I carried on to the village. In the street I passed the red-haired man I had spoken to the previous evening. He recognized me and called after me.
'Hey! Was it you who stole Napoleon? Did you see what happened to that coach?'
I didn't pause to answer. I carried on back to the tavern, paid the ostler and, without waiting for change, mounted my horse. It had been almost fifteen minutes since I had left the barn. I spurred the horse into a gallop and allowed myself my first real opportunity to think.
My one hope lay in the fact that Iuda could not travel by day. He had left about three hours before dawn. That could never be sufficient time to reach Moscow. I had eight hours of daylight – slightly less now – to overtake him and get to Domnikiia before he could reawaken into the darkness and reach her. The journey ahead of me was around eighty versts over treacherous icy roads. It was achievable but it would be tight. I would not manage it at all if I killed my horse. I reined him back a little and we continued at a less breakneck speed.
If I did not get to Moscow in time, then my outlook was bleak – that of Domnikiia hopeless. The prospect of her suffering as she died, in the way that I had seen that farmer and his wife die, in the way that I now knew Maks and Vadim and so many others must have died, filled me with a nauseating rage. Were that to happen, then there would never be any peace for me until Iuda was destroyed. I would hunt him across Russia, across Austria, across the whole of the Ottoman empire if need be. I would climb every damned mountain in the Carpathians if I had to, but I would find him and he would die. I would not make him suffer physically too much – that would be to descend to his level – but he would know that it was I who took his life and why it was I who had done it.
I filled my journey with fantasies of discovering him in the dungeon of some mysterious Wallachian mountain castle, perhaps ten or twenty years from now; of pulling back the heavy stone lid of his coffin and raising my lantern to see the still-youthful face of the monster I had been stalking for so many years; of seeing his eyes open wide and peer into my world-weary face; of seeing the look of recognition in those eyes as he saw in me the face of the man he once confronted years before; of the memory returning to him of what he had done to Domnikiia at the very instant my stake plunged into his heart and terminated his putrid existence for ever; of seeing his earthly body collapse to dust under the weight of the corruption that it had borne over his long, repellent life.
There was more than self-indulgence in my desire to fill my mind with these thoughts – it was to keep other thoughts out. There was another possibility that Pyetr had mentioned – another side to the coin. Iuda was going to try to persuade Domnikiia to join him. It was a laughable concept, but it struck a cold terror in my heart. Domnikiia was a woman and a vain woman at that. She had already spoken of the delight she thought it would be to live for ever. How easy might it be for Iuda to persuade her that her sugar-coated vision of the life of a vampire was close to the truth? What lies would he conjure up to influence her – lies not only about him but about me as well?
But it could not happen. Although she might be romantic and fanciful, Domnikiia was a clever and a good woman. She would never choose such a path, no matter what worm-tongued falsehoods she was spun. And yet if she did, what would I then have to do? My vengeance upon Iuda would remain much the same, but what of my vengeance on Domnikiia? Vengeance it would be, for she would be beyond all hope of salvation. The moment she shared Iuda's blood, her soul would be condemned to hell. Whether it went there immediately or with the ultimate destruction of her mortal body, I knew not. I knew now many ways that a vampire might be killed. Which, I wondered, would I have to use on my dear, sweet Domnikiia?
I spurred my mount to a fast gallop, expelling from my mind all such thoughts and instead concentrating on riding across the slippery ground. The movement caused a sharp pain in my arm where the pitchfork had hit me. I had forgotten about it until then, and now I dared not look to see how serious it was, for fear that it would delay my journey. My arm was still strong enough for me to hold the reins – that was all I needed for the moment. We galloped on for several minutes through the chill winter air, my heart racing with the excitement of the ride. I cast my mind back to the more trouble-free days of my youth when I rode freely across the hills and fields around Petersburg, days when the name Bonaparte was rarely heard outside Corsica – never outside France. Could I really blame all of my present misfortunes on that one man? He had not transformed the Oprichniki into vampires, nor had he asked them to come to Moscow. The former was down to Satan and the latter to Dmitry, and with the willing agreement of the rest of us. And yet it had to be remembered that the Oprichniki, for all their ability to kill, were at heart scavengers, not predators. To flourish they had to exist in a matrix of death and fear. To be sure, at times of peace they might eke out an existence in Wallachia, killing just enough peasants to survive without drawing too much attention to themselves, but in war, where death was commonplace, they could indulge their most carnal of inclinations. War created an atmosphere in which all other evils could thrive, appearing trivial by comparison to the daily toll of death and carnage. A war is a fine place to hide any crime – another tree in the forest – and who could be so trite as to focus on perhaps a hundred deaths caused by the Oprichniki compared with the hundreds of thousands killed on both sides in the war? Bonaparte was not just responsible for those hundreds of thousands, but also for belittling every other death and every other tragedy that occurred in Russia, if not the whole of Europe throughout his era. When so many die as heroes, who remembers those who die frightened and alone?
I changed horses at Troitskoye. They did not have one shod and I had to wait almost half an hour before I could set out again. It was tempting to continue on my old horse, but he was tired and could barely manage a trot. Once I got going again, the delay was soon made up. Even so, the sun was already setting as I rode into the outskirts of Moscow. I continued across the city and tied up my horse just a little way from Degtyarny Lane, so as to approach on foot.
I banged impatiently on the door. It was Pyetr Pyetrovich who opened it. He ran his eyes up and down my bedraggled body, curling his lip with a degree of disdain that hardly befitted a man of his profession.
'Mademoiselle Dominique is not available tonight,' he told me before I had even uttered a word.
'Who is she with?' I asked.
'By "not available", I mean she is not here. You should try again tomorrow.'
'Where is she?'
'I have no idea. I should have thought you would be the man to know where she goes of an evening.' I could have forced my way past him and rushed into Domnikiia's room, but there was no reason to doubt that he was telling the truth. Whenever previously Domnikiia had been busy with a client, he had notified me outright, taking pleasure in the fact that I had to share.
'Is Margarita around?' I asked, hoping she might have some better idea of where Domnikiia had gone. Pyetr Pyetrovich's attitude changed slightly. I was no longer a possible threat to his livelihood – the single-minded suitor who might take away his star attraction – I was once more merely a customer like any other, prepared to accept in Margarita an alternative when my first choice was unavailable.