Rebel Princess (26 page)

The giant smiled quite amiably, but his hand resting on his word belied the innocence of his greeting and expression.

“Stay, friend Narychkin! You seem in mighty haste?”

Leo looked at Alexis Orlov, brother of his successful rival. It was Gregory's child that Catherine bore, but necessity vanquished the jealousy and hatred for the family that Narychkin bore them.

“Get out of my way if you value the Czarina's life,” he said savagely. “The Czar is on his way here at any moment. She has been betrayed!”

Alexis swore a startled oath. His disfigured face contorted and he stepped aside. It seemed to Narychkin that he resembled nothing so much as a massive Siberian wolf about to spring.

“Go to her!” Alexis said. “Break in the doors if you must, but warn her! As for our good Emperor, I'll spit him on my sword before he takes a step towards her rooms. Hurry, for the love of God!”

Without another word Narychkin raced to the end of the long carpeted corridor, aware as he did so that all was strangely quiet except for the muffled sounds of his own hurrying feet.

He began to beat on the paneled doors with his fists.

Word had spread rapidly through the palace that the Emperor was about to arrest his wife. The rumor, current so many times since Peter's accession, had at last the ring of truth, and the experienced at court closed their doors and withdrew silently from those rooms and corridors where the Czar was likely to pass.

At such times the wise ones took care not to be among the uninvited witnesses of doubtful scenes, and there were many who heard of the Czarina's downfall with genuine misgiving. Without her all hopes of release from Peter's Prussian yoke faded still further, but the traditional apathy of courts towards the tyrant paralyzed and held them.

Revolutions were made by the army, and this time the Emperor was about to strike first.

The tutor of the Czarevitch Paul stayed only long enough to hear the report of Peter's advance with soldiers towards the Czarina's apartments, before hurrying with the light-footed speed of all fat men into the inner sanctum of his room, where he fastened the door securely and took refuge in his bed.

His principal feeling was one of quaking fear, coupled with unhappy reproaches directed at himself and the woman whose secrets would be wrung from her by methods at which the imperial torturers were unequaled throughout the world.

The Czar, possessed by the uncontrolled fury which Count Panin had witnessed so frequently, might kill his erring wife on the spot, if the rumor of childbirth were indeed true. But the vein of national pessimism in his nature counseled Panin that this eventuality was too much to hope for; Vorontzov would stay his ruler's hand until a multitude of incriminating questions had been posed and answered.

Then he, and countless others, would follow the Empress to the scaffold, blackened for all time as conspirators in treason.

The Count drew the bed covers over his head and cursed Catherine Alexeievna for her folly with a fluidity inspired by fear.

Then, as the moments lengthened, he heard the faint tramp of soldiers, and the murmur of excited voices drifted to him through the walls as Peter Feodorovitch passed the Czarevitch's rooms.

Only then did he cease his profanities and begin to pray.

Peter stopped some three yards from the doors of Catherine's suite. He was surrounded by a dozen soldiers and behind him came Elizabeth Vorontzov leaning on her uncle's arm; her astonishment and disbelief of the news had vanished, and only a malice greater even than her triumph remained in her heart. The Chancellor said nothing; his work was done, and if the Emperor chose to murder his wife in circumstances of such flagrant guilt, then none in all Europe or Russia would decry his action. The problem had all but solved itself, and within a few moments the Consort's throne would be empty for his niece.

Those who had been at dinner with the Czar crowded the corridor; otherwise the entrance to Catherine's apartments was silent and empty. There was no sign of Alexis Orlov.

Peter addressed himself to the two guardsmen nearest him. “Break in those doors!” he ordered, pointing with his little dress sword.

Without trying the handle, the soldiers flung themselves against the finely ornamented doors, which burst open instantly. The Czar looked into the outer antechamber of Catherine's suite; it was occupied only by two startled footmen who shrank back as the guardsmen advanced into the room. A few candles illumined the interior, and the doors leading to the Czarina's bedroom were closed as usual.

Peter strode forward, the weapon shaking in his hand, his whole feeble body shivering with rage and nervous tension. It seemed to him that he must pass through a thousand doors, numberless as in a nightmare, before he came face to face with his enemy.

Surrounded as he was by friends and armed men, he yet hesitated, smitten by the fear of Catherine which had bedeviled him from the hour of their first meeting. She was helpless and caught in unpardonable crime, but it was not in his power to enter that inner room alone and deal with her as was his right.

He motioned his soldiers forward and fear sharpened his voice to an angry scream.

“Open the doors! And run through any who bar the way.”

The guardsmen applied their shoulders to the gilded wood, and the doors swung inwards easily so that the two assailants stumbled and almost fell across the threshold.

Catherine's bedroom was ablaze with light.

For a moment the glare dazzled Peter as he stepped through the portals, and numerous unimportant details presented themselves separately before his eyes, blinding them to the obvious spectacle he sought. Row upon row of candelabra were arranged against the walls, their candle flames reflected in many mirrors; a bright fire burned in the grate and warmed the huge empty bed which stood in the middle of the room, its embroidered covers perfectly arranged.

The Empress of Russia sat in a chair before her dressing-table, a golden mirror lowered into her lap, watching the intruders with cold astonished eyes.

Peter managed a few steps farther into the room, aware that his wife was fully dressed in a silk gown and that Vladyslava stood behind her, setting an arrangement of jewels and feathers in her hair.

There was no sign of disorder anywhere in the room; the scene that met his eyes and those of his followers was the normal one of the Czarina completing her toilette before dining with her household. Even as he watched her, waiting for her enquiry, Peter's brain, excited and strained to breaking point, refused to acknowledge that he had been misinformed.

That chamber and its occupants could not be what they seemed. Somewhere, somehow, Catherine had been bearing a child less than half an hour earlier; this spectacle was a trick, a charade enacted to lull his suspicions.

“Search the rooms!” he yelled, and his voice cracked nervously on the last word.

Catherine Alexeievna rose slowly from her chair and stared in horror at the soldiers who commenced thrusting their swords through the curtains and into the great clothes presses, until they disappeared into the inner rooms of her suite.

“What manner of visit is this, Your Majesty? Of what am I suspected that you send soldiers to destroy the furnishings about my head?”

Peter could not answer her; every moment assured him that his hopes were vain. No woman could have risen from a sick bed and looked and spoken as she were doing. He remembered the agonies of that other birth, when he had attended the long ritual of waiting by the mattress while she tossed sweating and almost unconscious; and among those who watched were many who had followed him into the chamber and now stood staring at her in embarrassment and disbelief.

After a moment Catherine seated herself slowly; still staring at Peter she picked up her fan from the dressing-table and began to sway it deliberately back and forth. The sounds of the soldiers' distant search came nearer, breaking the absolute silence in the room, and some of those in the rear of their Emperor began to drift unobtrusively away.

When the guards appeared once more, it was obvious that they had discovered nothing. Their spokesman coughed nervously as he reported failure, aware that his Czar was staring at him with dilated eyes and that the point of his sword had slit a hole in the carpet upon which he stood. A thin line of foam showed between Peter's lips; he seemed about to strike down the innocent bearer of ill tidings but the Chancellor, recognizing the defeat of their hopes, laid a hand on his arm in counsel and restraint.

Peter Feodorovitch looked at his wife and his chest heaved in a convulsion of disappointment and hate.

“Perhaps this time I have not found you out, Madame,” he panted. “But look to yourself! There will be other times!”

Then he turned quickly and stumbled out of the room without another word. One by one his courtiers followed him, bowing low before the silent woman seated in the chair, and there were many among them who cursed their presence in that room, for the sight of their faces would doubtless remain imprinted upon the Czarina's memory for a long time to come.

Her downfall had seemed so assured, but once again, she and not Peter had emerged the victor; who was to say that she would not retain that position in the final denouement?

When the chamber door was closed at last, Vladyslava hurried to her mistress. Catherine leaned back and the fan dropped out of her fingers; not even the hastily applied rouge could hide her sudden pallor, and fine beads of sweat bedewed her face.

The waiting woman fell on her knees beside the chair and began to cry. “Oh, thank God, Madame, thank God! It was only just in time! At any moment I thought that you might faint.”

The Czarina smiled wearily at her.

“Dry your tears, my good Vladyslava. The danger is passed, thanks to Monsieur Narychkin and the excellent timing of the birth. Where is my son?”

“Countess Bobrinsky took him as we arranged, Madame. He is safe with her at the other end of the Palace by now.… He's a beautiful boy. The Countess will give him her name and will care for him all his life as if he were her own child. Pray God, Madame, that he leaves this life more peaceably than he came into it.”

But Catherine Alexeievna was not listening; the last desperate reserves of her strength had been exhausted and, mercifully, she had fainted.

The story of the Emperor's attempted arrest of his wife spread through St. Petersburg like wildfire, and the Princess Dashkov left a sick bed upon hearing the news and hurried to her friend.

Catherine Alexeievna was in bed recovering, so she explained, from the shock which the affair had caused her, and the devoted Dashkova accepting this lie without question, as she had accepted so many others. The willful blindness of her partisanship amazed Catherine as she looked at the girl's indignant face, still flushed with fever, and listened to her furious tirade against the Czar.

“He is a devil, Madame,” the Princess was saying, “a dangerous madman who should be chained up like any other! Oh, and to think that in your hour of peril I was absent.…”

Catherine smiled kindly at her; the Dashkova would never know how thankful her Royal Mistress had been for that absence.

A few days later she received a visit from Panin. He found her dressed, surrounded by papers which she had been signing, and to all appearance in the best of health and spirits.

Catherine greeted him gaily. “My dear Count, how glad I am to see you! Forgive me while I put my signatures to these; my husband still thinks fit to leave tedious affairs of management in my hands. His own time is too occupied with plots!”

Panin did not smile; his mission was a dangerous one and he deplored Catherine's levity. He found it difficult to forgive her for the fright she had occasioned him; the desire to prevent a repetition of that dreadful night had forced his hand at last.

“I have seen and spoken with a great many of our supporters, Madame, and the disgraceful episode of a few days past has disturbed and distressed us all. Indeed, I come to tell Your Majesty that if you will accept the advice of myself and your other friends at court, you will take immediate steps to safeguard yourself and the Czarevitch!”

Catherine laid down her pen and looked at him.

“What are you suggesting, Count?”

“That the time has come for action. When next the Czar takes it into his head to invade your rooms with soldiers, I fear that you will leave them as his prisoner. What then will become of your son? And your friends?” he added.

The Czarina pushed back her chair and came towards him. “You think the time has come for revolution,” she said quietly. The Count wiped his face with a lace kerchief; for some reason this woman always made him sweat.

“Yes, Madame, I and many others think so!”

Catherine moved to the window and stood looking out in silence for a moment. It seemed to Panin that she would never speak.

“Count Orlov thinks as you do,” she said softly. “And so do I.”

“What of the army, Madame? Can we rely upon their support? The ministers are with our cause, excepting of course the Vorontzovs. The issuing of manifestos, the Church proclamations—the Church is loyal to you and to the Czarevitch I need hardly add—all these things can be left to me. But who is to arrest the Czar?”

Panin paused. That last contingency could surely be left to the gallant Lieutenant of Guards and his friends who would most likely solve all further problems by butchering their Emperor within the walls of his own apartments.

“The army will certainly rise for me … and my son,” the Czarina replied. “As to the actual business of proclaiming, we can draw up the drafts of all documents when the time comes. There is no need to trouble about that until my husband has been removed from his throne. As to the matter of that, Count Orlov has a plan of which it is safer to say nothing for the moment. Only that it shall be put into effect within a little while. When the moment comes, be assured, my dear Count, that none but myself shall tell you and you will warn the others!”