‘You don’t need money,’ Augustus consoled me as I paced my rooms, raging and wringing my hands, stamping my feet and kicking furniture about. If only that toppled chair or skidding footstool were Menshikov! Evening fell. Outside, the Neva’s banks took on a silver hue, allowing the glossy day to blend into a White Night. I felt immune from the beauty of the scene, a thought that only increased my pain. I should take it all in before I was forced to leave it forever.
‘No? Do you have any money then?’ I asked, hands on hips.
‘No,’ he admitted, looking tired. ‘To be honest, I was rather looking forward to acquiring your dowry before I met you. Now, I would take you without a shred of clothing on your body. Actually, I’d especially take you without a shred of clothing on your body.’
I had to laugh. Augustus would happily have lived as a sailor, free and poor. Life with him would be good – he was always able to soothe my worries, a priceless gift. He kissed my fingertips, his eyes shiny and cheeks flushed. As I caressed his thick, dark auburn hair, his forehead felt clammy. No wonder: he was as excited as I was. In a couple of days’ time our engagement was to be announced formally together with Petrushka’s. Menshikov had presented this as a mark of Imperial favour since my parents’ deaths and my nephew’s accession had reduced me in importance and rank. It seemed I should be grateful to be included in the pomp and splendour of other people’s celebrations. A reception, banquet and ball were planned, and the palace was already buzzing with excitement.
‘Soon we shall be engaged. On that day, my new life begins,’ I said, forcing back tears. ‘Nothing else counts. I shall not allow Menshikov to spoil this moment. We will be happy together.’
‘It is the day I was born for,’ Augustus said.
I pushed back the two leather strips he wore around his wrist – beneath, all around the hidden star tattoo, the skin looked red and angry, as if a slight rash were breaking out. I tenderly kissed the tattoo. ‘What is this?’ I asked then, touching the slight bumps and pimples on his skin.
‘Just a bit of an irritation,’ he said, pulling his sleeve back down. ‘Listen. I have learned a Russian love song, just for you.’ I listened while he began: ‘Shine, shine my star’. He sang out of tune, butchering the famously romantic lyrics, but that made me smile once more. When he stopped, he shivered and tightened his silk jabot around his throat, saying: ‘I think I might be getting a sore throat.’
I kissed him. ‘As long as you can speak your vows.’
I had last worn my pink and silver dress and the matching diamond parure at Anoushka’s wedding, I remembered, as I sat and waited for Augustus two days later: somehow, they had escaped Menshikov’s purge of my belongings. Soon Augustus and I would step into the Winter Palace’s Great Hall for the festivities to begin and our engagement to be announced. This might be the last time I should appear at court as a Tsarevna; for his sake I wanted to be the most beautiful woman present. My hair was twisted in a braided crown on my head. Once engaged, I must not wear it loose as it might entice other men.
While waiting, I thought of everything that had led to this moment. In hindsight, the last two years had been like being pulled along by a raging river, struggling to stay afloat and not to sink and drown. I did not notice the time pass. Suddenly, though, morning had turned to noon: clouds skimmed through the sky and swallows darted about. The sounds of St Petersburg reached my ears: the guard changing, cartwheels on cobblestones, pie-sellers touting their wares, wind catching in sails – making the canvas crack like a whiplash, seagulls crying, horses neighing, children calling.
Augustus was late. I did not wish to embarrass myself by sending for him, so I sat and waited a bit longer. My monkeys and parrots shrieked and squawked as my ladies-in-waiting shuffled and whispered in agitation. Had I, the Tsarevna Elizabeth, been rejected by my fiancé? Their eyes sought me out, gazes quickly averted when I looked up.
I could read their thoughts.
Enough. I got to my feet at a knock on the door.
A lady-in-waiting opened it and stepped back. ‘Tsarevna,’ she started to say, sounding unsure.
On the threshold stood a Holstein soldier, looking flushed from his run across the palace. ‘Prince Augustus’ chamberlain has sent me. Come immediately, Tsarevna, please!’
I left my rooms calmly, head held high. Once the door had closed behind me, however, I kicked off my shoes to run, gathering my skirts, flying down the almost empty corridors of the Winter Palace, my hair coming undone. Silence reigned. Why had the soldier made himself scarce and not escorted me back? Few courtiers were out; only a handful of guards manned the many doors and staircases: after the long years of relentless service under my father’s watchful eye, indolence ruled.
Even at Augustus’ door, his Holstein guard was nowhere to be seen. I hesitated: in the antechamber, the curtains were drawn and a man sat slumped on a low armchair. At the sight of me, he fell to his knees: it was Augustus’ chamberlain, the Dachshund. ‘Thank God you came, Tsarevna!’ he gasped. ‘I dare not stay.’ He pushed past me and out of the door. As he fled, the tails of his coat flying, his metal-capped shoes struck the marble floor, sounding like shots.
I turned back towards the inner room. A rasping sound came from the bedchamber that lay beyond, like the pained breathing of a suffering animal. ‘Augustus?’ I asked, my voice unsteady. No answer but a low moan from next door. My heart pounding, I stepped into the small corridor linking the rooms. An unbearable stench hit me, worse than anything I could imagine. With every step I took, the air thickened. I covered my mouth and nose with my lower arm, sucking in my gown’s rosewater scent. Another low, pained moan repelled me as much as it forced me onwards: Augustus needed me, whatever had happened here.
I halted on the threshold. The bedroom was dark, curtains drawn. Yet I saw that the walls, rugs and bedlinen were horribly stained. Augustus lay slumped like a rag doll on his bed. At the sound of me, he turned his head, grimacing in pain, but his ashen face lighting up. He was too weak to rise; as his cracked lips tried to smile, his eyes stayed dull. Their whites were sickeningly yellow.
‘Shhh. Don’t move.’ I rushed forward, placing my fingertips on his mouth. His breath scalded me as he whispered, ‘I feel so hot, Lizenka.’ I hurried to pull the curtains back and opened the windows to let in the May breeze. The Neva below glittered in the bright light and the trees on the embankment burst with blossom. Such beauty felt like an insult.
‘Help me, I want to see… ’ He tried to rise but his arms buckled. I hastened to catch him, stumbling under his weight. He rolled off the bed and together we tumbled to the floor. He gasped with pain. His nightshirt slipped and I suppressed a scream: his whole body was now covered in a deadly rash, angry red spots that combined here and there in raised, knotted pustules. It was monstrous.
‘Don’t look at me,’ Augustus sobbed. ‘And do not touch me, Lizenka. We both know what this is.’ He clawed at his sheets, struggling in vain to get back to bed. I stayed on the floor, all the strength seeping out of me, and then he, too, collapsed next to me, leaning against his bed, his head lolling and his legs long and bare.
‘Not touch you – never!’ I tore down the soiled sheets to cover him. ‘You mustn’t be cold,’ I sobbed, choking and blind with tears, trying not to think of what lay ahead as I rested my head on his terribly bony shoulder. His illness had sucked him dry, leaving him brittle and parched. ‘I feel so dizzy. Today you are to be mine. Today we are to be engaged.’ He sighed, exhausted.
‘Yes, my love,’ I wept. ‘We will be.’ I kissed his burning forehead, and he gave a shadow of the smile that had won my heart just months ago, while we stood waist-deep in the Baltic Sea. Yet his eyes reflected bottomless sorrow and his bloodless lips were pale compared to the rash spreading over his face. He coughed, cramping up, before violently vomiting yellow bile all over my finery. I shrank back while he doubled over, made breathless by stabbing pains to his back and abdomen. I held his head steady until he could breathe again. Together we wrestled him back into bed. ‘Close the window. I am so cold!’ he pleaded, shivering with fever and shielding his eyes against the spring sunshine. ‘I can’t bear the light. The rays stab me—’
‘Let me get Lestocq. He will treat you.’ I choked back tears and reached out to caress the sweaty curls that stuck to his temples.
Augustus recoiled. His eyes were wild. ‘You mustn’t catch this … ’
I sobbed and hurried out to summon Lestocq, leaving Augustus to the twilight of his room.
The chamberlain had returned but cowered in the antechamber. He would be flogged later for his cowardice but now I needed him. ‘Get me fresh linen, well starched and scented. Send for hot water. Have camphor burned to clean the air… or I’ll have your skin for a rug!’
He returned, arms laden with all I had ordered, his face twisted by fear and disgust. ‘Leave. I’ll do it,’ I said, setting alight the dried bundle of herbs in the warming-pans, their smouldering cleansing the air. As I struggled to change the linen, Lestocq arrived. He pulled me away as soon as he saw Augustus. ‘God in Heaven! Move away, Tsarevna. It’s the smallpox.’
We both know what this is. The smallpox: merry at dawn, buried by dusk.
I shook my head like a child, wiping away snot and tears with my sleeve. ‘No. I will not leave him alone.’
‘Let me do what I can,’ Lestocq offered, and bled Augustus by puncturing his forearms and neck. The wounds looked like snake bites; blood seeped slowly out of his tortured body, dark and thick. Augustus shrank like a goatskin flask emptying and flattening. How could ‘red’ and ‘beautiful’ share a single word in our language: krazny? The rash gained force all over his body. ‘Don’t scratch,’ I pleaded, but he was crazed by the urge, clawing the pustules open, their poisonous mix of blood and pus staining everything, including me.
‘It will not be long,’ Lestocq admitted defeatedly.
Could I contemplate a lifetime spent without Augustus? ‘You go,’ I said, blinded by tears. ‘I stay until the end.’
‘I will call a priest,’ Lestocq offered and left.
The priest came and went, taking the patient’s delirious whispers for Confession. As Augustus’ fingers slackened in mine, I murmured to him, reminding him of our sun-filled, happy days in Peterhof. Finally, all that was left was to pray, folding my hands over his, caressing the small tattoo on his wrist. ‘Shine, shine, my star’, I tried to hum – ‘Gori, gori, moya Zvezda’ – yet choked on the lyrics. The White Night drained the colour from the day. The city did not sleep, merely changed pace; a night without darkness signified the madness my life had become. Augustus lay still, his breathing laboured. I cooled his forehead with a moist cloth. Finally, I too fell asleep, exhausted.
When I woke, my neck was stiff and my tongue rasped in my dry mouth. The room was blue with a cool dawn light. Augustus’ fingers lay slack in mine. As I shifted the leather strings on his bony wrist to kiss the star tattoo one last time, his skin was cold beneath my lips. The very day after the one intended to mark our engagement, my warm, funny, lively, principled and handsome Augustus was dead. The silence made my ears ring. I crawled to the window and opened it as the sun set the dawn alight. On the square outside the Winter Palace the morning breeze blew clean the dandelion clocks that sprouted between the cobblestones. Their stalks stood lonely and bare.
I dropped to the floor and the world closed in on me, dark and silent.