Anne and Pauline climbed into the carriage; Nikolai and Adonis mounted their horses. Behind the courtyard, in the strip of rough grass between the house and the tree line, there was a newly formed mound of brown earth. Kirov looked back at it as they rode out of the gate. They had buried Sergei in the ground, wrapped in the burka: they had no coffin for him. Stenka had promised to cover the mound with stones, to keep the winter wolves from digging it up.

As the sun began to rise, the battlefield below was revealed in all its horror, a desert of fallen men and horses, thousands dead, thousands still suffering, moaning in their mortal pain. Scattered amongst them were broken lances, shattered breastplates and helmets, shell fragments, splintered gun carriages. Around the fortifications, now battered almost level, the bodies lay in heaps like discarded rags, mute witness of the many times the defences had changed hands in the course of the battle. In the stream gullies, where the wounded had instinctively dragged themselves to be out of the firing, they were tangled and heaped, living and dead together; the wounded drowning in their own blood, crying pitifully for help, or at least for a bullet to end their misery.

The road towards Moscow was packed with the retreating army, marching wearily, but in good order. Six miles distant, the town of Mozhaisk was already filled with wounded, who had managed to drag themselves thus far, hoping for transportation to Moscow and hospital treatment. Here a young white-faced subaltern met them with obvious relief, to say that Kirov was wanted urgently, and Colonel Toll was looking for him.

‘Wait one moment,’ Kirov told the boy, and dismounting, walked stiffly up to the carriage window. He reached up and clasped Anne’s hand. ‘Go on to Moscow as fast as you can. Don’t stop for anyone, or you may find your carriage stolen from you. When you get there, you had better hide the horses. We’ve already asked Rostopchin several times for horses to transport the wounded, and anything that moves in Moscow will have been requisitioned or stolen by now.’

‘Yes. I understand.’ She felt keenly his ability in the midst of everything to feel such minute concern for her.

‘I’ll send word to Byeloskoye when I can. I suppose we’ll make another stand further down the road, but where remains to be seen. Keep yourself safe at all costs.’

‘Yes, Nikolai,’ Anne said dutifully. He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it once, and then he was turning away, duty calling him relentlessly. ‘God bless you!’ she called after him, but he didn’t seem to have heard. She watched him take his horse’s rein; but her coachman, understandably nervous, cracked his whip and drove on before she had even seen him mounted.

The last few miles of the road into Moscow were packed with refugees, deserters and wounded soldiers. Anne had been forced to travel slowly, since there was no possibility of a change of horses. She began to appreciate the value of the pair she had harnessed up, and told Tolka that if anyone tried to stop them, he was to whip the horses up and run them down if necessary. Many people looked round as they heard the horses coming, and once or twice wounded men hailed them and begged for a ride into the city, but Tolka obeyed orders, and they trotted past with the window blinds drawn. When they finally turned into the yard at Byelsokoye, Anne drew a sigh of relief. She ordered the porter to keep the gate locked at all times, and to let no one in without permission; and told Stepan to arrange with the other grooms to keep guard over the horses twenty-four hours a day.

Mikhailo opened the door to her with a mixture of surprise and relief which would have amused Anne if she had not been so tired.

‘Oh, Barina! Praise be to the saints you are safe! When we heard there had been a battle at Borodino, we were sure you had been killed.’

‘Thank you, Mikhailo. I am perfectly well. Is the master here?’

‘Yes, Barina – in the drawing-room. But is it true the French are coming? They say our army is in retreat. We hear such things Barina! No one seems to know if the battle was won or lost–’

‘The battle was won. Our army is withdrawing to a new strongpoint, to make another stand, that’s all. There’s nothing to be afraid of,’ Anne said, walking towards the stairs.

‘Yes, Barina,’ Mikhailo said grimly.

Anne knew she had not sounded convincing. ‘I’m very tired, and hungry from the journey,’ she said, as if in explanation. ‘Bring me up something to eat at once, will you?’ And she hurried up the stairs before he could ask her anything else.

In the drawing-room, she found Basil, Jean-Luc and Rose sitting on the floor in front of the fire, playing spillikins. Basil’s face was strained, and there were dark circles under his eyes, as though he had not slept much of late; he looked up as she entered, with apprehension changing to relief when he saw her. Jean-Luc looked as he always did, and his expression was inscrutable – but, he was an actor, and that was his business. She could never tell what he was thinking.

Rose looked pale and listless, but her face lit up flatteringly, and she cried out ‘Maman!’ and began at once to pull herself up by a chair leg. Anne was across the room in an instant, and swept her daughter up into her arms. Rose’s arms went round her neck, and she planted a wet kiss on Anne’s cheek, and then complained loudly, ‘You missed my birthday Maman! I was three years old and you weren’t here! Papa and Zho-Zho wanted to give me a party, but there’s no one here any more. Did you bring me a present?’

Anne kissed and hugged her, and then put her down. ‘No, darling, I couldn’t. When the war is over, I’ll buy you a lovely present, but not now.’

‘Are the French coming?’ Rose asked with interest. ‘Everybody’s run away, except Papa. He’s very brave.’

Anne met Basil’s eye, and he gave a faint, weak smile, and shook his head.

‘I’ll tell you everything later,’ he said with a significant look at Rose.

‘I’ll take Rose down to the kitchen,’ Jean-Luc said, rising gracefully to his feet in one movement. ‘Shall we go and make a surprise for Maman, poupée?’

Rose was easily beguiled out of the room, and when they were alone Anne said, ‘I must admit I’m surprised to find you here, Basil Andreyevitch. I’d have thought you’d go straight to Petersburg from Tver, in view of the situation. What brought you back?’

‘Mainly the sight of so many carts laden with possessions heading out of Moscow,’ he said. It might have been a joke, but it wasn’t. ‘Ever since the end of August, when the news arrived about Smolensk, people have been evacuating the city. So we came back to see about the valuables.’

Anne stared at him in amazement. ‘You thought your possessions were in danger here – so you brought Rose back?’

He coloured. ‘Don’t speak to me like that. I love my daughter as much as you do.’

Anne knew there was no point in quarrelling with him. She controlled her voice and said more quietly, ‘Very well. But why did you come back into what you believed was danger?’

‘Grand Duchess Catherine said there wasn’t any danger,’ he said sulkily. ‘She said that once Prince Kutuzov took command, the retreating would stop, and there’d be a battle, and it would all be over. But I thought I ought to be here just in case. I thought I could still get Rose away in plenty of time if things did take a turn for the worse.’

‘Didn’t Rose say everyone’s run away? So why are you still here?’

‘We did try to leave two days ago, but the damned peasants had barricaded all the city gates, and they wouldn’t let anyone out – not the men, at any rate. They said it was cowardly, and that every able-bodied man had to stay and fight the French. They turned us back.’

Anne considered him gravely, but Basil’s eye slid away. ‘There’s more, isn’t there?’ she said.

He nodded reluctantly. ‘After we got back here, a dozen police officers came with an order from the Governor, requisitioning the horses.’

Anne remembered Kirov’s words. He had had a foresight Basil apparently lacked. ‘Well?’ she said impatiently. ‘You refused, of course?’

‘How could I refuse? They were on official business. They had papers.’

Anne grew pale with anger. ‘You let them take the horses? You imbecile! You idiot! You – how could you let them just take them?’

‘They were in an ugly mood, and armed,’ he said defensively. ‘I suppose they’d had trouble with other people already.’

‘Trouble? I’d have given them trouble! I’d have waded in their blood before I let them–’ She stopped abruptly, her eyes widening, and he shrank into himself, knowing what the next question would be. ‘Quassy too?’ she whispered.

He nodded unhappily.

Anne had no words. Quassy too, her mind repeated numbly. Quassy too.

‘They’d have taken her in the end, anyway, or she’d have been stolen,’ he said peevishly. ‘Everyone’s been trying to get out of the city. Rostopchin commandeered every horse he could find to move the city archives and public records, so even the most broken-down, spavined nag is fetching a ridiculous price, if you can find one. People have taken to stealing from anyone who has one left.’

Anne shook her head, unable for the moment to speak. Quassy, her lovely Quassy, given her by Nikolai, and Image, whom she had watched being born, and trained with her own hand.

‘They didn’t take Rose’s pony,’ Basil offered in a small voice. ‘We managed to hide him. He’s bedded down in one of the pantries behind the kitchen.’

She almost laughed at this. ‘It’s as well I came back when I did, or I’d have found nothing left at all.’