‘My God,’ Bakatin says, suddenly remembering. ‘The look on Krylenko’s face!’
And he laughs, as if it’s the funniest thing in the world. ‘The look on his fucking face!’
I sleep, and in the early hours of night wake from a dream in which Krylenko is stalking me, following the boat, half-hidden among the trees on the shore. I know it’s Krylenko because he has that darkly rounded hole in the middle of his forehead, while behind him his sons – two of them dead, two alive – follow him silently, waiting for his command.
I sit up, my heart racing, and look across at the night-shadowed shore. We are tied up in the middle of the river, a rope securing us to a massive rock, which forms an island in the stream. Bakatin’s sons are asleep, snoring like bears, but Bakatin himself is awake. In the light of the three-quarters moon I can see him, sitting in the prow, staring out into the depths of the forest.
I make my way forward and sit beside him. Turning his head, he looks at me, his dark eyes thoughtful. ‘Couldn’t you sleep?’
‘I was dreaming. Of Krylenko.’
‘Ah.’ He nods. ‘So it is. I always dream of the men I kill. For a day or two, anyway. And then they fade. Very few of them return.’
It’s true. And I’ve killed my share over the centuries. I feel like telling him that, only I’ve broken enough rules as it is, and he’d not believe me anyway.
‘When will we get to the marshes?’
‘Tomorrow, maybe the day after. It depends.’
‘On what?’
‘On who we meet, and whether this weather holds.’
I nod. Though the moon shines brightly down, much of the sky is obscured by ragged, fast-moving cloud. It’s much colder than it was, and there’s the feel of rain in the air.
Bakatin yawns and stretches. ‘We’ll need to stop at Belyj, though. Stock up on provisions. We lost most of ours when we hit the barrier. And I warn you, it may cost you, my friend.’
‘If we must, we must.’
He looks at me again, giving me a long, thoughtful stare. ‘You are a strange fellow, Otto Behr. A very strange fellow. That thing you do with the box.’
‘The box?’
‘The box with leaves. The one you make marks in.’
I almost laugh. He means my journal. ‘It is a book, Fyodor. Like the priests use.’
‘Like the church scrolls, you mean?’
‘That’s right. Only whereas they write in Latin, I write in my own private code.’
‘Code?’
‘Never mind. It’s merely another language. Like German, you know,
Nemets
.’
‘Ah …’
But the more I say, the stranger he finds me. For once, however, I’m not overly concerned. We’re far enough from civilisation to be safe from prying Russian eyes. Future ones, that is.
Even so, I probably need to take a bit more care.
‘You’ll need to take care.’
I look up sharply. The coincidence of thought and words is strange, and it almost makes me wonder. Only it’s just that: coincidence.
‘Why’s that?’
‘If you think Krylenko was sly …’ Bakatin takes a long breath, then leans forward to scratch his knee. ‘They’ll try and cheat you, and, if they can, they’ll steal your goods, even slit your throat if they must.’ Bakatin shrugs. ‘But so it is. There are five scoundrels to every one good man on the river.’
‘And what made
you
good, Fyodor Mikhailovich Bakatin?’
‘My mother’s love and fear of the Devil.’ And, having said it, he roars with laughter, such that his sons are woken from their sleep and come and join us in the prow, yawning and rubbing their eyes.
‘Tomorrow,’ Bakatin says and nods vigorously, as if agreeing with himself. ‘Oh, you’ll see some rogues tomorrow, Otto, make no mistake!’
The marshes prove as bleak as I imagined. Mostly the river keeps its banks as it cuts its way through that watery waste, but here and there it spreads itself, for long miles merging with the marshlands to form a kind of dreary shoreless lake, great beds of reed accentuating the shallowness of the water.
What makes it worse is the greyness of the sky, the thick cloud that drifts in from the north, and in the early afternoon it begins to rain: a thin, cold drizzle that depresses my spirits even further.
Bakatin is especially quiet today, speaking only to instruct his sons as to which channel to take, his knowledge of these waters keeping us from running aground on one of the many mud banks which make this part of the river almost impassable.
When the rain eases a little, I go forward and sit beside him. I’m quiet at first, then:
‘I thought this was bandit country.’
‘It is.’
‘Then where are they?’
Bakatin glances at me, then stands up and, in what for him seems a display of bad temper, barks at his youngest, telling him to pay attention and watch what he’s doing with the steering pole. But this has nothing to do with the youngster. Bakatin, I can see now, is tense.
‘What is it?’ I ask quietly.
He looks to me, then comes and sits again, leaning closer, as if to prevent the others from hearing. ‘Something’s up.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘We should have seen one of them by now. One of their boats. It’s how they operate. They come and take their cut for passing through their lands. That is, if you’re a regular on these waters. As for strangers …’ He lifts his hand and draws an imaginary knife across his throat.
‘So what do you think is happening?’
‘I don’t know.’
I study Bakatin for a time, until his discomfort at my gaze makes me look away. But I know now. It’s the not knowing that disturbs him – Bakatin doesn’t mind danger – it’s uncer-tainty that he’s afraid of.
‘D’you think they’re afraid of us, Fyodor?’
‘Afraid?’ He spits theatrically over the side. ‘Blagovesh is afraid of no man, nor any devil, come to that!’
‘Blagovesh?’
‘The bandit king. Or so he calls himself. He’s the leader of the marsh bandits. They say he has over five hundred men in his service. And no one –
no one
– passes through his land without paying him tribute.’
‘What’s he like, this Blagovesh? Is he a big man?’
‘Big? No. But
big
… you could say so. Fearless.’
‘Like you, then, Fyodor Mikhailovich.’
There’s the suggestion of a smile on Bakatin’s lips, but then he shakes his head and looks down. ‘No one is like Blagovesh. No one.’
‘Ah …’
We fall silent and remain that way for a long while, as the boat drifts slowly through that wasted, watery land. Then, just when it seems we might pass through this colourless, windswept landscape without event, Bakatin’s eldest sends up a cry.
‘Boats! Up ahead! Lots of boats!’
Bakatin heaves himself to his feet alongside me and we both stare across the faintly misted surface of the water, looking east towards where, in a patch of ominous darkness, a dozen or more boats seem to be gathered.
I look to Bakatin. ‘What are we going to do? Turn around? Try another way?’
‘There is no other way. There’s only one channel through this part of the marshes. There’s a village just south of here – Zharkovskij – but it’s no use looking to that direction. No, Otto. It looks like Blagovesh has sent us a welcoming committee, and we’ve little option but to be welcomed.’
I hesitate a moment, then turn, meaning to get the gun from the cart, but Bakatin grabs my arm.
‘No, Otto. You wouldn’t stand a chance. Oh, you might kill a good few of them, but Blagovesh has archers. Cossacks, so it’s said, from the far south. They would be sure to target you.’
‘So we do nothing.’
Bakatin nods. ‘It seems the best course, wouldn’t you say?’
I wouldn’t, and I’m beginning to wonder at his confidence, his self-assurance, for ever since we’ve spied the bandit fleet, he seems to have perked up, all of his previous tenseness vanished. I’m almost waiting for him to laugh or hum some sprightly little tune.
‘What if they decide to kill us anyway?’
But Bakatin says nothing, just stares straight ahead as the boats come closer. And as they do so, I see that our first estimate didn’t do Blagovesh’s fleet justice, and that there must be at least thirty, maybe even forty craft in all, hugging the banks on either side of the river up ahead.
‘You think he wants to impress us, Fyodor?’
Bakatin smiles. ‘I’d say he
has
impressed us, no?’
Each boat is crammed with bandits, and as we come closer, we’re surprised by the silence, the stillness of that large host. As we slowly drift between the first of the boats, there’s not a single jeering call, not a whistle or a wolf’s-bay to taunt us, just a cold, hostile silence and the glare of several hundred watching eyes.
I turn, looking to my right, seeing how this ragged band – some missing eyes, other hands or whole arms – simply stare at us with a kind of mocking contempt. I’ve never seen an uglier, more ragged group of men, yet there’s a curious dignity in them at this moment.
‘
Look
!’ Bakatin says in a low whisper, nudging me.
There, to the left, where the river makes a slight turn northwards, is a big galley, much larger than all the other boats, and on its prow, on a wooden platform, stands Blagovesh himself, no more and no less ragged than his men, a red cloth tied about his forehead. For a moment he stares at us coldly as we approach. Then, with a show of mighty arrogance, he spits into the water and turns his back on us, then stands there, his arms folded across his chest, ignoring us.
It is a signal, and a moment later, with a great shuffling noise, all of his men do likewise, turning their backs and standing there in that self-same pose as we drift slowly by.
‘Urd protect us,’ I mutter beneath my breath. And I realise that all this while my hand has been hovering above my chest, ready, at the least sign of them attacking, to jump.
Bakatin wets his lips, then lets out a long, shuddering breath. ‘Some man, eh, Otto? Some man.’
And for once I agree, and, as we slowly draw away, I turn and look back, watching the bandit king until he’s out of sight. Watching, yes, and wondering what such a man might have been in another time and under different circumstances.
Belyj proves to be a sprawl of hovels, set inside a partial wooden palisade. Bare-arsed Russian children are everywhere, their unwashed faces staring curious-sullen back at us as we moor the boat.
Worse, there are slaves here, the first we’ve seen on our journey. We glimpse them in the pens beside the river: two young women, four young men and two children, a boy and a girl. Chud, by the look of them, chained at the ankle to prevent them from escaping.
The locals know who we are. I can feel it. It’s not far upriver from where the fight happened, and rumour has swept before us. The adults stand in the shadowed doorways and look on, their eyes suspicious; hostile, but strangely not afraid.
Of all the places I have seen, this is the worst, and it makes me wonder how anyone could live in such a godforsaken place.
I leave Bakatin to make our introductions while I look about the place, never straying too far from the boat, but keeping a wary eye, just in case. Bakatin’s sons are aboard, but that’s no guarantee that my goods – or my wife – will be safe here.
This place
feels
wrong. And it isn’t just the slaves. No. Slaves are a fact of life in this age – just another commodity, second only to furs in the volume of trade between the Rus’ and their Muslim neighbours to the south and east. Slave girls for the high officials’ beds, young men – Christian as well as pagan – for the galleys.
Walking between two of the unkempt, stinking huts I come upon something I’d not expected. A makeshift smithy. Though the smith himself is absent, there are signs that he has been working here recently. His kiln is lit and hot, the great leather bellows on the floor nearby, while a piece of unfinished work lies on top of the great metal block of an anvil.
I’m about to turn away and go and find Bakatin again when the smith returns.
He’s not a big man but he’s strong and wiry. His beard is neatly trimmed, his clothes – his leather apron – in reasonably good condition. Seeing me, he narrows his eyes and slows his pace, then ducks inside his workshop.
I’m wondering what he’s doing here, out in the wilds. He must be the only blacksmith for a hundred miles. You would expect him to be in Surazh or one of the bigger towns, not here in this pisshole.
‘Yes?’ he asks me, looking up at me sideways.
‘Will you make me something?’
He looks down at the unfinished object on the anvil, then back at me. ‘That depends.’
‘Depends?’
‘On what it is, and what you’re willing to pay. I’m not cheap.’
‘But you’re good?’
He laughs at that, as if it doesn’t need an answer. But looking past him at the objects hung up on hooks behind him on the back wall, I see that he
is
good. For this age.
‘I want you to make me a brooch. A leaf-shaped brooch, from copper.’
Not looking at me, he takes a hammer from the basket by his side, then reaches out to grasp a pair of long-handled pliers.
‘I haven’t any copper.’
‘That’s all right. I have some.’
At that he looks up, interested. Then, conscious that he’s given himself away, he smiles. Picking up the rough-cast piece of metal with the pliers, he walks over to the kiln and holds it in the heat.
‘Maybe we could come to some kind of deal,’ he says, as if it’s neither here nor there to him.
‘Maybe.’
I watch him, see how skilfully he handles the metal. Skills like that can’t be duplicated easily, and my suspicion melts away. He’s just a smith. Anyway, if he
was
an agent – a Russian agent – I’d be dead by now.
We’re both silent for a time as he beats out the piece, turning it and shaping it, sparks flying from his hammer, and then he looks up at me again. ‘When would you want it by?’
‘This evening?’
He considers that, then nods. ‘I can do that. You tell me what kind of leaf you want, and you pay me – up front and in copper, eh?’
‘Half up front, half when it’s done.’
He considers again. ‘It depends.’
‘On how much copper?’