Stolypin slowly sat down on the banquette, rubbing the top of his shining pate. ‘Unfortunately the Tsarina herself called an end to that little investigation?’
‘I am afraid I don’t understand quite what you are saying, sir?’
‘Khlysty charges?’
‘I think you are mistaken, sir.’
‘The man is bad news,’ he continued, quietly, careful not to be overheard. ‘He is a tragedy for this country. I love this country and that man is ruinous for all of us. He has letters from the Grand Duchesses, intimate letters that he is bandying around town. He reads them aloud when he is drunk.’ Stolypin’s tones were hushed but the importance of what he was saying was clear. ‘They only need to fall into the wrong hands. The Press are on to him already, the endless profiles, the cartoons – the man is more famous than any courtesan. If they find the letters…’ He shook his head. ‘He needs to go. And he needs to go far, far, away.’
‘Well then, Prime Minister…’ Militza leant over, her pendant sapphires shining in the candlelight. ‘Ban him from the city,’ she whispered. He stared into her black eyes. ‘You have the power to do that, sir. Ban him, so he can never set foot in St Petersburg, or indeed Tsarskoye Selo, ever again.’
31
10 February 1911, Peterhof
And so it was that he came careering through the woods, barefoot and breathless, throwing himself at her mercy, begging her to let him in.
Quite who’d tipped him off that there were guards waiting to arrest him and serve him with his city-wide ban and arrest warrant he would not say, but he was incandescent with rage and fury that they would be after him. Him! Of all people! But he had just enough time to throw himself out of the train and run through the snow. He’d managed to commandeer a car at some point that took him to the forest outside Peterhof where he’d leapt out and gone straight to Znamenka. He was like a lost dog who’d managed to run all the way home only to arrive panting, starving and shivering with the authorities not far behind.
It was Stana’s idea to harvest his toenails, much like they’d harvested the Grand Duchess Vladimir’s dead baby all those years ago. They needed something, anything, to work with. Rasputin’s power was strong and his influence was all-encompassing, seeming to grow by the day. The more the newspapers wrote about how appalling he was, the more determined his followers became and the more the Tsarina cleaved to him. ‘People believe what they want to believe,’ Stana used to say. But Alix was more than a believer. It was almost as if he was her own spoilt child and she was the only one who could control him. It was, of course, like so many things with Grisha, entirely the other way around, for it was he who controlled her. Not that the Tsarina noticed. By this stage she rarely left the palace and never sought counsel of anyone outside her trusted circle – Anna, Rasputin, Nicky and the children. Very occasionally the tutor, Mr Charles Gibbes, an Englishman, was allowed to have an opinion or an idea but mostly everyone’s job in the circle of trust was to agree with Alix.
And no one agreed more vociferously than Anna. Anna, who recovered rather too quickly, agreed with anything Alix said. She lived on her doorstep, loved the Tsarina with all her naïve heart and became Rasputin’s most ardent supporter.
Stana and Militza had often idly wondered quite how ardent a supporter she was. Was she being ‘healed’ or was her pink, plump flesh not to the Siberian’s taste? They knew they themselves were not to her taste; Anna’s feelings for the sisters were abundantly clear. Over a relatively short period and in mirrored sympathy with the Tsarina, she had managed to become the daily advocator of Rasputin and the daily detractor of Militza and Stana. She refused ever to refer to them by name and insisted on calling them either the ‘Black Women’ or ‘The Crows’. Within a matter of weeks, it was as if a war, a war of rumours and of gossip, had broken out between the two palaces.
So when Rasputin chose to knock on Militza’s door in the middle of the night and ask for sanctuary, not only was Militza shocked, she was also most accommodating. She could have thrown him to the lions, which was what she wanted to do. Stolypin had done exactly what she’d suggsted. But yet… If she could lure Rasputin back into her thrall, then perhaps he might open the doors to the palace for her once more. After that night at the ballet, the invitations had most certainly dried up and what little love there was left between the Tsarina and Militza and Stana, the bustling, busy Anna was doing her best to destroy.
Yes, he was worth more to her alive. If not, at the very least she could harvest him and get her beloved icon back.
As he snored on the divan with the soldiers circling the palace like a pack of wolves, Militza went through his leather bag. Even for a strannik he travelled light. Inside was the hand-embroidered shirt the Tsarina had given him along with a few other items of fetid clothing, a well-worn leather Bible with the pages beginning to fall out and a collection of letters, all of which were addressed to ‘Sir’. They were sealed and written in Rasputin’s scrawling uncontrolled hand. Sitting back on her haunches, Militza examined one. She’d heard that, for a small fortune, Rasputin would and could recommend you or someone you nominated for a job or a helping hand. Apparently, he carried the letters around with him, which he’d sell. This one read:
Dear Sir,
Give whomsoever is standing in front of you in possession of this letter whatever they ask for – sincerely, Rasputin-Novy
This, so they said, was how business was being done in the city now. She’d always presumed it was a rumour, put about by his increasing number of enemies, but the large bundle of cash at the bottom of the bag seemed to confirm the stories. But Militza had enough money, what she wanted was her icon.
‘Whoever owns this, no harm can befall them,’ Philippe had told her as he’d given it to her.
But then the monster had stolen it from her. Her monster. The one she’d fashioned in wax and baptised with the soul of an unborn child. And he didn’t deserve protection.
Her hands were shaking as she riffled through his bag. His large belly was rising and falling as he snored like a drunk in the snow but his breathing was irregular and every time he stopped, snorted or coughed, she held her breath. Finally, at the bottom of the bag, she saw it, but as she pulled it out she lost her grip and it clattered across the floor.
Rasputin woke with a start. He leapt off the divan, his eyes wide open as if he had never been asleep. ‘What are you doing?’ he barked. ‘Why is my bag undone? What’s the noise!’
‘Grisha! Grisha!’ she whispered in a loud panic. ‘You must go!’ She glanced across at the icon that lay glittering half under the divan. She moved a little closer, hoping to cover it with the skirts of her long velvet robe.
‘Go?’ He looked confused.
‘The soldiers, they are banging at the door!’
‘But I hear nothing.’
‘They have just smashed some windows; my doormen are holding them but they won’t be able to contain them for long. Please! While you can, Grisha, my love.’ She smiled and ran her hand over his lumpy forehead. ‘Go!’ She gathered up his bag and pulled on the leather strings to tighten it before handing it to him. ‘Go!’ she urged. ‘Hurry! Before it’s too late!’
She hustled him down the back stairs and watched the footman help him with a pair of boots.
‘Where shall you go to?’ she asked.
‘Far,’ he said, glancing over his shoulder. ‘Far from the city, back to the steppes and the land I know. Goodbye,’ he said, kissing her briefly.
He must be afraid, thought Militza, as she felt the touch of his wet lips clip the corners of her mouth; he would normally have slipped his tongue into her mouth or rubbed his rough hand up her skirt and between her legs, not always for the pleasure of the experience, but mainly because he could. Tonight he didn’t.