But he was writing his brother’s obituary. There was still hope – more than hope – and also confusion. Two days ago – on the evening of 25 November – a courier had arrived from Taganrog with the news that Aleksandr had died six days before. But the following day a letter had arrived from the tsaritsa, full of optimism that Aleksandr was over the worst. Nikolai suspected that people were clutching at straws, but there was nothing else to clutch at. Two masses had been organized for today; this small one for family and the highest nobility, and another for high-ranking civil servants and officers at the Nevsky Monastery. The Lord would be in no doubt as to the will of the Russian people, but the Lord might have His own plans.

  The contemplation was broken by the tiniest of sounds; a knock at the chapel door. All heads turned in that direction. A face peeped around the door. Nikolai recognized it; it was his mother’s valet. Even across the chapel, Nikolai could see the sorrow on the man’s face. He had to make sure that it was not the dowager empress who received the news. He rose to his feet and strode across the room.

  The valet displayed his relief that it was the grand duke who had come to the door. Once in the anteroom adjoining the chapel, Nikolai could see that it was still dark outside. He guessed it was no later than eight thirty in the morning. Waiting there was Count Miloradovich, governor-general of Petersburg. His face told the story even more clearly than had the valet’s.

  The news was succinct and irrefutable. Nikolai listened calmly and understood.

  His brother Aleksandr Pavlovich was no more.

  His son, Aleksandr Nikolayevich, was tsarevich.

  He, Nikolai Pavlovich, was tsar.

  That was for Russia, but for him, there was only one item of significance: his brother, Aleksandr – Sasha – the man who had headed the family since Nikolai was four, was dead.

  CHAPTER XXXI

  IT WAS AN ODD SOUND; A THUD, BUT BROAD AND QUIET, FILLING the room but not deafening Tamara. She looked up. Mama was standing at the window, as she did for so much of the time these days. The man who had hit her had not returned. It had been almost a week. Tamara hoped they would never see him again.

  But she knew it was not that man that Mama was looking for; she was looking for Papa. She had glanced out of the window, from time to time, every day since he had left, but it had not obsessed her. It was only since the news that the tsar was dead that Mama had leaned her hand against the window and looked out almost every spare moment she had.

  Tamara knew she should be sad about the death of the tsar, but she had never met him. Mama Yelena and Valentin seemed to be very sad. Tamara could usually tell when people were pretending to be sad, and she’d suspected this might be the case with Yelena and Valentin, but once she’d seen them, she knew she was wrong. Rodion wasn’t quite so sad, but everyone else who came to the house was.

  Only Mama seemed to share Tamara’s lack of concern about the tsar. She was worried about Papa. Tamara remembered that Papa had said he was going to Taganrog, and that was a place that everyone was talking about as where the tsar had been when he’d died. Mama had shown it to her again on the map, and she’d tried to remember where it was. It didn’t look very far away, but Petersburg looked even closer, and that was where Papa spent most of his time; it was still difficult for him to visit them from there.

  The sound had come from Mama throwing her hand against the window. Tamara couldn’t think why she would be trying to break it, but it looked as though she had simply forgotten it was there and was trying to reach through it.

  Her mother turned to her. Tamara had never seen such a wide smile on her face.

  ‘He’s here!’ she said.

  She had smiled so widely it had hurt her. She put her hand up to her face, where the man had hit her. It had almost healed, but now it had started to bleed again, but only slightly. Mama went over to the dressing table and started to powder her face. When she turned back to Tamara, there was no sign of the cut.

  ‘Papa’s back,’ she said.

  Tamara wasn’t stupid. She’d guessed that before her mother had said anything, but the excitement of it was only just beginning to affect her. Her mother knelt down in front of her and held both her hands.

  ‘Now you remember what you promised, Toma,’ she said. Tamara was fairly sure what it was her mother was talking about, but she didn’t nod, in case she was mistaken. ‘You won’t tell Papa about the man outside, will you? You promise?’

  Tamara nodded. ‘I promise,’ she said.

  ‘Stay here.’ With that, Mama ran from the room. She didn’t put her coat on this time. Tamara went to the window and looked out again.

  There were quite a number of people in the street, and Tamara couldn’t see any that looked like her father. There was one man, some way off, who seemed to be coming towards the house, but he was too far for her to recognize. Mama appeared on the street beneath the window and ran towards him. As soon as he saw her, he broke into a run too. Then Tamara could see that it was Papa. He caught Mama’s body in his arms as they met and she swung around him, her feet lifted off the ground. He put her down, and she buried her face in his chest. His hand was on the back of her head. Then she looked up and they kissed. It lasted for ten seconds, though Tamara hadn’t started counting right away. Then they separated and began to walk arm in arm back towards the house.

  Mama pointed towards the window where Tamara stood, and Papa looked up. He grinned and began to wave. Tamara waved back. Then Papa started to run to the door, leaving Mama walking alone in the snow. Tamara jumped up and down with excitement for a few moments and then realized that she too should run.

  She turned and raced out of the bedroom, through Papa’s study and into the hallway. There she brushed past somebody, but she didn’t look to see who it was. It was Valentin Valentinovich’s voice she heard shouting after her, but she ignored it.

  Papa was just coming up the stairs – two, sometimes three at a time – when she reached the top. He picked her up without seeming to pause, but slowed his pace down to a walk. He hugged her close to him – she could feel his heart pumping, and his chest rose and fell rapidly as he breathed.

  ‘And how’s my little Toma?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m very well,’ she said. ‘And I’ve grown almost half an inch.’

  ‘That’s very impressive. And have you looked after Mama?’

  Tamara knew that this was when she was going to have to lie to her father so as to keep her promise to her mother. ‘Yes, I have,’ she said. She decided she was good at lying.

  They had arrived back in her parents’ bedroom, and Mama had joined them within moments. Her father put her down and looked at her.

  ‘You have grown,’ he said. She grinned up at him. Mama slipped her arm through Papa’s.

  ‘Will you be here long?’ Domnikiia asked. Tamara thought it sounded like a rude question, though her mother seemed more concerned than nagging.

  ‘I’ll try,’ said Aleksei, ‘but things may be on a knife edge in Petersburg now that Aleksandr is dead.’ He suddenly went pale. ‘You knew, I take it?’ he asked.

  Domnikiia nodded, and Papa looked relieved.

  ‘Papa,’ said Tamara, ‘were you there when the tsar died?’

  Her father looked down at her and smiled. ‘No, my darling,’ he said, ‘I was nowhere near.’

  Tamara pressed her lips together thoughtfully. Papa was nothing like as good a liar as she was.

  At times like these, some men drank, some smoked, some gambled, some whored and others got into needless fights. Dmitry played piano. Not all of Moscow’s representatives of the Northern Society had assembled at the club off Lubyanka Square, but it could cater for most of the activities they employed to pass the frustrating hours – except perhaps the whoring.

  Dmitry was playing Scarlatti, but he wasn’t paying much attention to it. Moscow seemed desperately provincial at a time like this. True, they had received the news a few days earlier than Petersburg, but that was just a lucky consequence of where Aleksandr had chosen to die. They certainly knew in the capital now, and it was there that the decisions of the Northern Society would be made. Those in Moscow could only follow. Even the Southern Society was irrelevant for the moment. There was no point in seizing power anywhere but where the new tsar was. In reality, that meant Warsaw, but Tsar Konstantin would already be on his way to the capital. Then Ryleev and the others would decide what was to be done with him. After that there would be bickering. It would be the north that acted and the south that subsequently tried to sort out the new constitution. It did not matter – change was all that mattered. But for now, the waiting was corrosive.

  The hand touched his shoulder at the same moment he heard the voice.

  ‘How have you been?’

  He stopped playing and turned. It was his father. He felt a momentary annoyance at the memory of his encounter with Domnikiia Semyonovna, but it really changed nothing about his relationship with Aleksei. He had known about the woman for a long time; the fact that he had now spoken to her made little difference.

  He stood and embraced his father. ‘I’ve been well,’ he said. ‘And you?’

  ‘I’ve dealt with things.’

  ‘Kyesha – is he dead?’

  ‘He won’t be a problem any more.’

  Dmitry glanced around the room and then guided his father to one side. The matter of Kyesha was what had taken his father south, but that all seemed quite irrelevant. In fact, Dmitry had begun to wonder whether a lot of what he had seen had really happened. He feared using the word ‘voordalak’ to his father in case it was met with laughter. But much more significant events had taken place in the south, which were now of national importance.

  ‘Were you there?’ Dmitry asked in a low voice. ‘In Taganrog?’ His father’s letters had hinted that he had been in the south, but only now did Dmitry guess precisely where. He did not know why he was whispering; if his father had had anything to do with the death of Aleksandr, then everyone in the club would take pleasure from hearing of it. Within weeks – or at most months – it would be the entire nation that hailed him as a liberator.

  ‘I was in Taganrog, but not for long,’ said Aleksei. ‘I went to the Crimea – that’s where Kyesha was. By the time I got back to Taganrog, Aleksandr was already dead. I came straight back here.’

  Convenient, thought Dmitry. His father had been in Taganrog before the tsar’s death and after it, but not on the actual day it occurred. Either that was false, in which case he was trying to hide any connection between himself and Aleksandr’s death, or it was true, in which case he had made a clear effort to absent himself from the tsar’s presence at that vital time. Either way, he was clearly being circumspect; wise, for the time being.

  ‘I see,’ said Dmitry, avoiding an explicit wink, but trying to convey the same implication with the tone of his voice. He leaned forward and spoke into his father’s ear. ‘Don’t overdo it though. People will never believe what you did if you only announce it after the revolution.’

  Aleksei scowled at him, and Dmitry realized he had probably said too much. Perhaps his father would never reveal his role – that would be like him; not so much modest as secretive. It was hard to believe that his father had actually raised his hand against the tsar, but there were others in the south who would have been eager to do that. Aleksei had obviously helped them in some way. And that meant there would be at least a few in the Southern Society who knew, and so the name Danilov would eventually make it into the history books.

  ‘What’s the mood here?’ asked Aleksei.

  ‘Confused. Impatient. The news can only have reached Petersburg a few days ago, so there’s been no time for us to hear anything back. We can only guess that they will start an uprising. There’s a lot suggesting we should all go up there, and concentrate our strength. But others say we’ll be needed here. If the new tsar takes flight, this is where he will come.’

  ‘Konstantin isn’t even in Russia at the moment.’

  ‘That’s why we should act now.’

  ‘Is there any consensus?’

  ‘For the moment, it’s wait and see – at least till we hear from Petersburg.’

  ‘And your personal view?’ asked Aleksei.

  ‘I’d rather be where the action is.’

  Aleksei patted him on the shoulder. ‘A chip off the old block,’ he said. Dmitry was reminded of what Domnikiia had said to him, about his similarity to Dmitry Fetyukovich.

  ‘Do I take after Uncle Dmitry at all?’ he asked.

  Aleksei frowned, and then laughed. ‘Not at all. Whoever gave you that idea?’

  Dmitry had never really thought Domnikiia would say anything to Aleksei about their meeting – now he was sure she hadn’t, otherwise Aleksei would have made the connection. He was still curious to know what she had meant, though.

  ‘You named me after him,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, but that doesn’t mean you’ll be like him.’ He changed the subject. ‘Anyway, how’s the training going? Every day at the manège, I hope.’

  ‘Most,’ said Dmitry, ‘but there are lots of other things to train in. They haven’t given up square-bashing yet.’

  His father glanced down at the piano. ‘Not tempted to join the band?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s not easy to march with a piano.’

  ‘You’re keeping it up though?’

  Dmitry nodded.

  ‘Good,’ said Aleksei. ‘Next time you’re in Petersburg, there’ll . . . well, you’ll see.’

  Dmitry was about to ask his father what he meant, but it was clear he was being deliberately enigmatic. ‘So what do you think we should do, Papa?’ he asked instead.

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About the revolution.’

  ‘Like you said,’ replied his father. ‘We wait.’

  Even in the Crimea it was turning cold now, especially at night. The crescent moon was low in the sky, but still cast a reasonable light. This was the third night in a row Iuda had sat out here. He hoped it would be the last. He’d chosen the spot some way to the north of Chufut Kalye. The hills were lower here, which helped with the cold. There was no snow as yet, but it could be seen on the mountain peaks to the south.

  It was an ideal location. The trail he had left should be easy enough to follow. He had gone back to Karaite citadel and talked to several of the locals there. A few had recognized him from when he had first reconnoitred the land, years before, but none guessed how close he had been living to them in the meantime. Certainly, anyone who asked wouldn’t have too much difficulty gaining directions to an inn in Simferopol where he – still under the name of Cain – had been staying.

  At the inn, they’d learn that the Englishman, Cain, had presented himself as a keen geologist, interested in the cave formations in the region. They’d be told the area he’d been asking questions about, and the fact that he intended to set up camp there.

  Not too obvious, he hoped. It shouldn’t matter though; anyone – any creature – that followed the trail would have such an overwhelming sense of their own superiority – against all historical evidence – that they would not be looking for a trap. Even if they were, the worst it could do would be to scare them off.

  On the other hand, it could be Lyosha who came after him. He might be buoyed by his victory over Iuda – however pyrrhic it had been, considering that it required the death of Aleksandr – and have decided to pursue him. Would he get lucky and actually manage to kill Iuda one day? The chances were that someone would – someone less squeamish about it than Aleksei, probably. It had become a growing concern for Iuda, and that was what tonight’s undertaking was all about.

  His worst fear was that it would be Zmyeevich himself that came, though more likely he would see such personal involvement as beneath him. Iuda regretted having made an enemy of him. Their alliance had begun in 1812, when Zmyeevich had first sent Iuda to Russia to contact the tsar, under the cover of a band of mercenaries whose mission had been, even in Zmyeevich’s eyes, secondary, though the defeat of Russia would have done him little good. He would make a terrible foe, but better to be alive and faced with an enemy like that than to be dead. More and more recently, Iuda had been reminded of his own mortality.

  Somewhere behind him, lower down the hill, he heard a sound. He reached into his pocket and drank from the small pewter flask he found there. It tasted foul, but he knew he had to drink it – not too much though. He almost gagged as he swallowed; there was little chance of overconsumption.

  Whoever it was was skirting along the hillside, round to the right. Iuda could still hear them, though they had not yet climbed high enough to have come into view. It would seem they wanted to greet him face to face. Foolhardy, perhaps, but it was necessary for an avenger to be known to his victim. That was why Zmyeevich had insisted Aleksandr know most of what was going on. It had proved a mistake then; it would now.

  A face appeared, rising up over the brow of the hill with the moon behind it, but illuminated by the single lamp Iuda had placed beside him. It was the face he had been expecting. There was no attempt at stealth. He came to a halt a few paces away.

  ‘Good evening, Cain,’ he said.

  ‘Good evening . . .’ Iuda pretended not to remember the name. ‘Ruslan, isn’t it?’

  ‘It was once. I prefer Kyesha now.’

  ‘Ah, yes! Maksim Sergeivich’s poor little brother Innokyentii.’

  ‘You knew I’d go to Saratov?’ asked Kyesha.

  ‘I knew it must have been you who gave my book to Danilov. The only link you could have with him was through Maksim Sergeivich.’