At another time I might feel uncomfortable, but we have come to know each other extremely well, Bakatin and I, and if Katerina isn’t offended, why should I be?
I look to her and grin, then lean across and kiss her.
The hardest part of our journey lies ahead: across land to Rzhev, and thence down the Volga to Gzhatsk. At least, that’s the plan. For in Russia, everything is dependent on the weather. The rains swell the rivers and make them difficult to cross, even to navigate upon. Yet by river and across river we must travel. Traversing the great stretch of forest that lies between Rzhev and Moscow is not an option in this weather – we would make three or four miles a day at best. But the snows will change that. Come the snows we shall unpack the sled and then hopefully the miles will fall away behind us.
Tatarinka proves a surprise. It’s an orderly, pleasant little town, with a well-kept palisade and a sense of bustling life about it, rain or shine. It’s also the end of our journey with Bakatin and his sons, and though he is not setting off back down the river for another day or two, I feel saddened that we must make this parting. But first he helps us find a room and a place to store our cart until we can hire a guide to take us north-east to Rzhev.
The inn is a surprise too, not merely for its size, but for the fact that it’s one of the few two-storey structures I’ve seen in this age. There are Novgorod’s churches, of course, and the hall that the
veche
use, but almost everything out here in the wilds is single storey – log cabins, essentially, with either a single room, or two at most. The inn – while built of logs – has eight rooms and a barn attached. It’s run by a jovial, red-faced fellow named Rapushka, who leads Katerina and I through a crowded room where drinks are being served and out the back, where we find a sturdy ladder going up to the second storey.
‘There,’ he says, ‘on the left.’
I climb up first, and step inside, lighting my flint and looking about me at the room.
The floor is packed with earth, on which are laid rush mats. As the light falls on them, insects scuttle away into corners, or burrow down again between the logs, but it looks clean enough and dry, and there’s a large pallet bed in the corner, stuffed with straw.
I hold the flint up as Katerina steps into the room.
‘At least the roof doesn’t leak.’
She looks to the bed, then giggles. ‘We’ll have to be quiet,’ she says, her voice almost a whisper. ‘Half the village is down there, listening.’
But the look of her in that wavering light is too much for me. ‘Let them listen,’ I say. ‘Let the whole world listen …’
And, pushing her down on to the bed, I extinguish the flint and begin to make love to her, there in the insect darkness, with half of Tatarinka listening below.
‘Otto … there’s someone I’d like you to meet.’
I turn and look up from where I’m sitting at the table, my drink before me. Bakatin, it seems, has brought a friend to introduce to me. I nod and bid them sit across from me.
‘This is Lishka. He’s a haulier.’
Lishka nods his agreement, then grins at me, showing a set of blackened teeth.
He’s a good ten years or more older than Bakatin – with a wispy grey beard – but of a similar build. Only whereas Bakatin seems as if he’s built of granite, Lishka looks as though he’s made entirely of lard. He looks in ill health and, to be frank, I find myself wondering if he’ll even make it to Rzhev.
‘Fyodor?’
‘Oh, Lishka is a good man. A very good man. You can trust Lishka. And he knows all the best routes. He’s travelled everywhere. Down to Smolensk and across even to Orel and Tula.’
Again Lishka nods and shows his blackened teeth. I turn and hold my hand up, signalling to Rapushka to bring us more beers. Katerina, I note, is looking dubiously at Lishka, as if she’s thinking precisely what I’m thinking.
‘Fyodor, I—’
‘Lishka is my cousin. And he’s cheap. There’s not a man to be had so good at twice the price Lishka charges. And he’s reliable. He won’t run off in the night and leave you prey to bandits. Lishka’s a fighter. A stayer.’
I almost laugh. Lishka looks like he’d run a mile at the first sign of trouble. But I don’t say that. Instead, I decide to question Lishka myself.
‘Tell me, Lishka … do you know what they say of me?’
Lishka grins and looks to Bakatin. But Bakatin nudges him. ‘Answer him, Lishka. Show the man you have a tongue.’
I’m beginning to think that maybe Lishka is a bit of a simpleton, but when he finally speaks, there’s no sign that he’s a simple man.
‘They say you are a sorcerer, Meister, but my cousin Fyodor says that’s nonsense and lies. He says you are merely a trader and a
Nemets
… oh, and a good fighter, too.’
‘He says that, does he?’
‘Yes, and if Fyodor recommends you, then Lishka will be honoured to guide you to Rzhev. Yes, and keep you from the wolves.’
‘There will be wolves, will there?’
‘Undoubtedly, this time of year. But Lishka knows how to deal with wolves. Lishka has great experience with wolves.’
I look to Bakatin and raise an eyebrow, but he merely shrugs. ‘Lishka is a good man, Otto. I wouldn’t put you in the hands of any other, believe me.’
That makes me think. Lishka may look soft, but if he’s done what Bakatin claims, he can’t be
that
soft. Wolf packs are one of the hazards of trade in this age, and if Lishka has survived to the age he’s reached, then he must have been good at dealing with them.
Our drinks arrive and for a while we busy ourselves making toasts and emptying tankards. Then, wiping my mouth, I look to Bakatin again. ‘I’ll think about it overnight.’
‘Good!’ Bakatin says, and grins, as if I’ve said yes. ‘You’ll not regret it, Otto.’
‘I said—’
‘Oh, I know what you said, Otto. But once you’ve had the chance to think about it, you’ll know that Bakatin was right. That he wouldn’t place you in the care of any but the best man for the job, cousin or no cousin. Why, I would take you there myself, if I only knew the way, and if I didn’t have four wives waiting for me downriver.’
‘
Four
wives, Fyodor? I thought it was three.’
Bakatin looks at me, surprised. ‘Oh, didn’t I say? That’s what my business was in Antipino. I’ve bought myself a new wife, a young one, fresh from the south. She’ll be waiting for me when I get back.’
I laugh, astonished, then look to Katerina, who merely raises her eyes, as if she’s heard it all before.
Bakatin’s right. His recommendation carries weight with me. Lishka may look soft, he may look a simpleton, but I can’t believe Bakatin would palm me off with someone who couldn’t do the job. So the next morning I decide to hire him.
Only when I ask Lishka when we’re setting out, he shakes his head.
‘Not yet,’ he says. ‘Not until the rains die down. The paths will be unpassable. The cart would just sink into the mud! And where would we be then? Look at the river, how high it is. The land between here and Rzhev will be nothing but a marsh!’
‘So how long will we have to wait?’
Lishka shrugs. ‘Two weeks? Maybe three?’
It’s a delay I hadn’t counted for, and for a moment I consider hiring myself another guide, one who’ll take us now, only Lishka is probably right. If, as Bakatin says, he knows these lands, I should trust in his experience and believe him when he says that the terrain is impassable in this weather. In the day and a half we’ve been in Tatarinka, it has barely stopped raining for an hour, and the river is close to bursting its banks.
There’s every reason to hold on and await the snows. However …
‘Is there no other way to get to Rzhev?’
Lishka gives me a blackened grin. ‘There
is
, only …’
‘Only?’
‘Only it would mean travelling at least three times the distance, south and then east and then along the shore of the lake, and then north, following the Volga into Rzhev.’
‘Then let’s do that.’
Lishka laughs. ‘You
want
to?’
‘Why not? I can’t stay here.’
‘Can’t stay …
here
?’ Lishka looks puzzled by that. ‘But in eight, maybe nine weeks from now the snows will come, and then …’ He skims his hand along an imaginary road of ice and makes a faint whooshing sound. ‘Here you are cosy and warm. You have good food and fine beer. You and your woman.’
That’s true. Only I don’t want to sit on my hands, waiting for the weather to change. I want to get to Rzhev. Once we’re there we can await the snows. Not here. Not in Tatarinka.
Even so, I decide to delay the decision until Bakatin leaves, and that night, as I’m lying there beside Katerina, I ask her what she wants to do.
‘I want what you want, Otto. Don’t you understand that?’
‘Yes, but …’
I fall silent for a time, thinking about it. I am not used to doing nothing, that’s the problem, because if the idea is to spend time with Katerina, then I can do it here as well as anywhere.
And so I make my decision, to stay and await the snows, only that very night I’m woken by voices, outside, just below where we’re sleeping. Careful not to wake Katerina, I creep to the door and, looking through a gap between the logs, I see two men a little way off, beside the barn. I watch them for a moment, then realise what they’re doing. They’re trying to break inside, to steal the cart!
I feel my way back across the pitch-black room and, slipping on my trousers, take my dagger from the pack. Then I go back and, trying to make as little sound as possible, push the door open enough for me to slip through. Ignoring the ladder, I drop and roll and come up facing them.
One of them turns and, seeing me, gives a little cry.
‘Mother of God!’
The other turns, panicked, and draws a knife, only it’s clear he doesn’t want to use it. They’re both visibly shaking with fear. I raise my hand and point at them, and they whimper and then, their nerve breaking, turn and run into the night.
But it doesn’t matter. I got a good look at them in the moonlight and it was definitely the same two who were at Belyj and Antipino. Krylenko’s friends. But why are they here? Why are they still following us?
One thing I do know. We’re leaving here, first thing, whether Lishka thinks it a good idea or not. Here we’re sitting targets, easy to find. Much too easy.
I turn as Katerina pushes open the door and looks out.
‘What’s happening?’ she asks, even as the innkeeper, Rapushka, emerges from within, his smock tucked into his breeches, a stave in his hands.
‘It was nothing. Just some wild dogs.’
Rapushka looks at me suspiciously, then shrugs and goes back inside. But Katerina is less easily fobbed off. She knows it wasn’t dogs.
‘Was it them?’ she asks, as soon as I’m back inside the room.
‘Yes. It looked like they were after the cart.’
She’s silent a moment, then. ‘We’d better go. If we wait here—’
‘I know. We’re going. First thing tomorrow.’
‘Good. But Otto …’
‘Yes?’
‘I think you need to give me a knife.’
I don’t like the idea of arming Katerina, and yet it makes good sense – like teaching her German, and confiding in her about Four-Oh.
Over breakfast, I tell Bakatin and Lishka about last night’s visitors, and that I want to leave Tatarinka that morning.
Lishka’s still against the idea, and offers to sleep in with the cart, but I won’t be put off. Besides, this once Bakatin agrees with me. Today’s the day he’s going home, and he says he’d feel better about it if he knew I was on the move.
I’m surprised. I thought he’d agree with Lishka. These Russians seem to make any excuse to sit on their arses and do nothing, blaming the weather for their idleness. But that’s unfair to Bakatin. Though he likes to drink and enjoy himself like the next man, he works hard, and his agreement with me impresses Lishka, who says he’ll be ready to leave by midday, once he’s sorted out a few things.
The rain has held off all night and most of the morning, but as Katerina and I step out of the inn it begins again, laced with a thin sleet that gusts into our faces.
Lishka appears an hour later, leading a tired-looking horse. I help him bring the cart out from the barn, then stand back as he yokes up. While he’s doing this, Bakatin and his sons arrive to see us off.
I embrace the big man warmly. He has been a good friend to us, and I tell him that he is welcome to visit us in Novgorod at any time – and to bring his wives. He laughs at that and scratches his big black beard, then grins. ‘Perhaps … if I’m ever that far north.’
I stand back and let him hug Katerina, who kisses his bearded cheek, then goes over and gives each of his boys a kiss and a hug. They seem embarrassed, after all, they are but peasants – sons of a river haulier – whereas she is the lady wife of a
Nemets
trader, and they seem conscious of that difference in status. But Katerina has no airs. She is a young Russian girl, that’s all, and she tells them she will miss them, and they wish her a safe journey to Rzhev and on to Moscow.
And so we set off, walking beside Lishka and the cart, our heads covered, our faces lowered, as we walk into the gusting rain on a grey afternoon in Tatarinka.
Three hours in, we stop and shelter in a cave, the rain outside incessant, falling in a grey unending curtain from the sky. We are soaked to the skin, and while Lishka clears a patch of ground and starts a fire, I unpack fresh clothes for Katerina. Dressed, she settles on her haunches, then looks to our guide.
‘Have you family, Lishka?’
Lishka looks up from where he’s crouched down, feeding kindling to the growing flames, a surprised, almost guilty look on his face.
‘Pardon, mistress?’
‘A wife? Children?’
‘No, mistress. I was never lucky with women.’
‘Never …’ Katerina turns and looks at me, then turns back. ‘And your parents?’
‘Dead. Long dead. The fever took them.’ He sniffs, then stares away into the past, his face bright in the glow of the fire. ‘I was only a boy. This high.’ And he raises his hand to a point two feet above the floor.
Katerina steps closer, then kneels, facing him across the fire. ‘What did you do?’