The Witches of St. Petersburg

It was all Militza could do to stop herself from running towards the open side door. But once through she let out a loud sob as she fell against a window. Tears of anger, fear and indignation poured down her cheeks. She had been so stupid! Overcome with ambition and giddy at the sight of the Tsar, she had made a foolish mistake. What she had done was reckless. And she was not the reckless type. It was Stana who rushed in regardless. Not her. What had she been thinking? Had Yusupov seen the ambition in her eyes? She must be more careful next time, must play a longer, smarter game. She was too clever, too talented, to be caught out that easily.

The windowpane felt cool against her hot forehead. Militza dried her tears and then suddenly caught a glimpse of herself in the glass. Her white skin, her black hair, her ruby necklace and tiara were reflected back at her. She was not a woman to be defeated. She would use all that her mother had given her to make her father proud. If Count Yusupov wanted an easy victory, then he had picked on the wrong woman. She looked at herself again and this time her deep black eyes shone back at her, brooding and burning. Her pupils quivered as they began to dilate and the fine hairs on her arms stood on end. She desperately needed a second chance. But so soon?

A pitter-patter of tiny feet came running up the corridor. Militza turned around. And there she was: a little girl with pretty blonde curls and a pale blue bow in her hair.

‘My goodness!’ said Militza bending down, a smile on her face. ‘You should be in bed!’ The little girl giggled and fluffed up her white party dress. ‘What’s your name?’

‘May,’ said the little girl dancing from one foot to the other.

‘How old are you, May?’

‘Four,’ laughed the little girl, holding up four fingers on her chubby little hand, then she turned and started to skip along the moonlit corridor, singing.

‘Where is your mummy, May?’ called Militza.

‘My mummy’s dead,’ came her reply.

‘Who are you talking to?’ asked a voice.

Militza looked up to see the young Tsarina as she stepped out of the shadows and shimmered in the moonlight. Militza quickly swooped into a deep and graceful curtsey.

‘Your Imperial Majesty,’ she said. ‘I am Grand Duchess Militza Nikolayevna.’

‘Good evening,’ replied Alexandra with a small smile. In the half-light and away from the intense heat and scrutiny of the ball, the Empress appeared calm, controlled – and certainly more beautiful. ‘Who were you talking to?’

‘Oh, it was just a little girl. A little girl who very definitely should be in bed!’

‘What was her name?’ The Tsarina fiddled with her fan as Militza stared into her blue eyes.

‘She said her name was May.’

‘May?’

The sound of a child’s running footsteps echoed further down the long dark corridor.

‘May! Is that you?’ the Empress turned and shouted, her hollow voice reverberating against the walls. ‘Little Marie? Are you there?’

‘Wherever she is, she should be asleep,’ laughed Militza gently, looking up the corridor towards the noise. ‘It is long past her bedtime.’

‘She is asleep,’ replied the Empress starkly. ‘Fast asleep. She has been lying in the ground for a long while now.’ She turned to look at Militza. ‘May has been dead for eighteen years.’

5 February 1896, Znamenka, Peterhof

So she sent word. Just as Militza always knew she would, and now the Tsar and Tsarina were on their way to Znamenka. Their carriage, complete with an entourage of police and Cossack bodyguards, had been spotted on the road from the nearby Lower Dacha. It would not be long before they’d be turning into the long, tree-lined drive, and Militza felt her heart beat a little faster.

The idea of having the young Tsar and his wife visit her palace, newly refurbished in the Russian Baroque style by the architect G.A. Bosse, was all she could think about. What would the Yusupovs say when they found out? How would Maria Pavlovna react? How contorted would her furious face become now? But what she did not think of, what she did not pause to consider, was quite what events would be put into motion, how a vortex, once opened up, would be hard to shut.

Instead, she stood naked but for a red velvet robe and admired the sweep of her black hair in the mirror. Her maid’s coiffuring skills were improving by the day, she thought, as she ran her hand over her flat stomach. That would change in the coming months. And this time, she knew, it would be the son Peter longed for, a boy he could dote on and spoil and, most importantly, to whom he could pass on his esteemed title and somewhat diminished estates. She smiled. Sweet, Marina, who, now almost four years old, was asleep upstairs She had not yet told Peter that he was to be a father again.