Jasper Kent - Thirteen Years Later

Aleksei knew what he was looking for. Ryleev had waved it in front of them earlier that evening.

‘We are not alone,’ he had said. ‘We are not an enlightened few standing against the masses. The people, we know, are with us, for we are with them. But even amongst the nobility, we have many friends. This list’ – and this was the moment he had shown them the papers – ‘contains the names of all our friends in the north. In Kiev, Pestel has a similar list, twice as long. When the time comes, we will be the bolsheviki – the majority will be with us.’

Aleksei had caught a glimpse of Ryleev taking it into Obolensky’s study and returning empty-handed. It did not take him long to find. It was in the right-hand drawer of the desk, beneath an invoice from a tailor’s shop. There were five sheets in all – over one hundred names – the entire organization in the north. Aleksei folded it into three and slipped it into his pocket. Of course, he knew he shouldn’t take it, he should copy it. Vadim Fyodorovich, his mentor in the world of espionage, had taught him that much. Even if there was no time for that now, he should copy it at home and return the original before it was missed.

But Aleksei’s plan was not as straightforward as that. He did not simply desire a list he could hand over to the tsar. He wanted the absence of the list to be noted. If Ryleev, Obolensky and the others realized that their organization was compromised, that at any moment they might expect a visit from the gendarmerie, then they might abandon the whole ill-founded idea of assassination and return to doing what it was they knew best. Aleksei had no desire to see the tsar murdered, but there were many ways in which he might prevent it. Vadim would have admired the ingenuity of such a double effect, though they would have argued as to which was the intended consequence and which the side-effect.

Vadim was another of Aleksei’s comrades who had died badly in 1812.

Aleksei extinguished the lamp and left the room, closing the door quietly behind him. The light of the full moon still illuminated the front door at the end of the corridor. He walked rapidly and silently towards it, but then stopped. The grey moonlight was not all that he could see. It had been joined by an orange glow, which became gradually brighter. He stepped back into the shadows, just glimpsing the figure which descended the stairs carrying a candle.

As the man came past him, he recognized it to be Obolensky. He was more than ten years younger than Aleksei, but Aleksei had no doubt he could beat him in a fight – it would be better than trying to outrun him. But if he were to take him on, Aleksei would have to do it without his face being seen. While it served his purposes for the conspirators to know they were discovered, he did not want them to know who it was who had betrayed them. He could, of course, kill Obolensky, but to do so would be unnecessarily cruel.

Obolensky had walked past without noticing him, and continued down the corridor. A sudden fear gripped Aleksei. If Obolensky went into his study now and discovered the theft, he would raise the alarm. Whilst Aleksei could easily have defeated him on his own, taking on the entire household would be a different matter. But Obolensky turned away from the study, heading towards the kitchen. Aleksei gave him a few more moments to get suitably far away, then made for the door. He was out of the house in seconds, and walking through the streets of Petersburg.

His journey home followed the same route as that of several weeks before. The broken image of the moon shone up at him from the dark waters of the Yekaterininsky Canal. Once out of Obolensky’s house, he had no need for stealth; the city was not bustling, but a lone figure making its way home as if from some decadent soirée would not seem out of place. His thoughts turned once again to Vadim. Even though they had both been dead now for thirteen years, and they were not on his mind as once they had been, he thought often of Maks and not infrequently of Vadim. Dmitry Fetyukovich came to his mind less regularly. It was hard to determine why. In many ways, he and Dmitry had been closest of all. In 1805, on the eve of the Battle of Austerlitz, Dmitry had saved Aleksei’s life. That was why Aleksei had named his own son Dmitry, in honour of his friend.

But still, Aleksei’s memories of his friends were biased by how he had last known them. Maks he had discovered to be a spy, but had forgiven. Vadim had never changed – a rock by which Aleksei could navigate his whole life. But Aleksei had come to doubt Dmitry and had only just started to become reconciled to him before his death. Dmitry had brought the twelve creatures they had known as the Oprichniki to Russia – eleven creatures and one human, each taking his nom de guerre from one of the twelve apostles.

Dmitry had eventually come round to see the horror of the mistake he had made in trusting the Oprichniki, but even when he died, frozen by the cruel winter that had taken such a toll on Bonaparte’s retreating army, Aleksei had not been quite sure where his loyalties truly lay, beyond the suspicion that Dmitry’s loyalties ultimately had always lain with Dmitry.

Vadim, Aleksei, Dmitry and Maks; they had been quite a team. Or just B, A, and M, as they’d identified themselves in the brief messages they had used to coordinate their activities across Moscow and beyond. Aleksei realized he had never worked in a team since; not in that way. He had fought as part of the regular army as Bonaparte retreated across Europe, but as far as espionage was concerned, he had always worked alone. At the Winter Palace, Yevgeniy Styepanovich was an informant, not a colleague. And the members of the Northern Society might see Aleksei as a tovarishch, but they would one day discover the truth.

Aleksei reached his front door. He could still smell the mould and damp from last year’s floods. Fortunately, he occupied none of the ground-floor rooms in the building. There were good reasons the upper storeys were more expensive. Many of the shops at street level were still unoccupied. The smell barely penetrated into his own home. He climbed the steps to his apartment and went inside. He did not feel tired, so went to his study and lit the lamp before going over to the cabinet and pouring himself a brandy.

It was only when he turned around that he saw it.

It was odd that he had just been thinking of the coded messages they used to leave for each other in Moscow. This was different, of course. The characters were as tall as he was, and scrawled in red across the wooden panels of his study wall. But the style of the message was chillingly familiar.

9 – 22 – 14 – 4 – M

DMITRY’S FATHER WAS SITTING IN HIS CHAIR WITH A STRANGE rigidity. His knuckles were white as his fingers dug into its arms. He stared directly in front of him. Dmitry had only glanced into the study on his way to bed after a night – yet another night – of saying goodbye to his Petersburg friends. He was slightly drunk, but few would notice – that was something he shared with his father. He stepped into the room.

‘Are you all right, Papa?’

Aleksei did not reply. The slightest nod of his head indicated to Dmitry that he should follow his father’s stare. Dmitry stepped further into the room and turned. He could not miss the writing.

9 – 22 – 14 – 4 – M

It covered two walls, the corner of the room lying between the number 14 and the letter. Dmitry approached it, reaching out his hand to touch. The lettering felt dry, and smeared when he rubbed it. He suspected it was some kind of pastel. He stepped back again to view the text as a whole. It was clearly intended to mean something, but he could not fathom what.