‘Interested in what’s happened to Romanov?’
‘I want to know, that’s all,’ I insisted. ‘I went to bed and… I don’t know, I must have been exhausted. I slept through it. I didn’t hear any train.’
‘We are all exhausted, Georgy,’ he said, shrugging his shoulders. ‘But it’s over now. Things will be better from now on.’
‘What train was it?’ I asked, ignoring the obvious pleasure he was taking in the Tsar’s abdication. ‘When did it come?’
‘It must have been two, three o’clock in the morning perhaps,’ he said, lighting another cigarette. ‘Most of us were asleep, I suppose. I wasn’t. I wanted to watch as they took him away. The train came from St Petersburg, it stopped a mile or so along this rail. There were a group of soldiers on board with a warrant for the arrest of Nicholas Romanov.’
‘They arrested him?’ I asked, perplexed, but refusing to rise to the bait of his mocking name for the Tsar. ‘But why? He had done what they asked of him.’
‘They said it was for his own protection. That it would not be safe for him to return to the capital. There are riots everywhere there, it’s a mess. The palace is infested with people. The shops are being broken into in search of bread and flour. There’s anarchy throughout the city. His fault, of course.’
‘Spare me your editorial,’ I hissed, furious now and grabbing him by the collar. ‘Just tell me where they took him.’
‘Hey, Georgy, let me go!’ he cried, staring at me in surprise as he wrenched himself free from my grasp. ‘What’s the matter with you, anyway?’
‘The matter with me?’ I asked. ‘The man we have served has been taken into custody and you stand here smoking cigarettes like it’s any other morning.’
‘But it’s a glorious morning,’ he said, clearly astonished that I did not share his sentiments. ‘Haven’t you longed for this day?’
‘Why didn’t they take this train?’ I asked, ignoring his question and looking around at the Imperial transport, all fifteen carriages of it, which was stranded on the line now. ‘Why send a different one?’
‘Romanov is not to be allowed his luxuries any more,’ he told me. ‘He’s a prisoner, you understand? He owns nothing. He has no money. This train does not belong to him. It belongs to Russia.’
‘Until yesterday, he was Russia.’
‘But this is today.’
I had half a mind to challenge him there and then, to wrestle him away from where he stood and punch him four square in the nose, daring him to retaliate, in order that I could take out my anger on him, but it was pointless.
‘Georgy Daniilovich,’ he said, laughing as he shook his head. ‘I don’t believe it. You really are the Tsar’s bitch, aren’t you?’
I curled my lip in distaste at the remark. I knew that there were those among the Imperial entourage who despised the Tsar and all that he stood for, but I felt a loyalty to the man that could not be assuaged. He had treated me well, there was no question of that, and I would not deny him now. Regardless of the consequences.
‘I am his servant,’ I said. ‘Until my dying day.’
‘I see,’ he muttered, looking down at the dust beneath his feet and kicking the ground with the toe of his boot. I looked away from him, desiring no further conversation, and stared into the distance, towards the north, towards St Petersburg. There was no way that they would have taken him back there. If the riots were as bad as Peter Ilyavich had said then he would be torn limb from limb in the centre of Palace Square, and the Bolsheviks could not afford such a public blood-letting so early in their revolution. I turned back to Peter, determined to get more answers, but he was gone. Looking up towards the foremost carriage, I could make out the sound of different voices talking together loudly, arguing, but not so distinctly that I could hear what they were saying. To the left of the train I noticed two cars that had not been there the previous afternoon – more Bolsheviks, I presumed – and felt a sudden rush of anxiety for what might be about to happen.
I had been reckless with what I had said to Peter Ilyavich; he was reporting me, even then.
Swallowing nervously, I turned around and began to walk slowly towards the back of the train, increasing my stride as the final carriage came into sight. Looking over my shoulder I could see no one there, but I knew that I had only a few moments before they came for me. Who was I, after all, other than some lucky moujik who had made a strange success of his life? They might keep the Tsar alive – he was a prize, after all – but what was I? Just someone who had saved one Romanov and protected another.
The forest opened up before me to my left; I crossed the tracks and leapt directly into the conurbation of firs and pines, cedars and larches that stood tightly packed together in the dense woodland. Through the rush of my breathing and the sweeping of the branches, I was sure that I could hear the voices of the soldiers following me, their rifles in their hands, determined to hunt me down. I hesitated for a moment and gasped for breath – yes, it was true, they were coming. I had not just imagined it.
I was no longer a member of the Leib Guard; that portion of my life had ended. Now I was a fugitive.
It was almost October by the time I returned to St Petersburg. It was difficult to know whether I was still in danger, but the thought of being captured and murdered by the Bolsheviks was enough to keep me one step ahead of anyone whom I thought might be pursuing me. So I had chosen not to return immediately to the city, preferring to lie low in towns along the way instead, sleeping wherever I could find a sheltered, secluded spot, swimming in streams and rivers to rub the stink from my body. I allowed my hair to grow long and a rough beard to cover my face, until I was almost unrecognizable as the youthful, eighteen-year-old soldier I had been at the end of the Romanov dynasty. My arms and legs became muscular from constant activity and I learned to kill animals, to skin and gut them, to cook them on an open fire, sacrificing their lives to save my own.
From time to time I stopped in small villages and was offered labouring work for a few days in exchange for food and a bed. I would quiz the farmers for political news, and it surprised me that a provisional government which so prided itself on belonging to the people allowed so little detail of its activities to be made public. From what I could discover, a man named Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov – known to all as Lenin – was now in charge of Russia, and, in direct contrast to the Tsar, had moved his headquarters from St Petersburg to the Kremlin in Moscow, a place that Nicholas had always detested and had rarely visited. He had been crowned there, of course, like all the Tsars who preceded him, and I couldn’t help but wonder whether this tradition had been in Lenin’s mind as he chose his new seat of power.
When I finally returned, St Petersburg – or Petrograd, as it had been officially renamed – had changed considerably, but it was still recognizable to me. The palaces along the Neva had all been closed down, and I wondered where the princes and counts and dowager duchesses had made their new homes. They were related to royal families all across Europe, of course. Doubtless some had fled towards Denmark; others to Greece. The more resilient might have travelled across the continent and sailed for England, as the Tsar himself had planned to do. They were not here, however. Not any more.
Where once the banks of the river would have been dominated by horse-drawn carriages, transporting their wealthy occupants to skate on the frozen lakes or to enjoy merry evenings at each other’s mansions, they were now empty, save for the peasants rushing along the pavement, desperate to get home, to escape the cold and eat whatever scraps of food they had managed to gather during the day.