Ted Bell - Tsar

But Hawke, as he staggered through this gruesome forest, had had no idea this barbaric method of execution was still in use.

Just when he thought it could get no worse, a guard lurched drunkenly toward the nearest stake, jumped up, and grabbed some wretched woman by the ankles, yanking her down a foot or more further onto the bloody stake. She screamed in agony, and the guard let go, collapsing to the ground in hysterics. Hawke, unable to control his rising gorge, wrenched himself free of the guards, bent forward from the waist, and retched, his vomit spattering his shoes, staining the freshly fallen snow.

He now knew the probable fate of the poor bastard whose cries had woken him up from his drug-induced sleep. He closed his eyes and remained still, swaying on his feet until he was prodded forward toward a set of steps that led up to a massive wooden door, blackened as if by fire but still intact.

And so he entered the vile prison known as Energetika. It seemed as if the fires of hell must be raging below. Those blackened walls outside. And inside, the floors, windows, walls, even the heavy old furniture were covered with layers of black soot. Yet there was no industry anywhere near this island. If Energetika wasn’t hell on earth, surely it was close enough.

The jailer, a man with a stupid face beneath his green eyeshade and grimy, sooty clothes, sat behind a great carved desk littered with papers. He barely looked up when Hawke was presented to him. He took a swig of vodka from an open bottle on the desk, scrawled a notation on a random piece of paper, and pointed to a dark corridor leading off to the left.

“Why am I here?” Hawke shouted at the man as they tried to drag him away. He planted his feet and twisted free of their clutching hands.

“Why? Because you’re under arrest, of course,” the jailer replied.

“You speak English?”

“Obviously. We have schools in Russia, believe it or not. Even universities. Very civilized.”

“On what charge?”

“Espionage against the Russian state. Our new Tsar, he doesn’t tolerate spies. He executes them. I’ll see you at dawn, Englishman. They’re cutting a fresh stake for you now.”

“New Tsar?” Hawke cried as they grabbed him again. “Who is he? What’s his name?”

“His imperial majesty, Tsar Ivan Korsakov, that’s who.”

“I know him! We’re friends! I must talk to him.”

“Talk to the Tsar, he says?” the man said, and he and his comrades exploded with laughter. “Take him away,” the jailer said, wiping tears of mirth from his rheumy eyes.

Hawke’s new home was underground, three endless sets of steep stone steps that led downward into deeper gloom. A steel door was opened, and he was shoved inside, the door slammed shut behind him. He was alone inside a small, barrel-shaped cell whose bare, oozing walls seemed to be impregnated with tears. A flickering lamp stood on a stool in the corner, its wick swimming in fetid oil, illuminating his quarters.

He stood a moment and took inventory. A bucket for waste. A slab of metal secured to the wall on which lay a thin mattress blackened with age and God knew what else. He went to it and sat down, determined not to go mad before morning, determined to survive, whatever it took.

He had a son, after all. He was going to be a father. He held that moment in his mind, Anastasia whispering the joyous news in the dark, and used it build his fortress, thick walls and ramparts high and mighty. Against the world.

At some time during the night, he must have fallen off, slept. He felt rough hands pulling at him and shouting. A dream? No, it was just the moon-faced jailer and two other foul-smelling lackeys, come to fetch him. Somewhere, a red dawn must have been breaking.

It was time.

“Where are you taking me?” he demanded. Terror was rising in him now, unabated. He knew from previous experience that only through sheer force of will would he be able to subdue it and face whatever was coming like a man.

They pulled him to his feet.

“Just tell me where you’re taking me,” he said again, hearing the pathetic weakness of his pleas, but he couldn’t stop himself.

He had this irrational need to know. Was this it? The end? Yes or no, which was it?

If the end is near and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it, old sport, he thought to himself, buck the hell up. Stiff upper. And yet-

“ Tell me , God damn you all!”

“Silence!” the jailer shouted, shoving him roughly toward the door. Hawke struggled with the plastic cuffs, knowing in his heart it was useless. There were three of them, two of them armed. What could he do? He had to think of something. But what? He deliberately dragged his feet, stumbled, fell forward with his bound hands outstretched to break his fall.

He rolled onto his back, and as a guard bent to lift him, he brought his knees up and caught him smartly under the chin. For his trouble, he got the butt end of the rifle across his jaw and was hauled to his feet again.

Hawke knew where they were taking him, of course. It must be dawn by now. Had to be.

And he was headed straight for a stake in the impaling yard.

But at the end of the corridor, instead of turning to the right and climbing upward to the yard, the guards steered him left and began descending another steep stone staircase leading down. And then down another, the steps progressively harder to see in the guttering light of lanterns hung from the walls. His escorts seemed in an inordinate hurry for Hawke’s taste, and he could but wonder where they were going now.

“What fresh hell lies this way?” Hawke asked, not expecting a reply but feeling an overwhelming sense of relief that any new hell could hardly be worse than the one he’d believed most assuredly he was headed for.

“The dungeon,” the moon-faced jailer said simply.

“The dungeon ? And what, pray, do you call where I slept all night? With wee beasties scratching their way across my floor? The bridal suite?”

His attempt at gallows humor elicited no reply, but it lightened his own heavy spirits as he descended into whatever subterranean inferno they had planned for him. The oubliette, most likely, a traditional feature of ancient forts, a deep well where a man was thrown and simply forgotten.

What the hell, he thought. He had to get off the bloody ride at some point. If this was his stop, so be it.

They passed along a few very grim corridors indeed, arches along both sides, each enclosing heavy wooden doors with small barred windows.

“This is us,” the jailer said, pulling out a huge key ring and inserting one of them into the lock. It clicked, and the door squeaked open. Hawke followed the jailer inside, still in the grip of the guards. They lowered him to the stone floor, first to his knees and then letting him fall over on to his side.

“I am back in one hour,” the jailer said, and with that, he and the two guards left, a great thud and a metallic clang as they pulled the heavy door closed behind them.

“Hello?” Hawke said, knowing he was not alone.

It was pitch black, but to his right, he saw the orange glow of a cigarette glow brighter and then dim as the smoker inhaled and exhaled.

“Good evening,” a disembodied voice said pleasantly. Heavily accented English. “If you can manage to crawl over here, you’d be better off sitting up here next to me on the cot.”

Hawke managed to sit upright on the damp floor, facing the strangely familiar voice.

“And why is that?” he asked, straining his eyes in the dark to see whom he was addressing.

“I’ve got a lead-lined mattress.”

“Sounds comfy, but no thanks.”