Empress of the Night (50 page)

“Correct me, Katinka,” Platon pleads. “Teach me. You are the only one who wants me to be better. Without you, I’m dust.”

A hound kills in the heat of pursuit. A hound does not bark, for it would hinder its own hearing of the furtive movements in the thicket. A hound pursues the rabbit in silence, anticipating its rapid turns. The reward is a crunch of tender bones, the taste of blood, still warm, the muscles, the fur. The dog devours it all.

“Your birthday is in two weeks. How old will you be?”

“Twenty-nine,” Le Noiraud stammers.

“Suvorov tells me that in Italy, Bonaparte takes his army to the mountains. Spreads his forces out, so the Austrians spread their forces out. Then he concentrates his troops and strikes them at the weakest points. The man is unstoppable.”

Le Noiraud is bewildered, but he doesn’t dare ask what she means.

“Bonaparte,” she tells him, her voice cold and cutting like the northern wind, “is only twenty-seven years old.”

The wardrobe maids come back to undress her, take away the false hair, the jewels.

How could I not have seen it earlier?
For the sequence of events that have just passed is as incomprehensible as its conclusion: The Empress of All the Russias has been snubbed by a little Swedish King.

The maids are quick and silent. She has been pinned, locked in the armor of court dress, and it takes time to release the body from its crust. The string of black pearls is unclasped. The gown is removed. Jars and bottles open and close. The cold cream erases the pasted color that smooths her wrinkles. Her hair is released from pins and brushed with even strokes.

A few more minutes. A clenched fist stops the trembling fingers. One deeper breath slows the heartbeat a tiny bit.

Finally she smells of rose water and almond milk. A soft night bonnet covers her head; her body is wrapped in the white nightgown trimmed
with lace. Her eyes skim over the painting of Sarah, hidden in the shadow while Hagar is lit by light. She should go to see the child, but she has no strength for it now.
Tomorrow
, she tells herself.

One by one the wardrobe maids disappear, having plumped the pillows and lifted the coverlet to remove the bed warmer. But now Queenie wobbles in with the evening glass of Malaga wine on a tray. “I’ve made arrangements to sleep in the antechamber tonight, should Your Majesty need me—”

“Leave me!
Now!
”

Alone, at last, she slumps to the floor. Her thoughts are raw, bloodied. They tear her apart.

I trusted a fool. And now even my body has betrayed me
.

Her tongue tastes of ash. She holds up her palms in supplication, but thoughts, these hovering vultures, swoop on her without mercy.

There is no Grishenka. There’ll never be anyone like him. I’ve lost too much already. I’ve nothing else
.

But even as she weeps, she remembers that vultures feed only on the carcasses of the dead.

12:00
A
.
M
.

Footsteps draw closer, heels turn, scrape the floor. A bony finger feels her throat, pulls the skin under her eyes. Candlelight blinds, the reflection of the flickering flame persists after the candle is gone.

The Scottish doctor clucks his tongue. To someone hidden in the darkness he mutters his bewilderment: “The human body is a mystery. Pools of hidden strength hide where nothing was expected but decay. The secretions of a woman’s womb alter the flow of humors.”

“How much longer, doctor?”

“No one can tell, Your Highness. The constitution is strong, and so is the pulse. The heart is still beating.”

“In St. Petersburg,” she hears Potemkin’s throaty whisper, “you have to love the night or go mad.”

Potemkin, her beloved Prince of Tauride. Her lover. Her husband. Her best friend.

Am I dying, Grishenka?

Will I not see Alexander’s children? Watch Alexandrine get married?

Smell another spring flower?

Is this how the end arrives?

12:05
A.M
.

A thin man who sits beside the bed is no longer young. He has an upturned nose of a pug and an oblong face with snarling mouth revealing
grayish, pointed teeth. A bubble of saliva has lodged itself in the corner of his mouth.

My son
.

His name is Paul
.

Her son, crippled by envy, a child of forced alliances and powerless times, mutters: “This is what I despise, Mother.”

On his fingers he counts off: Courtiers and sycophants. Titles and honors. Mistresses and whores. The world of masked balls, of lechery and intrigues.

Furies. Harpies.

Women who refuse to see that they can never be equal to a man.

“The ancients have said it before, Mother. Listen to Plato and Aristotle.

It is only males who are created directly by the gods and are given souls … the best a woman can hope for is to become a man
.

A woman is an infertile male … The relationship between the male and the female is by nature such that the male is higher, the female lower, that the male rules and the female is ruled
.

She shuts her ears to his venom, the miasma of frustrated dreams.

Her son has no power.

He cannot hurt her.

He doesn’t know how.

Would Father have liked him? His grandson? This awkward man who flays his hands and breathes hard, snorting the air like a walrus
.

A switched baby, Father
.

A changeling
.

Why didn’t he die, instead of Anna? Perhaps I would’ve been luckier with a daughter? A child of love, not betrayal. Another Empress
.

“You’ve always hated me, Mother. If I had a dog I loved, you would’ve tied a stone to its neck and drowned it.”

There it is, unbidden, that same ancient pain that had seized her so many years ago, a harbinger of his birth. Does the body remember? The child’s head splitting her open, tearing her flesh.

Someone’s hands hold her shoulders; someone’s lips mouth the prayers that bid her speed. Her child is slipping out of her. Ripping her open. The midwife kneels between her legs to receive that sticky little body still tied to her.

A moan. A flash of a knife’s blade. A slap, followed by a tiny cry, a tinkering bell. Prayers cease.

Her son, his head smeared with her blood.

She is reaching her arms for him, desperate to see him through the sweat that stings her eyes. Her lips hunger to kiss his wet head. Her arms itch to hold him.

“Live,” she urges him. “Live.”

“My precious little Prince,” Elizabeth croons. “My very own.”

As if he had no mother. As if she, Catherine, were but a womb, a vessel to be filled and emptied at the will of the Empress.

And somewhere in all this there is another memory. Of warm fingers untangling her wet hair, of lips whispering consolations. “It’s just for now. He is safe. He will live. I’ll look out for him.”

Varenka? Are you here, too? They told me you were dead!

12:30
A.M
.

Don’t think of Paul. He is no longer important
.

In the corridors of the Winter Palace, young, strapping men trail her, trying to catch her eye. Spines straighten, chests thrust forward, sabres clink. Their love-smeared notes appear between pages of her books, under her pillow, or tied to her dog’s collar.

Sometimes she toys with one of them, the boldest of the pack. Summons him into her innermost boudoir, inquires of his dreams. Pays attention to that first kiss of her hand. Is his touch firm or shaky? Does he linger, allowing the warmth of his lips to spread along her skin, or does he let haste win? Can he offer the pleasure of that first warm breath shared just before tongues intertwine and eyes close?

If a man wishes her to remember him, he has to find his own way.

But pleasure is not all. When passion is spent, will his next words surprise her? Will he spare her the trite confessions of love long concealed? Hints at immortal goddesses and the youths that worshipped them? Adonis, Endymion, Phaëthon?

Is he ready to love a woman?

The bedroom is sparsely lit, softened by shadows.

He is here, naked in her bed, lying on his stomach, his head resting on his arms. He smells of
banya
, of birch leaves mashed into a pulp, of skin purified by steam. Catherine runs her finger along his spine, his shapely buttocks, then bends over and retraces that route with her tongue.

And then she waits.

This memory makes her chuckle: She is standing behind the thick marble column in the palace ballroom, her face covered by a black mask. A loosely draped domino reveals her disguise, the green tunic of the Preobrazhensky uniform faced with red, the long boots polished to an impeccable shine.

Her body cherishes its release from hooped dresses and tight stays. No panniers, no cumbersome folds of fabric, no whalebones digging into her stomach. It would’ve been so much better to be born a man. To always wear breeches and tight jackets. To walk in easy, confident strides.

The women in the ballroom flutter like giant butterflies, sweeping the floor with the hems of their rustling gowns. The foxy smell of sweat raises
over the perfume and melting wax. It will linger in her hair and clothes for hours after the masquerade is over.

In the protective dimness of the room, the disguise has fooled her guests. A few of the women have already cast quick glances in her direction, their fans signaling their interest. “Come closer,” one has beckoned. “Do I know you?” signaled another.

To them she is just one of the dashing Guard officers on the prowl.

For a while, she watches the dancing women, their graceful movements, the bows and hops and quick half-turns. Heels click on the polished wooden floors as the dancers obey the music. Figures blending together, floating by, indistinguishable until one of them stops and leaves the circle, panting from exertion. A wreath in her raven-black hair is teeming with birds and fruit and peacock feathers. Her silver mask glitters with pearls. It is far too small to disguise the wild Tartar eyes of Princess D.

Desire comes unbidden.

Should I come up to you? Ask: Are you a shepherdess or a nymph?

I won’t. You would only think it trite
.

I’ll watch you instead until you see me
.

But D takes no notice of the masked officer’s stare. Her eyes are drawn to a Turkish odalisque dancing alone. To a face hidden behind a veil, supple hips swaying to the clinking of tiny silver bells.

“Oh, how graceful she is,” D says, and gasps.

“The one who praises is far better than the one praised.”

D gives her a startled look. Her eyes quickly take in the Preobrazhensky greens showing under the domino. “You are pleased to joke, Mask. Who are you? How is it that you know me?”

“I’m speaking from my heart and influenced by its promptings.”

“But who are you?”

“If you are kind to me, you will soon learn.”

“Please say who you are.”

“I shall, but first you must promise to be kind to a besotted soul.”

These are bold words. Impertinent. Assuming far too much. The speaker of such words should be chastised.

D hesitates. Her fan flickers around her full lips.

Merely flattered? Or intrigued?

But at this moment, three shepherdesses approach. “There you are,” they say to the Princess with the Tartar eyes, pulling her by the hand. “Come with us, quickly!”

A look of regret, a smile, a rustle of skirts, and D is gone.

A moment lost?

Making room for another?

But as she sits down on an empty chair by the wall, the Princess returns. She has abandoned her companions and has rejoined the circle surrounding the dancing odalisque. She has not forgotten the besotted “cavalier,” either. It is not easy to let go of those who profess admiration with such boldness.