The Romanov Bride Read online

  The Romanov Bride

  Robert Alexander

  The last in the bestselling trilogy – the drama of a grand duchess and the peasant who determines her fate

  As the Russia of Nicholas and Alexandra rushes toward catastrophe, the Grand Duchess Elisavyeta is ensconced in the lavish and magnificent Romanov court. In the same city, but worlds apart, Pavel is a simple village man in search of a better life. When his young wife, Shura, is shot and killed by tsarist soldiers during a political demonstration, Pavel dedicates his life to overthrowing the Romanovs. Pavel's underground group assassinates Elisavyeta's husband, the grand duke, changing her life forever.

  Grief-stricken, the grand duchess gives up her wealth and becomes a nun dedicated to the poor people of Russia. When revolution finally sweeps in, Elisavyeta is the last Romanov captured, ripped from her abbey in the middle of the night and shuttled to Siberia. It is here, in a distant wood on a moonlit night, that Pavel is left to decide her fate.

  The Romanov Bride is Alexander's fullest and most engaging book yet. Combining stunning writing with a keen talent for storytelling, Alexander uncovers more compelling Romanov drama and intrigue for his many readers and all fans of historical fiction.

  Robert Alexander

  The Romanov Bride

  © 2008

  For L and P,

  who continually teach me what really matters

  PROLOGUE

  Solovetsky Islands, White Sea, USSR October, 1936

  “I know that when you get right down to it people are not that easy to kill. And as I’m sure you are well aware, murder’s a very messy business, it really is. Oh, sometimes you get lucky with a single bullet, say, right in the temple. Or the proper angle of a knife shoved into a chest. But there’s always a struggle, usually some screaming, and then there’s always that mess-the blood, the splatter, the waste that comes falling out. Trust me, things get ugly even if you use poison. So, no, I can’t say I ever enjoyed killing. I only did it for the revolution-because it was necessary to clean the vipers’ den, because it was the only way to change things for the better, because there was no other way to move our country forward to socialism. As our great Comrade Lenin said-wait, now how does it go? Oh, yes: ‘There are no morals in politics, only expedience.’ Yes, that’s what Comrade Lenin himself said. And I can’t say that I disagree with that, not at all. In any case, how else were we to throw off the yokes of tsarist oppression and capitalism except with violence? ” Pavel picked up a stick and started poking at the camp fire. “But excuse me, I’m wandering…”

  “No, no, Pavel, that’s quite all right,” said Vladimir, the other man, gray and worn, who sat on the other side of the fire, a tattered blanket pulled tightly around his black clothing. “I want to hear it all. It really is quite fascinating, you know.”

  Feeling the chill of the October night settle gently yet firmly through his ragged clothing, Pavel scooted closer to the flames. He wasn’t a particularly tall man, and he’d always been trim, more so now than ever. Though he hadn’t gone at all bald, his shock of once dark hair was rapidly graying, while the skin on his face and hands had grown as coarse and thick as crude, wrinkled parchment paper.

  When he lifted his feet right up to the fire, Pavel felt the blessed warmth and saw it too as steam swirled from his muddy felt boots. It had already snowed this week but, glancing upward, he knew it wouldn’t tonight. No, it couldn’t. They were so close to the polar circle, and the great northern sky was perfect, a vast blanket of deep blue, sprinkled heavily with stars and more stars yet. Indeed, it felt like the very last of all nights, and in a way it was, at least here, because by the first of tomorrow’s light he would be making a change of lodging. He sucked in the night air, let the scent of the loamy soil and sweet pine wood fill his body and soul. Bozhe moi, my God, he thought, Vladimir and he had worked so hard, digging and digging for nearly a week, and now this was their reward, a glorious night. How had he made it this far, lived this long, outwitting first the tsar’s secret police, next fighting for the revolution and civil war?

  “I’m a lucky man, Vladimir. Do you have any idea why, eh?”

  “No, tell me, Pavel, why are you so lucky?”

  “Because I’m fifty and no men in my family have ever seen so many winters.”

  “Truly?”

  “Truly. My father’s father was born a serf and was crushed in the fields-trampled by his master’s horse-just a year before emancipation. That was the year of 1860, and my own father was only two.” Pavel shrugged. “As for Papa, well… his dream was to buy the land he farmed, but he died in misery of tetanus.”

  “And brothers?”

  “Both killed in the war.”

  “Any sisters?”

  “One, but she disappeared nearly twenty years ago, not long after the revolution broke out. Just where she is today, or if in fact she’s still alive, I have no idea.”

  Tugging the blanket tightly around him, Vladimir suddenly started laughing. “I’m sure everyone in my family thinks I’m long dead by now.”

  Staring at the other man through the flickering yellow light and studying his grandfatherly face, Pavel couldn’t help chuck-ling. Yes, he saw it quite clearly.

  “You know, Vladimir, if you weren’t so thin you’d make the perfect Father Frost. With your big gray beard and those twinkling eyes-yes, in spite of everything I can still see the spark in you-you’d be fit for any New Year’s celebration.”

  “Perhaps…” Holding up his dirt-caked hands, he laughed and said, “But first I’d have to sit in a banya for a day or two to steam off all this filth.”

  The two of them sat at the crackling fire in silence for quite a long while, the darkness of the night seeping more and more densely around them. And Pavel found it wonderful. Such peace. Such quiet. If only, he thought, this night would never end.

  Finally, Vladimir cleared his throat, and said, “So go on, tell me everything. I need to hear it all, you know.”

  “Well… well, my point is that she was really hard to eliminate.”

  Struck by the length of time that had passed since that fateful night-could it really be 18 years?-Pavel fell silent. And yet he could still see it in his mind’s eye with such startling clarity. Yes, there she was standing in the cart, singing that hymn. And there he was shoving her along the rutted lane, leading her right up to the edge.

  Vladimir asked, “Why was it hard? Because she was so beautiful?”

  “True, she was astonishing-people would just stop and stare. Imagine, she was the most beautiful bride in Russia, married first to the worst of the Romanovs, and next to Christ. But no, it wasn’t difficult because of all that.”

  “Then, because her sister was none other than our Tsaritsa-I mean, the former Tsaritsa-Aleksandra Fyodorovna? As part of the Royal Family, she must have been well guarded at all times.”

  “Well, you have a point. Before she abandoned society, she was flanked by the best of soldiers. But, no, we could have gotten through. After all, we assassinated many other notables, including, you know, her husband.”

  “Then why? Why was that one so hard to do away with? Because she had taken to the cloth?”

  Pavel shrugged. “Call it what you like, but she did seem to have some sort of divine protection. For example, while it only took us a few weeks of plotting before we blew up her husband, it took years upon years for her. That’s how powerful she was.”

  “The soul is much mightier than the body, of course,” muttered Vladimir. “So in those final days did she have anything interesting to say to you?”

  “Oh, a great deal. She was under my direct watch, and we talked for hour upon hour.”

  “And what in the name of the devil did she speak of?”

/>   “Actually, we told each other the stories of our lives, and the most interesting thing she told me was also the strangest.”

  Chapter 1 ELLA

  Though of course I was the granddaughter of the doyenne of sovereigns, Queen Victoria, I did not grow up in luxury by any means, for our little Grand Duchy of Hesse und bei Rhein in Germany was not a wealthy one, having suffered so in wars, recent ones at that. Indeed, it was during such difficult times that my mother, Grand Duchess Alice, wrote often to England, begging Grandmama to send lint and old linens from Windsor and Balmoral, things Mama and her ladies could turn into bandages.

  Actually, my mother’s eternal want was by no means to remain cloistered within the cold confines of any royal court, but to go out amongst the people to see poverty and pain, so that her good intentions would never dry up. As if a heretic I heard her mutter more than once that it might be best if royalty itself were washed away. It was no wonder, then, that following the lead of her good friend and mentor, Florence Nightingale, my mother took it upon herself to be out and about in Darmstadt, here, there, everywhere, visiting those in need.

  One particular morn after our breakfast of porridge and sausage, she took me along, leaving my elder sister, Victoria, and my baby sisters, Alicky and May, at home. This was in 1878, and I had no idea where we were going in our dot of a town, for Mama had seen to the organization of the Alice Society for Aid to Sick and Wounded, which included the founding of many hospitals and homes for the poor. She was very progressive in these things, fighting for the good of the common people and even for clean water and proper bathing practices, something that riled many old-timers who cared naught for a weekly bath. Or a monthly one, for that matter.

  However, whatever my mother’s good intentions were that day, I myself wasn’t full of enthusiasm. All of fourteen years of age, I would have much preferred to stay home and draw, or, if work I must, sew a frock or pinafore for a poor child.

  “Don’t dawdle, Ella,” she called over her shoulder. “We haven’t much time.”

  “But where are we going?” I asked as we quickly walked down a narrow cobbled lane of the Old Quarter.

  “There’s a woman in need, that’s all I’ve been told-and that, young lady, is all you need to know.”

  Within a few steps we’d left the tangle of streets and come to a part of town I’d never seen before. The road was quite straight but quite unkempt, the small pitched-roof houses half falling down, the filth and waste running freely in the gutters. Children in rags, their faces smeared with dirt, ran this way and that like wild dogs. And when we rounded the next corner a man in torn clothing stared upon us. Had he, I wondered, recognized my mother with her dark hair, slim nose, and blue eyes as none other than the Grand Duchess Alice, or did he have evil thoughts? Of course my father, as ruler of our little Duchy, would have had a fit if he’d known my mother and I had gone not to visit the Alice Hospital or such, but instead descended into the lowest part of town, and were doing so not simply unannounced but without an attendant, let alone a guard of any kind. But that was my mother, a German princess by marriage but forever an English Protestant in her heart and ways. Oh, she was a stubborn woman, that one. Years later, whenever it was just my sisters and I at the tea table, the story always went round and round again how furious Mama had made Grandmama when she decided that she herself and not a wet nurse would feed us children.

  Putting down her needlework for a moment, one of my sisters would invariably shout with a laugh, “And what did our dear Grandmama, Queen Victoria, call our dear mother, Grand Duchess Alice?”

  “A cow!” we would all cry in unison.

  “And what name did our dear Grandmama, the Queen, give for a name to her favorite Highland cow at Balmoral?”

  “ Alice!” we would all shout, roaring with laughter.

  So that morning, already quite aware of my mother’s determined nature, I brushed back a lock of my fair hair and took Mama by the hand and did not leave her side until we came to a tumbledown cottage. We stopped at a door, crooked and cracked with age, and my mother knocked upon it. When no answer came, she knocked again. Suddenly a child screamed in reply, and without hesitation my very regal mother, small in stature yet eternally energetic, put her shoulder to the door and plowed it open.

  Before that moment I could never have imagined such grime, such stench, such chaos. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the darkness of the small room with its low ceiling, for no candles were burning and the fire had long since gone cold. Clutching an old wooden chair next to the sole table was a little girl, wearing a torn shirt and nothing below. Obviously something was quite wrong with her, for waste of a very nasty sort was dripping between her legs. The screaming began anew just then, not from this child but another, an infant, lying in some kind of cradle. My mother hurried over to the child, a boy of but a few months, who was likewise covered with his own waste.

  Gasping, I breathed in, fully catching the stench. Feeling my breakfast start to rise, I grabbed my own stomach. I was just beginning to wonder whose children these were and what kind of mother could have left them so despondent, when I heard a moan and sensed a person stir against the far wall. It was then that something bloated and red began to reach out from a pile of rags. An arm covered with boils, I realized. Then came a shoulder, all scarlet and glistening with sweat. Finally a face, blotchy red and also spotted with boils. It was a woman, her hair stringy and greasy, her teeth all but gone, her face hideous and swollen. She looked like the ugliest witch from the fairy stories of my youth.

  I stepped back and was about to run screaming.

  Suddenly my mother took me gently by the hand and in English softly but firmly said, “Ella, my dear, you must learn to treat the sick and needy without hesitation or fear, for that is the true Christian way.”

  I gazed into my mother’s small dark eyes and saw a ferocious caring and determination to help others. And so, taking courage from her and following her good Christian example, the two of us set to work. I was more than hesitant as I first occupied myself with kindling fire and boiling water. Soon my task was to clean the waste from the children and bathe them, which was by no means pleasant. Next my mother fed the little ones, which quieted them greatly, and then she made tea, and I watched with admiration as she fed this to the ill woman. Though this seemed to coax the woman out of her delirium, my mother was still concerned, and she sent a neighbor to fetch a doctor.

  “But… but I haven’t a florin to my name!” gasped the woman, her face so blotchy.

  “You needn’t worry about money, that will be taken care of,” my mother said sternly. “Your only business is to get better.”

  “And… and who are you? Why have you come to me?”

  “We’ve come because our help was needed.”

  “But who-”

  “Sh… just rest,” soothed my mother without identifying herself.

  By the time we left hours later, the doctor had come and gone and it seemed relatively normal in that little cottage, for we had scrubbed children and floors and all. Indeed, the little ones were fed and asleep, and the woman, whose husband had recently died in a mining accident, was resting comfortably.

  As we stepped out onto the little street, my mother leaned over and kissed me on the top of my head, saying, “You did very nicely, sweetheart.”

  I took her hand in both of mine and kissed it, and then we proceeded back, chattering mostly in English, some in German, as was our custom. We returned completely unrecognized as mother and daughter of the ruling family until we were within steps of the Neues Palais, our dear home that Mama had decorated in such a very cheerful English manner, chintzes and all.

  And that became not only the most treasured memory I have of my mother but one of the last. In a few short months our united family, which had always been bound with love, was torn apart by epidemic. Diphtheria came suddenly and mysteriously, first taking my baby sister, May, just four years old, whose loss alone nearly killed Mama. Inde
ed, it weakened her so that she, too, fell ill, and though the doctors kept the inhalers filled with chlorate of potash to ease her suffering, she was soon taken by the same disease. My own pain was quite unimaginable, for I was not allowed to look after my poor suffering mother in her final hours nor even to kiss her farewell-for my own safety, I was kept quite apart from my beloveds in their illness. Needless to say, grief overtook my father, and for years thereafter our palace was all but dark.

  But then everything changed completely when I came to Russia as the bride of my father’s first cousin, a Romanov-Grand Duke Sergei Aleksandrovich, son of Aleksander II and brother of Aleksander III-and it was at that time that I began to live a life of pomp and wealth beyond the reach of any other earthly kingdom.

  And a mere nine years after my own royal marriage there I was in the Kremlin’s Cathedral of the Assumption, no doubt in my mind that the Russian Imperial Court was the most magnificent in all of Europe. My dear Grandmama had forever derided Russians for their extravagance, but Nicky’s coronation, which was taking place right before my eyes on that beautiful day in May, 1896, was the most glorious spectacle I had ever witnessed. As I stood amid a sea of kings and queens, princes and princesses and countless diplomats, the sunshine streaked like golden spears into the smoky, incense-thick church, and the dresses and uniforms, the jewels and the sabers all sparkled and danced with light. Candles burned everywhere, golden icons of saints stared down upon us, and I dabbed a tear from my left eye. Before us an incredible event had just unfolded: young Nicky, twenty-six years old and the new husband of my younger sister, had by the grace of God been anointed His Imperial Highness Nikolai II, Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias.

  Nicky then ordered that the Imperial Crown be handed him, which he took directly from the hands of the very important Metropolitan Palladius of Sankt Peterburg. By tradition Russian tsars crowned themselves, signifying there was no man of any rank or priest of any import between Tsar and God. And with his own hands Nicky did exactly that, crowning himself with the great Crown, that blazing masterpiece covered in some 5,000 smaller diamonds, dozens of larger ones, brilliant pearls, and, of course, that magnificent uncut ruby-the world’s largest of 415 carats-atop all. From that very moment, Nicky’s only responsibility was to answer to God and God alone.