Konstantin shrugged with a gesture of helplessness. “Maximov said my mother had been having an affair. I was afraid he might be telling the truth and I could not bear to hear my mother say the words.”
“He was telling the truth. I know he shouldn’t have written that letter or said anything about your mother’s affair, but people do strange things when they are in love. Believe me, Konstantin—very strange things.”
Konstantin’s voice cracked. “So it wasn’t my father’s fault that he and my mother were splitting up.”
“I’m sure if your father were here,” said Pekkala, “he would tell you they were both to blame.” He rested his hand on Konstantin’s shoulder. “I need you to come with me now.” One glance at Maximov’s car told Pekkala that it wasn’t going anywhere. “We’ll have to travel on foot.”
“Whatever you say, Inspector.” His voice sounded almost relieved.
Pekkala had seen this kind of thing before. For some people, the burden of waiting to be caught was far worse than whatever might happen to them afterwards. He had known men to walk briskly to their deaths, bounding up the gallows steps, impatient to be gone from this earth.
It was a January morning. Ice floes drifted down the Neva River into Petrograd, then drifted out again with the tide, heading for the Baltic Sea.
In a small motor launch, Pekkala, the Tsar, and his son, the Tsarevich Alexei, traveled out towards the grim ramparts of the prison island of St. Peter and St. Paul.
The three of them stood huddled in their coats, while the launch pilot maneuvered around miniature icebergs, twisting like dancers in the current. Alexei wore a military uniform without insignia, as well as a fur cap, exactly matching the clothes of his father.
They had set out before dawn from Tsarskoye Selo. Now, several hours later, the sun had risen, reflecting pale and milky off the huge stones which made up the outer walls of the prison.
“I want you to see this,” the Tsar had told Pekkala, after summoning him to his study.
“What is the nature of the visit, Majesty?”
“You’ll know when we get there,” replied the Tsar.
As they arrived at the island, the fortress towered above them, its battlements like blunted teeth against the dirty winter sky. Leathery streamers of seaweed clung to the lower walls, and the waves which slapped against the stone looked as thick and black as tar.
Alexei was lifted from the boat and the three of them walked up the concrete ramp to the main prison door.
Inside, a guard in a greatcoat which stretched to his ankles escorted them down a series of stone steps to an underground level. Here, frost rimed the walls and the damp chill seeped through their clothing. Pekkala had been here before, but never in winter. It did not seem possible that anyone could survive for long in these conditions. And he knew that in the spring, when the cells flooded knee-deep in water, the dungeons were even worse.
The only light in this stone corridor was an oil lamp carried by the guard, illuminating small wooden doors built into the walls. The guard’s shadow teetered drunkenly ahead of him.
The guard led them to one cell and opened the door. Behind the door was a set of bars which formed a second door, so that those on the outside could see who’d been confined inside without any risk of letting them escape.
When the guard held up the lamp, Pekkala looked through the bars at a man strangely hunched on the ground. Only his knees and elbows and the tips of his toes touched the floor. His head rested in his hands and he appeared to be asleep.
Alexei turned to the guard. “Why is he like that?”
“The prisoner is preserving his body heat, Excellency. That is the only way he will not freeze to death.”
“Tell him to get up,” said the Tsar.
“On your feet!” boomed the guard.
At first, the man did not move. Only when the guard jangled his keys, ready to burst into the cell and haul the man up, did the prisoner finally stand.
Pekkala recognized him now, although just barely. It was the killer Grodek, convicted two months previously for leading an attempt on the life of the Tsar. The trial had been swift and held in secret. After the verdict, Grodek, who was barely older than Alexei himself, had disappeared into the catacombs of the Russian prison system. Pekkala assumed that Grodek had simply been executed. Even though he had failed to assassinate the Tsar, to attempt it, or even to speak of it, was a capital offense. In addition, Grodek had managed to kill several Okhrana agents before Pekkala caught up with him on the Potsuleyev Bridge. It was more than enough to consign this young man to oblivion.
Now only the shape of his face looked familiar to Pekkala. His hair had been shaved off, and scabies sores patched the dome of his scalp. Prison clothing hung in rags from his emaciated body, and his skin bore the gray polished look of filth which was as old as his imprisonment. His sunken eyes, so alert at the trial, stared huge and vacant from their bluish sockets.
Grodek backed against the wall, shivering uncontrollably, his arms crossed over his chest. To Pekkala, it was hard to believe that this was the same person who had shouted defiantly from the witness stand, cursing the monarchy and everything it stood for.
“Who’s there?” Grodek asked, squinting at the light of the oil lamp. “What do you want from me?”
“I have brought someone to see you,” said the guard.
Now the Tsar turned to the guard. “Leave us,” he ordered.
“Yes, Majesty.” The guard set down the lantern and made his way back along the corridor, touching the walls with his hands to find his way.
Now that he was no longer blinded by the lantern light, Grodek could see his visitors. “Mother of God,” he whispered.
The Tsar waited until the sound of the guard’s footsteps had faded away before he spoke to Grodek. “You know me,” he said.
“I do,” replied Grodek.
“And my son, Alexei,” said the Tsar, resting his hands on the young man’s shoulders.
Grodek nodded but said nothing.
“This man,” the Tsar told Alexei, “is guilty of murder, and of attempted murder. He tried to kill me, but he failed.”
“Yes,” said Grodek. “I failed, but I have set something in motion that will end in your death, and the termination of your way of life.”
“You see!” said the Tsar, raising his voice for the first time. “You see how he is still defiant?”
“Yes, Father,” said Alexei.
“And what is to be done with him, Alexei? He is your own blood—a distant relative, but family all the same.”
“I don’t know what should happen,” said the boy. Pekkala heard a tremble in his voice.
“Someday, Alexei,” said the Tsar, “you will have to make decisions about whether men like this live or die.”
Grodek stepped forward to the middle of the cell, where the imprints of his knees and elbows dented the mud beneath his feet. “It may come as a surprise that I have nothing against you or your son,” he said. “My struggle is against what you stand for. You are a symbol of all that is wrong with the world. It is for this reason that I have fought against you.”