‘Buck up, Ducky,’ he said. ‘Only another few hours of this droning on and we’ll be on the home-straight and heading for the celebration dinner.’

‘Alicky behaved magnificently,’ Sergei said three hours later, as he and Ella took their places in the banqueting hall. ‘Her unfortunate unpopularity of the last months will, now that the people can see how impressive she is on a great state occasion, soon be forgotten. I don’t think even Catherine the Great could have looked as regal as Alicky did today – and she certainly couldn’t have looked as beautiful.’

Ella flushed with pleasure, pleased at Sergei’s praise of her little sister. ‘She was faultless, wasn’t she?’ she said. ‘And it can’t have been easy for her. Her legs have begun troubling her when she becomes overtired, and if she wasn’t overtired by the time today’s ceremony was over, she must be now, poor darling.’

Both of them looked to where, by rigid tradition, Nicky and Alicky were dining apart, wearing their coronation robes and their crowns. Alicky still looked stunningly regal, but Nicky’s gold crown had been made for Catherine the Great and sat far too low over his eyebrows.

Vladimir, who was seated on the other side of Sergei, said drily, ‘Our Tsar looks like a small boy playing at dressing-up.’

Sergei grunted agreement. ‘I have things other than Nicky on my mind at the moment. The day after tomorrow is the traditional coronation feast for the people. It’s going to be held at the old military training field. Four hundred thousand are expected, and it’s down to me to see that it goes off without any revolutionaries baying for an end to the monarchy – and for equal rights for everyone – causing trouble. I’m not going to relax until it’s over.’

Vladimir grinned. ‘That job is one of the penances of being Governor-General of Moscow. And if you are expecting four hundred thousand, trust me when I say that, with free food and beer being given out, it’s more likely to be seven hundred thousand. It’s going to be mayhem. Make sure you have plenty of policemen there.’

Two days later, news of the tragedy came before it was even fully daylight.

‘Forty dead! Possibly even fifty,’ Vladimir announced grimly, marching in while Nicky was still having breakfast. ‘I told Sergei he’d need every possible policeman there.’

‘What? Where?’ A totally bewildered Nicky stumbled to his feet.

‘Khodynka Field. You and Alicky are due to make an appearance there this afternoon. With luck, the bodies will have been removed by then, but all the same . . . it’s going to be seen as a bad-luck omen.’

‘I still don’t understand. How can forty or fifty people be dead?’ The blood drained from Nicky’s face. ‘Was it a bomb, which was meant for me and Alicky and exploded early?’