The People's Will (10 page)

‘Yevdokia Yegorovna Nikonova.’

‘Mrs?’

‘Miss.’

He glanced between her and Mihail. ‘You two travelling together?’ he asked.

Dusya opened her lips to answer, but no sound came. Her eyes fell to the floor.

‘Yevdokia Yegorovna is a friend of my brother,’ said Mihail. He could have left her to her fate, but she was pretty and he enjoyed the thrill of taking an unnecessary risk.

Dusya looked up, her eyes fixed on him. She might have blushed, but with her sickly skin it was impossible to tell.

‘We’re engaged to be married,’ she said, a little too quickly. She was not used to this, and seemed inadequately trained.

‘She and my brother, I should say,’ explained Mihail casually. ‘Not she and myself.’ He gave a slight chuckle and Dusya joined in, more naturally this time. ‘It’s pure chance I bumped into her,’ he added, distancing himself in case his ruse proved insufficient.

‘I see. How far are you going?’

‘To Petersburg,’ said Mihail.

‘Only as far as Moscow’ was Dusya’s response. Was that a hint of apology in her eyes?

‘I’ll be returning to Moscow in time for the wedding,’ Mihail added. He said no more. It wouldn’t do to be
too
helpful.

The
ohranik
nodded and he and his henchman moved on. Mihail raised his hand to his face and as he did so slipped his thumb between his first two fingers, making the sign of the
sheesh
at their backs. They could not see, but the gesture was not for their benefit. Dusya saw and her face suppressed a smirk. The
ohranik
turned, but already Mihail’s palm was open and innocent. He watched them as they questioned the remainder of
the carriage’s occupants, but they didn’t look back again. At last they were finished, and climbed down to the platform. A moment later Mihail heard a slow creak followed by a clang as the brakes were released and the train began slowly to ease its way out of the station.

Somewhere behind Mihail a man stood up and walked down the carriage in their direction. He was tall – as tall as Dmitry – and heavily built, with a thick beard. He took another seat a little way ahead of them, but Mihail noticed the glance that was exchanged between him and Dusya as he passed. Mihail, it seemed, might have done well as an extemporized guardian for the young lady, but she had never been alone.

The train was fully up to speed before she dared to look him in the face again. She seemed keen to say something, but uttered not a word. She rubbed her temple again and her eyebrows became pinched.

‘Don’t worry,’ said Mihail. ‘You don’t need to explain.’

She gave a meek, embarrassed smile and turned away again, but she had misunderstood. She didn’t need to explain because he understood perfectly well. Beyond that familiar odour – a scent that made Mihail feel almost at home – there were the symptoms: the bulging eyes, the pallid complexion, the headaches. He’d been warned about them on almost his first day at the Imperial Technical School, and he’d seen it more than once in the field, in men who were less than familiar with the tools of their trade.

They were the symptoms of prolonged exposure to nitroglycerin.

The train slowed and finally came to a halt. It was impossible for Iuda to determine where he was, but it had been twelve days since they left Geok Tepe. They’d travelled by land, then by water, and then by land again, until finally his coffin had been loaded on to a train. They had changed trains once more since then. One thing he felt sure of, although he could see nothing of the outside world, was that the nights were getting longer, which meant they were heading north.

It wasn’t the most pleasant of journeys. He’d travelled by similar means before; nailed into a crate and then shipped as
freight, but usually of his own volition and to a destination of his own choice. Today, he didn’t know where he was going to end up – though he could take a good guess – and in addition to being in the crate, the other constraints that Dmitry had placed on him rendered him quite immobile. It wasn’t painful, but he despised the sensation of being unable to move his hands, and the halter at his neck really did interfere with his breathing, and the metal tongue of the scold’s bridle poking into his mouth tasted of someone else’s saliva.

He felt himself being lifted, and then carried, and then dropped on to a hard stone floor. He was picked up again and placed on a wagon, which began to trundle slowly across the snowy ground. He felt sure he was close to the end of his journey, and would soon discover his fate.

Anything would be better than the three years he had spent imprisoned in Geok Tepe. It had been his own fault. He’d overplayed his hand, and underestimated his opponent; Ibrahim Edhem Pasha was a subtle man.

After the escape from his own dungeons in 1858, Iuda had been forced to remake his life. He could no longer wander down the corridors of the Third Section, rubbing shoulders with the powerful and pretending that his every action was bent towards the protection of the tsar. For a start, he’d been doing that for too long. Soon enough, someone would notice how he never seemed to age, and then someone else would look into his history and it would all be over. He returned to his earlier way of life – the life he had led before becoming a vampire. He became a traveller, a mercenary of sorts, but always with an emphasis on persuasion rather than brute force. It wasn’t that he lacked the ability to overpower his enemies, but it always seemed like less fun – cheating almost, especially now that he was so much stronger than any mortal. He preferred to use the faculties of brain which he had been born with to those of brawn which he had acquired. That wasn’t to say he didn’t enjoy the pleasures of the flesh as much as any other
voordalak
, but such occasions were made far sweeter if the victim had first been manoeuvred into a situation from which death was the only escape.

But he had to be circumspect. He had his enemies, and they
would recognize the signs if he left too many mysterious deaths strewn across Russia and Eastern Europe. The Romanovs were an enemy, though he felt sure they would leave him alone if he did the same for them. There was Lyosha’s daughter, Tamara, but she had vanished without trace. Perhaps she was dead; perhaps she had chosen to live out her life in quiet contemplation. But of all people, she was the one who must hate Iuda most, out of love for her father. But then shouldn’t Dmitry feel the same? Iuda had never been quite sure where Dmitry stood – he still wasn’t. But it was none of these who truly made Iuda feel afraid.

Zmyeevich was the real enemy. Once they had been allies, but they had never trusted each other. They had gone their separate ways, and Iuda had twice managed to defeat Zmyeevich, or at least thwart him in some minor way, and Zmyeevich was the sort of creature who would repay even a small inconvenience a thousandfold.

He had almost caught Iuda, in 1877. Once again Russia and Turkey had been at war, and this time Russia was winning. Iuda had allied himself with the tsar’s troops at Plevna, just south of the Danube. It was familiar territory. The city was besieged for over four months. Each night Iuda would climb its walls – walls unassailable by man, but simple for him – and feast inside the city. It helped Russia’s cause, but it was mostly Iuda’s own pleasure that brought him there.

But then the Romanians entered the fray – under Prince Carol – and among them the Romanian that Iuda feared most.

One night in September, after returning from another successful sortie, he had been summoned, along with several other Russian officers, to meet a newly arrived Romanian commander – a Colonel Flaviu Stanga. They assembled in a clearing by the light of flickering camp torches. Colonel Stanga emerged from his tent.

It was fifty-two years since Iuda had last met Zmyeevich face to face, but the great vampire had not changed. The high, domed forehead was hidden under a military cap, but was still unmistakable, as were his bushy eyebrows and arched nostrils. The iron-grey moustache was neatly trimmed. His skin was young and unwrinkled; he had eaten recently. He wandered down the line of officers, talking amiably about his plans for the siege, pausing at
each man, looking him squarely in the eye and shaking him by the hand.

Until he drew level with Iuda.

He came to a halt and stopped speaking, staring intently down into Iuda’s eyes. He took Iuda’s hand, his grip firm. Iuda remained impassive, hoping that time enough had passed for Zmyeevich not to recognize him. Zmyeevich began speaking again, keeping to the subject of military tactics, and Iuda thought he had succeeded, but still he gripped Iuda’s hand. And as he moved away, Zmyeevich twisted his wrist, forcing Iuda’s hand down and revealing the back of his own and the ring that he wore – and had always worn, whenever Iuda had seen him. It was the figure of a dragon, with a body of gold, emerald eyes and red, forked tongue. He was making sure that Iuda recognized him, and knew that he in turn was recognized.

If Zmyeevich had chosen to kill him there and then, he had the strength to do it, and to slay every soldier who tried to stop him. But Zmyeevich remained calm. He continued his speech, moving on to the next man and the next. When he was finished he asked if there were any questions, but none came. Colonel Stanga dismissed the men.

Iuda fled; fled the camp, fled the army and fled the country. He lived as best he could, like vampires had done for years in these parts, sleeping in churchyards and feeding off peasants. And as he fled south so the Russians advanced south, and with them came Zmyeevich.

Finally, like most of the sultan’s army, Iuda was trapped in the south-eastern extremity of Europe. There was only one city in which he could hide: Constantinople. He went by his real name of Cain and spoke English like an Englishman. A year before, at the Constantinople Conference – the Shipyard Conference as they called it locally – Britain had been keener to do a deal favourable to Russia than to the Ottomans, and so the English were not universally popular. But at least Britain had not joined in the war on Russia’s side. And Iuda did not come empty-handed – he brought with him the gift of information.

It took only the mention of Zmyeevich’s name – not in its Russian translation, but in a form known better to the Turks
– to allow Iuda access through the layers of administration of Ottoman government and into the Sublime Porte. He was granted an audience with His Imperial Majesty, the Sultan Abdülhamid II, Emperor of the Ottomans and Caliph of the Faithful, in the throne room of the Dolmabahçe Palace. The Grand Vizier – the Greek, Ibrahim Edhem Pasha – stood at his sultan’s side. He was by far the wiliest of all those in the room; apart, of course, from Iuda – or so Iuda had thought.

Ibrahim Edhem did the talking.

‘So you’re aware of our empire’s history with Ţepeş?’ Even then, they dared not use Zmyeevich’s full Romanian name, and stuck to that short epithet.

‘I know much of him – especially of his dealings with your enemy, Russia.’

‘Then you understand he is no friend of the Romanovs?’

‘He would like to be more than a friend.’

Now the sultan himself spoke. ‘You understand the blood curse he holds over them?’

Of that, Iuda knew more than anyone but Zmyeevich himself. He knew of the bargain between Zmyeevich and Pyotr the Great, and of how Pyotr had broken it. He knew that Zmyeevich had drunk Pyotr’s blood, but that the tsar had not reciprocated. And he knew how every other Romanov was thus vulnerable to the possibility that he might one day drink Zmyeevich’s blood, and die with it in his body, and become a vampire, subject to Zmyeevich’s will. And if that Romanov were to be or to become tsar, then Zmyeevich would rule Russia. And then where would these Ottomans be?

‘I know that if he takes Russia,’ said Iuda, ‘your throne will be next. He will make their armies victorious.’

Ibrahim Edhem glanced at his sultan, and then spoke again.

‘How do you know all this?’ he asked.

‘I myself took Ţepeş’s offer to Tsar Aleksandr.’

‘You have spoken to His Majesty?’ The Grand Vizier hid his surprise well.

‘To Aleksandr Pavlovich,’ Iuda explained. ‘Aleksandr I.’

There was muttering around the court, and then the sultan spoke again.

‘So you are … like him? A vampire?’

‘And so I know whereof I speak,’ confirmed Iuda.

‘And what are you offering us?’ asked the pasha.

‘I know where Ţepeş is. I know what name he is travelling under. If you move swiftly, you could take him.’

‘A trick! Intended to divert us from the tsar’s real intent.’

‘He marches with the Russians. Dealing with one is not a distraction from the other.’

‘And even if we could reach Ţepeş,’ added the sultan, ‘what would we do then? He is invincible.’

‘He can die, like any other vampire,’ said Iuda.

‘Like yourself?’ asked Edhem.

Iuda acknowledged the comment with a smile, but he felt safe. Although the guards standing on either side of the sultan were armed with sabres that could easily sever his head, there were tall windows close by that he could reach in moments, and it was dark outside. Besides, they would be fools to kill him before learning all he knew – and Iuda prided himself that he knew a lot.

‘Only by destroying Ascalon can Ţepeş be overcome,’ said the sultan.

‘And if I could deliver Ascalon to you?’ asked Iuda.

‘It’s been missing for centuries,’ said the Grand Vizier. ‘What would you know of it?’

‘I was once Ţepeş’s closest ally.’

‘So why would you betray him now?’

‘I’ve already betrayed him,’ explained Iuda. ‘That is why I fear him. That is why I would have you deal with him.’

‘He’s pursuing you?’

‘He would, if he knew where I was.’

‘You’re certain that he doesn’t?’

‘Quite certain,’ replied Iuda, hoping he spoke the truth.

Ibrahim Edhem Pasha leaned forward and whispered into the sultan’s ear. The sultan looked at him for a moment and then nodded.

‘Go now,’ said the Grand Vizier. ‘You will be summoned.’

Iuda had turned to leave, but the meeting was not quite finished. It was the sultan who had the last word.