The House of Special Purpose

The Prince of Mogilev

FOR WEEKS after I arrived in St Petersburg, I found my thoughts drifting back to Kashin, to the family I had left behind and the friend whose death weighed heavy on my conscience. At nights, lying on my thin bunk, Kolek’s face appeared before me, his eyes bulging from his head, his throat bruised and scarred from the ropes. I imagined his terror as the guards led him towards the trees where the noose had been hung; for all his bravado, I could not imagine that he went to his death with anything other than fear in his heart and regret for the decades not lived. I prayed that he did not blame me too much; regardless, it could scarcely compare with how much I blamed myself.

And when I was not thinking of Kolek, it was my family who dominated my thoughts, particularly my sister Asya, who would have given anything to be living where I was now. Indeed, it was Asya who I was thinking of late one afternoon when I first encountered the great Reading Room of the Winter Palace. The doors were open and I turned, intending to leave, but an instinct made me change my mind and I stepped inside, where I found myself alone in the serenity of a library for the first time in my life.

Three walls were filled from floor to ceiling with books and a ladder was attached to each on a rail so that the browser could push himself across the floor. In the centre stood a heavy oak table, on which were placed two large volumes – open, to a series of maps. Great leather armchairs were situated at different points in the room and I imagined myself sitting there for an afternoon, lost in reading. I had never read a book in my entire life, of course, but they called to me, a whisper from the constant bindings, and I reached for one after the other, scanning the title pages, reading opening paragraphs as well as I could, placing my discarded volumes on the table behind me without a thought.

So lost was I in my examination that I failed to hear the door open behind me, and only as the heavy boots marched across the floor did I blink back into the moment and realize that I was not alone. I turned, throwing the book that I was holding in the air in surprise. It fell to the floor, crashing open at my feet, the noise echoing around the walls, while I dropped to my knees and bowed my head in the presence of the anointed one.

‘Your Majesty,’ I said, not daring to look up. ‘Your Majesty, I must offer my sincere apologies. I was lost, you see, and—’

‘Stand up, Georgy Daniilovich,’ said the Tsar, and I stood slowly. Not long before, I had been grieving for my family; now I was in dread that I would be sent back to them. ‘Look at me.’

I lifted my head slowly and our eyes met. I could feel my cheeks begin to redden but he looked neither angry nor displeased.

‘What are you doing here anyway?’ he asked me.

‘I lost my way,’ I said. ‘I hadn’t intended coming in here, but when I saw them—’

‘The books?’

‘Yes, sir. I was interested, that’s all. I wanted to see what they contained.’

He breathed heavily for a moment, as if deciding how best to deal with this situation, before sighing and stepping away from me, walking behind the oak table and looking down at the volumes of maps, turning their pages and not looking at me as he spoke.

‘I wouldn’t have taken you for a reader,’ he said quietly.

‘I’m not, sir,’ I explained. ‘That is, I never have been.’

‘But you can read?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Who taught you, your father?’

I shook my head. ‘No, sir. My father would not have known how. It was my sister, Asya. She had some books she bought from a stall. She taught me my letters – most of them anyway.’

‘I see,’ he said. ‘And who taught her?’

I thought about it, but was forced to admit that I did not know. Perhaps in her desire to escape our home village she had simply educated herself in order that she could, for the length of a story’s few pages, escape to brighter worlds.

‘But you liked it?’ asked the Tsar. ‘I mean to say, something drew you in here.’

I looked around the room and thought for a moment, before offering an honest answer. ‘There’s something… interesting, yes, sir,’ I said. ‘My sister would tell me stories. I enjoyed hearing them. I thought I might find some here that would recall her to me.’

‘I expect you’re starting to miss your family,’ said the Tsar, stepping back now towards the window, so that the soft light shining through illuminated him on all sides. ‘I know that I miss my own when I am away from them for any length of time.’

‘I haven’t had any time to think of them, sir,’ I replied. ‘I’ve been trying to work as hard as I might. With Count Charnetsky, I mean. And the rest of my time I am honoured to spend with the Tsarevich.’

He smiled when I mentioned his son and nodded his head. ‘Yes, indeed,’ he said. ‘And you are getting along well, the two of you?’

‘Yes, sir,’ I replied. ‘Very well.’

‘He seems to like you. I’ve asked him about you.’

‘I’m gratified to hear it, sir.’

He nodded and looked away, his attention drawn back to the maps for a moment, and he marched towards them, stroking his beard as he looked down. ‘These drawings,’ he muttered. ‘It’s all in these drawings, do you realize that, Georgy? The land. The borders. The ports. How to win. If only I could see it. But I can’t see it,’ he hissed, more to himself than to me. I decided that I should leave him to his studies so I stepped back, never turning my back on him, as I made for the door.

‘Perhaps we should get you some lessons,’ he said loudly before I could take my leave.

‘Lessons, sir?’

‘Improve your reading. These books are to be read, I tell all the staff that they may read as they will, providing they take care of the volumes and return them in the condition that they found them. Would you like that, Georgy?’

I couldn’t think for a moment whether I would or wouldn’t, but didn’t like to disappoint him so gave the answer that I believed he desired. ‘Yes, Your Majesty,’ I said. ‘I’d like that very much.’

‘Well, I’ll see that the Count sends you to some of the classes attended by the boys in the Corps of Pages. If you are to spend so much time with Alexei, it’s only right that you should be educated. You may leave now,’ he said, dismissing me.

I turned and left the room, closing the door behind me, little knowing that a lifetime surrounded by books was initiated by that one conversation with the Tsar.

Before I exchanged a single word with the Grand Duchess Anastasia Nicolaevna, I kissed her.

I had seen her on three occasions previously, once at the chestnut stand by the banks of the Neva, and again later that night as I had waited to be received by the Tsar on my first evening at the Winter Palace, when I had looked out across the banks of the river and watched as the four Grand Duchesses emerged from their pleasure boat.

The third occasion came two days after that, when I was returning from an afternoon of training with the Leib Guard. Exhausted, worried that I would never be able to compete with their levels of energy or strength and would quickly be despatched back to Kashin, I was returning to my room in the late afternoon and lost my way in the labyrinth of the palace, opening a door which I believed would lead me to my corridor, but which led instead into a type of schoolroom that I entered and marched halfway across before lifting my tired eyes from the ground and realizing my mistake.

‘Can I help you, young man?’ said a voice from my left and I turned to see Monsieur Gilliard, the Swiss tutor to the Tsar’s daughters, standing behind his desk and staring at me with a mixture of irritation and amusement.

‘I apologize, sir,’ I said quickly, blushing a little at my foolishness. ‘I thought the door led towards my room.’

‘Well, as you can see,’ he replied, spreading his arms wide to indicate the maps and portraits which covered the walls, portraits of the famous novelists and great musicians who formed a part of the girls’ studies, ‘it does not.’

‘No, sir,’ I replied, offering him a polite bow before turning around again. As I did so I noticed the four sisters seated in two rows behind individual desks, staring at me with a mixture of curiosity and boredom. This was the first time that I had stood before them – they had barely noticed me at the chestnut stand – and I felt a little self-conscious, but also greatly privileged to be in their presence. It was quite a thing for a moujik like me to be in a room with the daughters of the Tsar; an indescribable honour. The eldest, Olga, looked up from her book with an expression of pity on her face.

‘He looks worn out, Monsieur Gilliard,’ she remarked. ‘He’s only been here a few days and he’s already exhausted.’

‘I am quite well, thank you, Your Highness,’ I said, bowing deeply.

‘He’s the one who was shot in the shoulder, isn’t he?’ asked her younger sister, Tatiana, a tall, elegant girl with her mother’s hair and grey eyes.

‘No, that can’t be him, I heard it was someone terribly handsome who saved Cousin Nicholas’s life,’ giggled the third sister, Marie, and I shot her a look of irritation, for I might have still been overawed by my new life at the royal palace, but I was far too tired from jousting and fencing and sparring with Count Charnetsky’s men to allow myself to be bullied by a group of girls, regardless of their exalted status.

‘It is him,’ said a quieter voice and I turned to see the Grand Duchess Anastasia looking at me. She was almost fifteen years old then, a year or so younger than I, with bright-blue eyes and a smile that restored my vigour immediately.

‘How do you know that, Shvipsik?’ asked Marie, turning on her younger sister, who showed no sign of embarrassment or self-consciousness.

‘Because you’re right,’ she said with a shrug. ‘I heard the same thing. A handsome young man saved our cousin’s life. His name was Georgy. It must be him.’

The other girls dissolved in giggles, hooting with laughter at the brazen nature of her remark, but she and I continued to stare at each other and in a moment I saw the corners of her mouth turn up a little and a smile appear on her face and, to my amazement, I found the impertinence to offer the same compliment in return.

‘Our sister is in love,’ cried Tatiana and at that, Monsieur Gilliard rapped the wooden edge of his chalkboard eraser on the desk in front of him, which made both Anastasia and me jump, breaking the connection which we had made with each other, and I turned to look at the teacher in embarrassment.

‘I do apologize, sir,’ I said quickly. ‘I have disturbed your lesson.’

‘You have indeed, young man. You have an opinion to share on the actions of Count Vronsky?’

I stared at him in surprise. ‘I do not,’ I said. ‘I have never met the gentleman.’

‘The infidelity of Stepan Arkadyvich, then? Levin’s search for fulfilment? Perhaps you would like to comment on Alexei Alexandrovich’s reaction in the face of his wife’s betrayal?’

I had no idea what he was referring to, but seeing the novel that was open on each of the Grand Duchesses’ desks, I suspected that these were not real people at all, but characters in a fiction. I glanced towards Anastasia, who was glaring at her teacher with a look of disappointment on her face.

‘He doesn’t understand, does he?’ said Tatiana, perhaps noticing how I seemed unable to decide what I should do next. ‘Is he a simpleton, do you think?’

‘Be quiet, Tatiana,’ snapped Anastasia, turning around to look at her sister with an expression of utter contempt. ‘He’s lost, that’s all.’

‘It’s true,’ I said, turning to Monsieur Gilliard, not daring to address the Grand Duchess directly. ‘I am lost.’

‘Well you will not find yourself in here,’ he replied, little knowing how untrue that statement was. ‘Please leave.’

I nodded quickly and offered another quick bow before rushing to the door. Turning around as I closed it behind me, I caught Anastasia’s eye once again. She was still watching me and I detected a flush of colour in her cheeks. In my vanity, I wondered whether she might not be able to concentrate any further on her lesson; I knew that my own evening was lost.

I spent the following afternoon in training with the soldiers once again. Count Charnetsky, who was entirely opposed to my appointment and lost no opportunity to make his displeasure known, had insisted that I spend a month learning the most basic skills which his men had spent years acquiring, and the need to be taught quickly was leaving me drained and weakened by the end of every day. I had spent just short of seven hours astride an efficient charger, learning how to control her with my left hand while brandishing a pistol in my right to fell a potential assassin, and as I passed through Palace Square, my tired legs and trembling arms were driving me towards nothing other than the comfort of my bed.

Pausing in the small covered atrium that acted as a passage between the square and the palace, I looked ahead at the garden that opened up before me. The trees that lined the short footpath towards the entry way were stripped of their leaves and, despite the frost in the air, I could see the Tsar’s youngest daughter, her back turned to me, sitting by the edge of the central fountain, lost in thought, as still as one of the alabaster statues which lined the staircases and vestibules of the palace itself.

Sensing me, perhaps, her shoulders lowered as she sat a little more erect and then, cautiously, without moving her body, she turned her head to the left so that I could observe her in profile. Pink spheres blossomed in her cheeks, her lips parted, her hands lifted from the fountain’s surround as if nervous for action and then settled where they lay. I could see the flutter of her perfect eyelashes in the cold air; I could feel every movement of her body.

And beneath my breath I whispered her name.

Anastasia.

She turned at that moment – impossible to have heard me, but she knew – her body remaining rigid but her face seeking my own. The dark-blue cloak she wore slipped a little around her shoulders and she gathered it around her, standing up then and walking towards me. Nervous, I found myself retreating behind one of the twelve six-pillared columns which surrounded the quadrangle and watched as she strode purposefully towards me, her eyes fixed on mine.

I knew not what to say or do while, standing before me, she stared at me with a mixture of desire and uncertainty; we had yet to exchange even a word in conversation. Her small pink tongue extended a little as she ran it along the surface of her lips, enduring the chilly frost of the air for a moment before returning to the warm cavern of her mouth. How enticing that soft tongue seemed to me. How it aroused my imagination into thoughts that filled me with a mixture of shame and excitement.

I remained rooted to where I stood, swallowing nervously, wanting her desperately. By rights, I should have offered her a deep bow and a greeting before continuing on my way, but I could not bring myself to behave as protocol demanded. Instead I stepped further back into the darkness of the colonnade, watching her, never letting my gaze slip away from her face as she approached me. My mouth was dry and lost for words. We faced each other silently until another member of the Leib Guard, patrolling the surround of Palace Square, raced past Anastasia on his charger so unexpectedly that she jumped and let out a small scream, afraid of being run down beneath the horse’s hooves, and leapt forward into my arms.

And at that moment, like two lovers engaged upon the most graceful of dances, I spun her around so that her back was pressed against the tall oak door that loomed behind us. We stood together in the shadows, a place where we could be observed by no one, and stared into each other’s eyes until I saw hers begin to close and I leaned forward and pressed my cold, chapped lips against the warmth of her soft, rose-coloured mouth. My arms wrapped themselves around her, one pressing firmly against her back, the other becoming lost in the fine softness of her auburn hair.

I could think of nothing at that moment other than how much I wanted her. That we had yet to exchange a word did not matter at all. Nor did the fact that she was a Grand Duchess, a daughter of the Imperial blood, while I was a mere servant, a moujik come to offer some small degree of security to her younger brother. I didn’t care whether anyone could see us; I knew that she wanted this as much as I did. We kissed for I know not how long and then, separating only a moment for breath, she placed a hand against my chest and looked at me, half frightened, half intoxicated, before turning away and looking at the ground, shaking her head as if she could not even begin to understand how she had been so bold.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said, my first words to her.

‘For what?’ she asked.

‘You’re right,’ I replied, shrugging my shoulders. ‘I’m not sorry at all.’

She hesitated for only a moment and then smiled at me. ‘Neither am I,’ she said.

We looked at each other and I felt ashamed that I didn’t know what might be expected of me next.

‘I have to go in,’ she said. ‘We dine soon.’

‘Your Highness,’ I said, reaching for her hand. I struggled with a sentence, having no clue what it was that I intended to say to her, only that I wanted to keep her here with me a little longer.

‘Please,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘My name is Anastasia. And I can call you Georgy?’

‘Yes.’

‘I like that name.’

‘It means farmer,’ I replied with an embarrassed shrug and she smiled.

‘Is that what you are?’ she asked me. ‘What you were?’

‘It’s what my father is.’

‘And you,’ she said quietly. ‘What are you?’

I thought about it; I had never asked myself such a question before, but now, standing in the freezing cold beneath the colonnades with this girl before me, there seemed to be only one truthful answer.

‘I’m yours,’ I said.

I was still a newcomer to the royal household when I boarded the Imperial train to travel towards Mogilev, the small Ukrainian town near the Black Sea where our Russian army headquarters were located. Seated opposite me, excited by the prospect of leaving behind the closeted world of the palace for the more rugged environment of a military base, was an eleven-year-old boy, Alexei Nicolaievich, the Heir, Tsarevich and Grand Duke of the House of Romanov.

At moments like this, it still seemed very strange for me to consider how dramatically my life had altered. Just over a month before, I had been a moujik like any other, chopping wood in Kashin, sleeping on a rough floor, starving and exhausted, dreading the freezing cold winter that would shortly arrive to stifle any chance of happiness. Now I was clothed in the tight-fitting uniform of the Leib Guard, preparing for a warm and comfortable journey, with the certainty of a lavish lunch and dinner to come and with God’s anointed one sitting only a few feet away from me.

It was my first time to travel on the Imperial train and while I had started to grow more accustomed to extravagance and conspicuous consumption since arriving in St Petersburg, the opulence of my surroundings still had the power to astonish me. There were ten carriages in all, including a saloon, a kitchen, private studies for the Tsar and Tsaritsa, as well as apartments for each of the children, the servants and the luggage. A second, smaller train followed an hour behind and was populated by an extensive retinue of advisers and servants. Typically, the lead train held only the Imperial family, along with two doctors, three chefs, a small army of bodyguards and whichever of his counsellors the Tsar chose to honour with an invitation. As I had been by the Tsarevich’s side for three weeks now as his protector and confidant, my place on the train was a matter of protocol.

Naturally, every floor, wall and ceiling was covered with the most lavish materials that the train’s designers could lay their hands on. The walls were constructed from Indian teak, with stamped leather upholstery and a golden silk inlay. Beneath our feet, a rich, soft carpet ran the length of the carriages, while every item of furniture was built from the finest beech or satinwood and covered with a sparkling English cretonne, set with carvings or gilding. It was as if the entire Winter Palace had been transported on to a mobile platform so that no one travelling on board would ever have to consider that beyond our windows lay towns and villages where the people lived in abject poverty and were growing increasingly disillusioned by their Tsar.

‘I’m almost afraid to move in case I damage something,’ I remarked to the Tsarevich as we swept past the labourers’ fields and the small hamlets, where the people came out to wave and cheer, although they looked miserable as they did so, their lips curled with distaste, their bodies gaunt from lack of food. There were almost no young men among their number, of course; most of them were either dead, in hiding, or fighting for the continuation of our curious way of life at the Front.

‘How do you mean, Georgy?’ he asked.

‘Well, it’s so magnificent,’ I said, looking around at the bright-blue walls and the set of silks which hung on either side of the windows. ‘Don’t you realize it?’

‘Aren’t all trains like this?’ he asked, looking across at me in surprise.

‘No, Alexei,’ I replied with a smile, for what was astonishing to me was quotidian life to the son of the Tsar. ‘No, this one is special.’

‘My grandfather built it,’ he told me with the air of someone who assumes that everyone’s grandfather was a great man. ‘Alexander III. He had a great fascination with the railways, I am told.’

‘There’s only one thing I don’t understand,’ I said. ‘The speed at which it travels.’

‘Why, what’s wrong with it?’

‘It’s just… I don’t know much about these things, of course, but surely a train such as this can travel much faster than it does?’ I made the remark because ever since we had left St Petersburg, the train had been moving at no more than about twenty-five miles an hour. It was maintaining that speed almost perfectly, neither growing faster nor slower as the voyage continued, which made the journey extremely smooth but slightly frustrating too. ‘I’ve known horses who could outstrip this train.’

‘It always travels this slow,’ he explained. ‘When I’m on board, that is. Mother says that we can’t risk any sudden jolts.’

‘Anyone would think you were made of porcelain,’ I said, forgetting my place for a moment and regretting my words immediately, for he looked across at me, narrowing his eyes in disapproval and offering an expression that made my blood run cold, and I thought that yes, this boy could be Tsar one day. ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ I added after a moment, but he appeared to have already forgotten my transgression and had returned to his book, a volume on the history of the Russian army which his father had given him several nights before and which had been occupying his attentions ever since. He was a highly intelligent boy, I had already realized that, and cared as much for his reading as he did for the outdoor activities from which his protective parents were constantly trying to shield him.

My first introduction to the Tsarevich had taken place the morning after my arrival at the Winter Palace and I had liked him immediately. Although pale and dark-eyed, he had a confidence about him which I put down to the fact that he commanded the attention of everyone who passed through his life. He extended his hand to greet me and I shook it proudly, bowing my head out of respect as I introduced myself.

‘And you are to be my new bodyguard,’ he said quietly.

I immediately looked across at Count Charnetsky, who had delivered me into the royal presence, and who nodded quickly in assent. ‘Yes, sir,’ I said. ‘But I hope I will also be your friend.’

His brow furrowed a little at the word, as if it meant nothing to him, and he considered this for a moment before speaking again.

‘My last bodyguard ran away with one of the cooks to get married, did you know that?’

I shook my head and gave a small laugh, amused by how seriously he took the offence. He might as well have said that he had tried to smother him in his sleep. ‘No, sir,’ I replied. ‘No, I didn’t.’

‘I imagine that they must have been terribly in love to betray such a position, but it was an inappropriate match, for he was a cousin of Prince Hagurov and she was a reconstituted whore. Their families must feel great shame.’

‘Yes, sir,’ I agreed, hesitating for only a moment, wondering whether these were his own words or phrases he had overheard from his elders and which he was passing along now as his own. The frown on his face, however, suggested to me that he had been close to this bodyguard and regretted his loss.

‘My father believes strongly in the propriety of an equitable marriage,’ he continued. ‘He won’t countenance anyone who makes a match below their station. Before him, there was a fellow whom I did not like at all. His breath smelled, for one thing. And he could not control his bodily functions. I find such things vulgar, don’t you?’

‘I suppose so,’ I said, anxious not to disagree with him.

‘Although,’ he continued, biting his lip a little as he considered the matter, ‘sometimes I found it funny too. Like when Uncle Willy came to stay with Father and he made terrible noises when my sisters and I were brought in to say hello the following morning. That was comical, actually. But he was dismissed for it. The bodyguard, I mean. Not my uncle.’

‘It does not sound like very appropriate behaviour, Your Highness,’ I remarked, shocked to think that anyone could refer to Kaiser Wilhelm, with whom our country was at war, as Uncle Willy.

‘No, it wasn’t. It cheapened him in my eyes, but my sisters and I were told to ignore his vulgarity. And then there was the bodyguard before him. I liked him very much.’

‘And what happened to him?’ I asked, expecting another curious story of illicit love affairs or unpleasant personal habits.

‘He was killed,’ replied Alexei without emotion. ‘It was at Tsarskoe Selo. An assassin threw a bomb at the carriage I was riding in, but the driver saw it in time and drove on before it could land on my lap. This bodyguard was seated in the carriage directly behind us and it landed on him instead. It blew him up.’

‘That’s terrible,’ I said, appalled by the violence of it and suddenly aware of how my own life might be in similar peril while I looked after such an illustrious charge.

‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘Although Father said that he would have been proud to have died like that. In the service of Russia, that is. After all, it would have been much worse if I had died.’

Coming from any other child, the remark might have seemed thoughtless and arrogant, but the Tsarevich delivered it with such compassion for the dead man and a thoughtful understanding of his own position that I did not despise him for it.

‘Well, I don’t plan on eloping, farting or getting blown up,’ I said, smiling at him, imagining in my naivety that I could speak plainly, taking into account only his age and not his position. ‘So hopefully I shall be here to guard you for some time to come.’

‘Jachmenev,’ said Count Charnetsky immediately and I turned to look at him, ready to apologize before noticing how the Tsarevich was staring at me, his mouth wide open. I didn’t know for a moment whether he was going to burst out laughing or call the other guards to have me hauled away in chains, but finally he simply shook his head, as if the common people were a source of endless interest and amusement to him, and in this manner we began our new roles.

In the weeks that followed, we developed a pleasant informality with each other. He instructed me to call him Alexei, which I was glad to do, as to spend my day referring to an eleven-year-old boy as ‘Your Highness’ or even ‘sir’ would have been almost too much for me. He called me Georgy, which he liked because he had once owned a pup by that name, until it had been run over by one of his father’s carriages, a fact that I considered a grim portent.

He had his regular pastimes and wherever he went, I went too. In the mornings he attended Mass with his mother and father and then went directly to breakfast and on to private tuition with the Swiss tutor, Monsieur Gilliard. In the afternoons he went outside to the gardens, although I noticed that his parents, busy as they were, kept a close eye on him and he was not permitted to indulge in any activity which might be considered overly strenuous; I put this down to their worry about anything untoward happening to the heir to the throne. In the evenings, he ate dinner with his family, and afterwards he sat with a book, or perhaps we might play backgammon, a game he had taught me on our first evening together and at which I had yet to beat him.

And then there were his four sisters, Olga, Tatiana, Marie and Anastasia, whose rooms he invaded at every opportunity, and whose lives he tormented as much as they loved and fussed over him. As Alexei’s bodyguard, I was in the company of the Grand Duchesses throughout the day, but they mostly ignored me, of course.

Except for one, that is, with whom I had fallen in love.

‘Forget about the horses,’ I remarked to Alexei as I sat there, staring out of the window. ‘I could run faster than this train.’

‘Then why don’t you, Georgy Daniilovich? I’m sure the driver would stop and let you try.’

I made a face at him and he giggled, a sure sign that he may have been many things – educated, well-spoken, intelligent, the heir to a throne, the future leader of millions – but at his heart he remained what every Russian man had been at some point in his life.

A little boy.

The Tsaritsa, Alexandra Fedorovna, had been opposed to this trip from the very beginning.

Of all the members of the Imperial family, she was the one with whom I had enjoyed the least contact since my arrival in St Petersburg. The Tsar himself was always friendly and personable, even remembering my name most of the time, which I took as a mark of great honour. He suffered greatly over the progress of the war, however, and this was reflected on his face, which was lined and dark-eyed. His days were spent in his study in consultation with his generals, whose company he relished, or with the leaders of the Duma, whose very existence he seemed to loathe. But he never allowed his personal feelings on any given day to spill out into his dealings with those around him. Indeed, whenever I saw him, he always greeted me courteously and asked how I was enjoying my new position. Of course, my awe of him never lessened, but I also found that I was presumptuous enough to like him personally and I took great pride in being near his side.

Alexandra was different. A tall, attractive woman with a sharp nose and enquiring eyes, she considered a room to be empty if it was populated only by servants or guards, and conducted herself at such times, both in action and in conversation, as if she was alone.

‘Never talk to her,’ I was told late one night by Sergei Stasyovich Polyakov, a member of the Leib Guard with whom I had become friendly owing to the proximity of our quarters, which were adjacent to each other, our beds separated only by a thin wall through which I could hear him snoring in the night. At eighteen years of age, he was my senior by two years but was still one of the youngest members of Count Charnetsky’s elite regiment, and I was flattered that he had adopted me as his friend, for he appeared much more worldly and comfortable about the palace than I. ‘She would consider it a great mark of disrespect if you tried to engage her in conversation.’

‘I never would,’ I assured him. ‘But sometimes we catch each other’s eye in a room and I don’t know whether I should greet her or bow.’

‘She might catch your eye, Georgy,’ he told me, laughing a little, ‘but trust me, you don’t catch hers. She sees right through people like us. We’re ghosts, every one.’

‘I am no ghost,’ I insisted, surprised to find myself insulted by the charge. ‘I’m a man.’

‘Yes, yes,’ he said, extinguishing half a cigarette on the heel of his boot as he stood up to leave me and placing the unsmoked portion in his jacket pocket for later. ‘But you must remember how she was brought up. Her grandmother was the English queen, Victoria. Such an upbringing does not make you a sociable person. She never speaks to any of the servants if she can avoid it.’

Of course, I believed this to be perfectly reasonable. I had no kings or princes in my genealogy – I did not even know the names of some of my grandparents – so why should the Empress of Russia deign to hold discourse with me. Indeed, my trepidation for the Imperial family was such that I never expected any of them to notice me at all, but when I took into account how gracious her husband was, and her son, and her daughters, I wondered at times whether I had done anything to offend her.

I had seen her on my first night in the palace, of course, although I had not at the time realized who the lady kneeling at the prie-dieu with her back to me was. I could still recall how feverishly she prayed, how devoted to her God she seemed to be. And I had not forgotten that terrifying vision of darkness who stood before her, the priest who grinned his malevolent smile in my direction. Although our paths had yet to cross again, his image had haunted me ever since.

The downside of her refusal to notice me was that she thought nothing of behaving in a less than regal fashion while I was in the room, something that embarrassed me on occasion, such as two days before I boarded the Imperial train, when the Tsar had proposed taking Alexei to Army Headquarters in the first place.

‘Nicky,’ she cried, marching into one of the parlours on the top floor of the palace where the Tsar was lost in thought, working on his papers. I was sitting in a darkened corner, for my charge, Alexei, was stretched out on the ground, playing with a group of toy trains and tracks which he had assembled across the floor. Naturally, the trains were plated with gold and the tracks were made of thin steel. Father and son were ignoring me entirely, of course, and engaged in intermittent conversation with each other. Although he was lost in his work, I had noticed that the Tsar was much more at ease when Alexei was near by and he looked up and grew anxious whenever he left the room for any reason. ‘Nicky, tell me I have misunderstood.’

‘Misunderstood, my darling?’ he asked, looking up from his papers now with tired eyes, and for a moment I wondered whether he had in fact dozed off while he was seated there.

‘Anna Vyrubova tells me that you are travelling to Mogilev on Thursday, to visit the army?’

‘That’s right, Sunny,’ he replied, invoking the pet name by which he called her, a name which seemed in complete contrast to her often dark and fragile demeanour. I wondered whether their youth and courtship had been conducted in a very different manner to the one in which they lived now. ‘I wrote to Cousin Nicholas last week and said that I would spend a few days there to encourage the troops.’

‘Yes, yes,’ she said dismissively. ‘But you are not taking Alexei with you, surely? I’ve been told that—’

‘I had intended on it, yes,’ he said quietly, looking away from her as he said this, as if he was only too aware of the argument that would follow.

‘But I can’t allow it, Nicky,’ she cried.

‘Can’t allow it?’ he asked, a note of amusement entering his gentle tone. ‘And why ever not?’

‘You know why not. It’s not safe there.’

‘It’s not safe anywhere any more, Sunny, or hadn’t you noticed that? Can’t you feel the storm clouds gathering around us?’ He hesitated for a moment and the ends of his moustache rose a little as he attempted a smile. ‘I can.’

She opened her mouth to protest, but that comment appeared to confuse her for a moment and she turned her head instead to look at her son, seated a few feet away on the floor, who was looking up from his trains now and watching the scene unfold before him. She smiled at him for a moment, an anxious smile, and wrung her hands together nervously, before turning back to her husband.

‘No, Nicky,’ she said. ‘No, I insist that he stay here with me. The journey itself will be intolerable. And then who knows what the conditions will be like when you get there. And as for the dangers at Stavka, I need hardly tell you! What if a German bomber locates your position?’

‘Sunny, we face these dangers every day of the week,’ he said in an exhausted tone. ‘And we are nowhere more easy to locate than here in St Petersburg.’

‘You face those dangers, yes. And I face them. But not Alexei. Not our son.’

The Tsar closed his eyes for a moment before standing up and walking to the window, where he looked out across the River Neva.

‘He must go,’ he said finally, turning around and staring directly into his wife’s face. ‘I have already told Cousin Nicholas that he will be accompanying me. He will have issued a bulletin to the troops.’

‘Then tell him you’ve changed your mind.’

‘I can’t do that, Sunny. His presence at Mogilev will offer them great encouragement. You know how low their spirits have been lately, how morale has been slipping away. You read as many of the despatches as I do, I’ve seen you with them in your parlour. Anything we can do to encourage the men—’

‘And you think an eleven-year-old boy can do that?’ she asked with a bitter laugh.

‘But he is not just any eleven-year-old boy, is he? He is the Tsarevich. He is the heir to the throne of Russia. He is a symbol—’

‘Oh, I hate it when you talk about him like that!’ she snapped, pacing across the room now in a fury, passing me by as if I was nothing more than a strip of wallpaper or an ornamental sofa. ‘He’s not a symbol to me. He is my son.’

‘Sunny, he is more than that and you know it.’

‘But Mother, I want to go,’ said a small voice from the carpet, Alexei’s, and he stared up at the Tsaritsa with honest, adoring eyes. Her own eyes, I noticed. They were very alike, the two of them.

‘I know you do, my darling,’ she said, leaning down for a moment and kissing his cheek. ‘But it’s not safe for you there.’

‘I’ll be careful,’ he said. ‘I promise you.’

‘Your promises are all well and good,’ she replied. ‘But what if you should trip over? What if a bomb explodes near by and you fall? Or, God forbid, if a bomb should go off where you are?’

I felt a desperate urge to shake my head and sigh, thinking her the most over-protective of mothers. What if he should fall over? What a ludicrous thought, I decided. He was eleven years old. He should be falling over a dozen times a day. Yes, and picking himself up again.

‘Sunny, the boy needs to be exposed to the real world,’ said the Tsar, his voice growing more firm now as if he was resolved in his decision and would allow no further debate. ‘All his life he has been cosseted in palaces and wrapped in cotton wool. Think of this: what if something should happen to me tomorrow and he had to take my place? He knows nothing of what it is to be Tsar. I barely knew anything of it myself when our dear father was taken from us, and I was a man of twenty-six. What hope would Alexei have in such circumstances? He spends all his life here, with you and the girls. It is time he learned something of his responsibilities.’

‘But the danger, Nicky,’ she implored, rushing to her husband now and taking his hands in hers. ‘You must be aware of it. I have consulted on this most carefully. I asked Father Gregory what he thinks of the plan before I even came to you on it. So you see, I have not been as impetuous as you might think. And he told me that it was an ill-conceived idea. That you should reconsider—’

‘Father Gregory tells me what I should do?’ he cried, appalled. ‘Father Gregory thinks he knows how to run this country better than I, is that it? That he knows more about how to be a good father to Alexei than the man who sired him?’

‘He is a man of God,’ she protested. ‘He speaks to one greater than the Tsar.’

‘Oh, Sunny!’ he roared, turning away from her now, his voice filled with anger and frustration. ‘I cannot have this conversation again. I cannot have it every day! It is enough, now, do you hear me? Enough!’

‘But Nicky!’

‘But nothing! Yes, I am father to Alexei, but I am father to many millions more than him and I have responsibilities towards their protection too. The boy will come with me to Mogilev. He will be taken care of, I assure you. Derevenko and Federov will be with us, so if anything should happen, then the doctors will be there to attend to him. Gilliard will come too, so that he does not fall behind in his studies. There will be soldiers and bodyguards to take care of him. And Georgy will not leave his side from the moment he wakes until the moment he falls asleep again at night.’

‘Georgy?’ cried the Tsaritsa, her face wrinkling in surprise. ‘And who is Georgy, might I ask?’

‘My dear, you have met him. Ten or twelve times at least.’ He nodded in my direction and I gave a gentle cough and stood up, emerging from the shadows of the room and into her presence. She turned and stared at me as if she had not the least idea what I was doing there or why I was demanding her attention, before turning away from me and marching up to her husband.

‘If anything should happen to him, Nicky—’

‘Nothing will happen to him.’

‘But if anything does, I promise you…’

‘You promise me what, Sunny?’ he asked coldly. ‘What is it that you promise me?’

She hesitated now, her face close to his, but said nothing. Defeated, she turned and stared coldly at me before looking down at her son and her face relaxed into happiness again, as if there was no more perfect or beautiful sight to be found anywhere in the world.

‘Alexei,’ she said in a gentle voice, stretching her hand out. ‘Alexei, leave those toys and come with Mother, now won’t you? It must be time for your supper.’

He nodded and stood up, took her hand, and followed her as she swept out of the room.

‘Well?’ asked the Tsar, staring at me, his voice chilly and angry. ‘What are you waiting for? Go with him. Keep him safe. That’s what you’re here for.’

The Russian Army Headquarters – Stavka – were situated at the top of a hill, in what had been the provincial governor’s house before he was forced to relocate in order to ensure that he still had a region to administer when the war was over. A large, sprawling mansion, it was set in several dozen acres of ground, with enough outside huts and cabins dotted around the landscape to accommodate all those military personnel who passed through.

The Grand Duke Nicholas Nicolaievich, who was almost permanently stationed at Stavka, occupied the second-finest bedroom in the building, a quiet chamber on the first floor that overlooked a garden where the governor had tried unsuccessfully to cultivate vegetables in the frozen earth. The best room, however, a large suite on the top floor of the house with an attached office and private bathroom, was kept free at all times for when the Tsar came to inspect the troops. The view from the latticed windows offered a tranquil vision of distant hills, and on quiet evenings it was sometimes possible to hear the water running in the nearby streams, offering the illusion that the world was at peace and we were living innocent, rural lives in the serenity of eastern Belarus. For the duration of our visit, the Tsar shared this room with Alexei, while I was given a bunk in a small ground-floor parlour, which I shared with three other bodyguards, including my friend Sergei Stasyovich, who was one of those whose responsibilities extended solely to the protection of the Tsar.

It was a joy to watch the Tsar and the Tsarevich together during this time, for I had never seen a father and son who revelled in each other’s company quite so much. In Kashin, this kind of affection would have been frowned upon by all. The closest we came to any degree of filial warmth was the respect shown by my old friend Kolek towards his father Borys. But there was a natural warmth and friendliness between man and boy that made me envious of their relationship and it was only enhanced when they were removed from the austerity of palace life. I thought of Daniil often at such moments, and with regret.

The Tsar insisted from the start that Alexei not be treated as a child, but as the heir to the Russian throne. No conversation was considered too private or too serious for his ears. No sight was to be withheld from his eyes. When Nicholas rode out to visit the troops, Alexei rode alongside him, with Sergei and me and the other bodyguards following closely behind. At troop inspections, the soldiers would stand to attention and answer their Emperor’s questions while the boy would stand quietly by his father’s side, polite and attentive, listening to all that was said and digesting every word.

And when we visited the field hospitals, which we did frequently, he did not display any signs of squeamishness or horror, despite the terrible sights which were laid out before us.

At one particular encampment, our entire entourage stepped into a grey-canopied tent where a group of doctors and nurses were tending to perhaps fifty or sixty wounded soldiers, who lay in single beds pressed so close together that it almost seemed as if one long mattress had been stitched together for them to die upon. The smell of blood, decomposing limbs and rotting flesh lingered in the atmosphere and as we entered, I longed to run back outside to the fresh air, my expression contorting in disgust as my throat fought against a natural tendency to gag. The Tsar himself displayed no such signs of revulsion; nor did Alexei allow himself to be overcome by such sensory horrors. Indeed, looking in my direction as I coughed, I perceived a definite expression of disapproval on his face, which embarrassed me, for he was just a boy, five years my junior, and was acting with more dignity than I could summon. Humiliated, I fought against my disgust and followed the Imperial party as they moved from bed to bed.

The Tsar spoke to each of the men in turn, leaning down close to their faces so that their conversation would have a semblance of privacy. Some of the men were able to whisper replies to him, others had neither the strength nor the composure to engage in conversation. All seemed thoroughly overawed that the Tsar himself was among them; perhaps they thought that in their fever they were simply imagining things. It was as if Christ himself had stepped inside the tent and begun to offer a benediction.

Halfway through the room, Alexei let go of the Tsar’s hand, stepped across to the beds on the opposite side and began to talk to the men there in imitation of his father. He sat down beside them and I heard him telling them how far he had travelled, all the way from St Petersburg, to be with them that day. How his horse was a charger but we rode at a slow pace in case any danger came to him. He talked of small matters, inconsequential things that must have seemed tremendously important to him, but the patients appreciated the simplicity of his conversation and were charmed by him. As they reached the end of their respective lines, I noticed the Tsar turn to observe his son, who was placing a small icon within the hands of a man who had been blinded by an attack. Turning to one of his generals, he made a quiet remark that I could not hear, and the other man nodded and watched as the Tsarevich completed his conversation.

‘Is something the matter, Father?’ asked Alexei, turning around and seeing that all eyes were now focussed on him.

‘Nothing at all, my son,’ said the Tsar, and I was sure that I could hear the words catch in his throat, so overwhelmed was he by the mixed emotion of sympathy for the men’s suffering and pride at his son’s forbearance. ‘But come, it is time to leave now.’

I didn’t see the Grand Duke Nicholas Nicolaievich, whose life I had saved and whose appreciation had brought me to my new life, until more than a week after we arrived at Stavka. When we did meet again, he had just returned from the Front, where he had been leading the troops with varying degrees of success, and had come back to Mogilev to consult with his cousin, the Tsar, and to plan the autumn strategy.

I had entered the house from the garden, where Alexei was constructing a fort among some trees, when I saw that great giant of a man marching along the corridor towards me. My initial instinct was to turn and run back outside, for his huge stature and girth suggested a most intimidating presence – almost more intimidating than the Tsar himself – but it was too late to make my escape, for he had seen me and was raising his hand in greeting.

‘Jachmenev,’ he roared as he came closer, practically blocking out the sunlight from the open doors. ‘It is you, isn’t it?’

‘It is, sir,’ I admitted, offering him a low, respectful bow. ‘It’s nice to see you again.’

‘Is it?’ he asked, sounding surprised. ‘Well, I’m glad to hear it. So here you are then,’ he added, looking me up and down to decide whether he still approved of me or not. ‘I thought it might work out. I said to Cousin Nicky, there’s a boy I met in this little shithole of a village, a very brave lad. Not much to look at it, it’s true. Could do with a few extra inches of height and a few more pounds of muscle, but not a bad fellow all the same. Might be exactly who you’re looking for to take care of young Alexei. I’m glad to see he listened to me.’

‘You have my gratitude, sir, for the great change in my circumstances.’

‘Yes, yes,’ he said dismissively. ‘Bit of a difference from… where was it we encountered each other?’

‘Kashin, sir.’

‘Ah yes, Kashin. Dreadful place. Had to hang the fool who tried to shoot me. Didn’t want to do it, really, he was just a boy, but there’s no excuse for such mischief. Had to be made an example of. You can understand that, can’t you?’

I nodded, but said nothing. The memory of my part in Kolek’s death was something I tried not to dwell on, for I felt tremendously guilty about how I had profited from it. Also, I missed his companionship.

‘Friend of yours, was he?’ asked the Grand Duke after a moment, sensing my reticence.

‘We grew up together,’ I said. ‘He had strange ideas sometimes, but he was not a malicious person.’

‘Not so sure about that,’ he replied with a shrug. ‘He did point a gun at me, after all.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Well, it’s all in the past now. Survival of the fittest and all that. Speaking of which, where is the Tsarevich anyway? Aren’t you supposed to be by his side at all times?’

‘He’s just outside,’ I said, nodding my head in the direction of the small copse, where the boy was dragging some logs across the grass to aid in the construction of the walls of his fort.

‘He’s all right out there on his own, is he?’ asked the Grand Duke, and I couldn’t help but sigh in frustration. I had been attending to the Tsarevich for almost two months now and had never known a child who was wrapped in cotton wool quite as much as him. His parents behaved as if he might snap in two at any moment. And now the Grand Duke was suggesting that he could not be left alone for fear of injury. He’s just a boy, I wanted to shout at them sometimes. A child! Were none of you ever children?

‘I can go back out to him if you’d prefer it,’ I replied. ‘I was only stepping inside for a moment to—’

‘No, no,’ he said quickly, shaking his head. ‘I daresay you know what you’re doing. I don’t make it my business to tell another man’s servant how to do his job.’

I bristled a little at this characterization. The Tsar’s servant. Was that what I was? Well, of course it was. I was hardly free. But still, it was an unpleasant thing to hear the words said aloud.

‘And you have settled in to your new duties well?’ he asked me.

‘Yes, sir,’ I replied truthfully. ‘I am… well, perhaps it’s the wrong phrase, but I enjoy them very much.’

‘Not the wrong phrase at all, my boy,’ he said, snorting a little and then blowing his nose on an enormous white handkerchief. ‘Nothing better than a fellow who enjoys what he does. Makes the day go a lot quicker. And how’s that arm of yours holding up?’ he added, punching me so hard where the bullet had entered my shoulder that it was all that I could do not to let out a great scream of agony or punch him in return, an action which would have had dire consequences for me.

‘Much improved, sir,’ I replied through gritted teeth. ‘There is a scar, as you predicted, but—’

‘A man should have a scar,’ he said quickly. ‘I’ve got scars all over me, you know. My body’s full of them. Naked, I resemble something that a cat’s crawled over with untrimmed nails. I must show you some time.’ I stared at him, astonished by the remark. The last thing I wanted was to be offered a tour of the Grand Duke’s scars. ‘There’s not a man in this army who isn’t scarred,’ he continued, oblivious to my surprise. ‘Take it as a mark of honour, Jachmenev. And as for the women… Well, when they see it, I promise you it will take their fancy more than you would imagine.’

I blushed, innocent that I was, and looked down at the ground, quite silent.

‘All the saints, boy,’ he said, laughing a little. ‘You’ve gone quite scarlet. You’ve been showing the scar to every whore around the Winter Palace already, have you?’

I said nothing and looked away. The truth was that I had done no such thing, that I remained as innocent of carnal pleasures as on the day when I was born. I had no interest in whores, although they were accessible to me for they were a staple of palace life. Nor did I have any interest in women who did not require compensation for their charms. There was only one girl who attracted my attentions. But to reveal it would have been impossible, for it was so inappropriate an attachment that its revelation might have cost me my life. The last thing I was going to do was admit it to Nicholas Nicolaievich.

‘Well, good for you, boy,’ he said, slapping my arm once again. ‘You’re young. You might as well take your pleasures where you—Good God!’

The sudden change in his tone made me look up and I saw that he was not looking at me any more, but staring out of the window towards the garden, where the Tsarevich’s fort was coming along nicely. Alexei himself was nowhere to be seen, however, and as I followed the direction of the Grand Duke’s eyes, I caught sight of him, perhaps fifteen feet off the ground, sitting on a thick branch which extended from an oak tree.

‘Alexei!’ whispered the Grand Duke under his breath, the word filled with trepidation.

‘Ho there!’ shouted the boy from his vantage point, his voice reaching us now, delighted by how high he had climbed. ‘Cousin Nicholas, Georgy, can you see me?’

‘Alexei, stay where you are!’ roared the Grand Duke, running out into the garden. ‘Don’t move, do you hear me? Stay exactly where you are. I’m coming for you.’

I followed him outside quickly, astonished by how seriously he seemed to be taking this matter. The boy had managed to get himself up the tree, it would hardly be any more difficult to get himself down again. And yet Nicholas Nicolaievich was sprinting towards the oak as if all our lives and the fate of Russia itself depended on our rescuing him.

It was too late, however. The sight of this monster of a man charging towards him was too much for the boy, who tried to stand up and descend the trunk – convinced, perhaps, that he had broken some unknown rule and would be wise to run away before being caught and punished – but he caught his foot in a branch and in a moment I heard a surprised cry emerge from his lips as he struggled to find purchase on one of the smaller branches and twigs beneath him before falling hard and noisily to the ground below, where he sat up, rubbed his head and elbow, and grinned at us both as if the entire thing had been a great surprise to him, but not an entirely unpleasant one.

I smiled back. He was fine, after all. It was boyish mischief. No harm had been done.

‘Be quick,’ said the Grand Duke, turning to look at me now, his face pale. ‘Call the doctors. Get them here now, Jachmenev.’

‘But he’s fine, sir,’ I protested, surprised by how seriously he was taking this accident. ‘Look at him, all he did was—’

‘Get them now, Jachmenev,’ he roared, practically knocking me over in his anger, and this time I did not hesitate.

I turned, I ran, I summoned help.

And within a few minutes the entire household had come to a dramatic stop.

The evening came and went without dinner being served; the night passed by without any entertainment being offered. Finally, just after two o’clock in the morning, I found an excuse to leave the room where the other members of the Leib Guard had gathered, each one staring at me more contemptuously than the last, and made my way back to my bunk, where I wanted nothing more than to close my eyes, fall asleep quickly and put the events of that horrible day behind me.

In the time between the accident and the early morning I had endured feelings of confusion, anger and self-pity, but was still ignorant as to why Alexei’s fall was considered to be such a terrible disaster, for he displayed no outward sign of injury except for a few small bruises dotted along his elbow, leg and torso. Of course, I had begun to realize that the care which was extended towards the Tsarevich was not purely because of his proximity to the throne, but that something more serious lay at its heart. Looking back, I could recall conversations with the Tsar, with some of the guards, even with Alexei himself, where matters had been implied but not stated fully, and I cursed my stupidity for not having made further enquiries.

As I made my way along the corridors, feeling increasingly sorry for myself, a door to my left opened and before I could even turn my head in that direction to see who was inside, a hand had gripped my lapel and practically lifted me from the floor to pull me inside.

‘How could you have been so stupid?’ Sergei Stasyovich asked me, closing the door and spinning me around to face him. To my great surprise, I saw that the only other person in the room was Alexei’s older sister, the Grand Duchess Marie, who was standing with her back to a window, her face pale, her eyes red with tears. One of the guards had mentioned earlier that the Tsaritsa Alexandra had already arrived from St Petersburg, and upon hearing this I had felt a sudden burst of hope that she would not have come alone. ‘Why weren’t you watching him, Georgy?’

‘I was watching him, Sergei,’ I insisted, upset by how the entire world seemed to have decided that everything that had taken place was the fault of this poor moujik from Kashin. ‘I was in the garden with him, he wasn’t doing anything dangerous. I only stepped inside for a moment and was distracted by—’

‘You should not have left him,’ said Marie, stepping towards me. I offered her a low bow, which she waved away as if it was an insult. She was the same age as I – we had both turned seventeen a few days earlier – and had a porcelain beauty that turned men’s heads whenever she walked into a room. To some, she was considered the great beauty of the Tsar’s daughters. But not to me.

‘This is what happens when amateurs are allowed within our ranks,’ said Sergei, turning around in frustration and pacing the room. ‘Oh, I’m sorry to say it, Georgy, it’s hardly your fault, but you don’t have the experience for such responsibility. It was quite ridiculous of Nicholas Nicolaievich to have recommended you. Do you know how long I have trained to protect the Tsar?’

‘Well, as you’re only two years older than me, I can’t quite see the difference,’ I said, for I was damned if I was going to be spoken down to by him.

‘And he has been in the palace for eight years,’ snapped the Grand Duchess, stepping closer to me now, infuriated by this last remark. ‘Sergei spent his youth in the Corps of Pages. Do you even know what that is?’ She stared at me contemptuously and shook her head. ‘Of course you don’t,’ she said, answering her own question. ‘He was among 150 boys drawn from the court nobility and trained in the ways of the Leib Guard. And only the very finest members of the corps are assigned to protect my family. Every day he has learned what to look out for, where the dangers lie, how to prevent any tragedy from taking place. Do you have any idea how many of my ancestors and relatives have been murdered? Do you realize that my brother and sisters and I walk in the shadow of death at every moment of the day? All we have to rely on is our prayers and our guards. Sergei Stasyovich is the type of man we need around us. Not you, not you.’

She shook her head and looked at me pitifully. I found it quite extraordinary that her anger appeared to be divided between what had happened to her brother and what I had said about Sergei. What was he to her, after all, except just another member of the Leib Guard? For his part, the object of her defensiveness was fuming now by the window, and I watched her go to him and speak quietly before he shook his head and said no. I wondered whether Marie was not a little enamoured of him, perhaps, for he was a striking young man, tall and handsome, with piercing blue eyes and a shock of blond hair that made him seem more Aryan than Russian.

‘I don’t know what is expected of me,’ I said finally, growing close to tears now in my distress. ‘I’ve looked out for him all that I can since the moment I was appointed to my duties. It was an accident, why is that so hard to understand? Young boys have accidents.’

‘Get some sleep, Georgy,’ said Sergei quietly, turning around now and walking over to pat my shoulder in commiseration. I brushed his hand away, not wishing to be patronized by him. ‘Tomorrow will be a busy day, no doubt. They will want to talk to you. It’s not your fault, not really. The truth is that you should have been told before now. Perhaps if you had known…’

‘Known?’ I asked, my brow furrowing in confusion. ‘Known what?’

‘Go,’ he said, opening the door and pushing me back out on to the corridor. I was about to argue further, but he was talking quietly with the Grand Duchess again. Feeling myself entirely surplus to their interests, I grew utterly frustrated with the situation and left quickly, not going to my bed as I had initially planned, but returning instead to the garden where these events had begun.

There was a full moon that night and I found myself standing in the same spot where I had been talking with the Grand Duke earlier in the afternoon, content now to be alone with my private thoughts and regrets. A gentle breeze was blowing outside and I closed my eyes in front of the open doors and let it wash over me, imagining that I was far away from here, in a place where so much was not expected of me. In the darkness, in the gloomy solitude of that corridor at Stavka, there was some element of peace to be found, a small respite from the drama which had engulfed us throughout the afternoon and evening.

I heard the footsteps marching along the corridor for some time before I even thought to turn and look in their direction. There was an urgency to them, a determination that made me nervous.

‘Who’s there?’ I called. Despite what Sergei and the Grand Duchess Marie might have thought, I had been trained over the previous few months in ever more ingenious ways to deal with a suspected assassin, but surely there could not be one here, at Army Headquarters of all places. ‘Who’s there?’ I repeated, louder now, wondering whether I might yet have a chance to redeem myself in the eyes of the Imperial family before the sun rose. ‘Make yourself known.’

As I said this, the figure finally emerged into the brightness of the moonlight and before I had a chance to catch my breath she was standing directly before me, raising her hand in the air, and with one sharp and determined motion, she struck me forcefully across the face. So taken by surprise was I by both the strength and the unexpected nature of the act that I fell out of my stance, tripping backwards and stumbling on to the floor, landing painfully on my elbow, but I made no cry, merely sat there, dazed and nursing my wounded jaw.

‘You fool,’ said the Tsaritsa, taking another step towards me, and I retreated a little, like a crab rearing backwards along a beach, although I didn’t think that she intended to strike me again. ‘You stupid fool,’ she repeated, her voice devastated from anger and fear.

‘Your Majesty,’ I said, standing up now, but keeping a safe distance from her. There was a look of absolute terror in her eyes, a panic unlike any I had ever seen before. ‘I keep telling people, it was an accident. I don’t know how it—’

‘We cannot afford accidents,’ she shouted. ‘What is the point of you if you do not look after my son? If you do not keep him from harm?’

‘The point of me?’ I asked, certain that I did not care for the expression, even if it did come from the Empress of Russia. ‘I cannot keep my eyes on him at every moment of the day,’ I insisted. ‘He is a boy. He looks for adventure.’

‘He fell from a tree, this is what they tell me,’ she replied. ‘What was he doing in a tree in the first place?’

‘He climbed it,’ I explained. ‘The Tsarevich was building a fort. I expect he was looking for more wood and—’

‘Why were you not with him? You should have been with him!’

I shook my head and looked away, unable to understand how she could think that I could possibly be always by the boy’s side. He was an active fellow, no matter what they thought of him. He escaped me constantly.

‘Georgy,’ said the Tsaritsa, putting her hands to her cheeks now and holding them there for a moment as she exhaled lengthily. ‘Georgy, you don’t understand. I told Nicky that we should have explained it to you.’

‘Explained it?’ I asked, raising my own voice now, despite the difference in our rank, for whatever it was could be held back from me no longer. ‘Explained what? Tell me, please!’

‘Just listen,’ she said, putting a finger to her lips for a moment and I looked around, waiting to hear something that might explain everything.

‘What is it?’ I asked. ‘I hear nothing.’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘It is silent now. There’s not a sound. But in an hour’s time, perhaps less, these corridors will echo with the sound of my son’s cries as the first agonies begin. The blood around his wounds will fail to clot. And then he will start to suffer. And you might think that you have never heard such anguished cries, but…’ She released a small, bitter laugh as she shook her head, ‘they will be nothing, nothing, in comparison to what will follow.’

‘It was not a heavy fall,’ I protested, hearing the weakness of my words, for I had started to realize that there was a reason for such protectiveness.

‘A few hours after that and the real pain will begin,’ she continued. ‘The doctors will not be able to stem the flow of blood, for his wounds are all internal, and it is impossible to operate upon him, for we cannot allow him to bleed even more freely. Having no natural release, the blood will flow into Alexei’s muscles and joints, trying to fill spaces that are already full, expanding those injured areas ever further. He will start to suffer in ways that neither you nor I can possibly imagine. He will cry out. And then he will scream. He will scream for a week, perhaps longer. Can you imagine that kind of suffering, Georgy? Can you imagine what it must be like to scream for so long?’

I stared at her and said nothing. Of course I couldn’t imagine it. The idea was beyond imagination.

‘And throughout this time, he will drift in and out of consciousness, but mostly he will be awake to experience the pain,’ she continued. ‘His entire body will go into seizure and he will become delirious. He will be torn between nightmares, between screaming out in pain and praying for his father or me to help him, to relieve some of his suffering, but there will be nothing we can do. We will sit by his bedside, we will talk to him, we will hold his hand, but we will not cry, because we cannot be weak in front of the child. And this will last for who knows how long? And then do you know what might happen, Georgy?’

I shook my head. ‘What?’ I asked.

‘Then he might die,’ she said coldly. ‘My son might die. Russia might be left without an heir. And all because you allowed him to climb a tree. Do you understand now?’

I knew not what to say. The boy was a haemophiliac; he had what they called the ‘royal disease’, an affliction I had overheard servants gossiping about but had never given much thought to. England’s late queen, Victoria, the Tsaritsa’s own grandmother, had been a carrier, and having married off most of her children and grandchildren to the princes and princesses of Europe, the ailment was a shameful secret in many regal courts. Including our own. They should have told me before this, I thought bitterly. They should have trusted me. For after all, I would sooner have put a knife through my own heart than cause the Tsarevich any suffering.

‘Can I see him?’ I asked and she smiled at me for a moment, her expression softening slightly, before she simply turned away and disappeared back into the shadows of the long corridor, in the direction of the Tsarevich’s room. ‘I want to see him!’ I shouted after her, not even considering how inappropriate this was. ‘Please, you must let me see him!’

But my cries fell on deaf ears. In a reversal of the earlier moments, the Tsaritsa’s footsteps marched quickly away but grew quieter now, fading into the distance until I was left alone again, staring into the garden, desperate and grieving for my actions.

And it was at that moment that Anastasia came to me.

She had been listening to every word that had been said between her mother and me She must have arrived in the carriages earlier, as I had hoped. She had come for her brother.

And, I thought, for me.

‘Georgy,’ she cried, her voice rising above a whisper and carrying across the tops of the hedgerows and bushes to land like music on my ears. I turned my face in the direction from which it had come and saw the flutter of her white dress behind the dark-green plants. ‘Georgy, I am here.’

I looked around quickly to ensure that we were not being observed and ran outside. She was waiting for me behind a cluster of hedgerows, and when I saw her anxious face, I felt like weeping. Her brother was in his bed, terrified, preparing for weeks of agony, but none of it seemed to matter suddenly and I felt ashamed. For she was here before me.

‘I hoped you’d come,’ I said.

‘Mother brought us,’ she cried, falling into my arms. ‘Alexei is…’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘And it’s my fault. It’s all my fault. I should have… I should have taken more care. If I had known—’

‘You weren’t to know the dangers,’ she insisted. ‘I’m frightened, Georgy. Hold me, won’t you? Hold me and tell me that everything will be all right.’

I didn’t hesitate. I wrapped myself around her and pressed her face to my chest, kissing the top of her golden hair and resting my lips there, inhaling the sweet aroma of her perfume.

‘Anastasia,’ I said, closing my eyes, wondering how I had ever found myself in this position. ‘Anastasia, my beloved.’