The Tsar had given Philippe a new and very fine Serpollet motorcar as a token for all his hard work. It was parked, freshly polished, in the driveway, waiting to be taken to the station and loaded on to the train to Helsinki. Philippe was also given some five million roubles, in sequential notes, to ensure Hemmes’s discreet silence. (The fact that Philippe was later to build himself a rather fine house in Rotterdam, with no obvious means of support, was neither here nor there.) Alix had gathered together a small selection of trinkets by which her daughter would one day, when it was safe, know herself: a small Fabergé box, a travelling icon on a silver chain, also by Fabergé, and a thick rope of pearls. All things she could sell if she ever needed to. Poor Alix was not capable of putting pen to paper. So it was Militza who wrote Suzanna a long letter in which she explained why her broken-hearted mother had been persuaded to give her beautiful daughter away.
Just as he was leaving, Philippe turned to Militza and reached into his pocket, taking out a small icon which he placed in her hand.
‘Take this,’ he said, squeezing it into her palm. ‘It is the rarest and most powerful of icons: St John the Baptist, the angel of the desert. It will keep you safe for it protects all who own it. No harm will ever come to you while you have it in your possession. It was given to me by Papus and now I pass it on to you. I don’t need it any more, my work is done and I have no future.’ He kissed her gently on the cheek. ‘Remember, it was St John who declared the coming of the Messiah. And so too will you. You will call him to Russia, like a siren, and when you need him most, he will come. Thank you. Thank you for believing in me. You have a gift, Militza. Use it wisely.’
He then turned to the Tsarina. ‘Your Imperial Majesty…’ He bowed his head. Alix stared at him. Her strained face was impassive, her thin fingers nervously played with the lengthy rope of pearls around her neck. ‘You will get your son. I predict if you canonize Seraphim of Sarov and swim at midnight in the holy waters you will conceive and realize your dreams. Seraphim himself once predicted your reign. He said that one day Russia would be ruled by a Nicholas and Alexandra and he would be canonized in that reign. Do this and you will conceive your son.’
Alexandra simply stared and nodded slowly. ‘As you so command, so I shall do,’ she replied.
‘Don’t weep for me – and don’t weep for your baby,’ said Philippe, taking hold of her slim shoulders. ‘I promise you, some day you will have another Friend who, like me, will speak to you of God. Here,’ he said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a tiny posy of dried flowers. ‘These violets were touched by Christ. Touched by his very hand. They have been worshipped and prayed over for centuries. I am giving them to you to keep you safe.’
‘Thank you,’ she replied.
‘I have no need of them any more. For in a few years, 1905, I shall be dead.’
‘Don’t say that!’ She placed her shaking fingers on his lips.
‘It is true. For I always speak the truth.’
‘Hush.’
‘But my spirit will live on.’
‘It will,’ she whispered. ‘I bless the day we met you.’
Her face turned a raw, dark pink. She was visibly shaking as she walked slowly back into the palace.
That night Militza put Alix to bed. She was given one of Brana’s more potent cocktails of poppy-head tea and warm milk which she sipped in bed, staring at the wall, unable to say a word. Eventually, she lay down and, while Militza’s slowly stroked her hair, she quietly wept herself to sleep. Equally exhausted by the schemes and plans of the last few days, Militza herself fell asleep a few minutes later on an adjacent divan, only be woken later by Alix.
It must have been two or three in the morning, she remembered, and the moon was shining through the open window. Alix was standing in a thin white nightdress, bathed in a silver light, slowly rocking what looked like a poppet in her arms and singing sweetly under her breath. Militza sat and watched, transfixed. The Tsarina was not weeping, she didn’t look distressed – in fact, she looked blissfully happy, singing a lullaby and rocking the wooden peg doll in her arms. It was as if all her worries and the agony of the last few days were as nothing. Her voice was sweet and childlike and her movements were effortless. She looked like a wisp, luminous in the moonlight.
‘Alix?’ ventured Militza, as she slowly crossed the room towards her.
‘Oh!’ she replied, turning around suddenly. ‘It’s you!’ She smiled; her cold hand cupped Militza’s chin and she ran her thumb gently along the length of her lips. Her voice was breathy, her eyes glassy. And the look on her face was one of divine bliss. ‘Look!’ she said offering up the poppet. ‘Look, my love.’
Militza caught a glimpse in the moonlight. ‘A magic doll from Smolensk.’
She recognized its sharp wooden face and crude clothing immediately. She remembered asking Brana to find it, sending her to the nunnery in Smolensk. It had taken the crone days to find the right group of nuns, for they had become increasingly secretive over time. Eventually, it was the queue of the weeping barren outside a small back door down a narrow back street that alerted her to them. They were all waiting, desperately waiting, for a little wooden doll to rock to sleep at night in the hope that it might help them conceive.
‘Look, Nicky, it’s like baby Jesus,’ replied Alix, softly caressing the top of its hard head.
‘A boy,’ whispered Militza, walking towards her.
‘Yes, my love, a boy.’ She smiled. ‘We have a son at last.’
‘Well done,’ replied Militza, taking Alix by the shoulders and directing her back to bed. The opium tea was playing tricks with her traumatized mind.
‘Are you pleased?’ Alix cowered. ‘Have I pleased you at last?’
‘Yes, yes, you have done well.’
‘All I wanted to do is please you, my love,’ she continued, standing by the bed, swinging the poppet in one hand. She turned back towards Militza, took a step towards her and placed her lips on Militza’s cheek. ‘I have only ever wanted to make you happy. A son for you, for Russia.’
‘I know,’ Militza whispered before pushing her slowly away, towards the bed.
‘Stay with me?’ Alix’s voiced sounded panicked. It was hard to tell if she was conscious or unconscious, in this world or another. She suddenly grabbed Militza by the elbows and stared, terrified, into her eyes. ‘I don’t think I will make it through the night on my own.’
15
11 February 1903, St Petersburg
That night was the first of many that Militza spent sleeping on the divan in the Tsarina’s bedroom. It took a few weeks before she stopped waking and rocking the doll in the middle of the night and a few more for her to stop weeping. Brana’s opium cocktails were steadily increased in strength to help dull the pain. But it was only when the Tsarina found it difficult to rouse herself in the morning that it was decided to reduce the amount of poppy heads in her nightly drink. The Tsar himself suggested she should try some of Dr Badmaev’s excellent cocaine as a bit of a pick-me-up; he himself was using it to help him with his persistent toothache as well as to get through the torpor of his day.
Fortunately, during this period the rest of the court had little time to dwell on yet another of Tsarina’s failed pregnancies. They had come to expect little more than disappointment from this sour-faced Frau and had other things on their minds – the preparations for the impending Medieval Costume Ball. The invitations had gone out almost a year prior to the event and the intricacies of one’s costume was enough to occupy even the most active of minds. For this was no ordinary fancy dress party, this was the ball to end all balls. It had been Alix’s idea to evoke the past glories of the Muscovite Court under the first Romanovs, and costumes were to be taken extremely seriously indeed. Alix’s dress, which had taken over seven months to make, was a copy of the robes once worn by Tsar Alexei’s first wife, Maria, in the 1660s. Embroidered with diamonds, sequins and pearls and using golden and silver thread, it was rumoured to have cost over one million roubles.