Empress of the Night (26 page)

She stares at Platon’s handsome face. There is something in him that she cannot explain, this determination to continue, even if everything about her warns him not to.

“All I want to do,” he says, blinking, “is to guard your interests, Katinka. Be of use to you. You are too forgiving.”

She refuses to dwell on the shortcomings of a boy who doesn’t yet know how to be a man. But when her ministers ask whom to send to Jassy to take over Potemkin’s duties, she doesn’t hesitate. “Bezborodko,” she says.

9:40
A
.
M
.

Hands—strong, capable hands—try to lift her from the floor, but her body has become unmovable. She has grown. Become like the ancient boulder from Karelia she chose for her statue of Peter the Great. Massive, solid, covered with ancient moss.

They told her a boulder like this cannot be moved. Let alone hauled through miles of forests and marshes. Too heavy, too big, they said. It will drown in the sea. In the Neva.

They were wrong.

They were wrong about many things.

“We cannot call anyone else. No one else must know. All together, now—”

“Careful!”

“Adrian Moseyevich, you are pulling too hard. It is not helping. We have to do it all together.”

“Put the mattress on the floor. Right now! What are you waiting for?”

“On the floor, I said, by the bed!”

“Here?”

“No, more to the left! Away from the drafts.”

Thoughts like careless children scatter away, playing blindman’s buff. There is relief in being lifted from the floor, carried to her own bedroom.

She is heavy.

She can hear heaving breaths, grunts, words of caution. “Not like
this … turn around … lower … through the door … watch for the dress … don’t trip.”

“For God’s sake. Pull her skirts down!”

“Wipe the blood.”

“No one can come in. Not without my permission. If anyone asks, say the Empress needs to rest.”

“May God have mercy on us all!”

“What shall become of us now?”

“There is no blood … No injury.”

“Has Majesty hit her head?”

“Fainted, perhaps?”

“Wipe it, fast!”

In frozen faces, eyes fill with fear. Someone is gasping for air. What are they all thinking? Are they mourning her death already? “I thought at first a thief had broken in,” Queenie informs someone with pressing insistence. “The papers were scattered everywhere, the cup was lying on the floor, broken, the clock was knocked off the mantel.”

A hand is pressing a mirror to her lips.

Too hard.

Her heart lurches forward, stumbles, pounds. A maddened fly buzzes about her ear, insistent, vile, set on its business. How do maggots breed?

Vishka says with serene joy: “Her Majesty is alive. Her face is warm.”

Queenie insists: “Let Her Majesty breathe. Do not crowd her. Step back.” In her voice a warning. Not a word shall leave this room. A temporary weakness can be explained. A fall. A slip on the floor. Her Majesty is not as steady on her feet as she used to be.

They do step back, away from her bed. Feet shuffle. Gasps recede. Catherine closes her eyes.

Before thoughts begin to make sense again, one smothers her with terror. What if she lost her mind? Became raving mad? Like Grigory Orlov, not knowing who he was in the end. Staring ahead without seeing, saliva dripping down his chin.

But the fear does not stay. Her thoughts are lucid enough. It is just her body that has taken leave of her will.

9:45
A.M
.

Someone must have opened the window. The air that sneaks inside is cold and fragrant with wood smoke.

Everyone is bending over her. Zotov is placing a screen beside the mattress, propping it with chairs.

Why have you put me on the floor?
she wants to ask, but can’t. Other questions crowd in her head. The papers on her desk are important. The latest version of the partition treaty she hasn’t yet finished annotating. A letter to the Swedish King she has drafted and wanted Bezborodko to comment on before she works on it some more. Papers that should be hidden from prying eyes. Will Gribovsky know not to archive them? To lock them in her desk drawer and keep the key?

A clock chimes. One soft chime means a quarter of an hour has passed.

“There is always hope.” Rogerson answers someone’s question. “Greater when the constitution is strong, when there is the will to recover.”

How did she miss the moment of her doctor’s arrival? His hands are clammy; his short-cropped hair is wet with melting snow. Bending over her, he says something about slippery roads, people falling over on sidewalks, his sleigh having trouble passing by the Admiralty.

That’s where the feral dogs gather
, she thinks. Without masters, the beasts keep their own counsel. Stake their boundaries, fight with those who try to invade their territory. Spend their days scavenging or hunting. Lick their wounds. Mate. Raise puppies.

She has refused all requests to have them rounded up and shot.

“Apoplexy.” Rogerson’s crooked teeth are blackened by tobacco. “Blood has risen into Her Majesty’s head. Its force has burst some vein open. Give me my bag … lancet … sharpie …”

Vishka, who only a moment before rejoiced that her mistress was alive, is now standing motionless beside the screen, blocking the light. Queenie is not moving, either. But somehow a bag appears in Rogerson’s hands, the lock snaps open.

“Quick!” The sharp edge of a lancet is gleaming in his hand. “Hold the arm … press harder.”

He doesn’t say anything more, but he has cut her veins so many times that Catherine could say it for him:
Blood thickens. Bloodletting will take the pressure off. Humors have to be balanced
.

“Should we send for Count Bezborodko?” Zotov asks. “Or will Her Majesty come ’round soon?”

“Yes,” Rogerson says. “I mean, I cannot tell.”

There is uneasiness in his voice; she hears it. But Rogerson has always been a man of little faith.

That Queenie is sobbing she can understand. But Vishka?

Her headache has diminished already. It will soon go away completely. She will make it go away. Pain has afflicted her before. She thinks of horses who follow their trainer’s every move. A step behind, always behind, always attuned to the smallest change of direction.

Her doctor mutters: “I’ll try everything in my powers. The rest is in God’s hands.”

Poor Rogerson, who cannot even heal a flea bite, announcing his incompetence. Why has she tolerated him for so long?

The law forbids anyone to speak of the Empress’s death, or even to think of it. But a thought cannot be stopped.

Who in this room is mourning her already? Who is rejoicing? And why?

A hard iron ring is pressing on her forehead. Like the metal band that holds the barrel together. Sleep beckons, but she refuses to yield.

9:48
A.M
.

Her lips are parched with thirst. Her servants are talking among themselves, as if she were not there, a black crow fallen down a soot-smeared chimney. “Her Majesty this … Her Majesty that … too much work … too little rest … that terrible, terrible shock … He should be proud of himself now … the scoundrel …”

Why is no one giving her water to drink? What is more important for them than their Queen’s comfort?

The furs with which she is covered give off a whiff of bergamot and jasmine. Dead animals give up their warmth willingly. Generous of what is—to them—no longer of use.

Oh, the hunt, pinning down her prey. The pursuit that brings the true thrill. The possibilities of evasion that needed to be foreseen and thwarted. Unexpected turns. A frozen moment of fright that could—if withstood—save a partridge from the hunter’s eye. Though not from the keen noses of hounds.

I didn’t think you of all women would change, Sophie
.

Stanislav, loving and beloved. Once. Long time ago. Why should she care? What in nature remains as it always was?

Are you the same man you once were?

9:50
A.M
.

Two flintlock pistols. She used to keep them at hand, cleaned after each shot. Ivory-stocked, with her initials on the handle. What happened to them?

There is so much babbling, muttering, moaning around her. The palace is in flux. Ripples go through all the rooms, corridors. She feels them, as a queen bee must feel the movements of all her workers and soldiers and builders.

When Father died, Elizabeth forbade her to wear mourning for a man who was not king. Mother died in Paris. Alone. In poverty, harassed by debtors. Her last letters were so dull, as if written by a schoolgirl with nothing to say.
The day is fair … less rain than last year … but more than the year before
.

A throne is a lonely place. Friendship flees from monarchs. Catherine has been warned about that. Varvara’s last letter came from Warsaw.
To the hands of the Empress only
. To the Empress—this should be added—who planned to do so much for her old friend and her daughter. Saw them at her side, in splendor. Made the mistake of imagining their joy, or—why deny it—their gratitude.

I wish to begin with a small borrowing from Monsieur Voltaire, knowing how highly Your Majesty holds him in her esteem. I’ve
reached the time in my life when I long for a simple life. Like the old man at the end of
Candide
, I wish to cultivate my garden.

The Voltairian plague, Catherine thinks, is spreading like black fungus on her roses. Can’t those who wish to desert her think of other excuses? Admit to selfishness, perhaps? Or even plain fear that they are not good enough? Why claim that happiness is found only among carrots and cabbages?

I beg Your Majesty to free me from the Imperial Service. My daughter and I will cherish the memories of our Russia until we die.

Don’t speak ill of the dead
, they say.

Elizabeth’s deathbed swam with blood. Screams silenced prayers. Thrashing hands were blind. Even a Holy Icon was not safe. “I’ve waited for this day for so long,” Catherine thought then. Recalling her injuries and humiliations.

Her empty belly. Her stolen son.

The spying on her person, the poking and sniffing about her body, the curses, the slaps, the jeering mockery of the imperial questions:
So you have already made your plans, Catherine? You think you have outwitted me?

You are a hypocrite, Catherine. A dissembler. A thief and a usurper
.

You’ve sworn on the Holy Icon to make your son a Tsar. It’s Paul’s crown you are wearing on your head
.

He knows that! He has always known!

A dying woman’s voice fades and falters. Death takes away everything. The living have the last word.

10:00
A.M
.

Her hands stretch across the mattress. Her legs are spread wide, and no tightening of muscles will bring them back. Her lips are still parched. Why can’t they see it?

“Still too much blood in the brain,” Rogerson explains to someone whose figure melts into the shadows.

The brain, the body. Scaling skin, muscles probed with cold, sweaty fingers. The body that has betrayed her. Risen against her and refuses to obey. Not the first time.

“Open the window!”

“Don’t. The draft will make Her Majesty worse.”

“Her Majesty is blinking.”

“Her Majesty cannot hear you.”

“Her Majesty’s eyes are moving.”

She can hear. In the distance, the dog whines and someone shoos it away. And even with eyes half opened she can see their useless gestures, feel their petrifying fear.

Vishka, who is squatting beside the mattress, whispers: “I’ve tried to fetch Platon Alexandrovich. But when I told him Your Majesty has taken ill, he just covered his head in his arms and mumbled something I couldn’t understand.”

In Vishka’s voice derision is mixed up with compassion. She never liked the Imperial Favorite much, but she doesn’t wish his downfall.

You’ve taken care of me for so long, Vishka. And—unlike so many others—you’ve never left me
.

“Platon Alexandrovich thinks it’s all his fault!”

There is no puzzle in this. Platon has angered her. No wonder he is afraid. Catherine hasn’t forgiven him yet.

Will she?

Perhaps.

When she is ready.

Not yet.

Vishka stops talking and moves aside. Is Rogerson back with his cures? Always the same.
Chew some rhubarb, madame, have a gentle vomit
.