Alexei sat atop a packing crate, his fingers tight on his spaniel’s lead as he brushed his feet along the parquet floor in the Semi-Circular Hall. Pushing the brim of his sailor’s cap back from his forehead, he twisted in his seat, looking at the mountain of luggage that had been piled by the family’s remaining staff—suitcases and steamer trunks, rolled canvases and wooden boxes with labels affixed to the side bearing a large letter R. Mamma had spent the last week overseeing the removal of as many family heirlooms and personal items as they could carry into exile. Now, looking at the possessions that would be moved with them, Olga wondered about the fate of everything they’d had to leave behind. She had little doubt that the revolutionary soldiers would bayonet the priceless portraits of Romanov ancestors that they’d not been able to take; that they would pilfer the keepsakes in Papa’s office, pocketing her family’s trinkets as trophies.
She pictured the Semi-Circular Hall at its best: a thousand dinner guests seated at round tables beneath the glittering chandelier; the echoing strains of a string orchestra accompanying Bolshoi dancers who drifted between the tables as if floating on air. She closed her eyes, affixing the image in her mind. That was how she wanted to remember it. As a place of beauty and joy, not the repository where she and her family had been abandoned to await their exile.
Dr. Botkin walked past, holding out a stopper: he’d been giving them all valerian drops, which had calmed Olga’s nerves but hadn’t dulled her sense of dread. They’d been waiting for hours, the soldiers moving their luggage piece by excruciatingly slow piece; if they kept on at this pace, the sun would be stretching long across the palace walls before they left. She suspected the delay was a means of throwing off any would-be rescuers.
Alexei’s spaniel let out a whimper, and Ortipo, Tatiana’s bulldog, tried to wriggle free from her arms. Though still weakened from her illness, Tatiana managed to hold tight: unbeknownst to the little dog, the soldiers had made too many cruel comments about using it for target practice for her to risk letting it roam free through the hall.
Dr. Botkin held out the stopper and Olga took it, squeezing drops of valerian under her tongue. “How much longer?”
Dr. Botkin let out a breath. “I wish I could tell you, Grand Duchess,” he said, in the gentle tone of voice she imagined he would use if speaking to someone terminally ill. “Unfortunately, I know no more than you. We’re all in the same boat now.”
All in the same boat. Dr. Botkin was right: they were all at the mercy of a government that no longer supported them; all waiting for an uncertain fate. Forty-six members of the household had chosen to accompany them into exile; forty-six people who had tied their destiny to Olga’s family. She looked around the room. Mamma and Papa were sitting together on a traveling trunk, Mamma white-faced and tight-lipped, Papa smoking cigarette after cigarette. Though the retainers who were traveling with them—Dr. Botkin and Pierre Gilliard, Sydney Gibbes and the maids; Mamma’s ladies-in-waiting, Trina Schneider and Nastenka Hendrikova—had done their best to maintain a respectful distance from the imperial family, they, too, were seated on traveling trunks, as though they were all in the ticket office at Nicholaevsky station.
And yet, an emperor on a traveling trunk was still an emperor. She straightened atop her crate, shoulders back, chin high. A grand duchess in exile was still a grand duchess.
Daylight was breaking through the immense picture windows when Kerensky finally entered. He was accompanied by a tall, heavily built man, his inexpertly tailored uniform sagging over sloping shoulders and a wide midriff—a soldier gone to seed. His thick hair had gone pure white at the temples, but his mustache, set beneath watery, pale eyes, was dark, putting Olga in mind of a genteel badger.
Papa got to his feet, and Kerensky cleared his throat. “Nicholas Alexandrovich, allow me to introduce Colonel Eugene Kobylinsky. The colonel has been responsible for the military garrison here at the palace and will be overseeing the military detachment that will accompany you on your journey.”
Hands clasped behind his back, Kobylinsky smiled at Papa, but didn’t bow.
“I apologize for the delay. There was a spot of unrest on the railway lines, but we’ve sorted it all out.” He stepped back and raised his voice, for the benefit of those in the hall. “We’ll be leaving for the station shortly,” he said. “Please bring your personal possessions.”
Olga walked out into the pale dawn, her suitcase bumping at her leg as she walked down the checkered steps. Beyond the white pillars, she could see four black motorcars idling, surrounded by a platoon of soldiers on horseback.
Beside her, Maria hiccuped, tears streaming freely down her face; Olga took her hand and squeezed, fighting to keep her own cheeks dry. She wouldn’t cry in front of the soldiers who lined the courtyard, their fingers tightening over the triggers of their machine guns. She wouldn’t cry as they kicked her out of her home: as they rifled through her empty closets, crowing drunkenly about the day they turned Nikolashka and his family out onto the streets. She met their impassive gaze, daring them to feel shame for making her mother, stumbling toward the motorcars, weep.
No. She wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of crying.
Beneath the pillars, ancient Count Beckendorff—Minister of the Palace—stood in silence, his head bowed. Too old to accompany them into exile, the count, who had overseen life at Alexander Palace for as long as Olga could remember, would be staying behind along with the other members of her family’s retinue who were too old to undertake the five-day journey: Lili Dehn, whose son was too sick to travel; Jim Hercules, whose wife and children lived in Petrograd; Anna Vyrubova, still imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress.
Papa and Mamma drew up to the count, who sank into a deep, stiff-kneed kneel.
“Your Imperial Highness,” he said, daring the revolutionaries to stop him from giving Papa the deference he was due. “I want you to know it’s been the honor of my life to serve you.”
“The honor has been entirely mine, my dear friend,” said Papa. He held out his hand and helped Count Beckendorff back to his feet. “You know, we’ve worked so hard on the gardens, I’d hate to see it all go to waste. Would you be so kind as to distribute the vegetables amongst the servants? The firewood, too.”
Beckendorff’s face twisted with emotion. “Of course, Your Majesty.”
Papa patted him on the arm. “Good man.” He sighed, casting one last, wistful look up at the palace, then turned to Mamma with a smile. “Well, my dear,” he said, as though they were going to the theatre rather than into exile. “Shall we?”
The drive to the train station was short and uneventful, the silence punctuated by Mamma’s sobs. Olga looked out the window, committing each tree to memory. How many times had she been driven down this road, more preoccupied with the contents of her handbag than with the beauty of the breaking dawn?
The train station was surrounded by yet more armed guards, who watched with hard eyes as Olga climbed out of the motorcar. The ground was wet beneath her feet, her heel slipping in the mud as she followed Kerensky and Kobylinski into the station.
The platform was enveloped in steam, quiet but for the sound of three hundred soldiers shifting from foot to foot, coughing and muttering, throwing the ends of cigarettes onto the tracks. Through the mist, Olga could see that the waiting train wasn’t composed of graceful imperial carriages. No, this was a hulking, ominous thing cobbled together from a dozen defunct train services, mismatched wagon-lits and an ancient black steam engine. Ragged Red Cross flags hung limply from the carriages, and Olga thought of the villages they would pass—the people who would see the flags, never realizing that their tsar was in their midst.
As they neared the train, Kerensky and Kobylinski turned to face them.
“You will all remain in separate compartments for the duration of the journey,” Kerensky began, but before he could continue Anastasia raised her hand.
“Couldn’t we share? It would be so much nicer to be together with Maria. It wouldn’t be a trouble at all, I don’t mind having less space.”
Kobylinsky’s smile was surprisingly indulgent. Did he have a daughter, perhaps? “I’m afraid not, my dear,” he said, “but you’ll see your sisters at mealtimes.”
“That won’t be a problem,” Papa replied. “Might we know our destination? Now that we’re here, I can’t imagine it would pose a security risk.”
Kerensky cleared his throat, looking uncomfortable. “Yes. Well,” he muttered. “You’re to be taken to Siberia. The Ural Mountains.”
“Siberia.” Papa nodded evenly, as though he’d anticipated the destination already. Beside him, Mamma closed her eyes, swaying on her feet, and Papa put a steadying hand around her shoulders. “Thank you, Minister.”
Siberia. Olga had been expecting it, but Kerensky’s confirmation hit her like a wave. Was this really happening? Had she truly left Alexander Palace for the last time? Blackness swam into her vision, dizziness threatening to overwhelm her.
“If there’s nothing else,” Kerensky was saying, “it’s time, I think, to board.”
“Thank you, Minister.” Once more, Papa held out his hand; once more, Kerensky hesitated before taking it.
Olga stepped up into the train, her eyes adjusting to the dark as she walked along the corridor. Her compartment was small, and she pushed aside the drawn curtain with her finger to watch the station platform, still swarming with soldiers that filed onto the carriages on either side of the wagon-lit that held Olga and her family. The train would be bristling with armed guards, fifty soldiers for each member of her family. So much anger; so much mistrust. So much trouble taken over one small family. Why couldn’t they simply stop the train between villages and let them disappear?
As the platform emptied, Kerensky watched the imperial carriage. Wisps of steam obscured his face as he stood, stock-still, watching the soldiers board the train. Though she would never like Kerensky, she’d grown to respect his steady presence—she suspected, too, that Kerensky had tempered the more militant amongst the revolutionaries, enabling Olga and her family to live in relative peace at the palace. She rubbed her finger on the windowpane, hoping for clarity through the glass: was it her imagination, or had he worn a new jacket to mark their departure?
He glanced at his watch, then nodded to Kobylinski. They shook hands and Kobylinski stepped on board.
Kerensky clasped his hands behind his back and looked down the platform before fixing his gaze on the carriage.
Perhaps it was a tremor in Olga’s finger; perhaps it was the wind. Whatever it was, Kerensky saw the movement of the curtain.
He held Olga’s gaze, his expression inscrutable.
“They can go!” he called out, and the train lurched into the weak dawn.