Escape and Rescue
February 1759
I stare at the paper with the official seal, but my eyes blur before me. No, it’s the words that blur. An elegant hand tracing watery insects across the page. Damn my head! I give it a good shake. No, that is worse. The words run together into a pool as if the ink they had been printed with suddenly became liquid again and drowned all meaning.
“Young Tom,” I say, “be so kind as to read this to me.”
Tom is the son of a trusted servant at Coldbrook, my house in Wales. I have watched him grow into a kind, if dull, young man whose duty it has become to tend to me. He takes his responsibilities seriously and at times I must remind him who is master.
“Why, Sir Charles,” he says astonished, “it’s from the King!
“Yes, of course!” I say impatiently. “He’s in danger and needs saving. I have offered to sacrifice myself. I will return to my post in Russia where the Pretender is planning his next strike.”
“Bonnie Prince Charlie?” he says, cocking his head at me with half-witted incredulity.
“When does he say I might go?” I ask, trying not to be rude, but the truth is I am losing patience.
Tom turns back to the letter. His brows shift together like little sparrows. I warrant there is as much understanding behind them as well.
He continues to read. “I’m afraid, Sir Charles, he says you may not.” Tom looks up. I grimace. “He says you have served him gallantly in the past. But now others must carry on and you are to attend to your health.”
I shake my head. He has got it wrong.
“But when can I go?” I say quite beside myself. “Look more closely and find the date.”
Tom is thick as a post, it is true. An attribute rampant among servants. A good soul, but thick, and as I cannot read the letter myself, I must gather its meaning between the lines, so to speak. The King does not wish it to get out that his old foe, the Pretender, has new plans afoot to strike at the Kingdom. The letter is written in code and I must decipher it.
“Read me precisely what it says,” I say.
Tom scowls at me. He is a tall stripling, and his scowl might strike fear into one who did not know him. But my own Fanny helped teach him to read as a boy, and his gratitude extends to her father.
He clears his throat and begins.
You have served us brilliantly during your sojourn in Russia, going above and beyond the call of duty on behalf of King and Country. We yet have friends in that court on account of your prodigious work. Now after all your stalwart efforts, it is time to allow others to carry on the burden of a posting in a country with whom we are in a difficult war.
We are told of your illness and advise that you turn all of your attention toward it. With fervent wishes for your return to good health,
George II Rex
Tom looks up, eyes popping with wonder. “The King’s gratitude! He is full of praise for you, Sir Charles. I am very proud to know you.” He bends his knee and bows down.
“Up, boy! Up!” I shake my head at his dullness. “We must put our heads together, Tom, for this letter is written in code. When he says we yet have friends in Russia, he means me to go back and use them to our advantage.”
Tom shakes his head slowly. “But sir, I don’t think…”
“And when he says for others to carry on the burden of a posting, he means that I should be left free of that burden and go not as an envoy but as — as a friend of the court. A spy. I would be more useful that way. It is obvious.”
Tom turns back to the letter. “I’m not sure of…”
“You are blind, Tom! When he writes ‘a difficult war’ it means we are losing. King Frederick is on the run from the French, the Austrians, and the Russians, and Frederick is our ally. That is my job — to sue for peace with the Empress. The longer the war continues, the more chance there is that France will help Prince Charles Edward Stuart invade England. That is the real danger. The Jacobites, led by the avaricious Pretender.”
Tom screws up his eyes, holding the paper closer.
“Do not bother searching the letter for more, young Tom, for you have not deciphered code as I have. You must trust me in this. The king sends me to Russia and I choose you to accompany me.” I beam at him, pleased with myself for offering him this opportunity.
Tom’s eyes grow round. “But… but I have never left England. There’s my mother…”
“Your mother will burst with pride!” I smile with indulgence, and then memory. “I have seen such things as you cannot imagine. You will never have such occasion again. Say nothing to your family, for this is a secret mission.”
Tom appears uncertain, yet animated. “Perhaps you forget, Sir Charles, I am bidden to see that you do not leave this house. The doctor says you are not yourself.”
I purse my lips and aim at him my most compelling face. “I am more myself now than I have been for months. The rest and exercise the good doctor prescribed have cured me. You are a witness that I do not jabber on like before; my thoughts are perfectly lucid. How can you chance the future of England? If I am right, you will be a hero. If I am wrong, you will return a wiser man filled with adventures.”
His eyes dart with excitement. I have hooked him! “If we are to go,” he says, “I must notify Dr. Batty.”
“Under no circumstances!” I cry. “No one is to know. Our King’s life depends upon it! What would your family say if your carelessness were responsible for the death of the King?”
Tom stares at me, horror in his eyes. He shakes his head with much vehemence. “I’ll say nothing,” he murmurs.
“If someone is curious about our packing of bags, we shall say we are off to Bath for the waters.”
“Yes, but…”
“You must arrange our transport, Tom, for I will be suspect, but I will tell you all. You need only follow my instructions. It is a devilish long way and we must prepare. First, you will need to hire a coach that will take us to Yarmouth. There we will embark on a ship bound for Hamburg.” I stop at the anxiety written on his face. “Do not gape at me so! Are you a patriotic Englishman?”
Tom stares at me, befuddled, but tenders a nod.
“Capital!” I cry. “Do you love your King?”
A heartier nod.
“Excellent! Now, we must be very circumspect and keep our own counsel. Not a word to anyone, else the mission will fail. Understood?”
Tom blinks. “Yes, sir.”
“Good. Where was I? Oh, yes. After Hamburg, we will be at the mercy of the weather. If there is not too much ice we might perchance set sail through the Baltic Sea. Otherwise we must hire a coach for the remainder of the journey. It will be quite an ordeal. I assure you I will be ill for weeks during the voyage, but when the King calls upon one, well, there’s nothing else for it. Now, young Tom, have you any money?”
Tom’s face darkens.
“No, of course you don’t. Forgive my asking. I shall collect expenses afterwards from a grateful government. In the mean time I have some money hidden here, which I have told no one about. But it will require a great deal more. You will take me to the bank, where I shall draw upon my account…”
One day along the long road of our journey I glance out the window of our coach and see him whom I most fear. Tom notes my distress and peers out at the bleak countryside where I am turned.
“What is it, Sir Charles?”
“Do you not see him?” I ask astonished. “He rides a tremendous white horse. A great handsome fellow, wide of shoulder, his own yellow hair beneath the tricorn.”
“Where, Sir Charles? I see but snow upon a hill.”
“The Pretender’s regimentals, blue trimmed with red. A cutlass at his side.” Not to alarm the boy, I refrain from adding, at the ready for our slaying.
Tom screws up his eyes for a better look. I must mollify him.
“Do not agitate yourself further, Tom. He has turned away. Perhaps I was mistaken.”
In the following days when next the rider appears out my window, I say nothing. The Prince, sitting tall and grand in his saddle, has me in his sights, his brilliant blue eyes flashing danger, but I am resolved to carry on. I will not be threatened in this shameless way by the traitorous Scot. Yet his treachery has sunk to a shocking level, for even on the ship crossing the North Sea to Hamburg, I see him yet astride his tremendous stallion. Only this time he rides the blue waves like a vision from hell, gnashing his teeth to strike fear into me. To be sure he has joined in a pact with the Devil, as well as France, and will be a fearsome enemy.
It is nearly spring when at last we enter St. Petersburg. The ice yet lies thick in the river, but a clear blue sky sweeps high above the golden spire of the Admiralty. Three of the city’s great avenues radiate outwards from before this historic building, one, Nevsky Prospekt, upon which we travel.
The driver stops in front of my old mansion. How strange it is to be here again! What memories, both fine and bitter, fight to overtake me. I instruct young Tom to wait with the carriage while I seek out my Lord Keith, who has taken over the house.
His servant announces my presence and my Lord tumbles out of his study, all amazement. It is mid-afternoon, and I have no doubt awakened him from dozing over some dull papers.
“I am astounded!” he says, buttoning his waistcoat. “How came you? I have had no news — you are very unexpected!”
“A fine greeting,” I say, “after such a long journey. I am on a secret mission from the King. There will be no message about it — that is all I can say. How goes the court?”
“I understood you were not well…”
“My condition was greatly exaggerated. As you can see, I am quite recovered. What news from the court?”
My Lord Keith observes me while scratching his bald head. “Very curious,” he says. “As for the court, things are very bad for us. The French hold sway over the Empress and she will not see me. I am welcome only in the Young Court, where the Grand Duchess Catherine is still gracious to me. Sad news there. The little Grand Duchess Anna is deathly ill and is not expected to live.”
I am shaken to the quick. I think of my own two daughters, now safely grown. “A fate no parent should have to endure.”
“Her mother is beside herself,” Keith continues, “and laments that she has not been allowed to live with her own children. Now the Empress gives Anna to her mother when it is too late. The French faction uses the illness against us and spreads rumours that the child is poisoned by an English sympathizer.”
My mouth goes sudden dry. Scales drop from my eyes. This, then, is it. I am astounded that it is laid out in such simple terms. It all hinges on the child. The child has been poisoned by the French, who are using her illness against us. Prince Charles Edward Stuart is behind this, of that I am certain.
My mind races to concoct a plan. “I must see the Grand Duchess Catherine,” I say to Keith. “You must get a message to her.”
“It is impossible! You are no longer in an official capacity here.”
“She would be very vexed if she knew I was here and you didn’t do everything in your power to bring me to her. I was her trusted adviser once. And I have a message from the King.”
He squints unhappily at me. “Yes, of course.”
That evening I wait for her by the back door, the one that Count Poniatowski used to tell me about. At the appointed time it creaks open and there she stands, thinner than I recall, sorrow written in the lines of her face. Her shoulders stoop; her hair is undressed.
She bids me inside, and once in the hall I attempt to bow, but she hurls herself into my arms.
“Your Highness,” I whisper, patting her back while she sobs on my shoulder.
“I cannot bear it!” she weeps out the words. “My little baby is dying.”
“What of the rumour of the poison?”
She shakes her head. “I cannot say. I can hardly fathom it. That anyone would murder a child! What good does it do anyone?”
I do not trouble her with my theories. “May I see her?”
She wipes her tears with a handkerchief. “A letter came from an English doctor. He said you were… unwell.”
“He said I was mad. But we’re all a little mad, aren’t we? Especially if we have a heart and yet must deal with the world.”
Her face smoothes into a smile, a hint of the lady I remember. She picks up a candle and leads me down the hall. She opens a darkened room, holding the candle aloft to shed some light. A servant lies asleep near the small bed, where a tiny figure reclines under a coverlet. Little Anna is but fourteen months.
I approach, standing over the sleeping baby. On a table near the bed, candlelight reflects off the little silver compass I gave the Count when first he had been sent away. I touch it to see if it is real.
“I keep it here for good luck,” she says. “I thought an angel might use it to find her way and then come and save my poor Anna.”
I watch the little chest barely rise with each ragged breath. Her eyelids do not move. I feel her forehead. Hot to the touch. The Grand Duchess sobs quietly behind me. I feel powerless. Yet there is something. I have not come all this way to stand by while the treacherous Pretender works his evil. This was why he tried to prevent me, so that I could not be the agent of the child’s salvation. In my mind’s eye I picture the alleyway in the city where stands a little house and inside that house an old man dressed all in black standing by the fire boiling potions. Remember me when the time comes.
“I am your angel,” I say. “You must let me help her.”
The Grand Duchess looks up from her handkerchief. “It is too late.”
“It is only too late when one gives up. There is a physician I know who works miracles.”
“The court physician is the best in Russia… if he despairs…”
“You always trusted me, Your Highness. Trust me now.”
She holds the candle aloft near my face to examine me. My eyes convince her. “I have nothing left to lose,” she says. “We will go at once!”
“You must stay here,” I say. “I will take the child’s servant.”
“I insist on coming!” she says.
I take her hand, as if I am talking to my daughter. “Your Highness, you will be the next Tsarina one day. Perhaps one day soon. If someone is trying to harm the child, think how much more eager they will be to harm you. I will not risk it.”
She sighs with agitation. “Madame Dembrova,” she says to the woman rubbing the sleep from her eyes. “Sir Charles is taking the little Grand Duchess out of the palace. You will accompany them.”
“Here,” she says to me, “take the compass.” She places it in a pretty gold box that lies nearby. “For luck.”