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noncommissioned officer in a cavalry unit of the tsar’s army, but the war quickly took its toll with great losses for Russia, and suddenly he found himself promoted to full captain. He was sickened with the futile waste of life he saw every day at the front. Passage over Russia’s narrow muddy roads was slowed to a crawl by supply wagons that never got through, and his men were being mown down by an inexorable enemy. The frozen, hungry soldiers were being slaughtered or were dying of dysentery, and he was helpless to do anything about it.
    The revolution he had worked toward for so long began with riots in St. Petersburg in February 1917 over shortages of bread and coal. After returning from the front, Grigori helped to form the new militant Soviet of Works. Soon Tsar Nicholas was forced to abdicate. But as the months passed it became obvious that the new government was incapable of dealing with the food shortages. Lenin arrived back in Russia and under his leadership the October Revolution began.
    Grigori’s finest hour had been when he was presented to his hero. Lenin had looked just as he remembered him, pale-faced, bearded, and frail, with an intense gaze that seemed to see into Grigori’s soul. He had known then that he would give his life for this man if necessary, becausehe was convinced that only Lenin could save Russia. He had never wavered from that decision.
    He glanced at the boy, huddled beneath his greatcoat. Now he was going to prove to himself that he could make a revolutionary from the class they were overthrowing.
    The town of Dvorsk was a mere cluster of dark wooden houses spread in a straggling line alongside the railway. Grigori was billeted above the bakery, and even though the baker had only a meager supply of flour to make his bread, at least the place was warm and there was always a bowl of steaming hot potato soup and a crust of bitter dark rye bread to eat and a glass or two of home-brewed vodka to wash it down. His men would sleep on the floor of the bakery. After telling them to get warm and to eat, Grigori rode on to the station. The train to St. Petersburg had been due at seven that evening, but the hour had come and gone and there was still no sign of it. The stationmaster had had no communication, and no one knew when it might be expected—it could be hours, days, weeks even….
    After telling the Stationmaster to inform him immediately when he had news, Grigori rode back to the bakery and carried Alexei upstairs to his room, where he put him on the small iron cot that served as his own bed. The boy’s face was chalk-white and his hands icy, but his eyes were wide open, and still transfixed with the memory of horror.
    Grigori sat beside him on the bed, talking to him quietly in English, the first language of all good Russian families and one he had acquired at the Politeknik. “So, young man,” he began, “for after tonight you can no longer be considered a mere boy; we must look to your future now and not the past.” He spoke sharply. “I want you to put what you saw from your mind. Your father and mother are dead. You are no longer the son of Misha Ivanoff.Now you are my son and your name is Sergei … Sergei Solovsky. Do you understand?”
    Alexei nodded, staring at Grigori with wide, fathomless gray eyes. His father’s eyes.
    In fact, Alexei looked so like Prince Misha Ivanoff, whom Solovsky had seen many times at the meetings of the
Duma
, the Parliament, that he was afraid he might be recognized. He wondered again if he had done the right thing, but with a shrug he told himself it was too late now to turn back; he would just have to keep the boy out of sight for a while. Besides, his experiment excited him. He was going to reverse the natural order of things. He was a common man who because of his education had become part of the new elite. Now he would turn this elite young princeling into a common man—and then he would see what he could make of him.
    After telling the boy