Though the empire's hierarchy the fourteen ranks was open to any gentleman, there were still families who commanded special status outside the official system. There were a modest number of old boyar and gentry families, like the Bobrovs, who had managed to survive through the turbulent centuries; there were men with old princely titles descendants of either the Tatar Khans or of St Vladimir himself; there were men with foreign titles, usually of the Holy Roman Empire; and nowadays there were also families with new titles, created by Peter and his successors for their favourites princes, counts, and barons. Count Turov had been one of these, a formidable man. As for his widow, Countess Turova, even Alexander had to admit he was afraid of her.

She was his father's cousin. She and the count had lost their two children, and at his death the magnate had left a portion of his huge estate to his widow, absolutely. 'She can do what she likes with it,' Alexander's father had always told him. 'Perhaps you can get your hands on some of it though don't ever count on her,' he had added. 'She's always been eccentric.'

Yet this was Alexander's dangerous mission tonight.

He could not ask the old lady for money outright. He knew she would show him the door if he did that. But was there a chance of an inheritance? There were other cousins who were also candidates: but a quarter of her fortune, even an eighth would do. Bobrov sighed. Although he had paid court to her for years, he still had no idea what his prospects were. Sometimes she showed him marks of favour, at others she just seemed to enjoy taunting him.

And what if, tonight, she said yes? His calculation was simple. She was over seventy now: the prospect of a legacy would give him confidence to take the extra risk; he even knew one or two moneylenders who would let him have enough to tide him over another year on the strength of it. Then he would turn down the German girl, burn his boats, and wait out events.

It was a horrible risk, even so. After all, his gamble might fail. Or what if, after promising him, Countess Turova changed her mind? Or what if she lived to be ninety? 'The old bitch!' he suddenly swore.

But he had taken his decision and he would stick to it. It was very simple. He felt the little silver coin in his hand. When he got to Countess Turova's he would toss the coin just once. 'If it's tails, I marry the German girl. If it's heads, and the old woman promises me a legacy, I'll take a chance.' He liked that kind of gamble. There was something almost religious about tossing a coin to decide one's life. He smiled: he knew a card player who used to say that gambling was a kind of prayer.

The sled raced through the icy streets of St Petersburg, the faint glow from lamps and lighted windows rushing by in the gloom. A few stars could be seen.

The sled was splendid and enclosed. Two lackeys clung on behind; on the box in front sat the coachman a huge fellow wrapped in a sheepskin, his big boots lined with flannel, a fur cap on his head. His neck, in the Russian peasant manner, was bare. Like all Russian drivers before and since, he drove at breakneck speed; and although there were few people about at such an hour, he still found the opportunity to cry out: 'Na prava keep to the right! Look out, soldier, damn you! Careful, keep to the right! Look out, soldier, damn you! Careful, Babushka Babushka!'

A boy rode on the offside horse. Both he and the coachman whipped the horses along unmercifully. What did they care? They were not Bobrov's horses. For though he had fine horses of his own, the State Councillor preferred, like most people in St Petersburg, to use hired ones for ordinary journeys like this; and so these wretched beasts would be driven by all and sundry until they dropped and were replaced, in the usual careless Russian manner.

Bobrov sank back into the rich upholstery. The south bank of St Petersburg was divided into inner, middle and outer half-rings by three concentric canals. The outer canal, the border of the city's rich heartland, was the famous Fontanka. Bobrov's house lay in the fashionable First Admiralty quarter, in the middle ring, and his route soon brought him out on to the granite embankment of the great, frozen Neva. As the sled raced eastward, the ice of the river appeared on the left, the big, solid houses of the English merchants on the right. In a few moments they would be at the very heart of the capital.

He took the coin out and held it in his hand, feeling it in the darkness. What an astounding gamble it was: he was going to toss a coin for the whole Russian Empire!

This was the prize in the secret game he had been playing for so long. This was the reason why he did not wish to marry, and why he needed to keep afloat financially, just a little longer. For the prize was still, tantalizingly, in sight perhaps only months away. The most brilliant position in the Russian state.

For Alexander Bobrov was planning to become the official lover of Catherine the Great.

It was no idle dream. For years he had been carefully manoeuvring towards his goal. And now at last he had it on the best authority he was the next in line. He had been promised the position by the man who was, almost certainly, Catherine's secret husband.

At the court of Catherine the Great of Russia, there were a number of paths to power. But for a truly ambitious man, no career offered such brilliant prospects as those available to the man who shared her bed.

Though sometimes portrayed as a monstrous consumer of men, Catherine was in fact rather sentimental. Having been humiliated in her marriage, her own letters make clear that most of her adult life was spent in the search for affection and an ideal man. Nor was she hugely promiscuous. History records the names of less than twenty lovers.

But the opportunities for those who held this position were almost boundless. Mostly they were men from families like Alexander Bobrov's, though some were more obscure. Their names were to go down in Russian history: like Orlov the brave guardsman who had won her the throne and whose brother had killed her hateful husband. Or Saltikov the charming aristocrat: was he, as some said, the real father of Catherine's only official heir? Or Poniatowski: she had even made him King of Poland! And greatest of all, that strange and moody genius, the one-eyed warrior Potemkin who was now her mighty Proconsul in the Crimea, where he was building her a new imperial province greater than most kingdoms.

When a new lover was chosen, he could usually expect a present of a hundred thousand roubles after the first night. After that ... Potemkin, it was said, had received close to fifty million! Had the empress secretly married Potemkin years ago? No one knew for sure. But whether he was her husband or not, one thing was certain: 'It's Potemkin who chooses her new lovers,' the courtiers would say.

It had not been difficult for Alexander to make friends with the great man because he really admired him and had become one of his most loyal men. And when Catherine's poor young lover Lanskoy had suddenly died two years ago before having ruined his health with love potions, the court whispered Alexander had seen his chance and gone straight to Potemkin, to put himself forward.

It had been close. A young guards officer had been sent in just before him and had found favour. But Potemkin had been impressed by Bobrov as a prospect, not least because he trusted his loyalty. 'Even I have enemies,' the older man confessed. 'They'd love to see a man in that position who could be turned against me.'

Several times Alexander and his patron had discussed the matter. 'If things don't work out,' Potemkin had promised, 'I'll send you in to see her. After that ...'

That had been a year ago. Alexander had waited anxiously. He knew the young officer slightly and now he gathered every scrap of information about him that he could. He had several friends at court. They soon told him the young man had cast amorous glances at one of the court ladies, and that he was tiring of his position. Within months he might even get himself dismissed. And then, by God, it will be my turn, Alexander had promised himself. How he would astonish her! She liked men who were daring and intelligent, and he was both. He was sure he would charm her.

Only one worrying thought had crossed his mind: could he satisfy her? The empress had never been beautiful. Though her strong, German face and broad, intellectual forehead were fine, she was squat and frankly stout these days. She was fifty-seven and, he'd heard, sometimes a little short of wind.

But she was also Catherine, Empress of all Russia. In all the world there was no other being like her. Her power, her heroic position, her extraordinary mind all these, for a man like Bobrov, in search of the summit of the world made her desirable beyond all others. And, anyway, if there's any problem in bed, I know how to get by, he considered. He was strong, fit, and not too sensitive. I'm always all right if I eat a good meal, he reminded himself.

And then ... what a destiny! Mother Russia and all her mighty empire at his feet: he would be one of the innermost circle who ruled with the empress. There was no greater position in all the world. If he could just hold out a little longer.

Outside, St Petersburg slipped silently by, huge and magical. They were coming into the huge expanse of Peter's Square, in front of the Admiralty. On his left he could see the long pontoon bridge that stretched across the frozen Neva to Vasilevsky Island. The bridge was not really needed, for the huge lagoon of ice was a busy thoroughfare in these winter months. Huge fairs were held upon it. He could see half a dozen roads across it, marked out by avenues of cut trees, or lamps which gleamed dimly until they almost faded in the darkness by the distant northern shore. A bonfire burned by the tip of the island. Further away, opposite the Winter Palace, was the faint shape of the St Peter and St Paul Cathedral's slim spire against the night sky.

And it was now, as he came out on to the big expanse of the square, that something else, quite nearby, caught his eye: and for a few moments he seemed to forget himself, pulling the window of the sled open, letting the icy air freeze on his face as he gazed at it, with a look so strange that one would almost have thought he had been hypnotized.

It was the Bronze Horseman.

This huge statue, which had taken the French sculptor Falconet years to make, had only been put up recently; but already it was the most famous statue in all Russia. On a colossal granite rock a mighty horse, three times life size, reared up on its hind legs. Below it lay a serpent. And astride the horse, dressed in a Roman toga, was the living image of great Peter himself. In his left arm he held the reins, while his right, in a tremendous, imperial gesture, was stretched out, pointing across the broad Neva that lay before him.

Nowhere in the world, they said, was there a greater block of granite; never had such a huge casting in bronze been made. The splendid horse, copied from the finest in Catherine's stables, seemed to be launching itself in an almost impossible leap forward into space. And now, as it did every time he saw it, the great statue took Alexander's breath away. All his dreams and ambitions seemed to be expressed in this huge bronze hymn to Russia's might. It had to be huge: had not Russia already cast, in Moscow, the biggest cannon and the greatest bell the world had ever seen? Of course St Petersburg should cast the largest statue in bronze. And although the narrow-minded priests had objected to Peter's Roman, pagan dress, Bobrov saw that the French sculptor had captured the very essence of the new, imperial destiny that Peter had created for his country, and the genius of Catherine would complete. Russia, by her unconquerable will, would make a final, mighty leap and rule half the world.

The statue's huge, granite plinth bore only the simple legend: To Peter the First, from Catherine the Second Like a great phantom it dominated the dimly lit square. It was unassailable. And as Alexander stared, the statue seemed, like the inner voice of his own ambition, to speak to him and say: 'Little man: would you turn back now?'

No, Alexander thought. No, I cannot turn back. I have come too far. Better to gamble to win an empire or lose all just one more time.

And he took the silver coin he was to have tossed, and threw it out of the window, into the night.

'Dear Alexander!' She was smiling. 'I am so glad you have come.'

'Daria Mikhailovna.' He bent down to kiss her. 'You are looking wonderful.'

In fact, the countess wasn't looking too bad. One could even see that she had once been attractive. Her little face, rather too heavily painted, always reminded him of some bright bird's, especially as now, with age, her hooked nose had become more prominent. Her small, blue eyes were lively, darting glances from place to place. She was wearing a floor-length antique dress of mauve gauze, decorated with white lace and pink ribbons, which made her look like a figure of the previous generation from the French court. Her hair was fine; but somehow, despite the fact that it was powdered, it had a strange yellowish tinge at the sides, like tarnished silver. It was swept up high above her head into a daunting coiffure topped with curls and decorated with pearls and a pale blue ribbon.

To receive her guests, Countess Turova was seated on a gilt chair in the middle of her salon, which lay up one flight of the staircase in the great marble hall. Like most such rooms in Russian palaces, it was huge and magnificent. Its ceiling was over twenty feet high; its gleaming parquet floor contained at least a dozen woods. A gigantic crystal chandelier glittered above.

The guests were still arriving; many of them Alexander recognized. A German professor, an English merchant, two young writers, a distinguished old general, an even older prince: it was one of the pleasures of St Petersburg that one might find people of all nations and classes in such an aristocratic setting. For there was a warmer and easier spirit in Russia than in the noble houses of western Europe.

And it was a long tradition that, once a week, such people should come to the great Turov house on Vasilevsky Island. For the count had been a remarkable man. He had helped the great Shuvalov found Moscow University thirty years before; the writers of the mid-eighteenth century the first such intellectual group in Russia counted him their friend; even Lomonosov, Russia's first philosopher and scientist, used to call upon him. Turov had travelled widely even visited the great Voltaire and brought back many treasures of European painting, sculpture and porcelain as well as a fine library, all of which were still housed in this splendid palace. And the countess, whose magpie mind had picked up a number of ideas in the course of her life with him, now clung to these with a tenacity which was in perfectly inverse proportion to her understanding of them. She kept open house for the intellectuals who, partly from habit, and partly amused by her eccentricity, continued to come. 'They rely upon me,' she would say. 'I am their rock.' She was certainly unchanging.

And upon nothing was the Countess Turova more constant than her devotion to the chief object of her worship. For if she revered her late husband, to her greatest hero she had erected nothing less than a temple. 'In this house,' everything seemed to say, 'the enlightened worship the great leader.'

Voltaire. His quizzical image was everywhere. There was a bust of him on a pedestal in the huge marble hall, and another at the turn of the great staircase. There was a portrait in the large gallery at the top, and another bust in the corner of the salon. The great philosopher was her icon. His name came into the conversation ceaselessly. If someone made a good point, the countess would say, with finality: 'So Voltaire himself might have said.' Or even better, and with warmth: 'Ah, I see you have read your Voltaire.' Something which, Bobrov was sure, she had never done herself. It was astonishing how any subject could be suddenly brought back to the great man and his authority invoked. For all I know, she even thinks he regulates the weather, Alexander thought.

In deference to Voltaire, Diderot and the other French philosophers of the Enlightenment, only French was spoken in Turova's house.

And one had to be careful what one said. It was amazing what the old woman could hear, and what she knew. She loved to catch people out. Indeed, after invoking the blessed name of Voltaire, her favourite phrase was a sharp: 'Take care, monsieur. For I sleep with my eyes open.' And it was never clear whether this was a figure of speech, or whether she meant it literally.

Now, however, still beaming, she tapped his arm lightly. 'Do not go too far, mon cher mon cher Alexandre: I have special need of you tonight.' He wondered what she was up to. 'For the moment, however, you may go. Indeed, I see someone waiting for you.' Alexandre: I have special need of you tonight.' He wondered what she was up to. 'For the moment, however, you may go. Indeed, I see someone waiting for you.'

Alexander turned. And smiled.

Countess Turova's house was a very large building with a heavy, classical portico between two wings. The basement rooms were almost on street level, and though many nobles let such places to fashionable merchants and shopkeepers, the countess did not, preferring to live in the house entirely alone with her servants.

With one exception. She allowed a widowed Frenchwoman, Madame de Ronville, to occupy a suite of rooms in the eastern wing. This suited the countess very well, for though this Frenchwoman was not a paid companion, she was dependent in that her charming quarters were let to her at a very low rent, and it was understood that she would be available when the countess wanted her company. 'It's so convenient for her to be near me,' the countess was often pleased to say.

It was also quite convenient for Alexander Bobrov. For Madame de Ronville was his mistress.

Was there anyone more charming in St Petersburg? As he always did, he now felt that sudden tingle of almost adolescent excitement and joy in her presence, which was accompanied, usually, by a little trembling down his back. They had been lovers for ten years, and he never tired of her. She was almost fifty.

Adelaide de Ronville wore a pink silk dress, a little shorter than the countess's, tightly gathered at the waist and opening out over a hoop skirt. The bodice was decorated with the applique silk flowers which the fashionable French called 'indiscreet complaints'. Her hair, starched and powdered, was charmingly crowned with two little clusters of diamonds. As she stood quietly at his side, almost, but not quite touching him, he was aware of her slim, pale form concealed beneath. Now, her large blue eyes twinkling with amusement, she explained what was going on. 'Her two stars for the evening have failed to arrive,' she whispered. 'Radishchev and the Princess Dashkova.' She smiled. 'She needs you to be the star and her gladiator. Good luck!'

And now Alexander really had reason to smile. Nothing in the world could have been better. Now, he thought, I can please her so much she'll want to leave me the lot!

There were probably no more brilliant figures in enlightened St Petersburg than those two. Princess Dashkova was almost a rival personage to Catherine herself, a fearless champion of liberty whom the empress had placed in charge of the Russian Academy. As for Radishchev, Alexander knew him quite well: he was already writing brilliant essays. How mortified the countess must be that they had failed to turn up. And what a chance for him.

For, despite all his efforts, Alexander was never quite sure that the old countess took him seriously. He had written articles which were widely praised. He had even, like Radishchev, contributed anonymous articles to journals on such daring subjects as democracy and the abolition of serfdom subjects which, even in Catherine's enlightened Russia, were still too radical to be discussed officially. He had shown her these articles and let her into the secret of their authorship; but even then, he did not really know if he had impressed her. Tonight would be his chance.

The role of gladiator, as Countess Turova's regular guests called it, was always the same. For where other salons encouraged the gentle art of civilized debate, Countess Turova liked to watch a massacre. The victim was always an unsuspecting newcomer of conservative views who was confronted with a man of the Enlightenment her gladiator whose job it was to defeat and humiliate his opponent while she and her guests watched.

As Alexander glanced towards the countess now, he could see that a circle was already forming in front of her. On her left he noticed a newcomer, a general a dapper, grey-haired man, short but erect, with piercing black eyes. So this was the victim. The Countess was beckoning. As he approached, he smiled to hear her reproving one of the young writers for something he had said. 'Take care, monsieur,' she was wagging her finger at him. 'You cannot deceive me. I sleep with my eyes open.' She did not change.

It was one of the joys of these evenings that Countess Turova never troubled to be subtle. When she was ready to start the argument, she merely picked up one of the fighting cocks, so to speak, and threw it at the other. Now, therefore, she turned abruptly to the unfortunate general. 'So,' she said accusingly, 'I hear you want to close all our theatres.'

The old man stared at her in surprise. 'Not at all, my dear countess. I just said that one play went too far and should be taken off. It was seditious,' he added calmly.

'So you say. And what do you think, Alexander Prokofievich?'

He was on.

Alexander enjoyed these debates. Firstly, he was good at them because he was patient; secondly, though the countess herself might be shallow, the debates in her salon often concerned important matters, touching the very heart of Russia and her future. For this reason, while he was anxious to defeat the general, he hoped also that he would be a worthy opponent.

The countess had set up the subject: freedom of speech. It was a key tenet of the Enlightenment and was supported by the empress. For not only had Catherine allowed private presses to operate legally, she had even written social satire for the stage herself. And so the debate began.

BOBROV:.

I am against censorship for a simple reason. If men are free to speak, the voice of Reason will eventually prevail. Unless, of course, you have no faith in men's reason.

COUNTESS:.

(Nastily) Have you faith, General?

GENERAL:.

(Cheerfully) Not much.

BOBROV:.

History may be on your side. But what about the future? Men can change and so can the way they are governed. Look how the empress is bringing up her grandsons. Do you disapprove of that?

Everyone knew that Catherine had personally taken charge of her grandsons, Alexander and Constantine. She had put them under a democratically minded Swiss tutor who was teaching them how they might be enlightened rulers of the vast empires she planned to leave them.

GENERAL:.

I admire the empress. But when her grandson rules, enlightened or not, he will find his choices for action are limited.

COUNTESS:.

(Impatiently) No doubt you look forward to the reign of Grand Duke Paul, instead?

Bobrov smiled. The Grand Duke Paul, Catherine's only legitimate son, was the countess's pet hate. He was a strange and moody fellow, and whether or not he was actually his son, Paul certainly modelled himself on the murdered Tsar Peter III. He hated the empress for taking over his sons and seldom came to court. An obsessive military disciplinarian, he had no interest in the Enlightenment, and there was a rumour that Catherine might one day by-pass him in the succession for his son. Even so, no sensible official like the general was going to speak ill of this man who might still one day be ruler. Wisely, therefore, the older man said nothing.

BOBROV:.

To return to censorship what practical harm comes from showing a play?

GENERAL:.

Probably none. But it is the principle of free speech I object to. For two reasons. The first is that it encourages a spirit of opposition for its own sake. But the second, and worse danger, is not the effect on the people, but on their rulers.

BOBROV:.

How so?

GENERAL:.

Because if a so-called enlightened government thinks it must defend its action by Reason, then it starts to believe it is morally obliged to win every argument. Now what if a powerful and determined group which cares nothing for argument and free speech opposes such a government? It becomes helpless. It's no use asking a philosopher to defend us against Genghis Khan! That's the whole lesson of Russian history.

It was a powerful argument. The countess looked put out.

BOBROV:.

Yet the Tatars overcame Russia because she was disunited. I believe that nowadays and in the future, only those governments which have the trust of a free people will be truly strong and united.

GENERAL:.

I disagree. Freedom weakens.