‘May I take it?’ Her voice was eager, as was to be expected.
‘I do not have it with me. Such a treatment takes time to prepare.’
‘Perhaps Dr Tarasov already has some. Do you have a name for it?’
‘No!’ said the starets firmly. ‘Doctors are proud of their learning – too proud. It makes them jealous of the greater knowledge of others. They would never allow it.’
‘I will not tell them,’ she said.
‘Good. It will not take me long to prepare it. I will contact you again when I have.’
‘Thank you, Father.’
‘Now stop the coach, if you please.’
She banged on the carriage ceiling with the tip of her cane, and their rocking motion came to a halt. As the starets was about to climb down, she reached forward, grabbing his hand and bringing it to her lips to kiss. He let her hold it there for a few moments before pulling it gently away.
‘You have great faith, my child,’ he said. ‘Your husband will thank you.’
He stepped out of the coach and closed the door, watching it rattle off into the distance before turning and continuing on his way.
It was a thing of beauty. Aleksandr had never really noticed before – he had thought of it as just a tool – but some craftsman had poured his soul into its creation. The handle was of nacre. It shone warmly in the early morning light, the band of gold around its middle glinting as it caught the sun. The handle was capped with more gold, shaped into the form of a helmet, its plume intricately carved, to no practical purpose. The base of the handle, again wrapped in gold, was where the blade was pivoted. The blade itself was exquisite. It was steel, but shone almost as brightly as the gold leaf embossed into its side. It had been well cared for – not by Aleksandr himself, but by Anisimov, his valet. The gold leaf was patterned with curlicues, but again they were mere decoration – perhaps even a distraction.
It was the edge of the blade itself that fascinated Aleksandr the most. He had used it – or one like it – every day since he had first become a man, but he had never stopped to consider it until now. It was a marvel how something so straight, so narrow, could be so unutterably sharp. A saw was serrated to make it cut more effectively, as were many blades, but a razor was different. Its acuteness lay in its simplicity. He rested his thumb against the edge of the blade, with only the slightest force. He could feel it pressing against his skin, but that did not convey to him how it really felt. With any other item, to feel was to caress, to run one’s fingers over the object and experience not just one static sample of its texture but to feel how it moved, how it interacted with the skin.
But with a razor, that could never be. If he moved his thumb just slightly, one way or the other, then his skin would not sense its texture, but be ripped through by it. It was King Midas, never to touch but that it destroyed what it touched. He pressed a little harder with his thumb, daring himself to draw blood, though the very idea of it repelled him. He moved his thumb away, holding the razor once again by the handle, and began to sharpen it against the strop.
His face was already lathered. He raised the edge to his cheek and scraped it slowly downwards, revealing a swathe of smooth, pale skin. He flicked the razor and a mound of lather landed in the sink. He returned it to his face and repeated the action again and again until his cheeks were clear. Then he raised his head and began to shave his neck, starting on the left and moving round to the right.
He took a sharp intake of breath as the blade curved round the tip of his chin. He looked at himself in the mirror. There it was, beneath his lower lip, a smudge of red that grew into a droplet as his heart continued in its task of pumping, unaware that it was forcing the blood so vital to it out of the tsar’s body. The droplet became too large to support itself and plunged downwards. Aleksandr would have sworn he heard it as it splashed on to the porcelain of the sink and splattered in a hundred directions. He looked down, gazing at his own blood. Another drop dripped from his chin and into the bowl.
He felt a knot in his stomach, a revulsion at the sight of blood – his own blood – that he had never felt before. But the feeling quickly changed. It was still located in his stomach, but the sensation was now one of hunger. He licked his lips and stared down at the red droplets that glistened against the white porcelain. He reached out with his finger to scoop one up, but then stopped as he noticed his own reflection gazing back at him, tinted with red. His bald forehead was familiar, but he looked old – as old as he felt. He frowned and touched his upper lip with his fingers. There was nothing there, but in his reflection, he could clearly see a long moustache of dark, iron grey.
The nausea returned and the room around him began to swirl.
His eyes flicked open suddenly. It was morning and – though he could not see it – the sun was high. Now should be the hour of his deepest slumber, but the passenger of R zbunarea felt awake and vibrant. The sides and lid of the coffin squeezed in tight around him, but it did not matter. He did not need to rise in order to enjoy the experience – it was not his experience anyway, but a stolen one, taken from a mind linked, however weakly, to his own.
Within moments, the sensation faded. The pain to his chin was inconsequential. The blood was of more interest, but he was old, and perhaps becoming jaded. Blood was commonplace.
What was of significance was that he had experienced anything at all. Until then, there had been nothing. When he had urged the tsar, from the prow of R zbunarea, to visit Chufut Kalye, he had sensed no response. When he had imagined himself above the caves, guiding Aleksandr down into them, he had had only his imagination to see that what he had asked had been done.
But now, with the blood that was already in Aleksandr, and with the shock of the blood that had left his body, a connection had been made. It had not lasted long, but that would come. Aleksandr was alive, and that could only heighten the resistance of his mind. Soon things would be different.
Aleksei arrived at the palace in the midst of uproar. He saw the back of Tarasov’s heel as it disappeared in the direction of the tsar’s rooms. Volkonsky was in close pursuit. Aleksei joined the chase and soon found himself in Aleksandr’s bedchamber. There was a small crowd gathered around the washstand, and Tarasov pushed his way through. Aleksei stepped into the gap and saw for the first time what had attracted so much attention.
The tsar lay on his back on the floor. His head was being cradled by his valet, Anisimov. There was blood on the tsar’s chin, but it was no more than a smear; blood loss was certainly not the cause of his collapse.
‘What happened?’ demanded Volkonsky.
‘His Majesty cut himself whilst shaving,’ said Anisimov, almost whimpering. ‘He fainted. I didn’t catch him in time.’
‘Did he hit his head?’ asked Tarasov.
‘I don’t think so,’ replied Anisimov. ‘Not hard.’
Dr Stoffregen – the tsaritsa’s personal physician – arrived and knelt down beside the prostrate figure. He looked over the tsar briefly, then began to rub eau de cologne into his forehead and temples.
‘Too late. Too late,’ moaned a voice quietly in Aleksei’s ear. It was Wylie. The sight of his patient in so weakened a condition had sent him into a panic.
‘Get him on to the bed,’ shouted Aleksei. The command had some effect, and those around him began to lift the tsar off the floor.
At that moment, the tsaritsa arrived. Aleksei had scarcely seen her move from her own rooms since arriving in Taganrog. Stoffregen immediately stepped away from Aleksandr and went to her side. Fortunately, there were enough others around to take the tsar’s weight, and soon they had him on the bed.