by Jasper Kent
Today Dmitry was heading to the Severnaya – the northern part of Sevastopol, a region of the city which held no real danger, not for the moment. When the Allies had first landed, they had come at Sevastopol from the north, but believed the defences were too strong and so circled round to the south, only to be met by Lieutenant-Colonel Totleben’s improvised but utterly effective fortifications. Now, it was Russian troops that occupied the territory here and all the way to the isthmus at Perekop, the narrow link to the mainland. But things could change.
There were many boats waiting on the harbour shore, eager to transport both soldiers and civilians across to the north. Dmitry stepped into the nearest and sat down on the thwart. Without a word, the oarsman cast off and began the slow, short journey. There had been talk of assembling a pontoon bridge to make the crossing easier, but nothing had come of it yet. There was more than one general who suspected the men would fight with greater bravery if they knew there was no prospect of retreat. Even so, desertions were commonplace, as was demonstrated by Dmitry’s duty today.
The water was calm, and the only sound was that of the oars as they dipped in and out of it. It was a moment for Dmitry to relax. He looked out across the water. To his right the harbour split. The main part – the Sea Harbour – stretched out east, while pointing south there was a smaller branch known as the Military Harbour. The British, so he had heard, called it the Man-of-War Harbour.
But it was to the west that the real interest lay. Out to sea, only versts away, the British and French fleets stood, waiting. It was from them that the real threat came; their guns that had caused the severest damage during the first bombardment back in October. There were big guns on land too, but they were as nothing compared to what the ships had. The fleet had remained quiet, mostly, for months now, but in the spring they’d be heard again. At least they couldn’t simply sail into the harbour and land marines. Two narrow strips of white, breaking waves stretching across the water were testimony to that, one only a little way from the dinghy, the other at the very boundary between the harbour and the Black Sea.
The breakers gave only a clue to what lay beneath – sunken ships, anything that the navy had been able to get its hands on to float out there and scupper. Occasionally, when the sea was calm, as today, a mast or the line of a bow could just be seen breaking surface, enough to act as a reminder that to sail into the harbour would result in serious if not terminal damage to any craft that attempted it.
Dmitry stepped on to the northern shore, handing the ferryman a few copecks for his trouble, then continued on foot towards the Star Fort. This was the other thing that kept the enemy fleets out of the harbour, and the reason that their armies had chosen to attack from the south. At a guess the building occupied almost a quarter of the entire Severnaya; an eight-pointed star of solid stone and brick – far more forbidding than any of the rushed fortifications in the south. It loomed out over the land and the harbour itself, threatening the annihilation of any force that dared to approach from the north or from the sea. But it could do no more than threaten. The structure was almost forty years old; under-maintained, undermanned and under-gunned. If the Allies had chosen to attack, they would have occupied the Severnaya within days, but thankfully the fort’s reputation had deterred them – that and a little disinformation spread through the local populace.
Dmitry followed the ramparts around anticlockwise, noting that what had seemed imposing at a distance was so obviously decrepit now he was close. He came to the gate. ‘Major Danilov,’ he said to the guard. ‘Here to see Captain Shulgin.’
It took some time to track down Shulgin. When he eventually arrived, he seemed flustered. Dmitry noticed how dirty his hands were, with soil under his fingernails. He led Dmitry across to the northern corner of the fort.
‘So you’ve had a couple of desertions, Captain,’ said Dmitry as they walked.
‘I think the word I used in my report was “disappearances”.’
‘It amounts to the same thing.’
‘Perhaps among your men, Major,’ snapped Shulgin, seeming to forget the difference in their ranks, ‘but not mine. These were engineers – some of the best-trained men in the army. They’re not the sort to absent themselves at the first whiff of cannon smoke.’ Dmitry could only admire the captain’s faith in his men, but he knew it was misplaced. He knew that fear could affect any man – some just learned to hide it better than others.
They had come to a wooden doorway on the inside of the thick outer wall of the fort which towered above them, fragile and decaying. The sense that it might topple inwards and crush them was not entirely fanciful. Shulgin opened the door and indicated that Dmitry should lead the way. Inside, a narrow flight of wooden steps led down within the wall.
‘Anyway,’ continued the captain as they descended, ‘they’re not absent any more.’
‘But I don’t suppose I’d be here if they’d been discovered safe and sound.’
‘No,’ was Shulgin’s brief response.
At the bottom of the steps a low tunnel headed north, out of the Star Fort. Even Shulgin had to stoop, and Dmitry was virtually bowing. He felt instantly trapped. In general he had no fear of enclosed spaces, unless the enclosure came from above as it did now, giving him an unnerving sense of being buried. The tunnel was built like a mineshaft, with walls of loose earth and the fewest possible boards of wood used to shore up the sides and roof. He had been inside similar earthworks beneath the bastions.
‘Why are you building this?’ he asked.
‘Partly in the hope of undermining the enemy – more so we can listen out for them digging to undermine us.’
Dmitry had been in the army quite long enough to know that much. He tried not to show his annoyance. ‘I mean why here? The enemy’s nowhere near.’
‘Oh, we dug this long before we knew where the French would attack,’ explained Shulgin. ‘And once they’re dug, we have to maintain them.’
‘Or else this happens?’
‘Exactly.’
They had been forced to halt. In front of them the tunnel was blocked by a pile of earth and rocks. Such clear evidence of how real his fears of entombment could become made Dmitry even more uneasy, but also revealed just how close to the surface they were. The tallow lamps that had lit their way so far now became quite unnecessary as daylight shone through the gaping hole that the cave-in had created. Fresh air blew on Dmitry’s face. He breathed deeply and relaxed, though he still felt the oppression of the tunnel’s roof, undamaged above where he stood, forcing him to bend.
Two sappers – as many as could be fitted into the narrow space – were digging at the pile of debris, and Dmitry could already see what lay within. The pink hand and forearm of a man lolled incongruously from the dark earth.
‘So they were killed when the tunnel collapsed,’ said Dmitry, squatting down so that at least his torso could be upright.
‘I think not,’ said Shulgin. ‘They’d already been missing two days when it happened.’
‘Are you sure it’s them?’
Shulgin shouted at one of the sappers, who stopped his work and pulled back a tarpaulin that was draped at the edge of the mound. Beneath it lay the upper half of a soldier’s body – the remainder still buried. The figure revealed beneath the tarpaulin was caked in mud, but enough had been cleaned away from his face to make his identity clear to anyone who knew him.
‘So they deserted and hid down here,’ suggested Dmitry, ‘and then the cave-in got them.’ A better fate than to be shot by their own comrades, as Dmitry would have been obliged to command.
‘There was a man working down here when it happened. He got away, thank God. He swears there was no one else here.’
Shulgin gazed up at the hole in the ceiling. Dmitry looked too, judging how far it was to the surface.
‘They fell through?’ he asked.
‘Then they’d be on top.’
Dmitry thought for a moment, though only one conclusion remained. ‘So the bod
ies had been buried, just above the tunnel.’
‘I reckon. Whoever did it wouldn’t have expected them to be found for years – and then they’d just be taken for casualties.’
Suddenly the two sappers stepped back, standing up as best they were able. Another arm had been revealed. The men took hold of one limb each and hauled at the body. Slowly at first and then with a sudden collapse as the earth around it gave way, the corpse spilled out. Dmitry took a step back, fearful of further damage to the tunnel and another cave-in, but all seemed steady.
The body lay on its back on the mound of earth, its feet still buried in the loose soil. The arms lazed on either side of the head, where the sappers had dropped them, as if the dead man were surrendering. Dmitry looked into the mud-covered, upside-down face, out of which a pair of blue eyes, sparkling and clean, gazed back.
Water splashed on to the face and Shulgin’s hand began to rub the dirt from it, like a brutal nanny cleaning up her charge ready for tea. When this face was as clean as the other one, Shulgin stopped and stared, twisting his head to see it the right way up.
‘That’s him,’ said Shulgin. There was nothing in his voice to suggest that he’d ever doubted it.
‘What killed them?’ asked Dmitry.
Shulgin shrugged.
Dmitry reached out and took the bucket of water that Shulgin had used to clean the man’s face. He tipped more over the chest and neck and began to clean off the rest of the mud, trying to show a little more deference than had Shulgin, but knowing that circumstances could give the dead man no great hope of dignity. Around the throat the encrustation of dirt was particularly thick. Dmitry managed to get his fingernails beneath – silently acknowledging the reason for Shulgin’s dirty hands – and pulled it away. It came easily, only to reveal another layer of mud.
Dmitry stared at what he saw, and then looked up at Shulgin, whose face revealed the same confusion that Dmitry felt. The surface of the mud on the man’s neck, smoothed by Dmitry’s fingertips, was now concave, dipping below the level at which the skin should show – and yet no skin was visible. Dmitry reached forward again and scraped at the soil with his fingers, pulling more away as though cleaning out a crevice in a rock, except that the distinction between earth and rock would have been easier to discern than that between earth and flesh. Shulgin poured on the remainder of the bucket of water, washing all but the last few grains of dirt away.
Dmitry stood up. His head bumped slightly against the ceiling, but it would take more than that to distract him from what he was looking at.
‘My God!’ hissed Shulgin. Dmitry remained silent. ‘Have you ever seen anything like that before?’
Dmitry had already asked himself that question. In his mind he was back in a street in Moscow, outside the Maly Theatre, thirty years before. A dead soldier lay in a pool of his own blood, the pathetic victim of a creature that Dmitry had hoped could be left in the past. Today only traces of blood were visible, mingled with the mud that they had washed away. Dmitry doubted whether this time very much of it had been allowed to go to waste. The wound was of the same nature as back then, but far, far deeper. Still flecked with dirt, torn vein and sinew and even bone could be clearly seen in the deep laceration beneath the chin, ensuring that neither Dmitry nor Shulgin could doubt what had happened.
Half the man’s throat had been torn away.
CHAPTER III
IT WAS A matter of blood – Romanov blood. It had been for the past 143 years.
Yudin stared across his desk at Raisa Styepanovna. She knew none of it; he had been careful to see to that. But he had known about it for – what? – forty-three of those years, ever since Zmyeevich had explained it all to him before sending him out into Russia to do his will.
Zmyeevich. Yudin felt a thrill of fear course through him just at the thought of the great vampire. Once they had been allies – though neither had seen things as being quite on equal terms. Even then, Yudin had been afraid; afraid that he might take a step too far, either deliberately or in error, and find himself facing the wrath of a creature that had learned to kill – learned to enjoy killing – centuries before Yudin had even been born. Eventually, inevitably, their alliance had come to an end, and Yudin had barely escaped with his life. But escape he had, defeating Zmyeevich if only for a moment. And that gave him hope that if it came to it, he might defeat him again. And more than that, he knew Zmyeevich’s secret.
Zmyeevich had been there 143 years before, in 1712, as had Tsar Pyotr – Pyotr the Great. It was the year Petersburg became the capital of Russia. The two of them had done a deal. Yudin had heard the story from both sides, from Zmyeevich and from the Romanovs – the descendants of Pyotr – and he believed neither of them, not fully. But the two had come to some sort of arrangement.
However they liked to dress it up, Pyotr had agreed to join with Zmyeevich as one of his own kind, a voordalak that lived by night and feasted on blood. But Pyotr had tricked Zmyeevich and only gone halfway with the process, gaining from Zmyeevich his vast knowledge, but not falling under his power.
But Zmyeevich had taken blood from Pyotr and that gave him hope, hope that if a Romanov of any generation could be persuaded to drink Zmyeevich’s own blood and then to die with it still in his body, the transformation begun with Pyotr would be complete. That Romanov would be reborn as a vampire and would be subject to Zmyeevich’s will. And if that Romanov were himself tsar, then the whole of Russia would be Zmyeevich’s plaything.
Raisa knew little, but she had her part in it. What she had just handed to him, tiny though it was, might make all the difference between success and failure. Yudin studied her in the dim light of his underground office, but she turned away from him to gaze, as she always did, into one dark corner of the room. There stood a large wooden chest of map drawers. On top of it was an item that neither of them could see, but both knew was there. A dark blanket was draped over it, to prevent accidents.
Yudin had known Raisa for many years, more years than the unenlightened observer might think possible for a woman of her evident youth. When they had first met, in 1818, she had been just seventeen years old, the fifth daughter and eighth child of a Kievan prince. He had not gone by the name of Yudin then. When they were first introduced he had been Vasiliy Denisovich Makarov.
After they had become friends and – briefly – lovers he had told her his true name, Richard Llywelyn Cain, though by then she knew him well enough to doubt the truth of anything he told her. More recently she had been happy to accept that he had, for the time being, become Vasiliy Innokyentievich Yudin. The one name that she had never associated with him was that for which, of all his pseudonyms, he had the most affection – the name of Iuda.
Sadly, he knew of no country on Earth where he could pass himself off with the name of Christ’s betrayer and not raise an eyebrow – no country in Christendom at least. Perhaps one day he would travel to the orient, but in Russia, to call himself Yudin was the closest he could safely come to it. The name Iuda had been a deliberately obvious alias when he had worked as one of a group of twelve vampires who, disguised as mercenaries and assuming the names of Christ’s apostles, had come to Russia to feed on the remnants of Napoleon’s invading army, although Yudin had had his own agenda. That had been a long time ago – before he had ever met Raisa Styepanovna. Before he himself had become a voordalak.
‘How did you get this?’ he asked, gazing down at the glass vial cupped in his hand. It was small, perhaps the size of the top two joints of his middle finger, and the dark liquid that flowed from one end to the other as he moved his hand scarcely half filled it. But that did not matter – it was a question of quality, not quantity, and this blood was of the highest quality imaginable. It excited him just to know that it rested in his palm. This was Romanov blood.
‘He let me kiss him,’ she said lightly, still looking at the blanket as if she could see what lay beneath.
‘The tsarevich let you kiss him? As simple as that?’
Sh
e turned her head to look at him. ‘He’s a goat – they all are. He expected more.’
‘Did he get it?’
‘Not after I’d taken what I wanted. Anyway, he had a party to get back to.’
‘He didn’t notice?’ Yudin again looked at the vial and at Aleksandr’s blood within.
‘Perhaps later. I took it from his lip. They never feel it, do they?’
Yudin had carried out many experiments to determine that. To say ‘never’ was an overstatement, but a voordalak could secrete a substance that numbed its victim to the superficial pain. For himself, he had never had the desire to save anyone pain; neither had Raisa. But in this case it was a necessary concession.
‘How much did you take for yourself?’ he asked.
‘About twice as much again.’ She turned her head towards him and gave a little pout. ‘I have my needs too,’ she said.
It was easy to understand how Aleksandr had been tempted by her, even though any such emotion was lost to Yudin. The party had been given by the American ambassador in Petersburg. There had been no problem for Yudin in procuring an invitation for Raisa. It wasn’t certain that she’d be able to get anywhere near the tsarevich, but she’d clearly proved her abilities. That little vial of blood was the result. He slipped it into a drawer of his desk.