Rasputina and the Witch's Tsar

Chapter Forty-One

Within the hallowed halls of the Russian Duma, the place of legislators, the impassioned Vladimir Purishkevich gives a speech. His eyes are filled with fire, his tongue nearly flat against his teeth with hissing in righteous fury.

"Marionettes!" He cries, slamming his fist against the nearest surface. "They are all marionettes!" He holds his hands in a grotesque gesture above him, falling forwards as though he's lost the use of his limbs. A living cadaver.

"The royals who scrounge and grovel beneath the goodly Russian tsarina have turned into nothing but puppets. Puppets the cursed witch and heathen controls... the grand puppetmaster, Maria Rasputina."

Low murmurs fill the chamber of the Duma, spaces in-between where men in long cloaks sit on blankets, coats and cushions. Sitting there while others starve in the streets like dogs. While people whisper in taverns of uprisings, of fateful days where they will take the power back in their own hands. Promises exchanged like so much coin, almost enough to satiate hungry bellies with rage.

"These marionettes are in the threads of a foreigner royal bewitched by Rasputina's charms. Alexandr will never help us now, not that he ever would have. A foreigner with foreign blood that was never truly an ally to Russia. A German through and through, an evil genius of Russia and a bewitched foreign tsar."

Raucous cries now. Murmurs of assent and halfhearted whispers of protest. Murmurs of mutiny and treason and all those things which seem great at the time until plans are drawn. Plans that make a person's blood grow cold and a mind fogged with regret.

"I hear she drinks to excess!" One cries.

"She faked the assassin attack on herself to gain pity."

"A witch who dances in sin and sleeps with conspirators and other witches!"

Quiet as the orator, again, speaks. "We shall never thrive with an enchantress and a foreigner whispering their venom into the vulnerable tsarina's ear. A heart too good. As clean as Russian snow, soiled by filthy hands of the devil and of mercenaries!"

Roars now. Cries for blood and money and all those things which drive men mad. Cries for change and cries for compromise. Peace and pity seem much the same with the room in such a fervor.

But one man sits low. A certain Yusupov with pale lips drawn thin. Gaze drinking in the scene before him. Eyes and ears that open in entirety. A mind that turns and turns like someone in the thrall of a nightmare.

After the prospective orator's grand speech, Yusupov draws his lips close to Purishkevich's ears. The mind ever turning and turning. The words form on the tip of his sharpened tongue. "We must find the witch who holds the tsarina's family in her thrall. Puts worms in their ears." A smile then, a smile over his face. "We must destroy her. If she hasn't already destroyed herself."

More whispers then. A web of promises and half-truths. Purishkevich's eyes widen. "If what you say is true," he gasps, "then, certainly, Rasputina must die. By God or man."