CHAPTER XX

WE RETURNED TO THE INN. THE INNKEEPER WAS, IN KEEPing with the hospitability of his profession, overjoyed to see Dmitry. He showered him with questions as to where he had been and what he had been doing – questions which I too hoped soon to have answered. Dmitry's responses were noncommittal.

'Oh, Captain Danilov,' called the innkeeper after me as I made my way up to my rooms.

'Yes?' I replied.

'Your young lady was round last night. I had to tell her you weren't here.'

'What time?'

'Gone midnight, sir.'

'Did she say anything?'

'Nothing, sir. She just went home again.'

'Thank you.'

I was abominably tired and my first thought was that a few hours' delay in seeing her would not be too significant. I continued up to my room and lay on my bed. My head had scarcely hit the pillow when I realized what Domnikiia must be thinking. She knew what creatures I was up against and that I was out looking for them. Coming here to find I wasn't back at that late hour, she would have concluded either that I had found them or that they had found me. (I still wasn't too sure myself exactly which had been the case.) The longer I delayed seeing her, the more worried she would be that they had been the victors. I hauled myself off the bed and set out to find her.

It was still early, and the brothel was not yet open for business. I hammered on the door and it was answered by Pyetr Pyetrovich.

'We're closed,' he told me.

'I've come to see Dominique,' I said, pushing my way in.

'Oh, it's you,' he said. 'This is a place of business, you know. You can't just call when you please. Not without paying.'

I walked past him, pulling my coat to one side to make sure he got a clear view of the sword I was wearing, and headed up the stairs.

'If you like Dominique so much, we could come to some more permanent arrangement,' he called after me.

Domnikiia was still in bed, but awake. She sat up as I entered. I sat on the bed beside her. She looked intently at my face, but said nothing, her eyes searching my expression for some clue as to what had been happening.

'We found Vadim,' I told her.

'Really?' She sounded pleased. For a moment I didn't realize how ambiguous I had been.

'No, it's not like that. He's dead.' I rested my head on her shoulder and tears ran down my cheek, though I just about managed to keep my voice steady. 'Dead since just after I last saw him.'

She stroked my hair and murmured soothing words. Though it had not been my intention when I entered the room, I pushed her down on to the bed and made very selfish love to her. There was little pleasure in it for me, and less for her, but it fulfilled in me merely the need to obliterate for a moment every higher thought and every human emotion, to descend to the level of an animal where nothing but the moment matters. Considerations of the future, of my responsibilities, of those around me, all could be forgotten just briefly – all too briefly. It was the way a soldier screws a woman he has never met before and knows he will never see again. He might pay for it – he might not have to. Although I had paid Domnikiia many times before, I had never had such disregard for the person beneath me. It was not about her. It was about allowing me to forget her along with everything else.

For her part, I can only suppose she was used to such things, though, I hoped, not from me. I think she was happy enough to perform it as a service for me, as a wife might prepare her husband's dinner or wash his clothes. For me, it had nothing to do with her, and any woman in the building could have taken her place. But she would have seen that as a betrayal, much the same as if a husband got another woman to make his dinner or wash his clothes – a betrayal not of the heart, but of the partnership.

'What's to become of us, Lyosha?' she asked a little while afterwards.

It was the question every faithless husband must dread.

'I've no idea.'

'Neither have I,' she said. 'That's the problem.'

'Is it a problem?'

'Not at the moment.'

'There's still a war. I could be dead tomorrow.' I decided to give myself a little leeway. 'Or the day after that.'

'I know. That's why it's not a problem, but one day it will be.'

'Only if we both survive,' I said with a mirthless laugh.

'Or if the war never ends.'

'So you want an unending war, with us both under the threat of death, but never actually dying, just so we can stay together without our consciences bothering us?' I asked lightly, though the very mention of conscience almost made me shiver at the memory of a different, recent conversation.

'That would just about do it,' she said with a grin.

'I'll have a word with the crowned heads of Europe, then. See if they'll help us out.'

'They seem to be doing pretty well already.'

It was a silly conversation, as trivial as many we had had before, allowing us daily to forget reality, but today it could do little to lift our mood.

I sat up on the side of the bed and glanced towards the table. On it was a letter. I could not see the content, but the single word of the signature screamed out at me: Iuda.

'What's this?' I asked, picking up the letter.

'Ah, yes,' said Domnikiia. 'I was going to tell you about that. Very mysterious – especially from a man you told me was dead.'

'You should have mentioned it,' I snapped.

'I was going to,' she insisted, upset by my tone, 'if you'd given me the chance. Polya – one of the girls – found it when she opened up this morning. It was slipped under the door, addressed to me. Read it. It's more for you than for me anyway.'

I opened the letter and read it silently.

Mademoiselle Dominique,

As I am sure you will have heard from our mutual friend Aleksei Ivanovich, our mission in your country has not gone according to the plans that were originally conceived. It is to my utmost regret that this has led to deep misunderstandings arising between myself and Aleksei Ivanovich, for which I must immediately acknowledge my share of blame. Sadly, affairs have come to such a state between us that it is now impossible for us even to communicate the simplest of requests to one another and, as I'm sure you will readily comprehend, this is no basis from which we can easily find any remedy to the situation.

I therefore entreat you, Mademoiselle Dominique, as Aleksei Ivanovich's close friend (and, I dare to flatter myself, as mine) to act as an intermediary, that you might help to heal this melancholy rift between two formerly hearty and successful comrades. If you would desire to help in this matter, then my simple request is that you convey to Aleksei Ivanovich my petition to meet with him at seven in the evening on the twenty-eighth day of October at the crossroads to the south of the village of Kurilovo. He will know this location better, perhaps, as U4, although I shall not bore you with details of why it is so designated.

Please express to Aleksei Ivanovich the utter sincerity of my wish to meet with him and my fondest hope that with a few minutes of conversation, we can resolve any confusion that may have led to the distressing rift that now exists between us. If Aleksei Ivanovich cannot or chooses not to attend, then please assure him of my continued devotion to both him and his country, and please also, Mademoiselle Dominique, appreciate the heartfelt affection that I hold for you personally.

Your devoted friend,

Iuda.

'He does gush,' I said scornfully.

'I think it's nice that he makes the effort.'

'You are joking, aren't you?'

She put her chin on my shoulder and I felt her arms around my waist. 'Yes, Aleksei Ivanovich, I am joking.'

'I mean you only met him once, and that was for five minutes.'

'Absolutely,' she said in heartfelt agreement. 'And of course on top of that, he is a vampire.'

'Are you teasing me, Mademoiselle Dominique?'

'Well, you sound like a jealous husband going through my correspondence.'

'When did you get this?' I asked.

'I said, this morning, when Polya got up.'

'When was that?'

'About ten o'clock. We work late here.'

'And when did you close up last night?'

'Around two.'

'So this could have arrived any time between two and ten?'

'Yes,' she replied, with emphasized patience. 'Does it matter?'

It mattered a lot. If Iuda had delivered it before our meeting the previous night, then that presented a number of possibilities. Our encounter that night might not have been as premeditated as it had seemed, at least not on Iuda's part, or it might have been that he had all along expected me to escape. A third possibility was that the letter was not intended for me at all, but was solely for the benefit of Domnikiia, to whom, after all, it had been addressed. Could this be to persuade her to attend the meeting in my place? It seemed unlikely. Could it be to give Iuda a veneer of innocence in Domnikiia's eyes once my death was discovered? That was more believable.

On the other hand, if the letter had been delivered this morning, after I had seen him, then it would make more sense, but since Iuda would have been unable to travel in daylight, he must have had human assistance in delivering it. Was this some errand boy he had simply hired for a few copecks, or did he have human servants of a more devoted nature? The obvious suspect would have been Dmitry, but Dmitry had been with me all the time.

'Are you going to go to the meeting?' she asked.

'I think so.'

'Won't it be dangerous?'

'I'll have Dmitry with me.'

'You mean Dmitry's in Moscow? I thought he went back to the army.'

'No, he had other things to do.'

'Do you trust him?'

'I do now.'

'You mean you didn't before?' she asked.

'I did before, but I was wrong.'

'And now you're right?'

'Dmitry's run out of options.'

She paused for a moment before asking, 'How far is Kurilovo?'

'Not far,' I replied. 'We'll set off the day after tomorrow. I'd better go.'

We made our goodbyes and I left, taking Iuda's letter with me. I went back to the inn and slept for most of the afternoon. Early in the evening, there was a knock at my door. It was Dmitry. I showed him the letter.

'Well, you're not going, are you?' he asked dismissively.

'Yes, I think we are.'

'We?'

'Yes, Dmitry, we.'

'But it's so obviously a trick,' he insisted.

'Do you know the crossroads he mentions?'

'No, I don't think I do.'

'It's a very good place to meet someone you don't trust. There's a clear view all around. We'll easily be able to see if he's brought anyone with him.'

'Do you think he knows that?'

'Possibly,' I replied. 'They may have come that way as they made the last stretch of their journey here from Tula. I think he's chosen the place so that we'll both feel safe.'

'You think he's afraid of you?' asked Dmitry, betraying by the edge in his voice the fear he felt for the Oprichniki – a fear which had been in him all the time, but which only gained substance when he discovered they had become his enemies.

'I hope he is,' I replied.

'I still don't think it's a good idea. They've left Moscow and soon they'll have left the country. Enough of them have died so that they won't come back. Let someone else deal with them. Let the French deal with them.'

'You think they won't come back?'

'Why should they?'

'Revenge. Look what they did to Maks. He'd killed three of them. I've killed four – even you've killed one.'

'They're practical – not spiteful.'

'Most of them maybe, but why would Iuda try to entice us into this meeting if his only plan was to get away? If we don't go, then he'll just have to come back here. He's already suggesting that Domnikiia might be at risk by sending the letter to her.'

'I suppose,' replied Dmitry contemplatively.

'Have you tried to track down Boris and Natalia at all?' I asked, ostensibly changing the subject.

'I went back to where they were staying,' said Dmitry, 'but the French had torn it all down.'

'I found out that their shop burnt down on the first day of the fires.'

'I know,' he said. 'Boris told me.'

'But I met someone who has seen them since Bonaparte's departure.'

'Really? Where?'

'Just around.'

'In that house this morning, I thought that one of the bodies might be . . .' Dmitry could not bring himself to say it.

'I know. I thought so too for a moment.'

'So when shall we set out for Kurilovo?' asked Dmitry, after a moment's pause.

'We'll leave the day after tomorrow, on the twenty-sixth. That will give us two days to get there.'

 

Domnikiia did manage to join me that night. On my instructions, her arrival was soon followed by that of the innkeeper, who brought us some supper and a bottle of wine. We sat at the small table in my room and talked of things of little consequence. Eventually, there was no option but to raise the subject of my journey to Kurilovo.

'So what time will you and Dmitry be setting off?' she asked.

'First light. We should be there by Sunday and then we'll have a whole day to check things out before the meeting on Monday.'

'Do you mind if I don't come over tomorrow night then?'

'Why? Don't you like the idea of being woken up so early?' I joked.

'I don't like the idea of waking up to see you go – or to find you gone.'

'OK,' I said, though the prospect struck me more harshly than I would have imagined.

'It's selfish of me, I know.'

'It's all right. If you were here, I probably wouldn't be able to leave.'

'You can have me all day tomorrow, though. I'm not going to work.'

'Can you? Just like that?'

'I can do what I like. Pyetr Pyetrovich is terrified of you.'

'Really?' I was surprised. 'I've barely ever spoken to him.'

'Yes, but I've said a few things, about what a great soldier you are and so forth – all exaggeration, of course.'

'Thank you.'

'Anyway, he needs me on his side. I'm his most popular girl.'

I felt a knot in my stomach as I was presented with a reality of which I was already fully aware.

'Is that meant to make me feel good?' I asked, trying to keep it lighter than I felt.

'Don't you deserve the best?' she smiled.

I stood up and started to clear the things from the table. Then I noticed her face drain of its colour. I followed her gaze to the replacement wooden sword that I'd been working on, lying half-finished on the desk in the corner of the room.

'What happened to the other one?' she asked.

'Dmitry broke it,' I said.

She sensed my desire not to give her any more detail, and did not ask. 'They must break very easily,' she said simply.

'It's never a problem to make a new one,' I told her.

 

We spent the following day wandering around the city. It was below freezing and a layer of snow coated the ground – nothing compared with what was to come. We both wore heavy coats to keep warm.

'I hate to see Moscow like this,' said Domnikiia after we had been walking for a little while. 'So devastated – so empty.'

She didn't see it as I did. Although I saw the burnt-out houses and the empty streets, what stood out for me above that was the appearance of growth. Like the first green shoots of spring, it was not obvious, but for those who had eyes to see it, it was ubiquitous and unstoppable. At every turn, someone was repairing some damage to their home or reopening a shop. Even the winter cold could not spoil my optimism. Recovery would take time, but it would inevitably come.

We had come to a churchyard in Kitay Gorod that I knew well.

'This is where we stayed after the fire,' I said to Domnikiia, 'with Boris Mihailovich and his daughter.'

'That reminds me. One of the girls at work knows her.'

'Knows Natalia?'

'Yes, I was going to tell you.'

'Tell me now. Are they all right?'

'Yes, yes. She saw her a few days ago.'

'Have they found somewhere to live?'

'They're sharing with another shoemaker on Ordynsky Lane, in Zamoskvorechye. Shall we go and see them?'

'No,' I replied. 'Not today.'

'You'll tell Dmitry about them, though?'

'Yes, yes.' But I wouldn't tell him straight away.

We said goodbye outside her door in Degtyarny Lane. The square was covered in snow and I couldn't help but be reminded of the scene the first time I had laid eyes on her, just under a year ago. I scooped up a handful of snow and made a snowball, which I hurled across the square at no particular target. She smiled, remembering, and held my hands.

'My saviour,' she said, but then she became more serious. 'How long will you be gone?'

'Two days out there – two days back.'

'You will come back then?'

'Of course I will,' I smiled.

'Straight back?'

'I can't promise that. It depends what happens. But I will be back.'

'And then we can be together for ever?' She smiled wistfully as she spoke, knowing that the dream was unrealizable. My only answer was to kiss her. As I walked away, I looked over my shoulder and saw her watching me all the way to the end of the street.

 

The following day, at dawn, Dmitry and I mounted our horses and rode south, out of the city. It was not difficult to be reminded of another departure from Moscow, months before, when four of us had set off with our hearts full of optimism that the then twelve Oprichniki with whom we were working would help us to rid Russia of the French invaders.

Now there were only two of us and there were five of them – their losses, as a proportion, marginally greater than ours. If we continued at the same rate, then we would be the victors, but only just – and at what cost to ourselves?

As we rode, we talked.

'So tell me, Dmitry,' I asked him, 'what were you doing after you left Yuryev-Polsky?' It was asked innocently enough, but he knew as well as I that it was a debriefing, if not an interrogation.

'Well, obviously I didn't go to join back up with the army. I skirted round Moscow to the south and then went in to find Pyetr.'

'They're not easy to find if they don't want to be.'

'Pyetr and I had made some other arrangements. The meetings with you were more for show as far as they were concerned.'

'I see.' I had suspected as much. 'But why should they be concerned about us at all?' I asked. It had been puzzling me for some time. Their whole motivation for travelling to Moscow still evaded me.

'You may not accept it, but they genuinely believe in the cause. Zmyeevich does, anyway, and they're all afraid of him,' explained Dmitry. His mood swung, almost sentence by sentence, between self-pity and self-justification.

'They seem to believe more in satisfying their own hunger than in any cause,' I said.

'They're like any soldiers. Like you and me. They like to fight, but they like the idea that they have a just cause to fight for.' I snorted in disagreement. 'Oh, come on, Aleksei,' continued Dmitry. 'Would you be fighting this war if it wasn't for something you believed in? They're the same.'

'They've made it very clear that they are not the same as you and me. For them, killing comes above all things. You can't persuade me that they're just a gang of latter-day Don Quixotes looking for a noble cause for which they can employ their knightly skills. Have you forgotten what we saw in that room?'

'No, I haven't,' said Dmitry, sombrely. 'There are two factions amongst them – Pyetr versus Iuda. The ones I knew before – Ioann, Andrei and Varfolomei – all stuck with Pyetr. Now that there's only Pyetr left, I think he's pretty much fallen in with Iuda.'

'As easily as that?' I asked.

'None of them has the strongest of personalities, as I'm sure you've noticed. I think the self-selecting nature of vampires tends to prevent that. Pyetr was under Zmyeevich's thumb for a while, now he's under Iuda's. I don't suppose seeing his last ally so ably decapitated by you in front of him would have done much for his independence of spirit.'

'And so it was only Iuda who made them turn on innocent Muscovites?'

'I like to think that.' But he had reached the limits of his own credulity. 'I would like to think that,' he added, 'but I don't.' It marked the end of a prolonged transformation in his view of the Oprichniki that had begun back at the house in Moscow where he had first seen the mutilated corpses of his fellow countrymen. Perhaps – I hoped, though I had seen no sign of it – it had started even earlier.

'So, what happened when you met Pyetr?' I asked.

'They had already pretty much worked out that it was you who killed Matfei and Varfolomei. Pyetr explained to me what happened in the fire – when you locked me in.'

'I didn't know you were there,' I said, more apologetically than was really necessary.

'No, I know that – despite the way that Iuda tried to tell it.'

'So Iuda saw the whole thing?'

'Apparently.'

'Apparently?'

'He had already gone by the time I got there. His coffin was empty. He must have hung around to watch.'

That was not the story that Iuda had given me, in the house in Moscow as I stood beside Vadim's rotting corpse. It was interesting that Iuda should choose to lie on so minor a point. Perhaps it was to make me doubt Dmitry. On the other hand, perhaps it was Dmitry who was lying. If I thought that, then clearly Iuda's plan was working.

'Why didn't he help?' I asked.

'It was Ioann. Iuda's position was better without him.'

'So what else did Pyetr say?'

'He said he thought that they could probably let you get away with murdering two of them. It wasn't like with Maks, he said. Maks killing them was treason. With you, it was just instinct.' Or perhaps Maks' instincts were better tuned than mine.

'And you believed him?'

'It was what I wanted to hear,' Dmitry explained with uncharacteristic self-awareness. 'I'd have killed Maks, but I wouldn't have killed you.'

'How comforting.'

'Pyetr said they'd get you to a meeting somehow where we could talk it out. He came and found me that night – told me that they'd managed to persuade you to talk to them. So I went with him.'

'But he must have known,' I said, thinking aloud, 'or at least worried, that seeing those Russian bodies – and seeing Vadim, for heaven's sake – you wouldn't stay on their side for long.'

'The location was all worked out by Iuda. He must have wanted me to see that.'

'To test you?' I wondered.

'Maybe. Or maybe his plan was exactly how it all turned out. He got rid of Andrei, after all.'

It was the same thought that had occurred to me earlier, when I first read Iuda's letter. Beyond that, though, Dmitry was pretty much allowing himself to be duped. There may have been disagreements within the Oprichniki, but I could not give credence to the idea of there being noble vampires and ignoble vampires. Pyetr and Andrei had survived for over two weeks in Moscow after the French had left. What, I wondered, were they supposed to have been eating in that time? Borshch?

More worrying to me than any of the details of what had taken place, was the new light in which I had to view Dmitry's character. That he could be ruthless and that he judged himself superior enough to make his own decisions on moral issues – such as whether it was conscionable to work alongside the Oprichniki in order to get rid of the French – I had never doubted. But that he could be so blinded by his own desire for success as to not see the truly malevolent nature of the Oprichniki and be so gullible as to believe what they had told him – that was the surprise. On the surface, he portrayed himself as the most hardened cynic of us all, but every cynic must, as well as doubting the motivations of others, always doubt their own.

By the afternoon of our first day of travel, we had come to a village that I had known we would pass through, and I suspected that Iuda must have known it too when he chose the rendezvous. From Dmitry, however, I saw no sign of anticipation.

I dismounted and tied up my horse outside the familiar woodsman's hut, from which leaked a stench that I could not distinguish as being real or part of my guilt-ridden imagination.

'What town is this?' asked Dmitry, still utterly ignorant of where we were.

'Desna,' I said, conveying by both tone and look the significance of what I was saying.

He pulled a face to indicate that the name meant nothing to him, but he saw by my expression that he should think more deeply. Then it dawned on him.

'Oh, I see,' he said, respectfully.

We went into the hut. Little had changed since I had last been there, two months before. The French had been this way on their retreat, but the hut had nothing inside that would be of use to them. The stove still stood against the far wall. The chair that had been in the middle remained as well, knocked over on one side.

Maks' body was slumped in a corner of the room, leaning against the wall as if he sat, wearily, his head tilted back, watching Dmitry and me as we looked around. Whether it had been placed there or fallen like that by chance I could not tell. His legs were bent almost up to his chest and one arm rested upon his knee; the other hung loosely by his side. Thankfully, his body was too far decayed to leave any clear residue of the wounds that had been inflicted at his death, although I was now familiar enough with how the Oprichniki operated to be able to make a pretty good guess. The cloth of his breeches hung close to his shin to give a hollow impression of what remained of the withered flesh beneath. Only his hands and his head could be seen outside his clothes. His hands were shrivelled and old. His face was decayed beyond recognition. Unlike Vadim, Maks had had no beard to remain after the rest of him had rotted away. Only his spectacles gave any evidence that confirmed for me what I knew to be true – that this was Maksim Sergeivich. They hung off his nose and one ear – the other having long since lost the integrity to support them – the metal rim sinking into the yielding, dead flesh of his cheek.

We stood in silence for a few moments. More than once I sensed that Dmitry was about to speak, but each time he thought better of it. He was wise to do so.

'We should bury him,' I said at length.

'Yes,' said Dmitry in a way that expressed strong agreement, where none was needed. 'I'll see if I can find some tools.' He walked away, leaving me a few more precious seconds with my abandoned friend. Moments later he gave out a hushed shout.

'Aleksei! Look at this.' He was kneeling down looking at the wall just by the doorway, an area that would be covered when the door was open. I knelt beside him to see what he was looking at. It was textbook positioning for a message. A shaky hand had scratched the following into the wood:

Maks had been here and left this mark on the evening of the twenty-seventh of August. I had known as much – that had been only the day before I had met him here. The '' was, however, the more interesting part of the message. '' meant that, somewhere nearby, Maksim had hidden a letter.