“We can’t go to Ekaterinburg,” he said at last. “We need to get as far from here as we can. We’ll worry about finding your sister later.”

“But how will we find her?”

“I don’t know.”

She saw he was fashioning a kind of bowl from the mud, shaping it with his curved palms. He held it over the fire, turning it this way and that, jacket sleeves pulled down to protect his hands from the heat. It was pale gray in color and she could see it becoming solid as she watched. It must be clay.

“Tatiana is clever,” she told him. “She will know what to do. We just need to find her.”

Peter didn’t say anything, but after a while, he rose and went back to the lake, where he scooped some water into his makeshift bowl.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“I’m boiling water to clean your wounds, if you will allow me. We can’t risk infection setting in.”

He placed his bowl in the fire, fanned the flames around it, then sat watching as the water heated.

“Won’t the guards see the smoke?” she panicked.

He shook his head. “The wind is blowing in the other direction and we are sheltered by that rock face.” He pointed behind her.

“You won’t leave me, will you?” she asked, remembering that not long before, she had begged him to do just that while he went back for the rest of her family.

“I won’t,” he said, in a tone that made her understand she could trust him.

She lay back and rested for a while, but opened her eyes when she felt him dabbing the side of her head with a handkerchief soaked in boiled water.

“I’m sorry to wake you,” he apologized. “The bullet only grazed your temple. There’s a lot of blood but it should heal quickly. Where are the other wounds?”

She placed a hand on the blood-soaked bodice of her gown, where the pain was throbbing and incessant. “Here. And in my leg.” She touched the spot on her outer thigh.

“Do I have your permission to dress them?” he asked, his eyes serious, his tone formal.

“Yes,” she said, then added, “Thank you,” in a quiet voice.

She closed her eyes as he cut open the front of her gown with a knife and cleaned around the gash in her abdomen. She could feel he was doing his best to protect her modesty, exposing no more than was strictly necessary, but still it felt strange to be touched there by a man she hardly knew.

“There are jewels in your bodice,” he said. “It seems they deflected the bayonet thrust. They almost certainly saved your life.”

“You saved my life,” she murmured.