Alicky was happier than she had been for a very long time as they set out together on their carriage ride. It was a beautiful September day and the novelty of being out alone with Alexei, with no one else within sight but the carriage driver, was such a rarity to her as to be a gift from heaven. She loved the sounds and scents of the forest: the rustle of the leaves; the birdsong; the fragrance of wild mint and marjoram; the tranquillity. She loved knowing that the great ancient swathes of oak, hornbeam and lime stretched not for a few miles on either side of them, but for untrammelled scores of miles. And she loved sharing in Alexei’s pleasure as, in sun-dappled forest clearings, they caught glimpses of majestic, huge-antlered bison or clusters of deer.

As they bowled down the narrow sandy paths she was reminded of long-ago carriage rides with her Granny Queen whenever, as a small child and then as a young girl, she had visited her at Balmoral or Osborne. For Granny Queen, an afternoon carriage ride had been obligatory, no matter what the weather; and the colder it had been, the better Granny Queen had liked it.

Alicky was so deep in happy memories of the past that when Alexei said suddenly and with a catch in his voice, ‘I’m getting a tummy-ache, Mama,’ she didn’t at first take much notice of it. Absent-mindedly she patted his hand, her thoughts full of Balmoral and its nearby mountains at sunset. He squeezed hold of her hand tightly. ‘I’m getting a tummy-ache fast, Mama.’

This time he had her attention and, when she turned her head towards him, her heart nearly failed her. He was as white as a sheet and trembling.

‘Oh, dear God,’ she whispered. ‘Oh, dear, dear God!’ And then, to the driver, ‘The Tsesarevich has been taken ill. We must return to the lodge immediately.’

The carriage slewed around so abruptly that Alexei fell against her. ‘I have a pain at the top of my leg, Mama,’ he said, clinging to her. ‘At the top of my leg, where I banged it.’

Both of them knew what it signified – and the only doctor at Spala was Botkin, who was efficiency itself when it came to coughs, colds and childish ailments, but totally out of his depth when it came to haemophiliac bleeds.

The forest pathways were bumpy and uneven, jolting the carriage almost continually. With every abrupt rocking movement, Alexei screamed in pain. Despite the urgency of reach-ing the lodge in the quickest time possible, Alicky kept calling out for the driver to slow down and then, whenever the sandy path grew a little smoother, demanding that he speed up.