Peter left her to her own thoughts, asking only if she was warm enough, or if she would like some food or water. She wished she had another gown to change into instead of the one she was wearing with a slash in the bodice. By turning her petticoat back to front she could stop her flesh being exposed, but she felt tainted. Each day Peter checked her wounds, looking for signs of heat or redness or swelling that could indicate infection. When he lowered his head and sniffed them, she asked, “What are you doing?”

“I would be able to smell if an infection was taking hold,” he said. “But you are healing well.”

She didn’t care if she healed or not. It seemed irrelevant. She didn’t even ask him where they were heading or if he had a plan. Somehow she couldn’t bring herself to care.

During the afternoon of the third day, they arrived at an abandoned half-ruined hut. The roof had collapsed inward and the interior was full of rubble and animal droppings. Peter laid her on a grassy bank nearby and went inside.

“I thought we could stay here till your wounds heal,” he called through the doorway. “No one will find us in such a remote spot.”

She nodded. All around was silent and still, with only the barest breath of wind ruffling the topmost branches of the trees and a few birds calling from afar. She had never been anywhere so quiet.

White clouds meandered past in the vast blue sky and she lay back to watch. Her brain was awash with emotions: guilt, anger, and sorrow, all mixed together. Sometimes her fury with the assassins came to the forefront, at other times her guilt that she had abandoned her family. Grief always hovered in the background, so immense that she could not let herself give into it for fear of being swallowed up.

Peter occupied himself with clearing the hut, then he used his knife to cut some spruce branches with which to repair the roof. Maria twisted to watch as he arranged the fronds in an overlapping pattern. He jumped down and stood inside the hut, peering upward to check for gaps, then hacked off more branches to fill them. Once he’d finished, he collected armfuls of fallen leaves and moss and arranged them over the top, before bringing further armfuls to create a floor covering inside. It was clear he had done this before.

He vanished for a moment, then appeared by her side with the clay bowl full of water.

“Drink,” he said, and she obeyed. The water was icy.

“Do you think I must have committed terrible sins to be so punished?” she asked him. “Perhaps I should have been a better sister and a better daughter. I often argued with Anastasia, and sometimes I hid when Alexei wanted to play with me. Do you think God has cursed me for my selfishness?”