Curse Not the King (21 page)

“And it is what I believe also.”

Paul picked up Potemkin's invitation and stood, twisting the paper in his hands, until a sudden spasm of the powerful fingers shredded it to pieces.

“I have decided. I'll go to the ball. And if it is God's will, I'll see that one-eyed devil humbled and utterly destroyed!”

Bowing, Rastopchine left him, and went for a long solitary walk in the palace gardens, still frowning, and oppressed by a great weight of anxiety. “If Potemkin falls, the difficulties will be halved.” So he had told Paul, but even with him, whom he loved, he chose not to be completely honest. Part of what he said was true, as it usually was. Zubov would be easy. They could murder Zubov, if necessary. And many of Catherine's Ministers might hesitate when it came to seizing the rightful Czar and putting that sly, pious stripling in his place. Thinking these thoughts Rastopchine beat his clenched fist against his brow, unconsciously imitating Paul's famous gesture.

If he could reason so, how obvious the risks must be to Catherine Alexeievna. And even the greatest fool must expect that she had made her plans accordingly.

But somehow, in spite of his forebodings, Rastopchine nurtured hope, and for all his astuteness he failed to realize that the source of his optimism lay, not with any well-laid scheme, nor even the pattern of the fates, which seemed as if about to turn to their advantage, but in the person of the grim, tormented Czarevitch himself.

In the monotony of Gatchina, enclosed by the gloom and discipline of Paul's fortress home, Catherine Nelidoff passed her days, sewing and reading her lover's letters.

The last letter mentioned the great ball to be given by his enemy Potemkin; it was a long letter, longer than any she had so far received and in it he expressed many of his hopes and fears, outlining the intrigues current in the capital, praising his good friend Rastopchine, and breaking the thread of his narrative to ask questions concerning his own household and its management.

Katya Nelidoff read it through several times, struggling to grasp the details which were so obviously important to the man she loved. At last she laid down the sheets of paper in her lap, and leaning back in her favourite position by the window, in her room, looked out on the courtyard below.

Squads of men were drilling in the hot sun, raising a low, yellow dust from the dry earth; she could hear the harsh voice of Araktchéief shouting orders, and unconsciously she shuddered.

For a long period she sat motionless, staring out at the visible forms of the things in Paul that had already driven a small wedge between them, while the tears ran down her face and soaked into that precise, detailed missive, in which he neither sent for her nor said when he expected to be back.

That evening of April the 28th, Catherine Alexeievna was in her bedroom preparing for Potemkin's ball. A dazzling selection of dresses was spread over the huge bed and draped on chairs and couches; there were dozens of pairs of shoes on the floor, and a great jewel casket stood on a table, and one of the Empress's ladies waited, ready to hand each glittering tray of ornaments to her mistress so that she might choose from them.

In a corner of the room Catherine's hairdresser arranged his combs and drew a long switch of false ringletted hair through his fingers.

Meanwhile the Empress considered which gown to wear; Countess Bruce, hovering at her elbow, and the second and most notorious of her female confidantes, Countess Protassof, suggesting first one dress and then another for her mistress's approval.

Finally Bruce solved the problem.

“Why not wear scarlet, Madame? It's your most becoming colour.”

“Scarlet.…” Catherine hesitated and smiled ruefully. “When I was young, Bruce, I wore nothing else. But scarlet for an old woman.…”

Behind her back the Countess clicked her tongue reproachfully.

“How can you say that, Madame! When Prince Potemkin beggars himself to please you and M. Zubov sulks with jealousy.…”

Five years ago Catherine Alexeievna would have answered the sly flattery with cynical scorn, but the mention of Plato's name reminded her of the necessity to paint the ageing contours of her face and confine the glandular fat which disfigured her body; she must appear young for him, she must smile and dance and feast to keep up with his youth and vigour; she must pander to his appetites for pleasure however old and tired she felt.… At odd moments lately she had found the effort increasingly difficult to make; there were times when her avid senses seemed at rest, when she acknowledged her weariness and the traitorous longing to send Zubov to the furthest corner of her kingdom and sink into the tender, platonic embrace of her faithful Gregory Gregorovitch Potemkin.…

“I'll wear the red and gold brocade,” she said suddenly, and stood, resting both hands on Protassof's sturdy shoulders while they covered her ungainly form with the gorgeous material and laced her into it until she gasped for breath.

Then the coiffeur approached, and under his skilful fingers her thick white hair, still streaked with black, was piled high above her splendid forehead, and a long curled switch was secured at the back, so that the false ringlets drooped over her shoulder.

Catherine watched herself in the gilded dressing-table mirror with an inscrutable expression, her mind speeding back across the years, reviewing a succession of faces, dead faces, faces once dear and intimate in varying degrees.

Most persistent among the visions which swam across the surface of her mind was the proud, splendid countenance of the man who had died at Gatchina, died a raving lunatic, tortured by the shade of her dead husband. Brave, magnificent Gregory Orlov … of them all she had loved him the best, loved him with the unforgettable passion of her vital youth, plotted with him, marched with him at the head of an army, and spent hot, breathless hours in his arms.

All that she had, he had helped to secure for her, and when ambition and dissatisfaction finally separated them, another had taken his place; a man as ugly as he was beautiful, yet a giant in mind as well as body. He too had marched with her on that momentous night; the tarnished sword knot of the humble Lieutenant Potemkin still remained among her most prized possessions. And he had loved her, made war for her, fallen at her feet in worship, even as he bullied and raged at her like a spoilt, jealous child, when he was thwarted. So much lay between them; not the simple, blinding love which had consumed her in the arms of Orlov, but a complex attachment, compounded of passion, of greed for power, of fierce nationalism, indeed of all those things dear to the heart of the ruler as well as the woman.

And no one knew better than Catherine what her Court was saying, and how rumours declared this evening to be the great Prince of Taurus's final challenge to the upstart favourite.

They watched her and whispered, wondering who would be chosen, murmuring that Potemkin was laying siege to her body as well as her heart, that he had abandoned all caution and dignity to enter the amorous lists against the practised, sinister arts of Plato Zubov.

Catherine turned to the jewel tray her lady held out for her inspection and shook her head.

“Rubies,” she said slowly. “I always wear rubies with red.”

A great necklace of graduated gems encircled her neck, and cascades of rubies dripped from her ears, while an enormous peacock spray blazed from the top of her powdered head. Each stone was ringed with large diamonds, and when she rose her reflection flashed in the glass like a vision of fire.

“Your Majesty looks magnificent …” breathed Countess Protassof and for a moment Catherine Alexeievna turned and looked at her with the clear level eyes of the woman she had known thirty years before.

“Don't flatter me, Protassof … send for my chamberlain. I'm ready now.”

When she had gone the two waiting women paused and exchanged glances.

“Well,” Countess Bruce whispered. “What do you think?”

Protassof shrugged.

“Who can say? All I know is, if Potemkin triumphs it will be the end of us … we recommended Zubov in the usual way, remember.… But only God knows what is in her heart. Or what she means to do.”

10

Potemkin's ball began at six o'clock, and a company of three thousand was assembled in the magnificent Taurus Palace by the time the Empress arrived.

Paul and Marie Feodorovna had already been received by their host, and for a few moments the attention of the guests had wandered from the drama about to be enacted between Catherine and her former lover, while Gregory Potemkin bent low over the hand of the Czarevitch, greeting him with the courtly grace he knew how to assume so well.

The Prince of Taurus was dressed from head to foot in crimson, the brilliant colour accentuated by a magnificent cape of black lace, his dark features were flushed, his one eye sparkled; pride and high spirits resounded in his voice and marked his whole bearing.

He, whose self-indulgence knew no bounds in anything, who sulked and stormed with petulant fury over trifles, concealed whatever anxiety and unhappiness tormented him behind a façade of sweeping confidence and gaiety. It was in this guise that he welcomed his greatest enemy that night.

“I am honoured, your Imperial Highness. Madame! More beautiful than ever!” he added, turning to the Grand Duchess, and for all her dislike of him, Marie Feodorovna blushed at the compliment.

Paul regarded him with a cold, hostile stare, aware that for the first time in their association, the ascendancy was his.

“You have prepared a magnificent feast,” he remarked, and misunderstanding him, the Prince of Taurus bowed.

“No entertainment can be worthy of the Empress, Sir. However, I have tried.”

For the first time that evening Paul Petrovitch smiled.

“It is always wise to honour the sovereign, Prince, rather than the favourite, as so many people have been doing lately. For M. Zubov is only the favourite, and favourites fall in time.…”

Then extending his arm to his wife, the Czarevitch passed on. Rastopchine, who had arrived with his master, and was standing a few paces behind, had heard his words, turned pale and edged out of Potemkin's view.

“Great God,” he muttered, hurrying after Paul. “Potemkin will remember that jibe till the day of his death … if he triumphs to-night it will mean the end of the Czarevitch!”

Paul's courtier was not alone in his anxiety, for many hundreds trembled with him; men and women who had deserted the great Minister to fawn upon his rival, and who now thronged his palace and enjoyed his tremendous hospitality with the possibility of his re-emergence and subsequent revenge to spoil their evening's pleasure.

When the Empress appeared, the Prince fell on his knees before her and she raised him up with all her old graciousness, and, leaning on his arm, she entered the palace which his ingenuity had transformed for her delight.

But those who saw a portent in those marks of favour were soon confounded when Catherine stopped and beckoned Plato Zubov to her side.

The ball opened with a quadrille of forty-eight couples, among them the young Grand Dukes Alexander and Constantine; the sons of Russia's noblest houses partnered women chosen for their exceptional beauty, and the colourful eye of Potemkin had clothed them in alternate pink and blue and augmented their costumes with ten million roubles' worth of diamonds.

The ballroom was immense and brilliantly lit with the finest wax candles; the entire stock of candles in Petersburg had been bought up on Potemkin's orders.

A second room separated from the ballroom by a long colonnade had been transformed into a garden where trees and shrubs flowered as if by a miracle and fountains cooled the air. In the centre of the scene a great Paros marble statue of Catherine had been erected, and close to it an obelisk of agate, inlaid with her cypher in precious stones and ringed round with chains of solid gold.

Arm in arm with Potemkin, the Empress wandered into this artificial paradise, and though her steps were halting and it needed the combined strength of the Prince and Plato Zubov to support her on each side, she smiled and listened to her host with obvious pleasure.

And that night he was brilliant. All his gifts of laughter, wit, flattery and insight came to his aid, coupled with the indefinable childish, unruly charm that had held so many women captive, including the greatest woman of her age.

He made her laugh until the tears came into her eyes, and during the play and ballet which followed, whispered words of passionate longing into her ear.

He needed her, he murmured; his senses gave him no rest, his heart rebelled against their separation any longer. No woman satisfied him while Catherine's image burned into his tormented brain; he would discard them all, he declared vehemently, even his dear little faithful niece Branicka should be sent away, if his beloved Catherine would only close her eyes for one moment and remember the past.

From his place in the audience, Paul Petrovitch watched Potemkin's courtship of his mother, knowing how much his own destiny hung in the balance, and trying to read a verdict in the Empress's expression. Occasionally, he glanced at the pale, bored countenance of her young lover, who sat on his mistress's left, apparently indifferent to the blandishments of his deadly rival.

Observing him, Paul judged that elegant unheeding posture to be a clever pose; the defence adopted by a man who knows himself outmanœuvred in the field of wit and brilliant flattery, and who is content to wait until an opportunity favourable to a display of his own talents presents itself.

When the play ended Catherine retired to a room specially prepared for her, and rested there until the first serving of supper was announced.

The banquet was in keeping with the standards of magnificence Potemkin had already set throughout the evening. Six hundred of the noblest and most powerful of Catherine's subjects dined with her, and left the table to continue the ball while the next relay of guests went in to take their places.