Fifteen miles away, in the Vladimir Palace in Petrograd, a royal family conference was taking place, chaired by Miechen, Vladimir’s widow.

‘Desperate situations call for desperate measures,’ she said grimly, looking around at the small group of people seated in her opulent drawing room. ‘We are all agreed, aren’t we, that something has to be done?’

‘Absolutely.’ Tall, and with the ramrod-straight bearing of a man who had been a soldier all his life, the Grand Duke Nikolai was standing sentry-like near the door. ‘But how do we do anything that will make Nicky see sense? In the past I’ve stood in front of him and threatened to shoot myself, if he didn’t change his tune and grant the kind of reforms Russians are desperate for, and what response did I get? He simply tapped ash off his cigarette, gave me that damned enigmatic smile of his and wished me good day.’

Nicky’s Uncle Paul was sitting on the arm of a chair, a glass of vodka in one hand. ‘Nikolai is right.’ He ran his free hand over still-thick hair. ‘It’s impossible to reason with Nicky, and we all know the obstacle. Alicky was bad enough before Nicky acted like a madman and took over from Nikolai as Commander-in-Chief of the Army, but now that she’s begun governing the country while Nicky is at the Stavka for months on end, we’re going to hell in a handcart. Six Ministers of War in as many months. Three Ministers of Food and Distribution. Two Prime Ministers. How can a country at war be run in such a manner? It’s insanity!’

No one in the room – Miechen, Nikolai, Misha, Ella, Paul, Paul’s twenty-five-year-old son Dmitri or Prince Felix Yusupov, who was married to one of Nicky’s nieces – disagreed with him.

Misha said, ‘It’s Rasputin who is behind every governmental change she makes. Alicky does nothing that her mad monk hasn’t suggested and approved of – and the people know it. There are queues a mile long every day outside his flat in Gorokhovaya Street, all people who want a favour, a position, all knowing that it lies in his power to see to it that their wishes are granted – if, of course, they give him what he wants.’

‘And when it comes to the women, we know what that is,’ Felix said, looking as richly dressed as if for an imperial ball and wearing a delicate touch of blue eye make-up.

It was a crudity that Miechen and Ella didn’t even blink at. Everyone knew of Rasputin’s reputation with prostitutes, and with the aristocratic women who thronged his flat, all wanting the thrill of being able to say that the Tsarina’s mad monk had indecently pleasured them.