It was the fourth year of Anna’s reign. Had Russia changed, or had I? Possibly both of us: in St Petersburg, Alexis gave me the calm and the strength not only to look, but to see, as if for the first time ever: ‘Make her become who she is.’ What sort of country was I to inherit?
The question was almost as dangerous as the answer was distressing.
My return to St Petersburg started inauspiciously. At a ball shortly after our arrival, Anna set the sky alight with a glorious firework display. People were often injured or maimed by wayward rockets, but this time one crashed through the palace windows, causing shards to fly, gashing my forehead deep above my right eye. The pain was like a lightning bolt; a gush of blood blinded me. I tumbled and fell; it was de Biron who caught me and cleaned my face.
Alexis kissed the bandage that Lestocq had placed on my forehead. ‘It doesn’t mar your beauty. Nothing ever could, even if you live to be a hundred.’ Yet I read in his eyes that he, too, was shocked.
The incident was the worst possible omen. Julie von Mengden had said loudly for anyone to hear, ‘This can mean only one thing. Bloodshed for Russia! Beware of the Tsarevna Elizabeth!’
Her words rang true, though unwittingly so. A letter from Mr Rondeau, the British envoy, was intercepted by the secret police. It read, ‘The Masquerade is at the door and the court’s talk is only about amusement at a time when the common people have tears in their eyes. We are on the eve of some sad extremity; the misery increases from day to day… ’ Feofan read it to me, once the cut to my forehead had healed into a neat and, as Alexis said, charming little scar in the shape of a half moon. We spent a couple of days out at Feofan’s dacha as the city’s summer heat was stifling. The ride to the house in Nadykino – a large estate lying between Peterhof and Menshikov’s Oranienbaum – was an insight into all of Russia’s woes and it broke my heart. No animals were to be seen in the villages or fields, neither mice nor rats, and no cats, dogs or horses, let alone proper livestock. The people were skin and bone, lying listlessly in the shade of their miserable izby. Earlier in the year, an unusually strong spring sun had drained what floods the ottepel had brought, and a couple of months later, the scorching heat set the corn in the fields alight, kindling walls of fire and blinding people with smoke, rendering them unable to fight the flames. A famine more devastating than any that had scourged my country throughout her history followed. Travellers only moved in groups for fear of ending up in a stew. Children were sold by the roadside. People made it to Moscow with the last of their strength, dropping dead in the streets, attracting wolves and bears to come into the city and feast on the corpses. More than 100,000 people had starved to death already.
‘Does the Tsarina do nothing about this?’ I asked, sitting at Feofan’s table.
He cast a warning glance over to the footman. ‘The Secret Office of Investigation has slit noses, torn out tongues and knouted people senseless for lesser questions.’
‘Who should ask if not I?’ I countered. Alexis gave a proud smile.
Feofan sighed. ‘She tries. She recognises the problems but fails to follow through and solve them. She ordered both Church and court to allow their serfs access to streams and to provide them with seeds. In vain. Her cousin Saltykov was to distribute bread to beggars; all five thousand loaves ended up in the bellies of noble families.’ He shook his head. ‘Russia’s enemies are our own hesitation, our laziness, inefficiency and dishonesty.’
‘What will come of this?’ I asked, chasing away the memory of Julie’s remark – Bloodshed for Russia! – while the servant ladled chilled borscht into my bowl of beautiful Meissen porcelain. The ruby-coloured soup shone like blood through the delicate rim. My stomach churned.
‘Good intentions are in vain if nobody sees them through. Candles that were to be handed out to inmates in prisons, now light de Biron’s riding school instead, all night long,’ Feofan said, sounding short of breath. ‘Listen to this extract from a letter sent home by the Prussian envoy. “Discontentment could not be any greater, but there is no rebel leader. This humble nation is so accustomed to slavery, and fear is so great: nothing will happen during this Tsarina’s lifetime, whose rule can be likened to that of Ivan the Terrible.”’ He rummaged in his pocket. ‘I have lost the letter from the Spanish envoy, but I know his words by heart. “Everything here is ripe for revolution. The revenues of the Crown lands have fallen, trade is languishing, the exchange rate is sinking steadily—”’
‘This is awful! What can be done to change things?’
‘Very little. We have to wait and see. When, for example, did you last hear anything good about the war?’
I looked up, surprised. ‘Which war?’
‘Exactly. Russia is now fully involved in the Polish War of Succession, championing the useless Elector of Saxony. Yet the fighting might as well be going on in the Americas instead of in Poland, right next door as it is. When there are victories to report, parades are held and church bells rung. Silence buries what lies in between. Be assured that the ordinary Russian in a far-flung mir knows nothing of the terrible suffering of our soldiers.’
I shifted uncomfortably. This talk was treason. Feofan had achieved everything he could expect to and might now be ready to go. I and Russia, though, still had so much to live for and so I weighed my words carefully. ‘What is happening? I heard nothing when I visited the barracks yesterday.’ I tried to sound informed: politics and statesmanship were a perpetual dance in which I must demonstrate my skills.
‘Well done. Keep the regiments close, that is what I always say. But what would your father have made of a conflict which cost millions of roubles and almost a hundred thousand young soldiers’ lives, without gaining Russia an arshin of ground? Anna’s forces were slaughtered like cattle. Soon Russia will have no sons left. The big estates are deserted, the nobility impoverished.’
‘Can things get worse?’
‘My dear, things can always get worse.’ Feofan looked up expectantly as his servants brought in a whole suckling pig, its crackling all shiny and dripping, served with kale, stewed apples and buckwheat pancakes. His gnarled fingers, their skin parched from hours spent in his library, enclosed mine. ‘Let us pray, Lizenka.’
Things could always get worse: through treachery, threat and the disbursement of bribes, the former groom Ernst Biren, styled Count de Biron of the Russian Empire at Anna Ivanovna’s accession, was legally elected Duke of Courland. He was then dubbed His Royal Highness, a Sovereign Prince, taking up residence in the Winter Palace adjacent to Anna’s rooms. His household and plate impressed even Lestocq, who tended to view our kitchens as being provincial and barbaric. The Countess henceforward stayed seated in the Tsarina’s presence, just as Christine and I would, and her diamonds made even Anna Ivanovna raise her eyebrows. Their carriage was drawn by eight raven-coloured horses and accompanied by twenty-four footmen, eight running pageboys and four crude Cossack heyducks as guards. Nobody in the history of Russia had ever been so hated as de Biron had become; wherever his cavalcade appeared, people had to be whipped into cheering. The Bironyshkchina, the German Yoke, weighed heavier than ever on Russia’s shoulders; shoulders that were beginning to stoop.
Harrowing fires devastated Russia’s capitals old and new. In June, half of Moscow had burned to the ground, including the Mint and the Arsenal, which furnished the army with cloth, weapons, ammunition and a huge amount of ready money. Thirty thousand dwellings were reduced to ashes, their inhabitants burned as on a gigantic pyre. A month later, St Petersburg was aflame: the fire consumed around a thousand houses and palaces, amongst them my own in which I had once lived with Aunt Pasha and Anoushka. The English envoy’s lady, Mrs Rondeau, had all her furniture dragged out of her flaming house; most of it was damaged beyond repair, so she used it for firewood in her makeshift new quarters.
De Biron, the new Duke of Courland, seemed oblivious to all this, too busy inaugurating his riding school on Nevsky Prospect, a miracle of gilded façades and glittering windows. Nobody in Russia lived as splendidly as his horses did. Each of the two dozen finest thoroughbreds occupied a stall identified with the animal’s haughty name engraved on a solid gold plate; the stone slabs of the ground floor were imported from Solnhofen in Bavaria. Observation galleries were placed at first and second floors, their stucco walls adorned with paintings of the horses by the finest European masters. An entire ministry was created to look after de Biron’s brood mares and stallions. Anyone wishing to watch the Tsarina exercise her horses on Mondays had to wear a special uniform: a yellow buffalo jerkin embroidered in silver galloon, with a blue vest and trimmings to match.
It was the age of disasters. As fires ravaged the cities, I suffered an unspeakable loss, the depth of which I could barely describe – not even to Alexis. Feofan Prokopovich was out for a walk one day after lunch when his heart failed him. He was felled like a tree, dying within seconds in his garden, his soul rising towards Russia’s endless sky. His death left me reeling. I could never do his memory justice. At least his funeral honoured this unique man: after the rites, I invited the officers of the Russian regiments for a drink; Lestocq footed the bill. The soldiers emptied the innkeeper’s cellar and then danced the polka on the empty tables, falling off, shouting, crying with pain and laughter. Swaying, they used the empty barrels for target practice, the bullets making them spin and somersault. It was the night of the first heavy snowfall; the officers and I climbed up on the icy roof, slid down it and fell headfirst into the drifts below. I laughed so much, my cheeks and sides hurt. Feofan would have approved. Yet his death caused me a physical sense of loss. He had been the last living link to my past and his wisdom had been endless. I would not forget the words he had read to me: Nothing will happen during this Tsarina’s lifetime. What about the next Tsarina then? I wondered.
Another of Feofan’s wise words gave me solace: I see a lot of your father, Peter the Great, in you. If Russia should ask for me, I had my answer at the ready.
Shortly before Yuletide, when Anna Ivanovna was about to enter the eighth year of her reign, she summoned me to a private audience.