Anna

Chapter Twenty-Two

The barouche which waited before the steps of the Byeloskoye Palace, one June day in 1811, was new, glossy and very smart. It was French-hung, painted black with scarlet trim on the wheels, and the upholstery was of the shade of pale blue known as Ecstasy, which was all the kick in Moscow that year. Between the shafts were two white English carriage horses, brought all the way from Yorkshire at enormous expense. The black leather harness which lay so vividly against their milky coats was decorated with tasselled Turkish knots of scarlet silk, and their plaited manes were tagged with little scarlet hackles, which stood in a ridge above their proudly-arched necks.

It was an outfit which spoke not only of wealth and high fashion, but imagination too; and the building before which it stood presented the same sort of image. Faced all in white marble, it had the appearance of an enormous Greek temple, complete with soaring, fluted Corinthian columns. These supported a massive triangular pediment on which, in a mood of frivolity, not to mention irreligion, was depicted the Rape of Europa, in bas-relief and considerable detail.

The carriage had not been waiting more than five minutes before there was a movement in the shadows under the portico, and the chatelaine of Byeloskoye came out into the sunshine, pulling on her gloves of lavender French suede, and closely followed by a diminutive French maid holding a lace parasol above her mistress’s head. The groom caught the coachman’s eye and nodded approval. One thing about the Countess Anna Petrovna Tchaikovskova: she appreciated fine horseflesh, and never kept her horses standing about unnecessarily.

The liveried footman handed her up into the carriage, folded up the step and closed the door, while the maid slipped in on the other side. The footman climbed on to the step behind, the groom stood away from the horses’ heads, and the barouche rolled away from the house, crunching over the gravel forecourt towards the wrought-iron gates.

As they moved away, Anne looked back as she always did at the gigantic, tongue-in-cheek replica of the Temple of Hephaistos which she now inhabited when she was in Moscow. She never knew whether to admire or deride, as the remnants of her English conservatism struggled with the romantic flamboyance she had learned from her adoptive country. Moscow itself was a strange mixture of such contrasts: at once Oriental and fiercely Russian, patriotic and cosmopolitan, flamboyant and conservative. Perhaps that was why she felt at home there.

They had only lived in the Byeloskoye Palace for a year, since Basil’s father had died. Before that they had lived in a modest but attractive townhouse in Tver Square; but once Basil had inherited his father’s fortune, he had taken Anne on a tour of all the vacant palaces and great houses in Moscow, to select their new home.

‘The choice is yours,’ he said. ‘I leave it to your taste only make it large enough, and impressive enough.’

It was not exactly that she had fallen in love with Byeloskoye – she never knew whether she was more amused or appalled by it – but it was certain that after seeing it, everything else was an anticlimax. Moscow was full of oddities, and of the spectacular edifices of Russia’s leading families, many stood, like Byeloskoye, in extensive grounds. The number and extent of these parks, as well as gardens, orchards, and ornamental squares meant that Moscow, city of around three hundred thousand souls, sprawled over a vast area, more like a province than a city.

The area it covered was roughly circular, with the River Moskva winding a sinuous course through the bottom third of it. The main streets radiated outwards like the spokes of a wheel from the hub of the Kremlin – fortress, arsenal, royal palace, barracks and urban grainstore – whose dark red walls and glittering, spiralled onion-domes dominated the vast market-place of the Krasnaya Ploshchad – the Beautiful Square. Here every day the peasant carts from outside the city trundled in their freight of vegetables, fruit, poultry, eggs, butter, grain and sunflower seeds; and pedlars, trappers and merchants from all over the empire and beyond set out their wares: Kashmir shawls, Chinese silks, Indian muslins, Persian carpets, Turkish bronze and copperware; sable and mink from Siberia, spider-web lace from Azerbaijan, dried flowers and herbs from the Crimea, enamel bracelets and earrings from Kiev.

When Peter the Great had built his new capital of St Petersburg almost a hundred years ago, he had issued a decree forbidding the use of stone for building in any other city. Though this decree had been rescinded fifty years later by a successor to the imperial throne, it meant that many of the great houses in Moscow, and all the lesser ones, were built of wood. The Muscovites had made up for it, however, by painting them in bright colours – yellow and pink and leaf green and sky blue – and by adding carved decorations, porches, fancy shutters, even columns and gables, all of wood. The rich went one better, and behind many a noble facade of white marble or pink granite or honey-coloured Portland stone, was concealed the lowly reality of common timber.

Perhaps, Anne thought, that was another reason that she felt at home in Moscow. Her life, like the great buildings, was not all it seemed: a splendid and eye-catching affair which concealed a hollowness. The succession of violent emotional shocks which had driven her into marriage with Basil Tchaikovsky seemed, like a fierce fire, to have burned out her capacity to feel. They had left her numb, and she had longed only to escape to some place where nothing would be demanded of her.

At first she had succeeded. Basil was a kind, pleasant and undemanding companion, and within a short time of their marriage, he had brought her to that place in society which he had promised her. She was ‘Madame Tchaikovsky’ the society hostess: wealthy, handsome, fashionable, with a following of the best of the intelligentsia. She was mistress of a large house and a small army of servants, co-spender of a large fortune, with a respected family name. It was a very different life from that of a governess, however well treated or highly paid, and it was only to be expected that it had changed her. She knew that she was more assured in her manner, more poised and confident, more authoritative; inevitably she was also less confiding, more formal, more careful of how she appeared to others. She had been brought up to be a gentlewoman, but a great lady was quite another matter.

Informality and gaiety were now social devices to be calculated for their effect; but if she had lost some spontaneity, it was certain that there was no one to desire it of her, or to regret its passing. What she had become was what was required; and she and Basil were a success. They were invited everywhere, and their invitations were prized; their taste was consulted, their opinions repeated, their approval sought; they were accepted by everyone, and liked almost as universally. Theirs was a winning combination: Basil had the old name, the family fortune, and his own social expertise and charm to recommend him; Anne was clever, well educated, shrewd and unpretentious. She was also English, and since, after Tilsit, Anglophilia had replaced the Francomania which had invested all things fashionable in Russia, that counted for a great deal.

The Kirovs, who had so dominated and changed her life, had dropped away from it as completely as a shed garment, and she was content that it should be so. She heard of them only at a distance, when the name came up in conversation at this or that great house. The Count’s status as a Special Envoy to the Emperor earned him occasional honourable mention on the dinner-party circuit, and from time to time his wife’s continued ill health was deplored as a hardship for a man so much abroad: Irina had never recovered from the loss of her best-loved child. Seryosha’s military career cropped up less often, but from what she heard of his dedication and single-mindedness in pursuing it, Anne guessed that he would never get over Natasha’s death either.

Lolya was merely a child, and her visiting her Grandmama in Moscow was the only reason Anne ever heard of her at all. Of Sashka she never heard, and she was glad of it. Her numbness was not quite so deep as to prevent her from grieving for him, if she allowed herself ever to think of him.

The barouche was now turning into the Kuznetsky Most, the main boulevard in Moscow’s most fashionable quarter. It was a wide street paved with closely fitting, solid wood planks, and lined with the most delicious shops, filled with fashions and luxuries, silk and lace and leather, French lingerie and perfume, imported wine, English worsted, hand-made shoes, books, song sheets and jewellery: everything, in fact, that the rich and fashionable Muscovite could want. Here you could buy a tame nightingale from Moldavia, and a golden cage to keep it in; perfume to attract a new lover, or a book of French lewd engravings to revive an old one – and a silk chemise from Paris, trimmed with Mechlin lace, to entertain either in.

The Kuznetsky Most was also the place to be seen, either walking or driving – the Bond Street of Moscow, Anne thought of it to herself. Even for a shopping trip, therefore, Madame Tchaikovsky had to present a smart appearance, and maintain her reputation for leading fashion. Today she was wearing a sleeveless pelisse of her own design, of very light, ruched velvet trimmed with gold loop braiding, rather in the style of the Hussar uniform, and a small hat decorated with three curled cock’s feathers and a half-veil. Her suede gloves were elbow-length, and clasped round each wrist was a heavy gold and enamel bracelet showing Basil’s family device of a chained swan. A four-strand pearl collar and pearl earrings completed the ensemble. She looked smart, tonish, very much a leader of society.

To maintain that position required endless work and attention to detail. Anne would never have thought that mere social life could so have used up so much of her time, that it could be such hard work to remain at the top of the tree. Clothes, alone, took up hours of every day, what with designing, choosing fabrics, making-up, and having fittings – not to mention hats, gloves, shoes, stockings, pelisses, capes, cloaks, furs and shawls. Then she must read all the newspapers, and the books people were talking about, as well as those she intended they should talk about. She had to see all the plays, good and bad, and attend all the concerts, in order to have an opinion about them; keep up with political matters, both domestic and international, and the social gossip about who was having an affair with whom; and she had to find time to practise her pianoforte and singing, both of which were much in demand at parties.

Then there were the parties themselves: she and Basil had invitations every day to dinners, masks, routs, balls, card evenings, musical soirées, theatre parties, picnics, water picnics and rides; and when they took their turn at entertaining, the work involved was almost inconceivable. Over the years she had built up an efficient staff of free, and therefore mostly foreign, labour, on whom she could rely, but there was still all the planning and deciding and supervision to do.

It ought, she reflected, to have left her no time in which to be unhappy; and she arranged her routines in order to leave herself no dangerous idle moments when reflection might ambush her. She was woken in the morning by Pauline, her maid, who brought her bread and fruit and coffee on a tray, together with the newspapers, letters and the day’s crop of invitations to sift. When she had eaten, she had her bath, and then various members of her staff were admitted while Pauline dressed her hair.

Her secretary, Miss Penkridge, who came from the same part of Yorkshire as her carriage-horses, would arrive first with her diary to remind her of her engagements, and to take instructions over which invitations to accept, and how to reply to the various other letters which had arrived that day. It was also Miss Penkridge’s duty to be aware of what plays, concerts, military reviews, exhibitions and other public entertainments were going on, and to acquire tickets when necessary; and to know what new books had been published, and to buy copies on her mistress’s behalf.

After the all-important Miss Penkridge the butler, housekeeper, cook and mantuamaker all had their consultation, and then Pauline would dress her for her morning engagements. If Basil was at home, he would usually call on her at that time in his dressing-gown, yawning and gum-eyed after the previous night’s all-male dissipation, and discuss the day’s programme and the new invitations. If he was not at home, or had been unusually late to bed and was not yet awake, she would not normally see him until they met for the evening’s engagement. They spent most evenings together – or at least, under the same roof, be it their own or someone else’s – but when the evening engagement was over, Basil usually went off to some club or mess to drink vodka and play cards until the early hours of the morning. Within Byeloskoye he had his own suite of apartments, and Anne hers.

A busy life, certainly; but, she was aware, lacking some essential ingredient. It absorbed, but did not satisfy her. She and Basil had not slept together for over a year, she reflected. It was not that she missed his physical advances, or had relished them when she had them; but it was the most obvious symptom of the fact that their marriage was not what it seemed She had married him as a means of escape, and to acquire security for herself, and if they were not good reasons, they were at least the reasons for which a great many women married. Basil had loved her – so he said, and so she believed. Theirs might have been a contented, if not a passionate, partnership.

But the love, if it ever existed, did not last long. Anne went a virgin to her wedding bed, knowing nothing of the facts, and little of the feelings beyond the undefined yearnings she had felt in Kirov’s arms. She found it deeply, distressingly embarrassing to get into the same bed with Basil Andreyevitch, both of them in their nightgowns and caps; and what happened after the candles were snuffed and the bed curtains drawn was astonishing, painful and repellant.

She could not believe that he had got it right. Surely no all-knowing, all-forgiving Deity could have designed it that way? And yet Basil Andreyevitch had something of a reputation as a gallant – ought he not to know? Perhaps, she pondered, his reputation for gallantry had been like his reputation for wit – going a long way before the truth. Certainly he seemed to find almost as little gratification in what he did to her unwilling body as she did.

To her relief, his attempts on her grew less frequent after the first few weeks, and she rewarded his restraint by being more pleasant and attentive towards him on the mornings after nights when they had simply gone to sleep. When the thing had been done, she found it hard to meet his eye in the morning, and her embarrassment made her cool and distant with him. Sometimes she felt guilty about that, for if he really did love her, and his love drove him to want to do that extraordinary thing, ought she not to be more accommodating?

But it transpired at last that he must have been doing something right, for she became pregnant. As soon as her condition was confirmed, Basil moved out of her bed to his own apartments, with what seemed like relief on both sides; and they had never slept together since. Eleven months after their wedding, Anne had given birth to his child.

Marya Vassilievna had arrived on the 8th of September with very little difficulty, a tiny, pink and white and gold baby, who had almost from the moment of her birth been nicknamed simply Rose. It was then that Anne discovered that all was not dead inside her. She would never have believed that she could feel so much for such a tiny scrap of humanity, but when her baby was first placed in her arms, and she gazed down on the soft, unused face, the perfect miniature fingers, the fragile skull with its delicate fronds of hair – her child, born out of her own flesh! – she knew a love as powerful as it was complete and perfect.

Basil adored Rose on first sight, and the baby should have brought Anne and Basil together, a shared concern to make a bond between them; but two things prevented that from happening. Firstly, there was her sex. Basil’s parents had been deeply upset over his choice of Anne as a wife. They had liked her well enough as Kirov’s governess, but it was mortifying to have their only son marry her. Had Basil not taken the precaution of marrying her first and telling them afterwards, they would probably never have accepted her. As it was, there was nothing they could do about it but put on a good face in public, though in private they remained cool towards her.

In this they had the support, and more, of Olga, who could never forgive Anne for usurping her place at Basil’s side, and for outshining her in intellectual society. Olga would have given anything to destroy Anne. As it was, she was quick to make profit out of it, when Anne destroyed herself by producing a female child. It was she who pointed out to her parents that Anna Petrovna had failed in her primary duty; who induced her mother to believe that Anna was probably incapable of bearing a son; and when her mother died only a week after Rose’s christening, convinced her father that she had died of a broken heart, consequent upon the reflection that Basil was tied irrevocably to a barren woman

Having chosen Anne knowing she would not meet with his parents’ approval, Basil ought to have stood by her and forced them to accept her. But he had been single, and their darling, for too long. He and Olga had preserved for each other the illusion of childhood, and with it went a dependency on their parents’ opinion and a need for their approval. His loyalty to Anne was too new and uncertain to outweigh the old; he was his parents’ child first, and Anne’s husband only second. He equivocated, attempted to please both sides and ended by pleasing neither; and Anne, disappointed and angry that he did not protect her from his parents’ disapprobation, felt the first shadow of contempt for him.

When his father died, the moment might have arrived for the new ties to strengthen, for Rose to become the centre of his universe and the cement that bound him to Anne. But what had happened in the meantime made that impossible – indeed, made it difficult for him even to think about his daughter without pain.

Rose, so enchantingly pink and white that she was nicknamed after the loveliest flower of all, was a healthy, happy baby, and everyone who hung over her cot became her willing slave. In February 1810, when she was five months old, she was taken to St Basil’s Cathedral for her Christening. It was a very fashionable affair: the Grand Duchess Catherine herself – the Tsar’s sister – had agreed to be godmother to the baby, and Prince Yussupov, a close neighbour whose Arkhangelskoye Palace was one of the wonders of Moscow, was the godfather.

The cathedral was packed – everyone who was anyone was there. An anthem was sung by the choir, and the trumpeters of the Preobrazhensky Guards played a fanfare. The Metropolitan himself conducted the service, annointing the baby’s hands and feet with holy oil from the tip of a new goosefeather. The godfather carried her round the font for everyone to see, while the solemn prayers were said, and the godmother held the lighted taper, representing the light which would lead the infant on the safe path. Lastly, the priest cut off a small piece of the baby’s hair, and stuck it with a drop of wax from the taper. When it had hardened, he dropped it into the font, where it should have floated, signifying good luck.

But the wax didn’t float: because of some defect, it sank to the bottom, taking the tuft of fine golden hair with it. A whisper rippled outwards from the font as the word of what had happened was passed back; and Rose, who until that moment had borne everything with a calm smile, suddenly screwed up her face and wailed. It was a dreadful omen. Deeply embarrassed and upset, the Metropolitan hastily repeated the ritual. This time the wax floated as it should, and the assembled company trooped off to enjoy the enormous Christening feast, where quantities of French champagne soon restored the smiles to their faces.

Probably few people afterwards remembered the unfortunate incident; but a week later old Countess Tchaikovskova caught a fever and died, and on the following day baby Marya Vassilievna fell victim to a mysterious illness. The best doctors in Moscow were called in, and confessed themselves baffled. The baby was feverish, vomited, wailed, jerked her limbs in spasm: they had never seen anything quite like it, they said, and could only apply the old remedies of bleeding and purging in the hope that they would work.

Anne never left the baby day or night, snatching sleep sitting upright in a chair placed beside the crib, despite Basil’s attempts to persuade her to go to bed, and his urgent requests to take her place in the vigil. She would only shake her head, too weary even to speak. She could not go; how could he even ask it? The doctors sighed and shook their heads.. Days and nights ran into one another, and Anne hung over the crib, all of life condensed to that one point, the tiny flame that struggled and flickered and dimmed. As great as had been the joy of bringing Rose into the world, so great was the pain of watching her die.

Everything was done that could be done. Three priests took it in turn to remain in the room reciting prayers for deliverance, and Basil made offerings to every saint who could conceivably have any influence in the case; but still the fever mounted, and now the baby no longer cried or jerked, but simply lay motionless. How could so small a life bear so much? There was so little of her: Anne, tearless with so great a suffering, waited in helpless pity, and prayed to God in the new form she had learned when she converted to the Old Faith for her marriage. If you must take her, she prayed, take her quickly. Don’t make my baby suffer any more – let her die.

But Rose didn’t die. When her tiny spark of life was dimmed almost to quenching, like a miracle the fever broke, and she fell into a natural sleep. After a further week, the doctors pronounced her out of immediate danger. There was no reason, they said cautiously, why she should not live to adulthood; oh, but here was a bitter price to pay! Many had been the times since that Anne had wished Rose had died. Why had God left this pathetically thin scrap of a child with stick-like arms and legs to lie motionless in her crib, too sickly even to cry, only uttering sometimes a frail whimper of pain? The enchanting pink and white baby was no more. Rose’s hair fell out after the fever, and what grew back was not golden and curly like before, but barley brown and limp, lying across the fragile skull as if devoid of any vitality. The thin little face did not smile, and one pale eye was turned up and to the side in an ugly squint.

The doctors said that the power might come back to her limbs in time, that with careful nursing she might grow up to be almost normal. Almost normal! Anne remained in the sickroom day after day, staring at the baby; Basil had absented himself, almost lived at his club, sent word merely each evening, a formal enquiry after the progress of Marya Vassilievna to which the brooding mother never replied.

Then one day Anne emerged from her darkness, became brisk and business-like and determined. She engaged a full nursery staff to take care of Rose – a wet-nurse, a day nurse, a physician and a governess – Mlle Parmoutier, a quiet, sensible Belgian woman. Rose should have everything she could possibly need, anything that might in any way give her comfort or improve her condition. Anne went every morning to visit the nursery before she went out, and again in the evening when she had dressed for dinner; and for the rest of the time, she tried to forget what she could not endure to think about. She loved Rose so much, and it was an agony that she could do nothing for her. The sight of her child so stricken, so thin, partly paralysed, a dreadful parody of herself, tore so badly at her heart that she must shut her mind to it or be destroyed.

Basil, she guessed, felt much the same, and the knowledge of his anguish only made hers worse. Though he had wanted a son, his first sight of her had converted him. He had adored her. It was by his desire that the Christening party had been such a grand occasion; he had bought her extravagant gifts – a Christening gown of exquisite lace, a silk shawl more costly than any gown Anne had ever worn, a solid gold teething ring to suck on. He had planned ahead for her growing-up, her first puppy, her first pony, her first grown-up gown, her first ball, the match he would make for her – though who could be good enough? Many a time Anne had found him hanging over the crib, one forefinger firmly encircled by Rose’s diminutive fist, telling her all his plans, while the golden baby gazed up at him and smiled and smiled.

He never visited the nursery now, and Rose was never mentioned between them. The common love which might have brought them together turned into a pain which drove them apart. They pursued their social careers more intently than ever, filling every moment with activity, allowing their minds no instant of repose where pain might settle.

Outwardly their life seemed quite normal, and since children were not usually spoken about socially until they were old enough to be brought down to the drawing-room, there was nothing in their daily round to suggest that it was not. The Tchaikovskys remained courteous to each other, presented to the world a united front of sophisticated partnership; but never quite met each other’s eyes.

Anne’s mission in Kuznetsky Most that morning was to buy a present for Basil, whose fortieth birthday was to be celebrated in a few days’ time. Everyone who came to the dinner and ball they were giving for the occasion would want to know what she had given him. It must be a talking-point for the evening, something sufficiently valuable, unusual and tasteful to fit in with the Tchaikovsky style. Yet what was there, she wondered with a frown, that you could buy for a rich man who could have anything he wanted for the asking? She had already had three abortive outings, and had spent a month racking her brains in vain. Today, she was determined she would get something, even if it took all day – and to that end she had made no daytime appointments. She was free until the dressing-bell tonight.

On her orders, the coachman drove very slowly along the Kuznetsky Most, while she looked from side to side at the various shops, hoping an idea would strike her. People on the footpath stopped to stare as she passed, for everyone knew the Countess Tchaikovskova’s white English horses, and now and then an acquaintance bowed or waved. Anne responded absently, her mind occupied elsewhere. A piano? A fur coat? A clock? A marble statue? Actually, now she thought of it, a marble bust of himself would have been a suitable present, but it was much too late to get one done – and of course since he would have had to go to sittings, it could never have been kept a secret. Jewellery? Well, it had the advantage of being obviously expensive, and Basil, like most Russians, liked wearing jewels.

‘Drive to Fontenardes,’ she told the coachman, who lifted his whip in acknowledgement. Fontenardes, the court jewellers, had a large shop at the end of the boulevard, where not only did they design and make modern jewellery, but also sold antiques: Russian, Oriental, Egyptian, Persian, and of course French – the spoils of the Revolution. It was a shop she liked visiting in any case, for there was an oddly informal atmosphere, generated by the affectionate way Russians regarded their jewels – almost as if they were pet animals, or favourite children.

When she went in, there was no one immediately to attend her. Monsieur D’Avila, the manager, was engaged in conversation with Count Razumovsky. He begged the Countess to excuse him, and invited her to sit down for a few moments until he was at liberty. Anne preferred to wander about the shop, looking at the various items displayed in glass cases, some of which were for sale, others simply exhibits – items of antiquity or curiosity.

Amongst the former, Anne was most attracted to a diamond necklace, and she stood in contemplation of it for some time. It was displayed all alone in its cabinet on a bed of dark blue velvet: a beautifully simple thing, the centrepiece being an enormous oval diamond of breathtaking size and quality. It was set in a frame of gold wires, in the centre of a gold chain; and to either side, at intervals along the chain, smaller, brilliant-cut diamonds were also suspended, hanging at the ends of fine chains like droplets of sparkling water gathered for an instant before they fell.

It was beautiful – simple and beautiful; and it would suit her perfectly, she knew. She imagined how it would look, with a décolleté evening gown, very simple, of white silk embroidered with gold threads. Yes! And then suddenly she remembered the Embassy Ball in Paris, so long ago, when Count Kirov had said to her that she ought to wear diamonds, and she had laughed inwardly at the very idea. How long ago it seemed! She hadn’t thought of him for a long time – consciously, that is, for sometimes he would invade her dreams, and she would wake with tears on her cheeks. She would dream of him, always just out of reach, turning away from her, perhaps, or glimpsed from the window of a speeding carriage; a hand stretched out, just beyond her grasp, and a sad, reproachful look. She would dream of Nasha, too, and Nasha would become Rose, cold and white and dead; her fault, oh God, her fault! In her dream old spectres were raised, old griefs relived. Her dreams were beyond her control: sometimes she dreaded going to sleep.

She shook her head a little, to shake away the unwelcome thoughts, and as if in answer to that shake of the head, she heard his voice saying, ‘But yes, it would look very well. It would suit you entirely.’

I imagined it, she thought; and yet how real it seemed. She turned slowly, and he was there, standing just behind her, looking down at her with a painful intensity, as though it hurt him. I’m dreaming, she thought. And then she saw behind him the ravaged, one-eyed face of Adonis, emerging from the collar of the cavalry trooper’s uniform in which his stocky, muscular body was incongruously confined.

‘I would never have dreamed that,’ she said aloud. ‘It is you.’

‘It is you,’ he repeated, as if he hadn’t been sure until she spoke. ‘Anna Petrovna.’

‘Yes,’ she said foolishly. She stared at him, unable to think of anything to say. His face looked thinner and browner than when she had last seen him, almost three years ago; and she saw that there were some silver hairs mixed in with the soft brown. It touched her unbearably that he should have silver hairs, and she had to bite her lower lip for a moment. Time should not touch him. It wasn’t fair.

‘What are you doing here?’ she said at last. It was, at least, no more foolish than anything else she might have asked.

‘I’m on my way to Tula, to see Lolya,’ he said.

When Anne had left his employ he’d had no desire to search for another governess, so Yelena had stayed on with her aunt and uncle Davidov, sharing her cousin Kira’s education and regularly visiting her grandmother in Moscow. A young woman not yet out did not come much in Anne’s way, but she had seen her at a distance, passing in a carriage, or coming out of a shop. Once they had come face to face at a military review, Lolya in the company of her grandmother and one of Vera Borisovna’s elderly military beaux. Lolya’s face had lit up, and she had been on the brink of uttering a glad welcome, but the Dowager had frozen the words with a look before they reached the air, and hurried Lolya away with the hint of a pinch in her stiff, shiny fingers on Lolya’s arm. She had never forgiven Anne for calling her interfering, and above all, for marrying into the aristocracy and thus obliging Vera Borisovna to acknowledge her in her own friends’ drawing-rooms.

‘I called in here to try to find a present for her,’ the Count went on. He glanced around, but his eyes would only stay an instant away from Anne’s. He gave a rueful smile. ‘I come from Paris, where I could have bought any number of charming things; but foolishly I left it until I got to Moscow.’

‘You’ve come from Paris?’

‘Just this instant arrived. But what are you doing here?’

‘I live here,’ she said. There was no reason, after all, that he should know anything about her life since she had left him. It was far less likely that she would be spoken of in Paris than he in Moscow.

But he smiled, and all sorts of things inside her loosened and melted; her body obeying the atavistic commands, in spite of her sophisticated mind. Not dead, but asleep, all those old, lovely, painful things! Peace, heart – lie down. This is not for you.

‘I meant,’ he said, ‘what are you doing in this shop? Foolish!’

‘Oh – I came to buy a present, too.’

‘For whom?’

She didn’t want to speak of her husband to the Count. Reluctantly she said, ‘For Basil Andreyevitch. It’s his birthday next week. His fortieth birthday.’

Yes, he minded, she could see. ‘Ah, then it must be something special,’ he said lightly, looking away from her. ‘I had better not interrupt you.’

But I don’t love him, she wanted to cry out. Don’t shut yourself away from me! Don’t be distant!

She mustn’t, she mustn’t – and yet he was so much to her, he fitted so naturally into the place inside her that was his, always.

‘Please,’ was what came out, and a little fluttering movement of the hand went with it, which halted Kirov like a bullet through the heart. ‘Help me.’

He caught the hand; her fingers closed around his; their eyes met, and everything flowed between them, everything they felt, everything they had suffered, and would suffer. ‘Yes,’ he said in a low, passionate voice. ‘Anything -1 would do anything for you! You know that!’

Her whole body trembled towards him; her mind, running ahead, had put her in his arms, held close against him, safe, belonging, loved, warm; was holding him with all her strength, never to let go again. It would have been impossible then for either of them to have done or said anything remotely resembling a normal social exchange in a jeweller’s shop, had not Adonis at that moment barked a warning cough; and the next instant D’Avila, having finished with Count Razumovsky, was beside them, inclining his head in a way that was part courteous greeting, and part a tactful way of not noticing that they had been holding hands.

‘Madame Tchaikovsky,’ he said in his curious Castilian French, ‘what a pleasure and privilege to see you here! I am so sorry to have kept you waiting. How may I help you? And Monsieur de Kirov – a rare pleasure indeed, monseigneur!’

Their hands had parted. Anne faced D’Avila with astonishing calm.

‘I have come to try to choose a present for the Count,’ she said graciously. ‘Something unusual, to mark a special occasion.’

D’Avila looked intelligent, almost conspiratorial. He nodded attentively. ‘Bien sûr, Madame! And what form shall this present take? A ring, perhaps? Monseigneur has just the kind of hands that most elegantly display a ring to the best advantage!’

Anne saw just in time the direction of his eyes; met the Count’s wicked gleam of amusement at the misunderstanding, and stifled the laughter that suddenly, for the first time in so very long, welled up inside her. ‘That is true,’ she said in a voice which barely trembled, ‘but I think my husband already has more rings than he can wear.’

The tips of D’Avila’s ears grew pink. ‘Then madame,’ he readjusted almost without pausing, ‘perhaps a snuffbox? I have some quite delightful boxes – one with the most exquisite grisaille paintings on the panels – quite curious scenes.’ His emphasis on the word revealed that curious in this case meant obscene. ‘There is not another like it in the world, I assure you, madame!’

Yes, it was the sort of thing Basil would like, she thought; and it would make a talking point, and be a daring present from a wife to a husband. But she could not buy such a thing, admit her husband’s taste, in front of Kirov. He would know perfectly well what D’Avila, the old sinner, meant by curious. ‘No,’ she said, ‘I think something more unusual. You had a jewelled dragon once, Monsieur D’Avila, as I remember, that came from Cathay?’

‘Ah yes, madame! A rare piece – the property of a Chinese Emperor. Unfortunately, too expensive for the private purse. We were quite in a worry what to do with it. When a thing becomes priceless, madame, it becomes, in a curious way, worthless.’ He looked reflective.

‘And what did you do with it?’ Kirov asked.

‘I suggested to Monsieur Fontenarde that it had better be broken up and melted down to be used again, though that would have been a great shame.’

‘Indeed,’ Kirov murmured.

‘Oh yes – it was a remarkable piece. So Monsieur Fontenarde decided in the end to present it to the Emperor.’ He sighed. ‘A fitting end for such a remarkable piece,’ he concluded glumly.

‘Well, I have no desire for something beyond price,’ Anne said. Absurd laughter was bubbling up inside her, and she knew it was simply because he was here, standing beside her – simple, unreasoning reaction to his presence. ‘Have you no smaller dragon? One that it is possible to value?’

D’Avila knew he was being laughed at, and drew on his dignity like a coat. ‘No, madame, I regret absolutely–’ he began, and then stopped, thought, and lifted a finger. ‘Attendez! There is something. It came in yesterday from a merchant we sometimes deal with – widely travelled – part of a horde of treasure left by a Persian warlord. It is not new, you understand, madame – by way of being an antiquity, in fact, but unusual, and quite fine, quite fine. Perhaps…?’

‘Please,’ said Anne graciously.

‘Then, if you would step this way,’ D’Avila said, extending his hand towards the back room. Anne flickered a glance at Kirov, asking him to stay with her, and he answered it with a glint of the eye which said he wouldn’t miss it for the world.

In the small back room, D’Avila sat her at the table, and drew out a bunch of keys from his fob. Selecting one, he opened a cupboard in the corner, and took out a bundle wrapped in green cloths, which he brought over and placed on the table in front of Anne. It was evidently heavy – he carried it in both hands, and it filled them. Reverently, he pulled the cloths away, and stepped back to allow Anne to look her fill.

‘Persian work,’ he said at last when she didn’t speak. ‘The treatment is a little primitive perhaps, to our eyes, but the work is very fine.’

It was a tiger. About eight inches long and four high, made of gold; head low between its shoulders, it prowled, the mouth open, the tip of the tail just curling up alertly. The gold of its solid yet sinuous body was of two colours, the darker gold making the stripes, and the eyes were emeralds. It was a beautiful thing, alive, full of power.

‘I have other things,’ D’Avila began, feeling Anne’s silence must be disapproving, but she interrupted him.

‘How much is it?’ she asked, and then, without waiting for him to answer, ‘I must have it. It’s perfect!’

D’Avila, who had opened his mouth to name a preposterous price, was so taken aback he closed it again. This was not the way the game was supposed to go: there should be at least half an hour of delicate, oblique bargaining ahead before they closed on a price a little more than half the first one he named. But she had taken the pleasure out of it for him now. Almost sulkily, he named the price he had expected to get in the end, and though it was very high indeed, Anne agreed to it almost absently.

‘I’ll have it sent to Byeloskoye, madame,’ D’Avila said gloomily.

‘No, I’ll take it With me,’ Anne said quickly. She did not want to part with it; but now Kirov intervened, touching her wrist lightly.

‘Have it sent,’ he said. She looked up into his eyes. ‘It’s inconveniently heavy, you’ll find,’ he murmured. Her heart stopped and started again.

‘Very well,’ she said to D’Avila, ‘send it; but make sure it is given to no one but my secretary or my maid. I wish it to remain a surprise until the Count’s birthday.’

They stepped outside into the sunshine. Anne was astonished that it was still the same day, that the sun was almost in the same position. So much time seemed to have passed: she hardly felt like the same person. So few words had passed between her and Kirov, and yet the brief transaction had rolled back the intervening years, had placed them on a footing of intimacy they had done nothing to deserve. She was at ease with him, as though they had been married twenty years. All the same, her blood seemed to be singing, each indrawn breath was like the air at the top of a mountain.

She looked up at him and said simply, ‘What now?’

He regarded her in silence for a moment. His eyes seemed to penetrate past hers and into her mind, as if seeking information, or perhaps assurance.

‘Can you trust your maid?’ he asked abruptly.

‘Yes,’ she said doubtfully – not because she was unsure of Pauline, but because she didn’t know what he was planning.

‘Send your carriage home,’ he said, ‘and come for a drive with me. Your maid will ride with us, and Adonis will drive us.’

Yes, she thought, I can trust Adonis, I see that. ‘Very well,’ she said, and beckoned her footman to her.

The Count’s carriage – an elderly landaulette, obviously a hired coach, but with a decent, if unremarkable pair of horses – was standing a little further down the road, with a driver dozing on the box. While Anne dismissed her own carriage, the Count paid off the driver, and Adonis climbed up and took over the reins. There was not room for three inside the carriage, and Pauline, with a doubtful look at Adonis, was obliged to sit on the box beside him.

Anne heard no command pass between the Count and his body servant as to their destination, but he seemed to know well enough, and sent the horses forward into a confident trot. He must have told him where to go while I was talking to my coachman, Anne thought. On the footpath an acquaintance, Madame Gagarin, bowed to her, with eyebrows raised in mild surprise, but she barely noticed.

They left the main thoroughfares, and Anne soon lost her bearings, only regaining them when they passed out of the city over the Dorogomilov Bridge. She didn’t ask where they were going: she was only happy to be with him again. For the moment, he didn’t seem to need to talk, either. He sat beside her, not looking nor touching, his hands resting in his lap, seeming utterly relaxed.

The journey didn’t take very long; soon the carriage turned into a gateway, passed along a drive between tall, overgrown hedges, and pulled up before a large wooden house, painted terracotta red. It was very quiet – nothing but the sound of birds rioting in the overgrown shrubbery – and the house had an air of neglect. The paint was peeling here and there, silvery and sun-blistered on the shutters, and a creeper had grown over the upstairs windows.

‘Whose house is this?’ she asked at last, mildly.

‘It’s mine,’ he said. ‘It belonged to my first wife. I hardly ever come here now – when I’m in Moscow I usually stay with Mother – but I always kept it, just in case.’

‘Is it empty?’

He was examining the façade and the garden with a critical eye. ‘There’s a housekeeper, and her husband tends the grounds. Not very well, by the look of it. If ever I come here, I send word ahead, and they hire extra servants and get things ready.’

Now he looked at her, perhaps a little apologetically. ‘I thought we ought to go somewhere where we could talk privately. Where we wouldn’t be overheard.’

‘Yes,’ Anne said, seeing the sense of it. They needed to talk, although she felt that it didn’t much matter what they talked about. She looked up at the façade of the house, and it seemed like a face – patient, dumb, watchful, the half-shuttered eyes, the closed, secretive mouth. Was it the face of sin? she wondered, with distant curiosity.

‘Are you expected anywhere?’ he asked. ‘When do you have to be back?’

She hadn’t even considered that aspect of it, but now the thought came to her gloriously, obliterating all other considerations. Her formal, organised, careful and empty life had looked away for a moment, had inadvertently set her loose; no one knew where she was, and no one would wonder.

She smiled, lighting her whole face. ‘I have all day,’ she said.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Inside, the house smelled of dusty carpets. The housekeeper was evidently taken aback, wringing her hands and glancing back at her silent husband, who had emerged behind her from the kitchen with a line of foam on his upper lip. ‘If you had only let me know, master!’ she cried again and again. ‘I could have had everything ready for you.’

‘It doesn’t matter, Yasmin,’ he said patiently. ‘Go and make us some tea, and bring it up to the green drawing-room. And see our servants are made comfortable.’ He turned to Anne. ‘Everything will be in dust-sheets, I expect.’

The drawing-room was on the first floor, and Anne soon saw why he had chosen it. It had long French windows all along one side, beyond which a narrow balcony with a pierced-work rail looked over the tangled garden. The Count opened all the windows, and at once the fresh, green-scented air flooded in, driving away the mustiness. He stripped the Holland covers off some chairs and a table, and dragged them out on to the balcony, and then invited Anne to come out and sit down.

The sun had gone round enough for the balcony to be in the shade, and the view was glorious: beyond the overgrown garden, which sloped gently away downhill, the prospect opened up, and the whole of Moscow was spread out in the sunshine in a magnificent Oriental tangle of shapes and colours. Embraced by the long, low honey-coloured sweep of the city walls, the houses sprawled maroon and egg yellow, rose pink and holly green, interspersed with the blue spires and glinting golden cupolas of innumerable churches, and the brilliant white walls and blood-red roofs of the great palaces. The spaces between were filled with the dark, satisfying green of summer vegetation; the Moskva coiled in a silvery loop across the smiling land; and the whole was presided over by the red walls and multicoloured, spiralled and gold-tipped domes of the Kremlin.

They sat in silence for a while. Anne felt at peace, unhurried. All the things were there between them to be said, but it didn’t need to be yet; difficult things, many of them, but lying peacefully asleep in the corner of her mind – no need to disturb them now.

‘What a place!’ she said at last, softly. ‘I still find it hard sometimes to believe that I’m here.’

He grunted, seeing what she saw and what she remembered, side by side in astonishing contrast. ‘You are very much at home here now, by all accounts: Madame Tchaikovsky, they say, is the leader of the ton! Oh yes, even in Paris we get news of home – the gossip comes in the diplomatic bag! You’ve done well for yourself, Anna Petrovna – just as I always said you would.’

So he had heard of her since they last met. Somehow it disturbed her. She did not want him to approve of her hollow success, to applaud her sham of a victory. She wanted him to mind, but could not bear it if he did; and this was all too close to the difficult things that ought not yet to be disturbed. She sought for a neutral topic, one which would sufficiently engage them both. ‘Have you seen Caulaincourt?’ she asked. ‘You know he was recalled to Paris? Did he arrive before you left?’

‘Yes, indeed. I had a long talk with him on the day he arrived from Petersburg. He thinks his being replaced is an ominous sign – indeed, as I do – especially as his replacement is Jacques de Lauriston.’

‘I haven’t had a chance to meet him yet. I liked Caulaincourt very much. What is Lauriston like?’

‘Oh, he’s a good man – but you see it’s a military appointment, rather than a purely civilian one. Lauriston is a general, an experienced soldier. It’s all of a piece with Napoleon’s state of mind.’

‘So you think war is likely?’ Anne asked.

The relationship between Russia and France had been worsening steadily year by year, incident by incident. There had been that business over Napoleon’s second marriage, for instance. When Grand Duchess Catherine had refused him, Napoleon had offered instead for the Tsar’s younger sister Anna, who was just fifteen. By a clause in the previous Tsar’s will, the Empress-Dowager had been given final veto over the choice of husband for her daughters; and hating the Corsican Antichrist with an utterly Russian fervour, she refused absolutely to consider the match. The Tsar had hesitated to offend such a powerful ally, and after stalling for a number of weeks, finally told Napoleon that Anna was too young, and could not be married until she was eighteen.

Napoleon had then concluded a marriage treaty with the Emperor of Austria for his daughter Marie-Louise, but with a speed which suggested he had been carrying on negotiations all along, even while waiting for Alexander’s reply. This infuriated the Tsar, but also alarmed him. Russia and Austria were old rivals in the partition of Poland. The Tsar was always afraid that a closer relationship between France and Austria would result in an expansion of Austrian control over former Polish territories.

The new Empress Marie-Louise had presented Napoleon with a healthy son in March 1811, only a year after their marriage, which must have been galling for Alexander, whose frail wife had only managed to give him two daughters, both of whom had died. The birth of the baby was attended by great pomp and celebration, and Napoleon immediately created him King of Rome – a title which annoyed all the old established royal houses.

But the greatest cause of contention between the two Emperors was undoubtedly the embargo – the Continental System, as it was called. Napoleon was still determined to defeat England by crippling her trade, closing the Continent to her goods; and for a while it had looked as though it would work. News from England had been alarming – of bankruptcies, of factories working only half the week, of warehouses choked with unsaleable goods, of soaring prices and starvation. But the Continent could not do without England either, especially as her navy controlled the carrying trade. No imports meant no exports; stagnation entered the veins of European commerce. Inflation was rife, currencies were devalued, the unemployed roamed the streets and lanes in starving mobs, and smuggling grew to epidemic proportions.

So the previous year, in July, Napoleon had eased the situation by granting licences to trade with England to certain French companies, by which they could import necessities such as sugar and soda and clothing, and export French corn and wine. A secondary effect of the policy was a vast increase to French treasury resources from the duties; but the rest of Europe looked on sourly, and commented that since Napoleon could not suppress the smuggling, he had resorted to running the trade himself, while other nations were still obliged to keep their ports closed.

The Tsar, in protest, had begun to allow neutral ships to unload their cargoes in Baltic ports, easing the situation in Russia, where the stagnation of trade had caused severe hardship. In October Napoleon wrote him a furious letter of protest, saying that the ‘neutral’ ships were really English ships, disguising themselves by flying a flag of convenience, and he ordered the Tsar to confiscate the goods he had allowed to be landed. The Tsar refused; and Napoleon responded by annexing the rest of the Baltic coastal countries, and closing off the loophole.

Included in the annexation was the Duchy of Oldenburg. Oldenburg was a tiny, marshy flatland sovereignty of no great importance, except that its present incumbent, Duke Peter, was married to the Empress-Dowager’s favourite sister; and his second son Prince George was married to the Grand Duchess Catherine, the Tsar’s favourite sister. Relations between Alexander and Napoleon deteriorated still further.

Then in December the Tsar issued a decree imposing a heavy tax on the import into Russia of luxuries. This was done to try to protect the rouble, whose exchange rate had decayed dangerously because of the Continental System. All luxury goods were included, but the worst affected were French silks, lace and wine, which had been flooding into the country since 1807. It was a blow which Napoleon took personally. The relationship between the two Emperors was now at its lowest ebb, and since Russia and France were virtual dictatorships, that was ominous.

‘From what Caulaincourt told me, war is inevitable,’ Kirov said. ‘Napoleon saw him straight away, the moment he arrived in Paris, but he said there was nothing like the warmth and affection Napoleon usually showed him. He seemd to think Caulaincourt had been seduced by the Tsar and was no longer to be trusted, and you know nothing could more incense Armand than to have his loyalty impugned.’

‘I can imagine. He’s the most honest man in Europe.’

‘Just so. At all events, he did his best to explain Russian grievances. When Napoleon complained that the Tsar wasn’t honouring his promise to uphold the Continental System, he said that Russia could hardly be expected to sustain hardships which France was now avoiding by the issue of licences.’

The servants came in with the samovar and the tray of cups, spoons and sugar bowl. Kirov stopped and waited until they had arranged everything and withdrawn. Anne performed the ritual with accustomed ease, aware that he was watching the movements of her hands with a faint smile: the English governess was very far from home. She handed his cup, and he resumed.

‘Thank you. Then Napoleon complained that Russian troops had been moved up as far as the Dvina river, which he said was an aggressive move. Caulaincourt pointed out that Napoleon had been moving troops up to Danzig and Prussia for weeks, and that the Tsar was worried that this meant the Kingdom of Poland was about to be recreated.’ He stirred his tea thoughtfully. ‘Poland’s a little of a sore point with Caulaincourt anyway, because he was the one who drew up the document – which Napoleon eventually refused to sign – agreeing to expunge the name of Poland from all official documents for ever.’

‘Yes, I remember. It was supposed to be a guarantee that Poland would never be reinstated. Everyone was quite excited about it.’

‘I don’t think Napoleon ever meant to ratify it: it’s all a part of his policy of reculer pour mieux sauter. Perhaps Armand was beginning to realise that: he must have shown his resentment at that point, because Napoleon apparently lost his temper, and shouted that Armand was the dupe and tool of the Russians. Armand flared up, and said that he was willing to be arrested on the spot and place his head on the block if Lauriston didn’t confirm every word of what he’d said.’

Anne took his cup to refill it. ‘He must have been deeply hurt to react so strongly. He is always so restrained.’

‘Yes. It must have been a surprise for the Emperor, too, because he calmed down after that; but Armand said the rest of the conversation – and it went on for five hours – was utterly frustrating. Napoleon was convinced – or claimed to be – that Russia was the aggressor, and wanted war, and was trying to frustrate his plans to defeat England. Then when Armand insisted that Alexander didn’t want war, Napoleon said it must be because he was afraid of him. He seemed convinced that a short campaign and one good battle would have the cowardly Russians running for cover and begging for peace.’

Anne noticed with amusement that even the rational, cosmopolitan Kirov was annoyed by this insulting view of his people.

‘Caulaincourt did his best to persuade Napoleon that Alexander wasn’t afraid of invasion, told him the sheer size of the country, the difficulties of the terrain, and the climate would defeat the French without any need for battle. But to every point the Emperor simply replied that Caulaincourt had been deceived by his love of St Petersburg and by Alexander’s charm. When I spoke to him afterwards, he was almost in tears at the impossibility of persuading the Emperor that to invade Russia would be a monstrous error. But as I told him, Napoleon simply has no concept of the size of Russia. He never was very good at distances.’

‘Poor Caulaincourt. It would be hard, I suppose, for anyone to persuade Bonaparte he could be beaten.’

The Count grunted. ‘He had no chance anyway. What he couldn’t know was that Napoleon has already decided on war.’ Anne looked her surprise. ‘Oh yes – the movement of troops into northern territories is all part of a plan. He’s gathered huge quantities of military supplies into depots at key points – Mainz and Danzig, for example – ready for invasion.’

‘How do you know that?’

He smiled. ‘I told you once before, did I not, that we Russians know everything? But look – he’s replaced Caulaincourt with a soldier, who can send him information about the Tsar’s military preparedness, which dear Armand could never do! He’s had new and better maps of Russia made and sent to his chief of staff, along with large-scale maps of Poland and Livonia. And – what few people know – he’s told Lauriston to send back detailed maps of both Moscow and St Petersburg, to be engraved and copied.’

Anne stared. ‘And how can you know that?’

‘I have a good friend within the Depot de la Guerre,’ he shrugged.

‘But – surely – if it’s true, shouldn’t you tell someone, try to stop Lauriston? If Bonaparte has maps of Moscow and Petersburg…’

He put down his cup. ‘Listen, Anna, listen! There’s no chance in the world of Napoleon’s defeating Russia. He has no concept of how great the distances are, how short the summer, how bitter the winter! He’s given no orders for winter clothing for the army, you know, or extra footwear for the infantry.’

‘Perhaps he means to be finished before winter starts.’

‘He can’t begin the campaign – and he knows this – until the field crops in Russia have ripened, because he’ll need them to feed the horses as he advances. That means he can’t begin until June at least. That gives him a maximum of five months before his army is hopelessly trapped by the onset of winter, and it will take him four months – with an ever-lengthening chain of supply – to get his army from the borders to Moscow.’ He gave a curious grimace. ‘If he ever gets that far. He hasn’t taken the Cossacks into account. Oddly enough, no one’s told him about them; and if they had, he wouldn’t have believed them. Napoleon is a great man in his way – he can perform miracles on the field of battle by his sheer presence – but like all dictators, his vision is very narrow. He has no imagination, and that is one thing you cannot do without when you are dealing with Russia. He doesn’t understand the country or the people – and he doesn’t want to.’

‘You want him to invade Russia? You think we can beat him?’

If he noticed that tell-tale ‘we’, he didn’t refer to it. ‘We won’t need to. Russia will defend herself, as she always has. Nothing – nothing – can destroy Russia. She cannot die, unless she loses the will to live. And as to wanting the war – don’t you see, this is the only chance there may ever be of destroying Napoleon? He has been growing year by year, swallowing whole nations, swelling up into monstrous proportions. Your own country has been at war with France for almost twenty years!’

‘Undefeated,’ Anne said quickly, stung by the implication.

‘But without defeating him,’ the Count pointed out. ‘Now he is about to overreach himself. He will defeat himself – all we have to do is to let him.’

‘But men will die!’

‘They are dying already, by the thousand. How many lives have already been sacrificed to Napoleon’s ambition? Only God could count them.’

There was a silence. Anne contemplated the prospect of war between Russia and France, of an invasion, of battles and bloodshed and death.

‘When, do you think?’

‘Next year. It is too late now, to begin this year. By next summer he will be ready.’

‘Oh God,’ Anne said, and reached out for his hand. ‘It’s like the end of the world.’

His strong, warm fingers closed round hers. ‘No, dushenka, not the end, the beginning! God, I’m weary of this war. Since I met you eight years ago – eight years, little Anna – I have been longing for peace.’ He transferred his grip to her wrist and pulled at her gently, drawing her from her seat and on to his lap, and she came, half reluctant, half longing, feeling how natural it was to be in his arms, knowing it was wrong. She trembled as he closed his arms round her, folded her close, resting his face against her hair. ‘Peace, Anna – to stay home, and watch my crops grow, and be with those I love…’

He stopped, realising where that sentence led. There was a long silence as they both contemplated the impossibility of the situation. Suddenly he cried out, ‘Oh Anna, why did you do it? Why?’

‘You know why,’ she said, muffled, against his neck.

‘There was no need! My love, my love, I would never have harmed you! Why didn’t you trust me?’

She raised her head to look at him, a long, clear look which cut to his heart. ‘Trust you to do what? There was nothing you could do. If I had not married, we would be no better off. You are married – or had you forgotten?’

He looked broodingly into her eyes. ‘No, I hadn’t forgotten. But it does make a difference – two barriers instead of one.’ He tightened his arms around her convulsively. ‘I can’t bear you to belong to anyone else! Oh Anna, mylienkaya, you do love me, don’t you? Say you love me.’

‘Yes, I love you, Nikolasha.’

He kissed her then, brow and cheek and lips. ‘Yes, yes, you love me,’ he murmured, punctuating the words with kisses. ‘It’s been so long since I was with you – so hard to be away from you – and yet I never felt separated from you. Is that foolish? But you are so close to me in my mind -1 understand you as no one else in the world – and minds cannot be separated by mere distance. Do you feel it too?’

She understood what he meant, but it was different, always different, for a woman. A woman, her being so much more closely tied to the earth and the seasons, the rise and fall of the tides of life, needed the physical reassurance of love’s presence. And a woman had not a man’s activity in the world to fulfil her days. He could say that he never felt separated from her and she knew he meant it; but she would never be able to make him understand her own isolation, and the loneliness of being married to the wrong person.

Yet there was something still to say that he would understand. ‘I needed you,’ she said. ‘And yet as soon as you were near me again, I felt as if we had never been apart.’

‘Yes, yes, that’s it! Oh, Anna, we belong together.’ He kissed her again, and this time his lips lingered on hers, and her mouth yielded to his as their hunger suddenly flowered. She clung to him, and they kissed more and more avidly, until the moment came when she knew that this time there could be no drawing back. And she didn’t want to. She was coming alive after the long dead season, feeling things she never thought to feel again. She wanted everything – all there was – all she could have – no matter what the cost. If there were suffering afterwards, so be it. She wanted it too much now to turn back, and she shut her mind resolutely to everything but the sensation of his mouth and his hands and his warm body and breath.

He knew: sensitive to her every reaction, he knew when – and what – she had yielded. He drew back his head to look into her eyes, but it was only for confirmation of what he already knew.

‘Now?’ he asked softly.

‘Is it safe?’ she asked; but she would not draw back, whatever his answer.

‘No one will disturb us. The servants will not come until we call them,’ he said. He set her gently on her feet, took her hand, led her into the house, and she followed, trusting beyond thought, feeling his strength and resolve in the grasp of his hand. The things from which he could not protect her were the only important things; yet she trusted him all the same, with her self, with her life. It was what she was for.

Along the passage, up a flight of broad, carpeted stairs, into a bedroom. The furniture was shrouded, the bed curtainless, but covered by a gold silk counterpane. The air was stuffy, for the sun was still slanting against the window, its strength hardly impeded by the white blind, which made a curious muted daylight in the room. He led her to the bed, and then took her in his arms again, to look down at her face and be sure. For answer she lifted her hands and took out the pin from his neck-cloth, and loosened the starched muslin. She could feel the urgency of his need pressing against her, and was beginning to be light-headed with desire. She wanted no delay. She must have him, and now.

He unhooked her gown, and would have helped her take it off, but she pushed his hands away, knowing she would do it quicker herself, freeing him to undress himself. Women’s clothes were so simple these days, that there was very little for her to remove. The muslin gown; the little laced busk-bodice – no stays or corsets for the modern woman; the chemise; the gartered stockings; and then she was done.

Her body tingled, enjoying the unaccustomed sensation of air and light touching it, revelling in the freedom of nakedness. It was a release; surprisingly, wonderfully, it was even a security. She could feel herself stretching confidently, feel her skin glowing, and knew she was beautiful. Never in her life, since she was a very small child, had she been completely naked – never would she have imagined that she could stand naked before another human being – least of all a man – without suffering the deepest, most crippling embarrassment. Yet she stood watching Kirov coping with his more complicated clothing, making no attempt to cover herself, wanting him to look at her, wanting to look at him.

When he let his last garment fall, and stood before her naked, she felt a sense of wonder, almost awe, at the sight of his male body. She had never seen one before; she had known nothing of how it would look. Now she saw the great beauty of it: hard, smooth-contoured, unlike a woman’s body; long bones and wide shoulders, the muscles designed for strength and endurance. His skin was milky white except for his face and hands; and smooth, hairless except for the dark crop at the base of his smooth belly, from which his penis arched strongly, as if with a life of its own.

She looked at the miraculous delicacy of his collar-bones, the tiny, mute nipples, pale pink as a child’s, and she found him a thing of wonderful completeness, and yet curiously unfinished. Man, the bestrider of the world, the proud wielder of weapons, the subduer, when stripped naked was so vulnerable – not strong in nakedness, as she now perceived she was.

She looked into his eyes, and saw that he knew it, too. His desire for her made him weak, as it made her strong.

‘You’re beautiful,’ she said. She looked again at his penis, and it seemed as though it were a separate thing from him, possessed of a primitive force that he could not control, drawing strength from the vitality of the earth, without reference to him. She understood now how men could be governed by it, driven by those desires which before had seemed to her incomprehensible. ‘That’s beautiful too,’ she said. ‘I’ve never seen a man before.’

He nodded, his eyes fixed on her; and then, in helpless appeal, he put out his hands to her, and she took them and laid down on the bed, drawing him with her. She was not the petitioner now: she had a great wealth to give him.

‘Come, then,’ she whispered.

He laid down beside her, and she felt his hands on her, and was filled with an unbearable excitement, though she hardly understood for what. He bent his head and kissed her breast, and she felt that same loosening, weakening sensation that she had known before with him, as if everything inside her were turning to liquid. He moved across her, she felt his penis hot and hard like a brand between them, and she put her arms round him to draw him closer.

Then it was – but not like anything she had known before. He entered her as though she were his home, and it was easy and good, with the goodness of something natural, something that was meant to be; like cool water after a long day’s thirst. What with Basil had been a painful intrusion, with Nikolai was lovely, ravishing to the senses, utterly satisfying: her whole body sighed with relief at being completed at last. She felt him inside her – strange! wonderful! – and only wanted more, more of him, wanted to take the whole of him inside her and keep him folded in the warm darkness under her heart for ever.

She was unaware of anything but him, the touch of him, the smell of his skin the pulse of his life around her and inside her. She moved with him, wanting always more, to be closer, to yield up her separateness absolutely and be one thing, indivisible. And the life of their bodies quickened and caught each other’s rhythm, and then they were absolutely together, no difference between them, one person. The thing was not part of them, they were part of it, carried along by it towards the place – oh, she wanted to be there, but she didn’t want this to end, her soul would step out of her body and she would die if it should end!

She had not known there could be such feeling. Then for one beat of the heart everything stopped; they were suspended out of time in a miracle of light and sensation, soundless and breathless, as though the very stuff of the universe were streaming through them. Anne opened her eyes wide, and her mouth stretched in a soundless cry of ecstasy as she felt deep inside her the double convulsion of their accomplishment.

Years, aeons later he lifted his head and looked down at her, and saw she was crying: at least, her cheeks were wet, her eyelashes spiked and dark with tears.

‘My love,’ he said tenderly.

‘How could I have known?’ she whispered. ‘How could I possibly have known?’

All the long, hot June afternoon they lay on the bed and talked. Anne found a new pleasure, the greatest pleasure she could imagine – to lie curled against her lover, her head in the hollow of his shoulder, and talk, utterly without restraint, with perfect trust and understanding. It seemed very natural – their intellectual companionship had, after all, long preceded any other relationship between them; but there was an extra dimension of intimacy now added, and the thoughts and ideas flowed more easily than ever between them, as their entwined bodies made a perfect conduit.

Their conversation ranged comfortably, circling and always coming back to what had happened between them. It seemed, at the last, all right.

‘I can’t feel guilty,’ she said. ‘Not yet, at all events.’

He stroked her hair. ‘I can’t believe you have ever been anyone else’s. When I saw you in Fontenarde’s, I thought you had changed. You seemed harder – so assured and sophisticated – very much the Madame Tchaikovsky I had heard about – and oh, my love, how that hurt! When I heard the gossip about you in Paris, I hated to think of your being spoilt, becoming a brittle-smiling society hostess. But now I see that you are still the same, my Annushka – underneath, you are the same, innocent girl I brought to Russia all those years ago. What sort of a man can you have married, to have left so little mark on you?’

She didn’t want to talk about that. ‘I didn’t know what marriage would mean. Now I see this is what it ought to be like. Is it like this for everyone – for all lovers, I mean?’ She tilted her face up enquiringly.

He smiled. ‘How would I know that? You attribute me with a vastly flattering experience, Doushka.’

‘I love it when you call me that! But there have been others, haven’t there? You’ve spent so long away – in Paris, particularly. There’ve been lots of others?’

He was touched, but wary. ‘There were others; but never anything like this.’

‘No,’ she said, with satisfaction. ‘I love you.’

‘I love you, too. This was something that was due to us, Annushka; something we ought to have had, but was denied us.’

‘It’s a moment out of time – it doesn’t count, does it? It’s outside of real life.’

He pulled her against him. ‘It’s real – it’s the most real thing of all. Don’t doubt that.’

She was silent for a while, and then, measure of her ease, her confidence, she said, ‘Tell me about them. I hear so little now. How is Irina?’

He did not immediately answer, and after a while she lifted her head to look at him. His eyes were distant; but she was not separate from him – she was where he was, looking outwards.

‘She’s not well. It’s part of the reason I came home. My tour of duty doesn’t end until September, but the good Fräulein Hoffnung wrote to me to say she was worried about her mistress. Since the death of Natasha–’ She saw that it was difficult for him to talk of it. The horror of the child’s lonely death had changed everyone whom it touched. ‘Irina just withdrew into herself. It was always her way to cope with things that troubled her, but now Fräulein Hoffnung says she is afraid her health is breaking down under the strain. I wrote to the Emperor, asking to be relieved. I can be of more use to him in Petersburg now, than in Paris, in any case.’

She saw that the tangle of reasons, personal and political, was not evenly balanced, but she didn’t wonder at it. She knew a little of what he felt about his wife – more, really, than she wanted to know.

‘So you’ve been to Schwartzenturm already? I thought you said you’d come straight from Paris.’

‘I did – I have. I’m going to Petersburg after I’ve seen Lolya, and then to Schwartzenturm.’

‘Ah, then it isn’t serious? She isn’t seriously ill?’

‘I don’t know.’ He looked at her with a wry expression. ‘Do you think I should have gone directly to her?’ Anne couldn’t help feeling a little shocked, and though she tried not to show it, he knew her too well for her to be able to disguise it from him. ‘You’re a strange one, Anna! You should rather want to keep me from her, keep me with you.’

She flinched. ‘Ah, don’t! You know–’ Impossible to go on. There was too much guilt in her own heart – of thoughts, if not of deeds – to speak of it. Instead, with a painful eagerness, she said, ‘Tell me about Sashka. It was so terrible, Nikolasha, when I left. I waved goodbye to him at Chastnaya, saying that it was for a few weeks, and I never went back again. I dreamed of him for months, waving goodbye, looking at me reproachfully.’ She frowned, her eyes dark. ‘He was like a son to me.‘

‘More than he has ever been to me,’ Kirov said quietly. ‘How can I tell you anything about him? Since he was born, I’ve hardly spent six months with him.’

‘He must be – almost seven. Seven in August,’ Anne mused. ‘I don’t suppose he would remember me now. Well, it’s for the best, as things are. And Lolya I know about – I see her now and then. When do you mean to bring her out? She’s old enough now.’

‘Next Season, in Petersburg. In November, I expect, if Irina’s well enough. She can be presented at Court at the same time. It’s another thing I had to come home for – my mother was beginning to write stern letters to me. She longs for Lolya to dazzle society–’

‘La Belle Hélène,’ Anne murmured.

‘Just so. I’m afraid she will make her very vain and silly, with her talk of breaking hearts and such female nonsense.’ He kissed her brow. ‘She doesn’t have you, now, to keep her sensible.’

‘Your sister is a sensible woman.’

‘Shoora’s a dear, but not clever. However, it was in the hope of mitigating the worst effects of Mama’s flattery that I’ve left her in the country, at Tula. My mother would have loved to have her in Moscow, but I refused to allow it. I wanted my little girl to grow up modest and natural.’

‘Will you take her back with you when you go to Petersburg?’

‘No – let her have one last summer of romping in the fields. I’ll fetch her in October. That will be soon enough.’

Anne mused. ‘I always thought you didn’t understand about your mother.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘I mean, I thought you were blind to her real character.’

‘To her faults, you mean? No, dear love, I knew all about her. I watched what she did to my sisters. But what could I do? You can’t change a grown woman, particularly a widow who’s had the command of her own fortune all her life. And I could never bear to have to take sides between her and Irina. I owed a loyalty to both of them, and how could I choose? So I stood aside, and tried to make light of it.’

Anne’s mind cried a protest: but you were wrong! You left Irina victim to your mother, who was twice as strong as she. You should have defended your wife – that was where your loyalty lay! She felt he had been at fault, and that it was a weakness on his part; and probably he knew he had been wrong, but hid the knowledge from himself. He was not perfect, she saw that; her love for him did not make her blind to his faults. But she said nothing. In the first place, it was not her business; and in the second, she had no desire to argue with him about Irina – that was the last thing that should come between them.

Instead she said, ‘And Sergei? How is he? Have you heard from him?’

‘He’s with his regiment, fighting the Persians in Azerbaijan. He writes to me regularly, but he never says much about himself – just about the campaign, and occasionally about hunting or fishing trips.’ He sighed. ‘Mama complains that he never writes to her, or goes to visit her. When he has leave, he spends it in the Caucasus. I tell her it’s only natural that he shouldn’t want to spend half his leave travelling, but she suspects there are other reasons.’

‘And are there? What does he do in the Caucasus?’

‘Rides, hunts.’ He frowned. ‘That place has an unholy fascination. I felt it myself, and tried to resist it. I think you felt it too, didn’t you?’

‘It’s not like anywhere else in the world. But I have unhappy memories connected with it,’ she said quietly.

‘So do we all. Seryosha too. That’s what makes it all the more strange that he should keep going back – and particularly that he should spend so much time at Chastnaya. I think it’s unhealthy – obsessive. He keeps going over and over the ground. He blames himself for Nasha’s death, I think, which is absurd.’

Anne thought of the grim young man she had last seen at Pyatigorsk. Yes, obsessive was a word that fitted. But there was more to it than that, she thought. There was her own part in his ruin, which she could not calculate; and his complicated feelings about his step-mother and about her relationship with his father. In the Caucasus, she thought, in that place of light and shade, of dark magic and brooding mystery, Sergei might well be able to bring himself to believe that nothing at all was real, beyond the sword in his hand and the dust in his throat.

‘I wish he’d find a girl and get married,’ Kirov said. Anne, coming back from her thoughts, almost smiled.

‘How can you, of all people, recommend that as a cure-all?’

‘Unfair, Anna! But I do think it would be more natural if he were to marry. There are girls enough in Pyatigorsk, but he doesn’t seem to care for any of them.’

‘He may not tell you everything. Perhaps he has dozens of women. Would you tell him everything?’

‘Women is not the same as woman,’ he said succinctly. He leaned up on one elbow and looked down at her. ‘You don’t suppose he’s still thinking of you? I thought at the time that it was just an absurd infatuation – but feeling as I do about you, I could hardly blame him if it were more than that.’ He stroked her cheek.

‘I don’t think he ever really saw me,’ she said evenly. Her eyes met his, and something clenched inside her. ‘Nikolasha–’ she said in supplication.

It was different this time, slower, gentler, full of tenderness. She felt so close to him, pressing her cheek against his and cradling his head with her hands as they moved; yet the passion was filled with sadness. Afterwards they lay in silence, watching the shadows move across the walls. Time was running out. I shall never forget this place, she thought, not one detail of this room, of what happened, of what was said; yet it was not true. Already things were slipping away. The wholeness was so important, that it was impossible to hold on to the detail. It mattered so much, that it dispersed like mist when she tried to grasp it.

‘I love you,’ she said, nudging closer to him. He knew what she was saying.

‘Anna, afterwards–’

‘There is no afterwards for us. We’re both married. This is all there is.’

‘Doushka, don’t. I can’t bear to be apart from you.’

She grew angry. ‘What do you propose? Let me hear your plans, then! How are we to be together, Nikolai Sergeyevitch? Tell me what you mean to do with your wife and my husband.’

‘I hadn’t begun to–’

‘You thought perhaps I would be your mistress? That might be a little hard to arrange, perhaps, for two such public figures – especially if we are not even living in the same city.’

‘Annushka, don’t tear at me,’ he said gently. ‘We must never hurt each other.’

Her eyes filled with tears. ‘You don’t know, you don’t know…’

He gathered her close. ‘Something will happen. I can’t believe that God gave us so much, meaning to deny us the rest. Somehow, we will be together.’

‘Nikolasha–!’

‘I’m not going away from Russia again. I’ve done my duty to the Emperor. In Petersburg or in Moscow, somehow we’ll be together. We must be practical.’

She wiped her eyes with her fingers, a childish gesture that disarmed him. ‘Practical,’ she said, and he didn’t know if she were agreeing or deriding.

‘Yes, love. I must be in Petersburg this winter, for various reasons. Can’t you come too? Do you have to stay in Moscow? You could persuade your husband to come for the Season, couldn’t you?’ It seemed strange to hear him refer to Basil like that, while she was lying in his arms.

‘It may be possible, provided he doesn’t guess the real reason. We have a house there.’

‘What are your immediate plans?’

‘We go to the dacha at the end of the month. Everyone will be going out of town, of course. We usually spend the summer there, entertaining and riding–’

‘You still have Quassy?’

‘Yes, of course – and her colt. He’s two years old, now. I meant to begin breaking him this summer. I wanted to do it myself. I had thought–’ She stopped. When Rose was born, she had thought of training the colt to carry her daughter; she had imagined herself and Rose one day riding together on Quassy and Image. It was a picture that remained locked away in the back of her mind, which presented itself now and then to torment her. ‘In the autumn, we go back to the city for the Season.’

‘Try to persuade him to make it Petersburg instead.’

‘But even if I do – how shall we see each other?’

‘Publicly, I suppose.’ Her pain was reflected in his eyes. ‘It is better than nothing.’

Is it? she wondered; but she didn’t say it aloud.

Now, at home again at Byeloskoye, she was alone with her thoughts of what had passed that day, with tormenting speculation, with fragile memories. The long day was ending. She felt almost dazed. There seemed no substance to her, as though she had left her real self in that bare bedchamber, and what had come home to walk about the house was a dry husk, like the discarded snake-skins she sometimes found on hot stones in the garden. She half expected the light to pass through her unhindered; she felt that if anything touched her, she would crumble into dust.

Did the servants give her odd looks? Would they wheedle out of Pauline what had happened? Russian servants were the worst gossips in the world, but Pauline was not Russian, of course, and held herself aloof from them. Miss Penkridge, stern Yorkshire virgin, would never stoop to gossip; and between Pauline and Mile Parmoutier there was the deep reserve of suspicion that you would expect between a Belgian and a Frenchwoman. No, probably Pauline would not gossip.

Provided she thought of some way to account for having sent the carriage home… She could not, just at the moment, make herself care. She knew that it was exhaustion, physical and emotional, and that she would care very much later on. To be discovered in her misconduct – recriminations from her husband – would be beyond bearing. Misconduct? Sin? How could it be that? She could not feel it to be wrong, and knew that it was. It seemed a thing separate from the flow of real events, but she knew intellectually that nothing one does is without its effect on others.

Her husband – his wife. Her feelings about Irina were a hopelessly tangled skein, beyond unwinding. She liked her, pitied her, was frantic with jealousy towards her. It was impossible, perhaps, to hate a woman whose children one had loved and cared for, and yet she wished those children had been hers, that Irina had never existed. Unwell, grieving, ignored by her husband… he should have hurried there at once! How cruel, no, how thoughtless of him! Irina… It was strange that she had so often felt racked with guilt when her crime was no more than a sin of thought, an imagination. Now, when the crime was of commission, she could feel no guilt at all, only a low singing of joy, and an intolerable ache of loss.

Would she see him again? They could never have another day like today, never again be lovers; but if she could just see him… But to see him without being able to touch him, talk freely to him, how could she endure that? It would be worse… better than nothing… unendurable… She wandered through the house, and the air felt dry and used, and the floor felt swollen under her feet, and the walls bulged softly like uncooked pastry, as if she were in a fever.

There was a little time before the dressing-bell summoned her to her bath. Tonight she and Basil were going to the Grand Theatre to see the new French comedy; a new actor had just arrived from Paris, who promised to become the succès fou of the year, a slender and apparently startlingly beautiful young man who portrayed women so perfectly that he could not be told apart from the real thing. If he were all he was reputed to be, she and Basil would have to make sure he was their dinner guest before anyone else’s.

The thought wearied and depressed her. Hollow! Is this what your life has become, trying to succeed at a game that isn’t even worth playing? To sustain an illusion when even the original would be worthless? She thought of Nikolai, and missed him dreadfully, like a physical ache. Half an hour to be got through before the dressing-bell; and all the rest of her life after that.

She walked across the hall and started up the stairs. On the first floor she met Miss Penkridge, who told her that a package had arrived for her from Fontenarde’s.

‘Yes, that will be the Count’s birthday present. Put it away somewhere, will you? I wish it to remain a secret.’

‘I conclude, my lady, that it is valuable? Should I put it in the safe-box?’

‘Yes – do.’

‘Also the Dowager Countess Gagarin called, my lady,’ Penkridge went on. Did her flat eye convey a warning? ‘She wished to see you, but she did not leave a message.’ Already, Anne thought. Of course, she must have been seen by many people, riding in Kirov’s carriage. She would have to tell Basil she had met him, that they had gone for a drive together. Would he ask questions? She didn’t want to think about that now. ‘Very well,’ she said, turning away. ‘I’m going up to the nursery.’ Aware of Penkridge’s eyes on her back, she went on slowly up the stairs, keeping her shoulders straight, though they wanted to slump forward wearily.

The nursery was on the top floor at the back, the nicest, sunniest suite of rooms in the house. Here the Countess Marya Vassilievna’s household lived their private and separate lives, all their needs catered for without ever encountering the rest of the world. Here, there were bedrooms and sitting rooms, a schoolroom and a playroom, closets and storerooms, even a large balcony on which to take the air. The views from the windows were lovely; the rooms were decorated in the best style, with light modern furniture and drapes. The meals that were brought up were of the first quality; there was no need for anyone ever to leave the upper floor.

It all looked as little like a hospital as was possible. In fact, Anne thought painfully, it was a prison. Here Rose was imprisoned in the cage of her illness, and the staff who had too little to do to attend her few wants were her gentle gaolers.

Mile Parmoutier, forewarned in some way of her approach, met Anne at the door of the day-nursery, the large, handsome apartment in which Rose spent most of her time. It was from this room that glass doors led on to the balcony, from which one could look across the English lawns to the plantation which divided Byeloskoye from the park of the next-door palace. It was all so verdant, you would hardly know you were in the city at all.

There were wheels fixed to the legs of Rose’s bed, so that she could be moved from room to room without having to lift and carry her – a process which caused her some pain. Grubernik, the doctor in charge of the case, had advised that she should be given as much stimulation as possible, by changing her position, placing different objects within her field of vision, talking, even reading to her. Only by means of continuous stimulation to her mind, and massage and forcible exercise to her limbs, could she be helped towards normality.

So in the mornings her bed was wheeled from the night-nursery to the day-nursery, and moved from one part of the room to another during the day. Parmoutier had carte blanche to ask for anything she needed – books, toys, clothes, furniture, food – to help her in taking care of Rose. She was a dedicated woman, and spent almost every waking moment with her charge. Anne was aware in the back of her mind how ironic it was that she, who had dedicated years of her life to the upbringing of another person’s daughters, should employ someone else to do the same thing for her own child. She thought perhaps Parmoutier also considered it ironic and regarded her employer oddly from time to time; but Anne knew really that this was just morbid imagination. Women in her position in society did not look after their own children – any more than Irina had, or why had Anne been brought to Russia at all?

‘Madame,’ Parmoutier said now, coming forward eagerly.

‘How is she?’ Anne asked abruptly. It was a question that was hardly ever answered directly: Rose’s condition did not vary from day to day.

‘I was just going to read to her,’ Parmoutier said. ‘Perhaps you would like to do it instead, Madame?’

Anne looked past her into the room. The floorboards were painted amber, and when the sun shone on them, they glowed like honey. The walls were papered with a gold and white stripe, and the furniture was French mahogany, the seats upholstered in straw-coloured silk. On the far side, by the open glass doors, was the only jarring note – the narrow, wheeled bed with the embroidered Chinese silk counterpane on which lay what looked like a badly-made little wooden effigy.

Anne’s heart contracted with love and pity, as it always did, at the sight of her child. Rose, she cried inwardly, how could God have done this to you? The child had been dressed that day, by her nurse or by her governess, Anne didn’t know which, in a loose-fitting robe of the fashionable bleu d’extase – a choice which might have been a horrible and spiteful jest, but in fact had been generated by uncritical love. Suddenly Anne could not bear the presence of the governess, or of anyone of Rose’s court. The quality of their pity tore through her defences like claws.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, I’ll read to her. Give me the book and go away. I want to be alone with her.’

She crossed the room to the bedside, and drew up the chair which had been placed ready, and sat looking at her child. She remembered Sashka at that age; and Nasha, just a little older, when she had first seen her, a little bright-eyed tangle-head in a nightshirt. Rose was lying on her back, propped from the shoulders upwards by a heap of pillows, her head turned towards the window. Her pinched face was white, with the almost transparent pallor of the invalid; in her broad, high forehead the blue veins were visible under the thin skin. Her eyelids were blue, too, as if touched by a delicate brush, and her eyelashes were long and tipped with gold. Her left eye was a pale, bright blue, the pupil seeming unusually large and black; her right eye was mostly white, turned so far away that the iris was almost hidden.

She lay motionless as no child ever should, her large head and brittle limbs giving her the look of an unfledged bird, the sort one finds on the ground in early summer, fallen from the nest before life has fairly begun. Her hair, the colour of cooked barley, lay thin and soft against her skull, brushed to a shine by some loving hand, tied back from her face with a bit of blue ribbon to match her gown.

Anne’s throat tightened painfully. A little girl with a ribbon in her hair: it was such a universal thing! But this little girl would never prance in front of a mirror to admire herself, try on her mother’s shoes and pretend to be a lady. She might die; Anne had wished often enough that she would; but now, today, after what had happened, she found she could not want that any more. Her child, her only child, grown and nurtured within her body, part of her; whatever there was of life, Rose should have her share. Life was strong, determined. Against all expectations, today it had nourished her, woken her from sleep – who could say it would not happen also for the child?

‘I love you, Rose,’ she said. The sound of her own voice startled her. You shall live, she went on, but inwardly. Forgive me, my darling girl – I haven’t known how to give you anything. The thought stopped her, made her examine it, original in its truth. Here was unpalatable fact. She had felt rejected by her daughter’s immobility, lack of response, by the impossibility of doing anything for her. But now, today, it was different. She was richer; something was unlocked, something healed. Today – being with Nikolai – had helped. Loving and being loved had shown her how to do it. Whatever happened afterwards, today had been important: she had learned a little of how to give.

So much of giving, she thought, was a selfishness; a desire for recognition. When we say I love you, it is not a statement but a question: Do you love me? She took Rose’s hand, and the little cold bird-claw lay unresponsive in hers, neither accepting nor rejecting. I love you, Rose, she said inwardly. I love you enough not to need a response. I love you enough to give, even if the gift will never be acknowledged. Live, and grow into a lady, with ribbon in your hair, and the kiss of the sun against your skin.

My love, little bird. She kissed Rose’s cheek, hung over her, smiled and talked to her, watching for any sign of reaction. Rose lay mute, unmoving; but perhaps, Anne thought, in some way, the poor parched soul trapped within, or hovering near, might hear and know, and grow a little fuller, and feel a little peace.

She did not hear the dressing-bell, and since Mile Parmoutier didn’t like to disturb her, Pauline had to come upstairs and fetch her. As a consequence, Basil was ready before her, and waiting in the drawing-room with a glass of wine in his hand by the time Anne appeared.

She began to apologise, but Basil, seeming unusually genial, said, ‘There’s no need. I understand you were visiting the nursery. That duty must come before everything.’

She eyed him cautiously, wondering why he looked so pleased with himself. Was there a trap here?

‘Have you had an agreeable day?’ she asked.

‘Most agreeable,’ he said with a private smile of satisfaction. ‘Vanya Golitsin took me along to the Grand Théatre to watch the rehearsal of the play, and afterwards we entertained the entire cast at the Muscovy Club.’

Ah, thought Anne, so that’s all it is: a wine-flush. ‘Did you meet the new actor? What’s his name?’

He turned his pale, full eyes on her. ‘Jean-Luc de Berthier. Yes, I most certainly did. What a drôle he is! A fine actor, and, I must tell you, so ravishingly beautiful that he will put our belles to shame! I could not believe when I first saw him that he was a man. I thought Vanya must be teasing me. When I met him afterwards I begged him to take off his wig, but he wasn’t wearing one – it was all his own hair! At the club 1 took him in on my arm, and no one guessed. Vanya bet a hundred roubles we could not carry it off, but Jean-Luc wouldn’t take the bet – he said it would be unfair, because he’d done it hundreds of times before. I never met a more honest man!’

Anne listened with only half her mind, surprised at his high good humour and glad that he had been well occupied for the day. She didn’t want to feel guilty about her day; didn’t want to say anything about it if she could help it. As long as Basil kept talking, there was a good chance he would not ask her any questions. She would prefer not to have to lie.

Pauline appeared through one door with her gloves just as the butler came in through another to say that the carriage was waiting.

‘And there’s a messenger here, my lady, from Madame Gagarin, with a letter.’

Anne paled inwardly. ‘Tell him to go away. I haven’t time to read it now,’ she said quickly.

Basil looked round. ‘Oh, by all means read it. There’s no hurry. The play won’t start on time. They never do the first night.’

‘It’s not important,’ Anne began dismissively, but the butler, damn him, interrupted.

‘The boy asked me to say, my lady, that it was most urgent, and he was instructed to wait for an answer.’

‘Go and get the letter,’ Basil said. ‘I don’t mind waiting.’

‘I have it here, my lord,’ said the butler.

‘Give it to me,’ Anne said angrily. He would be dismissed the very next morning, if she had her way. What did the old bitch Gagarin want? It was a conspiracy to betray her. Did Basil know? Was that why he was insisting she open the letter in front of him? She broke the seal, and could not make her eyes focus on the black scrawl within – no secretary’s hand, that. Madame Gagarin must be one of the few of her generation who could read and write.

‘Well, what does she say?’ Basil prompted.

Anne scanned the lines again, trying to make the sense go in and stay in. Chère madame, when I saw you today in the Kuznetsky Most – she was going to be betrayed! She would have to say something to Basil. What excuse could she give? Her mind worked feverishly – I remembered that I had meant to ask you for the recipe for those delicious brandied cherries / tasted at your card party last week–

Anne looked up, and Basil’s face seemed to swim, blurred and wavering, before her. She licked her dry lips. A recipe! She wanted a recipe!

‘By the way,’ he said before she could speak, ‘did you know your friend Kirov was back from Paris?’ Her heart dropped sickeningly, like a stone. ‘He’s gone straight down to Tula to see his daughter, apparently. God knows why he didn’t go to St Petersburg first. Vanya says there’s a whole bag of letters that have been following him about from place to place for weeks, trying to catch up with him. I suppose he’ll get them in Tula – the courier’s gone after him, anyway.’

Anne could not find any words in her dry mouth. Basil was still talking, his face devoid of guile. ‘It’s going to be a bit of a shock for him, poor fellow. He’ll blame himself for not going to Petersburg first, when he knows. He might have been in time to see her if he had.’

‘See – her?’

‘His wife. She’s dead.’

Chapter Twenty-Four

Anne came down the stairs one day in March 1812 with a cautious smile of welcome stitched on to her lips. The Tchaikovskys were giving a ball tomorrow – the final ball of the Season – and she had not been pleased to be disturbed by her butler, who informed her that ‘a lady’ wished to see her, but would not give her name. There were all sorts of uninvited callers who demanded the time of a great lady during the St Petersburg Season, including beggars and troublemakers and petitioners, but the butler had assured her with an odd smile that the caller was none of these, and she had sighed and put down her pen resignedly.

However, as she reached the turn of the stairs and looked down into the hall, she saw a slender figure standing there, dressed in a magnificent long sable coat decorated with gold-tagged tails, and a very cunning little black hat, which sported a pair of crow’s wings and a great many jet beads. A heavy black veil completely covered her face and was tied under her chin. She was accompanied by a very young and pretty maid in a plain brown shooba with a hood. Anne’s artificial smile became genuine, if a little exasperated.

‘Lolya,’ she said, ‘you absurd child! What is this? Another of your silly pranks?’

Yelena Nikolayevna turned at the sound of her voice, and unfastened the veil and threw it back. ‘You recognised me!’ she cried disappointedly. ‘I thought I could surprise you.’

Anne advanced and kissed the rosy cheek offered up to her. Lolya had grown into a lovely young woman – not classically beautiful, but with an impish, charming face so full of life and fun that it was impossible not to love her. The death of her stepmother last year had delayed her coming-out until two months ago, in January 1812; but since her presentation, she had been enjoying every instant of the Season, and was certainly one of the most popular debutantes of that year. A strong friendship had developed between Anne and her former charge, whose naturally open temper and generous heart had not forgotten the affection that had existed between them, nor the debt she owed Anne for her upbringing and education.

‘If you want to go about incognito,’ Anne advised her now solemnly, ‘you will have to wear a different coat! I should think everyone in Petersburg recognises your father’s coming-out present to you.’

Lolya began pulling off her gloves. ‘Oh, is that what gave me away? But I have to wear it – I love it so!’ She stroked the sleeves with loving hands, and then threw the coat open to reveal a gown of fine, thin wool of a blue so dark it appeared almost black. Though officially out of mourning, Lolya had decided that dark colours suited her, and was attempting to start a fashion amongst her peers for discarding the pastel shades more usual for debutantes in their first season.

‘I’d have known you anyway, darling; and you forgot to disguise your maid,’ Anne said affectionately. ‘What is all this about? Some mad freak of yours, I suppose?’

‘I’ve come here secretly,’ Lolya said importantly, ‘to beg your help. No one knows I’m here. Even your butler didn’t recognise me.’

Anne thought of Mikhailo’s secret smile, and suppressed one of her own. ‘Where is your grandmother?’ she asked, going to the heart of it.

‘She’s taken Sashka to the puppet theatre. I said I couldn’t go, because I had to go to the mantuamaker’s for a final adjustment, and I did call in there, though there wasn’t really anything to do. But it did make it all right, and only a little of a lie, didn’t it? Only I couldn’t tell her what I really wanted to do, of course. Why does Gran’mère hate you so, Anna Petrovna?’

‘It would take too long to explain. But do you think you ought to do things you know she will disapprove of?’

‘Oh yes! It doesn’t matter really what she thinks, though I don’t like to upset her because it makes things so uncomfortable. But if Papa doesn’t mind me visiting you, it can’t be wrong, can it? I’d have asked him, only he went out too early this morning, before I was up. Anyway, he’ll make it all right with Gran’mère. Since Mamochka died, he stands up to her a great deal more, and makes her mind him. He never did before.’

Anne looked into Lolya’s wide brown eyes and read there an absolute innocence. She really had no notion of the dark streams of conflict that had run below the calm surface of her life. How Vera Borisova had received the news of Irina’s death Anne had no way of knowing, but having seen some of the new coolness between Kirov and his mother, she could guess that the Dowager must have allowed her triumph to show – whether by accident or design.

At all events, she had hastened to offer her services for Lolya’s coming-out, and lest her offer be refused, had followed her letter to Petersburg in person too closely for a reply of any sort even to have been thought out. Thus she had achieved her life’s ambition, of being intimately involved in Lolya’s undeniable social success. The one taste of gall in her honey had been Anne’s presence in Petersburg: she must have hoped, poor creature, to have left her behind in Moscow!

‘And what was it you wanted me to do for you? Am I going to regret deeply that I didn’t tell Mikhailo I was not at home?’ Lolya grinned impulsively. ‘You couldn’t be not at home to me, darling Anna! And I know you must be very busy, and I’m sorry to disturb you, but you know Pinky can do everything for you just as well, and you’d be sorry to miss it, really you would.’

‘Miss what?’

‘The review at the Winter Palace, of course! Only do hurry, or we won’t get a good place. We can go in your new calfeche, can’t we? It’s so very smart, and Varvara Salkina is bound to be there, and I want her to see me riding in it.’

‘Is that the only reason you have come disturbing me, you monkey? Just to ride in my carriage?’

‘Oh no!’ Lolya said, round-eyed. ‘I must have you with me, because it wouldn’t be at all proper for me to go to a review with only Sophie. She’s so young and silly,’ she added sotto voce, ‘and I must have an older woman with me to give me credit.’

‘Thank you,’ Anne said. ‘It’s good to know I can still be useful in my dotage.’

Lolya stroked Anne’s arm wheedlingly. ‘But you’ll enjoy it, Anna, you know you will! There’s a whole regiment parading today, and they’re marching off to the border, so it’s our patriotic duty to go and cheer, and they’ll look so splendid!’

At that moment Miss Penkridge appeared on the staircase. ‘Excuse me, my lady, but should I–’ she began, as if she had come seeking Anne’s guidance on some point, but Anne saw through her. In the few weeks that Lolya had had the run of Anne’s household, she had wound every member of the staff around her pretty fingers. Miss Penkridge’s granite face was as soft as blancmange as her eyes crept irresistibly from her mistress’s face towards Lolya’s. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were engaged.’

‘Darling Pinky,’ Lolya said, going up two stairs to kiss her cheek.. ‘I’m so glad to see you! Won’t you help me persuade Anna Petrovna she ought to go out and get some fresh air?’

‘It isn’t my place, my lady–’ Miss Penkridge began. Anne watched the manoeuvring with fascination. Anyone who could call the forbidding Miss Penkridge ‘Pinky’ and kiss her into submission was a force to be reckoned with. She foresaw a great future for Lolya; if only she had been born male instead of female she could have been a politician or a great general.

‘But you can tell her,’ Lolya went on persuasively, ‘that you can manage without her, can’t you? You can do all the preparations for tomorrow, can’t you?’

‘Of course, my lady. Her ladyship knows she can safely leave everything with me,’ Penkridge said stoutly.

‘There you are, you see!’ Lolya said triumphantly. ‘So do come, darling Anna! And put on your new hat, the one with the marabou trimming, because you look so lovely in it, and I want everyone to see how smart you are!’

Anne saw she could not win. ‘Very well. I suppose I had better come with you, or you’ll do something dreadful, and I shall feel guilty. Come upstairs with me, while I get ready.’

‘Thank you! You can go home, now, Sophie. Madame Tchaikovsky will send me home in her carriage so I shall be quite safe.’

She followed Anne upstairs, chattering. ‘I do like your house, Anna, much more than ours. Ours is so stuffy! I know it wouldn’t have been proper to redecorate while we were in mourning, but there couldn’t be any objection now, could there? I don’t know why Papa won’t let me order new drapes, at least. I saw the most gorgeous material in Zubin’s the other day – cloth of gold, covered with peacocks and birds of paradise! You can’t think how lovely! I described it to Papa and said it would be the very thing for the state drawing-room, but he only pretended to shudder and said I had taste to match my age. What d’you think he meant by that? But I think he just didn’t want to spend the money,’ she went on without waiting for an answer. ‘He’s got awfully mean since Mamochka died. He wouldn’t even buy a new barouche for the Season, though ours is shockingly old. He said it would “do” for another year. I hate things to have to “do” – and so does Gran’mère. Why, she won’t wear an evening gown more than twice – she gives them away to her maids to do over, once the trimming had been taken off. I heard Madame Kurakina say that Gran’mère had the best-dressed servants in Russia.’

Anne smiled. ‘I don’t think she meant that as a compliment, darling.’

‘Oh,’ said Lolya blankly, stopped in mid-flight. Her mind hopped to another subject. ‘How is your darling baby? I do think she’s the sweetest creature in the world! Would I have time to run up and see her, do you think, while you’re putting on your hat?’

‘No, love, you wouldn’t. But in any case, she’s out of the house at the moment. We can go and see her afterwards, if you like. Basil Andreyevitch and Jean-Luc have taken her out on a sledge into the garden. They spent all yesterday building a toboggan slope for her.’

Lolya cocked her head a little, quick to hear the undertone in Anne’s voice.

‘You don’t like Jean-Luc, do you? But he’s such fun, Anna, and you must admit he loves Rose! You aren’t worried it will be dangerous for her, are you?’

‘Oh no – it’s a very gentle slope. Grubernik said she ought to go out more, and have gentle exercise. This was Jean-Luc’s idea. They mean to take her out in the troika tomorrow, along the river to the fortress and back.’

‘Oh, she’ll like that! Is Jean-Luc coming to the ball tomorrow? Will he come dressed as a woman, the way he did to the rout at Countess Edling’s? Oh, it was so funny when she discovered he was really a man and didn’t know whether to have him thrown out or not! I laughed so much I thought I should choke, though Gran’mère didn’t like it, and said it was an insult to the Empress-Dowager. Though what she had to do with it I don’t know, because she wasn’t even there.’

‘Countess Edling is her lady-in-waiting.’

‘I know, but it isn’t as if it were meant to insult her. It was just a piece of fun! Oh, don’t look so disapproving, Anna dear! I depend on you not to be like Gran’mère, who thinks anything jolly must be improper.’

Anne pulled herself together. ‘I don’t think that, love. I suppose there’s no real harm in Jean-Luc. It’s just that I see so much of him, the jest wears thin sometimes. Now, tell me what you’re going to wear tomorrow,’ she added, firmly changing the subject. Lolya at once launched into a passionate description of mousseline de soie and spider-gauze, crystal spars and spangled scarves, which left Anne free to pursue her own thoughts.

The truth was that she didn’t like the little actor, and she wasn’t entirely sure why. His friendship with Basil had grown apace since their first meeting in Moscow, so much so that Anne had a suspicion that Basil’s eagerness to spend the Season in St Petersburg had a lot to do with the fact that Jean-Luc had been invited there to play with the French company before the Emperor.

De Berthier ran tame about the Tchaikovskys’ town house, and was present – and extremely visible – at every entertainment they gave. He and Basil were inseparable: Basil went to his every performance, held court in his dressing-room, entertained the entire theatre company to expensive suppers at the English Club, and talked French Drama as an expert at dinner tables all over St Petersburg.

He and Jean-Luc were seen everywhere together, and more often than not drunk. The actor seemed to have had a deplorable effect on Basil, who behaved in his company more like a twenty-year-old cadet than the forty-year-old head of his family. Basil had taken to wearing very odd clothes, and indulging in strangely youthful horseplay, which was getting him talked about, and not always with indulgence. Olga had even broken her self-imposed rule of never stepping over Anne’s threshold unless absolutely forced to by calling on her voluntarily to beg her to stop Basil making a spectacle of himself, and consequently of all of them.

She had not enjoyed Anne’s assurance that she had no influence over her husband, which would once have given her great pleasure.

‘If you had behaved as a wife should,’ she said hotly, ‘you would now have sufficient credit with my brother to stop him destroying himself. But I suppose you don’t care about that. You always were a cold, hard, selfish woman, and I suppose it’s too much to expect you to change now, now that you have the spending of Basil’s fortune, which is evidently what you married him for.’

Anne did not care a jot for Olga’s good opinion, but it was rather too much to be insulted in her own house, so she invited Olga to leave, and they had not spoken to each other since. In fact, Anne did not care any more than Olga to know that her husband was making a fool of himself. What Basil did inevitably reflected on her; but it was not only that. She was fond of Basil, and did not like to see him come under a bad influence. There was something sinister about Jean-Luc; something not quite right. She didn’t like him and she didn’t trust him, and if there had been any way she could have detached Basil from his new friend, she would have done it.

But the thing which troubled her most about Jean-Luc was his devotion to Rose; and the undeniable fact that Rose loved him and responded to him more than to anyone else. Since he had been visiting her regularly, she had improved by leaps and bounds. She would turn her head and smile the moment she heard his voice; she would endure the massages Grubernik recommended without a whimper if Jean-Luc held her hand; for him she would do her exercises and attempt things that no one else could persuade her to try. By association, she had come to love Basil too, and the two of them frequently spent a whole afternoon playing with her, crawling about the floor to move the pieces of her toy farmyard at her command, dressing-up and play-acting, clowning to make her laugh.

Jean-Luc took Rose’s condition very seriously, and often used their games to induce her to increase the range of her abilities. He taught her spillikins to improve her manual dexterity, for instance, and invented a picture game with icons to exercise her eyes and to try to straighten the crooked one. He played wounded soldiers with her, to persuade her to try to walk in the leg braces she so hated; and it was he who first got her, in the course of a farmyard game, to lie down on the floor with him and Basil, and to crawl by pulling herself along by her elbows, with her poor weak legs trailing behind.

All this, Anne knew, ought to make her like him – at the very least, to be grateful to him. Yet she could not help feeling that all was not as it seemed, that he was using Rose to gain a foothold in the family. Because she always tried to be honest with herself, she had also wondered whether she was merely suffering from plain jealousy, because her daughter seemed to prefer the Frenchman’s company to hers. Was it jealousy that made her feel Jean-Luc was trying to steal Rose from her, to shut her out from the nursery? When that idea had first occurred to her, she tried very hard to fight it and to like Jean-Luc for Rose’s sake.

Then came the day when she had gone to the nursery, and standing at the door had seen Jean-Luc, on one leg with his arms above his head and his face painted in primary colours, pretending to be a flower, while Basil, in a gold-and-brown striped shawl taken from Anne’s wardrobe, buzzed around him as the bee. Rose, watching from her wheeled chair, was evidently some kind of fairy queen or woodland goddess, for she was draped in the green nursery table-cloth, with a crown of ivy round her soft, barley-brown hair and a wand clutched in her hand.

The flower’s antics as it tried to prevent the bee from pollenating it, and its expression when the bee finally succeeded, were so funny that Rose was almost choking with laughter, her face brighter and more alive than Anne had ever seen it. The bee and the flower ended up in a heap on the floor, laughing and panting, while Rose clapped her hands and cried ‘Again! Again!’

At that moment they all three caught sight of Anne at the door. The laughter died away, and five eyes regarded her, not precisely with hostility, but cautiously, and certainly without welcome.

‘Carry on,’ Anne had invited them. ‘Don’t let me stop the fun.’

But Rose’s smiles had disappeared like the sun going behind a cloud. Jean-Luc got up politely and engaged her in small talk, but they were evidently waiting for her to go. Turning at the door, Anne had caught Jean-Luc’s eyes on her with a bright, hard, speculative look. It was instantly veiled – so instantly, that afterwards she could tell herself she must have imagined it. But before she reached the bottom of the first flight of stairs, she heard Rose’s infectious giggle floating out from the nursery behind her. It hurt her to be so excluded from her daughter’s court – and from no fault of her own, but by another’s design.

It was all made worse by the fact that she was sure Basil recognised her feelings and enjoyed watching her struggle with them. She did her best to behave always with courtesy towards Jean-Luc; but she sometimes caught Basil watching her with a strange gleam in his eye.

Lolya had removed the absurd and melodramatic veil from her hat, was sitting very upright beside Anne in the winter caliche, her hands thrust deep into her muff, looking about her with enormous pleasure and hoping for someone to recognise and admire her. It had been a particularly severe winter, and there had been a great many snowfalls lately: the thaw would be late, by the look of things. Today was fine and bright, freezing hard, but with a blue sky and a thin sunshine like watered gold making deep, luminous blue shadows across the snow.

Anne’s white horses trotted out well, and while their feet made no sound, the bells on their harness rang a thin, sweet carillon, and the runners of the caliche hissed against the packed snow and threw out a fine spray of diamonds.

‘I always think, every winter,’ Anne said, ‘that travelling in the snow makes the best sound in the world. One could never be unhappy riding in a sleigh, don’t you think?’

Lolya looked round with a relieved smile. ‘Oh, you are happy! I’m so glad. You seemed so quiet before, I thought you were angry with me for interrupting you.’

‘No, love. I had something on my mind, that’s all.’

‘Oh good! Because there is one other thing I wanted to ask you. Could we drive down the Nevsky Prospekt, do you think? There’s something I want you to see.’

Anne looked at her suspiciously. ‘This is another of your wheedles, isn’t it?’

‘Oh, Anna! It’s the most beautiful thing! And Papa’s so mean, he won’t let me wear a tiara, even though there are three of Mamochka’s that are meant for me; and your ball is a formal one after all, and the last of the season, and everyone will be wearing tiaras. You will won’t you?’

‘Of course. But that’s different: I’m a married woman.’

‘But Papa says I must wear flowers in my hair,’ she made an indescribable face. ‘Honestly, Anna, he seems to forget I’m almost eighteen, and a grown woman!’

‘Flowers are perfectly suitable or a girl in her first season,’ Anne said. But quite suddenly she remembered the earrings her father had sent her for her seventeenth birthday, and how deliciously grown-up she had felt wearing them. She had more earrings now than she could calculate – diamond, emerald, ruby, pearl – but nothing could ever quite thrill her like that first pair!

‘Well, it wouldn’t be my first season if Papa hadn’t had to be away so much,’ Lolya was arguing absurdly. ‘I’d have been out long ago. Kira came out when she was seventeen, and Varvara Salkina came out when she was sixteen, and she’s betrothed now.’

Anne looked at her sadly. ‘Oh Lolya, don’t be in such a hurry to grow up! You only ever have one chance to be young and happy.’

Lolya looked sceptical. ‘Old people always say that, just as if young people don’t have anything at all to worry about! I dare say we have far more troubles – and more important ones, too! I think it’s because you all have such fun being grown-up, you don’t want to share it with us.’

Anne smiled. ‘Do you think I have fun?’

‘Yes, of course you do. You have your own house and your own carriage, and you can go anywhere you want, and wear what you like and eat what you like. And you have your husband and your darling baby. Well, I want all those things too! I don’t want to wait for them. It’s so stupid being too young for things, and having to behave oneself and be mimsy and silly and pretend to be shy! Oh, look – here it is!’ Her attention was distracted and she flung out a hand. ‘Please stop, Anna, and tell me if it isn’t the handsomest thing you ever saw!’

It was the Court jeweller’s shop to which Lolya was directing Anne’s gaze. In the centre of the main window, artistically displayed on a fold of crimson velvet, was a pair of hair-clips in the shape of sprays of flowers. The blossoms were diamonds, the leaves cut from emerald, and the whole was exquisitely set in white gold.

‘Please say you’ll persuade Papa to buy them for me for your ball! If I have to wear flowers in my hair, well, those are flowers, aren’t they? And one ought to be fine for the Emperor, you know.’

‘Oh, Lolya,’ Anne laughed, ‘of course I won’t do any such thing! They must cost the earth. And besides, if your father wants you to wear flowers, then you must. It’s not for me to try to overset his decisions, even if I could.’

‘Of course you could,’ Lolya said simply. ‘Papa thinks the world of you. He’s always talking about you, and about how clever you are and all that sort of thing. You could persuade him if you wanted to.’

‘Well I don’t want to,’ Anne said, and told her coachman to drive on.

‘Very well,’ Lolya said with suspicious meekness. She didn’t even sulk or pout, but began a new conversation in a perfectly cheerful, agreeable voice. Anne wondered what was coming next.

The open square before the Winter Palace was already thronged with people, the peasants on foot, the dvoriane in sleighs drawn up side by side to enable the occupants both to watch the parade and to gossip. They were only just in time. The coachman dextrously beat a lozenge-coach to the last space on the near side, and Lolya was still bowing and waving to the occupants of the neighbouring carriages when there was a burst of applause from the far side and the regiment marched into the square.

‘Aren’t they splendid!’ Lolya cried with simple fervour. Anne had to agree they were. The officers rode out in full dress uniform, their fur-trimmed pelisses flashing with braid and loops, their hats splendid with plumes and gold lace rosettes; the horses stepped delicately, necks arched, with silver shells flashing on their bridles, and gold vandyking on their richly-coloured shabracks. The men marched behind proudly, arms reflecting the sun, their boots glinting as the legs swung forward all together, left and right, so that the ranks looked like strange insects, caterpillars rippling along a leaf.

They were parading in order to receive the Emperor’s blessing before they marched off to the border, and Anne was aware from diplomatic sources that the public review was meant to calm fears that a war was imminent; curious reasoning, she thought. Suddenly a great double cheer went up, signifying that the Emperor and his train had appeared, and craning her neck, Anne saw he was in his favourite pale blue uniform of a colonel of Hussars. She had a good view of him now: tall, romantically handsome, ruddy-cheeked and fair-haired as he swept off his hat in acknowledgement of the cheers. His expression was one of great sweetness: above all it was possible to feel for this Emperor, as perhaps for none other, a great affection. He sat his horse well, as she had had cause before to remark; and his attention never seemed to waver as the soldiers marched and wheeled about the square before him.

Lolya had been silent for quite a while, when she drew a deep, heartfelt sigh, and said passionately, ‘Isn’t he the handsomest creature you ever saw? Honestly, Anna Petrovna, don’t you think he’s the most divinely handsome man in the world?’

‘The Emperor?’ Anne said, a little startled. She would have expected a much less personal adoration of the Emperor of all the Russias from a young girl like Lolya.

‘No, no,’ Lolya said, colouring. ‘Of course the Emperor is very handsome too, but I was talking about Colonel Duvierge. That’s him on the bay horse, next to General de Tolly. He’s one of General de Lauriston’s aides.’

‘I know who Colonel Duvierge is,’ Anne said drily. ‘I’ve met him several times. What I can’t understand is how you know him.’

Lolya looked pink and conscious. ‘I know lots of diplomatic people. Why shouldn’t I? I met Colonel Duvierge when Papa took me to the Embassy Ball. He’s the most charming, handsome–’ She caught Anne’s amused look and said hastily, ‘He likes me to. He danced with me twice, and twice again at the Salkins’ the next evening.’

‘I see,’ Anne said neutrally. ‘Well, he’s certainly an agreeable young man, from the little I know of him.’

Lolya looked at her sidelong, cautiously. ‘Are you sure you won’t ask Papa to buy me the diamond sprays?’

‘Certainly not.’

‘Not even to please me?’ Anne quelled her with a look. ‘Well in that case, Anna Petrovna,’ she went on, taking a deep breath, ‘I have a great, great favour to ask you, and you have to say yes now, because you wouldn’t do the other thing, and this favour is the really important one, because if you don’t grant it, I shall really and truly die.’

‘Nonsense. Of course you won’t.’

‘Well, then, I shall go into a decline, and become terribly religious and join a nunnery, and you’ll have ruined my life and you’ll be very sorry and that will ruin your life.’

Anne laughed and held up her hands defensively. ‘Well, then, what is it? I warn you, if it’s anything improper–’

‘Oh no, darling Anna, of course it isn’t! This is it: you have invited General de Lauriston to your ball tomorrow, haven’t you? I know you have, because Gran’mère thinks it’s disgraceful and says she wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of people didn’t cut; only of course they won’t because the Emperor’s coming.’

‘It was the Emperor who asked me to invite him,’ Anne said. ‘He doesn’t want Bonaparte to accuse him of ill-treating his ambassador.’

‘I love the way you call him Bonaparte! That’s because you’re English, isn’t it?’ Lolya said. ‘Anyway, Gran’mère said it was a disgrace that decent Russians should have to mix with the Antichrist’s agents; but Countess Edling said it was better to have him where you could see what he was up to. But the thing is, Anna dearest, if you are inviting General de Lauriston, could you please, please invite Colonel Duvierge as well? Because otherwise I don’t see how I am ever to meet him without doing something improper, like making a secret assignation, which I don’t want to do. Gran’mfcre would never let me meet him any other way.’

Anne felt herself being cornered. ‘Lolya, my dear, even if I invited him to my ball, and even if he accepted, that wouldn’t necessarily make him dance with you. Don’t you think he’s a little too old for you, anyway? There are lots of nice Russian boys who will rush for your hand tomorrow.’

Lolya’s eyes grew bright. ‘He will dance with me! You don’t understand, Anna, how we feel about each other! And he’s not a bit too old. In any case, young men are boring and insipid. Andrei is just right for me.’

‘Andrei?’

Lolya looked defiant. ‘It’s how I think of him. We’re in love, Anna, and it would be cruel not to help us.’

‘Has he said he’s in love with you?’

‘Well, not said, not yet, but I know he is really. He hasn’t had the chance to declare himself, that’s all. Oh please invite him to the ball!’

Anne examined Lolya’s hopeful face. She saw in this request all the symptoms of a hopeless crush of the sort young girls frequently developed for unsuitable or out-of-reach men. It was a sort of practising to love, she thought, and probably the best way to cure it was to allow the victim to discover for herself that the object of her passion was entirely indifferent to her. Also, with a high-spirited creature like Lolya, opposition was likely only to have the effect of making her mulish.

After all, there was no harm that could come to Lolya at a large, well-attended ball. Colonel Duvierge was a perfectly respectable young man, and probably didn’t know Lolya existed. If he came to the ball and didn’t ask her to dance, she would be quickly, if painfully, cured of her sudden fancy.

‘Very well,’ Anne said. ‘I’ll invite him; but you must promise to behave yourself, and not shame me by making yourself obvious.’

‘Oh, I promise! I’ll be as mimsy as you wish! I’ll wear mittens and stand with my eyes cast down until he asks me to dance! Thank you, darling Anna! I knew you wouldn’t let me down!’

‘Now what has she been persuading you to do, Anna Petrovna? You should know better by now than to agree to anything Lolya suggests.’ The Count’s voice startled Anne, and she turned to see that he had just ridden up behind them, and was sitting his horse and smiling at her with a warmth in his eyes which made her throat close up. Fortunately she was not obliged to speak at once, for Lolya answered him by launching into a description of her gown for Anne’s ball, meaning to lead up to the question of the diamond sprays.

Nikolai listened, glancing from time to time at Lolya and smiling, but for the rest of the time looking at Anne as thought he were receiving some nourishment through that medium. Their meetings since she came to Petersburg had been few, their conversations limited to brief exchanges snatched at public functions or private parties. His deep mourning had not ended until December, and he had remained during that time at Schwartzenturm, coming to St Petersburg only after Christmas, when he brought Lolya for her presentation.

Since that day in Moscow, he and Anne had had no opportunity to be alone together. Anne was almost glad of it. It would have been too grave a temptation. The memory of the afternoon they had spent together was too wonderful and painful to be taken out and looked at very often. She had not seen him again before he left Moscow; she had had no one to turn to for help or comfort or advice a fortnight later, when her monthly flux had not begun on time.

It was only then that full enormity of her crime was brought home to her. If she were pregnant, there would be no more hope of concealment. Basil would know that it was not his child: she would be exposed. He might cast her out, penniless, to make her own way in the world, and she knew well enough what the fate of an unprotected pregnant woman would be. He would be perfectly within his rights to repudiate her; certainly he would refuse ever to let her see Rose again.

For ten days Anne contemplated, all alone, the most hideous ruin; and then on the eleventh day she began to bleed. A few moments of relief and euphoria were followed by black reaction, and she locked herself in her room and wept and wept for her loss and her dreadful guilt. Now, much as she loved him, she was reluctant to go through that again; but she knew that if she were put in the position of being tempted, she might not be able to resist.

Oh, but she loved him, and missed him, and wanted him! It seemed so wrong for them to be separated by her farcical marriage. He lived only a few hundred yards away from her, at the Kirov Palace on the English Quay. She could slip out one day and simply never come back. He would keep her, protect her, love her, make her happy. Though he did not press her, she knew that it was what he wanted.

But if she did such wrong, how could she live with herself? And if she left Basil, she would never be allowed to see Rose again; and she could not part with her only child.

Lolya had almost talked herself out, when Kirov interrupted her, saying, ‘Did you know that Anastasia Kovanina is in the fourth carriage down from here? Ah, I didn’t think you did! Why don’t you pay a visit to her, a good long visit, so that I can have a talk with Mademoiselle de Pierre?’

‘I don’t call her that any more,’ Lolya said with eighteen-year-old scorn, but she took the suggestion and went with the greatest good nature. Nikolai climbed up into the calèche beside Anne, and they sat for a moment or two enjoying the sensation simply of being close. Provided they spoke quietly, the coachman wouldn’t hear them: the music from the regimental band would cover their voices.

‘It’s a fine display,’ Anne said at last. ‘I can’t understand why Speransky thinks it will calm public fears, though. Everyone’s counting how many regiments have left St Petersburg recently and drawing their own conclusions.’

‘If they slipped away under cover of night it would be worse,’ he said. ‘People would be convinced that Napoleon was on our doorstep.’

‘It’s going to come, then? He will invade Russia?’

‘Yes, this year, sooner or later. He’s mad enough to do it. Thank God at least we have Barclay de Tolly as our Minister for War. He’s been quietly working away at the Emperor, trying to convince him that the best policy when Napoleon invades is to keep withdrawing in front of him, leading him further and further into our territory.’

‘And is the Emperor convinced?’

‘You know what he’s like – he hates to make decisions, hates to offend people. He flows this way and that, listening first to Tolly, and then to the hotheads like Bagration.’ He frowned. ‘Worst of all is that his sister – Grand Duchess Catherine, I mean – keeps trying to push him to bold action, talks about cowardice and Our Beloved Russia, and heaps scorn on Napoleon as if he were some untried cadet! He has always listened to her; and of course Bagration’s her tool. But I add my voice to Tolly’s, and he trusts me, so I don’t despair of the outcome.’

‘We called on the Grand Duchess at Tver on our way to Petersburg,’ Anne said. ‘She holds court there like a frustrated empress – but she’s always been good to me, so I shouldn’t speak slightingly of her. At all events, she thinks she’s pregnant now, so that should give her something else to occupy her mind.’

‘I wish it had. You won’t know, of course, that she’s been plotting busily against Speransky. I can’t find out the details of the plot, but I’m afraid it’s serious. There are too many people who want his downfall.’

‘Why do people hate him so much? He’s done so much good, reforming the government – and he works so hard, poor little man.’

‘They hate him because he’s a peasant, risen from the ranks by his own efforts. Lots of aristocrats can’t forgive that – particularly those he’s overtaken on the way up. For the son of a parish priest to become State Secretary – it’s too much to be borne!’

‘Well I like him,’ Anne said stoutly.

‘You like all sorts of odd people,’ he said with a smile. ‘What about those actors you have running tame about your house? Is it true that de Berthier is going to appear at your ball tomorrow dressed as Cleopatra and carrying a live asp?’

‘Oh, don’t,’ she shuddered. ‘I’ve heard so many tales of what he is going to do. Talk about something else! Did you know that Lolya has fallen in love?’

‘She falls in love at least once a week. Who is it this time?’

‘Duvierge. She seems to think he has your seal of approval.’

‘Duvierge? But that was last week!’ He pretended to be alarmed. ‘If she’s been in love with him for two whole weeks, it must be serious.’

‘You had better hope it isn’t,’ Anne said severely. ‘From what I hear, Lauriston himself is hardly safe from assassination. His carriage was stoned yesterday. If Lolya were to marry a Frenchman…’

‘Don’t worry,’ he said with a smile. ‘Duvierge doesn’t know she exists. He’s a thoroughly ambitious young man – and fanatically loyal to Napoleon, too. I have a fancy he’s carrying on a secret correspondence with his Emperor, but I haven’t been able to prove it.’

‘He’s a spy? But surely it isn’t your job to expose him? Surely the Minister of Police, or the Minister of Secret Police–’

‘Anna Petrovna!’ he said, amused. ‘You know perfectly well there are no secret police in Petersburg!’

‘Oh – well,’ she said, colouring a little. ‘At all events, I have agreed to invite him to my ball tomorrow. I hope you approve? I thought the best way to cure Lolya was to give her the opportunity to see he didn’t care for her.’

‘I agree. What she’s denied she only wants twice as much. Like a certain barouche in Landseer’s warehouse, with so much gold plating on it, it would kill a pair of horses to move it ten feet!’

‘Oh, it was that barouche, was it!’ They regarded each other with amused understanding, and suddenly Kirov took her hand under cover of her muff and said, ‘Anna, I must see you!’ She turned her face away a little in pain. ‘Don’t, don’t turn away. My love, the war will begin soon, and who knows what will happen?’

‘You won’t fight?’ she said in alarm, turning back to him.

‘I don’t mean to – but who can tell? If the circumstances – or the Emperor – demand, I can’t refuse. But I shall certainly be asked to advise at the front; I shall have to go away. Anna, I must see you privately – alone. I can’t go on like this.’

‘It’s impossible,’ she said.

‘Not at all. We must be discreet, that’s all. It can be managed.’

Longing and guilt warred with each other. ‘Where?’ she said, despite herself. ‘How?’

‘Tomorrow morning. Yes, I know you have your ball to prepare for! That’s why you have no engagements, why no one will expect to see you anywhere about the town.’

‘But my servants–’

‘You must have a headache, stay in your room with the blinds drawn, forbid your servants to disturb you. They will all be too busy to think about it in any case. Then you can slip out and meet me, very early, before anyone’s about. Wear a cloak with a hood, and keep it drawn forward to hide your face.’

She looked at him despairingly. ‘Nikolai, I hate deceit, and subterfuge! I hate all this!’

‘I know. Don’t you think I hate it too? I want to love you openly – claim you before the world. If you would only come and live with me… Anna, won’t you? We could go abroad–’

‘I can’t leave Rose.’

‘We could take her with us.’

‘Basil would never let her go. Besides,’ she added, ‘you wouldn’t leave Russia now, not now, not on the brink of war.’

‘Yes I would, for you,’ he said, but she knew it was a lie. ‘Napoleon would have you arrested and shot,’ she said quietly, allowing him to save face. ‘Your life would not be worth a day’s purchase beyond the border. There’s nowhere we could go. And there’s nothing we can do.’

He was silent, facing the truth. Then, ‘Only this one thing. Come to me tomorrow, Annushka. Let us have that much at least.’

She shook her head, dumb with misery; oh but she was weak, weak, and she knew she would give in, in the end.

It snowed again in the night, but froze before morning, and the day dawned clear, blue and gold and silver-white like some heraldic device, and breathtakingly cold.

Anne had to take Pauline into her confidence, for how else was she to procure a cloak, or get out of the house unseen? But Pauline, in her quiet way, disliked Basil, and was glad to help her mistress, who had always been generous to her. She provided her mistress with a plain, coarse brown cloak, like those the serfs wore, with a hood,, voluminous enough to wear over her furs.

‘Keep well covered up, madame,’ she said as she fastened it. ‘Today is a day for frostbite. Sunshine makes people careless.’

Anne remembered the words as she sat beside Nikolai in the troika, which he drove himself, as they left the city and dashed into the countryside. She almost felt as though she were dreaming. The sun shone bright and heatless from a deep blue sky, and the dazzling crystal snow rushed past with a sweet hissing sound under the runners, while the harness bells tinkled their sweet, secret language. Before her the necks of the three horses curved as they threw themselves into their collars; their pricked ears bobbed, and their warm breath clouded on the bitter air as they cantered along, and formed icicles on the whiskers of their muzzles.

The whole world was white, with deep lavender shadows, except for the dark brown of tree trunks in the woods to the side of the road. Most of the trees were like fantastic confections of frozen sugar, but here and there, where the snow canopy had slipped and fallen, a branch would spring forth in deep and living green, like something shaking off an enchantment. But the enchantment held her deep, a willing victim. She asked no questions, and wanted no answers; simply allowed the day to carry her forward where it would.

Their destination turned out to be a small inn on an unimportant side road. Anne looked askance as he drew up outside, thinking that a public house was not the best place to be secret. But they were evidently expected. When they stopped, Adonis – almost unrecognisable in his bundling clothes – ran out to take the horses, and when they entered the inn, the hostess greeted them with a quiet smile, and told them dinner would be ready whenever they rang for it. Anne looked at her curiously. There didn’t seem to be any other customers. Business must be very bad, she thought, for even so small an inn to have no customers at all.

Kirov conducted her up the narrow wooden stairs, and into a private sitting room, where he began at once to help her off with her furs. He looked into her eyes, and read the question there.

‘Yes, it’s safe. No, there’s no one else here, and there won’t be.’

‘How can you be sure?’

‘Because I own this place. I’ve told them they are to be closed for the day. They are my own people. They won’t betray us.’

They were to be protected, then, in their wrongdoing, by the loyalty of his servants. Strange irony! And yet all one with the dreamlike quality of the day. To be snatching love like this, when the world – their world – was on the brink of war, was eccentric, and yet somehow right and logical. She dismissed further speculation, and gave herself up to the pleasure of being with him.

Their time was all too brief. The short day was waning when he drove her back into the city, and clouds were beginning to gather, threatening more snow.

‘The thaw’s going to be late this year,’ he said. ‘That will be to our advantage. If the crops are sown late, they won’t be ripe when Napoleon begins his advance. He’ll have nothing to feed his horses on.’

The words dissolved the dream; reality closed round them abruptly. Anne wondered how she was going to be able to face him tonight as her guest without revealing everything in her eyes. Would Basil be back? Would she have difficult questions to answer? The toils of guilt and worry began to tangle themselves around her. Life is long, she thought, and pleasure brief.

‘Put me down at the end of the Oblensky’s garden,’ she said. ‘The house is empty. There’s a gap in the hedge between their garden and ours; I can slip through, and then if anyone sees me, I can say I just went out for some fresh air to clear my head.’ He stopped the troika and kissed her face within the hood. ‘Goodbye, then, my darling, my love. Thank you for today.’ He wanted to say more, but she was restless to be gone now, and pushed him away. He watched her anxiously, wondering about her state of mind, as she jumped down into the snow, and tramped away, opened the shrill and rusting iron gate, and disappeared into the garden.

Anne’s mind was working rapidly now, woken from its enchantment, clicking like a machine through the things that had to be done and the things she had to worry about. Basil had been out all day – some kind of celebration at the Guards’ mess, he had said, so he would probably arrive back late and drunk. She was probably as safe as she could be in the circumstances.

She pushed through the hedge into the garden of her own house. Now, on her own ground, she had a reasonable excuse. This part of the garden was unkempt, with overgrown shrubs, a little plantation, and a sort of summer-house in the shape of an Alpine chalet. Basil and Jean-Luc had been using it recently, and had taken Rose there once or twice for picnics and play. Jean-Luc, with an amused exchange of glances with Basil, called it Le Parc aux Cerfs, which puzzled Anne a little for there were no deer here. Perhaps it was a reference to something; or a pun on the word serfs.

She passed it and was tramping on towards the house when something registered out of the corner of her eye made her turn back. Yes, there was a glimmer of light coming through the closed shutters. She stopped, puzzled, a little alarmed. Someone was in there. Robbers? But surely they would not advertise their presence by lighting a lamp or fire? She went closer, stepped on to the verandah and walked cautiously up to the window, and put her eye to the crack in the shutter which had allowed the light to escape.

It was too small a gap for her to be able to see anything, but as her face was close to the window, she heard Jean-Luc’s distinctive laugh. She felt a surge of indignation and triumph. So he was using the garden house without permission, was he? Probably entertaining some woman in there, some slut from the playhouse – and in the same place that he took her innocent daughter to play! This was her chance to discredit him, to get rid of him. Even Basil would not condone that sort of loose behaviour on his premises. She would catch him red-handed and be free of him at last.

Softly she crept to the door and tried it, but it was locked. If he were there with permission, there’d be no need to lock the door. But she knew another way in. At the back there was a lean-to for storing fuel, and from there, behind the woodstacks, a little door led into the summer-house. The door, being well concealed, was never locked, and she doubted whether Jean-Luc would have thought about it.

He had not. Moments later she was trying the little door and finding it yielding; beyond it she heard the low murmur of voices, and soft laughter. She gathered herself, took a deep breath, and flung the door wide, stepping through that the same instant.

There was only one room in the summer house, square, with a stone-built fireplace, in which a fire was burning steadily. There seemed time in that first second to take in all the details. The fire had evidently been alight some time – the logs were burning on a bed of ashes. The summer furniture had been pushed back against the walls, and in front of the fire was a dark red Turkey carpet, on which, on a heap of cushions, lay Jean-Luc. He was quite naked, except for a gold chain about his neck, and with his long hair spilling down his back, his painted face, and his male body glowing in the firelight, he looked like some appalling hermaphrodite.

He was not alone. Lying with him – indeed, supporting him in his arms – was Basil. Basil, she saw with a dazed sense of unreality, was also naked. He had a glass of wine in one hand, while the other was draped over Jean-Luc’s shoulder and across his chest, the long fingers toying with one of his nipples. Basil had been speaking; now as he saw Anne his voice stopped in a little squeak like a mouse caught by an owl. His eyes widened and his face, drained of colour, went chalk white, cheese white. In her shock, Anne seemed to have time particularly to notice that; and the colour of the wine – deep, glowing red with the firelight shining through it. His hand must have shaken, for a little of it lipped over the rim and splashed on to Jean-Luc’s chest. The drops looked dark and viscous against his fair skin, like blood. He had been looking up at Basil; now, seeing Basil’s expression, and feeling the touch of wetness on his skin, he looked down at himself.

It all seemed to be happening very slowly, and without sound. There was a roaring in Anne’s ears that was like a huge silence. She saw him look down at himself, and knew, as if she could read his thoughts, that he thought it was blood. He opened his mouth very slowly and cried out something, but the words were distorted and boomed soundlessly, as thought he were underwater. He looked up again, and one white hand rose in protest; Basil’s fingers opened, and the glass tumbled very slowly through the air, throwing an arc of blood across Jean-Luc’s white belly, reddening his golden pubic curls, trickling like desperate revenge across his limp white penis and down his thighs.

Anne was already turning away, but she paused and looked back, and in the instant before life resumed its normal speed and she was running, running in desperation away across the garden and towards the house, she saw Jean-Luc turn to look at her at last. His eyes narrowed, but his expression was not of fear or shock; it was of pleasure. Arching a little, leaning back against Basil’s body, he smiled the closed-mouthed, feline smile of triumph of the adored mistress at the despised wife.

Chapter Twenty-Five

The ball was over. It was almost four o’clock in the morning, and the last guests had been wrapped up in their furs and escorted to their carriages, and the purple-nosed coachmen had cracked their whips in the bitter black air and driven them away to their beds.

The ball had been an enormous success. The beautiful blue and cream and gold ballroom had been as full as it would hold of the pick of Petersburg society. The Emperor had come, as promised, intending only to look in briefly out of courtesy to Anne, and to be seen in company with de Lauriston; but Anne had had the foresight to invite Marya Antonovna Naryshkina, the wife of the Grand Master of the Imperial Hunt, who had been Alexander’s mistress for ten years or more. She had been away for some time in Odessa, on the Black Sea, where she had been sent by her doctors, who feared she was consumptive. Now she was back and apparently in perfect health, and more beautiful than ever.

Anne liked Marya Antonovna: she had grace and style and composure, as well as discretion and an unexpected modesty. She dressed usually in white, which suited her alabaster skin and black hair, and preferred always to stand quietly in a corner, watching the world from within the remote fastness of her beauty. That the Emperor still adored her was plain from the glances of tenderness and intimacy he gave her from across the room; and having seen she was of the company, he seemed to forget to go away again. He didn’t dance, but he took a little supper, and spent the rest of the time talking earnestly with a fluctuating group of courtiers and advisers in one of the anterooms, remaining always near the door so that he could watch the company, which appeared to amuse him.

It was a bold mix: a large number of courtiers, naturally, and the leaders of society; members of the governmental circle and the diplomatic set; handsome young hussars and Dragoons about to be sent off to the borders, and an equal number of lovely young women to console them; and a group of leading actors, ballet dancers, and opera singers to add a touch of the exotic to the evening.

Anne was everywhere, talking, dancing, introducing people, making sure everyone was entertained, drinking a great deal of champagne and laughing perhaps a little too much. Jean-Luc was subdued, dressed almost normally in breeches and coat – though his waistcoat was scarlet satin embroidered with blue and gold parrots – and with his long hair tied respectably behind. He chatted mostly with his friends from the company, did not dance, avoided Anne’s eye, and spoke to Basil only once, when they snatched a brief, whispered conversation just before supper. Basil was being the perfect, charming host, flirting with the dowagers and dancing with the shyer young matrons just as he should. He, too, avoided Anne, and after they had danced the opening minuet together, made sure he was always at the other end of the ballroom from her.

Anne spoke to Kirov only once, for he was engaged the whole evening either with the Emperor, or with one of the satellite groups around him, talking now to Lauriston, now to Rumiantsev, the Chancellor, now to Barclay de Tolly. When everyone was on the move towards the supper-rooms, he managed to manoeuvre his way to Anne’s side.

‘You’re very gay this evening,’ he murmured. ‘Is everything all right?’

She turned her face up to him; her cheeks were flushed, her eyes over-bright. ‘Yes, of course.’

‘There was no trouble? You got into the house all right?’

She laughed brittly. ‘Oh, he made no trouble. There will be no trouble, I promise you!’

He looked concerned, touched her hand under cover of the crowd. ‘Anna, what is it? Are you ill? You look fevered. What’s happened, my love?’

She pulled her hand away. ‘Not now. I can’t talk about it now. But everything’s all right, I promise. We are not discovered.’

‘Nevertheless, something’s disturbed you.’

‘I’ll tell you about it – tomorrow. I must go now. I have to go down to supper with Admiral Chicagov.’

He looked worried, but bowed and began to move away; then she called him back.

‘Nikolai!’ He turned enquiringly. ‘What is Le Parc aux Cerfs?’

His brows went up. ‘It was a house belonging to Louis XV of France, where he kept young women for pleasure. A private brothel, I suppose you might call it. Why do you want to know that?’

Her mouth bowed as though she had bitten an unripe olive; and then she turned away. ‘No reason at all,’ she said.

One of the surprises of the evening was the behaviour of Colonel Duvierge towards Lolya. Anne had received him as part of de Lauriston’s suite, and he had bowed politely over her hand, and murmured his gratitude for the invitation.

‘I am sorry it was sent somewhat at the last moment, Colonel,’ Anne said. ‘I am sure you will forgive the oversight.’

He straightened and smiled at her – an attractive smile, full of white teeth, except that it didn’t touch his eyes, which remained distant and watchful. ‘There is nothing to forgive, madame. An invitation to your house is an honour whenever it arrives.’

Studying him with new interest on Lolya’s behalf, Anne found he was older than she had at first thought: thirty-two or -three, perhaps, certainly too old for Lolya, and too old, she would have thought, to be interested in her. His face was handsome in a mature way, strong-featured, firm with accustomed command, but rather harsh. There was experience in his eyes, and a certain cynicism, but no warmth or humour. A dedicated man, she thought – ambitious, likely to be ruthless in pursuit of his ends, and the sort who would inevitably regard women as dispensible aids to pleasure in the few moments of recreation he ever allowed himself.

Emphatically not the sort of man one would wish to see a warm-hearted, impulsive creature like Lolya throw herself at; but fortunately not the sort of man who would find anything to interest him in an untried girl. A discreet, experienced, above all safe, married woman would be the choice of a man like Duvierge. He would not be willing to spend time on careful courtship, and would find emotional scenes a bore. He would want a woman who would serve his needs efficiently and cause him no trouble; and Anne was not surprised to intercept, during the course of the evening, a look which passed between Diverges and Countess Sulovyeva – wife of a senior member of the War Ministry – which suggested very strongly that she was at present providing what was required.

Anne felt sorry for Lolya’s inevitable disillusionment: but as she was still as volatile as she was young, Anne thought she would soon find another and, she hoped, more suitable object for her passion. Lolya was looking very lovely that evening. Someone – either her grandmother or her father – had persuaded her to wear a light-coloured gown, and she was all youth and freshness in almost transparent spider-gauze over a silk slip of bleu d’extase sewn with tiny crystal spars which caught the light and shimmered as she moved. She had pearls around her throat, and her piled dark hair was dressed with white silk flowers sewn with seed pearls. She wore her spangled shawl over her elbows with a natural grace, and stood with her head high and her bright, animated face alight with expectation of the highest happiness.

Anne braved the chill of her grandmother’s gaze and went up to speak to her, took her hands and kissed her cheeks, and said, ‘Dearest Lolya, you look so pretty! You’ll dance every dance tonight, that’s certain!’

Lolya smiled, but looked a little anxious. ‘People keep asking me, and it’s difficult to refuse them all without Gran’mère hearing. That beast Andrei Fralovsky asked me twice, and wouldn’t believe I was engaged unless I told him with whom and then Pavelasha Tiranov came bothering me too! Oh Anna, I wish he’d come quickly and ask me! Don’t you think he’ll want to dance the first dance with me? The first is the important one, isn’t it?’

Anne was startled. ‘Lolya, you silly child, are you refusing to dance with your old friends because you hope Duvierge will ask you?’

Lolya’s cheeks grew pink with vexation. ‘I’m not a silly child! And he will ask me, he will! I’d ask him, only I promised you I wouldn’t be bold, and Gran’mère would have forty fits.’

‘I should think she would,’ Anne began, but Vera Borisovna at that moment drifted nearer to hear what they were saying.

‘Ma Belle Hélène, you mustn’t keep Madame Tchaikovsky from her duties.’ She gave Anne a frigid bow. ‘And besides, there are lots of young men waiting to ask you to dance. Have you any dances left, my sweet one? Because I think you ought to dance with Prince Straklov before supper. The dear Princess, his mother, told me he was going to ask you.’

Anne would have moved away at that point, but Lolya seized her arm and hold her back.

‘I’d be happy to, Gran’mère, only Madame Tchaikovsky has just told me that there is someone Papa wants me to dance with, so I must go to him this instant and find out who it is. Come, Anna Petrovna, I’m ready now!’

And she curtseyed to her grandmother and hurried Anne away, gripping her arm in a way that was part command and part appeal. When they were out of earshot of the irate Dowager, Anne said, ‘Now, Lolya, this is too bad of you! I don’t wish to provoke your grandmother – and if you had any sense, you wouldn’t either.’

Lolya looked despairing. ‘Oh, but you don’t understand! She wants to engage me for every dance with the sons and grandsons of her dreary old friends, and I must be free for Andrei when he asks!’

‘Lolya, darling, I don’t think he is going to ask,’ Anne said gently. ‘He is much too old for you, you know, and probably interested in older women.’

‘He isn’t! Anyway, all the older women are married,’ Lolya said, and Anne did not want to take the bloom off her innocence by telling her what interest a married woman might hold for her idol. Then Lolya went on, ‘But the thing is, he may not be able to get away from General de Lauriston – you know how these old people think balls are for talking instead of dancing! – so I want you to take me to him, and then he’s bound to ask me, isn’t he?’

‘No, you unscrupulous child, he isn’t – and I won’t. I’m taking you straight back to your grandmother.’

Lolya’s face was despairing. ‘Oh, please, Anna! You can’t be so cruel: I love him quite dreadfully!’

Anne looked at her unhappily. ‘Lolya, you’re so young and so pretty! Don’t waste your loveliness on someone like that, who will never care for you, and could never make you happy.’

But Lolya had ceased to listen. Her eyes, restlessly wandering in search of her beloved, had at last found him – and by an infernal piece of luck, found him deep in conversation with his superior and Count Kirov. Lolya gave a little squeak, and before Anne could prevent her, had darted off to join the group, her cheeks extremely pink and her eyes extremely bright. Anne would have gone in pursuit, but at that moment Minister Kochubey claimed her attention, and she could not be so rude as to brush him off.

‘So very brave of you, Madame Tchaikovsky, to invite our friends from the French Embassy! But as I’ve said to His Majesty, it’s sometimes as well to keep the wolf where you can see him!’

In the intervals between nodding and agreeing, Anne watched the little tableau across the room distractedly: saw Lolya approach her father confidently and slip her hand through his arm; saw the three men look first annoyed and then polite; saw the two Frenchmen bow over Lolya’s hand with restrained courtesy. Then the gap through which she was watching closed up, and she saw no more.

A few minutes later, she was called to dance the opening formal minuet with her husband; but when, after the minuets, the general dancing began, she was considerably startled to see Lolya being led into the set by Colonel Duvierge. Startled, and displeased – for Lolya was wearing her heart on her ecstatic face, while Duvierge was looking merely politely amused. Evidently he had been forced into asking her out of courtesy to her father.

Anne was glad to see after that, in the moments she could spare from her own concerns, that Lolya was dancing as she should be with a succession of suitable young men, and looking as though she were enjoying herself. Anne had ordered the new dances to be called from time to time during the evening – the lively mazurkas and polonaises, and the bold and increasingly popular waltz, which had gained ground over the last couple of years to the extent that it was now considered to be respectable by everyone except the very stickiest of dowagers. The last dance before the supper interval was a waltz, and Anne, circling politely in the restrained embrace of Count Chernyshov, was again startled and displeased to see Lolya whirling on the other side of the room with Colonel Andrei Duvierge’s arm round her slender waist.

He had asked her a second time! How had she jockeyed him into that? But as Anne watched them over her partner’s shoulder, she saw that Duvierge was not merely being polite. Lolya looked as though she had eaten Bliss whole, and leaned into his embrace as they danced, it had to be admitted, extremely gracefully together; while Duvierge looked down into his partner’s sparkling black eyes with something like interest.

He had found her sufficiently amusing, it seemed, to have asked her a second time; but then Lolya had said that he had danced with her twice at two other balls. This was a situation to disquiet. She must warn Nikolai to take care of his daughter; though she could not believe that a man like Duvierge would waste much time on an inexperienced virgin like Lolya, and he could certainly not mean her any harm – that would be suicidal in the present climate. But he might encourage Lolya just enough to break her heart, and that would not do at all.

But now the ball was over, and the activities and concerns which had kept Anne preoccupied for so many hours were over, and there was nothing any longer to keep her from thinking about her husband. The last guests had gone; Basil was talking to Mikhailo, giving him instructions about callers the next day – or rather, later that same day – while the footmen went round putting out the lights. Jean-Luc had taken himself off with some of the other members of the company, wisely leaving husband and wife alone.

Anne sent Pauline to bed; and when Basil finished talking to the butler and came up the stairs, Anne was waiting for him at the first landing. He just failed to meet her eyes, made a resigned gesture towards the small drawing-room, and preceded her in.

‘Would you care for something?’ he said lightly, walking across to the cabinet on the far side of the room. ‘I’m going to have one.’

The fire had died almost to nothing, and the room was cold. Anne went to it automatically, poked the ashes into redness and put on some more coal, and then just stood, staring at the tiny flames that began to flicker and pop as the coals warmed into life.

Basil poured himself a large brandy, and then, having had no reply from Anne, poured a second one and carried it over, putting it down on the small table nearest her. He perched nervously on the arm of the sofa and looked at her back, trying to gauge her mood from her posture. At last, unable to bear the silence any more, he said, ‘Well, I suppose there are things you want to say. For God’s sake say them, and let’s be done with it.’

She turned slowly and looked at him, and he flinched from the look. The shock which had been her first reaction was beginning to wear off, and exposing what was underneath, the disgust and contempt and rage. These were what he saw in her eyes now, and he flushed a little, looked away, and drank nervously from his glass.

Anne didn’t at once know what to say. It was something so horrifying that instinct made her want to turn away from it, to deny that it had happened. It was something which had never been mentioned to her directly in all her life – naturally not – although in some oblique and largely wordless way, she had become aware of its existence. She knew, for instance, without precisely knowing how she knew, that in the King’s Navy, it was punishable by death, and that the sentence was regularly, though infrequently, carried out against offenders.

Yet to discover it first hand, and in someone so close to her – someone with whom she had shared her bed – was like suddenly meeting the Devil face to face, curling horns and sulphur-breath and all. It was like pulling back the covers from one’s safe and comfortable bed, and finding it full of crawling maggots. Even now, looking at Basil perched on the sofa’s arm, swirling his brandy in his glass, and looking so ordinary, only a little flushed and embarrassed, as if he had been caught out in some minor misdemeanour, she could hardly believe that it was true.

There were things which she found, now, that she didn’t want to know. One thing, however, she must ask.

‘How long?’ she said abruptly. He looked up. ‘How long have you been – like that?’

He was stung by her choice of words. ‘I don’t know what you mean by “like that”. I don’t know what you suppose I am.’

‘1 know what you are,’ she said with loathing. ‘But how many others were there before Jean-Luc?’

‘Is it any business of yours?’ he retorted.

‘Of course it is,’ she said. ‘I want to know if you were always like that, while you were sharing my bed – before me, even.’

‘Jean-Luc was the first,’ he said with dull anger. ‘And you don’t understand. I’m not “like” anything. I love him, that’s all.’

‘Is that why you didn’t marry?’ she asked, ignoring the second half of his reply. ‘Was it that you didn’t like women? Was it always men you wanted?’

The brandy lipped over the edge of his glass with his angry swirling. ‘I’ve told you, Jean-Luc was the first. Before that–’ The truth was that he had always been a little afraid of women, except for his mother and Olga. He had early developed a charming way of flirting with elderly dowagers, and a whole repertoire of near-outrageous compliments with which he kept younger women off-balance and at arm’s length.

The truth was that when he had married Anne he had been a virgin, but he could not then, and certainly would not now, admit it. His pursuit of her had been at least partly because he felt safe with her, as with his sister. She was not coquettish like other women, not moved by dark and incomprehensible passions. Her open mind and straightforward speech had made her seem to him clear and plain like daylight, and he had become more and more attracted to her as other women seemed increasingly alien.

He had thought it would all be all right. But though Anne’s mind might be like a man’s, she still had a female body. The dark power, the earth magic, the animal smell of women, the secret eyes and the mystery, the bleeding and the pain and the exaltation: these things all attached to his familiar, safe Anne. In the daytime, he could love and admire her, but at night she filled him with horror; and after Rose was born, he found it easier to live apart from her, and to lavish on his daughter the love he had once given his wife.

And then came Jean-Luc, woman-like, yet with a safe, clean, smooth man’s body; adoring Basil, admiring him, regarding him as wise, witty, learned, mature – all the things he had hoped to be, and which Anne proved he was not. How could he help falling in love? And how could that love be wrong?

Jean-Luc was simple and kind and good, and loved little Rose. When he and Jean-Luc took her out on a sledge or in a carriage or a boat, they were like a true family: man, woman, and child, loving each other, and safe together.

The truth was, that he had never felt himself to be married until he met Jean-Luc; but how could he tell her that? Besides, it was plain that she was not really listening to him. With a frown between her brows, she was pursuing her own train of thought, only a small part of which was emerging in words.

‘How could you?’ she said, more in wonder than anger now. ‘How could you do such a thing? How could you bring yourself to touch – that creature – in that way?’ She shuddered. Thinking about the scene she had witnessed robbed her of words.

Basil stood up abruptly, driven by a mixture of guilt and resentment to defend himself. ‘I don’t know why you’re being so pious about it. It’s no more than you’ve done, after all, and I don’t see you beating your breast.’

‘What are you talking about?’ She was astonished.

‘I’ve taken a lover – very well, what’s so wrong with that? You did the same thing. Oh yes, I know about you and Kirov – don’t think I didn’t! I know all your sordid little secrets! Don’t forget I took you in the first place because you wanted to get away from him.’

‘Don’t,’ she said, white with fury. ‘Don’t dare to speak his name–’

‘Too holy for my profane lips, is it?’ he sneered, whipping his pain and guilt into rage. ‘Which of them seduced you first? Quite a family the Kirovs! Was it the father or the son? But I don’t suppose you resisted too hard! And did you have them one after the other, or was it both together? Of course, Kirov père won in the end – he always wins! Sent his son off to Azerbaijan for the Persians to kill! Putting him like Uriah in the forefront of battle, you might say!’

Anne felt nausea knotting itself in the pit of her stomach. She was trembling with rage – and worse than that, with a sort of horrified pity, as though she were witnessing the results of a terrible accident. This man, after all, had rescued her, married her, shared her bed, fathered her child.

‘What you have done is different,’ she managed to whisper at last. ‘You know that it is.’

It was. Right or wrong, even putting aside the moral or religious implications, it was different. The fact was that society turned a blind eye on marital infidelity. People married each other mostly for financial, social or family reasons: they were not obliged to be in love, or even to like each other very much. If they later found someone more to their fancy, well, provided they were discreet about it, who was the worse for their little act of adultery?

But what Basil had done – there was no condoning that. It was unforgivable, unspeakable. A man taken in adultery was regarded with amused toleration; the man discovered in the act of sodomy would be treated with horrified revulsion, would never be received in society again. She knew it and he knew it, and as she met his gaze steadily, his wavered and dropped.

‘What do you mean to do about it?’ he asked at last. She had not considered the implications. Now she saw that he had placed himself in her power; he might make no further demands of any sort. But the realisation for the moment led nowhere.

‘I don’t know,’ she said. All the excitement of anger had drained out of her. She felt now desperately tired, wishing most of all that she could sleep, and forget. ‘I’ll have to think about it.’

‘If you want to leave me – set up your own establishment – I’ll make you an allowance,’ he said. He looked up. ‘I suppose I owe you that much.’

It was an apology, and again she felt that terrible, unwelcome pity. This was a maimed creature, she thought – no devil, no colossus of evil, but a pathetic, pitiful thing, like a dog run down by a carriage. She could not hate him. Hate the sin, and love the sinner, the words came to her. Well, she could not quite love him; but she had known him a very long time.

‘What about Rose?’ she said at last.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That’s the question, isn’t it?’

They looked at each other consideringly. Hers was the power. If he tried to prevent her from seeing Rose, tried to keep Rose from her, she could threaten to expose him. But would she really do that, either to him, or to her daughter? If Anne ever parted with the secret, it became common property; and one day some helpful person would tell it to Rose.

‘She loves me,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ she said.

She could go, leave him, be free of him; set up her own establishment, live with all the freedom of a widow; she might have Rose with her. But Rose would cry for her father and Jean-Luc, and even though she would gradually forget them – as Sashka had forgotten Anne – her love would only be Anne’s for second best. It was a hard thing, she thought bitterly, to be jealous of such creatures. Rose must be protected. Jean-Luc must be eradicated from Rose’s life – and perhaps Basil too. But it must be done carefully. She would not willingly inflict suffering on her already suffering child.

‘What will you do?’ Basil asked again.

‘I don’t know,’ she said again. ‘For the moment, I’ll stay here. I must think carefully what will be best for Rose. I don’t want to act hastily.’

‘Then–’

‘I’ll keep your secret, Basil Andreyevitch. Provided you are discreet – provided no one else ever finds out – I’ll keep your secret, for Rose’s sake.’

‘Thank you,’ he muttered awkwardly.

She straightened up, and looked at him coldly. ‘In return, I don’t expect you ever – ever – to get in my way, or question anything I do. You forfeit all right to know anything about me, where I am, what I’m doing. Is that clear?’

He sneered. ‘Oh yes, perfectly clear. It means you can now continue with your affair with Kirov without having to sneak off into the country. So convenient! And no guilty conscience to spoil it, either!’

‘My conscience is my own concern,’ she said, turning away wearily. ‘I leave you to the mercy of yours.’ At the door she turned. ‘Don’t forget – discretion. I never want to notice you or your friend again.’

‘My lover!’ he retorted, jumping to his feet. ‘You had a lover, too, don’t forget!’

Anne thought for a moment resentfully of the agonies of guilt she had suffered. ‘At least my lover was a real man,’ she said coldly, and left him.

State Secretary Speransky’s downfall was finally brought about by his enemies at the end of March, and his regime of reform, which threatened to raise people to positions in the government which they were competent to fill, regardless of their birth or rank, was ended with great relief on all sides. The Emperor, obliged to dismiss him, nevertheless loved him enough to save his life, by sending him and his family under armed guard to Nizhny Novgorod, where he would be safe from the assassin’s hand which would doubtless reach out for him in St Petersburg.

April brought bad news and good – Austria, now tied by marriage to Napoleon, signed a formal treaty of alliance with France; but on the other hand, Sweden, lately a neutral power with good reason to be hostile to Russia, had signed a secret pact of alliance with the Tsar. April brought a change of command in the war against the Turks in the lower Danube: Admiral Chicagov was sent to replace the one-eyed, pleasure-loving veteran General Kutuzov, who, it was thought, had been living the life of a Pasha down there and achieving nothing. Chicagov had strict orders to get things moving and negotiate some form of peace with the Turks, in order to release the army there for service against the French.

April brought a formal letter of complaint from Napoleon to Alexander about his failure to keep to the terms of the Treaty of Tilsit: plainly, this was to be the official excuse for the invasion there was no doubt now was being prepared for. April brought the news that Napoleon, to release his own troops for the Russian venture, had offered to make peace in the Iberian Peninsular, provided his brother Joseph remained King of Spain – an offer the Spanish, Portuguese and British all indignantly rejected. Under the painstaking general Sir Arthur Wellesley – now Lord Wellington – the British troops and the indigenous guerrillas had been tying up huge numbers of French soldiers for years, and wearing them down bit by bit; and it was plain that it was only a matter of time before they were defeated and driven back over the Pyrenees.

April also brought – at last, and almost a month late, the thaw – ottepel! The late snowfalls provided a weight of frozen water over the land which threatened serious floods once it was loosened by the lengthening days: floods, fogs, and fathoms of mud; and at this unpropitious moment, the Emperor at last left St Petersburg.

Late in the evening on the 20th of April, Kirov came to call on Anne, who received him in her private sitting-room. Since the night of the ball, Anne had changed her conduct very little, except that she now met Nikolai openly, whenever she wanted to. She had not betrayed Basil’s secret to him, had merely told him that she and her husband had come to an arrangement; and if Kirov, seeing her evident shock and distress, and having observed Basil’s behaviour over a very long time, particularly recently with Jean-Luc, drew his own conclusions as to what had happened, he said nothing of it to her.

Her meetings with him so far since that day had been innocent. She was still too shocked to want to have any intimate contact with anyone; and she was too aware of their position in society, and Rose’s vulnerability, to dare to risk it. She knew, of course, that some decision would have to be taken as to what their relationship was to be in the future, but for the moment she wanted only to be able to be near him and to talk to him. She needed time for the mental wounds to heal.

Time, however, was a luxury in short supply in the spring of 1812. When Kirov came into her room that day, she saw at once that something had happened, and got to her feet in alarm.

‘Nikolai, what is it? Bad news? Is it–’ Though the word war was in everyone’s mind, everyone was curiously reluctant for it to be on their lips. Turbaned dowagers nodded their heads together over tea, dashing young officers laughed and boasted at the mess table, handsome young women whispered in Zubin’s across seven lengths of Indian muslin; but it was always The Situation they discussed, never that small and forbidding word. If it came, their sweet-faced, sweet-natured Emperor would be pitted against the cunning of the wicked Corsican bandit, who had already defeated him twice in campaign, and had conquered by his staggering military skills half the civilised world. There was no possibility, of course, that Russia could ever be overrun, but all the same, no one really wanted to think about what might happen. And no one wanted to mention That Word, in case voicing it gave it power.

‘Not yet,’ he said, understanding her, ‘but soon. The call has come, at any rate. I am to leave St Petersburg in the morning.’

She crossed the room to his arms, and he held her close, his thoughts running fast on other things. She felt his distraction, released herself, gestured him to a chair. Now that the light fell on his face, she could see how tired he was, how drawn. It was nine years since she had first met him – he was no longer a young man. We must not waste time, she thought.

But for now she said, ‘When did you eat?’

He smiled. ‘I don’t remember. I don’t think I did. I’ve been at the palace all day.’

‘Then first I will get you supper. No, sit, rest. I shan’t be a moment.’

She went through into the next room and rang the bell, and when Mikhailo came, ordered a supper tray – bread and meat and whatever there was that was quick to prepare – and a bottle of good claret. When she returned to the inner room, she found that in her brief absence he had fallen asleep in the deep armchair before the fire with his chin sunk on his chest.

She didn’t wake him, but sat quietly in the chair opposite and watched him thoughtfully. This was the man whose existence, whose character and actions, had directed her life and coloured her thoughts for nine years – most of her adult life. But why? What made him so different? It was not simply a case of loving him – the words meant little, hackneyed as they were. It was that he – the wholeness of him, the unique entity of flesh and nerve and mind and muscle, intellect and passions, experiences and prejudices, that made up Nikolai Sergeyevitch Kirov – was somehow a part of her life and experience that could not be removed or replaced. If he were to go away and never see her again, she would not stop knowing him, or living through her experience of him. It was as if a hundred thousand invisible threads issued from his body and penetrated hers, along which some vital power rushed and sparked, carrying information beyond words, feelings beyond emotion.

She knew him completely and with every fibre of her being: they were not truly separate people any more. And yet here he was in his separate flesh, a tired middle-aged man in mud-splashed boots who had fallen asleep by the fire. She studied the long, mobile face, the humorous mouth fallen at the corners in sleep, the fine mesh of lines around the eyes, the soft light-brown hair, greying now, receding a little from the temples. His chin and cheeks were lightly stubbled since that morning’s shave, and the stubble, she noticed with a pang, glinted silver like frost; the cheek muscles were growing a little slacker, and there was a fold of loose skin under the chin.

She looked down at his hands, lying unconscious in his lap – strong, long-fingered hands; neat, smooth nails; large veins across the backs of them, and skin beginning to be loose. A man’s hands, not a boy’s. Hands skilled to wield a sword or a pen, to control a horse, to cradle a child; hands that knew how to kill, and how to seek out pleasure for her; hands skilled to love.

She shivered, and returned her gaze to his face. This was the flesh of the man, the warm, human, vulnerable body, in which he lived, and knew pain and hunger and pleasure and weariness; the body which slept, and ate, and grew old and would one day die; the body which created her physical delight, which touched her and longed for her and possessed her and transformed her. She loved this body: and it was not profane love, it was not less than loving the mind or the soul, for this poor human flesh was the manifestation of those things. And more, it was the frailness of human flesh which bound all human creatures together in one love and one pity and one understanding; which made it so easy to kill one other, and, in that knowledge, still to love and forgive. The flesh was the humility of humankind, and in transcending its frailty, the great, humble pride.

Fragments of old religious teaching passed through her mind in a tenuous cobweb of understanding. God made man in his own image – made the flesh to resemble the spirit, strong as the air, frail as the earth; Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God, and everyone that loveth, knoweth God. The sacred and the profane; but it was the intention which made the difference, not the act.

Nikolai! She had known from the beginning, from the first moment she saw him, that he would be important to her. How young she had been; how untried! Her experience since then had changed her – inevitably – but that one thing had remained constant. He was human, with humanity’s faults – selfishness, indolence, greed, self-interest – but also with its great strengths – humour, courage, compassion. A flawed image, but an image all the same, of the Maker. She loved him; and she thought that perhaps to know and love one human being completely was the best and greatest thing life could teach.

The door opened, and Nikolai woke with the suddenness of the old campaigner. Mikhailo came in with the tray, and placed it on a low table by him, and withdrew.

‘I’m sorry, did I sleep? Too bad of me!’

‘You were tired,’ Anne said. ‘Now have your supper – but first, let me make you comfortable.’ She slipped to her knees in front of him, and took hold of his boot, smiling up at his mute protest, ‘Oh yes, I did it many a time for Papa. My wrists are quite strong, you know.’

He let her minister to him, seeing that she wished it. She pulled off his boots, poured his wine, arranged napkin and knife and plate within his reach, and then continued to sit on the floor in front of him in the firelight, and watched as he ate. Mikhailo had brought bread and cold chicken, cheesecake and dried figs, almonds and apples.

‘Let me pour you some wine, too. I hate to drink alone.’

She consented, and sipped while he took his supper, and told her the news.

‘The Emperor is going tomorrow to Lithuania, to the field headquarters at Vilna. I tell you this in confidence, however: the bulletin will say that he has gone on a routine inspection of military camps. That’s partly to calm the public, but mostly I suspect to throw dust in de Lauriston’s eyes. His Majesty’s taking Rumiantsev with him, and Kochubey -Arakcheyev, too, and Bennigsen.’

‘And General Tolly?’

‘Of course. Tolly and I are going on ahead, leaving tomorrow morning. The Emperor and his staff are to go in the afternoon, after a special service of blessing at the Holy Mother of Kazan. The travelling will be bad because of the thaw, but it’s important the Emperor moves now. I’ve heard from Kurakin that Napoleon is still in Paris, but there are four hundred and fifty thousand men on the move towards our border, and there’s no time to lose if preparations are going to be complete before they are all assembled along the Nieman.’

‘Four hundred and fifty thousand,’ Anne said blankly. The number was colossal, unimaginable. She’d had no idea before then of the scale of the operation Bonaparte was intending to stage against Russia. It was impossible to imagine an army of such a size.

‘That’s not including the crack troops he’ll bring with him. It will be more than half a million men, when all’s told.’

‘Half a million!. He’s mad, quite mad! How can food be found for half such a number?’

Kirov looked grim. ‘That’s partly why we must move now. Napoleon’s way has always been to live off the land – that’s what’s made his soldiers so hated throughout Europe. In this case, it will be more than ever essential. Imagine the size of a supply train for such a horde; imagine the numbers of men and horses needed to move it; imagine how far it would have to bring the supplies, how slowly it would travel, how vulnerable it would be! No, Napoleon must make his men live off the land – and so we must get there ahead of him, remove everything that might be of use to him. Burn the crops in his path, herd off the animals, evacuate the people, destroy the buildings.’

‘That’s Tolly’s plan?’

‘An important part of it. My job, as always, is to try to persuade the Emperor not to change his mind. He is going to be surrounded by hotheads and fanatics and Old Russians, who will all argue that the good advice Tolly gives him is cowardly, even treacherous.’

‘That will be your job, then,’ she said carefully. ‘Simply to advise?’

He smiled a little, reading her mind. ‘There will be nothing for you to fear yet awhile, Annushka. I shall be helping to implement Tolly’s plans – there’s bound to be some resistance amongst the peasants to having their houses destroyed, but I shall have a troop of cavalry to help me persuade them of their duty. I’ve told you before, love, that Napoleon won’t invade before June.’

‘Because he needs the crops for his horses – but you will have burned them.’

‘And what he does manage to find will not be ripe, because of the late thaw.’

‘June,’ she said. She picked a crumb of bread from his plate and rolled it unhappily between her fingers. He looked down at her bent head, and the firelight on her hair, and loved her so consumingly it was like a spasm of hunger. She was all he had ever wanted. ‘And when will it all be over?’ she asked, and then shook her head at her own foolishness. ‘I suppose you can’t know that.’

‘Annushka, come with me,’ he said suddenly. She looked up, relief and doubt in her eyes. ‘Vilna is a pleasant town, and lots of people will be going. It will be quite safe there for six weeks, maybe two months, and when Napoleon finally crosses, we can think of somewhere else to send you, somewhere safe, but near enough for me to reach you. Come with me! I need you, doushka.’

He pushed aside the tray and held out his arms to her, and she knelt up and put herself into the circle of them, and he held her close.

‘I know it’s a hard thing to ask you – that there are principles at stake,’ he said. ‘But lately I have felt…’ He paused and began again. ‘I used to play fast and loose with life. When you are young, you think you’re immortal. Then you have children, and you know you’re not. But it’s only when you get to my age that time seems to run faster and faster, dragging you along with it, and you can only try to clutch at things as they pass, and they’re whipped away from under your fingers.’

She nodded, her face pressed against his. He stroked her head. ‘What I mean to say is that life is uncertain at the best of times, and in time of war there is no certainty at all. My only sureness is that I love you, and I don’t want to waste any of the time we have left in being apart from you.’

She nodded again, and he could feel her thinking; but she was not consenting, not yet. He went on gently, ‘Annushka, I’ve never asked you what happened between you and Basil Andreyevitch, but I have been in the world a lot longer than you. I think I know what he is. I ask you this: do you owe such a man any loyalty?’

She pulled herself back from him, and looked into his eyes. ‘It isn’t that, you see,’ she said. ‘It’s what I owe myself.’

‘Do you think you would do wrong by loving me?’ he asked carefully, afraid of what her answer might be.

She looked at him searchingly, and after a long moment, she said, ‘No.’

‘Then you’ll come with me?’

She hesitated. ‘I have to think of Rose.’

‘You can leave her in Petersburg. She’ll be quite safe.’

‘No. I can’t leave her with him – with them.’

‘I meant with my household, with Sashka. My staff is perfectly reliable as you know. And once the roads are fit they can all go down to Schwartzenturm, and stay–’

But Anne was shaking her head before he had even finished. ‘No. I can’t leave her.’ She opened her mouth to explain, and shut it again. There was simply too much to be said. He must understand without words.

He thought a moment, and said, ‘Then bring her with you. Didn’t Grubernik say she should have change, stimulation? Bring her nurse and her governess, yes, and Grubernik too, if you like, though there are some excellent doctors in Lithuania. We’ll take a house, hire extra servants, make a home for her with us. It’s lovely there in the spring. Why not? Say yes, Annushka. For God’s sake say yes!’

‘The roads will be too bad,’ she said. ‘Think of lurching through all that mud – it would be terrible for her.’

That was a point. ‘Very well, then. I have to go now – I’m under orders – but in a fortnight’s time, as soon as the roads are sound, I’ll send Adonis for you, to bring you to me. And meanwhile, I can have the house made ready for you, and everything prepared. You can send any special instructions to me in the diplomatic bag. We’ll still have a month or six weeks there before we need to move on.’

He looked at her expectantly, and suddenly she laughed.

‘It’s madness,’ she said, shaking her head; and he knew she would come to Vilna.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Anne’s first sight of Vilna was a smiling one, as she approached it on a sunny day in May. It was built on a curve of the river Vilia, which ran in a deep, wooded ravine through gently hilly country. The town itself spread along the bank and climbed up the hillside, a pretty tangle of houses and narrow twisting streets. The soft red-tiled roofs were dominated by a forest of spires and golden cupolas, rising to the highest point where an octagonal red-brick tower was all that remained of the original mediaeval fortress. A single wooden bridge spanned the river at the foot of the town, and the hills above it were crowned with forests of birch and fir which protected it from the north and west.

From Vilna the road led westwards to Kovno on the River Nieman, about fifty miles away. Other roads came in from St Petersburg in the north, and from the vast and impassable area of the Pripet Marshes in the south: it was this area of marshland which limited Napoleon’s choice of route for his invasion. The main road to the east was the long and winding one via Smolensk to Moscow, some six hundred and twenty-five miles away.

When Adonis had come to fetch her, Anne asked him anxiously about the town and the facilities.

‘Oh, you’ll like it,’ he said ironically. ‘It’s not like military headquarters at all. There’s dancing and banquets and parties. The local gentry come in their best clothes, all smelling of mothballs, and fawn at the Emperor’s feet, and he gives them medals, and makes their wives and daughters ladies-in-waiting to the Empress, who’s here in Petersburg. You’ll feel at home, all right.’

Anne looked concerned. ‘But doesn’t the Emperor do anything?’

‘Oh, yes. He rides here and he rides there, and he sits up all night writing letters. He never stops. Well, he’s not my Emperor, thank God.’ He shrugged. ‘We’ll have a good fast journey, anyway – the roads have hardened off nicely.’

Anne had hired a large berlin, across the seats of which a mattress could be placed on a board, so that Rose could lie down as well as sit. She had been a little worried as to how Rose would react to Adonis’s ruined face, but Rose took to him at once, evidently having inherited her father’s taste for the bizarre. At their first meeting they fixed each other with a solemn, one-eyed regard, and after a moment’s judicious study, Rose favoured him with her most ravishing smile, and held out her hands to be picked up.

Adonis lifted her with skilled ease to his shoulder, and she studied his face at close quarters and finally put out a tentative finger to touch his scar. ‘Does it hurt?’ she asked in English.

Adonis touched her velvet cheek, and to Anne’s surprise replied in the same language. ‘No more than this does.’

‘I didn’t know you spoke English,’ Anne said.

He shrugged. ‘I speak a little of everything.’

And Rose, who at that time spoke English and French more or less at random, decided from then that the English language was peculiarly for Adonis.

Basil had received the news that Anne intended to go to Vilna without comment; and when she had said she was taking Rose with her, he had opened his mouth and then closed it again, knowing the weakness of his position. But for Rose’s sake he made light of their separation, telling her that she would enjoy herself, and that they would meet again soon, and Rose had seemed to accept it without fuss. Anne was unspeakably glad to be removing her child from Jean-Luc’s influence, even if only for a time. Now she would have the chance to win back Rose’s love; and by the time she saw her father again, who knew but that Jean-Luc might have disappeared from the scene entirely? Rose parted from them at the carriage door with some tears, but once they were on the move, and Anne was pointing out things of interest to her from the window, and telling her of all the fun they would have together, the tears soon dried. At that age, Anne thought, a child’s memory is short.

The journey was accomplished without difficulty, and Adonis’s burly muscles and trained strength made light of Rose’s disabilities. Anne’s caravan included Quassy and Image, being led along between the carriages by grooms. On the first evening, when they stopped at an inn, Adonis went with the grooms to see the riding horses settled; and coming back to report to Anne, said to her thoughtfully, ‘If you want her to ride the colt one day, you must begin soon.’

Anne began to ask how he knew what had been in her mind, but decided not to waste her time. Instead she said, ‘How can she ride? She can’t even walk.’

Adonis nodded. ‘All the more reason. The one will help the other. I can teach her, mistress, if you want me to – but not on the colt. No, nor the mare. Give me the money, and I’ll get a little Cossack pony for her – the cleverest and kindest horses in the world! Once she learns to ride, you’ll see the difference!’

Anne looked at him gratefully, and close to tears. All that she had wanted for her daughter, and had put away, folded in a locked drawer in the back of her mind, came suddenly before her.

‘Do you think she could? Do you think she could ever lead a normal life?’

Adonis’s one eye was darkly understanding. ‘In my village, when I was so big,’ he offered a hand two feet from the floor, ‘there was a girl a couple of years older than me, who got this same sickness, and they said she’d never walk or talk. She grew up into the prettiest girl in the village, and the best dancer, and everyone wanted to marry her. I wanted to marry her, but my brother got in first. So I left and went to be a soldier.’

Anne looked sceptical. ‘This is just a story.’

He grinned. ‘Her name was Marta, and before I left she gave my brother a big fat baby boy to leave his name to. She could ride any horse bareback, and danced the mazurka like a woman possessed.’

‘But that’s a Polish dance,’ Anne objected.

‘It’s similar. You wouldn’t know the name in my language,’ he said with a shrug.

Kirov had taken a pretty little house on the outskirts of the town, with lawns that ran down to the river, property of an impoverished Lithuanian baron who was only too glad to let it and move his wife and too-numerous family to a smaller and cheaper house in the country. As soon as the carriage stopped, the Count was there to open the door and lift Anne down, to hold her hands and smile down at her in the sunshine.

Anne felt a mixture of excitement and peacefulness, a holiday feeling of having nothing more to worry about. This was the beginning, she thought, of their married life together, though they were not, and could perhaps never be, married. But they were together now, and no one could come between them. It was to her that he would return from whatever missions he was sent on, and if the world didn’t like it – well, it could look away.

‘I’ve missed you,’ he said simply.

‘Even busy as you were? I’ve missed you too. This is a pretty place.’

‘You won’t be bored – there are all sorts of things going on. It’s as lively here as Moscow – parties every night.’

‘So Adonis has been telling me. He doesn’t approve. But I shouldn’t be bored anyway: just walking and riding would keep me happy.’

Adonis came round the side of the carriage to lift out Rose, and from the safety of his arms she greeted Nikolai gravely. She didn’t take to him as she did to Adonis, and he, long removed from that stage in his own children, and with the thought of Basil to come between them, was reserved with her.

‘Come inside and see if you approve of my housekeeping,’ he said, turning with relief to Anne. ‘Tea will be brought in as soon as you’re ready, and then you must tell me everything that’s been going on in Petersburg since I left.’

A while later they were settled on the little terrace overlooking the lawns, and Anne was performing the ritual of the samovar. Mlle Parmoutier was pushing Rose around the garden in her wheeled chair, examining the shrubs and flowers and benches and urns, and the child’s high-pitched exclamations mingled with the bird song and the distant murmur of the river to make a pleasant background to their conversation.

‘The river looks high,’ Anne said. ‘Has there been much rain lately?’

‘The weather’s been terrible. This is the first really sunny day we’ve had. But tell me about Petersburg.’

‘Well, de Lauriston’s applied for permission to come here, for a private audience with the Emperor–’

‘Yes, I know. He’s been refused. Napoleon will take it as one more proof that Russia is the aggressor, but better that than have Lauriston send him detailed reports of our plans and state of readiness back to Paris. But I didn’t mean that sort of news. Where’s Basil Andreyevitch, to begin with?’

Anne passed his cup and said, ‘Did you think I would bring him with me? Actually, he did toy with the idea of coming here. “Everyone is in Vilna,” he said. But I think he only did it to torment me. In the end he and Jean-Luc decided to go back to Moscow. I think Jean-Luc felt uneasy with the growing anti-French feeling; and Basil said that Petersburg was intolerably stuffy, and that Moscow was much more cosmopolitan. So I think they will stay there.’

‘Unless Napoleon reaches it with his army,’ Nikolai said drily.

‘You don’t think he will?’ Anne was startled.

He didn’t answer, only shook his head doubtfully. Anne went on, ‘I thought, you see, that when I have to leave here, I ought to take Rose to Moscow, because she will want to see her father. I don’t wish to separate her from him completely.’

‘All we can do is wait and see. If Basil Andreyevitch has to leave Moscow, presumably he will tell you were he is going.’ He sipped his tea, and changed the subject with obvious relief. ‘Have you seen anything of Lolya? I didn’t really like leaving her with my mother, but I couldn’t bring her here without a chaperone – and in any case, I shouldn’t have liked to expose her to the flattery of so many young officers with nothing to do!’

‘You’d never have got her to come,’ Anne said grimly. ‘Where Duvierge is, there Lolya must stay!’

He looked alarmed. ‘She isn’t behaving improperly? Surely my mother wouldn’t so far forget her duty as to–’

‘Oh no, she doesn’t admit him to the house, or have him to dinner. But he is better liked than de Lauriston, and when he’s invited to the same function as Lolya, Vera Borisovna can’t stop them talking to each other, since they were apparently introduced in the first place by you.’

‘Don’t remind me! If I had known…’

‘He behaves very well, I have to say – he’s perfectly proper. But I didn’t like to see his interest in her. They always dance together, though never more than twice; and they talk together, though never apart from the company. I’ve seen him approach her when she’s out shopping or walking with her maid, and stand talking to her for a minute or two. Nothing anyone could object to – but why does he do it at all?’

‘And Lolya?’

Anne sighed. ‘She wears her heart on her sleeve, I’m afraid, though I’ve warned her twice not to make her feelings so obvious. It’s something of an on-dit, though at the moment people are tending to be amused by it rather than shocked. No one, I’m glad to say, suspects Duvierge of having designs on her innocence. They seem to think he’s interested in her as your daughter, and probing her for state secrets.’

‘And is he?’

‘Oh yes, but don’t look so shocked! Lolya may be a wet goose where matters of the heart are concerned, but she hasn’t been your daughter all her life for nothing. Discretion is fundamental to her. Even if she knew anything useful, she wouldn’t tell him. I’ve overheard one or two of their conversations, and she wouldn’t even tell him you had gone to Vilna, though he asked her very cleverly in the form of a statement. “Your Papa has gone to Vilna with the Emperor, of course,” he said.’

‘And what did Lolya say?’

‘She shrugged and said, “Oh, Papa never tells me where he’s going, and I never ask,” and then she asked him wistfully if he would be at the puppet show the next day. I didn’t know whether to hug her or shake her!’

Nikolai smiled at last. ‘I shouldn’t have left her to be exposed to that. She ought to go away from Petersburg, but it would be no good sending her to Schwartzenturm with Sashka – it’s too close. Besides, Mama doesn’t care for the country.’

‘Perhaps you ought to send her to Tula?’

‘Yes, I think I may. Shoora will keep an eye on her, and take her in to Moscow often enough to keep her amused. She’d be far enough away from her brave soldier hero then. I’ll write to Shoora today, and Lolya can go down next month.’

‘And what has been happening here?’ Anne asked after a brief pause. ‘I imagine you’ve been kept busy.’

‘Busier than you know! The Emperor’s brought that fool Shishkov with him – Speransky’s replacement, you know – and he’s busy trying to persuade His Majesty to ignore Tolly’s and my advice. He’s so insanely patriotic he thinks that to yield an inch of land to Napoleon is tantamount to high treason.’

‘I’ve heard that he hates the French so much, he’ll only converse in Old Church Slavonic,’ Anne said, amused.

‘Well, that’s not quite true. But certainly he writes plays and poetry in it, which of course no one can understand, since no one but him and a few monks speak it! And then there’s all the hothead amateur soldiers, like Armfelt and Yermolov, who talk grandly about making a stand – making a stand, you know, with a hundred thousand against five times that number! And Bennigsen and Phull, who hate each other cordially, keep coming up with the most insane and elaborate plans of campaign which couldn’t possibly work, and His Majesty listens to them all gravely, and wavers first this way and then that way.’

He snorted in derision. ‘The trouble is,’ he went on, ‘that they look so good on paper! There are maps and little drawings, and arrows, and little coloured squares with numbers in them, and the Emperor thinks it’s all very clever, and he’s really impressed, despite the fact that Phull has never won a battle in thirty years of soldiering, and Bennigsen’s been retired since Friedland. But Tolly won’t draw him any little pictures. He just says quietly, retreat, Your Majesty, harry the columns from the flanks, draw them on, and let the sheer size of Russia defeat them. What can a poor Emperor do?’

Anne smiled, but she could hear that he was worried. ‘And you have to convince him that Tolly’s right.’

‘That’s not my official task, of course. I’m supposed to advise him about the composition of the French army and Napoleon’s state of mind.’

‘And what is Bonaparte doing at the moment?’

‘Still trying to organise supplies, I imagine. The problem is even thornier than he probably thought it would be. The last two years’ harvests in Poland and Prussia have been poor, so the stocks of grain are low in any case. And to make it worse, it’s taking all the troops different lengths of time to reach Poland from the corners of the Empire. The ones who are already assembled are swarming over the land like locusts, stripping it bare while they wait for the rest of the Grande Armée to come up. The latecomers are going to begin hungry; and the people who are being forced to support all these soldiers are not very happy.’

‘Will they rise against him?’

He shook his head. ‘Napoelon’s put out a rumour that he intends to restore the old Kingdom of Poland and guarantee its independence, just to keep them sweet, and to keep the anti-Russian fervour at fever pitch.’

‘Unscrupulous,’ Anne said. ‘I don’t suppose he means a word of it.’

‘It’s just an expedient. The Tsar has let it be thought that he means to grant Lithuania independence, for much the same reason.’

‘Oh,’ said Anne.

‘But Napoleon’s supply troubles are worse even than that. The spring weather has been bad not only in Russia, but everywhere in northern Europe, so the summer cereals went in late. He’s going to have something like a hundred thousand horses, and no corn to feed them on – and army horses can’t survive on grass for more than a day or two. The work just kills them without high feed. A man will go on and on with nothing in his belly, driven by fear or patriotism or hero worship, but horses just lie down and die, and without horses there’s no cavalry and no artillery.’

‘Then Bonaparte really has no chance of winning?’ Anne said hopefully. ‘Things aren’t so bad after all.’

He smiled at her eagerness. ‘My love, the largest army the world has ever seen is knocking at our doors, led by the most successful soldier the world has ever known; and we are led by a young man who knows nothing about war, and prefers to repose his trust in those who know just about as little. Of course things are bad! I’ve told you about Napoleon’s troubles – but there’s no knowing what he might do to overcome them. He’s ingenious, and he’s determined.’

‘I thought you said Russia could never be defeated,’ she said in a small voice.

‘So I believe. And if the Emperor can be brought to follow Tolly’s plan, I think this invasion will fail. But no one should ever underestimate Napoleon. There’s always next year, and the next. And until Napoleon is dead, the world will not be safe from him.’

Despite Kirov’s words, and despite her own intellectual understanding of the situation, Anne found it impossible to keep believing in the imminence of danger. Vilna was en fête, and there was a constant round of pleasure – balls, reviews, exhibitions, plays and concerts. The houses of the rich were brilliantly lit every night; the taverns were filled to overflowing; the streets rang to the sound of horseshoes day and night, as dashing cavalry officers rode here, and carriage-loads of fashionable ladies drove there; there was gaming and singing and drinking and not a few fights; and a brisk trade at a couple of unofficial brothels on the south side of the town.

The Emperor, too, seemed to have forgotten, at least with his public face, what he was doing at Vilna, and after the bustle of the first weeks, seemed to have settled down into an unhurried round of social engagements, smiling and nodding and charming the Lithuanian gentry.

The news came that Napoleon had left Paris on the 9th of May with his Empress, arriving a week later in Dresden where he held court. At splendid receptions, he received all the kings, princes and dukes of Europe who were now his vassals. It was a display of power not entirely lost on the Imperial Court at Vilna; especially when it was followed, on the 18th of May, by a visit from the Comte de Narbonne, as a special emissary from Napoleon, to deliver an implicit threat, and to give the Emperor of all the Russias one last chance to come to heel.

The Emperor responded by unrolling before the Comte a huge map of Russia, and saying that though he believed Napoleon to be the greatest general in Europe, with the best-trained troops, yet space was a barrier, and that if he let time, deserts and climate defend Russia for him, he would still have the last word. Then he sent de Narbonne away, ordering him to be given food and wine for his journey back to Dresden.

Early in June the news arrived that Napoleon had left Dresden on the 29th of May, heading north again for the Nieman. Still the news did not seem to dismay the Tsar, who at that moment was negotiating to buy the house and estate of Zakret, close to the city, from General Bennigsen who had been using it in his retirement with his new young wife. Prince Volkonsky had persuaded the Emperor that in order properly to reciprocate the hospitality the local aristocracy had been showing him, he needed a house of his own; but the Emperor had not been hard to persuade. It was very pleasant in Vilna for everyone, and in buying Zakret, the Emperor looked as though he were intending to settle down for the summer.

Adonis acquired a suitable Cossack pony for Rose, and in his spare moments, began to teach her to ride, sitting her astride the patient back on a blanket rather than a saddle.

‘She must learn to balance, since she can’t grip,’ he explained to Anne.

Rose had looked at the pony rather doubtfully at first, and Mile Parmoutier had begged Anne to forbid what must be of the gravest danger to her Lamb. But Professor von Frank, of the University Medical Faculty, whom Kirov had engaged to take care of Rose’s health, since Grubernik could not be tempted away from Petersburg, had said he thought there was no harm in it; and once Adonis had shown Rose how to feed the pony on bread and carrots, and how to brush its long mane and forelock, she had lost all fear of it, and was eager to ride.

Adonis merely held her round the waist and walked the pony round a few times; and when he lifted her off, saying that it was enough for a first time, Rose was eager for more. To Anne he said afterwards, ‘Leave her always wanting more – that way she will learn quicker. Never let her go on until she’s tired.’

‘Why are you telling me this? You are her teacher,’ Anne said, amused, but impressed with his wisdom, and with the gentleness of this tough mercenary towards the crippled child.

‘I cannot always be here, mistress. You forget I am a soldier, and under command. The little one must ride regularly, every day, and when I am not here, it must be you who teaches her. But do as I do – don’t try to make her do too much, out of your own pride.’

Little by little, Rose learnt. At first she had to be held on to the pony’s back; then she could balance for herself, holding the neck strap; then she could balance without holding, and learnt to use the reins. The pony was ideally suited to the task: small and sure-footed, patient and obedient, yet remarkably intelligent. Anne had seen him sometimes look round and fix his small rider with a considering regard from those great brown eyes.

‘I’m sure he knows that she’s a child, and weak. Look how carefully he moves with her, and how he stops at once if she begins to lose her balance.’

‘Of course he knows,’ Adonis said, rubbing the mealy muzzle affectionately. ‘He’s taking care of her. You can trust him.’

Anne and Mile Parmoutier between them made Rose a pair of Cossack trousers to ride in, and the Count had a pair of soft boots made for her in the town. Rose was delighted with her new outfit, because it hid her leg braces. The Count laughingly promised her a Cossack hat for her birthday, and she smiled at him shyly – the first time she had really warmed to him.

‘She will always have to ride cross-saddle,’ Adonis told Anne, watching her sideways for reaction. Anne merely nodded. ‘And trotting I think will not be possible. When she is older and stronger, she may learn to canter. For now, walking, always walking.’

By the middle of June, Marya Vassilievna could ride her pony confidently round the field at the walk, and Adonis told Anne with tears of pride in his eyes, that his little English Rose was even beginning to hold on with her knees in the proper fashion.

‘She’s grown shockingly brown,’ Anne said to Nikolai one night in bed, ‘but it makes me so happy to see her, I can’t mind it. I never thought she would be able to ride at all. Adonis is a wonderful man.’

The Count, holding her in his arms, smiled into the darkness above her head. ‘I think he approves of you, too. He offered, when this campaign’s over, to murder your husband for me so that I could marry you.’

Anne laughed nervously, not sure how far it was a joke. ‘I wish we could be married,’ she said after a moment. ‘Then we could have Sashka with us, too.’ She hated the fact that because she was, in effect, his mistress, she was no longer respectable enough to take care of the child she had once bathed and dressed and played with and taught his letters and his numbers.

He kissed the top of her head and held her closer. ‘When this war is over, we’ll find a way to marry, I promise you. Something will be done. Until then–’

‘Until then,’ she said, nudging closer and sighing contentedly, ‘I am so happy just to be with you. If I have nothing else for the rest of my life, I shall have had this.’

‘There’s plenty more to come,’ he said. ‘It’s only just beginning.’

Professor von Frank had a young wife, and the young wife had a fine operatic soprano voice. Though only an amateur, she was famed throughout Lithuania, and as the Emperor had graciously expressed an interest in hearing her sing, a concert was arranged for one evening in the middle of June. It was fortunate that the cellist, Bernhard Romberg, was also visiting friends nearby, and was delighted to receive an Imperial invitation; and with the addition of a tolerable pianist, and an excellent string quartet, a very good programme was arranged, quite as good, Anne thought, as anything she had heard in Moscow.

Nikolai was unable to attend, his duties having taken him to Novi Troki, a village about twelve miles or so closer to the border, where it was rumoured that a senior French officer had been taken prisoner and was being held in a barn. Though it seemed likely to prove false, it was necessary for someone to go and investigate; Anne had therefore gone to the concert in the company of Madame de Tolly, who was frequently without her hardworking husband on such occasions.

After the concert, the two women were waiting at the door for Madame de Tolly’s carriage to be called. A prolonged clattering on the cobbles down the street heralded a troop of cavalry of some kind, and everyone hastily cleared the way for them. Troops were moving about Vilna all the time, arriving and departing with new orders, and Anne was paying no particular attention, until Madame de Tolly said, ‘Oh, look, more Cossacks! I do love their clever little horses, don’t you? Mikhail says they think with their feet.’

Anne smiled. Evidently the good Madame de Tolly thought that her husband had originated the phrase; but it was a commonplace that Cossack ponies thought with their feet, to which Nikolai had added pungently, ‘Unlike certain members of the Emperor’s staff, who usually think with their bottoms.’

‘They’re wonderful creatures,’ she replied, thinking gratefully of Rose’s pony Mielka, and turning to look at the troop, she saw a familiar tall bay horse with long ears, the mount of the officer commanding. ‘Nabat!’ she whispered in surprise; and her eyes travelled on upwards to meet, in the instant in which he passed, the startled gaze of Sergei.

He was gone, posting fast up the cobbled street at the head of his troop. The horses clattered past, ridden by brown-faced, hawk-nosed, Tartar-cheeked Cossacks, with the long moustaches of the Caucasus, and wearing the distinctive black burkas which Anne remembered so well – the mountainman’s protection from heat, cold, rain and the damp of the earth by night. The horses were all well splashed with mud, right up to their girths, and the Cossacks’ boots were muddy too – they had travelled hard that day. Now they were past, Anne began to wonder if she really had seen Sergei at the head of the troop, or whether she had imagined it. There was nothing so very surprising about it really, she told herself as the carriage pulled up and she stood aside to let Madame de Tolly climb in: troops were being brought in from all over Russia; but she had thought he was far away in Azerbaijan with General Tormassov.

The next morning while she and Rose and Mile Parmoutier were taking a late breakfast on the terrace, Sergei arrived to call on her. The butler showed him out to them, and hovered in case extra covers were required.

‘Good morning, Madame Tchaikovsky,’ Sergei began unpromisingly. ‘I trust I don’t disturb you? But I thought I ought at least to pay my respects, as I find you here so unexpectedly.’

Anne looked at him with guilt and pity. There was no trace any more of the laughing, fair boy who had teased Lolya, carried Natasha pick-a-back, played chess with his father and minded not winning, flung himself flushed and shy at her feet with an untouched heart for her taking. This Sergei was a solidly built, muscular young man with a strong jaw, an uncompromising mouth, and hard eyes, which just now were looking flintily past her left ear. The sun frown between his brows had evidently become habitual even when there was no sun, and the lines at either side of his mouth were not good-humoured. His skin was very tanned, and the front of his hair was bleached fair, and above one temple it had been shaved back to the scalp, evidently in the treatment of a wound, which had left a jagged scar running out from his hairline and down his forehead.

Yet for all his coldness and the lack of a welcoming smile, he had come to see her, when he need not; and in the very fact that he would not meet her eyes, she read a hint that there was something inside him which was not yet as hard as everything outside.

‘I’m glad you did – very glad,’ she said warmly, rising and offering her hand. ‘It’s good to see you again.’

He hesitated, but took her hand. His was very brown, and as hard as a plank, and he gripped hers briefly, then let it go.

‘Have you had breakfast? We’re shockingly late, as you see. Will you take something?’

His eyes surveyed her table briefly, and he said, ‘No, thank you.’ But she had seen their hastily suppressed glow of avidity, and thought that if they had been travelling at full speed from the Caucasus, they would have had little time for luxuries. Fresh wheaten bread, and cherry jam, and hot coffee probably had not featured much in his diet of late.

‘Oh do have something,’ she said lightly. ‘Giorgy, bring fresh covers for my guest – then you can help yourself, if you change your mind,’ she added to Sergei as the servant left. ‘Do sit down. It was such a surprise to see you last night.’

‘I was more surprised at seeing you. What brings you to Vilna?’ he said harshly.

‘My dear Sergei, everyone is at Vilna. The Emperor is here.’ she said. ‘How did you find out so soon where I lived?’

‘I asked one of the Quartermaster General’s staff. It’s typical of our army that there were no billets assigned to my men – in fact, I couldn’t find anyone who even knew we were coming; but the first person I asked knew where Madame Tchaikovsky was living.’ He gave a wry look. ‘Administration was always our weak spot. Monsieur Tchaikovsky is not here?’

Anne looked at him warily. Did he not know her circumstances? ‘No, he is in Moscow,’ she said. ‘May I make my daughter known to you? This is Marya Vassilievna; and Mile Parmoutier, her governess.’ Sergei nodded in their direction. His eyes engaged briefly with Parmoutier’s, but avoided Rose altogether, and Anne, always sensitive to her daughter’s feelings, bristled a little. But perhaps it was the fact of her being Basil’s child, rather than the leg braces and the white eye, she told herself sternly. She would offer him a second chance. ‘We always call Marya Vassilievna “Rose”, however. She’s learning to ride at the moment on a Cossack pony of phenomenal beauty and intelligence – isn’t that right, ma poupée? Rose nodded, her eyes going from her mother to the visitor warily. The old Sergei would have picked up the hint and entered into a discussion of the pony’s merits, which would have won Rose’s heart. All Russians seemed to love children, and Sergei had always had a particularly soft place for them in his heart. But the new Sergei merely nodded, cleared his throat, and looked away down the garden.

‘A pleasant situation you have here,’ he said. Rose’s face closed up, and Parmoutier jumped instantly to the defence of her charge.

‘I think, madame, if you will excuse us, we will go and get ready for our morning exercise,’ she said.

When they had gone, Anne did not speak for a while, but continued to study the averted face of her guest, who was still staring down the garden expressionlessly. She felt a little embarrassed, and a little awkward. She had nothing to say to this Sergei; and if he came only to sit in silence, why did he come at all? At last she said, ‘You arrived yesterday from the Caucasus I suppose? Had you travelled fast?’

He cleared his throat again, and flicked a glance at her. ‘Yes, we came without stopping. There’s a new regiment been raised – all volunteers – called the Pyatigorsk Cossacks, and I’ve been put in charge of a troop, and sent up here ahead of the rest of the regiment for special duties. Irregular cavalry, they call us.’

‘That sounds like a joke,’ Anne said. ‘From what I remember of the Cossacks, they’d be very irregular.’

He looked at her blankly. Oh Sergei, she thought, what happened to you?

‘You must have done well,’ she went on hastily, ‘to be singled out for such a command.’

‘Yes,’ he said, matter-of-factly. ‘I’ve a good reputation; and my men trust me. It counts for a lot out there, in the wild country. We depend on each other. There wasn’t one man in my troop who didn’t owe his life to someone else a dozen times over. This’, he touched the healing scar on his forehead, ‘was from a Persian javelin. One of my men saw it coming and pushed me out of the way just in time. I’d be dead if it weren’t for him.’

And that’s what you’ve filled yourself with, she thought; what you’ve put into the loneliness inside. The comradeship of soldiers, the warmth of the bivouac and the shared danger. ‘It must be a hard life,’ she said invitingly.

‘Yes,’ he said, and looked about him rather like a sleepwalker awakened. ‘Nothing like this. You can’t imagine.’

‘No, I can’t,’ she said. ‘What did you do with your free time, when you were off duty?’

‘There was never time to do much, except drink a bottle of wine in the mess, and play cards perhaps. When we had a few days off, we’d go to Tiflis, for the baths. Have you ever had a Georgian bath? No, I don’t suppose you would have. The baths in Tiflis are the best in the world. First the attendants rub you down with goat’s-hair gloves and soap, and knead and pummel you and rinse you off, and then you lie down on a towel and they walk up and down your back in their bare feet.’

Anne laughed incredulously, and he looked at her, showing the first sign of animation – of humanity – so far. He almost smiled.

‘It’s true! It’s the most exquisite feeling – I can’t tell you! All your joints and muscles click and crack and you can feel all the aches being massaged away. You feel wonderful afterwards – and then you go down into a sort of cave, where there’s a bath cut out of the mountain rock itself, and the hot mineral water pours into it constantly. And you just sit in that for as long as you like. There’s lots to do in Tiflis, but mostly we just go there for the baths. It’s worth the trip.’

He had grown almost expansive, tempting Anne to rashness. ‘And are the girls of Tiflis pretty?’ she asked.

He looked at her strangely. ‘I suppose so,’ he said, as though it had not occurred to him to look. Perhaps it hadn’t. It had been a stupid thing to say anyway, given what had been between them. She wanted to take it back, to apologise, but that would have been a worse mistake than the first. She could only try to build it into a commonplace.

‘Is there one more pretty than the others? Is there anyone special?’

‘I’m not interested in girls,’ he said, and suddenly looked directly into her eyes, for the first time as though he really saw her. ‘There was only one I ever cared for.’

Anne’s throat closed up. She sought for something neutral to say, but her wretched mind let her down. How would he interpret her silence? He was looking at her thoughtfully, and the corners of his mouth had softened, and she could not imagine where his thoughts might be. But when he spoke again, he said merely. ‘So my sister has come out at last? Were you there? Did you see her?’

‘Yes – and she was a credit to your family,’ Anne said, glad to be able to offer uncontroversial praise. ‘She’s turned into a very attractive young woman – not beautiful, precisely, but striking, and she’s very popular amongst the people of her own age.’

‘She writes to me now and then – lists of gowns and dancing partners,’ he said wryly. ‘Those seem to be her only concern. I thank God she can still be so innocent. I thank God she was spared what happened at Chastnaya.’ He lapsed into a silence she did not know how to break; it was the first time he had referred so directly to what had happened. At last he roused himself to say, ‘I suppose she leads my grandmother a merry dance.’

‘You haven’t seen her for a long time, of course,’ Anne said neutrally.

‘No. I wouldn’t go back to be sucked in by Gran’mère again.’ He frowned, his eyes on the distance, and added softly, ‘Too much has happened to me, in any case. You can’t go back.’

Warmth sprang up in her for this lonely man who had shut himself away from kindness. She wanted to touch him in some way, but could think of no way of reaching him that would not be dangerous for them both. Suddenly he looked at her. ‘So Basil Andreyevitch is in Moscow? I suppose you’re going to join him shortly – or is he coming here?’

She was startled by the abrupt change of subject; fumbled for words. ‘Sergei, Basil Andreyevitch and I, we – we don’t live together any more.’ He looked hard at her, forcing her to amplify. ‘We had – certain differences. We felt it was better if we – had our own establishments.’

‘Oh,’ he said, and a variety of expressions seemed to flicker across his face as he digested the news: surprise, acceptance, gratification perhaps? And then a puzzled frown. ‘But then – what are you – I mean, who is–’

She was beginning to understand a little of his state of mind, and to be alarmed by it, and to wonder how she would explain and how he would react; but he got no further with the questions he didn’t know how to ask, and she had no opportunity to break it to him tactfully. At that moment there was a sound of cavalry boots on the bare polished floorboards within the house, and a male voice calling cheerfully to the butler that he had breakfasted already; and then Nikolai came out on to the terrace with a smile of eager welcome on his face for Anne. He evidently had no idea Sergei was there; when he saw his son, the smile drained away completely for an instant, and then sprang up again, new, but different. He held out his arms.

‘Seryosha! My dear boy! I didn’t know you were here! What brings you to Vilna? But I see you’re in uniform – have you come to serve? You have a command? If not, I can get Tolly to…’

His voice trailed away, for Sergei had come violently to his feet, and his face was pulling this way and that with rage and pain. For an instant Anne saw the child inside the shell of the man: hurt, baffled, betrayed. He had been on the point of opening his heart to her, and this was how his trust had been repaid; now he wanted to strike out.

‘Yes, I see now! I see it all! Oh this is very cosy, isn’t it?’ he cried bitterly. He looked from his father to Anne with identical loathing. ‘No wonder your husband’s left you! I should think any decent man would. Only a – a scoundrel like my father would dream of living with such an unprincipled–’

‘Sergei!’ Nikolai cried, more astonished than angry. ‘What the devil are you talking about?’

‘Don’t speak to me! Don’t dare to speak to me!’ he cried out, the living pain close enough to the surface now to make his voice quiver. ‘I never would have thought my father – my own father – would be so…’ He turned back to Anne, like a creature at bay. ‘Don’t you have any scruples? Is it just any man for you?’

‘Seryosha, don’t,’ she said painfully. ‘I love him.’

‘It was him all the time, wasn’t it, while you were pretending to be so good and pious, taking care of my sisters – my God, and with my step-mother living in the same house!’

‘No – not like that!’

‘I saw in Pyatigorsk – but I didn’t believe it. I thought afterwards I’d been mistaken. I was sorry for what I’d said – I wanted to apologise. Apologise, my God!’ He laughed harshly. ‘And that – that thing,’ he jerked his head in the direction of the house, ‘is that his? Or can’t you be sure?’

Anne could bear no more. She struck him open-handed on the cheek, putting all her weight behind it, hurting herself, she guessed, more than him. For the flicker of an instant she saw in his eyes that he almost struck her back; and then so fast it seemed like a dream, the rage and pain had gone, and the hard young face was as unmoving and unemotional as when he had first arrived, revealing nothing in any feature, showing only a faint pink mark where she had struck him.

He drew himself to attention and bowed curtly to her. ‘I beg your pardon,’ he said, and it was as little like an apology as if he had taken out a pistol and shot her. ‘I should not be here.’

He pivoted on his heel and left them, without a glance at his father. The sound of his boots diminished through the house, and Anne, shaking with distress at the raw emotions which had been exposed, turned to Nikolai for comfort.

‘He will never forgive us,’ she said. ‘I should have told him at once, but I didn’t know how. Oh Nikolai– !’

But Nikolai was standing as he had been standing since the first outburst, staring ahead of him in the blankness of shock which precedes, and for a blessed time blots out, pain. His hands were raised a little, as though to protect himself from a blow; and he was crying.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

On the 24th of June, the Emperor gave a grand reception and ball at his newly acquired house, Zakret. The idea once conceived grew rapidly under the encouragement of Prince Volkonsky, and word soon spread that the ball was to be a fête champetre – the currently fashionable name, as Anne had learnt with amusement, for a fête champetre. A parquet floor was to be built on one of the riverside lawns, and over it a flower-bedecked pavilion was to be raised; there were to be floral grottoes around the lawns, lit with candles inside coloured lamp bowls, and four bands playing at different points in the park; but the plan for the crowning glory of fireworks to end the evening was reluctantly abandoned in view of the military situation.

The preparations did not proceed without incident. On the day of the ball, at around noon, the supporting wooden pillars began to bow, and moments later the entire pavilion collapsed with a terrible rumbling crash, trapping one of the workers under the wreckage. So intense had been the interest in the project, that there were enough idlers to witness the disaster for the rumour soon to spread all through Vilna that it was not an accident at all. Napoleon had planned the whole thing as an assassination attempt on the Emperor; and the pavilion’s architect, Schultz, whose name proved he was a German and therefore an ally of the French, was really his secret agent.

Demands were made for Schultz to be questioned under torture until he confessed, but they came too late; as soon as he realised what had happened, and what might have happened if the pavilion had collapsed later in the evening, the terrified architect rushed away down the lawn and flung himself into the river, and was swept away by the current and drowned.

The workmen were brought back, and by dint of frantic activity they managed to clear away the wreckage, leaving the dancing floor open to the sky. Orange trees in pots replaced the fallen pillars, and banks of potted flowering plants made up for the lack of a roof, and by a miracle all was ready by eight o’clock when the first guests arrived.

The sky had been overcast all day, though fortunately it had not rained. Now as sunset approached, the skies cleared, the clouds rolling back to the horizon to reveal a clear and tender blue. Anne stepped down from the carriage at half past eight and looked around her with a keen anticipation of pleasure. She was pleased with her gown of pale green silk, with which she wore the emeralds Basil had given her on their wedding anniversary; and in keeping with the nature of the occasion, Pauline had dressed her hair with flowers – white and apricot rosebuds, and orange blossom. She walked into the garden with her hand through Nikolai’s arm, and felt that everyone ought to envy her: there was no man she would rather have as her escort, not even the Emperor himself.

Gradually the guests assembled, while at every vantage point there were crowds of onlookers who had come out from Vilna to see the Emperor arrive. The band of the Imperial Guard played softly, hidden amongst the trees surrounding the lawn; the pale, impermanent evening sky was reflected in the wide reaches of the river, while on the horizon the piled clouds rose up like fantastic mountains, rimmed with fire from the hidden sunset.

The Emperor arrived at last, dressed in the uniform of the Semionovsky Guards; tall, handsome, fair, and charming. The assembled crowds cheered lustily, and he acknowledged them with a graceful wave of the hand before he made the rounds of his assembled guests, with a pleasant word for everyone, tilting his head in that way he had which, though it was only because he was deaf in one ear, made him look so boyish and approachable.

The band struck up for a polonaise, and the Emperor offered his arm to General Bennigsen’s pretty young wife, who was acting as hostess for the evening in the Empress’s absence. When they had made the first circuit, other couples followed them on to the floor, and Nikolai smiled at Anne and said, ‘Shall we?’

‘Gladly,’ Anne said, looping up her train. It was a delightful thing to be dancing with her lover under the open sky, surrounded by sweet-smelling flowers, and the beautiful colours of the gowns and jewels and uniforms. She thought of that other alfresco ball, long ago at Chastnaya; dancing with Seryosha, and Nasha sitting with the musicians and playing the hurdy-gurdy; but she couldn’t be sad, not tonight.

At the end of the first dance, Prince Volkonsky claimed Anne from Nikolai, an honour she would have been happy to dispense with. The Emperor danced with Madame de Tolly, and Nikolai offered his hand to Madame Balashov, wife of the Minister of Police, a dumpy little woman who looked as though she would have felt more comfortable wearing a peasant scarf than the heavy diamond tiara which flashed in her rather coarse hair.

At the end of the second dance, Prince Volkonsky escorted Anne off the floor, bowed, and walked over to the Emperor, presumably to advise him on his choice for the third. Anne saw His Majesty’s eyes come round to her; he murmured something to Volkonsky, and she saw the Prince reply with a brief shake of the head. She turned her face away, her cheeks glowing. Had she been Nikolai’s wife, his status on the Emperor’s staff would have required the Emperor to dance with her next; but he could not dance with an adulteress. The Prince was still talking, but the Emperor, perhaps feeling unhappy himself about the situation, silenced him with a gesture, and walked away to approach, to the surprise of everyone, the young daughter of a local landowner.

But Nikolai was beside Anne, taking her hand with a pressure of sympathy and leading her back to the floor.

‘Don’t mind it, my darling,’ he said. ‘It’s not important.’

‘No, of course not,’ she said; but as they danced he could see the brightness of her eye and the warmth of her cheek. This was not how it should be. As a young girl, she had dreamed as all girls did of her first ball, of falling in love, of her marriage, of the subsequent glories and social triumphs which were her birthright. Her father’s death had robbed her of her girlhood; and love had come too late, and in the wrong guise. What would Papa think of her now? she wondered. Would he disapprove, or understand? Suddenly she remembered his voice, speaking to her after some childhood disappointment, the nature of which she couldn’t now remember: ‘If we can’t do better, we must make the best of it.’ She had a great deal to be thankful for: let her never forget that. She smiled up at Nikolai to show she was happy, and he smiled too, relieved. He had particularly wanted her to enjoy this evening.

After the third dance the Emperor went into the house, and the senior members of the party followed him upstairs to the ballroom where there was an orchestra and more dancing, leaving the younger people to enjoy themselves more unrestrainedly in the open air. Later, supper was served outside on the lawn, and when Anne, on Kirov’s arm, followed the Emperor down into the garden again, she found that the stars had come out, and a sickle moon was rising.

It was not really dark – this was after all, midsummer – except under the shadow of the trees. It was warm, and the air was quite still – not a breath to make the coloured lamps flicker, or to stir the leaves on the orange trees. Nikolai fetched Anne a glass of champagne, and they wandered down the lawn towards the river. There was a scent of stock and jasmine, and the warm smell of bruised grass; the soft voices of the guests conversing and the muted clatter of cutlery was behind them; before them the murmur of the river. Its rapid flow parted round some little islands, dead black like cut-outs against the silvered water; the moonlight rippled like shaken silk, and just before the shadow of a rustic footbridge, there was a line of phosphorescence where the water broke over half-hidden rocks.

‘It’s all so beautiful – so peaceful,’ Anne sighed.

‘Idyllic,’ he suggested, and she heard the glint of laughter in his voice.

‘Laugh at me if you want,’ she said genially. ‘There’s something especially beautiful about tonight. It reminds me–’

‘Yes?’

‘It reminds me of one night at Schwartzenturm, when we stood on the terrace – after the picnic, the first time you took me to the waterfall. I don’t suppose you remember it,’ It wasn’t really a question, and he didn’t answer it as one. She went on, ‘You’d been telling me about the magic of Russia, how it got into everyone’s eyes and tangled their thoughts.’ She smiled reflectively. ‘I felt it, too – but I thought that you made it, especially for me.’

‘Didn’t I?’ he said, pretending to be disappointed. ‘You were impervious to me, then?’

‘Ah, never that! But there is something, isn’t there, about Russia, that isn’t anywhere else? I wasn’t wrong?’

‘No, love, you weren’t wrong,’ he said kindly. A moth blundered past on broad, soft wings, and alighted for a moment on one of the flowers in her hair – a rose, which the heat of the house had opened from a bud to half-blown. He put out a finger to touch it lightly, and it fluttered away, swerving towards the coloured glow of the lamps amongst the trees. ‘It isn’t all illusion,’ he said, almost to himself.

‘And even if – even if Bonaparte does invade, he can’t touch it, can he?’

She looked up at him anxiously, and he put out a hand to cup her cheek, loving her, wanting to preserve for her everything she found good and pleasant.

‘Whatever happens,’ he said, ‘it will still be here. Nothing good is ever truly lost. God sees to that.’

She lifted her face a little more, and he stooped his head to kiss her, let his mouth linger on hers, feeling her lips full and soft and ready, knowing she was his and would be his. Later tonight, when they were alone, at home…

There was a little disturbance nearby, and they broke apart unhurriedly and turned to look. There was a wicket gate into the garden from the road, guarded, in view of the Emperor’s presence, by a private of the Imperial Guard. He had come to attention, and challenged someone who had just ridden up, and a muted conversation was going on between them, as the newcomer apparently demanded admission, which the guard denied.

A voice rose. ‘Stand aside, damn you! That’s an order!’ Anne looked up at Nikolai, her eyes widening in distress. It was Sergei’s voice. The Count read her thoughts easily, and shook his head.

‘He wouldn’t come here just to upset you, Annushka. It must be something important. Wait here.’

He strode away to the wicket, calling to the guard softly as he went, ‘All right, Private, I know this man.’

‘I beg your pardon, sir, but my orders was to let nobody past,’ the man defended himself, politely but stoutly.

Anne saw Sergei come to attention in the moonlight, which made dark holes of his eyes, and then step aside with his father out of earshot of the guard. Anne could hear nothing of what they said, but she was aware of her heart beating uncomfortably fast, as if it knew of some danger of which she was unaware. At last she heard Nikolai say formally, ‘Very well, Captain. Return to your men, and say nothing to anyone.’ Sergei saluted and was gone, and Nikolai was coming back to her.

She knew what it was before he spoke. He took her hands, and his were cold, despite the warmth of the night, and damp. Her blood seemed to stop and stand still; everything seemed to become very quiet.

‘Sergei was out scouting with his troop near Kovno, on the Nieman. The French have built three pontoon bridges across the river, and they started crossing a few hours ago. It has begun.’ She could think of nothing to say. He turned abruptly. ‘I must go to the Emperor,’ he said, but before he had gone two steps, there was Balashov, apparently on his way to find out what had been happening at the wicket. In a few words Kirov told him what he had told Anne.

Balashov’s grave face, the unrevealing face necessary for a minister of police, did not change. ‘Very well. I’ll tell His Majesty. Go and find Tolly, will you, and tell him?’

The two men went different ways, leaving Anne beached and forgotten. She stood where she was, not knowing what to do with herself, or with the picture that had been planted in her mind. She saw a broad river, silver in the moonlight; three black pontoons spanning it; and over the pontoons, like an army of ants, the close-packed columns, more and more and more of them, more than could be counted; dark except for the white flash of their leggings, and the pin pricks of moonlight glinting from the tips of their bayonets. Thousand upon thousand, pouring into Russia with the pitilessness of insects, swarming over the bridges, marching towards Vilna…

With a distant part of her attention, she saw Balashov walk up to the Emperor, murmur a few words in his ear. The Emperor nodded, and then turned away and carried on chatting to the elderly lady beside him. Perhaps it had all been a dream, Anne thought. Perhaps Sergei had not really been there at all. She tried to walk forward, but her feet seemed rooted to the ground. Definitely a dream, then. She looked down at them, and they seemed a very long way away. The pale green satin of her slippers was darkened by the dew from the longer grass of the river bank; she noticed the exact shape of the mark, and it seemed somehow important to remember it.

Then Nikolai was beside her again, his hand gripping her forearm to hold her attention.

‘Anna, listen! The Emperor’s leaving, and I have to go with him; but he doesn’t want anyone to know the news yet. He wants the ball to go on. I can’t take you with me – you’ll have to stay for a while. But in half an hour’s time you can have a headache, excuse yourself to Madame Bennigsen, and go home. Go straight home, and tomorrow morning, begin packing. I’ll come to you when I can.’

She desperately wanted some kind of reassurance, but she knew she mustn’t delay him: he now had far more important things on his mind than her. She bit back the useless questions that jumped into her mouth, and said, ‘Yes, I understand.’

He was already turning away, but with the last unconsumed fraction of his attention, he recognised her effort, and paused to catch her chin and deliver one hard but loving kiss. ‘Good girl,’ he said. And then he was gone.

The day seemed endless. During the morning the bright skies clouded over, and by noon they had drawn down in a dark blanket over the whole sky. There’s going to be a storm, Anne thought, pausing in the act of folding a gown to look out of the window. The air was oppressive, like a damp hand muffling everything, making it hard to breathe; and in the back of her mind, the ant-soldiers marched, marched, their white legs swinging all together in a rippling row, left right left right, tramping down the road from Kovno. How long would it take for them to reach Vilna? How far was it? Fifty – sixty miles? The clouds were black and purple now, and the daylight was strange and muted. It was like a dreadful omen – but for whom? For them or for the French?

A light scraping and thumping sound made her turn, and there was Rose, walking with Mile Parmoutier supporting her from behind, her face screwed up with concentration, the tip of her tongue protruding from between her teeth. Anne held out her arms, and Rose came to her, and exchanged her governess’s hands for her mother’s waist. They looked out of the window together.

‘Maman, why is it dark?’ she asked.

‘There’s going to be a storm, chérie, that’s all. Thunder and lightning. Nothing to be afraid of.’

Rose considered the answer, looking up at her mother. The crooked eye seemed a little less crooked of late, and quite a lot of the iris was showing. Anne smoothed the soft fawn hair away from the bony forehead and tried to smile.

‘But you’re afraid,’ Rose observed, her one eye searching.

‘A little,’ Anne admitted. ‘But it’s silly to be afraid. Storms can’t hurt you.’

‘Giorgy says the French are coming,’ she said bluntly. ‘He’s afraid of them. Will we have to go away?’

‘Yes, I think so.’

‘Where?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Will the French kill us?’

The question, so innocently spoken, exposing the root of Anne’s fears, made her wince. ‘No, darling. We’ll be gone before they get here.’

Rose came now to the heart of her own anxiety. She tugged at Anne’s waist with the urgency of it. ‘Will we take Mielka?’ Anne laughed shakily, and hugged her daughter briefly. ‘Oh, darling, of course we will! Mielka will go everywhere with us. We wouldn’t leave him behind.’

Rose’s smile became radiant, and she was content then to resume looking out of the window. There was lightning now, flickering greenish against the indigo clouds. Parmoutier came and stood beside Anne too, and they watched and waited in silence. Suddenly the air was stirred by a breath of cold wind, just as if a damp blanket had been lifted, and the governess shivered and said, ‘Here it comes!’

A second later there was a flash of lightning followed instantly by a tremendous crash of thunder, so loud that it made them all jump, and Anne bit her tongue. Another cold breath, and a few heavy drops fell on the step of the verandah, leaving dark circles in the pale dust; and then the rain came down. It fell in an almost solid sheet, hissing on the dry earth and blotting out the distance. The trees shifted and whispered, and the smell of rain came in through the open windows to the waiting women, green, refreshing, delicious.

An old woman, one of the locally hired servants, came shuffling in to push past them without ceremony and close the windows. The sound of the rain diminished; the stale warmth of the room closed round them, cutting them off from the drenched garden outside, where the lightning still flickered and flashed.

‘Standing by an open window!’ the old woman grumbled. ‘Catch your death, Barina, and the little one too! Well, this’ll teach that Napoleon to come crossing our borders. His men’ll be drowning in it, and I hope he drowns too. Good riddance to him! Let me get to the other window, Barina, before that carpet gets soaked.’

Anne and Parmoutier exchanged a glance. Yes, the rain would be very bad for the marching soldiers! It would slow them down – and roads would become quagmires. ‘God is on our side, madame,’ Parmoutier said softly.

The old woman, overhearing, crossed herself. ‘Amen to that! God is on the side of the righteous.’

The storm passed quickly, and a calm, bright, fresh afternoon followed. There was no word from Nikolai, and no one came near the house. Anne’s sense of unreality grew. At one moment she thought that perhaps everyone had left Vilna, and she was alone in the path of the oncoming French. At others she thought perhaps the French were not coming after all, and everyone knew it except her. As the afternoon faded into evening, and the rain-washed air grew chilly, Pauline came out to her with a shawl, and asked her diffidently if she would take dinner inside or on the terrace.

‘Dinner?’ she said vaguely, and became aware that she was extremely hungry.

‘You have eaten nothing all day, madame,’ Pauline said sternly.

Nor the evening before, Anne remembered suddenly. The news had interrupted her and Nikolai before they had had time to eat supper. All she had had was a glass of champagne. She laughed, and Pauline looked at her quizzically.

‘Yes, I’ll have dinner here,’ she said, and glanced towards the house. ‘Is everything all right, Pauline?’

‘They were all very frightened before,’ Pauline answered, ‘but now they see you so calm, they think everything must be well. We are all waiting for news.’

‘Are you afraid?’ Anne asked curiously. It must be hard for the maid, caught between her own people and her adopted people. Either side might take her for a spy.

Pauline shrugged. ‘If you are not afraid, madame, why should I be? I go where you go, and as long as you are safe, so am I.’

‘You want to stay with me? You don’t want to go to – to the other side?’

Pauline looked contemptuous. ‘They are not my people,’ she said. ‘That one, that Bonaparte, he holds my people in thrall as much as everyone else.’

‘Ah, is that how you see it?’ Anne said thoughtfully.

It was late when Kirov came home, looking bone-weary. Anne guessed he had not slept or eaten since she saw him last. She was still sitting on the verandah, beginning to feel chilly now, but unable to bring herself to go in, out of the soft summer twilight and into the stuffy darkness. Once she went in, the day would be over, and it might be her last day in Vilna, her last day of peace.

He came to her and kissed her, and sat down beside her, stretching out his legs and sighing with weariness.

‘Shall I get you some supper?’ she asked.

‘In a minute,’ he said. ‘Sit with me a while first.’ He reached out a hand and she gave him hers, and he carried it back to his lap and held it there, caressing it lightly, his eyes closed. Through their linked hands, communication passed. She understood that they were to be parted, and that, as she had wanted to savour the last of this day, so he wanted to savour these moments with her while he could.

At last he opened his eyes and said, ‘We are to evacuate Vilna. Shishkov tried to persuade the Emperor that it was cowardly to yield the first instant the French appeared, without making any kind of a stand, and it took us all day to argue him down. Vilna would be impossible to defend, even if we had the men. We’d be trapped between the enemy and the river, with only one small wooden bridge to escape by.’

Anne nodded. ‘I see.’

‘So did the Emperor at last, thought not until Tolly and I rode out in person, and came back and assured him that the French really were coming.’

‘You’ve seen them?’ Anne said, startled.

His face seemed to grow older as she watched. ‘Yes, I’ve seen them. Poor devils, they don’t look as though they’re marching to glory. That storm took all the air out of them – and some of the horses already look half starved. We’ve stripped the country they’re marching over, so if they haven’t brought provisions with them, they’ll be hungry long before they get here. But there are thousands of them, Anna. Thousands. And how did Napoleon move so fast? It’s impossible to over-estimate that man.’

‘How long?’

‘To reach Vilna? Another two or three days, perhaps; the cavalry might get here sooner. The Emperor’s leaving tomorrow, during the night to avoid spreading panic. We’re moving headquarters to Drissa. I think you ought to leave tomorrow morning. Once the word gets out that we’re evacuating, there’ll be some pretty scenes, I don’t doubt, and the roads will be crammed with carts and coaches. You should be able to get as far as Sventsiany tomorrow – that’s about seventy-five versts. Put up in the best inn, and I’ll come to you as soon as I can.’

‘When will that be?’ she asked in a small voice.

‘The day after, I expect. I’ll know more by then – we’ll make new plans.’ He eyed her. ‘Are you afraid?’

‘No,’ she said.

He squeezed her hand. ‘That’s my brave girl. Shall we go to bed?’

‘You haven’t eaten. I was going to get you some supper.’

‘There are more important things than supper. Come, lie in my arms, Doushka, for a few hours. God knows when we’ll have the chance again! I shall have to leave you before dawn – we’re taking everything with us that we can – the city archives, food, munitions – and I shall have to help supervise the packing. What we can’t take, we’ll burn; and then we’ll destroy the bridge. He’ll find the Vilia harder work to bridge than the Nieman.’ He stood up, grimacing. ‘It’s going to be a long day.’

‘Then you’d better sleep,’ she said.

He grinned. ‘To hell with sleep. If you argue any more, I’ll think you don’t want me.’

She twisted her arm round his waist. ‘Always, always,’ she said.

He left her arms at four the next morning; dressed himself, saying that he would shave and breakfast at headquarters; kissed her once more, thoroughly, and went away. Anne turned over into the nest of warmth he had left in the bed, and cried a little; then dried her eyes, got up, and rang briskly for Pauline.

By eight o’clock, when they were ready to leave, it was already very hot, and threatening to be hotter. She longed for Adonis’s strong arms and cheerful confidence as she chivvied the servants, and supervised the loading. Rose was in a fret over Mielka, and had to be carried down the line to see him, hitched between Image and Quassy, before she was satisfied that he was not being left behind. She plainly felt her world was threatened.

‘When are we going to see Papa?’ she demanded.

‘Soon,’ Anne said distractedly.

The procession rolled away from the house, two carriages, a kibitka, and the grooms leading the riding-horses. The upper part of the town was quiet, but when they got down to the bridge over the Vilia, they had to wait their turn in a queue of carts driven by soldiers, loaded with sacks of grain and boxes of ammunition. Anne stretched her neck and stared out of the window in every direction, hoping for a glimpse of Nikolai, but there was no one higher than a sergeant in sight.

Once out on the highway, they trotted past the slow-moving carts, and got ahead of their dust, and Anne settled back against the squabs and set her mind to entertaining Rose for the long journey to Sventsiany.

On the 27th, the baking heat of the day was suddenly masked again by lowering clouds, and torrential rain began to fall; but this time it did not blow over in an hour or two. It went on, almost unremittingly, all day, and all the next day too; the temperature dropped rapidly; the rain became sleety; there were periods of hail, and violent thunder storms, and sheets and forks of lightning.

Vilna had been abandoned, and the cobbled streets which had rung for two months with footsteps and laughter were silent. The Vilia ran fast and swollen, carrying away all trace of the bridge which the Russian sappers had destroyed after the last carts had crossed it. Only the Lithuanian residents who could not leave had remained, waiting for the French to arrive, part hopeful, part resentful. They had not loved their Russian conquerors; but would French masters be any better? Napoleon had half-promised Lithuania independence – but he had promised many things to Poland which had never been fulfilled.

On the 28th, as the Russian army tramped briskly away on the road to Drissa, following in the wake of the Court, General Balashov and his Excellency Count Kirov waited in the path of the advancing French General Murat and his cavalry, with a personal letter from the Emperor to Napoleon. They were conducted into Vilna, to the archbishop’s palace, which had been Alexander’s headquarters and was now Napoleon’s.

The Emperor of the French received them after a long delay. Kirov thought he looked ill. He had put on a great deal of weight since he last saw him; the pale face was puffy, the eyes blue-shadowed, and the dark hair, which he had taken to wearing brushed straight forward à la césar, was noticeably thinning. Behind him stood Caulaincourt, who greeted both Russians courteously, but whose eyes sought Kirov’s with some message of sorrow and apology. Kirov knew that he had constantly advised Napoleon against the invasion, and was probably still trying to persuade him to give it up; and that he had no hope of succeeding.

‘So!’ said Napoleon, with a flash of scorn, waving the letter at them, ‘my brother Alexander, who was so high and mighty with the Comte de Narbonne, would now like to negotiate! He asks the reasons for this war – as if he didn’t know them! – and graciously condescends to offer negotiation once my troops have withdrawn behind the Nieman!’

‘Your Highness knows–’ Balashov began, but Napoleon cut him short.

‘I know that my manoeuvres have already frightened you, and that within a month I shall bring you to your knees! I have not come this far to negotiate! The sword is now drawn, it cannot be sheathed. Does your Emperor take me for a fool?’

‘No, Sire,’ Kirov answered. ‘But this is a war you cannot win. His Majesty wishes to avoid pointless loss of life, which will be very heavy if your highness continues on this venture.’

Napoleon slammed his fist down into his palm. ‘Very heavy? On your side perhaps! Count, my friend, count up the numbers! Your infantry numbers a hundred and twenty thousand men, and your cavalry sixty thousand – yes, you see, I know everything about you! But I have three times as many. How can I lose?’

‘Numbers are not everything, Sire,’ said Kirov. ‘How can you feed such a great army? You will be marching through barren, wasted land, and you have no supply depots, as we have.’

‘I’ve seen what remained of one here in Vilna! What’s the point of building up supply depots, if you simply burn them and run away, instead of using them for the purpose of battle?’ He whipped round on Balashov. ‘Aren’t you ashamed, you Russians? Since the time of Peter the Great, your country has never been invaded, yet here I am at Vilna, having captured an entire province without firing a single shot.’

Balashov’s face was immobile as ever. ‘I can assure your highness that Russians will fight like tigers to defend their own homeland. Patriotic fervour runs in our soldiers’ veins, and they will have more urgency in the fight to protect their homes, than your men in trying to take them.’

Napoleon shrugged that away and changed the subject. ‘Your Emperor is a novice in war and he conducts his campaign through a council. Now when I have an idea, at any time of the day or night, it is put into execution within half an hour. But with you, Armfelt proposes, Bennigsen examines, Tolly deliberates, Phull opposes, and nothing is done at all. You simply waste your time. That’s no way to conduct a war!’

For an hour Napoleon talked to them, alternately cajoling and threatening; then he dismissed them, but ordered them to remain at headquarters. Later he invited them to take dinner with him and his chiefs of staff, and continued in the same vein to assure them that they were outnumbered, that they could not possibly win, and that they had better yield now and ask for his forgiveness.

At one point his banter descended into a kind of primitive rage, and he shouted insults at them, only stopping when he saw the look of disapproval on Caulaincourt’s stem face. Napoleon’s brow cleared and he put on a smile instead. ‘Emperor Alexander treats his ambassadors well, charming them and treating them like his own countrymen. Here before you is one of his principal chevaliers – he has made a Russian of Caulaincourt!’

There was a heartbeat of silence, and Kirov saw with acute sympathy the pain and anger in the grave courtier’s eyes. For a moment Caulaincourt could not answer; and when he spoke, his resentment was clear in his voice. ‘It is doubtless because my frankness has too often proved that I am a good Frenchman, that Your Majesty now seems inclined to doubt it. The marks of kindness with which I was so often honoured by Emperor Alexander were intended for Your Majesty. As your faithful subject, Sire, I shall never forget it.’

There was an embarrassed silence, and Napoleon shrugged and changed the subject. Later, however, when the Russians’ horses were called for, the Emperor showed his spite again, saying to Caulaincourt, ‘You had better escort your friends to their carriage, had you not, you old St Petersburg courtier?’ Kirov felt for him acutely. To be insulted before foreigners, to have his loyalty called into question in the presence of the enemy, was too much to bear. Caulaincourt held his temper, and walked out of the room with Balashov and Kirov. On the stairs, however, he murmured to Nikolai, ‘I’m not ashamed of having declared myself against this war. In doing so I prove myself more a Frenchman than those who encourage him, just to please him.’

‘I know it, old friend,’ Kirov replied.

‘I wish he did,’ Caulaincourt said with some heat. ‘Since he doesn’t appreciate me, I’d better ask for a transfer to some other duty. In Spain, perhaps – the further away, the better.’

Kirov touched his shoulder. ‘I’m sure he does appreciate you,’ he said. ‘Why else would he keep you by him?’

Caulaincourt met his eyes sadly. ‘Why did it have to come to this?’ he said.

Balashov was waiting at the foot of the stairs, eyeing them with interest. All three shook hands courteously.

‘Please convey my respectful homage to your master,’ Caulaincourt said.

The Russians turned away to mount into the carriage, but Kirov turned back. They had been friends, and who knew if they would ever meet again?

‘Armand–’ he said. Caulaincourt looked at him enquiringly. ‘This is not between us. I wish you well, old friend, and safe.’

‘And I you, Nikolai. Adieu!’

Anne stood at the window of the inn in Sventsiany watching the Russian cavalry divisions trotting through the town on their way to Drissa. It was the 30th of June, and still the rain poured down, smoking on the paved street like mist. The horses were rat-tailed, their coats were sleek and dark with it, and their riders huddled under their cloaks while the relentless water dripped off their cap brims and collar points and noses. The infantry were still somewhere behind them – it would be slow marching in this weather.

Many of the local gentry had fled when the first refugees from Vilna came through, packing their treasures on to carts: furniture, pictures, carpets, everything. Napoleon’s soldiers had a reputation all through Europe for stripping everything in their path like locusts. But the town was calmer now, resigned, waiting for more news. Maybe Napoleon wouldn’t come at all, said those who remained; and if he did, if they welcomed him, maybe he would be a good master to them. There was a certain amount of scorn thrown on the Russian army, which had retreated the first moment without offering a fight. Anne had to listen to some pungent comments, but there was no real hostility towards her. She was generous in the matter of paying for what was provided, and innkeepers are much the same the world over.

Inside her pleasant sitting-room, there was a large fire burning. To one side of it, Nyanya – Rose’s nurse – and Pauline sat sewing; Rose herself was sitting on the floor, her legs in their hated braces stuck straight out before her, playing with a striped marmalade kitten who had appeared from nowhere as soon as the fire was lit. To the other side of the fire sat Mile Parmoutier, reading aloud from a book of French essays.

The kitten, every inch of its small body quivering with intensity, pounced again on the straw Rose was twitching for it.

‘Maman, when are we going to see Papa?’ Rose asked, as she had asked already three times that day.

‘Soon,’ said Anne absently.

‘But when? I don’t like it here. I want to go home.’

Anne turned from the window. ‘We can’t go yet. Have you done your eye exercises this morning?’

‘I don’t like them,’ Rose pouted. ‘I want to go home. Can we keep the kitten?’

‘We’ll see.’

‘Can we? When are we going to see Papa?’

‘I don’t know,’ Anne said, exasperated. ‘Don’t keep asking the same question again and again!’

Rose burst into tears and the kitten fled under a chair. ‘I want Papa! I want to go home! My legs hurt!’

This last brought Mile Parmoutier out of her chair with a cry of concern, but Nyanya got there first, scooping Rose up with trained strength and croodling to her in Russian as she sobbed into the broad black calico shoulder.

‘She’s tired, Barina, that’s all,’ Nyanya said over Rose’s head.

‘She’s bored,’ Anne suggested wearily. ‘So are we all. This endless rain!’

Mile Parmoutier was unconvinced. ‘Perhaps, madame, we should call a physician. If her legs hurt her…’ She had once overheard Grubernik talking about rheumatic fever, and she had never been able to shake the dread out of her heart.

‘Of course her poor little legs hurt, don’t they, my little soul?’ Nyanya crooned, quelling the governess with a look. ‘And why shouldn’t they? But Nyanya knows how to make it better! A nice rub with warm oil for my little candle, and a piece of gingerbread to eat, as big as your hand, eh?’

Rose, whose sobs were already lessening, said something through her hiccoughs which the nurse evidently understood.

‘Of course we can, my pigeon,’ she said, and with one hand scooped up the striped kitten and stuffed it into her apron pocket, nodded to her mistress, and went out.

Parmoutier remained unconvinced and guilty. ‘I’m sure she ought to see a physician, madame. And all this travelling isn’t good for her. I wish we might go back to Petersburg. Do you think his lordship–’

But her mistress wasn’t listening. She was craning to look down into the street, where a horseman had just arrived.

‘It’s him! He’s here!’ she cried, and was gone from the room in a whirl of muslin before the governess could do more than draw a sigh.

They had the sitting-room to themselves now. The fire was burning brightly, and a new log Anne had just put on was hissing and popping as the bark curled in the heat. Hot wine and cakes were filling the gap while a meal was prepared. Anne was anxious, though he assured her he was quite well. Much of that drawn look in his face was from shock and distress rather than physical weariness, as she understood when he explained to her what he had seen.

‘Sergei’s Cossacks captured a foraging party near Novi Troki, and I was called in to listen while they were questioned. The poor devils were starving. We gave them some Polish sausage and rye bread, and they ate so fast one of them threw it up almost immediately.’

‘Starving already? But didn’t they bring any supplies with them?’ Anne asked.

He shrugged. ‘They’d all been ordered to carry pack rations – rice and flour enough for three days, which was supposed to get them from Kovno to Vilna. But these men were part of the third corps, who were still fifty versts or more from the Nieman when the crossing began. They had to force-march for forty out of forty-eight hours to catch up, across land that had already been stripped by foragers. Of course they had to eat their pack rations – and once they crossed into Russia, they came across the results of our scorched-earth policy.’

He passed a hand across his face, and she looked at him with keen sympathy. ‘Theirs was not an isolated case, I suppose?’

He shook his head. ‘The sights we’ve seen – the things Sergei has told me! The horses were starving before ever they reached the Nieman, and once the rain began, they just lay down and died in their thousands! The cold and hunger, and trying to drag heavy field pieces through fathoms of mud… They’ve got no fodder for them at all. They’ve been trying to feed them on green rye, but it just bloats them up, and they die of colic. We skirted Vilna on our way back here, and I tell you I must have seen hundreds of dead horses just lying there, rotting.’

Anne was silent with pity. After a moment he went on.

‘The foot soldiers are suffering from ague and dysentery, and when they drop out of the column for any reason, the Cossacks pick them off. There’s talk of typhus, too. I know as I skirted Vilna I saw that some of the horse carcases had been toppled into the river. The men we spoke to said the terrible weather was seen as a bad omen. They’re so demoralised, some of them just walk off into the woods in despair and shoot themselves.’

‘Then – he’ll turn back? He must turn back, surely?’

Nikolai shook his head, and told her about his and Balashov’s interview with Napoleon two days before. ‘He has lost a vast number of men – but the number he has at his command is still more vast. I don’t believe he will turn back until he has lost every man and horse, and even at this rate, that will take a long time.’

They were silent, staring into the fire, and then he roused himself to say, ‘How are things with you, doushenka?’

‘We’re all well. Rose is bored and wants to go home, and the horses are pining for lack of exercise, that’s all.’

‘You’ve had no trouble with the locals?’

‘They’ve treated us very courteously – though I don’t know what will happen when the French come nearer, and they’re forced to evacuate. Stories are already coming through about the way the French army has looted every town and village it passed.’

‘I don’t suppose they are more than the truth. My darling, you must not stay here any longer. I must go and report to the Emperor at Drissa, but I don’t suppose we’ll stay there very long. It’s not a good place to have to defend, and in any case, I don’t believe Tolly will want to make a stand until we’ve weakened the French still further. Vitebsk, perhaps, or even Smolensk, will be near enough. You must go further than that, to be safe. It will not be good to be anywhere near the French army as they get hungrier, and more of the horses die.’

‘I want to be near you.’

‘I don’t suppose I shall have the leisure to visit you, even if there were a safe place for you to stay. You say Rose wants to go home. Why don’t you go back to Petersburg?’

Because it’s too far from you, she thought, but she didn’t say it. ‘She wants to see her father,’ she said instead.

‘Then go to Moscow.’

She eyed him defiantly, but saw the weariness in his eyes, and understood that now she was just one more thing for him to worry about, when he already had too much.

‘Very well,’ she sighed.

He touched her hand gratefully. ‘I’ll write to you. There’ll be couriers along the road all the time. I’ll send you news often, and if there’s an opportunity, I’ll come to you. It won’t be for long, doushka. A few months.’

‘And if it is possible, if it’s safe, you’ll send for me? I’ll come without Rose, travel fast if I have to. You’ll send for me?’

‘If it’s possible,’ he said. His voice said it would not be possible, but she had to be content with that, since she could do no better.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Anne found Moscow in a state of advanced insouciance. The notion that Napoleon might penetrate as far as the city – a thousand versts or more! – was considered preposterous, and so the two newspapers – the News and the Messenger – proclaimed with every edition. The fiercely patriotic Governor of Moscow, Count Rostopchin, had a leading citizen arrested for repeating Napoleon’s boast that he would occupy both Russian capitals within six months; and instituted a censorship on letters leaving the city, to make sure no one passed on subversive rumours about Russian military inefficiency. Rostopchin was a favourite of the Grand Duchess Catherine, and close friend of the fire-eating Prince Bagration, which, in Anne’s view, explained everything.

Basil greeted her warily, almost diffidently; but the patent delight of the reunion between him and Rose, though it hurt her a little, made her speak more gently to him than she otherwise might have. Jean-Luc, she discovered, had his own apartments in the house; but it was a large house, and he made sure he kept out of her way.

He and Basil were behaving with more discretion than she would have thought them capable of: though there was no doubt that Basil visited Jean-Luc in his own rooms, and probably stayed with him most nights, it was all done with great secrecy, rather in the manner of the Grand Monarch whose official couchée was followed by an unofficial exit via the secret stairway.

In public, though they continued to be seen everywhere together, they behaved less outrageously, and were less often obviously drunk. It was almost, she thought wryly, as though they had settled down after the first flush of their love affair into the comfortable behaviour of a young married couple. She hated to think about that; but for Rose’s sake she had to treat them civilly when they met. It was obviously in their interest too to avoid her as much as possible and not to provoke her when contact was inevitable; and after the first few days she found she was able to dismiss them from her mind for a great deal of the time, and to occupy her days agreeably with riding Quassy, schooling Image, and playing with Rose.

Rose was glad to be home, and with the stimulus of her new pony in the old familiar surroundings, and her desire to show her father her progress, she improved in a series of bounds. Her parents developed a routine for spending time with her so that they did not confront each other. Rose spent a great deal of Anne’s time prattling about what she had done with Papa and Zho-Zho, as she called Jean-Luc; and Anne could only hope that she was equally voluble with them about Maman’s treats.

July was hot, and many of the leading families had gone out of the city to their dachas; so that when the news arrived by Imperial courier that the Emperor was to visit Moscow before returning to St Petersburg, the Governor had to send out messengers to fetch them back. There was to be a ceremonial greeting of the Monarch at the Hill of Salutation, and he was then to be escorted to the royal apartments at the Kremlin. The next day there would be a solemn service of thanksgiving for the signing of the peace treaty with the Turks, and then the Emperor was to address all the leading nobles and the leading merchants at two assemblies.

The Emperor was to arrive on the 23rd; and on the 22nd Anne was surprised and pleased to receive a visit from Lolya.

‘Darling Anna Petrovna!’ She came forward with a smile of welcome and outstretched hands to kiss Anne formally on both cheeks, but it soon turned into a very informal hug.

‘My dear Lolya,’ Anne said. ‘What are you doing in Moscow? I thought you were spending the summer in Tula.’

‘Aunt Shoora’s brought Kira to shop for her wedding – so she says.’ Lolya pulled off her gloves, and walked about examining things as she talked with the restlessness of young energy. ‘Actually, I think it’s to get away from the noise and dust. The whole house is being rebuilt in the grandest style – you can’t imagine – all pillars and balconies! It’s because of the war, of course – Uncle Vsevka’s got terribly rich with his munitions factory working double-time. Isn’t it nice that someone gets some benefit from horrid wars? Kira’s in a dreadful panic that the building won’t be done in time for the wedding, and I think Aunt Shoora wants to take her mind off it.’

‘When is the wedding?’

‘November. I’m to be a bridesmaid. She’s marrying Felix Uspensky – he’s a lieutenant in the Third Corps, you know, so the war had better be over by then, or he’ll have to get special leave. He’s rather young and shy, but he has the sweetest little moustache, and Kira thinks he’s wonderful, so I suppose that’s all right.’

‘Where are they now? Aunt Shoora and Kira, I mean.’

‘Oh, they’ve gone to Fontenards to look at diamonds – Uncle Vsevka wants to give Kira a necklace and tiara for her wedding gift – isn’t that splendid? But I had sooner see you, so they dropped me off here, and I said you’d probably send me back to the hotel afterwards in your carriage.’

‘Oh, but why didn’t they call in?’ Anne said. ‘I should have liked to see them.’

Lolya gave her a sideways look. ‘Aunt Shoora didn’t like to, because of Kira’s situation – “delicate situation” she said. I must say, Anna Petrovna, you don’t look a bit like a fallen woman! Or not like what I would expect, at any rate, because I don’t know if I’ve ever actually seen one, except actresses, and I don’t suppose they’re all necessarily fallen, only loose, whatever that means.’

Anne coloured. ‘Is that what Shoora said?’ she asked quietly. ‘That I was a fallen woman?’

Lolya seemed unconcerned. ‘Not precisely. She didn’t use those words, but that was what she meant, I think. She said she wouldn’t stop me from visiting you, but I told her she couldn’t anyway.’

Anne felt an enormous sadness that dear, kind Shoora should feel constrained from allowing her daughter to enter her house. She made an effort to change the subject.

‘You’re looking very well, Lolya – different somehow. More grown up, I think.’ It was true. She seemed more self-confident, more poised, and her taste had settled down – whether of its own accord, or under guidance from her aunt Anne couldn’t know; but her gown and pelisse were models of elegant restraint, while her hat was saucy but not outrageous. She seemed prettier, too, with a warm, glowing beauty quite different from her first-Season, girlish prettiness.

‘I feel more grown-up,’ Lolya confessed. She smiled. ‘I feel wonderful, actually. It’s being in love – you can’t imagine, Anna!’

‘Can’t I?’

Lolya gave her the sidelong look again. ‘I suppose–’ Her cheeks pinked a little. ‘Anna, about you and Papa,’ she said bravely. ‘I – I don’t mind, you know. I think it’s rather splendid, in fact! It was a bit difficult to understand at first – I mean, one never thinks of one’s father – well, you know – being young enough for that sort of thing–’

‘What sort of thing?’ Anne queried, amused.

Lolya grew warmer. ‘You know what I mean. It’s different when it’s young people like Andrei and me…’

‘Colonel Duvierge is hardly a young man,’ Anne said drily.

Lolya frowned. ‘Well, at any rate, what I wanted to say is that it’s all right. I’m glad for you, really, as long as – as long as you really do love him?’

‘Lolya, my dear,’ Anne said solemnly, ‘I promise you that much as you may love Colonel Duvierge, I love your father a hundred times more.’

Lolya’s face cleared. ‘Oh, well that’s all right then,’ she said with a radiant smile. ‘Only you couldn’t possibly, you know! Andrei is so wonderful!’

Anne felt the resurgence of her grave misgivings. The crush Lolya had on the Frenchman ought to have died down by now. Perhaps it was wrong of Nikolai to have removed her from his orbit. Absence seemed to have made the heart grow fonder – fonder, and more serious, in a disquieting way.

‘Lolya, dearest,’ she began, hardly knowing how to tackle the subject. ‘I don’t think you ought to pin too much hope on a relationship with Colonel Duvierge. It’s likely, you know, that he’ll be recalled to France at any moment, if he hasn’t been already. I don’t suppose you can even have had any news of him for many weeks now–’

‘Oh, but you’re wrong!’ Lolya looked smug. ‘Andrei was so upset when I told him I was being sent to Moscow – well, Tula, at any rate – that he made me promise to write to him, and he promises to write back.’

‘Lolya! You haven’t been exchanging letters with him?’

‘Of course – every week! He writes such lovely letters – really long ones, and full of–’

‘But darling, you mustn’t! It’s absolutely out of the question!’ Anne was agitated. ‘Not only is it very improper for an unmarried girl to carry on a correspondence with a man, but it could be construed as treasonable! Don’t you understand that he’s officially an enemy now? There’s no doubt he reports regularly to Bonaparte, and anything you may happen to tell him will be passed on that way.’

Lolya’s eyes narrowed with temper. ‘Don’t dare to call my darling a spy!’ she said hotly.

‘Lolya, that’s his job! That’s what he was sent to Russia for!’

‘You don’t understand! Just because he’s French, you think he must be wicked – but he hates Napoleon as much as we do! All he wants is peace between our two countries so that we can be together and get married. He hates war!’

Anne looked at her despairingly. ‘Don’t you understand, he’s bound to say that so as to lull your suspicions, and make you talk more freely? Oh Lolya, what have you been telling him?’

Her cheeks were bright. ‘Nothing!’ she said angrily. ‘How could you think it? Don’t you think I know better than to give away secrets? Even if I knew any,’ she added with a brittle laugh. ‘Who would tell a chit of a girl like me anything important?’

‘I don’t believe you would deliberately say anything that would help the enemy – of course I don’t!’ Anne said. ‘But consider, darling – your father is a senior diplomat, and your uncle, with whom you are staying, owns the biggest munitions factory in Russia. There’s no knowing what use even an innocent piece of information might be put to.’

‘Oh, you’re just like all the rest,’ Lolya said, turning away. ‘I’m disappointed in you, Anna Petrovna. I would have thought in your position, you’d be a bit more understanding!’

The least useful thing in the present situation would be to alienate Lolya, and lose her confidence. Anne tried to soothe her. ‘I do understand. I don’t want to make you think badly of Colonel Duvierge – only to be careful. Lolya, he has no right to endanger you by asking for this correspondence! Don’t you see? It’s not the action of a man in love.’

‘Of course he loves me! He can’t live without me, that’s why he wants me to write to him!’ Lolya retorted.

‘A responsible man would never ask the woman he loved to do something that might compromise her. Don’t you understand that?’

‘It’s you who doesn’t understand! You don’t know anything about love! I thought you were different, but you’re just like the rest after all!’

‘Lolya, listen to me–’

‘I won’t hear any more. You’re just trying to poison me against him!’

‘Listen to me! It’s you I’m concerned with, and your safety! All the letters which leave from the post office in this city are opened and read by the Governor’s official. At least while you are in Moscow, you mustn’t write to Colonel Duvierge! Please, Lolya, try to understand! Even if the letter were the most innocent thing in the world, the very fact that you were writing to a senior member of the French Embassy would be considered a suspicious circumstance.’ Lolya regarded her sulkily, but said nothing. ‘Please, promise me you won’t write to him from here.’

There was a long silence, while Lolya’s pride fought with her basic common sense, and her old regard for Anne’s judgement.

‘Oh, very well,’ she said at last, ungraciously. ‘If it will stop you fussing.’

‘Thank you,’ Anne said quickly, feeling a rush of enormous relief. It was a concession; now she must turn her thoughts towards how to tackle the rest of the problem.

But the strain of the last few moments seemed to have affected her oddly: she felt her pulse beating fast all over her body, and her hands were cold and damp.

‘I think it’s very hard of you to lecture me,’ Lolya was grumbling, ‘considering I braved everyone’s opinion to come here and see you..’

Anne couldn’t listen to her. She felt rather sick, and the room seemed to be waxing and waning before her eyes. She put out a hand to Lolya, who suddenly seemed very far away, as if at the other end of a tunnel.

‘I don’t think–’ Anne began with difficulty; but a roaring drowned what she was going to say, and as Lolya’s surprised face turned towards her, for the first time in her life, Anne fainted.

The Emperor’s visit lasted six days, and during that time the patriotic fervour which was endemic to Moscow erupted into near-hysteria, which resulted in wealthy merchants accidentally pledging huge sums of roubles for the war effort, and wealthy dvoriane stripping their estates of serfs, and even their houses of servants, to provide a militia for the support of the regular troops and the defence of Moscow.

The Emperor, who had entered Moscow looking distinctly worried, left it with tears of gratitude. Deeply touched by the fervent loyalty of the Muscovites, who were traditionally rather cool and critical, his parting words to Governor Rostopchin were to give him authority to act in any way he thought fit, should Napoleon ever, inconceivably, reach the gates of Moscow. ‘Who can predict events? I rely on you entirely,’ he said, and drove away to visit his sister Catherine, Rostopchin’s patroness, at Tver on his way to St Petersburg.

Lolya’s visit to Moscow lasted three weeks, and Anne saw her often. The subject of Colonel Duvierge was hardly mentioned between them again. Lolya generously set aside their difference of opinion, and they had some very pleasant outings. Anne met Shoora several times out and about in public places, but she would not visit her in her home. Anne found this hurtful, but saw in it no malice, only the results of her upbringing under Vera Borisovna.

Anne and Lolya parted on good terms, with kisses and promises of seeing each other again soon, as Lolya left with her aunt and cousin to visit friends at their dacha in Podolsk, about twenty-five miles from Moscow.

Basil left Moscow at the same time, to attend a house party given by the Grand Duchess Catherine, with whom he was on very good terms. He took Rose, her god daughter, with him. Anne was invited, but declined in view of the fact that the theatre company, including Jean-Luc, had been invited to perform several plays for the guests during the stay. Anne pleaded ill health as an excuse which would not offend the Grand Duchess, and Basil, seeing that she did look rather pale and preoccupied, accepted it, and even offered some unexpectedly warm words of sympathy.

‘It’s probably only the heat,’ Anne said. ‘I shall be all right once the cooler weather begins.’

‘Why don’t you go down to the country?’ Basil said. ‘Moscow is impossible in August. Go down to the dacha at Fili.’

‘I might,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry about me. Take care of Rose – see she does her exercises.’

‘Of course I will.’

Left alone at Byeloskoye, Anne spent the first few days quietly, walking in the gardens, sitting under the deep shade of the old medlar, pondering her situation. It was different, of course, from last time: there was more of pleasure now, and less of apprehension – but still it was a matter for concern. There seemed, at least, no doubt about it this time. Apart from the fainting fit, she had felt nausea several times on waking in the morning, and a second flux had not begun when it was due. She must have conceived some time during her stay in Vilna in June.

But what to do about it was beyond her to decide. She was married to Basil Andreyevitch. To leave his official protection would place her outside society, and she had already tasted, in Shoora’s refusal to visit her, the aloes of being an outcast. Not only that, but it would bring shame on Rose and on the unborn child. She trusted Nikolai absolutely to take care of her in every physical and emotional way, but even his protection could not change the rules of society.

She could think of nothing to do, but to do nothing. Inside her body, the seed he had planted had begun to grow. She was with child to her love. For the moment, she wanted nothing but to enjoy it in sweet secrecy. Eventually some decision must be made, some action taken; but not now, not yet.

News came regularly from Nikolai. Tolly’s strategy of withdrawal was doing just what it was intended to do – slowing down Napoleon’s advance, weakening his forces and lowering their morale by harrying their flanks, and increasing day by day the problem of feeding and supplying the vast body of men he had brought with him into Russia.

After spending, inexplicably, more than two weeks at Vilna, Napoleon had left on the 16th of July and advanced north-east to Sventsiany, and then turned eastwards towards Vitebsk. He had marched his men fast through the terrible country: marshes into which they sank to the knees; dense forests of fir which scratched their faces and pulled at their clothes; bare roads where the dust rose so thick that the weary, hungry men could only find their way by following the sound of the drummer boys at the head of each section. By day the sun beat down mercilessly on men whose woollen uniforms had been designed for more temperate climates; by night fierce hailstorms beat down on their bivouacs, and the rapid changes of temperature brought on agues and lung sickness.

They marched so fast that their supply train was left far behind, and they had scant time to forage, even if there had been anything to find. But Tolly’s army was marching before them, stripping the country as it went. All the Grande Armée found was deserted, ruined villages; and those who strayed too far from the road in a desperate search for food were picked off by the Cossacks, or slaughtered by the few native Russians who remained in the woods and more distant hamlets.

Nikolai told her in his letters of the terrible sights he had seen along the roads. Horses had continued to die by the thousand: the road was lined with their corpses, and with sick and dying soldiers, abandoned field pieces, carts of equipment for which there were no longer teams to draw them. The French were losing men through dysentery, typhus, festering wounds, desertion, and sheer hunger and exhaustion.

Some of the stragglers we have picked up speak of such misery and disillusionment amongst the ranks, that I imagine many are dying simply because they have no desire to live. Hardly any are Frenchmen, and most seem not to understand why they are here at all. Napoleon is promising them all they need– food, rest, clothing – when they reach Vitebsk, and that gets them along a little. But by my estimates he must have lost half the force with which he crossed the Nieman. His numbers are still formidable – but they are only flesh and blood, which I think he sometimes forgets.

At Vitebsk the old argument for making a stand had been renewed amongst the Russian commanders, but Tolly’s first army had not yet been able to join up with Bagration’s second army, and so was still vastly outnumbered. The Russians quietly vacated the city during the night as the French approached, and withdrew towards Smolensk, leaving Napoleon to enter the next morning a city empty of inhabitants, save the very old and the very sick. Empty, also, of everything they needed – food, medical supplies, doctors, fodder for the horses.

Nevertheless, Napoleon remained there for more than two weeks, and Nikolai concluded in one of his letters that the French supremo was unsure how to proceed.

Prudence must make him realise that to advance further will only result in more loss. His advisers – Caulaincourt, at least – will try to persuade him to make Vitebsk his winter quarters, to consolidate his position and begin the campaign again next year. It remains to be seen what he will decide. We march on for Smolensk, and a rendezvous with Prince Bagration’s army there.

On August the 12th, Napoleon’s ambition evidently outweighed his adviser’s caution, for he left Vitebsk and continued the march eastwards towards Smolensk. Here the Russians made a stand, and on the 17th of August a battle was fought, resulting in heavy losses on both sides. When firing ceased at nightfall, the French had managed to take the suburbs, but the Russians still held the old city itself.

Now Prince Bagration was amongst them, the arguments for withdrawing no further and ‘finishing it’ here at Smolensk were advanced with great passion. Smolensk was an extremely holy city, and to abandon it would be close to blasphemy. The whole of Russia was smarting under the humiliation of this continuous retreat, he declared. History would never forgive them for having allowed the Corsican Bandit to penetrate so far into the heartland of Russia. Now was their chance to make amends, to prove what they were made of, to make an heroic stand, and write their names in letters of fire and blood on the pages of history!

It was splendid, stirring stuff, Nikolai wrote. I must tell you that as he spoke, I even found my own pulse responding. After all, the French had taken a heavy loss that day, to add to their undoubted losses on the march. And I longed – and do long still – to be freed from the necessity of this war, so that I can come home to you, dearest, and rest in your arms.

But then Tolly spoke up quietly, and pointed out that the old town, which was largely made of wood and had been set on fire by French artillery shells, was burning briskly around us, and that the streets were filled with corpses. More seriously, though we might have the bridges over the Dnieper under our control, there was a ford at Prudishevo three miles downstream, and it was only a matter of time before Napoleon’s scouts found it. Once they crossed the river, they would surround us, and our position would be hopeless.

So we evacuated the city during the night, burnt the bridges behind us, and withdrew down the Smolensk-Moscow High Road. We are now at Viazma, and I hear that Tolly is to be replaced as commander-in-chief by Kutuzov, who is being sent to us from St Petersburg by the Emperor himself. Poor Tolly takes it very hard; but / tell him that His Majesty is obliged to take some account of public opinion, which is as vociferous as it is uninformed. And Kutuzov is, at least, a soldier, so there may be some hope of guiding him rationally, if we can keep Bagration away from his right ear. We are to meet Kutuzov at Tsarevo on the 29th.

When Anne read that letter, she was roused out of her lethargy by a consuming loneliness and longing for him. She had been alone in the house now for ten days; parted from him for almost two months; and the crazy idea came to her that there was nothing to stop her from going to him. Tsarevo was about a hundred miles from Moscow, but the Smolensk-Moscow High Road was a good one, and she could be there, with fast travelling, in two days – and it would take the army at least two days to reach it from Viazma. She could be there at the same time as him! In two days she could see him again!

Well, why not, she argued with herself? People did travel with armies. Many wealthy, aristocratic officers travelled with an entire household, coaches and cooks and all the comforts of home. Prince Kutuzov lived like a pasha, with a tentful of dancing girls to soothe his brow at the day’s end.

But he was not like that, her conscience told her. Like the austere Tolly, he lived hard when on campaign. Her presence would be an embarrassment. He might even think it improper of her to have come.

Then she had a better idea. Basil owned a hunting-lodge, Koloskavets, in the wooded hills above Borodino, a village on the same road about seventy miles from Moscow. There was nothing in the least improper about going there, to her own husband’s property. He had told her to go out of Moscow into the country, hadn’t he? And with the entire Russian army between her and the French, it must be safe. Once there she could write to him, telling him where she was, and then he could make his own time for coming to see her.

In the face of such determination, the dissenting voice retired, and she jumped up and rang the bell for Pauline with her pulse leaping at the prospect of positive action, and the thought of seeing him again.

All along the road, at every stop, Anne heard the name of Kutuzov on every lip as that of his country’s saviour. The army had been retreating in the most cowardly way for months, and Napoleon had got scandalously near Moscow; but now Kutuzov had come, things would change. He would stand and fight the Monster, and beat him, and Russia would be saved! He was a true Russian – not like Tolly, who was really a German, and Bennigsen, who was a Swede. Prince Kutuzov was the real article, and a cunning old fox, and there was no need to fear that Napoleon would get any closer to Holy Moscow now than Tsarevo. Napoleon would find he had met his match at last.

Anne, who had met Kutuzov once, and knew quite a lot about him from hearsay, couldn’t help wondering at the faith that was invested in the fat, elderly, one-eyed sybarite; but still she found herself affected by it. She began to think that perhaps it would really all be over in a week or two. One good battle, and the men would come home!

At Mozhaisk, the next town before Borodino, a road from the south joined the Smolensk-Moscow High Road, and here her coachman had to hold back to allow a group of horsemen – Caucasus irregulars by the look of their dress and horses – to take the road ahead of them. She wondered vaguely if they were part of Sergei’s troop, and why they were scouting on this, the wrong side of the main army. They didn’t seem to have an officer with them. The man at the head of the troop was a Tartar in a leather cap trimmed with black sheepskin, wearing a striped surcoat over the glint of body armour; a tall man on a magnificent bay Khabardin, with crimson tassels and gold discs on its bridle.

He turned his head as he reached the turning and looked straight into the carriage window, straight into her eyes; and then waving his men past him with an imperious gesture, he turned his curvetting horse three times on the spot and drove it, against its better judgement, away from its companions and up to the carriage. He stooped from the saddle to look in through the window, his teeth bared in a savage smile, and the pearls in his ears quivering.

Pauline gave a little squeak of alarm and drew back, and Anne laughed, because the situation was so strangely familiar.

‘Amongst my people,’ he said, ‘there is a saying that where there have been two meetings, there must be a third, and that it will portend great things, for good or for ill. Twice have we met, English lady; and now I find you here, to meet a third time. May the Great One bless you.’

‘And you also, Akim Shan,’ Anne said. It was the most astonishing thing; and yet she didn’t feel at all surprised. Russia had done that much for her. ‘What are you doing here, with your men?’

‘We have come to fight the battle,’ he said with dignity. ‘We are Tartars, and the Russians have called a Tartar to lead them at last against the foe.’

‘You mean Prince Kutuzov?’

‘The one-eyed, yes. So we have answered the call.’

‘But this war is not your war,’ Anne said, mildly puzzled. ‘Why should you fight?’

He grinned. ‘Because life is for battle and glory. As long as a man can sit his horse and wield his sword, he will seek honour in the field of battle, and the victor’s spoil, and a noble death.’

‘The tiger’s death, and not the jackal’s?’ she said. He met her eyes keenly.

‘So, you remember! It is in my heart that I should have married you, whether you would or not.’

‘I should not have suited you,’ Anne said gravely. ‘So you have come all the way from the Caucasus?’

‘To make an end, yes. Many of our people have come – but you know this,’ he added, his eyes narrowing. ‘The fair one, who was not your husband, he took sixty men from Pyatigorsk of the Five Hills, and another twenty have since followed.’

‘Yes, I knew that.’

‘So, is it that you now go to be with him on the eve of battle?’ he asked with a hint of approval.

‘Not the fair one, but my husband,’ Anne said. Not for Akim Shan’s knowing, the complication of the issue. ‘I have a house in the hills near here, at Borodino, and I mean to wait for him there, and send word where I am, so that he can come to me if his duties give him the leisure.’

‘Who is he, this husband of yours?’ he asked suspiciously. Concealing a smile, Anne played the game gravely. ‘He is a great man, the right hand of the Emperor, and adviser to General Tolly, who was leader before Prince Kutuzov was called. His name is Count Kirov.’

Akim Shan’s eyes narrow still further. ‘I know this name. It is the name of the fair one who took the men from Pyatigorsk.’

‘The name is the same. It is the fair one’s father.’

Akim Shan considered for an instant, and then smiled with enlightenment. ‘Now I understand everything! And now I see that you are a powerful woman, as I knew when I first met you, and you would not sell me the black mare! But it is not fitting that you should ride alone in this way. I, Akim Shan Kalmuck, will escort you to the place you speak of; and then I shall myself take your message to your husband. Come, tell your men to drive on! I am a prince of my people, and if you live fifty years, you will never again have such an escort!’

‘I’m sure of it,’ Anne laughed. It didn’t seem possible now that anything would ever surprise her again.

On the night of August the 31st, Anne lay in the arms of her lover again. What did it matter if the blankets smelled rather damp, and the bed dipped spinelessly in the middle? Between her own sheets, which she had brought with her, she stretched in the luxury of being naked and feeling the touch of his skin against her own, and of knowing that they had the whole night and most of the next day to be together.

Koloskavets was a small stone house built on one of the rolling hills above Borodino. Behind it the dense, dark pine forests protected it from the north, and presumably supplied the game for whose sake it had originally been built. Before it a small terrace ended in a wall, below which the hillside fell away, down to the village and the Kolotcha River for which the house had been named, a winding watercourse which paralleled the Highway before turning northeast and emptying itself at last into the Moskva, the river on which Moscow was built.

Inside the house was fairly primitive, having been intended only for use during the summer months as a hunting-lodge. Its furniture was sparse and old-fashioned, but solid; the air struck rather chill and damp, despite the summer heat outside, and everything was inches thick in dust. An old couple, living in quarters at the back of the house, were there as caretakers, but it was many years since any member of the Tchaikovsky family had used Koloskavets, and they had ceased to bother very much about it.

Anne soon had all the windows opened, the furniture dusted, and the fires laid and lit to air the rooms; her own sheets put upon the beds, and her own food, from an ample hamper she had brought with her, put upon the table. It was not so bad, after all; and it was only for a short time, and living rough would not hurt her.

She had entrusted Akim Shan with a letter for Kirov, and hoped for an answer within a few days. What she got was better than that, for early in the afternoon of the 31st he arrived on horseback, accompanied by Adonis.

There was little of coherence spoken between them for the first hour or two. After witnessing the first silent joy of their meeting, Adonis took the horses and ushered the servants away, leaving them in privacy. After a few minutes, they retired by common consent to Anne’s bedchamber. It was what they both seemed to want most of all, and it didn’t seem wrong – only necessary, and the quickest way to restore their perfect communion, after the disruption of so many weeks.

They made love with the ease of accustomed lovers, and then lay for a while in each other’s arms without talking, simply savouring being together. Then they got up, and went out to sit on the terrace in the late sunshine and look at the view. Stenka and his wife Zina shuffled out with tea in a huge and ancient samovar from which the silver-gilt had rubbed brassily, accompanied incongruously by cups of the most exquisite, almost transparent Chinese porcelain.

While they drank their tea, Nikolai told her that he had not come from Tsarevo, but from Ghzatsk, a village half-way between Tsarevo and Borodino.

‘We arrived at Tsarevo early on the 29th, and Tolly gave orders for us to dig in. It was a good place to fortify – on rising ground, with a clear view in every direction. Everyone thought so. We’d got the men busy digging redoubts and strengthening the walls, and around noon Kutuzov arrived from Petersburg. Bennigsen was with him – they met on the road – and Kutuzov had already asked him to be his chief of staff. But as soon as he arrived he told Tolly he wanted him to remain as commander of the first army, and Minister for War.’

‘Well, that’s something. It must have soothed poor Tolly’s pride a little.’

‘A very little, I suppose. The trouble is that Kutuzov brought with him a huge headquarters staff of the sons of aristocrats, the very hot-headed young know-nothings that Tolly’s been at pains to eliminate over the past months. We shall have our work cut out to counteract that influence.’

‘Everyone’s been talking about Kutuzov as though he’s a saviour,’ Anne said. ‘In Mozhaisk they thought the war was as good as won.’

‘He’s very popular with the peasantry,’ Nikolai shrugged. ‘When he made the round of inspection, the men were all overjoyed, and cheered themselves hoarse over him. They think he’s one of them you see, because he dresses like an Old Russian, and talks their language. He has a way of delivering short, pithy sentences in soldier’s Russian that goes straight to their hearts.’

The breeze whispered through the pine trees, and the shadow of a fast-moving cloud ran across them. For a moment it was quite cool. Autumn was coming; Anne could smell it in the breeze, a smell of ending and turning towards sleep. She shivered, and turned towards her lover for comfort.

‘So what did the great hero do when he arrived?’

‘He didn’t do very much, just listened and nodded, inspected everything, praised quite a bit. We had a meeting at headquarters, and Tolly explained the situation and the advantages of defending Tsarevo, and the old man said he agreed, and that as far as he could see everything was very well thought out, and the work that had been started should proceed.’

‘He came meaning to placate, then?’

‘So it seemed. Tolly was pleased about it, as you can imagine. However, the next day various members of his suite apparently took Kutuzov’s ear, and told him that it was humiliating for him to accept a battle site chosen by someone else; and that if things went well, half the credit would go to Tolly and not to him.’

‘Oh, no, but surely–’ Anne protested.

Nikolai shrugged. ‘They must have persuaded him. Yesterday afternoon he suddenly announced that we were to abandon Tsarevo and take up a new position on the other side of Ghzatsk. Tolly was furious – all that work wasted, and a good position abandoned! We moved out during the night, and this morning when we got to Ghzatsk, Tolly said there would be nothing important for me to do while the men were digging in again, and that I might as well make use of the lull to come and see you.’

‘How kind of him! So he knew I was here?’

‘He was with me when your Tartar Prince delivered your letter the day before yesterday.’

Anne told him how she had met up with Akim Shan. ‘I hope General Tolly welcomed him. He’s come a long way to fight.’

‘Oh, Tolly knew his value all right. He’s got him and his men out on the Smolensk road bringing in regular reports on the French movements. He told him when the battle began, he could join Ataman Platov’s regiment of Cossacks, but your prince rather turned up his nose at that, and told Tolly very grandly that he would choose for himself where to fight.’

‘Poor Tolly.’

‘Yes. I don’t think he quite knew how to take that. He asked me afterwards if Akim Shan could be trusted, and when I told him that he could trust him perfectly, since he hated the French far more than the Russians, he looked quite put out.’ Those were the things they spoke of in the afternoon, as the sun of the last day of August sank bloodily in the west. Supper was brought to them on the terrace, and they ate by lamplight, served by Adonis, who wouldn’t let anyone else, not even Pauline, come near them. After supper there was nothing they wanted more than to go to bed. They made love again, slowly, almost pensively; and then, lying in the candlelight in each other’s arms, they talked of other things.

‘I couldn’t believe it when I read your letter. I thought my imagination must be playing tricks on me – it happens sometimes when you’re very tired. I wanted to saddle my horse right then and come to you.’ He sighed, holding her close. ‘It’s been a long two months.’

‘Yes,’ she said. She had seen how long in his face. There was far more grey now in his hair, and his eyes were shadowed with more than weariness. ‘I almost didn’t come. I thought you might think I was a nuisance.’

‘Why did you come? You couldn’t have known it would be in my power to visit you.’

‘I hoped, that’s all.’

She was cradled safe in his arms; and his child was cradled safe in her womb. For a moment it was in her mind to tell him, but the thought of all he had before him deterred her. His being here, though for her the whole purpose of life, was for him only an interlude between worries more pressing than she could imagine, and probably more real to him at the moment than she was. No, this was not the time. A better time would come, when this could be the most important thing in the world for both of them.

‘What is it?’ he asked, feeling her preoccupation.

‘I’ve missed you so much,’ was all she said.

‘And I you. I thought of you often, imagined you safely in Moscow, shopping in the Kuznetsky Most, seeing the play at the Grand Theatre, riding in the park. It pleased me to know you were safe, and far from the terrible things I was witnessing.’

No, she thought, this was not the time.

‘Will there really be a battle now?’ she asked at last.

‘Yes, I think so. It’s time. The French are greatly weakened, and our numbers are almost even now.’

‘And then will it be over?’

He didn’t answer for a while. ‘I don’t know. If it were anyone but Napoleon. He is three months from the border, and winter will be here before three months are up. Caution, common sense, should have turned him back before now; but he still comes on. I don’t know if it’s in him to withdraw. When we fight, we will have to beat them thoroughly enough to convince even him. I don’t know if we can. His soldiers are skilled in war, with experienced commanders. Ours are only very strong and very determined. It could go either way.’

She pressed closer. ‘You will – be careful?’ she said, feeling a little ashamed even as she asked it of him. Men’s pride was different from women’s. Women saw no point in being heroic and dead – far better to live to fight another day.

He smiled – she felt the curve of his cheek move against hers. ‘Don’t worry, I shall be well out of the way, at Kutuzov’s elbow. Great generals and their staff command from the rear, you know! Except Napoleon – though perhaps even he may be cautious this time, having more to lose. Perhaps we can send the Cossacks after him. The French have a mortal dread of the Cossacks – even the word has taken on power, like some evil incantation!’

‘The Cossacks seem to have a great respect for Kutuzov.’

‘Yes, they feel he’s one of them. They like Bagration, too – and I’ve heard one or two approving comments on young Captain Kirov.’

‘Have you seen Sergei since – since Vilna?’

‘Oh yes, of course. He reports to me in Tolly’s absence.’ He sighed. ‘It’s very hard to have your own son look at you as though you’re a stranger. I can see, from his point of view… and yet, I don’t know what else we could have done.’

‘Nothing,’ she said. And there was nothing either of them could have done to protect Sergei from his fate, from what happened in the mountains of the Caucasus. ‘He’ll get over it, in time,’ she added, not because she believed it, but because she hoped it, and wanted to comfort him.

‘I pray when all this is over he’ll come to understand. I’ll spend time with him, get to know him. I never really knew him you know. It seems to be the fate of males of our class. I never knew my father either – though of course he died when I was quite young. I should have taken more trouble with Sergei. He was away from me too much while he was growing up. His grandmother spoiled him. And then–’

There seemed nothing more to say on that – nothing that was safe. Anne’s mind wandered on over a number of thoughts, alighting here and there and moving on again restlessly. When at last she drew breath to open a new subject, she heard the small but unmistakeable sound of a snore. His mental excitement had worn off at last, and he had fallen into the profound sleep of the exhausted.

The next morning, Sunday the 1st of September, Kirov woke early out of force of habit, and for a moment lay in a daze, not knowing where he was. The familiar feeling of dread which had attended every waking for two months past was overlaid by another sensation he could not yet identify; and then Anne moved slightly, and memory flooded back. She was there beside him, warm and smooth and sweet-smelling, everything that was soft and feminine and alive: the antipathy of war, which was cold and dirt and waste, and the stupidity of death.

The very fact of her presence seemed to throw the hatefulness of the campaign into sharp relief: six hundred miles of road lined with dead horses and dying men; with villages destroyed and burned, green fields churned into raw wounds of mud and debris; rivers polluted, crops trampled; towns that had been happy and industrious left for wrecks, filled only with beggars and with the sick and the wounded, dying of typhus and gangrene. And for what? So that one man might add another empty title to his collection.

With the restlessness of suffering, he turned on his side towards Anne. He reached out to touch her, ran his hand over her smooth flank, across her gently convex belly, up to the soft heaviness of her breasts. The two conditions, of war and peace, rested side by side in his mind, equally real – or was it equally unreal? Slaughter and mud and destruction, the campaign, the world of men; and the sleeping woman beside him, the wholeness of her unblemished skin, the scent of her clean hair.

He was aware that she was smooth and young and sweet, while he was gaunt and grey and weary. After months on campaign he didn’t even smell clean any more. How could she lie with him and love him? How could he put aside what he had witnessed and love her? Could anything ever be the same again? But which was the reality – the palace from which she came, or the muddy tent where he had spent his last night? Here, this place, was a kind of half-way house, a compromise between the two worlds – and perhaps it was the only reality.

His moving hand had woken her, she was turning towards him, soft and sleep-hot and wanting him. His body responded to her automatically with a weary surge of desire, as if in the middle of death it were desperate to create life. He wished he could do that one thing – make something new and good in the middle of this desolation. If he could leave her quickened, he might leave her with less despair. He stretched over her, entered her, and she moved to meet him, receiving him readily, taking him into her. He held her in his arms, but he felt separated from her. His mind stood apart, knowing he loved her without being able to feel it. She smiled and curved under him, still half asleep, murmuring with pleasure; he mated her because he needed to.

And afterwards he wondered if he had succeeded, and then thought that it was a foolish thing to have done, because there would be no knowing until long after the battle whether she were pregnant or not. They slept again, and when they woke the second time she smiled at him and he kissed her, and Anne saw that he had already left her, that the campaign was more real to him than her, and that he had gone back to it. What was left was just the shell.

Before they had finished breakfast, Adonis came in to say that a messenger had come from General Tolly, recalling Kirov to duty at once. There had been a disagreement over the new site at Ghzatsk almost as soon as the men had begun digging in. General Bennigsen complained that it was impossible to hold, and that it had a wood in the middle of it, and Tolly, still angry over the abandoning of the position at Tsarevo, asked him tautly whether he had anything better to suggest.

Bennigsen had retorted that while travelling in his carriage between Mozhaisk and Ghzatsk he had noted several splendid places, which might have been created for the sole purpose of fighting battles. The doubtful Kutuzov had been persuaded: another move was ordered. The Russian army was once again withdrawing along the Smolensk-Moscow High Road, and Kirov’s presence was urgently needed to ride out and inspect some of these ‘ideal’ battlegrounds and report back to the commander-in-chief on their suitability.

‘I must go,’ Nikolai said. ‘I will send you word when I can.’

‘At least you are moving nearer to me,’ she said lightly.

‘Anna, I may not be able to come again. You had better go back to Moscow.’

‘Not yet,’ she said. ‘I will go when I must, but not yet. Don’t worry about me, Nikolasha – I’ll take care of myself, and not put myself in danger. But I’ll be here, in case you are able to come again.’

He nodded, a frown of thought already between his brows, and kissed her absently, and went, almost with relief; his body following where his mind had already gone.

Site of the Battle of Borodino

Chapter Twenty-Nine

On the 2nd of September, the caravan of coaches and riders which was General Kutuzov’s suite rolled through sleepy Borodino and on up the mile-long slope to the village of Gorky, where it stopped. This was the ‘ideal battleground’ settled on by General Bennigsen. It was far, Kirov thought, from ideal: hillocky, lightly wooded, dissected by the now mainly dry gullies of numerous streamlets, rising to steep hills above Gorky in the north, and descending to marshy forest around the village of Utitsa in the south.

Borodino itself, a small town – hardly more than an overgrown village, really – with its distinctive twin-towered church and white-painted houses, sat beside the single wooden bridge spanning the Kolotcha River, which ran parallel with the Smolensk-Moscow High Road until swinging north-east under this bridge and winding away to empty itself at last into the Moskva.

Utitsa lay about two and a half miles south of Borodino, on the old post road which ran parallel to the new Highway, joining up with it further towards Moscow at Mozhaisk. This old road constituted another drawback to the situation: there was a serious danger that Napoleon might use it to bypass and surround the Russians, unless it were well defended.

Whatever Prince Kutuzov thought of the site, having listened to the reports of his chiefs of staff, he announced at last that this was where they would make their stand. Perhaps, Kirov thought, he felt he could not reasonably retreat any further towards Moscow, which was now only seventy-five miles away. he knew, was still bitter about their having abandoned that position; to Kirov he made several stinging remarks at Bennigsen’s expense about how easy this wooded and gullied area would be to defend.

As the regiments marched up, they were deployed over the ground to start preparing fortifications. The French were three or four days behind them on the road, with the Russian rearguard under General Miloradovich and the Cossack skirmishers between them and the main Russian force. Sergei’s scouts brought in reports every few hours on their position and condition. Further back along the route there was persistent cold rain, which was turning the roads into a quagmire. The French, with their exhausted, half-starved horses, were finding the going heavy.

As he rode about the chosen battlefield during the first day, relaying orders, reconnoitring, directing the arriving troops to their stations, Kirov glanced up from time to time at the hills above Borodino, and thought how ironic it was that this should have been the chosen place. From the terrace of Koloskavets, one would have a clear, if distant view of the whole battle. There he had known his last peace and pleasure; it was the place he had thought of as the only reality between the two opposing worlds; and at its feet, like a sacrifice, the battle would be laid.

He couldn’t see the house clearly with his naked eye – just a fleck of grey against the dark green of the trees. Plainly, she must leave now, go back to Moscow. As soon as he had a moment, he would send Adonis to her with a message – no time to write a letter – telling her that he would meet her again in Moscow when it was all over.

On the 3rd of September, the first of the militiamen promised by Moscow arrived – a motley band of serfs armed only with pikes, but they were strong and docile, and were set to useful work digging trenches and raising earthworks. It was fortunate that they had several days in hand before the French would arrive, for there was a great deal to be done to prepare the defences.

A mile in front of the Russian line, and roughly in the centre, the hamlet of Shevardino sat upon a small hillock. The peasant inhabitants, already so alarmed by the arrival of the army that they had brought their goats and milch cows into their houses for safety, were moved out and sent on their way to join other refugees on the road to Moscow. The hamlet was then raised to the ground to give a clear field of fire, and the hillock fortified by earthworks into a redoubt. This would be the forward defence, intended to slow the French advance, and break the back of any initial charge.

Behind it, the main battle-front stretched roughly from Borodino to Utitsa, between the two roads. The centre of the line, where the seventh corps under General Rayevsky was stationed, was dominated by a hummock, which Tolly ordered to be fortified into another redoubt. The whole of the left wing was to be defended by the eighth corps under Prince Bagration, and Kirov noted with alarm how thinly spread the men were over this, the largest area of the battlefield. The right wing, which had the natural defences of the Kolotcha River and the hills, had by far the greater density of men; Bagration’s left wing was on largely open ground.

It wasn’t until the next day that Tolly had time to visit the left wing of the battlefield, and he saw at once what had alarmed Kirov. For once Bagration saw eye to eye with his old enemies Tolly and Kirov: the openness of the ground and the proximity of the old post road would make this wing very hard to hold without more reinforcements. Bennigsen, of course, was automatically against anything that Tolly was for; but after heated arguments he agreed to send over militiamen to begin the construction of three flèches on the left wing. As to reinforcements – the old post road, he said, would be perfectly adequately defended by the roving Cossack regiments. Napoleon was bound to approach by the High Road – probably he did not even know the old post road existed.

The work continued all through the day; when darkness fell, the earthworks were still not finished. Kirov was sent out by Prince Kutuzov to make a general round and report on morale, and as he rode along the line, he noted again how unevenly the forces were distributed. On the right wing, Tolly’s own command, on the hill around Gorky, there was heavy artillery and solid earthworks; woods had been cut back, and the village of Novoye Syelo had been completely destroyed to leave the field of fire clear.

To the rear, in the woods, the second and third corps were stationed as reserves. Here he met young Lieutenant Felix Uspensky, Kira’s affianced, to whom he spoke a few words. Uspensky had the sort of very fair skin that showed clearly every movement of his blood; and he blushed deeply at receiving the personal attention of such a great man.

‘Your wedding is planned for November, I understand?’ Kirov added kindly as he was about to leave.

‘Yes, sir – that is, if the war is over by then.’

Kirov nodded. ‘If we don’t finish Napoleon off, the Russian winter will,’ he said lightly, and Uspensky felt emboldened to smile at what was obviously a joke.

‘We will beat them, won’t we, sir?’ he said, and what began as a statement mutated even as he spoke into a question.

Kirov looked at him with amused sympathy.

‘Are you afraid, Lieutenant?’

‘No, sir,’ Uspensky said promptly; and then, responding to the smile in the eyes, more hesitantly, ‘Yes, sir.’

Kirov smiled. ‘Good. Only a fool wouldn’t be afraid, and I shouldn’t like my niece to marry a fool.’

‘No, sir.’

‘Of course, you never show fear to your men – they expect you to be more than human. That’s what you’re there for. And hiding it from them helps you hide it from yourself.’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Uspensky, and his eyes were shining with hero worship now. ‘I understand, sir.’

Kirov began to find it a little embarrassing, and with a kindly nod, mounted his horse and rode on. It did not seem so very long ago that he was Uspensky’s age, he thought wryly; now he was old enough to be regarded by him as a hero.

On the slope above the main battle area he paused and looked down. The bivouac fires were burning yellow and gold all across the plain, and around them the regular troops were polishing the buttons and boots of their best uniforms in preparation for the great day. Under the admiring eyes of the militiamen, they sang satisfyingly mournful songs, and boasted of the drunken nights they would enjoy in Moscow after the victory. Kirov felt a brief spasm of pity for them. Conscription to the ranks was for life: this war had brought them far from their home villages, which, win or lose, they would never see again. The regiment was now their home, and cold comfort that must be.

He turned his gaze upwards towards the hills, where so lately he had rested in Anne’s arms. She must be safely away by now, he thought, and that was his cold comfort: the selfish part of him wanted her near. He thought briefly about making love with her, and shivered. Those thoughts were best not indulged in now; but afterwards, he thought, afterwards he was going to retire from public service – definitely retire this time – and dedicate the rest of his life to selfish pleasure. When this was over, he never wanted to go further from home than the boundaries of his estate.

Anne had watched the regiments marching up, watching with a mixture of anxiety and ironic amusement as they deployed themselves across the plain below her. So it was to be here, then, the battle for Russia! She felt a painful kind of excitement which made her stomach flutter. Since Vilna, nearly three months ago, everyone in Russia – perhaps everyone in the world – had been waiting for the clash between these two great forces; now it was to be here, in this very place! Borodino – an utterly unimportant little country town on a sleepy and sluggish little river, where nothing had ever happened, probably, in its entire history, more serious than a petty theft or a drunken tavern brawl. Now chance had marked it out for fame. She was going to witness history in the making. The prospect was terrifying, and yet exhilarating. Not for anything would she abandon her post now.

She expected some protest or rebellion from her servants, and eyed them cautiously as they watched the troops marching up; but they seemed to feel safe, or at least detached from the scene down below. Stenka and Zina, indeed, hardly cast a glance that way when their duties brought them on to the terrace. They had lived in this house all their lives, and it would never cross their minds to leave it. If the French had marched right in here, they would have effaced themselves, endured what came, and simply waited with peasant stoicism for the invaders to leave so that they could resume their lives.

Adonis came to deliver the Count’s message, which was the expected one – that she should leave at once for a place of safety. She received it with outward docility, nodded obediently as though she were already packed and poised to leave; but when she met Adonis’s eye, she saw that he knew she would not go.

‘What will you tell him?’ she asked, half anxious, half defiant.

‘Nothing, now,’ he said. ‘It would do no good to worry him. Let him think you are safe away. If the need arises, I will tell him you are here.’

They regarded each other steadily for a moment, and then Anne’s hands unclenched. ‘Thank you,’ she said simply. ‘You are a good friend to him – and to me.’

He shrugged. ‘We both serve him in our own ways.’ He looked around. ‘You’ll be safe enough here, unless from deserters – it’s too high and too far for the battle or the wounded. Have you a gun?’

Her eyebrows rose, but she said, ‘There is a gun room. This used to be a hunting lodge.’

Adonis grunted. ‘Take me there. Deserters on the run are usually desperate fellows. I had better show you how to load and fire a gun, just in case.’

‘Oh, but I–’

‘I have to be able to face him, if he is angry with me for not making you go. When he is angry with me,’ he amended indifferently.

‘You could not make me. It is not your responsibility.’

‘He will know that, afterwards. But I will show you all the same.’

When he had gone, she had called her male servants together – coachman, groom and footman – and asked if any of them knew how to handle a gun. They all said they did; and after a brief pause, the coachman asked diffidently whether the French would come here.

‘No. It is too far from the road. But there may possibly be deserters on the run,’ she said, eyeing them cautiously. This was the moment, she thought, when their fears would surface.

But they had nodded calmly, and the coachman had said, ‘We can frighten them off all right, Barina. Don’t be afraid.’

‘No,’ she said, enormous relief vying with gratitude for their quiet loyalty. ‘No, I’m not afraid.’

Early in the morning of the 5th of September the sound of gunfire was heard from the direction of the Gzhatsk – presumably a clash between the advancing French and Miloradovich’s rearguard. Shortly afterwards the Cossack detachment came cantering over the brow of the hill, and after them the rearguard, retreating at a quick march to withdraw behind the safety of the Russian lines.

Within minutes, the French advance guard – General Murat’s famous cavalry – appeared over the last rise and halted at the sight of the Russians drawn up below them. There was a stirring in the Russian ranks – for some of them, it was the first sight they had had of the enemy before whom they had been withdrawing for three months. Evidently the French felt something of the same interest: faintly on the breeze they could be heard cheering, and there was a flash in the sun as Murat himself drew his sword and held it aloft in a challenging salute.

The Russians replied with a roar. Loudest of all cheered the Cossacks, who, as part of the rearguard, had had a great deal of contact with Murat, whom they always referred to by his title of King of Naples. They had an exaggerated respect for him. His daring and courage in the face of the enemy was legendary; they liked his flamboyant, colourful clothing, his horsemanship, the way he was always to the front of his men, and the last to withdraw. He was like themselves, they thought, and they had agreed privately that if he was captured by them, he was not to be killed.

All day the French troops marched up, and were disposed across the field, while the Russian commanders observed them through field glasses, noting happily the depth of mud on their trousers and the thinness of their horses, and noting unhappily the still-huge number of them. The sun began to slide down the afternoon sky, dipping behind the clouds on the horizon, throwing them into dark relief, so that they stretched like tattered, smoke-blackened banners over the sunset sky, their edges rimmed in liquid fire. It was a sky of portent, Kirov thought; and then smiled at himself. Any kind of sky would have been portentous, when two armies finally took position for battle within sight of each other.

Towards sunset, while the French rearguard was still marching up, Napoleon ordered the first attack, by a division of artillery and two of infantry, on the Russian forward position, the Shevardino redoubt. A tense hush fell across the main body of the Russian army as the French artillery peeled off and formed a line behind which the two columns marched steadily forward towards the redoubt. It was a silence of nervous tension, yet there was pleasure in it too, that at last the waiting was over. Suddenly the French field pieces spat fire, and sprays of earth shot upwards into the golden afternoon air; the guns of the redoubt boomed in answer, the sound echoing flatly off the hills; and the hillock disappeared behind a pall of smoke.

After the long wait to get to grips with each other, both sides fought furiously. Roundshot was loaded on top of cannonball, and the advancing French infantry fell in hundreds; the French loaded their field pieces with grapeshot and poured death into the Russian ranks. The redoubt had been hastily and inexpertly constructed, and the cannon were so mounted that they could not swivel, limiting their field of fire. As dusk fell, the French outflanked the redoubt, firing into the Russian ranks defending from the rear; a bayonet charge followed, the Russians were driven back, and the redoubt was taken.

It was a blow to pride, to see the Russian musketmen scrambling back to the line; but the redoubt by that time was filled with dead bodies and dismounted guns, its earthworks so severely battered that its usefulness was now minimal to either side. Nevertheless, the fiery Prince Bagration, unable to bear so early a reversal, or to allow the French first blood, on his own initiative marched a division of his grenadiers up to attack, and after another bloody interlude, drove the French out of the redoubt they had just possessed.

The sun had long set. In the twilight the French threw in another division, and in increasing darkness, made still darker by the smoke, the battle was renewed. It became almost impossible to tell friend from foe in the hand-to-hand struggle in the darkness; completely impossible for anyone even a hundred yards away to tell what was going on. Both sides seemed to have been seized by fighting madness; neither would yield, and as more and more men fell, it seemed that the battle would go on all night. At last, at ten o’clock, Kutuzov sent Colonel Toll to Bagration to order him to give up what was by now in any case a useless position, and leave the redoubt in the hands of the French. Reluctantly, Bagration obeyed; the firing thinned out and ceased, and the Russians fell back.

During the night, Kutuzov sent Tolly and Kirov round the lines, counting divisions and making an estimate of the cost of the first action. Their calculations were depressingly high. Helped by Prince Bagration’s freakish humour, they had lost six thousand men dead and wounded, as well as the eight heavy guns, which could now be used against them. It seemed a high price to pay for pride. Bagration stuck out his jaw and refused to defend himself, renewing the argument instead for reinforcements on his wing, especially for the defence of the old post road.

Kutuzov yielded, and sent Colonel Kirov to General Tuchkov with orders to take his eight thousand men of the third corps down to the rear of Utitsa. Young Uspensky, Kirov thought as he rode towards the reserves’ position, was going to see action sooner than he had expected.

Anne heard the firing begin, and hurried out on to the terrace to look down. She saw the columns of the French advancing, heard the stirring trumpet calls, and even, tiny and far away, the ant-soldiers’ cheers. When the guns fired, the tiny figures collapsed and tumbled down the slopes of the redoubt, and more took their place. It was hard to remember that they were real men, bleeding and dying amongst the lengthening shadows.

Soon smoke from the guns obliterated the scene. As darkness fell there was nothing to be seen but the orange flashes from the gunmouths, which occasionally silhouetted some soldier in his moment of personal drama. The cannon-fire sounded heavy and flat, like doors being continuously slammed; the musket fire prickled the darkness with a pattering sound.

Pauline came out to her to try to persuade her to come in, for it was cold and beginning to drizzle, but she could not bring herself to move. Why did they go on fighting? Surely they could not fight the entire battle in darkness? She had always understood that battles ceased at sundown. Pauline came out again with a cloak, but Anne did not even notice its being draped round her shoulders. Only when the firing tailed off and finally stopped did she become aware she was cold and hungry; but still she waited, needing to know what had happened, not knowing how she could come by that knowledge.

But as the smoke slowly cleared from the valley, the bivouac fires became visible like the stars coming out, pinpricks of still light in the blackness, spreading across the valley and up the hillside. There seemed a comfortingly large number of them. Of the Shevardino redoubt she could see nothing. It lay in the blackness between the two armies, and the dead needed no cooking-fire. She wouldn’t think of that: she fixed her mind instead on the Russian soldiers cooking soup and buckwheat porridge in their bivouacs, and smoking their pipes and telling stories. The fires said that everything was still all right.

The cloak round her shoulders was dewed with rain. She shivered suddenly, and went in to supper and to bed.

The next morning, Friday the 6th of September, she was up early. She thought that the battle would probably begin at dawn; she dressed herself hastily without waiting for Pauline, and hurried out into the grey morning with her hair still hanging loose down her back. But all was quiet. Down below, there were the orange points of cooking-fires, their smoke rising in faint ribbons in the damp air. There were movements in the horse lines as the troopers tended their animals; small domestic comings and goings amongst the infantry lines. As the sun came up, it caught and flashed on stacked bayonet tips, glowed on the polished bronze of mute gun barrels. The sun alone seemed to have any sense of urgency.

She turned her eyes to the French camp, and saw similar activity. But there was one person riding from place to place on a white horse, and she wondered if that were Napoleon himself, inspecting his lines – the whole world knew of his predilection for white horses. She remembered him as she had seen him in Paris, the cold piercing eyes which his smile never touched. She reached into herself for some burning hatred to throw out at him, as if she might curse him from on high like an old Roman deity; but she felt nothing for him. The scene below was like something in a theatre: a story whose ending she wanted to know. It was not real life.

There was no battle. Throughout the day the two armies sat facing each other, and went on with their preparations, as if they knew in some way that it was not to be today. Some common consent seemed to invest them – as swallows will gather through a series of autumn days, and then fly all at once on one day no different, to the observer, from its predecessors.

Saturday, the 7th of September, Anne came out on to the terrace before sunrise, and saw the whole valley filled with white fog. The air was chill, the grass silver-grey with a heavy dew. She thought of the soldiers, waking on the hard earth to find their blankets heavy with it; the patient tethered horses, their thick manes beaded as if sewn with pearls, their sweet breath smoking on the cold air. She imagined them stirring, shifting from foot to foot and shaking themselves as the camp came slowly awake. Someone would rake up the cooking-fire embers, shivering as the thought of warmth made the dawn seem chillier; a twig thrust into the red and fluttering heart would suddenly bloom a golden crocus flame. The first troopers, stretching their stiff legs, banging their cold hands together, would go towards the horses; someone would chirrup, and a ripple would pass down the line: heads turning, pricked ears and soft whickers of eagerness as they looked for their morning feed.

He would be there, too, waking chilled under a blanket on his army cot; feeling the first morning stiffness of limbs, his old campaigner’s mind waking before his body. Would he think of her? Perhaps for an instant, just once, before a thousand preoccupations, discarded for the brief night’s sleep, crowded in on him. Adonis would come into his tent with hot water for shaving, bringing the damp smell of fog with him. She envied Adonis briefly and passionately for being able to be with him and useful to him; she was jealous of their man’s intimacy which gave Adonis a place where she could not be.

The sun began to rise, turning the white fog to gold; down below bugles began to sound reveille, like cocks crowing defiantly in the dawn, challenging and answering from one invisible camp to the other. The mist began to thin and disperse and streaks of dark green appeared through it, as it caught and tore like gauze on the branches of the trees. The sun rose, golden and lovely, lifting effortlessly into the pale morning sky. The last of the mist was sucked up, revealing the amphitheatre below; a little steam rose from the ground as the night’s dew evaporated in the growing warmth. It was going to be a fine day, she thought.

Below on the plain, breakfast was over. In each of the opposing armies, the company commanders formed up their men to read to them the Orders for the Day, the last words of good cheer from their Caesars to those who were going to die.

Pauline came out and stood beside Anne, her fingers tucked under her armpits, her arms clasping her body. The sun had not yet come round: it was still cold on the terrace in the shadow of the trees. Anne wondered it the significance of the scene below would be apparent to her; but after a moment Pauline said, ‘Les pauvres! Voila la bêtise des hommes, madame.’

Pauline had no vested interest in the outcome of the conflict: whichever side lost, she did not win.

‘C’est plutôt leur faiblesse,’ Anne said with sympathy.

The first shots were fired at six o’clock. Two divisions of French infantry attacked Borodino itself, which was held by an elite Russian Jaeger regiment of light infantry. Taken by surprise, the Jaegers were driven back, and soon were retreating up the hill towards Gorky. The French, cheered by the easy victory, unwisely went in pursuit, streaming after them with yells of excitement. General Tolly was watching the events on horseback from the higher ground and saw the chance. He turned the Jaegers who, with the advantage of the slope now in their favour, mounted a bayonet charge whose momentum cut the French down helplessly.

But battle had now been joined in the centre, on the plain between the two roads. The most tremendous crash signalled the beginning of the battle between the opposing artillery forces. Cannon spoke, and cannon answered; roar followed flash, palls of bitter black smoke roiled upwards, as though the earth had erupted in volcanic violence. The crashes became almost continuous, so that it was impossible to distinguish one gun’s boom from another; and the noise was intolerable, blotting out thought itself.

This was a new kind of warfare, never seen before: a static battle between brazen monsters, bellowing their defiance, vomiting flame and iron, dealing death on an unprecedented scale; terrible in its inhumanity. Kirov and the other staff commanders watched from the high ground in grim silence. The smoke which covered the scene seemed almost genial, in masking this ultimate madness of mankind from human eyes.

Bagration’s left flank was under attack now from French infantry. Only the right flank, protected by the hills, was still standing by. A further threat was developing along the lines Bennigsen had dismissed as nonsense: Napoleon’s Polish regiments were coming up the old post road, and working their way round through the woods to the south to capture Utitsa, and outflank Bagration’s front.

Lieutenant Felix Uspensky had been sitting on his horse in front of his men for two hours now, trying to keep his mind off the things that might happen to him. He had never been fired at before, having only lately come from cadet school. He had joined the regiment from the reserves only at Tsarevo, and his uniform was still fresh and new and clean, unlike those of the officers who had come all the way from Vilna. When he had first tried it on, it had seemed splendid in its newness, and he had longed to show it to Kira in its pristine state. Now it seemed shameful to be so spotless; he felt his inexperience keenly. But whatever happened, he thought, he would not let his fear show to his men; he would not let his father or Colonel Kirov down.

His father had given him his horse, Svetka, for his last birthday. Uspensky reached forward and stroked the gleaming chestnut neck. Svetka was a pure-bred Arabian, the most beautiful creature Felix had ever seen, and he loved her more than anyone in the world – more, he thought guiltily, even than Kira. The sun cleared the hill behind him, warming his back, and Svetka, who was being remarkably patient, shifted her weight from one foot to the other and sighed a deep groaning horse sigh that made him smile.

He suddenly thought how lucky he was to be here, with his beautiful mare, on such an important day. It would be a thing to tell his children one day, (and his transparent skin blushed involuntarily at the thought of having children with Kira), that he had fought against Napoleon at the famous battle of Borodino. Perhaps he would do something tremendously brave, and the Emperor would give him a medal. That would be a nice thing to show his son one day.

He reached up and touched his untried blonde moustache, which Lolya had admired, and of which he was proud and doubtful in almost equal proportions. He wondered if the hair tonic that his father used on his scalp would make it grow faster.

Suddenly the woods in front of him were seething with movement. He jerked out of his daydream. Svetka waltzed sideways and back, and then Poniatowski’s famous and battle-hardened Poles on their fierce little horses came roaring out of the trees directly towards him. Everything in his body seemed to drop two feet downwards like a stone, leaving him cold and empty and weak; but it was an officer’s business never to show fear before his men. He knew that.

‘Come on!’ he shrieked, kicking Svetka forward. She squealed in surprise – he had kicked harder than he meant – and sprang, almost unseating him as he fumbled for his sabre. His men roared approval and surged forward in his wake. Not Frenchmen, he found himself thinking, but Poles! Still, they were the enemy too. Poles, not Frenchmen. There was horse artillery, he noticed, and he felt a thrill of fear, but distantly, almost as if it belonged to someone else.

He was still yards before the enemy line when their field pieces spoke; he saw their round black mouths spurt flame, and was aware of his men going down on all sides like ninepins. Then he felt Svetka slew sideways under him, her legs going out cleanly from under her as she was shot dead through the heart by enemy musket fire. He tried to kick his foot out of the stirrup, had time for one panicking thought as she fell: ‘–mustn’t get trapped underneath–!’

Then there was an explosion so close it seemed to be right inside his head, an explosion that was also pain.

‘–loud!’ he thought in hurt surprise; and died. He didn’t feel the ground come up to meet him, or the rest of the charge, carried by its momentum, trample over him.

Bagration’s left wing was hard pressed, and the Prince sent again and again asking for reinforcements. His fortifications, the filches, were taken by the French, but since they were open at the rear, the captors immediately found themselves under fire from the Russian ranks who had fallen back, and it was easy then to retake them. It was a pattern repeated throughout the day, capture and recapture, again and again; the heaps of bodies mounting before and inside the flèches, the battle line swaying back and then forward like some monstrous country dance.

Rayevsky’s redoubt, the main defence in the centre, was taken by the French at around half past ten, and Rayevsky was wounded. Yermolov, Tolly’s chief of staff, who was passing by just then with three companies of horse artillery, intended for reinforcements further down the line, saw what was happening and rallied the retreating Russians. Amid a terrible hail of lead, he mounted a counter-attack, and retook the redoubt; the French fell back for a moment, and then counter-attacked with fresh reinforcements.

Passing through the field dressing-station late in the morning on his way back to Tolly, Kirov found Bagration, his face drawn with pain, submitting to the attentions of the surgeon, who was trying to extract a shell fragment which had pierced his shinbone.

‘Kirov!’ the Prince shouted through clenched teeth; his face was cheesey with sweat. ‘What the devil’s going on? What’s Tolly doing? Tell him the fate of the army is in his hands. My men are too hard pressed. I’ve already lost three of my division commanders. For God’s sake, get me some reinforcements!’

Kirov reported back to General Tolly, who had already had two horses shot from under him that morning. He was as calm as ever, tall and thin and erect in the saddle like a monolith, riding here and there, always on hand where he was needed. His men adored him, as much as Bennigsen and his circle hated him.

‘Bagration’s off the field, wounded,’ Kirov reported. ‘I’ve just seen him in the dressing-station. He’s asking again for reinforcements.’

Tolly nodded grimly. ‘Yes, you can see for yourself from up here that the left wing’s going to collapse if nothing’s done. Go to Kutuzov, with my compliments, and tell him that the left wing must be relieved at once, or the day is lost. Try to stir him up, Kirov. God knows what he’s doing up there.’

It was eleven in the morning when Kirov entered headquarters, which had been moved back to safety, to a small house behind Gorky. When he was admitted to the Commander-in-Chiefs presence, he found him engaged with a leg of cold chicken in one hand, and a large piece of bread in the other. There were dirty dishes and several empty champagne bottles on the table. He and his aides had evidently been assuaging their mid-morning appetite.

Kutuzov listened impassively as Kirov delivered the message and added a few words of his own as to what he had seen of the situation on the left wing. The meaty red face, the blind white eye, were not designed for showing emotion; the portly, elderly figure was not designed for swift action. When Kirov stopped speaking, Kutuzov said nothing, and the Count wondered desperately if he had even been listening. He glanced at Colonel Toll, who was positioned, as usual, behind the Prince’s chair, and raised his eyebrows in despair.

‘Something must be done, Excellency,’ Colonel Toll prompted. ‘Yes,’ Kutuzov said thoughtfully. ‘What do you suggest, Toll? Send over some reinforcements? Who have we got?’

‘Why not stage a diversionary attack on our right, Excellency?’ Toll said eagerly. ‘We’ve got Ouvarov’s cavalry, and Ataman Platov’s Cossacks up in the hills doing nothing. If they attack the French left wing and make plenty of noise about it, Napoleon will have to move some of his troops over. He’s only got the Bavarians down there, in front of Borodino.’

‘Good. Good.’ Kutuzov waved the chicken bone in the air with brief enthusiasm. ‘Excellent idea. See to it, will you, Toll? And Kirov. Right away. Let me know how it goes.’

Outside, Toll grinned and stretched with pleasure. ‘A bit of action at last!’ he said. ‘I’ll go and find Ouvarov. You ride over to the Cossack lines, will you, and tell Platov to liaise with Ouvarov right away. I shouldn’t like to be those Bavarians when that little lot bears down on ’em.’

It was typical of Toll, Kirov thought, that he should think of a diversionary action, rather than simply sending reserves over to the left wing; but if it were properly carried out, it might well tie up valuable French forces on the right, and certainly relieve the pressure elsewhere. He mounted his horse and trotted off to find the Cossacks.

Fiery little Platov, who had left the army in a fit of pique during the long march from Vilna, and had only rejoined it when Kutuzov had replaced Tolly and promised a pell-mell battle, greeted the news enthusiastically.

‘Orders are to make as much noise as possible – draw the French away from the centre. It’s got to look like a major manoeuvre.’

‘Don’t worry, my friend – we’ll make all the noise you want. Ha! Action at last!’ Platov nibbed his hands together, controlling his fretting horse with his knees alone. ‘I’ve got your son with me now, you know! Joined my command with his irregulars, now that scouting duties are over. Longing for a little action himself, I understand. Quite a fire-breather, that son of yours! You must be proud of him.’

‘Yes, I am,’ Kirov said automatically, but wondered at this description of Sergei. A fire-breather? Stern, grim – he would have expected those epithets. But probably Platov’s judgements were very subjective – he would tend to attribute his own feelings to others.

As he was leaving the lines, Kirov came face to face with Sergei, who was leading his troop down from the higher hills. Sergei halted Nabat and waved his men past him, and for a moment father and son regarded each other gravely.

‘I’ve just brought orders for action – the Cossacks are joining the first cavalry in an attack on Borodino. You’ll be going with them, I suppose?’

‘Yes,’ Sergei said. He frowned. ‘What’s the purpose? We were told this morning we weren’t to try to hold Borodino.’

‘It’s a diversion, to draw the French and relieve our left wing. The slaughter there is terrible.’

‘I see. I’d better go and get my orders.’ He was about to ride on, when Kirov held out his hand.

‘Sergei – Seryosha!’ It was a direct appeal to their former, warm relationship. Sergei paused, but his face was unyielding. ‘For God’s sake, let’s put the past behind us. Let’s be friends, this day of all others.’

‘Friends, sir?’

‘You’re my son,’ the Count said painfully. ‘How have I offended you?’ Sergei’s eyes were flinty; he didn’t answer. ‘If I have offended you, forgive me,’ Kirov said, opening one hand in an instinctive gesture of both offering and asking.

Something flickered in Sergei’s face; for an instant, there was the shine of something warm and human and lost and afraid in his eyes; for an instant his son looked back at him, and not the stranger he had become.

But the last of his troop had passed, and Sergei visibly pulled himself back from whatever brink he had teetered on. ‘There’s nothing to forgive, sir. If you’ll excuse me, I must be with my men.’ He saluted, and Kirov responded automatically, staring dazedly ahead of him as Sergei tapped Nabat’s sides and trotted past.

From their vantage point, high up the hill, Anne and her servants watched in silence the struggle going on down below. Men within a battle have no perspective on it, see only the few feet around them, the danger immediately before them. When a man lunges at you with a bayonet, you have no alternative but to try to kill him before he kills you. The internal logic of a battle ensures that, once begun, it goes on, grips the combatants in the movements of a deadly dance from which they cannot escape.

But to Anne, looking down from far above it, it suddenly seemed like insanity. She saw the coloured ant-groups surge, come together like waves of water, and mingle. For a while they seemed to struggle breast to breast, and then break apart, only to reform and clash again. She saw positions stormed and taken, restormed and retaken. Why should men die for the possession of a small hill-top, or a mud embankment? Why didn’t they just lay down their muskets and walk away? There was no sense in the battle down below. It was a slow, grinding struggle over a piece of ground unimportant in every way, save to the poor people who had once lived there, and grazed their animals on the grass which was now beaten under foot and soaked in blood.

It was hard to identify one side from the other. There was smoke not only from the cannon-fire, but from the little hamlets scattered about the battlefield, which had been set on fire and burned briskly. Dust also helped to obscure the view. The noise of the battle was like the roar of a huge crowd, muted by distance: no individual, distinguishable sounds, just a mingling of shouts and screams, battle cries, the shrieking of horses, the whine of bullets and the crash of guns and the rumbling of wheels.

And above it all, the serene life of the sky went on unheeding, the clouds passing over the sun, the sun tracking slowly across the autumn sky. High up in the air, an eagle soared and drifted on fringed wings, and tilted its head in distant wonder at the clamour of death in the valley below.

‘Horsemen, Barina,’ said one of the men suddenly. It must have been about noon. Anne was dazed with the weariness of standing so long, and the exhaustion of too much emotion; his words brought her fully alert as though she had been slapped.

He was pointing away down the hill – and yes, there were the small moving shapes of horsemen on the track which wound through the trees. Six of them, she thought, presumably deserters fleeing the battle.

‘We’d better get ready. They may not come here, but if they do…’

There was a flurry of movement on the terrace. Within minutes the three men and Anne were all armed and ready, and standing at the parapet’s edge, watching to see what the horsemen would do. The path disappeared into the trees, and Anne found her hands growing damp with apprehension. There was no reasons to suppose they would come here – but what could they be doing? They were riding purposefully, but not fast. They came out of the trees again, and she saw now that the leading pair was carrying something between them. That accounted for their lack of speed; but what could they bring away from a battlefield? Was it plunder?

Now they were coming to the place where the path branched, one track continuing round the hillside towards the village of Novoye Syelo, the other branching steeply upwards towards Koloskavets. A breathless pause. The small moving shapes of the horsemen reached the fork – and turned upwards. Someone drew in an audible breath. The path led nowhere but to the house.

But Anne was staring hard at the leading horsemen. The thing they carried, slung between them, was a litter of some sort.’

‘Madame,’ said Pauline, sounding puzzled. ‘I think that is a wounded man.’

‘Yes,’ Anne said. ‘Why would they bring a wounded man up here, and not to one of the dressing-stations?’

But she knew. They were near enough now to pick out the colours of their clothing. They were not regular cavalry: they were irregulars, Caucasus men. She knew before she could properly distinguish his cap that the one on the left of the leading pair was Akim Shan Kalmuck; and her heart turned sick in her. She knew who it was that he was bringing to her.

He told her he would be safe, that he would not take part in the battle! She had believed him, because there was no other way she could face the long wait for news. But in the back of her mind there had always been the dread, and now it came surging like Leviathan from the black depths to torment her. Akim Shan was bringing him to her to die.

The entrance to the house was at the back, through a small courtyard which led directly off the track down the hill. Anne was waiting there when the men, at her order, swung back the gate, and Akim Shan and his men filed through on their dusty, sweating horses. Even in her state of anguish, Anne could not help a twinge of admiration. It required a considerable feat of horsemanship to keep the two lead horses the right distance apart for carrying a litter, and they were not easy horses to ride in any circumstance, still less when upset by the noise of battle and the smell of blood. Akim Shan and his companion halted their mounts and kept them surging in phase with each other. As they came to rest blood could be seen dripping slowly from the litter on to the cobbles of the yard.

Anne’s eyes met those of the Prince; hers in mute supplication, his veiled and hard. She found her voice, waved a hand to the men who were standing gawping at the tribesmen.

‘Lift down the litter – carefully, carefully!’

‘I have brought him to you,’ Akim Shan said, checking his horse with one spurred heel as it tried to back away. ‘His wound is severe – it will need all your skill, I think, to save him. But I could not leave him where he was. His courage deserved better than that.’

The absurd consideration – that he deserved to be brought to her because he had been brave; when if he had been less brave, he might still be unwounded – maddened her: anger, fear, anguish, outrage, closed up her throat. She tried to swallow, tried to thank the Prince for what he had done; but her mouth was dry, and she could not find any words. The servants took hold of the litter, tilting it perilously, but managed to lower it to the ground. The man-shape lay there motionless, under the covering of a black burka.

She forced herself to go forward; and then a hand slid from under the cover and slipped bonelessly to the ground. Anne’s eyes widened. She knew his hands, as she knew every part of him, better than her own.

‘But that’s not–’ she began, puzzled; and stopped abruptly. Now she understood. She crossed the few feet to the litter, was down on her knees beside it in an instant, pulling back the stiff mantle, gently turning the dust-coated face towards her. He looked, in the repose of unconsciousness, heartbreakingly young; he looked very like Sashka, asleep.

‘Oh, Seryosha,’ she murmured. Her eyes burned with pity, and with hideous guilt that her first reaction, for just the fraction of a second, had been a surge of wicked relief.

They were carrying him inside. She issued a flurry of orders to them, and turned back for an instant to thank the Prince for what he had done.

‘Won’t you rest, take something to eat and drink?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘We begin our journey at once. It is a long way to the mountains.’

‘You’re going home?’

‘Yes. There is no honour here.’ He leaned down and fixed her with a fierce gaze. ‘I will tell you what happened.’

In a few, vivid words he conjured the scene for her. It had been a colourful manoeuvre: the Dragoons in dark green, the hussars in yellow, the Cossack regiments in red and blue, and the irregulars in many colours, with the red Caucasus flashes; united in being, every one of them, superbly mounted. They bore down, shrieking, on the town of Borodino, whose trim white walls were looking increasingly battered. The dust from the baked-out earth rose in spurts at every hoof fall, and drifted into a knee-high fog. A diversionary tactic is meant to divert: noise and movement, a great deal of both, are of the essence.

‘When the One-eyed ordered the attack, I thought, here at last is the place in the battle for me. Our charge would draw away the enemy, and though we died, we would have saved the day. This was the death that called me so many hundreds of miles!’

The Bavarians, unnerved by the sudden and violent attack, broke and ran for cover; Napoleon’s Young Guards were hastily marched up to reinforce them, and then another regiment, easing the pressure, as had been intended, on the hard-pressed Russian Eighth Corps. The manoeuvre, as far as it went, has been a success.

But Akim Shan had wanted more. The Cossacks were skirmishers by nature and experience. They were not accustomed to pitched battle. They had joined the initial charge with enthusiasm, but when they came under fire, they had obeyed their instincts and taken evasive action, cantering about in and out of the bushes, avoiding the bullets and raising a great deal of dust, but achieving nothing.

‘I felt their shame on me,’ Akim Shan cried, and turning sideways, spat eloquently on the cobbles. ‘They had sullied the action to which I had committed my honour. And the fair one – I could see he felt it too, for the Russians, his own people, charged only so long as the enemy ran. When the enemy turned and stood, they turned too, and fell back.’

Not a strong enough force to withstand artillery fire, Anne thought in a dazed way, seeing the scene through two pairs of eyes, in two opposing lights.

‘The fair one – he longed for honour. I saw it in his eyes! The shame was on him, to see his fellow countrymen show their cowardice. So he cried out to his own men, “Come, follow me! We will conquer, or we will die!” And I thought, truly, here is a leader worth the following. So I called my own men, and we rode with him.’

He straightened in the saddle, his eyes flashing.

‘We galloped straight at the enemy, straight into their fire, and they cut us down like a sickle through ripe corn! But we killed as we went. We slashed to left and right, and they fell too, and their blood mingled with ours in the dust.’

Anne felt sickened, that he saw this as something to be proud of. How different, how irreconcilable were their minds!

‘How – how did you escape?’ she asked through a dry mouth.

‘Our charge carried us right through their lines and out at the other side. These five of my men were all that were left to me. Then I saw that the fair one had been wounded, but he stayed in the saddle, and his horse carried him clear before he fell. I thought, there is no more honour here for me. I will not fight for cowards. So I bring him here to you, and take what is left of my men home.’

His narrative was done. ‘I must go to him,’ Anne said. ‘Will you not stay?’ He shook his head.

‘Then – I can only say, thank you,’ Anne said again, holding up her hand to him. He reached down and took it.

‘I told you,’ he said, ‘that our third meeting would portend great good or great evil. I hope you may save the fair one; if you do not, glory in his honourable death! We shall not meet again, I think.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘God bless you, Akim Shan, and bring you safe home.’

He whirled around, and in a clatter of hooves they were gone. Anne pushed the gates shut, and thought of the caged tiger in Akim’s mountain fastness. Had Akim Shan been killed in battle as he had hoped, the tiger would also have died. Was she glad for the tiger, that its life had been spared, or sorry, that it’s unending imprisonment would now continue? Shaking the thoughts away, she hurried indoors.

Pauline looked up in frightened relief when she came in. ‘Oh Madame, I don’t know what to do for him,’ she cried. ‘There’s blood everywhere!’

The three men were standing in a helpless group, staring round-eyed. They had put the litter down on the floor in the drawing-room, and already the slowly dripping blood had made a puddle on the polished boards.

‘We must stop the bleeding first,’ she said, ‘and then we must get him into bed. Yurka, go to the kitchen and bring me hot water and towels. Pauline, bring bandages – anything!’ she forestalled the inevitable question. ‘Petticoats, tablecloths, anything you can tear. Go now, don’t argue. And ardent spirits – see what Stenka has. Brandy is best – but anything will do.’

Pauline hurried out after Yurka, and Anne turned to the coachman and groom. ‘Now you two, I want you to find a bed, a narrow bed so that I can get round it, and bring it in here, and then fetch sheets for it. I want it in here in less than five minutes, do you understand? Go! Hurry!’

Left alone, she bent over the wounded man, appalled at the responsibility. She hardly knew where to start. His clothes seemed all to be soaked with blood, dank and heavy with it, and his face was pale under the dust. How much blood can a man lose and still survive? she wondered. She dragged off the burka and threw it aside.

The wounds to his thighs, she thought, looked superficial: the blood on his breeches had dried already. She began unbuttoning his jacket. His waistcoat was completely sodden with blood: the wound must be somewhere to his torso. The feeling of the blood-soaked cloth was vile, the butchery smell of it sickening. Sergei did not move at all. Was he dead? But dead men did not bleed – she had read that somewhere. Find the bleeding first, and stop it, she told herself.

Under the waistcoat, the shirt. Wet and warm and palpitating. Her throat closed up, she had to force herself to go on. The shirt seemed to be in pieces, and she peeled it away, and reeled back in horror from the wound that gaped like an evil grinning mouth from his flesh. He must have been slashed with a sabre from the side as he rode through the enemy lines. She could see the gleam of bone, the red pulse of soft tissues. Oh dear God, it was worse than anything she had imagined! She would never stop the bleeding!

‘Pauline! Pauline! Bandages!’ she yelled, and the sound of her own voice frightened her, unrecognisable with panic. She stood up and dragged up her skirt, and began fumbling desperately with her petticoat, trying to pull it off. Undo the laces, she told herself, while panic fluttered whimpering round her body, and that pulsing wound mocked her feeble efforts. Carefully, or it will knot! She found an end with numb fingers and pulled and oh, thank God! it came loose. Her petticoat descended to her feet and she stepped out of it. She flung herself down again beside him; but she couldn’t lift him single-handed, to slide the petticoat under him. She must have help! Where in God’s name was Pauline?

A footstep. Her head jerked round – it was Zina with a can of hot water, and towels over her arm. Anne’s desperate eyes met hers, deep and dark in a mesh of wrinkles. What use would this old woman be? Where was Pauline?

‘Poor young man,’ Zina said unemphatically, ‘Let me help you, Barina. This is not work for a lady.’

The old fool, Anne thought furiously. ‘Go and fetch my maid! Hurry!’

But Zina lowered herself painfully to her knees on the other side of the litter, and her brown, shiny, hands, strong from a lifetime of labour, were slipping under Sergei’s body.

‘Now, Barina, lift with one hand, and push the petticoat through to me with the other,’ she said, just as if they were doing nothing more extraordinary than making beds. Anne controlled her panicking rage, and did as she was told. Everything moved as though ordered by God; she felt the petticoat taken from her, and now Zina was drawing it round, covering that terrible, unnerving wound from sight.

‘If you fold a towel, Barina, and put it over the wound before I draw the bandage tight, it will help,’ Zina’s quiet voice went on. Anne felt herself sinking back under control. Pressure to slow the bleeding, she thought; we need a doctor to stitch it up, but for the moment, pressure to slow the bleeding.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘All right.’

‘Stenka’s helping the men bring the bed,’ Zina went on. ‘Poor young man – was he in the battle, Barina? What a dreadful thing! Do you know who he is?’

The question took Anne by surprise. ‘He’s the son of – the son of–’

Zina nodded wisely. ‘Then his father will have to be told.’

Anne hadn’t thought of that. ‘Yes, of course.’

‘When the sun goes down, they’ll stop the fighting,’ Zina said. ‘One of the men can go down and tell him then.’

The bed was brought, and Pauline reappeared, pale and wet-eyed, with a heap of linen which she began to rip into bandages. While the men set up the bed and put the sheets on, Zina and Anne hoisted Sergei into a sitting position against their shoulders – Zina showed her how – so as to pull off his sodden coat, waistcoat and shirt. That was when they found he had been wounded in the back, too – a bullet wound. It was bleeding very little, but at the sight of it the last of Anne’s hope quietly died. There was no corresponding wound of exit. The bullet must still be inside him, which meant that he would certainly die, of fever and mortification, if he didn’t bleed to death first. She did not fool herself that there was any chance of getting a surgeon up here to operate on him in time, even if such an operation had any chance of success.

She and Zina exchanged a silent look over his limp body, and took the first of Pauline’s bandages and bound this second wound, too. Under Zina’s direction, the men lifted Sergei on to the bed, and there the women washed him, and made him decent. He was still alive, though unconscious – Anne could feel the pulse fluttering under his jaw. All that was left, she thought, was to try to keep him alive as long as possible, and to get word to Nikolai.

The men went out on to the terrace from time to time, but Anne had no more interest in the battle. To slow the bleeding, to keep him warm – these were all she could do. She would not leave his side. He might return to consciousness – she must be near him. As the afternoon progressed he began to show signs of life: first the flutter of eyelids, then a slight movement of the head, and his lips moved soundlessly. At first Anne thought he was disturbed by the distant sounds of the battle, just audible through the open windows on to the terrace; but it gradually became plain that the restlessness was caused by a fever, which was probably due to the presence of the bullet inside him. When he moved the bleeding grew worse, and she and Zina struggled to keep him still.

Suddenly, at about four o’clock, he opened his eyes, staring upwards at the ceiling. He seemed blankly bewildered; then he frowned with pain, and passed the tip of his tongue over his lips. ‘Thirsty,’ he whispered.

Anne had wine and water ready mixed in a cup. She slipped a hand under his head and lifted it a little, and put the cup to his lips. He closed his eyes and sipped, and again, and then sighed. She laid his head down again, and he turned and looked at her.

He didn’t seem to understand at first. ‘Anna?’ he whispered. ‘Am I ill?’

‘It’s all right. You’re safe. You’re in my house up in the hills. Someone brought you here when you were hurt.’

He frowned. ‘Hills? What hills?’

‘Above Borodino,’ she said.

‘Oh. I thought I was at Pyatigorsk.’ He closed his eyes; then they flew open. ‘Borodino! The battle! Is it–?’

‘It’s still going on. No, don’t move – you’ll start the bleeding again. Lie still, Seryosha.’

‘What’s happening? Have they broken through?’

‘No, no, the lines are holding. They won’t break through.’

‘Thank God,’ he muttered. Then he smiled, a travesty of a smile that made her want to cry out. ‘They always say it’s not enough to kill a Russian – you still have to push him over!’

He was silent, gathering his thoughts; then, ‘What happened to my troop?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said. It was easier than trying to explain.

‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t suppose you would.’ He sighed, and closed his eyes. ‘Hurts,’ he said. ‘Hurts to speak.’

‘Rest, then,’ she said. ‘I won’t leave you.’

He gave the glimmer of a smile. ‘Anna,’ he said. Then, ‘Sleep now.’

Time dragged its leaden feet through the weary day. The fever mounted; the restlessness grew worse, and he didn’t seem to know where he was. It was hard to keep him still. She tried to call him to consciousness, but when he opened his eyes, they only rolled sightlessly with delirium, recognising nothing. The flow of blood increased. Anne dared not remove the bandages. They added more layers, and more as they soaked through.

The evening drew towards dusk, the air cooled, and Sergei grew quiet. The firing from below was dying down. Soon Nikolai would come. Please God he would be in time.

Sergei woke, looked at her blankly. ‘Where am I?’

‘At my house,’ she answered.

‘Anna? Is that you?’ he whispered.

‘Yes, Seryosha, I’m here.’

‘I can’t see you. Don’t leave me! It’s dark. I’m so cold, so cold.’

It was still light in the room. She touched him with alarm, and felt the unnatural chill of his skin. She flicked a glance at Zina, who hurried off to fetch another blanket.

‘I won’t leave you,’ she said, stroking his head. ‘Don’t be afraid.’

He turned his head into her caress. His face was pure white, alabaster white, like a carving in marble of a dead hero. How long could he survive such loss of blood?

He drifted, and came back to himself.

‘Anna?’ he said, as if he had just recognised her. ‘Am I ill?’

‘You’re wounded,’ she said with difficulty.

‘Did I have a fall?’ he asked. ‘No – I remember. Borodino. We charged – charged the Germans.’

She saw he was rational now. His voice was hardly more than a whisper, but his eyes looked into hers with painful intelligence.

‘Seryosha, why did you do it?’ she asked suddenly. Akim Shan might talk of his longing for honour, but she didn’t believe that was Sergei’s reasoning. She had a deep inner fear that he had deliberately sought his death, and the end of his mental torment, which had begun that bloody day high in the mountains of the Caucasus. The tiger’s death he had sought, swift and merciful; but fickle chance had delivered him up to the jackal.

‘You were told not to try to take the town – only to cause a diversion,’ she said. ‘Akim Shan told me you – you went on, when everyone turned back. Why, Seryosha?’

She met his eyes, and his were sad and guilty and puzzled.

‘I don’t know,’ he said. She stroked his cold cheek again, not trusting herself to speak. He sighed. ‘Perhaps I wanted to escape.’ But you can’t escape. What you are comes with you, always, always.’ He closed his eyes.

Zina came back with the blanket and they tucked it round him. Anne slipped her hand down to his side, and felt the bandages only slightly damp. The bleeding was slowing – or was it that he had too little blood left?

She thought he had drifted away again; but after a moment, without opening his eyes, he said, ‘Anna? Did you ever love me?’

She couldn’t answer for a moment. She looked at his pale composed face with a love and pity that tore deeply at the fibres of her heart. He might almost have been her child – within her body a child now grew who was his brother. She ached to save him hurt, to preserve him, protect him, hold him close; and there was nothing she could do.

‘Yes,’ she said at last. ‘I loved you – I do love you.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, and she had to lean close to catch his words – his voice was only a murmur. ‘I’m sorry it’s like this.’

The light was fading outside, and one star was shining clear and steady in the pale green evening sky. Sergei began to yawn, as men bleeding to death often will. He had drifted away from her in his thoughts, back to the safety of his troop. After a long silence he muttered, ‘Don’t forget the horses. See to the horses first.’

It had been dark for a long time. The firing seemed to have died down, except for long rumblings, which sounded like distant thunder, from the direction of Utitsa. The main battlefield had fallen silent. It was silent inside the room, too. A lamp glowed softly in the corner, throwing its light over the bent head of Zina, who was dozing in an armchair. Anne sat beside the bed, watching Sergei. She had been still for so long, that perhaps she had dozed, too; at any rate, she had the feeling of coming suddenly to herself at the sound of voices and footsteps on the stairs.

She rose to her feet as though pulled by a string, and ran out into the hallway. Nikolai was coming up the stairs in a swirl of movement, with Stenka shuffling behind him as fast as he could, crying, ‘Barina! Barina! He’s here!’

‘Oh, thank God you’ve come!’ Anne was across the landing and in his arms in an instant. He pressed her to him, smelling of sweat and smoke; his cloak was damp from dew; he was trembling all over, and breathing fast, as though he had been running. Their embrace lasted only an instant; she was drawing him towards the room, asking as they went. ‘Is it over? Is the battle over? We could still hear cannon-fire in the distance.’

‘Just a flank movement on the old road. Action’s broken off everywhere else – the French have fallen back.’ Nikolai’s eyes went ahead of him, searching for their punishment. ‘When I got back to headquarters there was a message from your prince, about Sergei. I didn’t know you were still here.’

‘I couldn’t leave,’ she said. ‘Is the battle won?’

Through the door, his hold breaking away from her. ‘God knows. Our losses are heavy.’ His eyes found the shape in the bed. ‘How is he?’

She didn’t know how to tell him, but she didn’t need to. When she didn’t speak, he turned abruptly and read her face, and his mouth turned down bitterly. He went to the bedside and took the seat Anne had vacated, reached over for his son’s hand. ‘Sergei,’ he said. ‘It’s me, it’s Papa. Seryosha, look at me.’

Sergei muttered and turned his head. Please, Anne prayed inside her mind, please let him wake, let him know him…

‘Seryosha, it’s Papa. Can you hear me?’

Sergei opened his eyes, frowning. He licked his lips, and then yawned again. ‘Cold,’ he muttered.

Nikolai leaned closer. Tears left clean tracks down his smoke-grimed face. ‘I love you,’ he said; stroked the hair from the marble brow and kissed it. ‘Forgive me, Seryosha. Say you understand.’

But Sergei’s eyes were wandering. Anne could see he did not recognise his father.

‘Don’t forget the horses,’ he muttered. He turned his head away, staring towards the window, held apart in the loneliness of dying. An expression of great bitterness crossed his face, as if he had suddenly seen everything with great clarity, the whole futility and waste of it, the life he had been robbed of. Anne, watching him, did not see the moment when he went. Only she became aware that the look of bitterness had faded little by little, as the light fades gradually out of the sky after the sun has gone; and suddenly from being twilight it is night, without there being one particular moment when one could say the transition occurred.

Chapter Thirty

Some time after midnight, Adonis arrived at the house, and was admitted by Stenka, who showed him silently into the drawing-room. Adonis took in the scene with one comprehensive glance; the body on the bed, covered with a burka; the old woman asleep in the chair beside it; and Anne and Nikolai on the day bed near the window, she seated, he lying down with his head in her lap.

Anne’s eyes, red-rimmed but sleepless, met his blankly over the Count’s head.

‘He’s sleeping,’ she said.

Adonis looked grim. ‘We’re pulling out. You’ll have to go too. It won’t be safe here. You’ll have to wake him.’

But he was stirring already. He woke from the dead sleep of utter exhaustion and looked up blankly at Anne for a moment, and she longed, helplessly, to give him a little longer in blessed oblivion.

‘Adonis is here,’ she said gently.

He blinked, and then groaned and pulled himself upright. That waking, he thought afterwards, was the worst of his life. He was more tired than he had thought it possible to be. Every bone in his body ached; his eyes were gritty in their sockets, his mouth was dry and foul-tasting, his head ached; but worse than all of that was the dead weight of grief that rolled on to his chest like a stone, as memory returned.

‘Adonis,’ he said thickly. ‘What’s happening?’

‘New instructions, Colonel,’ he said neutrally. ‘The Prince-General ordered us to regroup, to renew the battle at dawn, but when they counted up our losses, he changed his mind. We’re withdrawing past Mozhaisk. The artillery’s on the move already – infantry to move off at two o’clock. Cossacks to provide a rearguard and cover our retreat.’

The succinct report cleared the fog from Kirov’s head. ‘What were our losses?’

‘Forty thousand, by the first reckoning – dead and wounded.’ In the silence, Kirov heard Anne’s indrawn breath of disbelief. The number was past comprehension.

‘And the French?’ he asked.

Adonis shrugged. ‘As many, I’d say. They pulled back, out of sight of the battlefield, but by the numbers of the dead, it must be as many.’ Kirov nodded, and then put his head into his hands to rub his temples. Adonis eyed him with sympathy. ‘Orders, Colonel? You’re wanted pretty badly at headquarters.’ Kirov looked up sharply. ‘I must bury my son. Then I’ll leave. I must bury him first. The General will understand that. As soon as it gets light…’

Adonis was not a Russian, and looked as though he would like to argue; but he held his tongue. Even on the march, with the French on their tails, the soldiers had continually stopped to bury their dead, leaving a shallow mound and a hastily knocked-together wooden cross over each. He couldn’t expect his master to do less for his own son.

In the grey light of dawn, they set off down the track, turning on to the road that led past the ruins of Novoye Syelo to join the main road just beyond Gorky. Anne had left Stenka and Zina with warm thanks for their loyalty and help, and promised them a more tangible reward when the troubles were over. They accepted her thanks stolidly, and stood silently in the yard to see her off, looking as though they had grown up out of the cobbles: permanent, enduring.

Anne and Pauline climbed into the carriage; Nikolai and Adonis mounted their horses. Behind the courtyard, in the strip of rough grass between the house and the tree line, there was a newly formed mound of brown earth. Kirov looked back at it as they rode out of the gate. They had buried Sergei in the ground, wrapped in the burka: they had no coffin for him. Stenka had promised to cover the mound with stones, to keep the winter wolves from digging it up.

As the sun began to rise, the battlefield below was revealed in all its horror, a desert of fallen men and horses, thousands dead, thousands still suffering, moaning in their mortal pain. Scattered amongst them were broken lances, shattered breastplates and helmets, shell fragments, splintered gun carriages. Around the fortifications, now battered almost level, the bodies lay in heaps like discarded rags, mute witness of the many times the defences had changed hands in the course of the battle. In the stream gullies, where the wounded had instinctively dragged themselves to be out of the firing, they were tangled and heaped, living and dead together; the wounded drowning in their own blood, crying pitifully for help, or at least for a bullet to end their misery.

The road towards Moscow was packed with the retreating army, marching wearily, but in good order. Six miles distant, the town of Mozhaisk was already filled with wounded, who had managed to drag themselves thus far, hoping for transportation to Moscow and hospital treatment. Here a young white-faced subaltern met them with obvious relief, to say that Kirov was wanted urgently, and Colonel Toll was looking for him.

‘Wait one moment,’ Kirov told the boy, and dismounting, walked stiffly up to the carriage window. He reached up and clasped Anne’s hand. ‘Go on to Moscow as fast as you can. Don’t stop for anyone, or you may find your carriage stolen from you. When you get there, you had better hide the horses. We’ve already asked Rostopchin several times for horses to transport the wounded, and anything that moves in Moscow will have been requisitioned or stolen by now.’

‘Yes. I understand.’ She felt keenly his ability in the midst of everything to feel such minute concern for her.

‘I’ll send word to Byeloskoye when I can. I suppose we’ll make another stand further down the road, but where remains to be seen. Keep yourself safe at all costs.’

‘Yes, Nikolai,’ Anne said dutifully. He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it once, and then he was turning away, duty calling him relentlessly. ‘God bless you!’ she called after him, but he didn’t seem to have heard. She watched him take his horse’s rein; but her coachman, understandably nervous, cracked his whip and drove on before she had even seen him mounted.

The last few miles of the road into Moscow were packed with refugees, deserters and wounded soldiers. Anne had been forced to travel slowly, since there was no possibility of a change of horses. She began to appreciate the value of the pair she had harnessed up, and told Tolka that if anyone tried to stop them, he was to whip the horses up and run them down if necessary. Many people looked round as they heard the horses coming, and once or twice wounded men hailed them and begged for a ride into the city, but Tolka obeyed orders, and they trotted past with the window blinds drawn. When they finally turned into the yard at Byelsokoye, Anne drew a sigh of relief. She ordered the porter to keep the gate locked at all times, and to let no one in without permission; and told Stepan to arrange with the other grooms to keep guard over the horses twenty-four hours a day.

Mikhailo opened the door to her with a mixture of surprise and relief which would have amused Anne if she had not been so tired.

‘Oh, Barina! Praise be to the saints you are safe! When we heard there had been a battle at Borodino, we were sure you had been killed.’

‘Thank you, Mikhailo. I am perfectly well. Is the master here?’

‘Yes, Barina – in the drawing-room. But is it true the French are coming? They say our army is in retreat. We hear such things Barina! No one seems to know if the battle was won or lost–’

‘The battle was won. Our army is withdrawing to a new strongpoint, to make another stand, that’s all. There’s nothing to be afraid of,’ Anne said, walking towards the stairs.

‘Yes, Barina,’ Mikhailo said grimly.

Anne knew she had not sounded convincing. ‘I’m very tired, and hungry from the journey,’ she said, as if in explanation. ‘Bring me up something to eat at once, will you?’ And she hurried up the stairs before he could ask her anything else.

In the drawing-room, she found Basil, Jean-Luc and Rose sitting on the floor in front of the fire, playing spillikins. Basil’s face was strained, and there were dark circles under his eyes, as though he had not slept much of late; he looked up as she entered, with apprehension changing to relief when he saw her. Jean-Luc looked as he always did, and his expression was inscrutable – but, he was an actor, and that was his business. She could never tell what he was thinking.

Rose looked pale and listless, but her face lit up flatteringly, and she cried out ‘Maman!’ and began at once to pull herself up by a chair leg. Anne was across the room in an instant, and swept her daughter up into her arms. Rose’s arms went round her neck, and she planted a wet kiss on Anne’s cheek, and then complained loudly, ‘You missed my birthday Maman! I was three years old and you weren’t here! Papa and Zho-Zho wanted to give me a party, but there’s no one here any more. Did you bring me a present?’

Anne kissed and hugged her, and then put her down. ‘No, darling, I couldn’t. When the war is over, I’ll buy you a lovely present, but not now.’

‘Are the French coming?’ Rose asked with interest. ‘Everybody’s run away, except Papa. He’s very brave.’

Anne met Basil’s eye, and he gave a faint, weak smile, and shook his head.

‘I’ll tell you everything later,’ he said with a significant look at Rose.

‘I’ll take Rose down to the kitchen,’ Jean-Luc said, rising gracefully to his feet in one movement. ‘Shall we go and make a surprise for Maman, poupée?’

Rose was easily beguiled out of the room, and when they were alone Anne said, ‘I must admit I’m surprised to find you here, Basil Andreyevitch. I’d have thought you’d go straight to Petersburg from Tver, in view of the situation. What brought you back?’

‘Mainly the sight of so many carts laden with possessions heading out of Moscow,’ he said. It might have been a joke, but it wasn’t. ‘Ever since the end of August, when the news arrived about Smolensk, people have been evacuating the city. So we came back to see about the valuables.’

Anne stared at him in amazement. ‘You thought your possessions were in danger here – so you brought Rose back?’

He coloured. ‘Don’t speak to me like that. I love my daughter as much as you do.’

Anne knew there was no point in quarrelling with him. She controlled her voice and said more quietly, ‘Very well. But why did you come back into what you believed was danger?’

‘Grand Duchess Catherine said there wasn’t any danger,’ he said sulkily. ‘She said that once Prince Kutuzov took command, the retreating would stop, and there’d be a battle, and it would all be over. But I thought I ought to be here just in case. I thought I could still get Rose away in plenty of time if things did take a turn for the worse.’

‘Didn’t Rose say everyone’s run away? So why are you still here?’

‘We did try to leave two days ago, but the damned peasants had barricaded all the city gates, and they wouldn’t let anyone out – not the men, at any rate. They said it was cowardly, and that every able-bodied man had to stay and fight the French. They turned us back.’

Anne considered him gravely, but Basil’s eye slid away. ‘There’s more, isn’t there?’ she said.

He nodded reluctantly. ‘After we got back here, a dozen police officers came with an order from the Governor, requisitioning the horses.’

Anne remembered Kirov’s words. He had had a foresight Basil apparently lacked. ‘Well?’ she said impatiently. ‘You refused, of course?’

‘How could I refuse? They were on official business. They had papers.’

Anne grew pale with anger. ‘You let them take the horses? You imbecile! You idiot! You – how could you let them just take them?’

‘They were in an ugly mood, and armed,’ he said defensively. ‘I suppose they’d had trouble with other people already.’

‘Trouble? I’d have given them trouble! I’d have waded in their blood before I let them–’ She stopped abruptly, her eyes widening, and he shrank into himself, knowing what the next question would be. ‘Quassy too?’ she whispered.

He nodded unhappily.

Anne had no words. Quassy too, her mind repeated numbly. Quassy too.

‘They’d have taken her in the end, anyway, or she’d have been stolen,’ he said peevishly. ‘Everyone’s been trying to get out of the city. Rostopchin commandeered every horse he could find to move the city archives and public records, so even the most broken-down, spavined nag is fetching a ridiculous price, if you can find one. People have taken to stealing from anyone who has one left.’

Anne shook her head, unable for the moment to speak. Quassy, her lovely Quassy, given her by Nikolai, and Image, whom she had watched being born, and trained with her own hand.

‘They didn’t take Rose’s pony,’ Basil offered in a small voice. ‘We managed to hide him. He’s bedded down in one of the pantries behind the kitchen.’

She almost laughed at this. ‘It’s as well I came back when I did, or I’d have found nothing left at all.’

‘But what really happened at Borodino?’ he asked, relieved that the storm had apparently passed him. ‘We hear such rumours, but no one seems to know what’s really happening. Rostopchin sends out proclamations all day long, and each one contradicts the last.’

Mikhailo came in with her luncheon, and when he had gone, Anne told Basil, between mouthfuls, what she had witnessed of the battle.

‘So did we win or lose?’ he said at last.

‘I don’t know that either side could claim a victory. At the end of the day, our lines were still intact, and the French fell back. But Kutuzov ordered a withdrawal. The intention is to make a new stand somewhere further along the road, but I don’t know where. At all events, the army is still between the French and us.’

‘So why has Rostopchin removed all the city archives and treasures?’

‘As a precaution, I suppose,’ Anne said. ‘I don’t believe for a moment the French will be allowed to get this far, but if you’re worried, you and your friend can go away, now that I’m here to take care of Rose.’

‘I told you,’ he said, ‘they aren’t letting men leave the city. In my case, do you think I’d save my skin and leave Rose here?’

‘I don’t know what you’re likely to do,’ she retorted, then she sighed and looked away. There was no point in provoking him to a quarrel. ‘If you’re really worried, at the first sign of danger Parmoutier can take Rose to the Danilovs. They’ll take care of her. I don’t like to think of her travelling without the protection of a man, but it would be all right just as far as Tula.’

‘Anna–’ Basil began, and she met his eyes to read a message of even greater disaster there.

‘What is it?’ she asked, and felt a stirring of nameless alarm.

‘Mademoiselle – she – she isn’t here any more.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘I told you , when we came back from Tver there were barricades on the city gates. They were stopping every carriage. They told us that we could come back, but that we wouldn’t be allowed to leave again. Then Rose started asking questions, and Mademoiselle was answering her in French, trying to soothe her.’

He stopped, and swallowed. Anne saw his adam’s apple rise and fall in his thin neck.

‘Go on,’ she said into that deadly silence.

‘They must have heard her. Someone shouted out, she’s French, isn’t she? – and – and some other things, abusive things, and about Moscow being full of French spies. I said no, she was Belgian. I told them the Belgians hated the French just as much as we did. But they didn’t believe me. They wouldn’t even listen. They pulled her out of the carriage, said they were going to take her to the Governor for questioning. She – she didn’t make a fuss – for Rose’s sake, I suppose. She just–’ He stopped and swallowed again, his eyes wide and blank, as if seeing the scene again in memory. ‘She went with them.’

Anne’s mouth was dry. ‘Where did they take her?’

‘I don’t know. They made us drive on, because there were other coaches waiting.’

‘What have you done to try to find her?’

‘I went to the Governor, had a private interview with him. He was very good about it. He sent a party of police up there to the barricade, and arrested some people, and questioned them, but he didn’t find out anything. I asked for a search to be made for her, but he said he didn’t have the manpower, that there were more important things to do–’

‘More important?’

‘He said people were disappearing every day, leaving the city – how could he hope to find one French governess?’

‘Belgian!’ Anne suddenly shouted. ‘She was Belgian!’

Basil flinched, but went on speaking quietly. ‘We just hoped she’d come back on her own somehow. We told Rose she’d gone away for a few days to help the Governor interrogate spies, and she seems to believe it. She hasn’t asked anything, except when Mademoiselle is coming back.’

She was dead, Anne thought bleakly, dead for sure; dragged out of the coach by a mob… She took refuge in anger. ‘Of course your precious Jean-Luc managed to escape! He who is really French! He kept his skin whole!’

‘He kept his mouth shut. Anyway, he’s an actor. It’s no use blaming him, Anna,’ he said quietly. ‘It’s my fault, for not protecting her better.’

The confession took her aback, silenced her. She suddenly felt very tired. ‘Oh God,’ she said, ‘what’s happened to the world?’

Later, when Rose had gone to bed, the three adults gathered in the drawing-room. For once Anne did not object to Jean-Luc’s presence. It seemed natural in the circumstances to draw together, like threatened animals.

Anne said again, ‘I don’t believe that the French will reach Moscow. The army withdrew in good order, and though the losses at Borodino were heavy, they weren’t mortal. Our army is still well supplied, whereas Bonaparte’s grows weaker with every mile. Kutuzov will make a stand somewhere between Mozhaisk and here, and make an end of it.’

‘All the same…’ Basil said thoughtfully.

‘Yes,’ Anne concurred. ‘All the same, I should prefer for Rose to leave as soon as possible, if only we could think of a way. I could take her myself–’

‘It would be too dangerous,’ Basil said. ‘A gentlewoman travelling alone, without male escort. You’d be attacked and robbed before you’d gone ten versts. There are deserters and looters everywhere.’

Anne frowned in thought. The roads were dangerous, it was true – she had seen something of it at first hand. Better that Rose stay with her in Moscow than that she be the victim of deserters. Probably the French wouldn’t come; but if they did – she didn’t want her child frightened again, as she must already have been by the mob who murdered her governess.

‘I have an idea,’ said Jean-Luc suddenly. He fixed Anne with a steady eye. ‘I know you don’t like me–’ Anne’s lip curled involuntarily, and he flushed a little. ‘All right, I know you hate me – but at least you do know that I love Rose, and that she loves me.’

Anne shrugged. She had never been convinced on that point. ‘What of it?’

‘You must trust her to me. Yes! Listen! I can get her out. I am an actor, remember, and I specialise in playing women. When I am dressed as a woman, no one can tell the difference – no one\ I’ll get Rose past the barricades all right, disguised as a peasant woman, and take her wherever you like, and wait for you there.’

Anne was taken aback. ‘But – but what’s to stop you being robbed for the horses? They’ll still think you’re a defenceless woman.’

He grinned. ‘Ah, but I won’t be, will I? And I won’t take the horses. I’ll walk.’

‘Walk?’

‘We’ll put Rose on her pony, dressed in peasant clothes, and with a bundle tied on behind. Make the pony look as shabby as possible – daub it with mud, chop its coat to make it look mangy. And I’ll walk, leading her. There’ll be nothing to tempt a gang to attack us.’

‘But you can’t walk all the way!’

‘Once I’m clear of the city, I’ll get a cart of some kind, and harness the pony. You can give me money. I’ll take a pistol, hide it in my clothes. It’ll be all right. Once I’m past the city limits, everyone will help me. The peasants are very good to their own kind on the tramp. We can do it. But you have to trust me.’

‘I – I don’t know,’ Anne said doubtfully. ‘Maybe I ought to take her myself.’

Jean-Luc snapped his fingers with exasperation. ‘You couldn’t do it! Come, Anna Petrovna, use your brains instead of your feelings! You hate me, I know – but deep inside, you know that I love that child. I will take her to safety and keep her there, until you come.’ His glance took in both of them. Basil was pale and silent. It was his whole life that was about to leave him – his lover and his child – but he was staring necessity in the face.

There was a scratching at the door, and Mikhailo came in, with a piece of paper on his silver tray.

‘Excuse me, Barina, but one of the servants just brought this in. I thought you ought to see it.’

‘What is it?’ Anne asked out of the depths of her struggle.

‘It’s a proclamation from the Governor, Barina. They’re being distributed in the streets.’

Anne took it and read it. It was a call to arms, to the defence of Moscow. Everyone was exhorted to march out and add their weight to the army which was coming to make a stand at the very limits of the city.

‘Arm yourselves with whatever you can; come on horseback or on foot. Come with your crosses, take the pennants from the churches, and with these banners let us gather at the Three Hills. I shall be with you, and together we shall destroy the Villain…’

Anne read it, and then handed it to Basil in silence. The Governor would not have made such a direct appeal unless he thought the city was in danger. The necessity to trust Jean-Luc had just increased tenfold.

‘Is it an adventure?’ Rose asked. In peasant dress, she was seated on Mielka, who had bits of straw in his mane and tail and stable-stains on his quarters and belly. Jean-Luc was unrecognisable. His long hair in a plait down his back, a scarf tied round his head, a coarse wool skirt over many petticoats, a serge jacket, and a ragged shawl round his shoulders – these were the accoutrements: but the change was deeper than that. It came from within him. Anne saw that it would be impossible for anyone to guess that he was not a peasant woman, because inside him he was.

‘Take care of her,’ Anne said.

He met her eyes. ‘With my life,’ he said.

‘If you can get as far as Tula, take her to the Danilovs. They’ll take care of you both. I’ll send word when it’s safe to come back – or I’ll come for her myself. You have the money safe?’

‘Yes, of course. And the knife, and the pistol. But don’t worry – we’ll be all right. It’s an adventure, as Rose says.’

Anne kissed her daughter, trying to appear casual, for her sake. ‘Goodbye, darling. Do just what Jean – what Zho-Zho tells you. I’ll see you again soon.’

Rose kissed her goodbye without concern; but when she turned to her father and saw his expression she was frightened, and turned back to fling her arms round her mother’s neck. Anne soothed her as best she could, but when at last she released the arms from round her neck, Rose’s lip was quivering. There had been too many departures lately; and Mademoiselle had never come back. Rose didn’t ask about Mademoiselle… or Nyanya, or her cat. Glad enough that she still had Mielka and Zho-Zho, she had sooner trust to silence to restore her, some time in the future, to her normal life.

Anne turned her head away while Basil said goodbye to Jean-Luc; and then the porter opened the gates, and they slipped out into the grey, twilit street. As the gate closed, there was nothing to be seen but a peasant woman leading her child on a scruffy pony.

‘They’ll be all right,’ Anne said as they turned away.

‘Yes,’ said Basil.

Their voices revealed that she believed it at last, just as he ceased to.

The response to the Governor’s appeal was magnificent. A huge mob of men and women tramped the three miles out of the city to the Hill of Salutation, armed with pitchforks, scythes, axes, kitchen knives, clubs, even a few rusty pikes and muskets, ready to defend with their lives the city which had nurtured them. They waited there all day; but no one came. They saw no sign of the Russian army they had been called out to support, no sign of the French army they had been summoned to defeat. There was no sign, either, of the Governor who had promised to meet them there. At sunset they gave it up, and began to drift back to the city; and as the sky darkened, the western horizon was seen to be aglow not only with the setting sun, but with the bivouac fires of the two armies, just out of sight over the rise.

A steady stream of refugees continued.to pour into the city, peasants from the land over which the French had already marched, and were expected to march, and wounded soldiers from the battle, who could find no succour anywhere along the road. The stories they told did nothing to raise the spirits of the Muscovites who had been ready to fight for their city. The army was still in retreat, they said, and showed no sign yet of stopping to make a stand of it. If there were to be a battle, it looked like being under the very walls of the city.

That night the Governor issued another proclamation, copies of which were seeded all over the city. He gave no explanation of what had happened that day; only said that early the next morning he would ride out to meet with Prince Kutuzov and discuss with him how finally to destroy the Villain. The proclamation did nothing to calm anyone’s fears. There had been too many contradictory rumours. That night the taverns were full to overflowing, and the darkness was made hideous by drunken revelries, and the sounds of smashing glass and splintering wood as the revellers turned from carousing to looting.

At Byeloskoye, the day had dragged by. It was unnaturally quiet in the streets, except for the distant sounds of wheels, and the shuffling tramp of wounded soldiers making their way through the streets to the hospital. Anne could not settle to any occupation, but continually got up and walked about, thinking of Rose, wondering about the fate of poor Parmoutier, remembering Sergei, longing for news of Nikolai.

Rested now after her journey, she was feeling physically well and strong, but restless with the need for action. She remembered this stage from her previous pregnancy – a good time, when her body had adjusted to its new condition, and she was filled with energy and a sense of well-being. She ought to have told Nikolai; she wished she had told him. She supposed at some point she would have to tell Basil, but she would not do so yet. She hardly showed yet, and with a few extra petticoats…

She persuaded Basil to go through his precious possessions and choose the most essential which could be loaded into one carriage. When they fled, they would be able to take only the bare minimum.

‘But how can I choose?’ he cried. ‘How can I leave anything behind? It isn’t just the valuables – it’s the works of art. They’re irreplaceable! I’ve seen looters at work before. They take gold and jewels and furs, but paintings and statues they simply destroy, like wanton children. How can I leave those things to them?’

Anne shrugged. ‘That’s up to you.’

It was after dark when a banging at the house door startled them both. For some time they had been listening subconsciously to the distant, dangerous sounds of the city; in the streets immediately surrounding the house, there was an unnatural quiet. They strained their ears to hear as Mikhailo went slowly to answer it, spoke a few words to someone, and then came painfully slowly upstairs.

‘A messenger from the Governor, Barina, with a letter for you.’

Anne opened it with suddenly nervous fingers.

My own love, I am taking the opportunity of sending this to you by military courier, so I must be brief. We have arrived at Fili; the French are not far behind us. Bennigsen wants us to make our stand here, but there are grave objections to that. If we do not stand, we must retreat through the city. I will send word tomorrow, as soon as I know what is decided, but hold yourself ready to leave at any time.

When she told him the substance of it, Basil was thrown into a panic. ‘That’s it! I’m leaving now! I’m not going to wait here for the French to overtake us.’

‘Don’t be a fool. You can’t leave now. Have some sense, for God’s sake! We must wait until tomorrow.’

‘Tomorrow! You’re mad! Don’t you read what he says? The French are close behind them.’

‘We must wait to hear if they are going to make a stand.’

‘Make a stand!’ He laughed too shrilly. ‘They’ve been retreating for months – why should they stop now? Tomorrow will be too late – the army will come through with the French right on their heels, and we’ll be caught between them! I’m leaving now, while there’s still time!’

He was up and heading for the door; but now she had heard from Nikolai, an extraordinary calm had come over Anne. She felt no fear, no sense of haste. He was nearby, and would take care of her.

‘Listen to me, Basil,’ she said. ‘We won’t be the only people to receive this news. Everyone’s going to be out in the streets, hoping to get away with as many of their belongings as they can save. You know there’s looting already in the city. If you take those horses out there now, you’ll be set on and robbed, and the horses will be stolen. You’ll have no chance.’

‘More chance than tomorrow,’ he retorted from the door.

‘If there is another retreat, once the army starts to come through, people will be so frightened and desperate, they’ll want nothing more than to save their own skins. They won’t have time to think about anything else. They’ll run like chickens to get out of the city before the French arrive. You’ll be able to drive out in perfect safety. You’ll have the protection of the entire army, after all.’

‘You’re mad,’ he said. ‘Quite mad. I know what it is – you want to wait for your lover. You don’t want to leave before he gets here. Well, that’s your business! I’m not waiting around to lose everything, including my life! I’m going now, while there’s a chance. You can come with me, or you can stay, just as you please.’ And he was gone down the stairs, yelling for the servants.

‘Basil, for God’s sake–’ she called after him, pushing herself up out of the chair. She heard his voice from the hallway.

‘Get those horses put to in the carriage we packed today. Right away! We’re leaving!’

Anne ran after him, pattering down the stairs, really worried now. ‘No, Basil, I forbid it! You’ll ruin everything!’

He turned at the courtyard door. ‘Ruin your pretty plans, maybe,’ he said fiercely. ‘That’s none of my concern. I’m getting out.’ He shouted out into the yard, ‘Get on with it, man! Hurry up!’

‘They’re my horses!’ she said desperately, catching at his sleeve. ‘You shan’t take them.’

‘Yours! Who bought them? Who paid for them? Get away from me!’ He slapped her hand away, and went out into the courtyard. Anne followed, instinctively pressing her hands to her belly.

Outside in the courtyard she saw the horses were being led out towards the waiting carriage. She caught up with Basil again.

‘Take one, then! Not both of them! Leave me one, for God’s sake!’

He shook her off impatiently. ‘Don’t be a fool – one horse can’t pull that load!’ Then he seemed to understand what she was saying. ‘What? Do you mean you’re not coming with me?’

She shook her head. ‘Not now. I can’t.’ He stared at her in astonishment and anger. ‘Leave me one horse, for God’s sake!’

They were backing them up to either side of the pole, now. She saw Basil hesitate, considering; but whether he would have relented or not she would never know. There was a flare of torchlight in the street outside the gates, and someone rattled them hard with a stick, and shouted harshly, ‘Police! Open the gates! Come on, now, open up! This is the Governor’s business!’

Anne whirled round, white with foreknowledge. ‘Take the horses back! Hide them! Quickly!’

But already it was too late. As the porter backed away shaking his head, one of the men reached through, grabbing him by the front of his tunic and jerking him violently up against the gate. He cried out as his face hit the bars, and the key on its iron ring fell nervelessly from his hand. Another hand came through and snatched it up. The porter was released and staggered back, slumping against the wall, putting his hands up to his bleeding face; the gates crashed back, and the men came surging through.

The servants shrank back behind Anne in terror, the grooms who had brought out the horses seemed frozen to the spot. She placed herself instinctively between them and the invaders, and the leader of the men halted in front of her, surveying her by the light of his torch, while his companions spread across the yard behind him, looking around them with sharp, nervous glances.

‘All right, madame, there’s nothing to worry about,’ said the man, holding up a document, a folded piece of stiff paper with a red wax seal clearly visible on the outside. ‘No harm will come to you.’ He waved his men forward, and as they thrust past him he said, ‘By the order of His Excellency the Governor, these horses are requisitioned on State business of the utmost urgency. That’s right, Vanya, lead ’em off!’

Basil came alive. ‘Don’t take my horses! You can’t take them, damn you!’

‘Governor’s business, sir. Don’t get in our way, if you please, or I shall be obliged to use force.’

‘You don’t understand – they’re the last! All the rest have been taken already! How can we get away if you take them? The French are coming! You can’t take my last two horses!’

‘Sorry sir,’ the man said briefly, without interest. ‘Orders are orders.’ Basil grabbed at him, and the man sidestepped and pulled a pistol from his belt. ‘Keep your hands to yourself, sir, or I’ll have to shoot. My orders are to take the horses, at any cost.’

Anne stared. The pistol convinced her of what she already suspected. It had been rather a coincidence that they had arrived just as the horses were led out, hadn’t it? Quite suddenly she knew they were not police at all. They were a band of looters, with a cunning and resourceful leader, who had seen the horses from the street and were snapping up the chance.

‘Show me your orders again,’ she said sharply. Behind her there were sounds of scuffling, and the rattle of nervous hooves on the cobbles.

‘Barina!’ One of the servants called out desperately, and swinging round, she saw him struggling with one of the men, who had pulled a soft valise from the coach and was trying to make off with it. As they dragged, each on one handle, it tore open, and a number of precious objects – gold plate and cups and so on – thudded heavily on to the ground.

‘Show me those orders!’ she snapped at the leader.

‘Sorry, madame, no time now,’ he said, his voice rising with urgency as he backed off, keeping the pistol pointing at them. Others were already trotting the horses towards the gate. Basil caught Anne’s eye and she saw the truth dawn on him too.

‘No!’ he screamed, ‘No! Robbers! Looters! No!’

The leader turned and ran. Basil stooped to grab something from the cobbles, and with insane courage, born of desperation, he flung himself after them, his arm raised above his head as if to strike down the man with whatever it was he held in his hand.

‘Basil, no!’ Anne cried out. In the same instant, the man in front of him turned, raising his hand, and a pistol cracked, spitting a tongue of flame in the darkness of the yard. Basil went down, skidding face downwards a few feet along the cobbles before coming to rest. The servants who had been running forward in his wake stopped dead at the sound of the shot; the horses were gone through the gates, and there was only the diminishing sound of hooves and running feet.

Anne had run to Basil, who was lying still where he had fallen. He didn’t move as she touched him.

‘Basil! Are you all right?’

She slipped her hand under his shoulder to try to pull him up, and found her fingers were wet. ‘You’re hurt,’ she said in consternation. ‘Oh you fool, why did you do it? You knew he had a gun!’

Light fell across her shoulder – one of the servants bringing up a torch. It wavered madly back and forth. She used both hands and managed to pull him over, and as he rolled on to his back, blood pulsed up into the air in a glittering black fountain.

Anne screamed. It was not Basil lying there, but an unspeakable horror. The shot, fired upwards, had severed his jugular vein and shattered his jaw, tearing away the side of his head. She snatched back her hands in helpless horror at the sight, even while the fountain of blood pulsed again, weakly, and then no more.

‘Oh God, oh God!’ she cried out, reaching her trembling fingers for the place where she should have pressed them, to keep the blood in. ‘No, please! No! Basil!’

It was too late. She had had one moment, she had wasted it. Mikhailo behind her moaned, ‘No, Barina, he’s gone.’

He couldn’t have lived anyway, with that horrific wound, some distant part of her brain told her; and yet she felt insanely that she had failed, she had let him go without trying, and she repented, repented, she wanted another chance.

‘I didn’t mean it!’ she sobbed aloud. ‘Basil! I didn’t mean it!’

‘Barina, come away, come away,’ someone said. One of the men behind her was sobbing in fright like a child.

She sat back on her heels, staring in horrified despair at her bloody hands, at Basil’s shattered head. Nausea rose thickly upwards in her throat, and she jerked her head away violently to look at something else, anything else! She mustn’t see that – the baby – she mustn’t look!

Something was shining on the cobbles in the surging torchlight. It must have been the thing in his hand which he had raised as a weapon, something which had fallen from the valise and he had picked up.

She recognised it belatedly, through her rising nausea. It was the gold tiger with the emerald eyes she had given him for his birthday, a lifetime ago, before the world went mad. One of the emerald eyes had been jerked loose when it hit the ground. She saw it glittering at a little distance, a tiny spark in the torchlight. The tiger snarled its defiance, but stared up at her sightlessly from an empty socket, even as Basil stared sightlessly at the night sky from the wreck of his face.

Anne moaned, put her fingers up to her mouth. Her stomach heaved helplessly, and she turned away and was sick on the cobbles.

Chapter Thirty-One

The original orders to withdraw from Borodino had suggested making a stand somewhere on the other side of Mozhaisk. Kirov had his doubts as to how much Kutuzov had really meant by that; although it was impossible to believe that he had intended at that point to leave Moscow undefended. But whatever his intentions, he sent Bennigsen on ahead to scout the road for possible battle sites; and Bennigsen came back at last to report that there was nowhere suitable along the way, but that the army could make its stand along the crest of the Hill of Salutation.

‘He’s crazy,’ Adonis grumbled as he stood at Kirov’s shoulder, looking over the hilltop where returning Muscovites traditionally stopped to kiss the ground in honour of the holy city. ‘He’s crazier than a cat in a bathtub. Who could fight a battle here?’

Kirov looked around him despairingly. The whole area was criss-crossed with deep, steep-sided gullies and ravines, virtually impossible to cross. If the army were forced to retreat – and after Borodino, who could guarantee it would not? – they would be trapped and cut down helplessly.

Colonel Toll strolled up to him. ‘What do you think of it, Nikolai Sergeyevitch? I spent hours with Bennigsen yesterday, trying to get him to draw up a map of his dispositions. Even he couldn’t decide where to put the defences.’

‘It’s impossible to defend a place like this,’ Kirov replied. ‘But what’s the alternative?’

‘Not my problem,’ Toll said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder. ‘That’s up to His Excellency.’

Prince Kutuzov was seated on his camp stool by the roadside, with his aides around him listening to the arguments of the various generals about the positions they and their divisions had been assigned. Tolly, who had been confined to bed with a feverish cold since the battle, but had dragged himself up in view of the emergency, was attempting to talk them down and explain to Kutuzov the impossibility of the site.

At last Kutuzov beckoned Kirov and Toll over. ‘What do you think of this place? Do you agree with General Tolly? Answer me frankly, now.’

They exchanged a glance, and Toll said, ‘To be quite honest, Excellency, I myself would never have thought of placing the army in such a perilous position.’

Kutuzov raised an eyebrow. ‘Oh, wouldn’t you? And what about you, Kirov? What do you think?’

‘It seems very dangerous to me, sir. I can’t see how it could successfully be defended.’

‘Yermolov? What’s your opinion?’

Burly Yermolov, who hadn’t always seen eye to eye with Tolly, Was vehement now in his support. ‘Impossible, Excellency! Absolutely impossible! If you tried to give battle here, you would be defeated without question, and the whole army destroyed.’

‘Hmm,’ Kutuzov said, his fleshy face non-committal. ‘You’ve surveyed the ground thoroughly?’

‘Yes, Excellency.’

‘I think perhaps it wouldn’t hurt to have another look at it. Take Crossard, here, and go over the ground again. He’s had plenty of experience in several countries. Report back to me when you’ve made another survey.’

As it was a direct order, Yermolov had no choice but to obey, but he rolled his eyes expressively towards Toll and Kirov as he stumped past them. As he and Crossard walked away, there came, like a theatrical warning, the distant sound of firing from over the next hill: Miloradovich’s men were presumably involved in another skirmish with the French advance guard.

Emboldened by the sound, Toll stepped up to the Prince, and murmured into his ear. ‘Excellency, you must decide. Indecision is the worst thing of all.’

‘Yes, yes, of course,’ Kutuzov said. He sank his chin on his chest in thought. ‘We’ll have a meeting this afternoon, when Yermolov’s had a chance to do his survey. Four o’clock, in my quarters. All staff and corps commanders. You can all have your say, and then I’ll make my decision. Now where’s my Cossack? This grass is damp, you know – distinctly damp.’

Kutuzov’s temporary quarters were a wooden peasant hut in the village of Fili. The senior officers gathered in a bare room, furnished only with a long table and wooden benches, and, of course, the ikon with its red-shaded lamp in the Beautiful Comer. Colonel Toll came in with an armful of maps, which he spread across the table; Konovnitzyn was busy lighting his pipe, with which he would presently make the air foul; Tolly, his cheeks bright with fever, pointedly moved to the other end of the table, and drew out his handkerchief and trumpeted briskly into it.

At last everyone was assembled except Bennigsen, who had not come back from a further inspection of his chosen battleground. He arrived very late, to find everyone waiting for him in silence, watching the door; and finding the looks directed towards him as he entered largely unsympathetic, he took the offensive, striding to his place saying loudly, ‘The question before us, gentlemen, is simply this: is it better to give battle beneath the walls of Moscow, or to abandon the city to the enemy?’

‘Just a minute, Bennigsen,’ Kutuzov’s voice, rich with the patina of a lifetime of wine and cigars, interrupted him. ‘What’s at stake here is not just the city of Moscow, but the very existence of the State. We have but one army, you know! As long as it exists, we still have hope of a successful outcome to this war. Once it is destroyed, not only Moscow but all of Russia will be lost.’ Kirov met Tolly’s eyes. It was what Tolly had been saying all along, ever since Vilna; it was the policy for which he had been villified, and deprived of high command.

‘So the question really is,’ Kutuzov went on importantly, ‘should we wait for the enemy’s attack in this disadvantageous position, or should we abandon Moscow to the enemy?’ Bennigsen looked taken aback, and opened and shut his mouth a few times, trying to discover the difference between his question and Kutuzov’s. Tolly took advantage of his silence to say, ‘The position here is so bad that any attempt to give battle would result in complete annihilation of the army. Painful though it must be to any of us to abandon Moscow, it might in the end prove to hasten the enemy’s downfall. If we retain our ability to manoeuvre by retiring to a place where we can keep in contact with Petersburg, and with our grainstore in Kiev and our munitions factories in Tula–’

Bennigsen jumped to his feet. ‘Out of the question! The loss to the Crown of the surrender of Moscow would be inconceivable! To say nothing of the loss of morale in the army and the nation as a whole! The French have been seriously weakened by Borodino, and they’re spread out at this moment over a wide front. If we move three corps over to our left wing during the course of the night, and mount a surprise attack at dawn–’

‘It’s too late for that kind of thing,’ Tolly snapped, exasperated. ‘If we tried to move a large body of men over this terrain in the dark, it would lead to nothing but hopeless confusion! Tomorrow morning would find us at the mercy of the French!’

‘I must say, that does seem likely,’ Kutuzov said, nodding slowly.

Several people began talking at once. The argument became general, and then heated, some advocating retreat, some stubbornly supporting Bennigsen for making a stand. Yermolov tacked off in a completely different direction by suddenly suggesting turning in their tracks and attacking the French immediately and all-out. Tolly had a fit of coughing in the middle of one tirade, and turned on Konovnitsyn, who was on his side, and offended him by abusing his execrable pipe. Toll and Rayevsky, who agreed on retreat, were engaged in a side argument about which route to take. Ostermann-Tolstoy challenged Bennigsen to guarantee that his suggested attack at dawn would be successful, and Bennigsen bristled and told him to try not to be as much of a fool as he looked.

After listening to a great deal of this, his face utterly impassive, Prince Kutuzov hoisted himself to his feet and rapped the table for silence. It fell gradually and piecemeal. The one eye roved round the table, gathering up everyone’s attention.

‘Gentlemen, I have listened to all your opinions. I am aware of the responsibility I am assuming, but I must sacrifice myself for the welfare of my country. I hereby order the retreat.’

His words were met with silence. Even Bennigsen had nothing to say. Kirov looked at Toll and Tolly and read in their eyes the same conviction, that Kutuzov had meant to do it all along; that he had long ago seen the sense of Tolly’s policy of withdrawal before the French, but had continued to espouse the belligerent posture in order to placate public opinion.

All the same, it was one thing to talk about abandoning Moscow, and quite another to contemplate the reality of it. Moscow was the true, the beating heart of Russia, the old capital, the place where nationhood had first begun five hundred years ago in defiance of the Mongol overlords. It was the holy city. The thought of the French marching in there unopposed struck at something deep in all of them. Kirov found himself, a little unwillingly, admiring Kutuzov. There was no doubt it was an awesome responsibility, one from which he might never recover. Even if there were no other choice, the country might not forgive the man in who gave Moscow to the Antichrist.

‘Very well, gentlemen. The field commanders had better go back to their corps immediately and make the announcement; put your men on immediate alert for departure, and await further instructions. I shall need the staff colonels and the supply officer in here in ten minutes. Kirov! I want you at once.’

Everyone began filing out, and Kirov stood aside and waited until a space had cleared round the prince. Then he obeyed the beckoning finger and stepped across to him.

‘I want you to go at once into Moscow, to Rostopchin, tell him that the enemy’s outflanking columns are forcing me to abandon Moscow. Say “with grief’ or “with great sorrow” – I leave the wording to you, but be tactful.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Tell him we’ll be coming through tonight, under cover of darkness. Tell him I want as many police officers as he can provide to help guide us through the city and to stop deserters slipping away.’

‘Yes sir. Which road will we be taking?’

‘The Ryazan road.’

Kirov, startled, met the general’s one eye. ‘Ryazan, sir? But–’

The Kaluga road was the obvious choice, to the southwest: there were military depots and plentiful supplies; and it linked them up with Tula and the munitions factories, kept them in touch with the enemy, and gave them the opportunity to work round and sever the French supply lines. Ryazan, to the east, offered nothing.

Kutuzov gave a small, foxy smile. ‘That’s what I said. Listen, Kirov, you’re no talking fool: 1 want Napoleon to think we’re heading for Ryazan and Vladimir to make sure we lure him into the city. He’s the raging torrent, don’t you see, and Moscow is the sponge that will soak him up!’

‘Yes, sir,’ Kirov said doubtfully.

‘Once he’s got Moscow, he won’t want to give it up again – then we’ll have him! Bit by bit we’ll surround him, isolate him, cut off his supplies, starve him and strangle him. And then winter will come.’ He glanced out of the window. ‘It’s September now,’ he said in a soft and deadly voice. ‘In a month’s time, six weeks at the most, the snows will begin. He has no idea, no idea at all! It’s the beginning of the end for the Grande Armée.’

His face contracted with some emotion – a mixture of anger and grief, which made Kirov realise that whatever he had thought before about the old man’s sybaritic indolence, he did not take this business lightly. He knew very clearly what it was he was doing. ‘I’m going to see them rot!’ he said fiercely. ‘I’m going to see Napoleon eat horse flesh before I’m done!’

It was about half past eight in the evening of Sunday, September the 13th when Kirov came face to face with Rostopchin in the Governor’s mansion on the Lubyanka, and delivered Kutuzov’s message to him.

Rostopchin paled, his eyes bulged. ‘But he told me only this morning, he told be there was going to be a battle! Naturally I thought we would lose, and there’d be a retreat, but I thought we’d have several days. When does the retreat begin?’

‘At any moment. The men are on immediate alert. There was no possibility of offering battle on that ground. The army would have been annihilated.’

‘God damn and blast him! The treacherous, pusillanimous–’ Rostopchin raved. ‘There are twenty-two thousand wounded in my hospitals! How in God’s name am I supposed to move them at a moment’s notice? How am I supposed to prevent looting? Your men will come through like locusts! I haven’t got enough police officers to line the route! I need days, not hours!’

‘Hours is all you have,’ Kirov said, eyeing the little man with interest. He had always thought Rostopchin stupid and self-seeking, but he really did seem to care about the fate of his city. ‘I’m sorry. It is necessary for the greater good of the country. The army must be preserved. Napoleon must be lured into the city.’

‘Yes, yes, I see that. But it’s the time I need to complete my plans.. How can I get everything ready before tomorrow morning?’

‘Plans? What do you mean? Get what ready?’

Rostopchin looked sly. ‘I have my own ideas about a reception for Napoleon. He’s going to be sorry he ever came this far, I can tell you! He’s going to find out–’ He stopped dead, as if he thought he had said too much, and drew himself up in gubernatorial dignity. ‘I’m grateful to you, Count Kirov, for bringing me this information. And I must now beg you to excuse me: I have a great many orders to give.’

‘Yes, of course,’ Kirov said, still thinking furiously and coming to no definite conclusions. He bowed slightly and turned away, but as he reached the door, Rostopchin called him back.

‘I understand that Count and Countess Tchaikovsky are still at their house, at Byeloskoye. I recommend that you advise them to leave as soon as possible.’ He fixed him with a meaningful look. ‘As soon as possible.’

Kirov didn’t stop to consider how it was that Rostopchin knew he had an interest in that particular household. The warning was kindly meant. ‘Thank you. I was intending to,’ he said.

The streets of the city were unnaturally quiet, empty of Muscovites, and now rumbling with the vibrating thunder of heavy artillery being dragged over the wooden paving. Behind the artillery came the first of the foot soldiers. They marched in silence, looking apprehensive and unhappy. The monotonous sound of their tramping feet echoing from the shuttered houses, and the absence of cheering crowds made it seem like a funeral march; the officers rode at the heads of their columns with expressions ranging from dazed disbelief to silent rage. Some had wept when they were told that they were abandoning Moscow; others had not found the courage to tell their men, many of whom were marching in ignorance of their intent and destination.

Kirov hurried past them, heading north and west towards Byeloskoye, to warn Anne and Basil that they must leave at once. He was surprised that Basil was still in the city, having expected, if he had thought about it, that he would have left long ago at the first sign of danger. When he arrived at the house, he was even more surprised at what he found. The outer gate was open and unguarded. In the courtyard a partly loaded carriage stood, horseless, with empty valises and boxes lying around it, as if they had been looted. He met Adonis’s eyes in alarm, jumped down and flung him his reins, and strode to the door; yanked hard at the bell, rapping on the panels with the stock of his whip.

It seemed a long time before he was answered – a long time during which he imagined the worst. At last there was a shuffling sound within the hall, and a quavering voice called, ‘Who is it? Go away! There’s nothing here for you!’

‘Open the door!’ he shouted, racking his brain for the name of Anne’s butler. ‘Mikhailo, is that you? This is Count Kirov. Let me in, you fool!’

There was a brief silence, followed by the rattling of bolts and chains, and the door was swung hesitantly open. Mikhailo appeared, blinking, in the gap.

‘Oh, sir! It is you! Oh, thank Heaven! We’ve got such trouble sir!’

Kirov thrust past him. ‘Where are they? Where’s her ladyship?’

‘Upstairs, sir, in the drawing-room. Your man had better bring the horses into the hall, sir. It isn’t safe outside. We’ve had such trouble here. I don’t know what the world’s coming to…’ Kirov left Adonis to deal with the butler, was already running up the stairs two at a time and burst into the drawing-room with his nerves at the stretch.

‘Anna! Anna! Are you all right?’

He stopped dead just inside the room. The furniture had been pushed back, and in the centre a table had been placed, and covered with what looked like a white counterpane. Lying on it was the figure of a man, hands folded at the breast, the head completely wrapped in linen bandages. At the head and foot of the table stood a bronze candlestand, each bearing five candles.

Anne was sitting in a chair by the fireside, her hands folded in her lap, staring straight ahead of her. She didn’t seem to hear him or notice him. Her maid, Pauline, jumped up when the Count appeared, and came towards him with her hands extended in a pleading gesture.

‘Oh, sir, thank God you’ve come!’

‘What in God’s name has happened? Is that Basil Andreyevitch?’ he said. ‘Is your mistress ill?’

Pauline’s eyes filled with tears she had been holding back for so many hours. ‘It was looters, sir – they broke in and stole the horses. The master tried to stop them, and they shot him.’ Her lip trembled. ‘Shot him dead, sir, right in front of my mistress.’

‘Did they hurt her?’ he asked, his whole body trembling with outrage and fear.

‘No, sir, no sir. They ran off when the poor master–’ She gulped and swallowed some tears. ‘His poor head, shot all to pieces,’ she whispered, her eyes looking into his pleadingly, as though he could run time backwards and make it not to be. ‘Nurse bandaged him up. My lady insisted he should be laid out properly, though we hadn’t got a coffin, of course, and no one to make one, with half the servants run away. We prayed for him, my lady and I, all night, until it got light. And then she just sat down in that chair, as you see her now, and she hasn’t moved or spoken all day. Oh sir, do you think her poor mind has turned? After what happened at Koloskavets…’

Kirov pulled himself together and laid a firm hand on her shoulder. She felt as unsubstantial as a sparrow under his touch. ‘No, no, my poor girl. Your mistress is too strong for that. She’s in a state of shock.’

‘Yes, sir. I don’t know how she bears it. What with half the servants running away, and the others in their quarters and refusing to come out, there’s only nurse and me and Mikhailo to take care of her. But she won’t eat, and she won’t answer when I speak to her…’

‘You’ve been so brave,’ Kirov said encouragingly. ‘Now can you be brave a little longer? Can you fetch some brandy for your mistress? And then run upstairs and pack a valise with whatever you think most necessary for a journey. We shall have to leave here very soon.’

‘Are the French coming, sir?’

‘Yes, child. They’re coming to take over the city.’ He held her eyes, willing her to be strong, and after a moment she swallowed again, and straightened a little under his hand.

‘Very good, sir,’ she said. ‘Only look to my poor mistress! In her condition, she ought not to be subjected to such things.’

Kirov heard the words with distant shock; but he let the maid go, wanting to get to Anne without further delay. She had not moved or spoken since he came into the room, and she did not react at all when he came close to her, even when he knelt directly in front of her. Her face was pale and her eyes were wide, the pupils unnaturally enlarged. Her breathing was very light and shallow, and when he took hold of her hands, her skin felt cold to the touch. He thought he understood. She had gone away inside herself, for protection, to avoid a situation which had become intolerable. In normal circumstances, he would have left her alone to come back to herself in her own time; but these were not normal circumstances.

He began to rub her hands gently between his, calling her name quietly but persistently.

‘Anna! Annushka! Look at me.’

After a few moments he saw the focus of her eyes change. She looked at him, but quite blankly, as though she did not know him.

‘Anna Petrovna! Look at me. Do you know who I am? Answer me, Anna!’

She drew a small, hitching breath, and then a long, deep sigh. Her hand moved in his. A little colour returned to her cheeks. It was almost like watching someone wake from a deep sleep. She saw him, recognised him. ‘Nikolasha?’

‘Yes, my darling, I’m here.’

She closed her eyes for a moment, and swayed forward, and he stood up quickly, lifted her up, and sat down again with her on his lap, holding her close against him. After a moment she put her arms round his neck and rested her face against him, and he felt her trembling.

‘Doushka, Doushka,’ he said. He thought of all she had witnessed, and was filled with a directionless rage against Fate.

‘Oh Nikolai,’ she said faintly, ‘it was so terrible!’

‘Yes, darling, I know.’

‘Basil – he – he tried to stop them… He had no chance… They just – just–’

‘Yes, darling. Don’t think about it.’ Pauline came in with a bottle of brandy. She had forgotten to bring a glass. Kirov nodded his thanks and waved her away, uncorked the bottle with his teeth, and gently turned Anne’s head, putting the neck of the bottle to her lips. ‘Drink some of this, doushenka. Take a big mouthful and swallow.’

She obeyed him like a child. The brandy made her gasp and cough. She looked at him with surprised, wet eyes; shut her eyes and took another mouthful, and then pushed the bottle aside.

‘I’m all right now,’ she said. The last cobwebs of shock were passing from her, and the full realisation of horror and pain was beginning to dawn. He would have liked to spare her that; but she was his likeness and his equal, and he had no right to choose for her. ‘Oh God!’ she said, ‘Oh Basil! I should have stopped him! I should have saved him!’

‘You are not to blame.’

‘But I am! I am!’ She looked into his eyes. ‘I never loved him. I shouldn’t have married him. He’d be alive now if I hadn’t married him – instead of…’

‘I know. I felt that way about Irina. When she died, I felt so guilty. But there’s no time for those feelings now, Anna. Later, when we have time, we’ll talk about it all. I know you’ve suffered a terrible shock, but you must be strong now. We have to leave Moscow.’

‘Leave? Have you – have the French–?’

He took her hand and chafed it. He saw how exhausted she looked now that the numbness was gone. ‘There isn’t going to be another battle. We’re retreating, leaving Moscow to the French. Listen to me, darling.’

‘Yes. I’m listening.’

‘It’s the only thing left to do. We must preserve the army intact. The men are marching through the city this moment, and the French won’t be far behind. They’ll probably get here some time tomorrow. I’ve sent Pauline to pack you a valise. You won’t be able to take much, I’m afraid.’

The brandy was making her sleepy now. She made a huge effort, drawing from the deepest wells of reserve. ‘How will I leave? I have no horses. The looters who killed–’ She swallowed. ‘They took the last of the horses.’

‘Yes, I know.’ He thought for a moment. ‘Listen, love. I have to report back to Kutuzov. Then I’ll find some horses, and come back for you. Don’t be afraid. It will take all night for the army to march through, and the rearguard will hold off the French until they’ve all passed. Pack your valise with whatever you need. Take your jewels, if you can, and any gold you have about the house. And when you’ve got everything ready, try to get a little sleep. I’ll be back for you early in the morning.’

He stood up, setting her on her feet. She swayed wearily, and turned towards him, clinging to him.

‘Nikolasha–’ she said desperately.

He gripped her shoulders hard. ‘I have to go now. But I’ll be back. Do you trust me?’

She looked up at him, gathering herself together out of scattered fragments. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, of course.’ He was all there was now; in a way, he was all there had ever been. Her focus, her anchor – nothing else mattered. She would go with him wherever he led her. ‘I’m all right. You can go now.’

He smiled. ‘That’s my brave girl.’

He was at the door when he remembered, and turned, almost shyly, to say, ‘Anna – Pauline said – is it true? Are you with child?’

A slow smile came into her eyes which strengthened him, fed him as nothing had these months past. ‘Yes,’ she said softly.

‘When–?’

‘At Vilna.’

He smiled too, and then he was gone.

Once he had reported back, it was not easy to get away again. There was a great deal to be done, and Kutuzov seemed to find him just one more and just one more task. Shortly before dawn, he was sent off to find General Miloradovich, who was still holding the Hill of Salutation with his rearguard Hussars, and a company of Cossacks.

‘What does the Prince say?’ the General asked anxiously. ‘Murat’s cavalry are just over the ridge now. I don’t want to be fighting a desperate rearguard action that’s going to cost me all my men, and lose me my horse artillery into the bargain.’

‘His Excellency agrees, sir, to your negotiating a cease-fire or a truce with the French, while we get through Moscow. If they hesitate, you are to tell them we’ll destroy the whole city and leave them with nothing but a heap of ruins.’

‘Thank God for that! I was afraid he’d say – but the sooner the better. We’ll go and do it this minute. You’d better come with me, Nikolai Sergeyevitch, and then you can report back what they say to the Prince. Akinfov! Over here, man! You’ve got a white handkerchief about you, haven’t you?’

As soon as they reached the crest of the hill, they saw a detachment of French light cavalry riding cautiously up towards them, evidently nervous about the possible presence of Cossacks. The King of Naples himself was amongst them, easily recognisable by his splendid feathered shako, and the quantity of gold embroidery on his uniform. The French party halted. Akinfov rode forward, waving his white handkerchief. They saw Murat say a few words to the cavalry commander, and then come cantering forward alone to parley.

There was no difficulty. It was plainly in the French interest to take Moscow without resistance, and to receive it intact. Murat felt confident in pledging his Emperor’s word, and when Kirov rode back to report to Kutuzov, he had an unexpected bonus to offer: Murat had suggested that the Grand ArmCe should delay its entry into Moscow until seven the next morning, in order to allow the Russians time to get clear, and to remove some of the wounded if they wished.

‘Good. Excellent. That’s just what we need. He’s a decent fellow, Murat. Wasted on the French. Pity he’s not a Russian,’ said the Prince. ‘Eh? What’s that? Yes, yes, take a few hours by all means! No hurry now we know we’ve got the whole day. You should get some sleep, Kirov – you’re looking all in!’

Getting hold of horses was the hardest part. Kirov had to resort to a mixture of bullying and bribery to persuade two young, wealthy officers from the Prince’s own suite to part with their spare mounts. Most of the field officers had lost theirs already, either in one of the two battles or on the long, punishing march.

When he and Adonis finally rode over the crest of the Hill of Salutation, heading for the city again, they paused in sheer surprise to look down at the extraordinary scene on the road below. The advancing French were so close to the retreating Russian rearguard, that they seemed to be all part of the same army. Now and then the French had to halt to allow stragglers and the last of the Russian baggage train to stay ahead of them, and when they did, the Cossacks rode back to stand beside their opposite numbers, chatting in a friendly way and exchanging stories. Even as they watched, they saw four Cossack riders canter up to Murat’s suite and circle it for a better look at the legendary King of Naples; and Murat himself raised a friendly hand to them in greeting.

‘All going according to plan, Colonel,’ Adonis remarked.

‘Yes. I hope they don’t overdo it,’ Kirov said.

Kutuzov had given orders to Ataman Platov that his Cossacks were to get friendly with the French advance guard, express their admiration for Murat’s leadership, and convince them that they were angry and disillusioned with the Russians, owed them no loyalty, and were on the point of changing sides. Having lulled their suspicions, the Cossacks would then let slip to the French that the army was making for Ryazan.

When they marched through Moscow and out at the other side, the Cossacks were to hold back the French and let the Russian army get ahead. Once clear of the city, the main force would turn aside off the road and begin to double back south and west. The Cossacks would continue along the road to Ryazan, and with luck, the French would follow, thinking they still had the whole Russian army in front of them. This would gain valuable time, and allow the army to establish itself in a key position to the south of Moscow before the French knew what was happening.

Avoiding the main road over the Dorogomilov bridge, which was choked with army baggage waggons, Kirov passed into the city by one of the more southerly gates, and trotted by a series of back streets towards Byeloskoye, bis mind busy with plans. He didn’t think he would be able to get Anne very far on horseback, or that he ought to try, in view of her condition. The town of Podolsk, twenty miles to the south on the Tula road, ought to be far enough from Moscow to be safe; and if the doubling-back plan worked, it would become the Russians army’s base, which would afford her protection and allow him to be near her. Later, when she had rested and regained her strength, he would have to see about getting hold of some kind of conveyance, and sending her to Tula, to his sister.

There was a great deal of noise coming from the main route through the city which the army was taking. They no longer marched through empty streets: more and more citizens had come out to line the route, believing at first that they were witnessing the arrival of their saviours. When it became known that the army was merely passing through before abandoning them to the French, the cheers changed to shouts of anger and hostility. There was a good deal of drunkenness, too. The taverns ought to have been closed, but there seemed to be no policemen around to enforce the closure. Kirov didn’t like to think how many of the soldiers were slipping away from the ranks into the crowds as the army passed through.

As they turned into the street which led to the gate of Byeloskoye, Adonis said, ‘What’s this then, Colonel? Looks like trouble!’

Two men were slinking along in the shelter of the wall. As soon as they saw the horsemen, they tried to make a run for it, but Kirov and Adonis, moving as one man, blocked the way and drew their pistols.

‘Stop! Stand still, both of you, or I’ll shoot,’ Kirov snapped. The two men stood still, watching warily, eyes everywhere, ready to take any opportunity of bolting. Adonis had dismounted, holding the horses behind him with one hand, covering them with his pistol in the other.

The two men were dressed in rough peasant clothes, and wore woollen caps pulled down close to their eyes. They had a furtive look about them, as would be expected of ne’er-do-wells; yet Kirov felt oddly that they didn’t seem as worried as they ought to have been, if they had been looting.

‘What are you doing here? You’re looters, aren’t you? Turn out your pockets!’

They didn’t move, watching him warily.

‘We’re not looters, master,’ one of them said. ‘We’ve not touched anything.’

‘Then what are you doing here?’

‘We’re on the Governor’s business.’

‘Nonsense! Governor’s business – you?’

Adonis suddenly shot out a hand and snatched off the hat of the nearest man, revealing his shaven scalp.

‘Well, well! Escaped convicts!’ he said with quiet triumph, levelling his pistol at the man’s head.

‘Not escaped!’ the man cried hastily. ‘I swear to you, master. We were let out on purpose – free pardon – to do a job!’

Kirov saw the other give him a look of warning. Making himself sound indifferent, he said, ‘I don’t believe you. What job?’

The second man looked at him cannily. ‘Beg pardon, master, but we don’t know who you are. You might be anyone. You might be a French spy.’

Adonis growled at that, but Kirov gave a grim smile and pulled open his cloak, showing his uniform. ‘What job? You’d better tell me, or I’ll shoot you anyway, just to be on the safe side.’

He had the feeling that the second man would have held out: there was a calm defiance in his eyes. But the first man was more nervous, and evading his companion’s warning eyes, he cried hastily. ‘Incendiaries, master. Mining houses. Thousands of us, let out on purpose by the Governor. The whole city’s going to go up, as soon as the French are in.’

‘You bloody fool!’ the second man snarled.

‘Good God,’ Kirov said. So that was Rostopchin’s ‘plan’. Then, ‘You’ve mined this house? Answer me, damn you! My wife’s in there!’

‘No, master, not this one. We were taking a short cut back to headquarters to get supplies. We haven’t done this one yet – God’s truth!’

Kirov wasn’t sure whether he believed him or not, but this was not the time or place to argue. He waved his pistol peremptorily. ‘Very well. Go on, get off with you. Adonis – the gate!’

The two men scuttled past and disappeared round the corner. Kirov’s mind was seething: incendiaries? The whole city? It would finish Napoleon, finish him completely. But it would also finish Moscow. Moscow, the holy city, would burn! He ought to report back – but the most important thing now was to get Anne out to safety. The men might have mined the house after all – he couldn’t trust their word. Sly Rostopchin! Determined, too. Who would have thought it?

While Anne made her final preparations, Adonis instituted a search of the cellars and outhouses to make sure no incendiary devices had been planted. It seemed the men had told the truth; and the servants who were staying on were now alerted to the danger, and could be trusted to look after their own interests. Some of them, resentful at the turn things had taken, remained in their quarters, and would not emerge even to see the mistress leave. For the others, there was a tearful farewell in the courtyard.

‘The French won’t harm you,’ Anne assured them. ‘You should have enough to eat, with all the stores in the cellars. Keep yourselves safe at all costs. We’ll meet again, when all this is over.’

Mikhailo, his eyes red, spoke for all of them. ‘Yes, Barina. The good times will come again.’

The servants who had been with her in Koloskavets shook her offered hand shyly. Old Nyanya sobbed and begged her to take care of the little Countess, and make sure she had her hot oil treatment every day. Despite the few hours of sleep she had had last night, Anne was numb with weariness, and that was good, for it prevented her from feeling too much sorrow. She mounted the horse Nikolai had brought her and looked briefly at the Greek façade of Byeloskoye, and was sure she would never see it again; yet she felt no emotion. It was already a part of the past. What the future might hold, she could not imagine; but she had everything that mattered – with the new life inside her, and Nikolai beside her, they were going to join Rose.

Pauline, very doubtful about riding cross-saddle, had been helped to mount; the valises were firmly strapped on behind the saddles and covered with blankets; the gate was swung open, and they were off, clattering out into the road under the hazy morning sun. It was September the 14th, and there had been a slight fog that morning. Autumn had definitely come.

When they reached the stone bridge over the Yaouza river on the east side of the city, they found General Tolly sitting on horseback watching the soldiers marching over, and pulled out of the columns to join him at his vantage point. For the last part of the route, the road had been lined with cavalrymen, evidently posted to stop the soldiers from deserting. Tolly, however, greeted Kirov with a shake of the head and the words, ‘God knows how many we’ve lost. I even sent my own aides back to the main intersections, but you can’t keep your eye on everyone. I could have used you earlier. Rostopchin didn’t provide a single policeman, as far as I could see.’

Kirov now had a fair idea what those policemen had been doing, but he said nothing. The fewer people who knew about the plan the better: word had a way of getting around.

‘We saw plenty of signs of looting back there,’ he said. ‘I suppose it’s inevitable.’

Tolly shrugged. ‘Not our problem now. Here, Khastov! Turn those carts aside! Civilians must wait for the infantry to pass over first!’

‘Has the Commander-in-Chief come through yet, sir?’ Kirov asked.

‘Not yet. He’s only going as far as Panki today – that’s where the new headquarters will be.’ He glanced with mild curiosity at Anne and her maid, and said, ‘You can go on, if you like. It might be better for you to get your party settled before the staff arrive – make sure of a decent lodging. There’s going to be quite a crowd later on.’

‘Thank you sir. I’m sure you’re right.’

‘All right. Khastov – let the Colonel’s party through.’

They were about to ride forward to join the column at the bridgehead, when there was a distant loud explosion behind them, from somewhere near the centre of the town. The horses snorted and laid back their ears, and the soldiers faltered and looked back over their shoulders.

‘Keep ’em moving, sergeant!’ Tolly called out. A column of black smoke climbed up vertically into the sky, growing thicker even as they watched. Tolly snapped his fingers for a telescope; and after a moment he said, ‘It looks like a fire in the Kitai-Gorod section. I suppose some looter or deserter’s been careless. Nothing to do with us, anyway.’

Kitai-Gorod was the merchant’s section of the city. Kirov thought they could hardly have chosen a better site for the first incendiary: it was a tightly packed area of wooden buildings, shops and warehouses full of oil and wool and rope and candles and paint and spirits – everything that would burn most readily. He said nothing, and escorted Anne forward to cross the bridge. At the highest point of the span, he turned in the saddle to look back at Moscow and salute it inwardly, for what he knew, now, was the last time.

Once they were over the bridge and outside the city walls, they were able to slip out of the column and overtake the slow-moving infantry and wagons. Further towards Panki, they caught up with a convoy of oddly shaped covered carts, and it was only as they were passing them that Kirov recognised them belatedly as the municipal fire-fighting pumps. Rostopchin must have ordered them to be taken out of the city that morning. He had certainly, Kirov thought, done his job thoroughly.

The Roads out of Moscow

Chapter Thirty-Two

Moscow burned for almost three days. The fire in Kitai-Gorod was only the beginning, for even while French grenadiers were hurrying to the scene, dragging goods out of the warehouses and fighting to contain the blaze, fuses were smouldering in other parts of the city. Every few hours an explosion would signal an outbreak in yet another district. By dawn on the 16th, the fires were out of control, fanned by a strong wind which, by changing direction several times during the next two days, ensured that more and more buildings caught and were consumed.

The Russian army, moving crablike, slowly south and west around the city, travelled by the light of the blaze. During the night of the 16th it was so bright it was possible to read by it six or seven miles away. The whole horizon glowed a lurid, ghastly orange-red; by day the smoke hung over Moscow like black storm clouds. The task of the French fire-fighters within the stricken city was impossible: they soon discovered what the Muscovites of course knew – that even the handsome palaces of the rich were in fact built of wood, with nothing but a thin facade of stone, marble, or stucco, insufficient to stop them, too, from catching fire and burning fiercely.

The army marched mostly in silence. There was nothing cheering in that distant glow, or the thought that the holy city was being devoured. It was thin comfort to know that it would not now offer shelter to the French; a little more comfort to know that the French advance guard had been thoroughly fooled by the Cossacks and were even now following an imaginary army down the road towards Ryazan.

In the early hours of the 18th, rain began to fall, growing heavier and more persistent as the day went on, and extinguishing the lurid glare of the fire on the horizon. Travelling that day was miserable: low clouds closed in the horizon, and shrouded everything in a grey twilight; the rain was cold and unrelenting. The columns first splashed, then squelched, and finally laboured through slippery mud. The horses laid back their ears and shivered, their coats flat and dark with rain, as they hauled the heavy caissons and wagons along the rutted road. Ditches became fast-running streams, sometimes overflowing across the road in a tea-coloured flood. By the time they arrived at last at Podolsk on the Tula Road, everyone was thoroughly soaked, chilled and splashed with sticky mud.

Kirov sent Adonis on ahead to secure some kind of lodgings for them, for he was worried about Anne, who had been increasingly silent as the day went on. She was suffering, he thought, from a reaction – and it was not to be wondered at. The things she had witnessed in the last month would have been enough to destroy a weaker woman. She drooped in the saddle, rain streaming from her collar and the brim of her hat, tendrils of soaked hair dripping on her cheeks. Her condition was only less pitiable than Pauline’s, who was suffering, in addition to everything else, with severe saddle soreness from the unaccustomed cross-saddle position.

Adonis met them on the outskirts of the town, and directed them by a side road away from the centre to a little inn on the back road to Kolomna. Here, thanks to Adonis’s threatening appearance and his liberal handling of his master’s purse, they were received kindly, and given a decent room, with a small private sitting-room attached, in which a birch-log fire was burning, still a little fitfully, under the chimney.

‘They’ve promised a truckle bed in here for the maid,’ Adonis announced, going in ahead of them to stir up the fire.

‘And what about you?’ Kirov enquired ironically. ‘Or didn’t you think to ask?’

Adonis gave one of his equivocal grimaces. ‘I’ll sleep with the horses. I don’t trust anyone, not this close to Moscow. But don’t worry – I know how to make myself comfortable.’

Pauline, her fingers stiff from cold, but simply grateful not to be sitting down, was helping Anne to take off her sodden cloak and hat. The room was musty-smelling and chilly, for the fire wouldn’t draw properly: even as Adonis poked at it, a spat of rain came down the chimney and sizzled on the logs, sending a cloud of pale smoke out into the room.

‘The wood’s damp,’ Adonis announced. ‘Have you got your flask there, Colonel?’

A capful of vodka thrown into the flames caused a minor explosion but made them burn up bright and blue for an instant; and soon there was a cheerful sound of crackling from the logs. Kirov looked at his drooping love and her numb-fingered maid, and took pity.

‘Pauline, go next door and get out of your wet clothes. I’ll take care of your mistress. Go on, now, don’t argue with me. Adonis, do you think you can get them to send up some hot wine?’

When they were alone again, Kirov sat Anne down by the fire, and knelt before her to pull off her wet boots and stockings, and to chafe her feet with a rough towel. She blinked with pleasure at the returning warmth, and then bent her head while Nikolai dried her hair.

‘I never thought,’ she said, ‘that I would ever have you at my feet like this.’

He smiled, and started on the buttons of her jacket. ‘That’s better! Your spirits aren’t completely quenched, then?’

She looked round the dim little room with something like pleasure. ‘No, not quenched. Everything that’s happened seems to narrow my vision, I’m glad just to be with you, and out of the rain. I can’t seem to care about anything else very much.’

He kissed the end of her cold nose. ‘As soon as I’ve got you dry. I’m going to put you to bed and give you a little hot supper, and then I expect you to sleep the clock round.’

‘You’re so kind to me.’ Her eyes smiled sleepily at him. ‘I don’t think I’ll find that at all difficult.’

The next morning, Anne was still asleep when Kirov set out from the inn to ride to headquarters and report. Scouts had already been up to the Sparrow Hill that morning to look down on the ruins of Moscow. The rain had extinguished most of the fire, leaving a blackened, smouldering mess of beams and rubble. About two thirds of the old city had been destroyed. It was a sobering thought.

‘It looks as though the Kremlin is more or less untouched, though,’ Toll told him, with a mixture of relief and regret. ‘So Napoleon will still have a palace to live in.’

‘What are the plans for us now? Do we stay here?’

‘Not if our Tolly can help it. We need to be still further west, so that we can cover the two Kaluga roads. Napoleon still thinks we’re heading for Ryazan, but once that ruse falls through, he’s bound to think of Kaluga. We’re going to press the Old Man to push on across country to Troitskoye. It’s between the Old and the New Kaluga Roads, so we can cover them both from there, at a pinch.’

‘It’ll be hard travelling in this weather.’

‘Fathoms of mud,’ Toll agreed with a grin. ‘His Excellency’s favourite going! We’ll try to get him to order the move for tomorrow morning. I don’t suppose there’s any chance of winkling him out today.’

As Kirov was leaving, one of the Prince’s aides, Colonel Kaissarov, came through the room and nodded a distant greeting, and then paused at the door to say casually. ‘Oh, Kirov, by the way – did that messenger find you?’ Kirov looked puzzled. ‘There was a messenger looking for you – civilian – some kind of artisan, from Serpukhov I think.’

Serpukhov was on the Tula road. ‘No, no I didn’t get the message,’ Kirov said.

Kaissarov turned away, saying indifferently, ‘I expect one of the company clerks has it.’ The Prince’s inner circle tended to have a short way with outsiders.

Kirov was back at the inn in the early afternoon, and hurried up to their rooms, sure of bringing Anne news that would cheer her. He found her in the sitting-room, crouched over the fire, which was burning better today, now that the chimney had warmed up.

‘I’ve got a letter for you,’ he greeted her cheerfully, bending over to kiss her cheek. It felt burning hot under his lips, and he straightened to look down at her with consternation. Her eyes were bright, her cheeks painted with fever. ‘You’re ill! What is it, love?’ he said, alarmed.

‘I seem to have caught a cold, I’m afraid,’ she said. ‘Nothing to worry about, Nikolasha. What is this letter? From whom?’

‘It was addressed to me and sent to headquarters,’ he said, unconvinced, but allowing himself to be sidetracked. ‘But when I broke the wafer, I found it was really meant for you. Someone’s been using his wits about the surest way to find you.’

Her face lit. ‘From Jean-Luc? News of Rose?’

He gave it to her, and she turned to the firelight to read it.

First of all, it said, I must tell you that we got safely away. No one troubled us in the least. We reached Podolsk by evening; now I have moved on to Serpukhov.

A family has taken us in – very kind – the Belinskis. He owns a furniture factory; she thinks 1 am clever and amusing. They have a daughter, fifteen, who longs to go on the stage, and a son, eighteen, who longs to join the army: they beg me to tell my adventures over and over. I am very popular as you can imagine!

We are comfortable here, and they love Rose, so 1 don’t see any point in going on further. I shall wait here for news.

We heard that the French took Moscow; and today we heard that it was burning. I pray you both got safely away. I tell Rose you certainly did, but pray send word soon to reassure her. She is well and happy. They have given her a white kitten, and Belinski fils is teaching her the piano.

I send this care of Count Kirov as being the surest way. Everyone always knows where the army is; and he will surely know where you are.Adieu! – De Berthier.

Anne read and re-read this unsatisfactory epistle. There were a hundred things she wanted to know; but at least Rose was safe, and being cared for. The letter was typical of him, she thought, trying to read what was unwritten, between the lines. What had he told these Belinskis? How had he explained his relationship with Rose? Had he hidden the fact that he was French? It maddened her to have to leave her precious child in that man’s protection, and under his influence.

‘Did you read it?’ she asked Nikolai. He nodded. ‘It’s good to know they are safe, at least; but I wish he had gone on to Tula.’

‘Does it occur to you, love, that if he did that, he might find himself separated from Rose? I’m not sure that he would be entirely welcome at the Davidovs’. I don’t suppose Shoora would understand about him and Basil, but Vsevka might thank him and firmly show him the door, especially since he has two unmarried young females in the house.’

‘Yes, Lolya and Kira. He would not care to have them associate with such a man.’

‘By remaining where he is, he can stay with Rose, and tell them what he likes.’

Anne sighed. ‘I’m sure you’re right. We must go and fetch her as soon as possible. Now that her father’s dead – and there’s another thing: how can I tell him about Basil? How can I tell Rose?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said gravely. ‘I think, for the moment, it is better to leave things alone. Send them some non-committal word which will satisfy them for the moment, until we can – Anna? Are you all right?’

She shivered, feeling herself first hot, then cold. ‘I think I have a little of a fever,’ she said.

He touched her brow. ‘I think you have a lot of fever,’ he said, alarmed. ‘I think you had better go straight back to bed.’

Her limbs ached, and the thought of lying down was very tempting. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘perhaps I will.’ But she found she couldn’t get up; Nikolai had to carry her into the bedroom.

The following morning, the army moved out from Podolsk to march the twelve miles or so to Troitskoye. Count Kirov was not with them. Anne’s temperature had climbed all through the day, and by the evening she was plainly very unwell. Adonis, despatched to headquarters in search of a doctor, came back with General Tolly’s personal physician, sent by that kindly soldier with a note expressing his concern.

The physician diagnosed an influenza, and Kirov, whose mind had been running on typhus, smallpox and other such horrors, drew a sigh of relief. ‘Thank heaven!’ he said, and almost smiled.

‘An influenza is not to be taken lightly,’ the doctor reproved him sternly.

‘No, no of course not,’ Kirov murmured, quickly straightening his face.

‘A young and healthy person, with good nursing, should recover from it without permanent disability. But you must take no chances. These are bad times – a lot of infection about, and winter coming on! And there is always pneumonia to think of, my dear sir!’

‘Yes, indeed. I shall be very careful.’

The doctor looked a little mollified. ‘Make sure she’s kept warm at all times, and quiet. Saline draughts until the fever breaks, and then a light diet for the first week. After that, as much nourishing food as she can take. You’ll find she’s rather pulled by it – convalescence can be slow. But in a month or six weeks – I think in two months’ time you may find she is quite herself again.’

‘I understand.’

The doctor looked at him curiously. ‘You know the army is leaving tomorrow? She mustn’t be moved, of course.’

‘No, of course not. I shall speak to the Commander-in-Chief.’ He frowned a moment in thought. ‘If he won’t allow me leave, I shall resign my commission,’ he said finally. ‘I can’t leave her now.’

When the physician had gone, he discovered a sense of relief inside him at the thought of resignation. He was very tired, more tired than he had realised, and the thought of letting go was very pleasant. Everything told him it was time to step out of the current of events, and rest a while.

Anne was very ill – so ill that many times Kirov thought the doctor must have been mistaken in his diagnosis. Her temperature climbed, sinking back a little during the middle of the day, and then rising again towards evening, when she would sometimes become delirious. She complained at first of aching limbs and a severe headache; then she developed an exhausting cough, and her throat became too sore to speak.

It was Adonis, oddly enough, who took charge of the nursing. The innkeeper’s wife inclined to the burning-noxious-vapours-and-swallowing-live-insects school of medicine, which had flourished in the previous century: and Pauline, though willing enough, knew nothing of the business, beyond what her grandmother had once told her – that sick people should lie with their feet higher than their heads so that the infection could drain out of their ears.

This didn’t strike Kirov as very helpful, and he was relieved when Adonis sent her away kindly but firmly, saying that she was not robust, and should not be exposed to the sickness, or he would have two of them on his hands. Pauline was at first scandalised that he, a male, should propose taking care of her lady; but once she learnt that the innkeeper’s wife was to perform the more intimate tasks for her, she relented; and seeing how skilled Adonis was at nursing, she soon ceased to regard him as a male creature at all.

It was Adonis who prepared saline draughts and herbal infusions, and who persuaded the delirious patient to drink them; it was he who propped her up on pillows when she found it hard to breathe, bathed her hands and face with rose-water, and mixed a soothing syrup for her throat. Most of all, it was he who calmed Kirov’s fears by telling him again and again that she was doing very well, and that it really was just an influenza; and dealt, successively, with his master’s fears of smallpox, scarlet fever, diphtheria, and, when the cough began, consumption.

At the end of a week, the fever broke at last, leaving the patient with all the symptoms of a heavy cold, cough and sore throat, which even her distracted lover could believe she might ultimately recover from. It was as well that she did show this improvement, for on the 26th of September the cavalry of the French advance guard, who had several days before realised they were following a party of Cossacks on a wild goose chase, discovered at last where the main Russian army had got to. They began advancing southwards, and Prince Kutuzov, not seeing any need to gratify them by giving battle, gave the order for another withdrawal, towards Kaluga.

This left Podolsk in a rather exposed position, and after a brief consultation between them, Kirov and Adonis agreed that it would be more dangerous to remain where they were than to remove Anne to a safer place.

‘Now the fever’s broken – as long as she’s well wrapped up, and put in a coach of some sort–’ Adonis said.

‘Yes, I agree. But where can we go? We don’t want to travel too far, but we need to be safe.’

‘Somewhere out of the way – off the main roads. I’ll make enquiries, Colonel.’

His enquiries produced a small house on the side road from Voronovo to Kolomna belonging to a local dvorian, whose finances had become so perilous in the hard years leading up to the invasion that he was willing not merely to rent it but even to sell it, and to remove himself at a moment’s notice to the home of a married sister in Tarutino. The deal was rapidly concluded, and Anne was wrapped in a large quantity of warm clothing, and placed in a telega hired for the purpose, and they removed to Litetsk on the same day that the first French company came clattering into Podolsk.

Although only ten miles further on, Litetsk was much more isolated, standing on an unfrequented road, and sheltered from casual view from the road by an exceedingly overgrown park and almost impassable drive. It was very unlikely that any French patrol would even use this road, and still less so that they would think of leaving it to penetrate the tangle of the driveway for any reason.

The four of them settled in, to light the fires, screen the draughts, and make themselves comfortable. The move had exhausted Anne, who was suffering from the usual debilitation of influenza. She slept a great deal, and when awake had no energy for anything but to lie looking at the fire. For the others, the sense of security of Litetsk was enhanced by the knowledge that there was nothing they must or even could do until Anne was well again; after strenuous effort and worry, the reaction caused a depth of relaxation in all of them amounting almost to lethargy.

Nikolai spent his days sitting in a chair by the fire. When Anne slept, he dozed and daydreamed, going over the events of the past, taking stock, repairing the thousand tiny lesions in heart and mind that a full life and an active career had left. He was very tired, and for the first ten days at Litetsk he rarely stirred from his chair; eating and drinking with infantile docility whatever Adonis put before him; caring nothing about the progress of the war; retiring early to bed, to a deep and dreamless sleep.

As Anne grew stronger, and was able to sit up and take notice, so Nikolai recovered too. She was still very weak and pulled, and a little of any activity sufficed her. He sat with her and read to her, played cards with her, but mostly just held her hand and talked to her. At first they talked randomly, of neutral subjects; but they both had a great deal of mourning to do, and there were shocks they had sustained whose effect had been, through necessity, deeply hidden. The time came when it was right for those events to be relived, for the pain to surface and be suffered and dealt with.

They talked of the flight from Moscow, and of Basil’s death, and then of Borodino, and of Sergei. Their grief over Sergei’s death was compounded by the knowledge of his deep and ineradicable unhappiness; and for Kirov, by the knowledge that his son had died without forgiving him, without reconciliation. Speaking of it now, for the first time, with Anne, he knew that there were layers and layers of suffering still to be realised. Anne might grieve for Sergei, mourn the waste of so promising a life; but Kirov’s anguish was of a different order. This was only the beginning for him of knowing that his son was dead.

Moving backwards through pain, they talked of Vilna, of Anne’s marriage, of Pyatigorsk, of Natasha, of Irina. There was a day when Anne was able at last to weep, and once begun, she could not seem to stop. Nikolai took her in his arms, and she cried on his shoulder until his jacket was soaked through, cried until her head ached, cried herself into a fever again. The next day she was prostrated, and Adonis was for the first time really worried, thinking she was suffering a relapse. But on the day after that, she was herself again, and plainly on the mend. As the physical fever had burnt out the infection, so the fever of weeping had burnt out the grief.

They could talk then of good things: of being together, of the child that was to come. Anne was now approaching the end of the fourth month, and was beginning to show. She would lie with her hands curved over her belly, and smile at Nikolai that transfiguring smile that belongs only to pregnant women.

‘We must be married before he’s born,’ Nikolai said one day. ‘1 don’t wish him to be disadvantaged.’

Anne smiled, but felt a fluttering inside, as if she were a green girl in her first Season. ‘You have never asked me to marry you,’ she said teasingly, to hide her foolishness. ‘Perhaps I may not accept.’

He looked at her carefully, to see how serious she was. ‘Shall I do it properly? Shall I kneel?’

‘You needn’t kneel – but, yes, seriously, I should like you to ask me,’ she said.

He took her hand and kissed it, and then covered it with both of his. ‘Anna Petrovna, since I first met you on the Île de la Cité, in Paris, nine years ago, my love for you has never faltered, only grown. You are everything in the world that I want in a woman. You are to me entirely lovely.’

Her throat closed up at the depth of emotion she saw in those shining, green-gold eyes. It seemed almost frightening to be so much to someone: and yet she loved him as strongly, loved him wordlessly and absolutely, as she loved daylight and the air she breathed. Why should she be surprised?

‘I love you, too,’ she said. ‘I have no words to tell you how much.’

‘Will you marry me, then, doushenka? Will you marry me, little soul?’

Absurd that it should be so important; but she had heard at last the words from him that for so many years she had never dreamed she would hear. She felt happy, peaceful, triumphant.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes please.’

At the end of October, a letter arrived for Kirov from General Tolly – a private letter of farewell, informing him that he had resigned from his position, pleading ill health.

My health has certainly been impaired, and I have not been fully well since Borodino, the letter said, but I have no hesitation in telling you what I have already said to the Prince, that my resignation is hastened by deep dissatisfaction with the way things have been handled. The army has become a monster with two heads: administration and command, both, have become a chaos of incoherence and ineffectuality. I am retiring to Kolomna for a few months, and will write a full and detailed report to His Majesty, concealing nothing that has gone on. I regret nothing in leaving, but that I have not had an opportunity to say goodbye to you, Nikolai Sergeyevitch. I have a great admiration for your abilities: I hope if you return to your duties, that you will be better appreciated than I was.

When the letter came, Kirov was still sunk in his indolent period, and he was roused by it no further than to feel deeply sorry for the general who had been consistently undervalued and vilified, and yet who had done more than anyone else to keep the army together. The two heads of the monster – Bennigsen and Kutuzov – must have come close many times to driving Tolly mad, he thought. He hoped sincerely that the Emperor, who had always admired Tolly, would find some way to reward him, and to do him public justice.

It was not until the middle of October that Adonis began to bring his master back snippets of news from the outside world, when he ventured out for supplies. Napoleon was still sitting in Moscow, he told him, and suffering apparently from the same curious indecision which had marked the whole campaign. It was known that he had sent three times to Emperor Alexander offering terms for peace; it was thought that the Emperor had simply ignored them, had not troubled to answer. Yet Napoleon did not seem to have come to any conclusions as to what to do next, and neither moved on, nor retreated, but merely squatted in the ruined city.

The Russian army had retreated as far south as Tarutino on the Old Kaluga Road, where it was in touch with Kiev and Tula. Kutuzov was waiting for reinforcements who were at that moment marching up from the south. He made no attempt to engage the French in battle, and Kirov felt he was doing absolutely the right thing. The longer Napoleon remained in Moscow doing nothing, the more completely he was trapped; a hostile move on the Russian side might prompt him to action. Besides, the Russian army grew stronger day by day as the French grew weaker, and the threat of the army was as effective in confining the enemy as a battle would be – and much less costly.

The French advance guard under Murat had followed as far as Vinkovo on the same road, and stopped there. The two forces remained ten miles apart, facing each other in uneasy equilibrium. It was a curious period of inaction. The only hostilities were the Cossack raids on the supply lines along the Smolensk-Moscow High Road, and the relentless picking off of foraging parties whenever it could be done without risk.

The weather had remained unusually warm for the time of year – a factor, Kirov thought, in Napoleon’s continued delay. He had evidently been lulled into a false sense of security by the Indian summer – but the snow might begin in a fortnight, or a month, or tomorrow, and then the city would be cut off, and he would starve. Already the nights were increasingly cold, and there was sometimes a sharp frost for the oblique sunshine to warm away in the morning.

The mild weather which was perhaps deceiving Napoleon, also extended the idyll of Nikolai and Anne in their rural retreat. They were perfectly happy together, doing nothing but enjoying each other’s company, and the bliss of unimpeded love. In the middle of the day it was often warm enough to sit out of doors, and Anne, who was now out of bed and growing stronger, was amusing herself by pottering in the overgrown garden, and bringing in bunches of late, overblown roses and Michaelmas daisies to decorate the dinner table. They dined simply, and the plain food was satisfying as no banquet had ever been. In the evenings they sat by the fire and talked, or played cards, or read aloud to each other. They went to bed early, and made love, and then slept in each other’s arms.

It was a rude shattering of this idyll when Adonis came in one rainy day when they were confined indoors. He sought them out in the drawing-room without even taking off his wet tunic, and stood before them, dripping on the hearth rug, his one eye regarding them sternly.

‘That’s it, Colonel,’ he announced grimly. The return to the military title – of late he had been calling Kirov ‘master’ or the neutral ‘sir’ – shook the Count out of his reverie. ‘They’ve upped and gone!’

‘What? Who’s gone?’ He read the answer in Adonis’s face. ‘The French?’

Anne drew in a breath of surprise and alarm. ‘The French have left Moscow?’

‘Four days since,’ said Adonis. ‘Started off on the Old Kaluga Road, just as if they were going to challenge us to a battle; then turned off and went across country to the New Road. A sort of feint, it looks like – but the Cossack scouts were following ’em all the way, and soon saw what was going on.’

‘Across country? But that’s all marsh land that way. Those roads won’t take the weight of a whole army.’

‘So they’ve found out, Colonel,’ he said with relish. ‘That’s why it’s taken ’em so long – and from what I heard, you never saw such a circus as Napoleon’s got along with him! Not just the footsoldiers and the cavalry and the artillery, but carts and carts of plunder, a host of boulevard carriages they’ve picked up in Moscow, and such a crowd of hangers-on as you never did see, including, they say, the whole of the Theatre Français – afraid of being lynched if they stay in Moscow after the Grande Armée’s gone! Christ, I’d like to see Napoleon shift that lot along! This rain’s all but finished ’em off.’

Kirov was on his feet, walking up and down as his mind began to work again for the first time in weeks. ‘Moving south, is he? But if he has all that train along, he can’t be meaning to mount a military campaign. He must be retreating – heading back for the border.’

‘Then why is he going towards Kaluga?’ Anne asked.

‘In the hope of capturing our supply depots, and taking a more southerly route to Smolensk, I suppose. He wouldn’t want to march back the way he came, along the High Road – it’s picked clean. There’s nothing there but trampled fields and burnt villages.’

‘Yes, of course. I hadn’t thought of that.’

‘There’s more danger than that on the High Road, Colonel,’ Adonis commented neutrally. ‘A lot of the peasants who cleared out when the French came through have drifted back now. Their field crops have been trampled and their villages destroyed, and they’re out for vengeance. There are bands of armed peasants in the outlying villages, and living rough in the woods, just waiting for a chance to show the French what they think of them.’

‘But why did Napoleon make that elaborate feint along the Old Road? I suppose he must be hoping to slip past our army on the New Road without a battle. What are our generals doing, Adonis?’

‘Wasting time, as usual, Colonel,’ he said with a grimace. ‘The Prince-General got the news yesterday, but he said he couldn’t move off until the horses that were out on foraging parties had come back into camp. They’re going to march off tomorrow, to try to catch the French at the road junction at Maloyaroslavets.’ He grunted. ‘Thank God for this rain, and Napoleon’s cleverness! If he’d gone directly by the High Road, he’d have passed our army before the Prince-General woke up, and be in Kaluga by now!’

The mention of rain made Anne aware of the state of the hearth rug. ‘You’d better go and get dried off,’ she advised, ‘before you come down with an influenza too.’

Adonis looked offended. ‘I’ve never been ill in my life,’ he said. ‘That’s for women and weaklings.’

Anne laughed as he stalked off, but when he was gone, she turned to Nikolai, her smile fading like June snow. ‘What happens now?’ she said quietly. ‘It is the end of this place for us, isn’t it?’

He nodded slowly. ‘Yes, I think so. It’s time to move on.’

‘Are you going back to them?’

‘I don’t know. It depends a great deal on what happens next, how Kutuzov means to handle it. In his position I think I would simply let the French go, confine them if possible to the worst road, harry them and delay them where possible, and let the winter take care of them. But there’s bound to be pressure on him to attack and finish them off.’

‘They shouldn’t be allowed to escape,’ Anne said. ‘Especially Bonaparte. If he gets away, the war will go on, maybe for another twenty years.’

‘No, my love. This campaign will finish him. He will have lost his reputation as well as his army. Didn’t I tell you he had overreached himself when he invaded Russia? His star is waning – all things have their season.’

Anne was almost in tears. ‘No, you don’t understand! He’s a monster! He’s a black magician! If he gets away he will somehow – somehow – make it all right with his people. He’ll find another army, and it will all begin again. He must be destroyed.’

‘He will be. Don’t be afraid, Anna! It’s all over for Napoleon, I promise you!’

She looked unconvinced, but said, ‘What about us? What shall we do now?’

He thought for a moment, and then said, ‘I think we had better collect Rose and take her to Tula – that’s the first thing. 1 should like to see Lolya again, too. Then we can decide what to do.’

She searched his face for information. Would he be able to leave the campaign alone, having come with it so far? Wouldn’t he want to be in at the kill, if kill there was to be? He said ‘we can decide’ – but he meant ‘I shall decide’.

‘We’ll be farther from the army at Tula,’ she said quietly.

‘There are regular military couriers coming to Tula every day. We’ll get the news there as quickly – and more accurately – than we get it here,’ he said.

She had her answer.

They arrived in Serpukhov early in the afternoon of the next day, to learn that a piecemeal battle was being fought at Maloyaroslavets. Kirov was evidently disturbed by the news, and even more so by his inability to find out any reliable details of the action. It seemed that a French advance guard had reached the town the night before, and the Russian advance guard, arriving this morning, had driven them out, but failed to finish them off. Since then other divisions had been arriving singly through the day, and each side had pitched some, but not all, of them into the battle.

Prompted by Anne, he managed to return his mind to the task in hand, and asked a passer-by for the direction of the Belinski house. They found it without difficulty – a small but modern and well-built house on the outskirts of the town, with a very young pleasure-garden to one side of it, and the factory to the other.

Adonis was prepared to jump down and knock on the door, but Anne forstalled him, thinking the sight of him might well frighten any provincial servant into fits. She went herself, and was glad that she had, for a round-eyed maid of no more than fourteen opened the door to her, and stared up in awe and consternation at Anne’s hat.

‘Good afternoon,’ she said kindly. ‘I am Madame Tchaikovskova, and I believe you have my daughter staying here with you.’ The maid’s mouth hung a little open, but she didn’t seem to be able to think of an answer. ‘Is your mistress at home?’ Anne pursued.

‘Tanya? Who is it?’ A voice emerged from the depths of the house, closely followed by the very ornately dressed figure of a middle-aged woman, with high-piled curls of a shade of gold nature surely had never intended. ‘Ask the name, you stupid girl! How many times have I told you–’ She stopped dead at the sight of Anne. ‘And who might you be?’ she asked, with a suspicion Anne could not wholly blame, in view of the presence only forty miles away of the Emperor Napoleon’s Grande Armde.

‘Madame Belinski? I am the Countess Tchaikovskova, Rose’s mother. I believe she is staying here with you?’

A remarkable series of expressions passed across the marshmallow-pink face, which seemed to leave its owner as incapable of speech as the maid. Kirov had now descended from the carriage and came up behind Anne, and she heard his voice from behind her, gently prompting.

‘I’m afraid we’re letting the cold air into your house, madame. May we come in?’

‘Oh – oh, why, yes – do! My manners! I’m so sorry. You must excuse – we weren’t expecting you, you see, and dear Zho-Zho didn’t say–’ Her hands fluttered about her like panicking birds, alighting now on her hair, now her bosom, now brushing down her skirts. ‘I’m not dressed for receiving visitors, as you see. You really must excuse me, dear Madame – and Monsieur Tchaikovsky – oh, do come through into the drawing-room!’

‘Please, you mustn’t disturb yourself,’ Anne said, following the retreating figure. ‘I am sorry to have come upon you unannounced like this, but as things are at the moment–’

‘Oh, time of war – of course, of course! And the things you must have witnessed, madame, are not to be told! Moscow burning! Such a terrible thing! Those French are monsters, monsters, and so I’ve always said! And Belinski was beside himself when he heard – well, I shouldn’t have liked to be a Frenchman coming into the room just then! To set fire to our holy city, and after all we’ve done for them! Well, I said to Belinski, I said it would serve them right if we all stopped speaking French after this, just to show them! Only of course one can’t speak Russian in the drawing-room, it sounds so odd, and I never learned English…’

Anne passed behind her into the drawing-room, a heavily furnished, crowded, but comfortable room, and saw Rose sitting at a table near the window cutting out paper dolls. Jean-Luc was sitting beside her, watching her, his chin resting in his hand. His hair, she saw at once, was much shorter. The luxuriant cascade, which had reached to his waist, had been cropped just below the shoulders, and he was wearing it neatly tied in a queue. He was dressed very plainly in trousers and tunic, and if he was wearing make-up, it was certainly a great deal more subtle than Madame Belinski’s.

He looked up as she came in, and a strange expression crossed his face for a moment; then the veil descended, and he assumed his usual inscrutability. Anne couldn’t quite decide what the expression had been. He looked taken aback, as though he had not expected ever to see her again – as well he might, since he had not heard from her for so long. But it was not the look of someone glad to see her: he looked, she thought, stricken, as though her appearance foretold some doom.

But all this passed through Anne’s mind in a second. Her eyes had gone immediately to her daughter, who looked up, regarded her for a moment in surprise and wonder, and then wreathed her face in joyful smiles.

‘Maman! Maman!’ she cried out, and struggled down from her seat to limp across the room as fast as her legs would carry her. Anne met her half-way, and in an instant she was in her arms, and they were embracing with all their strength. Behind her Anne heard Madame Belinski sigh sentimentally.

‘Isn’t that a pretty thing to see? There’s no mistaking our little Rose’s mama, is there? I always say, don’t you, Count Tchaikovsky, that there’s nothing stronger than the bond between mother and child! So natural, so pretty!’

Anne, her face buried deep in Rose’s neck and thin silky hair, turned to face them as Nikolai, gravely concurring with this deep philosophical truth, went on to explain that he was not Count Tchaikovsky, but Count Kirov, a friend of the family.

‘Oh, not our little Rose’s father, then?’ Madame Belinski said brightly, but with a glint of suspicion in her eye as she looked from Nikolai to Anne.

Anne, however, had no attention for her. Jean-Luc was on his feet, and at the mention of Rose’s father, he had sought Nikolai’s eye with a questioning look. Nikolai returned the gaze steadily for a moment, and then gave an almost infinitesimal shake of the head. Jean-Luc read it, understood; his face aged, almost visibly. Anne was shocked to see the change in him. She had never liked to think about the relationship between him and Basil; it hurt her dreadfully to have to acknowledge that the Frenchman had loved her husband, but there was no doubt about it now. He had truly loved Basil, as she had not.

Anne found her legs trembling, and was forced to sit down, taking Rose, who was clinging to her like a marmoset, on to her lap.

‘I am so grateful to you, Madame Belinski,’ she heard herself say in a light, shaky voice which was hardly her own, ‘for taking care of my daughter. I don’t know how I shall ever be able to thank you.’

‘We have enjoyed having her, Madame – and her brother,’ Madame Belinksi said. ‘Or – I suppose I should say, her half-brother?’ A hint of a question mark crept into her voice as the puzzlement surfaced on her painted face. ‘For I see now – excuse my impertinence, madame, but you are much too young to be dear Zho-Zho’s mother! Not, of course,’ she went on, with curiosity strong in her voice, ‘that there’s a great resemblance between him and Rose – but that would be accounted for, perhaps…’

Anne dragged her wits together. So that’s what he had told them! Clever – or was it more devious? ‘Yes, of course – a previous marriage,’ she said vaguely. ‘I dare say he resembles his mother more strongly.’

Nikolai spoke from behind her. ‘I wonder if I might have a word with you – er – Zho-Zho – in private, if Madame Belinski would graciously excuse us?’

‘Of course, of course – please do,’ Madame Belinski smiled and blushed, and Anne guessed that Nikolai was being charming over her shoulder.

‘And then, I’m afraid, we shall have to be taking our leave. I hate to descend on you and leave again so suddenly–’

Madame Belinski looked taken aback. ‘But no, surely not – you will stay to dinner at least? My husband will want to meet you – and the children are out visiting – they will be heartbroken. Oh, surely, after Rose has been with us so long, you will not just take her away helter-skelter like that!’

Nikolai was grave. ‘Madame, I regret deeply the appearance of haste and ingratitude it must present to you. I assure you nothing but the most urgent considerations of national importance would persuade me to leave so precipitately, but where His Majesty’s business is at stake, all else must come second.’

Madame Belinski was flattened by the speech, which contained at least three words she didn’t understand. ‘Oh, of course, of course,’ she whispered meekly. ‘I quite understand.’

‘And I assure you, dear madame, that as soon as the present emergency is over, we will return in order to thank you properly for all the kindness you have shown, and to allow little Rose to visit you again. Indeed, I hope she will often be visiting you. I’m sure she regards you now as her second family.’

These sentiments set Madame Belinski chattering about kindness and obligation, which she directed at Anne as Nikolai took Jean-Luc out of the room – she supposed to tell him about Basil. Anne listened patiently, aware of the great and real debt she owed this kind woman; and feeling guiltily glad that Nikolai had made it possible for them to get away.

It took over an hour to do so, despite the fact that there was very little to pack, for it was very hard to stop madame talking. The Belinskis had given Rose a number of toys and new clothes, and there was the white kitten, too; and then Rose had to say goodbye to all the servants individually. Anne was afraid the rest of the family would come back before they had left, and it would all begin again; but at last they were all squeezed in the carriage, with Rose on Anne’s lap and the kitten on Jean-Luc’s, and they were off.

Jean-Luc had hardly spoken a word since they arrived at the house, and Anne was not very surprised, considering the nature of the news Nikolai had given him. She was surprised when they travelled only another ten miles towards Tula, and stopped at a posting-inn in a village, where Nikolai announced they were to spend the night.

They bespoke rooms, and an early supper; Anne acquired some bread and milk from the kitchen for Rose, and had the pleasure of sitting with her while she ate, and then of bathing her and putting her to bed herself. When she tucked her in, however, she asked for Jean-Luc to come and kiss her goodnight. Anne shrugged inwardly, kissed her daughter, and went downstairs to find him.

She couldn’t help wondering what was going to happen at Tula, if, as Nikolai said, the Davidovs would not admit him to the house. His position was now equivocal, to say the least; and when they settled again in their own home, what then? Without Basil, he had no place in her household, except as Rose’s ‘friend’. How much he really cared for her daughter she was unsure: not enough, she hoped, to make him want to stay near her.

She found Jean-Luc with Nikolai in the coffee room, and delivered Rose’s message.

‘Very well, I’ll go up at once,’ he said. He hesitated a moment as though he would say more, and then shrugged, and left them.

Alone, Anne and Nikolai turned to each other. ‘He told the Belinskis he was Rose’s brother,’ she said.

Nikolai looked grim. ‘It was his solution to a deadly problem,’ he told her. ‘I’ve been talking to him – had it all out of him. He stumbled, you see, though he didn’t know it at first, into a household of the most rabid patriots and Francophobes in the province. If Belinski père had discovered the truth about him, he would have handed him over to the town committee, who would probably have hanged him without further ado. Fortunately for him, his acting skills enabled him to hide any trace of his nationality. His great fear was that Rose would betray him accidentally – but I don’t think they were terribly discerning people.’

‘No,’ Anne said thoughtfully. ‘Poor Jean-Luc. It must have been very bad for him.’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘You feel sorry for him? I thought you hated him unrelentingly.’

She gave a painful smile. ‘I did. But I wonder sometimes… I can see just a little what he must feel. Did you tell him about Basil?’

‘Yes. Also about the Theatre Français leaving with Napoleon’s train: that his old company, to a man, are heading out of Russia as fast as they can go.’

Anne looked puzzled. ‘Why did you tell him that?’

‘Because he needs somewhere to go.’

Anne studied his face carefully. ‘He’s going with them? He does not mind, then, leaving Rose?’

‘Do you want him to stay?’

‘No – of course not – but–’

‘Then be grateful.’ He stood up abruptly and walked to the fireplace, resting one elbow on the chimney-piece, and said, ‘Now that Basil is dead, there is nothing for him here. He will be an embarrassment to you and to himself, besides being a danger to Rose – moral and physical. For her to be in company with a Frenchman now – and later, for her to be under the influence of a known sodomite–’ The brutality of the word made Anne wince and he met her eyes briefly and then turned away to look into the fire. ‘Yes, I put it to him that way, in those words. So he’s decided to go back to Paris, to his own people.’

‘You put it to him?’ she said slowly. ‘What else? Nikolasha – what else?’

He didn’t turn his head but spoke still staring into the fire, his forehead resting against his arm. ‘I threatened him a little, too. Told him that once I married you, I wouldn’t let him see her. I said that if he didn’t go, I would see to it that everyone found out he was French.’ A pause. ‘That would be like sentencing him to death.’

There was a long silence. She looked at his back, and didn’t know what to say, or even to think. All he had said of Jean-Luc was true; yet Jean-Luc had brought Rose safe out of Moscow, and Rose loved him. There was no place for him here now; he must be sent away. Nikolai had done what he did for the best, she thought, but it was not the sort of thing she would have expected of him.

He stirred, as if he had heard her thoughts. ‘I don’t like myself very much at the moment,’ he said.

Jean-Luc left early the next morning, not wishing still to be there when Rose woke. Kirov did his best for him, gave him money and a fur coat and a horse; and wrote him a letter which would get him safely through any Russian military hands into which he might fall. ‘When you get near the French, make sure you destroy it, or they’ll think you’re a spy. You had better buy provisions as you pass through Serpukhov and carry them with you. Travel as fast as you can – stay at the head of the French column. With a good horse, you should get through – but take care of it. If it dies, you die.’

Jean-Luc received everything – money, horse and advice – in hostile silence. Kirov eyed him thoughtfully. ‘It’s for the best,’ he said. ‘When the Grande Armée has gone, it won’t be a good thing to be French.’

‘No. But that isn’t why you want me gone. You don’t give a damn about the safety of my skin.’

‘No – but Anna does. And I care about her – and Rose.’

At the mention of the child, Jean-Luc’s face crumpled for an instant, before he regained control. ‘Take care of her,’ he said. ‘If you let any harm come to her – I may not be able to hurt you in this life, but I’ll pursue you beyond the grave, I swear it.’

‘I’ll take care of her,’ Kirov said gravely. ‘I – I wish you well.’

The mask was in place, and Jean-Luc gave him a smooth and seamless look. ‘God damn you, Count Kirov,’ he said calmly. ‘And God damn Napoleon Bonaparte – if he hadn’t invaded Russia, none of this would have happened.’

‘I think God has damned him already,’ Kirov said. ‘Take care you don’t get caught in the blast.’

It was hard to explain to Rose that Jean-Luc had gone. She accepted it at first, but Anne realised later that it was only because she hadn’t understood, and thought he would be back. When they prepared to leave the inn, she dug in her heels and refused to move. They must wait for Jean-Luc, she declared. They couldn’t go without him.

Anne tried to explain the situation, and Rose’s lip began to tremble.

‘I want Zho-Zho!’ she cried ominously.

‘Darling, he’s gone away, back to his friends. He can’t stay with us any more.’

‘When’s he coming back?’

‘He isn’t coming back, poppet. He’s going to live with his own people from now on, in France.’

Rose’s eyes filled with tears, and the tears overflowed. She had lost Mademoiselle and Nyanya and Papa and the ginger kitten, and had clung through all of it to Zho-Zho, who had taken her to a safe place where they gave her a new kitten and nice things to eat and a dozen people cuddled her all day long. But if Zho-Zho went, there was no firm foundation to her life: chaos loomed, and the only way she knew to respond to that was to cry, loud and long.

She was still crying when they carried her to the carriage; she cried on and off for the next three hours, and only stopped crying in the end through sheer exhaustion. As they drove at last into Tula, she was asleep on Pauline’s lap, her thumb in her mouth, and the kitten dozing in her arms, her tear-swollen face drawn in lines of weariness and sorrow. Her eyelids flickered now and then as they drove through the streets, and when they pulled up in the sweep in front of the Davidov house she took one quick look, and then turned her face into Pauline’s bosom and closed her eyes, retreating from intolerable reality into sleep.

The butler opened the door as the carriage pulled up, and a footman came out to help put down the step. Nikolai stepped down, and turned back to offer Anne his hand; but before she was out of the carriage, there was the sound of light feet on the gravel, and Shoora came running down the steps and towards them.

Kirov turned to catch her by the forearms as she flung herself at him; at the door of the house, Vsevka had appeared, looking grave, and behind him Kira, wearing black bands for her fiancé who had fallen at Borodino.

‘Nicky! Thank God you’ve come!’ Shoora was crying. Her face was pale and her mouth bowed with tragedy. ‘You got our message then? Oh, what’s to be done? We’ve been worried out of our minds!’

‘Shoora, dearest girl, calm down! What message? I haven’t had any message from you,’ Kirov said.

Shoora’s eyes grew rounder, her mouth made a soundless ‘o’ of shock. ‘Then – then you haven’t – you don’t know about–’

‘What’s happened?’ he asked, gripping her hands firmly; but his heart was cold with apprehension.

‘We sent a letter to you straight away by the military courier, to headquarters. We thought you’d be there, or that they’d know where you were. We didn’t know what to do for the best – but it wasn’t my fault, Nicky, you must believe me! I had no idea what she was going to do!’

‘For God’s sake, Shoora, tell me what’s happened!’

‘It’s Lolya – she’s gone. She’s run away.’

Chapter Thirty-Three

The all was soon told, and it was very little. Lolya had gone out riding, accompanied by her maid; when she did not return for dinner, Shoora had been alarmed, thinking she must have met with an accident, and Vsevka had sent out servants to search the estate.

‘You didn’t miss her until dinner time?’ Nikolai said incredulously.

‘It was nothing unusual. You know how she loves to ride. She was often out all day without noticing the time,’ Shoora protested. ‘She used to wear out that maid of hers, but of course I wouldn’t let her ride completely alone, in case of accidents.’

‘You should have sent a groom with her,’ he said hotly. ‘A girl of her age, to be allowed to jaunt all over the country with nothing but a silly chit of a maid–’

‘That’s not fair, Nicky. Lolya’s not a child – she’s eighteen, and quite capable of knowing what she must and mustn’t do. Of course if she had gone outside of our own estate, I should have insisted she had a groom with her, but in our grounds I didn’t think there was any need.’

He bit back his next angry words. ‘I’m sorry. You’re right, of course. Go on.’

‘Well, we searched and searched, thinking she must have had a fall. It never occurred to us that she’d run away – well, who would think of such a thing?’

I would, Anne thought, but she said nothing yet. A suspicion was forming in her mind which she didn’t want to admit.

‘And then we found the letter she left,’ Shoora went on. ‘One of-the maids went up to turn the beds down, and there was the envelope addressed to Vsevka and me, pinned to the pillow.’

‘Have you got it there? Let me see.’

Shoora took it from her pocket and handed it over. ‘And then we found that she had taken a cloak-bag with various things – her toothbrush and hairbrushes and nightgown and so on, and her jewellery, and the miniature of her mother, and the cachoux-box you brought her from Paris…’

Nikolai read the letter, and handed it to Anne. ‘What the devil does this mean? Have you any idea, Anna?’

Anne scanned the scrawled lines.

Dear Aunt and Uncle, I’m sorry to leave like this without saying goodbye, but you’d be sure to try to stop me, and I can’t allow that. Please don’t worry about me, for I shall be quite safe. I shan’t be coming back, ever, but I will write to you when I am settled and tell you all about it. Thank you for all your kindness to me. Please tell Papa 1 shall write to him, too, and that he mustn’t be angry with me, for I can’t be happy here any more. My best love to you all – your Lolya.

Oh Lolya, Anne thought, you silly, romantic child! She turned to Shoora. ‘Tell me,’ she said, ‘has Lolya had any letters while she’s been here?’

‘Yes, several, from her friend Varsha in Kaluga – you know, she used to be Varvara Salkina until she married the eldest Surin boy in the summer. She wrote to Lolya every week. Why do you ask?’

‘Did she receive a letter on the day she disappeared?’

‘I don’t remember. Wait – yes, the evening before, I think.’

‘And her decision to go riding was quite sudden?’

‘She announced it as she was going up to bed,’ Vsevka put in drily. ‘She said she was tired and went early, but at the door she said she’d like to go out riding the next day. I thought at the time it was an odd thing to think of, if she was tired, but you know what girls are like.’

Nikolai caught Anne’s arm and turned her towards him, his fingers biting into her flesh. ‘What do you know, Anna? Do you know where she is?’

‘I don’t know, but I can guess. She’s in love with Colonel Duvierge of the French Embassy – or thinks she is. He will have been with Bonaparte in Moscow these last few weeks. My guess is that he’s been writing to her, and that the last letter she got was to tell her the French were leaving, and going back to France.’ She took a breath. ‘I think she’s gone to join him.’

‘But the letters came from Kaluga,’ Shoora said.

‘Obviously she told him to write care of her friend, so that your suspicions wouldn’t be aroused.’

‘What reason have you for thinking this?’ Nikolai asked sharply.

‘She’s been writing to him ever since she left Petersburg. She believes he’s really on our side, and hates Napoleon – she thinks he only wants peace for the world. Now I suppose she thinks he’s going away and she’ll never see him again, so she’s gone off to join him.’

‘That would be just the sort of hare-brained thing she’d think of,’ Vsevka said. ‘But Duvierge? I find it hard to believe she’d fall in love with a Frenchman.’

Nikolai was unconvinced. ‘I don’t believe it. You’ve no evidence for all this whatsoever.’

‘Where else could she have gone?’ Anne said. ‘She says she’s never coming back.’ His fingers were hurting her arm, and she sighed and touched them. ‘But she couldn’t have done it without help,’ she said.

‘That maid of hers was completely under her thumb,’ Shoora said.

Vsevka shook his head grimly. ‘I think there’s someone else who might know something about it. Shall we ask Kira?’

Kira had been hovering in the background all this time. She had edged towards the door at the beginning of the conversation, but couldn’t quite bring herself to miss what was being said. Now they all turned towards her, and she was trapped. She shrank back a little, and then lifted her pale face defiantly.

Nikolai released Anne’s arm and bore down on her. ‘Kira, what do you know about this? Is it as Anna says?’ Kira didn’t answer immediately, and he took her shoulders and shook her violently, startling her. ‘Tell me what you know! This is serious, you silly chit!’

‘Yes! Yes, she’s run away to join Andre!’ she cried out, and then burst into tears.

Nikolai removed his hands and turned away, looking so white that Anne thought he was going to be sick. She moved closer to him. Vsevka looked at his daughter incredulously.

‘If you knew about it, why didn’t you tell us? For God’s sake, Kira, why did you let her do such a crazy thing?’

‘It isn’t crazy,’ she sobbed. ‘Lolya loves him, and he loves her.’

‘Nonsense! He doesn’t care a jot for her. He was just trying to get information out of her,’ Anne said.

Kira turned a tearful, stricken face from one to the other. ‘She knew you wouldn’t understand. That’s why she made me promise not to tell. I helped her, and I was glad to! You don’t know, any of you, what it’s like to be in love! My Felix is dead! Lolya wanted to have her chance of happiness, but you’d have tried to stop her.’

Her sobs overcame her, and Shoora went automatically to put her arms round her and comfort her. Vsevka looked at his brother-in-law.

‘What will you do?’ he asked quietly.

Nikolai’s shoulders were bent, as though under a terrible burden, and Anne, who could see his face, saw the loss in his eyes, and wished she could have protected him from this. But an instant later he straightened, and his face became hard, his eyes determined.

‘I must go after her. I wish to God I knew which way she had gone, though. It will be like looking for a needle in a haystack.’

Anne turned to Kira, and said gently, ‘Did she tell you, Kira? Did she say which way she was going? You must tell us if she did – her life may be in danger.’

It took a while for Kira’s sobs to subside enough for her words to be understood; then she told them that Lolya was riding to Kaluga, to Varvara Surina’s house, where Colonel Duvierge would meet her as the French army passed through on its way to Smolensk.

Nikolai whipped round. ‘What? Then – good God! – she’s probably still there! Why didn’t you say so at once, you stupid girl?’ He turned to Vsevka. ‘We guessed that the French were hoping to get to Kaluga, but our scouts spotted them on the way, and they were intercepted at Maloyaroslavets. They never reached Kaluga, so Lolya will still be waiting at the Surins’ house.’

‘Oh, thank God!’ Shoora cried. ‘Kira, why didn’t you tell us?’

But there was no time for recriminations. ‘I must go at once,’ Nikolai said. ‘Vsevka, can you give me a horse?’

‘Of course. Do you want me to come with you?’

‘I’m going with you,’ Anne said firmly.

He stared, seeing at once her determination, trying to gauge her reasons. ‘Nonsense. You can’t, in your condition.’

‘Don’t be silly. My condition is nothing yet. I’m coming with you, so don’t waste time arguing.’

‘I have to ride fast.’

‘If I can’t keep up, I give you leave to abandon me,’ Anne said drily. ‘If Lolya’s there, you’ll need me to chaperone her, don’t you see? What will be the point of rescuing her, if the scandal ruins her? My coming with you will make it all look right.’

And if she’s not there, she thought, I shall be more likely to be able to get information out of Varvara Surina than you, in your rage. She didn’t voice it, but she thought the second possibility was the more likely. Lolya was far more determined than Nikolai had any idea of.

Nikolai, Anne and Adonis reached Kaluga at dusk on the next day and rode straight to the Surin house. The butler was unwilling at first to let them in, evidently doubting the claim to gentility made by a couple who travelled on horseback rather than by coach, and accompanied only by a villainous-looking foreigner. However, when he learned that Nikolai was Lolya’s father, he looked relieved, concerned and guilty in quick succession, and stepped back to admit them, saying that he would see if his master were at leisure.

He had no need to bother; as the party stepped into the hall, Vanya Surin came out of his study to see what the noise was about.

‘Count Kirov sir,’ the butler announced, with an air of passing over the problem lock, stock and barrel to his master.

‘Oh lord!’ Surin said, with an expression of dismay that would have been comical if the matter were not so serious. ‘You’d better come upstairs, sir, and talk to Varvara. I know she and Lolya have been plotting something, but what it is I’ve no idea. She’s the maddest creature!’

‘Is she here? Is Lolya here?’

He looked surprised. ‘No, sir. Were you expecting her to be?’ Nikolai’s heart sank, and for a moment he couldn’t speak. Anne took over. ‘Has she been here?’

‘Oh dear, I don’t know.’ He looked from one to another. ‘I’ve been away for several days on business. I only came home last night. You’d better come up and ask Varsha.’ The implications began to dawn on him, and his handsome young face puckered with concern. ‘You don’t mean – you don’t know where she is? Oh lord! Come up, sir, at once. Will you have some wine? Boris, bring wine, and lay extra covers for dinner. No, no, I insist. You can’t go anywhere tonight, whatever happens. It’s almost dark.’ Varvara was sitting on a sofa in the drawing-room, a picture of feminine contentment, with a lap-dog curled up beside her, a piece of embroidery in her lap, and a box of candied plums on the little table before her. She had a pretty, foolish face, and a great deal of lace about her gown, and when Anne and Nikolai stepped into the room, she dropped her work and put her hands over her mouth with a little, startled gasp.

Her husband looked as stern as it was possible with a physiognomy like his. ‘Varsha, what’s been going on while I’ve been away? And where’s Lolya Kirova? You see her father’s come to find her. What have you been up to, you mad creature?’

‘Oh dear, oh Vanya, don’t be cross with me! It wasn’t my fault, really! I told her it wasn’t proper, but I couldn’t stop her. When Lolya wants to do something, she does it. She said they were going to be married as soon as she got there, and so it would be all right. So, you know, what could I do?’

Anne gripped Nikolai’s forearm warningly. Losing his temper with this goose-witted woman would only delay matters.

‘Where has Lolya gone, Madame Surina? Did she tell you?’

‘Why, to join Colonel Duvierge, of course. They’ve been betrothed all summer, and now he’s going back to France, so she has to go with him. He’s got a house in Paris, near the Opera and a palace in the Bois de Boulogne. I’d love to go to Paris! Lolya says we can visit her there when the war’s over, Vanya – won’t that be nice?’

The war to Varvara Surina was evidently of little more import than a cold in the head.

‘There was another letter, I suppose, from the Colonel?’ Anne asked casually, holding the men silent with a commanding glance.

Varvara grew more confident in the uncontentious atmosphere. ‘Oh, yes, it came on the day after she got here. He was supposed to be meeting her here, you know, and when he didn’t come she was very upset. But it seems they couldn’t come after all, and had to go another way, so he sent her a letter to say he would meet her somewhere – I can’t remember where,’ she added vaguely.

‘Try to remember,’ Anne said gently. ‘It’s important.’

‘Well, I didn’t see the letter, you know,’ she said, looking round-eyed from Anne to Nikolai, who was holding silent only by the greatest effort. ‘Lolya didn’t show it to me. She just said she would have to go and meet him – somewhere – and I said it wasn’t right, because you know if he had come here, I could have chaperoned her until they were married, but as it was, she only had Sophie with her, which doesn’t really count. But then she said they would be married as soon as she got there, by the army chaplain, and she wouldn’t listen to what I said…’

‘Where?’ Nikolai demanded, losing control at last. ‘Where did she go? God damn it, how could you let her just…! You silly, hen-witted creature! Think, damn you! Where?’

‘I say, sir, there’s no need to shout at my wife–’

‘There’s every need! Don’t you realise my daughter has ridden off completely unprotected to try to reach the remains of the fleeing French army? They fought a battle – for all we know they could be fighting again! She’s going to ride through a battlefield full of deserters and wounded men and starving refugees, in order to run away with a Frenchman, and your wife helped her do it!’

‘Oh no!’ Varvara said brightly. ‘She wasn’t going to where the fighting was. She was going to take the short-cut across country and meet him at Medyn.’

Nikolai looked at Anne. ‘There’s a road from there directly to Ghzatsk. If the Grande Armée is retreating down the Smolensk High Road after all, they could meet up with it there.’

Vanya Surin was watching them thoughtfully. ‘You’ll be going after them, I suppose?’

‘At first light,’ Kirov said. ‘I wish to God we could leave now, but…’

‘I’ll provide you with anything you need,’ he said. He bit his lip. ‘I’m sorry, sir, that my wife should have helped Lolya to do something so – so foolish. But you must understand–’

‘Lolya’s very determined,’ Anne said. ‘It would be hard for anyone to stop her once she’d made up her mind.’

Surin looked grateful. ‘Yes,’ he said eagerly, ‘and Varsha’s never really had any influence over her.’

‘You’ll see that Madame Tchaikovsky gets safely back to Tula,’ Nikolai began.

But before Surin could answer, Anne said firmly, ‘No. I’m coming with you.’

Surin looked from one to the other, and then said to his wife, ‘Varsha, come with me into the morning room for a moment. I want to talk to you. Excuse us, won’t you, please?’

Alone with Anne, Kirov said, ‘Anna, this is different. It may be some time before I catch up with her. The snow might start at any moment, and I shall be travelling through rough country. The going will be hard, and it may be dangerous; and there will certainly be some dreadful sights on the way. If I can’t catch them before Ghzatsk, I shall be travelling over the road the French took on their way to Moscow. You can imagine what that will be like.’

Anne let him finish, and then said, ‘I’m coming with you. More than ever you need me – if you find her you will need me to take care of her on the journey back; and if you don’t find her…’ She did not need to finish that sentence. ‘The hard going is nothing -1 am very strong and healthy, and I ride as well as any man. As for the danger–’ She shrugged.

‘The danger is real enough,’ he reproved her. ‘Do you think I would let you risk yourself – and the child? You must go back to Tula and take care of Rose and our unborn baby.’

She stepped up close to him. ‘Listen to me, Nikolasha! If there is danger, I want to share it with you. Not being with you hasn’t spared me, has it? I left you at Borodino to be “safe” in Moscow! No, let me finish! I don’t know what will happen, I don’t know how long we will have together, and I won’t waste another minute of it. If you go away without me, I may never see you again. I would sooner die with you, than live without you.’

‘Anna, it isn’t a matter of–’

‘It’s no good! If you don’t take me with you, I shall follow Lolya’s example, and come after you. Better to have me under your eye, isn’t it?’ He opened his mouth to protest, but she shook her head. ‘She’s my responsibility, don’t you see? Yes, there are Rose and the baby, but Lolya came before them. Rose is safe with Shoora and Vsevka; the new baby can take care of itself; but Lolya is in danger she doesn’t even perceive, and it’s partly my fault. I knew about her and Duvierge, and I did nothing to prevent it. If I had warned you, warned her aunt and uncle – spoken more forcefully to Lolya herself–’

He saw the truth of her arguments, but could not bring himself to accept them. He put his head in his hands, and she touched his shoulder comfortingly. ‘Let us be together, my heart. It’s all I care about now. We’ll find Lolya and bring her back together.’

They started for Medyn the next day. It was mid-morning before they set off, for whatever his desire for haste, Kirov knew that this journey was not one to undertake lightly. In a few days it would be November. Already the nights were bitter with frost, and the snow could start at any moment, and they must be prepared for it. Moreover the horses Vsevka had lent were not suitable for the hard journeying they might have to face: Adonis was sent out to buy four Cossack ponies, and one of Surin’s footmen was despatched down to the mill to buy a sack of oats for their feed.

Varvara, still not fully understanding the seriousness of the situation, was nevertheless good-naturedly willing to lend Anne whatever clothing and furs she might need. She was shocked and thrilled to learn that Anne meant to ride cross-saddle, and therefore required not a smart riding-habit with Hussar frogging on the jacket and a full skirt of bleu royale velvet, but a pair of baggy Cossack trousers and a thick, loose woollen tunic, under which she could wear several layers of underclothing.

‘What an adventure! I almost wish I were coming with you!’ she said, rummaging in a drawer for warm stockings. ‘But how will you manage without your maid? Who will dress your hair for you?’

Anne assured her solemnly that she had learned to plait it for herself while staying in the Caucasus, and that she wouldn’t mind not having her front hair curled, as it was an emergency. A young footman who was about the same height as Anne provided, with many blushes, the peasant tunic and trousers required; Varvara provided the furs, hat and gloves and boots.

The fourth pony was loaded with food, arms and blankets, and extra clothing in case Lolya hadn’t thought about the oncoming winter. The Surins saw them off, waving from the doorway, Varvara all smiles, as though they were going on a picnic, Vanya looking grave.

‘Good luck,’ he called. ‘I hope you find her soon.’ The tone of his voice revealed all too clearly his doubts on the subject.

The road to Medyn was little more than a series of farm tracks. The deep ruts of September had been frozen by the frosts of October into a series of icy ridges, like miniature mountain chains. Now and then the tracks petered out altogether, and they had to ride across fields, guessing the direction from the sun, or asking the way from the peasants who were still working in the fields, pulling the last cabbages and potatoes. The ponies were sure-footed and intelligent, however, and picked their own way nimbly over the rough ground.

They reached Medyn with about an hour of daylight left. Kirov was for pushing on, but Adonis argued against it. It was dark of the moon, and they had no idea what accommodation, if any, there would be along the road to Ghzatsk. They did not want to have to sleep out unless they had to. Better to stay here, get a good night, and start off at first light the next day.

Anne sympathised with his impatience. They had come across no trace of Lolya so far, though she had hardly expected it: the peasants had too much to do at this time of year to be noticing passing horsemen – or even horsewomen. But she agreed with Adonis. To sleep in Medyn, at an inn, would allow them to preserve their supplies for later, when, possibly travelling over barren land picked clean by the army, they would need them.

Kirov yielded to common sense, but the evening passed very slowly. He had no desire to talk, and yet there was nothing else to do. After a period of watching him pace about the room and answer her comments with a snap, she suggested he went down to the coffee-room and talked to the local people, and found out what they knew of the military situation.

He returned late, smelling of pipe smoke, and told her that after the battle at Maloyaroslavets, which had resulted, like Borodino, in heavy casualties and no clear victory for either side, the two armies had marched off in opposite directions, the Russians southwards down the road towards Kaluga, and the French north-west towards the junction at Mozhaisk with the Smolensk-Moscow High Road.

‘Why on earth didn’t our army pursue them?’ Anne asked.

Kirov shrugged. ‘I suppose Kutuzov thought they were going to press on towards Kaluga, and he was retreating to make sure the route was covered. Why Napoleon turned northwards, instead of taking the south road to Smolensk I’ve no idea. But at any rate, Kutuzov must have realised later what happened, because he retraced his steps, and he’s taken the south road. So now he’s marching parallel with the French: I suppose hoping to intercept them at Viasma.’

Fie was calmer now that he had had something to think about, and a little while later they went to bed, in order to be able to leave at first light the next day, at about half past six. In bed, he kissed her and turned on his side away from her without speaking, and she lay for a long time staring upwards into the dark, thinking about Loiya. The thing that exercised her most was wondering whether Duvierge had actually invited Lolya to come with him, or whether it had been Lolya’s idea from first to last. If the former, it suggested that he cared more for her than Anne had believed. She hoped it was so – in that case he would take care of her, and they need not worry about Lolya’s safety, only her virtue.

She thought Nikolai was long asleep; but suddenly he said out of the darkness, ‘I’m glad you came with me Anna. I don’t think I could bear my thoughts if I were alone.’

She reached out and touched him, and he caught her hand and pulled it round him; she turned over and tucked herself against his back, spoonwise, and they slept.

It was fifty miles from Medyn to Ghzatsk, and the road was narrow and unfrequented. For part of the way it paralleled the river Lutza, and in several places the river had overflowed its banks, and the road disappeared. They had to take to the fields then, and pick their way through near-marsh. Once they passed beyond the head of the river onto higher ground, the road ran through pine forest, dense and gloomy, and unnaturally quiet; but the surface underfoot was hard and dry, and they were able to pick up speed.

It was beginning to grow dark, and they were all wondering silently where they would be able to spend the night, and whether they would have to sleep out, when suddenly a party of Cossacks sprang out from the trees and blocked the road in front of them. The ponies started and jostled about; Kirov reached automatically for his pistol, and then realised that several guns were already pointed at him, and lowered his hand reluctantly.

‘And who might you be, and where are you going?’ the leader asked with an insolent grin. ‘Mighty well covered up, aren’t you? What’s on the baggage horse? Loot stolen from Moscow?’

‘Steady your men,’ Kirov said sternly. ‘We’re not French refugees. I’m a Russian officer.’ Moving his hand slowly and keeping it well in sight, he unbuttoned the collar of his fur-lined cloak and pulled it open to show his uniform. The guns were lowered, and the Cossacks pressed their horses forward curiously, wanting to know what they were doing and why they had a woman along with them.

‘One of the French officers has stolen my daughter,’ the Count said succinctly. ‘My wife and my servant and I are going after them, to bring her back.’

There was an approving clamour.

‘Why, good for you, Colonel! And Madame Colonel!’

‘Dirty French scum! You ought to cut his balls off when you catch him!’

‘You’ve missed ’em by two days, Colonel, but you’ll catch up with ’em!’

‘We’ve seen off fifty or more in the last few days. We pick ’em off as soon as they drop out of line.’

‘When we catch ’em, we give ’em to the peasants,’ the leader explained with relish. ‘They make it last a good, long time!’ Anne shuddered to think what would have happened to them if the Cossacks hadn’t believed Nikolai.

‘The French have passed this way, then?’ he was asking now. The leader nodded, and waved a hand backwards over his shoulder. ‘They came along the highway, and passed through Ghzatsk two days since. They thought they’d find supplies there – a supply train all the way from France – but we got to it first. We killed the drivers and drove it off before they’d got a sniff of it! We took all the food and fodder – all they found was some fancy French wine, and much good may that do ’em!’

‘So Ghzatsk is empty now? How far are we from it?’

‘Five or six versts.’ The leader shook his head. ‘But you wouldn’t want to stay there, Colonel. Full of corpses and sick men. Stragglers still coming in, too. Besides, the French pretty well destroyed it the first time through, on the way to Moscow. There’s nothing much there now but ruins and canals choked with dead horses.’

‘We have our own provisions,’ Kirov said. ‘All we need is shelter for the night. We’ll ride on in the morning.’

The Cossack leader nodded. ‘Don’t you worry, sir. Come along with us, and we’ll find a peasant house where you can stay. You don’t mind roughing it, I suppose?’

‘Not at all. A barn will do.’

‘We’ll find you somewhere better than that. And we’ll pass the word down the line, that you’re to be looked after. There are plenty of izby off the road that haven’t been destroyed, if you know where to look for them. The peasants are out for French blood, and they like chopping up the prisoners we bring them, and the foragers who stray too far from the road. But they’ll take care of you all right, and your good lady, don’t worry.’ Kirov exchanged a look with Adonis, who shrugged slightly, and then nodded. It was not, he thought, as though they had any choice about accepting the Cossacks’ help. But it would make their journey easier, and it would be as well for them to be granted safe passage, in case the angry peasants mistook them for French refugees.

The Cossack party crowded round them, and they left the path under their escort and rode through the trees, the pace picking up, despite having to wind in and out of the trunks, to a fast trot. Anne had to keep her wits about her so as not to part company with her mount when he dodged one way round a tree, and she the other. It was almost completely dark when they trotted into a clearing and confronted a log-built, two-storey peasant house, from whose chimney a cheering plume of smoke was rising ghostly grey in the gloom.

The leader gave a high chirruping call, like the kee-wick of a hunting owl. It was evidently a signal, for at once the door of the izba opened and a trapezium of yellow light fell out across the invisible grass. A stocky peasant stood there, with a precautionary short-handled axe in one hand, and what looked like a piece of bread in the other.

The leader jumped down from his pony and held a short, sotto-voce conversation with him, after which he turned to Kirov and said cheerfully, ‘All right, Colonel. Lev here will give you all a bed for the night, and put you, on your way tomorrow, first light. We’ll pass the word about you. You’ll be all right.’

‘Thank you,’ Kirov said. ‘We’re very grateful.’

‘Nothing to it, Colonel!’ He mounted and wheeled round after his men. ‘Don’t forget,’ he called cheerfully as they trotted away into the darkness, ‘when you catch him, cut the bastard’s balls off!’

Inside the hut was just like any other – the stove, the long wooden table, the benches, the shelves high up with their few belongings. Anne made automatic obeisance to the Beautiful Corner, remembering the first time she had made the gesture, long ago in the company of Irina, and how strange it had seemed. It came naturally to her now. She wondered what her father or Miss Oliver would think to see her cross herself before an icon of St Sergei. How shocked they would be! England was far away now, like the most distant of dreams. She did not believe that she would ever see it again: Russia had taken hostage of her now.

The peasants were kindly, shy and monosyllabic. They offered them a seat near the stove, and one of the women began preparing tea, while two of the young men went out with Adonis to settle the horses.

‘We won’t take your food,’ Anne said at once, thinking they probably had very little to begin with, and would be worried about their stores being depleted by the unexpected burden of two dvoriane and a large mercenary. ‘We have brought food of our own with us.’

But one of the women, middle-aged and broad-bodied, but hard, like a rosehip, rather than fat, drew herself up with unexpected dignity and said, ‘No, Barina, you are our guests. You keep your food for later. You may need it.’

‘You are very kind,’ Anne said. ‘But we do not wish to leave you short.’

‘While we have food, we will share it. So God orders us to be hospitable, lest we entertain an angel unawares. You are welcome to all we have, Barina.’

So they shared the evening meal, a simple affair of cabbage soup, black bread and salted cucumbers. Afterwards the man of the house brought out a flask of kvass, and a pipe was lit and passed amongst the men. Kirov bravely shared it, and they all talked about the war and what would happen next. Meanwhile one of the women had guessed Anne’s condition, and on the women’s side of the stove there followed a deep and detailed discussion of all the pregnancies and labours they had known. Anne found it interesting that none of them suggested that she was doing anything out of the ordinary by riding with Kirov in her condition. They were perfectly accustomed to working until the last moment of their own gestations; the idea of taking to the sofa for nine months was alien to them.

When the time came to retire, they gave Anne and Nikolai the best places on top of the stove, where they slept warm – almost too warm. The night seemed to pass very quickly. The old woman was up before first light, stirring up the stove and lighting the samovar for tea; and by the time the sun rose mistily on the first day of November, they were mounting their ponies in the clearing, their breath smoking on the cold, uncharitable air.

They came up to the road a few miles west of Ghzatsk. The first thing they saw was a five-foot long, elaborately wrought gold torchere, lying at a drunken angle half in and half out of a deep rut at the side of the road: a piece of plunder from Moscow, presumably, that had fallen from a cart. A little further along, however, they came upon a trail of scattered goods – a dozen beautifully bound books, a pair of candelabra, a rolled-up tapestry tied with string, a canteen of silvery cutlery, a framed portrait of a woman in the dress of the previous century. It looked like a deliberate attempt to lighten the load of a carriage in trouble.

They rounded a bend in the road, and there before them was the carriage itself, at the bottom of a slope which led into a ford and up again. The carriage stood – or rather leaned on a broken axle – across the ford, its doors hanging open, more plunder scattered around it, as the occupants had presumably searched amongst their loot for the most portable objects. As they drew closer, they saw something else lying on the ground beyond the carriage.

Half a dozen carrion crows flapped and hopped away from it as they approached, and Anne turned her face away, feeling a little nauseous. It was a dead horse – so thin its ribs and hips seemed almost ready to break through its dull hide. Its tongue hung out of its mouth, and there was a white tide mark along its neck where its labours had raised a foam. What was peculiarly horrible was that chunks had been roughly hacked out of it – and not by the beaks of carrion crows, either.

Kirov remembered Kutuzov’s words: I’ll see him eat horseflesh! It was plain that the retreating French army was desperately short of food; as desperately as it was short of fodder for the horses. This one looked as though it had died in the effort of dragging the carriage out of the shallow ford into which its momentum had carried it; and to judge by its condition, it had been lucky to get this far.

Adonis jumped down from his horse and passed the reins to Kirov, walked over to the dead horse, and bent to examine its hooves. He straightened up and called out, ‘Come and look at this, Colonel.’

Kirov urged the horses nearer, until they caught the scent of their dead brother, and snorted and goggled and would not go any further. Adonis lifted a hoof and angled it towards him.

‘No spikes. These aren’t winter shoes,’ he said. ‘See – smooth as glass, and a ball of frozen mud on its sole. No wonder the poor beast fell and couldn’t get up.’

‘Not winter shoes?’ Kirov said dazedly. ‘But – Napoleon sat in Moscow for a month doing nothing! Surely to God he must have had all his horses reshod? If he did nothing else, he must have done that!’

Adonis shrugged, and dropped the hoof, and came back to reclaim his mount. Anne watched in silence. Even she knew that every horse in Russia was reshod at the end of autumn with spiked shoes, so that they could get a grip on icy ground and packed snow. Without winter shoes, they would slip about hopelessly and fall every few steps.

Adonis was mounted. He took the rein of the packhorse, and they trotted on.

That was the first they saw of the debris left by the retreating Grande Armée, but it was not the last. Discarded plunder littered the road: statues and paintings and candelabra, gold plates and silver goblets, icons and altar furniture, tapestries and carpets, silk gowns and gauze scarves, ormolu clocks and porcelain figures, silver inlaid tables and delicate Louis Quinze chairs. The Grande Armée had stripped Moscow of everything it could carry away; but the desperate state of the horses had forced them to jettison their booty in the attempt to save their lives.

They soon stopped counting the dead horses. Every hundred yards or so they found another, and almost all had been rudely hacked by the starving soldiers, desperate for something – anything – to put in their stomachs. There were abandoned carts, and boulevard carriages whose light frames had not survived the roughness of the road. Some of them had evidently been partly destroyed to provide firewood to cook the lumps of horsemeat, for they found the remains of many fires, and occasionally charred bones, and the sticks they had speared the meat on.

They found any number of discarded arms, breastplates, helmets; cannons too, usually dismounted or spiked to prevent their being used by the enemy, presumably abandoned when there were no more draught horses to haul them. What was fleeing before them was evidently no longer an army, but a rabble of desperate men hoping to save their lives.

They found dead men, too. It was a grim sight. Some had evidently died of exhaustion and starvation; others told another, harsher tale. Bandaged or treated wounds suggested that they had been brought along in hospital carts, and had either fallen out, or been dumped like the excess baggage. More than once they found clear evidence that the unfortunate, in falling or being thrown from the cart, had been run over by the vehicle following.

The path of the Grande Armée cut a great swath across the land, spreading out far to either side of the road. Beyond it, in the fringes of the woods and what remained of the fields, they found evidence of the work of Cossacks, picking off men who strayed out of line, possibly foraging or perhaps wandering in delirium. Adonis, scouting further into the woods, found in a clearing evidence of a grimmer sort. The trunk of a fallen tree lay across the clearing, and lying in a line along it were the bodies of seven French soldiers. They had evidently been captured and handed over to the peasants, who had obliged them to place their heads on the tree trunk, and had then, with great thoroughness, smashed their skulls to pulp with clubs.

He returned to the road and rejoined Kirov and Anne and said nothing about what he had seen. He had been ready to propose leaving the road, so that Anne might not have to witness any more unpleasant sights; but he had an idea that what had happened in the clearing to the seven Frenchmen was amongst the more merciful ends that the peasants were likely to mete out; and he did not think his master would want her to be exposed to that kind of reality.

They reached Viasma, and skirted the town, which, despite the biting cold which had set in over the last couple of days, they could smell a good way off. Outside the town, they came across the remains of a bivouac camp: more abandoned carts, rudely hacked to provide firewood; a score or more dead horses, which presumably had succumbed to the bitter cold of the night; and at least a dozen human corpses, some of which seemed to have been stripped of their clothing, presumably by colleagues desperate for warmth. Two of them were bare-footed, but those who still had shoes revealed that suitable footwear had not been provided for them any more than for the horses.

They hurried past this grim sight, and beyond the town they were intercepted by a group of four Cossacks, who plainly knew of their approach.

‘Best stay off the road now, Colonel,’ they told him. ‘It’s not a nice sight up ahead. And you’re not far behind the stragglers now.’

‘We’ve caught up with them?’

‘Only the back end. The French army’s spread over such a distance now, it takes ’em three days to pass through a place. Most of ’em wouldn’t notice if you rode right past ’em, but one or two are still armed, and all of ’em are desperate enough for a horse and a warm coat to kill you with their bare hands.’

‘How far ahead is Napoleon himself?’

‘He and his party are at the head of the column. They’re travelling fast. You won’t catch ’em up on this road. You’ll need to take some short-cuts.’

‘Can you direct us?’

‘Better than that, Colonel – we’ll take you. We’ll head straight for Smolensk – you’ll catch him there all right.’

There had been light flurries of snow on and off for several days now, but not enough to settle, though the ground was hard with cold, and the air was bitter. Then for two days it grew milder, and the grey clouds threatened, but did not release their load. Nikolai, Anne and Adonis were passed along the line, from one set of guides to another, sleeping at nights in peasant izby, either inhabited or deserted, and one night in a half-ruined barn.

Then on the 5th of November the wind changed and blew from the north. The temperature plummeted, and the first serious snow fell. By the afternoon of the 6th it was snowing in earnest, and out of the shelter of the trees it was hard to see more than a yard in front through the dazzling whiteness of the air. Remembering what they had seen of the soldiers’ clothing and shoes, they had no difficulty in imagining what state they were in now. The Cossacks brought them reports of what they had found: soldiers whose light clothing soaked through and then was frozen stiff on their bodies like a carapace; their beards and moustaches hung with the icicles of their breath. They stumbled along in their thin, worn-out shoes, and when they slipped or fell over a hidden stone or branch, they had no strength to rise again. The snow quickly covered them; the road, the Cossacks said, was a series of such mounds, small ones for the men, large ones for the horses. The snow undulated with them like a quilt.

The Cossacks rejoiced in these stories, but Nikolai and Anne received them silently. It was impossible to feel much rancour for these ordinary soldiers, who had been brought to Russia against their will, and had probably never understood what they were doing here. Nikolai was also forced to wonder about Lolya, and how she had fared. From what he knew of Duvierge, he was sure that he would contrive to make himself comfortable, and Lolya would therefore be comfortable too. He pinned his hopes on the news that came down the line that Napoleon and his immediate circle were at the head of the column and still provided with horses and carriages. Duvierge would be one of that circle. They were closing the gap.

The weather brightened a little on the 7th, but on the next day the temperature dropped again, and went on dropping, freezing the surface of the snow so that even the Cossack ponies had some difficulty in getting along. They were not far, now, from Smolensk, approaching it across country from the south-east, where they had cut off a long bend of the road, but as the temperature dropped ever lower, Kirov decided they must take shelter well before the sun went down: once it grew dark, they might easily freeze to death.

They spent that night in an abandoned hut in the woods. They brought the ponies in and tethered them at one end, and dragged in the entire stock of firewood from under the eaves, and built the fire up as high as it would go. Even so, and huddled together, it was miserably cold, and Anne, who had held up so far better than any of them, longed for home and warmth and comfort, and came close to wishing she had never left Tula. What were they doing here? she wondered, close to tears, feeling her bones ache as the cold ground sucked the vitality out of her. They didn’t even know that Lolya was with Duvierge. She might be anywhere. She might be already dead. It was hopeless. They would all die of the cold, and what use would that be to anyone?

It was hard to get up the next morning – easier to remain lying huddled together in the warmth of each others’ bodies. Adonis dragged himself up first and loaded more logs on to the fire. Once it burned up, everything seemed better – but then it was hard to bring oneself to leave the fire and go out into the bitter morning. The thermometer outside the window registered minus fifteen.

When they got outside, they found that the wind had dropped, and the air was sparkling clear. Anne’s spirits rose again. Today they would reach Smolensk for sure, and since Napoleon was bound to rest for several days in the city, they would be sure to find him there. They would find Duvierge; they would find Lolya.

‘Best have your pistol at the ready, Colonel,’ Adonis said as they led the ponies out. ‘And you, mistress – you’d better have mine. I’ll keep my musket to hand. There’ll be some starving soldiers between us and the city, I dare say. Stick close and don’t stop for anyone, no matter what he says. Got your white handkerchief ready, sir?’

They had to get on to the road in order to get over the bridge, for Smolensk sat on the river Dnieper. Soon they saw the golden domes and spires gleaming in the sunlight against the pale sky; then the stout fortifications reared above the horizon; then they saw the road.

It looked like a battlefield. That last bitter night had killed thousands, and thousands more had survived by some miracle, only to collapse in the last desperate effort to reach the shelter of the town. The road was littered with dead men, over many of whom the still-living crouched, stripping off their clothing to add to their own inadequate coverings. Dead horses lay along both sides of the road; and the men who still moved looked like tattered ghosts, their haggard faces and ice-hung beards unnaturally white above the motley rags they were wrapped in, as they stumbled in terrible silence towards the city.

The Kirov party did not need their white flag or their arms. The men they passed were too weak to threaten them, too desperate to reach safety themselves to care who it was that was passing them. One or two threw them frightened looks when they heard the sound of horses, evidently fearing that they were Cossacks, and then stumbled on gratefully when they found they were left alone.

By mid-morning they were clattering over the bridge to the town gate, and there they met the first real soldiers they had seen – a detachment of the Old Guard, haggard and weary, but still in uniform and under discipline, holding the gate and watching the relics of the army straggle in.

‘Hold up!’ a sergeant commanded sharply. ‘Who are you? What do you want?’

They halted.

‘I am Count Kirov, formerly of the Russian Embassy in Paris. I am known personally to your Emperor, and to General de Caulaincourt.’

‘The devil you are! And what do you want, sir?’ the sergeant said, his eyes going over Anne and Adonis with equal astonishment and suspicion.

Kirov realised that to try to explain now would delay matters considerably, and this was not a good place to delay.

‘I wish to speak to General de Caulaincourt personally, on a matter of great urgency. Would you have the goodness to conduct me to him? I promise you he will see me – we are old friends. You need only mention my name.’

The sergeant considered the proposition, but only briefly. ‘You’ll have to leave your weapons aside, sir,’ he said almost apologetically. Having divested them of their arms, he beckoned to a corporal of the guard, and told him to take two men with him and escort the visitors to the Grand Equerry’s quarters.

‘And I hope you are a friend of his,’ he muttered to himself, turning away as the corporal led them away, ‘otherwise the old man will have my guts for fiddle strings.’

Chapter Thirty-Four

Much of Smolensk had been burned down during the previous occupation, when the French were travelling towards Moscow; but at the top of the hill there were several stone-built houses which had survived intact, and here Napoleon had settled himself and his immediate staff. Leaving them to wait in the street, under the curious eyes of the two privates of the guard, the corporal went in to report.

After a wait of about ten minutes, they were conducted inside to a sparsely furnished room, where Kirov at once recognised Caulaincourt’s travelling-desk, which went everywhere on campaign with him. It was covered with papers and maps, and behind it stood Caulaincourt himself, haggard, grim-faced, looking ten years older than when Kirov had last seen him, at Vilna.

The two men exchanged a long look in which the same awarenesses were shared. Everything Caulaincourt had warned of from the very beginning, even back in Paris, had come to pass: Russia itself, rather than the Russians, had defeated Napoleon’s grand design and destroyed his Grande Armée, the pathetic relics of which were hobbling even now on blackened, toeless feet into a city which could not feed them or clothe them. The invasion had been an abject failure; but Kirov could not rejoice. It was he who spoke first.

‘Armand,’ he said hesitantly. The big things were too big to be addressed. He said instead, ‘I heard about your brother. I’m sorry.’

Caulaincourt’s younger brother Auguste, a gallant and popular cavalry officer to whom he had been deeply attached, had been killed at Borodino.

Caulaincourt’s face registered the pain anew. He said, ‘Your son, too.’

Kirov nodded; and then he lifted his hands. ‘Old friend, we never wanted this – either of us. This isn’t even war – it’s madness.’

Caulaincourt looked down at his hands. ‘You don’t know – you haven’t seen the half of it!’

‘But Armand,’ Kirov said abruptly, ‘the horses – no winter shoes! You’re the Grand Equerry! Surely–?’

Caulaincourt turned his head away, staring towards the window. ‘I gave the orders for every horse under my command to be reshod, and for every man to have proper boots and winter clothing. But I’m only responsible for the Household. When I begged His Majesty to give orders for the rest of the army, he only laughed.’ He put a hand to his head. ‘I tried again and again to warn him, but he wouldn’t listen. “Tales to frighten children!” he said. “Caulaincourt’s losing his nerve!” he said. And the autumn was so mild, as if God Himself were on your side, lulling him, making him delay and delay…’His eyes were bleak. ‘The horses were starving to death even in Moscow; but all he would say was, “Send out for more fodder”.’

He stopped abruptly, aware that what he was saying was close to treason. He met Kirov’s eyes again, knowing that he, at least, would understand. It was above all the strain of his love and loyalty towards his Emperor, when his Emperor consistently ignored his advice and plunged them all into disaster, which had aged him; that, and the terrible things he had witnessed.

‘It isn’t war,’ he repeated Kirov’s words; then he pulled himself together. ‘What are you doing here, Nikolai? You have not come from your Emperor?’ His eye betrayed a glimmer of hope.

Kirov shook his head. ‘No, I am here on a personal matter. You know nothing of it, then? My daughter – I am looking for my daughter.’

‘Your daughter?’

‘There is a certain Colonel Duvierge, who has been maintaining a correspondence with her,’ Kirov said grimly. ‘I have reason to believe he has abducted her.’

Caulaincourt’s eyes opened very wide. He thought a moment. ‘I cannot say that I know anything of that. Many of the senior officers have women with them, as well as servants and plunder – that’s their privilege; and there are a great many civilians following the army – too many! I begged His Majesty to limit the following.’ He grimaced. ‘When we left Moscow, it looked more like an Eastern caravan than an army…’

‘Duvierge is here, in Smolensk?’ Kirov interrupted urgently.

‘Yes, he and de Lauriston have travelled with the Household all the way. I know little of Duvierge, but I always thought he was a gentleman. De Lauriston seems to think highly of him – but then he’s a soldier.’ There was a hint of the old rivalry, the old jealousy, in his words.

‘I must see him. Can you arrange it for me, old friend? If my daughter is with him–’

‘Of course. At once. If you will wait here, I will send a message to bring him here to you. It will be best, I think,’ Caulaincourt said thoughtfully, ‘if I summon him to see me, without mentioning your name. If he has abducted your daughter, it will be better not to give him time to think of excuses.’ He gestured towards the fire. ‘Make yourselves as comfortable as possible. I will have some coffee sent in to you. Oh yes,’ with a wry expression, ‘I still have a little left. I made good provision for myself and the Household. Would to God I could have done it for the whole army.’

Left alone, Kirov walked over to the fireplace, and Anne went to stand near him for comfort. They did not speak. There was nothing in their minds but the hope that Lolya was with Duvierge, and safe and well – for bad though that would be, any other possibility was infinitely worse. The wait seemed very long. The room was quiet except for the crackling of the fire, but from outside in the street came noises which by their irregularity told the grim tale of an army in disarray.

At last the door opened, and Caulaincourt came in, met Kirov’s eye warningly, and stepped aside to usher in Colonel Duvierge. He looked, Anne saw with mingled relief and anger, as immaculate as ever, smoothly handsome, unmarked by the terrible flight or the hideous scenes he must have witnessed. He stepped through the door with an expression of polite enquiry on his face, and then stopped short when he saw Kirov. A flicker of something passed through his eyes; and then he allowed his gaze to rove insolently over the three travellers, and he raised an eyebrow in ironic enquiry, as though he had come across someone improperly dressed at a drawing-room reception.

‘So! Monsieur de Kirov, what an unexpected pleasure,’ he drawled. ‘And Madame Tchaikovskova too, I see. Your servant, madame. Your presence suggests that this is a social, rather than a diplomatic visit – you should have warned me, Excellency,’ he added, with a glance at Caulaincourt which revealed a glint of anger.

‘You know why I’m here,’ Kirov snapped, his anger fanned by Duvierge’s shameless composure. ‘Where is my daughter?’ Duvierge’s eyebrow climbed again, but before he could answer, Kirov went on hotly, ‘Don’t trouble yourself to lie about it! We know that she has been writing to you, that you enticed her away from her home and family. Where is she? If you have harmed so much as one hair of her head…’

‘Calm yourself, monsieur,’ Duvierge interrupted. ‘And please, let us remember our manners. I have no intention of lying, and I find it offensive that you should suggest I would do so.’

Caulaincourt made a movement to intervene, but Kirov’s temper snapped before he could speak. ‘How dare you make a joke of it? Good God, man, have you no shame? You seduce an innocent girl, abduct her from her home, subject her to the horrors of this retreat, and then have the impertinence to bandy words with me!’

‘Nikolai,’ Caulaincourt began, seeing Duvierge’s face begin to redden. ‘Be calm.’

Kirov swung round on him. ‘Be calm? No, by God, I won’t be calm! He insults me, he insults my daughter, by his lightness! I tell you, Duvierge, you will speak to me with respect, or I shall knock you down like the puppy you are!’

‘And I tell you, Count Kirov, that I did not abduct your daughter – no, nor seduce her! It is impossible to seduce a virtuous girl!’

Anne drew a breath of shock and fear, and Kirov, with a growl like a goaded bear, stepped towards Duvierge with a raised fist. Caulaincourt placed himself swiftly between them, catching Kirov’s wrist with slender, steely fingers. There was a moment of frozen silence. The difference between the two men was so marked: Kirov, bundled in his travelling clothes, dishevelled and mud splashed, blazing with rage; and Duvierge, immaculately uniformed, his handsome face a little pale, but his expression still cool and haughty, refusing to flinch before Kirov’s anger.

It was not, she saw in that instant, shame or guilt that made Duvierge behave so insultingly: it was hatred, plain and simple, for Russia and the Russians. Lolya to him was not the issue. He was a Frenchman, brought up since the Revolution, come to manhood in the blaze of light that flooded the world from the new sun which was Napoleon. He was one of the new breed of men, belonging to the new world: he despised Russia as old, corrupt, decaying, impotent; and yet the greatest soldier in the new world had not managed to conquer it.

And Lolya, poor simpleton, had fallen in love with his careless good looks, and had persuaded herself that he loved her. But André Duvierge loved only two things, as Anne saw very clearly just then: he loved power, and he loved André Duvierge, and the two things were inextricably linked.

All this passed through her mind in the instant of time it took Caulaincourt to catch Nikolai’s raised hand; even as she gasped, he was saying, ‘No, Nikolai, not that way! Duvierge, guard your tongue! I will not hear any woman insulted, least of all the daughter of my old friend.’

Duvierge gave Caulaincourt one glance, in which Anne read the contempt he felt for a Frenchman who could call a Russian a friend; and then his face was smoothly expressionless again, and he said in his light, polite voice, ‘I beg your pardon, Excellency. I was in error. Madame, my apologies.’

He bowed to Anne, who felt her body rigidly refuse to acknowledge the gesture. Her face was stiff with resentment as she said, ‘Will you please tell us, Colonel Duvierge, if Lolya is with you. We have travelled far in great anxiety: do not prolong our sufferings.’

Was he ashamed? Anne hoped, but did not think so. He answered easily, just meeting her eyes. ‘Yes, she is in my lodgings.’

Nikolai, whose body was braced against Caulaincourt’s restraint, made a small movement of relief so intense it could not be articulated. Anne saw some of the tension go out of him. Caulaincourt released his wrist, and he lowered his hand slowly to his side.

Anne waited for him to speak, and when he did not, she went on, ‘Is she well? Has she been taken care of?’

Duvierge raised a brow again. ‘She has travelled in one of my coaches, attended by her maid, and has eaten as well as I have. Do you not think I take care of my – guests?’

Anne had an uncanny certainty that he had been about to say ‘possessions’.

Nikolai was able to speak at last. ‘Take me to her,’ he said harshly. ‘I have come to take her home.’

Duvierge gave a slight bow in his direction. ‘I will take you to her with pleasure. But I should perhaps warn you, monsieur – explain to you, rather – that you are wrong in your assumptions I have not abducted your daughter, nor do I keep her here against her will. She wished to come with me.’

‘Take me to her,’ Kirov growled. ‘And keep your mouth shut, or I’ll shut it for you.’

‘Take them to your lodgings, Duvierge,’ Caulaincourt said, making it clear that it was an order and not a request. ‘Take the guard with you from the ante-room – to ensure your safety, madame,’ he added apologetically to Anne. ‘They will escort you back to me when you have – completed your business.’

Anne nodded, grateful for his kindness. She remembered her own earlier misgivings, that the flight to Duvierge had been Lolya’s idea. It seemed that they were about to be confirmed.

Duvierge had set himself up in a house off the main street, and Anne saw at once that he was not a man to travel in discomfort. She suspected that having lived a little while in Petersburg, he had absorbed enough information about the Russian winter to respect Caulaincourt’s advice more than Napoleon was inclined to. In the courtyard of the house were two strongly built carriages, mounted on runners instead of wheels, and two peasant kibitkas, loaded to the canvas with supplies. The door to the house was opened to them by a suitably dressed servant; there was a heap of furs on the hall table, and a smell of coffee on the air.

Duvierge met her eyes as she sniffed, and gave a shrug. ‘When we first reached Moscow, there was plenty of everything, but the fools who plundered the houses first loaded themselves with furniture and gold candlesticks. I had more foresight: I made sure of the commisariat first.’

‘Yes,’ Anne said neutrally. It was good for Lolya that he had, but it did not make him easier to like.

‘Never mind that. Where is my daughter?’ Kirov said impatiently.

‘Come this way, please.’ Duvierge led the way into a drawingroom. Again it was sparsely furnished – stripped during the first occupation, Anne guessed – but the few pieces that had been placed around the fire were good, expensive and harmonious, and she thought he had probably brought them with him from Moscow to make his journey more tolerable. It took only the fraction of a second to notice that; then she was looking at Lolya, who had jumped up from her seat by the fire as the door opened. Her expression of welcome changed to one of dismay as her father entered behind Duvierge, and the book she had been reading fell from her hand and hit the polished boards with a solid thump.

‘Papa,’ she said in a small, frightened voice, and she looked from him to Anne and back with the expression of a child caught in some naughtiness – an expression comical in its inadequacy. Then she laughed nervously. ‘André, you should have told me we were expecting guests,’ she said, trying to sound like a sophisticated hostess.

She was looking well, Anne noticed with relief. She looked rosy and healthy, warmly dressed in a long-sleeved gown of fine grey-blue wool, with an expensive cashmere shawl draped gracefully round her shoulders, and her hair had been dressed by her maid’s skilled hand into a cascade of Roman curls. She seemed to feel the incongruity of it when she looked at Anne, dressed in Cossack trousers and sheepskin jacket, and with her hair in a plait, for she touched her head with nervous fingers, and tweaked a curl out of place.

Kirov felt all his rage seep out of him at the sight of her. ‘Lolya, child,’ he said, his voice shaky with relief. ‘You’re safe! Thank God!’

Duvierge walked away to stand at a little distance, his arms folded across his chest, as though he had no part in the scene, was merely watching it as one watched a play at the theatre.

‘Of course I’m safe,’ Lolya said, sounding genuinely surprised. ‘Didn’t you read my note? I told you I’d be all right. André takes care of me, just as I knew he would.’

Nikolai went on as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘How could you do such a thing? To betray your aunt’s trust – to give us all so much worry – so much trouble. We’ve been breaking our hearts over you! Thank God we’ve found you! But what on earth possessed you to go with him – a Frenchman, the enemy of your country?’

Lolya’s surprise gave way to disapproval, and the last few words hardened her expression. ‘Now, Papa, I can’t have you speaking badly of André. And as to trouble, you needn’t have come all this way, just to see if I’m all right. I told you in my note I would write when we got to Paris.’

‘We’ve come to take you home, child,’ Kirov said, understanding her words with difficulty. ‘Pack whatever you need as quickly as you can. Your maid is still with you, is she? Anna Petrovna has come to chaperone you. We may yet be able to hush this up. No one knows but your aunt and uncle, and your silly friend in Kaluga.’

Lolya interrupted. ‘Stop it, Papa! I’m not going with you. I’m staying with André. We’re going to Paris. I’ve told you! Why don’t you listen to me?’

Her eyes were defiant, but Anne saw in them a shadow of fear. Was she afraid that he would persuade her to leave – or that he would not? Anne said, ‘Lolya, you remember what I told you before, in Moscow?’

‘You told me a lot of things,’ she snapped, turning on her swiftly. ‘You told me he didn’t love me, that he was only using me. Well, you were wrong. Now you see it, don’t you?’

‘I told you that no man who loved you would do anything to risk your safety. By asking you to come with him on this – this hellish journey, he has proved he doesn’t love you. Can’t you see that?’

‘He didn’t ask me,’ Lolya said with a defiance that covered a world of hurt. ‘I suggested it. It was my plan – he only agreed to it. So you can’t blame André for anything. Blame me if you want – not that it matters now.’

‘Matters? Of course it matters! What are you talking about?’ Kirov cried, frustrated by the irrelevance of the talk.

Anne intervened again. ‘Colonel Duvierge,’ she said, turning to him, ‘won’t you please speak to Lolya? You are a gentleman. I don’t believe you are without principle. Lolya must come back with us – you must see that.’

But he only shrugged. ‘I see nothing of the sort. Hélène may do as she pleases. She came of her own free will: I do not keep her here by force. If she wishes, she may go with you. Ask her, not me.’.

‘I don’t wish!’ Lolya cried passionately. ‘I want to stay with you, André!’

He gave her a small smile, devoid of any affection. ‘Then stay,’ he said indifferently.

Anne stared hard at him. ‘Why did you let her come with you?’ she asked abruptly. ‘You don’t love her.’

‘Oh, love! You women talk endlessly above love! Hélène wished to come with me to Paris: why should I prevent her? It is – a pleasant thing to have a companion on a journey such as this.’ The irony of his tone in choosing that word Anne could see was not lost even on Lolya. She pressed her advantage quickly.

‘You see, Lolya, he doesn’t love you. He only finds you convenient – pleasant. Something to make the journey comfortable – like this furniture.’

‘Not true! Not true! How dare you say it! I hate you, Anna! André loves me, he does!’

‘Come back with us, chérie, while there’s still time. Even if you get as far as Paris, do you think he will go on finding you pleasant for ever?’

‘Stop it! I won’t listen!’ Lolya pressed her fingers to her ears.

‘He denies none of this, you see,’ Anne went on remorselessly, her heart aching for the young woman she must hurt to save. ‘If he loved you, he would deny it.’

Lolya threw a harried look at her lover, who met her gaze with a small, cool smile and a lift of an eyebrow, which seemed to say choose between us – safety or excitement; respectability or romance. He said nothing, promised nothing; and suddenly a change came over her. She put her hands down to her side, straightened, lifted her chin, looked at her lover with a frightening pride. In a calm voice she said, ‘I wouldn’t ask him to deny it. What he says is true -1 am here of my own free will. The choice is mine.’

A flicker of something like respect was in Duvierge’s eyes as they met hers, and it hardened her resolve. She turned to her father. ‘I’m not coming with you, Papa. I’m sorry if – if it hurts you. But I love André.’

‘I’ve heard enough of this nonsense,’ Nikolai said. ‘I’m not asking you, Lolya – I’m telling you. You’re coming home with us, now.’

‘No,’ Lolya said calmly. ‘I won’t come, Papa, and you can’t make me.’

His fists clenched in frustration. ‘Lolya, for God’s sake, what is all this? Can’t you see that this man is a scoundrel? He’ll use you and then discard you! I know his sort. How can you think you love him? Haven’t you any self-respect?’

Lolya blazed suddenly with anger, and she looked in that instant uncannily like her father. ‘Oh! I’m tired of you talking to me like a child! I’m not a child any more, but you still think you can stop me having what I want! You’ve got what you wanted, haven’t you? You’ve got Anna – and you’re not even married to her! So don’t talk to me about respectability and morals and – and–’ Her rage went as quickly as it had arisen: it is hard for a child to quarrel with a parent whose authority she has always respected. She looked down and bit her lip. ‘I’m sorry, Anna,’ she said briefly. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt you.’

Anne tried once more, dragging the words up from a heavy heart. ‘Oh Lolya, please don’t do this. Come back with us. It’s for the best – I swear to you.’

For a moment Lolya looked at her, and Anne saw with a terrible pity that she knew Anne was right; that she knew he didn’t love her, and that she had deceived herself wilfully. But she lifted her head proudly and stepped over to stand beside Duvierge, and said quietly, ‘It’s too late, you see – I belong to him. We were married in Mozhaisk.’ She sought something in Anne’s eyes. ‘But even if we weren’t, it would be too late. You must understand that.’

Anne looked at her with enormous sadness. ‘Yes,’ she said, so quietly that it was almost a sigh.

Kirov looked at his daughter in bewildered pain. ‘You choose him? You won’t come with me? Lolya – my child–’

‘I think you had better go now,’ Duvierge said. ‘You see that she makes her choice freely. I do not keep her against her will.’

Kirov turned on him. ‘By God, I should like to kill you!’

‘Yes, no doubt. But it would not help, would it?’ Duvierge said indifferently.

There was nothing more to be done; and yet he could not bring himself to leave. He stood with his hands hanging uselessly, looking from his daughter to the Frenchman. Suddenly Lolya ran to him, put her arms round his neck, and pressed her cheek briefly against his. ‘I love you, Papa,’ she whispered; and before he could touch her, she disengaged herself and stepped back, and said with dignity, ‘Please go now. I want you to go.’ Duvierge followed them out, returning them to the care of the guard. At the last moment Kirov turned on him again, and anticipating him, Duvierge lifted his hands, and looked at him cannily, and said, ‘Yes, yes I know! I will take care of her – you have my word. I am a Frenchman, not the Devil.’

He would take care of her, Anne saw that – not because he loved her, but because she was his possession. Lolya would have to settle for that – and who knew but that in the lottery of marriage she might have done worse?’

Caulaincourt received them gravely, listened to Kirov’s few broken words about the interview with Lolya.

‘What power I have, I will use to see that she is taken care of,’ he said at last. ‘When all this is over, if she wishes to return, I will send her back to you. There are bound to be cartels of exchange. God knows how many Frenchmen have been taken prisoner.’

‘Thank you,’ Kirov said bleakly.

‘And now, though I would like to offer you hospitality, I think it would be better if you were to leave Smolensk immediately.’ He tapped a document lying on the corner of the desk and said tonelessly, ‘We have just had a report, you see, that your army under General Kutuzov has captured Vitebsk, and seized our garrison stores there.’

Kirov stared, his mind dragged away from his own problems for a moment. Vitebsk was the major town linking the route from Smolensk to Vilna – Napoleon’s escape route.

‘Your stores?’

‘We have been relying on those stores to get us to the border. Now we have nothing – and even the direct road is blocked to us.’

‘What will you do?’ Kirov asked at last.

‘We shall have to go another way,’ Caulaincourt said, and then his control wavered and broke. ‘We have only fifty thousand men left – fifty thousand, out of such a multitude!’ he cried. ‘They’re starving to death! If you’d seen, as I saw, the whole road littered with bodies – men dead of hunger, cold and misery! Even on a battlefield I never saw so much horror!’

‘Yes,’ said Kirov. To say ‘I’m sorry’ would be inadequate, and yet he was, desperately so. He held out his hand, and Caulaincourt stared at it for an instant as if he didn’t know what it was. Then he took it and grasped it.

‘You had better go now,’ Caulaincourt said. ‘I will have you escorted out of the town – when this news about Vitebsk spreads, it will be dangerous to be Russian. You have what you need for your journey home?’

It was a curious courtesy from a general of a starving army, but neither of them seemed to see it so.

‘Yes, we have what we need. Armand – when it is all over – if we should meet again–’

Caulaincourt nodded. ‘It was not our fault, none of it,’ he said. ‘But I wish to God I had died at Borodino with Auguste. A man who has seen what I have seen has lived too long. Adieu, Nikolai. God send you a safe journey.’

‘God bless you, old friend,’ Nikolai said painfully.

Caulaincourt shook his head. ‘I think He has forgotten us,’ he said.

Caulaincourt’s escort took them out of the city by one of the northern gates, since the remains of the Grande Armée was still straggling in by the eastern gate. They rode north at first, and then struck eastwards, travelling across country, taking a direct line towards Moscow. A week later they came back to the Smolensk-Moscow High Road at Ghzatsk, far enough behind the army to have avoided the rearguard under the fierce old warrior, Maréchal Ney, and even the stragglers.

The temperature had gone on falling, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen below. The days were breathtakingly cold, and dazzlingly beautiful, with skies of a vivid purity arching dark blue to the zenith above them; sunrise and sunset turning the snow to rose and carmine. The intense cold froze the crust of the snow and the surface of the rivers, making the travelling easier, and the hardy, sure-footed ponies could cover five or six miles an hour during the short days.

But when they had passed Ghzatsk, the clouds gathered, and the snow began again, lightly at first, but gradually thickening until it was impossible to see more than a few yards ahead. Adonis looked towards his master for instructions, and then, seeing that he was sunk deep in thought, shouted out to him, ‘We must take shelter, sir. Shall we turn back to Ghzatsk?’

Kirov looked at him, bemused, and shook his head as though to shake his thoughts into order. ‘What? Shelter – yes, we must have shelter,’ he mumbled.

Anne almost laughed. ‘Koloskavets is up ahead, you fools! Zina and Stenka will make us comfortable! There’ll be food and firewood and fodder for the ponies, too.’

‘Provided the French army hasn’t been there first,’ Adonis said, annoyed that he hadn’t thought of it himself.

It was snowing so hard by now that it was difficult to find the path up the hillside. The snow had covered everything, every landmark, in a featureless white blanket, and for a time they were completely lost, casting about, unable even to be sure that they were on the road. Surprisingly, Anne discovered that is was not even possible to tell whether one was going uphill or downhill, and that was most frightening of all.

The ponies trudged on uncomplainingly, their faces and manes crusted thick, even their eyelashes loaded with soft white flakes like overhanging eaves. As time went on, and they still could not find their way, Anne knew the first pang of fear; and, warmly wrapped, fed, and mounted on a sturdy pony, she had suddenly a clear and piercing sense of the plight of the French soldiers she had seen. For the first time she had some idea of the almost unimaginable agonies they must be suffering, clad only in thin woollen uniforms, without boots, without food, without shelter. The pain they would suffer from the agonising cold would be relieved only by the numbness that precedes death – a numbness they must surely come to welcome. Only fifty thousand of them left, she remembered – and how many more were yet to die?

‘Over there – look!’ Adonis suddenly shouted, his voice muffled by the snow and his upturned collar. ‘That must be Borodino – we’ve wandered off the road. Come on, this way! Stay close!’

To their left, a vague shape rearing up was the remains of the twin towers of Borodino’s church. They had strayed, Anne realised, on to what had been the battlefield, though the snow of the past weeks, thank God, had spread a uniform blanket of white over the horrors beneath, freezing the undulating crust hard. Dead men and horses, discarded arms, dismounted cannon, all were buried deep under the innocence of whiteness, like laundered sheets, which took the ugliness from everything.

In the spring, when the thaw came, Anne could imagine what would be revealed. It would not be a good place to be in the spring. The new snowfall lay like feathers over the old crust, and Anne had a sudden terror that the weight of her and her pony would break through it. Vividly she imagined them plunging through some weakened place into a gully full of corpses, which the carrion crows had not had time to pick clean before the snow came. She shook the hideous image away, and concentrated instead on the thought of Koloskavets and a blazing fire.

Taking their bearings from Borodino, they found the path at last by the pine trees growing along its margins, and Adonis sent his pony up the hillside in a series of plunging leaps, with Anne close behind him, and Nikolai leading the spare horse bringing up the rear. Now they were so close, every moment of delay before reaching shelter seemed intolerable. Surely it had never been so far up the hill as this? Surely they must have missed their way again, and be riding away from the house instead of towards it? Anne was desperate now to be out of the saddle, to rub her numb hands and feet, to rest, to eat hot food. She felt that another five minutes out here in the blizzard would break her heart; and yet five minutes were followed by five minutes more.

And then, quite suddenly, they were there: the grey walls had been invisible in the background of whirling snow until they came in sight of the black iron gates. They rode into the yard and out of the wind, and suddenly the snow was falling gently like a tame thing, like a holiday thing, for making snowballs and toboggan slopes. And there was Stenka in tulup and fur hat and huge boots, grinning toothlessly as he stumped forward to take the horses’ heads; and there was Zina in the doorway to the kitchen, smiling serenely, as if their arrival were nothing untoward, as if they had only been away on a day’s hunting.

‘Come in, Barina, and get yourself warm. If you wouldn’t mind stepping into the kitchen, Barina – the fire in the drawing-room’s laid but not lit. I’ll go up and do that as soon as I’ve helped you off with your things.’

‘Thank you, Zina. I shall be glad to get out of this saddle.’

Zina nodded calmly, watching them with her unfathomable eyes, accepting, unjudging. ‘The samovar’s almost on the boil. I can have tea for you in a few moments.’

Anne dismounted stiffly and handed the reins to Stenka, and trudged towards the open doorway and the light and warmth. War and invasion had convulsed the land, death and disease and starvation and horrors of every kind had been unleashed; men were this minute lying down in the snow and dying from cold and hunger; but it was impossible to think of any of that now. Zina had said the magic word tea, and somewhere in there ahead of her there was a fire.

The blizzard lasted for three days; but even had it stopped during the first night, they would not have gone on. They had reached a haven, and for the moment they did not want to leave it. Nikolai remembered how before the battle he had found Koloskavets a single reality set between two opposing and equally unreal worlds. Now, with nothing to see beyond the windows but featureless whiteness, it seemed the only reality, a small place hanging in oblivion, which had somehow survived the wiping-out of the rest of creation.

They had everything they needed. Zina told them they had not been troubled by looters or stragglers: too far off the road, and the French terrified equally of Cossacks and what they called Partisans – the returning peasants bent on revenge. There was firewood enough for the whole winter, if they needed it; there were roots and sacks of grain and smoked, dried meat in the cellar; and when the snow stopped, if they remained, Adonis and Stenka could go out into the forest and shoot game for fresh meat. Eventually, of course, they would have to leave. Anne supposed vaguely that they would go back to Tula in the first instance, for Shoora and Vsevka would need to know what had happened to them and to Lolya; but for the time being, they had reached a resting-place, and they were staying put.

The relief of being safe and out of the saddle was so great that they all experienced a kind of euphoria for the first few days. They discarded their travelling clothes, they bathed luxuriously – Nikolai shaved in hot water and emerged looking ten years younger, only very gaunt and hollow-cheeked. Anne washed her hair, and curled it, and when Nikolai saw her with it dressed for the first time in weeks other than in a plait, he smiled a long, slow smile and told her he’d forgotten how beautiful she was.

During those days of the blizzard when they were confined to the house, with nothing to do but sit by the fire looking into the flames, they talked. Not of the war, which was too horrible, and too unreal, nor of the past, which contained too much sorrow, but of their future together. They talked of Schwartzenturm, and what Nikolai meant to do to improve the land, the new succession-houses he meant to build, the modem crops he meant to try out.

‘Unless, of course,’ he said suddenly during one conversation, ‘you don’t want to live there? It occurs to me that perhaps you’d sooner we sold it and bought a new pomestia somewhere else.’

Anne laughed. ‘A fine time to have scruples, after you’ve planted acres of turnips and built a pinery! No, love, I’m happy to live there. I like Schwartzenturm.’

He smiled gratefully. ‘I don’t think Irina ever did,’ he offered, and she understood him.

‘I’m not jealous of her,’ she said. ‘I have you now – that’s all that matters.’

He put his arm round her and drew her against his shoulder, and she sighed comfortably. ‘We’ll be married as soon as possible,’ he said. ‘In Petersburg, I think. I don’t think Moscow will be a good place for either of us now.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to go back to Moscow. We’ll collect Rose, and go back to Petersburg. I wonder how she and Sashka will like each other?’ She smiled. ‘I shall have Sashka again! I can’t tell you how happy that makes me!’

‘I’m glad you feel like that. The poor child has lacked a mother so long. Even when Irina was alive, she never had any love for him.’

Anne grunted in acknowledgement, her eyes on the leaping flames. Outside the wind soughed around the house, but inside there was no sound but the conversational crackle of the fire, and the ticking of the clock on the chimney-piece.

After a while he said, ‘Where are you?’

‘I was thinking of Schwartzenturm,’ she said. ‘I was looking at the view from the top of the Black Tower; and taking Rose to see old Marya Petrovna and the tame pig; and going to mass in the little white church; and having guests to dinner, and sitting on the terrace in the White Nights.’

‘The White Nights!’ he said in a tone that told her how fantastic that seemed to him in the present circumstances. ‘Very proper, domestic dreams they are, too,’ he added. ‘Have you no higher ambition, Countess Kirova? Don’t you want to travel and see the world?’

‘I’ve done that already,’ she said. ‘Now I want to stay home.’ But the words had broken the mood. She thought of the rest of Europe, of England, of the seemingly endless war. ‘This will be the end of it for Bonaparte, won’t it?’ she asked him in a subdued voice.

He was a long time answering. ‘Yes,’ he said at last. ‘I think so. Even if he escapes with his life, I don’t see how he could survive politically, having failed, and having lost his whole army. It must be the end of him.’

‘And the end of the war?’

He didn’t answer that, deep in his own thoughts. ‘I told you once, didn’t I, that when a war is over, no one can really remember what it was all about. No one ever wins a war. We just survive it – or fail to.’

His son Sergei had died in this very room, turning his face away from his father, unyielding, unforgiving. The firstborn, dearest to the heart as the firstborn must always be: special, never-to-be-replaced. Without really being aware of it, he freed himself from Anne’s embrace and stood up, walked away towards the window, the pain of his thoughts needing movement. All his children lost: Sergei and Natasha – even Sashka, for he hardly knew him, the war having kept him so long away from home.

And Lolya, more lost than all, because she lived, and he would never see her again. Duvierge would survive, he was sure of that; he had the knack of it; and Lolya would survive with him. They would escape out of Russia, and she would be his, his possession, loved or unloved, trammelled by him, used by him; her youth and vitality passing untasted in the service of a man who could never deserve her.

He stared bleakly out of the window. Gone, all gone! Natasha and Yelena and Sergei; and how many others? So many thousands dead; and crops trampled, villages burned, lives torn apart, never to be put together again. No winners; only losers.

Anne got up and came to stand beside him, and seeing the blackness of his expression was afraid to touch him, though she needed him, needed his reassurance. The white wilderness of snow beyond the glass was an emptiness, a desert, as featureless as darkness.

‘We’ve lost everything,’ he said.

‘No,’ she said. If he thought that, it was the worst thing of all. ‘No! We still have so much.’ He didn’t respond to her, and she grew afraid, and tugged at his arm to bring him back to her. ‘We survived.’

‘Did we?’

His eyes came back to her reluctantly, and for a moment he looked so old and so tired that she felt a kind of terror, that she would lose him, because he no longer had the strength to love her. ‘Nikolasha,’ she said, and reaching out wildly she took both his hands and placed them over her belly. ‘This is what we have! Our love for the rest of our lives; being together! And the child!’

He felt the tautness of her belly under his hands, the heat of her blood through the firm flesh and thin skin. He was tired, so tired – she seemed infinitely far away, and young, where he was old. Too old to begin again. Too old to try any longer. He could not bear to feel anything ever again.

But she called him, with the insistence of the life that was strong within her. Life cannot be ignored, he thought; it must be lived, it must be answered to. It was the condition on which they held the earth, the price of their tenure of the beautiful world God made: the beautiful world which would shake off the blight and horror of war which men had laid on it, and in a few years be green and blessed again, as though none of it had ever happened.

The glow of the firelight behind her lit the curve of her cheek and gilded her eyelashes; there were gold lights in her brown hair; she was beautiful to him. And like a miracle, he felt the stirring of life again within his weary body, and feeling her flesh under his hands, he wanted her. She was ripe with life, her belly was full of his child, and he wanted her, he wanted to hold her and fill her again and again, until black memory retreated; as every new day was filled with the light of the sun, driving back the darkness.

‘I love you, Anna Petrovna,’ he said abruptly, and she looked at him for a moment doubtfully, quizzically. And then she laughed: not because it was funny, but simply because she felt good. He put his arms round her and pulled her roughly against him, and she tilted her head up, looking up at him and laughing; and against his belly, through the muffling layers of his clothing and hers, he felt the child within her kick him lustily.