Dancing with Kings

Dancing with Kings
Eva Stachniak

An alluring, exotic novel set in the late eighteenth century, based on the life of the famous and much-painted courtesan, La Belle Phanariote.Young, beautiful, fallen, Sophie Glavani has brought shame on her family. She realises that she must now learn the art of seduction in order to survive in turbulent times.Her beauty and charm are so great that the world is entranced. Men are driven to madness, women moved to jealousy. She leads the King of Poland in the Polonaise.Now, dying and surrounded by her family, Sophie relives her life's dance for the final time. Her journey from fallen woman to Countess, the men she has captivated, the hearts she has broken. Eva Stachniak creates a brilliant eighteenth-century world and weaves a compelling tale of a courtesan's love, her life and her death.Brilliantly written, cleverly constructed with a strong cast of characters, both real and fictional, and vivid scenes, Dancing with Kings is an alluring, sensuous and exotic saga.

Dancing with Kings

Eva Stachniak

For Zbyszek

Table of Contents

Cover Page (#u4a8cbf64-663c-59c3-b191-9791f7b483f8)

Title Page (#u68d85b58-0e00-5a94-ac23-ca6f2b91895f)

Dedication (#u82ab40e1-df9e-5fea-88a8-cf1a42b0aa65)

PART ONE (#uaea50d23-9306-5248-b846-b3dcec3fe179)

BERLIN, 1822: Water (#ucd6126cd-8934-5bfa-b465-149c73d5a7bd)

PART TWO (#litres_trial_promo)

BERLIN, 1822: Laudanum (#litres_trial_promo)

PART THREE (#litres_trial_promo)

BERLIN 1822: Opium (#litres_trial_promo)

PART FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)

BERLIN, 1822: Morphine (#litres_trial_promo)

Historical Note (#litres_trial_promo)

Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)

DANCING WITH KINGS (#litres_trial_promo)

By the same author (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

PART ONE (#ulink_e5184f23-d04a-5bcf-a350-a0d8548f96a0)

From Mes amours intimes avec la belle Phanariote

Bursa – where our story so humbly begins – a town spreading at the feet of Moundagnà or Mount Olympus is but a day’s journey from Istanbul. Mars, Neptune, and Venus had once been worshipped there, and they could still lay their claims to this land on account of the valiant warriors hailing from the Greek Empire and Byzantium, on account of sailors recruited here, and on account of modern Lais and Phrynes whose presence adorns the cafes and bawdyhouses of Istanbul. The worshippers of the Love goddess, I hasten to add, are of both sexes, for the boys ministering to the desires of the Byzantines are as beautiful here as the girls.

Beholding the multitude of beautiful faces in this mountainous and healthy region, one is tempted to say that, for such delightful fruit to be so plentiful, Aphrodite, sailing in her conch from Cytera to Paphos, must have unloaded in this land some of her precious cargo, her aphros, that essence of pleasure and beauty, the source of our very existence. For this region has always supplied the world with superior talents from the realm of Venus, natural talents capable, with little effort, of conquering the hearts of courtiers and kings. Is this a wonder that, in Istanbul, the terms ‘a girl from Moundagnà’ and ‘a prosperous girl providing fanciful pleasure’ have become synonymous?

In this town of Bursa, la belle Phanariote was born in the year of 1760, and very ordinary blood flows in her veins for she is the daughter of a cattle trader and among her relatives are many a ferryman, craftsman, and a shopkeeper.* Her childhood was spent in the fields and meadows surrounding her native town where she led that free and naïve existence so much praised by some philosophers of yesterday.

BERLIN, 1822: Water (#ulink_5fcf492c-0b57-521a-aa12-176c2cf8704b)

Rosalia

In the end it fell to Rosalia to make sure that the imminent departure of Countess Sophie Potocka (accompanied by her daughter, Countess Olga Potocka, and companion Mademoiselle Rosalia Romanowicz) via Paris to the town of Spa for her prescribed water cure – had been announced three times in the Petersburg Gazette. Only then the passports could be collected and the padrogna – the permission to hire horses on the way – be signed by the Governor General.

The countess left St Petersburg on 12th July, 1822, (July 1st in the Russian style). ‘On Paris, I insist with utmost gravity,’ Dr Horn said – his voice raised, as if defending himself and not offering medical advice – ‘French surgeons are far superior, even to the English.’ Before departure, everyone, including the servants, sat around the breakfast table to pray for a safe journey. They had already been to confession, asked forgiveness for their sins from everyone in the household, and exchanged parting gifts with those who would be left behind, sashes with sweet-smelling lavender, ribbons, holy pictures, and boxes lined with birch bark.

The morning was cold and wet, but, thankfully, the thunderstorm had ended and there was no more talk of omens, in spite of Marusya’s dream about her teeth falling out and making a clunking sound as they scattered on the marble floor of the hall. (‘Why didn’t you stop this foolish talk,’ Olga snapped, as if Rosalia could have.)

The kitchen carriage left first, with provisions, cooking utensils and a collapsible table, since the inns en route with their smutty ceilings and walls grown shiny from the rubbings of customers’ backs were not to be trusted. Two more carriages were packed with luggage, one carrying a trunk that opened to convert into a bedstead with pillows, so that the countess could rest during the journey.

Rosalia may have come to St Petersburg as the countess’s companion, but it wasn’t long before the timely administration of compresses and salves became more important than keeping up with the daily correspondence, greeting guests, or reading aloud after dinner. Which, as Aunt Antonia triumphantly pointed out in one of her many letters was not that hard to foresee.

Aunt Antonia, who liked to remind Rosalia that she was her only living relative and, therefore, entitled to such straightforward expressions of concern, might have forgiven Jakub Romanowicz for marrying a penniless Jewess only to die and leave his wife and child on her doorstep, but she could not forgive Maria Romanowicz for writing to Countess Potocka and begging her to take care of her only child. In Zierniki, the family estate near Poznań, a room was waiting for Rosalia. A room overlooking the orchard, with an iron bed the maids washed with scalding water each spring. A room where her mother’s old dresser still stood, its drawers smelling of dried rosemary and mint to keep the mice away.

There had been many times on this long journey when Rosalia pleaded with the countess to stop. The sick needed peace to regain strength and how was she to assure these precious moments of peace with all the packing, unpacking, and constant ordering of vats of boiling water (the grime of the inns had to be washed before the beds could be brought in). She too had her limits, and her nerves were strained to the utmost with this constant migration of coffers, crates, and trunks, the nicks and bruises of carelessness and neglect, futile searches for what should have been there and wasn’t. (The embroidered scarves and votive lights for the holy icon of St Nicholas had been left behind three times in a row and a servant on horseback had to be sent back to retrieve them.) Through August and September they had travelled for not more than a few hours daily, usually from four until ten in the morning, to avoid the heat, and then, perhaps, for two more hours in the afternoon. Often, in spite of the hot-water compresses Dr Horn had prescribed for the journey, the countess was in too much pain to travel at all.

It was already the beginning of October when they reached Berlin where Graf Alfred von Haefen put a stop to the nonsense of further travel. The Graf met the countess at the city gates and did not even try to hide his horror at the sight of her. ‘I forbid you to spend another hour in this,’ he said, pointing at the Potocki’s carriage. ‘My ears shall remain deaf to all objections. You’ll have to submit to a man’s judgement. This is the price of friendship.’ His Berlin palace would be at their disposal and so would be his own personal physician, Doctor Ignacy Bolecki. Bolecki, one of the best doctors in Berlin, was a Pole but had been trained in Paris. After assuring himself that the drivers understood his directions and would not attempt to take the wrong turn at the first junction – on moonlit nights oil lamps were put out to conserve fuel and that made the sign of Under the Golden Goose tavern where the right turn had to be taken barely visible – the Graf said to no one in particular that if an operation were truly necessary, a French surgeon would be sent for immediately.

By the time their carriage rolled into Graf von Haefen’s courtyard, the party was greatly reduced in numbers. Five servants with the kitchen carriage were sent back to the countess’s Ukrainian palace at Uman, leaving Rosalia with only two maids, Olena and Marusya, Agaphya, the cook, and Pietka, the groom. Mademoiselle Collard, the French lady’s maid had left in Poznań without as much as giving notice. ‘I have to look after myself,’ she said to Rosalia before leaving. ‘If I don’t, who else will?’ Always eager to question the refinement of Countess Potocka’s tastes, she did not fail to remind Rosalia that the white Utrecht velvet upholstery and green morocco-leather seats of the Potocki carriage had been chosen by Countess Josephine, the Count’s previous wife.

‘You are my prisoner, mon ange,’ Graf von Haefen said, opening the carriage door to help the countess step out into the chair that was waiting already, kissing her hand twice and holding it to his heart, ‘and there is nothing you can do about it.’

To Rosalia’s relief, her mistress did not protest. By the time the countess was resting upstairs, awaiting the final arrangements of her sick room, their journey, she calculated, had lasted three months, three days, and five hours.

Sophie

The heat has abated. It is September, the month of the smallpox. Her time now, Mana says. She is old enough and she will not be alone. Six of her cousins will have it too.

‘Help yourself so God can help you,’ Mana says. In her hand Sophie is holding her mati, a blue stone, one of her birth presents. It has a black eye in its centre, and – like the red ribbon in Mana’s hair – it wards off the evil eye, human malice and the power of jealousy. Every time Maria Glavani hears that her daughter is growing up to be a beauty, she spits three times on the ground.

‘My precious Dou-Dou.’

Dou-Dou means a small parrot. A pleasing chirping bird everyone likes, everyone wants to touch and pet. Her true name is Sophie, or Sophitza. It means wisdom.

Mana cooks for three days so that there is enough food for the party: roasts slices of eggplant and marinates them in oil and lemon juice; cooks her best lamb ragout spiced with coriander. The meat will be tender enough to melt even in toothless mouths, and simmering for a long time, it absorbs the fragrance of spices. There is a big pot of soup with lentils and cardamom, pilaf sprinkled with cinnamon. And in the earthenware pot that is rarely used, chunks of feta cheese marinate in the best olive oil Mana can afford. Big jugs of country wine stand in the corner, by the window, like fat dwarfs. Strings of quinces and pomegranates, sage, mint, rosemary and savory hang from the beams. The water in the pitcher that greets the visitors at the front door has been drawn fresh from the well and is still cool. The hens are locked in the chicken coop and the goat is tied to the fence.

‘We are not beggars yet,’ Mana says. Maria Glavani’s daughter is not going to go wanting. There will be four kinds of sweet pastry, and baklava soaked with honey is already laid out on the plate with a yellow rooster in it.

Even the thought of such delicacies is a temptation. Dou-Dou has touched just the rim of the plate, but when she wants to lick the tips of her fingers, to savour even the smallest traces of sweetness, Mana stops her. ‘You are not an orphan,’ she says. ‘You have a mother who has taught you how to eat properly.’

The Glavani smallpox party will be remembered in Bursa for the food and the laughter. And for the singing too.