Svetov pauses, almost theatrically, I think, then looks at me, his whole demeanour changed. ‘You see … It has already begun. In the last hour alone, twelve agents have died. Five of ours, and seven of theirs. And why? Because they recognise where our greatest weakness lies. Not with the platforms, but with the one I’d have you all call Meister. With Otto here …’
I expect there to be turmoil, only the mood around the table now is subdued. Every eye is on me, as if to judge my response.
‘I mean,’ he continues, ‘that new information has reached us.’
‘Information?’
‘As to their strategy.’
Svetov needs to say no more. I understand.
‘They mean to kill me, yes?’
Svetov nods.
‘And that’s the whole of it, right? No other plan than that?’
Svetov hesitates, then nods.
‘And have they succeeded?’
‘Not yet … but things are changing. Even as we speak, news is coming from Up River. It seems they’re sending in teams to try to track you down.’
‘So what’s our answer? To surround me with agents?’
‘We’re doing that already.’
‘And that’s the all of it? The sum total of their strategy?’
‘As far as we can make out. New information is coming through all the time, and some of it is … well, hazy to say the least. But one thing’s clear. They mean not to stop until you’re dead.’
‘Then let them come.’
There’s a rumble of disagreement from about the table, but I raise my voice and all there fall silent once more.
‘No, really: let them come. What easier course is there? I meant to track them down, one by one, but if this is true … well, then, they’ll come to me.’
Like lambs to the slaughter. Only I don’t say that. There are still some here, even at this gathering, who still find it hard to see the renegades as their natural enemies. They’ve worked alongside these people far too long to find any of this natural.
But so revolutions are.
340
When we next take a break, I take Svetov aside and ask him what I’ve wanted to ask him since his first mention of it.
‘You spoke of Cherdiechnost …’
‘You want to go there?’
His words shock me. ‘Can I?’
‘Of course. The only question is … when?’
I stare at the big man, and find myself full of questions. But only one is of any real importance.
‘Will she be there?’
His dark eyes are smiling now. ‘She will.’
‘Then …’
‘Come,’ he says simply, taking my arm, and in an instant we are there.
Cherdiechnost … So like the paradise I’d pictured in my dreams and memories, that, seeing it again, I almost break down crying. For this is home.
Even so, I don’t properly understand it. Svetov is a Russian, after all, and up until a day or so ago, he was my enemy. So why does this exist? Why, if they knew of it, did they allow it to remain unscathed?
I turn to face him. ‘I don’t understand. You knew of this, and yet …’
‘We had agents there. Trailing you and Ernst. Keeping watch on you. Reporting back to the veche. To start with we let things be. Then there was all that business with the small man … Kravchuk.’
Hearing that name I bristle. ‘You saw all that?’
‘Barely any of it. But your behaviour, Otto. It shocked us. Most of us, that is. But several of us were intrigued. And so we let things go. Saw how they developed. And then you made this.’
And Svetov gestures, his arms encompassing the whole of the estate, bathed as it is in the afternoon sunlight.
‘It’s beautiful, neh?’ I say quietly, in awe of what I’d made of this place. ‘Even so …’
Svetov laughs. ‘We protected it.’
‘You what?’
‘Yes. There were debates … heated debates … in our veche. Some wanted it destroyed, along with yourself, Otto. Others … the majority, in fact, wanted to protect it … while we could.’
‘But why? I was your enemy.’
‘Our enemy?’ Svetov laughs again and looks about him, his eyes drinking in the scene. ‘Why, I’ve never seen a man more thoroughly Russian than you, Otto. And your girls … they were so beautiful …’
I note that were. ‘I need to get them back,’ I say. ‘I need …’
Only he knows what I need. ‘You want to see them?’ he asks.
I am afraid even to nod, but my eyes say yes.
‘Then come. We can’t stay long. Not this time.’
341
I am there less than an hour, and in that brief time I do not get to meet with them. But they are there, and from our vantage point, hidden above one of the great barns, Svetov and I watch Katerina as she goes about her tasks, shepherding our baby girls as she makes her way here and there about the estate, organising everything in my absence, so beautiful she takes my breath.
And afterwards, back in Four-Oh, I sit there for a long while, in a daze at what I’ve done. For it is true. Our love was meant. Was the very means by which the great breach between the tribes was healed. My love for Katerina, it seems, is central to everything, even Time itself. Whether this was always so, or was the result of my meddling and rule-breaking, is no longer pertinent. So it is. And nothing, it seems, can change that.
Unless, that is, I die. Unless I cannot find them all and bring them back.
I return to the conference table, heartened by my brief vacation, understanding now just why this strangest of meetings came about.
All for a pair of eyes.
But, much as I’d like to, I cannot dwell on that right now. There’s much still to be done. And so we draft an agreement to close down all of our projects – Russian and German alike. All of those petty schemes to change each other’s history. All of those once-important ventures into Time, ended in an instant, at a show of hands.
And in its place? New to-be-formulated schemes. Better ways of doing things. Or so we hope.
We are about to wind things down when a messenger arrives. He bows before me and reports.
‘The rebels have made their move, Meister. We need to intervene.’
‘Where and when?’ I ask, half-anticipating what he’ll say.
Thirteenth-century Russia. On the way from Novgorod to Moscow.
I look to Svetov, who nods and hurries away, to organise a team of German and Russian agents to make sure we survive that journey, and to keep the rebels from capturing Katerina and me. Which I know they will. For all of this is in the loop. It will happen because it has already happened.
And, joining them, I find myself on the forest path to Sycevka once again, watching from a distance, as, in the valley below us, Lishka and his old horse and cart accompany Katerina and my former self across that heavily wooded terrain, making for Rzev, two weeks off.
It is strange, seeing my former self, and knowing what’s to come. The cesspit of a village that is Sycevka is only half a mile ahead of us now, on the southern shore of the lake, and it is near there – barely another mile further on – that we will be ambushed. There that we so nearly died.
Svetov stands close by, his hand raised to shield his eyes against the morning sunlight, even as our earlier selves hurry through the village and on.
‘Here,’ my Russian friend says, handing me a pair of high-powered field glasses. ‘Any moment now …’
And, even as he says it, so, through the glasses, I see myself go down, clutching the back of my bloodied head, where that little bastard with the slingshot has hit me. For a moment I lie there, stunned, then, giving a small, shrugging motion, begin to haul myself up. I look for Katerina with the glasses and find her, seeing how she ducks beneath the swipe of one of the attackers and plunges her knife deep into his guts.
And Lishka? I see him grin, laughing manically as his stave sweeps through the air and catches the axeman, tak
ing out the man’s teeth in a spray of blood and yellowed enamel.
But we are heavily outnumbered, and though I have already lived through this once, I still fear for us. What if they’ve altered the past just that tiniest amount? And what if that alteration means our deaths?
I watch my former self stand over the boy, even as he makes to load another rock, and catch him full in his face with his boot.
There, you little cunt!
But I am swaying now, close to collapse, and as I turn, so Katerina cries out – as I knew she would – and feel my heart ripped from me a second time as some bastard sticks her once, then once again with his knife.
Svetov grabs my arm, stops me hurling myself down the slope to help them, hissing the words into my ear.
‘No, Otto! This must be.’
And as I look back, so I see how I lift the axe and, bellowing with anger and pain, bury it in the bastard’s forehead, almost splitting the fucker’s skull in two.
The others flee, the four of them running for their lives.
Just as before, I think, and hand the glasses back. And jump – out and back again, only later – to look on from a distance once again, as my past self tends to my Katerina, making her well again.
And between those two moments? A battle, of sorts, with Svetov and I and twenty other men fighting off the Polovtsy, who, had we not been there, would have come this time and finished the job. Only we ambushed them this time, taking no prisoners.
Svetov stays with me a while, taking in the scene in the cave’s mouth, watching as Otto builds the sled that will be used to carry Katerina, then seeing him go to the medical box and swallow several of the yellow pills that will give him the strength and energy for the journey to Rzev. All as before.
And then I am alone, Svetov gone, watching as the dark Russian night falls and the heroic Lishka makes up a fire. And in that fire’s glow, I feast on the sight of her, alive, thank Urd, alive, her long, dark hair shimmering with warm tints of gold.
And, sitting there, knowing that my former self will see me before the night is out, I smile, knowing the worst is now behind us. All roads to this point are guarded now. Small squads have been posted ahead and behind in Time, our scouts moving like silent shadows among the trees, making sure that we are safe.
342
Four-Oh is buzzing with the news when I return. There has been a battle – one further battle, after the one we won. And indeed, we won this one – if we can call such a pyrrhic victory a success of any kind.
‘What happened?’ I ask Svetov, who was involved in the tail end of the fighting.
‘Shafarevich happened,’ he answers. ‘And a crack team of renegade Russians with advanced weaponry.’
‘Advanced? How advanced?’
‘Like … twenty, maybe thirty years up the line?’
I register what that means.
‘Shit!’
‘Yes. We out-numbered them three to one. Even so …’ He sighs. ‘I’ve nine men missing, Otto. Presumed dead. And word of it has got out. The platforms are buzzing with it.’
‘Where was this?’
‘The fight? In Baturin.’
‘Let me guess. The thirteenth of November 1708?’
Svetov nods. It’s the day the Russians burned the Cossack town to the ground, killing thousands. The same day Reichenau has been sniffing about in.
‘I see. But it’s over, yes?’
‘Not yet. One of the rebels is still holed up inside a house at the edge of town.’
‘On his own?’
‘Yes.’
‘Not possible,’ I say. ‘Why can’t we take him?’
‘We think it’s Shafarevich himself.’
‘You think?’
‘Who else could it be?’
Kolya, I think. But I don’t say it.
‘Okay,’ I say. ‘Find out what you can, then report back.’
‘And you, Otto?’
I smile. ‘Right now I’ve an appointment with myself.’
And jump …
343
To the cave, somewhere north of Sycevka, where, knowing that my travellers won’t wake, I stand over them a while, then gently stoop, kissing Katerina’s pale cheek, feeling such love for her at that moment as might fill whole worlds.
Alive, Urd be thanked.
It is a cold night – winter is coming – but the cave is warmed by the dying embers of the fire Lishka built up earlier. Lishka himself is sprawled nearby, exhausted after the fight.
I look again at my beloved, seeing the bloodstains on her dress, and lift the cloth gently, studying the slightly swollen wound, wincing at the sight; noting how that bastard’s knife just missed the child within her.
And let the cloth fall.
I stand, looking about me at the cart, the horse, the three sleeping figures. I can see from the way they lie there just how much the fight took out of them. It was a minor miracle that they survived at all first time round. But all is well, now that I’m here.
Stepping back, taking in my last sight of her for what I know will be some while, I back away, walking round behind the resting horse. Because this is what happened last time.
I hear my past self wake, groaning softly as he sits up and looks about him.
And jump out again, jumping back in where I know I’ve stood before, fifty metres distant, staring back at myself as my other self sits there on a rock, keeping guard at the cave’s mouth.
Fulfilling the loop. Because there’s no alternative. Day by day, I realise, the loop grows stronger, channelling us. Making us do things that we’d much rather not do. Because we must. For without this – without following this predetermined path – all is lost.
And there and then it comes to me. Kolya knows this. And yet he leaves it be. Why? Or is he too trapped within this loop? Is he, too, waiting for the moment when action can be taken? I’ve no clear answer yet, but I shall find out.
The night draws on. I shiver and pull my cloak about me against the cold, remembering how I’ve spent this night before, staring back into the darkness of the cave’s mouth, the shadow of what lies ahead – of Krasnogorsk and those two corpses on the cart – souring my mood, its dark memory poisoning my thoughts.
Time alone will solve these riddles.
344
Morning sees me back at Four-Oh, on the platform, preparing to jump back into Baturin as Svetov debriefs me.
‘It’s Shafarevich all right. Moscow Central have confirmed it. They’ve been tracking him these past few hours.’
‘D’you think we can talk him round?’
Svetov narrows his eyes. ‘You want to? I mean … if he’s betrayed us once …’
‘It’s a risk, I know, but … is there really no other solution? Do we have to kill them all?’
Svetov looks away, clearly discomfited by the thought.
I shake my head. ‘The idea of peace … it frightens them. But if we can show them that it works …’
‘And just how do we go about that? No, Otto. For once our hands are tied. They’ll fight us to the last. You know they will. And we’ve no alternative. We must hunt them down and kill them. Without mercy. To make the future safe.’
I want to argue, but it’s true. Leave but a single one of them out there in Time and it could jeopardise our whole venture.
‘So what’s the plan?’
‘For Shafarevich? We go in mob-handed. Thirty agents, armed to the teeth. We catch him, chain him, bring him back.’
‘Back?’
‘For the trial.’
It’s the first time the possibility has been raised, and I’m not sure I’m keen on the idea. It seems somehow too liberal a way of doing things. But isn’t that what this whole experiment is about? Doing things differently? Adopting new ways?
‘You’ve discussed this?’ I ask.
‘Not yet, but we shall. This afternoon, I believe.’
‘And Shafarevich … he’s to be the first to be tried?’
‘If we take
him.’
‘And if we find him guilty?’
‘Then we blow his head off.’
The way Svetov says it makes me think of show trials and Stalin, and there’s part of me that doesn’t want to get involved in any of that. If the man’s a traitor – and he is – then it’s best, surely, to deal with him in the field. Not to give him the slightest chance. Blow his head off the first moment that we can, before the bastard can get the slip on us again.
Only we’re a democracy now, it seems.
I meet Svetov’s eyes. ‘Are we ready to go in?’
Svetov listens to his earpiece a moment and then nods. ‘All set.’
And in we go.
And as we do, so, on a screen in Moscow Central, the trace on Shafarevich blinks out, even as three of our men jump into the room he was in just an instant before.
Standing in the room next door, I get the news ten seconds later.
‘Meister Otto … he’s gone!’
‘Gone? He can’t be gone. The focus—’
‘—vanished with him.’
While the rest of the men search the place physically, Svetov and I jump back to Moscow Central. There, we watch the on-screen memory of the event. How the trace was there one moment, and then – suddenly – was gone.
‘Like it was triggered,’ Svetov says.
‘Yes, but how? He didn’t come here, and, as far as we know, he didn’t go to Four-Oh.’
We send an agent through to check, but there’s no trace of him using Four-Oh.
‘Reichenau,’ I say. ‘It has to be.’
But how? No. It makes no sense. He’s gone. Our agents, coming back from searching where he was, confirm it.
‘Go back before, then …’
Only they’ve done that. He’s gone completely from that timeline, like he’s been erased. And I can’t see how Reichenau could have done that. Triggered? Yes, but how?
And, more to the point, why? To make us paranoid?
‘He’s joined them,’ Svetov says, pulling at his beard. ‘The bastard’s fucking joined them.’
And if he has?
I look to Svetov. ‘From now on we keep a five-man guard on each of the platforms. Three-hour shifts day and night till this is over.’
The Master of Time: Roads to Moscow: Book Three Page 8
