militza.

‘Gorokhovaya Street – number sixty-four, third-floor flat, apparently. A grubby street,’ she said. ‘The Tsar’s paying his rent – 121 roubles a month. But it is very close to the train station, with a direct line to Tsarskoye Selo.’

‘You seem very well informed, Maria,’ declared Nikolasha.

‘Of course I am,’ she laughed. ‘I had tea the other day with that weasel, Anna Vyrubova – that woman knows more than the Okhrana and is stupid enough to answer any question you ask!’

‘Who knows more than Okhrana?’ quizzed a small, neat man with a wide face and brown, thinning hair. ‘Oswald,’ he said, introducing himself. ‘Oswald Rayner, I am a friend of Prince Yusupov’s from Oxford University.’

‘Good evening,’ responded Militza, nodding. There was something about the fellow she found appealing. His face was intelligent and his manner charming; it was easy to see why the prince had befriended him. ‘We were just talking about an acquaintance of ours.’

‘Who is a dear, close friend of Rasputin,’ added Maria. ‘If you know who he is?’

‘I have learnt not to mention him by name,’ laughed Mr Rayner. ‘Talk of Rasputin is more dangerous than Rasputin himself.’

Nikolasha and Stana were too furious to stay any longer at the wedding. Nikolasha was more humiliated than annoyed; he’d trusted the Siberian to speak to the Tsar three months ago, had believed he would help them – and to have been outplayed by a peasant wounded him greatly. This was not a trifle, a little game. This was war.

The next morning Stana telephoned her sister.

‘I don’t know what to do,’ she said. ‘Father is furious. He was relying on Nicky to back him and Nikolasha said it was simple enough but now Rasputin’s changed everything. That man is totally out of control. He is conducting the orchestra while the rest of us just sit in the stalls. We have to do something.’

‘We need to think, Stana. Let’s not be rash.’

‘Rash!’

‘We need to come up with a plan.’

‘No, dear sister, you do.’

Militza brooded. She spent hours in her salon, contemplating what she should do. It was five days later, at the Countess Marie Kleinmichel’s Persian Ball in honour of her three young nieces, that she realized she could wait no longer.

A masked ball? For 300 guests? For which Leon Bakst, the celebrated costumier for the Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, designed the majority of the costumes? The Countess had been besieged by so many people wanting to watch the proceedings there had been talk of allowing them to view from the balconies above. But in the end, the countess put her foot down and decided she wanted to seat every guest for a midnight supper and a total of three hundred was all her kitchen could manage. The ball opened with an Oriental quadrille, followed by an Egyptian dance, a Cossack dance, a traditional folk dance and a Hungarian folk dance. The costumes were stunning – kaftans of golden thread, capes trimmed with sable, blue silk pantaloons, crimson jackets, silver lamé turbans; the champagne flowed, the caviar circled the room and everyone was quite breathless with excitement.

It was billed as the ball to end all balls and it certainly was. It was the last great ball in Imperial Russia before the outbreak of the First World War, the last time the court was to dance in all its finery. Not that anyone knew that evening. Indeed, the opulence and profligacy, the purchase of such extravagant costumes for one night only, was not questioned by any of the guests. They were used to dancing while the rest of St Petersburg starved and shivered – why would it not continue forever?

Stana danced most of the night, watched by Nikolasha who, although reputedly a fine dancer, preferred a spectator’s view. Peter asked each of the Kleinmichel daughters for a quadrille, hoping that others would be as generous with his own daughter, while Militza was deep in conversation with Mr Rayner. Prince Yusupov’s Oxford University friend, although wearing a red turban, had decided against the remainder of his costume, preferring a simple white tie in lieu the loose blue silk trousers that he’d been offered earlier that evening.

‘What is it with the Russians and dressing up?’ he asked an amused Militza. ‘Why can’t they have a normal evening? With normal food. In normal clothes. It’s exhausting!’

‘I suppose there are so many parties it’s the only way to differentiate one from the other,’ she replied.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘The Season here is like no other I have ever witnessed. The relentless hedonism is something else. And quite why anyone would want to go to a party dressed as a Hun is beyond me.’ He drank his shot of vodka and pushed an irritating feather out of his face. ‘Particularly during this time – and for you it must be very galling indeed.’ He nodded.

‘Me?’

‘Being from Montenegro and your father not securing help from the Russians,’ he replied. ‘It’s almost as if someone’s rubbing salt into wounds.’

‘Yes.’ Militza laughed lightly, the man seemed remarkably au courant. ‘And what are you doing here?’

‘Nothing much,’ he replied. ‘Seeing friends. I’m thinking of renting a little flat on Moika.’

‘So you will be staying with us long?’

He nodded. ‘I think things might be getting a little interesting here.’

‘Interesting? I think you flatter us, Mr Rayner,’ declared Militza, taking a large sip of her drink and walking towards the other side of the ballroom.

‘So do you like my friend?’ asked a rather inebriated voice in the crowd.

‘Prince Yusupov,’ declared Militza. ‘I didn’t recognize you with all the feathers and the turban. Are you not on honeymoon?’

‘I leave tomorrow,’ he said, with a wave of his slim hand. ‘Paris, where we know far too many people. So I am sure we shall have to slip off somewhere else if we are to find any peace; I’m quite fond of Egypt, what do you think?’

‘Good,’ agreed Militza. The man was very obviously drunk; his pale eyes were staring at her, one slowly closing independently from the other and he was clearly in a combative mood. She made as if to walk away.

‘So, do you like my friend?’ he asked again, taking hold of her upper arm.

‘He’s charming,’ she replied, looking furiously at his grip. Like father like son. He loosened it.

‘Well, I don’t like your Friend,’ he said. ‘Rasputin!’ He practically spat his name as he staggered back a step or two.

‘I thought you were friends – or at least, your friend, Munia Golovina, and her mother are most certainly close to him.’

‘What a charlatan he is! The man tried to hypnotize me the other day. “To cure me”, he said. What an utter fraud!’

‘I think you might have drunk a little too much.’ She smiled gently. ‘It might have warped your judgement.’

‘You’re the one with warped judgement. You’re the one who brought this evil charlatan into all our lives.’

‘That is not true.’

‘Who found him? You. Who introduced him to the court? You. Who championed him? You. Who helped him infiltrate the imperial household? You. Who paraded him around St Petersburg? You. Your house, your palace, Znamenka…’ He paused, his lips curling with hatred. ‘That palace is the axis of all that is evil in this world and you are the personification of all that is evil. You have opened Pandora’s box, my dear, and…’ He paused again, staring at her. ‘And you have no idea how to close it.’ He turned as if to leave and then he stopped, swaying a little as he spoke. ‘I pity you. You think you are so very clever. But you are not. Your monster is out of control, Madame! It’s gorging itself on power, girls and alcohol. While you? You think it will be fine, but it won’t. You suffer from hubris, dear lady, hubris. And it will defeat you in the end!’

That night Militza found it impossible to sleep. She was haunted by images that kept whirling and swirling round in her head. Felix Yusupov’s furious, drunken, plumed-head berated and hectored her all night, as did vibrant images of Rasputin – his blessings, his healings, his filthy fingers being licked clean, his laughing, his dancing, the smell of his fetid breath and the rough touch of his hands, as well as his haunting voice in her ear: ‘Naughty girl!’ ‘Naughty girl.’ ‘Naughty girl.’

As dawn broke, Militza lay covered in a cold sweat, staring at the gilt ceiling; her mouth was dry, her brain was exhausted, but her jaw was set, her mind made up. She must exorcise the beast: she must kill him.

Later that morning she called Stana and demanded they meet in a quiet corner of the Yacht Club – to discuss such a thing on the telephone would be unthinkable – although a discussion was not what actually took place.

‘No,’ said Stana simply, her dark eyes wide with horror. ‘Are you insane? Have you been taking too much elixir? You don’t look like you’ve slept at all.’ Her hand shook as she poured herself tea, spilling a little on the white linen tablecloth. How could it have possibly come to this? ‘Murder Rasputin?’

‘Keep your voice down!’ Militza’s furtive eyes glanced around the club. ‘The walls have eyes and ears. The Okhrana know everything.’

‘I don’t care who hears, because I will not entertain such a thing.’

‘But he is out of control!’

‘I know!’

‘He’s now so powerful the other day the Tsar sent him to look Stolypin’s replacement in the eye to see if he was a “good man”. And guess what?’

‘What?’

‘He wasn’t. And guess what?’ She paused and leant across the table. ‘He’s not the Prime Minister.’

‘That doesn’t justify killing him,’ said Stana, stirring her tea.

‘Doesn’t it?’ Militza felt her heat beat rapidly in her chest. ‘I don’t know if you have noticed between quadrilles and appointments with your dressmaker, but you and I are not welcome at the palace any more?’

‘No one is welcome at the palace; they don’t see anyone.’

‘But instead of us advising, guiding, smoothing the ruffled feathers, it’s them.’

‘Well, Nikolasha’s heard that Anna thinks we only introduced Rasputin to the Tsarina so that we might later use him as a tool to further our own goals.’ Stana took a sip of her tea. ‘It seems the tool no longer needs its master.’

‘When was the last time Alix was at Znamenka?’

‘I can’t remember.’

‘When was the last time Nicky spoke to Nikolasha, the cousin he loves so much?’

‘I can’t remember.’

Militza sighed. ‘Felix Yusupov called our house the axis of evil.’

‘Well, his family have always hated Grisha.’

‘But I thought Felix didn’t?’

‘That was before Grisha tried to cure him,’ Stana lowered her voice to just above a whisper, ‘of his lusts.’

‘Lusts?’

‘Boys.’

‘Homosexuality.’

‘Yes,’ nodded Stana.

‘Well, that’s hardly a secret; the man has been dressing up as a woman ever since he could walk. And he’ll tell anyone that he was so convincing as a girl he once caught the eye of King Edward VII!’

‘Well, Grisha suggested he went to the gypsies in Novaya Derevnaya. He said they would soon coax it out of him!’

‘The gypsies are his answer to every question.’

Stana nodded. ‘Since when is murdering him the answer to yours?’

The argument went back and forth. The more Stana refused to discuss the idea or even entertain such a concept, the more Militza believed herself to be correct. Every time she pondered the future with him still in it, she was overcome with nausea and paranoia.

‘It feels bad,’ she whispered to her sister, as the waiter came to clear away the tea.

‘I think you need to speak to Dr Badmaev about all the elixir you are taking,’ said Stana. ‘It’s affecting your nerves.’

‘Are you scared of Rasputin?’

‘No,’ Stana replied defiantly. ‘I just hate him. According to Nicky “Better ten Rasputins than an hysterical Alix”. Whatever Rasputin does, however duplicitous he is, he makes life more bearable at Tsarskoye Selo. He keeps Alix calm and so Nicky gives him what he wants. His prayers coincide with the recovery of Alexei and now, after Spala…’

‘That child of many prayers,’ said Militza, shaking her head.

‘I could not take that away,’ said Stana. ‘Despite what he’s done to our country and the war.’

‘The truth is you think he made all the difference to your wedding. You think it was all down to Rasputin that you and Nikolasha got married in the first place. Well, it wasn’t. And the person who made the ultimate sacrifice for you was not him, but me!’ Militza stood up from the table. ‘So I don’t need your help, I don’t need your approval. I shall do this with or without you!’ She looked at her sister. ‘Without you, it is!’

And so she waited, as she knew she had to although she was desperate not to. But she would only have one chance, so she bided her time and prepared. On her own, her magic would not be strong enough against him, for he was a formidable force. Quite what the Four Winds had found when they’d scoured the land looking for a koldun, she could not tell. But his magic was strong and his will was even stronger. Perhaps he had been born with a small tail? He certainly had two budding horns on the top of his head. Maybe he had been born with teeth? Or was he the product of three generations of illegitimacy? All she knew was that he had certainly signed a pact with the Devil, using the blood of his left little finger. And it would take all of her powers to stand up to him. She would have to call on the magic of all the ancient sisters who’d gone before her to rid Russia of his evil soul. For days, she disappeared into her salon in Znamenka. She pored over her books while she played with the toenails she’d so painstakingly harvested from him and kept in a beautiful handcrafted box that had been given to her by Papus himself, inlaid with a large Martinist star, the symbol of the order. Rasputin had come willingly to her house, she reminded herself, a fact that would make the spell more powerful. She had not taken her trophies using force.

But the spells of the past seemed weak. What use was an old spell and graveyard dust in his drink or food? ‘As the dead no longer stand up, may the body of Rasputin no longer stand, as the body of the dead have disappeared, may the body of Rasputin also disappear.’ It all seemed so ineffectual. Brana could certainly find the graveyard dust and she might possibly be able to sprinkle it on his food. But the idea he would suddenly keel over did not seem plausible at all.

She must think, she must plan – and all the while she kept reminding herself that she was the one who had the St John the Baptist icon. She was the one who was protected and he was not.

So she waited for 23 June, for Midsummer’s night and the feast of St John’s Eve, then stepping out into the forest, her cape tied tightly around her, she could not help but think how much she missed her sister, of the summers they’d spent gathering herbs wet with morning dew. The last time they’d gone out together was years ago, when they’d tried to help Alix. The woman was so disloyal not to remember that, remember how they had helped her, how Militza and Philippe had come to her rescue when the fifth daughter was born. Funny how the poor child is not mentioned now, funny what people remember, funny what they choose to forget…

It was a beautiful night as she wove her way through the forest. The sky was clear and the sun low in the pale blue sky, trying in vain to set. She loved these white nights, where the days lasted forever and the city was not allowed to sleep. There was always a sort of madness in the air that made malefic spells trip more freely off the tongue. She was looking for foxgloves, known as ‘dead man’s bells’, in the forest so Rasputin might hear them ringing in his ears, for hemlock grown in full sunshine so it would be more virulently poisonous – and of course, henbane. Brana had already secured a mandrake. She’d been dispatched two nights before with a sword and one of Nikolasha’s borzois. Under strict instructions, she’d traced a circle, three times, around the plant and had tied the plant to the dog; then, while she covered her ears, she’d placed a plate of meat outside the circle so that dog pulled up the plant as he lunged forward for the food.

While Militza wandered alone through the forest, Brana busied herself melting down a cross, fashioning the molten metal into a bullet. The only way to kill a klondun as powerful as Rasputin was to force a metal bullet through his heart.

It was about 6 a.m. by the time Militza came back to the palace with her foxgloves, henbane and hemlock, all glistening with St John’s Eve dew, then the two women set to work. Militza fashioned a doll in the shape of Rasputin, just as she’d done all those years before, taking care to reproduce the large member that she and Stana had added out of foolishness. What an appalling act of folly that had turned out to be. She warmed the wax from a fresh corpse in her hands; it was a much softer, whiter fat than the wax she was used to and there was something deeply unpleasant about the way it melted and slid all over her hands, covering them with the grease. The smell was acrid and made her eyes water and she needed to be quick, for the poppet of fat would not keep its shape for long. She placed it in a small metal dish.

‘Quick,’ she said to Brana. ‘Pass me the mandrake.’ Brana sprinkled the powdered mandrake into a glass of wine, dark and red, the colour of blood for her to drink.

‘Kulla! Kulla!’ she began, draining the glass in one. ‘Kulla! Kulla!’ she repeated, her eyes flickering and her body swaying and she worked herself into a meditative trance. ‘Kulla! Kulla!’ She picked up the small bullet made from the molten cross. ‘Kulla, Kulla…’ She pushed the bullet slowly into the chest of the poppet made of fat. ‘Kulla! Kulla! Blind Rasputin, black, blue, brown, white, red eyes. Blow up his belly larger than a charcoal pit, dry up his body thinner than the meadow grass, kill him quicker than a viper.’ She reached into her box and pulled out three of his toenails. ‘Kulla! Kulla!’ she continued, as she squashed them into the fat. ‘See these nail clippings, may he never be able to clamber out of his dead man’s grave, may he never climb to heaven, may he always be in hell!’ She looked up. ‘Brana, the window!’

Brana rushed to open the window as Militza sprinkled the foxgloves, the henbane and the hemlock over the small metal dish then lit the candle underneath it. Soon the little poppet began to sizzle in the dish. The doll melted and suddenly the liquid and herbs all caught fire.

‘I call upon the winds!’ Militza had her eyes closed and her arms outstretched. ‘I call upon the winds to take this zagovor with all its maleficence and take it on the wind, find Rasputin, wherever he is.’ She opened her eyes a little; there was nothing but a light breeze coming through the window. ‘I call upon the winds! The four winds! I call upon them to take this zagovor, take it! Take it and find Rasputin!’

Suddenly the curtains billowed and there was a loud whistling as a huge gust of wind came charging through the window like a whirling dervish. Books and papers flew everywhere, glass and china smashed on the floor as the wind tore around the room, howling, moaning, weeping in Militza’s ears. It wrenched at her clothes, lifted tables and chairs, flew paintings off the wall; it was so strong that she could not manage to open her eyes. And then suddenly it left. The curtains lay flat against the wall and the room was silent. Militza looked down. The metal dish with the bullet, the herbs and the pool of melted human fat had disappeared. The spell had flown.

Not long after, Militza was woken by a telephone call in the middle of night. Rasputin had been stabbed in the stomach by a noseless whore just outside his own house.

Militza smiled softly and went back to sleep.