Chapter Twenty-eight
Her Imperial Highness Tatiana I Nicholaevna,
Empress of all the Russias
Tobolsk: The Coronation
A Russian coronation was a blend of the religious and the political. The ruler was believed to have been chosen by God, anointed by God, thus to be the link between the divine and the secular. It is also something of a marriage between the ruler and the Russian people.
Accordingly, the bells of all the roughly two dozen churches in the town rang out, but this time with joy, not with alarm. Tobolsk had never been a pro-Bolshevik city and could now, once again, revel in the fact.
From the Governor’s House, now well-heated, cleaned out, and guarded by Dratvin’s company—soon to be renamed as First Company, Semenovsky Regiment—Tatiana stepped out followed by her sisters and her makeshift retinue. On the frozen street east of the building, Fourth Company stood in ranks, still wearing their white camouflage smocks and helmets, and bearing their arms. Between the late lieutenant Collan’s platoon and Molchalin’s a space had been left. In this stood one of the sleighs and a brace of Yakut horses, all done up for the occasion, with ribbons and gilding, fragrant pine branches and a golden cloth canopy held on a frame lashed to the sleigh. A single seat in front held Sergeant Kaledin. Behind him a somewhat grander seat was tied in for Tatiana. Behind her, a bench for the two sisters completed the arrangements. Natalya, as a newly minted lady in waiting, would walk immediately behind the sleigh.
One of the Icons was of the Blessed Virgin. Ordinarily, a coronation would be held in Moscow and the first stop of the tsar’s party would be the Chapel of Our Lady of Iveron, home of the Icon of the Blessed Virgin of Iveron. Instead, in these constrained circumstances, a priest held forth the Icon, as Sergeant Major Blagov placed a kneeler on the ground for Tatiana to use, to avoid soiling her white dress.
Solemnly, Tatiana crossed herself, knelt, and crossed herself again. The icon was moved forward close enough for her to kiss it, then removed. She stood, crossed herself a third time, then proceeded into the sleigh.
The rest of the entourage fell in behind the sleigh, except for Kostyshakov, who stood to the left of it, Sergeant Major Blagov, to the right, and, just ahead of them, a color guard of three men, bearing and guarding a hastily done “Banner of State,” in this case mere painted cloth, as there had no been time for embroidery.
Ahead of the color guard and Banner of State, Father Khlynov stood, censer hanging by a chain from his right hand, with the slack of the chain taken up by his left. Behind the priest stood several other religious personnel, one bearing a cross on a staff, a “ferula” it would have been called by Roman Catholics. Still others bore icons of saints and relics in cases.
As far as I can tell, thought Daniil, nobody in this town has ever been to a coronation. What that means is we’re probably not doing it quite right, even accounting for not being in Moscow, but, on the plus side, who knows enough to criticize?
Cherimisov faced to the rear, watching for the signal from Kostyshakov. When it came, in the form of a deep nod of the head, he turned about and ordered First Sergeant Mayevsky to “March the men to the Cathedral.”
That Mayevsky could do this with a complete lack of invective surprised no one as much as himself. “Fourth Company of the Guards, Forward at the slow step . . . march!”
The procession began to move south to the intersection of Great Friday and Tuljatskaya. The slow march had the soldiers swaying left to right and back with each pair of steps. As they moved, the bells of the town were silenced, one by one.
Daniil mused, I wonder how the church arranged that.
At the intersection they turned left, following Tuljatskaya all the way to Archangel Michael Street. With another left-hand turn at Archangel Michael, they moved toward, and then stopped at the beginning of the long, long staircase leading into the town’s kremlin, which also held the place of the coronation, the Cathedral of Saint Sophia.
From before the first step the people of the town, in unprecedented numbers, had lined the way. They crossed themselves and knelt as Tatiana’s sleigh passed, bringing tears to her eyes. I am unworthy. I know I am unworthy. All I can do is try to become worthy. Even so, Tatiana, keep your head up and try, at least, to project confidence.
Soldiers from Third Company, arrived early the day before, were interspersed amongst the crowd, armed and ready to stop any assassination attempt by a hidden Bolshevik. Tatiana and her sisters, with the example of how well jewels sewn into clothing could serve as body armor, wore their own. Natalya wore Olga’s, tied in places to provide a snug fit on a thinner girl.
I thought it would be harder, thought Tatiana, rocking in her seat, with the pulling of the Yakuts, to get Hermogenes, the Archbishop, to override the Pauline laws on succession. But he had that argument down better than we did: “Your father overruled those the moment he designated Olga as his heir. And his was the unreviewable power to do so.” We didn’t even need to mention Peter the Great’s rule on the subject, nor the admirable record of Catherine.
But I think the real reason he decided to support us was, in the first place, sheer fear of the Bolsheviks. Then, maybe, too, he was tickled by the idea of presiding over a coronation. It’s never been done here, before, after all. And, unless we win and beat back the Reds, it will never be done anywhere, ever again.
Another horse was waiting, all saddled up with a side saddle, for Tatiana, at the base of the staircase leading to the kremlin. The sergeant major gave her his hands, fingers interlinked, to boost her up. Once seated, with her right leg hooked in the leaping horn, Tatiana automatically stroked the horse to calm it. With the mildest nudge, and a very light touch of the whip to the horse’s right flank, the Yakut began to follow Cherimisov’s first platoon up the way to the fortress gate.
Passing under the gatehouse and into the open area of the kremlin, Tatiana saw two preposterously small cannon, crewed and standing by. Needs must, she thought.
Just before the cathedral, Cherimisov took the reins of her horse with a strained smile, while Mayevsky helped her dismount. Bishop Germogen of Tobolsk stood in front of the church in all his finery, a beatific smile adorning his bearded face. Be of stout heart, the smile seemed to say to Tatiana. This will be long, but you and Russia deserve no less than the best I can offer.
Would he smile so benignly, wondered Tatiana, if he knew how many death warrants are going to be presented to me tomorrow? Not only many of the prisoners from the rescue battle, but every Bolshevik apparatchik in the town?
Germogen held out the crucifix for Tatiana to kiss. As she did, followed by her sisters, another priest sprinkled the lot with holy water. Turning, then, Germogen led the way into the cathedral. As he did, the chorus sang the One hundred and first Psalm—“I will sing of your love and justice; to You, O Lord, I will sing praise . . .”
Hundreds filed in after her: her soldiers, the town’s leading citizens, the pre-Bolshevik political leadership, and a youngish couple bearing a camera on a tripod and an old style flash. They would have one chance, as Tatiana was leaving, to make a record for posterity.
As the chorus sang, Tatiana advanced to stand in the front center of the cathedral. There, she was invited by Germogen to recite the Nicene Creed: “I believe in one God, the Father, Almighty, maker of Heaven and Earth, and of all things, visible and invisible . . . .”
From there, Germogen went to the Ambon and read three pieces of scripture, drawn from Isaiah 49, Romans 13, and Matthew 22. From the rear of the church, two underpriests brought out a purple robe, the best they could do in the circumstances, and draped it over Tatiana’s shoulders and around her body.
“Bow your head,” commanded Germogen. He then laid hands upon her, and prayed, “O, Lord, our God, King of kings, who through Samuel, the prophet, chose thy servant, David, and anointed him to be king . . .”
With the end of that prayer, Germogen called out, “Peace be with you,” after which the deacon commanded the entire populace present in the church to bow their heads.
Another prayer followed, shorter than the first.
“I am sorry,” said Germogen, then, “that we lack a crown, scepter, and orb. But those things are merely material . . .”
Thereupon a young private of Second platoon, Fourth Company, stepped forth, hesitantly and shyly.
“I know . . . I mean . . . Your Majesty . . . well . . . ifyouhavenoother crown . . . well . . . take this and use it. It’s not much but it’s mine and you’re welcome to it.”
Tatiana smiled gently at the boy. Then she reached out, touching his arm and saying, “Thank you. Thank you so much. I will wear your helmet with pride.”
“Give it here, then, son,” said Germogen.
The young guardsman passed over his helmet over to the priest. To Tatiana he said, apologetically, “For what is ahead of you, Your Majesty, this may be more suitable than any crown.” The boy returned to his spot in the throng.
Kostyshakov, too, then came forward. He took off his machine pistol, saying, “This will likely serve you better than any mace.” The priest took this too.
Molchalin came forth next. He passed the priest a grenade, saying, “I took this from the body of a lieutenant who died defending the royal family. Lieutenant Collan, a Finn, would be pleased if she could use this in lieu of the orb. It’s live, so don’t unscrew the cap or pull the little bead unless you need to.”
Germogen accepted it, whispering to Tatiana, “The boy speaks absolute truth. And you can always have an orb fashioned around it.”
Finally Mokrenko then came forward, sua sponte, handing over his own shashka, or Cossack sword. “And she will need one of these, too.”
With the helmet, Germogen crowned Tatiana Empress, reciting with it her titles: “By the grace of God, I crown thee Empress and Autocrat of All the Russias, of Moscow, Kiev, Vladimir, Novgorod; Tsarina of Kazan, Tsarina of Astrakhan, Tsarina of Poland, Tsarina of Siberia, Tsarina of Chersonese Taurian, Tsarina of Georgia; Ruler of Pskov and Grand Princess of Smolensk, Lithuania, Volhynia, Podolia, Finland; Princess of Estland, Livland, Courland, Semigalia, Samogitia, Belostok, Karelia, Tver, Yugra, Perm, Vyatka, Bolgar and others; Ruler and Grand Princess of Nizhny Novgorod, Chernigov, Ryazan, Polotsk, Rostov, Yaroslavl, Beloozero, Udoria, Obdoria, Kondia, Vitebsk, Mstislav, and all of the northern countries Master; and ruler of Iberia, Kartli, and Kabardia lands and Armenian provinces; hereditary Sovereign and ruler of the Circassian and Mountainous Princes and of others; Ruler of Turkestan; Heir of Norway; Duke of Schleswig-Holstein, Stormarn, Dithmarschen, and Oldenburg, and many, many others.”
Then the archbishop slung over her shoulder the MP18—that it would, in time, become a holy relic, all who saw it knew—slung the sword over the other, and placed the grenade through her belt.
Shortly after this is where Tatiana, by her own will, violated protocol. Called upon to swear an oath that she would preserve the autocracy intact, she swore, instead, that she would preserve the monarchy and the Russian empire. These were subtly but importantly different things, and not lost upon either the priest, the soldiers, nor the witnesses filling the back of the temple.
Communion followed, after Tatiana passed through the Royal Doors, which she, as Tsarina, was the only lay person allowed through. There she received communion, bread separately from wine. Following communion, with the repeated words, “the seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit,” she was well anointed with the Holy Chrism, on her forehead, eyes, nostrils, mouth, ears, breast, and both sides of each hand.
The “many summers” still rang in Tatiana’s ears as she emerged from the cathedral. Instantly the bells of the cathedral rang, to be picked up by every other church in the town, to include the Catholic one at the foot of the hill. At her first appearance in the doorway, the two small cannon began a slow fire, one round, each, per five seconds. This salute went on for over four minutes, while the crowd outside cheered, the soldiery shouted “Urrah! Urrah! Urrah!” and the town’s small band struck up God Save the Tsarina, the voices of the townsfolk and soldiers joining in until the lyrics echoed from every wall and building of the Tobolsk Kremlin.
And now I am truly stuck with it, thought the new tsarina. God save us all.
L59, The Catastrophe
A few days later came the last lift of men and supplies from Bulgaria. They’d be on their own, now, with the airship returning to German service.
The men aboard would more than replace the numbers lost in the rescue. More importantly, though, the ammunition would be badly needed in the fight to restore the throne to Tatiana and the Romanov line. Still more importantly, Daniil Edvardovich Kostyshakov intended to use it to get Fourth Company and some reinforcements close enough to that city to rescue Tatiana’s Aunt Ella, even while the rest of the battalion, plus as many trained townsfolk could be trusted, engaged and destroyed the battalion alleged to be coming from Yekaterinburg.
Mueller stood by Kostyshakov’s side, with most of the staff and the commanders clustered about. He, however, had been the critical one in turning the deep cut into the southern face of the hill of the kremlin into a suitable temporary shelter and docking station for the airship.
Tatiana was there, too, though she was not wearing the helmet given her as a crown. The MP18, on the other hand, hung by her side.
“There it is!” shouted Nomonkov, the sniper, and the man with the best eyesight in the battalion. “Almost due east and isn’t she just grand?”
It was at least another ten minutes before anyone else could seriously claim to see the airship. It was another twenty before it began its graceful turn to port to line itself up on the cut.
“What the . . .” Nomonkov asked of nobody, in particular. He’d seen them first, two small jets of fire coming from the airship’s flank.
Wilhelm Mueller only barely refrained from screaming at the sight of the flames that rushed to envelop the ship. It was full, after all, of nearly every friend he had in the world.
So rapid and complete was the destruction that no one was seen to have jumped from the ship before it nosed down, smashing into and crumpling against the ground, just east of the eastern Irtysh riverbank. The flames expanded into a fireball as the gas cells and fuel tanks were ruptured, feeding their contents to stoke the flames.
“My God,” said Kostyshakov, in horror.
How the hell do we get to Yekaterinburg now? wondered Molchalin, still not much given to talk.
Tobolsk, The Court
“I want to save what—rather, who, they’re not merely dry goods— we can,” insisted Tatiana, to Daniil.
It wasn’t much of a court, but it was more than most thought the Bolsheviks deserved, especially as word of Yurovsky’s orders began to circulate. The stack of death warrants had begun almost a foot high.
“No,” insisted Tatiana, again, shaking her head forcefully, while seated at her father’s old desk in the Governor’s House. “I want separated out from these the irredeemables, whom I presume to include all Bolshevik commissars except Pankratov, if he’s still in town. I think I can work with him. Also, the leadership of the Omsk and Yekaterinburg mobs, to the extent we haven’t already . . . hmmm, what was that word Lenin or Sverdlov used in the order to execute my family? Ah, I remember, ‘liquidated.’ To the extent we haven’t already liquidated them.
“The world will not miss them and neither will I. Then I want to see our old guards assembled so my sisters and I can sort out those who made our family’s lives pure misery. After that, I’ll sign all of that crew’s death warrants, without further ado.
“But, no, no, NO! The rest I will not have shot. They can provide labor, here, of greater value than the cost of guarding and feeding them. Also I want to talk to them. I know there were good men among our guards, men who wanted only the best for Russia. I intend to give them the chance to see that, even if I’m young, I am still a better bet than the Red fanatics.”
“I’ll see to it, Your Majesty,” said Daniil.
“And another thing,” she said, shaking her finger at him, “that ‘Your Majesty’ stuff? Maybe it’s important in public. But when we’re alone, Daniil Edvardovich? Or in closed cabinet? Please make it simply ‘Tatiana’ or, if you’re trying to make me see reason on something, ‘Tatiana Nicholaevna.’ ”
“As you wish . . . Tatiana,” he answered. He said it in a soft voice, one suggesting that there was more meaning behind the simple phrase.
“Daniil Edvardovich?”
“Yes . . . Tatiana.”
“I have to have at least one friend in the world. Have to.”
“Yes, Tatiana.” As he said it, he dropped his eyes slightly. As he did, it made her feel as if a little of the light had left the world.
Daniil was gone, off to deal with how they were to rescue Aunt Ella, he’d said, leaving her alone.
I’m going to be alone, to some extent, for the rest of my life. I can’t even have a boyfriend, not even Daniil . . . or not yet, anyway, because my power as “The Virgin Tsarina” is greater than my power as the wife or anything else of so and so. Mama? Papa? Did you realize that, because you put your marriage before everything else, that your successor may never be allowed to marry in her life? I’m going to have . . .
There was a light knock on the door. It was her sister, Maria, serving as Tatiana’s secretary for the time being.
“There’s an ‘Anton Dostovalov’ here to see you, Tati. Was he Olga’s . . .”
“Yes”— Now there is someone who’s lost as much as I have—“please send him in.”
Dostovalov walked in and, as Maria closed the door behind him, immediately went to his knees and burst into tears, hands clasped in front of him in supplication. Between sobs and choking it was hard for him to say an intelligible word, but eventually she realized he was begging for forgiveness.
And he thinks, as the one nearest to Olga, that I am the only one who can give forgiveness in her place. He really did love her, didn’t he?
“Rise, Anton Ivanovich,” she commanded, in her best imitation of an imperious voice. “Do you believe in our faith?” she asked, once he’d risen to his feet.
“Yes, Your Highness,” he managed to get out, between sniffles.
“Then you know my sister is not dead. She is with God now and knows that you tried to save her.”
“I did . . . I really did . . . but I was too slow. Sergei wasn’t too slow.”
“Big men usually can’t move as quickly as smaller ones, and Sergei Arkadyevich was in a better position to see that madman before you could. You don’t believe me,” she said, seeing that he really didn’t.
“I . . . don’t know what . . . to believe,” he replied.
And he got those words out quickly enough, with less sobbing. Maybe . . .
“Would you like to take a little sabbatical?” she asked.
“Highness, I don’t even know what that word means.”
“It’s a kind of a vacation,” she explained. “it’s a period when someone goes somewhere where he or she won’t be harassed, and thinks, and studies.”
“Studies? Me?” The thought was almost enough to make him laugh. Almost.
“Maybe you’ve just never had the right teacher,” she said. “Let me make some inquiries.”
Dostovalov wiped his arm across his eyes to clear off the tears. “Olga always said you were the smart one. If you think . . .”
“I do.” She reached up to place one hand on his shoulder, saying, “And I think Olga would like for you to have the chance. She loved you, too, you know; she really did.”
Daniil was still gone, pursuing his duties. Anastasia and Dr. Botkin were in hospital, helping with the wounded. Natalya and all her retainers and ladies in waiting were away on various tasks at her behest. Tatiana sat alone at her desk in a moment of unexpected quiet, a stack of papers, and on a side table, her father’s chessboard.
Tatiana reached out and picked up the sandalwood queen, the queen with which Feldfebel Sergei Chekov had defeated her father all those weeks and lifetimes ago. Rolling the chess piece between her palms she allowed herself to slip into a reverie.
I never wanted this, and I don’t know what strength—or if enough strength—resides within me; but I will give every measure of what I have to serve all Russians. We will, God allowing it, save the empire from these madmen, and then, then I will make a country that venerates men like you, Sergei Chekov, regardless of birth or creed. I will earn your faith, and the faith of all the others who have and surely will have died for me. I will redeem my father and mother. I will avenge my brother and sister, or I will die in the effort.
“This I swear in the name of Almighty God,” Tatiana whispered. “May His divine will so bind me, now and forever.”