‘Sergei was out scouting with his troop near Kovno, on the Nieman. The French have built three pontoon bridges across the river, and they started crossing a few hours ago. It has begun.’ She could think of nothing to say. He turned abruptly. ‘I must go to the Emperor,’ he said, but before he had gone two steps, there was Balashov, apparently on his way to find out what had been happening at the wicket. In a few words Kirov told him what he had told Anne.

Balashov’s grave face, the unrevealing face necessary for a minister of police, did not change. ‘Very well. I’ll tell His Majesty. Go and find Tolly, will you, and tell him?’

The two men went different ways, leaving Anne beached and forgotten. She stood where she was, not knowing what to do with herself, or with the picture that had been planted in her mind. She saw a broad river, silver in the moonlight; three black pontoons spanning it; and over the pontoons, like an army of ants, the close-packed columns, more and more and more of them, more than could be counted; dark except for the white flash of their leggings, and the pin pricks of moonlight glinting from the tips of their bayonets. Thousand upon thousand, pouring into Russia with the pitilessness of insects, swarming over the bridges, marching towards Vilna…

With a distant part of her attention, she saw Balashov walk up to the Emperor, murmur a few words in his ear. The Emperor nodded, and then turned away and carried on chatting to the elderly lady beside him. Perhaps it had all been a dream, Anne thought. Perhaps Sergei had not really been there at all. She tried to walk forward, but her feet seemed rooted to the ground. Definitely a dream, then. She looked down at them, and they seemed a very long way away. The pale green satin of her slippers was darkened by the dew from the longer grass of the river bank; she noticed the exact shape of the mark, and it seemed somehow important to remember it.

Then Nikolai was beside her again, his hand gripping her forearm to hold her attention.

‘Anna, listen! The Emperor’s leaving, and I have to go with him; but he doesn’t want anyone to know the news yet. He wants the ball to go on. I can’t take you with me – you’ll have to stay for a while. But in half an hour’s time you can have a headache, excuse yourself to Madame Bennigsen, and go home. Go straight home, and tomorrow morning, begin packing. I’ll come to you when I can.’

She desperately wanted some kind of reassurance, but she knew she mustn’t delay him: he now had far more important things on his mind than her. She bit back the useless questions that jumped into her mouth, and said, ‘Yes, I understand.’

He was already turning away, but with the last unconsumed fraction of his attention, he recognised her effort, and paused to catch her chin and deliver one hard but loving kiss. ‘Good girl,’ he said. And then he was gone.

The day seemed endless. During the morning the bright skies clouded over, and by noon they had drawn down in a dark blanket over the whole sky. There’s going to be a storm, Anne thought, pausing in the act of folding a gown to look out of the window. The air was oppressive, like a damp hand muffling everything, making it hard to breathe; and in the back of her mind, the ant-soldiers marched, marched, their white legs swinging all together in a rippling row, left right left right, tramping down the road from Kovno. How long would it take for them to reach Vilna? How far was it? Fifty – sixty miles? The clouds were black and purple now, and the daylight was strange and muted. It was like a dreadful omen – but for whom? For them or for the French?

A light scraping and thumping sound made her turn, and there was Rose, walking with Mile Parmoutier supporting her from behind, her face screwed up with concentration, the tip of her tongue protruding from between her teeth. Anne held out her arms, and Rose came to her, and exchanged her governess’s hands for her mother’s waist. They looked out of the window together.

‘Maman, why is it dark?’ she asked.

‘There’s going to be a storm, chérie, that’s all. Thunder and lightning. Nothing to be afraid of.’

Rose considered the answer, looking up at her mother. The crooked eye seemed a little less crooked of late, and quite a lot of the iris was showing. Anne smoothed the soft fawn hair away from the bony forehead and tried to smile.

‘But you’re afraid,’ Rose observed, her one eye searching.

‘A little,’ Anne admitted. ‘But it’s silly to be afraid. Storms can’t hurt you.’

‘Giorgy says the French are coming,’ she said bluntly. ‘He’s afraid of them. Will we have to go away?’

‘Yes, I think so.’

‘Where?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Will the French kill us?’

The question, so innocently spoken, exposing the root of Anne’s fears, made her wince. ‘No, darling. We’ll be gone before they get here.’

Rose came now to the heart of her own anxiety. She tugged at Anne’s waist with the urgency of it. ‘Will we take Mielka?’ Anne laughed shakily, and hugged her daughter briefly. ‘Oh, darling, of course we will! Mielka will go everywhere with us. We wouldn’t leave him behind.’

Rose’s smile became radiant, and she was content then to resume looking out of the window. There was lightning now, flickering greenish against the indigo clouds. Parmoutier came and stood beside Anne too, and they watched and waited in silence. Suddenly the air was stirred by a breath of cold wind, just as if a damp blanket had been lifted, and the governess shivered and said, ‘Here it comes!’

A second later there was a flash of lightning followed instantly by a tremendous crash of thunder, so loud that it made them all jump, and Anne bit her tongue. Another cold breath, and a few heavy drops fell on the step of the verandah, leaving dark circles in the pale dust; and then the rain came down. It fell in an almost solid sheet, hissing on the dry earth and blotting out the distance. The trees shifted and whispered, and the smell of rain came in through the open windows to the waiting women, green, refreshing, delicious.

An old woman, one of the locally hired servants, came shuffling in to push past them without ceremony and close the windows. The sound of the rain diminished; the stale warmth of the room closed round them, cutting them off from the drenched garden outside, where the lightning still flickered and flashed.

‘Standing by an open window!’ the old woman grumbled. ‘Catch your death, Barina, and the little one too! Well, this’ll teach that Napoleon to come crossing our borders. His men’ll be drowning in it, and I hope he drowns too. Good riddance to him! Let me get to the other window, Barina, before that carpet gets soaked.’

Anne and Parmoutier exchanged a glance. Yes, the rain would be very bad for the marching soldiers! It would slow them down – and roads would become quagmires. ‘God is on our side, madame,’ Parmoutier said softly.

The old woman, overhearing, crossed herself. ‘Amen to that! God is on the side of the righteous.’

The storm passed quickly, and a calm, bright, fresh afternoon followed. There was no word from Nikolai, and no one came near the house. Anne’s sense of unreality grew. At one moment she thought that perhaps everyone had left Vilna, and she was alone in the path of the oncoming French. At others she thought perhaps the French were not coming after all, and everyone knew it except her. As the afternoon faded into evening, and the rain-washed air grew chilly, Pauline came out to her with a shawl, and asked her diffidently if she would take dinner inside or on the terrace.

‘Dinner?’ she said vaguely, and became aware that she was extremely hungry.

‘You have eaten nothing all day, madame,’ Pauline said sternly.

Nor the evening before, Anne remembered suddenly. The news had interrupted her and Nikolai before they had had time to eat supper. All she had had was a glass of champagne. She laughed, and Pauline looked at her quizzically.

‘Yes, I’ll have dinner here,’ she said, and glanced towards the house. ‘Is everything all right, Pauline?’

‘They were all very frightened before,’ Pauline answered, ‘but now they see you so calm, they think everything must be well. We are all waiting for news.’

‘Are you afraid?’ Anne asked curiously. It must be hard for the maid, caught between her own people and her adopted people. Either side might take her for a spy.

Pauline shrugged. ‘If you are not afraid, madame, why should I be? I go where you go, and as long as you are safe, so am I.’

‘You want to stay with me? You don’t want to go to – to the other side?’

Pauline looked contemptuous. ‘They are not my people,’ she said. ‘That one, that Bonaparte, he holds my people in thrall as much as everyone else.’

‘Ah, is that how you see it?’ Anne said thoughtfully.

It was late when Kirov came home, looking bone-weary. Anne guessed he had not slept or eaten since she saw him last. She was still sitting on the verandah, beginning to feel chilly now, but unable to bring herself to go in, out of the soft summer twilight and into the stuffy darkness. Once she went in, the day would be over, and it might be her last day in Vilna, her last day of peace.

He came to her and kissed her, and sat down beside her, stretching out his legs and sighing with weariness.

‘Shall I get you some supper?’ she asked.

‘In a minute,’ he said. ‘Sit with me a while first.’ He reached out a hand and she gave him hers, and he carried it back to his lap and held it there, caressing it lightly, his eyes closed. Through their linked hands, communication passed. She understood that they were to be parted, and that, as she had wanted to savour the last of this day, so he wanted to savour these moments with her while he could.