The party watched in silence for another fifteen minutes, after which the dog raised its head, licked Rasputin’s weathered hand and, to gasps from the assembled, got up and trotted out of the stable.
‘She will live for some years,’ the holy man pronounced as he stood and dusted the straw off his robes.
‘What joy! What a miracle!’ Nikolasha declared, a broad grin on his face. ‘I can’t thank you enough, thank you very much indeed.’
Two days later Militza invited Rasputin to the Countess Ignatiev’s salon. When she, Stana and Nikolasha collected him from Bishop Theofan’s apartment they were surprised to see him dressed not in the black robes of a priest but in a handsome, loose-fitting cream silk shirt with red baggy trousers and the knee-length boots of a peasant. But not a real peasant, it was more a costume, something that could have been worn at one of the Grand Duchess Vladimir’s glamorous parties.
‘Good evening,’ he said, getting into the car. He smelt very heavily of violets. ‘Your Imperial Highness,’ he acknowledged Nikolasha with a curt nod.
‘What a charming cologne,’ said Stana.
‘I have been to the bathhouse,’ came his reply. He paused. ‘Your husbands are not with you?’
‘Mine?’ Stana laughed despite herself.
‘Moscow,’ added Militza. ‘He had some business to attend to. And Stana’s…’
‘… is always in Biarritz.’
The Countess Ignatiev was so delighted that Militza and Stana should once more be gracing her Salon, and that they’d brought a new protégé with them, that she immediately had someone open a bottle of champagne.
‘Welcome,’ she gushed as she handed Rasputin a glass. ‘We are so terribly excited to receive you here. Your reputation comes before you.’
‘My reputation, Madame?’ asked Rasputin as he drained the glass in one. ‘I was not aware I had one.’ He looked at the glass and, with a revolted face, returned it to the salver. ‘Do you have any Madeira wine?’
‘Madeira? Of course.’ The Countess nodded at a liveried servant who was immediately dispatched to find a bottle. ‘Now how is the Empress?’ she asked, linking arms with Militza as she led them into the room. ‘And the little boy? They are so ensconced in Tsarskoye Selo, especially since all the troubles, that no one sees them any more. What does the boy look like? I went to London during the summer and you can’t move for photographs of the Royal family – at the races, taking a ride out in a carriage, cutting ribbons here, opening other things there. They are forever in the newspapers. But here? We never so much as glimpse ours. Is he a handsome child? You and Stana are the only ones who ever see them!’
‘Oh, he is a beauty,’ said Stana. ‘Blond curls, big blue eyes and such a robust, fat thing. He gives his parents so much joy.’
‘How wonderful,’ smiled the Countess. ‘And do you think the Empress will be doing the season? She cannot remain locked up in the Alexander Palace forever! The last time we saw her was at the Medieval Ball.’
‘What a night that was,’ smiled Stana, glancing across at Nikolasha who was helping himself to a cigarette over on the other side of the room.
‘What a night indeed,’ confirmed Militza.
‘Now, Grigory Yefimovich—’
‘Grisha,’ he interrupted.
‘Grisha,’ she repeated, smiling. ‘There are so many people I would like you to meet. Do you know Dr Badmaev?’
‘I am not fond of doctors.’
‘He’s not that sort of doctor, more an apothecary. And he’s terribly well connected. Let me introduce you. Peter!’ she said, as she approached the table where Dr Badmaev was sitting, smoking his small clay pipe. ‘This,’ she paused, waving her fan, ‘is Grigory Yefimovich Rasputin, the man I was telling you about. The man who cured Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolayevich’s dog! Apparently, he laid his hands on the dog and he rose again, like Lazarus!’ recounted the Countess.
‘Not like Jesus?’ Dr Badmaev smirked.
‘No,’ replied Rasputin. ‘I raised the dog, not the Holy Spirit of the dog.’
‘I’m sure you could manage that too, old boy!’ He chuckled and slapped Rasputin on the back, while he shook his hand. ‘A dog indeed! A dog!’
Rasputin stared at Dr Badmaev, his pale eyes narrowed with irritation. He withdrew his hand and was on the point of saying something, for where he came from such mocking would not pass without some sort of a fight, but the Countess merely laughed.
‘A dog,’ she confirmed. ‘But a miracle all the same. Come, Grisha.’ She pushed the small of his back to move on. She was looking for a more appreciative audience for her Siberian. Militza was on the point of following.
‘I am not sure your friend likes my jokes,’ remarked Badmaev, a little entertained.
‘I am not sure he likes you,’ replied Militza. ‘You should really try a little harder, Peter. Everyone needs friends, no matter how powerful they think they are.’
He looked at her, a little put out, and changed the subject. ‘How is the Tsarina?’ he asked. ‘I only see the Tsar these days, and only when he wants more elixir, which he seems to need more and more. And every time I go, the Empress is always in her quarters.’
‘She is not well,’ said Militza, her voice quietening. ‘It is her back, or heart, or both.’
‘They should leave that palace more, see some people, be seen by people. I know it is a security risk but—’
‘His uncle has just been blown up in the street,’ she hissed.
‘I know that but even so… He’s paranoid…’
‘I think, when you’ve seen your grandfather blown up in front of you when you’re twelve years old, and watched them carry his legless body, his intestines spewing out, to the Winter Palace for the rest of the family to mourn, that might be enough to scare a man.’ Militza stared at Dr Badmaev.
‘If that’s all you think it is,’ he said.
‘I thought you of all people would understand.’
‘I just worry—’
‘The Tsarevich is fine,’ she interrupted.
Dr Badmaev looked puzzled. ‘It is just that the quantities of hashish and cocaine I’ve been supplying can sometimes make you a little… um, anxious.’
By the time Militza had found Rasputin over on the other side of the party, he was ensconced at a table surrounded by a coterie of enthusiastic women, most notably an actress who’d drunk at least a bottle of champagne. She had wrapped her elegant calf around his and seemed to be hanging off his every word.
‘Did you know,’ she said to Militza, her gown slipping slowly off her right shoulder, ‘he was in Sarov when they canonized that saint?’
‘Oh?’
‘And he predicted the Empress would have a son after that, and she did!’
‘Incredible.’
‘Isn’t he!’ She grabbed hold of his leg and Rasputin smiled.
‘Come!’ said Militza to her protégé, pulling him away by the hand from the actress. ‘Why don’t we go and have our fortunes told; there is a woman in the corner scrying with a crystal ball.’
Leaving the tactile actress, a somewhat reluctant Rasputin crossed the room to the fortune-teller’s table. Dressed in a fringed headscarf, with dark eyes and an even darker complexion, she professed to be a gypsy from Novaya Derevnaya. As he sat down, she stared at him.
‘Have I met you before?’ she asked. ‘Do you ever come to see the gypsies on The Islands? To hear us sing?’
‘I am new to the city.’
She raised her eyebrows for a second, expecting him to say more, then bent down below the table and brought out a smooth, black shining ball. ‘Obsidian,’ she said. ‘It is the hardest but most accurate ball to read. It has taken a lifetime to learn.’