The Jewel of St Petersburg (21 page)

The boy kept guard. He watched for anybody fool enough to come looking. The crate was manhandled into the cart and immediately the two apprentices started to haul it back to the dark cave of trees. The wagon door slammed shut, and the train started to move. Only at the last moment did the window of the next carriage fly open and a rifle spit out a single bullet before Arkin yanked Karl away from the track. They raced for the trees. Blood dripped like crimson flowers on the snow at their feet.

“Are you hurt?” Arkin shook the boy, worried.

“No, but you are.”

Arkin blinked, then felt the sting of pain. He put a hand to his ear and his fingers came away painted scarlet. He laughed and wiped it on his trousers. “It’s nothing. A scratch. Now let’s see you shift this cart.”

They all stole away through the trees with the precious crate, their breath coiling in front of them. Arkin thanked Morozov’s God that this time the crows had been wrong.

T
HE FOG WAS THICK AND WAYWARD. IT TWINED ITS fingers around Arkin’s neck and clutched at his face, leaving his skin damp and chill. He urged the ugly brute of a horse under him to a faster pace, but it had a mind of its own and paid no heed. It chose its own pace. Like it chose its own path. The creature belonged to Liev Popkov, so what else did he expect of the damn thing? The village appeared on the side of the road with no warning, gray and ghostly, sliding in and out of sight as the fog curled around the wooden cottages. Arkin could hear the drag of an unseen river somewhere nearby as he rode past a blacksmith’s forge where a furnace was belching out scorched air. He called down to the man in the leather apron.

“The priest’s house?”

“At the far end.” The man drew a cross in the dirt floor with the fiery tip of the metal spike in his hand. “Can’t miss it.”

Arkin didn’t miss it. Above its door loomed a large iron crucifix painted white that seemed to leap out of the fog as if to seize him by the scruff.

“Stop here, you brute,” he grunted, tightening the reins, and for once the creature did as it was told. He swung quickly from the saddle, a burlap bag over his shoulder, and rapped on the door.

“Vkhodite,”
a small voice called out. “Come in.”

Arkin opened the door. The smell of lingering damp mingled with scents of cooking and burning pine cones. It reminded him of that feeling he used to have as a child in his own village—that the outdoors was always in danger of slipping indoors if he left a window open. He closed the door behind him now, shutting out the fog.

The place was sparsely furnished: a couple of
poloviki,
handmade rugs, on the floorboards; a few rough chairs; a woven basket that looked like a dog’s bed in front of the fire. Disheveled stacks of books in one corner. There was no sign of Morozov. But across the room a young girl of no more than four or five was perched on a wooden stool, frying onions in a skillet on the stove. She shook the pan expertly to prevent burning while she regarded Arkin with large blue eyes that were speculative rather than welcoming. Her hair was striking. It fell in a long straight sheet halfway down her back, so pale it looked almost silver.

“Hello,” he said and smiled.

She didn’t return the smile. “My father is busy,” she said.

She picked up a kitchen knife that was far too big for her small hand and started chopping garlic on a board beside her. It was oddly disturbing to see such a young child performing these tasks with the ease of long habit, but Arkin recalled that Morozov’s wife was dead and this tiny mite of a girl had clearly taken on her role.

“May I speak with your father?” he asked. “It’s important.”

Her attention turned away. He was of less interest than her onions, but she pointed with the knife blade toward a door at the back of the room. He walked over and lifted the latch. Instantly he regretted it. In the middle of the cold bare bedroom a man with head bowed was kneeling on the floor stripped to the waist, flagellating his back with a small whip. Each of its five tongues of rawhide had a tight knot at the end, and each knot was tinged with crimson. The man was Father Morozov.

“Excuse me,” Arkin said quickly and withdrew.

In the outer room he sat down on one of the wooden chairs and waited.

“I told you he was busy,” the girl said.

“Yes, you were right.”

He’d never have believed it of the priest. What the hell was Morozov thinking? Day after day he was fighting to relieve the pain of others, and yet at the same time he deliberately inflicted it on himself. It sickened Arkin. He sat in silence until the bedroom door opened and the priest walked in, fully clothed in his cassock, the usual gentle smile on his face. Arkin looked for the self-satisfaction such penitence must bring but saw none.

“Hello, Viktor, I’ve been thinking of you. Was the delivery of the grenades a success?” He sat down with no sign of discomfort, physical or mental, though he must have heard Arkin enter his room.

Arkin smiled despite himself. “Yes, that’s why I’ve come. The crate is hidden in Sergeyev’s bathhouse at the moment, but it’s not safe there. His place is probably being watched. We have to move it quickly.”

“The grenades themselves? In good condition?”

In response Arkin reached into his burlap bag and extracted its contents: a short canister with a metal handle attached and a box of ammunition. He passed them across to the priest, who inspected them carefully.

“German military equipment is always the best,” he commented.

The crate had been smuggled across borders, adding to the stockpile of arms. When the moment came they would be ready. The armaments were spread around St. Petersburg and moved regularly, some buried in pits deep within the city, which meant if one cache was discovered, the rest were still safe. Precautions were always necessary, infiltrators a constant danger. Arkin constantly had to fight his irritation at the slow pace of the glorious revolution.

Unexpectedly Arkin thought of Valentina Ivanova in the car.
Get us out of here,
that was what she’d said. Imperious, yes, but it was the
us
that stuck in his mind. Not
me,
but
us
. It was Katya, the little cripple, she wanted to save, her loved one. He despised all that the Ivanov family stood for. Exploitative capitalists. But he couldn’t help a grudging respect for the older sister. He recognized in her the same single-minded determination that stirred and breathed in himself.

“Trotsky has agreed to come and talk to us,” he informed the priest.

“Otlichno!
Excellent!”

“So we will need the church hall.”

“I’ll arrange it.”

“I must leave now. The minister wants me to drive him to his mistress’s party this evening.” Outside, the fog had thickened.

“Here.” The little child jumped off her stool and thrust at him a hefty slice of black bread covered in fried onions. “My name is Sofia.”

“Spasibo,”
he said, surprised, and took a bite. It tasted hot, full of spices and garlic. “Wonderful, thank you.”

“What’s wrong with your ear?” she asked solemnly.

The bottom of Arkin’s left earlobe had been shot off by the rifle bullet from the train and was covered in a thick black scab.

“Nothing much. Just a scratch. What’s a little pain?” His gaze met the priest’s, and for that moment they understood each other better.

“My father says pain is how we learn.”

“Then the whole of Russia is going to learn, Sofia.”

He finished off the bread and onions, swung up into the saddle, and cantered back into the swirling fog. Within seconds he had become invisible, one thought still pulsing in his mind.
The whole of Russia is going to learn.

Fifteen

V
ALENTINA HURRIED THROUGH ALEXANDER SQUARE, shadows rolling across her face as a fitful wind herded the clouds across the sky.

Nothing was ever easy.

She’d traipsed around three other hospitals and the response was the same.
You’re too wealthy. You’re too well educated. You’re not right.
Yet she could roll bandages with her eyes closed and already knew all the bones in the body, as well as the pressure points and arterial system.

You need to be tough
. She took Jens’s visiting card from her pocket and looked again at the address. She would walk. She asked the way twice but even so, at one point she found she’d taken a wrong turn and wandered into a quiet side street with a white-faced church up ahead. A golden cross on its dome cast a long shadow on the road. A group of men huddled over a brazier at the far end as though waiting for something. As she was passing the church, a young man came out of it in a hurry and hoisted up two sacks from a handcart parked outside.

“Arkin. What on earth are you doing here?”

She might as well have stuck a knife in the chauffeur’s ribs. He jerked back and stumbled under the weight he was carrying, dropping one of the sacks. As it hit the ground, the side of it split and two potatoes rolled out.

She stared at the sack. Arkin stared at her.

“Why are you here?” he asked quickly.

“I have taken a wrong turn.”

“It seems to me you have no idea where you’re going.”

He said it not with his chauffeur’s face. This one had hard lines and arrogant edges. His words froze in the icy air between them, and she wanted to push them back into his mouth. She crouched suddenly, picked up the two potatoes, and held them out to him.

“Yours, I believe.”

“Spasibo.”

She waved a hand at the sacks. “What are you doing with these?”

“I’m helping Father Morozov.”

She glanced at the church. “Is he the priest here?”

“Yes. He distributes food among the poor.”

She could feel his eyes on her, curious. “I’m trying to find my way to the main road. Would I do better to retrace my steps?” she asked.

“That’s up to you. You can go on, or you can go back to what is familiar.” It seemed that he wasn’t talking about the road. Still, he pointed over her shoulder. “The main road is back that way.”

“Thank you.”

As she started to leave, he lifted up the sacks, one under each arm, and strode back inside the church, unaware that he was leaving a trail of potatoes behind him. She watched him disappear, then picked up each potato and marched into the church. The air was colder, the entrance hall cramped. In front of her stood a set of ancient wooden doors leading into the body of the church, but to her left lay a short passageway that ended in stone stairs going down. A potato lay on the top step.

She descended soundlessly. The stairs wound down into an underground room, dim and cavernous with a vaulted ceiling and the smell of damp stonework so strong it slapped her in the face. Men’s voices rose from rows of seats lined up in front of an unoccupied table. The men had their backs to her.

“All they want to do is talk. Talk and more talk. I’m sick of it,” someone said.

“I’m with you on that, Oleg. We’ve had enough of words. It’s time for more action.”

“Stop complaining.” Arkin’s voice. “We all want to see more action. He’s coming to address us today and then we’ll be able to find out what plans he’s—” He stopped.

He’d seen her. All eyes followed his gaze, and she heard the rumble of annoyance as they became aware of her presence.

“You forgot the rest of your potatoes.” She held out her handful to him.

The men’s eyes crawled over her. Scarves were pulled tighter, obscuring faces. She noted that the sacks had been dumped on the table, the split one spilling its lumpy contents like a gutted pig, but under the potatoes lay something that bore no resemblance to a vegetable, something angular swaddled in black cloth. Arkin was approaching her fast.

“My dear girl, let me relieve you of those.”

The voice came from behind her. She spun around and found a black figure standing over her on the bottom stair.

“Thank you,” she muttered and thrust the potatoes at him.

“This is Father Morozov.” Arkin had reached her side. “What on earth are you doing down here? I thought you’d left.”

“Brother,” the priest said in a warm voice intended to smooth the edges off Arkin’s rudeness, “that is no way to welcome our visitor.” He inspected her face with thoughtful eyes and fingered his beard as if it were an aid to decision. He was clothed in a rough black cassock and a tall battered black hat, a brass crucifix pinned to his chest just below the straggling ends of his beard. “You are welcome to join us, whoever you are, my dear. We are gathered here to join in prayer for our country in these troubled days and to ask our dear Holy Father for guidance and wisdom.”

No sound came from behind but she could sense them watching her. The priest’s face was as lined as the skin of an old apple, but she didn’t think he was any older than her own father. She smiled at him. Her cheeks felt stiff.

“Thank you, but I must leave now. I just wanted to bring you the potatoes that were dropped outside.”

It sounded stupid even to her own ears. So when he stood aside, she scampered up the stairs quickly. The men from the brazier parted to let her through, and she walked at a brisk pace to the end of the road. Aware of their eyes on her, she wondered who was coming to address them today. And what plans he had.