Thirteen Years Later (51 page)

He smiled, as if caught out for being excessively modest. ‘Perhaps not, but I also have a reason not to.’

‘Which is?’

‘There is something I want you to find out – and I’d hate you to go to your grave without ever discovering it.’

‘So tell me now,’ said Aleksei, unsure why he should be attempting to hasten his own death.

‘I’m afraid you’d never believe me,’ said Iuda, mournfully. ‘That is my curse. But for now, I have the two things I require.’

‘
Two
things?’ said Aleksei.

‘These notes,’ said Iuda, holding up the battered notebook, ‘and this head start.’

He turned and ran into the darkness. Within moments, he had disappeared from view.

M
UCH AS HE DESIRED IT, ALEKSANDR KNEW HE COULD NOT
shun the responsibilities of his position any longer. Across the room from him sat Volkonsky, and with him, two less familiar faces: Baron Frederiks, the military commander in Taganrog, and Colonel Nikolayev, who was in charge of the troop of Don Cossacks which guarded the tsar’s residence. He had hoped that Danilov would be here too, but he’d been away for almost a week. Dr Wylie said he was due back soon, but the tsar could wait no longer.

‘And when do you plan to reach Petersburg, Baron?’ he asked.

‘A little over a month from now, Your Majesty; certainly before the end of the year.’

Aleksandr squeezed his lower lip and considered what might come to pass in that space of time.

‘I can easily find a courier,’ added the baron, ‘if your despatches are more urgent.’

‘No,’ said the tsar firmly. ‘Certainty is more important than speed. I need them to go with a man I can trust.’

‘You can certainly trust
me
, Your Majesty.’

‘And me,’ added Colonel Nikolayev.

‘You will ensure that Baron Frederiks completes his journey safely?’ asked the tsar.

‘I would die rather than fail in my duty,’ said Nikolayev.

‘There shouldn’t be any need for that,’ said Aleksandr. He had
hardly heard what the colonel had said. He examined the packages in front of him. There were five of them, mostly addressed to various ministers and generals who worked in the capital. It was the envelope on the top of the pile that was of most importance to him. He handed the other four over to Frederiks.

‘These are to be opened immediately upon receipt,’ he said.

‘Yes, Your Majesty,’ replied the baron.

Aleksandr held the final envelope in his hands. He looked at the name on the front, written in his own handwriting:

Nikolai Pavlovich

‘This is for my brother,’ he said with sudden resolution, passing it to the baron. He had thought of addressing it to ‘Kolya’, and of signing it ‘Sasha’. Those were the names they had always called each other by, face to face, but today it didn’t seem appropriate. ‘But remember, he is only to open it in the event of my death.’

‘I might as well burn it now, and save the trouble,’ said Frederiks.

‘I don’t recall suggesting that it was to be opened in the near future, Baron,’ said Aleksandr icily. ‘But my brother
is
nineteen years my junior, so the time will come.’ He knew as he spoke that the time might come sooner than any of them thought. ‘Now is there anything more?’ he asked.

There was a general shaking of heads. The tsar rose to his feet and the others followed suit. Soon he was left alone. He raised his hands to his face and fell back into a chair, sucking in lungfuls of air. The shaking returned; he had managed to contain it throughout the meeting, but the effort had exhausted him. Now it took him over completely.

At least he had done what needed to be done. That letter to Nikolai explained everything – well, not everything, but enough. Even so, there was something else he had meant to include with the papers; something he couldn’t remember. It concerned Colonel Danilov; a commendation perhaps? Aleksandr could not recall.

Another spasm of pain racked his body. He struggled out of the chair and tugged on the bell cord. The effort exhausted him and he collapsed into the chair, with but one thought on his mind: Wylie would be here soon – Wylie would help.

The coach rattled to a halt and the door opened. The starets climbed up inside. The tsaritsa sat alone. Her face was veiled, but she was easy to recognize. The starets had sent a note asking her to meet him here. He had known she would not fail to attend. She feared for her husband – and in that fear she would do anything to save him.

‘Father, how did you know?’ she asked as soon as the carriage had begun moving again.

He raised a finger to silence her. ‘First, we pray,’ he said.

They spoke in unison, as they had done before. ‘Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy upon me, a sinner.’

There was a moment’s silence after the prayer was finished, but Yelizaveta Alekseevna could not contain herself for long. ‘You said it in your letter – how did you know my husband was ill?’

Should he claim to have heard it from above, the starets wondered. He decided against it. It might add sway to his authority, but a simpler answer would be more effective.

‘Who could not know?’ he replied. ‘This is a small town and he is the tsar. Even my ears are not immune to rumour.’

‘But you said you could help.’

‘It is not only I who can help – prayer is available to all of us.’

He could not see her face, but the way her head dropped revealed her disappointment. She had been hoping for something a little more temporal.

‘Your letter suggested . . .’ She could not finish her sentence.

‘There are certainly other things that can be done,’ said the starets, ‘but none will have any effect unless we open our hearts to God and ask that He ensures their success. Can you do that?’

The tsaritsa nodded. ‘You know I can. I must.’

The starets paused for a moment. The approach he was about to
suggest was outside what would be considered his realm. ‘There are preparations that can be administered – blessed by the Lord – that can be of great efficacy.’

‘Medicines? My husband has two doctors with him day and night. There can be little they have not tried.’

‘They are like all men of science – they place too much reliance on what they have observed and too little on what they have been told. Who was it that created your husband’s body?’

‘I . . . I don’t understand.’

‘Who created all our bodies?’ The starets’s voice was raised.

‘The Lord God,’ whispered Yelizaveta.

‘And so whom would you most trust to care for them – a man who has studied for a few decades, or the Lord, who knows everything?’

‘The Lord,’ she said.

‘It is your faith in the Lord that will heal your husband. The remedy I give you will merely be a conduit for that faith.’

‘May I take it?’ Her voice was eager, as was to be expected.

‘I do not have it with me. Such a treatment takes time to prepare.’

‘Perhaps Dr Tarasov already has some. Do you have a name for it?’

‘No!’ said the starets firmly. ‘Doctors are proud of their learning – too proud. It makes them jealous of the greater knowledge of others. They would never allow it.’

‘I will not tell them,’ she said.

‘Good. It will not take me long to prepare it. I will contact you again when I have.’

‘Thank you, Father.’

‘Now stop the coach, if you please.’

She banged on the carriage ceiling with the tip of her cane, and their rocking motion came to a halt. As the starets was about to climb down, she reached forward, grabbing his hand and bringing it to her lips to kiss. He let her hold it there for a few moments before pulling it gently away.

‘You have great faith, my child,’ he said. ‘Your husband will thank you.’

He stepped out of the coach and closed the door, watching it rattle off into the distance before turning and continuing on his way.

It was a thing of beauty. Aleksandr had never really noticed before – he had thought of it as just a tool – but some craftsman had poured his soul into its creation. The handle was of nacre. It shone warmly in the early morning light, the band of gold around its middle glinting as it caught the sun. The handle was capped with more gold, shaped into the form of a helmet, its plume intricately carved, to no practical purpose. The base of the handle, again wrapped in gold, was where the blade was pivoted. The blade itself was exquisite. It was steel, but shone almost as brightly as the gold leaf embossed into its side. It had been well cared for – not by Aleksandr himself, but by Anisimov, his valet. The gold leaf was patterned with curlicues, but again they were mere decoration – perhaps even a distraction.

It was the edge of the blade itself that fascinated Aleksandr the most. He had used it – or one like it – every day since he had first become a man, but he had never stopped to consider it until now. It was a marvel how something so straight, so narrow, could be so unutterably sharp. A saw was serrated to make it cut more effectively, as were many blades, but a razor was different. Its acuteness lay in its simplicity. He rested his thumb against the edge of the blade, with only the slightest force. He could feel it pressing against his skin, but that did not convey to him how it really felt. With any other item, to feel was to caress, to run one’s fingers over the object and experience not just one static sample of its texture but to feel how it moved, how it interacted with the skin.

But with a razor, that could never be. If he moved his thumb just slightly, one way or the other, then his skin would not sense its texture, but be ripped through by it. It was King Midas, never
to touch but that it destroyed what it touched. He pressed a little harder with his thumb, daring himself to draw blood, though the very idea of it repelled him. He moved his thumb away, holding the razor once again by the handle, and began to sharpen it against the strop.

His face was already lathered. He raised the edge to his cheek and scraped it slowly downwards, revealing a swathe of smooth, pale skin. He flicked the razor and a mound of lather landed in the sink. He returned it to his face and repeated the action again and again until his cheeks were clear. Then he raised his head and began to shave his neck, starting on the left and moving round to the right.

He took a sharp intake of breath as the blade curved round the tip of his chin. He looked at himself in the mirror. There it was, beneath his lower lip, a smudge of red that grew into a droplet as his heart continued in its task of pumping, unaware that it was forcing the blood so vital to it out of the tsar’s body. The droplet became too large to support itself and plunged downwards. Aleksandr would have sworn he heard it as it splashed on to the porcelain of the sink and splattered in a hundred directions. He looked down, gazing at his own blood. Another drop dripped from his chin and into the bowl.

He felt a knot in his stomach, a revulsion at the sight of blood – his own blood – that he had never felt before. But the feeling quickly changed. It was still located in his stomach, but the sensation was now one of hunger. He licked his lips and stared down at the red droplets that glistened against the white porcelain. He reached out with his finger to scoop one up, but then stopped as he noticed his own reflection gazing back at him, tinted with red. His bald forehead was familiar, but he looked old – as old as he felt. He frowned and touched his upper lip with his fingers. There was nothing there, but in his reflection, he could clearly see a long moustache of dark, iron grey.

The nausea returned and the room around him began to swirl.

* * *

His eyes flicked open suddenly. It was morning and – though he could not see it – the sun was high. Now should be the hour of his deepest slumber, but the passenger of
R
zbunarea
felt awake and vibrant. The sides and lid of the coffin squeezed in tight around him, but it did not matter. He did not need to rise in order to enjoy the experience – it was not his experience anyway, but a stolen one, taken from a mind linked, however weakly, to his own.

Within moments, the sensation faded. The pain to his chin was inconsequential. The blood was of more interest, but he was old, and perhaps becoming jaded. Blood was commonplace.