He leaned against the wall, beside the door to the tsar’s room, and listened. He heard no sound from within. He tried to picture the scene inside, but he remained glad that he was not a part of it. It would be a long night for him, standing guard outside, but for those who sat in tears beside Aleksandr’s bed, it would be an eternity.
Aleksandr looked at the figures around him and smiled. So many of those he loved were here. Most important of all was Yelizaveta. She would be devastated by his death – but how much more would she suffer to learn of the alternative? He knew that if Cain and Zmyeevich succeeded in their plan to make him a voordalak, then he would have no vestige of the affection he had once held for his wife. She would not know it, but she would be happier for him to die.
His greatest regret was that he would never see his brothers again – his sisters too, though none of those living had remained in Russia still. But he would have dearly loved to say goodbye to Konstantin, Nikolai and Mihail. He and Konstantin had grown up side by side – there was only two years between them – but he still sometimes looked upon Nikolai and Mihail as children. He had been eighteen when Nikolai was born. All three of them were fine men. He might have preferred to have had children of his own, but Aleksandr had no qualms about the succession passing to his brother.
It would not, however, be his brother Konstantin. Few in Russia knew it, but Konstantin did not want to become tsar. It was the wisest opinion he had ever expressed, and one which Aleksandr shared. Konstantin was too much like their father. Aleksandr had begun his reign by removing an unsuitable tsar from power; he was not going to end it by bequeathing his throne to another. Nikolai would make a far better ruler – better not just than Konstantin would be, but better than Aleksandr had been. The reason, at least in part, was obvious. Nikolai had been less than six months old when Yekaterina died. He had never been touched by her influence. Aleksandr loved his babushka, but he knew that she had ruined him.
It was already morning, as far as he could guess. The shutters were closed, but light was just beginning to seep through. He had drifted between sleep and wakefulness throughout the night. These, he knew, were precious hours, the last he would spend with Yelizaveta Alekseevna.
The door opened. Aleksandr started, wondering who it might be, but it was only one of the maids. She carried a tray. On it was a bowl of broth, and beside it some bread. She placed it on the table next to the bed.
‘I’ll do it,’ said Yelizaveta, reaching over for the bowl. She held it under Aleksandr’s nose.
‘Drink, my darling,’ she said.
Aleksandr would have dearly loved to accept. It was not out of hunger – though he was hungry – but simply to allow his wife the feeling of having done something to help. But Danilov, Wylie and Tarasov had drilled him thoroughly. Their concern was his – the prospect of his eternal damnation. A small slip now could ruin everything. He glanced over at Wylie, but it was only for confirmation of what he already knew. The side-to-side movement of the doctor’s head was minimal, but Aleksandr understood it. He feigned a violent coughing fit and pushed his wife’s hand away.
She returned the soup to the tray. ‘Perhaps later,’ she said, and Aleksandr nodded through his seizure.
‘You may go,’ said Diebich to the maid. The girl hurried out, frightened by what she had seen in the tsar. Aleksandr lay back on his pillow and tried to rest. As his eyelids lowered, he noticed Volkonsky leaving the room, almost as if in pursuit of the maid.
‘You were instructed to bring no food or drink.’
Aleksei immediately recognized the voice as Volkonsky’s. It came through the window. Aleksei had been taking another tour of the grounds. It was light now, and he was satisfied no voordalak would attempt to gain admission to the tsar, but there was still the possibility of human attack – and Iuda was most definitely human.
Aleksei looked inside. The prince was talking to a girl – one of the maids; Aleksei couldn’t remember her name. They were just outside the kitchen. He went in through the kitchen door, and was with them in seconds.
‘He told me you had asked for it, sir, for His Majesty.’ The girl was almost in tears. All in the palace – the staff as much as anyone else – were living on the ragged edge of their emotions, but to be interrogated by Volkonsky, however benevolent his motivation, must have been an ordeal.
‘I?’ thundered Volkonsky.
‘Asked for what?’ said Aleksei. His tone was lighter than the prince’s, though it had the same sense of urgency.
‘She brought His Majesty soup,’ Volkonsky explained. ‘Says some officer gave her the instruction.’
‘A lieutenant,’ said the maid.
‘Lieutenant Morev?’ asked Aleksei.
‘No, sir. I know Lieutenant Morev,’ she said. ‘We all do. I didn’t recognize this one.’
‘And he told you to fetch soup for His Majesty.’
‘That’s right – well, no. He had the soup; he’d brought it from the kitchen. He gave it to me and told me to take it in.’
‘What did he look like?’
‘Tall, sir. About your age. Blond hair – needed cutting.’
Aleksei rubbed his hand across his mouth.
‘Cain?’ asked Volkonsky.
Aleksei nodded. ‘Did he drink any of it?’ he asked.
Volkonsky and the girl replied together, both in the negative.
‘Where is it now?’
‘It’s still there,’ said Volkonsky.
‘Well, get back and make sure he doesn’t touch it.’ If the prince objected to taking orders from a mere colonel, it wasn’t reflected in the speed of his departure. ‘Which way did he go?’ said Aleksei, turning back to the maid.
‘Back into the kitchen,’ she replied, pointing.
‘How long ago?’
‘Five minutes.’
Aleksei ran into the kitchen. The same air of gloom hung over the staff in there as it did in the rest of the house.
‘A lieutenant came through here,’ said Aleksei. ‘Tall. Blond. Which way did he go?’
The head chef pointed to the back door.
‘He just wanted something to eat,’ said a voice.
‘I thought I saw him heading for the beach,’ added another, more helpfully.
Aleksei ran outside and looked around him. ‘Heading for the beach’ covered a multitude of directions from a house situated so close to the sea. Aleksei guessed that Iuda would veer more to the east, avoiding going back past the tsar’s bedroom windows, from which he might be recognized.
‘Who goes there?’ came a shout. A young ryadovoy emerged from the bushes, his bayonet aimed at Aleksei’s belly. ‘I’m sorry, Colonel,’ he said, as soon as he recognized Aleksei.
‘Doing your job,’ said Aleksei curtly. ‘Did a lieutenant come by? Blond?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And where did he go?’
‘That way, down the coast road.’
Aleksei was already running. The boy was lucky not to have attempted to stop Iuda. If he had, it was unlikely he would be alive now. Within seconds, Aleksei came across someone who hadn’t been so fortunate. This one he recognized – a captain by the name of Lishin. He also recognized the wound to his neck, two jagged, parallel lesions separated by the width of two fingers. It was the signature of Iuda’s favourite weapon.
But in killing, Iuda had made a mistake. He’d dumped the body off the road and on the beach. Footprints – the round, tiptoe-like indentations of a man running – led away across the sand. Aleksei chased after them. He constantly felt he was about to fall over as the soft surface beneath his feet collapsed with every step, but still he ran as fast as he could.