The contemplation was broken by the tiniest of sounds; a knock at the chapel door. All heads turned in that direction. A face peeped around the door. Nikolai recognized it; it was his mother’s valet. Even across the chapel, Nikolai could see the sorrow on the man’s face. He had to make sure that it was not the dowager empress who received the news. He rose to his feet and strode across the room.

The valet displayed his relief that it was the grand duke who had come to the door. Once in the anteroom adjoining the chapel, Nikolai could see that it was still dark outside. He guessed it was no later than eight thirty in the morning. Waiting there was Count Miloradovich, governor-general of Petersburg. His face told the story even more clearly than had the valet’s.

The news was succinct and irrefutable. Nikolai listened calmly and understood.

His brother Aleksandr Pavlovich was no more.

His son, Aleksandr Nikolayevich, was tsarevich.

He, Nikolai Pavlovich, was tsar.

That was for Russia, but for him, there was only one item of significance: his brother, Aleksandr – Sasha – the man who had headed the family since Nikolai was four, was dead.

IT WAS AN ODD SOUND; A THUD, BUT BROAD AND QUIET, FILLING the room but not deafening Tamara. She looked up. Mama was standing at the window, as she did for so much of the time these days. The man who had hit her had not returned. It had been almost a week. Tamara hoped they would never see him again.

But she knew it was not that man that Mama was looking for; she was looking for Papa. She had glanced out of the window, from time to time, every day since he had left, but it had not obsessed her. It was only since the news that the tsar was dead that Mama had leaned her hand against the window and looked out almost every spare moment she had.

Tamara knew she should be sad about the death of the tsar, but she had never met him. Mama Yelena and Valentin seemed to be very sad. Tamara could usually tell when people were pretending to be sad, and she’d suspected this might be the case with Yelena and Valentin, but once she’d seen them, she knew she was wrong. Rodion wasn’t quite so sad, but everyone else who came to the house was.

Only Mama seemed to share Tamara’s lack of concern about the tsar. She was worried about Papa. Tamara remembered that Papa had said he was going to Taganrog, and that was a place that everyone was talking about as where the tsar had been when he’d died. Mama had shown it to her again on the map, and she’d tried to remember where it was. It didn’t look very far away, but Petersburg looked even closer, and that was where Papa spent most of his time; it was still difficult for him to visit them from there.

The sound had come from Mama throwing her hand against the window. Tamara couldn’t think why she would be trying to break it, but it looked as though she had simply forgotten it was there and was trying to reach through it.

Her mother turned to her. Tamara had never seen such a wide smile on her face.

‘He’s here!’ she said.

She had smiled so widely it had hurt her. She put her hand up to her face, where the man had hit her. It had almost healed, but now it had started to bleed again, but only slightly. Mama went over to the dressing table and started to powder her face. When she turned back to Tamara, there was no sign of the cut.

‘Papa’s back,’ she said.

Tamara wasn’t stupid. She’d guessed that before her mother had said anything, but the excitement of it was only just beginning to affect her. Her mother knelt down in front of her and held both her hands.

‘Now you remember what you promised, Toma,’ she said. Tamara was fairly sure what it was her mother was talking about, but she didn’t nod, in case she was mistaken. ‘You won’t tell Papa about the man outside, will you? You promise?’

Tamara nodded. ‘I promise,’ she said.

‘Stay here.’ With that, Mama ran from the room. She didn’t put her coat on this time. Tamara went to the window and looked out again.

There were quite a number of people in the street, and Tamara couldn’t see any that looked like her father. There was one man, some way off, who seemed to be coming towards the house, but he was too far for her to recognize. Mama appeared on the street beneath the window and ran towards him. As soon as he saw her, he broke into a run too. Then Tamara could see that it was Papa. He caught Mama’s body in his arms as they met and she swung around him, her feet lifted off the ground. He put her down, and she buried her face in his chest. His hand was on the back of her head. Then she looked up and they kissed. It lasted for ten seconds, though Tamara hadn’t started counting right away. Then they separated and began to walk arm in arm back towards the house.

Mama pointed towards the window where Tamara stood, and Papa looked up. He grinned and began to wave. Tamara waved back. Then Papa started to run to the door, leaving Mama walking alone in the snow. Tamara jumped up and down with excitement for a few moments and then realized that she too should run.

She turned and raced out of the bedroom, through Papa’s study and into the hallway. There she brushed past somebody, but she didn’t look to see who it was. It was Valentin Valentinovich’s voice she heard shouting after her, but she ignored it.

Papa was just coming up the stairs – two, sometimes three at a time – when she reached the top. He picked her up without seeming to pause, but slowed his pace down to a walk. He hugged her close to him – she could feel his heart pumping, and his chest rose and fell rapidly as he breathed.

‘And how’s my little Toma?’ he asked.

‘I’m very well,’ she said. ‘And I’ve grown almost half an inch.’

‘That’s very impressive. And have you looked after Mama?’

Tamara knew that this was when she was going to have to lie to her father so as to keep her promise to her mother. ‘Yes, I have,’ she said. She decided she was good at lying.

They had arrived back in her parents’ bedroom, and Mama had joined them within moments. Her father put her down and looked at her.

‘You have grown,’ he said. She grinned up at him. Mama slipped her arm through Papa’s.

‘Will you be here long?’ Domnikiia asked. Tamara thought it sounded like a rude question, though her mother seemed more concerned than nagging.

‘I’ll try,’ said Aleksei, ‘but things may be on a knife edge in Petersburg now that Aleksandr is dead.’ He suddenly went pale. ‘You knew, I take it?’ he asked.

Domnikiia nodded, and Papa looked relieved.

‘Papa,’ said Tamara, ‘were you there when the tsar died?’

Her father looked down at her and smiled. ‘No, my darling,’ he said, ‘I was nowhere near.’

Tamara pressed her lips together thoughtfully. Papa was nothing like as good a liar as she was.

At times like these, some men drank, some smoked, some gambled, some whored and others got into needless fights. Dmitry played piano. Not all of Moscow’s representatives of the Northern Society had assembled at the club off Lubyanka Square, but it could cater for most of the activities they employed to pass the frustrating hours – except perhaps the whoring.

Dmitry was playing Scarlatti, but he wasn’t paying much attention to it. Moscow seemed desperately provincial at a time like this. True, they had received the news a few days earlier than Petersburg, but that was just a lucky consequence of where Aleksandr had chosen to die. They certainly knew in the capital now, and it was there that the decisions of the Northern Society would be made. Those in Moscow could only follow. Even the Southern Society was irrelevant for the moment. There was no point in seizing power anywhere but where the new tsar was. In reality, that meant Warsaw, but Tsar Konstantin would already be on his way to the capital. Then Ryleev and the others would decide what was to be done with him. After that there would be bickering. It would be the north that acted and the south that subsequently tried to sort out the new constitution. It did not matter – change was all that mattered. But for now, the waiting was corrosive.