Rebel Princess (27 page)

Catherine held out her hand to him and dismissed him with a charming smile. Whatever the consequences, he and many whom he had enlisted were too far involved in treason to withdraw; for their own safety they wished to expedite the revolution and place the little Czarevitch upon the throne.

On the 10th of June, Peter Feodorovitch gave a banquet. It was in celebration of peace between Prussia, England and Russia, and the great rooms of the Summer Palace were festooned with garlands; golden tablets bearing the names of the monarchs of the three kingdoms were hung upon the walls, a play had been arranged, and the most sumptuous feast which the resources of Imperial Russia could provide was to take place with the German Ambassador as guest of honor.

Within the palace all was preparation. An air of excitement pervaded the court, for this was the first instance of traditional Russian grandeur which the new Czar had ever staged. And it was to be the first public meeting between Peter and his Empress since their encounter in her bedroom, when he had come into his wife's presence brandishing a drawn sword.

There were to be five hundred guests at the banquet, but among the many distinguished officers of the Guards who were invited, the names of Gregory and Alexis Orlov were omitted.

That night Catherine's lover sat moodily in his room in the barracks drinking and talking to his brother. Gregory was anxious, and his usually robust spirits labored under a feeling of depression which nothing seemed able to remedy.

The Empress had gone to Peter's banquet; she had parted from him only a few hours since, and during that secret rendezvous he had alternately made love to her and entreated her not to go into what he feared might be a trap. He had kissed her and sworn at her, aware that her blue eyes smiled up at him in unshakable determination, and that even as her fingers caressed his face and twined themselves in his hair she rejected his request. She was the Empress, and as such she would take her place that night before the world. It would not do, her soft voice told him, to let Peter think she was afraid.

Gregory sat down on his bed and cursed.

“In the name of God, Alexis, what hour is it? How long before that damned banquet ends? Think of it, there she is, alone in the palace, with the place crawling with Peter's Holsteiners, and none of her friends in a position to protect her!”

“Passek is there, mounting guard,” remarked Alexis. “He will tell us what happens if you cannot wait to hear it from the Czarina's own lips.”

“How do I know that she will be free to tell me?” roared Gregory. His brother sat up slowly and regarded him with a curious expression in his light eyes.

“If she was in danger, do you suppose that I would be idling here?” he demanded quietly. “Peter will not touch her. And anyway, here, by God, is Passek!”

“Passek! What news?”

The Captain of Guards kicked the door shut behind him and pulled off his sword belt. His gorgeous full dress uniform glittered dully in the candle-light. He was one of the Orlovs' oldest friends and an active member of their conspiracy.

“Tonight our gracious Emperor excelled himself!” he said slowly.

In a flash Gregory leaped to his feet. “I told you!” he shouted. “What has he done, has he harmed her?”

Passek shook his head. “Calm yourself, friend. She is safe … and free. I saw her come in, dressed like a goddess. I've never seen so many diamonds in my life. She truly blazed like fire! Every eye was on her; God's death, Gregory, the Emperor looked like a flunkey beside her!” He paused and drank deeply from the wine jug which stood on the table.

“Go on,” snarled Gregory. “Go on, damn you! What happened?”

“Nothing much until the feast was half-way done. That drunken fool began proposing toasts, toasts to this German and that German till I could have slit his treacherous throat, shouting in that squeaking cockerel's voice of his and glaring down the table at the Empress. She drank every toast but the last, that to the imperial family. I was watching him and I saw his face turn as red as the wine. Everything was silent, you know how it is at these banquets, no one dares cough while the Emperor speaks. All of a sudden he turned to the Czarina and yelled at the top of his voice. You could hear his words from one end of the hall to the other.

“Get up, damn you! Stand and drink to Mademoiselle Vorontzov. Fool! Slut!”

Passek looked at the two Orlovs. Alexis had slowly risen to his feet and the scar on his face was throbbing and angry.

“It was the most vile insult I've ever heard given to a woman. She's as good as dead or divorced from tonight. None can doubt his intention now,” the Captain added. “I hurried to tell you as soon as I was relieved.”

“What did she do?” Gregory asked at last.

“Nothing. She only turned and began talking to some nobleman behind her chair. I hear he's been banished for his pains,” he concluded.

Gregory Orlov lifted his sword belt down from a hook on the wall. Anger had made him cool; anger and the knowledge that Catherine, though humiliated into the dust, was still at liberty.

“I go to spread the word,” he said. “Do you do so also, Passek. Tell our officers and brothers what their Czar intends and how he honors his Empress before foreigners. Forget nothing, and perhaps add a little to what your memory cannot supply. Our Emperor will remember this night's work to his sorrow! I think he himself has given the word we have been waiting for.”

That night the Czar lay in bed with Elizabeth Vorontzov and repeated the scene he had enacted that evening over and over again for her appreciation. Five hundred people had witnessed his treatment of Catherine; he only regretted that it had not been five thousand. Well, now they knew, and within a few days the whole world would know.

Peter was to take to himself a new wife, and the event was planned for the 29th of June, feast of that great Saint after whom he had been named.

At long last Chancellor Vorontzov had agreed to Catherine's arrest; and now that the decision had been made, it was necessary to render her harmless before the Czar left for war against Denmark. The date of his embarkation was fixed for the 30th of June.

The night before, a body of Holstein troops would make the Empress prisoner, for neither Peter nor his Chancellor cared to trust Russian soldiers with such a task; and while the whole court celebrated the feast of St. Peter and Paul, Catherine Alexeievna would be hurried away to the Schüsselburg fortress where she could be quietly put to death, and the excuse which the Czar would give his people was the announcement that his wife had been discovered intriguing with the Danish enemy.

With a heart made light by the prospect before him, Peter Feodorovitch left St. Petersburg for Oranienbaum, that palace where Serge Saltykov had wooed the young and lovely Grand Duchess all those years ago, where Poniatowsky had first seen and fallen in love with her, and where Gregory Orlov had laid seige to her and found that in the midst of victory he had himself been conquered.

A curt order penned by his secretary requested the Empress to retire to Elizabeth's old estate at Peterhof, a small palace which lay within easy reach of Oranienbaum and was yet conveniently isolated. There she was to remain in semi-banishment until the Emperor's Holsteiners arrived to take her prisoner on the evening of the 29th.

Catherine could do nothing but obey; Gregory had to stay behind in St. Petersburg, the Princess Dashkov had been given duties which would detain her in the capital, none of her friends or intimates were permitted to accompany her to Peterhof and, despite herself, Catherine Alexeievna felt lonely and afraid. Peter had a reason for separating her so suddenly both from her enemies as well as friends.

Alone with Gregory before she left St. Petersburg, she confided her feelings to him. Orlov lifted her face to his and mocked her gently; there were times when her fearlessness angered him, when her strength of character and will-power challenged his own, times when, despite his love for her, she almost ceased to be a mistress and became a rival. But that day she lay in his embrace, weak and submissive as any other woman, and her doubts gave him the mastery.

“Afraid, my intrepid Catherine? Where is all that boasted coolness in the face of danger? Or is it the ghosts at Peterhof which trouble you?”

Catherine turned away from him in restless impatience.

“The only ghost I fear to meet there is my own! I swear Peter has some intention behind his command to me. Gregory, what if he acts before your plan can be carried out? What if something happens to me at Peterhof, if I am never allowed to return to the capital before he sails for Denmark?”

Orlov looked at her and laughed.

“We have spies everywhere, beloved. Since the night of the banquet our Emperor hasn't a friend among his subjects. I should have the first word of any plan against you. This is just another insult, to banish you from his imperial presence. Trust me, and remain quietly at Peterhof for a few days. Passek, Panin and I are completing our plan for dealing with our gracious Czar. Before the end of June you are to return to St. Petersburg and your friends. Then you know what will befall!”

“You will assassinate him before he sails for Denmark,” Catherine said slowly.

Orlov nodded and laughed grimly. “Shall I not make a handsome Dane?” he enquired. For answer Catherine kissed him, and for the moment his confidence dispelled her doubts.

Obediently she left for Peterhof, taking with her a small retinue of servants, departing with misgivings which deepened during every mile of the journey. Orlov was so contemptuous of her fears; only Princess Dashkov seemed to share them, for her mingled jealousy and intuition suspected the wisdom of leaving matters in the hands of men like Gregory and Alexis without the guiding shrewdness of the Empress to restrain them.

The Dashkova watched the Empress's carriage speed out of the city and turned from the window with a sigh. How long before the nightmare of waiting and intrigue would end, how long before her life's work of placing Catherine on the throne would be accomplished?

While the Emperor and his court entertained themselves at Oranienbaum and the Empress remained quietly at Peterhof, Gregory and his fellow conspirators set to work preparing the way for Catherine's proclamation immediately Peter's murder should be announced.

Among the most ardent partisans of the plot was Captain Passek, and he repeated, with embellishments, the tale of Peter's conduct at the banquet. He was a man of fiery temper and unbridled tongue, a patriot and a soldier of long service.

It was unfortunate that he was also a drunkard; unfortunate too, that his speeches were delivered one night within the hearing of a soldier who had long borne him a grudge for an old punishment inflicted at his orders.

It was a few hours before midnight on June 27th when Gregory Orlov burst in upon Princess Dashkov and Count Panin with the news.

Passek had been arrested: the Empress's conspiracy had been betrayed.

Chapter 13

At five o'clock on the morning of the 28th of June, a shabby hired carriage drove into the grounds of Peterhof Palace, past the avenues of trees with their companies of sleepily twittering birds, past the magnificent façade of the main building, favorite pleasure palace of the dead Elizabeth Petrovna, and turned towards the small summer pavilion, where in a window a single candle burned.

It was there, without guards and attended only by a few servants and her waiting-woman, that Catherine Alexeievna spent her days of uneasy retirement, and at that very hour within its flimsy walls the Empress Consort of Russia lay asleep.

Her lady-in-waiting, Madame Chargorodsky, knelt at her devotions, her room lit by the flame of that solitary candle, for she was a pious woman, and the silent oppressive atmosphere of Peterhof seemed to her as if it were heavy with the spirit of the late Empress, as well as weighed down by the ill-concealed nervousness and anxiety of the present Czarina. So the good Madame left her bed and sought the comfort of the ikon before which she was even then prostrated.

So it was that when her door opened softly and a large shadow darkened the floor, creeping towards her on silent feet, she heard nothing until a hand rested on her shoulder and the touch of a knife blade at her throat stilled the scream she had opened her mouth to utter.

“One word and I'll pin you to the wall by the neck,” whispered Alexis Orlov and, looking at that devil's mask, the lady-in-waiting never doubted his threat.

“Get up! Where is the Empress?”

Madame Chargorodsky nodded weakly towards a door in an alcove.

“Open it and go inside.”

The Czarina's bedroom was bathed in gray half-light, and for a moment Orlov hesitated as he approached her couch. She lay sleeping peacefully, her black hair spread over the pillows, and it came to him suddenly that his brother must have often seen her thus, relaxed and stripped of all the trappings of great estate, a lovely woman, vulnerable as any other in the innocence of sleep.

She awoke to the touch of his hands on her, shaking her gently; and in a blinding flash of fear Catherine returned to consciousness and struck at him as she would at an assassin. But his hands held her, firmly and soothingly, despite their terrible strength, and at last in the half-light she saw the scar on his face and gasped in astonishment and relief.

“Alexis! What are you doing here, in God's name?”

“I come to take you back to St. Petersburg! Passek has been arrested; our plans have been betrayed to the Emperor. Soldiers will be sent to capture you within the next few hours. Hurry, Madame, or by the Virgin, we'll not reach the capital alive!”

Even as he spoke all fear left her.

Too late now for Gregory to assassinate Peter as he had proposed, and for the schemes of Panin to work their tortuous paths. Princess Dashkov had been right: without her presence they had blundered, as men of action always will when tact and cunning are demanded of them. But Fate had intervened, averting her destruction by a few short hours, giving her once more such a respite as had saved her at the birth of Orlov's son. This was her chance, ordained those many years ago when the young Princess of Anhalt had taken the first steps towards the Russian throne; she must succeed or perish.