I must put my feelings aside, he thought; we must have Russia.

He poured coffee and took some scones and honey. A minute later Aleks came in, looking bright-eyed and well-scrubbed. “Sleep well?” Walden asked him.

“Wonderfully well.” Aleks took a nectarine and began to eat it with a knife and fork.

“Is that all you’re having?” Walden said. “You used to love English breakfast-I remember you eating porridge, cream, eggs, beef and strawberries and then asking cook for more toast.”

“I’m not a growing boy anymore, Uncle Stephen.”

I might do well to remember that, Walden thought.

After breakfast they went into the morning room. “Our new five-year plan for the army and navy is about to be announced,” Aleks said.

That’s what he does, Walden thought; he tells you something before he asks you for something. He remembered Aleks saying: I’m planning to read Clausewitz this summer, Uncle. By the way, may I bring a guest to Scotland for the shooting?

“The budget for the next five years is seven and a half billion rubles,” Aleks went on.

At ten rubles to the pound sterling, Walden calculated, that made £750 million. “It’s a massive program,” he said, “but I wish you had begun it five years ago.”

“So do I,” said Aleks.

“The chances are that the program will hardly have started before we’re at war.”

Aleks shrugged.

Walden thought: He won’t commit himself to a forecast of how soon Russia might be at war, of course. “The first thing you should do is increase the size of the guns on your dreadnoughts.”

Aleks shook his head. “Our third dreadnought is about to be launched. The fourth is being built now. Both will have twelve-inch guns.”

“It’s not enough, Aleks. Churchill has gone over to fifteen-inch guns for ours.”

“And he’s right. Our commanders know that, but our politicians don’t. You know Russia, Uncle: new ideas are viewed with the utmost distrust. Innovation takes forever.”

We’re fencing, Walden thought. “What is your priority?”

“A hundred million rubles will be spent immediately on the Black Sea fleet.”

“I should have thought the North Sea was more important.” For England, anyway.

“We have a more Asian viewpoint than you-our bullying neighbor is Turkey, not Germany.”

“They might be allies.”

“They might indeed.” Aleks hesitated. “The great weakness of the Russian Navy,” he went on, “is that we have no warm-water port.”

It sounded like the beginning of a prepared speech. This is it, Walden thought; we’re getting to the heart of the matter now. But he continued to fence. “What about Odessa?”

“On the Black Sea coast. While the Turks hold Constantinople and Gallipoli, they control the passage between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean; so for strategic purposes the Black Sea might as well be an inland lake.”

“Which is why the Russian Empire has been trying to push southward for hundreds of years.”

“Why not? We’re Slavs, and many of the Balkan peoples are Slavs. If they want national freedom, of course we sympathize.”

“Indeed. Still, if they get it, they will probably let your navy pass freely into the Mediterranean.”

“Slav control of the Balkans would help us. Russian control would help even more.”

“No doubt-although it’s not in the cards, as far as I can see.”

“Would you like to give the matter some thought?”

Walden opened his mouth to speak, then closed it abruptly. This is it, he thought; this is what they want; this is the price. We can’t give Russia the Balkans, for God’s sake! If the deal depends on that, there will be no deal…

Aleks was saying: “If we are to fight alongside you, we must be strong. The area we are talking about is the area in which we need strengthening, so naturally we look to you for help there.”

That was putting it as plainly as could be: Give us the Balkans and we’ll fight with you.

Pulling himself together, Walden frowned as if puzzled and said: “If Britain had control of the Balkans, we could-at least in theory-give the area to you. But we can’t give you what we haven’t got, so I’m not sure how we can strengthen you-as you put it-in that area.”

Aleks’s reply was so quick that it must have been rehearsed. “But you might acknowledge the Balkans as a Russian sphere of influence.”

Aah, that’s not so bad, Walden thought. That we might be able to manage.

He was enormously relieved. He decided to test Aleks’s determination before winding up the discussion. He said: “We could certainly agree to favor you over Austria or Turkey in that part of the world.”

Aleks shook his head. “We want more than that,” he said firmly.

It had been worth a try. Aleks was young and shy, but he could not be pushed around. Worse luck.

Walden needed time to reflect now. For Britain to do as Russia wanted would mean a significant shift in international alignments, and such shifts, like movements of the earth’s crust, caused earthquakes in unexpected places.

“You may like to talk with Churchill before we go any farther,” Aleks said with a little smile.

You know damn well I will, Walden thought. He realized suddenly how well Aleks had handled the whole thing. First he had scared Walden with a completely outrageous demand; then, when he put forward his real demand, Walden had been so relieved that he welcomed it.

I thought I was going to manipulate Aleks, but in the event he manipulated me.

Walden smiled. “I’m proud of you, my boy,” he said.

That morning Feliks figured out when, where and how he was going to kill Prince Orlov.

The plan began to take shape in his mind while he read The Times in the library of the Jubilee Street club. His imagination was sparked by a paragraph in the Court Circular column:

Prince Aleksey Andreyevich Orlov arrived from St. Petersburg yesterday. He is to be the guest of the Earl and Countess of Walden for the London Season. Prince Orlov will be presented to their Majesties the King and Queen at the Court on Thursday, June 4th.

Now he knew for certain that Orlov would be at a certain place, on a certain date, at a certain time. Information of this kind was essential to a carefully planned assassination. Feliks had anticipated that he would get the information either by speaking to one of Walden’s servants or by observing Orlov and identifying some habitual rendezvous. Now he had no need to take the risks involved in interviewing servants or trailing people. He wondered whether Orlov knew that his movements were being advertised by the newspapers, as if for the benefit of assassins. It was typically English, he thought.

The next problem was how to get sufficiently close to Orlov to kill him. Even Feliks would have difficulty getting into a royal palace. But this question also was answered by The Times. On the same page as the Court Circular, sandwiched between a report of a dance given by Lady Bailey and the details of the latest wills, he read:

THE KING’S COURT

ARRANGEMENTS FOR CARRIAGES

In order to facilitate the arrangements for calling the carriages of the company at their Majesties’ Courts at Buckingham Palace, we are requested to state that in the case of the company having the privilege of the entree at the Pimlico entrance the coachman of each carriage returning to take up is required to leave with the constable stationed on the left of the gateway a card distinctly written with the name of the lady or gentleman to whom the carriage belongs, and in the case of the carriages of the general company returning to take up at the grand entrance a similar card should be handed to the constable stationed on the left of the archway leading to the Quadrangle of the Palace.

To enable the company to receive the advantage of the above arrangements, it is necessary that a footman should accompany each carriage, as no provision can be made for calling the carriages beyond giving the names to the footmen waiting at the door, with whom it rests to bring the carriage. The doors will be open for the reception of the company at 8:30 o’clock.