January 15, 1911.
Gatchina Palace, 45 km from Saint Petersburg.
Gatchina Palace wasn't just a royal residence; it was designed for the pleasure and frivolity of summer balls, but currently it was more a fortress disguised as a museum, a limestone bastion erected by a past Tsar (Paul I) who feared being murdered in his own bed. With its nine hundred rooms, its secret passages carved into rock, and its massive towers reminiscent of an English medieval castle, this same yet grand place possessed an oppressive atmosphere in the environment.
For young Alexei, the air circulating in the main vestibule smelled of a very specific mixture: humidity, smoke from birch firewood that had been burning for a century already, and above all, the penetrating perfume of violets that the Dowager Empress, Maria Feodorovna, used as if it were armor, always with the purpose of evoking memories of her Danish youth.
The Tsarevich walked through the Great Throne Hall, feeling how the stone's cold pierced through his boot soles. Beside him, his sisters advanced in a protocol formation that, to the inexperienced eye, seemed simple etiquette, but which Alexei knew was an escort or something similar.
Olga and Tatiana went in front, flanking him like bishops. Maria and Anastasia closed the rear guard. All dressed in matching dark blue velvet coats, with ermine fur muffs.
"Remember," Alexandra Feodorovna murmured to her children, nervously adjusting her white kid gloves until her knuckles showed. "Your grandmother is... demanding. She's old-fashioned. Don't speak unless she asks you directly. And, for God's sake, smile. Don't give her reasons to criticize my upbringing."
Alexei observed his mother sideways. The Tsarina was tense, too tense for what she usually showed. The cold war between the German wife (Alexandra) and the Danish mother-in-law (Maria) was the oldest, most stable, and most poisonous conflict in the Russian Court. Maria had never forgiven Alexandra for her shyness, which she confused with arrogance, nor for her mysticism, which she considered a family weakness.
"Calm down, Mama," Alexei said in a low voice, squeezing his mother's hand. "Today we didn't come to fight."
They arrived at the double doors of the White Hall. The footmen, giants in red and gold livery, opened the oak leaves in a synchronized movement.
There, seated on a damask sofa surrounded by a court of Pekingese dogs and hundreds of silver-framed photographs, was the woman who had given birth to the last Autocrat.
Maria Feodorovna, born as Princess Dagmar of Denmark, was physically small, but occupied all the space the room seemed to illuminate. Despite her sixty-three years, she maintained a slender figure and eyes that retained youthful brightness and at the same time a hardness of tempered steel that her son Nicholas had, tragically, never inherited. She was the last survivor of an Era when Kings ruled with fear and respect, not with bureaucratic decrees or something else born of the new era.
"Nicky!" the Widow exclaimed, extending her jeweled hands toward the Tsar, deliberately ignoring her daughter-in-law for a second that lasted an eternity in courtly terms. "And my dear grandchildren. Come, come closer to the fire. Gatchina is a freezer, I know, but it's my freezer and it keeps ideas fresh, come here my little ones."
Nicholas II kissed his mother devotedly. Alexandra made a bow though with rigid posture, which Maria acknowledged with a barely perceptible nod.
The Grand Duchesses made their bows as if it were a ballet piece. Maria Feodorovna kissed them one by one, commenting aloud how much they had grown, how beautiful they were, and, with a poisoned dart directed at Alexandra, how little they resembled the German branch of the family and how much they had of Russian and Danish beauty.
Then, her social predator eyes settled on Alexei.
The Tsarevich stepped forward. He stopped before the matriarch and clicked his heels like a hussar officer.
"Grandmother," Alexei said, taking her hand and kissing the sapphire ring. "I've brought you a gift from Saint Petersburg."
Alexei made an almost imperceptible signal with his left hand. Tatiana, acting as his aide-de-camp, stepped forward and handed him a small box lined with black velvet. It wasn't a standard jewelry box; this was a custom case.
The Widow arched an eyebrow, intrigued. She took the box and opened it.
Inside rested a brooch. It was a Fabergé piece, but not one of the usual floral designs or Easter eggs usually given among nobility. This one represented a Viking ship, specifically a drakar, sailing on a wave.
The ship's hull was made of brushed platinum. The sail was dark blue guilloché enamel, and the shields on the gunwale were small rubies and diamonds.
"A drakar," Maria said, her voice softening. A genuine smile broke her court mask for the first time. It reminded her of Copenhagen, the North Sea, her father King Christian IX. "Why a warship, Alyosha? Wouldn't you prefer a soldier or a horse?"
"Parce que les navires relient les Royautés de tous les Empires, Grand-Maman (Because the ships depend on the Royalty of all the Empires, Grandma)" Alexei responded, switching to fluent French, the language of royal intimacy. "Et parce que je sais que les navires transportent le courrier. Surtout le courrier que tu écris à ta sœur à Londres toutes les semaines. (And because I know that ships carry mail. Especially the mail you write to your sister in London every week)"
Maria's smile froze for a fraction of a second. The air in the hall seemed to drop ten degrees. Her eyes fixed on the child's like hooks.
The Dowager Empress, sister of England's Queen Mother (Queen Alexandra of the United Kingdom, Alexandra of Denmark), was the most powerful unofficial communication channel between Russia and Great Britain. Faster than ambassadors, more honest than ministers since it was a direct family communication line. It was the dynastic 'Red Telephone,' one of the many possessed by all Descendants of the Father-in-Law of Europe, the children of King Christian IX. Alexei had just told her, in front of everyone, that he knew her secret, one of the many she possessed.
"You're very observant for your age, child," she said slowly, evaluating the threat. "Who told you that?"
"I just read foreign newspapers, Grandmother," Alexei said with innocence he had practiced for hours, but this didn't fool the woman for a second. "They say King George V trusts his mother greatly. And his mother trusts you; it's very good to have family that listens across the sea, right? Especially when City of London bankers get... difficult with cousins when they have problems."
The room fell silent for a moment again. Nicholas II seemed confused, blinking as he tried to follow the context. Alexandra was horrified by her son's audacity.
But Maria Feodorovna, after a moment of tension, threw back her head and let out a dry, charming laugh.
"Ha! You have your grandfather Alexander's tongue, thank God. Nicky, this child is dangerous. I like him." The Widow pulled Alexei with surprising strength to sit beside her on the sofa, unceremoniously displacing an indignant Pekingese. "Finally someone with blood in their veins in this family."
She leaned toward him, enveloping him in her violet scent.
"Tell me, little Viking," she murmured, while the adults began talking about the weather and snow to dissipate the unbearable tension. "What do you want me to tell my sister Alix in London? That my sweet grandson is playing at great international politics before knowing how to multiply? Hahaha!"
"Tell her Russia isn't an enemy of England," Alexei responded, lowering his voice so only she, and perhaps Tatiana who was nearby, could hear. "Tell her the bankers squeezing her family don't speak for the British Crown. They speak for themselves and their greed. And tell her that if King George V wants to keep his throne safe when the world changes in the next decade... he should look less at his bankers' reports and more at letters from his cousins in the East. Because we're all family... aren't we?"
Maria Feodorovna looked at her grandson deeply. She searched for the child everyone called a genius. She didn't find him. She saw in his blue eyes something she hadn't seen since her husband's death, Tsar Alexander III 'The Peacemaker': the will to absolute power.
She didn't see a grandson; she saw an equal.
"I'll write her this very night," the grandmother promised, her tone lacking condescension. She caressed the child's cheek, but her eyes were serious. "But be careful, Alyosha. Vikings had a very well-founded custom. They used to burn their ships when they arrived at enemy shores to have no option of retreat; you must make sure not to burn bridges before crossing them."
"I don't need bridges, Grandmother," Alexei said, looking at the flames dancing in the marble fireplace. "I'm learning to fly. And soon, Russia will have wings like steel."
That afternoon, while the family took tea served in the most exquisite Sèvres china and Nicholas laughed at his mother's jokes, Alexei observed from his corner how his grandmother retired for a moment to her personal rosewood desk.
He saw her pull out paper with her personal letterhead, watched her dip the pen in the silver inkwell.
Tatiana approached Alexei and passed him a cookie, brushing his shoulder.
The Dowager Empress was no longer just a relic of the glorious past or an annoying mother-in-law according to his beloved mother. Now she was Alexei's direct channel to Windsor Castle, a channel that jumped over the heads of those dirty greedy bankers, the British Parliament, and conventional diplomacy.
That bond wasn't sustained by treaties or memoranda. It was sustained by family blood.
The blood of Christian IX, the Old Danish King who had woven Europe like a spider web of marriages, ran through the veins of queens, empresses, and princes from the Baltic to the Atlantic. In Windsor, in Saint Petersburg, and in Copenhagen, the same names repeated in family trees.
If the greedy bankers wanted to use British influence against Russia, they would discover that the blood of the Danish Queens was thicker than the water of the English Channel.
A/N: If you've enjoyed this story and want to read ahead, I have more chapters available on my Patreon at patreon.com/Nemryz. Your support helps me continue writing and translating this alternate history epic. Thank you for reading!