What in the two worlds is she doing?
Rosa Kovalenka has taken my raven and is heading for precisely the place I don’t want her to go!
I pace and I curse, and Totchka draws back from me, frightened. Why is Rosa doing this? Doesn’t she know she is mine to control? My bogatyra, the heroine of my story. I put her on this journey, I dressed her in red, I furnished her with the secret weapons. Foolish, foolish girl.
Or am I a fool? An old fool, a desperate fool, a weak fool?
Totchka is alarmed. I’ve told her to play with her seashells outside, but she prefers to sit on her bed with her dolls, eyes turning up to me repeatedly, checking that I am not going to break the dishes and bite the table. I must collect myself. I must finally tell you why the Snow Witch can’t have the Golden Bear. I have told you the rest of my story, there’s no use in keeping the last from you.
You knew, I suppose, that it was me? That “Secret Ambassador” was one of my many appellations? You live long enough, you gather more names, as though identities proliferate the way memories do. It was I who negotiated with Olga, with Mokosha, with Sofya and Aleksandr. It was I who worked so hard for Skazki, to keep us attached to Mir by blood. The demons and spirits were too stupid, the old gods were too lazy. I alone, deathless wanderer, was suited for the task.
After Aleksandr’s hasty half-promises, I resolved on spending more time in Mir, but away from court. The noble classes, after all, were a fraction of the population. I had to accept that I had done all I could in keeping Mokosha’s blood on the throne, and now my real work was out among the people, encouraging them to pick up their old ways. I acknowledged, too, that Christ’s religion was never going to leave Russia, but I had noticed how often the pagan and the Christian sat easily side by side in rural practices. A wolf-eyed sorcerer from Skazki offered little in the way of persuasion for Mir people, but a holy fool, who preached salvation along with superstition, did.
I first settled in the Tobolsk region, where I met a woman who needed a father for her three small children. I took her dead husband’s name for convenience. It was Grigory Efamovich Rasputin.
I loved the peasant way of life. I loved its simplicity and its carnal nature. I reconnected with my baseness out there. I plugged as many women as would have me, I ate and drank to excess, I rolled in muddy puddles and worshipped Mother Moist Earth with my prick. When I grew bored with my new family, I began to wander in my high-cut peasant boots, with my loose shirt and long black coat, carrying a crooked staff. I wandered for years, and I met many good Mir folk, and I returned to them their old superstitions. I even spent time with Church hierarchs, learning as much as I could about this earthly religion and finding areas of doctrine which overlapped into mysticism, so I could later exploit them. I used my magic for miracles, for healing and enchantments, and tales of my passing reverberated around the countryside.
Word of my powers travelled far, and finally made it back to St Petersburg, and to the Tsar Nikolai.
I was not unaware of his family, of course. I still had my magic mirror to watch them. In the entire time that Mokosha’s blood was in Mir, and despite the intermarriages with other countries, that blood never flowed outside of Russia. It couldn’t bear to leave its Mother. All I needed was a little Mokosha, warm in a beating Mir heart, to keep the worlds from slipping apart permanently. At least Aleksandr’s promise had ensured that.
Two of Nikolai’s children had it: the youngest daughter, Anastasia, and Aleksei, the little boy. Aleksei had inherited something else in his blood: it wouldn’t clot properly. Little accidents became huge catastrophes. The boy was terribly ill, seemed doomed to an early grave.
Still, I did not force my hand. This time, I wanted to come to court as an invited guest, not as a sinister intruder.
When I came to St Petersburg, it was at the behest of one of the Tsaritsa’s closest friends, Anya Vyrubova. Anya was interested in mysticism, in prophets, mesmerists, saints, clairvoyants, rogues and madmen. She was a pretty moon-faced woman, doe-eyed and sweetly smiling, although there was something vain and vacant about her. She found for me a little room, and made sure I wanted for nothing. I was comfortable there for a time.
St Petersburg was a thriving modern city. Motor cars shared the bridges with horses and carts; electric street lamps lit the roads radiating out from the admiralty; the finest homes always had a telephone. Anya paid me handsomely for a few magic tricks, and from there my reputation spread. I was besieged by supplicants: they wanted miracles, blessings, prophecies. Magic is physically demanding and, at first, I would lie exhausted on a shelf of the bathhouse after a night’s work.
Then I grew canny. I gave very few of them what they really wanted. They were mostly happy to be divested of their money in return for some mumbling incantations and vague platitudes about God.
Those who couldn’t pay in money paid in other ways. Sweets, alcohol, clocks, flowers, fish, anything. Some women, bored with their upper-class lives and drawn to my raw, bestial nature, paid with their bodies happily. Repeatedly.
I was humping one such woman, a baroness with stout ankles, on my creaking iron bed, when Anya burst into the room. She was flushed and her eyes sparkled. Without apology, she said, “Grigory! Exciting news! The Tsaritsa has asked to meet you!”
Anya and I were received in the Formal Reception Room of the palace at Tsarskoe Selo and told to wait. Anya sat on an upholstered French chair, while I circled the gold parquet floor. Seven huge windows invited in broad streams of sunlight. The walls, overlaid with white marble, seemed to glow. I paused in my pacing, gazing out the window over Aleksander Park. It was only October, but a light snow had fallen the previous night. Yellow leaves loosened and dived in the breeze, and with the sun glinting on the snow the effect was one of silvers and golds, as though the park was an extension of the extravagant grandeur inside.
“No need to be nervous, Grigory,” Anya said. I hadn’t realised she had come to stand at my side.
“I’m not nervous,” I said to her with a smile. “I’m excited.”
The door flew open, then thudded closed behind an imposing woman. Anya hurried to her side, offering her a kiss. “My dear Sunny,” she said. “I have brought the holy man to you.”
The woman turned to me. Her strong German face was beautiful, her blue eyes imperious, her red-gold hair gleamed in the sunshine. This was the Tsaritsa, Alix of Hesse-Darmstadt. The nickname “Sunny” had never suited anyone less. I never saw her brow without rainclouds upon it. I never saw her hands still, or her feet in one place. Even on this, our first meeting, I could sense a great disquiet in her. It wasn’t my way to humble myself before these people, and I sensed anyway that I would make inroads with this woman if I avoided the simpering servility which kept all others at a distance from her. I walked forward, seized her elbows and enfolded her into an embrace.
“Mama,” I said, “how you must have suffered with your little boy.”
Sunny took a step back from me, alarmed but not angry. “Yes, I have. But how could you know?”
“I haven’t told him anything,” Anya interjected quickly.
“Your son,” I said, “he suffers a bleeding disease.”
Sunny pressed her hand to her mouth. “That is impossible for you to know. We have kept it secret from all but our closest circle.”
“It is true though,” I said.
Sunny lowered herself into a chair, her elbow resting on the ebony table beside her. “How can he know that?” she mumbled. “Anya, are you sure you didn’t tell him?”
“I said nothing of Aleksei to him,” Anya said, her round eyes agog. “I am as amazed as you.”
I knelt in front of her, boldly taking her hands. “I know more than that, Mama,” I said. “I know the trouble on your heart is guilt, that you believe Aleksei’s illness is your fault. The bleeding is in your family, isn’t it?”
Sunny’s hand went to her breast, and she began to breathe rapidly.
“But I will tell you this now. The child will outgrow his illness. By the time he is a man, he will be well.”
Sunny met my gaze, and her eyes were damp and her lips were trembling. “How can you say that will be so?”
I rose, smoothing my tangled hair. A few crumbs dropped out on the shoulder of my rough shirt. “I will make it so. If you will allow me to help you.” I returned to the window, letting my promise sink in. From the corner of my eye, I could see Anya urging the Tsaritsa to stand, to approach me. I waited, and she came.
“My son,” she said, “has just learned to walk. He stumbles and falls often. It makes me mad with worry. As though blackbirds in my head are flapping to be free.” Here, she pressed her hand against her temple. “This morning, he hit his knee. It has already swollen hugely, and he has hardly stopped crying.”
“Then bring him to me,” I said, “and we shall see how it goes.”
Sunny hurried to the door, throwing it open and bustling out. From a distance, I could hear her bellowing, “Maria! Bring Aleksei at once!”
Anya fell to her knees and touched my hand. “Grigory, you are a prophet.”
“Stand up, Anya. We are old friends.”
“I feel humbled. I have always been your most ardent supporter, but I did not know your gifts were so far-ranging.”
I pulled her to her feet. “Now, now, Anya. Enough of that.”
Anya clutched at my fingers still, shaking her head. “Do you not see? If you can heal Aleksei, you will be the most powerful man in all of Russia.”
Precisely then, the scampering of feet rushed down the corridor towards us, and a little white dog raced into the room, with a little fair-haired girl in pursuit.
“Trushka, no!” she declared, hunting the dog to his hiding place under a table and firmly wagging her finger at him. “Bad dog.” Then she looked up, saw me, and her jaw dropped. “Oh, my!”
I was puzzled. I knew that this was the Grand Duchess Anastasia, all of four years old but already remarkable for her pretty, mischievous face. Why should she react to my presence with such surprise?
“What is it, little girl?” I asked.
The dog ran past her and back into the corridor. Anastasia glanced after him only briefly, turning her gaze back to me. “I dreamed of you last night, sir,” she said, “and now you are real.”
I smiled, hoping the gesture would diminish the oddness of my wolf-like eyes. “Was it a nice dream?”
She shook her head slowly. “I don’t think so. You were trying to steal my bear.”
“Your bear?”
“I’ll show you.”
She raced off and I turned to Anya, feigning amused puzzlement. It was not odd to me that Anastasia should dream of me and the Golden Bear, especially the night before my arrival. Her Skazki blood gave her many gifts that she would probably never recognise or use.
In a few moments she was back, panting and flushed, with the dog scurrying at her heels. She presented for my inspection the Golden Bear. I took it carefully from her.
“She’s very beautiful,” I said. “Where did you get her?”
“She belongs to my family, but I love her the most and so she stays in my room. Though Aleksei stole her the other day, but I just stole her right back.”
I was stroking the bear’s familiar belly when Sunny returned, stern-faced.
“Get that dog out of here! You imp, I’ve told you no dogs in the reception room.”
Anastasia collected the dog in her arms, and started, “But, Mama, this man—” Then she hushed when the nurse stole into the room with little Aleksei in her arms. The child was crying softly, hoarsely.
“I’ll go, Mama,” she said, leaving quickly and closing the door behind her.
I placed the bear on the table, and moved forward to lift Aleksei from the nurse’s arms. She shrank from me, frightened. The child, however, relaxed as soon as he was in my embrace. No magic there. Sunny and the nurse were nervy women, always anxious and over solicitous. With me, Aleksei merely felt that somebody strong and calm was in charge.
“Sit with me, my child,” I said, lowering myself to the floor with my legs stretched out in front of me. I laid Aleksei across my lap and peeled back the bandage around his swollen knee. The blood was collecting under the skin. Fortunately it was only a minor bump, but a major injury would easily result in the boy bleeding to death. I understood the Tsaritsa’s anxiety. It wasn’t just for herself: it was for her country. Aleksei’s death would leave Nikolai without a male heir.
I was still not sure what I would do, though I felt certain that somehow the sympathy of my Skazki nature, and this child’s Skazki blood, would provide the key. I placed my hands on the swelling, and Aleksei whimpered but didn’t flinch. Beneath my fingers, I could feel Mokosha’s blood, strong and magical. The Mir weakness, which Sunny had introduced into Aleksei’s body, was trying to drag it down.
The first thing I had to do was to ensure that the child wouldn’t die while I performed my magic. He was very young, and there was no telling what effect powerful magic might have on him. I hummed softly, rocking him back and forth, preparing to store his soul outside of his body to protect it from whatever physical demands I had to place on it to heal him. There were no dogs, ducks or rats nearby. Ordinarily, I would have preferred to send his soul into another warm being, but on this day, I decided to send it to the Golden Bear.
With a breath and a muttered incantation, the boy’s soul flew away, speared into the bear, and sat waiting to return. Aleksei still cried and whimpered, and I understood that an inanimate object like the bear could not hold a life completely within its dark confines, that the layer of the soul most closely linked to the physical had to stay behind in a warm body and continue to suffer. Suffering I could allow, but I would not allow this child to die.
I cupped the swelling on his knee with my palm, and closed my eyes and forced my mind down into the blood. Dark and red and moving around me like a powerful river. In it, I searched for Mokosha, for the familiar shadowy intensity of her magic; I pulled the shadows together, creating a tide, and with the tide, I pulled the blood back, out of the swelling, into his veins and heart. Below my hand, the lump began to shrink, Aleksei’s sobs eased and his little body drooped and cooled. I had gone too far; I let go. His breath caught on a hook. Mine too. Then he breathed again, and warmth returned to his skin. I pressed him against me and hummed his soul back into his body, and he was restored to himself. He sat up and looked around, palming tears from his face.
“Mama?” he said.
Sunny, trembling, collapsed onto the floor next to me, kissing my hands and calling me Father. In those five short minutes, I had taken her in thrall.
My dealings with the Tsaritsa, indeed with the whole family, continued for many years after that. Every time Aleksei injured himself, I was summoned. If I hadn’t heard from them in a long time, I would send some subtle magic through the air, and arrange a little mishap, a small crisis to keep them dependent on me. I took an apartment on Gorokhovaia Street, close to the train to Tsarskoe Selo. Sunny learned early to keep my visits secret, insisting that the children’s nurse greet me as though I was her special visitor. The little girls adored me, though Aleksei never quite warmed to me. Perhaps he associated me too closely with his times of pain and suffering. The Golden Bear became his favourite object, though Anastasia fought him for it fiercely. I think he loved it as a peaceful keep for his soul in healing times, as well as for the blood memory of his magical heritage.
Secrecy or not, word soon began to circulate that I was close to the Tsar and Tsaritsa. Some took it to mean that I was God’s own angel on earth, and they flocked to me for incantations and spells (though they called them prayers and prophecies), never leaving me alone in my little apartment for a moment. The opinions of some, however, were vastly lower. I had too much influence with the Tsar, they said. I was leading Russia into ruin, they said. My advice was being adopted over the advice of other, more qualified men, they said. Ah, what did I care what they said? They wanted what was best for Russia, standing at a narrow window of history which they hadn’t the prescience to see beyond. I wanted what was best for the two worlds of Mir and Skazki, for all time stretching away to forever’s edge.
I told him, and I told him, and I told him again. I said to Nikolai that he must not send Russia to the war. I feared something, something which I had started to feel but was beyond words. There were only two children left with Skazki blood…what if they should die?
He ignored my advice. How different things might have been had he listened to me.
When Nikolai came to me, when the Great War was already in full, terrible flight, it was late and I was sleeping. The doorbell rang and I ignored it, thinking it was another petitioner too stupid and self-absorbed to realise that even holy men sleep. When it rang again, I felt a prickle across my shoulders, a distinct feeling that I should go down and let this petitioner in.
I had been drinking heavily at the bathhouse before I’d come home to bed. Perhaps I was still drunk. The smell of cabbage and sheep’s cheese hung heavily in the rooms of my apartment. I went to the door in my nightshirt to find the Tsar on the other side. He was dressed in a dark coat, with a fur hat pulled down over his ears. Nikolai was a slight man, pale and with hooded eyes. He had arrived incognito.
“Yes, Father, what is it?” I said, drawing him inside and closing the door behind him.
“I need to speak with you, Grigory,” he replied.
“Then come upstairs and we’ll be comfortable.” I led him to the living room, and lit a dozen candles which cast shadows on the grimy walls. The electric lamp was not working, and had been junked onto my desk along with bent icons, copper coins and a dozen old apples. Alcohol had dulled my sense of dignity: I wallowed in my own filth.
Nikolai pulled out a cigarette and lit it on one of the candles, before sitting in the heavy oak chair I offered him. He crossed his right ankle over his left knee—there was something effeminate about the gesture—and blew a stream of smoke into the air. Shadows hung under his eyes, and his small white hands trembled almost imperceptibly.
He was silent for a long time, watching me with his sad gaze. Then, finally, he said, “Russia is seething.”
“What do you want from me?”
“I hear tales, and I don’t know whether to believe them.”
“Tales of me? Or tales of Russia’s anger?”
“The tales of Russia’s anger I know to believe. Human life has become too cheap, and yet Sunny still insists on fresh flowers every week brought by train from the Crimea. I can’t stop her. I can’t stop the tide that’s rising. If only we could win this damnable war.” He stopped, caught his breath. His lips twitched downwards, and I realised he was trying not to cry. “No, it’s the tales of you I have come to ask about.”
“Go on.”
“That you have known my family before. Impossibly, for you appear to be only a man of forty.”
I dipped my head and pinched the bridge of my nose, thoughtful. How could he have heard this? “From whom do you hear these tales?”
“From my daughter Anastasia, who dreams of you often.”
“They are but the dreams of a child.”
“The dreams of a young woman, Grigory, because it is her approaching womanhood that has brought on this power of prophetic dreams which troubles me so greatly.” He removed his hat and placed it on the seat beside him, and ran a hand through his hair. “How do you explain the engraving she found? You and Aleksandr? Or the old watercolour of your face, in the crowd behind Ekaterina the Great?”
I held my tongue on my opinion of Ekaterina, the fat German bully. Her insatiable lusts had nearly bred Mokosha’s blood out of the family line.
“Well, it must be true then,” I said. “I have known your family before.”
“Anastasia said you helped Aleksandr. That the spirits of your magical homeland drove out Napoleon’s Grand Army.”
I understood, now, where the Tsar’s thoughts were tending. Much had changed since Aleksandr’s time: his broken promise would resound too loudly with the inhabitants of Skazki, and I doubted they would come to the Tsar’s aid again. But, as always, the old hope rose in me again. This time, perhaps, we will mend the breech for good.
“I will tell you everything,” I said. And so I did, starting with Olga and all the way through. Night faded and daylight glowed through the crimson curtains, and I explained to Nikolai his family’s link to Skazki and the awesome responsibility which now sat on his shoulders.
After I had finished, I left Nikolai in contemplation, while I went to the kitchen and fixed some breakfast. I scraped mould off the cheese I’d left out too long, and found a crust of bread. In a jar on the bench where I sat to eat, handfuls of money were crammed to overflowing. I eyed it, making plans for a trip to the market which I knew I would never take. Sleeping, drinking, fucking: they were all I cared for. In time, he followed me in, leaned his shoulder against the cool tiled wall, and set his chin against fear.
“I’ll do it, Secret Ambassador,” he said. “If you can convince your people to come to our aid, I will grant you everything you want.”
My blood flushed warm, and I put down my meal to steady myself against the bench. “Don’t make empty promises.”
“I will promise it with all my heart. I will put it in writing and sign it with my own blood.”
“Your blood isn’t worth much to me, Nikolai.” I shook my head dismissively. “Allow me to return to my homeland, to assess the goodwill for the idea. It may take some time.” Already I was outlining my plan: get the forest creatures on-side first; they were always more reasonable. Then the minor demons; finally the witches…and at the end of this process, Aleksei, nearly a grown man, would sit on the throne of two mighty kingdoms, reunited once again and invincible.
Nikolai left soon after. Pulling on his hat at the door, he turned to me and said, “Don’t tell Sunny.”
“Secrecy is my nature,” I said with a smile, and watched him walk off into the dim, snowy morning alone.
Secrecy was also the agenda of the two men who watched him, who had followed him here the previous night, and about whom I had not known. Already there were a million suspicions about me, but the Tsar’s midnight visit sealed my fate. I did not know it at the time, but I was about to fall victim to murderers.
I was made curious by Nikolai’s visit. I was made curious by his talk of Anastasia’s prophetic dreams. In days of old, when Mokosha lived as Ivan’s wife, her name too had been Anastasia. Had some special sympathy of identity created a link between the Tsar’s little girl and the pagan goddess I had loved so well? I remembered the first time I had met Anastasia, when she was a tiny child of four. Immediately she had recognised me, had felt a connection between me and the bear.
Nikolai had returned to his war residence. I took the train to Tsarskoe Selo.
Sunny received me, as she always did now, in her own room. Mauve curtains drifted over the windows; mauve wallpaper and mauve lace. Fresh flowers filled every flat space, and I remembered what the Tsar had told me, that these flowers came regularly by train at a time when food could not make its way to the front.
“Friend,” she said, “I’m so pleased to see you. I hope you bring good prophecy, because I do not like my husband being so far from home and hearth.”
“I predict all will be well, though it may be some time before you hold him in your arms again,” I said, and this settled her fluttering hands a little, and brought some colour to her cheeks. “Mother, it is not you I wish to see today. I had hoped to speak with Anastasia.”
Sunny’s expression was perplexed, perhaps even concerned. She loved me dearly, but she also knew the stories about me and my excesses.
“Only briefly, Mother,” I said, “and you are welcome to stay while I speak with her.”
Of course she consented. I was the man who healed her son, whose prophecy of Aleksei’s recovery from haemophilia by manhood was already beginning to come true (which was not through my doing, but through the strength of Skazki blood, you understand).
Anastasia had bloomed into womanhood. She was, perhaps, sixteen at the time. Her pretty face was still impish, but her body had gathered curves. In truth, she was almost fat, but it didn’t mar her beauty or her bearing.
“Mother?” she said, espying me waiting as Sunny ushered her in.
“Grigory must speak with you,” Sunny said. “I shall wait here, and work on my cross-stitch.” Sunny took herself into a corner and picked up her sewing. I stood with my back to the window, and the glass was cold. Outside, snow lay heavy around the bare, black trees. I was aware of Sunny’s eyes, flicking away from her work and up to my face. She was worried. She was always worried. And all that worry couldn’t save her from her awful fate in the end, so it was energy ill-spent.
I eyed Anastasia closely, and she giggled under my scrutiny.
“Grigory, what on earth is wrong? You look as though you expect my head to pop off and release monsters.”
I chuckled, and touched her plump cheek. “I have heard about your dreams, little one. You are very busy when you are sleeping.”
Sunny put aside her sewing and made no pretence of not watching.
“My dreams are very vivid, yes.”
“And you often dream of me, or so I am told.”
“Yes, I dream of you, and you are in stories from other places and times.”
“What a creative girl! You should write them down.”
“I started to, but Tatiana tore up my notebook, the swine. All because I stole her cream dress and ripped it accidentally.” She laughed again. “I’m far too tired to be writing stories, anyway.”
I pushed off the window and walked slowly around the room, aware of the two sets of eyes on me: Sunny’s clouded with anxiety, Anastasia’s with amusement.
“Well, you are being very mysterious today, Grigory,” Anastasia said.
What was I to tell her? That I had a strong sense that the magic in her blood was the highest concentration since the babies grown in Mokosha’s own womb? That her dreams showed that she was tied more tightly than any other ruler to Skazki? That, if I had my way, I would put her on the throne of Russia, ahead of her sickly brother, to rule it and the magic kingdom?
“Let’s invite Anya up for tea,” I said, forcing a smile. “I’m famished.”
I was excited, standing on the brink of possibilities. A half-Mir witch queen, a new era. Time would tell if these dreams would come to be.
Living in Mir had dulled my wits. I drank too much and I cared too much about my prick and too little about my safety. When Feliks Yusipov invited me to meet his wife—with the inference that I would be welcome to fuck her—I took the invitation at face value. Why not? Yusipov was a known scoundrel, and he loved to dress in women’s clothes and make merry. It crossed my mind that he may even want to join us. What didn’t cross my mind was that the invitation was a front for a plot on my life.
Of course, as soon as they led me into the little downstairs room, I felt a twinge of concern. The low arches almost bumped my head. There were no windows. But there was a glorious feast of all my favourite things: little chocolate cream cakes, candied fruit and strawberry-iced pastries, and a decanter of madeira. I sat down, eager for the repast. The moment my fingers lit on one of the pastries, I sensed the poison within.
What was I to do? Yusipov and his cronies sat with me, smiling, nodding congenially.
“Irina will be here soon.”
“Help yourself, my good friend. This food has been made especially for you.”
I spied a candied apple on the table, reached for it and thrust it in my pocket. The men continued to urge me to eat. I smiled, took a moment to balance myself, then hummed a little tune.
“That’s a lovely melody, Grigory,” Yusipov said. “Would you like it if I played the guitar for you?”
“I’d like it very much,” I said, reaching eagerly for the cakes. My soul was now stored in an apple in my pocket, so I didn’t need to fear death. Moreover, I wanted to play a trick on these charming monsters.
I ate. I drank. The food smelled so bitterly of cyanide that I almost laughed at them. Any poor victim of these men would know he was being poisoned before he opened his mouth to eat!
The night wore on. Yusipov played his guitar. The men exchanged furtive glances; I pretended I didn’t see. An hour passed, two. They were growing desperate. I asked them again where Irina was, just to see their reactions.
Yusipov nearly tripped over himself trying to get out the door. “I’ll go upstairs and see what keeps her,” he said. The other two followed him quickly. I put my feet on the table and picked my teeth, and tossed the candied apple up into the air and down again, waiting for the next act of the play.
The young rake returned with a gun. He shot me twice. I fell. They left. I lay there a long time, chuckling to myself about the merry game I was playing. When Yusipov came back, wanting to dispose of my body, I sat up and grinned at him. He shrieked and hid behind the table, and I walked out.
They got me again in the yard, another two bullets, slamming into my body. I fell again, and let them drag me to the river. I stilled my laughter as they heaved me into the water. This time, I intended to let them think the job was done. What a trick it would be to visit Yusipov the following day, inquiring after my coat! I sank under, bubbles fizzing through my beard. Their dark shapes waited above. I sank low, swam a hundred feet and surfaced. I began the walk home, cold and wet, chuckling over my intentions to upset Yusipov. I did not know that all my intentions were about to be foiled by an unexpected force.
Love.
I can explain it no more than any other fool can. I dragged myself out of Moika Canal, hummed my soul back into my body and quickly healed my wounds. Koschey the deathless fears no bullet or poison. I took a back route through dark, snow-lined streets, far from the electric lamps: damp stone, rotted vegetables dumped in alleyways, and the scent of fatty boiling mutton. An urban emptiness which is always inhabited by cold, and bad smells, and poverty. This is where I nearly stumbled over a bundle of rags which lay on a tiled doorstep.
As I sidestepped it, the bundle moved and whimpered. Perhaps the dramatic events of the evening had worn my nerves down. I jumped in fright. Then, when I realised the bundle was no more than some poor wretch freezing to death, I resumed my step and walked on.
“Papa?” a little voice wavered in the dark.
I turned. Everything changed.
The little girl was sick and pale, on the verge of death. Her eyes met mine and held them. A shiver of fate hissed across my body; some transformative power emanated from her.
“I’m not your papa,” I said sternly.
“No, that’s right,” she replied. “My papa is dead.”
“And where is your mama?”
“She is in the same place. And my brother. They are all dead. I was sleeping when you walked past, and something about your footsteps reminded me of my papa.”
I swallowed hard, and tried to make sense of these feelings. I still do not completely understand them, but every man, no matter who he is and where he is from, is on a journey. Love is a part of every man’s journey, whether he admits it or not. Finding Totchka led me on a new path, one which now beckoned with the sweetest promises.
“I must be on my way,” I mumbled, with no conviction.
She raised her skinny arms, as though she assumed it perfectly natural that I would pick her up. “Will you take me with you, Papa?”
And when I did, it was perfectly natural.
In Skazki, the progress of Totchka’s illness was halted. Her own death couldn’t find her, but as she had been destined to die as a child she remained a child. No fate as a woman existed for her to fulfil. She was forever a little girl.
My little girl.
I did not enjoy my last laugh on Yusipov the way I had hoped. Never mind. I am certain, however, that he saw me climb out of the water that night. Why else would he have bothered to drown an old tramp, fill him with bullet holes and ensure his body washed up a few days later? They pointed to the corpse, bloated and death-eaten beyond the barest recognition. They said it was Rasputin. He told his co-conspirators that his plan had succeeded. In time he even managed to convince himself. It must have helped that I did not return to Mir.
Life with Totchka was simple and busy. I fed her, kept her warm, made her safe. I made the best of the fact that circumstances kept me in Skazki. I sent word to Nikolai that I would petition my fellow magical creatures, that he was to wait and hope for my return. I set up a stream of meetings and councils, all the while keeping Totchka safe and hidden in my cottage. Perhaps I wasn’t as dedicated as I should have been to this cause, because I was unprepared to leave Totchka alone. Many of the hostile spirits of the far east didn’t respond to my invitations, Baba Yaga refused to leave her home, and Perun and Veles sent to tell me to let it go, that life was perfectly acceptable to them without the weight of millions of worshippers. Perhaps if I’d been able to attend them in person…but it’s too late for self-recriminations. Totchka’s tearful anxiety at any suggestion of my departure was enough. I didn’t go.
Support for a military alliance with Nikolai was thin. A year later, I was only just starting to win over the witches of the south. Then word came, from the bright lands of Mir, that a revolution had swept the land. The Tsar and his family no longer ruled in Russia, but they were still alive and well.
I took this news with mixed feelings. They were still alive, Anastasia and Aleksei. No separation was imminent. I had settled into a different kind of life with Totchka. Perhaps Perun and Veles were right. Perhaps this half-dream of life in Skazki was enough.
Yet, this half-dream of life was still dependent on Mokosha’s blood living in Mir bodies. Aleksandr’s stupid promise had made it so. If both Aleksei and Anastasia died without offspring, then everything changed. The final separation would occur, and Totchka would be ejected from Skazki, to die her own death in Mir.
Yes, I lied to Rosa. Would you not?
Nikolai and his family were imprisoned, at first in their own palace at Tsarskoe Selo. Then, by degrees, their circumstances grew more and more dire. From Tsarskoe Selo to Tobolsk, but still with a full retinue of servants. Finally, to Ekaterinaburg, to a house with bars on the windows, where their guards were loyal Bolsheviks who took joy in humiliating and frightening their prisoners.
I watched uneasily in my magic mirror, but always told myself that had the Bolskheviks wanted them dead, they would have killed them by now. As the spring bloomed into summer, I saw signs that all was coming undone.
What agonising I endured, deciding what to do with Totchka. If I took her with me, she might die of her illness, but to leave her was to fear for her vulnerability, to miss her tender cuddles, to see her cry until her skinny body shook.
“No, no, Papa, no!” she sobbed, clutching at my knees. “I will die if you go. I cannot bear to be alone, what if something awful happens to you? Or to me?”
“Hush, Totchka,” I said, peeling her off me and sitting her firmly at the table while I pulled on my coat. “Nothing will happen to me. I can’t die. Nothing will happen to you so long as you stay here in the cottage, within the special circle of sunlight I have made for you.”
She stretched out on the table and sobbed so hard I feared she would hurt herself. I tried to be strong as I tied my boots on, but her pale, terrified face as I picked up my staff nearly undid me.
“So you are going then?” she said, on a shuddering breath. “You are leaving me here all alone? Any monster could come from the forest—”
“No, child, you are safe in here.”
“I fear I am not.”
“Then I will make you safer,” I said, and I put my staff down and closed my eyes and raised my hands above my head. I imagined extra layers of sunlight, building a shield around the cottage. I felt the magic moving in my body, aching in my muscles and weighing like lead in my bones. I gave it everything I had in those few moments, making Totchka’s circle of light impregnable.
When I opened my eyes, Totchka was staring at me horrified.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Look at yourself,” she said.
I went to the mirror, and saw that my hair was now streaked with grey, my eyes had gathered bags and my skin had sagged under the weight of a dozen new wrinkles.
“Don’t be alarmed, Totchka,” I said, turning to her. “It only means that I have used as much magic as I could find in my body to make you safe. These lines are evidence that no harm will come to you. I wear them proudly.”
Despite my reassurances, she was still wailing when I steeled myself and slipped through the veil, took two crossings and arrived in Ekaterinaburg. All I hoped was to convince Nikolai to allow me to take Aleksei and Anastasia with me back to Skazki, where I would keep them safe until the tense times had passed.
The night was warm. I shed my coat. Nikolai’s home was three miles north of the crossing, and I was perspiring long before I arrived.
I did not know that which had already been set in motion: an evil scheme of assassination. A truck with a loud engine had been left running outside to mask the sound of gunshots, fifty gallons of sulphuric acid had been delivered to a deserted mine nearby, along with two hundred gallons of gasoline. The family, their cook, their footmen, their housemaid and their doctor had been ushered into a stinking basement room. They were told it was for their own safety. Anastasia, a young woman of seventeen, had dressed in a special gown. Inside its bodice were sewn all her jewels, which she hoped to take with her if they were forced to leave Ekaterinaburg. Aleksei, still only a boy, had brought his own treasure with him: the Golden Bear.
They waited for half an hour. Sunny’s hands fluttered about, Nikolai’s hooded eyes darted from side to side. The children argued with each other softly, keen for any distraction from the awful waiting. Then a uniformed man led a group of soldiers into the room.
“Nikolai Aleksandrovich,” he said, striding over to the Tsar where he was sitting, “by the order of the Regional Soviet of the Urals, you are to be shot, along with all your family.”
“What!” Nikolai said, but his exclamation was drowned by the sound of guns and screams of fear. Blood flowed, smoke filled the air. Aleksei, hit by one bullet in his shoulder, moaned on the floor. A soldier held the barrel of his pistol directly to the child’s head and fired twice. Under the pile of bodies, Anastasia still cried. The same soldier seized a rifle and stabbed her with a bayonet: once, twice, three times. She fell silent.
The soldiers turned to each other, pleased with the sudden silence. They congratulated each other, and went upstairs to order the truck to come around.
This is when I slipped into the room.
Ah, it’s not so hard. A little magic, a narrow basement window hidden behind a staircase. I could sense already that Anastasia was not dead. The jewels in her bodice had protected her from the bullets, and the bayonet wounds had missed her major organs, but she was dying, no doubt of it. Her body was catastrophically wounded.
For my purposes, though, she was still alive. I seized her poor broken body, and the Golden Bear, and I took her back to Skazki.
As for the rest of the royal family, they were butchered, burned and dumped down a mine. Of course the Bolsheviks knew that one of their victims was missing (why else do you think that so many legends have been able to cling to the name Anastasia?), but as long as all that remained were charred fragments, there was no need to tell their superiors. Losing a dead Romanov was probably unpardonable.
I expect you wonder what happened next. How I treated Anastasia, how I enlisted Morozko the father of the frost to aid me, how the Golden Bear arrived back in St Petersburg. They are all stories for another time. Now is the time to act.
I have left Totchka only once, and only because so much depended on it. Now, I think you’ll see, I need to leave her again. Briefly, only briefly. Long enough to negotiate the crossings to the Snow Witch’s palace and stop Rosa Kovalenka before she does something we will all regret.