Джейн Йолен: The Last Tsar's Dragons

“You see,” he told the tsarina, “the child only needs sleep and to be left alone, not poked by so many doctors. Not given all those aspirin powders. They are from the Devil. The doctors and the powders. Empress, you must not let them at him so.” He felt deep in his heart that he alone could heal the child. He knew the tsarina felt the same. She told him so all the time.

He handed her the boy, and she took Alexei from him, the way a peasant woman would take up her child, with great affection and no fear. Too many upper-class women left the raising of their children to other people. The monk admired the tsarina, even loved her, but really desired her very little, no matter what others might say. He knew that her abominable shyness made her cold, though in her own way, she was totally devoted to the tsar, that handsome, stupid, lucky man. Smiling down at her, he said, “Call on me again, Matushka, Mother of the Russian People. I am always at your command.” He bowed deeply, his black robe puddling at his feet, and gave her the dragon smile.

She did not notice, though her ladies, coming back in a giggling group, did. One of them, the girl with the long neck, put a hand to her face, which was turning an inviting pink. He tucked that away for later, turning to watch the tsarina as she put the sleeping boy in her bed, not letting a single one of her ladies help her.

As Rasputin backed away, he instinctively admired the tsarina’s form. She was not overly slim like her daughters, nor plump— zaftik, as the Jews would say. Her hair was piled atop her head like a dragon’s nest, revealing a strong neck and the briefest glimpse of a surprisingly broad back.

Some peasant stock in her lineage somewhere? He quickly brushed the ungracious thought aside. Not all of us have to raise ourselves from the dirt to God’s grace. Some are given it at birth.

The rest of her form was disguised by draping linens and silks as the current fashion demanded, but the monk knew her waist was capable of being cinched quite tight in the fashions of other times. Her eyes, the monk also knew, were ever so slightly drooping, disguising a stern nature and stubborn resolve—especially when caring for her only son.

She turned those eyes on him now. “Yes, Father Grigori? Do you require something of me?”

The monk blinked twice rapidly, realizing he’d been staring and that perhaps “desiring her not at all” was overstating things a touch.

“Only to implore you once more to keep the bloodsuckers away,” he managed to say, covering his brief awkwardness with another bow. “I feel the young tsar is so much better now that you have stopped those aspirin powders. The bruises less offensive, his energy higher.”

The tsarina nodded, then sat down smoothly on the chair by the bed, a hand’s space away from her sleeping son.

Rasputin took the nod as a dismissal and left the chamber quickly.

Once through the door, he slowed for just a moment. Where is that girl with the swan’s neck? he thought. I should like to take these unworthy feelings out on her. He rubbed his hands together, marveling at how smooth his palms had become during his time at court. Perhaps it is not too late to find a whip.

The tsar sent a letter home the day after getting to the front. The tsarina opened it with shaking hands.

My Own Darling:

Again I had to leave you and the children—my home, my little nest—and I feel so sad and dejected but do not want to show it. God grant that we may not be parted for long. Do not grieve and do not worry! Knowing you well, I am afraid that you will ponder over what Misha told us the other day—that there are many dissidents in the countryside. That the Jews are fomenting revolution, and that this question will torment you in my absence. Please let it alone!

My home guard and my dragons will take care of it all.

My joy, my Sunny, my adorable little Wify, I love you and long for you terribly!

Only when I see the soldiers and sailors do I succeed in forgetting you for a few moments—if it is possible!

God guard you! I kiss you all fondly.

She wondered what she might write in return. That Alexei was slowly recovering? That the conversations among the various European courts were slowing down during these days of war? That because of the war, no Russian princess’s hand could be offered to the Germans, which ruled out many of her closest cousins.

She thought, as she often did, of the last year at this dark, cold, time, when their daughter Sonia had fallen ill with a noise in her lungs. Remembering with an ache in her heart, standing by Sonia’s bed and watching as the doctors put two cups on Sonia’s chest. And Sonia taking no notice, hanging like a lump in the two maids’ arms. And then watching as Sonia, wreathed in prayers, died, but calmly and in a state of grace.

“Oh my darling child,” the tsarina whispered. It was unthinkable, a child like Sonia—so good, so kind—was taken while others she could name—though she wouldn’t, being both a good Christian woman and a princess and tsarina as well—lived on. Sometimes, believing in a benevolent God was a stance she found hard to maintain. Something else she would have to offer up to Father Grigori in confession.

When, this year, she herself had come down with an illness, she had felt no such calm, and little grace, but battled mightily to stay alive because she had to run the country with Nicky away. This roiling, troublesome, ungrateful country full of rebels and a culture that consisted of potatoes, hard drinks, and a peasantry that was always a problem.

A bit like England’s Ireland, only without the poetry.

In her illness, the doctors had cupped her, too, and Father Grigori sent up many prayers for her safety. Her strong English and German constitution stood her in good stead, plus those prayers.

She certainly hadn’t wanted to trouble Nicky with that, in the war with his terrible commanders. He would only have fretted, fearing that she, too, was dying, even if the letter was written in her own firm hand. But he always said he could not go on without her. Did not want to leave her side, ever. So why was he away on a front in an unwinnable war? Why had he left her to be a ruler in a land that didn’t want her? Had never wanted her? Even after she had done so much for it.

And then she thought that she didn’t really know how she would bear it if Nicholas should die before her, out on that cold, unyielding front. She only hoped he came safely home to her and that they could go to Heaven together when their time came.

Then suddenly she knew what she could actually write to him: that his filthy dragons were eating up the treasury, stinking up the castle from the ground up, and killing no Jews, which was hardly the bargain she’d expected, nor had he. She would even send a curse on the dragons in German. Ein Fluch auf ihrem schmutzigen Drachens! It would make him laugh and be strong.

And settling on this at last, she began to write.

“Where did you get them? Where did they come from? What do you plan for them?” Borutsch couldn’t help himself; his voice trembled slightly on the last phrase.

Bronstein looked as if he were going to slap his old friend. “Quiet yourself and don’t look so woman-nervous. We approach the shtetl.”