‘Stay where you are,’ I say to Katerina, kissing her forehead. ‘And don’t – for
any
reason – come out!’
I turn back just in time. Krylenko’s boat is almost on us. They’re manoeuvring to place themselves directly alongside. One of his sons reaches out to grab hold of our gunwhales and secure the boat against his own, but even as he does, I aim the
staritskii
and blow his arm off from the elbow down.
The noise out on the water is deafening and everyone turns to stare at me – Bakatin and his sons, as well as Krylenko and his men. They look to the thing in my hand, then to the screaming man’s missing arm, the severed elbow of which is spurting blood, and they don’t make the connection. They think I must have thrown something – an axe, maybe, or a very sharp knife – only there’s a strong burning smell in the air. I change the setting on the
staritskii
and aim again.
Krylenko’s furious. He’s almost spitting as he points to me and yells at his men to get me. He’s screaming that he wants me dead, but midway through his rant he falls back, dead, a neat, coin-sized hole burned straight through his forehead and out through the back of his skull.
If it’s a fight to the death, I don’t believe in fighting fair, not even with decent men, let alone some bad fucker like Krylenko.
But I’ve barely time to think. Even as Krylenko falls, the prow of the second boat ploughs into ours, knocking us all off our feet again. There are shouts and screams and then one of them jumps across, a boat-hook in one hand. I aim up at him from where I’m sprawled on my back and burn a long, steaming gash from his groin to his neck. He falls back, clutching at himself and screaming, his clothes on fire, his eyes wildly staring, unable to believe what’s happened to him.
And he’s not alone. They are beginning to panic now. Several of them leap from the boats into the water, making swiftly for the shore.
I get up on to my knees, knowing that I’m likely to have a better centre of gravity thus than standing and, seeing Krylenko’s eldest, let him have it full power.
There’s the smell of roasting flesh and he topples, dead, into the water, his burning entrails sending up bubbles of steam from below the surface.
That ends the fight. With Krylenko and his eldest dead, the others flee as if from Satan himself. And to make sure that they don’t come back, I fire the
staritskii
one last time, turning one of the trees on the shore just beyond them into a flaming pyre. They run, screeching, into the forest.
In the silence that follows, I look about me and see them all watching me, astonished and fearful, as if I’ve changed my shape. Bakatin, brave as he is, looks almost comically upset.
‘Sweet Mary, Mother of our Lord,’ he says, in a tiny, cracking voice. ‘What
is
that?’
‘It’s a gun,’ I say. ‘A weapon. Like a bow. Only instead of shooting arrows, it shoots fire.’
‘A
weapon
?’ Bakatin asks, disbelief heavy in his voice. He frowns deeply, trying to take it all in, but I have turned away, looking to Katerina. She is cowering beneath the cart, staring up at me, completely shocked, unable to believe what she has witnessed. Her eyes flick toward the
staritskii
then back to meet mine.
‘It’s okay,’ I say quietly. ‘It isn’t magic.’
But she’s looking at me like she doesn’t believe that. After all, she’s seen the vivid flashes of light, the way it ate away at the men’s flesh like some awful, burning acid, and how it cut a neat hole through Krylenko’s head. No normal tool – no weapon
she’s
ever heard of – could do such a thing. No, this is big magic and I some kind of sorcerer.
‘
Katerina
…’
But it’s no good. I’ve frightened her badly, and when I crouch down and make to gently touch her, she cries out and moves her whole self back, as far away as she can in that cramped space.
I am tempted to jump back and change it all. I could make Bakatin stop the boat a mile downstream and sneak up on Krylenko and his men.
Only I can’t. If I did, Hecht would want to know why. And then he’d find out about Katerina.
How do I know that? How can I be sure? I don’t, and I can’t, and yet I’m absolutely certain of it. If I go back, he’ll start asking questions, whereas as it is …
As it is, he thinks I’m with Ernst, travelling overland to Moscow to meet up with Prince Alexander – Nevsky – who is spending the winter months there. Hecht wants me to establish myself at Nevsky’s side and win his trust, so that I might subsequently undermine him. All this before the great battle on the frozen lake. Before the single event that will change this whole section of history.
Katerina isn’t in this scheme, not in any shape or form. Hecht doesn’t know about Katerina, and if he did he’d want to know who she was, and whether I’d checked her out properly. And knowing Hecht, he’d sniff me out, discover my true reasons.
And if it came to a choice, I know for a certainty that Hecht would view her life as a trifle, as merely a single piece in the greater game, to be surrendered –
sacrificed
– if necessary.
And if he found out that she was
my
woman …
I daren’t think of it. And so I can’t jump back. Not unless her life’s in danger. Not unless there’s really no alternative.
I look down at the
staritskii
and sigh. It’s not one of ours, of course. I took it from a Russian agent – from Pelshe, the little snake – shortly before he coughed his last bloodied breath. But it’s a handy weapon and I’ve used it often since.
I turn and look to Bakatin.
‘Fyodor,’ I say, my voice ringing with command. ‘Let’s get the boat ashore and see what damage has been done. It would be good to be away from here before nightfall.’
For the next few hours we barely talk. We shipped a lot of water in the collision and there’s considerable damage to the cargo. We sort out what can be saved and, after making repairs, set up camp among the trees. We’re all tired and miserable, and I can see that all they want to do is get some sleep, but I decide to confront the issue head-on, there and then. I call Bakatin and his sons to me and, standing there, explain what’s happening.
By now it’s getting dark, and in the light of the fire I can see how uneasy they are. Their eyes watch me warily, their body language defensive.
Katerina won’t come off the boat. She hasn’t moved from beneath the cart since I tried to touch her, and though it worries me, I know I’m going to have to take my time and win her trust back slowly. But first, Bakatin and his sons.
‘All right,’ I say, deciding that a kind of brutal frankness will serve me best. ‘You want to know what happened back there. It must have looked to you like magic, only sometimes magic isn’t what it seems …’
I take a silver coin from my pocket and, closing my hand and quickly opening it again, make it ‘disappear’. The three sons give a little gasp. Bakatin himself stares, interested suddenly.
For the next ten minutes I show them tricks with cards and coins – things I learned as a child from old Molders, back in the Garden. Then, to take the mystery away, I show them how each trick was done, and see how they relax.
‘So it was all a trick?’ Bakatin says.
‘In a way.’
He stares at me thoughtfully, scratching at his great black beard, while his sons look to him, and when finally he shakes his head and grins, so they too grin.
‘Okay. So you’re not a sorcerer,
Nemets
. But will you show me the weapon? Let me study it myself?’
‘Of course. But you must be very careful, and do exactly as I say.’
‘It won’t destroy me, then, like it did Krylenko and his eldest?’
I smile. ‘Not unless you point it at yourself.’
‘Like a wand,’ Bakatin says, narrowing his eyes.
I go to the boat and, trying not to notice Katerina crouched beneath the cart, her dark eyes staring up at me fearfully, I unwrap the
staritskii
again and carry it across.
‘Here. It’s safe right now.’
Bakatin stares at it long and hard, turning it in his hands, then looks back at me. ‘Safe?’
I hesitate, choosing my words. ‘It’s …
asleep
, if you like. When it is, it’s perfectly harmless. But when it’s awake …’
I take it back from him, then turn and, squeezing it gently – activating it – I aim it across the river and let off a bolt.
In the twilight the flash of searing laser-light is much brighter than it was earlier, leaving an after-image on the retina, but it’s the explosion that awes them. The tree is practically up-rooted, splintering into matchwood which, in the great ball of heat from the explosion, ignites in a shower of flaming leaves and branches, which fall hissing and sizzling into the water. It’s spectacular, and when I turn to look at them, I see how each of their faces is filled with awe.
‘You want a go?’ I ask Bakatin.
He swallows, then nods.
‘Here,’ I say, placing it in his hand carefully. ‘Let me show you. You lift it thus, and aim it, and then you squeeze. So …’
I let my hand fall away as he lifts the
staritskii
and, squeezing, lets off another bolt.
It seems to leap from his hand to the tree, which jumps into the air in a great ball of flame.
This time, the three sons cry out gleefully and whoop, jumping up and down excitedly like children.
Bakatin turns, looking at me, grinning broadly.
‘Fyodor,’ I say abruptly, seeing where he’s pointing the
staritskii
. ‘Keep it pointed away from us. Look … let me take it from you.’
Bakatin does as he’s told, jerking the weapon round to face the far shore again.
‘How does it do that?’
I pluck the weapon from his trembling hand, then answer him. ‘It’s like I said. It gathers in the air and binds it together, then sends it out as a stream of fire.’
‘Ah …’ But I see that for all my attempts to disabuse him of the notion, it’s still magic to Bakatin. Powerful magic. He tries to look at me, but his eyes are drawn back across the river to the flaming stumps and the dark patch of smouldering undergrowth that are all that remain of the two trees.
‘Ah …’
That night, for the first time since the start of our journey, I sleep ‘alone’, in the bottom of the boat, alongside Bakatin and his sons.
We wake early and make breakfast in the half light before dawn. I’m about to go and check on Katerina when I see her, leaning out over the side of the boat, retching into the water.
I sigh and look away, upset by the sight. Have I scared her that much? Is she
that
afraid of me?
I must do something. Only for once I don’t know what. As she retches again, I slip away, returning to where Bakatin and his sons are packing up. Bakatin looks to me, a knowing look in his eyes, then throws me my pack. He seems to want to say something, then decides against it.
We set off before the sun has risen, the river wreathed in mist as the day begins. I take a turn at one of the oars, and am still there, toiling away, as we approach the trading post at Velizh.
Bakatin calls on us quietly to ship our oars, and we do so, drifting slowly past the jetty and the clutch of ragged huts.
Velizh is abandoned, not a sign of anyone, and further upstream, Krylenko’s compound – a small palisaded fort, built on a turn in the river – is likewise bereft of life.
Word of our coming – perhaps of the great sorcery I worked – has clearly gone ahead.
‘They are afraid of you,’ Bakatin says. ‘You can imagine what was said.’
The trouble is I can, and hope that the ripples won’t spread too far, the rumours get too much out of hand. It was a mistake, I know, to use the weapon, but it was my only option. Now I must hope that word of it dies down – that nothing gets into the history books, even as a footnote – in case the Russians get to hear of it and send an agent back to check things out.
We burn the compound to the ground, then row on until, just after noon, the wind picks up, blowing from directly behind us, allowing Bakatin to ship oars once more and raise the sail.
Katerina is asleep, turned on her side in a foetal position beneath the cart. For a time I crouch there, staring at her, moved by her beauty. Then, from habit, I take my journal from my pack and begin a new entry.
I’m partway through when I hear Katerina waking. I turn in time to see her turn about and stretch. Her eyes open and for the briefest instant she looks directly at me, a faint smile coming to her lips. Then memory kicks in, and she turns her face away, her whole body stiffening, withdrawing into her shell.
I close the journal and put it away, then look to her again.
‘I’m still
me
, Katerina,’ I say quietly. ‘I haven’t changed.’
She’s listening, I know, but she makes no answer.
‘They would have killed us. And it would have been much worse for you. I couldn’t stand that. The thought of that bastard Krylenko touching you.’
There’s the faintest movement, but still she’s silent.
‘I know how it must have seemed, but I’m still the same. I’m still your Otto. Your
batiushka
.’
I leave it there and return to the prow, where Bakatin is whittling a piece of wood and humming to himself.
I smile, recognising what he’s making. It is a copy of the
staritskii
. I take it from him and examine it, then hand it back.
‘It’s good. Almost a perfect copy.’
He grins at me, then, lifting the ‘wand’, points it at one of the trees on the left-hand bank and makes the distinctive whooshing noise of the laser, followed by the sound of an explosion. It’s so realistic, it makes me laugh, and after a moment or two, all of us are laughing. All, that is, except Katerina, but when I glance around I see that she has come out from beneath the cart and is standing there, brushing out her hair.
Noting where I am staring, Bakatin turns and looks.
‘She’ll come round, Otto,’ he says softly, keeping his voice low so as not to carry to where she’s standing. ‘See if she doesn’t.’
Then, because it got a laugh before, he points the wand again and makes the noises, and we all laugh.