At last he opened his eyes and said, ‘We are to evacuate Vilna. Shishkov tried to persuade the Emperor that it was cowardly to yield the first instant the French appeared, without making any kind of a stand, and it took us all day to argue him down. Vilna would be impossible to defend, even if we had the men. We’d be trapped between the enemy and the river, with only one small wooden bridge to escape by.’

Anne nodded. ‘I see.’

‘So did the Emperor at last, thought not until Tolly and I rode out in person, and came back and assured him that the French really were coming.’

‘You’ve seen them?’ Anne said, startled.

His face seemed to grow older as she watched. ‘Yes, I’ve seen them. Poor devils, they don’t look as though they’re marching to glory. That storm took all the air out of them – and some of the horses already look half starved. We’ve stripped the country they’re marching over, so if they haven’t brought provisions with them, they’ll be hungry long before they get here. But there are thousands of them, Anna. Thousands. And how did Napoleon move so fast? It’s impossible to over-estimate that man.’

‘How long?’

‘To reach Vilna? Another two or three days, perhaps; the cavalry might get here sooner. The Emperor’s leaving tomorrow, during the night to avoid spreading panic. We’re moving headquarters to Drissa. I think you ought to leave tomorrow morning. Once the word gets out that we’re evacuating, there’ll be some pretty scenes, I don’t doubt, and the roads will be crammed with carts and coaches. You should be able to get as far as Sventsiany tomorrow – that’s about seventy-five versts. Put up in the best inn, and I’ll come to you as soon as I can.’

‘When will that be?’ she asked in a small voice.

‘The day after, I expect. I’ll know more by then – we’ll make new plans.’ He eyed her. ‘Are you afraid?’

‘No,’ she said.

He squeezed her hand. ‘That’s my brave girl. Shall we go to bed?’

‘You haven’t eaten. I was going to get you some supper.’

‘There are more important things than supper. Come, lie in my arms, Doushka, for a few hours. God knows when we’ll have the chance again! I shall have to leave you before dawn – we’re taking everything with us that we can – the city archives, food, munitions – and I shall have to help supervise the packing. What we can’t take, we’ll burn; and then we’ll destroy the bridge. He’ll find the Vilia harder work to bridge than the Nieman.’ He stood up, grimacing. ‘It’s going to be a long day.’

‘Then you’d better sleep,’ she said.

He grinned. ‘To hell with sleep. If you argue any more, I’ll think you don’t want me.’

She twisted her arm round his waist. ‘Always, always,’ she said.

He left her arms at four the next morning; dressed himself, saying that he would shave and breakfast at headquarters; kissed her once more, thoroughly, and went away. Anne turned over into the nest of warmth he had left in the bed, and cried a little; then dried her eyes, got up, and rang briskly for Pauline.

By eight o’clock, when they were ready to leave, it was already very hot, and threatening to be hotter. She longed for Adonis’s strong arms and cheerful confidence as she chivvied the servants, and supervised the loading. Rose was in a fret over Mielka, and had to be carried down the line to see him, hitched between Image and Quassy, before she was satisfied that he was not being left behind. She plainly felt her world was threatened.

‘When are we going to see Papa?’ she demanded.

‘Soon,’ Anne said distractedly.

The procession rolled away from the house, two carriages, a kibitka, and the grooms leading the riding-horses. The upper part of the town was quiet, but when they got down to the bridge over the Vilia, they had to wait their turn in a queue of carts driven by soldiers, loaded with sacks of grain and boxes of ammunition. Anne stretched her neck and stared out of the window in every direction, hoping for a glimpse of Nikolai, but there was no one higher than a sergeant in sight.

Once out on the highway, they trotted past the slow-moving carts, and got ahead of their dust, and Anne settled back against the squabs and set her mind to entertaining Rose for the long journey to Sventsiany.

On the 27th, the baking heat of the day was suddenly masked again by lowering clouds, and torrential rain began to fall; but this time it did not blow over in an hour or two. It went on, almost unremittingly, all day, and all the next day too; the temperature dropped rapidly; the rain became sleety; there were periods of hail, and violent thunder storms, and sheets and forks of lightning.

Vilna had been abandoned, and the cobbled streets which had rung for two months with footsteps and laughter were silent. The Vilia ran fast and swollen, carrying away all trace of the bridge which the Russian sappers had destroyed after the last carts had crossed it. Only the Lithuanian residents who could not leave had remained, waiting for the French to arrive, part hopeful, part resentful. They had not loved their Russian conquerors; but would French masters be any better? Napoleon had half-promised Lithuania independence – but he had promised many things to Poland which had never been fulfilled.

On the 28th, as the Russian army tramped briskly away on the road to Drissa, following in the wake of the Court, General Balashov and his Excellency Count Kirov waited in the path of the advancing French General Murat and his cavalry, with a personal letter from the Emperor to Napoleon. They were conducted into Vilna, to the archbishop’s palace, which had been Alexander’s headquarters and was now Napoleon’s.

The Emperor of the French received them after a long delay. Kirov thought he looked ill. He had put on a great deal of weight since he last saw him; the pale face was puffy, the eyes blue-shadowed, and the dark hair, which he had taken to wearing brushed straight forward à la césar, was noticeably thinning. Behind him stood Caulaincourt, who greeted both Russians courteously, but whose eyes sought Kirov’s with some message of sorrow and apology. Kirov knew that he had constantly advised Napoleon against the invasion, and was probably still trying to persuade him to give it up; and that he had no hope of succeeding.

‘So!’ said Napoleon, with a flash of scorn, waving the letter at them, ‘my brother Alexander, who was so high and mighty with the Comte de Narbonne, would now like to negotiate! He asks the reasons for this war – as if he didn’t know them! – and graciously condescends to offer negotiation once my troops have withdrawn behind the Nieman!’

‘Your Highness knows–’ Balashov began, but Napoleon cut him short.

‘I know that my manoeuvres have already frightened you, and that within a month I shall bring you to your knees! I have not come this far to negotiate! The sword is now drawn, it cannot be sheathed. Does your Emperor take me for a fool?’

‘No, Sire,’ Kirov answered. ‘But this is a war you cannot win. His Majesty wishes to avoid pointless loss of life, which will be very heavy if your highness continues on this venture.’

Napoleon slammed his fist down into his palm. ‘Very heavy? On your side perhaps! Count, my friend, count up the numbers! Your infantry numbers a hundred and twenty thousand men, and your cavalry sixty thousand – yes, you see, I know everything about you! But I have three times as many. How can I lose?’

‘Numbers are not everything, Sire,’ said Kirov. ‘How can you feed such a great army? You will be marching through barren, wasted land, and you have no supply depots, as we have.’

‘I’ve seen what remained of one here in Vilna! What’s the point of building up supply depots, if you simply burn them and run away, instead of using them for the purpose of battle?’ He whipped round on Balashov. ‘Aren’t you ashamed, you Russians? Since the time of Peter the Great, your country has never been invaded, yet here I am at Vilna, having captured an entire province without firing a single shot.’

Balashov’s face was immobile as ever. ‘I can assure your highness that Russians will fight like tigers to defend their own homeland. Patriotic fervour runs in our soldiers’ veins, and they will have more urgency in the fight to protect their homes, than your men in trying to take them.’

Napoleon shrugged that away and changed the subject. ‘Your Emperor is a novice in war and he conducts his campaign through a council. Now when I have an idea, at any time of the day or night, it is put into execution within half an hour. But with you, Armfelt proposes, Bennigsen examines, Tolly deliberates, Phull opposes, and nothing is done at all. You simply waste your time. That’s no way to conduct a war!’

For an hour Napoleon talked to them, alternately cajoling and threatening; then he dismissed them, but ordered them to remain at headquarters. Later he invited them to take dinner with him and his chiefs of staff, and continued in the same vein to assure them that they were outnumbered, that they could not possibly win, and that they had better yield now and ask for his forgiveness.

At one point his banter descended into a kind of primitive rage, and he shouted insults at them, only stopping when he saw the look of disapproval on Caulaincourt’s stem face. Napoleon’s brow cleared and he put on a smile instead. ‘Emperor Alexander treats his ambassadors well, charming them and treating them like his own countrymen. Here before you is one of his principal chevaliers – he has made a Russian of Caulaincourt!’

There was a heartbeat of silence, and Kirov saw with acute sympathy the pain and anger in the grave courtier’s eyes. For a moment Caulaincourt could not answer; and when he spoke, his resentment was clear in his voice. ‘It is doubtless because my frankness has too often proved that I am a good Frenchman, that Your Majesty now seems inclined to doubt it. The marks of kindness with which I was so often honoured by Emperor Alexander were intended for Your Majesty. As your faithful subject, Sire, I shall never forget it.’