The Ocean of Time

by David Wingrove

They’re there, of course, for money. Tribute is the lifeblood of the great Mongol empire. And there’s an age-old balance to be made here, between what they can bleed out of the conquered Rus’ and what the Rus’ claim they’re able to pay. It’s this debate that I come into, being drawn at once by Nevsky into discussing just how poor the harvests have been these past three years. As if my word – as a Nemets and a trader – will confirm it.

  It isn’t true, of course, but I go along with it, understanding what he’s up to. And for a brief while I can almost see what Katerina means. There is a kind of charm about the prince. Yet the man is quite capable of the most outrageous lies. Oh, he lies for a purpose, there’s no doubt of that, only it makes me question everything else about him.

  Nevsky’s word, I know, isn’t worth shit.

  The debate finishes, still unresolved, the Mongol chieftain unhappy and growling to himself – words that his interpreter is careful not to translate. But we get the gist. Either we come up with a better offer or we’ll suffer the consequences.

  It makes me think – if only for that moment – that maybe I’m being too harsh on Nevsky. That maybe he’s only trying to do his best in a difficult situation. Only I know the truth. Prince Alexander likes power and riches, and he has an ego the size of a small moon. The situation is difficult, but this man milks it for all he’s worth – and the history books will call him a hero and a saint, whereas he’s little more than a glorified pirate, robbing his own people to pacify the enemy, while posing as the protector of his nation.

  I’d kill him in an instant, only it wouldn’t help us. We need him alive, just as much as the Russians need him alive.

  Yes, for once it all coincides. Or almost so. There is a difference.

  You see, we’ve tried killing him, and it doesn’t work. The answer’s subtler than that. Discredit him and the job’s done for us. Not only does the Horde keep Russia from expanding for the best part of three hundred years but, without the battle on the frozen lake, the Teuton knights continue their expansion eastward. The result is a smaller, essentially European Russia. No match for a unified Germany when the great war comes. Or that’s the theory, anyway. That’s what our computer models predict. And that’s what Ernst and I are working towards. Ostensibly. By which I mean, if Katerina wasn’t involved.

  The Russians need Nevsky because, well, because he is Nevsky. One of those figures that, in time of war, they trot out for general consumption, such iconic beings having the miraculous ability to inspire the common man.

  And woman, come to that. Which brings me back to Katerina, for – though her promise not to flirt with Nevsky was strictly kept – it has not kept him from flirting with her the whole of this past hour. Even as he haggled with Kongdu, he had one eye on my woman, turning to her often and, with a silken tongue, seeking her advice and seeming to consider it.

  The viper. Because I know those kind of tricks. It’s flattery, just as much as to tell her that she’s got beautiful eyes and hair, and lips like the sweetest, softest fruits.

  Which, of course, she has.

  And the awful thing is that it’s worked. Katerina, I can see, is more impressed with him – with his manners, and with his ‘attentiveness’ to her – than she was before our little talk. She might profess to ‘trust’ me on Nevsky’s nature, but her instincts aren’t awake to what he truly is. Nor will they be, until it’s proved otherwise.

  But dare I risk that? What if he finds a way to separate us, to get her alone with him?

  What makes it worse, of course, is that Alexander has his own woman, Alexandra, daughter of Prince Bryacheslav of Polotsk. He married her only months back, in Polotsk itself, and she is here right now, in Moscow, keeping his bed warm even as he flirts with Katerina.

  Walking back, I am broodingly silent; so much so that, when we’re alone again, Katerina asks me straight out what it is that’s eating at me.

  I turn on her. ‘Why should anything be eating at me?’

  She looks hurt. My tone was anything but kind. I relent.

  ‘Look, I’m sorry but … that man!’

  Katerina says nothing. Turning away, she goes over to our pack and, kneeling, begins to get out her things in preparation for the evening. I watch her, knowing I’m in the wrong, but unable to help it. She thinks she’s right. She thinks that he’s no threat. But she doesn’t know. She simply doesn’t know. Such men are ruthless when it comes to what they want. And if he wants my Katerina, I am sure he’ll try to take her, however he can. And hide the tale of it afterwards, even if it means murder.

  And that’s my deepest fear. Because I didn’t count on Nevsky falling for Katerina. Or not even ‘falling’, but desiring, which is perhaps worse. Let’s put it simply. He wants to fuck her, just the way he’d like to ride a beautiful horse, or slay a difficult enemy.

  Only he isn’t going to. Over my dead body.

  I am quiet for a little longer, then, changing the subject, ask her: ‘What did you think of the other two? The traders?’

  ‘The Romanovs?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She shrugs. ‘I’d not want to marry either of them, if that answers you.’

  I laugh edgily. ‘You want to know something?’

  She half turns, looking up at me, her blue dress bunched in one hand. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Their great-great-grandsons will be the kings and emperors of Russia. Tsars, they’ll call themselves, and they’ll rule a land that stretches from Poland to China.’

  I know she can’t envisage that – that the scale of it means nothing to her – but still there’s something like surprise in her eyes.

  ‘Them? The Romanovs?’

  I nod. ‘For three hundred years, they’ll be the “fathers” of their people.’

  ‘But they’re uncouth. And this place …’

  I can see she only half believes me.

  ‘That’s why this place is so important to us, because this is where it all begins. Besides the Romanovs, there are other families – the Zhakarins, for instance. They too will spawn emperors – the Rurikids, as they’ll be known. But they, like the Romanovs, are here, right now, in this, well, in this pigsty of a place.’

  Katerina stands and, shaking out the dress, holds it against herself. I know just how wonderful she looks in it and fear for her.

  ‘Katerina, you can’t wear that.’

  Her eyes meet mine challengingly. ‘But I am. For you, Otto. Not for him. For you.’

  212

  We are only an hour into the feast when I realise that our mission here has failed. I am supposed, after all, to spend the winter here, endearing myself to Nevsky, making myself indispensable to him, but already, after less than a day, I hate the man with a passion. As much as I ever hated Kravchuk.

  It’s not particularly the way he’s so smilingly polite to me, with that ‘attentiveness’ of his that’s a mask to his genuine indifference, it’s more that he does it even as he plots to prise Katerina away from me.

  Not that he wants to keep her. He just wants to have her. To try her. For novelty’s sake. And if two of his men have to hold her down, well, he’ll enjoy that as much as if she’d come to him willingly.

  At least, that’s how I picture it. And sitting there, I can’t help but picture it.

  The situation is made worse by the fact that the Russian agents – the five of them, all of whom are now present – have this kind of mocking smile which they award me every time I look their way, as if they know quite well who I am and are smug in that knowledge.

  Which makes me feel even more that we’re in danger here.

  As yet, however, it’s all undercurrent. Nuance. Nothing’s out in the open, nor will it be. Not unless I make a fuss. Which, of course, I’m not. Providing, that is, that Nevsky behaves himself.

  Katerina herself seems almost unaware of what’s going on. I say that, because she smiles and laughs most naturally, like the charming creature that she is, and every male eye in that hall is drawn to her, ignoring Nevsky
’s wife, Alexandra, who sits there sullenly, looking down at her untouched meal.

  Nevsky, particularly, watches Katerina, a half smile on his lips, and even as he gnaws at a bone, I imagine that he, in turn, is lasciviously imagining himself naked with her.

  Dark my thoughts are, so dark that I want to run from there, only it’s not possible. I have to endure it, as if I’ve found myself suddenly in hell itself.

  ‘Meister Behr. If I could have a moment?’

  I turn and look up. It is the Mongol, the interpreter. From where he sits across the table, Nevsky watches me carefully, his eyes narrowed.

  ‘Right now?’

  ‘My master wishes to speak with you alone.’

  I look to Nevsky, suspecting him of planning this. But he’s not smiling, in fact, he seems almost worried by this development.

  I stand and, kissing the top of Katerina’s head, bow to Nevsky and leave the table, following the interpreter.

  Outside it’s cold, snowflakes gusting in the sharp night wind. We cross the open space and duck inside one of the nearby izbas. The Mongol chieftain, Kongdu, is sitting there, on the bare earth floor, a crude map in front of him. As I enter he looks up and, without ceremony, gestures for me to sit across from him. The interpreter scuttles around and quickly sits beside his master.

  ‘You’ve travelled this land,’ he says, without his master speaking. ‘Tell us – which is the quickest way from here to Novgorod?’

  I look from one to the other and then give a little laugh. Kongdu is not in charge at all. He never has been. It is the interpreter who is the boss here. Kongdu is just a front – a kind of mask this other man wears to impress the Russians.

  He sees I understand and smiles. ‘I am Tengu,’ he says. ‘I am the baskaki. Kongdu here is my bodyguard.’

  I give him a tiny bow, then reach out and take the map. I study it a while, then look to him. ‘Why should I help you?’

  ‘Because you are in danger here.’

  ‘I know that. But how will me helping you change that?’

  ‘Because Prince Alexander is afraid of us. He has seen with his own eyes what we can do.’

  ‘He was at Sit’?’

  Tengu nods.

  ‘But I thought—’

  ‘We spared him. And others. But they saw what we did. How ruthless we can be. How many of us there are, like the leaves on the trees.’ Tengu smiles, as a tiger smiles. ‘There is no arguing with the Horde. You submit or die.’

  I consider it a moment. If I help him – if I show him how to get to Novgorod – does that mean he’ll take the Horde there? Historically it never happened, yet I have seen with my own eyes the fate of Kiev and Vladimir, both sacked and then razed to the ground by the Horde. Not a man, woman or child was spared, and those were cities of fifty thousand souls.

  Do I really want to tell this man how to get to my beloved’s home?

  ‘Do I have a choice?’

  Tengu laughs. ‘Every man has choices. But yours, I think, are limited. You can help us, or you can be left to your fate here.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘For you to discover.’

  He studies me a moment, his dark eyes, folded into his face as they are, shining with an unexpected curiosity. ‘You’re not like these Russians,’ he says finally. ‘You can see who they are through their eyes. But you …’

  ‘What about me?’

  ‘I’d say you had seen many things that ordinary men don’t see.’

  I smile. ‘Then you’d guess right.’ I look down at the map, then hand it back to him.

  ‘You’ll find your way. With or without my help.’

  Tengu shrugs. ‘Ah well. I hoped …’

  I look to Kongdu. The big man is staring straight ahead, as if he has been told to do so. Tengu reaches out and touches his arm and says something in his native tongue, which I cannot understand, and the warrior gets up and walks over to the door, then steps out, into the night.

  Tengu looks to me. ‘I would leave here, trader. Tonight. Your long journey has been wasted, I’m afraid. There is nothing here for you.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Go and retrieve your wife, Otto Behr. Then run from here. Get your sled and fly into the night. Or stay and die.’

  I swallow. There’s something in his tone that suggests he knows what Nevsky’s up to. I bow to him then stand.

  He jumps to his feet, smiling once more. ‘Maybe we’ll meet again, Meister Behr. It would be good to talk … of all we’ve seen and all we’ve done, neh?’

  There is something strangely familiar about the way he says it. Yet what have we in common? Even so, I reach out and take both his hands, and he pulls me to him and hugs me, as if I am an old friend – and that, too, surprises me.

  ‘Now go,’ he says. ‘While you still have the chance.’

  213

  Nevsky looks up as I come back into the hall. About him, his men do the same, then quickly look aside, as if they’ve given something away. It’s that that confirms for me what Tengu said. We are in danger here.

  Katerina sits amid it all, laughing and smiling, blithely unaware of the fact that she is sitting in a vipers’ nest, a sword arm from death on every side.

  Not that I’d let them harm her. Only how do we get out of here alive?

  As I sit beside her again, she turns to me and smiles. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ I say, then place my mouth to her ear and whisper. ‘We have to go. Can you feign being ill?’

  She gives the slightest nod. I look to Nevsky. As I thought, he’s watching me closely now, suspicion in his face. I smile at him and, reaching out, lift my cup and toast him.

  ‘Your health, Prince Alexander!’

  Nevsky ignores the gesture. Leaning towards me, he raises his voice as other voices fall silent all about us. ‘What did he want, the Mongol?’

  I sip from my cup, then put it down. There’s silence now in the hall.

  ‘He wanted to know how things were in Novgorod. How they were disposed to the Horde.’

  Nevsky stares back at me as if he knows I’m lying. ‘It’s a long way to Novgorod.’

  ‘It is, my lord.’

  ‘And what else did he say?’

  That I’m in danger here …

  I am about to answer, to frame another lie, when Katerina clutches her belly and groans. I turn to her, as if surprised. ‘What is it?’

  ‘The child. I—’

  She groans again, such a groan as would convince anyone that she’s in pain. I look across and see that Nevsky’s on his feet. So too are his men.

  ‘Grab them!’ he says. ‘Don’t let them get away!’

  214

  This is the place we were warned not to go. As we ride up to it along the treelined riverbank, I recognise it from Saratov’s bleak description: ‘It’s just a staging post. Two huts and a jetty. And not much of a jetty at that …’

  He was right. Krasnogorsk is the deadest, most insignificant of places we have yet seen. Only Nevsky has brought us here, so there must be some significance. We stop and while his men go ahead to check things out, he turns and looks down at us from his horse.

  Our wrists are bound and we are tied together, like slaves. Nevsky, of course, holds the lead rope. Two days it’s taken us to get here, and I still don’t understand why we’ve come.

  ‘I’d have killed you,’ he says, looking at me coldly, imperiously. ‘Killed you and kept your woman for my slave. I would have enjoyed that.’

  ‘Why?’ I ask, my hatred of him shaping my face as well as my words. ‘What have I ever done to you?’

  ‘I was told what you planned.’

  ‘Told? By whom?’

  ‘By a friend.’

  He stares at me a little longer, contempt in his eyes, then turns his horse and his back on me. One of his men – Pavlusha, it looks like – returns, half running. He stops by the neck of Nevsky’s horse. ‘They’re here.’

  ‘How many of them?’

  ‘
The old man and two others. They’re armed, but—’

  ‘We want no trouble. Tell Alexei.’

  Pavlusha nods, then turns back, hastening to pass on the message. Nevsky gestures to the men about him and we move on into Krasnogorsk, such as it is.

  I don’t know what to expect, but it’s not this. The old man stands by the larger of the huts. He’s a tall, imposing-looking fellow, built like a latter-day wrestler and with long dark hair that frames the bald dome of his forehead. He wears a long black armyak, a peasant’s cloth coat, and in his left hand is a stave, carved at one end into the shape of a wolf’s head. His beard is huge and black and bushy, salted with grey, and though there’s no real facial similarity he reminds me of that infamous creature of a different century, Rasputin. It’s the eyes. Eyes that could be either wise and all-knowing, or simply mad.

  Just beyond him are his two companions. They’re both much younger – in their teens, I’d guess. One holds an axe, the other a drawn bow. They both look frightened out of their wits. And who’s to blame them? Nevsky’s men are bigger and better armed. What’s more there’s ten of them. Just beyond them is a horse, a grey, bony old creature that looks close to exhaustion. Behind it is a cart, on which two corpses are lain.

  As we come close, Nevsky tugs on the rope and makes us jerk forward.

  ‘Kolya,’ he says blankly, addressing the old man. ‘You have everything?’

  The old man nods, his face inexpressive.

  ‘Well?’

  The old man turns towards the axeman and snaps his fingers. At once the young man puts down his axe and, going to the great leather bag that’s laid across the horse’s back, pulls out a cloth sack and brings it across to his master.

  The old man hefts it a moment, then throws it down between himself and Nevsky.

  ‘You can count it now, or trust me.’

  Nevsky almost smiles. But he too seems nervous, and I wonder what’s going on here. Are we being sold to the old man? If so, why? Why not just kill me and have done? But it’s not that kind of nervousness. Nevsky seems almost in awe of the old man, like he’s some kind of sorcerer.

  ‘You should be paying me, Alexander,’ he says, as one of Nevsky’s men scuttles forward and picks up the heavy cloth bag.