Count Yusupov laughed. ‘Those trifles may work in your salons and in the drawing rooms of your hysterical ladies, but in the real world, syphilis kills – and kills you very slowly. Your friend is no doctor, my lady. No doctor at all.’
‘I don’t see any of your doctors making a difference,’ she replied. ‘I don’t see any of your doctors doing anything at all.’
What was it about this man that he managed to get under her skin? What was it about this family that made them think their influence was superior and they were somehow above it all? In the end, she was the one who had access to the Tsar. Total, unadulterated access. No one could get to him without her approval. She and Stana were the gateway, they’d made sure of that. And their father could not have been more delighted. There was money for his barefoot soldiers in Montenegro; money for his roads; and Militza herself had paid for a shiny new water system in the capital, Cetinje. The Yusupovs would be forgotten when it came to write this chapter of history.
She withdrew from his company and walked behind a porphyry column before searching in her silk bag for a small green bottle. It contained a cocaine-laced liquor that Dr Badmaev had recently given to her to combat lethargy and nerves. She took a small swig and felt immediately rejuvenated. The consommé will soon be served, she thought and the Yusupovs will soon be defeated. Everything shall be as it should be. All she needed was a boy.
11
19 June 1901, St Petersburg
Militza never forgot the morning she woke up to the 101-gun salute. For the last two weeks of Alix’s confinement, both she and Stana had been almost continuously by the Empress’s side. The increasingly hot and humid days under the summer sun had been spent in a state of heightened and yet contented alert; they’d drunk tea, sewed samplers and had quietly waited for Alix’s waters to break. The confident assurances of Maître Philippe had meant the usual anxiety that surrounded the final days of the Tsarina’s pregnancy had dissipated into a sort of balmy blissfulness. She was to have a boy and hers and Russia’s problems would soon be over.
So when Militza lay in bed that morning and heard the resounding silence following the one hundred and first firing of the canon over the Neva, her head began to swim, her heart began to race – and it was all she could do to reach the nearby pot in her bedroom before she vomited. Despite the bright sunshine outside, her teeth began to chatter. She could not understand how this could have happened. Philippe had been so sure, so confident. She had trusted him completely, so had Alix and, so indeed, had the Tsar. How could she and Stana ever come back from this? What would happen to their friendship? Their influence? Their power?
She had to think – and she had think at great speed, before all that she had worked for, all that she had achieved, disappeared like sand through her quivering fingers. She pulled on her dressing gown and began to pace her bedroom. She caught a glimpse of herself in her gilt triple-paned dressing-table mirror: she looked haunted, ashen-faced and her long dark hair tumbled, unbrushed, over her white lace chemise. She was shocked by what she saw. She had been so certain. Tears welled in her black eyes. What could she do? There were no incantations to change the sex of a baby that had been already been born, no spells to alter what had already come to pass. Where was her magic now? How could it have gone so wrong?
There was a knock at her door and Brana walked in, bringing with her a steaming cup of tea.
‘Oh Brana!’ she cried, rushing across her bedroom and throwing herself at the aged crone, collapsing onto her small hunched shoulders and inhaling the acidic smell of old sweat and garlic. ‘I can’t believe it! Where’s Peter?’
‘He left for his club early this morning,’ replied the crone.
‘The Tsarina has had another daughter!’
‘Last night?’
‘A fourth! What are we to do?’ The old woman could offer little advice but instead she stroked Militza’s hair, as she had done a thousand times before, muttering simple platitudes in her ear. Slowly, as Militza sat back on the bed, tears of frustration and humiliation trickling down her face, Brana poured her a cup of camomile tea laced with laudanum and wild strawberry jam.
‘This will make you feel better.’
‘I am not sure if even one of your special drinks can make a difference,’ she replied, as she watched her old nursemaid replacing the lid on her familiar blue glass bottle. ‘I am not sure how we can ever come back from this.’
‘You will come back from this,’ said the crone. ‘You always have a plan.’
It wasn’t long before a sweet laudanum sleep came over her. Cradled in its soft opium embrace, Militza lay back and loosened her gown, relaxing in a semi-naked state on the bed, feeling the gentle summer breezes flow over her exposed skin. Down she went, deep down into her disturbed subconscious and the voices began: whispering, chastising, teasing, the faces, the tears, the cries, the longing, the desperation, Count Yusupov’s laughing eyes, the sneers of Grand Duchess Vladimir, the words ‘Goat Girl,’ ‘Goat King,’ all finally dissolved into the loud, painful screams of labour. She woke dramatically from her slumber, to find her sister violently shaking her by the shoulders. Stana was fully dressed and sunlight was streaming through the open window.
‘Wake up, wake up!’
‘What time is it?’ mumbled Militza gathering her white shift around her.
‘It has gone two o’clock in the afternoon!’ declared Stana, her eyes wide with panic. ‘It’s the most appalling day of our lives and you take one of Brana’s cocktails? What is wrong with you? We need to think! We need to act! We need to come up with a plan!’
‘I am sorry, I am sorry…’ Militza roused herself as fast as she could. Clearly, Brana’s tea was stronger than she thought. ‘Give me a minute, I shall be fine.’
‘Fine! I am not sure we shall ever be fine. It was all anyone was talking about on the English Embankment as I came over here. You can hear the whispering all the way along the park. You can almost hear the Vladimirs sniggering from here. We are lost. Our country is lost. Papa will never forgive us. Montenegro was relying on us for grain, for arms. The Tsar promised Father 40,000 rifles – do you think he will give them to him now?’
‘The Tsar will give Papa his rifles,’ Militza stated quietly, buttoning up her shift. ‘You have my word on that.’
‘Your word? What use is your word when Alix has had another daughter? We should have cracked an egg, done the test, then at least we would have known.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous! That’s a parlour game, not something you can play with a Tsarina!’
‘Have you spoken to Philippe? Philippe will know what to do,’ declared Stana, pacing around the room. ‘Philippe always knows what to do.
Half an hour later, a surprisingly calm-looking Philippe strode into the Red Salon at the Nikolai Palace. The two sisters were sitting side by side on the button-backed divan, their backs straight, their hands on their laps, as they awaited his explanation. But instead of any browbeating or hand-wringing, the diminutive guru from Lyon stood by the fireplace, placed his hand on the marble mantelpiece and slowly shook his head.
‘She did not believe.’
‘But she did,’ corrected Stana. ‘We all did.’
‘She did not believe… enough,’ replied Philippe, with a shrug. ‘Maybe she had doubts? Maybe she did not listen enough, maybe she didn’t believe with her heart? Monsieur Philippe never fails. Monsieur Philippe always succeeds.’
The two sisters stared at him in silence. Was this the best he could do? Was that all he had to say? Stana was expecting more. An idea at the very least. Something to give them all hope, a scintilla of a chance against the growing clouds of jealous animosity that were gathering on the horizon.