The convoy stretched endlessly over the snowy plains like a black centipede, with thirty-two pairs of steel wheels crushing the last moonlight of the snowfield.
Tsar Nicholas I removed his gold-framed pince-nez and wiped the ice crystals off the lenses with a velvet cloth.
Count Benkendorf, who was in the carriage with the Tsar, noticed the old scar on the Tsar's forefinger trembling—a relic from the Decemberist rebellion in 1825.
"Your Majesty, Moscow is on triple alert." The Tsar's most trusted favorite folded a secret message into the shape of a swan, "Duke Dmitry Golitsyn, the Governor of Moscow, insists on welcoming you personally, but as you instructed..."
"I don't want to see him now. Let him go and pray at St. Basil's Cathedral." The Tsar's saber made a scratch on the carpet of the carriage: "Tell Shubinsky, I want to see the original interrogation records before dawn—not those perfume-stained copies from Volkov."
