Major Maskov began to doze, and visions of a battlefield appeared before his eyes. Aleksandr was seated on a white steed with Maskov, now a field marshal, mounted beside him. The sound of a cannon blast ripped the air and Maskov turned to see a cannonball bouncing across the field towards them. He launched himself from his horse and flew through the air in front of his tsar, catching the blow of the cannonball full in his chest as it splintered his ribcage into a dozen bloody fragments. But as he fell to the floor, life ebbing agonizingly from him, he felt Aleksandr’s strong arms cradling him and heard the cherished words, ‘Thank you, Maskov. You saved me.’
Now he was at a banquet, in a privileged position opposite Aleksandr. The tsar was about to drink, but Maskov knew with inescapable certainty that the goblet was poisoned. He reached out and grabbed it from the tsar’s hand, taking down the tainted wine in a single gulp and seeing white smoky vapour rise from his own lips as it seared his throat and corroded his body from within. Now he lay in his coffin as it was lowered slowly into the earth. He knew that he was dead, but he was happy to be dead as he looked up and saw Aleksandr at the head of the mourners, an expression of benevolent wisdom on his face and a tear in his eye. Shovelfuls of earth cascaded on to him, entombing him for ever, but even in death he smiled, hearing through the dirt and soil the muffled words, ‘Thank you, Maskov. You saved me.’
Major Maskov awoke with a start. He was not alone. He had not noticed the carriage come to a halt at any time, but somehow a passenger had got on board. He was stood on the seat opposite, with his back to Maskov, dragging down a bag from the rack above.
‘What the devil?’ muttered Maskov, still half asleep, his hand reaching for his sword.
The figure turned and jumped down to the floor of the carriage. At that very moment the carriage rocked sideways, its wheel bouncing over a large stone. The intruder landed badly, falling to one side and banging his shoulder against the door. Maskov was now on his feet, his sword drawn and at the man’s throat. He glanced back over to the seat and saw that there were already several bags on it, opened, their contents strewn about.
‘What do you think you’re doing, looking through Colonel Danilov’s things?’
‘What do you think you’re doing, sleeping in Colonel Danilov’s carriage?’
‘I’m the one with the sword,’ explained Maskov, ‘and so I’m the one who gets to ask the questions.’
The intruder looked at him ruefully, and seemed to accept his status. ‘He has something which belongs to me.’
‘I find that very unlikely.’ Maskov knew very little about Colonel Danilov – it had been a presumption that these were his bags – but it did well with this sort of vagabond to give a clear impression of authority. ‘How did you get on board?’
‘When you changed horses. I climbed on the back.’
‘And then planned to do your dirty work and be off while I was still asleep?’
‘No, I intended to kill you. I hope to get round to it.’
Maskov snorted. ‘Fine words. Now tell me, what was it amongst Colonel Danilov’s things that you were so interested in?’
‘It’s in there.’ The man nodded to one of the bags open on the seat. Maskov glanced into it. There was nothing but clothes. He poked around with his left hand, still keeping his sword pointed at his prisoner. At the bottom of the case he found a bottle of vodka. It was full.
‘There’s nothing there,’ he said.
‘May I?’ asked the intruder, making to stand up. Maskov decided to let him. He kept his sword close as the man delved into the case. As he watched, it occurred to him to wonder why, if what he was looking for was in one of the cases he had already searched, the thief had left it there and gone to search in other cases. But it was too late.
The man turned. From somewhere, he had produced a knife. His right forearm knocked Maskov’s sword aside and the knife in his left hand slashed across the major’s chest. But Maskov was no greenhorn. He stepped back just half a pace and the blade sliced through the air, missing his flesh and not even catching his clothes.
At that same moment though, the carriage jolted again, and Maskov’s deft movement became an uncontrolled lurch. His back slammed against the carriage door, which, loosened by the earlier impact, swung open. He braced himself against the doorway and managed to regain his balance, but in doing so, lost the grip on his sword. It fell out of the coach and bounced on its hilt, then its tip and then its hilt again, before finally coming to rest by the roadside.
Maskov’s attacker had closed on him. He slashed out with the knife again, aiming for Maskov’s fingers where they clutched the doorframe. Maskov snatched his arm away briefly and regained his grip only a hand’s width further up. The knife sliced into the wooden frame, scarcely missing his fingers. It was a game they could go on playing time after time; one that Maskov had only to lose once for him to be sent tumbling towards the road that hurtled past below him. But at least his luck might hold until someone saw what was happening.
The game, however, was not to be played like that. The intruder smiled to himself, as if reading Maskov’s thoughts. Then he lifted his hands, gripping the luggage racks on either side of the coach and raising himself into the air.
Two heavy, booted feet slammed into Maskov’s chest. He tried to maintain his grip, but the fingers of his left hand yielded. Without their support, his right hand could do nothing. He erupted from the carriage, turning to his left as he fell, gaining a better view of the road that sped both across his path and towards him. And yet the final thought to occupy his mind before his skull was dashed against the stony ground was not to consider his wife, his children or his prospects in the life eternal, but to worry that when the tsar stepped from his carriage and looked down on his lifeless corpse, Major Maskov would be wearing a muddy uniform.
CHAPTER XXII
MASKOV WAS NOT DEAD. THAT WAS DR TARASOV’S PROnouncement and, standing a little further away, Wylie could only defer to his opinion. The whole train had pulled up quickly when the alarm was raised, and it had only been a short run back to where the body lay.
‘Is there anything you can do?’ asked the tsar.
‘It looks grave,’ said Tarasov. Again, Wylie could only concur. There was blood all over the major’s face, and a concave impression in his skull, just in front of the right temple. But he was breathing, albeit in shallow, desperate gasps.
‘I put him in your care, Doctor,’ said Aleksandr. ‘Do whatever you can.’
‘What happened?’ asked Baron Diebich.
‘I was in the carriage behind him,’ explained the tsar. ‘My coachman and I both saw him fall. We called for them to stop.’
‘We hit a huge hole in the road,’ explained the driver of Maskov’s coach. ‘It must have been full of mud or clay – I didn’t see it. It knocked him clean out of the door.’
‘Unlikely.’ The voice belonged to Colonel Danilov, who had only just arrived at the scene.
‘It looks like it to me,’ said Wylie, but a glance at the colonel reminded him not to take what he said lightly. ‘What’s that?’ he asked, pointing at what Danilov had in his hand.
‘It’s Maskov’s sword,’ he replied. ‘I found it back there; a long way back.’
Wylie instantly grasped the implication. Maskov had had reason to unsheathe his sword, and had lost possession of it some moments before he himself fell from the carriage.
Aleksei, Tarasov, Wylie and Diebich together lifted Maskov and manhandled him back into the coach, laying him on the floor between the two rows of seats. Aleksandr stood back, looking on with a mixture of concern and unease. Soon they had him in the coach, and Tarasov clambered in after.