Nikolasha and Stana were too furious to stay any longer at the wedding. Nikolasha was more humiliated than annoyed; he’d trusted the Siberian to speak to the Tsar three months ago, had believed he would help them – and to have been outplayed by a peasant wounded him greatly. This was not a trifle, a little game. This was war.
The next morning Stana telephoned her sister.
‘I don’t know what to do,’ she said. ‘Father is furious. He was relying on Nicky to back him and Nikolasha said it was simple enough but now Rasputin’s changed everything. That man is totally out of control. He is conducting the orchestra while the rest of us just sit in the stalls. We have to do something.’
‘We need to think, Stana. Let’s not be rash.’
‘Rash!’
‘We need to come up with a plan.’
‘No, dear sister, you do.’
Militza brooded. She spent hours in her salon, contemplating what she should do. It was five days later, at the Countess Marie Kleinmichel’s Persian Ball in honour of her three young nieces, that she realized she could wait no longer.
A masked ball? For 300 guests? For which Leon Bakst, the celebrated costumier for the Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, designed the majority of the costumes? The Countess had been besieged by so many people wanting to watch the proceedings there had been talk of allowing them to view from the balconies above. But in the end, the countess put her foot down and decided she wanted to seat every guest for a midnight supper and a total of three hundred was all her kitchen could manage. The ball opened with an Oriental quadrille, followed by an Egyptian dance, a Cossack dance, a traditional folk dance and a Hungarian folk dance. The costumes were stunning – kaftans of golden thread, capes trimmed with sable, blue silk pantaloons, crimson jackets, silver lamé turbans; the champagne flowed, the caviar circled the room and everyone was quite breathless with excitement.
It was billed as the ball to end all balls and it certainly was. It was the last great ball in Imperial Russia before the outbreak of the First World War, the last time the court was to dance in all its finery. Not that anyone knew that evening. Indeed, the opulence and profligacy, the purchase of such extravagant costumes for one night only, was not questioned by any of the guests. They were used to dancing while the rest of St Petersburg starved and shivered – why would it not continue forever?
Stana danced most of the night, watched by Nikolasha who, although reputedly a fine dancer, preferred a spectator’s view. Peter asked each of the Kleinmichel daughters for a quadrille, hoping that others would be as generous with his own daughter, while Militza was deep in conversation with Mr Rayner. Prince Yusupov’s Oxford University friend, although wearing a red turban, had decided against the remainder of his costume, preferring a simple white tie in lieu the loose blue silk trousers that he’d been offered earlier that evening.
‘What is it with the Russians and dressing up?’ he asked an amused Militza. ‘Why can’t they have a normal evening? With normal food. In normal clothes. It’s exhausting!’
‘I suppose there are so many parties it’s the only way to differentiate one from the other,’ she replied.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘The Season here is like no other I have ever witnessed. The relentless hedonism is something else. And quite why anyone would want to go to a party dressed as a Hun is beyond me.’ He drank his shot of vodka and pushed an irritating feather out of his face. ‘Particularly during this time – and for you it must be very galling indeed.’ He nodded.
‘Me?’
‘Being from Montenegro and your father not securing help from the Russians,’ he replied. ‘It’s almost as if someone’s rubbing salt into wounds.’
‘Yes.’ Militza laughed lightly, the man seemed remarkably au courant. ‘And what are you doing here?’
‘Nothing much,’ he replied. ‘Seeing friends. I’m thinking of renting a little flat on Moika.’
‘So you will be staying with us long?’
He nodded. ‘I think things might be getting a little interesting here.’
‘Interesting? I think you flatter us, Mr Rayner,’ declared Militza, taking a large sip of her drink and walking towards the other side of the ballroom.
‘So do you like my friend?’ asked a rather inebriated voice in the crowd.
‘Prince Yusupov,’ declared Militza. ‘I didn’t recognize you with all the feathers and the turban. Are you not on honeymoon?’
‘I leave tomorrow,’ he said, with a wave of his slim hand. ‘Paris, where we know far too many people. So I am sure we shall have to slip off somewhere else if we are to find any peace; I’m quite fond of Egypt, what do you think?’
‘Good,’ agreed Militza. The man was very obviously drunk; his pale eyes were staring at her, one slowly closing independently from the other and he was clearly in a combative mood. She made as if to walk away.
‘So, do you like my friend?’ he asked again, taking hold of her upper arm.
‘He’s charming,’ she replied, looking furiously at his grip. Like father like son. He loosened it.
‘Well, I don’t like your Friend,’ he said. ‘Rasputin!’ He practically spat his name as he staggered back a step or two.
‘I thought you were friends – or at least, your friend, Munia Golovina, and her mother are most certainly close to him.’
‘What a charlatan he is! The man tried to hypnotize me the other day. “To cure me”, he said. What an utter fraud!’
‘I think you might have drunk a little too much.’ She smiled gently. ‘It might have warped your judgement.’
‘You’re the one with warped judgement. You’re the one who brought this evil charlatan into all our lives.’
‘That is not true.’
‘Who found him? You. Who introduced him to the court? You. Who championed him? You. Who helped him infiltrate the imperial household? You. Who paraded him around St Petersburg? You. Your house, your palace, Znamenka…’ He paused, his lips curling with hatred. ‘That palace is the axis of all that is evil in this world and you are the personification of all that is evil. You have opened Pandora’s box, my dear, and…’ He paused again, staring at her. ‘And you have no idea how to close it.’ He turned as if to leave and then he stopped, swaying a little as he spoke. ‘I pity you. You think you are so very clever. But you are not. Your monster is out of control, Madame! It’s gorging itself on power, girls and alcohol. While you? You think it will be fine, but it won’t. You suffer from hubris, dear lady, hubris. And it will defeat you in the end!’
That night Militza found it impossible to sleep. She was haunted by images that kept whirling and swirling round in her head. Felix Yusupov’s furious, drunken, plumed-head berated and hectored her all night, as did vibrant images of Rasputin – his blessings, his healings, his filthy fingers being licked clean, his laughing, his dancing, the smell of his fetid breath and the rough touch of his hands, as well as his haunting voice in her ear: ‘Naughty girl!’ ‘Naughty girl.’ ‘Naughty girl.’
As dawn broke, Militza lay covered in a cold sweat, staring at the gilt ceiling; her mouth was dry, her brain was exhausted, but her jaw was set, her mind made up. She must exorcise the beast: she must kill him.
Later that morning she called Stana and demanded they meet in a quiet corner of the Yacht Club – to discuss such a thing on the telephone would be unthinkable – although a discussion was not what actually took place.
‘No,’ said Stana simply, her dark eyes wide with horror. ‘Are you insane? Have you been taking too much elixir? You don’t look like you’ve slept at all.’ Her hand shook as she poured herself tea, spilling a little on the white linen tablecloth. How could it have possibly come to this? ‘Murder Rasputin?’