Olga stepped out of the operating room, leaning against the bulk of a casement window as she set down a covered bowl with shaking hands. Beneath the nunlike habit of her nursing uniform, her head ached—the pins holding her hair in place were too tight, but she didn’t dare remove them. How often had she suffered through an overlaced corset at a state dinner? How often had she lifted a tiara from her head at the end of the night, massaging her aching brow? Olga was used to discomfort in the name of service to her country, and never before had her service been more vital than now. Her heartbreak over Pavel and concerns about marriage—problems that, less than a year ago, were paramount in her mind—now seemed as though they belonged to someone else; and in a sense, perhaps they did. The war, after all, had affected everyone: farmers had become soldiers, princesses had become nurses. Even St. Petersburg had transformed in the wake of the war, abandoning its Germanic name for the more patriotic-sounding Petrograd. Why, then, should Olga be immune to the forces of change?
She lifted her hand to her habit, thinking to pull one of her pins loose, then thought the better of it. More than once, Dr. Gedroits had snapped at her after a lock of hair had fallen free while she was dressing a soldier’s open wound. She pictured Dr. Gedroits’ gray eyes flashing with disapproval: with her curt demeanor and preference for men’s clothing, Princess Vera Gedroits had not become Russia’s first female military surgeon without adopting some measure of ferocity in the way she treated her nursing staff. No, a headache was a small price to pay if it meant remaining in Dr. Gedroits’ good graces.
She wrenched open the window to let in a sudden blast of night air, resisting the urge to look down at the bowl. Assisting in the operating room always made her light-headed, but to Olga the worst part of the job was this: disposing of infected tissue, shrapnel shards, bloodstained bullets—whatever the surgeon had cut from the groaning officer under her knife.
For Olga, becoming a Red Cross–certified Sister of Mercy had been easy enough in the classroom. She’d beaten Tatiana, Anna Vyrubova and Mamma in all of their exams and could recite the steps involved in excising a wound without a second’s hesitation. She’d smiled at the other nurses assigned to the Annexe, committing their names to memory as they attended evening classes: Rita Khitrovo and Maria Nirod, who, like Tatiana and Olga, set aside her title as Countess within the walls of the hospital. Olga had received rare praise from Dr. Gedroits on her bandage rolling, and had attended her Red Cross graduation confident that she would quickly become the doctor’s most trusted surgical assistant.
In practice, however, nursing was more difficult than she’d anticipated. Dreams of decomposing limbs wrenched Olga from sleep nearly every night, the mousy scent of gas-gangrene lingering in her nostrils long after she’d left the ward. Faced with the bravery of soldiers willing to give everything they had—health, dignity, life—in the fight against the Central Powers, Olga did all she could to bolster her failing nerves, but when tasked with passing Dr. Gedroits a sterilized scalpel over a seeping mass of flesh that had once been a human shoulder, she seemed incapable of doing anything other than freezing solid.
She closed her eyes, recalling Dr. Gedroits’ snort of impatience as she wrenched the scalpel out of Olga’s hand. Tatiana, also attending, had stepped forward to take Olga’s place: why did the sight of blood not affect her in the same way? How did she manage to push past the suffering to do what was needed?
From down the hall, Olga heard the sound of footsteps and looked up. Rita, dressed like Olga in a habit, chambray dress and apron, came out of one of the wards, wheeling a trolley filled with sterilized bandages.
She smiled, though her expression quickly turned quizzical. “Are you quite well?”
“Of course.” Olga indicated the bowl with a nod of her head. “Incinerator.”
Rita let out a breath, her fingers tapping against the trolley. “If you aren’t up for assisting in surgeries, you should say so,” she said finally. “There’s no shame in it. The rest of us are perfectly capable, and you’re so good with the officers. There’s plenty of work for those not cut out for the heavier tasks. You could dress wounds, sterilize instruments.”
Olga smiled, appreciating her friend’s candor: since certifying as nurses, the distinction between Olga and the ladies-in-waiting who’d trained alongside her had mellowed considerably. She straightened. “Truly, Rita, I’m fine. The air’s a little close in there, that’s all.”
Rita hesitated. “If you’re sure,” she said before continuing down the hall.
Olga was sure: the war needed more than her nerves. It needed her hands as well as her heart; her action as well as her prayers. Alongside her nursing duties, Olga oversaw the Supreme Council for Care of Soldiers’ Families, while Tatiana headed a committee for the refugees fleeing to the capital from villages along the front line. They’d given up their spare time to sit with convalescing officers and visit Red Cross trains, attend the openings of new hospitals and send off regiments headed to the front with spirited speeches. Even Maria and Anastasia were doing their part. Though too young to train as nurses, they visited the city’s hospitals, circulating amongst the soldiers in an effort to buoy their spirits.
That said, all of Olga’s activities paled in comparison to Mamma’s. She had always worried for her mother’s health, but the war seemed to have given Mamma a new well of strength to draw upon. No longer was she confined to a wheelchair, fretting about Alexei’s condition: now, she assisted Dr. Gedroits in the operating theatre, conferring with the senior physician on leading medical practices; she gave over the gilded reception halls of Catherine Palace for use as a military hospital and sat by the bedsides of wounded soldiers as though they were her own children. In the evenings, Mamma prayed with Father Grigori, her fingers kneading together as she entreated God to watch over Papa’s armies, to give them the strength they needed to defend the Empire.
Mamma’s crowning achievement had been the renovation of a thirty-bed outbuilding in the gardens behind the palace infirmary itself. Originally built to house patients with infectious diseases, the small hospital, newly christened the Annexe, had been modernized to accommodate the needs of injured officers, and was where Olga now worked. Mamma had expanded Dr. Gedroits’ duties to include full oversight of the Annexe—a tall order in addition to her other responsibilities as senior physician at Tsarskoe Selo’s civilian hospital, but the doctor had proven more than equal to the task. In the short months since the war began, Dr. Gedroits had proven almost as indispensable to Mamma as Father Grigori, the sound of her spat-topped boots a heavy tread next to Mamma’s light steps as they paced down the hall.
Olga closed the window and picked up the bowl, carrying it down to dispose of its contents in the basement incinerator before hurrying back up the staircase. Basements, with their low light and damp walls, had always made her uneasy: she could never quite dismiss the sound of faraway movement as mere industry, hearing in the darkness the low whispering of voices long gone, the sweep of a ghostly hem across the rounded flagstones. As she returned to the first floor Olga breathed easier: her last ghastly duty done, she could do a final turn of the wards before retiring to Alexander Palace.
She paused as she passed the common room where the patients—those who were able—congregated after dinner. In a corner, two officers had strung a wire across the billiards table and were playing a game of table tennis. Colonel Baedmedev lunged to one side to return a wide volley and Olga was satisfied to see that the limp he’d been nursing for nearly three months had almost entirely disappeared. Lieutenant Shuriov, dealing out a game of cards, was similarly close to fighting fit, but what of the others? Corporal Yefimov, keeping score of the match as he puffed on a cigarette, wouldn’t be returning to active duty—not with the false leg he’d been fitted for only the day before. Olga had attended his surgery six weeks earlier and had handed Dr. Gedroits the bone saw she’d used to remove his gangrene-infected foot. Nor would Field Marshal Orentov, who was smoking a cigarette in the corner. He’d not said a word since arriving at the hospital two weeks ago; he hadn’t uttered a peep when they removed three of his frostbitten fingers.
At the edge of the billiards table, an officer seated in a wheelchair looked up as the French bulldog in his lap twisted to free itself from his grasp, falling to the ground before popping to its feet like a cork out of a bottle. It shot across the room, and launched itself into Olga’s arms, wriggling with glee.
“Hello, Ortipo,” she laughed, kissing the dog between the ears before depositing it back in the soldier’s lap.
“Done for the day, Grand Duchess?” he asked, ruffling the dog’s ears. Dmitri Malama had been at the hospital for nearly two months recovering from a fractured femur, and though Dr. Gedroits had removed the plaster cast that had enveloped his leg from hip to ankle almost a week ago, he was still too unsteady on his feet to go without the aid of a wheelchair for long. With his ruddy cheeks and perpetual smile, he’d charmed all the nurses who’d met him on their rounds, but he’d been particularly taken with Tatiana. It was a sentiment Olga’s sister readily returned: it hadn’t been lost on Olga that Tatiana had cooked the nursing roster so that she alone changed the dressings in Malama’s six-bed ward.
Sitting in a nearby armchair, an officer with his arm bound to his chest leaned forward, his free hand outstretched as he offered the dog a piece of bread. Ortipo trotted over, and accepted the treat with a snort of thanks.
“A nurse’s work is never done,” Olga replied, and the officer looked up. Unlike Malama, he was dark, with olive skin and black hair, full lips curving beneath his waxed mustache. Georgian, Olga thought, picturing him in the elegantly flared chokha tunics she’d seen on Georgian retainers at court, a long line of bandoliers strapped across his chest. He must have been in Malama’s ward, otherwise Olga would have remembered his warm eyes. “I’m afraid Tatiana’s still with Dr. Gedroits. They just completed the last operation of the day, but Tatiana’s sterilizing the operating room.”
Malama slipped a lead over the dog’s head. “Well, I suppose we’ll just have to wait a little longer, won’t we, Ortipo?” he said easily. “But we’d both be content to wait all night for the lovely Sister Tatiana to give us a pat on the head.”
“It’s a good thing I consider faithfulness a virtue, or else I might be offended by your preference for her,” Olga replied, and Malama’s friend smirked as she pulled a packet of cigarettes from her apron. “How’s your leg?”
“Healing.” Malama rubbed Ortipo’s velvet ears as his friend offered Olga the use of his lighter. “Dr. Gedroits thinks I’m only a few weeks away from rejoining my regiment. Once I’ve gotten used to the stick, I’ll be right as rain. You don’t think your sister could be convinced to take Ortipo when I go, do you? Only war is no place for a pet, and Shakh-Bagov here is far too keen to get back to the front for him to be of any use in caring for the little beast.”
Olga nodded as the other officer stowed his lighter back in his pocket, filing his name away in her constantly shifting mental roster of patients: Shakh-Bagov. “Leaving a puppy in my sister’s care? One might almost think you were worried she’d forget you.” She knelt in front of Malama and fixed Ortipo with a steady glare; looking from one to the other, she shook her head. “No. It would be impossible to forget you when you bear such a resemblance to the bulldog.”
Malama and Shakh-Bagov laughed, but any response was cut short by the sound of tires skidding on snow. Olga went to the window and pulled the curtains open: in the glare of the field lights, she watched an ambulance screech to a halt as sanitary ran out from the hospital, stretchers tucked under their arms. Generally, the war wounded reached the Palace Infirmary by way of ambulance trains, the front-line medical “flying columns” having patched them up enough to survive the twelve-hour journey back to Petrograd or Moscow. The system wasn’t perfect, but it had the benefit of predictability: Olga and the other Sisters of Mercy could prepare for the incoming officers and meet them at the train station for initial assessment. But war wasn’t the only source of injury in Tsarskoe Selo. For an ambulance to arrive this suddenly, this chaotically, it could only mean that the incoming patients were civilians.
Olga watched as two burly sanitary unloaded the ambulance. Rather than conveying the patient to the main hospital, they carried her toward the Annexe, and Olga let out a cry as they passed through a curtain of light. Anna Vyrubova lay on the stretcher, animated only by the jostling movement of the sanitary as they conveyed her toward the door.
Olga sprinted out of the room, her exhaustion forgotten as she met the sanitary in the hallway.
Anna was nearly unrecognizable, but for the tangled mess of her bloodstained skirt—Mamma had given it to her years ago, having spent months embroidering the hem with gilded grape leaves. Her face was slack and bloodstained, her left cheek and eye obscured beneath a rusty bandage. Beneath the soot-stained fabric of her chemise, Olga could see an ominous bulge near Anna’s neckline that looked like it might be a broken collarbone. The skirt hid any other injuries Anna might have sustained; however, it was clear the damage extended far beyond what Olga could see.
“What happened?” she asked, falling into step with the stretcher.
“Train accident,” huffed one of the sanitary. “Derailed just outside of Petrograd. The medics who arrived at the wreckage identified Madame Vyrubova; they knew that the empress would want her here.” He shook his head as Olga held open the door. “I’m afraid you must prepare for the worst, Grand Duchess. Her pulse is very weak.”
Olga trailed Anna toward the operating room where Dr. Gedroits had been forewarned, it seemed, of her incoming patient. She’d changed into a clean surgical gown, her hands held aloft as she ushered in the stretcher with a nod of her head. Behind her, Maria Nirod stood where Olga and Tatiana had been only an hour earlier, ready to assist the surgeon, and Olga felt a rush of relief that Tatiana had been dismissed before she could see Anna in such an awful state.
Dr. Gedroits lingered at the door as the sanitary transferred Anna from the stretcher to the operating table. “Thank you, Olga,” she said, watching the sanitary leave through narrowed eyes. “Your mother is quite distressed. Perhaps you would be more use to her than to me. Sister Nirod is more than prepared to help me with the initial assessment.”
Olga nodded; from within the depths of the room, Anna groaned. “Will she survive?”
Dr. Gedroits exhaled heavily through her nose. “I can make no promises,” she said finally, “but I will do my utmost.”
The door closed behind her, and Olga’s knees buckled with the deep realization that Mamma’s closest friend might not last the night.
Dr. Gedroits’ office was small and plain, a single oak desk and chair buttressed by the presence of a large bookcase stuffed with medical textbooks. Devoid of religious symbols or portraits, the room offered little in the way of comfort, and Olga wished they’d moved to the hospital’s small chapel in the courtyard—but Mamma, in an uncharacteristic show of secularism, had deemed the chapel too far from Anna’s sickbed.
“We’ll go to the chapel once we’ve been given more information,” she said to Anna’s whey-faced parents, who had rushed to the hospital as soon as they’d been informed of their daughter’s condition. “Our prayers will be all the stronger when we know what to pray for.”
Anna’s mother nodded, accepting Mamma’s advice with brittle resignation, clasping her husband’s hands over the card table that the officers had supplied from the common room for the makeshift vigil. Like her thirty-year-old daughter, Madame Tanyeva was small and doughy, her once-dark hair graying beneath the brim of her hat. She’d barely spoken a word since arriving nearly a half an hour earlier, and Olga was thankful that, despite her own despair, Mamma had been able to take charge.
“God holds all of us in His hands,” Mamma said, sinking into a camp chair next to Mme. Tanyeva. She pressed a small crucifix into Mme. Tanyeva’s hand, and Olga knew that Mamma’s steadiness stemmed not from her compassion alone, but from her all-too-shared experience of waiting for a child to pass through peril. “He is with us, whether we attend Him in His chapel or here.”
Olga set down two cups of well-sugared tea. “You’ll want to keep up your strength,” she whispered.
Anna’s mother looked up, red-eyed. “How kind of you, child,” she said, sounding as though she was speaking from the bottom of a well.
Olga straightened. Like Mamma, she knew how to handle the grief of uncertainty: that slow and dreadful counting of the minutes and hours spent waiting for news. To Olga, such moments were measured in the performance of idle tasks: the steady knitting of a scarf, the precise embroidering of a gilded bookmark. But here in Dr. Gedroits’ austere office, busywork was in short supply; instead, they sat in silence, listening to the rustling of the hospital around them, the billowing of the snow that had begun to gust at the windows.
Tatiana leaned over. “It’s time to do the rounds,” she murmured, rubbing the bridge of her nose. She glanced at Mamma, the shadows beneath her eyes deepening; had Anna not been brought in, Tatiana would have left for the palace long ago.
“Let me do it,” Olga replied, and it was a mark of her exhaustion that Tatiana didn’t protest.
Thankfully, Olga’s rounds were brief. Given the late hour, most of the men were already asleep and she was able to work quietly with the aid of bedside lamps—they turned beneath her hands as she checked dressings, barely waking as she inspected for bedsores. This, at least, she could do, she thought, satisfied that her touch was light enough not to disturb them while they slept. Why was changing a dressing so much more bearable than treating the wound itself?
She fluffed the pillow beneath a dozing Dmitri Malama’s head; in the next bed over, Shakh-Bagov set down the novel he’d been reading.
“Your friend...how is she?” He shifted, using his good arm to prop himself upright; in the glow of his lamp, she could see him in silhouette only, his chest artificially bulked beneath an overlarge nightshirt by his bandaged arm. Whereas in the common room, Olga would have put Shakh-Bagov’s age at around thirty, now, with his hair disheveled by the pillow, he looked no older than twenty-two. “I’ve been worried for her.”
Olga finished administering to Malama. “We don’t really know yet,” she replied. “We’re still waiting for news.” She nodded, indicating Shakh-Bagov’s arm. “When was that dressing last changed?”
He smiled apologetically. “Your sister was supposed to see to it today,” he replied. “I think it will hold until morning, if you don’t have the time.”
She pulled her stool next to his bed, adjusting the lamp so that the light fell directly on his chest. “Don’t be silly,” she replied. “I won’t have you getting an infection on the one and only night I’m responsible for your ward. What would Dr. Gedroits say?”
Shakh-Bagov shifted; with Olga’s help, he shrugged out of his nightshirt, revealing broad shoulders and a concave stomach, his one arm bound to his chest like a broken bird’s wing. “Are you as terrified of her as I am?” he said conspiratorially. He leaned forward to allow her to untie the bandage’s knot, fastened behind his back, and she swallowed down a sudden, absurd impulse to smooth his ruffled hair. “Do you know, I didn’t realize she was a woman until after she’d wheeled me out of the operating room? Told me if I’d any objections to a female physician she could put the bullet right back where she’d found it.” He chuckled. “I think she’d make a fine general, were she so inclined.”
Olga began to unravel the bandage, steadily winding the cotton back into itself as she went over, under his shoulder joint, smiling. Dr. Gedroits’ refusal to wear dresses had seemed strange to her too, at first, but she’d long grown used to the doctor’s proclivities: in fact, her refusal to live by anyone’s standards but her own seemed something worth admiring, in its own way. “Well, she’s certainly the most formidable physician in Tsarskoe Selo, as well as the most skillful. She’s even managed to whip me into shape—though really I ought to be doing this in the dressing room rather than on the ward. You won’t tell, will you? Only your wound doesn’t look to be seeping, and I’d rather not wake the rest of the ward taking you out.”
He smiled. “Your secret’s safe.”
“Good.” She indicated the patch of gauze that covered Shakh-Bagov’s chest near his armpit. “Bayonet?”
He shook his head as she began to peel the gauze away, smelling for signs of infection. “Not much sport for bayonets on these battlefields, I’m afraid—hand-to-hand combat seems to have gone the way of the bow and arrow. It was a Mauser: eight-millimeter right through the joint. Hurt like the devil, but the doctor says I’ll make a full recovery.”
She looked up, grinning. “And if you don’t, you’ll still have motion enough to aim a pistol. That should do, in a pinch.”
“Exactly, Grand Duchess. Needs must.” He quietened as Olga inspected the wound; satisfied that it was draining properly, she reached for a sterilized square of gauze. “That accident...what happened to the other passengers?”
Olga held the gauze in place with one hand as she began to unravel a fresh bandage with the other. “I don’t know. Sent to the infirmary, I suppose. I’m glad they brought Anna here.”
Shakh-Bagov was silent for a minute as Olga positioned his arm once more, pinning it to his chest with the bandage. “She’s already in surgery, isn’t she? I wonder how long the others will have to wait. I can’t imagine the ratio of doctors to patients in the civilian hospital is superior to what we’ve got here. But I suppose that’s a perk of being friends with the empress.”
Olga bristled. “It’s the empress’s prerogative if she wants to help a friend. And Anna is a nurse at this hospital, same as me. If that doesn’t entitle her to special treatment, what should?”
Shakh-Bagov looked suitably chastened. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to cause offense.”
She finished rolling the bandage and secured it tight above the shoulder so that the knot wouldn’t disturb him while he slept. “You didn’t,” she replied crisply. “How does that feel?”
He shrugged experimentally. “Good. Excellent. Thank you, Grand Duchess.”
She lifted his nightshirt and helped to guide his free hand back through the sleeve. “None of that, Officer. I’m a Sister of Mercy, same as anyone else.”
He looked down at his lap, smiling. “No special treatment,” he said quietly, playing with the hem of his sheet. “Thank you, Sister Romanova. Please know I’m thinking of your friend. I’ll be praying for her quick recovery.”
She handed him his book. “I appreciate that,” she replied. “She means a great deal to my family.”
Olga shut the door behind her, the brightness of the hall jarring after the dim peace of the ward. Without any remaining duties to distract her, Olga lingered, listening for distant sounds of panic or grief, anything to indicate that Dr. Gedroits had finished in the operating room.
She started down the hall, Shakh-Bagov’s words echoing in her ears: I suppose it’s a perk of being friends with the empress. He hadn’t said it with heat or bitterness, though the words themselves were enough to make Olga frown. What did it matter whether Anna was saved by her friendship with Mamma, so long as she was saved? Mamma had taken on so many responsibilities since the start of the war, and Papa even more so: Anna had been a help to them both, a distraction and a comfort. And Mamma had so few friends. She spent time with a handful of ladies-in-waiting, but no one who made her laugh like Anna—no one who treated her as an equal, rather than an empress. Were Anna to succumb to her injuries, Mamma would surely shatter under the strain.
And who would be there to pick up the pieces?
She turned a corner, thinking of what she would say if she tended to Shakh-Bagov again. As an officer, was he not benefiting from the tsar’s attention, too?
Olga rounded another corner and looked up. There, at the far end of the hall, Dr. Gedroits stood in a whispered conversation with Father Grigori outside the operating room.
Olga was gladdened by the sight—physician and priest, working together to save Anna’s life—but then Father Grigori made as if to push past Dr. Gedroits, and the doctor lifted her arms, barring the door.
“I must insist! Madame Vyrubova requires rest, she cannot possibly receive anyone—”
“And what would bring her rest and solace better than prayer?” Father Grigori shot back. He stepped closer to Dr. Gedroits—too close, as he clamped his hand around her arm. “I must commend this woman’s soul to God.”
“I commend this woman’s body to science,” Dr. Gedroits spat, and wrenched her arm from Father Grigori’s grasp. “I insist that you leave her be. It is highly improper for you to push your way into a sickroom. The risk of infection alone—”
“What is this?” said Olga as she reached the end of the hall. “Father Grigori, what’s going on?”
Father Grigori looked thunderous. “Her Imperial Majesty sent for me directly,” he said, staring daggers at Dr. Gedroits. “The Lord has not abandoned His faithful servant in her hour of need. He has called me to pray over Anna Vyrubova and commend her spirit into His hands. But I am thwarted by those who do not believe in the Lord’s teachings, disbelievers and secularists, too deaf to heed His words...”
Olga hesitated. Father Grigori’s heart was in the right place, but he wasn’t helping his case by raging. To Dr. Gedroits, the only cross worth worshipping was the scarlet square that adorned the sides of ambulances; the only sermons worth listening to were those recited in operating theatres and lecture halls to impart wisdom upon medical professionals.
As Father Grigori paused for breath, Dr. Gedroits interjected, loosening the knot of her tie.
“Madame Vyrubova is in a very grave state, and I do not think it wise to disturb her at this critical juncture. She sustained multiple fractures in the accident, including to her cranium and her spine; should she become agitated, any movement—any at all—could prove extremely dangerous.” She glared at Father Grigori, wrapping her fingers firmly around the door handle. “This is my hospital. I will not have my patients disturbed.”
“I quite agree, Doctor,” said Olga. “Why don’t we all go to your office and inform the empress about Anna’s condition...”
Father Grigori stepped forward once more, his heavy cassock sweeping around his knees as he took Dr. Gedroits by the forearms. Too stunned to respond, the doctor gaped, outraged, at Father Grigori’s impertinence as he peered, unblinking, into her eyes. Olga made as if to break their hold, but then—
“She will live, Doctor,” he said, and lifted his green gaze to the ceiling. “You may not believe in His mercy, but I know it to be true. The Lord will hear my prayers. Anna Vyrubova will live.”
Dr. Gedroits stared at Father Grigori for a long moment, the lines around her mouth tightening before she pulled a key from her pocket and locked Anna’s room with a resounding click.
“Thank you, Father, but I will save Madame Vyrubova’s life. Should she recover, it will be the result of medical science. Not your prayers.”
Father Grigori’s smile congealed, his eyes lighting with some inner fire as Dr. Gedroits turned on her heel and walked down the hallway, Olga running in her wake.