Nikolai smiled at last. ‘I shouldn’t have left her to be exposed to that. She ought to go away from Petersburg, but it would be no good sending her to Schwartzenturm with Sashka – it’s too close. Besides, Mama doesn’t care for the country.’
‘Perhaps you ought to send her to Tula?’
‘Yes, I think I may. Shoora will keep an eye on her, and take her in to Moscow often enough to keep her amused. She’d be far enough away from her brave soldier hero then. I’ll write to Shoora today, and Lolya can go down next month.’
‘And what has been happening here?’ Anne asked after a brief pause. ‘I imagine you’ve been kept busy.’
‘Busier than you know! The Emperor’s brought that fool Shishkov with him – Speransky’s replacement, you know – and he’s busy trying to persuade His Majesty to ignore Tolly’s and my advice. He’s so insanely patriotic he thinks that to yield an inch of land to Napoleon is tantamount to high treason.’
‘I’ve heard that he hates the French so much, he’ll only converse in Old Church Slavonic,’ Anne said, amused.
‘Well, that’s not quite true. But certainly he writes plays and poetry in it, which of course no one can understand, since no one but him and a few monks speak it! And then there’s all the hothead amateur soldiers, like Armfelt and Yermolov, who talk grandly about making a stand – making a stand, you know, with a hundred thousand against five times that number! And Bennigsen and Phull, who hate each other cordially, keep coming up with the most insane and elaborate plans of campaign which couldn’t possibly work, and His Majesty listens to them all gravely, and wavers first this way and then that way.’
He snorted in derision. ‘The trouble is,’ he went on, ‘that they look so good on paper! There are maps and little drawings, and arrows, and little coloured squares with numbers in them, and the Emperor thinks it’s all very clever, and he’s really impressed, despite the fact that Phull has never won a battle in thirty years of soldiering, and Bennigsen’s been retired since Friedland. But Tolly won’t draw him any little pictures. He just says quietly, retreat, Your Majesty, harry the columns from the flanks, draw them on, and let the sheer size of Russia defeat them. What can a poor Emperor do?’
Anne smiled, but she could hear that he was worried. ‘And you have to convince him that Tolly’s right.’
‘That’s not my official task, of course. I’m supposed to advise him about the composition of the French army and Napoleon’s state of mind.’
‘And what is Bonaparte doing at the moment?’
‘Still trying to organise supplies, I imagine. The problem is even thornier than he probably thought it would be. The last two years’ harvests in Poland and Prussia have been poor, so the stocks of grain are low in any case. And to make it worse, it’s taking all the troops different lengths of time to reach Poland from the corners of the Empire. The ones who are already assembled are swarming over the land like locusts, stripping it bare while they wait for the rest of the Grande Armée to come up. The latecomers are going to begin hungry; and the people who are being forced to support all these soldiers are not very happy.’
‘Will they rise against him?’
He shook his head. ‘Napoelon’s put out a rumour that he intends to restore the old Kingdom of Poland and guarantee its independence, just to keep them sweet, and to keep the anti-Russian fervour at fever pitch.’
‘Unscrupulous,’ Anne said. ‘I don’t suppose he means a word of it.’
‘It’s just an expedient. The Tsar has let it be thought that he means to grant Lithuania independence, for much the same reason.’
‘Oh,’ said Anne.
‘But Napoleon’s supply troubles are worse even than that. The spring weather has been bad not only in Russia, but everywhere in northern Europe, so the summer cereals went in late. He’s going to have something like a hundred thousand horses, and no corn to feed them on – and army horses can’t survive on grass for more than a day or two. The work just kills them without high feed. A man will go on and on with nothing in his belly, driven by fear or patriotism or hero worship, but horses just lie down and die, and without horses there’s no cavalry and no artillery.’
‘Then Bonaparte really has no chance of winning?’ Anne said hopefully. ‘Things aren’t so bad after all.’
He smiled at her eagerness. ‘My love, the largest army the world has ever seen is knocking at our doors, led by the most successful soldier the world has ever known; and we are led by a young man who knows nothing about war, and prefers to repose his trust in those who know just about as little. Of course things are bad! I’ve told you about Napoleon’s troubles – but there’s no knowing what he might do to overcome them. He’s ingenious, and he’s determined.’
‘I thought you said Russia could never be defeated,’ she said in a small voice.
‘So I believe. And if the Emperor can be brought to follow Tolly’s plan, I think this invasion will fail. But no one should ever underestimate Napoleon. There’s always next year, and the next. And until Napoleon is dead, the world will not be safe from him.’
Despite Kirov’s words, and despite her own intellectual understanding of the situation, Anne found it impossible to keep believing in the imminence of danger. Vilna was en fête, and there was a constant round of pleasure – balls, reviews, exhibitions, plays and concerts. The houses of the rich were brilliantly lit every night; the taverns were filled to overflowing; the streets rang to the sound of horseshoes day and night, as dashing cavalry officers rode here, and carriage-loads of fashionable ladies drove there; there was gaming and singing and drinking and not a few fights; and a brisk trade at a couple of unofficial brothels on the south side of the town.
The Emperor, too, seemed to have forgotten, at least with his public face, what he was doing at Vilna, and after the bustle of the first weeks, seemed to have settled down into an unhurried round of social engagements, smiling and nodding and charming the Lithuanian gentry.
The news came that Napoleon had left Paris on the 9th of May with his Empress, arriving a week later in Dresden where he held court. At splendid receptions, he received all the kings, princes and dukes of Europe who were now his vassals. It was a display of power not entirely lost on the Imperial Court at Vilna; especially when it was followed, on the 18th of May, by a visit from the Comte de Narbonne, as a special emissary from Napoleon, to deliver an implicit threat, and to give the Emperor of all the Russias one last chance to come to heel.
The Emperor responded by unrolling before the Comte a huge map of Russia, and saying that though he believed Napoleon to be the greatest general in Europe, with the best-trained troops, yet space was a barrier, and that if he let time, deserts and climate defend Russia for him, he would still have the last word. Then he sent de Narbonne away, ordering him to be given food and wine for his journey back to Dresden.
Early in June the news arrived that Napoleon had left Dresden on the 29th of May, heading north again for the Nieman. Still the news did not seem to dismay the Tsar, who at that moment was negotiating to buy the house and estate of Zakret, close to the city, from General Bennigsen who had been using it in his retirement with his new young wife. Prince Volkonsky had persuaded the Emperor that in order properly to reciprocate the hospitality the local aristocracy had been showing him, he needed a house of his own; but the Emperor had not been hard to persuade. It was very pleasant in Vilna for everyone, and in buying Zakret, the Emperor looked as though he were intending to settle down for the summer.
Adonis acquired a suitable Cossack pony for Rose, and in his spare moments, began to teach her to ride, sitting her astride the patient back on a blanket rather than a saddle.