Jasper Kent - Thirteen Years Later

‘But you escaped,’ commented Tarasov, stating the obvious.

‘Cain wanted me to escape,’ stated Aleksei bitterly. ‘He said that he wanted a head start, and that’s what he meant. I was released at dawn, giving him a little over twelve hours’ lead on me. He wants to ensure that I witness his victory.’

‘Released?’ said Tarasov. ‘So he had an accomplice?’

Aleksei glanced over at Wylie and saw a knowing smile on the Scotsman’s face. ‘I don’t think he needed one, did he?’

‘Did he mention it in his notebook?’ asked Aleksei.

‘Not specifically,’ replied Wylie, ‘but he did speculate on the endless uses to which the by-products of a vampire’s body might be put.’

‘By-products?’ said Tarasov. ‘Like the skin on the book, you mean?’

‘Or the hair on the head. I’m right, am I not, Colonel Danilov?’

‘Entirely,’ said Aleksei, quietly impressed at Wylie’s perspicacity. ‘The rope was made from the hair of a voordalak. At dawn, when the sun hit it, it just burned away.’ He held out his hands, palms up, and showed them the charred skin where the rope had been in contact with his wrists. It still itched.

‘And where do you think Cain is now?’ asked Tarasov.

Aleksei looked around, almost fearing that his answer would be even more literal than he meant it to be. ‘Here,’ he said simply.

‘In Taganrog? But why?’

‘Because of the Romanov Betrayal.’

‘And what is that?’

‘That’s something that only His Majesty can tell us.’

‘And will he?’ demanded Wylie.

‘He’ll have to,’ replied Aleksei, ‘eventually.’

‘He’s asked for a priest.’

Tarasov looked ashen as he spoke. It was a little after five the following morning, and few of them had got much sleep.

‘Is it as bad as that?’ asked Volkonsky.

‘He seems to think so.’

‘I’ll go fetch Father Fyodotov,’ said Diebich, who had been waiting outside the tsar’s room with the rest of them. He marched out swiftly.

‘I don’t understand it,’ whispered Aleksei to Wylie, who sat beside him. ‘There’s been no sign of Cain, but still the tsar’s condition worsens.’

‘Perhaps whatever Cain gave him in the cave was enough,’ suggested Wylie.

‘Then why did Cain need his book? There was something more he planned to do. He’s not done it, and yet still Aleksandr is dying.’

Wylie looked at him harshly. It was not something that any of them wanted to hear uttered out loud. ‘It may be that that is precisely Cain’s concern,’ he said. ‘The death of His Majesty – a true, Christian death – might not suit his plans at all.’

Aleksei said no more. Wylie was right. In some ways the tsar’s death would be a blessing for all – not least for Aleksandr himself – but Aleksei prayed they could find another way.

The monastery was not far, and Baron Diebich returned with the priest within half an hour. A small crowd followed him into the tsar’s room, and he began by saying a blessing. Aleksandr opened his eyes and smiled at the sight of the priest, and when the blessing was over, he spoke weakly.

‘Thank you for coming, Father Fyodotov. I wish to confess. I ask you to hear me – not as an emperor, but as an ordinary man. Please do it quickly. I am ready for the sacrament.’

The others departed, leaving the tsar and the priest alone together.

The act of confession took almost an hour. When Fyodotov emerged, his face was sallow. Volkonsky slipped in immediately to speak with the tsar. The rest of them looked at the priest. His face was paler even than Aleksandr’s own had been. His eyes scanned the ground as he walked out of the building, afraid to look up and make contact with those of anyone else. At the door, Aleksei caught his arm and spoke to him.

‘What did His Majesty say?’ It was a question born of instinctive concern, but one that no priest could ever answer.

Fyodotov’s eyes flicked up and looked into Aleksei’s. In them Aleksei saw a fear that he had seen in few soldiers – never before in a priest. The eyes scanned his face, as if in search of – begging for – responses to the sort of question a priest might normally be expected to answer, not ask.

‘I can’t tell you,’ he whispered. ‘I can’t.’

The first time he said it, it was the normal reply of a holy man observing the sanctity of the confession. The second, it was the purest expression of fear.

VOLKONSKYu EMERGED FROM THE TSAR’S ROOM ALMOST immediately.

‘He wants to speak to you – alone,’ he said. All eyes turned to follow the direction in which the prince was looking; all except Aleksei’s. His eyes had no need to move. Volkonsky was staring straight at him.

‘Me?’ he said.

‘He says he wants to tell you about Cain.’

Aleksei glanced around the room, nodding at both Tarasov and Wylie to indicate that they should come too. All three approached the door, Aleksei in front. Volkonsky stood in the way.

‘He said just you.’

Aleksei nodded briefly, and Volkonsky let him in, stepping back across the doorway in case his word was not enough to keep the two doctors at bay.

Aleksandr lay in bed, propped up on a mound of pillows, smiling benevolently. Strange though the comparison seemed, he might easily have been mistaken for someone’s grandmother – and yet now more than ever Aleksei could think of no one more suited to rule their nation.

‘You’ve had dealings with voordalaki before, haven’t you?’ said the tsar. His voice was barely more than a murmur, but its clarity was absolute.

Aleksei nodded.

‘It seems we’ve both been keeping things from one another,’ continued Aleksandr.

‘I’ve kept nothing from your physicians,’ said Aleksei. Then he realized that now, only absolute honesty would do. ‘Almost nothing,’ he added.

‘Then bring them in.’

Aleksei went back to the door and opened it, beckoning to Tarasov and Wylie. Volkonsky looked over to his master for confirmation, and got it. The door closed behind the two doctors, and the three men sat beside their tsar; Wylie on his left, Aleksei and Tarasov on his right.

‘Do you remember your grandmother, Colonel Danilov?’ Aleksandr asked.

Images came rushing back to Aleksei of the old, decrepit house and the old, decrepit woman whom as a child – even though he had laughed at her – he had loved more than anyone in the world except his parents. As he’d grown up, his cynicism over her silly, hand-me-down stories had overtaken the kinder feelings he should always have held for her. As he’d grown old, he’d learned that much of what she had said was true – even though in her mind truth had meant merely belief – and had learned to love her once again. It was she who had first told him of the voordalak, but even before he had read the words, he had understood the meaning of Nullius in Verba and had had to wait until he saw such creatures for himself before accepting what she had told him. If he had accepted what she had said from the outset, perhaps God would not have felt obliged to provide him with proof.

A cold, clammy hand squeezed his, awakening him from his reverie. ‘Do you, Colonel?’ asked Aleksandr, clutching his hand.

Aleksei nodded.

‘My grandmother was an empress,’ explained the tsar, ‘the greatest empress Russia ever had.’ He paused for a moment, in thought. ‘The greatest leader. All over the world, they think it. The English call her Catherine the Great; La Grande in France. Yekaterina Alekseevna she was officially. I just called her babushka, though not often to her face.’

The tsar smiled, lost in similar memories to those that had washed over Aleksei moments before, but he stepped out of them more quickly.