The Winter Palace (46 page)

I, too, prayed with her. I prayed for forgiveness of my own sins and for my own dead. I prayed for my parents, and I prayed for Egor. I prayed until the Empress asked me to help her to her bed.

Soon, nestled in the splendor of the imperial silks, Elizabeth looked as if she were asleep. I rose to slip out of the room, but then I heard a small, frightened voice: “Does it not matter that I spared his life? Is mercy not enough?”

It took me a moment to realize she meant Ivanushka, the baby Tsar she had deposed twenty years before. The mad-room Prince, locked safely in his prison cell, was still able to chase imperial sleep away.

It was in these dark spring days that Catherine’s
révolution de palais
began.

First came the guarded steps, words tossed like bait, unexpected visits that ended with fingers touching the lips in caution.

In the temporary palace, the Grand Duke claimed the now-empty Imperial Suite. Where Elizabeth’s bed once stood, he spread a model of the Battle of Zorndorf, for which
Das Fräulein
had made intricate papier-mâché trees and replicas of peasants’ huts. “A disputed Russian victory,” the Grand Duke informed his visitors, rubbing his hands as he presented his calculations. The Prussians lost 12,800 men, while the Russians lost more than 18,000. Although the Russians kept the battlefield on the following day, they were the first to retreat.

How can the Crown Prince say such words? I wondered then. Whose side was he on? Was he a fool or a traitor?

I was not the only one posing questions.

“Remember, Varenka, how Peter marched me like one of his soldiers,” Catherine recollected. “How he wouldn’t even let me touch those dolls he always played with?”

Remember how he lashed his hounds until they howled?

Remember when he executed a rat, for it dared to upset his toys? This, too, is a memory of these days. That snigger, raw and razor-sharp, every time Catherine mentioned her husband’s name.

“The Grand Duchess has many friends, Varvara Nikolayevna,” Alexei Orlov had said. But it was Grigory Orlov who crossed our path one May morning in the gardens by the Summer Palace, where Catherine had given birth to Paul seven years before.

Grigory had been away for so long that I had almost forgotten how much he resembled Alexei. The same towering frame, the same raven-black mop of untamed hair. The same flaunting gestures, one hand on his chest, another holding the dusty coat over his steel-blue Izmailovsky tunic. But where his brother’s cheek was marred with a scar, there rose but a darkened shadow of yesterday’s shave.

“Hear me out, Your Highness,” Grigory implored in a loud voice, his eyes alight. “I am no stranger. Varvara Nikolayevna here can vouch for me.”

I nodded. “A friend,” I told Catherine. “Lieutenant Orlov and his brothers have been most kind to me after Egor’s death.”

“Leave us, then, Varenka,” Catherine ordered. Amused curiosity brought a sheen of color to her cheeks. She tossed her head and smiled.

I stepped aside.

I could see Grigory Orlov from where I retreated, a giant on his knees, clasping Catherine’s hand. Rising, bending his head to hear her out, shaking his head, repeating his plea.

The words that reached me were broken fragments: … 
your husband … not worthy … If you don’t, we will
.

I looked around but saw only a bird skittering in and out of a hedge, a worm writhing in its beak. I plucked a fresh leaf from the hedge and tore it into tiny pieces. It left a scent of musk on my skin.

When Catherine called me back to her side, there was no trace of Lieutenant Grigory Orlov of the Izmailovsky Guards, only a hollow in the gravel path where he had knelt.

“If anyone asks,” Catherine told me, “a hero of the Battle of Zorndorf wanted to pay his respects.”

The rumors swirled, less and less cautious, less and less hushed. Who will be Elizabeth’s successor—Peter or his son, Paul? Will Catherine rule with Peter? Or will she be made Regent for her young son?

As the Empress of Russia sickened, the Shuvalovs and the Vorontzovs closed ranks and threw their support behind Peter. At functions that called for his wife’s presence,
Das Fräulein
began showing up at her lover’s side. Catherine ignored these slights, until the much-awaited premiere at the Russian Theater when Peter announced that there was no room for her in his carriage. “You can go tomorrow,” he told his wife, relenting only when the Grand Duchess threatened to walk.

In the imperial sickroom, when at the Empress’s request I brought Darya to visit her, the ladies-in-waiting eyed me with open hatred. “That sneaky bookbinder’s daughter,” I heard Countess Shuvalova mutter, “and her brat.”

“Why doesn’t she like me, Maman?” Darenka whispered to me, when the Countess had swept by us, her wide skirts rustling, her bejeweled hand pushing my daughter out of her way.

“I’ll tell you when you grow up.”

“Why not now?” I felt Darya’s fingers tighten on mine.

I knew she was not convinced when I explained that only then would she understand.

No spy can afford to ignore a mask of forced indifference, a moment of pensive silence where a simple answer would suffice. I saw it all: the infinitesimal hesitation when Catherine mentioned Grigory Orlov’s name, that instant when she looked out the window and waved at someone, her fingers covering a smile.

“A valiant soldier and a true friend. But unlike his younger brother, he has been reckless,” I warned the Grand Duchess. I mentioned the abandoned mistress, the debts Alexei had to pay.

“We’ve all been reckless at times, Varenka,” Catherine said, and smiled.

Rumors flew. Grigory had won a thousand rubles at faro. He’d spent it all in one evening, buying vodka for anyone willing to drink to the Grand Duchess’s health. He’d sworn that she was surrounded by miserable scoundrels, rouges and milksops, half-men who would fall over if he pushed them with his little finger, tremble if he stomped his foot.

“Why is Uncle Grigory always in such a hurry when he comes to see us?” Darya asked me when Lieutenant Orlov cast impatient glances at the clock.

Some faces do not need to be studied
, I thought. They speak with each pore of the skin. Their vocabulary is simple; their blunt sentences form indisputable conclusions: Act first, think later. Strength forces submission, assures power. Lust demands the sweetness of release.

“One of the Orlovs?” Princess Dashkova shook her head, scowling. “Vulgar boors who forget their place, Your Highness.”

I saw Catherine nod her agreement.

Princess Dashkova had openly declared herself to be on Catherine’s side. “You are already my Empress,” she had said.

But power does not come from public declarations. It has to be wrenched out of the hands of people whose hearts are narrow and whose appetites for it are vast. Power needs the half-light of service corridors, the concealed movements of the hand.

It needs soldiers and spies, not figureheads.

In the back alleys of St. Petersburg, passions grew red-hot, fierce as bears that hurled the dogs against the walls, smashing their limbs and skulls. The guards were picking fights with the Holsteiners. Again and again, this or that officer asked aloud where the Crown Prince was when Russian heroes had died on the battlefields.

At the temporary palace, Catherine’s rooms had always been far from the Grand Duke’s, but now—with the constant chaos of room swaps that followed every move to the new quarters—it was even easier for her to stay out of sight. Whole sections of the service corridors, boarded off, needed but a little tinkering to create secret pathways. In rooms rotting with mildew, with rats chasing one another along the walls, disappearing under the floorboards, Catherine’s visitors could come and go as they pleased.

In Catherine’s bedroom, I smelled the scents of wet leather and soldier’s sweat.

“Please, Varenka,” Catherine murmured. “Just make sure no one knows.” On her face I saw that half-smile of anticipation, that impatience with anything that slowed her down.

I did what a friend would. I changed the stained sheets before the maids could see them. I opened the windows to let the fresh air sweep away the musky odor of her lover’s sweat. I wiped the muddy traces of his boots. I picked up whatever he had carelessly left behind: a belt, a brass button, a spur.

“Does Grigory at least tell you that he is ready to die for you?” I asked Catherine, laughingly. “Or maybe even give up gambling?”

There it was, always, a blush of pleasure on her cheeks.

“So you approve of recklessness, after all?” she would tease.

Stanislav was in Warsaw. Sir Charles lay buried in his English grave. Twenty years ago, Elizabeth had been made Empress by the Palace Guards who carried her in their arms to the throne of Russia.

Recklessness served the guards well. Weren’t they called “the makers of the Tsars”?

Two of the Orlov brothers held all the regiments in their hands.

In the Imperial Bedroom of the new Winter Palace the windows were never covered. The Empress wished to see the barges floating down the Neva, the golden spires of the Petropavlovsky Fortress, the squared tower of the Kunstkamera on Vasilevsky Island.

“What are they doing now?” she asked querulously, every time she heard the hammering or sawing. Sent to inquire, the maids came running back with accounts of chandeliers hung in the Grand Ballroom, marble balustrades fitted along the landings, or sculptures rolled through the corridors to their final destination.

“Show me,” Elizabeth demanded.

Four footmen carried her chair. Big, strong men in powdered wigs, with faces that did not smile or grimace, placed the poles of the chair on their shoulders and took the Empress through the wide new corridors of marble and intricate mosaics to admire yet another chamber, glittering like the inside of a jewelry box.

In the Imperial Bedroom, visitors crowded around the Empress, on footstools, ottomans, armchairs, bringing gifts and gossip. Ivan Shuvalov sat beside the Empress, on the bed; Count Razumovsky took the spot at her feet. Both made sure they did not touch her arms or legs, scarred from frequent bleedings. Catherine came with accounts of her visits to the nursery: Paul had grown another inch. She’d found him sprawled on the floor, waving his wooden sword. “Do I look fearless?” he’d wanted to know.

Only the Grand Duke Peter stood by awkward and silent, his fingers nervously playing with the hem of his sleeve. In the taverns of St. Petersburg, his Holsteiners called the Russian army a mockery. The serf soldiers are cowards at heart, they said, and only their fear of the knout forces them to fight. In return, the guards mocked the Holsteiners’ tricorne hats. And the Crown Prince of Russia, they grumbled, resembled Frederick of Prussia like an orangutan resembled a man.

“Why this long face, Peter?” Elizabeth asked. “Can’t you at least pretend that you enjoy my company?”

He never knew what to say. His protests were lame and brittle, easy fodder for her sneers.

“I can … I mean, I don’t pretend …”

“Don’t fidget, then. Stand straight. Stop staring at me with that stupid grin on your face.”

When Count Panin—the Grand Duke Paul’s official Governor—brought his charge for his daily visit, Elizabeth made her voice cheerful. She always had a surprise for
the child
, a Siberian apple, a toy, a bird on a string. She asked him to recite his lessons, show her his drawings. Sometimes she’d tell him to play quietly, for she wished to talk to Count Panin.

I didn’t know what they talked about. The new Imperial Bedroom was big, and they always kept their voices low. Rumors said that the Empress had changed her last will, naming Paul her successor. Some whispered that she had designated Peter to be his son’s Regent; others insisted that she had chosen Catherine.

No one dared ask her. No one dared speak of death.

I did not believe the rumors. In Elizabeth’s eyes I saw hesitation, not resolve. A child needed to grow up first. One baby Tsar in the Schlüsselburg Fortress was enough; she didn’t wish for another.

Her calculations were simple. Peter she thought a fool of no use to anyone. Paul she loved with all her heart. She didn’t care much for the Grand Duchess, but Paul needed her help.

Paul was the only reason why Elizabeth didn’t want Catherine destroyed.

“Help me, Varenka,” Catherine said in the autumn of 1761, placing her hand on her belly. “I need you now more than ever.”

She was carrying Grigory Orlov’s child.

There had been no bleeding for a month. She woke up feeling ill, just as she had with Paul and Anna. But this time Peter would not believe this child might be his. Since Stanislav’s departure,
Das Fräulein
had made certain the Grand Duke had not been to his wife’s bedroom even once. Countess Vorontzova didn’t intend to be an imperial mistress forever.

To me, Catherine didn’t have to spell out the dangers. She had already caught a wardrobe maid going over her bedsheets. No tongue of the Shuvalovs could be allowed to guess her secret, give the Grand Duke a reason to disgrace her.

I didn’t curse Grigory Orlov’s carelessness, his cheerful conviction that
his
Catherine,
his
Katinka, could find a way out from all difficulties. But there could be no
révolution de palais
before Catherine’s child was delivered. Once again, the future hung perilously on secrets. On a swelling belly and the midwife’s skills.

I smoothed Catherine’s black hair. I wiped tears from her cheeks. I promised I would protect her. I kept my word.

Every month, with the help of two trusted maids, I dipped her cloths in fresh blood, so that the Shuvalovs’ spies would think she was having her menses. I washed away the evidence of morning sickness, helped her cover her growing belly beneath folds of cambric petticoats. I smuggled pickles and dark bread to her bedroom at night, tightened the folds of her dressing gown to hide the rounding of her pregnant belly and the silvery sheen of her swollen breasts.

I sent to the Oranienbaum greenhouses for fresh flowers the maids arranged in a vase by Catherine’s bed. Fragrant blooms to dampen a whiff of sulfur in the air that made her queasy. Since the last fumigation, her bed curtains were finally free of bugs.