And now Sergei had another message from the outside world, which—if their luck held—he would smuggle in with their daily provisions.
Olga coughed violently in the next room, patting her chest operatically, and Anastasia flew away from the window and Tatiana buried her needlework under her wide skirt, then snatched up the volume of Pushkin by her side.
The new commandant, Yakov Yurovsky, a sinister creature with a thick mane of black hair, a black goatee, and a gratingly insincere manner about him, burst in, apologizing for the intrusion at the same time that his cold gray eyes scanned the room for contraband or mischief of any kind. “I expect you heard the barrage last night.”
“We did,” the Tsar—now simply referred to as Nicholas—said, as he entered from the adjoining study. He was wearing his customary military tunic—with its epaulettes ripped off by the Red Guards—and a pair of threadbare jodhpurs.
“I trust it did not interfere with your sleep.”
Anastasia knew, as did everyone, that his concern was a joke, but it was a joke that they all had to play along with. She could see a faint fire blaze up in her father’s eyes, but as usual he suppressed it and simply assured the commandant that they had all slept soundly.
“Further precautions may have to be taken to ensure your safety,” Yurovsky said, and seeing the Tsaritsa—called merely Alexandra now—inching into the room with one hand pressed to the small of her aching back, added, “A hot compress, with powdered sage, will do much to alleviate the pain of sciatica.” He said it with the same bland authority he always assumed. Anastasia had the impression that he wished to be taken for a physician, though Dr. Botkin had assured her privately that the man was a complete fraud.
“Thank you,” Alexandra replied, in the same even tone her husband adopted. “If you would be so kind as to provide some sage, I will try it.”
Anastasia knew Yurovsky would never send the sage, and even if he did, her mother would never use it. It was all a grand pantomime in which her whole family, and their ruthless captors, continued to engage. The Bolsheviks pretended to be protecting the imperial family from harm, the Romanovs pretended to believe it, and everyone walked on pins and needles, afraid of provoking the situation into an explosion of some kind.
“How is the boy?” Yurovsky asked. “Walking yet?”
Alexei, bored out of his wits at the confinement, had played a stupid trick, riding his sled down some stairs, and the injuries ever since had laid him up. Dr. Botkin, with limited means at his disposal, did everything he could, but the pain was excruciating, and the former heir to the Russian throne was stuck in his bed, his legs raised, and much of the time delirious from fever.
“No, not yet,” Nicholas said. “If he could once again receive the electrical stimulation treatments provided by the doctor in town, it might help.”
Yurovsky nodded thoughtfully, and said, “I shall look into that.”
Ana knew what that meant. Nothing.
“Will we be receiving some rations today?” Alexandra asked, and to this Yurovsky said, “As soon as the soldiers and my staff are taken care of, I’ll see what’s left.”
Oh, how he must have relished the opportunity to put the Tsaritsa in her place like that. Ana thought she even saw her father’s right hand clench into a fist for a second, before he slipped it behind his back. She wished that just once her father would let fly, hang the consequences.
After Yurovsky had completed a brief inspection of the premises—lifting Alexei’s blanket to be sure his leg still looked purple and swollen, studying her mother’s many icons just so he could sully them with his touch, licentiously fingering her sister’s nightgowns neatly folded at the foot of their cots—he strolled out, and everyone at last breathed a temporary sigh of relief.
It was then that Ana shared the news that Sergei had another message for them. Several times over the past few weeks, he had brought messages from an anonymous White officer who was planning a daring rescue mission, and perhaps this would be the one announcing that the attempt was imminent.