Moscow July 1918

      The first bloody summer of the revolution – and the Bolsheviks are losing. White forces are pushing towards Moscow from all points of the compass.

      Forced to make a separate peace with Germany, the Red leaders are loathed by the Allies and many of their own supporters. Terrible atrocities occur each day in the name of freedom, in the name of the workers, in the name of God. The Revolution hungers for money, for bullets, and for credibility among the proletariat. As Bolshevik support wanes, one of the only cards left is the Imperial Family – Tsar Nicholas, the Empress Alexandra and their children, initially under house arrest at Tsarskoye Selo, then moved to the remote Siberian town of Tobolsk, and soon to be moved once again.

      These re-locations are justified to the Romanovs as being necessary for their own protection. It is plausible; after all, there are millions who blame the Tsar for all their misfortunes – for their failed war, for their poverty and their ignorance, for the dream of a workers’ paradise that appears to be stillborn.

      Now in this darkest hour of the People’s Revolution, the Romanovs have become a commodity, their value rising and falling on an informal exchange between realpolitik and monarchist nostalgia. Among the several contending forces, some want to rescue the Romanovs, others want to kill them, but all want to use