Curse Not the King (23 page)

“Good. Well, we've talked of this before, many times, since you were old enough to understand what I intended for you. Your father … your father is unfit to rule. You see that for yourself. And I have never contemplated delivering my country and my people into his hands. Since he was your age, my Alexis, I knew that he must never, never rule. For one reason or another I was weak with him, some call it mercy, but my own adjective is weakness.… There were reasons then, policy, unrest among the people, opinion abroad. But principally Potemkin, whose advice to me was most ill-founded. I listened to him, Alexis, until the opportunity had passed its peak and you were growing up. And you pleaded with me not to use force on your father. To please you, I must disinherit him legally, and that is what I have just done.”

For a moment there was silence, while Paul's oldest son stared down at the design on the tapestry carpet at his feet.

“How, my grandmother?”

“By will. Here. I have declared him mad and passed the succession to you at my death.”

Alexander's tongue wet lips that were dry with apprehension and excitement.

“And what is to happen to him …?”

“He is to be shut up in Löhde Castle. It is a very secure fortress and the precautions necessary to restrain a lunatic should ensure that he won't live long in prison. So there need be no burden for your conscience.”

He looked up and smiled a beautiful, brilliant smile of relief. Then he lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it gratefully.

“How can I thank you … and you're so wise. You know I would never harm my father, you know my feelings for him are dutiful.… But my love for you comes first, that and my trust to safeguard your great work. It will be safe with me, grandmother. And I promise you that for all his faults, my father shall be gently treated.…”

“Not too gently,” she interrupted, her hatred of Paul rising at the suggestion of clemency.

“Don't underestimate him. He's not too mad, and he is resolved and very dangerous. You mustn't be weak, Alexis. I know my son.… Promise me that you will be severe, that no false feelings of pity shall deter you!”

Alexander, who intended Paul's immediate murder in the Löhde Fortress, shook his head and promised, reluctance and resolution adroitly mingled in his words and manner.

Then, as always, he reassured his grandmother with the phrase that gave her most comfort in the face of her weakened health and advancing years.

“But all this lies far ahead, Madame. Far into the future. There's no need to think of it now.…”

Catherine smiled at him and nodded. “I hope so, Alexis, I hope to live for many years. But it's as well to be prepared. Put my will back on the desk; it must be filed with my papers where you can have access to it at any moment if the need arises.… Now come and listen to my plans for the French campaign.”

Three years had passed since the heads of the King and Queen of France had fallen on a scaffold set up by the Revolution, and the Supreme Autocrat of Europe had been content with protests and verbal condemnation, satisfied that the system by which she herself existed should perish in France, since in the process the influence of a major European country was disintegrating, and the balance of power thereby shifted further in her favour.

Catherine waited and watched, certain that the dangerous Jacobin tenets of the Revolution would never take serious root, that after the first outbreak of hysteria and blood lust, France would be conquered by the avenging Austrians, whose prize would consist of a country in the throes of economic chaos, its people starving and leaderless.

This forecast had long since been proved wrong; the Austrian invaders were repelled, France faced all Europe in defiance, deriving her strength from the will of her ragged armies to retain the freedom they had won. And when the terror ended with the execution of its architect, Robespierre, and the moderate party assumed power, a single figure remained standing upright on the wasted shores of French political life, like a great undiscovered rock revealed by a receding flood tide.

France had produced a general, a Corsican of fierce drive and extraordinary talent, whose name no civilized tongue could pronounce properly or spell without error.

It was the emergence of this man which had decided Russia's Empress to support her words with action. France had committed monstrous crimes, she declared, and she shed fresh tears over the fate of Marie Antoinette, then three years dead.

She considered it Russia's sacred duty to avenge the wrongs perpetrated by the Jacobins; and, accompanied by England and Prussia, who discovered their consciences at the same period, Catherine assembled her armies to make war.

At the head of them she placed the most celebrated military genius of the age, the true victor of the Turkish campaign, the eccentric General Suvarov.

All this she discussed with Alexander, and the young Grand Duke listened attentively.

“This Bonaparte, Madame.… You really consider him dangerous?”

“I do, Alexis. As you know, I distrust all forms of intuition, but in this case I have seen my anxieties borne out by this man's achievements. He may be very, very dangerous. That's why I am going to war. I want you to take particular note of this.”

“I will, Madame, I will,” he promised seriously, and many years later in the terrible days of 1812, he was to remember Catherine Alexeievna's prophecy.

It was a happy day for Catherine, a day filled with industry and preparations for the great war against France, and her longing to disinherit Paul had taken concrete form. This time there was no one to interfere, to point out this or that reason for delaying, and when she thought of that intimate, affectionate interview with her adored grandson, Catherine's heart contracted with happiness.

He was so very handsome, so much a credit to her, unlike that dour, hideous son of hers, whose absence was her only solace for the fact that he still lived. In Alexander's eyes she was incapable of error, for though she sensed the elusive, impenetrable quality of his nature, Catherine felt herself secure in his admiration and his love. She was his model and the pleasure of fulfilling the rôle of heroine bound her to his side more closely. Admiration and affection; they were all she asked of those surrounding her, and all his short life Alexander had accorded her both. In return she had given him her kingdom and contrived the removal of his hated father down to the last detail. She felt unusually well that day, her vigorous mind was as keen as ever, her plans for the future unfolded like tentacles in her brain, and each one radiated glory and success. She would smash France to the ground, and then complete the dream shared by Potemkin and drive the Turks from Constantinople. Never had the thought of death been further from her than on that fifteenth of November, and that evening she gave a small supper party in her private wing of the Winter Palace to which all her old friends and her lover Zubov were invited.

It was a gay gathering, despite the fact that the most favoured guests were well past sixty, and that the smiling hostess, painted and jewelled for the occasion, could not move from her chair without assistance.

Plato Zubov sat beside her while they dined, and often she turned to him, laying one hand possessively upon his arm, her face upturned to his with the eager, sensuous coquetry of a young girl in love.

The two waiting women, Countess Protassof, Plato's huge, silent brother Nicholas, and Leo Naryshkin dined at the same table. After supper some of them sat down to cards as usual, and half-way through the game a page approached the Empress, who laid down her hand and asked him what he wanted. When she heard, she addressed Zubov, who sat opposite, fingering a rising column of gold pieces which he had won from her.

“Plato, he says there's a pedlar to see me … what is this? Some surprise you've planned for me?” Zubov shook his head.

“I know nothing about any pedlar.… Send him away, Catherine, and let's continue. Remember, I'm winning!”

But for once Catherine persisted.

“No, beloved. Let's have him in. My curiosity is aroused.”

When he was first admitted Catherine did not recognize him; she saw only a bent figure wrapped in a shabby cloak, carrying a tray of trinkets in his arms.

“Your Majesty,” he mumbled. “I have here a few baubles.…” For a moment she looked down at the cheap, gaudy ornaments he offered her, and then her keen eyes searched his lowered face and her ears recognized his voice.

“Leo! You wretch! Oh, my God, he quite deceived me.…” She sat back in her chair and began to laugh, while the grinning Naryshkin abandoned his pose and began extolling the virtues of his valueless wares to the richest woman in all Russia, in his own drawling, educated voice.

Catherine laughed and laughed.

“You fool, Leo … you dear fool, I should have known it was you playing a trick upon me.…”

The joke appealed to her so much that she abandoned all control and cried with mirth, until quite suddenly her face contorted in a grimace of pain.

Instantly Naryshkin was at her side, his tray of trinkets flung upon the floor.

“Madame, what is it … what's the matter …?”

“It's nothing … nothing,” she assured him, gasping for breath, one hand pressed to her side, the other clutching at her lover for support.

“I laughed too much,” she whispered and stared up into Naryshkin's worried face with frightened eyes.

Countess Protassof was kneeling by her, holding a glass of water and the Empress drank from it, wincing with pain.

“I have a colic,” she said, suddenly pitiful and strange in her distress. “It was the laughter … Plato, Plato, beloved, help me to bed.…”

She would allow no one but him to touch her; she collapsed into his strong arms, her face as white as death, her hands trembling and clinging to him. And when she had gone to her own bedroom, they stood in a disconcerted, anxious group, until the Prince himself assured them that the spasm had passed and the Empress was perfectly recovered. Then her ladies undressed her and helped her into the enormous gilt bed. Protassof lingered, conscious of her mistress's pleading gaze, frightened because the great Catherine had become almost childlike because of a stitch in her side.

“Protassof … send him back to me. I'm much better now. Much better. I want him, Protassof,” she wailed. “I don't want to be alone.…”

“I'll send him to you, Madame. Rest until he comes.”

A few moments later the Countess closed her mistress's door behind the broad back of Plato Zubov, and as she went to her own rooms, the waiting woman shook her head.

“She'd send for him if she were dying.…” she muttered, and then for some reason past her understanding, she began to shiver violently.

11

It was very quiet at Gatchina on that afternoon of the 16th November. The Czarevitch had not been well; an unusually violent headache and a succession of appalling nightmares had tormented him for several days. He emerged from his sick room pale and wasted, consumed by nervous tension.

For once Marie Feodorovna sat with him in his apartments, drinking coffee and watching her husband anxiously. Five years of battling with him had drained the spirit out of the Grand Duchess, five years of living under his displeasure had engendered a frantic desire for peace at any price, and the waning influence of the mistress had helped to assuage the pride of the discarded wife.

While she sipped her coffee, waiting for Paul to speak, Marie Feodorovna glanced idly out of the window, and it was she who saw a horseman galloping into the palace grounds, and, recognizing the rider, almost dropped her cup in astonishment.

“Paul! Paul, Zubov's brother is here!”

“What!”

Instantly the Czarevitch sprang out of his chair and rushed to the window. “Where?” he demanded and caught her roughly by the arm. “Are you sure … which brother?”

Marie looked up at his white face and, reading the alarm in it, began to tremble as she realized the possible meaning of such a visit.

“It was Nicholas, I think,” she stammered, “Nicholas.… Oh, my God Paul, what is it?”

“A deputation from my mother,” he answered grimly, and then his grip on her relaxed for a moment and he regarded her with something strangely near to pity.

“We are lost, my dear,” he said quietly. “This was how my father met his end … at the hands of the favourite's brother. I've felt it coming for days past. Go to your rooms, Marie, and stay there. They will be here at any moment.”

“They … but he was alone,” she whispered.

“Alone.…” Paul stared down at her frowning. “Are you certain?”

She nodded eagerly, realizing that no single man could hope to molest them in their own home, and at that moment she remembered Araktchéief's garrison and gave thanks for them with all her heart.

Almost immediately a page entered and announced that M. Nicholas Zubov sought an audience of the Czarevitch.

“Admit him,” Paul ordered, and turning, he told Marie Feodorovna to sit down and appear undisturbed before their enemy.

The brother of Catherine's favourite was very tall and muscular in the tradition of the Guards, but he lacked Plato's grace and classical good looks. Nicholas, in company with the second brother Valerian, was fierce, brutal and of limited intelligence; his reputation for courage and unscrupulousness did nothing to reassure the fears of Marie or the suspicions of Paul Petrovitch when he first came into their presence.

For a second he hesitated, and as if in a dream the Grand Duchess heard the sound of horses stamping in the courtyard under their windows, and of voices shouting unintelligibly.

‘He was not alone,' she thought mechanically, so terrified that her mind accepted the awful materialization of their lifelong dread with the detachment of one whom it did not concern.

‘He brought men with him.… Paul was right.'