Autumn came, and both Peter and Maria succumbed to a nasty cold and cough. It was nice to have an excuse not to get out of bed as the skies outside darkened and the temperature dropped. Ludmilla brought hot soup, and made Peter’s elecampane infusion under his careful instruction. When both developed fevers, she called a doctor, but there was little he could recommend except bed rest and plenty of fluids.

As they lay side by side, Peter and Maria whispered reminiscences: of Stepan’s birth in a barn; of their coworkers at the pig-iron factory; of the sentimental song “The Little Blue Scarf” that everyone used to sing in wartime, both in Leningrad and in the Norilsk gulag. Trivia, really.

Sometimes Maria watched Peter while he slept, his complexion pale and his breathing labored, and wondered which of them would die first. She wasn’t sure she would survive the news of his death a second time. To attend his funeral knowing that she would never see him again on this earth would be intolerable. Yet at the same time she did not want him to have the pain of losing her. She would rather spare him that sorrow.

The doctor came again and listened to Maria’s breathing first, then to Peter’s, before pronouncing them much improved. Their lungs were not so congested, he said. There was no reason they should not get up soon, although he recommended they stay indoors for the remainder of the week.

That night, Maria slept with Peter’s arm around her. She loved to feel the weight of it resting across her waist. His face was so close she could smell the sourness of his breath and hear a tiny rattle in his throat. She roused slightly in pitch blackness and noticed his breaths were faint, with long gaps between. He was in the fathomless depths of sleep.

“I love you,” she whispered, not thinking he would hear, but she felt a tiny movement of his finger where it rested against her back and knew that he had. She shifted her head a little to kiss him on the lips, then let herself slide back into the seductive darkness of sleep.

When Stepan came with tea in the morning, he found them pale and stiff, their skin cool to the touch. Both had passed away gently in the night. Their expressions were calm and their lips still touching.

Epilogue

Peterhof, 2007

ONE EVENING STEPAN SWITCHED ON THE TELEVISION news just in time to hear the young blond newsreader announce that two more graves thought to belong to Romanovs had been found near Ekaterinburg.

“One of the bodies is said to be Alexei and the other is either Maria or Anastasia,” she said. “That means all the family are now accounted for.”