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of three torpedo boats.
    Word reached St. Petersburg the next day.

    On the morning of May 16, the frozen surface of the Neva River was breaking up. From the quays and surrounding streets, it sounded as if some invisible force was striking the ice with a giant ax. First, cracks had appeared across the surface, then gaps widened between chunks of ice. The river's surface, a smooth blanket of white throughout the winter, was now crowded with clumps of soot-gray ice. Slowly, the current began to move these enormous floes downriver. They collided, spun, and broke apart into smaller pieces, loosening the stubborn ice on the riverbanks. In the weeks ahead, the Neva's flow would finally run clear into the Gulf of Finland. It was a relentless, inevitable process.
    Fifteen miles south of St. Petersburg that same morning, Nicholas was horseback riding through Tsarskoye Selo. The air smelled of wet lilacs. Nicholas treasured his country estate. Set behind a tall iron fence and guarded by mounted Cossacks, Tsarskoye Selo was a paradise far removed from the city's chaos. On the eight-hundred-acre park where Nicholas galloped stood two palaces with extensive gardens, a zoo, triumphal arches, numerous chapels, paths weaving through forest groves, an artificial lake dotted with sailboats—even a Chinese pagoda and Turkish baths.
    Nicholas finished his ride in front of Alexander Palace, where he had retreated after the Blessing of the Waters ceremony in January. Built a century before, the hundred-room palace was modest compared to the nearby Catherine Palace, which rivaled Versailles in size and opulence. Even so, Nicholas and his family were not at a loss for luxury amidst the long gilded halls and mauve boudoirs lit with crystal chandeliers and scented with fresh-cut flowers. There, hundreds
of smartly dressed servants tended to their needs. As Nicholas walked through the palace that morning, however, the luxurious surroundings must have been lost on him. He desperately awaited news of Rozhestvensky's squadron.
    The night before, he had shut himself away with his war council in the walnut-paneled study, poring over charts to ascertain where the fleet could be. His naval minister, Admiral Avelan, had reassured him that even if Togo attempted to elude the Russian fleet, Rozhestvensky would draw the Japanese out completely, even if he had to bombard one of their ports. Such was the bravado of Nicholas's inner circle.
    Wild rumors ran throughout St. Petersburg. Some talked of a great Japanese victory. Others said that the Russian fleet had arrived in Vladivostok unscathed; the newsboys in St. Petersburg were already selling that story in the streets. But if Nicholas believed every wire report or consul message, then Rozhestvensky had already successfully waged his fight a month before in the Strait of Malacca off Indochina, and the tsar's worries were over.
    But they were not; he was very worried. The past four and a half months had trampled his hope for a quiet, peaceful year. On January 9, three days after he escaped death on the Neva, 120,000 workers and their families, dressed in their Sunday best, had converged on the Winter Palace to petition him to ease their oppression. The defenseless crowd, carrying icons and his own portrait, refused to disperse, and his soldiers led cavalry charges against them, killing 130 and wounding many more. "Bloody Sunday," many were calling it.
    Mayhem erupted in the days and weeks that followed. As one of Nicholas's faithful described it at the time: "Strikes are rolling over Russia as feathergrass over the steppe, outrunning each other, from Petersburg to Baku, from Warsaw to the heart of Siberia. Everybody is engaged ... workingmen, students, railway-conductors, professors, cigarette-makers, pharmacists, lawyers, barbers, shop-clerks, telegraphists, schoolboys ... The atmosphere is overcharged.... People cross themselves asking 'What is going to happen? What is going to happen?'" In the countryside,