Not that I’d let them harm her. Only how do we get out of here alive?
As I sit beside her again, she turns to me and smiles. ‘Are you okay?’
‘I’m fine,’ I say, then place my mouth to her ear and whisper. ‘We have to go. Can you feign being ill?’
She gives the slightest nod. I look to Nevsky. As I thought, he’s watching me closely now, suspicion in his face. I smile at him and, reaching out, lift my cup and toast him.
‘Your health, Prince Alexander!’
Nevsky ignores the gesture. Leaning towards me, he raises his voice as other voices fall silent all about us. ‘What did he want, the Mongol?’
I sip from my cup, then put it down. There’s silence now in the hall.
‘He wanted to know how things were in Novgorod. How they were disposed to the Horde.’
Nevsky stares back at me as if he knows I’m lying. ‘It’s a long way to Novgorod.’
‘It is, my lord.’
‘And what else did he say?’
That I’m in danger here …
I am about to answer, to frame another lie, when Katerina clutches her belly and groans. I turn to her, as if surprised. ‘What is it?’
‘The child. I—’
She groans again, such a groan as would convince anyone that she’s in pain. I look across and see that Nevsky’s on his feet. So too are his men.
‘Grab them!’ he says. ‘Don’t let them get away!’
This is the place we were warned not to go. As we ride up to it along the treelined riverbank, I recognise it from Saratov’s bleak description: ‘
It’s just a staging post. Two huts and a jetty. And not much of a jetty at that …
’
He was right. Krasnogorsk is the deadest, most insignificant of places we have yet seen. Only Nevsky has brought us here, so there must be some significance. We stop and while his men go ahead to check things out, he turns and looks down at us from his horse.
Our wrists are bound and we are tied together, like slaves. Nevsky, of course, holds the lead rope. Two days it’s taken us to get here, and I still don’t understand why we’ve come.
‘I’d have killed you,’ he says, looking at me coldly, imperiously. ‘Killed you and kept your woman for my slave. I would have enjoyed that.’
‘Why?’ I ask, my hatred of him shaping my face as well as my words. ‘What have I ever done to you?’
‘I was told what you planned.’
‘Told? By whom?’
‘By a friend.’
He stares at me a little longer, contempt in his eyes, then turns his horse and his back on me. One of his men – Pavlusha, it looks like – returns, half running. He stops by the neck of Nevsky’s horse. ‘They’re here.’
‘How many of them?’
‘The old man and two others. They’re armed, but—’
‘We want no trouble. Tell Alexei.’
Pavlusha nods, then turns back, hastening to pass on the message. Nevsky gestures to the men about him and we move on into Krasnogorsk, such as it is.
I don’t know what to expect, but it’s not this. The old man stands by the larger of the huts. He’s a tall, imposing-looking fellow, built like a latter-day wrestler and with long dark hair that frames the bald dome of his forehead. He wears a long black
armyak
, a peasant’s cloth coat, and in his left hand is a stave, carved at one end into the shape of a wolf’s head. His beard is huge and black and bushy, salted with grey, and though there’s no real facial similarity he reminds me of that infamous creature of a different century, Rasputin. It’s the eyes. Eyes that could be either wise and all-knowing, or simply mad.
Just beyond him are his two companions. They’re both much younger – in their teens, I’d guess. One holds an axe, the other a drawn bow. They both look frightened out of their wits. And who’s to blame them? Nevsky’s men are bigger and better armed. What’s more there’s ten of them. Just beyond them is a horse, a grey, bony old creature that looks close to exhaustion. Behind it is a cart, on which two corpses are lain.
As we come close, Nevsky tugs on the rope and makes us jerk forward.
‘Kolya,’ he says blankly, addressing the old man. ‘You have everything?’
The old man nods, his face inexpressive.
‘Well?’
The old man turns towards the axeman and snaps his fingers. At once the young man puts down his axe and, going to the great leather bag that’s laid across the horse’s back, pulls out a cloth sack and brings it across to his master.
The old man hefts it a moment, then throws it down between himself and Nevsky.
‘You can count it now, or trust me.’
Nevsky almost smiles. But he too seems nervous, and I wonder what’s going on here. Are we being sold to the old man? If so, why? Why not just kill me and have done? But it’s not that kind of nervousness. Nevsky seems almost in awe of the old man, like he’s some kind of sorcerer.
‘
You
should be paying
me
, Alexander,’ he says, as one of Nevsky’s men scuttles forward and picks up the heavy cloth bag.
Nevsky laughs, but again it’s a nervous laugh. ‘Why’s that, Kolya? You wanted them alive, I wanted them dead. So we both get what we want, no?’
‘But you get the silver.’
‘I have tribute to pay.’
‘Ah yes, the Horde.’ And there is such contempt in the word that I wonder just who the old man is, and what his relationship to Nevsky is. He’s certainly not intimidated by him. In fact, it’s the other way round.
‘Here,’ Nevsky says, and, casting the rope towards the old man, he turns his horse and moves aside, leaving us facing him.
The old man’s eyes fall on me and smile. ‘Otto. How long I have waited for this.’
‘Do I know you?’
At which the old man laughs. Laughs until the tears stream down his face. Only when he’s finished it’s like he’s drained all of the good humour from his soul, and when he looks at me again it is with pure malice in those eyes. Malice that I can’t understand or comprehend. He raises his hand and gestures for his men to bring the cart forward.
They lead the horse on, until it’s almost level with us.
‘Turn it,’ he says quietly. ‘Let the bastard see.’
As the horse turns and the litter comes into view, so I gasp in disbelief. Beside me, Katerina falls on to her knees with a little cry.
‘
Mother of God
!’
But I at least know that this isn’t sorcery. And though I do not know this Kolya, I’m certain now of one thing: he’s a Russian agent, like the others. For the two bloodless corpses on the litter, their throats cut, their clothes crusted with blood, are mine and Katerina’s. I swallow, trying to find the words to defy the old man, to show him that I’m not afraid. Only for once I am, because I can’t see any way out of this, unless to jump. And that will leave Katerina here, in this festering, god-forsaken place, alone among enemies. And that I cannot do.
Dead
, I think.
They finally got me
.
Yes, and the bastards brought me back to show me. To gloat over me. Only when I turn and look, it’s not what I expected. The only one who’s smiling is Nevsky. Rakitin, Zasyekin and the others are strangely sombre, and when I look at them, they quickly look away, as if ashamed. Only why should that be so? They’ve nailed me, after all. They don’t even have to kill me now, because they’ve killed me up the line somewhere.
Katerina reaches out and grips my leg. I look down at her, pitying her, pitying us both. But for once I can do nothing – nothing whatsoever – about it. Even so, she pleads with me, breaking my heart anew.
‘Do something, Otto! For God’s sake
do
something!’
‘Katerina, I—’
Nevsky laughs. Forgive me, but he laughs. A mocking laughter that rolls on and on.
I want to kill him. Only it’s not rage I feel any longer. I sink to my knees and, facing Katerina, clasp her to me and lift her face so that she’s staring into my eyes.
‘This is it,’ I say gently. ‘Do you understand? This is the end, my love. They’ve won.’
Yet even as she shapes her mouth to answer me, even as her eyes meet mine, their perfect darkness filled with sorrow, so I feel the world fragment about me, my self dissolve into a thousand billion particles …
Hecht stands there, arms folded, beside the platform, facing me as I shimmer into being.
‘We’ve got to go back there!’ I cry, stepping towards him. ‘Katerina, the woman I was with, we’ve got to save her!’
Hecht gives the slightest shake of his head. ‘No. There’s no time for that now.’
‘No time?’
Doesn’t he know?
But then I realise. He doesn’t. He has no idea what significance she has to me. He thinks I’m just being cranky.
‘We must!’ I say, shocked that he can’t understand. ‘We
have to
!’
But Hecht’s not listening.
‘Listen,’ he says, speaking slowly, calmly. ‘It’s all falling apart. Five of our agents are dead already. So you’ve got to go in there, Otto, and sew it back together again.’
I stare back at him, bewildered. ‘Together? What are you talking about?’
‘It’s Poltava,’ he says. ‘The Russians are about to lose Poltava.’
‘Studying history, my friend, is no joke and no irresponsible game. To study history one must know in advance that one is attempting something fundamentally impossible, yet necessary and highly important. To study history means submitting to chaos and nevertheless retaining faith in order and meaning. It is a very serious task, young man, and possibly a tragic one.’
– Hermann Hesse,
The Glass Bead Game
IT’S HARD TO
feel enthusiastic when you know you’re dead.
Even so, I recognise the significance.
Poltava
. It’s one of those historical cusps. A pressure point, if you like. And even if the word means nothing to you – in which case, you cannot possibly be a Russian – that significance can still be quickly grasped.
Poltava is the first great battle that the Russian empire wins. The grand turning of the tide. It is when the whipping boy becomes the master.
But let me take a moment to explain, if only to give this context.
Long before Hitler, long even before Napoleon, another European ruler tried to conquer Russia, to march an army across the steppes and seize Moscow. That ruler, Charles XII of Sweden – twenty-seven at the time of which we speak, that is, the summer of 1709 – was just as much a megalomaniac as his two successors. A child king and most definitely a warrior, he attempted the impossible, and failed. But not by much.
At least, that’s the regular history. But things have changed. Suddenly, it seems, he’s about to win, and we need to find out why.
Russia in the eighteenth century was a backward place of bearded men in long, thick furs; an insular and isolated place, as strange in its ways as Far Cathay, and, to the Western view, every bit as barbarous. The young tsar, Peter the First, changed that. He dragged his country, kicking and screaming, into the modern world, attempting to make a proper European power of it, much as Stalin, years later, tried to transform his basically agrarian state into a centre of industry.
Russia, before Peter, was landlocked. Or almost so. For six months of the year there was Archangel in the Arctic Circle. Otherwise …
Peter changed that. He built a fleet from scratch, and fought for footholds on both the Baltic in the north and the Black Sea to the south. And between times he modernised the Russian army, which had always –
always
– been a joke.
Oh, and he built a city, in the mouth of an icy river, in marshland, in a place so hostile that its builders often froze to death as they worked.
This is a story, then, of two compulsive young men, given by Fate to their respective countries. Implacable enemies, whose ‘Great Northern War’ dragged on for seventeen long years. But Poltava … why Poltava?
Because that is where Charles’s ambitions died. That is where Peter – who had avoided open battle for two whole years – finally turned and faced his foe, and crushed him. Sent him scuttling into Turkey with a bare six hundred men – all that remained of the seventy thousand who had marched from Saxony twenty-three months earlier.
Hecht wants me to go in at once, but Freisler, who’s been brought into the discussion, argues against that. He thinks I should undergo a refresher course. Maybe he’s right. Only this once I don’t actually care. What does it matter whether Peter loses the battle if Katerina is dead? What do I care if Russia is cut to pieces by its enemies and shared out like a giant cake?
Because if I don’t start caring then I won’t get back to save her.
If I can, that is. If this dreadful gut feeling I have is false.
And so, with Hecht’s concurrence, I find myself in the immersion laboratory, data flooding into every pore. Or so it seems. And maybe that’s good for me, because for a while the sheer intensity of it makes me forget.
Only the moment I stop remembering, I think of her again.
Hecht is waiting for me when I come out of there.
‘Are you ready, Otto?’
I hesitate, because for once I’m not sure. In fact, I’m not certain I’m ready for anything any more, only I don’t say that. I just nod and let him lead me to the platform.
And so I go back. To Poltava. And to the Swedish camp, on the evening of 26 June 1709.
I know something’s wrong the moment I step into the tent. Charles, for a start, is standing there, his back to me, looking down at the map spread out across the table. Gathered also about the table are others I recognise – Count Adam Lewenhaupt, Field Marshal Rehnskjold, the two Poles, Stanislaus and Krassow, the old Cossack ‘Hetman’ Konstantin Gordeenko, Mazeppa, his friend from the Zaporozhsky Cossacks and – most surprising of all – Khan Devlet Giray, the Sultan’s man.
Their presence says it all. Someone has been tinkering with history big time. Making not one but four, maybe five decisive changes.
Charles turns and, seeing me, smiles. ‘Otto! Where in God’s sweet name did
you
come from?’
And he comes across and embraces me.
I look down, taking in the fact that his left foot is unharmed, his riding boot unviolated, then look back into his face.