‘Sit down, Colonel Danilov,’ he said. ‘You may leave us, Pyotr Mihailovich.’

  Volkonsky turned and exited. Aleksandr was confident they would be left in peace. He walked over to the table and poured Aleksei a glass of tea from the silver samovar.

  ‘Are you acquainted with Prince Volkonsky?’ he asked, handing over the drink.

  ‘Not until now,’ said Aleksei. ‘But I fought with his brother-in-law, Sergei Grigorovich, at Silistria.’

  Aleksandr noticed, and noted, how he rubbed his left hand, which lacked the last two fingers, as he spoke, but he chose not to comment upon it. ‘Under Prince Bagration?’ he asked instead.

  Aleksei nodded. ‘I was very pleased to meet Dr Wylie at last,’ he volunteered, shifting deftly to a different hero of Borodino.

  ‘More so than Prince Volkonsky?’ asked Aleksandr. Aleksei nodded cautiously. Aleksandr was not surprised. ‘Many old soldiers feel the same. But don’t underestimate Pyotr Mihailovich.’

  ‘I won’t, Your Majesty,’ said Aleksei.

  ‘And what brings you here?’ asked Aleksandr, having poured his own tea and sat down again. It was best to play the innocent, for now at least. ‘There has been a turn of events concerning our friends in the north, I take it. For good or ill?’

  ‘It’s not quite as straightforward as that. I’m here because of a quite different threat . . . possible threat.’

  The words chilled Aleksandr, but still he retained his sangfroid. ‘I’m not sure what could be greater than half my army preparing to overthrow me.’

  ‘I think “half” is an exaggeration, Your Majesty.’ Aleksandr knew very well it was an exaggeration, but even if it had been half a dozen, it still would not lessen the horror of his being turned upon by officers who had sworn allegiance to him – just as their fathers had sworn allegiance to his.

  ‘Do you know any more of what they want?’

  Aleksei appeared surprised at the tsar’s question, as well he might be. However much he might once have concurred with them, Aleksandr would be a fool to concede to any of their demands. It would be too much of a blow to his authority. Indeed, by laying down any policy, the reformers ensured that it was unlikely ever to be enacted, however much the tsar might agree with it.

  ‘You’ve read the Green Book?’ the colonel asked, although it was a matter they had already discussed.

  ‘Of course. And you know as well as I it’s not a true declaration of their intentions – just a veneer to make them appear less bloodthirsty. Don’t forget, I’ve read Russkaya Pravda as well, which I think is less intended for public consumption.’

  ‘The best of them share your understanding of the problems,’ said Aleksei, ‘but not your pessimism as to whether a solution can be found.’

  Aleksandr nodded slowly, sadly. Danilov was more fooled than the revolutionaries. Both admired his earlier desire for reform, but it was Danilov who was mistaken to think that his current reticence was born of pragmatism. He had truly changed his mind, and with the best of reasons. ‘Do you know how many of them there are – in total?’

  The colonel nodded. ‘I have a list,’ he said.

  ‘Show it to me,’ said Aleksandr curtly.

  ‘You’ll honour your promise to me?’ asked Aleksei. ‘That you will not move against them until there is no other way?’

  Aleksandr mustered his iciest hauteur. ‘It’s a brave man who asks a promise of the tsar,’ he said. ‘It’s an ill-mannered one who questions whether he will keep it.’ He could have had the list ripped from Danilov’s dead fingers, but he was no fool. Dead fingers would no longer be able to steal what the tsar required.

  Aleksei slipped his hand into an inside pocket and pulled out a sheaf of folded papers. He handed them to the tsar. Aleksandr scanned through. Most names he knew – and knew would be on the list – but there were still many that angered him; a few that saddened him. It was one close to the beginning that he commented on first.

  ‘We were just talking of Sergei Grigorovich,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Aleksei. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘At least Pyotr Mihailovich is not listed.’

  ‘You thought he would be?’ asked Aleksei.

  Aleksandr considered. ‘I would have let them win if he had been,’ he said at length, instantly shocked by his own sentimentality – shocked by the truth of what he said. He looked on through the list. ‘I see your name is here, Colonel Danilov.’

  The colonel seemed to pause just momentarily, as if tripping over an unseen paving stone, before replying. ‘I should hope so. I wouldn’t be much use to you if I wasn’t a member.’

  ‘Even so – not a pleasant list to be named on, should things not go the way you hope.’

  ‘I’m sure I’ll have you to vouch for me, Your Majesty.’

  ‘Oh, absolutely,’ said Aleksandr. ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘Could we discuss my other business?’ asked Aleksei.

  Was this the moment? If it was, Aleksandr would be foolish to ignore it. Even so, he felt afraid. He nodded. ‘Go ahead.’

  Aleksei paused, considering how to start. ‘Why did you come here, to Taganrog?’

  ‘Why do you ask?’ replied Aleksandr.

  ‘Let’s just accept that I did ask.’

  It was more the statement of an interrogator to his captive than of a subject to his tsar, though Aleksandr knew he needed a man of such effrontery. But it was still too early to reveal his hand.

  ‘Many reasons,’ he replied, ‘but chiefly to do with the climate; partly for my own benefit – but mostly for my dear Yelizaveta Alekseevna.’

  ‘The climate? Doesn’t the sea here freeze over in November?’

  ‘Later than it does in Petersburg.’

  ‘Why not Greece or Italy?’

  Aleksandr longed to confide in someone, but his anger and pride won through. ‘I am tsar of all the Russias,’ he asserted. ‘I may go where I please. And Russia is the place where I should and do wish to go.’

  Aleksei nodded. ‘Very well,’ he said. He clearly did not accept the answer, but accepted it was all he was going to get.

  ‘Is there anything more you need to discuss?’ asked Aleksandr. He avoided making it sound like the plea it was. He knew he had to be open with Danilov, but could conceive of no effective way to breach the barrier between monarch and subject.

  ‘Not at the moment, Your Majesty.’

  ‘Then you may go. But don’t go far. I may need you.’

  That would be better. It was Danilov who had instigated this meeting – he could not be allowed to come away the beneficiary. Next time, Aleksandr would be in charge. The colonel stood and walked to the door, but before exiting, he turned.

  ‘Just one last question, Your Majesty.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Did you ever hear of a man named Cain – Richard Cain? An Englishman.’

  The tsar felt a coldness, as though the blood had suddenly vanished from his body, but he pulled an expression of thoughtful puzzlement before replying. ‘No. No, I can’t say I have. Is it important?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ With that, Aleksei was gone.

  Aleksandr stood and walked over to the window. He gazed out to sea, but still the only thing that broke the shallow curve of the horizon was that one yacht. He heard the door open behind him and feared for a moment that Danilov had returned, but on looking he saw that it was only Volkonsky, who said nothing, waiting first to be spoken to. Aleksandr looked back out across the water.

  It was an odd combination of trust and fear that Aleksandr felt for Danilov – and not just Danilov; there were others of his profession who produced the same feeling. The trust was in the absolute sense that such men would neither harm him nor let him be harmed. The fear was in the risk that they would perceive too much; would catch out the tsar in one of his petty misdemeanours. It was the same ambiguity a son might feel towards his father – though not so much in Aleksandr’s case. For him, it was a little more like the way he had felt about his grandmother.

  It was a comparison he did not want to take too far; the old empress had always been able to catch Aleksandr out in a lie, and he felt that Colonel Danilov shared exactly the same perceptive skills.

  Which was unfortunate, because that afternoon Aleksandr had prevaricated with him once and twice told outright lies.

  * * *

  It was dark by the time Aleksei returned to his lodgings. He had wandered around the town a little, asked a few questions, but there was not much to be discovered. Cain’s book had implied he was not actually resident in Taganrog, but in the ‘peninsula’. That could only mean the Crimea, almost four hundred versts away. As Aleksei walked, he had been considering what the tsar had said to him. Aleksandr was a difficult man to fathom. Aleksei had met him perhaps ten times in his life, the first being in 1814, in Paris. On each occasion, he had deliberately tried to reduce the usual formality of such an encounter, and had achieved it to some extent. But the tsar was used to hiding behind the mask of his office, and ultimately could not be browbeaten into revealing information he didn’t want to. The tsar always knew best.

  Moreover, the tsar was used to filtering every statement he uttered, preparing it for the consumption of advisors, ambassadors and the general public. He delivered the truth with exactly the same lack of conviction with which he did a lie. Aleksei was reminded of Iuda, who had found a way to make his every statement equally valueless. Aleksandr had taken a different approach, but had arrived at a similar result.

  Even so, Aleksei was pretty certain the tsar had lied about not knowing Cain.

  He asked for a meal to be sent up to his rooms, and then ascended the stairs. His door was on the right. He had only put one foot inside the room when he realized there was someone else in there. Initially the knowledge was instinctive, but he knew that instincts were based on senses, and he quickly honed the source of his intuition down to a smell. It was a familiar smell – the closest thing he could describe it as was raw sheep’s kidneys, but even that was a poor comparison. It was a smell he had not noticed the first time he encountered it, or not distinguished, but now, he could associate it with its source.

  ‘Kyesha?’ he asked.

  ‘You see almost as well as I do, Aleksei,’ said a voice from the darkness, over towards the bed. Aleksei lit the lamp and saw Kyesha lying there on one side, his chin resting on his fist. Aleksei did not disabuse him of the idea that he had seen him, even if it had been said in jest. He was well aware that the smell was not unique to Kyesha – it was the scent of the voordalak. That the voordalak in question was Kyesha was an obvious guess.

  Aleksei sat down on a chair near the door and fixed his eyes warily on Kyesha, saying nothing.

  ‘You came then,’ said the vampire.

  ‘You could have offered a more direct invitation.’

  ‘Would you have responded to that?’

  Aleksei considered, then shook his head. He glanced over to the drawer where he had left both the dictionary and Cain’s notebook. Kyesha saw his concern. ‘Don’t worry, it’s still there,’ he said. ‘It makes no sense to me.’

  ‘So how did you know it would bring me here?’

  ‘Richard Cain is a talkative man, at times. He’d told me enough of what was in there.’

  ‘He experimented on you?’ asked Aleksei.

  Kyesha sat up and unbuttoned his shirt cuff. He rolled up his sleeve to reveal his forearm. ‘He . . .’ Kyesha interrupted himself with a smile. ‘But of course, there are no scars.’ He pulled his sleeve back down again. ‘One sometimes forgets.’

  ‘You’ve not been a voordalak long then?’ said Aleksei.

  ‘Only a few years before we first met. And the word round these parts is “oopir”.’

  It was not a new word to Aleksei. ‘Voordalak, oopir. You all die the same way.’ He regretted his harshness immediately. He was filled with the hateful realization that he’d grown to like Kyesha.

  ‘Round here, I’m afraid not. Some die, but many live for years in torment, thanks to Cain.’

  ‘And what have I got to do with it?’

  ‘You will stop him,’ said Kyesha confidently.

  ‘Why should I stop a man killing vampires – killing them or torturing them?’

  ‘You will stop him. It’s in your nature.’

  He seemed sure of what Aleksei would do. He’d certainly managed to predict Aleksei’s moves so far – control them even.

  ‘You knew my nature – just from that one night in Silistria.’

  ‘That was a fortunate coincidence. You can imagine my surprise when I heard of the three-fingered man.’

  ‘And you knew it was me?’

  ‘I didn’t even know your name, at first. Even then I thought I might be wrong.’

  ‘Wrong?’

  ‘That you were the man I sought – the man who slew eleven vampires in 1812.’

  ‘Hence the questions,’ said Aleksei.

  ‘And the code. Only you would know where we were to meet.’

  ‘But why pretend to be Maks’ brother?’

  ‘Maksim Sergeivich was the only name I had, to start with. I went to Saratov, to see his family. That led me to you.’

  ‘But where did you get that from in the first place? Why did you choose me?’ Aleksei realized his veneer of disdain had dropped – he was fascinated.

  ‘From Cain. It was Cain who spoke of the three-fingered man.’

  ‘And how does he know?’

  ‘I’m not sure, but I know one thing.’

  Aleksei sat forward on the edge of his seat, his animosity for Kyesha forgotten, eager to hear more. They were interrupted by a knock at the door. Aleksei raised a finger to his lips to silence Kyesha, hoping the voordalak would not remark how similar the gesture was to that which they had used to betray him in Moscow. He opened the door to a narrow crack and looked out.

  ‘Your dinner, sir,’ said the boy outside.

  ‘Thanks.’ Aleksei opened the door wider and took the tray. On it was a jug of wine, and some sort of pie. He slipped the boy a few copecks and went back into his room.

  There was no sign of Kyesha. Above the bed, the curtain flapped in the breeze that blew through the open window. Aleksei put down the tray and climbed on to the bed. He peered out of the window. Just below, clinging impossibly to the wall, was Kyesha.

  ‘What?’ hissed Aleksei. Kyesha looked up at him questioningly. ‘You were going to say something,’ Aleksei persisted.

  Kyesha looked below him, judging the distance. Then he turned his face back up to the window.

  ‘Cain fears you,’ he said.

  A moment later he dropped to the ground and scuttled away. Within seconds, he was out of sight.

  CHAPTER XVI

  ALEKSEI STRUGGLED WITH THE NOTEBOOK THE WHOLE OF THE following day, but he had made about as much progress as he was going to. He needed the assistance of an English speaker – someone he could trust – and there was only one name that came to mind.

  Early on Saturday morning, he returned to the tsar and tsaritsa’s humble palace, but asked to see neither of Their Majesties. Dr Wylie greeted him with a smile and a handshake and suggested they walk in the gardens. It was the last place Aleksei wanted to go, considering the nature of the object that he clutched, wrapped in paper, under his arm.

  ‘I don’t suppose the tsar has mentioned to you why I’m here,’ said Aleksei, once they were away from the house.

  ‘I hope you’re not too disappointed to learn that he hasn’t mentioned you at all,’ replied the doctor. ‘Volkonsky told me you’re not quite a regular soldier.’

  ‘Ultimately, my job is to protect the tsar.’

  ‘As is the duty of every member of His Majesty’s army.’

  ‘The threat may come from within the army,’ said Aleksei.

  Wylie stopped and turned to him. ‘I had heard of the possibility,’ he said. ‘Has the issue become more pressing?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Aleksei. ‘But another matter has arisen; one that I need your help with.’

  ‘Anything relating to His Majesty’s health is my concern,’ said Wylie. Aleksei smiled to himself. Wylie could never have conceived of just how radically the tsar’s health might be altered.

  ‘I’m calling on your assistance not as a doctor, but as an Englishman.’ Aleksei instantly regretted what he had said.

  Wylie bristled and pulled himself up to his full height, still shorter than Aleksei. ‘Let me assure you, Colonel Danilov, I am no Englishman. I am a Scot.’

  ‘English speaker, then. I need a book translated.’

  ‘A book?’

  Aleksei held up the parcel.

  ‘Let me see it,’ said Wylie, reaching out his hands.

  Suddenly, Aleksei realized the foolhardiness of what he was attempting. If his own translation was only accurate to a fractional degree, then what Wylie read would seem like the ravings of a madman. Either Aleksei would be seen as a dupe for being taken in by such a document, or worse, be believed to have concocted it himself.

  And yet the very title of the book itself suggested to Aleksei a course of action. Nullius in Verba – take nobody’s word for it. Perhaps being out in the garden was a good thing after all.

  Aleksei raised his hand to stop Wylie. ‘Watch first,’ he said. He peeled back one flap of the wrapping paper and turned the skin revealed underneath to the sun. As before, it began to blacken and peel, splitting sideways along a line to reveal the cardboard beneath. The same smell assailed Aleksei’s nostrils, and Wylie recoiled in disgust.

  ‘Some form of sulphur?’ asked Wylie. ‘Or phosphorus?

  Aleksei shook his head, though for all he knew, Wylie could have been correct as to the chemistry. He opened up the flap of his coat and hid the book beneath. ‘Look now,’ he said. Although the burning had stopped, the fumes concentrated under his coat, making it odious to breathe. Even so, Wylie peered in. Aleksei was not in a position to see, but the astonished look on the doctor’s face when he raised his head after a few seconds was enough to tell Aleksei that the skin had re-formed in just the way he had witnessed in Moscow.