Curse Not the King (31 page)

Later they dined together with the informality so rare and now so dear to Paul, and while she laughed, alternately tender and impudent, her conversation spiced with gossip and bouts of wicked mimicry of friend and enemy alike, he sat and watched her with indulgent, loving eyes, aware that whatever she said or did he only loved her more, that even her faults, her pride, her outspoken, often outrageous tongue, her impetuosity and her harsh judgments never affronted him as they would have done coming from any other woman.

“I've so many things to tell you, Anna,” he said, when the meal was finished. “Come, sit by the fire with me.”

When she did, it was the gauge of the difference of temperament and relationship between the two women, that she sat on her Emperor's knee, instead of adopting Katya Nelidoff's humble stance and resting on the floor at his feet.

“I'm not going to trouble you with politics,” he began, and she knew that he longed to discuss them, and demanded details.

“I'm afraid I may have to go to war, Anna. War with France. I hoped for peace; Russia needs it badly, my mother and her advisers nearly bled the country white with conflict after conflict.… She was going to attack France when she died. Now England and Austria are pressing me to send troops against this French General Bonaparte.”

“Is he so dangerous, then?” she questioned, and Paul laughed.

“Dangerous to them, my love. That's why they want war, quickly, to crush him before he gets too powerful. I intended to remain neutral, to act as mediator if necessary, but now I shall have to take action. He's not only beating the Italians out of the field, but his troops occupied that island in the Mediterranean … Malta, and the Knights have appealed to me for help!”

“And must you grant it?”

“I must. I gave my word.”

“It's odd that you should be so honourable; honour doesn't worry me,” she remarked, and he chided her with a smile.

“But don't be too honourable, my Paul. Believe me, it can be traded on, just like a weakness. At least if you must keep such standards, allow me a little vulgar wickedness on your behalf!”

“Would you commit a crime for me, Anna?” he asked, half mocking and half serious, playing with one of the great diamond earrings he had given her.

“I'd do anything for you. And not just because I love you, but because to me you're the Czar, and therefore God's anointed. Whatever we do and say to one another, though I lie in your arms and we make love, you're still sacred to me. You are still the Emperor. Does that seem strange to you?”

“Do you believe in the Divine Destiny of Kings, then?” he asked her, astonished by that firm avowal which suddenly elevated him above the rôle of lover which he had occupied so happily.

“I do. If you'd never even spoken to me, if I'd never seen you, I would consider myself bound to you in loyalty until death,” she answered.

“Only the people have those feelings,” he said grimly. “Not the nobility. Undue reverence for the sovereign never troubles them! How many rulers have been assassinated, imprisoned and murdered in the last two hundred years? What of my father? He was God's anointed, as you say, but they shut him up and strangled him.… And they'd do the same with me,” he added, and the pain began thudding in his head while he spoke.

“But I'm well guarded, my Anna. I know them. I've fought my enemies since I was old enough to understand, and I know how to protect myself. I've got my own troops, loyal troops, not these indolent swine of the Guards who were never trained to do anything but make love to an old woman, in case my mother sent for one of them! And Araktchéief … I'll present him to you to-morrow, he is loyal to me. He protects me. They hate him, Anna, and by God they fear him! Even as they hate and fear me. No, my darling, don't contradict me, I know what my Court feels, I read their minds and see the treason written there, while they fawn and smile before my face! They long to be rid of me; then they'd put Alexander on the throne and be able to idle, oppress and exploit the country as they've always done. Anna, when I was Czarevitch I knew my mother wished to kill me. I had food-tasters, guards, strong bolts fitted to my doors, every precaution to defeat assassination, and now, when I'm Czar, the danger still exists. But I know how to circumvent it, I know how to ensure my safety until I've discovered the last of my enemies and broken them, until the whole core of this corrupt and evil Court is cleansed and pacified!”

“What will you do?” she asked him, her face grave and drawn with anxiety, as his dread infected her.

“These palaces aren't safe,” he said. “There are too many staircases, passages, secret entries … the guard system is inadequate. I've given orders to demolish the old Summer Palace in Petersburg and for a new building to be erected on the site. A safe building, Anna, made of stone, encircled by a moat, fortified like a castle! There'll be no holes for murderers to hide in, no secret passages for traitors. It'll be impregnable I I've named it the Michael Palace.”

Anna Lapoukhine leant her cheek against his hot forehead and said nothing, thinking of the fortress which was to stand in the beautiful city of Petersburg, and where the man she loved would live, surrounded by guards as if he were a prisoner rather than a king.

“My head aches, Anna,” he said at last. “God knows, it's always aching,” he added, half to himself, and he covered his eyes with his hand, shielding them from the soft candlelight.

She slipped off his knee, and blew out the offending tapers, watching him with anxious eyes, the rumours of his continuous illnesses returning to her mind.

For a moment she shivered, then her courage returned. If the conditions mentioned by Paul really existed, then she supported whatever methods could best combat them. And no one would prove as fierce and cruel as she, if the life of Paul Petrovitch was the price of mercy.…

“I'll send for your servants, you must go to bed …” she said quietly, and when Koutaïssof and the new valet answered her bell, she waited while they undressed the Czar and helped him into bed.

Finally, when Koutaïssof lingered, she dismissed him curtly. “Go! Leave His Majesty with me!”

Then she came to her lover's side, and drew the covers over him.

“Sleep now, my beloved lord,” she whispered, and through his pain he heard her, and his fingers groped for her hand.

She bent and kissed them, holding the strong palm against her cheek, ready to weep at the sight of his helplessness, equipped though he was with such bodily strength. But her tears were vitriolic with rage; the pitying gentleness of the Nelidoff was an emotion of which Anna was incapable. Instead she regarded her lover, and recognizing pain and weakness, grew venomous with anger at the thought of danger to him.

And while she stood beside his bed, Paul's mistress made a private vow. No one and nothing should be allowed to harm him. Neither the courtiers he distrusted, nor the eldest son who might be selected to replace him. The ties of friendship or of blood should count for less than nothing, and any living creature whose existence menaced Paul, whether innocent or guilty, should be disposed of without mercy. She, Anna Lapoukhine, would see to that.…

“Anna,” he muttered, and swiftly she knelt so that she could hear him.

“Anna.… Thank God you came … I missed you so. It's good that you're here … and Anna, there's a soldier, an excellent fellow … trustworthy … von Pahlen. Remember that name, Anna. Von Pahlen. We can trust him. Go now, my darling.”

“I go,” she told him. “Sleep well. Von Pahlen; I will remember.”

“The Commandant is here, Sire.”

Rastopchine's lackey bowed, and having received a sign of assent from his master, admitted the military commander of Paul's capital. Rastopchine rose to meet him.

“My dear Araktchéief! Come and sit down. I'm so glad you found time to make this visit.”

“It is a pleasure, Count.”

The most dreaded man in Petersburg sat stiffly in one of his host's elegant chairs, as always extremely ill-at-ease in comfortable surroundings, wishing dourly that necessity had not forced him into friendship with this well-bred, contradictory man whose cunning had so far been the impetus of their intrigues.

They drank wine, and watched each other in silence for some moments. Rastopchine, observing his visitor over the rim of his glass, decided that the rigid soldier might have been dismissed as an unimaginative boor, if the experience of meeting those cold pale eyes, set like twin agates under the thick brows, had not revealed a mad and almost demoniac spirit.…

‘If you are what is said of you,' Rastopchine thought, at the same time, smiling and refilling his guest's glass, ‘you may have to be got rid of, before your tendencies carry you too far.…'

But aloud he conversed on different lines.

“I asked you to come and see me, my friend, because I thought it time we reviewed the situation. Without the encumbrance of the admirable Koutaïssof, who is becoming quite unbearable!” he added.

The jealous susceptibilities of Araktchéief immediately raised the matter which displeased him most, though its achievement had been part of a plan to which he had agreed.

“This Anna Lapoukhine … I think she is gaining too much influence with the Czar!” he stated, and knowing the hatred any mistress of Paul's must inevitably incur from Araktchéief, Rastopchine smiled and shrugged.

“All the better,” he said. “She's friendly to me already, and she approves of you, because you protect the Czar. In fact I'd be prepared to trust her to a certain extent for I believe she loves him. In any case, remember that she is of our faction, whereas the Nelidoff was not! There will be no friendship with the Empress, no interceding for the good Alexander in this case. That was the danger before. The more I watch these two the less I trust them … that woman idolizes her son; so much so that it is beyond her power to hide it even in public. And you know what I think of him!”

“If the Emperor listened to me, he would have nothing to fear from that quarter,” Araktchéief said coldly.

“Our views agree, my dear Commandant.… And in time they may prevail. It only requires a little patience, and a mistress of the stamp of Mlle. Anna to add her persuasions to our own.… But what I really wished to discuss was the favour our Emperor is showing Count von Pahlen.”

The Commandant stood up and began to walk towards the window; the preference shown by Paul for this newcomer had upset him, and the knowledge that others recognized it, and were probably laughing at his discomfiture, had ensured his undying enmity towards the Count.

“I have noticed that he's often with the Czar,” he said.

“Too often,” Rastopchine added. “I don't like him; I don't trust any man of that kind who has been humiliated and then comes fawning to kiss the hand that struck him. He's too bluff, too jovial. It doesn't agree with his reputation as a soldier, and his devotion to Paul Petrovitch is less likely to be genuine when you remember that he loved the old Empress enough to risk his head by honouring Plato Zubov!”

“What do you suspect, then?”

“I don't know, yet. A self-seeker perhaps, ambitious and hoping for favours from the Emperor.… Even then he's a menace to us, for we have one thing in common, my friend, despite our other differences—and it's a thing shared by Anna Lapoukhine, unless I'm much mistaken.

“We love Paul Petrovitch, and popular or hated, sick or well, we mean to keep him on the throne! That is the difference between us and the rest.…”

Rastopchine too had risen, and for a moment the underlying hostility and misunderstanding that existed between two men of such opposite character dwindled to insignificance in the face of that admission. He did love Paul, not with the feeling of Araktchéief whose warped mind had transformed his Czar into a mental image not far removed from God, for whom he would willingly die, and willingly kill; that was not Rastopchine's bondage, but a personal affection, borne of years of intimacy; the tie sometimes forged between men of opposite temperaments, and which not even the influence of a woman can completely undermine. However violently Rastopchine disapproved of Paul's militarism, of his severity, even of his odd reforms, which gave the miserable common soldier the right to a court martial and to complain of ill-treatment to his superiors, he accepted the contradictions, the innovations, and the occasional instances of brutality of which the Czar was guilty, and knew that by comparison with his devotion, they were of no importance.

It was something more than mere jealousy or self-interest that warned him when he watched Count von Pahlen with his Emperor and friend. It was an instinct that recoiled in baffled fear and mingled with it was a feeling that he would find the Empress Marie and the Grand Duke Alexander implicated if only he knew how to set about making the discovery.

So he and Araktchéief talked, promising to watch the interloper and to put in a word against him whenever they had the chance, until the discussion veered to politics and the possibility of war with France.

When the Court returned to Petersburg. Paul's wife and mistress met in public at an evening reception.

The encounter had been eagerly discussed for weeks by Marie's enemies and by the scattering who vaguely sympathized: how would the Empress receive Anna Lapoukhine, and what would be the attitude adopted by her eldest son? …

Anna knew that the whole Court would be watching that night, many of them in the hope that the arrogant, spoilt favourite would suffer some humiliation, and she prepared accordingly.

Aggression was Anna's remedy for any situation; she flung herself at her enemies without expecting quarter even as she gave none, and she already hated Paul's wife with a loathing that was both temperamental and instinctive. She had failed to make her husband happy, she was boring and respectable, and somehow more clever than she seemed, since so many violent domestic storms had raged in her vicinity and yet left her unscathed. And she had borne this son Alexander who was a menace to his father.