So although Kyesha had arrived early, and stood on the bridge staring down at the water that flowed below and occasionally glancing around, Aleksei had arrived earlier. Again, history was repeating itself. In 1812, on a Wednesday night, Aleksei had hidden away on the south bank of the river and watched as two of his friends met with two of his enemies – though he had not yet known them so to be. It had been that very evening, thirteen years and one month ago, that he had discovered the truth, by following the Oprichnik Matfei and seeing him feast on the body of a French soldier. Matfei had died that night by Aleksei’s hand, as had another of them: Varfolomei. Tonight he would prove beyond his own doubt that Kyesha was a voordalak – a doubt which had already vanished to almost nothing.
The news he had heard from Dmitry of the body at the Lobnoye Mesto – the body of a Kremlin guard whose colleagues had last seen him striding over from the Saviour’s Gate claiming he had seen a flickering light – had convinced Aleksei of Kyesha’s guilt. He had spoken to the guard, however briefly, and could almost pinpoint the moment at which his life was extinguished, along with the flame of his lantern. He should have begun tailing Kyesha that night, but now he would make amends. And when he caught up with the monster, he had ways of dealing with him.
He had his sabre, with which he might behead him, his wooden sword – newly sharpened – to drive through his heart and, most useful of all, the patience simply to wait until dawn and let the sun’s rays do his work for him, at no risk to himself. The short wooden sword was easy enough to conceal, and his sabre hung from a loop of cloth around his shoulder, so it could not be seen beneath his long greatcoat. It was a technique he had devised when trying to hide the weapon from the French, but it would work just as well against a voordalak. If Kyesha got close enough to see it, Aleksei would be close enough to use it.
There had been some degree of rebuilding work along the Sofia Embankment, but Aleksei found a sidestreet, very close to where he had stood before, and watched the bridge, hidden by the corner of a house. Kyesha waited for over an hour, his movements becoming increasingly impatient. Aleksei felt the bizarre sensation that he was being rude. He’d arranged to meet Kyesha at a certain place and at a certain time, and now he was keeping the man waiting. The fact that their conversations had always taken place with almost complete politeness added to the feeling. Any antipathy had been only an undercurrent, and therefore could have been purely one-sided; Kyesha might feel nothing but friendship for Aleksei. It seemed unlikely, but years of being taught to behave properly were difficult to overcome.
Eventually, Kyesha walked irritatedly away. He headed north. Aleksei had betted against that – by placing himself on the south side of the river – on the basis that it was the direction he had gone the previous night. If he rushed back to the bridge now – and over it – he had little chance of catching up with Kyesha, and a lot of being seen by him. Instead he waited – there was still a possibility that he would be able to keep up with his quarry. He watched the figure reach the far end of the bridge and then disappear from view. A moment later, he could see him again, heading east along the embankment, dwarfed by the Kremlin’s looming, red walls. Now there was no possible turn-off for him until he reached the Moskva Bridge, but it would do Aleksei no good to be seen running parallel to his prey along the south bank. He turned away from the river towards the canal. He would have to sprint; Kyesha was moving at a brisk pace. He passed Bolotnaya Square and then turned to run alongside the canal before heading north again to the foot of the Moskva Bridge. The curve of the river gave him a slight advantage, and when he reached the bridge, he could see Kyesha still some distance away, not yet clear of the Kremlin.
Now Aleksei had to take another chance. If he waited where he was to see which way Kyesha headed, he could well lose him. He would have to start crossing the bridge. But that in turn meant that if Kyesha did go south, they would undoubtedly meet. There was no real choice. If Kyesha had been going south, he would have done so immediately, when leaving the Stone Bridge. And even if they did come face to face, Aleksei could simply apologize for being late and say how pleased he was to have caught up with Kyesha. The wooden bridge did not provide much cover, but Aleksei would not stand out amongst the individuals and groups crossing in both directions, and it was unlikely that Kyesha would be looking that way.
He timed it so that he would not have to stop and wait for Kyesha to reach the other end. He was about three quarters of the way over when Kyesha drew level with the bridge, but he did not turn on to it. Instead he turned left and headed up towards Saint Vasiliy’s. As he left the bridge, Aleksei glanced behind him. There was no one of note, but he felt uneasy. There was no time to worry about it; he carried on up the hill in pursuit of Kyesha. It was easy to lose him in the mass of small buildings that lay between the cathedral and the river, but unless his destination was actually within those buildings, it was a safe assumption where he would emerge. When Aleksei caught sight of him again, he was beyond Saint Vasiliy’s and passing the Lobnoye Mesto. Returning to the scene of the crime, thought Aleksei, but Kyesha ignored the platform and turned out of the square to the east.
When Aleksei himself reached the cathedral, he looked back again. The positioning that made Saint Vasiliy’s so prominent from the south also made it a good viewpoint. Aleksei could see the whole of the Moskva Bridge. One man stood at the near end, seemingly looking straight back at Aleksei. It was too far to see his face in any detail. Moments after Aleksei looked at him he suddenly turned his face to the ground and began to march purposefully up the hill, disappearing from view.
Aleksei turned quickly and followed the road Kyesha had taken. At first there was no sign, but as Aleksei headed on towards Kitay Gorod, he caught sight of him. He was standing on a street corner a little way ahead, in conversation with a well-dressed man a few years older than Aleksei himself. The contrast between them reminded Aleksei again of how young Kyesha was. When talking to him, his maturity made it easy to forget that, going by his appearance, he could only be seventeen or eighteen. It fitted perfectly with Aleksei’s conviction that he was dealing with a voordalak, whose physical age would have been captured and frozen at the moment he ceased to be human, and yet whose experience of the world would continue to shape his character. The Oprichniki themselves, it had to be admitted, had for the most part displayed little in the way of character, but Aleksei had long held the suspicion that this was due to the breed of men they had once been, and not their nature as vampires. Odious though it was to admit it, Zmyeevich had cut a sophisticated figure, regardless of his taste for blood.
The man with whom Kyesha had been talking turned suddenly away from him and strode off, coming towards Aleksei. Kyesha himself continued on in the direction he had been heading, his gait far more casual in this relatively crowded street than it had been down by the river. Aleksei carried on too, and from the corner of his eye noticed a figure at the other end of the block of shops beside which Aleksei had paused begin to move, in parallel with him, one street away.
At the next junction, he glanced to the left again, and saw the same figure cross the road and apparently continue on his path, but Aleksei felt sure he was just out of sight awaiting Aleksei’s next move. So now Aleksei had two challenges; to keep track of Kyesha, and to deal with whoever it was lurking in the shadows over to his left.
Kyesha had stopped again, and was in conversation with another middle-aged man, whose general description would have been indistinguishable from the first. It took no great leap of the imagination for Aleksei to guess what he was up to, particularly given the region of the city in which they found themselves. Aleksei held no particular disdain for it. He himself, admittedly when not quite so old, had been happy to pay for the caresses of young flesh, with little complaint from his conscience, despite the fact that he was married. That this gentleman preferred those caresses to be with a person of his own sex was of little interest to Aleksei, nor to many Russians of his class, provided it was kept in private. Only the Anglo-Saxons really seemed to care; and some of the more puritanical members of the Northern and Southern societies. They might liberate the serfs, but only to make them free in their own image. To be an enlightened female, to be homosexual – these were not the rights for which they fought.