Authors: Jasper Kent
He stood still, like a child being upbraided by its mother. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I … I … I didn’t know what you’d make of me.’ Was that the reason? He doubted that was the whole thing, but it was in there somewhere.
She raised her head sharply. ‘Make of you?’
He held his stick a little towards her to make it clear, and with his left hand indicated his ankle. Then he walked across the room with, he knew, exaggerated fortitude and dropped himself into the armchair beside her with a loud sigh of relief. She leaned forward and clasped his hand in hers.
‘Oh Mitka, I’m sorry. I never thought. I’ve been so worried, wondering how bad it was for you. It never occurred to me that you’d be thinking of how it affected me.’
‘Do you mind?’
‘Mind? How could I mind? It makes you look quite distinguished. Everyone will know I’m married to a hero now.’
‘You used to think you were married to a god.’ He suddenly feared that she would give him the honest answer, and say how she gave up on that long ago, but, as ever, she would make no admission that anything was wrong.
‘You still are a god, Mitka. One with feet of clay.’ He didn’t smile, so she tried another approach. ‘It’s only a limp.’
‘Only!’ His outrage was affected, but he knew she would be expecting it.
‘From the outside, I mean,’ she pleaded. ‘I know it must hurt you terribly, but it’s not like some horrible scar or as if you’ve lost an arm or even …’
Dmitry knew why she had stopped. She was about to mention his father’s missing fingers. Svetlana had never met Aleksei, but Dmitry had told her about the disfigurement, and she had been unable to hide her disgust. If his ankle was causing her disgust now, she hid it better. And perhaps she was right – a wounded soldier could seem all the more valiant, but as the scars grew deeper and more obvious, he would become in the eyes of the world a monster.
He stood and walked over to the piano, now doing his best not to limp, but that made it hurt more. He sat down, resting his cane at the top end of the keyboard, and considered what to play.
‘You said in your letters that you managed to play down there,’ said Svetlana.
‘There was a piano in the mess, but I had to wait my turn. And it wasn’t in tune.’ His mind drifted to the memory of his playing for Tyeplov, and he forced it out. ‘I didn’t get a chance on the journey home.’
He began to play the fast triplets of Chopin’s nineteenth prelude. It was a moderately easy work, suitable for fingers that had not been stretched for many weeks. They moved swiftly and nimbly, as though they had been playing the piece only yesterday. The piano was out of tune – Svetlana didn’t understand these things, however much he explained them – but that could be remedied in a few days, and he could hear enough through the slight clashes between strings of the same note, especially on the high E
b
, to know that he was playing well. Then, after about four bars, he suddenly stopped, snatching up his leg and rubbing his ankle.
‘What’s wrong?’ asked Svetlana.
‘I can’t bloody pedal!’ he shouted, slamming his hand on the keys to produce a raucous crash of notes. Although his ankle could take most of his weight now, it had very little movement. He’d not even thought about it, and gone at the piece pressing the pedal on almost every beat. The pain had been sudden and searing, forcing him to stop.
‘You could play something else.’ She meant it sincerely – she
had
no idea. He put his hands back on the keyboard and played a Bach invention, going as fast as he was capable. It was written for harpsichord, before the concept of controlling the sustain of a note after the key had been released, and of letting the other strings resonate with it, had ever been thought of. It led to music that was complex, but had no soul. He could learn to pedal with his left foot, but it would take months, and it would never feel natural.
He stood up and walked back to his seat beside Svetlana. ‘You just need to exercise it,’ she said. ‘It took you long enough to be able to walk.’ She leaned forward and lifted up his foot. He was wearing a laced boot, which he found unfashionable and effeminate, but his ankle was still too stiff to pull in and out of a normal riding boot. She untied the laces and took it off, placing his foot in her lap. She put one hand under his heel and gripped the foot with the other, just below his toes. Then she began to rock it backwards and forwards, with very slight movements, stopping and reversing direction as soon as she hit resistance.
‘Ow!’ he said petulantly, although it didn’t really hurt very much, and felt as though it would do him good.
‘A woman came to see you,’ she said after a few minutes.
‘A woman?’
‘She was asking about your father.’
‘Ah! Tamara Valentinovna. I saw her in Moscow.’
‘What does she want to know?’
‘Some historical case that Papa was investigating – before …’
‘You make him sound like more of a policeman than a soldier.’
‘He was a bit of both,’ said Dmitry.
‘She’s pretty.’
‘Who?’ Dmitry felt pain in his foot as Svetlana bent it a little further forward than it wanted to go. It had been a mistake for him to play dumb.
‘Tamara. Wonderful hair.’
‘I suppose,’ he said. Like everyone else, Svetlana did not seem to notice the similarities between them that Dmitry had found so obvious. It was the hair that was the most striking thing about her. Neither Aleksei nor Domnikiia had had red hair but that didn’t lead Dmitry to doubt for a moment that they were her parents.
‘She’s a little plump,’ said Svetlana. It might be true, but it suited her. It would suit Svetlana to be a little less skinny, but she seemed proud of it so he never told her. Women – men too, he supposed – had a natural shape and did well to conform to it. Raisa was slim and was meant to be. He smiled to himself. It was odd that she should pop into his mind, but not unpleasant.
Svetlana had stopped massaging his ankle. Now she was gently tickling the skin just behind it, on both sides. ‘Have you eaten?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. I should have waited until we were together.’
‘I’m not hungry.’
A silence descended. Dmitry laid his head back and prepared to hear music. It came, but not as quickly as usual, and as a distant memory he could still hear the boom of French and British cannon, spoiling his enjoyment of the melody and harmony. But it was better than nothing.
‘It’s been two years, Mitka,’ said Svetlana softly. ‘Since we were together.’
‘A long time,’ he said.
‘A long time to be alone.’ She stood and took his hand. He wasn’t sure whether she had meant that he, she or both of them had been alone. He had felt no more alone in Sevastopol than he did here. But for her, the solitude must have been agonizing – and he knew she would not have taken a lover. He rose to his feet, finding it harder than ever to walk with only one boot, and followed her into the bedroom.
INSIDE THE CHURCH
all was quiet, but for the sound of three pairs of lungs breathing – each reflecting a different state of mind in its owner.
The drunk from the tavern was drifting between consciousness and unconsciousness, breaths rasping and interrupted. When Yudin had entered the church, the
voordalak
who had brought the man had already put him to one side, to deal with later. Both the man’s legs were broken just below the knee and were splaying out as though he were a frog freshly jumped from a pond. Yudin had not seen how it had been done, but it would not have been difficult with a
voordalak
’s strength. It was easier than tying him up, and ensured he would not escape. Occasionally, when the man’s desire for life overcame the pain, he dragged himself across the mosaic floor using only his hands, but like a fool he headed not for the door and possible freedom but towards the iconostasis and the Beautiful Gate, in the hope of unlikely salvation. It didn’t matter. Even if he had made it halfway to the door, his captor could easily have strode across the nave and dragged him back to begin his journey again.
At least his captor might have been able to do that, until Yudin had arrived.
Yudin’s breathing was slow and calm, belying the excitement he felt. He needed to be lucid, and to keep a steady hand, so that what he was doing could be achieved swiftly. He did not know when Prometheus – perhaps others too – would return, but it would most certainly be before dawn. Even so, Yudin knew that the anticipation he had felt when setting out earlier that evening
would
not go unfulfilled, though his victim was utterly different from what he had expected.
It was the breath of the
voordalak
that came in the loudest, shortest, most unsteady bursts. It was the breath of the terrified, the breath that prepares the body for action and yet which the body chokes off before it is complete. Yudin pondered why a vampire should breathe like that. A vampire could be terrified, he had verified that many times, but it had so little need for air that a change in breathing was quite unnecessary. Perhaps it was merely a memory of being human, the body reacting to events in a way that would once have been helpful but was now merely for show – like a dog half-heartedly kicking the earth over its faeces as a memory of the wolf that it once was.
‘So, you’re Mihailov,’ said Yudin. ‘I’ll have to take your word for it. I don’t remember the name, but I never forget a face.’
‘I’ll never forget yours,’ Mihailov replied. Yudin glanced up and saw the hatred in his eyes. He had been easy to capture, and easy to persuade to talk, at least to reveal his name, but the rest would come. Mihailov’s goal was vengeance, and vengeance was a meagre feast if its victim was not fully aware of the reasons for it.
Yudin tugged at Mihailov’s feet. All seemed secure. He had only used rope to bind him. Normally he would have used thick chains on a creature with the strength of a
voordalak
, but when packing his little black-leather bag he had been intending only to deal with humans. Fortunately, most of what he had brought would still prove useful. To compensate, Yudin had found a way to ensure that Mihailov could apply no leverage to his bonds – and the Saviour had assisted. To one side of the iconostasis, a little way back into the nave, a stone statue of Christ, life-sized, stood with His arms open in a sign of welcome. Yudin had hooked the rope that bound Mihailov’s wrists together over Christ’s right arm and let it nestle in the crook of His elbow. He had been worried for a moment, but it seemed the Lord was able to bear the weight even of this most abominable of sinners.
Mihailov’s arms were stretched above his head and his feet dangled at about the level of Yudin’s knees. His shoulders would have been dislocated by his own weight, but his torn ligaments and
tendons
would be healing now, leaving his shoulders permanently misshapen. It would make it even less likely that he could free himself. Yudin had held captives in this sort of pose many times before, enjoying the air of helplessness that it lent them. The manacles in the cell back at the Kremlin achieved much the same. It was a long time, though, since he had enjoyed the scene with a fellow
voordalak
as the centre of attention.
‘You remember me from Chufut Kalye, I take it?’ said Yudin, going back over to his bag.
‘We all remember you.’
‘All? How many is all?’
‘How many of us were there?’
Yudin began to rummage through his possessions, but then realized he would probably need everything. He picked up the bag and brought it back over. ‘Oh, dozens, I should say. But I can’t believe that all of you escaped.’ He put the bag down close to Mihailov’s feet. ‘I’ve only seen the two of you in Moscow.’
‘Then at least two of us escaped.’
‘How?’
‘Some soldiers fought. One of them bled heavily. It seeped down and revived us.’
‘Even so,’ said Yudin, laying out his paraphernalia on the step in front of the iconostasis, ‘you were still trapped.’
‘We had almost dug our way free soon after you left us. And over the years the earth had shifted. It was easy enough.’
‘On a dead man’s blood?’ Yudin knew that both the flavour and the nourishment of blood died quickly.
‘Once we had escaped, we drank from his foe. Then we had the strength to move on.’
‘The one who bled,’ asked Yudin, ‘where did he bleed from?’
‘Where?’ Mihailov seemed confused, as well he might be.
‘Where on his body?’
It took a moment’s thought. ‘His thigh.’
‘Good,’ said Yudin. ‘A good place for it.’ He looked up. ‘So then you came here, in pursuit of me?’
‘We went to Sevastopol.’
‘A bucket,’ said Yudin, as though talking to himself, but knowing he would be heard. Mihailov’s face showed the puzzlement he
had
hoped for. ‘I need a bucket.’ He cast his eyes around, searching. ‘Go on,’ he said more loudly. ‘Why did you go to Sevastopol?’
‘His son was there.’
Yudin saw what he was after in a dark corner. He hurried over. For all his bravura, he was afraid that Mihailov’s comrades might return at any minute. He needed to be swift. ‘Whose son?’ he called over his shoulder.
‘The three-fingered man’s.’