in white racing from window to window. Natalya was darting between the flames screaming and laughing, and calling out as though to friends. It was a hideous sight, as suddenly Zoya bolted toward the door and her grandmother grabbed her.
“No! You cannot help her now! There are men in there with her. They will kill you, Zoya!”
“I can't let them kill her … I can't! … Grand-mama! Please!” She was sobbing and fighting with a strength her grandmother could barely control, but at the same moment Feodor ran into the hallway.
“The troika is ready … behind the hedges …” He had wisely chosen to ease the troika into the side street, so that the looters would not see them from the palace.
“Grandmama!” Zoya was still fighting her, and suddenly her grandmother slapped her.
“Stop it! She is already dead … we must leave now” There were no longer moments to spare. She had already seen a few faces looking out at the garden from the lower windows in the palace.
“I can't leave her there!” She was begging her grandmother to let her go, but the old woman wouldn't.
“You have to.” And then her voice softened as she pulled her close for an instant. But as she did, there was a terrible sound, like an explosion. The whole upper floor was now in flames, and as they turned to look, they saw Natalya leap, with her white robe on fire, from the upper window. It would have been impossible for her to live, between the flames and the fall, Natalya's life had clearly ended, and it was a blessing to her. Her mind would never return after the double blow of losing both husband and son, and her entire world lay in broken shards around her.
“Come quickly!” Feodor was urging them, and with a swift move the old Countess swept Sava up off the floor, pushed her into Zoya's arms, and hurried her out the door to the waiting troika.
CHAPTER
5
As the troika began to move, Zoya turned to see the flames leaping above the trees, devouring what had once been her home and was now only the shell of her former life. But within moments, Feodor guided them expertly into the back streets as the two women huddled together, their bags at their feet, filled with the clothes they had taken with them, their jewels concealed in the linings, and little Sava trembling in the cold as Zoya held her. There were soldiers in the streets, but no one tried to stop them as they wended their way through the back streets toward the outskirts of the city. It was Thursday, March 15, and far away in Pskov, Nicholas was reading the telegrams sent to him by his generals, telling him that he must abdicate. His face was deathly pale, as he saw treason around him everywhere, but he was no paler than Zoya, as she watched St. Petersburg shrink behind them. It was more than two hours before they were on the back roads, on the way to Tsarskoe Selo, and it was a long time before they got there. They had no news as they moved along, and no clearer understanding of what had happened. All Zoya could think about was the vision of her mother, her robe in flames as she leapt to her death from the upstairs windows … and her brother as he must have been, as the flames enveloped him, lying dead in the room where she had so often visited him when she was a child … Nicolai … “stupid Nicolai” she had called him. She wondered if she would ever forgive herself … only yesterday … only yesterday when everything was all right and life was normal.
Her head was wrapped in an old shawl, and her ears ached from the cold, it made her think of Olga and Tatiana with their earaches from the measles. Such simple disasters had been their lot only days before … such small, stupid things like fevers, and earaches and measles. She could barely think as her grandmother held tightly to her hand, and they both silently wondered what they would find in Tsarskoe Selo. The village came into sight in the afternoon, and Feodor circled expertly around it. Wandering soldiers stopped him twice, and Feodor thought only for a moment about pressing the troika through. But he knew instinctively they might all be shot if he did, so he slowed carefully and said that he was carrying a