Boris Akunin - The Diamond Chariot

THE DIAMOND CHARIOT

The Further Adventures

of Erast Fandorin

BORIS AKUNIN

Translated by Andrew Bromfield

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Dragonfly-Catcher

KAMI-NO-KU

The first syllable, which has a certain connection with the East

The second syllable, in which two earthly vales terminate abruptly

The third syllable, in which Vasilii Alexandrovich visits the WC

The fourth syllable, in which a hired gun sets out on the hunt

The fifth syllable, which features an interesting passenger

NAKA-NO-KU

The first syllable, in which Vasilii Alexandrovich takes leave

The second syllable, in which Masa violates his neutrality

The third syllable, in which Rybnikov gets into a jam

The fourth syllable, in which Fandorin feels afraid

The fifth syllable, consisting almost completely of face-to-face conversations

The sixth syllable, in which a tail and ears play an important part

The seventh syllable, in which it emerges that not all Russians love Pushkin

SHIMO-NO-KU

The first syllable, in which iron stars rain down from the sky

The second syllable, entirely about railways

The third syllable, in which Rybnikov gives free rein to his passion

The fourth syllable, in which the name of the Japanese God is taken in vain

The final syllable, the longest one of all

Between the Lines

A butterfly’s flight

The old kuruma

A hero’s eyes

The blue die does not like Badger

The blue die loves the gaijin

The flag of a great power

A cobbled street running down a hill

A perfectly healthy corpse

Sparks of light on a katana blade

The ermine’s glassy stare

The silver slipper

The first ray of sunlight

A mamusi ’s heart

Snow at the New Year

A white horse in a lather

The final smile

Early plum rain

Sirius

Horse dung

A tiger on the loose

The scent of irises

Love’s call

The garden gate

The science of jojutsu

A one-handed clap

A spray of acacia

A little piece of happiness

2.18

The scales fall from his eyes

A word once given must be kept

An autumn leaf

Insane happiness

Ticklish

Off with his head

The photograph of his wife

Dong, dong

A headache

A quiet voice

A dragonfly’s rainbow wings

A blue star

A briar pipe

Two hands tightly clasped

A dead tree

The glowing coals

The death of an enemy

The love of two moles

The nocturnal melding of the world

Spilled sake

A big fire

He didn’t answer

A postman

The real akunin

Thus spake Tamba

PS

Also by Boris Akunin

Copyright

THE DIAMOND CHARIOT

In Two Books

Book 1: Dragonfly-Catcher

Book 2: Between the Lines

BOOK 1

DRAGONFLY-CATCHER

Russia, 1905

KAMI-NO-KU

The first syllable, which has a certain connection with the East

On the very day when the appalling rout and destruction of the Russian fleet near the island of Tsushima was approaching its end and the first vague and alarming rumours of this bloody Japanese triumph were sweeping across Europe – on that very day, Staff Captain Vasilii Alexandrovich Rybnikov, who lived on a small street with no name in the St Petersburg district of Peski, received the following telegram from Irkutsk: ‘Dispatch sheets immediately watch over patient pay expenses’.

Thereupon Staff Captain Rybnikov informed the landlady of his apartment that business would take him to St Petersburg for a day or two and she should not, therefore, be alarmed by his absence. Then he dressed, left the house and never went back there again.

Initially Vasilii Alexandrovich’s day proceeded entirely as usual – that is, in a bustle of ceaseless activity. After first riding to the centre of the city in a horse cab, he continued his peregrinations exclusively on foot and, despite his limp (the staff captain dragged one foot quite noticeably), he managed to visit an incredible number of places.

He started with the Major General Commandant’s Office, where he sought out a clerk from the transport accounts section and returned with a solemn air one rouble, borrowed from the clerk two days previously. Then he called into the Cossack Forces Directorate on Simeonovskaya Square, to enquire about a petition he had submitted two months ago, which had got bogged down in red tape. From there he moved on to the Military Department of Railways – he had been trying for a long time to obtain a position as an archivist in the drafting office there. On that day his small, fidgety figure was also seen in the Office of the Inspector General of Artillery on Zakharievskaya Street, and the Office of Repairs on Morskaya Street, and even at the Committee for the Wounded on Kirochnaya Street (Rybnikov had been attempting without any success to obtain an official note concerning a concussion suffered at Luoyang).

The agile army man managed to show his face everywhere. Clerks in offices nodded offhandedly to their old acquaintance and quickly turned away, immersing themselves, with an emphatically preoccupied air, in their documents and conversations about work. They knew from experience that once the staff captain latched on to someone, he could worry the life out of them.

Vasilii Alexandrovich turned his short-cropped head this way and that for a while, sniffing with his plum-shaped nose as he selected his victim. Having chosen, he seated himself unceremoniously right there on the victim’s desk and started swaying one foot in a shabby boot, waving his arms around and spouting all sorts of drivel: about the imminent victory over the Japanese macaques, his own heroic war exploits, the high cost of living in the capital. They couldn’t just tell him to go to hell – after all, he was an officer, and he’d been wounded at Mukden. They poured Rybnikov tea, regaled him with papiroses , answered his gormless questions and dispatched him with all possible haste to some other section, where the whole business was repeated all over again.

Between two and three o’clock in the afternoon, the staff captain, who had called into the office of the St Petersburg Arsenal on a procurement matter, suddenly glanced at his wristwatch with the mirror-bright glass (everyone had heard the story of this chronometer at least a thousand times – it had supposedly been presented to him by a captured Japanese marquis) and became terribly agitated. Blinking his yellowish-brown eyes at the two shipping clerks, who by now were completely exhausted by his gabbling, he told them:

‘Well, that was a great chat. I’m sorry, but I have to leave you now. Entre nous , an assignation with a lovely lady. The fever-heat of passion and all that. As the Jappos say, strike while the iron’s hot.’

He gave a brief snort of laughter and took his leave.

‘What a character,’ said the first shipping clerk, a young warrant officer. ‘But even he’s managed to find himself some woman or other.’

‘He’s lying, just talking big,’ the second clerk said reassuringly – he held the same rank, but was much older. ‘Who could ever be seduced by an old Marlborough like that?’

The worldly-wise shipping clerk was right. In the apartment on Nadezhdinskaya Square, to which Rybnikov made his way via a long, roundabout route through connecting courtyards, the staff captain was not met by a lovely lady, but a young man in a speckled jacket.