The King's Commisar

'Got your orders?' he said thickly.

'Moscow,' I said, and shrugged. Then I stretched. 'God, I'm tired!' I said, and looked at the bottle.

'Anything left in that?'

'No,' he said.

'I need a drink,' I told him. 'How about you? I have some back there.'

He looked at me in a puzzled way, as though to say: why are you offering drink to me? But he was half-fuddled already, and he followed me without arguing.

The plum was his; it makes me sick. The cleaner-tasting lemon seems not to affect me greatly. It never did, not even when, as a boy, I occasionally helped myself to my father's. Ruzsky sat on my bed with the bottle in one hand and the glass in another. We drank to Russia, to Marx, to the Revolution, all quick and in succession and he had such a head start on me that by then he wanted only to sleep. As consciousness slid away from him, I put my hands beneath his heels and lifted, lowering and turning him on to the bed. He was already beginning to snore as I left and made my way forward, turning on electric lights as I passed. At last I reached the engine and gave my instructions to the driver. He and I descended together to the track to lean upon the points lever.

A few minutes later, with lights shining the entire length of the train, we headed out of the railway station at Tyumen in the direction of Ekaterinburg.

Does that puzzle you - you who read this history - this departure for Ekaterinburg? Do you say to yourself: but he was intent upon avoidance of that place! For I was. But what I did was to let a few miles pass and then bring the train to a halt. Then in the dark, well outside the town, I went again along the train, turning out every light. Now do you see? So it was a darkened train that began to reverse back towards Tyumen. We went at no great speed. I hoped by this means to present the train to any idle watchers at Tyumen station as a legitimate one. I held my breath as the train entered, then passed through the station. All was quiet as we slid gently on our way; and then Tyumen was falling back behind us and I remember letting a great sigh of relief come from my lips. What lay ahead was three hundred miles to Omsk and then the safe journey by the southern loop to Moscow; what lay behind was the dark menace of Ekaterinburg. So my thoughts ran. Tired as I was, at that moment I enjoyed a sense of triumph, a feeling that my mission was now on its way to a successful conclusion. Like a fool, I allowed myself the luxury of counting chickens, heard in my mind the thanks and congratulations of my sovereign. But then I did not know, nor could I have known, that already the house of cards I had built was beginning to tumble. So, still, and deceptively, all seemed to be well. As daylight came I washed myself, presented myself at the sitting-room car occupied by the Imperial Family, and was greeted almost warmly. Nicholas, having bade me a cheerful good-morning, now asked, 'Are we bound for Omsk?'

I nodded. 'It is a long way round, to go this way to Moscow, but -'

'So Moscow is our destination?'

'Yes. I had orders in the night.'

'Good, good.' Like me he was full of optimism; like mine, his was baseless. We were in a land of fantasy, all of us.

I said softly, 'The document, sir. Have you had time to -'

He was looking at me now in a new way, as though trying to read my face. I waited, and at length he said, his manner altogether grave, I have signed it.'

'Good,' I said, smiling. 'May I -?'

He was watching my face still. 'But it is not here.'

I frowned. 'Mot here, sir? Then where -?'

'Trbolsk." Nicholas said. 'I signed it before we left.'

'But yesterday,' I reminded him, 'in the sleigh, you told me you still required more time.'

He nodded. 'I'm sorry. I judged the deception necessary.'

I felt anger rising in me and suppressed it. 'Why, sir? Why was it necessary? The document is an important factor in your release.'

He put his hand on my arm. 'Commissar, I had no wish to answer your courtesy with discourtesy. But I must keep my family together. The letter is with my son. When he is brought to join us, you will have it.'

I swore, but only to myself. His action was understandable enough and I had told him, with more or less certainty, both that the family would be reunited and that I would myself be returning to Tobolsk for Alexei and the Grand Duchesses. But it was, at the very least, a damned nuisance!

'There is another matter, sir, upon which I must speak to you,' I told him. I moved to the far end of the room and after a moment he joined me. From my pocket. I took another piece of paper and handed it to him. He gave me an enquiring glance as he unfolded it, followed a moment later by a look of sharp surprise and puzzlement.

'My cousin's signature, Commissar?'

I said in English, which Nicholas spoke perfectly, 'It is a letter sent by your children's tutor, Gibbes, to a woman in England.'

'So I see. But why did Cousin George sign it?'

'To demonstrate its bonafides, sir.'

'I do not understand.'

I said, 'Sir, I am not a Soviet commissar.'

'Then who? And why?' He was instantly perturbed. 'Where are we going?'

'My name is Dikeston, sir. I am an officer in the Royal Navy, sent to Russia by your royal cousin upon a mission to seek your removal and that of your family to England. '

'Thank God,' he said. 'I had been told I was not welcome in Britain.'

'You must tell nobody,' I said. 'I have a part to play still.'

I left him then and returned to the wagon-lit, where I had left Ruzsky. It was my intention to change my clothes. But I was no sooner in through the door than he gave me the first of several shocks. He was sitting on the bed, unshaven, a cigarette between his lips, his eyes were more than a little bloodshot, and he wore his habitual smirk. The shock, however, lay not in his appearance, with which I was all too familiar, but in his utterance. He gave an unpleasant laugh and said, 'You're a fraud, Yakovlev! And I know exactly what kind of fraud.'

I threw him a haughty look which merely made him laugh more. 'You were told to look out for a man, were you not?' he said.

'I was sent to bring the Romanovs,' I said. 'You know that.'

He waved my answer away with an impatient gesture. 'Before you left London,' he said. I gaped at him and he laughed again. 'Gave you a surprise, did I?'

'Who are you?'

He gave me a mock salute. 'Henri Bronard. At your service - for the moment.'

'Henri? You're French?'

'Oui, m'sieu.'

'Then what are you doing out here in the middle of Siberia?'

'I serve various interests,' he said. 'For the moment I am to help you, when you need help. And you will.'

I blinked at him. 'I don't understand. You are a member of the Urals Soviet.'

He grinned, and it was more than the smirk I knew so well and detested; there was arrogance about him now, a clear pleasure in deceit. 'Not difficult,' he said. 'AH you need is to be more rabid than the rest.'

'But you sent a man on my horse to Ekaterinburg!'

'Somebody else said they should know. I insisted on sending your horse. They liked that.'

I said angrily. 'You're a damned fool, Ruzsky or Bronard, or whatever your damned name is. You've alerted them unnecessarily.'