A bishop had been dispatched to Pokrovskoye by the Tobolsk Theological Council, and he had already interviewed the village’s local priests before we arrived. By this time, my master was fond of traveling with two or three female companions-fellow pilgrims in search of enlightenment. I would follow on, a humble disciple. During our visits to the village, Father Grigory and his followers would customarily meet in a makeshift chapel in a cellar that had been dug under the stable next to my master’s home. They would read from the Gospels, then he would explain the hidden meanings concealed within them to his riveted audience.
The inquisitor, a gruff man by the name of Father Arkady and assisted by an equally saturnine policeman, accused my master of having joined the Khlyst heresy and spreading its falsities through his “ark,” the name the Khlysti apparently used for their communities. I didn’t know much about the Khlyst sect. All I knew was that it was a banned doctrine that combined elements of Orthodox Christianity with paganism. Its adherents, mostly the poor who lived outside the cities, held their meetings in secret chapels that were often hidden deep in the forests, away from curious eyes. Many of its leaders had been executed over the years, its followers exiled. An accusation such as this was highly dangerous.
Father Grigory and I moved fast to defuse it.
I hid in the stable and set up my device in one of the stalls. At the agreed-upon time, my master invited the bishop and the policeman to join him in the chapel.
Once they were settled in the cellar, I stuffed the protective wax pellets in my ears, connected the wires, and switched on my device.
I could hear their voices. They were cordial at first. Then their tones changed. My master’s voice rose in intensity as he probed the inner demons of his guests, while their own voices stumbled and stuttered in confusion. With each exchange, Father Grigory’s voice rose in intensity until, by the end of his interview, his words were thundering down on them.
The townspeople, along with Father Grigory’s family, were all waiting anxiously when the three men emerged from the stable. The inquisitor looked disheveled and shaken. The local priest who had summoned the inquisitor ran up to him, asking for his verdict.
“There is no heresy here,” the bishop announced. “This man truly understands the scriptures. Heed his words.”
The policeman, for his part, turned to my master, bowed his head, and said, “Forgive me, Father, for my transgression.” Father Grigory extended his hand to him. The policeman kissed it.
It was time for us to enter the capital.
WE ARRIVED IN PETERSBURG in the winter of 1904. It was a tumultuous time. The empire was mired in the war against the Japanese, an unpopular war that we would lose the following year. The people were starving and angry. There was talk of revolution in the air, and within weeks of our arrival, in January of 1905, a march of protesting workers turned into a bloody massacre after the tsar’s army opened fire. Over many months, more armed rebellion would follow until the tsar would be forced to sign a constitution limiting his powers to appease the populace.
Not all of the tumult was bad news for the royal family. After producing four girls, the tsarina had finally given birth to a long-awaited heir a few months before our arrival.
The young tsarevich would play a pivotal role in our adventure.
By the time we reached the capital, Rasputin’s reputation as a prophet and a healer of exceptional gifts had already preceded us. Armed with a letter of introduction from another abbot we had beguiled in Kazan, my master soon had an audience with Bishop Sergius, the rector of the Petersburg Theological Seminary.
I managed to set up my device outside the window of the room at the Alexander Nevsky Abbey, where my master was to meet the bishop. Under its influence, the bishop was even more impressed by Father Grigory’s impassioned words. He soon introduced him to other highly placed officials of the Holy Synod, and my master’s ascent through the corridors of influence was under way. Bishop Feofan; the brutish anti-Semitic monk Iliodor; and Hermogen, the bishop of Saratov who dreamed of restoring the Patriarchate-one that he would head-all became his friends. The nobility began to seek him out for spiritual guidance and healing. Within society, word spread of how this crude peasant never failed to demonstrate a perspicacity that bordered on second sight and a wisdom that comforted all those who were distressed.
Of course, no one knew what was helping him obtain these insights into people’s lives and unveil their innermost secrets.
It wasn’t long before Rasputin’s circle of admirers grew to include members of the tsar and tsarina’s inner circle. We were now well on the path to the palace and to meeting the royal family. And it was then, through one of these close confidantes of the royals, that my master first heard whispers of what would prove to be the key to his influence over them.
He had moved into the luxurious home of the Lokhtins. Olga Lokhtina, the striking wife of a senior official in the government and one of St. Petersburg’s most fashionable hostesses, was by now besotted by Father Grigory. She fawned over him publicly and gushed about him to all her society friends, and it was in her elegant salon that he became privy to all of the city’s gossip.
“The tsarevich is sick,” he announced to me one day, at one of our clandestine meetings, away from his entourage. “He could die very easily. It is a closely guarded secret. It is also an incalculably valuable opportunity.”
I was stunned by the revelation. The heir-the long-awaited heir, the sole heir to the throne, gravely ill?
“What is his condition?” I asked.
“The young child suffers from hemophilia,” Father Grigory informed me, his expression already clouded with machinations. “His veins are too fragile to contain his blood. Even the smallest fall or the smallest wound could cause him to bleed to death.” He paused, thinking things through, then turned to me, his face tight with concentration. “The empress is beside herself with blame. She will do anything to keep him safe.” A chilling vibrancy danced in his eyes. “Anything.”
My spiritual mentor proceeded to tell me what Olga Lokhtina had told him about the empress. The tsarina was widely known to be highly religious. She was also, it transpired, a fervent believer in the mystical. Before the birth of her son, she had longed desperately for some kind of divine intervention to help her produce an heir to the throne. At a time when her resentful, impoverished populace was turning away from religion, she embraced it more and more, surrounding herself with icons and holy relics and seeking out miracle workers. Much to the dismay and ridicule of the capital’s society and of the royal court, “Men of God” were introduced to her, elders who were believed to be endowed with a special gift from God. One after another, they failed to help her produce a son. And yet, with each daughter she gave birth to-four in all-the empress kept firm in her belief that God would hear her prayers and send her a holy envoy.
“The last of these ‘miracle workers’ was a French magus they called Monsieur Philippe,” he told me. “He told the empress he could speak with the dead and said he lived between our world and the spirit world, and she believed him. He claimed he could heal all illnesses, even syphilis. And, of course, after insinuating himself into her world-Olga even heard he shared a bedroom with the royal couple-he assured her she would become pregnant and give birth to a son.”
“But she did,” I interjected.
“No,” my master corrected me. “She did fall pregnant when under the care of this Monsieur Philippe, but it was a phantom pregnancy. It was simply a testimony to his powers of conviction and to her gullibility. He was banished back to France long before she conceived the tsarevich. But you know what his parting words to her were? He told her he would die soon, but that he would return ‘in the shape of another.’ And still she awaits her emissary from God.”