‘That’s true,’ said Aleksei, ‘but I think Cain will act here and soon.’
‘Why?’
‘For two reasons. The first is simply that that was what he implied when we spoke in Chufut Kalye.’ Aleksei knew that Iuda could lie just as easily as he could tell the truth, but that did not mean he always lied. If he did, then predicting him would be child’s play.
‘And the second?’
‘The second,’ replied Aleksei, ‘is that he is afraid the tsar will die.’
‘Afraid?’ asked Tarasov.
‘Desperately. His Majesty can only die once. If that happens when he is free of Zmyeevich’s blood then all is lost for Cain – and Zmyeevich.’
‘And so he’ll try to get His Majesty to drink more,’ concluded Tarasov.
‘Exactly,’ said Aleksei. ‘And then kill him – as quickly as possible.’
‘But the influence of the blood lasts for weeks,’ said Tarasov. ‘We’ve seen that. Cain would have no need to rush.’
‘He can’t take the risk. Cain hasn’t observed the state of the tsar’s health. And anyway, how do we know that the period during which the outward symptoms manifest themselves has any correlation with susceptibility to becoming a vampire?’
‘We can make a good guess,’ said Tarasov.
‘We can,’ said Aleksei. ‘But that’s not a chance Cain can take. If you ask me, his biggest fear right now is that Aleksandr is so weakened by what he’s suffered he may die anyway.’
‘So what can we do?’ asked Tarasov.
Aleksei hesitated. What he had in mind would be more readily accepted by the tsar himself than by his two loyal doctors. But he knew it could not be executed without them. His reply, when it came, was soldierly.
‘We do what the enemy least wants us to do.’
‘How?’ asked Tarasov.
‘We make sure Cain’s greatest fear becomes a reality.’
Aleksandr reclined on his bed. It was now a day since his recovery. That, at least, was how he saw it, though his doctors seemed less confident. Should they not at least have faith in their own remedies? Perhaps they knew more than they were telling. He certainly did not yet feel well enough to get up, but he felt no worse than yesterday. Better? It was hard to judge. Time would tell.
There was a knock at the door.
‘Come,’ he boomed. There, that proved it. His voice was quite recovered. He had attempted only to raise his voice a fraction above the normal level, but he could not disguise its strength.
Volkonsky entered. ‘Are you able to receive visitors, Your Majesty?’
‘Visitors?’ Aleksandr found himself almost excited at the prospect. ‘Who?’
‘Drs Wylie and Tarasov. And Colonel Danilov.’
Aleksandr tutted. ‘Oh, they’re hardly visitors, are they?’ he said petulantly. ‘Never mind. Send them in. Send them in.’
Volkonsky left. Aleksandr was not entirely sure he wanted to see Danilov, Wylie and Tarasov. They were all intelligent gentlemen – cleverer than he was, he knew that. And so what he’d managed to piece together over the preceding day would surely have occurred to them much more quickly – particularly if they had been working together. Perhaps, with luck, their minds had got beyond the point which his had reached, and found some alternative to his own dark conclusion, some hidden door in the woodwork that would allow him a quick exit from reality. God knew he had sought one.
But his reasoning seemed utterly sound. When he had first told all to Wylie, Tarasov and Danilov, he had told them of his terror of death; not the terror most men have – that fear of the unknown that latches on to every tiny doubt they might have about the goodness of God and the cleanliness of their own record – but a concrete, confident fear that his death would mean his rebirth as a creature that had spewed forth from Hell. If he had died then, his fate would have been inescapable. It had seemed inescapable for all time. He had prayed. ‘Let this cup pass from me,’ had almost been his words to the Lord, but he understood that they would be blasphemous. At the same time he knew that even to have thought them was for God to have heard them. The blasphemy could not be undone.
And yet, it seemed, God had indeed answered his prayers. The cup, or at least the fever, had passed from him. Wylie and Tarasov might feign ignorance, but Aleksandr had known in his very bones that he had recovered. That the vigour of his blood – Romanov blood – had been powerful enough to defeat that which had invaded him. It had taken both time and torment, but in the end he had won.
But the Lord had only taken one cup from his lips so that He might offer him another chalice – one that contained a venom far less appetizing, and yet far less foul. Aleksandr might have lived to fight another day, but if he did fight another day, there was every chance he would lose. He was forty-seven years old. His babushka had survived to sixty-seven. He might well do better. And yet every day of that life he would run the risk of dying – dying with the blood of Zmyeevich, freshly introduced, inside his body. There was only one solution – to die when he was certain that his blood was pure. And that time could only be now.
Colonel Danilov entered first, then Dr Tarasov, and finally Dr Wylie. Each looked upon the tsar with his own brand of affection and his own veneer of pity. But, to a man, their faces were grave. They were clever men; the tsar knew that. It was flattering to have his conclusion endorsed by such minds as theirs.
Aleksei breathed deeply as he left the tsar’s bedchamber. Prince Volkonsky had been hovering outside. He looked at Aleksei enquiringly. Aleksei shook his head briefly and the prince’s face fell. Baron Diebich looked from Volkonsky to Aleksei and back. There could be no mistaking the news.
Wylie and Tarasov came out of the room a moment later. Their faces showed the same gloom as Aleksei’s.
‘Is there no hope?’ asked Volkonsky.
‘There is only hope,’ replied Wylie.
‘He seemed so much better,’ said Diebich, as if the assertion would change things.
‘A flicker of life,’ Wylie told him. ‘I have witnessed it in more than one case. The will of the patient can be strong enough to overcome all symptoms, but only briefly.’
‘How long does he have?’ asked Volkonsky.
‘Days – perhaps hours.’
‘The poor tsaritsa,’ muttered Diebich.
‘He has asked to speak with you,’ said Tarasov, addressing Volkonsky. Diebich half rose to his feet, but Tarasov raised a hand to him. ‘Only the prince, I’m afraid, Baron – for the time being.’
Diebich nodded and pressed his lips together hard. Volkonsky went into the tsar’s room. Aleksei took another deep breath. There were still matters to be discussed with the doctors. Diebich was slumped mournfully in a chair beside his master’s door. Aleksei glanced at first Tarasov and then Wylie, nodding towards the door that led out to the garden, before heading through it.
Neither of the doctors was cut out to be a spy. They appreciated the fundamentals – that if three men intended to meet for a private conversation, then it was wise for them not all to head off to it at the same time – but the execution of their seemingly casual departures from the house was excessively theatrical, and the timing of the separation between their exits too precise. It did not matter. No one would be concerned that three of the tsar’s staff were talking at this time – however much they might be curious about the role of an interloper such as Aleksei. In their grief, no one in the house would be up to observing anything much.
‘You think His Majesty will be able to convince Volkonsky?’ asked Aleksei.
‘He has to,’ said Tarasov. ‘The prince is far too sharp not to spot what’s going on – and to stop it. He has to know that what we are planning is, ultimately, in the tsar’s best interests.’
‘And His Majesty is the only person who can convince Volkonsky of that,’ added Wylie.