The Tsarina's Daughter by Ellen Alpsten

Author:Ellen Alpsten
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781526608628
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2021-03-22T00:00:00+00:00

46

A couple of weeks later, as Petrushka had gathered strength, Maria Menshikova sat by his side at his Coronation, swathed in a heavy silver gown, her stomacher encrusted with diamonds, her flat chest adorned with the vermilion sash of the order of St Catherine. Her face had already started to show lines and her scrawny neck twitched chicken-like beneath the weight of her pearl and diamond choker – each gem the size of a hazelnut. One of Mother’s tiaras sparkled on her mousy hair and droplets of snot hung from her flared nostrils as she struggled with a cold, dabbing her face with a handkerchief of Lyons lace and anxiously seeking her father’s eyes. His gaze was steering her with cold precision.

During the ceremony in the Kremlin’s freezing Cathedral of the Dormition, fits of coughing tormented Petrushka. To my surprise it was not Feofan Prokopovich who conducted the service – was my Father’s trusted adviser, who had been a wise friend to me throughout my life, still under house arrest? – but a priest I had never seen before. At his sign, Petrushka’s heavy coat of crimson velvet and ermine was folded back and the bright blue sash of the order of St Andrew lifted off. As Buturlin undid the gold buttons of Petrushka’s dark green Preobrazhensky Regiment jacket, the Tsar’s wheezing breath was the only sound beneath the gilt-vaulted ceiling. The strong scent of his liniments – camphor and mint – blended with the censers’ frankincense and myrrh. I folded my hands, gathering my thoughts, begging for strength. The priest’s words reached me through a veil of fear.

As I let my gaze sweep over my surroundings, it met the eyes of a woman who sat in a loge, elevated above the courtiers. I would have recognised her dark eyes above a thousand others, even though my visit to Susdal Convent was a while ago. Back then, she had been a miserable wretch lingering in a dank cell, a maimed dwarf her sole companion, counting the endless days. But the wheel of fate had spun more surprisingly than ever. Evdokia, my father’s first wife, witnessed the Coronation of her grandson – the choir’s chanting rising to the realm of Heaven while the court of Petrushka’s earthly Empire bowed to her.

I lived day by day, trying to sound the depths of the court’s deadly undercurrents, feeling them tearing at me without leaving so much as a ripple on the water’s glittering surface. I knew that Vice-Chancellor Count Ostermann minded my gaiety more than anything: the wiry German kept close to my sour-faced cousin Ekaterina Ivanovna instead. Under her steady stream of abuse, her daughter Christine had grown into a glum girl, who cowered next to her mother like a beaten dog. During the general rehearsal for the Coronation, I had tried to make amends. ‘Count Ostermann. My Ivanova cousins are close to you, I know, perhaps because of their German alliances. Is there word of my cousin Anna Ivanovna, Duchess of

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