The Lost Crown (12 page)

The sun shines right through the cold while we run through the halls, meeting one old friend after another as the Mixed Guard and some of the Cossack Konvoi join the ranks indoors and on the grounds just outside our windows.

All day long, our four invalids’ fevers climb quicker than sailors up the rigging of the
Standart
. We dash from one bed to the next, trying to keep them cool and comfortable, especially Olga, who turns red as a bowl of borscht. Upstairs reeks of Dr. Botkin’s cologne, he stays so late. Everyone wants Mama most, of course, even silly old Anya, and you don’t have to be Tatiana to see how tired and worried Mama’s getting.

The next day the weather turns foul. I’m tired and achy, and my eyes feel hot all around the edges. My throat itches, but I pretend it’s only the extra-strong smell of coffee from the servants’ cafeteria in the basement that makes me cough. “I
won’t
be ill,” I tell myself, and Maria, too, when she gives me her worried eyes.

In the afternoon, there’s a clamor downstairs. I pull Maria away from the windows where she’s been waving to the officers and run down the corridor to see what all the fuss is about.

Mama’s friend Isa Buxhoeveden is covered in snow and panting like a pug in the sun. “Isa too,” Mashka chirps in my ear. “It really will be just like the
Standart
!” I jab her ribs and lean around the corner to listen.

“I must see the empress,” Isa gasps to Lili. “I’ve just come from Tsarskoe Selo. Everything is awful. There’s looting and shooting in the streets.” Her voice bounces through the long hallway. “They say there is mutiny among the troops.”

“Hush, Isa,” Lili whispers, sharp as a shout. “The servants will hear, and enough of them have deserted already.”

That night we can hear shots in the distance as we visit Olga and Tatiana before bed.

“You look flushed,” Tatiana says, reaching out to feel my forehead. Her voice is too loud. Dr. Botkin says it’s the abcesses forming in her ears. I hoist Ortipo up to lick Tatiana’s fingers before she can touch me.

“Stop your nursing,” I tease, loudly enough to turn Mama’s head. “You’re the ill one. It’s only this running back and forth between all of you roasted potatoes and up and down the stairs for Mama that makes me pink in the face.”

“You are a good girl. God bless you,
dushka.
” Tatiana yawns, and my cheeks turn hotter yet at such a compliment from our hoity-toity sister.

When I turn to Olga, she’s whispering something to Lili about the noise.

“Darling, I don’t know,” Lili half sings. “It’s nothing. The hard frost makes everything much louder.”

“But are you sure, Lili?” Olga’s voice drops even further. “Mama doesn’t seem well. We’re so worried about her heart.”

I shiver as Lili comforts her. Even in their sickbeds, we can hardly keep anything from Olga and Tatiana. Except I don’t know what exactly we’re keeping from them. If they asked me what’s happening, I couldn’t tell them. I only know there’s more to it than what I’ve seen and heard.

Outside the Big Pair’s room, Mama issues orders like a general. “You, Lili, will sleep with Anastasia, and have Maria’s bed.” A grin breaks across my face and I grab Lili’s hand in both of mine. Then Mama lowers her voice. “Don’t take off your corsets. One doesn’t know what may happen.”

My stomach does a two-step. Don’t take off our corsets? I wrinkle up my nose at the thought of wearing the vile old thing all night long. What could possibly happen in the middle of the night that we’d need to be wearing our corsets for? I make a question-face at Mashka, but she only shrugs. Lili looks at Mama in that odd way again, as if she’s pointing at Mashka and me with her eyeballs. “The emperor arrives between five and seven o’clock tomorrow morning,” Mama insists, as if saying it will make it true. “We must be ready to meet him.” And that’s that. Mashka helps Mama down the hall to the stairs, leaving Lili and me to undress for bed.

“Have you ever slept in a cot like this, Lili?” I ask as I drag our two camp beds nearer to each other. Lili shakes her head and winces as the legs of her cot furrow a double row of trenches through the thick carpeting. “Don’t worry. Maria and I move our beds around all the time, and the screens, too. They’re narrow, but it’s cozy this way. They’re not half so wobbly as they look.”

Lili smiles absently at me, standing there working over the buttons on Mashka’s nightdress. “Here, let me,” I say, pushing away her shaky fingers. “It buttons just like mine.” Gunfire crackles far across the snow. “Lili,” I ask, looking only at the line of buttons as I work my way up to her chin, “are you scared?”

“No,” she says, too quickly.

“I am,” I tell her lacy collar. “I wish Papa were here.” She doesn’t say another word, just pulls me near, rests her cheek on my head, and gently strokes my hair all the way down my back.

“Do you miss Titi?” I ask after a little while. I feel her nod against me, and I think we both cry a little without making a sound to let the other know. When I’ve had enough, I wipe my eyes on the embroidered cuff of my nightdress and straighten up. “I’ll brush your hair if you brush mine,” I offer. “Maria and I always do that.”

Lili smiles.
“Konechno.”

I drag Mashka’s chair over and help Lili climb into her cot. Then she unpins her long dark hair, and I perch on the little wooden chair while we brush and braid each other’s hair. Lili’s so gentle, not all jerky with the brush like clumsy Mashka, that I nearly fall asleep on the spot. But when I crawl under my own covers, my eyes won’t stay closed. The guns boom and crack every so often in the distance, not at all like the regular rifle and cannon salutes the regiments are always doing for Papa. We lie in the dark for ages, whispering about silly things to keep from wondering what’s going on outside while I squirm and wriggle against my dratted corset. Sometimes Lili goes quiet. I try and try to let her sleep, but I never last more than a few minutes before I ask, “Lili, are you awake?” She always answers right away, so I know her eyes won’t keep shut any better than mine. Once, we creep to the window and look outside. The glass is so cold it burns my forehead when I lean against it to peer out. There on the courtyard sits a great fat cannon, with the sentries dancing around it to keep warm. “Papa will be so astonished,” I tell Lili, my breath turning to thick frost on the windowpane. That close to the window, we can hear shouts along with the gunshots, and sometimes a sound like breaking glass. At the sight of smears of firelight flickering just beyond our gates in the streets of Tsarskoe Selo, I abandon Lili and scurry back under my covers. I don’t dare open my eyes again all night.

16.

MARIA NIKOLAEVNA

28 February-4 March 1917
Tsarskoe Selo

D
ownstairs, it’s impossible for Mama to hide anything from me. The telephone in Papa and Mama’s bedroom rings and rings. Every time I try to guess from her questions and answers what Mama’s hearing on the other end of the line, my heart dangles from my ribs. First there are rumors in the city that Aleksei has died. Next we hear the strikers have blocked all the railways. Before long, my body braces for the news before Mama even touches the receiver.

At nine o’clock the telephone rings again.

“Rebels?” Mama asks. “Here?” I go weak as broth. “I see. How long?”

Hardly a moment after Mama hangs up, a shot rings out. Not five hundred yards from our walls, a sentry falls. After that, just the jingle of one of the dog’s collars stops my breath and jolts my shoulders up to my ears.

That night we don’t undress for bed at all. On our way out from seeing my sisters and Aleksei, Isa Buxhoeveden meets us in the corridor with the most horrible look on her face. “Madame,” she says, struggling not to wail, “the Tsarskoe Selo garrison has mutinied.”

“Bozhe moi,”
Mama gasps, clutching her chest. “We cannot have fighting here on our account.” I’m ready to run for Dr. Botkin to tend to her heart, but Mama recovers in an instant. “I must tell the children not to worry,” she says, and nearly runs back to my brother and sisters’ rooms to tell them the firing is only from special maneuvers. If they were well, they wouldn’t believe her for a second.

“Lili will take care of Anastasia,” she decides when everyone is soothed. Everyone but me, that is. Listening to our mama lie to Aleksei and my sisters made me turn all slippery inside. “I’ll see to Anya later. Come now, Maria, we are going to speak to the men outside.” I follow her like a duckling.

Downstairs, she throws a black fur coat over her Red Cross uniform, then helps me bundle into furs myself. I feel myself shivering even before we go out into the snow. I don’t know why I’m so scared. I’ve known these men all my life, but nothing seems steady anymore. It’s like climbing from the
Standart
into a rowboat on choppy seas.

Isa watches from inside, and for a little while I think I see Lili at my bedroom window too. Both of them look awfully frightened. Ahead of us, the men are all arranged for battle, with one row on their knees in the snow and the rest standing behind them with their rifles ready. The light from our windows gleams in thin blue stripes along the barrels of all those guns, but Mama never wavers. She goes straight up to the lines and speaks to each man in turn, calling them by name whenever she can.

“Sergei Vasilievich, I trust your loyalty to the emperor completely…. I know you will not fail us, Ivan Petrovich…. My good men, don’t let the rebels provoke you…. Alexander Sergeevich, you are sworn to protect the heir, but I pray no blood will be shed unnecessarily.” Across the courtyard and down the entire line we go. Finally feeling useful, I whisper to her the names of the men I recognize, and try to smile and thank every one of them, especially the ones I don’t know.

Lots of them are shocked to see their empress outside at this time of night, but they’re all polite and bow, even doffing their hats in such fierce cold. Some of the soldiers seem too surprised to do anything but grunt and nod, but some kiss Mama’s hand, fur mittens and all.

“They are all our friends,” Mama tells Isa when we get back inside. “They are so devoted. I trust them completely.” I sink onto Papa’s bed, still in my coat and furs, but Mama sets off into the dark corridors to reassure Anya on the other side of the palace. With a big yawn, I force myself up to help her, but Isa says, “Stay here, Maria. I’ll walk with your mama on the stairs.” Suddenly I’m too tired to argue, or even to be afraid to wait alone in Papa and Mama’s bedroom. I curl up under Mama’s wall of icons and fall asleep under the flickering rose oil lamp.

All night I drift in and out. Every time I stir, Mama’s up too. She fusses with Lili’s pillows and blankets on the sofa in her lilac budoir. “Oh, you Russian ladies,” she teases, “my grandmother, Queen Victoria, showed me how to make a bed. I’ll teach you.” When I roll over again, Mama, nearly silent in her stocking feet, is on her way to the Palisander Room, her arms full of fruit and biscuits for Isa and dear old Countess Benckendorff.

Next thing I know, feet pound on the balcony and fists hammer outside. In the doorway to the lilac boudoir, the countess is struggling to tug Mama inside and shut the tall door all at once. “Your Majesty, the rebels have reached the palace. You and the grand duchess must go upstairs.” I gulp back a squeak and scramble to Mama’s side. Suddenly the pounding stops. The three of us hold our breath until Isa bursts in, almost laughing with relief.

“It was just a sailor, trying to find his way to the basement to warm up.” I want to laugh, but everything feels too jittery and fragile. If I open my mouth I’ll only cry instead, and I can’t do that in front of Mama.

The next day is awful. By the time I wake, Papa still hasn’t come, and Anastasia’s sick with measles. When I come down from helping Aleksei mold tin bullets with Monsieur Gilliard, I find Mama with a handful of her unanswered telegrams to Papa.

“Mama?”

She swallows hard and holds the fist full of papers out for me to see. All of them have come back marked in blue pencil:
Address of person mentioned unknown
.

My whole body goes blank, too shocked to think or feel anything at all. I can’t imagine what could come after this.

All day long, we sit thinking awful things. It’s the anniversary of my great-grandpapa’s assassination, when he was blown up by a bomb shaped like an Easter cake. Is Papa, wherever he is, thinking of how he’d watched his
dedushka
die and his own papa become tsar? He was only twelve years old when Alexander II was killed, the same age Aleksei is now.

The telephone blares, and I nearly yelp.

On the other end of the line, Rodzyanko, a hateful man from the Duma, talks so loudly that for once I can hear both sides of the conversation. My heart batters my ribs as I listen in.

“You are in danger and should prepare to leave,” he tells Mama, no matter what she says. He can’t seem to understand that we can’t move my sisters or Aleksei. Both Dr. Derevenko and Dr. Botkin think moving the Big Pair could be fatal. Fatal! Olga’s awful fever’s broken, but her heart is inflamed, and Tatiana has gone deaf as a marble column.