The Ocean of Time (21 page)

Well, you see it, as clearly as I. As long as we behave ourselves and go along with the mockery of this trial, we’ll survive. There’s only one difficulty: Katerina.

Katerina wants to fight their accusations. She wants no blemish against our names, which, of course, there will be if we let this go. She claims – and rightly – that those men deserved to die for their villainy and for their attempt to dishonour her. Such men, she says, deserve nothing better than a knife in the heart, and the world’s a cleaner place without them. And I don’t disagree. Only there’s no possibility – not with Belikof dead – of us getting such a decision.

So my problem is keeping her quiet. Stopping her from venting her anger against the
veche
.

Lishka has been silent these past few days, like he’s afraid to say what’s clearly bottled up inside him. But I’m not fooled by his silence. Like Katerina, he is furious that we are standing trial, while the real villains are sitting there, waiting to pass judgement.

But there’s still Sergei’s plan, and if it works …

We stand before them for the best part of three hours, listening to our accusers speak. And Katerina – pregnant and weary from it – bears it all without a murmur. But when it’s over her pallor makes me ask the captain of the guards whether she might not be seated for the afternoon session. He goes away and returns to say that Yakovlev has refused our request.

That infuriates me so much that before the ‘great man’ can open the second session of the hearing, I interrupt him and angrily ask for his explanation.

‘My explanation?’

‘For making the daughter of a boyar stand. Would you dishonour your own daughters so?
Any
of you?’

And I turn in a half circle, making my appeal to them all, hoping that they’ll be shamed into overruling Yakovlev. Some look down, some look to Yakovlev, but I have misjudged the mood of the assembly. After Yakovlev’s strike on Belikof it appears that none of them wish to take him on. He’s master here now. I look back at him and see how much colder he’s become. He wants to crush me. To humiliate and destroy me. But we’ll see about that.

I stare him out. ‘The prince will hear of this. Make no mistake.’

Yakovlev laughs at that. ‘You think Prince Alexander has time to speak to mere
traders
?’

But I’m not to be belittled that easily. ‘I’m sorry. I forgot, Master Yakovlev. You have a money tree, rooted in the shit of your midden. You have no need to be besmirched by
mere trade
.’

At another time I think that might have brought a laugh. Looking about me, I see how several of the
veche
have their heads down, so as not to reveal their smiles. But Yakovlev is almost apoplectic. Spittle sprays from his lips as he stands and yells back at me. ‘You will not show me such contempt! It is
you
who are on trial, not me!’

‘No? You think yourself
above
Iaroslav’s code?’

It’s not a wise thing to say with your hands bound behind your back, but I can’t help myself.

He comes round the table and, standing before me, makes to slap my face, only Lishka intercedes, ducking in and head-butting the man full in the face, the crack of Yakovlev’s nose audible in the sudden silence.

And then there’s uproar.

I come to, my vision blurred, such a pain in my head that I wonder if my skull is still in one piece. It’s dark but for a thin sliver of moonlight that slips in through the narrow crack between the door and the frame.

I sit up slowly, groaning, the blood pounding in my head, the pain almost blacking me out again. For a moment I just sit there, my hands tenderly exploring my skull, feeling the bumps, the clotted blood. Someone gave me a good beating, it seems, but I’m still alive, and I find that fact amazing after what Lishka did.

‘Lishka?’

My voice is cracked and frail in that dark silence.

‘Katerina?’

But there’s no answer. It seems I am alone.

I rest for a time, then, moving warily, begin to explore that tiny space.

Nothing. No sign of either of them.

I move back, a few inches at a time, until I’m propped up against the log wall of the hut.

And go very still, listening.

The river. I can hear the river flowing past outside. Only somehow it’s different.

For a while I sleep. When I come to again the door is open, the cool night air flooding into the room. For a moment I see only the pale night sky, but then a figure steps into the doorway.

‘Otto? Are you okay?’

It’s Sergei, and for the briefest moment I feel like crying with relief, only where is Katerina? And, for that matter, where is Lishka? But I can’t speak. I can only sit there, staring back at him.

‘It’s okay,’ he says, crouching before me, his eyes taking in the injuries to my head. ‘You’re safe now.’ Gingerly he touches my scalp. I flinch and he takes his hand away. ‘You’ll be okay. We’ll patch you up. Make you good as new.’

‘Katerina?’ I ask.

‘I don’t know,’ he says. ‘Yaklovlev took her. But where she is …’

I close my eyes briefly, a separate, different pain flooding through me.

‘And Lishka?’

‘Lishka’s dead.’

The news shocks me. I know it shouldn’t, but it does. Somehow I’d begun to think of Lishka as immortal, but he head-butted the wrong man in Yakovlev. Some men, it seems, are unforgiving.

I put my left hand to my face to wipe away the tears, then look back at Sergei.

‘I’ve a medpac,’ he says quietly. ‘You’re not allergic to any of the standard drugs, are you?’

I shake my head. What they use we use, and vice versa. It’s one of those things that happens when you fight someone for any length of time. Your technologies converge. You learn from each other and adapt.
Enhanced evolution
, Hecht calls it.

Sergei goes outside and comes back moments later with a box not so different from my own. He takes several vials from it and fits them into an injector, then, tearing my shirt from my arm, injects me with a couple of standard cure-fast mixtures, as well as an anti-shock booster.

It’s only minutes before I feel the pain begin to subside and a kind of woozy pleasant feeling take its place. Pleasant, I say, only it’s hardly nice to feel my anxiety for Katerina dissolve along with the chemicals in my blood. She deserves better than that.

I find words. ‘Was she … unharmed?’

‘Katerina?’

‘Yes.’

‘I think so. It all got rather manic. Getting you out was my priority. Yakovlev would have killed you.’

I should have jumped
.
I should have got out of here the first moment I could.

And then what?

‘We have to find her.’ But the drugs rob the words of the urgency they ought to have. I feel warm and drowsy. And safe …

I sleep. Sergei shakes me awake some hours later. It’s light, the call of birds, the nearby rush of the water downriver filling the silence.

‘How do you feel?’ he asks, smiling at me.

‘Okay,’ I say, sitting up, feeling renewed, the pain gone from my head, the drowsiness washed out of me. And then I remember.

‘Where would he have taken her?’

‘Dolrugy, maybe.’

‘Dolrugy?’

‘It’s a village, north-west of Tver’. It’s Yakovlev’s estate.’

‘Ah … so she’ll be there?’

Sergei shrugs. He doesn’t know. Which means all of this is new. A departure from what happened before.

‘What happened to your plan?’ I ask.

‘We can still use it, if needs be.’

Only the whole situation has changed. Lishka is dead and Katerina taken. And I don’t know what I’ll do if Yakovlev has harmed her.

No … I daren’t even think of it. Of what he might have done in the night. To gain vengeance. To humiliate me.

Only I know now – without a doubt – that I will kill him. He’s had his chance and failed. Now it’s my turn.

I get to my feet. My head’s fine, my legs sound. If anything, I feel energised. Only I know that that’s only the drugs, and that, in reality, I’m still weak and overdoing it could prove harmful.

I need a day, at least, to recover. Only I haven’t got a day. I need to rescue Katerina now.

I have one advantage: Yakovlev won’t be expecting me to come calling, not after the beating I received.

‘Are you on your own?’ I ask Sergei. ‘Or are there other agents?’

‘It’s just me,’ he says, and laughs. But I can see that something’s worrying him.

‘What is it?’

‘Nothing,’ he answers, avoiding my eyes. ‘Are you up to travelling?’

‘I think so.’

‘Then let’s go at once. Unless—’

‘No. No, let’s go. Let’s give Master Yakovlev a visit.’

We cross the river then go north, skirting Tver’, travelling quickly but carefully, conscious that there’s a hue and cry out for us. It takes four hours, but finally we’re there, among the trees, looking across at Yakovlev’s
dacha
, crude as it is. There’s lots of movement, people hurrying to and fro, but no sign of Yakovlev himself, nor of Katerina. But I know she’s there. Word from Sergei’s contacts in Tver’ have confirmed it for us.

Just be alive
, I say silently, sending up a prayer to Urd herself.
Don’t be dead. Please don’t be dead.

Beside me, Sergei stiffens, then makes a small sound in his throat. As I look at him, he points, and I see it, wondering why I didn’t notice it before.

Lishka, hanging by a rope from a tree, his neck snapped, his body swaying gently, senselessly, in the mild afternoon breeze.

I groan and sink to my knees. The bastard. If I had reason to kill him before, I have added reason now.

‘Here,’ Sergei says, and hands me a gun – a
spica
.

I stare at it, amazed. But why? He’s a time traveller. He can get such things, even if I can’t. Even so, it’s unexpected.

‘Go on,’ he says. ‘Walk in there. Shoot him between the eyes.’

I stare at him, wondering again if this isn’t, perhaps, a trap. But this is Sergei, and if he’d wanted me dead …

I check the charge then, tucking it into my belt, leave the cover of the trees and walk towards the house.

The guard at the door falls dead, a neat hole burned through his breastplate and clear through his heart. As he slumps, I step over him and kick the flimsy door open. It splinters and falls away with a crash.

Yakovlev looks up. Two of his henchmen look to him, then hasten to draw their swords. I blast one of them, then aim the
spica
at the other. He freezes.

‘Where is she?’

Astonishingly, Yakovlev smiles. ‘Hurt me,’ he says, ‘and you’ll never know.’

I raise the gun and fire – one through the head, one through the heart – then turn to his sidekick, who’s trembling now.

‘
Well
? Or shall I burn your bollocks off?’

He jerks, then points back past me. ‘There,’ he says. ‘In the storage pit …’

My heart breaks at the sight of her. She is lying amid a pile of freshly slaughtered carcasses, her mouth gagged, her wrists and ankles bound tight. Insects crawl over her face, trying to escape the sudden sunlight as I crouch at the edge, looking down.

I jump down and, drawing my knife, cut her free, then hold her to me, feeling her press her face into my chest and sob. There are bruises on her face and arms, and on her breasts, visible through her ripped garment, where Yakovlev has violated her.

I want to go back and kill him again. Kill him in a thousand, painful ways for what he’s done.

I move back from her slightly. ‘Is the baby …?’

She can’t look at me. But I gently lift her chin and make her. ‘Katerina, I love you. Through time and space I love you. What he did … that was
him
, not us. You’ve no reason to feel ashamed.’

But she’s distraught. ‘It was horrible. I fought him.’

‘I know.’ And I hold her to me again. ‘I know …’

‘Otto … we’d better get going.’

I turn and look up at Sergei, a dark shape framed by sunlight.

‘We’ll need a ladder,’ I say, ‘or a rope.’

Sergei turns and barks an order. Moments later, two serfs lower down a crude wooden ladder. I secure it and push Katerina up ahead of me, then follow, surprised, as I emerge from the hole, to find a crowd of serfs gathered about us, but they seem more curious than anything.

Then, suddenly, a group of men – better dressed than the serfs, and armed with swords and axes – appear between two of the huts on the far side of the clearing and make towards us purposefully. At their head is a tall, balding man, presumably Yakovlev’s steward.

I draw my gun and face them. Beside me, Sergei does the same.

‘We’d better give them a little demonstration,’ he says, and aims. A searing beam of light leaps from the
spica
and one of the huts behind them goes up in a ball of flame.

The shock on their faces is almost comical. They crouch near the ground, their hands over their heads. Behind us, the serfs do the same, as if they’ve just witnessed great sorcery.

‘I didn’t think they could do that,’ I say, and Sergei looks to me and grins.

‘No. But mine’s not standard issue.’

‘Ah …’

Sergei turns back to face the steward and his men and takes a step towards them, brandishing the gun. ‘Fuck off! Go on! Back where you came from!’ And, resetting the charge, he blows a great hole in the ground between us and them. It’s like a land mine going off, great clods of earth flung up into the blue, late-afternoon sky.

They run, howling, back into the trees.

I nod to Sergei, then look back at Katerina. She is standing a little straighter than before, some of her pride restored to her, but there’s great hurt in her face and in her eyes. She needs comforting. But first there’s something else I have to do.

‘Lishka,’ I say. ‘Let’s cut him down and bury him.’

I offer up a prayer to Odin, then wiping the dirt from my hands, stand and look to Sergei. ‘What now?’

‘We go back to town,’ he says. ‘Get the cart and go on. To Moscow. That was your plan, wasn’t it?’

I nod. Only it feels strange. Sergei seems to know too much.