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All this time Anya was collecting money for the family. People gave willingly: better to give the money than to take part in dangerous plots themselves. Anyway, they needed to give the money: what if everything suddenly reverted to how it had been? Count Benckendorff and Anya accumulated large sums for the family’s liberation. Then Boris Soloviev leaped from the maelstrom of Petrograd life.

His past spoke for him.

Borya’s father was treasurer of the Holy Synod. His mother had belonged to the circle of the holy man’s most devoted female proselytes.

Later, while compiling his biography, Soloviev would tell about his adventures. At first he had studied in Berlin but had wound up in India. A Theosophist, in India he had been a disciple of the famous Madame Blavatsky.

During the war, in 1914, Soloviev managed to remain in Petrograd, having set himself up in a reserve artillery regiment, and was a frequent guest at the apartment of Grigory Rasputin, where he met Rasputin’s daughters, Varvara and Matryona. After the February Revolution in 1918 Soloviev turned up in the revolutionary Tauride Palace. The ensign had brought his soldiers to swear an oath to the Duma. Now he was a superior officer in the Duma’s War Commission. Rasputin’s disciple had become a revolutionary.

Vyrubova must have chuckled when she heard his tale about his soldiers dragging him to the Duma to swear allegiance—she had no need of justifications. That was precisely what one had to do now to survive. She judged Soloviev’s action and decided to recruit him.

So Boris Soloviev turned up in Tobolsk and easily made contact with the family. His main agent became Father Alexei, who at that time often held services in Freedom House. Through him Soloviev transmitted letters to the tsaritsa.

And that was where he went wrong. Yes, the tsaritsa respected Father Alexei, but Father Alexei was from Hermogen. From “our Friend’s” enemy. So every proposal Soloviev transmitted through the priest was greeted with supreme caution. She reacted to his plans for organizing their escape without the slightest enthusiasm. Nicholas replied for her (or rather, she suggested he reply): we must avoid the risks that would inevitably arise for the children with any attempt to free us.

As he was leaving Tobolsk for Petrograd, Soloviev evidently got an idea: he advised Father Alexei to proclaim his wishes for a long life for the tsar’s family. Soloviev convinced the priest that such a proclamation would become his great deed, albeit a safe one. For the power of Hermogen would protect him.

As a result of that wish for a long life, what Soloviev had contemplated did indeed happen: the family’s tranquil life ended. The events that inevitably followed pushed them toward escape now and forced them to seek his help.

How many more of them would there be, these clever games with the last tsar! At the base of them all, however, one method would show up with exhausting monotony—provocation.

Soloviev returned to Petrograd and evidently complained to Anya of the tsaritsa’s mistrust and the impossibility of organizing their flight. Then Anya (how well she knew her imperial friend) gave Soloviev a brilliant idea: marry Rasputin’s daughter Matryona. That would be his passport to Alix’s heart. Soloviev did so immediately.

(About Soloviev’s feelings toward his new bride he wrote the following in his diary: “Continuing to live with her, I ought to ask of her at least a pretty body, which, unfortunately, my spouse cannot boast of, so she cannot serve me simply for sexual relations, as there are many better and more useful than her.”)

Soloviev and Matryona returned to Pokrovskoe in Siberia, where Soloviev merged with the image of the holy man. Only after that did he again make contact with Freedom House.

Now a very different reception awaited him. A beloved shadow loomed behind him: now he was “the husband of his daughter, who had come to save them,” as Alix wrote. The charger had answered the call. As always, Rasputin’s name transported Alix to a familiar