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showed on her face. She wasn’t looking at the scenery, which she doubtless remembered well enough
from her visit four years ago. She was straining only straight ahead, waiting for her first glimpse of
the Winter Palace. She was also trembling, Emma noticed. Not just her hands but her whole body.
Alix’s dress was pink, elaborate and overdone in Emma’s estimation, with a high collar composed of
silk roses, so many and so large that she seemed lost in a mountain of organza petals. The hat was
even worse, with the back ludicrously puffy and the brim so deep that her plump little face seemed to
have receded within a hollow of silk. She had tried very hard to be glamorous and failed. It made
Emma sad.
The Queen’s affect was the opposite. Her Majesty opted to arrive wearing the same sort of
black broadcloth mourning gown that she had worn for decades, and pointedly devoid of
ornamentation. Victoria is sending a signal as well, Emma thought. She wants the Russians to know
that for her this is all nothing more than another day of work.
And then it was there, the Winter Palace. Enormous gates, grand swathes of iron fencing and
behind it, a light blue building the size of which Emma had never beheld. They approached a dock
and sailed past it.
“Not this one,” the Queen said in terse explanation.
They continued to sail. Another dock came and went.
“Nor this,” the Queen said.
“The palace has four separate docks along the river,” Alix whispered loudly to Emma, a
statement which caused Davy’s jaw to literally drop open.
It’s bigger than Buckingham, Emma thought. Bigger than Windsor and Sandringham and, as the
third dock also slipped past them, she thought, Dear God. It is bigger than Buckingham and Windsor
and Sandringham all together. It is the biggest structure I have ever seen, or ever will see. Bigger
than any building in Britain. Perhaps the biggest in the world.
The five members of the Tuesday Night Murder Games Club remained motionless and silent as
they continued to sail and the Winter Palace continued to stretch. Davy was still openly gaping and
Tom seemed on the verge of letting go a series of the sarcastic quips he always used to hide any
unease. Rayley and Trevor were managing to maintain a sense of professional reserve, but Rayley
had begun his nervous habit of blinking rapidly and, perhaps because she was standing close to him,
Emma was aware that Trevor had stopped audibly breathing two docks back.