‘I will look after the police,’ she said.
‘I am in your debt,’ he said, as he flung open the back door. A blast of icy wind whistled in straight off the Gulf of Finland. ‘Thank you!’ he said, throwing the small leather satchel over his shoulder and was gone in flurry of frost and snow.
Militza was as good as her word and entertained the police who remained camped outside the palace watching everyone’s movements for the next three weeks. Their vigil was brought to an end by a telegram received from the governor of Tobolsk region, announcing Rasputin’s safe arrival at his house in Pokrovskoye. Apparently, the feather-moustached young officer in charge had been so incensed by Militza’s apparent sorcery and Rasputin’s miraculous escape that he’d knocked on the office of Stolypin himself and begged to be allowed to travel to Siberia personally to serve Rasputin with the papers that banned him from the city. But Stolypin simply batted the man away. He was tired of the fight and anyway, now the Tsarina knew exactly what the Prime Minister thought of her sage and guru, he knew his days were numbered.
Although quite how short in number was a shock to all but Rasputin.
The initial snub was obvious. Stolypin did not receive an invitation to ride on the imperial train from St Petersburg to Kiev; instead, he had to make the three-day journey on his own. When he arrived he was not included in the imperial entourage, having to make his own way through the crowds for the inauguration of the local government in south-west Russia in a small carriage, all alone. In fact, his treatment by the imperial family was so cold it was enough to make the man ill, so much so that Rasputin, who had naturally been invited, remarked as he saw Stolypin waving at the crowd, ‘Death is stalking him. It rides behind him.’
Death was indeed close. Very close. Stolypin was shot that night, 14 September, at the opera, while attending Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Tale of the Tsar Saltan. Fortunately, Militza recalled, the Grand Duchesses Olga and Tatiana had gone to find some tea in the foyer when the gunman struck, shooting Stolypin square in the chest, his own bodyguard having conveniently disappeared off for a cigarette. And as the orchestra struck up ‘God Save the Tsar’, the imperial family left the box while Stolypin staggered out of the theatre to a waiting stretcher. It took the man four days to die. The Tsar visited twice and was eventually banned from the bedside by Stolypin’s grief-stricken wife. Alix, however, never called to pay her respects at all.
‘Do you know what she said?’ asked Stana, taking a sip of wine as the sisters and their husbands sat on the terrace, admiring the sunset over the Black Sea.
‘What?’ asked Militza.
‘“Those who have offended Our Friend can no longer count on divine protection.”’ Stana nodded.
‘So she believes Stolypin’s assassination was divine retribution?’ asked Peter, a curl of cigarette smoke leaving his lips.
Stana nodded. ‘For banning Rasputin from the capital.’
‘A ban that was never even enforced,’ added Nikolasha. ‘That creature left for Siberia and came right back again, in a bloody heartbeat. He spent the summer with acolytes in the country only to turn up again in Kiev. All that happened was that poor Stolypin was left with a black mark by his name, while Rasputin continues to roam free.’ He sighed. ‘That woman is losing her mind.’
‘I am not sure she ever had one,’ said Peter.
‘Do you know what I heard the other day?’ continued Nikolasha. ‘And I am not one to gossip…’
‘But?’ smiled Stana.
‘Apparently when Alix has a headache—’
‘Which is often,’ chipped in Peter.
‘That’s true,’ agreed Nikolasha. ‘In order to cure the pain, she writes down Grisha’s little sayings to help clear her head.’
‘She does that every time he leaves the city,’ said Militza.
‘What sayings?’ asked Stana.
‘Banalities,’ said Nikolasha. He cleared his throat theatrically ‘For example on marriage… He says: “A good graft revives an old tree.”’
Peter laughed. ‘I bet he did.’
‘On making a journey… “Before crossing the river, see that the ferry is in its place.”’
‘Very profound,’ said Peter.
‘And apparently he said to Prince Yusupov, “You could feed five villages with what’s hanging on your walls.”’
‘Well, at least the last one is true,’ said Peter, stubbing out his cigarette. ‘Although five seems rather a small number.’
‘What was he doing talking to Yusupov?’ asked Militza. ‘I thought the family disliked Grisha?’
‘They do,’ replied Nikolasha. ‘But you know Felix, he’ll do anything to annoy his father!’
When Grisha returned to the city in the autumn of 1912, his salon of Rasputinki was so popular that even the corridor outside his first-floor apartment was full of followers, all bearing tributes and requests for his help and assistance. Such was his fame and notoriety there was not one person from St Petersburg to Sakhalin who did not know who he was. His name was on everyone’s lips and stories of his powers and reputation were traded over glasses of watered-down beer in every traktir across eleven time zones. Not least since the supposed ‘Miracle at Spala’, where Alexei had been taken so ill that his imminent death had been announced in the newspapers, only for him to be saved by a telegram sent by Rasputin from his ever-more luxurious house in Siberia.
‘God has seen Your tears,’ he’d told the Tsarina, ‘and heard Your prayers. Don’t be sad. The little boy will not die. Do not let the doctors torment him too much.’
As the winter set in, the queues of those desperate to meet the holiest man in all of Russia were so immense that many would sleep outside on the freezing street, waiting for him to return from any one of his plentiful nights out.
If her father had not demanded she help him, Militza would never have gone anywhere near Rasputin’s apartment. He’d obviously realized by now that he’d lost the Icon of St John the Baptist but still she did not want to answer any of his questions. However, there was conflict in the air. The Balkans were in crisis and her father had declared war on the Ottoman Empire and needed Russia’s help. It was her duty to use her connections and all the influence she had to get Nicky to agree to send his troops south. So, with Stana at her side, they set off in the car in the hope of persuading Grisha to help them.
‘Whatever we do, we don’t talk about the icon, or even mention the icon,’ said Militza. ‘And if he asks, we deny all knowledge.’
‘Surely he’ll think he lost it in the woods while he was running from Stolypin’s wolves.’
‘I’m sure. And perhaps he feels a little foolish for losing it.’
‘Absolutely,’ Stana sighed.
They sat in silence as they drove through the city.
‘Nothing infuriates me more than having to go on bended knee to him,’ said Militza suddenly, as she stared out the window.
‘It is Father’s will,’ replied Stana. ‘And we all know about Father’s will,’ she laughed wryly. ‘What he asks, we do.’
‘What he demands.’
‘Yes, what he demands, no matter how badly it turns out for us.’
‘I have no idea why he decided to declare war on the Ottoman Empire in the first place,’ said Militza. ‘It’s foolish to enter into a war you aren’t sure you can win.’
It was a cold, blustery afternoon and the grey St Petersburg streets were full of crepuscular characters bent against the vile wind as they walked and the normally calm waters of the Fontanka were being whipped into wild white horses as they crossed over the bridge. There was a storm on its way. A brigade of soldiers were marching along the centre of the road, past a meeting of factory workers on one corner, where a young man was standing on a box, his arms gesticulating as he shouted slogans at the receptive crowd.