Thirteen Years Later (5 page)

‘Which monastery?’ asked Aleksei.

‘Which monastery?’ The sarcasm of Yevgeniy’s voice betrayed a hint of scorn. ‘
His
monastery,’ he said.

Aleksei nodded again. It was an odd way to describe it, but it made sense. And Yevgeniy had been right to be sarcastic – there was no question as to which monastery. ‘When?’ he asked.

‘In the early hours. Can’t you just give me a message?’

‘No,’ said Aleksei thoughtfully. ‘I have to speak to him.’

Even before the words had left his lips, Aleksei sensed he was alone again. He turned and saw the tall figure in the uniform of a lieutenant general making its way back towards the Winter Palace. Aleksei himself chose to head in the opposite direction, walking downstream alongside the Neva. He had plenty of time before he needed to be at the monastery. He passed the Admiralty and found himself in Senate Square. The Isaakievsky Bridge, floating on the river on its pontoons, stretched north over to Vasilevskiy Island. Aleksei turned away from the river and strode into the square.

He stood at the foot of the statue and looked up. The massive block of granite – the Thunder Stone – that formed its pedestal towered above him. The horse’s bronze hooves kicked at the air. Here was Pyotr the Great – founder of the city. That, to Aleksei’s mind, as a lover of the old capital, had been his only error. Beyond that, the epithet ‘great’ truly applied. He had dragged his reluctant country out of its miserable isolation – dragged it both to the West and to the future. Subsequent tsars and tsaritsas had wavered, but none had been able to halt the momentum which Pyotr had begun.

Trampled under the feet of the horse upon which Pyotr rode was a serpent. It symbolized – so the sculptor, Falconet, had claimed – treason, crushed by Russia’s rightful emperor. But for Aleksei, the whole image seemed designed to pose Pyotr as Saint George slaying the dragon. True, Saint George had little specifically to do with Petersburg. He was the patron saint of Moscow – but the images and icons of him that were scattered throughout the old capital generally took the same basic form: the
saint on horseback, victorious, as the beast writhed in its death throes beneath. Admittedly the beast would have wings and the saint would carry a spear, but these were mere details. Aleksei’s mind turned inevitably to Zmyeevich – the ‘son of the serpent’, if his name was taken literally – who had led the twelve Oprichniki to Russia in 1812. Aleksei could picture the ornate ring that Zmyeevich had worn – a golden serpent with green eyes and a protruding red tongue. He would have liked to compare himself to Saint George, or to Pyotr, but he had never defeated or even confronted Zmyeevich, who had slithered back to his own land.

Aleksei looked up at the statue again, at the tsar’s small features. Perhaps the similarity to Saint George was unintentional. Why should Pyotr, the founder of this city, be associated with the patron of Moscow? True, the saint appeared on the escutcheon of the Romanov coat of arms, but again that was due to the connections with Moscow. Anyway, Pyotr had had no choice in the design of the statue; that had been down to his successor Yekaterina, again given the epithet ‘great’, who had commissioned it. But the same question could be asked of her. That the serpent represented treason made more sense – that, after all, was what every tsar and tsaritsa should fear. And not without reason.

Aleksei walked away, going south across the square, his thoughts set upon that evening’s rendezvous.

‘They plan to kill you, Your Majesty.’

The voice spoke quietly, but did not whisper. It came from the darkness to the left. The man who uttered the words must have been an arm’s reach from the tsar, but he had not seen him. Aleksandr had deliberately let the metropolitan get ahead of him, so that he might be for a moment alone in the bowels of the monastery – a moment of solitude being all that a man in his position could ever hope for.

‘Show yourself,’ he said firmly. The confidence in his voice was real, born of years of power. Some might think it foolhardy, but it was here that he felt safest of all. This was the monastery of
Saint Aleksandr Nevsky, a saint whose name the tsar bore, in the place where the Lord had revealed Himself to the tsar, through His word, at the time of Russia’s direst need. If God was going to protect him anywhere, it would be here.

A face appeared from the gloom. It was a face that was familiar to him, though he could trace its changes over the years. The jaw was still broad, though the skin had gained some wrinkles. The man still wore sideboards, but the light-brown hair was now flecked with grey. When Aleksandr had first seen that face, through monstrous eyes that were not his own, he had felt sure it was the image of an enemy. He had seen it in the flesh many times since, and was now convinced that it belonged to an ally.

‘Colonel Danilov,’ he said, offering his hand.

Danilov bent forward and kissed it. Aleksandr looked down on him with a certain distaste. He was, after all, a spy. It was not a gentleman’s profession, but it was a necessary one. It was best to treat such a man, much like any other soldier, as a tool, to be directed rather than embraced. And yet the vision of him that Aleksandr had seen in 1812 proved that Danilov was more than just a soldier or a spy. Time would reveal the truth.

‘I had to speak with you before you left,’ said Danilov.

They first had met, in the flesh, just days before Napoleon’s abdication – his initial abdication, in 1814 – on the recommendation of Aleksandr’s deeply missed field marshal, Prince Barclay de Tolly, who had told him that Danilov, then a captain, had been one of those who had helped to save Moscow. Aleksandr had flinched as he saw that face for a second time, but had not mentioned his recognition of it, nor had he done so since. Danilov had said nothing either, though his presence in Moscow at its darkest hour, just when Aleksandr had seen the apparition, could have been no coincidence. He spoke French perfectly – not the way Russians spoke it perfectly, even the tsar could manage that, but the way the French themselves spoke it. Aleksandr had wanted to get a feel for how the people of Paris were thinking, and Danilov was the ideal man to discover it. He had done his job well, and had
continued to work directly for the tsar ever since – though the enemy had changed.

‘It’s certain then?’ said Aleksandr. ‘Assassination?’

Danilov nodded. ‘It’s too late for reform now. It won’t assuage them.’

The man was no politician. Aleksandr had learned long ago that reform only encouraged revolutionaries and he’d learned also that reform was not what his people wanted. Above all, they – the Russians, the whole of Europe – craved peace. Aleksandr had given them that, for a decade now. For all but a few of his subjects, it was reason to love him.

‘Who will do it?’ he asked, leaning forward slightly and tilting his head to listen; since childhood his left ear had perceived almost nothing.

‘They talk of a
garde perdue
– a separate group to do the job, without those in charge taking the blame.’

It was sensible – that was how Aleksandr would have done it. Somewhere inside him a voice commented that that was how he
had
done it, but he dismissed the idea. He had never dreamed it would be necessary for his father to be killed.

‘How long do I have?’

‘At least until next summer.’

‘They won’t attempt anything while I’m in Taganrog?’

‘I doubt it,’ replied Danilov. ‘The Southern Society is based mostly around Tulchin and Kiev, and that’s still a long way away.’

‘Can we be sure they trust you? They could be feeding you a line.’

‘If they are, you’ll know soon enough.’ Aleksandr found Danilov’s grim sense of humour distasteful at the best of times, but he understood it had been forged out of experience. From what he had heard, Danilov had been part of a squad of sixteen when the French invaded – four officers and twelve men. By the time Napoleon had departed, he was the only survivor.

They fell into silence. Aleksandr pondered the implications of
what he had been told. He’d allowed these societies to grow – both in the north and in the south – when he could have crushed them at any time. But to destroy them too soon would have been fruitless. They would have scattered and re-formed. Now, though, the time was approaching when he would deal with them all – before they could move against him.

‘I will act when I return from Taganrog,’ he said. ‘I’ll need names by then.’ He didn’t reveal to Danilov just how many names he knew already. What would be the benefit?

‘Unless I can diffuse the situation.’

It was understandable that Danilov saw hope of redemption in these men – he had fought alongside many of them. For Aleksandr a quiet resolution seemed neither probable nor desirable. But if that hope was the price of Danilov’s loyalty, it was unwise to disabuse him of it.

‘I think you’ll find that impossible, Colonel,’ said Aleksandr, ‘but my prayers will be with you if you can.’

Danilov saluted and the tsar returned the gesture, then he turned and disappeared into the darkness of the passageway. The sound of approaching footsteps came from another direction. Aleksandr turned to see that the metropolitan had come looking for him. He straightened his jacket and marched briskly along the corridor to the front of the monastery.

Outside, his calèche was waiting for him, its three horses shaking their manes as if impatient. It was a humble carriage, but best suited for the journey. His wife, the Tsaritsa Yelizaveta, would follow later in grander style. A small crowd of monks had gathered, and was now joined by the metropolitan.

Aleksandr leapt nonchalantly on to the calèche and hid the pain it caused in his legs and back. He rarely forgot his forty-seven years, but on those occasions when he attempted to, his body soon reminded him. He raised a hand and waved at the assembled holy men.

‘Pray for me,’ he said. ‘And for my wife.’

With that, he heard the sound of the driver’s whip and the
carriage began to move. Amongst the crowd, he noticed the shadowy figure of Colonel Danilov observing the departure. There was a man he hoped would do more than pray for his safety.

The tsar remained standing as the calèche drove away. His escort was small and did not block his view. Behind him, the Nevsky Prospekt led straight to the centre of Petersburg, just five versts away. Ahead of him, almost fifteen hundred versts hence, lay Taganrog, and what else, he knew not.

He remained upright, with one foot inside the carriage and one on the running board, looking back the way they had come. Only when the towers of the monastery, lit solely by the stars and the candles that shone dimly from its windows, had vanished from view did he sit down.

The writing was in French. The destination was Ragusa, on the Dalmatian coast. The message was brief:

I have heard from Saint Petersburg. He is on his way.

D
MITRY FELT THE KEYS BENEATH HIS HANDS. ONLY HIS TWO
ring fingers did not make contact. The chord was C minor: C-E
-G-C in the left hand, the same in the right. He had not chosen it for any particular reason, but his hands came to rest there naturally. He closed his eyes and waited.

He sat still at the harpsichord for over five minutes, in complete silence, his fingers touching the keys but not striking them. Music danced through his mind, as clearly audible as if it were being performed in the very room in which he sat. Orchestras poured out their melody, along with pianofortes, church organs, even human voices. Tunes never before played leapt from instrument to instrument, sometimes imitating familiar styles, sometimes in forms that would scarcely be thought of as music.

It was no special gift; he knew many other musicians who spoke of the same sensation, something they could call to themselves almost at will. Lying in bed at night, it always came, but even in daylight, as Dmitry walked down the street, or in the middle of a conversation that did not interest him, he could summon it. The summons was his, but after that, the music was not his to master. He knew that it was a creation of his own mind, but he made no conscious decision as to its path or pattern. The composition was instinctive, as instinctive as hunger or lust or anger. He could neither prevent it nor control it.

But whenever the music came, it came only to tease him. In
his life, Dmitry must have heard hundreds of hours – thousands – played inside his head, never repeating, never disappointing. But not a single note had ever made it out to be heard by any human ear. It was not influenced by consciousness and so, just as he could not direct it, neither could he analyse it, remember it, or even slow it down to a manageable tempo.