The next days passed in a haze. Now that they were lovers, she wanted to make love all the time. She couldn’t look at Peter without feeling a tug of lust in her belly. When he went hunting for an hour or two, she hugged herself, feeling bereft without his presence. Lovemaking connected her to life again and distracted her from the rawness of her vast grief, preventing it from rising up and engulfing her. It was still there—she cried every day—but now she had something wonderful to occupy her thoughts as well.

Peter whistled as he worked around their little encampment, and seemed to have a permanent grin on his face. He brought her tiny bouquets of forest flowers and arranged blooms in her hair. He teased her when she slipped into what he called her “grand duchess ways”—correcting his grammar or wiping his beard when specks of food caught in it.

“Look how straight you sit!” He mimicked her position. “As if you are a piece of furniture.”

“My mother taught us to sit straight.” She smiled. She liked the gentleness of his humor; this man could never be cruel.

“What age are you?” she asked one day, and was surprised when he said, “Nineteen.” The same age as her. He seemed so much more mature.

Were they fooling themselves? Could a marriage between them work? He had less education than her but vastly more knowledge of the skills necessary for survival, and that seemed more important now. Was she not in her right mind, as Peter had worried? Perhaps not, but she felt as if she had changed fundamentally and would never be the old Maria again. There was no reason why the new Maria could not be the wife of Peter Vasnetsov. She knew with certainty that she wanted to be with him for the rest of her life.

* * *

The weather was changeable now, going from warm sunshine to gusty rain then back again, all within the hour. More worryingly, the temperature was plummeting at night. Peter put extra moss and leaves on the roof, creating a thick layer to trap any heat, but still Maria woke shivering in the early hours and had to cling to him for warmth.

“We can’t stay here over the winter,” Peter told her. “You know that, don’t you? I’ve been waiting as long as possible for your wounds to heal, but we must be on the move soon.”

Maria’s insides twisted in anxiety. “But where shall we go?”

“I need to find out if the Bolsheviks are still in power and which way the civil war is turning. Rather than head east toward Ekaterinburg, where we might be recognized, I think the western side of the mountains is safest.”

Maria felt a lurch of hope. “Aunt Ella, my mother’s sister, lives in Perm. Tatiana might be there.”