Thirteen Years Later

PROLOGUE

The metropolitan spoke:

‘He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in Him will I trust.

‘Surely He shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence. He shall cover thee with His feathers, and under His wings shalt thou trust: His truth shall be thy shield and buckler. Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day.

‘Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday. A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee.’

Suddenly the chapel seemed empty; empty of noise, empty of its congregation, empty of the metropolitan himself. Aleksandr perceived only the words, surrounding him not as sounds but as creatures – angels sent by God, sent to convince him of what he must do. And what he had to do was so simple: to trust in God.

That the metropolitan had chosen this day to read those words hinted that God had not trusted Aleksandr to understand His meaning. He had read the exact same words yesterday, quite by chance – or, as he now realized, by design. A clumsy accident had caused a Bible to be dropped to the floor and to fall open at that same text, the ninetieth psalm. And the psalm was but the last of three signs. Aleksandr had read it even then with understanding.

Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday.

‘The destruction that wasteth at noonday.’ It was clear what that was: Bonaparte – a man who had laid waste to the whole of Europe and who now planned to destroy Russia too. Planned to? He had already made himself a home in the Kremlin.

‘The pestilence that walketh in darkness’ was something different, something Aleksandr had almost forgotten, but never completely. He had learned of the pestilence at his grandmother’s knee, and had never doubted her, as other enlightened grandsons might have doubted stories told them by their frail babushka. Yekaterina had never been frail. She had said that a traveller would come to avenge the Romanov Betrayal, and one such had come, just a week before.

That had been the second sign.

He had called himself Cain, but he was merely the emissary of another. Simply to mention the name of that other – a name Yekaterina had whispered to her grandson many years before – had been enough to allow Cain a private audience with Aleksandr. It had caused consternation amongst many, that this stranger should be so trusted by the tsar even at his country’s darkest hour. It was not trust, though, but fear that had persuaded Aleksandr.

And yet he had discovered that in truth he had little to fear from Cain or his master, just as his grandmother had assured him. All that Cain had to offer was a bargain – a bargain that promised to save Russia from Bonaparte. And Aleksandr had no reason to doubt that it could. But the cost would have been too great. Yekaterina’s strength flowed through Aleksandr, flowed in his veins, and he found it easy to resist, easy to spurn perhaps the last hope that his country had.

Cain had taken the news calmly but he had promised Aleksandr that the offer would be made again, in circumstances when the tsar would be more inclined to agree. More inclined than now, when his country was overrun by a foreign invader? It seemed unlikely, but he doubted Cain as little as he had doubted his babushka.

The first sign had come in a vision.

Aleksandr had expected a visitor, but Cain’s had not been the face he had been anticipating. Alone in his study he had been forewarned, even before Bonaparte had reached Moscow. It was not the first time he had seen through the eyes of another, but it was, so far, the most vivid.

It began with his hands. He had merely glanced down at them, but even a glimpse was enough to tell him that they were no longer his own. His fingers had become broad, squat and coarse, with dirty nails – something that for Aleksandr was inconceivable. Then he noticed he was not alone, nor was he any longer in the palace, but in a dimly lit corridor. There were four men with him but, still gazing at his own fingers, he did not see them clearly. He held the hand of one of them in his, and soon looked up to glimpse the man’s face before kissing him on each cheek, perhaps bidding him farewell.

He perceived the man’s jaw tighten as his lips came close, as if he were resisting the urge to recoil from some fetid stench. For the first time Aleksandr noticed a foul, metallic taste on his tongue, and wondered if it might not be his own breath that was so repellent. As he stepped away, he saw the man’s face in detail for the first time. He was a little younger than Aleksandr, in his early thirties, clean-shaven, with blue eyes and brown hair that extended in sideboards a little way down his cheeks. The jaw was square and solid. It was an unremarkable face, but one which Aleksandr would never forget.

He stepped back, releasing the man’s hand and again glancing at his own. It was now that he saw what Yekaterina had so long ago told him to beware: a ring, in the form of a dragon with a body of gold, emeralds for eyes and a red, forked tongue. Its tail entwined his middle finger. Aleksandr mouthed the name his grandmother had whispered to him, the name of the man through whose eyes Aleksandr was now seeing, just as his great-great-grandfather had once seen.

He reached out to touch the dragon ring, but as he did so, it vanished. His fingers were once again elegant and slender. He was in his palace.

Aleksandr understood what he had seen – or thought he did; a master sending away his servant. It would not be long before that servant came to Aleksandr. And so a servant did come, but when he did, his face had been nothing like the one Aleksandr had seen in his vision. He had been mistaken, but it made no difference. He had sent Cain away, and now he knew that he had done the right thing – the psalm told him so.

The metropolitan carried on reading, but Aleksandr no longer paid him any heed. Instead, he gazed at the floor of the chapel and made a silent promise to the Lord. What he had been, he would be no more. God would deliver him – would deliver Russia – and Aleksandr would make Russia into the country the Almighty wanted it to be. He would be delivered from the destruction that wasteth at noonday, and from the pestilence that walketh in darkness – the terror by night.

Within days, the good news arrived. Bonaparte and all his men – what was left of them – had abandoned Moscow and were heading west. The Russian army would deal with them, with the help of the Russian winter. And the Lord would ensure, Aleksandr felt certain, that the winter would be a bitter one. Far more than ten thousand would fall at his right hand. Aleksandr no longer had to fear the destruction. Now he could do God’s work.

And as for the pestilence, Aleksandr still feared that and awaited its advent, but it was not a threat that was to be faced by him, or by Russia, until thirteen years later.