The Ocean of Time (22 page)

‘We need to talk,’ I say.

He nods. ‘I know. But not now.’

We hasten on, and for a while it’s fine, only Katerina begins to get cramps, in her chest and stomach. We stop and let her rest and they subside. Sergei wants to press on while it’s still light, but I’m far from happy. Katerina says nothing, but I know she’s worried about the baby.

‘Do you think you can go on if we walk slowly?’ I ask her.

‘I’ll try.’

And it’s that perseverance that I love about her. Only I’m worried now, and even as we limp our way through the forest back towards Tver’, I wonder if this really is the best thing to do. Whether I oughtn’t to jump back and throw myself upon Hecht’s mercy and beg him to save Katerina and my child.

Only I’m not going to. Not until I have to. Until there’s no other option.

Slowly the sun sinks and the darkness of the forest deepens about us. But the dark, when it comes, isn’t complete: there’s a half moon shining down from our right as we approach the town from the north.

The palisade is brightly lit, torches set up every twenty paces or so, and even as we look on, from our place among the trees, a hundred metres distant, we hear a sudden commotion and see, from the great wooden gate to our left, a host of people stream out, torches held high.

As in a nightmare the crowd turns, heading directly for us.

‘Your gun, Otto.’

I look to Sergei, then shake my head. ‘I can’t kill them all.’

‘Why not? They’ll kill us if they take us.’

‘Yes, but …’

I didn’t make this journey to become the slayer of whole towns
.

I am about to argue, to take Katerina and head back into the trees, when she gives a great groan of pain. I look to her and see she has one hand pressed to her groin. As she lifts her hand, she gives a little whimper of fear, and in the moonlight I see that her hand is wet. Wet with blood.

Sergei looks to me. The gun in his hand is trembling, I note. ‘What is it?’ he asks, seeing the strange look in my eyes.

‘It’s Katerina,’ I say. ‘She’s having a miscarriage.’

He stares at me a moment longer, then, like a phantom, places his hand against his chest and vanishes.

We are in the inn at Tatarinka, when Bakatin approaches.

‘Otto … there’s someone I’d like you to meet.’

I turn and look up from where I’m sitting at the table, my drink before me. Bakatin, it seems, has brought a friend along. I nod and bid them be seated.

‘This is Saratov, Otto. Sergei Saratov. He’s a haulier.’

Saratov nods, then smiles at me. He has good teeth. Strong, white teeth, unusual in this age, and he’s young, younger than Bakatin by a good ten years. There’s a natural vigour about him, too, and an intelligence in his eyes that’s unmistakable. But can he be trusted?

‘Fyodor?’

‘Oh, Saratov is a good man. A very good man. You can trust Saratov. He knows this part of the country like the back of his hand. He’s travelled everywhere.’

I look back at Saratov. He nods, but I have my doubts. He looks far too young to have travelled everywhere.

‘Where do you want to go?’ Saratov asks.

‘Rzhev.’

The young man shakes his head. ‘If I were you I’d not go to Rzhev. Nor on to Tver’, come to that. They’re both bad towns right now. A man could find himself in great trouble in those places. Especially a
Nemets
with such a beautiful Russian wife.’

I stare at him, surprised. ‘You know this for a certainty?’

‘The
veche
in Rzhev are as corrupt as the lowest insects. They have tribute to pay to their Mongol warlords and do not care how that sum is met, provided it’s not from their own pockets.’

‘But I have the
tysiaritskii
’s pass—’

‘Worthless,’ he says. ‘They would make you buy a new one.’

‘And Tver’?’ Bakatin asks, pre-empting me. This is news to him, too, apparently.

‘Tver’ is a dangerous place right now. There is a faction that wants power, and if they get it … well, Rzhev would be like paradise compared to Tver’.’

Our drinks arrive, and Saratov takes one of the battered mugs and lifts it, offering up a toast to my health. ‘If I were you, Otto, I would head directly for Gzhatsk, on the Moskva River. That is, if you wish to arrive safely at your final destination.’

‘And you know where that is?’ I ask, curious now, because this is something I haven’t even told Bakatin.

Saratov smiles, showing those perfect teeth once more. ‘Your road, if I guess right, Meister Behr, is to Moscow.’

‘And you can take me there?’

Saratov nods. ‘I and I alone. But let’s drink now and shake hands on the deal.’

I look to Bakatin. ‘I’ll think about it overnight.’

‘But Otto …’

‘Overnight,’ I say, with a firmness that surprises him. But I have already decided. We’ll go with Saratov.

The snow falls softly from the pale October sky, drifting across the Moskva River like a fine gauze of lace, before settling in the branches of the trees on the far bank.

The river moves slowly now, sluggishly, ice forming in its glaucous depths. Winter – the hard Russian winter – is almost upon us.

Behind us lies the town, shrouded in ice.

Beside me, Katerina blows warm breath into her hands, then turns to me and smiles. ‘It won’t be long.’

I smile back at her. ‘No. Not long now.’

Gzhatsk is a hundred miles west of Moscow, and as soon as the river freezes over we shall be gone from here, heading east on the sled on the final stretch of our long road to Moscow.

Sergei has gone to make sure that everything’s prepared: the horse fed and groomed, our provisions stored inside the sled, all passes stamped and verified.

Three weeks we’ve been here now, waiting for the weather to turn, enduring the silent stares and the scornful, vindictive looks of the locals. Putting up with their petty insolence and their rudeness.

If
this
is a good town, Urd knows what the others are like.

‘You should have grown a beard,’ Katerina said, laughing it off. ‘They might have liked you with a beard.’

Only these people – provincials to the core – like nothing better than a foreigner to pour their scorn upon. It’s as if they can’t exist without a target for the venom that’s inside them. Small, they are, with a smallness that is almost evil.

Sergei, though, has been a diamond. Without him we would have suffered far greater indignities than we have. Though our passage has been far from smooth, we have at least arrived at this point, untouched, unscathed, able to move on. It might, as he has said a dozen times and more, been worse.

Tomorrow
, I think, smiling inwardly.
Tomorrow we’ll be gone.

I take Katerina’s arm and lead her slowly along the riverbank toward the jetty.

‘I had that dream again last night,’ I say.

‘The one about Rzhev?’

I nod. ‘It seemed so real. I keep seeing you, the shard of glass in your hand as you struck out at him.’

‘The thin man?’

I nod.

She’s silent for a time. The grass beneath our booted feet is limed with ice and brittle. There’s a fine powder of snow on everything and, stopping, I reach up and gently brush the whiteness from her lustrous dark hair.

She smiles at me, all of her in her eyes. ‘Do you think he’s still in Moscow?’

‘Nevsky? Yes. I’m certain of it.’

Prince Alexander has not yet become ‘Nevsky’ – the battle has yet to be fought – but it is what we call him between ourselves.

‘What if he won’t see us?’

‘He’ll see us, don’t worry. If he thinks he can by any means gain influence in Novgorod, he’ll grab the chance. We’ll be like long-lost cousins, you’ll see!’

We walk on, out on to the jetty. It is newly built that summer and the logs are strong and firmly joined. Careful not to slip, we walk out to the very edge and stand there, above the turgid flow of the Moskva, looking across towards the darkness of the forest on the far shore. The snow has grown heavier these past few minutes and the sky is now a solid sheet of falling white. As it settles on the water’s surface, it melts slowly, as if some critical mass is being reached.

I take both of Katerina’s hands in my own. ‘You should have worn gloves,’ I say, but she shakes her head and laughs.

‘It’s not cold enough. Besides, I like the feel of it on my skin.’ And she tilts her head back so that the snowflakes collect on her cheeks, her brow, and on her lashes, and for a moment I am spellbound by the beauty of it.

And then I turn, to hear Sergei calling out and waving what looks like a package in the air.

As he comes closer, so he seems to materialise from the mist of whiteness, taking on more solid form. He joins us on the jetty, standing there above the leaden flow.

‘It’s from Ernst.’

‘
Ernst
?’ This is a surprise. ‘When did it come?’

‘Today. A trader brought it.’

The timing is too good to be coincidence. Ernst must know that we’re here right now, and that we’re leaving in the morning. This has to be a message of some kind.

I take it and heft it in my hand. It’s light. Most of its weight is taken up by the ancient wrappings. The rest …

‘Let’s get back,’ I say. ‘Let’s see what Ernst has to say.’

Leaving Katerina and Sergei in the other room, I unwrap one end of it and, tilting it up, let the slender playcard fall into my right hand.

There’s a tiny three-by-three screen at the top of the card and, beneath it, a kind of stipple in the surface. I put my thumb to that and feel it prick me. Blood oozes on to the card and a moment later the screen lights up, activated by my DNA.

Ernst’s smiling face stares up at me. ‘Otto … so you made it. This time …’

This time …

‘… I had to get you now. It’ll be harder once you’re in Moscow to get a message through to you. It’s like we thought. The Russians have infiltrated Prince Alexander’s
druzhina
– his personal bodyguard. Memorise the following faces and names. These are the ones we know about, as of now.’

Now being when?
I think, knowing the complexity of Time, then clear my head, letting the whole of my concentration focus on the faces that appear one by one on the tiny screen.

‘Zasyekin … Rakitin … Pavlusha … Tyutchev … Kalinych …’

‘They’re all new agents,’ Ernst says, confirming what I’d suspected. ‘Or at least, new to us. Some of them, we estimate, have been in place for fifteen to twenty years. Alexander considers them his brothers. But they’d slit his throat in an instant if he stepped out of line.

‘We don’t know what their plan is. Whether it’s to keep present history on track, or whether there’s a better plan, but …’

Ernst pauses and seems to look around, as if someone has entered the room where he’s recording this.

‘Oh … oh yes …’ he says, then turns back and faces me again. ‘I almost forgot. On no account go to Krasnogorsk. You oughtn’t to stray that far north, but if you do, avoid it like the plague.’

I want to ask why. I want to question him more about what’s going on and why he’s sent the message, only that’s it. The card fades to black.

‘Well?’ Katerina asks as I step into the room. ‘What did he say?’

‘All’s well,’ I say. ‘Your father had a chest infection, but he’s better now. And they’ve found us an estate, north of the town. Ernst is seeing to the details.’

Katerina goes to open her mouth, then closes it again. She knows I’m lying, but she doesn’t know why, nor is she about to ask me in front of Sergei. Because Sergei doesn’t know who I am.

‘Oh,’ I say, looking to Saratov. ‘He said something about a place called Krasnogorsk. We’re to avoid it, it seems. He said the place is bad news.’

‘
Krasnogorsk
?’ Sergei looks surprised. ‘But there’s nothing there. It’s just a staging post. Two huts and a jetty. And not much of a jetty at that.
Avoid
it? Why, you’d be lucky to
find
it.’

I shrug. It’s probably of no significance anyway.

‘So is everything else sorted out?’ I ask. ‘The sled? The passes? Our horse?’

‘All done.’ He looks down a moment, then looks back at me. ‘I’m sorry we have to part here, Otto. I’d come too, only …’

Only there’s no room in the sled
.

Katerina looks to me, as if to prompt me, but I’m already ahead of her. I turn and go over to my pack, then return with a bulky package wrapped in cloth.

‘Here,’ I say. ‘For all you’ve done for us.’

He unwraps it and shakes it out, his face filling with awe. It’s a fur. And not just any fur. This is a black bear fur, glinting red and brown and gold in the candlelight. Saratov stares at it then looks to me, overwhelmed.

‘But this …’ He makes to hand it back. ‘It’s too much. I—’

A tear rolls down his cheek. Katerina reaches out and holds his arm.

‘You must have it, Sergei,’ she says. ‘We would not have got here without you.’ She smiles. ‘Go on. Put it on. Let’s see what you look like in it.’

He hesitates, then does as she says. It looks good. Makes him look stronger, more substantial.

I grin at him. ‘It was made for you.’

Sergei can’t help but grin back. He gives a huge sigh of contentment, then reaches out and hugs me, the scent of the fur strong as he grips me like a brother.

‘You are a good man, Otto,’ he says quietly to my ear. ‘Such a good man.’

There is nothing – nothing in all space and time – to compare with a sled journey across the Russian snows. To feel that breath-taking rush, the exhilaration and the danger. To hear that endless tinkling of the bells. It is as Pushkin says, ‘so fast and free’. And to share it with the woman that you love, to be pressed close in the darkness of that tiny, jolting carriage. Nothing compares.

We are heading upriver, across the moonlit ice. Ahead the Moskva broadens to a narrow lake, and beyond that – some fifteen or twenty miles distant – is our destination, Mozhaisk. That’s where we’ll stop, more than a third of our journey complete.

I hold the reins tightly in my gloved hands. Ahead of us the horse snorts and spurs itself on. It’s a dark, fine beast that cost us dear but is probably worth twice what we paid for it. The snow is still falling, flakes gusting through the narrow slit at eye level.