CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
In November 1917, radical socialist Bolsheviks . . . seized power in Russia from a provisional government, establishing the world’s first communist state. The imperial family was sent to live under house arrest in Siberia. In the late night or early morning hours of July 16–17, 1918, the imperial family (Czar Nicholas II, his wife Czarina Alexandria, their five children Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia, and Alexei) and four attendants were executed in Yekaterinburg, a city on the eastern side of the Ural Mountains.
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Byelovvyezh Hunting Lodge
Spala, Poland
1912
He appeared before her as he always did—long, filthy black hair, beard tangled and crusted with dried bits of food, his black robes slovenly. Alexandra did not care he was called the Mad Monk, a debaucher, a drunkard. Even now, she smelled vodka on his breath, and his robes smelled of sweat and sex. It mattered not. He was holy, he had mystical powers no one else had. She believed to her soul this strange mystic was sent to her by God, and she trusted him implicitly.
Rasputin bowed low to her. It was an improper audience, he knew, but the czarina had bid him to come alone to the lodge, and in secret, away from the czar. She gave him her pale hand. He said in his soft, deep voice, “I understand the czarevitch is ill from the journey.”
Her hand tightened in his, and he saw the fear in her eyes, a familiar sight. But he saw now she was even more frantic than usual about her son. Her words burst out, “A friend, a trusted friend, has told me you have a new method to help Alexei. Is this true?”
Rasputin said slowly, “Yes, I have learned I can do more, perhaps heal him entirely.”
He’d saved Alexei before through his prayers, at least temporarily, and now he could heal him? Her heart leaped. “He is the future czar, my only son, among all the gaggle of girls. You know the physicians say there is no cure for his hemophilia, yet you say you can cure him? They say there is no hope, that soon he will die.” She clutched his black sleeve. “I cannot bear it. He must live—he is our country’s future.” She leaned close. “Tell me what you mean, what is this method you say will cure him? Is this really true? Why did you not tell me sooner?”
So many questions tumbling over each other. Instead of answering, Rasputin pulled a sheaf of papers from his coarse woolen bag.
Alexandra saw Alexei’s head snap up, his eyes on the papers.
Rasputin said, “Your Highness, the physicians know only what is of this world, what they see, what they can understand. But you see these pages? They hold the answers. They were found last year by a family in my village, in the old grandmother’s trunk after she died. The family’s father assumed they were gibberish, for he doesn’t read, and he found the drawings disturbing. He was talking about them at the inn in the village. I looked at them and I knew they were important, no, more than important, they were sent to me from our Holy Father.
“He gave them to me. I have studied the pages, and I have experimented with what I believe are ingredients from the plants drawn on the pages. And there are other things I didn’t first understand, but then slowly I came to realize the book was telling me how to cure the hemophilia.” He lowered his voice. “I tried it on another last month in a neighboring village. It worked. The child thrives. But Your Highness, word has gotten out. There are cries of evil and blasphemy, and threats of death against me. You must swear to stay silent.”
“I swear. Of course I will not put you in harm’s way, but what do the pages tell you to do?”
Rasputin looked over at the boy, precocious, studious, too old for his age. The fear of death around every corner had made him thoughtful beyond his few years. Rasputin saw Alexei’s eyes were still fastened on the pages he held in his hand. He said nothing, merely turned to show the czarina the pages. She couldn’t understand the symbols, the letters, of course, and the strange drawings in muted reds and greens resembled nothing she had ever seen.
He hadn’t been able to read the strange language or understand the symbols, the bizarre drawings, either, until one night when he was nearly insensible from drink. He’d thought of the czarevitch, and suddenly he saw meaning in the strange letters and had recognition for the drawings; he saw herbs he’d never seen before, and he recognized them. It was further proof the pages were from God.
The next day he’d collected the herbs and begun to experiment. And he came to understand that whenever he thought of the dying boy, the pages somehow made it possible for him to read and understand and learn. He said to the czarina, his voice even softer, lowered now to a near whisper, “My method, it is unorthodox, but it will work. Your son will not only grow strong, he will live a very long life.”
She whispered, “Is it witchcraft?”
He immediately reassured her. “No, no, it is not, my lady. It is science. Proven science.”
But she was shaking her head at him. “You misunderstand me. I care not what you call it. I do not care if it is witchcraft. Will it save my son? And saving him will save Russia? How does it work? What must you do?”
Rasputin leaned close and whispered to her. She jerked back, her face draining of color. “No, that is worse than witchcraft, that is blasphemous, barbarous. It is—evil.”
Only at rare times had he seen her go stubborn, not that he could blame her, not this time. He found it exciting, the passion in this beautiful woman. He set out again to soothe, to calm her. “Your Highness, I will admit the cure is esoteric, yes, but it cannot be evil, because I know God sent me the pages.” Still she sat frozen, staring at him.
He said, “There is a potion first, and it is not dangerous nor is it witchcraft. Then we will do what we must. As I said, I have witnessed its results. I will be discreet, naturally. No one will know but you and me.”
“And Alexei. He’s the one who will be taking this—treatment. He will not abide such a thing—he won’t.”
“Even to be healed, once and for all? To know that he must rule after his father, so Russia will grow in strength and power under his hand?”
The czarina paced, at last coming to a stop at the window. She looked out upon the courtyard. Only her coachman was there, feeding the horses. If she agreed to this, would she be cursed into eternity? Yes, she knew she would, it was horrifying. How could she allow such a thing, how?
The young boy said from the chaise set close to the fire, “Mother, I do not want to die, and you know I will. One careless prick, and I will bleed to death. Please, Mother, I do not know what this method is, but I wish to try it. Let him.”
She hadn’t heard Alexei speak with such passion for a very long time, her poor boy, weak, pale, his skin stretched so tightly over his bones. To look at him smote her. Some days she didn’t think she could bear it another minute, another hour. He wanted this? But he didn’t know. She went to him, kneeled beside the chaise, and took his small wasted hand. “Alexei? You don’t know what it is you ask.”
The boy said simply, “I want to be well. I am tired of being ill. I am willing to try anything.”
“But this method, it is wrong, it is accursed.”
Alexei sat up, his pale face filled with excitement, with determination, and in that moment she could see the future czar. “Mother, you will listen. I have decided. I do not want to die. I do not care if the method is cursed. Do what you must, Rasputin. And give me the pages. I should like to read them.”
Rasputin stilled. He said slowly, “Most cannot read them, they are a mystery. Do you think you can?”
Alexei gave him a faint smile, and her boy’s voice sounded suddenly full of conviction. “Of course I can read them. Even now I can hear them speaking to me from across the room.”
The man called the Mad Monk, demon, and spawn of Satan, bowed his head. He believed the boy. Hadn’t he only understood what herbs to mix when he thought of him? And the blood, its directions so clearly coming into his mind?
He watched the czarina slowly get to her feet. She looked at him. Slowly, she nodded.
Rasputin bowed to her. “It will be done. I will come to you at midnight.” He was aware the boy stared at the pages as he placed them back into his black bag.
It was only after Rasputin left that Alexandra explained to her son what Rasputin would give him. She’d fully expected him to draw back, horrified. To her shock, he had not. He leaned close. “The pages, Mother, they already told me what I must do. If the monk were to bring me a goat, it wouldn’t matter.” He smiled at her, took her hand between his thin ones. “I will drink the potion, I will drink the blood, and then I will be well, Mother. I trust the pages. I will be well.”
And she said nothing more, but he saw a tear running down her face.
“Mother, I know you do not wish to believe in magic, and thus you believe me mad to claim the pages Rasputin has brought speak to me.” He shrugged a thin shoulder. “If I hear the pages speaking, then they can hear me, they understand what is wrong with me. The pages tell me I can be cured.”
Still she fretted and paced, wondering how such a thing could be possible. Alexei hearing pages speaking to him? It was his illness, finally it was in his head, in his brain, yet he had spoken with such clarity of thought and so logically. Were the pages telling him what to say to convince her?
When she turned back to him, he said, “Mother, I feel so weak, I know I will die. How can I lead our magnificent country if I am dead?”
She had no more arguments. Though her fear, her revulsion, was great, at the appointed time, she took her son to a small room in the basement of the lodge, far away from the servants and the guards.
Rasputin was there.
The girl with him was pale as fresh cream, with dark hair and fear in her glazed eyes. Alexei stared at her, felt something deep inside him stir. He heard the pages, softly singing to him. He knew what he would do to her. And suddenly, he wanted it very badly.
He said in a formal voice, “Mother, I wish you to wait outside. When it is done, I will come out to you.” Rasputin opened the door, waited for her to slowly walk from the room, one last look at the girl and her son. When she was gone, the door locked, Alexei said simply, “Let us begin.”
Her blood was so warm, like heated silver and salt. Rasputin had fed her opium to keep her calm, and so she was. The very pretty young girl sagged against Alexei as he drank, and drank, and drank from the cut in her neck. The opium in her blood went to his head, making him dizzy with swirling colors bleeding into each other, colors so bright they burned his eyes, and suddenly he was flying in bright skies filled with low-lying clouds dripping golden drops of rain to the fields below. And birds, so many he didn’t recognize, in all colors and shapes, were all singing to him. And it was beautiful, and he was happy.
Just as suddenly, Alexei felt himself thrown from the present back, back, into the past, where a French soldier, no he was far more important than a simple soldier, he was a long-dead emperor and he was listening to an old man with a white mane of hair and brilliant blue eyes telling him a tale of two boys, twins, one strong and one weak with the blood disease, like him. And then he saw piles of dead and fires burning entire villages, heard screams and saw the emperor’s face, pale as death, and he was riding away, surrounded by soldiers.
Then he was thrown into the future, but he saw nothing at all, only whiteness, but he heard clearly the pages singing to him as he drank. Of life, of death, of simply being. And he rejoiced. It seemed to take forever, but perhaps it was only moments, Alexei did not know.
When it was done, and the girl was dead, Alexei didn’t want to let her go. She was part of him, her lifeblood filling him, giving him a future. He rocked her against him, kissed her white slack mouth. Rasputin finally pulled her away.
He studied Alexei. So little amazed him, but this did. The pages, the pages had wrought this miracle. The boy glowed with health, his cheeks were fuller, his eyes bright, his shoulders straight. He was weeping. “Please, don’t take her away, not yet.”
“I must,” Rasputin said. “I will see she’s properly taken care of.”
Rasputin then examined Alexei, listened to his heart and lungs, checked his pupils. He stepped back, nearly tripping over the girl’s body.
“It is good, Czarevitch. You are healed.” And he carried the young girl over his shoulder, past Alexei’s white-faced mother, through the back of the lodge, deep into the forest.
And for some time, Alexei was healed. He was strong and able to play without worry of falling and having blood flow out of him, and not stop.
Eventually, though, he sickened again. He came alone, not telling his mother. Rasputin brought another girl, a blond china doll this time, younger than the first. Alexei didn’t like the taste of her as much. He much preferred the third; even with the drug Rasputin had forced down her throat, she fought and screamed. He thought of her as the fighter, with raven hair and blue eyes. Rasputin finally bound her. She was helpless, and the horror of him and what he was doing made the blood taste tart and rich. And he flew again back, back to a long-ago castle in a faraway land and he saw two young brothers, one well and one sick, like him. And they had the pages. And they spoke to the pages, and the pages spoke to them, sang to them, and wept when they were parted.
And then he was flung into the future, only this time there wasn’t only blank whiteness. No, he saw a peasant boy kneeling by a rowan tree. He saw him pull out the pages from his shirt and wrap them carefully in a dirty woolen cloth. He dug a hole and buried them there, beneath the rowan, and he ran, never seeing the small girl from the nearby Gypsy encampment watching him.
Two years later, Rasputin, fearing the nobles had discovered what he had done, knew he had to rid himself of the magic pages. He was deaf to Alexei’s pleas that he have them. He sent them off with a young boy, an acolyte, cautioning him to take them away as far as he could and bury them under a rowan tree.
He didn’t have to tell Alexei what he’d done, the boy already knew, because he could no longer hear the pages sing to him. They were too far away. He was inconsolable.
When Rasputin finally met his end, his last thought was of the magic pages buried under the rowan tree, and the boy.
Without the potion given him to drink before he drank from a girl, Alexei weakened. He dreamed often of the now-silent pages, so far away from him, buried under a rowan tree. And he dreamed of the small gypsy girl watching, and wondered.
His end came on a hot evening in July.
His exhausted blood was no match for the bullets.