April 1917 finds the Tsar Nicholas II and Tsarina Alexandra of Russia under house arrest at Tsarskoe Selo after the tsar's abdication in favor of his brother, Grand Duke Michael.What was once Empress Alexandra's cozy retreat, the Alexander Palace, is now cold, forbidding, servantless, overrun by revolutionary soldiers, and without lighting or heating. And several of her children, Maria in particular, are still at death's door suffering from the measles...