Thirteen Years Later (58 page)

He looked more closely at the palace. The flag still flew above it – three horizontal stripes of white, blue and red. He did not need to look for long. He collapsed the spyglass and closed the shutters, turning to Zmyeevich with a shake of his head.

‘He lives?’ asked Zmyeevich.

‘It seems so. Do you feel nothing?’

Zmyeevich closed his eyes and breathed deeply. After a moment, he opened them. ‘No,’ he said, ‘nothing.’

‘Would it be instantaneous?’

‘It has always been in the past, but I’m sure you must have conducted some . . . experiment to determine that.’

Iuda chose not to comment. Zmyeevich had benefited hugely from what Iuda had discovered, but he still gave the impression that the experiments upon his fellow creatures disgusted him. It was another reason he should be feared.

‘Your influence over him was real enough.’

‘I have drunk his blood – his family’s blood. That gives him
some insight into my mind. Sometimes that insight may influence his actions – influence him, perhaps, to drink what he knows he should not. But the connection is weak and capricious compared to what it will be once he has drunk my blood and succumbed to death. And until then, I cannot know his mind. I do not know it now.’

‘Things would have been easier if Danilov hadn’t been here,’ said Iuda. He had not conveyed to Zmyeevich the information that he had had the opportunity to deal with Lyosha and had not taken it. Beyond Iuda’s own motivations, it was useful for him to be alive simply as someone to shoulder the blame.

‘Captain Danilov – a colonel now, you tell me – appeared to be the most resourceful of them all on the brief occasion that we met; though it seems he is a little prone to sentimentality.’

The last phrase struck Iuda as odd. It matched his own assessment of Lyosha, but he could think of nothing he had told Zmyeevich that might give him that impression. He was about to claim the colonel was lucky, but it would weaken his position. ‘He’s certainly caused us problems,’ he said instead. ‘But you can afford to be patient – he won’t live for ever.’

‘You think we have failed in this generation then?’

‘Aleksandr still lives,’ said Iuda, ‘so there is still hope.’

‘Danilov has a child, does he not?’

‘A son.’

‘Perhaps he will thwart me next time.’

‘I think not,’ said Iuda.

He opened the shutters and looked through the spyglass once again, letting out the minutest of gasps at what he saw.

‘The flag of death is flying?’ asked Zmyeevich.

Iuda nodded. The tricolour above the palace had been lowered to half mast to make way for the invisible flag that superstition maintained had been raised there by Death itself. He closed up the spyglass and stepped away from the porthole. This time he did not close the shutters.

‘I feel nothing,’ said Zmyeevich.

Iuda’s sense of defeat was not overwhelming. Aleksandr was dead and had died free of Zmyeevich’s blood. It was a disappointment, but he suspected he would not have benefited greatly from Zmyeevich’s power over Russia. He doubted whether the vampire shared his stoicism, and suddenly felt his terror increase a thousandfold. The dark presence in the room with him seemed to smoulder with wrath. ‘You’re sure?’ he asked.

‘I would know,’ said Zmyeevich firmly. He strode across the hold towards the door, passing within inches of the beam of light that entered through the open porthole, but not touching it. ‘I felt, for example, as if it was my own skin that was burning.’

Iuda flicked his eyes around the room, searching for any route of escape, but he saw none. Zmyeevich stood between him and the door. The porthole was far too small. ‘Burning?’ he asked, trying to give himself time to think. ‘When?’

‘I felt before as you tattooed me; as you flayed the skin from me,’ continued Zmyeevich.

‘I see,’ said Iuda, now understanding. He slipped his hand inside his coat.

‘I saw, as well as felt,’ said Zmyeevich. ‘Saw through the eyes of a vampire which
I
created; a vampire which you enslaved, which you abused. He was my offspring.’

‘You’ve benefited from what I’ve learned.’

Zmyeevich nodded, his face thoughtful. ‘True enough,’ he said. ‘Though what you learned from
him
, I cannot guess. I also learned your tricks.’

Zmyeevich took two long, brisk strides across the room. Iuda moved at the same moment, towards the light of the porthole. The mirror he had taken from his pocket was now in his hand. But Zmyeevich was quicker. This time he made no diversion, walking directly through the sun’s rays, his cheek burning briefly as it passed through, but he did not flinch. He stood between Iuda and the porthole.

‘For example,’ he said, ‘I have learned that a mirror is of no use without a source of light.’

Iuda could see he had been outmanoeuvred. If he could have reflected the sunlight into Zmyeevich’s face, he might have fended him off, but he had no chance of getting near the porthole. He cast the mirror aside and heard it smash against the wall.

‘I can still be of help to you,’ he said. He was surprised how calm his voice sounded.

‘Why did our plans for Aleksandr fail?’ asked Zmyeevich. Iuda was strangely reminded of his father, his patronizing voice asking some question of mathematics or history that his young son should easily have been able to answer, but failed to.

‘Because of Danilov.’ The word ‘sir’ almost tumbled from his lips in pursuit.

‘I saw Danilov too,’ said Zmyeevich, ‘through my offspring’s eyes, when he returned to Chufut Kalye. We were on the verge of tasting his blood. And then nothing. The child of my blood died. The last image his eyes saw’ – Zmyeevich’s own eyes blazed as he spoke – ‘was you.’

‘That was necessary,’ said Iuda.

‘Perhaps, but you let Danilov live. That was unforgivable.’

Iuda opened his mouth, but had no words to speak. Zmyeevich stepped forward. His foetid breath invaded Iuda’s nostrils, and only fear prevented him from throwing up. Zmyeevich placed a hand on his shoulder and the other under his chin.

‘I would not sully my lips with your blood,’ he said.

Iuda felt the grip around his chin tighten. A click somewhere in his neck told him that his vertebrae were moving apart. His skull was filled with a squeaking sound, like a cork being removed from a bottle. He knew that Zmyeevich had sufficient strength to rip his head from his shoulders in an instant, but to kill him quickly would have been unnecessarily merciful. It was an error, though. Zmyeevich had not learned all Iuda’s tricks.

Iuda’s hand searched for the side pocket of his coat. He had no weapon, and even if he had had, Zmyeevich was too close for him to strike. But then his hand closed around cold glass. He had
found what he was looking for. Still, he would have to be lucky. He raised his hand and then flung it forward.

The vial flew through the air across the ship’s hold, spinning top over tail, but the stopper did not come out. The dark liquid within remained constrained by its glass walls. Iuda’s aim had been true. The porthole was not large, but large enough. The vial disappeared through it and into the open air beyond.

From deep within his chest, Zmyeevich’s scream filled the room, and his grip instantly relaxed. Iuda did not wait. He raced to the door, only glimpsing what he left behind. Zmyeevich stood still, his eyes shot with blood, his whole body shaking as if under the strain of some tremendous weight as he tried to resist the agony that surged through his veins.

Iuda had little time. The vial of Zmyeevich’s blood would have burst into flame as soon as it was hit by the sun’s rays. It would soon burn to nothing, and then the searing pain in the blood in Zmyeevich’s own body would recede. Iuda threw himself through the door and up the stairs to the deck, rejoicing in the sensation of the sun on his back. The ship’s crew stood in bemused horror at the sound of their master’s screams, but they did not go to his aid. Neither did they attempt to hinder Iuda’s escape.

He climbed down into the dinghy and rowed away, parallel to the coast, not towards it. He had no plans to come ashore anywhere near Taganrog.

It was dark now. It had been almost twelve hours since Wylie had announced the death of Tsar Aleksandr I. Almost twelve hours that Tsar Konstantin I had reigned, though he did not know it. It would take a week for news to reach him in Warsaw; about the same to reach Petersburg. Taganrog knew already. The flag above the palace would have told them, and gossip spread rapidly.

The palace had died its own death since that morning. Yelizaveta had composed herself and quietly retired to her rooms. The guards had been stood down; there was no one to guard. Wylie and Tarasov had no one to make well. The staff sat idly in
their quarters. There was only one less soul to tend to in the house than there had been when all awoke that morning, and yet the reason for anyone to be there had gone.

Aleksei noticed it now as he returned more than when he had left. It had not been a long trip, but a necessary one – just to Orekhov and back. He had to go by carriage, which slowed him down, but he had driven himself, so there had been no questions.

When he got back to Taganrog, he had called immediately at Wylie’s lodgings. Both doctors were there. The three went together to the imperial palace. Tarasov uneasily eyed the heavy burden that Wylie and Aleksei carried between them.

Volkonsky let them in through a side door. His face was grim. He knew what they had to do, but he had chosen not to participate. It was to the good – someone had to wait outside Aleksandr’s bedroom. They arrived at the door. Aleksei felt the urge to knock, and almost laughed at himself.

‘This is going to be the worst part,’ he said to Wylie.

‘I’m a doctor,’ came the reply, ‘a field surgeon. I’ve operated on men who’ve screamed in agony as I worked. I don’t think I’m going to have any qualms over whatever must be done to a dead body.’

‘The worst part is the pain we’re causing the tsaritsa,’ said Tarasov. Wylie nodded.

Aleksei opened the door. It was dark inside. Only the moonlight, leaking through the closed shutters, cast any light, picking out on the bed Aleksandr’s familiar, still profile.

The three men went inside, closing the door behind them.

T
AGANROG WAS JUST VISIBLE, A FEW VERSTS AWAY TO THE SOUTH
-west, its lights shining through the early twilight. In the other direction the road led to . . . who knew where? It was an adventure – the first ever adventure in the life of a man who, since the instant of his birth, almost forty-eight years before, had spent each moment of his existence under the minutest scrutiny. Freedom was terrifying to him, but so, so exciting. To make his own way in life, to plan his day, merely to be ignored as he walked down a street – all those were joys too familiar for others to appreciate.

He looked down from his horse at the four men who had made it possible: Volkonsky, Wylie, Tarasov and Danilov – two soldiers and two doctors. They had killed him, and they had resurrected him. And it had taken them less than a day. It was terrible to say goodbye, not because of who they were or what they had done – though there was that too – but because this was the final goodbye, the final cut that separated him from the life he had known.

‘I so wish we could have told Yelizaveta Alekseevna,’ said Aleksandr.

‘She would have wished to come with you,’ replied Volkonsky.

‘I would have dearly loved that,’ Aleksandr answered, ‘but in the end,
she
would not have. Even if her mind had grown accustomed to the privations of our new life, her body never would have.’

‘She is a frail woman, Your Majesty,’ said Tarasov.

Aleksandr nodded, then frowned. ‘I’m not “Your Majesty” any more,’ he pointed out. ‘That burden has passed on.’

‘So what should we call you – Aleksandr Pavlovich?’

Aleksandr smiled. ‘For the next few minutes, yes,’ he said, ‘though it’s not the name I will be keeping.’

‘Where will you go?’ asked Aleksei.

‘I don’t know. And if I did, I would – as with my new name – keep it to myself. Only Volkonsky will know these things; it’s much safer for all that way.’ He looked down at the four mournful faces in front of him. ‘This is worse than when I was dying!’ he exclaimed.

There was laughter all round.

‘You would have made a fine actor, Your . . . Aleksandr,’ said Wylie.

‘There was no acting involved. Whatever it was that Tarasov gave me had me halfway to death already.’

‘It was laudanum,’ explained Tarasov. ‘I’m not even sure its effects will have worn off sufficiently for you to be riding yet.’

‘He has to leave today,’ said Aleksei. ‘Someone might see him.’

‘I don’t think anyone’s going to recognize him looking like that,’ said Volkonsky.

Aleksandr put his hand to his face. There was stubble on his chin that would soon grow into the full beard that would be essential if he was going to pull this off. The sides of his cheeks felt the cold of the wind where his sideboards had been shaved. For now, that – plus the application of a little grime – was all that could be done to change his facial appearance. It was his clothing that would fool most people. He wasn’t exactly dressed like a peasant, but he no longer looked like a city dweller. His clothes were practical – comfortable, even. There was no sash across his chest, no epaulettes on his shoulders or cockade on his hat, and these were the things by which he was recognized as tsar, not by his face, which few outside Petersburg or Moscow would know. At least, that was what he had been assured.