Cast of Characters
Peter the Great’s family
Peter the Great, Tsar and Emperor of All the Russias; also known as Peter Alexeyevich Romanov, batjuschka Tsar, Peter I
Marta Skawronski, mistress and then wife of Peter the Great; also known as Catherine Alexeyevna, Catherinushka, Tsaritsa and Empress of All the Russias
Evdokia, Peter’s first wife, mother of Alexey, formerly Tsaritsa
Tsarevich Alexey, Peter’s son and original heir
Charlotte Christine von Brunswick, known as Charlotte, Alexey's wife
Petrushka, Alexey and Charlotte’s son
Tsarevna Anna, Tsarevna Elizabeth and Tsarevna Natalya, Peter's surviving daughters by Catherine
Ekaterina, Peter and Catherine’s daughter who dies in infancy
Peter Petrovich aka Petrushka, Peter the Great’s preferred heir, Catherine’s and his son, dies young
Regent Sophia, Peter’s half-sister
Tsar Ivan, Peter’s half-brother
Tsaritsa Praskovia Ivanovna, Ivan’s widow
Tsarevna Jekaterina Ivanovna, Tsarevna Anna Ivanovna, Ivan’s daughters; also known as the Tsarevny Ivanovna (plural form)
Duke of Courland, husband of Tsarevna Anna Ivanovna
Duke of Mecklenburg, husband of Tsarevna Jekaterina Ivanovna
Duke of Holstein, marries Tsarevna Anna, Peter and Catherine’s daughter
At the Russian Imperial Court
Count Alexander Danilovich Menshikov, general in Peter’s army and his trusted friend; also known as Alekasha, Menshikov
Daria Arsenjeva, noblewoman, mistress and then wife to Menshikov
Varvara Arsenjeva, sister to Daria
Rasia Menshikova, sister to Alexander Danilovich Menshikov
Antonio Devier, husband of Rasia Menshikova, head of Peter’s secret service
Feofan Prokopovich, Archbishop of Novgorod, confessor to Peter
The Princes Dolgoruky, supporters of Alexey’s son, Petrushka
Blumentrost, Paulsen and Horn, doctors to Peter
Anna Mons, the German former mistress of Peter
Wilhelm Mons, her brother, a courtier and Catherine’s lover
Marie Hamilton, courtier, Peter’s mistress
General Marshal Boris Petrovich Sheremetev, Peter’s leading general
Alice Kramer, German mistress of Sheremetev, later lady-in-waiting
Count Peter Andreyevich Tolstoy, courtier and confidant of Peter
Alexandra Tolstoya, Count Peter Andreyevich Tolstoy’s sister, lady-in-waiting to Catherine
Pavel Jagushinsky, master of Peter’s household, Privy Councillor
Peter Shafirov, Jewish courtier, Privy Councillor
Ostermann, Peter’s Chancellor
Jakovlena, Cherkessk maid to Catherine
Boi-Baba, washerwoman, mistress to Peter
Afrosinja, washerwoman, mistress of Alexey
Andreas Schlüter, master builder and architect, creator of the Amber Room
Domenico Trezzini, architect in St Petersburg
In the Baltics
Christina, Fyodor and Maggie, Marta’s half-siblings
Tanya, Marta’s stepmother
Vassily Gregorovich Petrov, Russian merchant in Walk, buys Marta to be a house serf
Praskaya, Vassily’s mistress
Nadia, Vassily’s housekeeper
Olga, another of Vassily’s house serfs
Ernst and Catherine Gluck, Lutheran pastor and his wife
Anton, Frederic and Agneta Gluck, their children
Johann Trubach, Swedish dragoon, first husband of Marta
The Europeans
King Charles XII of Sweden, Peter’s enemy in the Great Northern War
Marshal Rehnskjöld, Charles XII of Sweden’s principal general
Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony – Peter’s ally
Frederick William, King of Prussia, the Soldier King
Louis XIV of France
Louis XV of France
Jean-Jacques Campredon, French Ambassador to Russia
Prince Dmitri Kantemir of Moldovia
Princess Maria Kantemir, his daughter, Peter’s mistress
INTERREGNUM, 1725
He is dead. My beloved husband, the mighty Tsar of all the Russias, has died – and just in time.
Moments before death came for him, Peter called for a quill and paper to be brought to him in his bed-chamber in the Winter Palace. My heart almost stalled. He had not forgotten, he was going to drag me down with him. When he lost consciousness for the last time and the darkness drew him closer to its heart, the quill slipped from his fingers. Black ink spattered the soiled sheets; time held its breath. What had the Tsar wanted to settle with that last effort of his tremendous spirit?
I knew the answer.
The candles in the tall candelabra filled the room with a heavy scent and an unsteady light; their glow made shadows reel and brought the woven figures on the Flemish tapestries to life, their coarse features showing pain and disbelief. The voices of the people who’d stood outside the door all night were drowned out by the February wind, rattling furiously at the shutters. Time spread slowly, like oil on water. Peter had imprinted himself on our souls like his signet ring in hot wax. It seemed impossible that the world hadn’t careened to a halt at his passing. My husband, the greatest will ever to impose itself on Russia, had been more than our ruler. He had been our fate. He was still mine.
The doctors – Blumentrost, Paulsen and Horn – stood silently around Peter’s bed, staring at him, browbeaten. Five kopeks-worth of medicine, given early enough, could have saved him. Thank god for the quacks’ lack of good sense.
Without looking, I could feel Feofan Prokopovich, Archbishop of Novgorod, and Alexander Menshikov watching me. Prokopovich had made the Tsar’s will eternal and Peter had much to thank him for. Menshikov, on the other hand, owed his fortune and influence entirely to Peter. What was it he had said when someone tried to blacken Alexander Danilovich’s name to him by referring to his murky business dealings? ‘Menshikov is always Menshikov, in all that he does!’ That had put an end to that.
Dr Paulsen had closed the Tsar’s eyes and crossed his hands on his chest, but he hadn’t removed the scroll, Peter’s last will and testament, from his grasp. Those hands, which were always too dainty for the tall, powerful body, had grown still, helpless. Just two weeks earlier he had plunged those very hands into my hair, winding it round his fingers, inhaling the scent of rosewater and sandalwood.
‘My Catherine,’ he’d said, calling me by the name he himself had given me, and smiled at me. ‘You’re still a beauty. But what will you look like in a convent, shorn until you are bald? The cold there will break your spirit even though you’re strong as a horse. Do you know that Evdokia still writes to me begging for a second fur, poor thing! What a good job you can’t write!’ he’d added, laughing.
It had been thirty years since his first wife Evdokia had been banished to the convent. I’d met her once. Her eyes shone with madness, her shaven head was covered in boils and scabs from the cold and filth, and her only company was a hunchbacked dwarf to serve her in her cell. Peter had ordered the poor creature to have her tongue cut out, so in response to Evdokia’s moaning and laments, all she was able to do was burble. He’d been right to believe that seeing her would fill me with lifelong dread.
I knelt at the bedside and the three doctors retreated to the twilight at the edge of the room, like crows driven from a field: the hapless birds Peter had been so terrified of in the last years of his life. The Tsar had called open season on them all over his Empire. Farmers caught, killed, plucked and roasted them for reward. None of this helped Peter: silently, at night, the phantom bird would slip through the padded walls and locked doors of his bedchamber. Its ebony wings blotted up the light and, in their cool shadow, the blood on the Tsar’s hands never dried.