Ancient Deceptions

Chapter 4

Chapter 4

St. Petersburg, 1900

“Stana, it arrived!” Militsa jumped out of her chair as her sister entered the drawing room. Bursting with excitement, she handed Stana the plaque she had received that morning. It announced that Princess Milica Petrović-Njegoš, her formal name, had been awarded a diploma as a “Doctor of Hermeticism” for her study of the occult and alchemy from the Advanced School of Hermetic Sciences in Paris.

“It’s wonderful!” Stana, whose actual name was Princess Anastasia Petrović-Njegoš, gave her sister a hug. “Now those swine can no longer poke fun at you, at us, for saying what we know is true.”

They were in the blue salon of Militsa’s mansion on the Gulf of Finland near Peterhof, the palace built by Peter the Great in the style of the French palace at Versailles. Militsa went over to the divan covered in a sky-blue satin, and Stana perched on the edge of a settee embroidered in yellow, green, and deep blue silk. The small table before them held sweet wine and a variety of cakes.

The elite of St. Petersburg often called the sisters the “Black Princesses,” or worse—the Black Crows, the Black Peril, and even the Montenegrin Spiders because they had been born in Montenegro (“Black Mountain”), and were the daughters of the king who, despite being a king, was impoverished. After being invited to St. Petersburg by Tsar Alexander III, they moved to the city. Both soon married Russian Grand Dukes, and equally soon, ignored their spouses.

“I have invited Papus here,” Militsa said, referring to the head of the school that gave her the diploma. “And I told him he must bring Monsieur Philippe with him. The man is taking Europe by storm and I know Alexandra will adore him. He might even know how to help her produce a son.” In the first six years of marriage, the Tsarina Alexandra had given Tsar Nicholas II four daughters. But it was her “job” to provide a son, the next Tsar, and since she hadn’t, the country considered her a great failure.

“And if this Monsieur Philippe can’t help her, perhaps you can,” Stana said.

Militsa shook her head. “I prefer to use these men as go-betweens. If they fail, it will be their heads that are lost, not mine.”

Stana laughed at that. When Nicholas II inherited the throne after Alexander III’s death, the sisters managed to ingratiate themselves with Alexandra, the new Tsar’s wife. Like them, she was an outsider and felt alone and isolated. Alexandra was German, and a granddaughter of England’s Queen Victoria. She felt disliked by both Russian society and the people she reigned over, a situation Militsa had used to her advantage.

“I’d also like Monsieur Philippe to hold a séance for Nicholas,” Militsa continued, “to call up his father and get the late Tsar to give the poor boy some confidence. He’s as unprepared for the role of Tsar as… as you, Stana. Or my poor, silly husband.”

“A séance like that doesn’t sound very interesting,” Stana said with a pout.

“There, you’re wrong. At one séance in Paris, he called forth the spirit of King Louis XVI, and a head dripping blood from its guillotined neck suddenly appeared near the ceiling of the darkened room. And then it vanished into thin air!”

“Oh! It gives me goose-bumps just to think of it,” Stana cried, then howled with laughter.

Militsa joined her. “I’ve also been told Monsieur Philippe possesses rare healing powers. They say he can perform hypnosis and knows the occult well.” Militsa nodded knowingly at her sister. “Not only that, I’ve been told he has particularly great effects on women at his séances. A male friend of mine, a fellow student, went to one and said nearly all the women at some point in the evening would whisper something in Philippe’s ear. He would then say he would give her some of his time and if she truly believed, she would be healed of whatever caused her to seek him out.”

Stana rolled her eyes. “Ridiculous!”

“Don’t be a skeptic,” Militsa told her. “After all, he supposedly has ‘psychic fluids and astral forces.’”

The two chuckled. “I have an idea of the kind of fluid he would give them,” Stana said. “And there’s nothing psychic about it! But if he’s charming and handsome enough, I may have to ask him to ‘cure’ my migraines.”

“If he’s as interesting as they say, he can cure me of anything.” Militsa gave her sister a sly grin. “And if we’re lucky, Alexandra will feel the same.”