Aleksandr tried to sleep. He still felt unwell, but he was certain the worst had passed. If it had been Tarasov’s drug or simply time taking its course, he did not know. Soon they would be on the move again, within two days they would be back at Taganrog, and he would be with Yelizaveta Alekseevna once again.

  But the danger had not passed for good. Cain had been only a servant, and his master – his employer, as he had taken such pains to put it – could recruit other servants to do his bidding. Time was not on Aleksandr’s side.

  There was a knock at his carriage door.

  ‘Yes?’ he said.

  ‘Dispatches, Your Majesty,’ shouted Diebich’s voice.

  Aleksandr opened the door and stepped down from the carriage. It was always wise to accept dispatches from the rider in person. The officers who brought them often rode alone over many versts, never to see the face of the dignitary for whom they were carrying such vital documents. For a middle-ranking officer to carry dispatches to the tsar, only in the end to hand them over to one of his aides, did not make a good story to tell his grandchildren. To see His Majesty in person would cheer him no end – and might make him travel a little faster on his next mission.

  The fellow was a major. Aleksandr asked his name.

  ‘Maskov, Your Majesty. They told me at Taganrog that you’d be returning soon, but I thought it best to try to intercept you.’

  ‘Well done, Major Maskov,’ said Aleksandr, glancing at the various papers. ‘Some of these are most urgent. You’ll be returning with us, I take it?’

  ‘Yes, Your Majesty.’ The major shifted his stance uncomfortably. He’d obviously been in the saddle for many hours.

  ‘Can I offer you a place in one of the carriages? You must be exhausted.’

  ‘That’s all right, Your Majesty. I wouldn’t want to put anybody out.’

  ‘He can use mine.’ It was Colonel Danilov who spoke. Aleksandr turned to see that he had emerged from his carriage, along with Wylie and Tarasov. ‘I prefer to ride.’

  ‘Thank you, Danilov. That’s agreed then,’ said the tsar. He began to climb back into his carriage. Ahead he noticed that the final horse had been harnessed to the carriage at the head of the train. ‘I think we’re about to be off,’ he announced. ‘Maskov, I’ll deliver you my responses to these in the morning.’

  ‘Thank you, Your Majesty.’

  Aleksandr closed the carriage door and sat down. Within seconds he felt the wheels begin to turn. He closed his eyes, but the road beneath was too bumpy. He would have dearly loved the blessing of sleep.

  On these roads, a carriage was not much more comfortable than a horse. Major Maskov could well understand Colonel Danilov’s eagerness to give up his seat for a junior officer and in other circumstances would have attempted to resist the offer. But this evening he was tired enough that even if he had been on a horse he might have fallen asleep, and thence fallen down on to the road. Dangerous, possibly, but the potential embarrassment, in front of His Majesty the tsar, was of far greater concern.

  Maskov was eager to please the tsar, as would be anyone in his position. It was not just the fact that, if the tsar noticed him, it might bring him favour. A soldier who sought promotion would do better to flatter his immediate superiors than one who stood so far above him in the pecking order that he would not even remember Major Maskov in a couple of days. Far more important was that Maskov loved the tsar. It was a realization he had come to back in 1812, on a parade, the first time he had seen Aleksandr in the flesh. He had heard others speak of their love for their leader, but he had thought they were speaking figuratively, of a love for their country that was embodied in the tsar. But one look at that glorious, golden-haired young man had made him think differently. It was not a sexual love – Maskov’s wife and nine children back in Petersburg testified to that – it was almost akin to the love that a monk or a priest felt for God.

  Many officers who had felt like Maskov – perhaps not as strongly – had come back from Paris disillusioned, but Maskov had been wounded at Borodino, and had never been to Paris. Today he still regarded Aleksandr in the same way so many had back in 1812. Now his view was in a declining minority, but he knew that he was right and they were wrong. The words ‘Well done, Major Maskov,’ as they issued from the tsar’s lips, had confirmed that to him. How could one so lofty, who still paid so much courtesy to the humblest of his minions, be anything but a great man? Maskov would follow him to the ends of the earth; he would obey any order the tsar cared to issue; would happily die for him.

  Major Maskov began to doze, and visions of a battlefield appeared before his eyes. Aleksandr was seated on a white steed with Maskov, now a field marshal, mounted beside him. The sound of a cannon blast ripped the air and Maskov turned to see a cannonball bouncing across the field towards them. He launched himself from his horse and flew through the air in front of his tsar, catching the blow of the cannonball full in his chest as it splintered his ribcage into a dozen bloody fragments. But as he fell to the floor, life ebbing agonizingly from him, he felt Aleksandr’s strong arms cradling him and heard the cherished words, ‘Thank you, Maskov. You saved me.’

  Now he was at a banquet, in a privileged position opposite Aleksandr. The tsar was about to drink, but Maskov knew with inescapable certainty that the goblet was poisoned. He reached out and grabbed it from the tsar’s hand, taking down the tainted wine in a single gulp and seeing white smoky vapour rise from his own lips as it seared his throat and corroded his body from within. Now he lay in his coffin as it was lowered slowly into the earth. He knew that he was dead, but he was happy to be dead as he looked up and saw Aleksandr at the head of the mourners, an expression of benevolent wisdom on his face and a tear in his eye. Shovelfuls of earth cascaded on to him, entombing him for ever, but even in death he smiled, hearing through the dirt and soil the muffled words, ‘Thank you, Maskov. You saved me.’

  Major Maskov awoke with a start. He was not alone. He had not noticed the carriage come to a halt at any time, but somehow a passenger had got on board. He was stood on the seat opposite, with his back to Maskov, dragging down a bag from the rack above.

  ‘What the devil?’ muttered Maskov, still half asleep, his hand reaching for his sword.

  The figure turned and jumped down to the floor of the carriage. At that very moment the carriage rocked sideways, its wheel bouncing over a large stone. The intruder landed badly, falling to one side and banging his shoulder against the door. Maskov was now on his feet, his sword drawn and at the man’s throat. He glanced back over to the seat and saw that there were already several bags on it, opened, their contents strewn about.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing, looking through Colonel Danilov’s things?’

  ‘What do you think you’re doing, sleeping in Colonel Danilov’s carriage?’

  ‘I’m the one with the sword,’ explained Maskov, ‘and so I’m the one who gets to ask the questions.’

  The intruder looked at him ruefully, and seemed to accept his status. ‘He has something which belongs to me.’

  ‘I find that very unlikely.’ Maskov knew very little about Colonel Danilov – it had been a presumption that these were his bags – but it did well with this sort of vagabond to give a clear impression of authority. ‘How did you get on board?’

  ‘When you changed horses. I climbed on the back.’

  ‘And then planned to do your dirty work and be off while I was still asleep?’

  ‘No, I intended to kill you. I hope to get round to it.’

  Maskov snorted. ‘Fine words. Now tell me, what was it amongst Colonel Danilov’s things that you were so interested in?’

  ‘It’s in there.’ The man nodded to one of the bags open on the seat. Maskov glanced into it. There was nothing but clothes. He poked around with his left hand, still keeping his sword pointed at his prisoner. At the bottom of the case he found a bottle of vodka. It was full.

  ‘There’s nothing there,’ he said.

  ‘May I?’ asked the intruder, making to stand up. Maskov decided to let him. He kept his sword close as the man delved into the case. As he watched, it occurred to him to wonder why, if what he was looking for was in one of the cases he had already searched, the thief had left it there and gone to search in other cases. But it was too late.

  The man turned. From somewhere, he had produced a knife. His right forearm knocked Maskov’s sword aside and the knife in his left hand slashed across the major’s chest. But Maskov was no greenhorn. He stepped back just half a pace and the blade sliced through the air, missing his flesh and not even catching his clothes.

  At that same moment though, the carriage jolted again, and Maskov’s deft movement became an uncontrolled lurch. His back slammed against the carriage door, which, loosened by the earlier impact, swung open. He braced himself against the doorway and managed to regain his balance, but in doing so, lost the grip on his sword. It fell out of the coach and bounced on its hilt, then its tip and then its hilt again, before finally coming to rest by the roadside.

  Maskov’s attacker had closed on him. He slashed out with the knife again, aiming for Maskov’s fingers where they clutched the doorframe. Maskov snatched his arm away briefly and regained his grip only a hand’s width further up. The knife sliced into the wooden frame, scarcely missing his fingers. It was a game they could go on playing time after time; one that Maskov had only to lose once for him to be sent tumbling towards the road that hurtled past below him. But at least his luck might hold until someone saw what was happening.

  The game, however, was not to be played like that. The intruder smiled to himself, as if reading Maskov’s thoughts. Then he lifted his hands, gripping the luggage racks on either side of the coach and raising himself into the air.

  Two heavy, booted feet slammed into Maskov’s chest. He tried to maintain his grip, but the fingers of his left hand yielded. Without their support, his right hand could do nothing. He erupted from the carriage, turning to his left as he fell, gaining a better view of the road that sped both across his path and towards him. And yet the final thought to occupy his mind before his skull was dashed against the stony ground was not to consider his wife, his children or his prospects in the life eternal, but to worry that when the tsar stepped from his carriage and looked down on his lifeless corpse, Major Maskov would be wearing a muddy uniform.

  CHAPTER XXII

  MASKOV WAS NOT DEAD. THAT WAS DR TARASOV’S PROnouncement and, standing a little further away, Wylie could only defer to his opinion. The whole train had pulled up quickly when the alarm was raised, and it had only been a short run back to where the body lay.

  ‘Is there anything you can do?’ asked the tsar.

  ‘It looks grave,’ said Tarasov. Again, Wylie could only concur. There was blood all over the major’s face, and a concave impression in his skull, just in front of the right temple. But he was breathing, albeit in shallow, desperate gasps.

  ‘I put him in your care, Doctor,’ said Aleksandr. ‘Do whatever you can.’

  ‘What happened?’ asked Baron Diebich.

  ‘I was in the carriage behind him,’ explained the tsar. ‘My coachman and I both saw him fall. We called for them to stop.’

  ‘We hit a huge hole in the road,’ explained the driver of Maskov’s coach. ‘It must have been full of mud or clay – I didn’t see it. It knocked him clean out of the door.’

  ‘Unlikely.’ The voice belonged to Colonel Danilov, who had only just arrived at the scene.

  ‘It looks like it to me,’ said Wylie, but a glance at the colonel reminded him not to take what he said lightly. ‘What’s that?’ he asked, pointing at what Danilov had in his hand.

  ‘It’s Maskov’s sword,’ he replied. ‘I found it back there; a long way back.’

  Wylie instantly grasped the implication. Maskov had had reason to unsheathe his sword, and had lost possession of it some moments before he himself fell from the carriage.

  Aleksei, Tarasov, Wylie and Diebich together lifted Maskov and manhandled him back into the coach, laying him on the floor between the two rows of seats. Aleksandr stood back, looking on with a mixture of concern and unease. Soon they had him in the coach, and Tarasov clambered in after.

  ‘It looks like the impact knocked down all the luggage too,’ he said, looking around at the mess inside. Danilov merely glanced at the chaos into which his own luggage had been hurled. He seemed more concerned with a minute inspection of the carriage’s doorframe.

  Then the tsar spoke. ‘Let’s be on our way.’ Then he turned to the driver of Maskov’s coach, ‘And for God’s sake, man, drive more carefully.’ The coachman bowed his head in acknowledgement, happy to accept the unwarranted rebuke rather than face greater punishment.

  Wylie made his way back to his own carriage and was about to remount when he felt a hand on his arm. It was Danilov.

  ‘I’m going back,’ he said.

  ‘Back?’ asked Wylie.

  ‘To Chufut Kalye.’

  Wylie felt his own cheeks whiten at the implication. ‘But why?’

  ‘That was no accident.’

  ‘You can’t be certain.’

  ‘I saw a man,’ said Danilov sternly. ‘Running from the other side of the carriage. You were all distracted by Maskov.’

  ‘A bandit,’ asserted Wylie. ‘That’s no reason to go back.’

  ‘He was searching my bags – searching for the book. Do you still have it?’

  Wylie reached into the carriage and picked up the notebook, still wrapped in paper, from where he had left it on the seat. ‘It’s here,’ he said. ‘It’s safe.’

  Danilov took it from him, somewhat brusquely, and put it into his knapsack. ‘I’ll be back as quickly as I can,’ he said, and then turned, heading down the road, to where his horse was waiting.

  ‘It’s a wild goose chase!’ shouted Wylie after him, but he knew in his heart that Colonel Danilov was not a man to pursue shadows. A whip cracked, and he saw that Maskov’s coach was about to start moving. He held his hand out to stop it for a moment and went to the door. Inside, Tarasov was leaning over Maskov’s unconscious body, listening to his shallow breathing. He turned to Wylie and shook his head grimly.

  But that was not the information Dr Wylie was here to obtain. Instead, he looked at the frame of the door, at the same spot which Danilov had found so fascinating – fascinating enough to send him all the way back to the citadel of Chufut Kalye.

  It wasn’t much, but it was certainly new and clean enough that it could be connected with what had happened to Maskov. The wood had been cut away by a jagged knife. There were two notches, side by side, about the width of two fingers apart. The only thing of note about them was their alignment. They were perfectly parallel.

  It would be their last night before getting back to Taganrog. Aleksandr could not tell if he felt better or worse. He had now consumed all the quinine that he had taken from Tarasov. It tasted foul. He had exaggerated it at lunch the other day, but it was still not pleasant. How could he know if his current frailty wasn’t due to the cure itself, rather than to the affliction he hoped it was addressing?

  Orekhov was not a large town, but they had all been able to find accommodation. Beds were usually made available for the tsar and the whole of his retinue. If need be, lesser guests would be turfed out, awake or asleep, to make room. They would be happy to make such a sacrifice for their sovereign. And if they weren’t happy – well, then they hardly merited the comfort of a soft bed.

  Tonight the man most in need of comfort was Maskov. Seeing him lying there on the muddy road, Aleksandr had felt a deep sympathy for him, of a kind that had not touched his heart for many years. Even so, he was no fool; he could see there was little hope for the major. But Tarasov would do his best, even if his prognosis was rose-tinted.

  There was one thing the tsar himself could do for the man – not save his life, but at least give some slight purpose to it. He picked up the wad of dispatches. Regardless of Maskov, they would take Aleksandr’s mind off other matters. He sat down in front of the warming fire, wrapped in a robe. There was nothing of enormous interest in them. Despite what had happened at Chufut Kalye, his concern was the issue of potential revolution. Maskov had brought reports from many of the tsar’s sources in Petersburg, but none of them was as close to events as Colonel Danilov. Rationally, he would feel safer if Danilov were back in the capital, where he could feel at first hand the mood in the barracks. In his heart, it felt comfortable to have the colonel in his presence.

  There was a knock at the door. Aleksandr glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece above the fire. It was just after midnight. It could only be bad news. He called out, and Dr Tarasov entered. Aleksandr could see Baron Diebich hovering in the background. He rose to his feet, perhaps faster than he had intended. He felt a moment of dizziness, but asked the question that seemed suddenly more urgent than any.

  ‘How is Maskov?’

  Tarasov hesitated for a moment, but the tsar was not a man who needed to be shielded from bad news. ‘Dead, Your Majesty. His skull was split. I think he was probably dead when we got here.’

  ‘What a tragedy,’ replied the tsar. ‘I so pity the poor man.’ Aleksandr hoped it did not sound like a platitude. So much that he said was taken to be such, perhaps rightly. Aleksandr turned away from the doctor, afraid to show his face. He heard the door close as Tarasov left.

  Aleksandr returned to his chair, dropping the dispatches to the floor beside him. There were so many other things he had wanted to say about Maskov, but none of them would sound sincere. What he really wanted to know was what in Heaven the Lord could have intended for Maskov. Why kill him in such an inconsequential manner? Could he not have died at home, bathed in the love of his family? There was nothing in the dispatches that was worth sacrificing a life to deliver – nor had Maskov died in attempting to deliver them; it had come later. It made God seem cruel, but Aleksandr knew enough to understand that, if he believed that, it was a fault in his own nature, not in the Lord’s. It was a fault that would take time to rectify – time and seclusion.