The Witches of St. Petersburg

Militza echoed his laugh with as much enthusiasm as she could muster and, somehow, she managed to control her shaking hands enough to continue the massage. She worked hard and deep, moving up his strong ankles and down between his thick, splayed toes. Clearly this wasn’t the first time he’d run through the forest unshod. She poured on more oil; her hands were beginning to hurt, but she forced herself to continue, humming gently under her breath. Not long now, she thought. Not long. It would take an iron will not to succumb to slumber. And sure enough, Rasputin’s chest began slowly to rise and fall. After a while he started to snore.

At last! Militza sat back on her haunches for a second, allowing herself a moment’s rest. She could kill him now, as he lay there, snoring and slack-jawed, exhaling through the blackened gaps between his filthy teeth. She could slit his throat, plunge a dagger into his rotten, duplicitous heart: it would be quick and easy and no one need know, least of all the Tsarina. She could even feed him to the dogs outside. But he was her creation, her creature, her thick-shafted lover – and she had not finished with him yet.

Quickly, silently, she crossed her boudoir to find the sewing sampler she’d left on the arm of the sofa earlier that afternoon. She lifted it up and, from underneath, she rescued a small pair of ornately carved golden scissors. Quickly, she knelt back down at Rasputin’s feet and slowly, surely, she got to work. The toenails were thick and difficult to cut, but, one by one, she very carefully snipped them off, keeping them as whole as possible, curved as new moons. Only when she had collected all ten, did she place them very carefully in a beautiful wooden box.

1 28 August 1889, Peterhof, St Petersburg

Right from the very beginning, Militza knew it was not going to work. She was like that. She knew things, saw things, sensed things… Second sight is what they called it. She saw the omens were bad… and the omens never lie.

She’d lit a candle the night before, something she and her mother had always done – a little bit of apotropaic magic to ward off evil. You place a lit candle in the window to dispel the dark, welcoming in the light and good fortune. But it kept on going out. There was a breeze, an ill wind, which meant that no matter how many times she lit the flame, it flickered, guttered and died.

Naturally, she didn’t tell her sister. Anastasia was two years younger and upset enough already, so much so she’d woken up in tears. What sort of bride wakes up in tears on her wedding day?

‘I can’t,’ she sobbed, propped up by a pile of soft, white pillows. ‘I just can’t.’

At the time, Militza didn’t know what to do. Anastasia was weeping copiously; her black hair, loose around her face, clung in damp curls to her wet cheeks. Her huge black eyes were mournful and completely piteous.

‘You’ve got to help me!’

‘He’s not so bad,’ Militza heard herself lying to her sister. ‘He’s a good match.’

‘How can you say that? He is sixteen years older than me, he has been married before and—’

‘And he’s been hand-picked by Papa.’

‘I’ve only known him for four weeks. Four weeks! His eyes are cold and his heart is even colder. Oh God! Why didn’t Papa choose someone else?’