Red Icon by Sam Eastland Page A

surrounding Alexei’s illness forced the Tsar and the Tsarina to bear the burden of their son’s terrifying fragility in silence.
    It was Rasputin, and Rasputin alone, who had proved capable of alleviating the symptoms of Alexei’s illness.
    Sceptical as Pekkala was about the Siberian monk’s ability to work miracles, there could be no denying that the Tsar’s own doctors had on several occasions informed the parents that there was nothing to be done for the boy, and that they should begin preparations for his funeral. At moments like these, Rasputin would be summoned to the boy’s bedside. There, with nothing more than the sound of his voice and the gentle laying of his hand upon Alexei’s forehead, the boy’s symptoms would immediately begin to lessen. Within a matter of hours, the boy whom the best medical experts in Russia had given up for dead would be walking around his room. On one occasion, when Alexei had fallen while getting out of a rowing boat at the Romanovs’ hunting lodge at Spala in Poland, Rasputin happened to be on the other side of the country and it was feared that he would never reach Alexei before the boy succumbed to his injuries. Instead, Rasputin sent a telegram, assuring the parents that the boy would soon recover. And he did, in spite of all predictions from Alexei’s attending physicians.
    No one had been able to scientifically explain this phenomenon. In their search for answers, the Tsar and the Tsarina chose to see it as a divine miracle, a conclusion with which Rasputin, wisely choosing not to claim the credit for himself, was happy to agree.
    Rasputin became, for the Tsar and the Tsarina, their son’s only assurance of survival. Their faith in him, and in his abilities, was absolute. He had become, in the minds of these terrified parents, the most valuable person in the world, more important than the country over which they ruled, more important than the fortunes of the Russian people, more important even than their own lives.
    The Russian people knew nothing of this, and they quickly drew their own conclusions about the Tsarina’s seeming appetite for the dirty, coarse and ill-mannered Siberian. In their ignorance, they came to loathe Rasputin as completely as he was adored by the Tsar and the Tsarina.
    In Pekkala’s opinion, Rasputin was a man who understood his limitations. It was the Tsar, and even more so the Tsarina, who had increasingly demanded from Rasputin a wisdom he never claimed to possess. He had been called upon to judge matters of state, as well as the conduct of the war. The best he could do, in such situations, was to offer vague words of comfort. But the Romanovs had fastened on those words, stripping them of vagueness and turning them to prophesy. It was no wonder Rasputin had become so despised by those who sought the favour of the Tsar.
    But the Romanovs could not shelter Rasputin forever. Sooner or later, the hatred of the Russian people, peasants and nobles alike, was bound to turn deadly. The child and the man who was able to cure him had become as horribly fragile as each other. The only difference between them was that Rasputin had long since come to understand the meaning of this terminal equation.
    ‘If word gets out,’ continued the Tsar, ‘that Grigori has taken possession of The Shepherd , those whose faith has already been shaken by recent setbacks on the battlefield will fasten on it as the reason for every misfortune we have suffered in this war. That is why I chose this meeting place, where my absence from headquarters would only be hours, not the days it would take if I had come to you.’
    ‘I could have come to Mogilev.’
    ‘Not without raising suspicions. No, Pekkala, it was too risky. No one can know that the subject has even been raised, or the results would be disastrous!’
    ‘Have you explained this to the Tsarina?’
    ‘Of course!’ exclaimed the Tsar. ‘But you know how she is. She has become fixated on the idea that only in