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PROLOGUE
I
CRIMEAN PENINSULA
JULY 1918
The old woman stood with tears in her eyes as two men loaded the last of the three wooden trunks onto the back of a hay wagon. The first was filled to the top with strings of pearls, loose diamonds, and precious stones. Gold bars and coins in the second. The third contained the jewelry gifted to the royal family over the last three hundred years, diamond-studded tiaras, necklaces, and rings. She ignored all of it, her gaze only on the much smaller chest that her maid was carrying to the wagon.
“Wait!” she commanded.
Her maid turned toward her. “What’s wrong?”
How could she voice her feelings at such a time? The jewels and gold meant nothing to her. But that last chest . . . She watched as the man, Pyotr, took it from her maid. “One last look.”
Pyotr deferred to the other man, a stranger to her, who climbed into the front of the wagon, taking the reins of the two horses that were champing at the bit. “We’re already late.”
She turned toward Pyotr. “Please . . .”
“Be quick.” He set the small chest on the back of the wagon, stepping back to allow her access.
Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna lifted the latch, opened the lid, then pulled off the layer of lamb’s wool, revealing four bejeweled eggs that she’d managed to take with her when she went into hiding after the Bolsheviks took over Russia. Her breath caught as she lifted the Royal Danish Egg, cradling it in her hands. It had nothing to do with the beauty of the moonlight reflecting on the precious stones set in gold, surrounding the white and light blue enamel, nor the meticulous workmanship by the jeweler, Fabergé, who wrought each so that it was a masterpiece of beauty and delight to any who beheld it.
“Enough,” the driver said coldly.
“Give her a moment,” the maid told him.
“They’re just jewels.”
“To you,” Maria said, taking in every facet. “To me, these hold memories . . .”
This particular egg contained a surprise of miniature portraits of her parents. Given to her by her late husband, they were the stories of happier times with him, her children, and later her grandchildren, who were still so very young.
“You’ll see your family again,” her maid said. “I know it.”
She nodded, swallowing the lump in her throat, and lowered the egg into its lamb’s wool nest next to the other three. “Thank you . . .”
Pyotr, about to close the lid, suddenly looked at her. “Do they know how many eggs are here?”
Maria shook her head. “No. Only that I was going to include them.”
He eyed the small case, then removed the egg she’d held, fluffing up the downy wool and repositioning the others so that it looked as though the case had only contained three.
She took it from him, holding back her tears. “I have no way to repay you. Thank you.”
“Tell no one. Ever.”
“I won’t,” she said as he covered the cargo under the hay in the wagon, then climbed into the front. “I promise.”
He gave a nod as the driver shook the reins, the horses racing off with a king’s ransom in the back of the wagon. Watching until it disappeared, Maria Feodorovna hugged the egg to her chest, equal parts of hope and terror filling her heart.
—
“YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE done that,” the driver told Pyotr as the wagon jarred across the hardened dirt road.
“Why not?”
“Because it belongs to the people.”
“They won’t miss one small thing. Not with everything that she turned over to us.”
“That’s not for you to decide.”
Pyotr saw the firm set to the man’s jaw. He didn’t pretend to know what the revolution was about, beyond the Bolsheviks’ belief that the Emperor and his family had lived in excess and splendor while the masses faced hunger and an uncertain future. The people’s wrath carried over, even after Nicholas II had stepped down from the throne and the royal family was imprisoned.
Some of it, he understood. Much, he did no
t. “What difference does it make if we allow her a few happy memories in her time of fear?”
“The difference? You sound as though you sympathize with her.”
“She’s just an old woman.”
“You’d be wise to keep those thoughts to yourself, lest you end up like her family.”
Having worked for the Romanovs for a number of years, the last thing Pyotr wanted or needed was for anyone to think of him as a sympathizer. In these times, that line of thinking led to death. “I wasn’t thinking. You’re right.”
The man said something below his breath, then urged the team of horses faster. For the next several days, Pyotr never mentioned the Romanovs, and he hoped that the incident with the Dowager Empress was long forgotten. It was nightfall by the time they reached Yekaterinburg, but instead of driving toward the governor’s house where the Romanovs were imprisoned, they turned left.
“Where are we going?” Pyotr asked.
“Meeting someone to drop this off.”
Panic set in. “If we don’t deliver this in time, they’ll kill the royal family.”