'I tried to talk with Andrei, but he was as uncommunicative as the rest of the Oprichniki. His only intent was my death. Both he and Dmitry had an enormous faith in his abilities, since they had made no effort even to disarm me of my sword. When attacking by stealth, the Oprichniki were successful assailants, but Andrei's chances were less good here in an evenly matched contest. I drew my sword and he showed no fear of it. It did not seem right to use it on an unarmed man, so I told him to keep back, but he kept advancing. When he was just over the sword's length away from me he leapt towards me. I had no option but to bring the blade between us, and I felt the pressure on my hand as my sword met and overcame the resistance of his body. His face was up close to mine and I could smell his foul breath, but although the wound from my blade did not seem to hurt him, the physical impediment of the guard of my sword itself prevented him from getting close to me. After persisting for a little while, he stepped back and I heard and felt my sword slide smoothly out from under his ribs. There was a slight stain of blood on his coat, but little other damage seemed to have been done.
'I suspect that at that point, most of Andrei's victims give up in the face of his invincibility, for he laughed and suggested that I surrender to the inevitable. He did not realize that there is more than one way in which a man is trained to use a sabre. On his next advance I chose not to stab but to cut. With every step he took, I slashed the blade across his torso. On a normal man, each blow would have broken several ribs. Whether they did on him, I do not know. He showed little sign of weakening, but the very force of the blows did begin to push him back, away from me. The energy I was expending in every blow would not have allowed me to continue for long, but as he stepped back, he stumbled over something and found himself prone and helpless on the ground. I lifted my sword to give what I hoped would be a debilitating blow to his head, and he raised his arm to defend himself. The blade made contact with his arm and drew blood. I brought my sword down again and again, knowing that my attack now was only on his arm. I made no attempt to inflict a fatal blow, for I knew that such an attack would be unsuccessful. I cannot tell you, Aleksei, and if I could I would be ashamed to, the feeling of elation I felt with every blow as it cut further and further into the bone. Eventually, even the supernatural matter of which Andrei was made up could not resist me and his arm became detached from his body, leaving a bloody stub just below the elbow.
'The wound was clearly not fatal, but at least seemed to have incapacitated Andrei enough that he was no longer an immediate threat. I had never paid enough attention to even the little I had heard of the legends to know the various ways in which a creature like this might be destroyed, and I did not want to remain there trying to find out, for fear that Dmitry or some of the other Oprichniki might return. It is my hope that I disabled him enough so that he was unable to find shelter and so perished in the first light of dawn.
'For my part, I once again took flight. I stopped briefly at Shalikovo, hoping I might meet with you there, but I was afraid to wait long, so I chalked a message for you and continued to Moscow. I felt certain that I was being followed, either by Andrei or by the other Oprichniki, but the days are still longer than the nights, so the advantage was with me. Once in Moscow, I could think of only one way to contact you and to be sure of Dmitry not finding out. I went to see Dominique at the brothel. I told both her and Margarita the briefest of details of where I would be, and that you and only you should meet me. In that you are reading this, I must assume that you have spoken to Dominique. She was very concerned for your safety, Aleksei, and interrogated me for information about you – anything and everything about you – much as she has done in the past.
'I headed straight out for Desna and arrived here today. I travelled through daylight, so I don't think that the Oprichniki could have followed me here, but still I fear that they will find me. I do not want to die, but if I must, I would prefer it to be with the relative honour of a Russian firing squad than at their hands. Perhaps it is for the better that I never listened to the stories I was told about vampires as a child, otherwise I might fear even more what is to become of me now.
'If you are reading this, Aleksei, then it must be that I could not wait long enough for you and have moved on. Perhaps I am already in France by now. My hope is to settle in Paris, although I have learned that fate has little inclination to consider what my hopes may be. Should you one day come to Paris, either at the head of a conquering army, or as a visitor in more pacific times, then perhaps you will try to come and find me.
'To anyone else who finds this letter (or to whom you, Aleksei, choose to show it) I must make a plea that no suspicion of treachery should fall upon any of Vadim Fyodorovich, Dmitry Fetyukovich or Aleksei Ivanovich. Just because I am a French spy, it in no way follows that they are. I am reminded of a discussion we once had, Aleksei, about the Bible. Just because some things in it are true does not make the whole of it true. And (you will see that I stick to my guns to the last) just because there are vampires doesn't mean there is a god. I may soon know for sure.
'Please convey my apologies and regards to Vadim and Dmitry, and also my warmest affection to Marfa Mihailovna and young Dmitry Alekseevich.
'I remain, I hope, your friend,
'Maksim Sergeivich Lukin.'
Though some were more explicit than others, Maks' letter contained many condemnations. Most obvious was Maks' condemnation of himself in his confession of treachery against his tsar and his country. What it told of Dmitry and of the Oprichniki was once shocking, but by now it was nothing new. To that, though, there was one exception – Andrei's arm. I was not surprised that the flesh and blood of a vampire was close enough to that of a human that it was possible to sever one of their limbs. I had myself already seen that I could sever Andrei's head. And that was just the point. When I had destroyed Andrei, both his arms had been intact. Somehow since his meeting with Maks, Andrei had… recovered.
But that was a minor distraction. The worst thing in Maksim's letter was its condemnation of me. When I had spoken to Maks in this very building, all those weeks before, I had given him no chance to explain what he had now told me so clearly in his letter. I had been so blinded by my rage at his betrayal of our country that I had never even paused to consider that there might be some issue of greater importance which he had to tell me. I could blame Maks himself for not forcing me to listen to him and I could blame the Oprichniki for arriving to cut short our conversation, but I was the true culprit. With the Oprichniki there I might not have been able to save him, but at least he could have died knowing what he wanted to know above all – that I was still his friend.
CHAPTER XXII
I LOOKED OVER TO DMITRY. HE HAD RISEN TO HIS FEET AND WAS eyeing me suspiciously, calculating whether there was anything I had read in the letter that might tip the balance of my trust away from him. With self-defensive instinct, his hand reached for his sword.
'Don't worry, Dmitry. There's nothing much in there about you that I didn't know already.' I spoke with the intention of being more dismissive than comforting. There were a few details of Dmitry's involvement that had not been clear to me earlier, a few he had twisted to avoid revealing the nature of the Oprichniki, but nothing that substantially changed the nature of his attitude towards them or to anything else.
'He was an enemy of Russia. I knew that. That's what he died for,' Dmitry pleaded.
'You're a patriot, Dmitry,' I told him – a patriot and nothing more.