Mercifully, and with characteristic speed, Willy changed the subject yet again. ‘How’s my godson?’

‘He’s nine months old and bald as a badger.’

Four children in seven years had shown May that, when it came to babies, she wasn’t naturally maternal.

With a mood change as swift as his change of subject, Willy barked with laughter. ‘You have three fine sons. I have six strapping sons. And poor old Nicky can’t get a son to save his life.’ His satisfaction at his own virility was blatant. ‘Alicky and I don’t get on well any more. All that Kindred Spirit nonsense ended long ago, where she is concerned. If you are still in close contact with her, you might tell her to put a stop to all this religious palaver with so-called holy men that she’s begun resorting to, in the belief it will help her conceive a boy. My ambassador in St Petersburg says she’s gone from being merely unpopular to being actively disliked. Hides herself away at Tsarskoe Selo, somewhere no member of the public can ever see her. Nicky should take her in hand, but he won’t. I’m fond of Nicky – he’s a splendid chap, but weak as water.’

At his mention of Kindred Spirit nonsense, May had come to an abrupt halt. As Willy came to a halt, too, waiting for her to catch up with him, she said dry-mouthed, ‘Do you remember the Kindred Spirit blood-pact the three of us made years ago on the beach at Osborne? Alicky and I have kept it up, but you haven’t, Willy. By regarding it as nonsense, you’ve broken it.’

The hairs on the nape of her neck prickled.

‘Is that why bad things have begun happening, Willy? Alicky not being able to give Russia an heir? Me living in daily dread of receiving a black-edged telegram telling me that one, or maybe all, of my brothers fighting in the Transvaal has been killed? You not having the respect shown to you that, as Granny Queen’s eldest grandchild, should be shown?’

He stared at her. Willy believed very deeply in portents and signs. And things were always going wrong for him. He was always being criticized in the British and German press for saying things that would have been better left unsaid.

‘With regard to the blood-pact’ – a pulse had begun throbbing at the corner of his jaw – ‘if it’s been broken, can it also be mended?’

‘No. Blood-pacts and vows don’t work like that.’

If Willy didn’t want to believe something, he always found it very easy not to. And he didn’t want to believe that bad things were going to happen to him, now that the blood-pact between himself, May and Alicky had been broken.