Chapter 19
Tsar Nicholas II was pacing in his office. It was a position he’d found himself in more often than he’d like as of late. He was hoping to strategize himself out of the very predicament he was in, but was coming up short on ideas.
His three most loyal dvorysvasto were sitting around him; they had been at his side for the past twenty-some years. They were now some of the only men he trusted. They had no opinions of their own, but they knew their best interest was to act as an echo chamber for the tsar.
Over the years, they agreed with everything he suggested, from black magic rituals to political hangings.
Whenever something went wrong, the tsar blamed his council.
When something went right, he took credit for himself.
Despite their positions as scapegoats, they were in tumultuous times, and prying themselves from the tsar’s favor was a bad idea.
“Her weakness is the priest,” one of the men spoke up, “If she truly loves him.”
“She doesn’t,” the tsar snapped in response, “She just thinks she does.”
“It works for us either way,” the man continued, chewing on the end of an old cigar. “If he is her weak point, then we must go after the priest.”
“No one knows who he is,” another one of the boyars agreed. “It will be easy to fabricate something and get the people talking. You know how everyone feels about religion these days. A false priest? They’ll demand his execution.”
“He’s right,” the final dvorysvasto spoke up, wanting to make sure his voice was heard, “And a false priest setting up in the palace? Corrupting the family blessed by God to govern Russia? Why, they’ll label him as bad as Judas.”
“We still need Anastasia to cooperate,” the tsar grumbled, sitting down at his desk. “Even if the public cries for the execution of a false priest, she’ll never believe it. She’s not pious. If we execute him to satisfy the demands of the crowd, we’ll lose every chance of getting her to our cause.”
“Then we’ll have to ruin his reputation in more ways than one,” the second boyar shrugged. “Go at it from two sides. Drive a wedge between them while we find ways to make the people cry for his execution. When it becomes a fever pitch, we strike.”
“She’ll cave under pressure,” the first man agreed. “She claims to be for the people. If her heart is broken, Anastasia will turn to the only other thing she says she loves: the people.”
“And if they’re crying for the execution of the man who broke her heart,” the tsar murmured in agreement, snapping his fingers. “She’ll have to agree, or she’ll look like a fraud.”
“Excellent, moi Tsar,” the third man nodded happily, “You have it all figured out.”
“A wonderful plan.”
“Truly, none of us could have thought of it.”
“I have just the idea,” the tsar grinned lecherously, pulling out sheets of paper from his desk. “She thinks his love is true? I can’t imagine she’ll love him if she were to discover he’s also in bed with her mother.”
The lords chuckled delightfully like a perverted chorus. “How shall you do it?”
“It’s simple. Fetch my wife. Tell her I require her penmanship.”
It only took twenty minutes for the tsarina to appear at the door of her husband’s office.
It was rare for her to be invited, and she’d never been called upon when he was meeting with his council.
The tsarina always turned to her priests and madmen to deal with the resounding truth that her husband had no need of her or desire for her.
“Moi tsar,” she curtsied appropriately, using the formal tone with her husband.
“Alexandra,” the tsar’s smile was as charming as ever. He disarmed her with the use of her first name, something typically reserved for very intimate settings. “We need you to pen some letters for us.”
The tsarina’s face contorted in confusion. The salacious smiles on the faces of the three old boyars sent chills down her spine. She had always hated the councilors.
“Of course,” she nodded, sitting down at another table in the office. A lady-in-waiting behind her produced the stationery. “What do you need it for?”
“I need you,” the tsar’s voice was calculating, “to pen letters to Rasputin, explicit in nature, documenting an affair.”
The look of horror that spread over the tsarina’s face was almost palpable. The councilors sniggered like schoolboys, and the tsar silenced them with a single look. He turned towards his wife with a soft smile.
“It’s for the good of our family and our reign, Alexandra,” he tilted his head to the side. “Certainly, you can understand that?”
Alexandra shook her head, pushing the papers away from her, “I will be ruined! How do you expect this to benefit the family? My reputation will never recover.”
The tsar’s attitude flipped. He was used to being told ‘yes’ at a moment’s notice. Now the women in his family were starting to disagree with him. It was too much. He would be nothing if he could not control his own wife and daughter.
“You have not been of value to this court or to me since Alexei came of age. I had no more need for an heir.” The tsar’s voice was cutting. Alexandra stifled a gasp. She was under no illusions that they were a love match, but the words were harsh to hear directly from the father of her children.
The tsar’s quest for power had always accommodated her. She assumed they had a mutual companionship, at least. She was learning now, in a rather blunt manner, that nothing would stand between Nicholas and his quest for total control.
“You will do it,” he repeated, taking one step towards her. “You can ruin your reputation with these fake letters, or I will ruin your reputation with a very real scenario.”
The tsarina could feel the blood rushing from her face, her complexion turning pale as she thought about the headlines. The boyars were laughing in the corner again while the tsar threatened his wife.
“Alright,” she swallowed thickly, picking up the pen in front of her. The tsarina’s fingers shook, and she struggled to get a firm grip. “What will you have me say, moi tsar?”
The tsar cleared his throat, standing tall as if he were giving a Shakespearean monologue. “I kiss your hands and lay my head upon your blessed shoulders… all I want to do is to sleep, sleep forever on your shoulder… in your embrace.”
The tsarina’s stomach turned over, but her pen moved of its own accord, self-defense overriding her sensibilities.
“Careful now,” one of the men warned, leaning over the tsarina’s shoulder, “You don’t want to go so fast that your penmanship doesn’t look like your own.”
“Maybe that’s best,” another one of them laughed.
“It looks like she is writing in an impassioned plea for her lover.” The voices of the boyars prodded the tsarina, making her feel every inch the pawn she was; acting in a sideshow for corrupt, powerful men.
Suddenly, all her religious games felt dreadfully silly. The tsar had never cared.
As much as he encouraged her to do it ‘for the good of the empire,’ she could see now it was only ever to keep her distracted. The tsarina’s breathing was uneven. She put her pen down and awaited further instruction from her husband.
The tsar poured himself a glass of vodka, sitting on the edge of his desk. He looked like a man who was enjoying himself, without a care in the world.
“My darling, my one true star,” the tsar continued to narrate the letter, the councilmen bursting into laughter as they cheered, “How I weep the nights you spend apart from me… each moment your body is away from mine, I tremble for you.”
The tsarina bit back a gasp at the words, her hands clammy as she scrawled out the letter exactly as the tsar demanded. She thought of the country reading these letters, assuming they were her thoughts, and nearly fell out of her chair in shame.
This went on for well over an hour, the tsarina writing out line after line, growing increasingly explicit, of fake letters to Rasputin.
Eventually, one of the dvorysvasto volunteered to write for Rasputin, and the whole cycle of laughs started again. The men continued to drink, forcing the tsarina to stay in the room as they tossed ideas back and forth.
In the end, there were over twenty letters of correspondence between the tsarina and the priest. The tsar and his dvorysvasto were drunk enough to forget they were human.
They started passing the letters around the room, jeering and cheering with one another whenever they reread a particularly dirty sentence.
It was late in the evening when they finally dismissed the tsarina, who fled before they could change their minds.
She hid in her chambers and refused to come out for three days, turning away food and denying visits from her other children.
She awaited her doom, staring at the same golden walls that caged in Anastasia.
Meanwhile, the letters had been strategically dispatched and began to circulate.
???
On the other side of the Winter Palace, Mikhail looked down and grinned at the sight of Anastasia sleeping in his arms. She was warm, curled up against his chest, the quiet sound of her breathing a balm to the chaos around them.
For the first time, he didn’t feel as if they were standing on some fragile precipice.
They’d always been two steps forward and one step back, each afraid of something they’d been unable to admit.
Mikhail had struggled to let go of the idea of who he thought Anastasia was, a spoiled woman whose tantrum murdered his mother.
Even knowing the truth, his brain struggled to rewire its conditioning.
She was a prisoner of the tsar and her own circumstances, like he was.
Before, it felt like a betrayal of his mother’s memory when he looked at Anastasia with fondness.
He had to move past his own hurt to see who she really was.
And God, she’s magnificent.