The House of Special Purpose

The Starets and the Skaters

FOR SEVERAL DAYS I felt an uncanny sensation that I was being followed. Leaving the palace for a walk along the Moika in the early evening, I would hesitate, stop and turn around, scanning the faces of the people walking quickly past me, convinced that one of them was watching me. It was a curious and disturbing feeling that, at first, I put down to paranoia brought on by my changed circumstances.

By now I was so happy in my new position with the Imperial Family that I could barely recall my past without fearing a return to it. When I did think of home there was a pricking of my conscience, but I ignored it and cast it quickly from my mind.

And yet I wasn’t thinking of Kashin at all when it manifested itself once more in front of me. I was thinking of the Grand Duchess Anastasia, of the moments when we would meet on darkened corridors when I could spirit her inside one of the many hundreds of empty rooms in the palace to kiss her, to pull her close to me, to hope that she would suggest an even greater intimacy to quell my teenage lust. The previous evening I had quite forgotten myself, taking her hand as we embraced and pushing it slowly along my tunic, down towards my belt, my heart racing with desire and the anticipation of the moment when she would pull away and say No, Georgy… we can’t… we can’t…

My mind was so filled with these thoughts and an urgent desire to return quickly to the solitude of my room that I barely glanced at the young woman standing wrapped in heavy shawls by the side of the Admiralty. She said something, a phrase I didn’t hear as the wind blew around me, and in my selfishness I snapped irritably at her that I had no money to give her, that she should go to one of the soup kitchens that had sprung up around St Petersburg for food and warmth.

To my surprise she ran after me and I spun around just as she grabbed my arm, wondering whether she really thought that she could rob me of what little money I had, and even then I failed to recognize her immediately until she said my name.

‘Georgy.’

‘Asya!’ I cried, astonished, delighted at first, staring at my sister as if she was an apparition and not a person at all. ‘But I can’t believe it. Is it really you?’

‘It is,’ she said, nodding, tears of joy forming as pools in her eyes. ‘I have found you at last.’

‘Here,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘Here, in St Petersburg!’

‘Where I always wanted to be.’

I embraced her, pulled her close to me, and then a moment of great shame: the thought went through my mind, What is she doing here anyway? What does she want of me?

‘Come over here,’ I said, beckoning her towards the shelter of one of the colonnades. ‘Step out of the cold, you look frozen. How long have you been here, anyway?’

‘Not long,’ she said, sitting beside me on a low stone bench hidden away from the noisy winds, where we might hear each other better. ‘A few days, that’s all.’

‘A few days?’ I replied, surprised. ‘And you’re only coming to me now?’

‘I wasn’t sure how to approach you, Georgy,’ she explained. ‘Every time I saw you, you were with groups of other soldiers and I was afraid to interrupt. I knew I would find you on your own sooner or later.’

I nodded, recalling the feeling that I had been watched and had felt annoyed by it.

‘I see,’ I said. ‘Well, you have found me now.’

‘At last,’ she said, breaking into a smile. ‘And how well you look! You are eating, I can tell.’

‘But exercising too,’ I said quickly, offended. ‘My work here never ends.’

‘You look healthy, that’s all I meant. Life in the palace agrees with you.’

I shrugged my shoulders and looked out towards the square and the Alexander Column that had been one of my first sights of this new world, conscious that my sister looked extremely thin and pale.

‘I nearly fainted when I first saw it,’ she said, following my gaze.

‘The palace?’

‘It’s so beautiful, Georgy. I’ve never seen anything like it before.’

I nodded, but tried to look unimpressed. I wanted her to feel that this was a place where I belonged, that my life had always led me here.

‘It is a home, like any other,’ I said.

‘But it’s not!’ she cried.

‘I mean that on the inside, when you are with the family, they think of it as their home. One quickly grows accustomed to such wealth,’ I lied.

‘And have you met them yet?’ she asked me.

‘Who?’

‘Their Majesties.’

I burst out laughing. ‘But Asya,’ I explained, ‘I see them every day. I am companion to the Tsarevich Alexei. You knew that was why I was being brought here.’

She nodded and seemed lost for words. ‘It was just… I didn’t believe it could be true.’

‘Well, it is,’ I said irritably. ‘Anyway, why are you here?’

‘Georgy?’

‘Sorry,’ I said, regretting my tone immediately. It astonished me how much I wanted her to go away. It was as if I believed that she had come to take me home. But she represented a part of my life that was over for me now, a time that I wanted not only to move past but to forget entirely. ‘I only meant, what good fortune has brought you to the city too?’

‘None. Yet,’ she replied. ‘I couldn’t stand it there without you, you see. In Kashin. I couldn’t bear to be left behind. So I made my way here. I thought… I thought that perhaps you could help me.’

‘Of course,’ I said nervously. ‘But how? What can I do for you?’

‘I thought perhaps… well, they must want servant girls in the palace. There might be a position for me. If you spoke to someone.’

‘Yes, yes,’ I said, frowning. ‘Yes, I’m sure there is. I could try to find out.’ I thought about it, wondering who I should consult. I pictured my sister in a maid’s uniform or the lesser clothing of a kitchen servant and for a moment it seemed like a happy thought. She would find as much ambition here as I had. I would have a friend; not one whose respect I craved, such as Sergei Stasyovich. Nor one whose affection I desired, such as Anastasia. ‘Where are you staying, anyway?’

‘I found a room,’ she said. ‘It’s not much and I can’t afford to stay there for too long. Do you think you could ask for me, Georgy? We could meet again then. Here, perhaps.’

I nodded and felt a sudden urge to be rid of her, to be back inside the unreal world of the palace and not out here having conversations with the past. I hated myself for my selfishness but could not seem to vanquish it.

‘A week then,’ I said, standing up. ‘A week from tonight, at this time. Come again and I will have an answer for you. I wish I could stay longer now, but my duties…’

‘Of course,’ she said, looking saddened. ‘But later tonight, perhaps? I could return and—’

‘It’s impossible,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘Next week. I promise. I will see you then.’

She nodded and embraced me once more. ‘Thank you, Georgy,’ she said. ‘I knew that you would not let me down. It is either this or I return home. There is nowhere else for me. You will do what you can, won’t you?’

‘Yes, yes,’ I snapped. ‘Now I must be gone. Until next week, sister.’

And with that I hurried back into the square and towards the palace, cursing her for coming here, bringing the past into a place where it did not belong. By the time I reached my room I had grown more tender again, however, and resolved that the following morning I would do what I could to help her. And by the time my door was closed, she had vanished from my mind entirely and my thoughts were once again with the only girl whose existence mattered to me at all.

Of the three main imperial dwellings – the Winter Palace in St Petersburg, the cliff-top citadel at Livadia and the Alexander Palace at Tsarskoe Selo – the last of these was my favourite of the Tsar’s many residences. It was an entire royal village situated some sixteen miles south of the capital, and the court regularly travelled there by train – slowly, of course, so as not to cause any sudden jolting which might instigate another episode of the Tsarevich’s haemophilia.

Unlike in St Petersburg, where I was quartered in a narrow cell along a corridor populated by other members of the Imperial guard, my place at Tsarskoe Selo was a tiny billet situated close to the Tsarevich’s own bedroom, which was in turn dominated by a large kiot upon which an extraordinary number of religious icons had been placed by his mother.

‘Good God,’ said Sergei Stasyovich, poking his head around the door one evening as he passed along the hallway. ‘So, Georgy Daniilovich, this is where they’ve put you, is it?’

‘For now,’ I said, embarrassed that he should find me lying on my bed, half asleep, when the rest of the household was engaged in work. Sergei himself was red-cheeked and bristling with energy and when I asked him where he had spent the evening he shook his head and turned away from me, examining the walls and ceilings as if they contained matters of great importance.

‘Nowhere,’ he replied reluctantly. ‘I took a turn around the grounds, that’s all. A walk down towards the Catherine Palace.’

‘You should have told me you were going,’ I said, disappointed that he had not invited me to accompany him, for he was the closest thing I had to a friend and there were moments when I thought I might be able to confide some of my secrets in him. ‘I would have joined you. Did you go alone?’

‘Yes. No,’ he added a moment later, correcting himself. ‘I mean yes, I was alone. What does it matter anyway?’

‘It doesn’t matter at all,’ I said, surprised by his behaviour. ‘I only wondered—’

‘You’re lucky to have this room,’ he said, changing the subject.

‘Lucky? I think it must have been a broom closet in the past, it’s that small.’

‘Small?’ he asked, laughing quickly. ‘Don’t complain about it. There are twenty of us stuck together in one of the great dormitories on the second floor. You try getting a night’s rest when they’re all coughing and farting and crying out for their sweethearts in their sleep.’

I smiled and shrugged at him, pleased that I was not forced to join the guards in such surroundings. This room could barely contain a bunk and a small table for a jug and wash basin, but Alexei and I had grown close and he liked me to be near by, and the Tsar decreed that it should be so and therefore it was so.

The Tsaritsa, Alexandra, seemed less happy with the arrangement. Ever since the incident at Mogilev when Alexei had fallen from the tree and injured himself, I had been out of favour with the Empress. She passed me in the corridors without a word, even as I bowed low and humbled myself before her. When she entered a room where her son and I were together, she ignored me completely and directed all her remarks towards him. This in itself was not unusual – she stared through most of those who were neither blood relatives nor members of an illustrious family – but it was the manner in which her lip curled slightly when I was near by that made me realize the extent of her contempt. I believe she would have been happy to have seen me dismissed from the Royal Family’s service entirely and sent home to Kashin – or further, perhaps, into a Siberian exile – but the Tsar remained a supporter of mine and so I managed to retain my place. Had it not been for his faith in me, my life might have followed an entirely different direction.

It was three nights later before I had company in my room again, but this time my visitor was not quite as welcome as Sergei Stasyovich. I was preparing for sleep when a tap came at my door, so quiet that I failed to hear it at first. When the knock sounded again, I frowned, wondering who could possibly require me at this late hour. It could not be Alexei, for he never bothered to knock. Perhaps… I could hardly breathe for thinking that it might be Anastasia. I sat up, swallowed nervously, and went to the door, opening it only a fraction and peering into the darkness of the corridor beyond.

At first, it seemed as if my ears had deceived me and there was no one out there. But then, just as I was about to close the door again, a man stepped forward out of the shadows, his long dark hair and black robes blending into the gloom of the hall so that for a moment only the whites of his eyes were visible.

‘Good evening, Georgy Daniilovich,’ he said in a clear voice, opening his mouth to reveal a set of yellow teeth in an approximation of a smile.

‘Father Gregory,’ I replied, for although I had never spoken to him before, I had seen him on many occasions, passing in and out of the Tsaritsa’s suite of rooms. I had first laid eyes on him on my very first night at the Winter Palace, of course, when I had disturbed him while he incanted a blessing over the Empress’s head and he had looked across at me and caught me in the terror of his glance.

‘I hope it’s not too late to call on you,’ he said.

‘I was in bed,’ I replied, suddenly conscious that I had opened the door wearing only the loose-fitting vest and shorts that constituted my night-clothes. ‘Perhaps this can wait until tomorrow?’

‘But I don’t think it can,’ he said, smiling wider as if this was a tremendous joke and stepping forward, not so much pushing me out of the way as simply continuing into the room until I had no choice but to step aside. He stood with his back to me, remaining perfectly still while staring down at my bed, before turning his gaze to the narrow window that overlooked the courtyard and standing there as if he had been turned to stone. Only when I had closed the door again and lit a candle did he turn around, but the flickering light of the single flame was so weak that it did little to improve my view of him.

‘I’m surprised to see you,’ I said, determined not to appear intimidated by him, despite the fact that I found him to be a menacing presence. ‘Is there a message from the Tsarevich?’

‘No, and if there was do you think I would bring it?’ he asked, looking me up and down slowly. I began to feel self-conscious in my underwear and reached for my trousers, which I pulled on even as he watched me, never once turning his gaze away. ‘We have so much in common, you and I, and yet we never speak to each other. It’s terribly sad, don’t you think? When we could be such friends.’

‘I can’t think why,’ I replied. ‘In truth, Father Gregory, I have never been a spiritual man.’

‘But the spirit is inside all of us.’

‘I’m not so sure.’

‘Why not?’

‘I grew up without the benefit of education,’ I explained. ‘We had to work hard, my sisters and I. We didn’t have time to worship icons or say prayers.’

‘And yet you call me Father Gregory,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘You respect my position.’

‘Of course.’

‘You know what others call me, don’t you?’

‘Yes,’ I replied immediately, determined to show no emotion, neither fear nor admiration. ‘They call you the starets.’

‘They do,’ he replied, nodding his head and smiling a little. ‘A venerated teacher. One who lives a wholly honourable life. Do you find the name appropriate, Georgy Daniilovich?’

‘I’m not sure,’ I said, swallowing nervously. ‘I don’t know you.’

‘Would you care to?’

I had no answer to this and simply remained where I was, unable to move, wanting to separate myself from his presence but feeling that my legs were great weights, pinning me to the floor.

‘They have another name for me,’ he said, after a long silence had lingered between us, and now his voice was low and deep. ‘You have heard that name too, I imagine.’

‘Rasputin,’ I said, the word catching in my throat as I said it.

‘That is it. And do you know what it means?’

‘It means a man of no virtue,’ I replied, struggling now to keep my voice steady, for those dark, unblinking eyes of his were staring directly into my own and causing me to feel entirely unsettled. ‘A man who makes himself familiar with many.’

‘How polite you are, Georgy Daniilovich,’ he said, smiling a little. ‘Makes himself familiar with many. A very quaint phrase. What they mean is that I have relations with every woman I meet.’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘My enemies claim that I have ravished half the population of St Petersburg, do they not?’

‘I have heard that.’

‘And not just the women, but the young girls too. And the boys. They say I take my pleasures wherever I can find them.’ I swallowed nervously and looked away. ‘There are those who even have the temerity to suggest that I have taken the Tsaritsa to my bed. And that I have penetrated each of the Grand Duchesses in turn, like a rutting bull. What do you think of that, Georgy Daniilovich?’

I looked back at him now, my lip curling in distaste. I felt an urge to strike him, to turn him from my room, but I was powerless beneath that dark gaze of his. A chill ran through my body and I considered running towards the door, flinging it open and fleeing along the corridor, anything to be away from this man. And yet I could not make that step. Despite how much his words disgusted me, I felt captivated by him, as if my legs would not obey me even if I commanded them to run. A silence lay between us for a minute, perhaps more, and he seemed to enjoy my discomfort, for he smiled to himself and laughed very low while he shook his head.

‘My enemies are liars, of course,’ he said finally, extending his arms as if he was about to embrace me. ‘Fantasists, every one of them. Heathens. I am a man of God, nothing more, but they portray me as a fellow steeped in licentiousness. They are hypocrites too, for you’ve said it yourself, one moment I am an honourable man, the next I am without virtue. One cannot be a starets and Rasputin simultaneously, don’t you agree? I don’t allow such people to injure me, of course. Do you know why?’

I shook my head, but said nothing.

‘Because I have been put on this earth for a greater purpose than they,’ he explained. ‘Do you ever feel like that, Georgy Daniilovich? That you have been sent here for a reason?’

‘Sometimes,’ I whispered.

‘And what do you think that reason is?’

I thought about it and opened my mouth to reply, before changing my mind and closing it again. I had replied sometimes but in truth I had never considered the matter before; only when he asked me the question did I realize that yes, I did believe that I had been brought to this place for a purpose which I did not yet understand. The notion was enough to make me feel even more unsettled and when I looked up, the starets was smiling that horrible smile once again, the strangest detail of which was that, much as he repulsed me, I found it impossible to remove my eyes from his face.

‘I said earlier that you and I are alike,’ he said, the dark pools around his pupils swirling before me in the candlelight, as malevolent and destructive as the Neva in the heart of winter.

‘I don’t believe we are,’ I said.

‘But you are the protector of the boy and I am the guardian of the mother. Can’t you see that? And why do we care for them so? Because we love our country. Isn’t it true? You can’t allow any harm to come to the boy, or the Tsar rules without an heir of his own issue. And at this time of crisis too. War is a terrible thing, Georgy Daniilovich, don’t you agree?’

‘I don’t allow harm to come to Alexei,’ I protested. ‘I would lay down my life for him if I had to.’

‘And how many weeks did he suffer at Mogilev?’ he asked then. ‘How many weeks did they all suffer – the boy, the sisters, the mother, the father? They thought he would die, you know that. You lay awake at night listening to his screams, just as we all did. How did they sound to you, like noise or music?’

I swallowed. Everything he was saying was the truth. The days and weeks that had followed the Tsarevich’s fall had been nightmarish. Never had I seen a person suffer as he had. When I was permitted to enter his chamber to talk to him I did not see the cheerful, lively boy with whom I had formed an almost fraternal connection. Instead, I found a skeletal child, his limbs twisted and contorted upon the bed, his face yellow, his skin soaked in a perspiration that would return no matter how often cold cloths were pressed to his face. I saw a boy who looked at me through eyes that recognized nobody but yet begged me to help him, an innocent who reached out with what little strength he had and screamed at me, imploring me to do something, anything, to take his torment away. I had never witnessed such distress, had never even believed that the agonies he suffered could exist. How he survived it, I did not know. Every day and night I expected him to succumb to the pain and allow himself to slip away. But he never did. He had a strength which was quite unexpected. It was the second time I had realized that yes, this boy could be a Tsar.

And through it all, through those three weeks of torture, the Tsaritsa, that good woman, had almost never left his side. She sat beside him, holding his hand, talking to him, whispering to him, encouraging him. We were not friends, she and I, but by God, I could recognize a loving and devoted mother when I saw one, all the more so for having never had one myself. By the time it was over and the relief finally came, by the time Alexei began to improve and his strength started to return, she had aged noticeably. Her hair had turned grey, her skin had become blotched with stress. That one incident, for which I had been entirely responsible, had altered her irreparably.

‘If I could have helped him, I would have,’ I told the starets. ‘There was nothing I could do.’

‘Of course not,’ he said, extending his hands and smiling. ‘But you must never blame yourself for what happened. Indeed, that is why I came to visit you tonight, Georgy. To thank you.’

I frowned and stared at him. ‘To thank me?’ I asked.

‘But of course. Her Majesty, the Tsaritsa, has been much occupied with the health of her son of late. She is concerned that she might have appeared… unfriendly towards you.’

‘I thought no such thing, Father Gregory,’ I lied. ‘She is the Empress. She may treat me as she wishes.’

‘Yes, but we thought it important that you understand that you are valued.’

‘We?’

‘The Tsaritsa and I.’

I raised an eyebrow, surprised by the formulation. ‘Well, gratitude is not necessary,’ I said finally, confused by his meaning, unconvinced that the Tsaritsa had ever said any such thing or sent him on this mission at all. ‘And please reassure Her Majesty that I will do everything in my power to ensure that no such incident ever takes place again.’

‘You’re not just a handsome boy, are you?’ he asked quietly, taking a step towards me so that only a few inches separated us and my back was pressed against the wall. ‘You’re also a very loyal one.’

‘I hope so,’ I replied, wishing that he would leave.

‘Boys your age are not always so loyal,’ he said, stepping closer still, and now I could smell the foulness of his breath and feel his body beginning to press against my own. My stomach turned; I felt a sudden conviction that he had been sent to murder me, but instead he simply turned his head a little and smiled, a ghastly expression of doom, and held my gaze with those terrible eyes. ‘You are loyal to the entire family,’ he purred quietly, running a finger from the top of my shoulder along my arm. ‘Here, you took a bullet for one,’ he whispered, hesitating at precisely the spot where Kolek’s bullet had passed through my shoulder. ‘And here you would take a bullet for the boy,’ he said, pressing the palm of his hand flat against my chest, my heart pounding quickly beneath his touch. ‘But where will you be when the bullets come in the future?’

‘Father Gregory,’ I whispered, desperate for him to leave me now, ‘please… I beg of you.’

‘Where will you be, Georgy? When the doors open and the men step inside with their revolvers? Will you take the bullets then or will you be hiding like a coward in the trees?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I cried, confused by what he was saying. ‘What men? What bullets?’

‘You’d step in front of one for the girl, wouldn’t you?’

‘What girl?’

‘You know what girl, Georgy,’ he said, his hand flat against my abdomen now, and I waited for the knife to appear, for him to press it into my gut and twist it to kill me. He knew; that much was obvious. He had discovered the truth about Anastasia and me and had been sent to kill me for my indiscretion. I wasn’t going to deny it. I already loved her and if that was to be my doom, then so be it. I closed my eyes, waiting for my flesh to be pierced and the blood to spill from the cavity, drowning my bare feet with its glutinous warmth, but second followed second and minute followed minute and nothing happened, no blade ripped me in two, and when I opened my eyes again, he was gone. It was as if he had just dissolved into the atmosphere, leaving no trace of his presence behind.

Perspiring, trembling with fear, I collapsed on to the floor and buried my head in my hands. The starets knew everything, of course he did. But who would he tell? And when they found out, what would become of me then?

The lady who was in charge of all domestic staff in the Winter Palace was the Duchess Rajisa Afonovna, and she had been surprisingly friendly to me since our first meeting, the day after my arrival in the city. Our paths crossed from time to time in the family quarters as she was an intimate of the Tsaritsa’s, and when they did, she always greeted me cordially and stopped to converse, which many of her rank would never deign to do. So it was to her that I went the next morning to enquire on Asya’s behalf for employment.

She maintained a relatively small office on the first floor of the palace. I knocked and waited for her to answer, before poking my head around the door and greeting her.

‘Georgy Daniilovich,’ she said, breaking into a smile and beckoning me to enter. ‘This is a welcome surprise.’

‘Good morning, Your Grace,’ I replied, closing the door behind me and taking a seat where she indicated, next to her on a small sofa. I would have preferred the single armchair a few feet from there, but the chair indicated a position of superiority and I would not have dared. ‘I hope I’m not disturbing you.’

‘You’re not,’ she said, gathering up some papers before her and laying them carefully on a small table. ‘If anything, I welcome the distraction.’

I nodded, surprised again by how pleasantly she treated me, in marked contrast to her friend, the Tsaritsa Alexandra, who took no notice of me at all.

‘How are you anyway?’ she asked. ‘You are settling in well?’

‘Very well, Your Grace,’ I replied, nodding. ‘I believe I am starting to understand my duties.’

‘And your responsibilites too, I hope,’ she said. ‘For you have many of them. You have earned the trust of the Tsarevich, I hear.’

‘Indeed,’ I said, breaking into a fond smile at the mention of Alexei. ‘He keeps me busy, if I may say that.’

‘You may,’ she said, laughing. ‘He’s an energetic boy, that’s certain. He will be a great Tsar one day, all being well.’ I frowned, surprised by her choice of words, and for a moment I thought I saw the beginnings of a blush on her cheeks. ‘A great Tsar, most certainly,’ she said then, correcting herself. ‘But you must find it strange here, do you not?’

‘Strange?’ I asked, uncertain what she meant.

‘Being so far from home. From your family. My own son, Lev, I miss him every day.’

‘He doesn’t live in St Petersburg, then?’

‘Usually, yes,’ she said. ‘But he is…’ She sighed and shook her head. ‘He is a soldier, of course. He is fighting for his country.’

‘Yes,’ I said. It made sense. The Duchess was no more than forty years old; it made sense that she would have a son in the army.

‘He can’t be more than a couple of years older than you, actually,’ she said. ‘You remind me of him, in some ways.’

‘I do?’ I asked.

‘A little. You have his height. And his hair. And his build. Actually,’ she added, laughing a little, ‘you might be brothers.’

‘You must worry about him.’

‘From time to time I get a full night’s sleep,’ she said with a half-smile. ‘But not often.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said, sensing that she might be getting upset. ‘I shouldn’t be discussing this with you.’

‘It’s all right,’ she said, shaking her head and smiling. ‘Sometimes I am scared for him, sometimes I am proud. And sometimes I am angry.’

‘Angry?’ I asked, surprised. ‘At what?’

She hesitated and looked away. She looked as if she was struggling to stop herself from saying what she wanted to say. ‘At the direction he takes us in,’ she said quietly, through gritted teeth. ‘At the madness of it all. At his utter incompetence in military matters. He’ll have us all killed before he’s done.’

‘Your son?’ I asked, her sentences making little sense to me.

‘No, not my son, Georgy. He is nothing more than a pawn. But I have said too much. You came to see me. How can I help you?’

I hesitated, unsure whether I should pursue the conversation we had been having, but decided against it. ‘I just wondered about the domestic help,’ I said. ‘Whether you needed another person on the staff.’

‘You’re not thinking of trading the Leib Guard for a set of apron strings, I trust?’

‘No,’ I said, laughing a little. ‘No, it’s my sister, Asya Daniilovna. She has ambitions towards service.’

‘Does she indeed?’ asked the Duchess, appearing interested. ‘She is a girl of good character, I assume?’

‘Irreproachable.’

‘Well, there are always places here for girls of irreproachable character,’ she said, smiling. ‘Is she here in St Petersburg, or back in… I’m sorry, Georgy, I forget where it is you are from?’

‘Kashin,’ I reminded her. ‘The Grand Duchy of Muscovy. And no, she’s not there, she’s already…’ I hesitated and corrected myself. ‘Forgive me,’ I said. ‘Yes, she’s still there. But she would like to leave.’

‘Well, I daresay she could be here in a few days if we send word to her. Write to her, Georgy, by all means. Invite her here and let me know when she arrives. I can most certainly find a position for her.’

‘Thank you,’ I said, standing up, uncertain why I had lied about Asya’s whereabouts. ‘You are too kind to me.’

‘It’s like I said—’ She smiled, picking up her papers once again. ‘You remind me of my son.’

‘I will light a candle for him,’ I said.

‘Thank you.’

I bowed deeply and left the room, standing in the corridor outside for a few moments. A portion of me was delighted that I could return to my sister with such news, that I could be a hero to her once again. Another part of me felt angry that she was entering this new world of mine, a world that I wanted only for myself.

‘You seem confused, Georgy Daniilovich,’ said the starets, Father Gregory, who appeared before me so suddenly, so unexpectedly, that I let out a cry of surprise. ‘Be at peace,’ he urged quietly, reaching a hand out and holding my shoulder, caressing it slightly.

‘I am late for Count Charnetsky,’ I said, trying to pull away from him.

‘An odious man,’ he said, smiling, displaying his yellow teeth. ‘Why go to him? Why not stay with me?’

And what unexpected, impossible-to-understand part of me felt a desire to say Yes, all right? I shrugged him off, however, and walked away without a word.

‘You’ll make the right decision in the end, Georgy,’ he called after me, his voice echoing along the stone walls and reverberating in my head. ‘You will put your own pleasures ahead of the desires of others. That is what makes you human.’

I broke into a run and within a moment the sound of my boots banging along the corridor drowned out what I knew was the truth behind his words.

Throughout the winter and early spring of 1916, I made it my business to ensure that the Tsarevich did not engage in any activities which might result in his receiving an injury; no easy task when confronted with a lively, eleven-year-old boy who saw no reason why he should be refused the same games and exercises that his sisters enjoyed. There were many occasions when he lost his temper with his minders, throwing himself on his bed and beating the pillows with his fists, so upset was he by the manner in which he was protected. Perhaps this frustration was exacerbated by the fact that he came from a family of sisters, and he was the Tsarevich, and yet only they could do the things that he most desired.

In the late winter, the Imperial Family went on a skating expedition together on a frozen lake near Tsarskoe Selo. The Tsar himself and his four daughters, along with the tutor Monsieur Gilliard and Dr Federov, spent the afternoon carving grand designs into the thick ice, while in the safety of the lake’s surround, wrapped in furs and gloves and hats, sat the Tsaritsa with her son.

‘Can’t I just go out there for a few minutes?’ he pleaded as the light started to dim and it became clear that the games would soon come to an end.

‘You know you can’t, my darling,’ replied his mother, smoothing his hair down along his forehead with her hand. ‘If anything should happen—’

‘But nothing will happen,’ he insisted. ‘I promise, I shall take great care.’

‘No, Alexei,’ she said with a sigh.

‘But it’s so unfair,’ he snapped, his cheeks burning with resentment. ‘I don’t see why I should be stuck over here, on this side of the lake, while my sisters are out there, having fun, and are allowed to do anything they want. Look at Tatiana. She’s practically blue with the cold. And yet no one insists that she should step away and warm herself up, do they? Look at Anastasia. She keeps staring over in my direction. It’s obvious that she wants me to join them.’

I was standing to the rear of the royal party and smiled a little to myself as he said this, for I knew that it was not her brother who Anastasia was looking towards, but myself. It was a continuing source of astonishment to me that we had managed to maintain the secrecy of our love affair over the course of almost a year. Of course, there was a great innocence to it all. We arranged clandestine meetings, wrote private notes to each other in a code of our own design, and when we saw to it that we could be alone together, we held hands and kissed and told each other our love would last for ever. We were wrapped up in each other and terrified that someone might learn of our romance, for discovery would mean certain separation.

‘You make all these demands, Alexei,’ said the Tsaritsa with an exhausted sigh as she filled a pewter mug with hot chocolate from a flask. ‘But surely I don’t need to remind you of the agonies you suffer when you have one of your falls.’

‘But I won’t have one of my falls,’ he insisted through gritted teeth. ‘Am I to be treated like this for the rest of my life? Am I to be wrapped in cotton wool and never allowed to be happy?’

‘No, Alexei, of course not. And when you are a man you may do as you wish, but for now it is I who make the decisions and they are in your best interests. Trust me on this.’

‘Father,’ said Alexei, turning to the Tsar now, who had skated alongside Anastasia to the side of the lake, where he was forced to overhear their argument. Their faces were pink with the cold, but they had been laughing and enjoying themselves, despite the freezing temperature. Anastasia smiled at me and I smiled a little in return, careful that my reply should not be noticed. ‘Father, please let me skate for a little bit, won’t you?’

‘Alexei,’ he said, shaking his head in sorrow, ‘we have spoken about this.’

‘But what if I don’t go alone?’ suggested the boy. ‘What if I was to skate with someone on either side of me? Someone to hold my hands and keep me safe?’

The Tsar considered this for a moment. Unlike his wife, he was conscious of the other people who made up our party – the servants, extended family members, princes of noble families – and at such times he was always anxious that his son should not be perceived as a weakling who could not risk the most normal of activities. He was the Tsarevich, after all. It was important that he be seen as strong and masculine if the security of his position was to be maintained. Sensing his father’s hesitation, the boy seized on the weakness immediately.

‘And I’ll only stay out there for ten minutes,’ he continued, pleading his case. ‘Fifteen at most. Maybe twenty. And I’ll go terribly slow. No faster than walking, if you like.’

‘Alexei, you cannot,’ began the Tsaritsa, before she was interrupted by her husband.

‘Do you give me your solemn promise that you will go no faster than a walk? And that you will hold the hands of those who accompany you?’

‘Yes, Father!’ shouted Alexei in delight, jumping off his chair and – to everyone’s shock – almost tripping over his own feet as he reached for a pair of skates. I jumped forward to catch him before he could fall to the ground, but he corrected himself in time and stood there, looking a little embarrassed by his tumble.

‘Nicky, no!’ cried the Tsaritsa immediately, standing up too and looking at her husband angrily. ‘You cannot allow it.’

‘His spirit must have some freedom,’ replied the Tsar, looking away from her, unwilling to catch his wife’s eye. I could tell how much he hated this kind of scene to be played out in front of others. ‘After all, Sunny, you can’t expect him to sit here all afternoon and not feel that he is being cheated.’

‘And if he should fall?’ she asked, her voice already crackling with tears.

‘I won’t fall, Mother,’ said Alexei, kissing her cheek. ‘I promise it.’

‘You nearly fell getting off your chair!’ she cried.

‘That was an accident. There won’t be any more.’

‘Nicky,’ she said again, appealing to her husband, but the Tsar shook his head. He wanted to see his son on the lake, I realized. And regardless of the consequences, he wanted the rest of us to see him there too. Husband and wife stared at each other, their mutual strengths competing in a power struggle. Palace gossip had it that theirs had been a love match when they had married just over two decades before – their union had come about against the inclination of both the Tsar’s father, Alexander III, and his mother, the Dowager Empress Marie Fyodorovna, who resented the Tsaritsa’s Anglo-German ancestry. Throughout all their years together he had never treated her with anything other than adoration, even when daughter after daughter had been conceived and a son had seemed like a distant possibility. It was only in recent years, since Alexei had been diagnosed with haemophilia, that their relationship had begun to disintegrate.

Of course, the other gossip, repeated around the whole country, was that the Tsar had been replaced in Alexandra’s affections and in her bed by the starets, Father Gregory, but whether this was true or a slander I did not know.

‘I’ll take him out, Father,’ said a quiet voice and I looked towards Anastasia, who was smiling that innocent, gentle smile of hers. ‘And I’ll hold his hand all the time.’

‘There, you see?’ said Alexei to his mother. ‘Everyone knows that Anastasia is the best skater of all of us.’

‘Not just you, though,’ replied the Tsaritsa, sensing defeat but wanting to ensure a part for herself in the decision-making. ‘Georgy Daniilovich,’ she said, surprising me by turning around and knowing exactly where to find me, ‘you will accompany my children also. Alexei, you’re to stand between them and hold both their hands, is that understood?’

‘Yes, Mother,’ he said in delight.

‘And if I see you let go even once, then I will call you back and you will not disobey me.’

The Tsarevich agreed to her terms and finished tying his laces as I made my way to the edge of the lake and swapped my heavy snow boots for the lighter blades of the skating shoes. I caught Anastasia’s eye and she smiled coquettishly at me; what a perfect little plan she had orchestrated. We were set to dance out on the lake together in full view of everyone without raising a single person’s suspicions.

‘You’re a fine skater, Your Highness,’ I declared as the three of us skated slowly towards the centre of the lake, where the other skaters and the Grand Duchesses parted in order to give us room.

‘Why, thank you, Georgy,’ she replied haughtily, as if I was nothing more than a servant to her. ‘You seem surprisingly unsure of yourself on the ice.’

‘Do I?’ I asked, smiling.

‘Yes, have you not skated before?’

‘Many times.’

‘Really?’ she asked in surprise as the three of us circled the circumference together, swishing left and right, keeping in time with each other, picking up the pace every so often until the shouts of the Tsaritsa from the edge forced us to slow down again. ‘I didn’t know you had enough free time to leave the palace for such frivolity. Perhaps your duties are not as onerous as I thought.’

‘Not here, Your Highness,’ I answered quickly. ‘No, I meant back in Kashin, my home village. In the winter when the lakes froze over we would slide across them. Not on skates, of course. We had no money for such luxuries.’

‘I see,’ she said, enjoying the flirtation. ‘You skated alone, I assume?’

‘Not always, no.’

‘With your friends, then? The other slow-witted, thick-bodied boys with whom you were reared?’

‘Not at all, Your Highness,’ I grinned. ‘Families in Kashin, like every other place in the world, are blessed with both daughters and sons. No, I would skate with the girls of my village.’

‘Stop fighting, you two,’ cried Alexei, who was concentrating on staying upright, for in truth, he was not a very good skater at all. He was also too young to recognize that this was no argument, but a continuing flirtation.

‘I see,’ said Anastasia after a few moments. ‘Well, it has stood you in good stead, sliding across your lakes with those big, hardworking girls. I myself have been an accomplished skater for a number of years now.’

‘I can tell,’ I replied.

‘Yes, you have met Prince Evgeny Ilyavich Simonov?’

‘On occasion,’ I said, recalling the handsome young scion of one of St Petersburg’s wealthiest families, a fellow blessed with maple-coloured skin, a thick head of blond hair and the whitest teeth I had ever seen on any living being. It was well known that half the young women in society were in love with him.

‘Yes, he taught me everything I know,’ said Anastasia with a sweet smile.

‘Everything?’

‘Almost everything,’ she conceded a few moments later, pursing her lips together as she looked at me, the closest we could come to a public kiss.

‘Let’s try a circle,’ I said, looking down at Alexei.

‘A circle?’

‘Yes, we can spin around. Your Highness,’ I continued, looking at Anastasia, ‘you take my hand too, so we three create a ring together.’

She did as instructed and a moment later we were bonded together, skating this way and that in a small circle of three, a pleasurable dance that was interrupted only when the Tsaritsa began waving her arms in frustration at the edge of the lake and insisting that we return to safety. Sighing, wishing that the moment could continue for ever, I suggested that we should go back, but the moment that Alexei was safely returned to his mother’s arms, Anastasia grabbed my hand again and, faster now, sped along the ice with me as I struggled to match her speed and maintain my equilibrium.

‘Anastasia!’ cried the Tsaritsa, who was more than aware how unseemly it was for us to be skating alone together like this, but the sound of the Tsar roaring with laughter at how I had nearly tipped over was enough to convince me that such an escapade would be permitted, for a few moments at least.

And so we skated. And the skate became a dance. We fell in line with each other, matching movement for movement, length for length. It lasted for no more than a few minutes, but it felt like an eternity. When I think back to Tsarskoe Selo and the winter of 1916, it is this that I remember most vividly.

The Grand Duchess Anastasia and I, alone on the ice, hand in hand, dancing to our own peculiar rhythms, as the red sun descended and darkened before us and her parents and sisters watched us from afar, ignorant of our passion, unaware of our romance. Dancing in time with each other, a perfect combination of two, wishing that this moment might never end.

And now I must relate the great moment of shame in my life. I live with the memory of it by telling myself that I was young, that I was in love, not just with Anastasia but with the Imperial Family, with the Winter Palace, with St Petersburg, with the entire new life that had been so unexpectedly thrust upon me. I tell myself that I was drunk with selfishness and pride, that I did not want anyone else to become part of my new existence, that I wanted only to begin again. I tell myself all these things, but they are not enough. It was a sin.

Asya was waiting for me at the time that we had said; I suspected that she had been there for much of the afternoon.

‘I’m sorry,’ I told her, looking her directly in the eye even as I betrayed her. ‘There’s nothing here for you. I asked, but there’s nothing that can be done.’

She nodded and accepted what I said without complaint. As she vanished into the night I told myself that she would be better off in Kashin, where she had friends and family, a home. And then I put her from my mind as if she had been nothing more than a distant acquaintance and not a sister who loved me.

I never saw or heard from her again. I must live with this memory, with this dishonour.