‘Enough!’ declared Militza, taking hold of the piece of paper. ‘Where did you get that?’
‘They are all over the city,’ said Dr Badmaev. ‘You can’t move for stories or tales like this.’ He nodded out of the café window towards the street outside, where the pavements were bustling with soldiers. ‘I did warn you a long time ago. I said I didn’t like him and now he is not just unlikeable, he is dangerous.’
‘You’re talking to me as if it is my fault.’
‘Well, isn’t it?’ His dark eyes narrowed. ‘Be careful what you wish for, I think that is the saying.’
‘I didn’t wish for anything,’ replied Militza indignantly.
‘No?’ he asked. ‘I seem to remember a conversation we had once.’
‘I am sure I can’t recall it.’
‘There is something very unseemly about him, as if he was indeed manifested, or is perhaps a walk-in, when a maleficent soul floats around until he finds a benign host – and what could be a more benign host than a simple peasant from Siberia?’
‘I am well aware of what a walk-in is,’ said Militza. ‘I have seen many in my time.’
‘Many?’ Badmaev looked puzzled. ‘I have seen them rarely – and they always appear to be reasonable at first, but slowly the maleficent soul takes over. Like a cancer it eats away at the weaker, benign soul until the other withers, so that there are only flickers of the previous little sparks that die over time, never to be seen again. I have only seen them a few times over my travels. Perhaps they are more usual in Montenegro?’
‘Perhaps,’ nodded Militza.
She was behaving childishly, she knew it, but there was something about Badmaev’s tone that worried her, something about the way he looked at her that chilled her to the bone. It was similar to the look the drunk Prince Yusupov had given her. If he also blamed her for Rasputin’s rise from a Siberian backwater to the foot of the throne itself, it was only a matter of time before others followed. Rasputin would be her legacy. It was enough to make her wish she had never been born.
She only had one more card left to play. Stana.
If she could persuade her sister to join forces with her. If they could unite for one last time, then together they stood a chance of defeating him. Together, their strength, coupled with the icon of St John the Baptist, might well be enough to end this. For one thing was certain, after the stabbing and his resurrection in Siberia, she was not capable of ridding Russia of him all on her own.
So, with Peter away in Moscow, she invited them both for dinner at Znamenka. It was her last throw of the dice. Little did she know how effective it would be.
As she lit the candles in the dining room that night, her hand shook with nerves. She had not seen Grisha in over a year, not since the attempt on his life and was more than a little anxious lest he knew it had been her doing. Had he heard her spell on the wind? Did he know how she really felt? The rumours, the testimonies to his ‘supernatural forces’ were so rife; his ability to read thoughts, see souls and raise the dead was no longer questioned. If you were to lure the Devil to your chamber, she thought, with the intent of doing him harm, surely the Devil would know? She glanced over at the shelf next to the fireplace, there she could see the glint of the small icon frame of St John the Baptist, hidden behind some books. She prayed it would keep her safe.
‘Philippe. Maître. Friend,’ she muttered under her breath. ‘I need you now.’
Stana arrived, fresh from tea and a game of bezique with the Grand Duchess Vladimir, who despite the awfulness of the war was still trying to enjoy her summer as best she could, preferring to stay out of the city as much as possible.
‘She says she wants to keep away from the awful proletariat,’ laughed Stana as she sipped her champagne. ‘I am not really sure she knows what the word actually means! But the word is a la mode and she loves to discuss things a la mode, while she happily spends a lifetime’s wages on a little bibelot from Cartier!’ She stopped and noticed the table was laid for three, not the two as she was expecting. ‘Are we to be joined?’ she asked. ‘Roman? Marina? Nadejda?’
‘Grisha,’ came Militza’s explosive reply.
‘Grisha!’ Stana put her glass down as her cheeks blanched white. ‘Well, I am afraid I shall have to leave, I would rather die than spend a second in that man’s company.’
‘Please don’t go!’
There was something about Militza’s tone that stopped Stana in her tracks. For the first time ever in her life she detected a note of vulnerability in her sister’s voice.
‘Why?’
‘Because we need to change the course of events,’ she whispered, ‘and I need your help to do that.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It’s our fault he is here. We asked for him, we called upon the Four Winds and we created a monster and now…’
‘And now what?’
‘… We must kill him.’
‘No, I will not,’ said Stana adamantly. ‘I have told you before, I do not want his blood on my hands.’
‘If not us, then who? When did you last see him?’ asked Militza.
‘I don’t know. I try not to think about him. Nikolasha won’t have him in the house; Rasputin offered to come and see the troops the other day at Stavka, saying his arrival might boost morale, but Nikolasha said he’d see him hang if he came anywhere near the Front.’
‘You have no idea how awful he has become?’
‘I hear… I hear stories…’
‘Then you know he is now more powerful than ever. And with Nicky at the Front, he’s been left to run riot. Alix does what he says. Especially after he saved Anna Vyrubova’s life after that appalling train crash, he can do no wrong. Everyone thinks it’s Badmaev’s drugs that are sending the Tsarina mad, but it is him. It is just her and him. In charge. With Nicky apparently too stoned or incapacitated to care. He is atrophied by indecision and the war and so the other two try to rule. It is a disaster. He’s unstoppable. Some members of the court offered him money, 200,000 roubles plus a house, a monthly allowance and bodyguards, if he’d go back to Siberia, never to be seen again – and do you know what he said?’ Stana slowly shook her head. ‘“You think Mama and Papa will allow that? I don’t need money; any old merchant will give me what I need to hand out to the poor and needy.”’