The Diamond Horse. Stacy Gregg

about in their long, low cage were savage. Their teeth, tiny and white, were as sharp as knives. “You will lose your fingers if you are not careful,” Vasily the groom would warn Anna when he found her stroking the baby minks through the grille of their cage.

      Vasily came up from the stables once a day to fill the cages with straw. He was different from the rest of the serfs in Count Orlov’s service. A head taller than any other man at the stables, he was broad-shouldered and strong. And while the other serfs had the appearance of boiled potatoes, Anna thought Vasily handsome, with his thick russet hair, high cheekbones and deep, brooding eyes.

      Sullen and serious, Vasily did not smile easily, and Anna liked to set herself the challenge of making him laugh.

      “I have taught the mink a new trick!” she would exclaim whenever he arrived with the straw for the cages. “Come and see!”

      The mink were untameable and their “tricks” mostly involved standing on their hind legs and nipping food from Anna’s fingers, which only made Vasily beg her to stop.

      “They will not hurt me,” Anna would laugh at him. She had no fear of any of the animals. Any … except the timber wolves. There was something in the way they glowered at her, shoulders hunched in menace as they paced the perimeter of their gilt cage, jaws hanging open, white teeth glistening. It was as if they were just waiting for the bars to part, biding their time until they could devour her.

      Once, her brother Ivan had dared her to go inside their cage. She had refused at first, but Ivan was good at bullying her into doing things she shouldn’t. He was three years older than Anna and in their lonely palace in the wilderness he was her only playmate.

      “This is the game,” he told her. “You walk in, and I will lock the gate behind you and then I count to ten and let you out again.”

      Anna looked at the wolves. They were pacing the bars, their hackles raised.

      “I don’t want to,” she said.

      “I knew you were a coward,” Ivan said.

      “I’m not a coward,” Anna insisted.

      “Then do it!”

      Anna pushed the fear down into her belly and stepped closer to the cage.

      Ivan kept goading her. “Pathetic baby sister!” he gloated. “You need to show them you are not afraid.”

      The wolf pack were waiting, pacing and watching her, glassy-eyed and panting, jaws open in anticipation. Anna didn’t want to get any closer, but Ivan kept taunting her.

      “Come on, open the door and get in the cage. What are you scared of? They will not bite …”

      Anna stepped forward and shut her eyes tight as she stretched out her hand to grasp the cage door. She began to swing the door back and as she did so the largest wolf lunged for her. He threw himself at the bars of the gate, shoulder-barging it with his full weight, trying to force his way through. He would have succeeded, if it were not for the giant of a man who stepped between the girl and the wolf. He thrust the gate shut and yanked Anna fiercely by the shoulder so that she was thrown back out of danger.

      Anna found herself sprawled on the ground, panting and looking up at her father, who towered over her like a monster. His face was crimson with rage, except for the thin white line of the scar that ran from his temple to his chin. Le Balafre – it was his nickname in the royal court, where they whispered it in French – Scarface.

      “Idiot child! What were you thinking?”

      “I wasn’t … Ivan dared me to do it!” Anna blurted out the words and instantly regretted them. Her brother had ways of making her pay if she told on him.

      Count Orlov turned to his son.

      “It was a game,” Ivan said airily. “We were only playing.”

      Many years later, Anna would look back on this moment and remember the sickening smile that had played on Ivan’s lips when he spoke.

      *

      “He hates me,” Anna complained to her mother, later that day.

      Anna was sitting cross-legged on a velvet cushion, watching with total absorption as her mother, the Countess, arranged her potions in front of the mirror to begin her toilette.

      “He doesn’t hate you, Anna,” the Countess replied, staring into the mirror and picking up a powder puff, buffing the powder into the alabaster skin of her décolletage. “He is envious, that is all. You have a way with animals, and a natural charm. Your brother on the other hand …” the Countess hesitated. “… Ivan is not so blessed as you.”

      Countess Orlov tapped her fingertip into a tiny pot of rouge and sucked in her cheeks to dab it on, then used the same crimson stain to paint in the cupid’s bow of her lips. With a kohl pencil, she defined the arch of her brows. Finally, with the very tip of the pencil, she added a black dot like a punctuation mark above her top lip.

      “Why are you doing that?” Anna asked.

      “It is the fashion in Versailles to have a beauty spot,” the Countess replied. Her gaze fixed on Anna’s eyes reflected in the mirror. “And the Empress likes anything that is French.”

      “Why does she want us to copy the French? We are Russians.”

      The Countess put down the kohl pencil and turned to her daughter. “But Empress Catherine is not true Russian, is she? Our Empress was born German. Yet she speaks French at court because that is the language of sophistication and culture.”

      Anna frowned. “Why don’t we speak our own language?”

      “Only serfs speak Russian,” the Countess said. “This is why you must pay attention to your studies with Clarise.”

      Anna rolled her eyes at the mention of her tutor and the Countess cast her a stern look. “One day you will be old enough to join us for a dinner party like the one we are having tonight and then you will need your very best French, oui?”

      “Oui!” Anna giggled. It was so nice to see her mother like this, dressed up so beautifully, her eyes shining at the prospect of glamorous company. Often at the Khrenovsky estate it felt as if they were in total isolation, so far away from the bustle of the city of Moscow and even further still from St Petersburg, where her father devoted himself to life at court in the service of the Empress.

      Tonight’s dinner was a farewell to her father who was about to depart once more for St Petersburg. The meal would be served in the grand dining room and all the nobles from the neighbouring estates had been invited. Anna had watched with fascination as endless bouquets of lily of the valley and white tulips were carried upstairs by the housemaids. Their sweet and sickly aroma now filled the bedchambers of the palace while downstairs tea roses in delicate shades of peach and cream tumbled out of ivy-clad urns.

      In the grand marble hallways, young serving boys with rags tied to the soles of their feet swept through the halls as if they were ice-skating, using their gliding movements to buff the floors until they gleamed.

      A hunting party had been sent out the day before and had returned with wild boar and deer. In the kitchens the cooks set about preparing the meat, pots and pans banging and fires roaring as they busily chopped beetroots and scoured potatoes for the banquet.

      The peacocks, who often roamed the corridors, had been banished outdoors by Katia, the head maid, because they made too much mess. But the Amur leopards still had the run of the place and presently they were lounging on the Countess’s bed as Anna stroked their velvety fur.

      The Countess lifted up a silver powdered wig and swept back her luxurious blonde hair under the elaborately stacked hairpiece.

      “What do you think, milochka?” She poked at the wig, repositioning it on top of her beautiful blonde tresses. “Do I look pretty?”

      “It’s