Aleksandr’s eyes opened slowly, flickering like the shaking fingers of an old man as he tried to gain a final glimpse of the things he loved. His frail hand reached for the table beside him, feeling its way, and his fingers found the crucifix that lay there. He lifted it and turned his head so that he might glimpse it. Now he lay back, exhausted from the effort, letting the figure of Christ fall back on to the tabletop. His eyes remained open, gazing at the woman who had stood beside him, and a smile formed on his lips.
He breathed in deeply, then released a sigh of unutterable contentment. Then he breathed in no more.
Wylie took a step towards him and examined him briefly. The tsaritsa looked up into the doctor’s face, but saw in his eyes no hint of solace. She released a sob, but then became silent. Wylie raised his hand towards the tsar’s face, but Yelizaveta saw what he was doing and reached out herself. The doctor withdrew his hand and the tsaritsa touched her late husband’s face, gently closing his eyelids. Wylie stood and faced the room before making his announcement.
‘The great monarch has stepped into eternity,’ he said.
CHAPTER XXVIII
IUDA WAS TERRIFIED. IT WAS A NEW AND REVOLTING SENSATION. He enjoyed the feeling of fear – more in others, admittedly, but also in himself. Fear focused the mind, precipitated action, punished failure, but above all it forced Iuda to flee from it. It forced him to the extremes of his abilities – mental and physical. There was no other emotion that could so powerfully drive him to achieve what most would regard as impossible.
But terror was different. Terror was to sit in the dank hold of a ship, in the presence of a creature so dangerous even Iuda would hesitate before deceiving him, and to wait for events to unfold. That was the worst of it – it was out of his hands. Not like a stone rolled down a hill, which gathers momentum, dislocates more stones to join it in its descent, ever accelerating in a noisy cascade until they crash upon some innocent in a terrible, but predictable landslide. This was like a coin thrown in the air; a coin he had weighted, but whose landing still had no certainty. The die was cast.
‘Look again.’
He reached out and took the spyglass from the hand that offered it, wincing at the pain in his cracked ribs. His eye dwelt on the ornate ring rather than looking up at the face of its owner. The tail of the gold dragon curled around his finger and the red, forked tongue seemed to flick out, reaching for Iuda. The emerald eyes were almost as compelling as those Iuda was so conscientiously trying to avoid.
He walked over and pulled back the shutters on the porthole. In the distance, he could see the Taganrog shoreline and the tsar’s palace. He had been aboard R zbunarea before, several times – to plan, to discuss, to gloat over events which had not yet come to pass – but this time there was nothing to be decided, except perhaps his own fate. And his fate was bound to the fate of the tsar. He glanced across the hold before raising the spyglass to his eye. Zmyeevich had retreated into the shadows, wary of even the small patch of sunlight Iuda had allowed to enter. Perhaps, if it came to it, Iuda would be able to flee. The steps were not too far away, and outside the daylight was bright. It was a cool autumn day in human terms, but for Zmyeevich, it would mean an instant, burning death. But Iuda would still have to get as far as those steps – and Zmyeevich could move with enormous speed. The open porthole might help, but Iuda did not rate his own chances.
He looked more closely at the palace. The flag still flew above it – three horizontal stripes of white, blue and red. He did not need to look for long. He collapsed the spyglass and closed the shutters, turning to Zmyeevich with a shake of his head.
‘He lives?’ asked Zmyeevich.
‘It seems so. Do you feel nothing?’
Zmyeevich closed his eyes and breathed deeply. After a moment, he opened them. ‘No,’ he said, ‘nothing.’
‘Would it be instantaneous?’
‘It has always been in the past, but I’m sure you must have conducted some… experiment to determine that.’
Iuda chose not to comment. Zmyeevich had benefited hugely from what Iuda had discovered, but he still gave the impression that the experiments upon his fellow creatures disgusted him. It was another reason he should be feared.
‘Your influence over him was real enough.’
‘I have drunk his blood – his family’s blood. That gives him some insight into my mind. Sometimes that insight may influence his actions – influence him, perhaps, to drink what he knows he should not. But the connection is weak and capricious compared to what it will be once he has drunk my blood and succumbed to death. And until then, I cannot know his mind. I do not know it now.’
‘Things would have been easier if Danilov hadn’t been here,’ said Iuda. He had not conveyed to Zmyeevich the information that he had had the opportunity to deal with Lyosha and had not taken it. Beyond Iuda’s own motivations, it was useful for him to be alive simply as someone to shoulder the blame.
‘Captain Danilov – a colonel now, you tell me – appeared to be the most resourceful of them all on the brief occasion that we met; though it seems he is a little prone to sentimentality.’
The last phrase struck Iuda as odd. It matched his own assessment of Lyosha, but he could think of nothing he had told Zmyeevich that might give him that impression. He was about to claim the colonel was lucky, but it would weaken his position. ‘He’s certainly caused us problems,’ he said instead. ‘But you can afford to be patient – he won’t live for ever.’
‘You think we have failed in this generation then?’
‘Aleksandr still lives,’ said Iuda, ‘so there is still hope.’
‘Danilov has a child, does he not?’
‘A son.’
‘Perhaps he will thwart me next time.’
‘I think not,’ said Iuda.
He opened the shutters and looked through the spyglass once again, letting out the minutest of gasps at what he saw.
‘The flag of death is flying?’ asked Zmyeevich.
Iuda nodded. The tricolour above the palace had been lowered to half mast to make way for the invisible flag that superstition maintained had been raised there by Death itself. He closed up the spyglass and stepped away from the porthole. This time he did not close the shutters.
‘I feel nothing,’ said Zmyeevich.
Iuda’s sense of defeat was not overwhelming. Aleksandr was dead and had died free of Zmyeevich’s blood. It was a disappointment, but he suspected he would not have benefited greatly from Zmyeevich’s power over Russia. He doubted whether the vampire shared his stoicism, and suddenly felt his terror increase a thousandfold. The dark presence in the room with him seemed to smoulder with wrath. ‘You’re sure?’ he asked.
‘I would know,’ said Zmyeevich firmly. He strode across the hold towards the door, passing within inches of the beam of light that entered through the open porthole, but not touching it. ‘I felt, for example, as if it was my own skin that was burning.’
Iuda flicked his eyes around the room, searching for any route of escape, but he saw none. Zmyeevich stood between him and the door. The porthole was far too small. ‘Burning?’ he asked, trying to give himself time to think. ‘When?’
‘I felt before as you tattooed me; as you flayed the skin from me,’ continued Zmyeevich.
‘I see,’ said Iuda, now understanding. He slipped his hand inside his coat.
‘I saw, as well as felt,’ said Zmyeevich. ‘Saw through the eyes of a vampire which I created; a vampire which you enslaved, which you abused. He was my offspring.’
‘You’ve benefited from what I’ve learned.’
Zmyeevich nodded, his face thoughtful. ‘True enough,’ he said. ‘Though what you learned from him, I cannot guess. I also learned your tricks.’