Boris Akunin - The Coronation

‘Wonderful,’ Fandorin muttered angrily. ‘Absolutely wonderful. Now not only can’t we pursue Lind, we can’t even find the way back either. Who would ever have believed there was such a maze down here? They must have been digging it for three hundred years, if not longer: the monks during the Time of Troubles and the rebel Streltsy, and the Old Believers hiding their ancient books and church silver from the Patriarch Nikon; and since there are stone galleries, theremust have been quarries here at some time . . . All right, Ziukin. Let’s go wherever our path leads.’

Making our way in total darkness was slow and difficult. I fell several times when I stumbled over obstacles on the floor. The first time I fell some live creature darted out from under me with a squeal and I grabbed at my heart. I have one shameful and unmanly weakness – I cannot stand rats and mice. I am instinctively repulsed by those creeping, darting, thieving vermin. On the next occasion I caught my foot on something shaped like a root, and when I felt it with my hand, it proved to be a human ribcage. When I stretched my length on the ground for the third time, I heard something jingle underneath me. I clutched at my pocket – and the Orlov was not there.

I shouted out in horror: ‘I’ve dropped the stone.’

Fandorin struck a match, and I saw a broken crock containing irregular round objects that glinted dully in the light. I picked one up – it was a silver coin, very old. But I had no interest at all in coins just then. I wondered if I could possibly have dropped the diamond earlier, during one of my other falls. In that case finding it would be very far from easy.

Thank God, with his third match Fandorin spotted the diamond, half-buried in the dust, and he kept it. After what had happened, I did not dare to object. I tipped two handfuls of coins from the treasure trove into my pockets and we wandered on.

I do not know how many hours it lasted. Sometimes we sat down on the ground to draw breath. This was the second night in succession I had spent underground and, Lord help me, I would be hard pressed to say which of them I liked less.

We could not even look to see what time it was, because our matches were soon soaked by the damp air and refused to strike. When I stumbled over those familiar bones for the second time, it became clear that we were wandering in circles.

Then Fandorin said: ‘You know, Ziukin, this will not do. Do you want rats to run over your naked ribs?’

I shuddered.

‘Well, nor do I. Sowemust stop simply strolling about, hoping for things to work out somehow or other. We need a system. From nowonwe followa strict alternation: one turn to the right, one turn to the left. Forward!’

But even after the introduction of the ‘system’ we walked for a very long time, until eventually we saw a feeble light glimmering in the distance. I was the first to go dashing towards it. The passage narrowed and shrank until we had to crawl on all fours, but that was all right, because the light kept growing brighter and brighter. At the very end I grabbed hold of a cold, rough root, and it suddenly tore itself out of my hand with an angry hiss. A snake! I gasped and jerked away, banging the back of my head against the stone ceiling. I saw yellow spots on the narrow head of the black band as it rippled away from me – a harmless grass snake – but my heart was still pounding insanely.

The burrow had led us out to the edge of the water on a riverbank. I saw a dark barge wreathed in morning mist, the roofs of warehouses on the far side of the river and the semicircular arches of a railway bridge in the distance.

‘We haven’t really travelled very far,’ said Fandorin, straightening up and dusting off his soiled coachman’s coat. I saw that he had already rid himself of the long black beard and I thought he had left the hat with the broad brim back in the vault. I followed the direction of his glance. Just a few hundred paces away the domes of the Novodevichy Convent were glinting gently in the first rays of sunlight.

‘Evidently the nuns used this passage as a secret way to reach the river,’ Fandorin surmised. ‘I wonder what for.’

I could not have cared less.

‘And there’s the bell tower,’ I said, pointing. ‘Quickly, let’s go. Mr Karnovich and Mr Lasovsky must be tired of looking for us. Or if not for us, for the Orlov. Won’t they be delighted!’

I smiled. At that moment the sense of open space, the light and the freshness of the morning filled me with the same feeling of life’s completeness that Lazarus must have felt when he rose from the dead.

‘Do you really want to give the Orlov back to Karnovich?’ Fandorin asked incredulously.

For a moment I thought I must have misheard, but then I realised that, like myself, Mr Fandorin was delighted by the successful outcome of our appalling night and was therefore in the mood for a joke. Well, there are circumstances in which even Ziukin is not averse to a joke, even if his companion is not the most pleasant.

‘No, I want to take the stone to Doctor Lind,’ I replied with a restrained smile intended to indicate that I had appreciated his joke and was replying in kind.

‘Well, that is just it,’ Erast Petrovich said, nodding seriously. ‘You understand that if we give the stone to the authorities, we shall never see it again. And then the boy and Emilie are doomed.’

Now I realised that he was not joking at all.

‘Do you really intend to enter into an independent bargain with Doctor Lind?’ I asked, just to make certain.

‘Yes. What else can we do?’

Neither of us spoke as we stared at each other in mutual perplexity. My mood of exaltation vanished without a trace. A terrible presentiment turned my mouth dry.

Fandorin looked me over from head to foot, as if seeing me for the first time and asked in a curious tone of voice: ‘Just a m-moment, Ziukin, don’t you love little Mika?’

‘Very much,’ I said, surprised at such a question.

‘And then . . . you are rather partial to Emilie, I believe?’

I was feeling very tired; we were both smeared with dust and clay; the air smelled of grass and the river; and all of this gave me the feeling that the ordinary conventions did not apply. That was the only reason why I answered this outrageously immodest question: ‘I am not indifferent to Mademoiselle Declique’s fate.’

‘So, the stake in this game is the lives of t-two people. People whom you . . . well, let us say, to whose fate you are “not indifferent”. And you are prepared to sacrifice those people for a piece of polished carbon?’

‘There are things that are more important than love,’ I said in a quiet voice and suddenly remembered that Fandorin had said the same thing to Xenia Georgievna quite recently.

I found this memory disturbing and felt it necessary to clarify my meaning: ‘For example, honour. Fidelity. The prestige of the monarchy. National holy relics.’

I felt rather foolish explaining such things, but what else was there for me to do?

Fandorin paused before he spoke: ‘You, Ziukin, have a choice. Do you see the police cordon around the chapel? Either you go across to it and tell them that Fandorin has absconded, t-taking the Orlov with him, or we try to save Emilie and the child together. Decide.’

So saying he took the black beard and shaggy wig out of his pocket – apparently he had kept them after all – and put on this hirsute disguise, transforming himself into a simple shaggy peasant of the kind who move into the large cities in search of work.

I do not know why I stayed with him. Upon my word of honour, I do not know. I did not say a word, but I did not move from the spot.

‘Well, are we off to hard labour in the same fetters?’ Fandorin asked with quite inappropriate merriment, holding out his hand.