Empress of the Night (14 page)

Memory is a shape-shifter. A running nymph turns into a tree; a vain man becomes a flower. Memory sharpens its edges each time an image comes circling by.

Peter, his face pockmarked like a page splattered with ink, is screaming. “
Nein, nein! Dumme Schlampe!
” Stupid bitch.

In Ropsha there is a small lake. Empress Elizabeth liked to fish there.
Peter is kept in one small room on the ground floor. A room with a bed, a desk. A window with thick blinds.

She is in the throne room, receiving well-wishers and petitioners, categories that defy separation. It is the eighth day after the coup, a Saturday. Catherine hasn’t slept for more than a few hours. She wouldn’t have eaten if her attendants didn’t insist.

Her temples throb. Her hair has been hastily done, and she has a feeling that the string of pearls is slipping out from her tresses every time she shakes her head. After the easy comfort of the Preobrazhensky uniform, the court gown feels all wrong. The stomacher is too tight. The heavy folds of the skirt impede movement.

“Your Majesty needs to rest,” Varvara fusses. “Just for an hour. Please. A bed is ready. I’ve darkened the room.”

How tempting, to close her tired eyes, let thoughts settle, like dust on a summer road after a carriage has sped by.

To rest for a moment. In silence. In the dark. Alone.

The doors swing open. A messenger from Ropsha is spattered with mud. The rain has soaked his riding coat, filthy water is now dripping to the floor, staining the wood. “For the Empress’s eyes only,” the man insists, retrieving a folded letter from his chest pocket.

One stiff page, sealed with the Orlovs’ ring. An eagle’s beak that looks like a cat’s paw.

Alexei Orlov’s scribble, a truant schoolboy’s hand. Catherine scans the page quickly, trying to make sense of it. Matushka… 
most merciful … how can I explain … I am ready for death … it has happened
.

An accident? A quarrel that got out of hand?

… Peter is no more …

Where does guilt lie? In the cadences of innermost thoughts? In orders not given? Or is wishing for something enough?

A white night blends seamlessly with dawn. The air is singed with bonfires from the celebrations, scented with the roasted flesh of oxen and
pigs. Clusters of revelers can be heard outside the palace gate, voices arguing over something, followed by loud belches or imitating the bleating of sheep. “There will be dozens of children born in March,” Varvara has said, laughing.

The carriage that has brought Peter’s corpse from Ropsha is standing in the palace courtyard. She, the new Empress, has covered her shoulders with a woolen shawl before sneaking here alone. The shawl is blood-red with botanical motifs: tulips with bulbs and petals, a few already wilted, revealing the shape of the stem.

Catherine studies her husband’s dead face as if he could still trick her. A swollen throat makes Peter’s neck look stubby. His lips are blackened.

Alexei Orlov, her husband’s murderer, is standing beside the carriage. In the lilac dusk of northern night the scar across his face looks whiter and more jagged than she remembers it. His big hands hang loosely by his sides. “We had too much vodka … he called me an upstart … he called me a liar.” Alexei’s voice is brittle.
Forgive me or quickly make an end of me
, he has written.

There is no remorse in Alexei’s eyes, only insistence. Empires cannot be ruled with hesitation. One bold strike will prevent others from rising. Foreseeing future troubles is not an idle game of predictions.

Blood has been spilled?

One cannot make an omelet without breaking eggs.

Mercy? Justice?

Mercy to whom and for what? Justice in what cases and for what price?

This is what Alexei’s gray eyes tell her:
When you steal the throne from your husband, you better make sure he cannot take it back. If Peter lives, he will be an excuse for anyone wanting to overthrow you
.

If you don’t strike first, you risk being killed
.

If you leave enemies lurching in the dark, they will gather strength and attack you when you don’t expect it
.

If you want power, you must have the courage to use it
.

She takes one last look at Peter. Dead, he looks smaller—childish, even. His shoulders are bony, quite narrow. There is a smell of
ladan
about him, the sweet Russian herbs of the underworld. The Orlovs have no quarrels with the dead.

She should do something. Touch Peter’s cheek, perhaps, send him out of her life with some gesture of farewell. Adjust the scarf on his bruised neck.

She doesn’t move.

There is no need to prolong what has already ended. The dead have no use for gestures. They do not feel the cold of the tomb.

“Take him to the Nevsky,” she orders and walks away.

Fortune is not blind. Fortune is a series of well-chosen steps
.

Every morning at six, Catherine sits at her desk, quill in hand, a steaming cup of black coffee beside her. To Frederick of Prussia she sends gifts of melons and dromedaries, followed by vague promises of possible treaties. To Maria Theresa of Austria she dispatches a rosary made of precious stones and assurances that Russia is a God-fearing Christian country. The balance of power requires shifting allegiances and constant vigilance. If Russia gets too big, she will be betrayed.

She has hung Peter the Great’s portrait in her study. The giant Tsar, in his plain soldier’s uniform, is making long strides over a verdant field, while dwarfish courtiers rush behind, struggling to keep up. Hand raised, the great Tsar is pointing west. It’s a bit crude—with a serf painter’s skewed sense of perspective—but she prefers it over the Tsar on his deathbed, with eyes closed, indifferent to the matters of this earth.

On her desk, maps lie. Old, new. Some still rolled up, some already unrolled, their edges held in place by whatever object happens to be around. An inkwell. A marble sculpture of Mercury. A volume of Montesquieu, pages she hasn’t had time to cut.

Russia is her kingdom. To her south, the Ottoman Porte. To her west, Poland. Both drunk on chaos and constant flux, both weak, soft with indolence. The Porte is a vipers’ nest gorging on illusions of past grandeur. Poland is a giant on clay feet; any grandee wields more power than a Polish king. Power demands such assessments. A keen eye for opportunities. Your weakness is my strength. Your fall is my gain.

The Empire needs to grow.

What do the weak trust? God? Fortune? Fate?

Poland is already Russia’s vassal state, the boulevard for Russian troops, and it should stay that way. Since Poland elects her kings, Catherine wants Stanislav on the Polish throne. He can no longer be her lover, but she wishes him well. She has assured him of her goodwill, and she is eager to prove it. There are other considerations, too. Stanislav is not rich or too well connected. The Polish nobles know that. He’ll have to bend every which way to stay alive. A crown will also put an end to his foolish plans of joining her.

There is pleasure in such thoughts. Pleasure of giving gifts that bind.
Do as I wish and you shall rise up in the world. Oppose me and you shall perish
.

Imperial thoughts.

Alexei Orlov takes her to the docks. The new ships in various stages of construction are like the skeletons of giant beasts. “Strong enough to defeat the Ottoman Turks,” he declares, as she runs her hand over a freshly hewn mast.

Alexei’s voice is brisk, businesslike. For a while after she absolved him of all guilt in Peter’s death, he removed himself from St. Petersburg. Now he is back, filled with nervous energy, always pushing on. In her inner rooms where Grigory often brings him, Alexei makes sure he is always in her sightline. He doesn’t avert his eyes when his brother, at some rare moment of leisure, tickles her feet with an ostrich feather.

Peter III, the imperial manifesto announced, died of natural causes. Of hemorrhoidal colic. In the Nevsky monastery where his body lay in state, her spies reported slow, orderly lines of subjects paying their respects. There have been a few hushed comments on the presence of the thick scarf around his throat. Some foreign diplomats made crude jokes on the dangers of Russian hemorrhoids. Worthy of noting, but nothing more.

Catherine doesn’t think of Peter much. She dreams of him sometimes, dreams that leave little behind them except a faint feeling of disgust. All his portraits have been removed from sight, his name erased from all official documents, his orders either rescinded or reissued as hers. Her Ambassadors still compile what is being said at foreign courts
about her palace coup, but she doesn’t lose sleep every time Maria Theresa calls her a Tsar-slayer or some Parisian hack writer compares her to Messalina or Anna Livia. One letter to Voltaire, filled with compliments and accompanied with an imperial gift, does more to improve her reputation abroad than her Ambassadors’ protests.

They say it is women who like to be flattered, but men are no different. Come up with the right compliment, and hearts will melt. Marvel at a great man’s genius. His erudition, polish, wit. Ah, your understanding of history! Your judgment of character! How astonishing to read works that do honor to the human race and then see them so little put to practice.

Grigory Orlov calls Maria Theresa an old crow. “Is it true, Katinka, that she is spinning wool for her own death shroud?”

“Now we can get married, Katinka.”

She is sitting behind her desk, Grigory Orlov leaning over her shoulder. His fingers move down her neck. His hot tongue caresses the lobe of her ear.

Their son, little Alexei Grigoryevich, is growing fast. A healthy boy—she reads in weekly reports—sturdy and strong. As soon as he is ready to start his studies, she will bring him to the palace, hire the best of tutors.

This is not the first time Grigory Orlov has come to her study unannounced. Or sat himself on the small ottoman, flipping through her papers, restlessly rolling and unrolling maps. Or reminded her that a pike plies the waters to keep the carp awake. On Grigory’s lips the old saying means that soldiers need wars to keep them lean and focused. A war is a chance to advance, to change one’s fortune. If men are left to idleness, they start plotting.

He is only saying this because his Katinka is a woman. A woman needs help. Needs advice.

The Orlovs have made her; the Orlovs can bring her down. Panin, who still believes Paul Petrovich should have been declared Emperor and she his Regent, has warned: “Madame Orlov will never rule Russia.” Nikita Ivanovich Panin is Paul’s tutor and the possessor of a mind Catherine
plans to use in the service of the Empire. His warning, therefore, counts.

The Orlovs may stride the corridors of the Winter Palace with pride, but to the old nobles they are upstarts who have rubbed shoulders with merchants and soldiers. And who need to be sent back where they belong.

She catches Grigory’s fingers.

“Not now,” she murmurs softly. “I need to be alone.”

He gives her a puzzled look, as if she asked him to go to the moon. Or bring her a unicorn’s horn.

“I still have papers to read,” Catherine says, pointing to the wooden box on the side table. She needs one million one hundred thousand rubles for her court expenses each year. Nine hundred thousand for her own household. The stables by themselves cost her one hundred thousand.

“Don’t you have accountants?” Grigory Orlov rolls his eyes. “Don’t you trust anyone?”

From Warsaw, Stanislav writes:
Let me be with you in any capacity you wish, only do not make me a king … One doesn’t love like I love you more than once … What is left for me? Life without you is nothing but an empty shell …
Frederick has received an offer from the British he finds more advantageous for Prussia than an alliance with Russia. He writes:
If you want my support against the Turks, give me something of real value in return
. Land, he means. Fields. Towns. Rivers.

“Let me finish one more letter.”

“No,” Grigory insists. “You’ve worked enough.”

This is a trivial disagreement, but not a trivial moment. Grigory’s voice bristles with a new, harsh note. Is someone telling him to assert himself? Stamp all flames when they are still flickering?

“Let me judge when I’ve had enough,” she replies. There is still a chink in her words through which laughter can sneak in. They can still turn this exchange into a lovers’ spat, that familiar, playful tussle of duty and desire.

“No, Katinka. I know what you need.”

His lips are more insistent. His teeth nibble her skin. His hand dives inside her dress, pinches the nipple of her breast.

“Stop it,” she says.

He doesn’t stop. His hand is diving deeper.

“No!”

Her voice is sharp, but she is not yet angry. Merely warning him to ease off, turn a caress into a soothing kiss of regret she could savor long after he is gone.

But he is Grigory Orlov. Reckless. Bold.
Yield
, his hands urge her.
You won’t regret it. You never have
.

Why not?
a voice inside her tempts.
Don’t you deserve a moment of pleasure? Don’t you work hard enough?

“Not now!”

Grigory grabs her by the hair, pulls her head back. The side table crashes to the floor; the box overturns. The papers scatter like dry leaves.

The fate of her papers doesn’t concern him. Nor her broken side table. If she waits any longer his arms will pin her down. The taut, strong arms of a man who can stop a panicked horse in its tracks.

She softens like a kitten. She purrs. “You win,” she whispers into his ear.

He freezes. For a moment, all is still.

He still hesitates, but then his lips come closer to hers. “My Katinka,” he murmurs, with such utter relief that her heart sinks.

His arms soften. His grasp weakens.

She tears away from him so swiftly that he has no time to catch her. She rushes to the door and opens it, to the terrified look of a Palace Guard. Only then she realizes how she must look to him. Disheveled hair, torn dress, bloodstains on her lips. One of her shoes is gone, and she is limping. There might be a bruise on her cheek, too, for the skin smarts and feels hot.