Rebel Princess (38 page)

“He shan't suffer, Natalia. I promise you he shan't be victimized; his safety shall be part of my terms.… Now dry your eyes, my darling, and have faith in me. As long as I live I'll take care of you.…”

With her arms round his neck the Grand Duchess bit her lips to restrain a hysterical impulse to shriek with laughter at his trust and the irony of that last guarantee.

How long would he, or any of them, live, with Catherine as their enemy …?

The rumour of the Grand Duchess's arrest had run through the Court like wildfire, and those who hated Paul and despised his prim little German bride rejoiced. All that day they waited, the malicious, the curious, and the few who sympathized; waited to see the farce of a happy Imperial marriage end in betrayal and disgrace. And among the crowd, yet apart from it, Rasumovsky watched and listened in agony of mind, tortured with fear for his mistress and uncertainty for himself.

He knew that they had been discovered, and the punishment which must befall her would either be death or lifelong imprisonment.

But the hours went by and nothing happened. In the privacy of her suite Catherine told Panin of her son's reaction and pointed out that she was in no position to accept his challenge. The armies of Pugachev were advancing on Moscow itself: to do violence to the Czarevitch might cause a revolution among a people already restive, and decide the wavering loyalty of thousands in favour of the rebels. There was nothing they could do, she repeated angrily, and then added that if her forces triumphed she would remember her son's action and know how to punish it.

With that Panin had to be content, and in the weeks that followed Natalie remained at liberty and Rasumovsky also.

They never had another hour alone together. Paul kept his wife at his side day and night, overwhelmed her with attention in public and soothed her fears in private.

Life on the edge of a precipice was no new experience for him, and the basic human wish to see the mighty fall and suffer for their mightiness was only too familiar. For ten years Catherine's Court had been waiting for him to follow his father's way of imprisonment and death. Now they whispered and watched, hoping for the Grand Duchess as a victim. Paul placed himself between her and danger like a tiger at bay, and the knowledge of her desperate peril made her cling to him.

Most of their time was spent alone together; they dined quietly in their suite and in the effort to distract her Paul played endless games of cards or read to her aloud. Every member of their household was a potential spy and the Czarevitch drove equerries and maids of honour out of their sight with curses, and quite frequently with blows. Natalie had never seen the duality of his nature so clearly as in those terrible weeks of waiting. His fierce tyranny to others was only matched by his passionate tenderness to herself, and often the Grand Duchess, doubly imprisoned by peril and by love, felt tempted to scream or throw herself wildly into his arms.

“Come and play picquet, my dearest,” he asked her one evening when they had finished supper. Natalie rose and walked to the fireplace, staring blankly into the flames. Picquet. They had played every night for a week, and as always he had contrived to let her win.

“No, Paul,” she answered, and her voice shook. “No, I … I don't want to play to-night.”

Immediately he sensed the change in her, knew that her nerves were near to breaking, and he crossed to where she stood and took her trembling body in his arms.

“What is it? You are still worrying, still frightened …” Natalie leant against him, grateful for the strength of his arms and for the illusion of security it gave her. She said nothing for a moment, and in that moment closed her eyes, feeling the warmth of his body and the comfort of his hand caressing her hair.

Instinctively she slipped her arms round his neck and thought of Rasumovsky, thought of the preliminary embrace before their fevered love-making, an embrace as fierce and hungry as her young husband's was gentle and protective.

The comparison had been enough to send her hurrying out of Paul's reach in the days before this danger threatened her, but for some weeks her awakened senses had been starved of love, even from the Czarevitch, who unselfishly abstained from her for fear that it might tax her strength during the crisis. Quite suddenly the storm within her broke. She clung to him, her body burning, trembling and breathless; the whole mountainous burden of fear, uncertainty, frustration and guilt became concentrated in one surge of feeling.

“Kiss me,” she begged him. “Paul, I need you, please please …”

He held her in a grip that almost cracked her narrow spine, the blood rushing into his face, his carefully disciplined passion shedding the bonds of self-control.

“Natalia, my darling, I have wanted you so desperately.… Oh, God, come to me then. Come now.”

He never thought to question her experience, to wonder at the sensuous cunning of her caresses, of how her lips, supposedly untouched by any mouth but his, could inflame him with a kiss that he had never taught her. In the blindness of his love and the ecstasy of that night he accepted the transformation as a miracle; the passive, obedient bride had revealed herself as ardent and demanding of the love he only longed to give her; in the mutual fulfilment of their passion he fell asleep, unsuspecting and utterly content.

And Natalie slept also, slept deeply for the first time in weeks with Paul's head cradled on her breast, the barrier between them broken, but broken, as with so many human obstacles, too late.

Meanwhile, Catherine waited. She waited to trap Natalie and punish Paul's disobedience with the patience and clarity of purpose which had eventually cost Peter Feodorovitch his throne and his life. And towards the winter of that year it seemed as if the reckoning would not be delayed much longer.

The great Pugachev Rebellion had halted. The masses of wretched, ignorant people who had followed the Cossack leader had dwindled to a disorderly rabble of drunken looters; and the ending of the Turkish war provided the monstrous General Panin with a new influx of troops.

The danger had come very close to Catherine and she knew it. While her letters abroad dismissed the revolt with careless levity, and her cunning found a witty nickname for the shaggy, illiterate Pugachev, Catherine admitted angrily to herself that she would never trust her people again. With that admission, the first part of a new era for Russia began.

The second phase opened one evening in the Winter Palace.

As usual after dinner the Empress sat down at the card table with a select circle of friends, among them the intimate of many years, Leo Naryshkin, and the man lately returned from the Turkish wars, he whom Panin had saluted that morning many weeks before. No one could have called him handsome, yet none who saw him could help but look again. He was very swarthy, his nose aquiline and long in proportion to his face, and the black patch which covered the mutilated socket of his left eye heightened the general impression of a Turkish potentate turned pirate who had somehow wandered into the cultured environs of Catherine's Court. His physique was remarkable even in an age and nation of giants; his clothes were colourful and enhanced by many jewels, the whole effect upon the eye was extraordinarily vivid, vulgar and powerful.

He sat in the place of honour on the Empress's right hand, and Catherine turned to him, smiling and fascinated in spite of herself.

“M. Naryshkin thinks you must find Court life tedious after the excitements of campaigning,” she remarked mischievously. Gregory Potemkin glanced across at the man he sensed to be a rival and nodded in acceptance of the challenge. The eternal suitor, he decided contemptuously, still waiting in Catherine's shadow, waiting and hoping for another's leavings. Potemkin noted his grey hairs and sneered with all the arrogance of youth.

“M. Naryshkin is mistaken,” he said in his deep, resonant voice. “The source of all excitement, and pleasure, is to be found in Petersburg. A smile from you, Madame, and any soldier would declare the stimulus greater than cannon!”

Leo opened his mouth to retort, then the sight of Catherine's hand resting upon the other's arm restrained him. He examined his cards closely, struggling with his jealousy and the certainty of defeat. This ugly barbarian had already been selected. He knew it. At that moment he raised his eyes and found that she, the idol of his life, was looking at him; Catherine smiled and he read the message in that smile. It was a gentle, regretful, final ‘no' and he acknowledged it with an answering smile, which promised that the war of words was at an end between him and the victor.

“I hope you'll forsake your battlefields and remain long in Petersburg, General.”

Potemkin bowed.

“The length of my stay depends on the Empress,” he said boldly and turned his single blazing eye upon her.

Catherine lowered her cards, sustaining that imperious, ardent gaze, aware that he had drawn very close to her, and that the fierce masculinity of the man transcended his appearance. The climax of twelve years of patient wooing was about to overtake her.

Now Gregory Orlov was gone and his old rival had returned, courting her by letter and in person, displaying gifts of charm that made the luckless Vassiltchikov seem even duller than he was.

“How much longer must I wait, Madame?” he whispered. Catherine stared down at her cards, hesitating, knowing that those who played with them were watching. The fate of Russia, the future happiness of the Empress, the ultimate destiny of Paul hung in the balance and were suddenly resolved.

“We've both waited long enough, my friend,” she said quietly. She threw down her cards and rose from the table.

“I'm tired to-night,” she said. Then turning, she placed her hand upon Gregory Potemkin's arm. “General, will you escort me to my rooms?”

For weeks after that night the whole of Petersburg held its breath, watching the new favourite with the Empress, seeing the special marks of affection that had once been Orlov's privilege; and this fresh scandal thrust Paul and Natalie into the background.

When he heard of it, the Czarevitch told Natalie and raged against his mother. Every instinct of a son jealous of the love which was his due, no matter how he thought he hated, rose in rebellion at the sight of yet another common paramour: Catherine the ruler, symbol of power and authority, was bad enough, but the crude associations of sex filled him with repulsion and fury.

The men his mother loved were always big, tall and broad-shouldered like Russian Hercules—Orlov, Vassiltchikov, and now this Gregory Potemkin. For twelve years the favourites had towered above him, and a proud, primeval instinct hated to be overshadowed. As he had loathed Orlov and despised his unintelligent successor, so he became Potemkin's enemy.

And with this resolve Paul began a personal war that was to wage for over twenty years.

In December messengers hurried to Catherine with momentous news. Panin's opinion of human treachery and greed were fully justified at last: the huge reward of 100,000 roubles offered for the capture of Emilian Pugachev had proved too much of a temptation. As he lay drunk in the ruins of his camp, surrounded by those he thought to be his friends, his followers had seized him and delivered him to the forces of the Empress. He was already on his way to Moscow in chains.

The Court was in residence in the Wooden Palace in the heart of the old Muscovite capital, and Paul insisted upon watching the triumphal entry of the defeated Cossack. Unlike her ladies and the general populace, Natalie had no appetite for horrors and no wish to see the sufferings of the man who had so nearly dragged the great Catherine off her throne. But for once Paul would not yield. They could watch from a window in the palace, he said stubbornly, and there was no need for Natalie to sicken since his mother's talent for well-timed mercy had changed the ferocious sentence of torture to one of simple execution. Not even to her would he admit that a doubt tormented him, born of rumours and uncertainty, the phantom of his own childish longing for a miracle to raise the dead. He wanted to see the man who claimed to be his father.

They had put Pugachev into a great iron cage, and drew it slowly along the streets of Moscow, ringed by troops to keep the crowds at bay, and as he stood by the palace window Paul Petrovitch watched the procession pass under a thin cloud of gently falling snow.

For some moments he looked on the prisoner, chained and exhibited like a wild beast: the man was a giant, black-bearded and swarthy, his clothing in rags; with both hands he steadied himself against the bars of the jolting, swaying cage, unable to shield himself from the showers of filth that rained in upon him from the hands of the howling mob. The same mob, as Paul thought grimly, who would have knelt to do him homage in the streets had fate given him the victory instead of Catherine.

There was a moment when the eyes of the two men met, high above the heads of the crowd: the big Cossack, helpless now, but savage with pain and humiliation, stared into the face of an ugly young man, saw the fixed expression that none might read, the prominent brow and flattened nose, caught the brilliant flash of a great diamond in his cravat, and insensible to anything but the ordeal of his approaching death, looked on the Czarevitch whom his mad imposture had claimed as his son, with uncomprehending animal eyes, dark and wild with suffering.

As the cage passed, Paul turned and slammed the window, to the great chagrin of his attendants, who wished to see the execution. It was not until he took Natalie in his arms when all had been dismissed, and kissed her with desperate tenderness, that the truth occurred to her.

Pugachev was beaten. At that very moment his head had fallen, judging by the great shout which had gone up from the crowd outside. The Turkish war was over, the rebellion broken. Catherine was seated firmly on her throne and could afford to give the succession where she pleased.

Paul's threats availed him nothing any longer. Both he and Natalie were left at Catherine's mercy.