Jasper Kent - Thirteen Years Later

They played several more rounds. Aleksei fared better, but not by a huge margin. Eventually he was owed thirty-five roubles.

‘What say we make this more interesting?’ asked Kyesha.

‘What do you have in mind?’

‘I don’t know. We could’ – Kyesha gave half a smile – ‘play left-handed?’

Aleksei smiled too, though without any humour. His left hand was resting on his thigh, under the table. Kyesha was unable to see the two stumps where his fingers once had been. He began to lift it up to show his opponent, but he was interrupted.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Kyesha. ‘That was in poor taste. Maks told me what happened.’ Aleksei placed his left hand on the table anyway, his thumb and two fingers splayed out widely, in a way that would have been impossible if his hand had been entire. ‘I was thinking more that we change the stakes,’ continued Kyesha.

‘I’m not a rich man,’ said Aleksei.

‘In monetary terms, perhaps not, but I’m sure neither of us is too concerned with material wealth. What we both seek above all else is knowledge. And we each have knowledge which the other would delight in possessing.’

Aleksei considered. There was certainly much he would like to know about Kyesha, but the one question that stood out – why had Kyesha gone to all this trouble to find him – had been answered. He wanted some information that Aleksei possessed. Or was even this just another ploy, obscuring some greater final goal? There was a simple way to find out – to play Kyesha’s game, and win. And if he lost? There was little he knew that he would not be quite willing to tell Kyesha, and if the questions strayed into territory in which he was less comfortable, he felt no compunction about lying. There, though, he was at some disadvantage; Kyesha was clearly prepared for this. He would have researched Aleksei and had a fair chance of spotting any untruth. Aleksei would have to be careful. But what did it matter if Kyesha did know he was lying? At worst it would mean the game was over – and it was Kyesha who wanted to play.

‘Very well,’ said Aleksei.

He reached out for the knucklebones, but Kyesha was quicker, sweeping them off the table with his hand and slipping them back into his pocket.

‘But not tonight, I think,’ he said.

Aleksei looked over at the clock. It was past midnight. The wine bottle was empty, and only a mouthful was left in his glass. He knew he had drunk the majority of it. He had never seen Kyesha’s glass more than half empty, and had topped it up only out of politeness as he repeatedly refilled his own.

‘Tomorrow then?’ he asked.

Kyesha nodded. Neither man bothered to confirm where they would meet. Kyesha rose to his feet. ‘Until tomorrow,’ he said, then turned and left. The thought briefly occurred to Aleksei that he should follow, but he didn’t act upon it. A decade ago, perhaps he would have done, but what did he hope to find out? If he wanted to discover where Kyesha was staying, all he needed to do was win a round of knucklebones and ask the question. He only had to wait until tomorrow. Not even that – tomorrow was today.

He lifted the glass to his lips for a final taste of wine, then stopped. He reached across the table and picked up Kyesha’s, pouring its contents into his own. That at least would give him something to savour. Even then it did not last long. Within a minute he was out of the tavern and heading back to the Lavrovs’ house, where both Domnikiia and Tamara would already be asleep. Domnikiia would not mind being woken.

The Northern Society was not as well represented in Moscow as in Petersburg, but Aleksei knew enough to know where like-minded officers would gather. The two leaders in the city were General Fonvizin and Count Orlov. Aleksei could well remember hearing reports of the meeting at Fonvizin’s home in 1821. He had himself desperately tried to gain access to the meeting, but only a trusted few were allowed to attend. There had not been a Northern and a Southern Society then. The Union of Salvation that preceded them had not lasted long. Its hierarchical structure deliberately imitated the Masonic lodges from which it had sprung, dividing the membership into four degrees: Boyars, Elders, Brethren and Friends. The Union of Welfare cast all that aside, but was soon known to be infiltrated by government informers – Aleksei himself was by no means the only one. And so in 1821, the decision had been taken to dissolve the Union of Welfare, and give up all plans for revolution or even reform.

It had all been play-acting. Those in the know knew that the society would be re-formed – they just had to keep in touch with their former comrades. If Aleksei had been under any suspicion before, then it had disappeared somewhere during this reformation, the assumption being that those who were aware of and joined the newly formed Northern Society must have been approved of by someone in a position to have confidence in them. The fact of the split between the northern and southern factions becoming more formalized was something of a side-effect. It pleased both groupings to be able to follow their own agenda – the radicals of the south unfettered by the moderates of the north and vice versa. The division pleased the government even more.

Thus 1821 had been a momentous year, though few Russians had known it. For the majority, it was 23 April that had been most celebrated that year – not simply for being Saint George’s day, but because it was the day on which Napoleon’s defeat, begun in Moscow in 1812, had reached its conclusion. The former emperor of the French had died in humiliating exile on the island of Saint Helena. To Napoleon himself, and to the Western world, the date was 5 May, but to Russians it was more than a quirk of the calendar that his death should come on the feast of the patron saint of the city which had begun his downfall.

Aleksei, however, had been celebrating 23 April 1821 long before the news of Bonaparte’s death had reached Russia. 23 April 1821 was the day which had seen the birth of his second child, his only daughter, Tamara.

Now, Tamara was four years old, as was the Northern Society, at least under that name. Nowadays, meetings rarely took place at Fonvizin’s house, or at Orlov’s. But there was a club just off Lubyanka Square where sympathetic officers in Moscow tended to congregate. It was nothing formal, but a man on the door knew who should be let in and who should not.

Aleksei glanced around the room inside. It hadn’t changed since he was last here. There were a few faces he recognized, but only one that he knew well: a captain from his own brigade – the Life Guard Hussars – by the name of Grigoriy Ivanovich Obukhov, who was sitting alone. Aleksei ordered a vodka and then went over.

‘Colonel Danilov,’ said Obukhov. ‘What brings you away from Petersburg?’

There were many possible answers, none of which Aleksei chose to reveal. ‘There’s nothing going to be happening in Petersburg until the tsar returns,’ he said. ‘It’s a chance to liaise with you down here.’

It was intended to flatter, and it succeeded. Aleksei was certainly more highly regarded in the Society than someone like Obukhov, but over the years he had managed to give the impression of being even closer to the heart of the plotting than he really was, not just to Obukhov, but to several junior officers. The more they thought he already knew, the more they might tell him. And in return he was prepared to tell them plenty. If he had his way, the whole of the Northern Society would turn into a sieve; information would leak out at every point and its leaders would abandon their plans before the government ever bothered to move against them and prove how hopeless their ambitions were.

‘We’re ready to serve,’ said Obukhov, ‘whenever the call comes.’