‘But what if they look at the records?’
‘There will be no records, Nikolasha will see to that.’ She nodded firmly at her sister. ‘Do you understand? There will no record that you were involved at all. And the Tsarina knows nothing. She doesn’t know why he left. She doesn’t suspect a thing.’
Dr Eugene Botkin rushed past the sisters, clutching his leather bag. ‘Is it bad?’ he asked, a look of deep concern on his kind face.
‘Not good,’ replied Stana.
‘Poor soul,’ said the doctor, pausing to gather himself a little before the footman opened the door. He smoothed down his thinning hair and took a breath, crossed himself and placed a smile on his face. ‘Hello,’ he said, taking a step forward. ‘Now what have we here…?’
‘A spell?’ suggested Stana. ‘We could call on the Virgin to sew up the wound?’
‘I haven’t used that spell in a long while,’ replied Militza shaking her head, her shoulders slumping.
‘What’s wrong with you?’
‘I feel responsible.’ The colour drained from Militza’s already pale cheeks.
‘But you are not. You’re not responsible for him falling. You’re not responsible for him having the Hesse disease. You are—’
‘But I am the reason Rasputin is not here!’
‘To hell with him!’
‘He’s the only one who can help.’
‘You don’t really believe that! You’re much more powerful than him. You made him!’
‘I am not more powerful now he has Philippe’s icon.’
‘Just do the spell! Go to the garden, the park, find somewhere and call up your guide.’ Militza looked at her sister. ‘Now! Go!’
Militza found herself in the park in her silk shoes, shivering in her satin dress; she’d had no time to find her felt boots or put on her furs, for Stana had pushed her through the French doors with some force. In the crisp, cold dark, she looked around for a rowan tree that might help her spell, but the sky was black and there were no leaves on the trees, let alone any red berries to help guide her.
‘Come on,’ she said to herself, rubbing her hands together in the freezing damp air. Her whole body was beginning to shake and her nose was dripping with the cold. ‘Come on.’ She scoured the silhouettes in the darkness, stumbling and tripping in her thin, soft-soled shoes. ‘Concentrate. You can find it, use your second sight.’ The wind blew through the trees; the loose thin powdering of snow swirled and whirled, as the branches began to talk.
‘Militza!’
‘Militza!’
‘Look out!’
‘Take care!’
She looked left, right, her breath catching in her throat, fear mounting. It was as if he were there. Rasputin. Stalking her. Tracking her through the trees, like a wolf playing with a deer. She could hear him breathing, panting down her neck. She could hear him pawing the ground. She ran faster, deeper, deeper into the woods.
‘Militza!’ cried the trees.
‘Liar,’ rustled the leaves.
‘Turncoat!’ mumbled the frost as she crunched it underfoot.
‘Bitch!’ cried the moon.
‘Whore!’ cried the wind.
She could see his eyes. Those haunting, horrible eyes, pale as glass. Behind her. In front. Her heart was pounding, her hands were shaking, her body was shivering. Still she ran. She ran from what? From whom? From herself? She no longer knew. Branches tore at her clothes, brambles scratched at her ankles. BANG! God help her! She screamed. There he was! She felt his arms, his rough hands, his tight, tight grip. She shut her eyes.
‘Militza?’ said Nicky, slapping her gently around the face. ‘What are you doing out here?’
That night while Alix slept, thanks to a large dose of laudanum administered by the traumatized Dr Botkin, Militza and Stana prayed.
On discovering her running through the woods, Nicky had immediately removed his thick fur-lined coat, wrapped it over her shoulders and escorted the disorientated Militza back to the palace, where he’d immediately placed her in the capable hands of his valet, instructing him to draw her a hot bath, feed her warm brandied milk and give her a change of clothes. Meanwhile he hurried, his face blanched white with worry, to his son’s bedside. There, the vision of a bleeding Alexei, blinded by bruising, attended to by his hysterical, wailing wife, was enough to chill his soul.
‘Nicky!’ she screeched, throwing herself towards her husband as soon as he walked through the door of the boudoir. ‘Help him! Get Rasputin!’ At which point Alix promptly fainted.
After that, although she was determined to tend to her critically ill son, Dr Botkin forbade Alix to leave her own chamber.
‘You need your strength,’ he told her firmly, as he placed the drops on her tongue. ‘Alexei needs you and you are no use to him if you don’t rest.’
So, fortified by her bath and brandy-soaked milk, Militza joined Stana and sat up with Alexei, tending to him along with the old nurse Gunst who had been at the boy’s side ever since he was born. The amount of blood pouring from the wound was slowly easing; Botkin had cauterized the edges in an attempt to stem the flow, but the boy’s face was so swollen, his eyelids so red and inflamed, that he was still unable to open them. He barely spoke as he lay there, only emitting the occasional agonized moan. Gunst went back and forth during the night, bringing fresh bandages, water, compresses – anything that the sisters asked for. And all the while Militza and Stana chanted, prayed, whispered and lit heavily scented herbs: sage to clear the air of bad spirits, rosemary to sterilize and they rubbed henbane on his feet to induce sleep. And as he slept, they called on the Virgin to heal him.
‘In the sea, in the ocean, sits the most holy Virgin,’ mumbled Militza, her eyes closed as she fingered Alix’s jet rosary.
‘We call on her,’ whispered Stana. ‘We call on her now.’
‘She holds a golden needle in her hand, she threads a silk thread, she sews up the bloody wound. You wound, do not hurt, you blood, do not flow…’
‘You wound, do not hurt, you blood, do not flow…’
‘You wound, do not hurt, you blood, do not flow…’
‘You wound, do not hurt, you blood, do not flow…’
Again and again they repeated it, over and over they chanted, the words slowly slipping and merging together, the room beginning to hum as the meditation reverberated. It was hypnotic and strangely relaxing. Soon the Tsarevich began to snore.
Come the first rays of dawn and the wound was no longer bleeding, but the child was shivering and shaking with a fever.
‘This is how it happens every time,’ said Dr Botkin as he stood, slowly shaking his head, in the doorway to Alexei’s room.
‘Every time?’ asked Stana, rubbing her tired eyes. Both she and Militza had been at the boy’s bedside the entire night. The doctor nodded. ‘But he will live?’ she whispered.
‘The worst is over, I think,’ he replied. ‘But the illness can carry on for weeks. No wonder the mother is so exhausted.’ He glanced up the corridor towards Alix’s room. ‘She spends her whole life fearing the worst – and when the worst does happen, it’s agony. And the agony lasts for weeks. It never stops and it will never stop…’ He sighed. ‘And the only person she seems to listen to, or who can do anything to help her, is that filthy Siberian peasant.’
Militza walked out of the room, closing the door quietly behind her. ‘Brother Grigory?’
‘He’s no man of God,’ the doctor snorted. ‘But she’s sent word to him already, in whatever dark corner he resides. Someone is standing by for a telegram lest he bother to reply! As if that appalling man is going to make any difference!’