Leonid’s Story (cont.)
Yekaterinburg, Russia. July, 1918
Their pale, dead faces were streaked with red. Leonid had seen war. Been close enough to the battlefield to taste the mud and the blood and feel the heat of his comrades’ rifles blazing away at his shoulders. But he had never witnessed horror like this.
It had been less an execution, more a mismanaged, craven frenzy. Just over twenty minutes after Yurovsky had fired the first three bullets, the rampage came to a panting halt. The young people and the Romanovs’ retinue who survived the initial shooting spree had been bayonetted, booted and shot in the head at point-blank range.
When it was all over, Leonid moved forward. He stepped cautiously but almost fell. The floor was so awash with blood, it was like trying to walk across an ice rink. He paused over the body of one of the Romanova girls and dropped to his haunches. Her killers were moving back, catching their breaths. One addressed Yurovsky directly, asking what was to be done with the corpses.
Silently, and without looking directly at any of the victims, Leonid began to pray for them. He realised, of course, that it was at best a worthless exercise and at worst a plea bargain with the Almighty for his own soul.
Another soldier, a young Muscovite called Pasha, joined Leonid and similarly crouched over the young Romanova. Moments earlier, he had been the one who’d murmured, ‘They are divine! God Himself protects them!’ And now, in equally low tones, he asked Leonid, ‘Are you praying for her?’
The two men had become firm friends during their weeks serving under Yurovsky, but Leonid replied with a quick and cautious, ‘Of course not.’
His gaze fell to the girl’s slightly upturned skirt. Something on its inside hem caught his eye. He glanced over his shoulder. No one was watching. Leonid leant forward and tugged what looked to be glass from the bottom of the skirt. The sharp, transparent fragment had been sewn into its fabric. But more than this, now he’d spotted this one piece of mineral, he could see many others, both in the skirt and the insides of her torn upper clothing.
He peered at the bloodstained gem he held in his hand and whispered, ‘Hardest thing known to man.’
The other soldier asked quietly, ‘What is it?’
‘God didn’t protect them, comrade . . .’ For a brief, reckless second, Leonid angled his body so his actions were hidden to all in the room except Pasha. He held his find aloft, momentarily transfixed by its shine. The shine of a pear-shaped diamond as big as a baby’s fist. ‘This did.’