‘I am not risking it happening to you and the children,’ he said, glancing down at the floor where two pairs of legs stuck out from beneath the cloth-covered table, one clad in knickerbockers, the other lace-frilled pantalettes. Andrei and Lydia were whispering together, playing some secret game whose rules only they understood.

‘But why would they harm us?’ his wife asked. ‘We have done no wrong, broken no law, unless you count stealing the garden which always used to belong to us, and who else wants it? And you have served Russia faithfully as a soldier all through the war and since.’

‘I served Russia but I also served the tsar, Annushka,’ he said patiently, trying with a calm voice to make her understand and not frighten her any more than she was frightened already. ‘According to the Bolsheviks, the two are not compatible.’

She wouldn’t mind if he were coming too; she could face anything with him at her side, but no, he must take up arms for the White Army – as if they had a chance of winning! Why, even Pyotr Wrangel, who now commanded the White Army, was advising people to leave the country while they could. ‘Misha,’ she implored, jabbing the thread at the eye of the needle and missing. ‘If we must go, then come with us. One man cannot make a difference, surely? In the general confusion you will not even be missed.’

‘That would be desertion, Annushka. I cannot dishonour the name of Kirilov with such a shameful act. I begged leave to help you to escape, but that is all it is, a few days’ leave.’

Anna made one more attempt to thread her needle and then tears overwhelmed her again. He took it from her and bent over the lamp to thread it for her, returned it to her, then sat down and picked up one of the pieces of jewellery from the velvet-lined casket on the table and began systematically to break the gems out of their silver and gold settings with wire-cutters.

‘Do you really need to do that?’ she asked, choking back another sob. Mikhail was adamant and tears were not moving him. ‘It must be decimating their value.’

‘Darling, pieces like this have no value in the new scheme of things, except for barter, and at the moment they are worth more as currency than the new paper money. Or even roubles. You will have to part with them one at a time for travel documents and food. And you will need to sell what is left to keep you going in England until I can join you.’

She sighed, picked up a ruby and sewed it carefully into a pair of stays she held on her lap. It was followed by another and then an emerald and a diamond. ‘I shall be weighed down with it.’ She attempted a laugh which tore at his heart.

‘Put some in the children’s clothes too. Lydia, sweetheart, go and fetch your best petticoat, the silk one with the lace flounces round the hem. And bring Andrei’s best tunic too.’

Lydia scrambled out from under the table, followed by her brother. The ribbons had come out of her hair and Andrei’s socks were wrinkled at the ankle. Both stood and watched their parents for a moment or two, then Lydia asked, ‘Why are you breaking that necklace, Papa? Don’t you like it anymore?’

‘No, I don’t think I do,’ he said, taking a pair of pliers to a priceless antique, one that had been in the Kirilov family for generations. ‘But we must hide the pieces from thieves, so Mama is sewing them into your clothes.’

‘Why? Are we going on a journey?’ Andrei asked, as Lydia disappeared on her errand, taking a stub of candle her father had lit for her.

‘Yes, a very long journey,’ his father told him. ‘Over the sea to England.’

‘England!’ the boy exclaimed. ‘I saw that in my atlas. It’s the other side of the world. Why are we going there?’ He was so like his father, especially his dark, intelligent eyes; looking at him made Anna’s heart ache and she wanted to weep again.

‘To be safe,’ she told her son. ‘Until this dreadful fighting is over and we can come back home.’

‘I want to fight like Papa. I can shoot, you know I can. Didn’t I bring down a hare the other day?’

‘Yes you did, son,’ his father told him. ‘And a jolly good meal it made too, but shooting hares is not the same as shooting people and I pray to God you never have to do it.’

‘You do.’

‘I am a man and a soldier, that is different. It is not something I want to do.’ He turned as Tonya, carrying the petticoat and tunic, came into the room with Lydia. She had been a roly-poly of a woman, almost as broad as she was high, though since the war the fat had melted off her and left folds of superfluous skin. ‘Ah, Tonya, I am glad you are here,’ he said. ‘I will tell you our plans and if you have any suggestions to make I will listen.’

The countess, a little calmer now, continued to sew jewels into their clothes as he told of their plans. ‘I am going to take the countess and the children to Yalta, where they will go on a ship across to Constantinople and from there to England,’ he told her, smiling a little at her gasp of shock. ‘You may go with them or not, as you please. I shall not insist.’

‘But Your Excellency,’ she said, addressing him in the old way, forgetting she should not use that form of address now and she should have said Mikhail Mikhailovich. ‘Where else would I be but with my babes? And the countess needs me.’

‘Oh, thank you, Tonya,’ Anna put in. ‘I do not think I could bear it without you.’

‘But how will we get away?’ the servant asked. ‘Someone is sure to see us and tell the militsiia.’

‘We must leave separately and go in different directions. The countess and I will take the carriage to pay a visit to my cousin, Grigori Stefanovich. He is Chairman of the Workers’ Committee of the Petrovsk Soviet and a visit to him will not be thought out of the ordinary. You will take the children in the droshky, as if you were taking Andrei to school, but you will not leave him there but go to Simferopol. We will meet you there and go to Yalta together.’ He had considered sending them by train, but the trains, mostly made up of freight trucks, were packed with refugees, coming from further north, and they would never manage to get on one, even if they could obtain the necessary papers allowing them to travel.

‘My parents live near Simferopol,’ Tonya put in. ‘You remember, Stepan and Marya Ratsin? They came on a visit. Years ago it was, before the war. We can take the children to them to wait for you.’

‘Thank you, Tonya, if you are sure they will welcome them. It will only be for a few hours until the countess and I arrive.’

‘Of course they will welcome them. The Reds haven’t reached that far, have they?’

‘No, Crimea is in White hands at the moment.’ He shrugged his broad shoulders. ‘Though for how long, I cannot say.’

‘Then the sooner we set off the better.’

‘Tomorrow,’ he said.

‘Where will we get the extra horses?’ Andrei demanded suddenly. ‘We’ve only got old Tasha and she’s a bag of bones.’

Mikhail smiled at his son, though it was more than a little forced. ‘I have arranged to borrow one from the stationmaster.’

‘You surely do not mean one of those great railway horses that help shunt the trucks?’

‘Yes, there is nothing else to be had and I had to bribe Iosif Liberov with your mother’s white fur coat even for that. Ivan will return the animal when you are safely away.’ Then to Anna, who had been stitching busily the whole time, keeping her fingers on the move, trying not to think about what he was saying, ‘Have you nearly done, Annushka?’

‘There’s just this big diamond left. You haven’t taken it out of its setting.’ She held up the jewel which was set in filigree silver in the shape of a star. The diamond in its centre was very big and glittered in the light from the lamp. Graded rubies, dark as blood, were set down the centre of each arm, the corners of which held a smaller diamond.

‘It won’t budge. We’ll have to leave it like that. Can you put it in Lydia’s petticoat?’

‘I’ll try.’ She picked up her needle and the garment that Tonya had brought and set about concealing the star among its flounces. ‘She had better wear the petticoat; it will be found in our luggage if that is searched.’

‘We cannot take luggage, my love; remember we are only supposed to be going out for the day. We can put a couple of carpet bags under the seat of each carriage, but no more. Wear all you can; you will need it anyway, the weather is bitter.’

‘Mama, why are you doing that?’ Lydia asked, watching her mother poke the gem into a false pocket she had made in the seam between the body of the garment and the flounce.

‘We have to hide it, sweetheart. It is very valuable and bad men might try and take it from us if they know we have it. It is called the Kirilov Star. Did you know that?’

‘No, I didn’t. I can’t remember seeing it before.’

‘I don’t suppose you have. I haven’t worn it for a long time. Occasions for displaying such opulence have long gone. I do not know if they will ever come back. But you must take great care of it and show it to no one.’

‘I won’t.’

Mikhail sat down and drew his daughter onto his knee. ‘You are my diamond, little one, the star of the Kirilovs and you must always remember that. Be good for Papa and help Andrei to look after your mother.’

Lydia rubbed her cheek against his tunic. He had discarded his wonderful scarlet and blue uniform with its gold braid for a plain tunic and wide leather belt, such as the better class of peasants wore. It was rough but strangely comforting. ‘Aren’t you coming with us, Papa?’

‘Not right away. I shall join you later.’ He kissed the top of her head and lifted her off his knee. ‘Now off you go with Tonya and get ready for bed. You too, Andrei. We must all be up early in the morning.’