The Last Rite (Danilov Quintet 5)

by Jasper Kent

  ‘This was your mother’s,’ he said.

  I nodded.

  ‘We had one each,’ he continued, ‘me, Tamara and … Iuda. It was me who thought of it. It would be ironic, wouldn’t it, if it was this that did for me in the end?’ He handed it back to me. ‘Let’s make sure that doesn’t happen,’ he concluded.

  I took the cap from my pocket and placed it back over the tip. It was a symbolic gesture, but I would make him no promise. We shook hands and I departed, walking between the headstones as I tried to find a route to the road. Then one last question occurred to me. I turned back to see him still standing there, watching me.

  I spoke loudly, so that he could hear me across the graves. ‘You said we shouldn’t ask the people to sacrifice their lives.’ He nodded. ‘What about you?’ I asked. ‘Would you lay down your life for the cause?’

  He paused for a moment, but I don’t think he needed to consider his answer. ‘I’ve known for a long time that I would. When I stood in Senate Square in 1825 it was pure chance that I survived; many died around me. I thought I was the lucky one. But as I sat there, in that theatre in Paris, I knew that I was wrong. There’s a story to The Rite of Spring. It’s supposed to be based on a Russian folk tale, but you know how these things are – made up to suit the circumstances. But it rang true for me.’

  ‘What happens?’ I asked.

  ‘In the second part, there’s a group of young girls on the stage. They walk in circles until one of them is selected. She’s the “Chosen One”.’

  ‘Chosen for what?’

  ‘To dance.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  Dmitry gave half a smile. ‘Yes, that’s all. She dances. And she dances and dances, until she can dance no more. She dances, beyond exhaustion, until she is dead.’

  I felt the urge to snigger, but resisted it. It clearly meant everything to Dmitry. He had one more thing to add by way of explanation.

  ‘She does the one thing she is capable of – she dances – dances herself to death. And I’m prepared to do the same. I don’t want to die, but I’ll be happy to if I must. I used to be a soldier and now I am a vampire. There’s one ability that those two have in common and that is to shed blood – to kill. And you know as well as I do that blood will have to be shed for this revolution to succeed. And I’m prepared to do it – to kill and going on killing – either until this revolution is complete, or until I am dead.’

  It was the small hours of the morning by the time I got home. It was a long walk and I took it slowly, contemplating what Dmitry had said, and whether I should trust him – whether, indeed, I needed to. Could a vampire really be a patriot? Could a vampire be interested in anything other than the lust for blood?

  The answer was simple – yes. Iuda was a vampire and had been interested in more, as had Zmyeevich. In both those cases their other interests had been in directions just as foul, if not fouler, than the desire to feed. Iuda’s fascination was to learn, learn by experimenting on his own kind; Zmyeevich’s yearning had been for power. But if Iuda was a worse kind of vampire then it was conceivable that Dmitry was a better kind. And if I were to consider what I knew of how they had been in life, then it made some sense that Dmitry would carry forward the traits he already possessed. And yet it was as a living man that he had chosen to become a voordalak. True, he had been tricked into it by Iuda, made to believe he was acting out of love – to be with the woman he loved – but the very idea should have been abhorrent to him. I would not have been so easily duped – neither would Aleksei.

  It was an unnecessary dilemma. I would judge Dmitry by his actions. We had arranged to meet again that evening and I’d go through with the meeting and decide then what to do.

  I skirted round the city to the east. This far from the centre all was quiet and still. It was only when I hit Nevsky Prospekt and walked in the direction of the Fontanka that anything unusual became evident. The bonfires were still burning to keep the crowds warm, though most were asleep now. I noticed a few men standing alert and on guard, ready if the government forces chose this moment to strike, but there was no sign that they would. In more than one doorway I saw couples copulating. Whether the act was voluntary, forced or paid for I did not know, nor just then did I care. I doubted my help would be welcomed any more than it had been by the girl I’d seen with Ilya, and the fate of these women would be nothing to what had befallen her.

  There was still a formidable picket at the Anichkov Bridge, but I had no need to cross. I followed the course of the river and was soon home. I tried to unlock the door without a sound, knowing that Syeva would be up to welcome me if he heard. I managed without disturbing him. On the first-floor landing I noticed a light glowing under one of the doors. We hadn’t used any of the rooms on that floor for years, but this one had been a bedroom. I went over and tried the handle, but it was locked, just as it should have been. The keys were downstairs somewhere, but it would mean waking Syeva and anyway, I was too tired.

  I carried on up to our bedroom and went inside. I could hear Nadya’s soft breathing. I heard Polkan’s feet crossing the floor and felt his nose sniffing my hand. Once he had verified that it was only me he returned to his place beside the bed. I undressed and slipped in beside Nadya.

  I woke up alone. I could see daylight glowing at the curtained window. I looked at my watch – it was after eight. I shaved and dressed quickly and then went out into the hall. Nadya was not in the dining room, but we rarely chose to have breakfast there. I went downstairs and found her in the kitchen, along with Syeva and Polkan. I went over and kissed her.

  ‘You got in late,’ she said.

  I sat opposite her. I had hidden nothing of my life from her. I knew that neither the name nor the nature of Dmitry Alekseevich would be a surprise to her, but I didn’t want to tell her I’d seen him again; not just now. Syeva placed a glass of tea in front of me. It wasn’t hot – it cost too much fuel to keep the samovar warm all the time. I took a sip while I decided what to say.

  ‘I was at the Duma. Nikolai wants us to disband.’

  ‘You’re not going to, I hope.’

  ‘I won’t vote for it. I don’t think many will.’

  We sat in silence. Eventually Nadya spoke. ‘Do you think it will be over soon?’

  I wondered what she meant by ‘over’. There were some who thought the French Revolution was still to be resolved. ‘I think things will have settled down within a week, one way or the other.’

  ‘People can’t stand much more.’ There was an edge to her voice. She wasn’t far from tears. ‘I was out there yesterday. There are families starving. And freezing.’

  I reached across the table and squeezed her fingers. ‘That won’t be going away – not quickly. That’s the war as much as the tsar.’

  She stroked the back of my hand. ‘We should do something.’

  ‘We are. I am at the Duma. You are at the kitchen.’ I downed my tea and then stood up. ‘In fact, I have to go there now.’

  She exchanged a glance with Syeva.

  ‘I meant more than that. I was thinking. We’ve got spare rooms here, plenty of them. Perhaps we could take people in – just a few. The ones who really need it.’

  We’d discussed it before, but things hadn’t been so urgent then. The objection was still the same. ‘It’s not the rooms, Nadya, it’s the food. We’ve barely enough to manage ourselves.’

  ‘That’s no excuse; we could easily work something out – make sure they knew they had to buy their own, or I could arrange something with the kitchen. And rationing’s supposed to start on Wednesday.’

  I looked into her eyes. I knew she was right. However much I loved to talk at the Duma about the plight of the poor, she was the one who actually faced them every day. And if we let out some of the rooms here, it would still be she and Syeva who dealt with them. But I wasn’t going to rush into it.

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ I said. ‘I’ll tell you this evening.’

  I kissed her and quickly
left the house.

  *

  The Duma had grown used to its own impotence. Nikolai had given us no power except the ability to talk, and so talk we did. Lvov made a fine speech, as did Kerensky and then a dozen others afterwards. I said nothing. There was no need. It was obvious from the first that we weren’t going to obey the tsar and dissolve ourselves, but other than that there was little we could do beyond awaiting events. But the talking made our position clear – if we were in session then indisputably we still existed.

  My mind was elsewhere: on Dmitry. We’d arranged to meet at half past nine, but the minutes ticked by slowly. I thought back to what Nadya had spoken of that morning. Suddenly it all made sense. She’d asked whether we would take in the homeless, but she was asking in retrospect. I remembered the light I’d seen under the door as I came home, and the look she had exchanged with Syeva that morning. She’d already found some waif and offered them our empty room. It mattered little. I’d already decided I’d agree to what she wanted.

  We broke for lunch and I went back out to discover the mood in the city. Everywhere was crowded now. It was Monday, a working day and therefore a striking day. Yesterday the options had been to come out on the streets or to stay at home. Today the alternative to protest was to go to work. For most it was no choice at all.

  But it wasn’t just strikers; there were more soldiers out today too. Evidently someone had finally understood the seriousness of the situation and organized a full defence of the city. There were troops at every junction now, and the bridges were better defended. I could only presume it was the same across the city. But it was a double-edged sword. True, there were more soldiers on the streets, but what was just as evident was more uniforms amongst the protesting crowds. At the foot of the Liteiny Bridge I saw more than twenty men steal away from the picket, slip off their caps and join the crowd that moments before they had been facing. And with every man came a rifle. In the initial turmoil of revolution, the protestors had been poorly armed, but with each day, with each desertion, they became more of a force to be reckoned with.

  At first I didn’t see any shooting, but the sound of gunfire could be heard across the city. Usually the sporadic sound of a rifle, but occasionally the harsh, rapid pulse of a machine gun. It seemed more likely that such weapons were on the side of His Majesty, but I couldn’t be sure. Whenever I looked at the expressions of the frightened soldiers who stood facing their own countrymen, rifles raised, the less I believed that they would be prepared to fire when the order came. I wasn’t even sure that their officers would give the order, though I knew some would. Just as Colonel Isayev had said – was it only the previous day? – some of them had too much to lose to allow the tsar to fall.

  It wasn’t just crowds on the streets either. There were more cars and trucks than I’d seen on Sunday, though I doubted the drivers were very familiar with the workings of their vehicles, certainly not those of the automobiles. The motor car was a luxury item. Few people who owned a carriage would ever dream of sitting on the perch themselves and taking the horses’ reins. Similarly the owners of a car would employ someone else to drive it for them – and call him by the French term ‘chauffeur’ to add a little class to his role. Now these same vehicles were being driven by striking workers. The trucks might well be driven by those who sat at the wheel as a part of their job, but there were enough inexperienced hands controlling the cars to bring an added danger to the city.

  And both cars and trucks were horribly overloaded. The only ticket that seemed to be required to get on board was to be in possession of a gun, and so vehicles roamed the streets in imitation of giant hedgehogs, bristling with the muzzles of rifles, sometimes with bayonets fixed. If two or three of them could get organized enough to make a joint charge on one of the soldiers’ lines then they would easily break through. This was a very different revolution from the one in which a little girl offered a bouquet of roses to a Cossack captain.

  I went back to the Tavricheskiy Palace. Nekrasov accosted me almost as soon as I entered the chamber.

  ‘Have you heard?’ he asked. He didn’t wait for an answer. ‘They’ve ordered troops back from the Front. General Khabolov is leading them.’

  ‘When will they be here?’ I asked.

  ‘Tomorrow? The day after? At the very least it will restore some order.’

  ‘I doubt that. There’s plenty of troops out there already. The problem is that they’re going over to the other side in droves. If you see that as a problem.’

  ‘However this ends, order has to be maintained.’ Milyukov, the founder and leader of our party, had come to join us.

  ‘How can there be order?’ I asked. ‘There’s no one in charge.’

  ‘His Majesty is on his way back now, by train.’

  ‘Back here?’ I was astounded.

  ‘To Tsarskoye Selo,’ Milyukov explained. It just showed how little Nikolai understood. Tsarskoye Selo was the tsar’s out-of-town retreat and had been for centuries. It was thirty versts from Petrograd. It was the perfect symbol of Nikolai’s isolation from the people.

  ‘Does he have any idea what’s going on here?’ asked Nekrasov. ‘They’ve started throwing open the prisons.’

  ‘Who has?’ I asked.

  ‘The mob. This morning they burned down the Lithuanian Castle and I’ve just heard they’ve torn open the doors of the Kresty.’

  Milyukov emitted a curt laugh. He’d been an inmate of the Kresty Prison for a while, as had many others in the Duma. It was a fate I’d been lucky enough to avoid, so far.

  Nekrasov clearly understood what he meant, but had other concerns. ‘It’s not just politicals that they’re letting out, though, is it? There’s common criminals too.’

  ‘It’s going to be pandemonium out there,’ I said. ‘The police and the army are dealing with the crowds – those that haven’t gone over to them. And there are more guns out there than there are in the trenches. If this doesn’t stop, the city will tear itself apart.’

  ‘Leaving it ready for the Germans to march right on in,’ said Nekrasov grimly. ‘Much easier than fighting their way here like men.’

  ‘I’ve heard they’ve got their own agents out there,’ I said, ‘acting as agitators.’

  ‘I know for a fact they’ve been funding the Bolsheviks for years,’ said Milyukov.

  ‘Even so,’ I said, ‘it isn’t just down to the Germans.’

  Nekrasov seemed distracted. He was looking over my shoulder, across the Convention Hall. Quite a crowd had assembled at several of the doors, looking out into the corridor. We went over. ‘What’s happening?’ asked Milyukov.

  I didn’t know the man who replied. ‘They’ve let them out of the Peter and Paul. They’ve all come here.’

  ‘Who was in there?’ I asked.

  ‘A load of Mensheviks they arrested last month,’ said Milyukov. ‘The Central Workers’ Group, or something. But why have they come here?’

  It was better that they were Mensheviks than Bolsheviks, but only marginally. The two socialist factions had split as long ago as 1904 over the question of whether the revolution – when it inevitably came – would be led by a broad party membership or by a professional elite. Neither was exactly a vision of democracy, but the Menshevik idea of widespread support was closer – and it looked as though it was their version of revolution that was coming to pass.

  I shouldered my way through the crowd and was eventually out in the corridor. There were hundreds out there, some of them, like me, members of the Duma, but others were pouring into the building. No one seemed to have the remotest interest in the Convention Hall. Instead their goal was in the opposite wing of the building. I went with the flow, but we soon came to a halt outside Meeting Room 12 of the palace as the throng tried to squeeze itself through the doorway. There was little chance that half of those trying would fit in.

  I felt a hand on my shoulder, pulling me to one side. I turned. It was the Bolshevik Yelena Dmitrievna. ‘I wouldn’t bother,’ she sai
d.

  We stood tight against the wall, allowing the crowd to heave past us. ‘What’s going on?’ I asked.

  ‘They’ve had an election. They’re forming a council: “The Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies”.’

  It was a common enough word, one that had been used for centuries to mean all kinds of committees and assemblies. During the revolution of ’05 they’d formed all over the country, soon to be put down again. But there was something about the way Yelena said ‘soviet’ that imparted to the word a significance it had not held before.

  ‘On what authority?’ I asked. ‘Who do they represent?’

  She nodded towards the window opposite. ‘Haven’t you been out there? What authority is there other than that? They represent workers and soldiers. They are workers and soldiers.’

  ‘Do they intend to rival the Duma?’

  ‘I don’t think they know what they intend.’ She smiled. ‘But that will change. The Duma’s had its chance. See where you’ve brought us to?’

  She was right, but it wasn’t too late. And Milyukov had been right too: there had to be order. I couldn’t see how the tsar could survive for long now, but there would be a struggle for power once he fell. For my part I knew I’d prefer it to be the Duma rather than this Soviet that was in the ascendant. The Soviet had been elected by the workers, and the workers wanted revenge.

  I turned away from Yelena and began to push my way against the tide, trying to make it back to the Convention Hall. I heard her voice shouting behind me, crowing. ‘Your friend Kerensky knows which way the wind is blowing. He’s joined them.’

  I didn’t bother to find out more. It took me a full ten minutes to get back to the Convention Hall. The place was in uproar. I found Milyukov again. ‘You’ve heard what’s happening?’ I asked him.