Empress of the Night (27 page)

10:05
A.M
.

There is tingling against the soles of her feet. Ticklish—playful, almost. But then the skin begins to heat up and chafe. Blisters must be forming on her skin.

What is Rogerson doing to her?

Hasn’t he hurt her enough already?

Her eyes are opened just a slit. If she opened them wider, would she see what the doctor was up to? But her eyelids are made of lead. The inside of her mouth tastes like tarnished brass. In her ears she hears the peal of tiny silver bells. There is a cold, wet spot underneath her. Has she relieved herself without knowing? When?

The sharp welt of pain on her arm means that another vein is opened. Blood barely seeps out, dark and thick, Rogerson announces. His tone is brisk. Almost a bark of impatience.

“Is it very bad?” someone wants to know. “Will this bleeding help?”

“There is no way of telling,” the doctor replies, and she hears the dull thump of something falling on the carpeted floor.

Her court women and her doctor. Well-meaning but, in the end, useless. She should’ve known not to expect too much from them.

“Your Majesty! Can you hear me?”

Is that Bezborodko’s voice? Her capable minister, a man who knows her thoughts and her will. Bezborodko will calm their feverish minds. Bezborodko will fetch her grandson. He will know there is no time to waste.

A thought pierces her. If she had to escape from this room, it would not be possible. Fire would consume her. A collapsed beam would bury her. A pillow pressed hard would suffocate her. A dagger would slide under her rib and out again.

Count Bezborodko is kneeling beside her mattress, his face gray with unease. His eyes are taxing her, assessing what is still possible, what can be preserved and what has to go. They don’t miss much, the sharp eyes of this fox.

Get Alexander here
, she tries to say.
He has to know I have fallen. Give him no choice. If he isn’t pressed, he will start thinking too much, weighing sentiments against duty. The young grow wiser when it is too late
.

“Can Your Majesty see me? Give me a sign?”

I’m looking at you! You know what to do. Isn’t it enough?

Bezborodko is frowning. His hand slides over the contours of his beard. Does he doubt her grandson will obey her will? Forget his duty?

Fetch Alexander. Now. Tell him. Everything
.

She imagines her grandson bent with pain at the thought of what has happened to her. But this is not the time for pain. This is the time for action. Sometimes one must go through the motions and think later.

It’s like fighting the Hydra. One slain head sprouts two others. One has to burn the stumps with fire, faster than they grow back. And bury the immortal one, the one that cannot be destroyed, under a giant rock and hope it won’t ever escape.

I’ve done that
, Catherine thinks.

10:10
A.M
.

“Has Her Majesty said anything? Has Her Majesty called me? Opened her eyes?”

The face of the young man bending over her is exquisitely gracious. The curved dome of the forehead is alabaster white. Black eyebrows frame almond-shaped eyes.

The man clasps her hand like a child frightened by the dark.

“Katinka,” he sobs in her ear. “Please forgive me.”

Forgive you for what?

Her body remembers him. Her nipples, her loins recall his slow, languid
kisses. The touch of his silky skin, his warm tongue used to bring tremors of pleasure.

Long time ago.

His name is Platon.

I know you
, Catherine thinks.
I know your name
.

Fear oozes out of Platon’s black eyes, pours off his white skin. His hands cling to hers. His fingers are cold. Hard.
Bony
, she thinks.
Does he not eat enough?

Somewhere in his cave Endymion sleeps, the beautiful lover of Selene, the goddess of the moon. He sleeps so that he won’t ever have to grow old.

For a moment, she sees a throng of faces surrounding them. None are familiar.

There are whispers, too. A torrent of them.

She is old and you are young
, they torment.
She is ugly and you are beautiful. She is powerful and you are nothing. Her toy, her amusement, her distraction. Now that she is leaving, you, too, will be gone. But unlike her, you will pay for our disappointment, for our fawning over you. For everything we had to suffer in your presence, for all the praises you drank from our lips. We have betrayed ourselves for you, and now you will pay for our humiliation
.

“What will become of me, Katinka?” her moon lover whispers. “If you leave me, Paul will have me killed.”

Hands smooth her hair, wipe her lips. Hands drag Platon away from her bed. His wailing protests seep inside her hurting body. Travel down her veins into her heart, into her liver, her spleen.

Her muscles tighten.

There is a slight tingling in her limbs. Her heart thumps. For a moment it seems possible that she can lift herself out of bed. She spies a tree with a broken branch, bleeding sap. She reaches toward it with her hand.
Push, Your Highness
, she hears a woman’s voice.
Push again, slowly this time. Listen to me. You have to do what I tell you. Now!

“Her Majesty is trying to say something. Can’t you see? Her Majesty’s lips are moving. She’s looking at me.”

10:15
A.M
.

The glow of light coming from the window means that it is morning. The room seems odd only because she is lying on the floor. Her big, canopied bed is right behind her. She is in St. Petersburg, in the Winter Palace.

I should be working now. Why am I not in my study?

Something has struck her down. An assassin’s blow? Did someone dare after all? Who? That French revolutionary Bezborodko warned her about? Some deluded Pole bent on revenge? Or a Turk or Cossack?

Success breeds enemies. Weeds out false friends.

Does friendship flee from Sovereigns or do Sovereigns flee from fliendship?

10:25
A.M
.

A howl pushes itself into her thoughts. It is coming from outside. Someone behind the door is desperately pleading to be let in.

Alexander?

“Who was Hector’s mother?” she remembers asking him once. “What song did the sirens sing? Which gods aid Hercules?”

Her grandson rattles off his answers with assurance. “And now, Monsieur Alexander,” she says, “repeat the same line with more authority. The insipid softness of a gentle fool doesn’t suit you.”

10:30
A.M
.

Hands at her armpits are pulling her up to let her lie more comfortably. The pillows under her head are soft, filled with goose down. Her head sinks into them with gratitude.

The new position feels cool, like fresh
banya
water Potemkin poured over her hot, sweating body. But her tongue feels swollen, encrusted with bitter, leaden taste. Rogerson is poking at her ribs, feeling for her pulse. His gestures feel flicking and nervous. Is he worried by her thumping heart?

She should be paying heed to what is happening, but something shimmering catches her eye. She tightens the muscles on her face and her eyelids lift just a crack, enough to discern a small mirror Rogerson is holding in front of her face. Stones in the frame reflect a cascade of dazzling lights, a chain flashes gold. The face in the mirror is swollen and red.

Is this me?

Mouth open, saliva dripping down my chin?

This is all Rogerson’s doing. She never trusted doctors. She was right.

A stupid old man
.

Murderer
.

Fool
.

Whose side are you on? Mine or my son’s, who wants me in my grave. Who wants old women clad in black to weep and wail for me
.

“Look. There! Look at the mirror! Her Majesty is breathing again.”

12:00
P
.
M
.

The cannons blast at the Fortress of Peter and Paul. This is where Elizabeth lies buried. And Peter the Great.

The windows shake, panes rattle. Crows scatter into the sky, shrieking their loud protests. If they are so wise, why do they mind what always comes?

Count Bezborodko is issuing orders. No one to leave the palace. No one to come in. No one to leave the city, no messengers, dispatches. All visitors to the palace are to be told the Empress is busy with political matters that cannot be postponed. They are to wait for summons. In silence.

He is not Potemkin, but he will do. Most equal to business at hand. A purse of silver is sometimes better than ingots of gold—ready cash to riches that cannot be used. Fortune needs to be nudged along. When her speech comes back, she will have a perfect gift for her minister. A compass ring set with diamonds. With an inscription:
In recognition of the fact that you always remember the direction of your journey
.

“Let me in. What is happening?”

Could it be Alexander? Outside the door? But why this pleading voice? A Tsar doesn’t plead, Alexander. A Tsar walks in where he wants to be. Who would dare stop him?

“Her Majesty is resting now, Your Highness. She cannot be disturbed.”

12:10
P
.
M
.

Grishenka
, she whispers, and Potemkin comes back before her, older than she remembers him and ravaged. There are broken veins on the skin of his nose and under his puffed eyes. A frizz of red hair hangs over his forehead.

“What are you doing, Katinka?” he screams.

She doesn’t understand why Grishenka is so upset. Why he forces her to sit down in an armchair, why he hollers for her maid.

Kneeling, he takes her swollen foot in his hand. Her toenails have grown so thick and full of unsightly ridges that it takes special pliers to trim them, but Grishenka pays no attention to them. He has lifted her right foot up and wipes it with a handkerchief.

The handkerchief is stained with blood.

“Have you not felt anything, Katinka?” he asks.

She shakes her head.

“How is that possible?”

She doesn’t know what he is talking about until he shows her a shard of glass he has extracted from the sole of her foot. The night before, she knocked a carafe off a side table. The evening maid swept the floor but missed a piece of glass.

“I didn’t see it,” she says.

In Grishenka’s good eye, she sees fear. Not because she hadn’t noticed a piece of glass lying on a carpet, but because she stepped right on it, and did not feel it lodge in her foot.

Because she kept on walking.

3:00
P
.
M
.

The dream she has fallen into is sticky, broken into shreds. It makes no sense, yields no order. A well, filled with water, a kangaroo boxing with its small front paws, a bird pecking at the windowpane, infuriated by some phantom reflection that refuses to yield.

The well, rimmed with stones, is covered with soft, dense moss. There is a fable about a well and frogs, a fable her grandchildren could never resist. Two frogs whose marsh homes have dried out are considering jumping down a well. “Wait,” the wiser one says. “Suppose this one dries out like the marsh. How would we get out?”

She comes around to Constantine’s jarring voice. “We’ve been on a sleigh ride. With Alexander. The footman told us to hurry back. Wouldn’t tell us why. Just hurry, he said. And then they wouldn’t let us in.”

Her younger grandson demands the account of the morning. Gribovsky obliges with the story of the door they had to force open, the limp imperial body sprawled by the commode. The six footmen who lifted it from the floor. The laborious procession to the bedroom. The fearful premonitions and predictable protestations: How could we have known? No one else must learn of this.

“Why is the Empress still lying on the floor?” Constantine screams. “Is this how you want my father to find her?”

Paul is on his way?

Where is Alexander?

Constantine’s words lash the servants into action. In a flurry that follows, she is lifted up and placed on the bed. It is a better place. Higher. Above her, on the underside of the canopy, there is a portrait of Minerva woven of silk. The goddess reposing, her helmet cocked, the rest of her armor cast aside.

Constantine is wearing his Horse Guard dress uniform, a white wool tailcoat with red cuffs. In the Winter Palace, the choice of regimental colors is never insignificant. Horse Guards is the imperial regiment, which is enough for her son to hate it. The white tailcoat is a declaration, a pledge of allegiance.

Constantine settles heavily beside her. He fidgets. He struggles for words. Candlelight softens the harsh edges of his face. He wants to summon the seriousness that would carry him through this moment. He will stand by his brother.