‘Who were they?’ asked Militza sitting up. She closed her copy of Isis Unveiled by Helena Blavatsky and rearranged her navy silk kimono. Despite the late hour, approaching three, she had not yet dressed for the day. While other society ladies had already donned their diamonds, muffled themselves in furs and called a troika with a bespoke, livery-clad postilion to the door, to pay their daily calls, Militza had spent the morning going through a package of esoteric books that had arrived from Watkins, Cecil Court, London.
‘I didn’t know who they were and neither did George.’
‘George was there?’
‘He told me I was hearing things, being hysterical, foolish. He said I was making it up. You know what he’s like. If it doesn’t please him, he doesn’t hear it.’ She sighed, hugging her arms more tightly around her. ‘Honestly, Militza, it has been three years – and I thought it would be better after the children. That’s what Mother said, didn’t she?’ Stana’s voice cracked a little. ‘“Have children as soon as possible, they respect you more.” Didn’t she say that?’
‘Children are power.’ Militza nodded. ‘She used to say it all the time.’
‘All the time,’ agreed Stana, picking up her gloves and throwing them back down on the table in frustration. ‘Well, it’s made no difference to me. Pregnant within three months of marriage and with a son at that!’
‘Surely George is delighted with Sergei and little Elena? Two children in two years, and one a son – it’s more that I have managed.’ She laughed a little. ‘Any husband would be satisfied by that?’
‘One would have hoped,’ declared Stana, tugging at the covered buttons on her left sleeve and then her right. ‘One might have thought so.’ She sighed and looked out towards the window.
It was beginning to snow outside. Large, fat, white flakes were falling swiftly, swirling in the wind, like the flurries of blossom buffeted by the breeze that the sisters ran through as children in the orchards of Cetinje. Except here the sky was not a bright, clear, cobalt blue but a flat, yellowish, impenetrable grey.
‘It really is truly miserable here. Don’t you think?’ Stana asked, looking back at her sister. Her dark eyes were clouded with melancholy. ‘Miserable,’ she repeated. She slowly shook her head. ‘And now winter is coming, again.’ She gestured towards the window. ‘And George will be frustrated and angry, again. For no matter how many elegant court dresses he buys me, I’ll still not be embraced by the beau monde. It frustrates him, you know, our lack of invitations. And as the Season approaches it galls him even more.’
‘But—’ began Militza.
‘We are, of course, invited to the official events. To the balls. Those numerous, endless balls. But to the dinners, the luncheons, the soirées – no.’
‘We are not very much either,’ said Militza, gesticulating to her dark silk kimono. ‘The rest of the city might be looking forward to not seeing the light of day for three months of parties, but I shall be very well rested!’ She laughed dryly. ‘And now I have little Marina as well…’
‘How is Marina?’ enquired Stana, with a brief smile.
‘Growing up fast, she’s over two and half, can you believe it,’ smiled Militza, stroking her flat belly.
‘Good.’ Stana nodded slowly, as if thinking about something else. ‘But the difference is that Peter has his position,’ she said suddenly, ‘his money, his status. He has his estates to manage, his paints, his drawings, his books on architecture. George has nothing. He has no real title, no land because his family home was sold to clear their debts…’
‘But he was brought up in the court.’
‘With a mother in exile and a marriage no one could speak of.’
‘The grandson of Nicholas I. His mother was the Tsar’s favourite child.’ Militza paused and shivered a little. ‘Imagine being so close to power you can taste it, only for it to suddenly slip away, it’s enough to send you mad. Don’t you think? It would corrupt the soul.’
‘Well…’ Stana shrugged her shoulders. ‘I barely see the man, hardly talk to him. I’m like a window to him – I honestly think he actually sees through me.’ She laughed. ‘He tries hard not to acknowledge my presence. All he really wanted was a mother for his son. He’d run out of governesses and I was a cheaper alternative!’
‘That’s not true.’
‘Then what deal did our father make? Drinking brandy round that dinner table at your wedding?’
Militza shook her head. A heavy silence came between them. It was difficult not to feel that they were both pawns in a game they had yet to comprehend.
There was a knock at the door.
‘Excuse me, Your Imperial Highness,’ announced a butler, dressed in burgundy livery, his head bowed. ‘Everything is prepared for you downstairs.’
Stana looked across at Militza and smiled. Despite everything, an afternoon in her sister’s company always made her feel a little better.
They followed the butler’s padding footsteps along the marble corridors that led from one ornate salon to another, past high-arched windows with views out on to the square. They walked alongside Corinthian half-columns and on towards the immense U-shaped staircase with its sixteen grey granite columns and elaborate vaulted ceiling, with ornate black iron-worked balustrades featuring doubled-headed eagles and the initials from the Nikolayevich family. Their entire palace at Cetinje could fit into the staircase alone. Still they continued on, through one great hall after another, each more elaborate than the last. The most beautiful was the Moorish room with its star-tiled floor and carved walls painted in red, blue and gold.
‘Down here,’ said Militza, lifting the hem of her kimono.
‘I remember,’ Stana nodded.
Both of them had trodden this route before.
‘One second…’ Militza paused as she turned back towards the butler who was poised at the top of the stairs, his buckled shoe slightly recoiling; he was not a servant who ever ventured below. ‘When is my husband due home?’
‘The Grand Duke will be home this afternoon,’ replied the butler, his tone not entirely courteous.
‘Any particular time?’
‘This afternoon.’ He bowed.
‘Then we must be quick,’ said Militza. ‘Come.’
Down they went, clinging on to the thin metal handrail to steady themselves, their silk and leather-soled shoes slipping a little on the well-worn staircase. As the smell of cabbage and boiled meats increased, so the light began to fade. A few minutes past three in the afternoon and, after just over six hours of daylight, it was already dusk below stairs. Oh, how Militza found those long, dark days depressing! How she hated the weak sun, barely able to raise its head above the city skyline for months at a time. Born of the south, of the land of apricots and almonds, such a protracted twilight made her listless and melancholy. And with few afternoon calls to make, there were only so many games of cards, or massages at the banya, before those long afternoons really began to pall and the sisters found other ways to amuse themselves.
‘Do you have it?’ asked Militza walking into the crepuscular kitchen. Brana stood up. Her pinched face was bound in a tight grey handkerchief and she reached into the pockets of her long, black cotton skirt to retrieve a perfect white egg. She proffered it.
‘Freshly stolen?’ asked Militza.
‘From right underneath her feathered belly,’ came Brana’s grinning reply.
‘Shall I do it?’ asked Militza, deftly picking up the warm egg between her thumb and forefinger. Her long fingernails curled around the edge of its shell as she held it expertly up to the candlelight.