He followed her. ‘There, what do you see on the horizon?’
‘I think I see the gates of hell,’ Lily murmured. ‘Hieronymus Bosch would have admired this.’
‘Many would agree with that interpretation. A hellish place. And it’s not imaginary. It’s very real. What seems to be the entrance to the underworld or a town on fire is the heat and smoke of dozens of factories, smelting works, and mineral processing plants. The biggest iron works in Europe is what you see belching away there, Wentworth. And the whole hot nastiness is emanating from a mineral-rich earth. There’s a saying that “If you haven’t found gold within twenty miles of Ekaterinburg, it’s because you haven’t looked for it.” Precious stones and metals – they’ve been dug out of the soil here and fashioned into the jewels and precious objects that decorated the Tsar’s palaces for years.’
‘Ekaterinburg! I had no idea. That’s the city? It’s just a name … a rather terrifying name … the place where the royal family was murdered.’
‘It’s terrifying for the poor souls who work there and for those who make their way through it – in shackles. It’s in the Ural mountains – the division between Europe and Asia. Ekaterinburg is the gateway to the prison camps of Siberia. Thousands of the Tsar’s prisoners were sent from jails in Moscow and Petrograd to walk with shackled feet and bound hands on their way across Russia to a miserable death. Men, women and children tramped through. And still do. But now they tramp in greater numbers and these prisoners have the benefit of no legal process. They’re condemned for no good reason by the Bolshevist butchers who rule the empire now. It’s enough to be intelligent, skilled, outspoken, unpopular with a neighbour – any of those qualities or none will have you arrested and obliterated.’ Joe gave a sharp grunt of laughter. ‘You and your father wouldn’t last two minutes in the new Russia, Wentworth. But in Ekaterinburg in 1918, the Tsar and his secret police force were hated. The “Crowned Executioner” they called him … or “Nicholas the Bloody”. This was the last place on earth he would have wished to be sent himself as a prisoner. He knew that he and his family could expect no mercy at the hands of the Ural Regional Soviet.’
‘But who sent them there? They were doing no harm where they were held in detention in … Tobolsk, was it? Siberia?’
‘As long as they were alive, they were always going to be a focus for the royalist party. In 1918 the White Army was still active and making progress. They’d joined forces with a rather effective Czech contingent and were fighting their way towards the city. In the last days, you could hear the guns getting closer. It was undoubtedly Lenin, back in Moscow, who gave the order – by telegraph – for the guard to carry out the assassination of the whole family before they could be rescued. He was wily enough not to sign his name on any incriminating documents.’
‘Lenin? It was reported that the local Ural Soviet took matters into its own hands.’
‘A cover story! The whole affair has his fingerprints – if not his signature – all over it. Never forget who sent them to the Urals in the first place. And to whom did the executioners dash to report success? To Lenin in Moscow. All part of a larger plot. Many other Romanovs were executed in various unpleasant ways at about the same time. The Bolsheviks were making certain that Russia would never be in thrall to the imperial family again.’
‘And this is where they shot them? In the forest?
‘No. They were executed in the cellar of the house in which they’d been imprisoned. A villa requisitioned from a local industrialist called Ipatiev. The bodies were transported by lorry into the countryside some miles away, we’re told. To just the place you see here,’ he added thoughtfully.
‘And this pit isn’t a broad allegorical reference to the death of Russia at all? It’s very specific? To one family?’
‘Yes. Highly specific. It’s the Romanov grave. And geographically specific, too. Do you see the light in the sky?’
‘Ah, yes. Yellowish – white. Too pale to be sunset. Dawn? The light’s breaking on the left of the picture, so that must be the east.’
‘So where does that place the city in relation to the artist’s viewpoint?’
Lily thought for a bit, moving her hands about, and then she said: ‘It would be to the south-east. So this grave is … um … ten miles or so north-west of Ekaterinburg.’
‘Well done! It is – to be exact – a particularly depressing corner of the Koptyaki Forest, a place called the Four Brothers, after four tall pine trees that grow hereabouts. That could be one of them, there, on the right. It’s a quagmire underfoot and riddled with old mine workings. Just the place to lose eleven bodies.’