The Romanov Cross: A Novel by Robert Masello

Author:Robert Masello
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Thrillers, Historical, Action & Adventure, Fiction
ISBN: 9780345533593
Publisher: Bantam
Published: 2013-03-05T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 31

Apart from a sliver of one small pane, all the windows in the big, brick house had been whitewashed. That way, none of the Romanov prisoners could see outside or be seen in turn by anyone passing by.

Not that the peasants or shopkeepers in the tiny, Siberian backwater of Ekaterinburg would even have dared to look toward the house. Any suspicion that you were a Tsarist sympathizer, and your life wasn’t worth a ruble.

The Bolsheviks had evicted the rightful owner—a merchant named Ipatiev—and installed Anastasia and her family, along with a few of their remaining servants and friends, in five rooms on the upper story. The ground floor was reserved for the commissars, most of whom had been angry, disgruntled workers at the local Zlokazovsky and Syseretsky factories before the revolution. A five-foot-tall fence had been built around the perimeter of the house and its interior courtyard, and it was constantly patrolled.

But Anastasia knew when it was time for Sergei to make his rounds, and she always stationed herself at that small slice of window—left clear so that the Romanovs could consult a thermometer attached to the wall outside—when he was due. Even then, she was afraid to wave, and he was afraid to do anything more than cast a furtive glance in her direction. If they were caught, the rest of the window would be promptly whitewashed, and Sergei would be shot as a possible accomplice to the imperial family.

“So, is he there?” her sister Tatiana whispered as she bent her head over her sewing. She was opening a hem in a dress and secreting there a handful of the diamonds the Romanovs had so far successfully smuggled on their long odyssey. They were sewn into every garment, under every button, into the brim of every cap and the stays of every corset.

“Not yet,” Anastasia said, “but sometimes he is delayed if the other guard wants to stop and have a smoke with him.”

Smiling ruefully, Tatiana shook her head and said, “You know, don’t you, that you were supposed to marry a German prince and cement the alliance? Not fall for some revolutionary guard.”

“And so were you,” Anastasia replied.

“No, I was destined for the Bulgarian.”

“I thought Maria was to marry the Bulgarian.”

“Maria was going to marry an Austrian duke. I forget which one.”

How far they had come from all that, Anastasia thought. Royal weddings, international alliances, princes and palaces and languorous vacations at Livadia, their seaside retreat in the Crimea. Now, here they were, the whole family, confined to a few hot and stuffy rooms, with no locks on the doors and guards who enjoyed nothing more than barging in at any moment to catch them unawares. As a precaution, Olga was keeping watch in the next room; at least the soldiers’ boots made a lot of noise as they came tromping down the wooden hallway.

“There he is,” Anastasia murmured, as the gangly Sergei sauntered into view outside. He was holding his rifle over his shoulder, as a sentry was supposed to do, but he looked no more comfortable with it than before.

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