Far Flies the Eagle (6 page)

“I have only one marriageable sister—Catherine. Anne is still too young. And while I have every intention of finding a husband for Catherine before long, it will never be Napoleon! What else is being said?”

“That your Prime Minister Speransky is a traitor, that he wants peace with France and intends to liberate the serfs.”

“Speransky is an honest man, my dear, and an able one. But his policies are not necessarily mine. Go on.”

She turned to him quickly. “I could talk like this for hours! But you know it, you must! You have the Secret Police; don't they keep you informed? Alexander, for the love of God, don't test your fate too far. Ever since you met that Corsican devil, your life has been in danger here, and as long as you go on treating with him, making a friend of his Ambassador, spitting in public opinion's face, you'll never be safe. They'll kill you as they killed your father!”

The moment the words were spoken she turned pale with horror. “Forgive me, I didn't mean …”

“I killed my father,” he said, and his voice was suddenly harsh and strained. “I killed him. There was no ‘they'.… The responsibility is mine, as it will be my successor's, if anything happens to me. God help me … I can never forget it.”

“You must protect yourself,” she whispered. “What's done is done. Arrest your sister.”

“No!” he shouted and sprang up. “No, arrest would have to mean death. My father and my sister.… No, not even I can order that! Even now the shadow follows me; I dream of it, I see them strangling my father, jumping on his body to drive out the soul, the brutes, savages!… I hear his footsteps. Oh, Jesus,” he muttered, “I've got to rule to justify myself, but I can't kill to do it. But no one knows that. If Catherine or Constantine knew it, even my mother, any of them, if they knew, my life wouldn't be worth a kopeck. But they don't, they think that if they went too far I'd do what has always been done. Only you know that I can't.”

He caught her by the shoulders, so tightly that he hurt her.

“And you will never tell, because you love me, Marie Antonovna. I know that.”

“I love you,” she said. “I love you with all my heart. You can trust me always.”

He put his arms round her and held her close.

“I need you,” he whispered. “I never thought I should need anyone, but I've learnt at last that I couldn't live without you. We're a cursed family, Marie; warped and cruel and mad. The devil fathered us—my grandmother, my father, and now my brothers and sisters and myself. You'll find that out if you remain with me.”

He hid his blond head against her breast and held her with such force that she almost cried out.

“But you must promise to stay with me,” he said fiercely. “Do what you like, squeeze the treasury, take lovers, do anything, but don't leave me, never leave me.…”

She touched his face with gentle fingers.

“If I can make you happy, Alexander Pavlovitch, then I ask nothing more from life. I don't pretend to understand you. I love you so much that I'd rather you committed any crime than stand in danger, and the death of your father is no reason at all.… But two things I beg of you; marry your sister quickly, and be careful when you go to Erfurt.”

“I shall be careful,” he promised. “I shall have to be. Because when I return to Russia, we shall go to war with France.”

Colonel Tchernicheff had returned to Paris again, and he frequented every fashionable gathering in the hope of seeing Talleyrand without appearing to seek him out. Ironically, they met most often at The Tuilleries, ostensibly paying homage to the Emperor.

Napoleon's temper was uncertain in those days; events in Spain had upset him, for after dethroning the Spanish Royal family and giving the Crown to his brother Joseph, the Spanish people, so long the poorest and most despised in Europe, had revolted against the French domination and coined a new phrase in international language—guerrilla, the little war. The revolt was not yet suppressed, despite much bloodshed and appalling cruelty on both sides, and the incident rankled, as Talleyrand knew. He knew every mood of the man he had once served so well and was now systematically betraying.

Tchernicheff walked over to Talleyrand and bowed; the Emperor had just passed among them and he was scowling, looking more yellow and drawn than usual.

“His Majesty looks ill,” the Colonel remarked. “Perhaps the trip to Erfurt will benefit him.”

Talleyrand stared ahead of him. “I doubt it,” he said. “Unless he finds a Russian wife there.”

Tchernicheff smiled; it was a rather vacuous expression which meant nothing to the onlooker.

“That is something I'm afraid he'll never find,” he said cheerfully. “But eventually he may find some Russian soldiers.”

The Minister coughed. “I hope so, my dear Colonel. Unlike His Majesty, I feel that Erfurt will be of great benefit to
me.
I hope to renew my acquaintance with the Czar. Unfortunately I was kept very busy at Tilsit.”

“The Czar is looking forward to meeting you again, Monsieur. He feels that much more can be gained from a little discussion,” Tchernicheff answered. “He asked me to convey his affection for you and his desire for the ultimate good of France.”

“Thank him for me,” Talleyrand said. “And tell him that in my opinion the Russian soldiers you mentioned will be of greater service to my country than anything else.”

In Petersburg a ghost had suddenly appeared in the middle of the new society of the nineteenth century, freezing the drawing-rooms and audience chambers of the Winter Palace with its reminder of the terrible days of the Czar Paul. The ghost was Count Alexei Araktcheief, the most dreaded figure of the previous reign and an intimate friend of the late Czar. His name was a synonym for cruelty, and Alexander's summons caused the first tremor of fear the Imperial Court had felt since the beginning of his reign.

Why Araktcheief, the nobility asked; why that archaic monster whose military sadism was still a byword; what did the Czar want with such a man? The answer was simple, and for those who recognized it, ominous. Araktcheief's record of loyalty to Paul was outstanding from a period when everybody had betrayed him; only his banishment had enabled the murderers to carry out their plan, and now Alexander had sent for him on the eve of his departure for Erfurt.

The thin figure, immaculately uniformed, followed the Czar everywhere, and the grim, flat-featured face bent over Alexander's shoulder at the conference table and smiled up at him in the ball-room. Araktcheief was restored to favour, flattered and deferred to before the men who had once been Alexander's intimates, and the devotion he had shown Paul was soon transferred to his new master. He was a morose, stiff man, with light, piercing eyes and a parade-ground manner that made the trivial conversation of the salons an impossibility in his presence, and the stories of his savagery shocked even the Grand Duke Constantine.

“Why did Alexander have to bring him back?” he demanded of his sister. “God in heaven, he's resurrecting the past and none of us want that! No one dares speak of Father's death in front of him, yet he sends for father's oldest friend and makes a favourite of him!”

Catherine frowned; she disliked Araktcheief; the stare of those green eyes made her uncomfortable. She had been unbearably haughty to him as a result, but for all his reaction the man might have been made of stone.

“He's afraid,” she said. “Afraid of a revolution while he's at Erfurt, that must be the reason. And he's chosen the right man, damn him. So much for all this talk of Liberalism! I have a feeling that our gentle brother is about to prove himself a ruler after all.…” She shrugged. “But I don't really care now; if I'm to marry Bonaparte I'll be content, and Alexander's promised it.”

Constantine scowled at her, wondering why he had ever allowed himself to be caught up in her intrigues. He was a stupid man, incapable of unravelling his own complexes or of resisting the influence of personalities stronger than his own; but nature had endowed him with a little imagination, unlike the robot Nicholas, his younger brother, and he glared at his sister with hatred.

“Trust him if you like, sister. Personally I don't think you'll ever see France.…”

She was angry, but she laughed at him and forgot his prophecy, too confident of her hold on Alexander to suppose that he had reversed positions and was deceiving her.

As usual, the most inconspicuous member of the Imperial family was the Czarina Elizabeth; she moved among them like a phantom, accepting the Grand Duchess Catherine's snubs and Alexander's cold neglect with an indifference that roused Constantine's suspicions.

She was cowed, and with the instinct of all sadists, he delighted in adding to her humiliations; at the same time she was the kind of gentle, self-effacing woman that he hated, precisely because she aroused the worst in him. Sullen, stabbed by jealousy of his sister, who no longer seemed to need him, and by physical envy of his brother, the Grand Duke searched for a victim, someone on whom to wreak his disappointment with the others. He watched the defenceless Czarina and his little eyes narrowed. Something told him she was happy, that the monotony of her neglected life had been relieved. He set spies who soon informed him that Elizabeth had at last found a successor to Adam Czartorisky.

The Empress of Russia was the mistress of a young cornet in the Guards named Okhotnikov, and she was also pregnant. There was no doubt that Alexander knew and would accept the child; and this child might live, unlike the bastard born to Czartorisky. A secured succession would not suit any of them, and a frightful plan began to form slowly in Constantine's mind. From the moment of its inception his spirits rose and he began shadowing the unhappy Czarina from room to room, watching her with a half-smile on his ugly mouth.

She bore this strange persecution until the nervous strain and her advanced pregnancy forced her to seek an interview with Alexander.

He received her in his study where he had been signing documents and talking to his Minister Speransky. Speransky had just left him; he had tried to do so sooner when the page announced the Empress, but Alexander waved the boy away and ordered Speransky to stay where he was; the Czarina could wait. The incident puzzled his Minister; he could never understand how Alexander, the gentlest of men, could behave so implacably towards his wife.

Speransky's origins were humble; he was the son of a poor priest and owed his position to a rare mixture of integrity and administrative genius; his policies were peace and liberal reform, two projects which he believed to be equally dear to Alexander. The hatred borne him by the Imperial family and the nobility would have frightened a lesser man out of office, but he ignored it, confident of the Czar's protection, and developed his unpopular plans for trade with France and the abolition of serfdom. He saw the Empress waiting as he passed through the ante-room a little later, and saluted her reverently; she hardly seemed to notice him.

“Good morning, Elizabeth.”

Alexander rose politely when she came into the room and she curtsied. “This is an unexpected visit. I'm afraid it may have to be brief, as I'm very busy. What do you want?”

She swallowed nervously, it was a long time since she had approached him privately.

“I came to wish you God speed at Erfurt,” she said.

There was a pause while Alexander watched her, impatient and hostile. It was extraordinary, he thought, how the sight of her always annoyed him. She had become a living reminder of his own failure as a young husband and the success of Adam Czartorisky in his place. He had never forgiven her and he had never lived with her since.

“Why did you really come?” he asked her.

She looked down and the colour rushed into her face.

“I am pregnant,” she whispered.

“So I see. I believe a certain Monsieur Okhotnikov is to be congratulated.”

She walked towards him and then sank down into a chair.

“Are you going to abandon me now?” she asked slowly.

He stared at her and then shook his head. “No,” he answered. “Why should I now, when I didn't before? I enjoy my freedom and I permit you yours. As to the child, I shall acknowledge it. The only thing that surprises me is why you should suddenly doubt it.”

“Any other man would divorce me,” Elizabeth said. “And your brother's been looking at me so strangely that I thought perhaps you were going to do so.”

“I'm not responsible for Constantine. You have nothing to fear from me. I've kept to the bargain I made with you all those years ago and I don't intend to break my word. If I did divorce you, it would only be to make Princess Naryshkin my wife, and I shall never do that as she's a commoner. Is there anything else?”

“No, except to thank you.”

She came to him and suddenly kissed his hand. “God go with you at Erfurt, Alexander. And if you could ever find it in your heart to forgive me, I might find happiness again.”

She turned and walked quickly out of the room before he had time to reply or to see that the tears were running down her cheeks.

The next moment he had forgotten her, having decided to tell his brother to leave the Czarina alone. If he wanted amusement he must find someone else to torment.

Speransky, he thought, pacing up and down the study. A good man, but a pacifist, humane to the point of folly, with his dream of ending serfdom; no wonder he was hated. And he would never sanction the war with France on which he was determined; he would never see as Alexander did, that it was inevitable and vital to the ultimate peace of the world. He sighed suddenly and swore, which he very seldom did.

God, the intrigues of ruling, the countless factors that had to be weighed and considered before a move was made. Speransky. Already he knew in his heart what had to be done.

Just before her confinement, the Empress Elizabeth was woken at midnight one night by a serving maid, who told her that the cornet Okhotnikov had been murdered as he left the theatre. A few hours afterwards she gave premature birth to a daughter. The child survived for only a few weeks.