Empress of the Night (16 page)

Her words produce grunts. Moans. A whiff of vinegar. “Don’t spill the salt, you clumsy fool!” Vishka seethes.

Nothing is right. Nothing is as it should be.

She is Empress.

All she needs is to raise her hand. Speak and order shall be restored.

Her lips move.

There is no sound.

For now.

I’ve fallen. I’m hurt. I need time. I need to rest
.

I need to think
.

Some memories are stashed away, safe from prying hands. Like a pearl necklace in dire need of restringing. The servants shouldn’t touch it, for any careless handling could bring a disastrous spill, the jewels rolling on the floor, disappearing in the crevices and nooks.

In one of these memories, she touches a mossy wall. Her fingers stumble upon an opening, a crack between the cold, wet stones. She peers through it. Beyond it is a miracle of flowering trees, shrubs, rosebushes, and vines. A tangle of greens, an orgy of colors and scents.

Under her fingers, she feels the iron prong of a small gate, which squeaks when she opens it. In the garden, a swing catches her eye. It is still moving, as if someone has just jumped off it, but there is no one near.

She is wearing a court gown of pink satin; her hat is adorned with long white plumes. Plump and rosy, she is a goddess of dawn. She sits on the swing and begins to rock back and forth, leaning as she wings back, bending forward as she rushes forth.

It takes a while before the swing reaches the highest point, but when it does, the sensation is exhilarating. The air rushes by, caressing her cheeks, billowing her skirts, threatening to dislodge the hat from her head.

That is when she sees him—a man in the shadows, watching her. Hidden among the greenery, pretending to be invisible. Something about him mesmerizes her. His air of absolute stillness? His teasing promise of mystery?

Whatever it is, for his eyes Catherine lets her shoe slip off and fall to the ground. Her foot is high-arched and gracefully slim. Her skin is alabaster white.

Look
, she urges him, teases with a smile.
I may be capricious. What I want today I may disdain tomorrow. Catch this moment, if you can. It may not come again
.

She can almost feel how his body twitches and shifts. The brown, wiry body of a horseman who can tame the wildest mounts.

He mutters something. His voice is faint at first, but then she can hear him as if he were whispering into her ear:
I will make you weep for nothing, make you shudder at shadows no one else will see
.

She knows this voice. He is Grigory Potemkin. Grisha.

Without him, nothing will ever be good enough.

In the heady hours of the coup, it is the stranger’s quick eagerness that strikes her. Thousands of adoring eyes, thousands of hands raised in a blessing or a vow of allegiance, but only one man has understood her predicament.

The borrowed Preobrazhensky uniform fits her like a glove; a naked saber gleams in her hand. Horses neigh; spurs clink. The multitudes that have awaited her for hours shout their joy. Drunk on the loot from the taverns, crazy with hopes and ambitions let loose by the unyielding brightness of a white June night. Catherine is just about to mount her horse when she realizes her
dragonne
, her sword knot, is missing.

A guardsman gallops toward her, tears the
dragonne
off his own sword, and hands it to her with a graceful bow. She catches a glimpse of a long, sensitive face, a cleft chin, a thick mop of auburn hair. Behind her, Katya Dashkova’s frightened voice urges her to make haste. Peter is still Tsar, if in name only. This is no time for hesitation.

But the Horse Guard who has handed her the sword knot refuses to leave her side. His horse is flanking hers, knee to knee. “Your Majesty must forgive my boldness,” he murmurs. “I cannot control it.”

A horse I can control, but not the boldness of my heart
, his twinkling eyes tell her.

Sergeant-Major Grigory Potemkin, Catherine soon learns, is a nobody. One of many who agreed to follow the Orlovs. He has been well rewarded
for his service. Promoted to Second Lieutenant, offered a gift of six hundred souls or eighteen thousand rubles, whichever he chooses.

They call him Grisha.

How old is he?
she asks.

Twenty-three.

Grisha Potemkin, a petty noble. A provincial boy from Chizhova. Delivered from his mother’s womb in a village
banya
while his father was drinking his inheritance away in the company of his serfs. Grisha Potemkin ran barefoot through the meadows with peasant boys. Roasted beets in the bonfire ashes, chewed on raw turnips, hulled seeds from sunflower heads. An altar boy with grandiose claims of greatness that—this is what he believes—awaits him as surely as spring comes after winter. Bright, yes, but like his stout papa, ruled by sloth and arrogance. His teachers despaired, forgave, and despaired again. In the end, Grisha Potemkin was expelled from school for laziness and nonattendance.

Where is Chizhova?

Somewhere on the western borderlands. Far away from Moscow, even farther from St. Petersburg. A needle in the haystack of her empire. If you blink as you pass by it, you will miss it.

For Grigory Orlov, Grisha Potemkin is a diversion.

“What a clown! He can make anyone laugh.”

“How?”

“Imitations. He can mimic Panin, Shuvalov,
Das Fräulein
.”

“I want to see him do it!”

Summoned to amuse his Empress, Grisha Potemkin strolls into an inner room of the Winter Palace with a tight, mysterious smile. His hair is silky, auburn-brown, as beautiful as she has remembered. Beside her, Grigory Orlov rubs his hands, as if this Lieutenant of Horse Guards was his own invention.

“I cannot do it, Your Majesty,” Grisha Potemkin protests. “I’m not able to do any mimicry at all. Please excuse me, madame, and forgive me for disappointing you and your illustrious court.”

His voice has an unmistakable German accent. He holds his head
high, as if he were standing at the top of a flight of marble stairs, looking down on them all. His gestures are slightly feminine.

Catherine is aware of murmurs churning around her, of Grigory Orlov’s rumble of mocking laughter. She knows what her Favorite, Orlov, is thinking. A new Empress is not predictable. Not fully sure in her own skin. What will a monarch of but a few hours do to a man who dares to imitate her?

She laughs.

Her life has just been transformed in ways she cannot quite fathom. What she has desired so long is hers, miraculously, a gift and a burden. Laughter breaks her open, releases what has been pulling tight at her insides. Holding fear, darkness, and the raucous exhilaration of victory.

And he, Grisha Potemkin?

He thinks he has won already. That he has conquered her with this laughter. Disarmed her defenses, drawn her to him. Impatient, young, Grisha Potemkin believes in transformations. In moments that herald a change of fortune. Moments he intends to grab and squeeze out like a lemon.

This is why he will follow her in the months to come. Throw himself at her feet, not once, not twice, but dozens of times. In the corridors of the Winter Palace. In the garden of Tsarskoye Selo. At the Peterhof courtyard, his knees wobbly on cobblestones, eyes shining with eagerness, the reddish tint of his hair catching the sun’s rays. He will flatter her, compliment her lavishly. He will kiss her hand. Profess his love. Rebuked, he will still appear at her card table, lean over her shoulder to look at her cards, ignoring Grigory Orlov’s mounting rage.

She will laugh or smile or shake her head in disbelief, and walk away. His attentions please her, but she doesn’t want him to know that. Why spoil a child? Why soil such an innocent pleasure? It’s best to watch over him from afar. Send small advancements his way. Gentleman of the Bedchamber. Assistant to the Procurator of the Holy Synod. Army paymaster. Guardian of Exotic Peoples.

Her
cavalier servente
is too young, too rash, too eager. He needs her guidance, her warnings.

Warnings he won’t heed.

Brilliant Empress, gaze at visions
,

And behold, a woman great:

In your thoughts and your decisions

As one soul we all partake
.

Time is not to be wasted on idle amusements. Time belongs not to Catherine, but to the Empire.

There is so much to do.

Russia is growing in spurts and starts. A decision to support one faction brings on the wrath of others. No move is innocuous. All power is challenged.

The old game of dare? The testing of one’s mettle? Calculations made on paper fade when confronted with daily transactions of flesh and blood. The weak will challenge the strong, even against all odds. In matters of states, predictions breed like mice.

When she demands greater religious freedoms for the Orthodox faithful, the Poles cry that Russia is meddling with its most sacred laws. Stanislav, now King of Poland, pleads for time, for reforms that would strengthen his government and his monarchy. While his subjects denounce him as a Russian footstool and take to arms. While Ukrainian Cossacks join the melee, seething with rage against their Polish lords and Jewish overseers. With the Cossacks, when rage erupts, the earth burns.

In all her palaces, Catherine keeps copies of her most cherished books. Montesquieu. Locke. Beccaria. They are the essence of Europe, and Russia must be a European country, not an ignorant Asian backwater where all manner of cruelty is condoned.

Every day she is writing her
nakaz
. This will be her legacy for Russia, the precious jewel of justice and order. Not laws themselves—these she will leave for her creation, the Legislative Commission. She will merely draft the basic principles for the new laws that would bind all her subjects:

It is better to prevent crimes than to punish.

Laws and the legal system should aim at reforming the criminal.

Words cannot be called criminal unless accompanied by deeds.

Censorship can be productive of nothing but ignorance.

Torture is a crime.

Every citizen wishes his country to be happy, glorious, and safe.

Laws should protect but not oppress.

A ruler rules alone, but is subjected to certain fundamental laws, defined by tradition, habits, and custom.

“What are you always scribbling, Katinka?” Grigory Orlov demands. They have settled into a truce of sorts, but all is not well between them. Their son, Alexei Grigoryevich, brought to the palace and given the best of tutors, is one source of aggravation. Torn books, ink carelessly spilled on old volumes. “A soldier’s son,” Grigory gloats, “refuses to be chained to a desk.”

“Monsieur Pompadour,” Grigory Orlov calls himself. His favorite end to all their squabbles is to stalk away with his jaw clenched.

Irritation can be ignored. Or reports she finds among her papers in the mornings. A tavern bill for smashed furniture, including a cuckoo clock from which a wooden cuckoo has been shot with a flint pistol. Another drunken night at the palace
banya
, followed by a carriage ride through the city in the company of a naked whore. Another pregnant chambermaid dispatched to the Orlovs’ estate. An order for a wallpaper decorated with libertine pictures of an amorous couple in which “the woman bears clear resemblance to Her Imperial Majesty.”

A woman with small smooth breasts, rounded buttocks, and black, disheveled hair. Chased, pinned to the floor, mounted.

“Your Majesty should mind,” Panin nags. “It’s not good to be too forgiving.”

At least he is not saying “foolish.”

Russia needs uniform new laws that would unite the country. She has sketched the general principles, given them to her advisers, adjusted them by cutting down those that were contentious, watering down others. Now, she said to her delegates, analyze my general principles, adjust them to what is possible. Draft the new laws.