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.