Jasper Kent - Thirteen Years Later

Aleksei crept through the garden that surrounded the detached house – a rarity in that neighbourhood – and headed back towards the street in which the Lavrovs resided. It had been here he had come in 1820 on discovering the news that Domnikiia was pregnant. There was no way she could continue running the milliner’s shop, following in the footsteps of a father she had seen only once in the last sixteen years. To raise an illegitimate child would not have been, even for a man like Aleksei and certainly for a woman like Domnikiia, an insurmountable stigma in Russia. It was to the north-west of Europe and beyond that such details of people’s private lives were the concerns of others, and becoming ever more so. But Aleksei had always felt a visceral urge, with which his cautious mind on this occasion agreed, to keep all matters concerning his relationship with Domnikiia as secret as possible: secret from his wife, out of affection for her; from Dmitry, in consideration of his pride; from whoever or whatever lurked out there. Even though Iuda was dead, Aleksei still had enemies. The greatest safety for Tamara lay in no one ever knowing that she was his offspring. Even though Iuda was dead.

And so it had taken only a little persuasion for the Lavrovs to take her in. Whatever her acquaintance had been with Marfa in Petersburg, Yelena’s primary loyalty had always been to her father, and Aleksei was Vadim’s closest comrade. As for Valentin – he was hardly in a position to deny Aleksei anything. And the extra money was a boon; the textile trade was not going well, at least under his helmsmanship.

Once this street had become the home of Domnikiia and, arriving soon after, Tamara, Aleksei had instinctively acquired an understanding of the lie of its land, as the leader of a wolf pack does of its territory. He had long known this garden to be an easy way to double back, unseen, into the street. He looked both ways, but saw no one. Here there were no shops or taverns, and the only people he would expect to see would be those who lived here, or were calling on friends who did. Perhaps in the old days, before the war, that would have still meant a street that was, if not crowded, something more than deserted, but tonight it did not.

He waited another quarter of an hour before emerging. It would seem that Dmitry had not followed him from Lubyanka Square – or if he had, he had very rapidly learned a whole new set of skills in the field of stealth and concealment. Aleksei went back to the door and knocked. The maid who opened it scarcely disguised her displeasure at being dragged from the warmth of her fireplace at this hour. No one else in the house kept the same hours as Aleksei, nor would anyone, except perhaps Domnikiia, have tolerated the servant’s look with the same good humour.

‘Well?’ Domnikiia was standing in her nightgown when Aleksei entered. He had no doubt as to the meaning of her question.

‘He got away,’ he said.

‘He saw you?’ Her voice showed a concern that was little different from terror.

‘No, no. He just got lucky.’ He lay back on the bed, exhausted, choosing not to mention his son’s involvement in the evening’s fiasco. He’d left Dmitry at the club, and while he had established now that the boy had not followed him from there, he still could not tell when in the evening the pursuit had started and, more than that, whether Dmitry knew just how much of his time Aleksei spent here. And why.

He stretched out his leg and Domnikiia put her hand to the heel of his boot, pulling it off him. She did the same to the other boot. He began to take off the remainder of his clothes.

‘So what are you going to do?’ she asked.

‘Try again,’ he said, though he knew little more than that. How he would try, he had no idea, but there was no escaping that Kyesha was his responsibility. Even if one had to look back to 1812 to find the link, each of the deaths that had occurred and would occur in Moscow were Aleksei’s fault.

‘Did you find out for sure?’ asked Domnikiia. ‘Whether he’s… a vampire?’

Aleksei shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘But I feel sure.’

‘Then you must be right. You’d know, if anyone did.’

‘You think so? I’ve seen half a dozen vampires over the past years, only to discover them to be human.’

‘Not like this though.’

‘No, not like this – but I have to be certain.’

He was naked now, and they stood face to face. He reached down and began to pull her nightgown over her head. She raised her arms, her long hair stretching upwards above her until it finally slipped from the neck of her dress and fell gently down on to her shoulders. They lay down on the bed, facing each other. Aleksei ran the three fingers of his left hand down the side of her chest, over her abdomen, her hip and along her thigh and then back again. Their eyes remained fixed on one another. She was still the most beautiful creature he had ever seen.

‘What have we done to deserve this?’ she asked.

He laughed. ‘I think we both know that,’ he said.

‘Other men cheat on their wives. They get nothing worse than a guilty conscience.’

‘Amateurs,’ he said dismissively.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Other men may be unfaithful, but one has to be a true expert to select a paramour quite as perfect as you. If I’m being unduly punished, it’s only for my excessive good taste.’

‘That explains it for you, but what about me? It’s not like I’m guilty of good taste.’

‘Ha! Ha!’ he said sarcastically, before leaning forward to kiss her. She responded and he allowed himself to be lost in the sensation of her lips, her arms, her body. He allowed all thoughts of Kyesha and of vampires and, more than anything, of his own guilt to slip from his mind, the concept of his adultery being smothered by its very enactment. It would work for a while.

‘We’re really in trouble now,’ he said afterwards, as they lay side by side in the still darkness. ‘If God caught a glimpse of half of that then the punishment’s going to be harsh and swift.’

‘Don’t joke about it,’ she said.

Aleksei fell silent. He had already seen one man that evening who would by now have paid the price for his adultery – presuming, as was likely, that he was married. It was an unjust payment for so trivial a sin.

Kyesha’s sin – the path he had chosen to take when he became a voordalak – dwarfed those of them all: the man in the street, Aleksei, even those who planned to murder their tsar. But Kyesha would soon pay a fair price for his choice, and it would be Aleksei who would take the payment, before another twenty-four hours had passed. Tomorrow, Kyesha would die.

Another serpent, trampled beneath the hooves of another horse. This time the horseman was Saint George. The icon over the Resurrection Gate had not changed over the years; Moscow’s patron saint had remained triumphant. Tonight, Aleksei would play the saint, and Kyesha, already a vile beast, would become the serpent. Again Aleksei had his two swords – one wooden, one steel – but this time he would abandon stealth. Tonight he would deal with Kyesha face to face.

‘What happened to you last night?’ As ever, Kyesha seemed to arrive from nowhere.

‘Is that a question?’ asked Aleksei. ‘If it is, you have to win the right to ask it.’

‘You already owe me one answer.’ Kyesha had not seemed annoyed when he first arrived, but Aleksei’s tone quickly made him drop the veneer of politeness. ‘And I think the question is of greater import than the matter of how you spend your evenings.’

‘Not here,’ said Aleksei.

‘The Lobnoye Mesto again?’ suggested Kyesha.

‘I don’t think so, not after what happened on Monday. This way.’

Aleksei led Kyesha south, across Red Square, but past the Lobnoye Mesto and on to the grander building beyond – Saint Vasiliy’s Cathedral. The name instantly brought another Vasiliy to his mind – his wife’s lover, back in Petersburg. The very idea of jealousy seemed trivial when put in contrast with tonight’s concerns; with what would be happening within the cathedral in just a few hours’ time, perhaps less.