The Ocean of Time

by David Wingrove

  ‘Is Krylenko here?’

  ‘He’s moored about a mile upstream, with his sons. They have an encampment there.’

  ‘Ah. And the cart?’

  He looks past me and gives a little shrug. ‘It’ll be okay there until Krylenko comes. I’ll get one of the youngsters to look after it. But Meister, please …’

  He puts a hand out, welcoming me on-board. I help Katerina get in, then wait patiently as the old man and the boy clamber aboard before I finally join her in the stern.

  ‘You’ve had a safe journey, I hope,’ the boatman asks, turning his head to grin at me again, even as he pushes away from the bank and, digging his short paddle steeply into the water, begins to turn the boat’s prow against the current.

  ‘Yes, thanks to our guide here.’

  ‘Old Mesyats knows every tree in the forest. Yes, but he loves to talk, eh? He could talk my mother-in-law to death and that’s the truth!’

  It is, and I laugh for the first time in days, and old Mesyats, seeing the funny side of it, laughs too, and so we arrive in Velizh in the best of moods, even as the sun finally breaches the cloud cover and lights up the afternoon, blazing on the river’s surface.

  Russia … how beautiful it sometimes is.

  167

  Krylenko, when he finally arrives, proves as dour and unhelpful as he could possibly be. He refuses to take me upriver, and will only take me to Surazh, to the south-west, which is in completely the wrong direction. I object strongly, and remind him of the advance Ernst paid him, and of his handshake on the deal, but Krylenko is unmoved. He looks at me from under his heavily hooded eyes and shrugs.

  ‘My wife is with child,’ he says. ‘If I leave her for so long …’ And he shrugs again, as if I’m to take it or leave it.

  I begin to wonder if this is yet another attempt to squeeze more money from me, the foreigner, the Nemets. Nor, I know, is it any good me flashing the tysiatskii’s pass at him. We are two full weeks from Novgorod and these people are not afraid to snub their noses at the good commander, no, nor kill his tax collectors if they become too persistent. In the end, I bite the bullet and offer to pay the man an extra six dirhams, but even this seems to have no effect.

  ‘I’ll take you to Surazh,’ he says. ‘You’ll get another boat from there. Someone mad enough to go into the marshes.’

  I fall quiet, understanding. Krylenko is afraid. Where the River Mezha turns south towards Zarkovsji, it runs through extensive marshlands, home to river pirates and bandits.

  I say nothing more. Surazh it is, then, and a week lost at the very least.

  His sons, when they arrive, are carbon copies of their father and every bit as surly, and in transporting the cart and its load across the water, I have to tell them more than once to stop poking at the parcels stacked on-board the sled. For the first time on this journey I feel I am among dishonest men, and come to a decision.

  At Surazh I shall have them. All five of them, if needs be. But I don’t tell Katerina what I’m thinking. I tell her calmly that there’s been a change of plan and when she queries it, I tell her it’s for the best. And maybe it is, for to travel into bandit territory with such men might prove disastrous.

  Even so, I am angry at the delay. Surazh is a good day and a half’s journey downstream, and Krylenko will not leave until tomorrow. And if I cannot find a boat to hire at Surazh …

  I feel like forcing him to stick to his agreement – to make him take me – only the practicalities of that are insurmountable; at best it’s an eight-day journey to Belyj on the River Obsca, our final destination, and I can’t imagine how I’d make him take me, short of holding a gun to his head and then keeping awake for eight whole nights.

  No. It has to be Surazh. But he’ll not get away with this.

  That night I sleep on the cart, Katerina on a pallet underneath. And it’s a good job I do, for in the early hours someone sneaks up and, not noticing me there, tries to take something from the sled. I am awake and on them in an instant, beating them off with my stave. They run away, whimpering, into the trees. In the dark I’m not sure who it was, but one thing’s for sure: they’ll have the bruises to show.

  Krylenko is twice as surly when he finally arrives, an hour after noon, and I note that only three of his sons are with him. The fourth is conspicuously absent.

  They lift the cart on to their boat – a flat-bottomed strug – then, letting us settle in the stern, push off into the current.

  There’s little talk. Krylenko is content to mutter instructions now and then to one or another of his sons. Taking his lead, they try their best to pretend we’re not there, and even when Katerina needs to stop to answer nature’s call, Krylenko makes as if he hasn’t heard my request to pull the boat over to the bank. It’s only when I make my way forward and, grabbing his arm, turn him round and speak roughly into his face that he acknowledges me.

  He makes some comment under his breath and his sons laugh. But it doesn’t matter. I’ll have the bastard, see if I don’t.

  While Katerina is among the trees, I stand there in the boat, looking from one of them to another, defying them to look her way. She’s not long, and when she climbs aboard again, Krylenko makes another of his under-his-breath comments, making his sons roar with laughter.

  I hear part of it this time; something about ‘the Nemets’ slut’.

  This time it’s just too much.

  ‘Krylenko, why are you such a pig?’

  He half turns and looks at me lazily. ‘I merely speak the truth,’ he says. ‘My wife, she’s a bitch, and my daughters and my daughters-in-law cows, all of them!’

  His sons laugh and nod their heads.

  Krylenko is smiling now, an ugly, sneering smile. ‘Women are good for three things only. Fucking, cooking and beating.’

  ‘You think I should beat my wife, then, Krylenko?’

  He nods slowly. ‘You should beat her while you fuck her.’

  His sons are giggling now, tears streaming from their eyes. I look from one to the other and wonder what I’d do if things got out of hand. The Kolbe is in my pack, easy to reach, and I could shoot them dead before they knew what was happening. Only then I’d have to explain to Katerina what the Kolbe was, and why it wasn’t magic.

  We’re barely halfway there when Krylenko calls it a day and moors the boat. It’s clearly a spot he knows well and that’s used by the river-men, for the edge of the forest here has been cleared and there’s evidence of many fires. The boat secured, we make camp.

  Krylenko tries every means to coax us ashore, and I know then for a certainty that he was hoping that we’d leave the cart unguarded on-board, and that had we camped onshore, he and his sons would have been away just as soon as they heard us snoring.

  As it is, I have a restless night, waking several times and starting up. On one occasion I notice Krylenko, seated by the fire, whittling a piece of wood and staring sullenly across at me, as if planning the best way of outwitting me.

  With the morning my spirits rise. It’s a bright, warm day and we will we be rid of the odious Krylenko by that afternoon.

  There’s a brooding silence as we set off on the last stage of our journey down to Surazh, and I begin to wonder if they haven’t concocted some scheme after all.

  I’d not put it past them to try to murder us and dump the bodies, then share out our goods, but as the hours pass and they make no move, so I relax. Besides, if Krylenko wanted to murder us and steal our goods, why not do it on the journey north, where the river traffic is less, rather than on this busier, southern stretch of the Mezha?

  Cowardice, that’s why. Simple cowardice.

  Surazh heaves into view just after noon, with the sun beating down from directly overhead. It’s the hottest day yet, and it appears that the rain that has swept across the land further north has left Surazh unscathed, for the earth between the ramshackle wooden houses is bare and dry with not a blade of grass to be seen. Even the trees – birch and cedar for the main part – seem
to wilt in the excessive heat.

  Surazh is a proper town, not just a trading post, and as we drift in towards the main jetty, I note a dozen or more vessels tied up against the shore. Beyond the makeshift harbour, formed by a wide sweep of the river, lies the town itself, a sprawl of two or three hundred houses, set within a wooden palisade, and – that rarity out here in the wilds – a stone-built church, complete with a bright blue cupola. Seeing it, Katerina looks to me. It is two weeks now since her last confession.

  ‘Okay. But don’t be long. If I can find someone who’ll take us, it would be good to set out at once.’

  She understands and, even as we tie up, jumps onshore and, without so much as a glance back, hurries across to the shadowed doorway of the church, a crowd of curious locals watching her go.

  Which leaves me with Krylenko and his sons.

  Krylenko is sitting there, in the very centre of the boat, on a long worn, wooden bench, staring up at me with a kind of mocking smile.

  ‘Well,’ he says, lifting his head sneeringly. ‘We’ve brought you here.’

  ‘So you have.’

  There’s a moment’s silence. His sons look to one another, as if not quite sure what’s going to happen next. Krylenko wants paying, of course. The bastard actually wants paying for putting me to such inconvenience – yes, and on top of what Ernst’s already given him – but he’s going to have to ask.

  ‘Well?’ he says, a slight impatience in his voice. ‘You pay us and we’ll unload the cart. Otherwise …’

  Otherwise what? You’ll steal my cart? Take all my goods?

  I meet his eyes. ‘Unload it and I’ll pay you.’

  He laughs and looks away, then spits into the river to his right. ‘You pay me. Then we unload.’

  I’m conscious of exactly where each of his sons is standing. In the last few hours I’ve watched them, noting how each one moves, attempting to gauge which of them I’d need to deal with first, for there’s always a best way of handling these situations, and these fellows always look to one of their number for their lead.

  Thus I’m acutely conscious of how Krylenko’s eldest straightens and turns slightly to face me. Beneath me the boat gently sways. That’s another factor, and it’s the one that finally decides me.

  ‘Okay,’ I say, ‘here’s the deal. Half now, half when the cart’s onshore.’

  Krylenko grins. ‘Done.’

  I dig three coins out of my leather purse, and hand them across, then, as the eldest holds the boat still, climb up on to the jetty.

  If he wanted, Krylenko could cast off and sail away with my cart and all my goods, only perhaps there are too many witnesses and even he knows he needs a reason – a refusal to pay, maybe – before he could get away with that and not be called a thief. Besides, he’s got what he wanted, an extra six dirhams, and for what?

  For being an arsehole and breaking his word.

  I watch them untie the wheels of the cart, then lift it carefully onshore. Krylenko, meanwhile, has not moved. He still sits there, picking at his teeth and watching me.

  It’s his eldest now who puts his hand out, asking for the remainder of the money.

  I smile and shake my head. ‘Go fuck yourself.’

  It’s like he doesn’t hear me properly. Either that or he can’t believe I’ve just said that. ‘What?’ he says. Then, a moment later, ‘What?’

  ‘I said—’

  But I don’t have to repeat it. Finally, it’s sunk in, and as it does, he growls and takes a swing at me.

  I parry it easily, then watch his face crumple with pain as I knee him in the balls. He goes down on to his knees with a grunt.

  The other two are slow to follow up, and the youngest is on his back before he knows what happened, gasping for breath where I’ve punched him in the throat. The last of them yelps and makes to leap on to the boat, only I kick his legs out from under him and he falls between the boat and the jetty with a startled cry and a loud splash.

  Krylenko is on his feet now, his eyes wide and frightened. He thinks I’m coming after him, and, taking a step backward, he tumbles awkwardly over the bench seat. But I’m not going to sully my hands. Reaching down, I slip the knife from my belt and cut the mooring ropes, then heave the boat out with my foot.

  Slowly it drifts away, Krylenko’s second son, coughing and spluttering from his unexpected dip, trying to clamber on-board.

  The eldest son is behind me, wheezing, trying to get up off his knees and take another swing, but I’m not about to let him. Besides, I remember what his father said about Katerina, and how he laughed.

  I grab the collar of his smock and jerk him to his feet, then whirl him about and, with the help of the toe of my boot, launch him into the river after the boat.

  The youngest doesn’t wait for me to act. Still holding his throat, he throws himself into the water, surfacing a moment later with a spluttering gasp.

  It’s over, and barely a minute has passed. As I turn my back on them, I find a crowd of locals gathered at the top of the jetty, staring at me with a mixture of amusement and awe. It makes me realise that Krylenko must have a reputation for his double-dealing, for there’s nothing but admiration for what I’ve done, and when Katerina emerges from the church, she finds me at the centre of a crowd of townsfolk who want nothing so much as to pat my back and shake my hand and offer to buy me drinks at the dockside inn.

  ‘Otto? What’s going on? Where’s Krylenko?’

  ‘Gone,’ I say, recalling how he and his sons glared at me and shook their fists even as they rowed away.

  ‘You paid them?’

  ‘I paid them.’

  ‘Good. And the boat?’

  I’m about to answer that I haven’t yet hired a boat, when a stranger – a huge, dark-haired man with a long jet-black beard who’s been standing off a little way, watching me – speaks up.

  ‘If it’s the hire of a boat you want, then a boat you have.’

  He steps forward and, leaning down to my level, offers me a hand easily twice the size of my own. A veritable blacksmith’s hand. ‘Bakatin,’ he says. ‘Fyodor Mikhailovich Bakatin, and it’s an honour to meet you, Master …’

  ‘Behr,’ I say and take his hand. ‘Meister Otto Behr.’

  168

  Fyodor Bakatin proves to be not just a large man, but a man of large appetites. As we sit at a trestle table in the inn, I marvel at the amount of food he manages to eat, and begin to wonder if there is a boat big enough to carry the provisions it would require to feed such a man for the eight days we’ll be travelling.

  The cart is outside, within sight, but to ensure its safety Bakatin has had his sons guard it, in his words, ‘against the thieving fingers of the locals’.

  Bakatin has three sons, though I’d not have guessed they were his, had he not told me so. The eldest is long and lanky with a squint and a wispy beard, the middle son short and heavy, bordering on fat, with long, flaxen-blond hair and pale blue eyes. The youngest, however, is the oddest, with his light, athletic build, his bright red hair and green, cat-like eyes. A smooth-faced, handsome boy. Far too handsome to have come from Bakatin’s loins, or so it seems.

  While we wait for more wine to be brought, I ask him how it is they don’t resemble each other. Bakatin laughs. ‘That comes, I guess, from them having different mothers.’ He grins. ‘I have three wives.’

  Katerina giggles and I nudge her.

  ‘Oh, it annoys the priest, but what of that? I’m a good husband and a good father, and besides, the church does well out of me. Some around here are mealy-mouthed. They give lip-service to the faith, but I –’ he taps his chest expressively ‘– I, Bakatin, give money. I understand the value of religion.’

  ‘And our journey, Fyodor,’ I say, trying to bring him back to what we were discussing earlier. ‘Are you not afraid of the marshes?’

  ‘Afraid?’ Bakatin throws out his great chest proudly. ‘Show me the man of whom Fyodor Mikhailovich Bakatin is afraid and I will show you Satan himsel
f!’

  At which he roars with laughter, then finishes his wine and bellows at the serving girl to move her pretty little arse and get some more wine over to our table at once.

  Beside me, Katerina giggles, enjoying Bakatin’s company, loving his larger-than-life outrageousness, his Russianness. She’s captivated, and when I say he has a deal, and that I’m happy to sail with him, she squeezes my right hand under the table and turns her head to grin at me.

  ‘You’ll not regret it,’ Bakatin says, nodding to himself. ‘Though I say it myself, there’s no one knows this stretch of river better than Bakatin. Ask anyone, they’ll tell you. As for Krylenko …’ Bakatin leans to one side and spits, showily, as if on Krylenko’s grave. ‘Krylenko,’ he continues, ‘is a liar and a bully and a coward and a sneak-thief and you, Otto, are my friend until the Day of Judgement itself for what you did today. Glorious, it was. Simply glorious!’

  At that moment the girl arrives with two fresh jugs of wine, and Bakatin seizes one and pours the rich red liquid into our goblets, the wine splashing everywhere. Then, slamming the jug down and lifting his goblet, he stands and makes a toast.

  ‘To adventure! And to my dear new friends, Otto and Katerina!’

  169

  I would have happily left that night, travelling in the dark, only a sore head prevented it. Katerina alone of our little party was sober when we called it a night, and it is late morning before we finally set off, the cart nestled in the hold of Bakatin’s surprisingly large boat. It’s an ushkui, not unlike the one we travelled down from Lake Ilmen on, though smaller. Even so, it’s big enough to make me concerned whether Bakatin and his sons can row such a vessel, loaded as it is not only with us and our cart, but with all manner of goods Bakatin is transporting for other clients.

  But Bakatin and his sons prove to be as strong as oxen when it comes to rowing, and whenever the wind blows in our favour – which it does often on that first day – he puts up a great sheet of a sail and, leaving it to the youngest, ships oars and rests, taking the chance to engage Katerina and me in conversation.