“Stay away from the edge,” she called as she sat on a bench to watch. The cold was still bitter and she didn’t fancy leaping in to rescue one of them. An image sprang into her head of Katya falling through a hole in the Ice Road. She couldn’t bear to think of her struggling and choking in panic in the freezing water. Pray God death had been instantaneous.

Her thoughts turned to her childhood, when Anastasia fell through the ice on one of the ponds at the Catherine Palace. Maria had warned her it might not take her weight, but she insisted it would and stepped out: one foot, then the next. There had been an eerie cracking sound before she fell through, arms in the air, coattails flying, and disappeared underwater. Maria was the only person nearby. She screamed with the full force of her lungs and kept screaming in blind panic. Should she crawl out onto the ice to save her sister? Anastasia’s head bobbed up, then disappeared again. Was she going to die?

One of the gardeners came running full pelt along the path and Maria pointed, screaming, “She’s in there! She fell!”

The man ripped off his jacket and spread it on the ice, then lay full length along it. He reached into the hole, groping around, then ducked his head underwater. Maria held her breath. It seemed an age but was probably only seconds before he grabbed Anastasia’s arm and pulled her up. She gave a loud gasp, spluttering for breath.

Another gardener arrived and between them they managed to ease her carefully across the ice then back onto dry land. Maria was trembling in shock, and she burst into tears as they wrapped Anastasia in their jackets. The second gardener scooped her in his arms and ran with her toward the palace.

“You’re OK,” the first one told Maria, patting her shoulder. “Don’t worry. She’ll be fine.”

Maria remembered the terrible weight of guilt. “I should have tried to save her,” she sobbed.

“Then we’d have been rescuing the two of you.” He smiled, and his face was kind. “You did the right thing. Mighty powerful lungs you’ve got.”

Anastasia did not even catch cold after her winter dip, but Maria got a fierce scolding from her mother. “Honestly, I thought you were the sensible one. Why on earth did you not stop her? I’m disappointed in you.”

That had been a common refrain in her childhood: she’d been a disappointment. She hoped none of her children felt that way. There was never any need to chastise her grandchildren, who were happy, affectionate creatures. She watched as they hunted for more stones, the air filled with their joyful shrieks. She loved the way their chuckles came from deep in their bellies. It was a sound she never tired of.