And so it went on around the table, old faces, old acquaintances – and yet, on closer inspection, the circle was decidedly more peppered by a new crowd. It looked a little more louche, a little more decadent, a little more fashionable. Militza was slightly taken aback. Perhaps the closest confidantes of the Tsarina and her physician should not be here? Clearly the Countess’s little Black Salon was no longer the best-kept secret in town. In fact, she’d go so far as to say it was not a secret at all.
‘Ma chere,’ said Philippe, patting the seat next to him. ‘How very delighted I am to see you.’
Militza smiled tightly. She smoothed down her dark green silk dress and took her seat, inhaling a large curl of sickly, heavy, incense as she did so.
‘I was just about to begin,’ he said, wrapping his long, sharply filed fingernails around the planchette in the middle of the green felt Ouija board. ‘This…’ he began, explaining to the crowd in his heavily accented French, ‘is the planchette…’ There were murmurs of acknowledgement. They were clearly used to the vagaries of the Occult. ‘One keeps one’s fingers lightly in contact with the planchette but one makes no attempt to move it oneself,’ he continued, fanning his short fingers at his audience. His buffed nails shone in the candlelight. ‘And my close friend, the Grand Duchess Militza Nikolayevna, will assist me.’
‘Right,’ replied Militza, a little taken aback. She was not prepared for a séance; she had not contacted her spirit guide nor had she opened her chakras or even administered her belladonna drops. She’d had a few large goblets of claret at dinner and she was more than a little tired which was not the ideal preparation; then again, she thought, as she looked around the crowded, increasingly hot and airless room, this was not the sort of atmosphere conducive to contacting a passed-over soul, no matter how far down the lower astral they were. This was surely an occasion when only drunkards, or the murdered, would be likely to appear and even then, she thought, they probably would not bother. They’d be lucky if any old soul could make it through.
Philippe brought out a small ceramic bowl and began to light a selection of herbs, adding to the already heady and thick smoke. Militza blinked as her eyes watered and turned to look at her sister. But Stana was looking at Nikolasha who was standing behind her, his hands resting on the back of her chair. He smiled at her and twisted up the corners of his moustache.
Philippe began to chant. At first in French, then he moved on to a rather poorly pronounced version of Sanskrit.
‘Please,’ he said finally, indicating for Militza to manage the planchette. ‘I know you are good at channelling.’ She looked at him and didn’t move. She had no desire to take it up. ‘There are a lot of people here,’ he hissed. ‘Show them how it is done.’
Reluctantly, she placed her fingers on the upturned glass and closed her eyes. Almost immediately she felt some movement, a force tugging at her fingers, pushing her hand this way. Militza tried to resist. Personally, she didn’t like using a planchette. When she made contact with the spirit world this was her least preferred method and she was not hugely familiar with the technique. But this entity was determined to be heard. A terrible shiver came over her body and she could feel a biliousness that made her want to be sick. She felt the colour drain from her cheeks as she rocked in her chair.
‘Someone is here!’ declared Philippe, stretching his arms out dramatically across the table. ‘See! Spirit makes a wind. Look how the candles move!’ He flapped his hand in front of the silver candelabra on the table. ‘It is someone important!’ he added. ‘I feel it. Terribly important! I feel the weight of State… or perhaps… of legacy.’
‘How exciting!’ Countess Ignatiev couldn’t contain a small squeal of delight.
‘Let’s hope it is not bloody Pushkin,’ drawled the British journalist. ‘I remember he came through the other day and was awfully full of himself.’
‘Shh!’ said the buxom woman in the low-cut dress.
Militza felt the planchette move swiftly across the felt, dancing from letter to letter at slick and accurate speed.
‘P…’ said Philippe as he watched Militza’s hands move across the board. ‘A…’ he continued. ‘U… L… Paul,’ he pronounced. ‘Spirit? Is your name Paul?’ Militza felt the planchette move quickly across to ‘Yes.’ But as she did so, she gasped.
‘Oh,’ she exhaled as she doubled up over the table.
‘Are you all right?’ asked Stana, immediately taking her arm.
‘I feel… I feel…’ Militza was breathless and panting, gasping for air. ‘I feel as if I have been stabbed in the stomach. The pain! The agony!’ She began to sway listlessly in the chair and yet her fingers firmly remained gripped onto the planchette. ‘I was murdered,’ she mumbled under her breath. ‘I am unshriven…’
‘Paul?’ continued Philippe, leaning forward, looking keenly at the board, clearly delighted that such a communicative spirit had come through with such a large audience to witness it. ‘Were you murdered?’ Militza practically punched the ‘yes’ square with the glass. ‘Yes! Yes! Yes!’ Three times the planchette struck the square, three times Militza’s arms shot forward. Her eyes were closed and her head was on one side, as her tongue began to loll out of her mouth. Yet her back and arms were rigid, alert, attentive, waiting to respond to the next question. It was as if her body had been completely taken over by something – or someone – else and she was no longer capable of controlling it.
‘Is she all right?’ Nikolasha asked Stana. His concern was touching.
‘I think so,’ replied Stana. ‘She has done this many times before.’
‘My neck,’ wheezed Militza. ‘I can’t breathe…’
‘Spirit? Paul?’ continued Philippe, staring at Militza, trying to read the expression on her face, as she appeared to fight for breath. ‘Were you throttled? Strangled?’
Militza’s body went limp but once again her arms shot across the board, hammering the planchette up and down on the ‘yes’ square.
‘Oh!’ declared the Countess, leaning back, away from the table. ‘How ghastly.’
Standing behind Stana, Nikolasha gripped the back of her chair. His impassive face with its straight nose, fine brows and elegantly upturned moustache began to sweat. His normally erect back hunched forward. Stana sensed his discomfort and, turning around, touched his right hand; it felt cold.
‘Ask Paul if he was trampled?’ he whispered quietly into Stana’s ear. She looked at him, frowning. ‘Just ask,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Please.’
‘Spirit?’ The whole table turned to look at Stana. ‘Were you trampled?’
‘Yes. Yes. Yes.’ Militza hammered the glass down repeatedly as if she were in some sort of frenzy.
‘Oh my God, save us!’ exclaimed Nikolasha, staggering back from the table, covering his mouth and breathing heavily. ‘It can’t be! It can’t be!’
‘What?’ Stana leapt out of her chair and went immediately to his side.
‘I thought this was supposed to be frivolous? Entertaining?’ He was speaking in a low whisper in a dark corner of the room; had grabbed hold of Stana’s shoulders and was spitting as he spoke, clearly fighting some very deep-rooted emotion. ‘Instead you bring me here and raise the hideous spectre of Paul I’s unshriven soul! The very ghost that has haunted Gatchina since he was strangled and trampled to death at the Michael Fortress by his own army. Nicky, me, Peter – we have always been terrified of him.’