The Ocean of Time (16 page)

All the more reason for us to leave this place as soon as possible
.

I sit back, lift my goblet and down the last of my ale, then stand, smiling down at Dmitri. The drink has made me tired, the talk depressed. ‘You are a good host, Dmitri,’ I say, and he gives me a little nod of acknowledgement.

We are about to retire to our room, when Dmitri’s boy comes in.

‘What is it?’ Dmitri asks kindly, one arm reaching out to embrace the lad.

The boy glances at me fearfully. ‘Masters Kilik and Podnayin are here. They say they wish to speak to the
Nemets
.’

‘At
this
hour?’ Dmitri gets up unsteadily.

‘It’s okay,’ I say. ‘I’ll see them.’

Not that I have a choice.

The boy goes out, returning a moment later with two of the company I met earlier. They look to each other, and then the taller of them speaks. ‘Forgive us,
Nemets
, for the lateness of the hour, but we have been thinking of our meeting earlier. We felt you were a trifle, how should we put it … disappointed?’

I shrug, waiting for the man – Podnayin? – to elaborate.

The other – Kilik, I’m sure of it – now interrupts. ‘Only we felt we might be able to … help you. Smooth your way, if you like. Help hurry things along.’

I nod. ‘Go on.’

Podnayin glances at Katerina. ‘Also, we felt that maybe you found our hospitality somewhat lacking. Making your wife stand throughout. Talyzin sometimes forgets such small delicacies.’

Talyzin was the greybeard. The
posadnik
of Rzhev.

‘I’m grateful for your kind thoughts, but—’

‘No, hear me out. We wish to make amends for that oversight. To properly welcome you to Rzhev. If you – you and your wife, that is – would be our guests at my house tomorrow evening …’

I am surprised. More than surprised. But why? There must be good men, men with a conscience, even in such a place as this.

I smile and bow my head. ‘Thank you. That would be a great pleasure.’

Podnayin gives a nervous little smile. ‘I’m glad you think so.’ He looks to his friend, then bows his head to me. ‘I will send my man to fetch you. At sunset, yes?’

‘Yes, and thank you. I shall look forward to our meeting.’

When they are gone, Dmitri whistles through his teeth softly. ‘Well, well,’ he says. ‘Wonders never cease. I’d have put those two down for rogues. But there you are.’

I shrug. ‘Maybe they see a possible advantage in being kind?’

‘Maybe.’ But Dmitri falls silent.

Alone with Katerina, I find myself thinking through the alternatives. If those two
can
smooth my path, then maybe there’ll be no need to cut loose. They seemed contrite enough. But Dmitri’s comments nag at me, and I begin to wonder whether this is not simply another ruse to make me part with my silver.

If so, then I’ll confront that at the time.

Katerina turns into me, snuggling against me in the darkness. ‘Otto?’

‘Yes, my love?’

‘Are you plotting something?’

I laugh quietly. ‘Why are you so sure I am?’

‘Because …’

I’m quiet for a while, then, quietly, whispering in the dark, I begin to share my thoughts.

The boatman is a small man named Schelepin. Lishka and I examine his boat, then take him to the harbourside inn and buy him beer while a deal is agreed. I like him, and when Lishka suggests we go and check up on the cart, I ask Schelepin to accompany us, which he does with great delight. Though he expresses no opinion on the matter, I sense that he finds officials as much of a pain as we do.

The cart, Lishka’s discovered, is in the compound by the lodge. We go there and ask to look at it, but no one is willing to allow us in, and we are told that the official we first met – Gromov, we learn – has gone to Zubtsov that very morning and will not return for three days at the very least, and until he does …

Lishka wants to argue, but I draw him away. He doesn’t know it, but it doesn’t matter. Not now that I have Schelepin. Besides, I say, placating him, I’ll raise the matter when I see the two boyars, later that evening.

I go back to the inn and, collecting Katerina, decide to make a tour of the town, ignoring the ragged mob who come out to stand and stare wherever we walk. I’m particularly interested to see where the town’s merchants live, and we find them at the top of the hill, in a separate little enclave, tucked inside the outer palisade, beyond which is a stretch of cleared ground about a quarter of a mile wide before the forest begins again. They’re good, well-built cabins, but not to be compared to those of Novgorod. These aside, there’s really not much to see. Rzhev is a town of two, three thousand people, and an hour sees us back at the harbourside, where Lishka is still ensconced with Schelepin. I introduce him to Katerina, and he’s at once in love with her – as a father with his daughter – and I decide there and then that if it doesn’t pan out with the two merchants, then we’ll abandon Rzhev, pick up the second cart and meet up somewhere on the river. Lishka will know a place, I’m sure.

The thought of it raises my spirits, even though the rain – which has held off these past three days – now returns with a vengeance, washing down the sloping streets of Rzhev in torrents, turning every path into a quagmire.

It is the ninth day of September, and the rainy season is now truly upon us. If we’re lucky we will have five, maybe six weeks of this, but when the snows come …

I need to be in Tver’ before then, ready for the snows; ready to make that last long push down to Moscow in the sled.

As evening falls, Katerina brushes out her hair, then looks to me. In the candlelight she looks magnificent. Like Russia itself, her beauty is ageless, timeless, and as her eyes smile back at me, I find myself wishing that I could take her back with me to Four-Oh, to be beside me every waking moment, to travel the width and breadth of time with me. Such marvels I would show her. Such astonishing things. But it is not to be. This here is all. And it would be enough, only I fear for her in this age of pestilence and banditry. I fear for her, and the child she carries in her belly.

Dmitri knocks at the door and tells us a man has come to lead the way, and so we set off through the back streets of Rzhev, lifting our booted feet high out of the squelching, oozing mud, Katerina picking up her skirts to stop them being spoiled.

Podnayin’s house is much like Katerina’s father’s, only smaller and somewhat shabbier. Podnayin welcomes me and, once a serf has cleaned our boots, leads me inside, into a room that’s set for a small feast. Kilik is there, and a man named Ilyushkin, but no women, and that surprises me, for I had assumed they would bring their wives to dinner, if only to provide company for Katerina. Yet they seem gracious enough, and when we have made a toast to friendship, servants bring food – fish and chicken and what tastes like venison, but turns out to be bear.

For a time the talk is light. They ask me about my travels, and my suspicion is confirmed: no one here in Rzhev has heard of my fight with Krylenko on the river. No one here thinks me a sorcerer, no one apart from Lishka, that is. But instinct warns me against becoming too close with any of these men. Ilyushkin, particularly, seems a shifty sort, and I catch him ogling Katerina more than once. Not that it’s so surprising. I’ve not met a single woman on our travels to compare with her, and tonight she looks particularly splendid.

It’s not that I feel uneasy with Ilyushkin, it’s just that I find him unpleasant: a grasping man with indifferent manners. But then, that too is of this age. They belch and fart and throw their chewed bones down like animals. And Katerina – my darling Katerina – accepts that this is how most men must act.

It’s about an hour into our meal that, noticing a slight sourness to the red wine we are drinking, I lean closer to Podnayin and tactfully mention it. At once he insists on tasting mine and, theatrically spitting it out, bids a serf bring a new bottle – ‘the best wine’ he says, and nods decisively.

Turning to me, he smiles and says, ‘I bought some from a Turkish merchant a year ago now. I’ve been saving it for a special occasion such as this. If you would have the first cup, Otto?’

The others are watching me, smiling. Since I arrived I’ve been expecting them to come to the point and make their offer, only they seem in no hurry to do so. But then that too is very Russian, and no doubt they hope a drink or two and their good company will help them make a better deal in the end.

The serf brings the wine, corked in a flagon, and Podnayin pulls the cork and flamboyantly pours me a fresh goblet of it. It’s good – surprisingly so for this age – and I take a long mouthful. Only …

I grip the table. It’s like a wave has just washed over me. Or like a time-change, only …

My vision swims. The wine. The bloody wine.

I get up and stagger to the doorway, conscious of every eye on me. Katerina stands, concerned for me. ‘Otto?’

‘I’m fine,’ I say, my voice seeming to echo in my own head. ‘I’ve just got to pee.’

And make myself throw up. At once.

I stagger out into the warm darkness, then fall to my knees beside the midden. They’ve drugged me; I know it now. Forcing my fingers down my throat, I make myself vomit, but whatever this is, it’s strong, and my head sways and pulses. It’s in my blood, I can feel it. Not poison, no. Something subtler. And then, from behind me, I hear a crash and shouts and a single sharp shriek. I can hardly stand, let alone walk, but somehow I drag myself back there, each step a gargantuan effort, until I’m stood there, swaying in the doorway, looking on.

Katerina is on the far side of the room, her back to the wall, the three men surrounding her. One – Ilyushkin, is it? – is clutching his bloodied face while the other two snarl angrily and call her all manner of foul names.

I find it hard to focus, to see exactly what she’s holding in her hand, but as Podnayin makes to grab her, I see something come up fast, a flash of silver, and he falls back, shrieking with pain.

And now it’s like some stop-start film, as Katerina seems to lurch across the room and, grabbing my arm, turns me and drags me, step by limping step, from there.

That journey, back through the dark and rain-washed streets of Rzhev, is a nightmare. Katerina half leads, half carries me along, and more than once I stumble and we fall, sprawling and slipping in that awful slime, until – somehow – we are back at Dmitri’s, Lishka – dragged from his carousing – staring down at me where I’m slumped against the wall, anger and fear in his eyes.

‘We must go from here,’ he says. ‘Now!’

‘Yes,’ I slur. ‘Go.’

Or that’s what I try to say, only my tongue is too thick in my mouth and all that comes out is a kind of slurred moan, and anyway, Katerina won’t go. She won’t leave me. Not in this state.

And there’s the small matter of her honour. It is no small thing in Russian law to insult a woman in the way they’ve insulted her and, though my head is in turmoil, I am very conscious of how angry she is. I have never seen her like this, seething, like a pot of water coming to the boil. I hate to think what she did to Podnayin and his friend.

Dmitri brings me a kind of gruel, and after a few spoonfuls I begin to retch again. But it’s no good. Whatever drug they’ve given me is having a totally debilitating effect. It’s not just that I can’t think straight, I can’t do anything. My legs feel like they belong to a mannequin, and even my hands, though I can clench and unclench them, seem to be a long, long way away from me, at the far end of a dark and telescoping tunnel of vision.

There is an answer, of course. I could jump. Back to Four-Oh. Back to safety and antidotes. Only what antidote will allow me to come back and rescue Katerina?

Besides, the room is full. Curious locals peer at me, pushing past each other to stand and stare at the drunken
Nemets
.

It gets worse. There’s a fresh commotion at the door to the inn, and then soldiers – dressed raggedly, but armed, their short swords drawn – push their way into the room and their leader, a cold-eyed man with bright red hair, has them seize Katerina. Lishka makes to fight them, but they knock him down and, seizing him too, bind him tightly with ropes.

Katerina has gone very still. Though they hold her arms, she looks about her with contempt, her natural pride – her strength – triumphing over this setback.

‘It’s okay, Otto,’ she says. ‘I’ll be all right. Just come for me.’

She knows I will. As soon as I get better; as soon as I can stand and walk and move my eyes without my head spinning. But in the meantime my heart breaks, seeing her led away. Seeing those savages tug the rope and almost pull her off her feet.

Rzhev. If I had my way I’d raze this fucking place to the ground.

I wake, and for a moment think I’m in my room in Four-Oh. There’s such a silence, such a stillness. And then I hear a dog bark, and I sense the dampness of the floor beneath me and groan, remembering.

‘Otto? Are you awake?’

I sit up slowly, resting my back against the cool, log wall, and try to peer through the gloom.

‘Lishka?’

There’s a vague, looming shape just in front of me, and then I feel a hand grip my shoulder.

‘How are you?’

I stretch my neck and try to flex my toes. Everything seems normal. Working, anyway. ‘I … think I’m all right.’

‘The bastards want to see you. They’ve summoned a special meeting of the
veche
. It seems Ilyushkin has lost an eye. As for Podnayin—’

Lishka’s sudden silence frightens me. ‘What about Podnayin?’

Lishka sighs. ‘He’s dead. Katerina stabbed him through the heart.’ He swallows. ‘She says they tried to rape her. That as soon as you left the room they made their move. The little one, Kilik, grabbed her arms and pulled them behind her while the other two …’

‘No!’

I don’t want to know. I don’t want those pictures in my head. But now I’m glad. Glad that Podnayin is dead, and that Ilyushkin has lost an eye. Only that means that Katerina is now in serious trouble.

I close my eyes, trying to think – trying to see a solution that doesn’t involve telling Hecht everything.