'Did you see the size of those creatures?' asked Rejak. 'I swear the damn things are getting bigger every day.'
'Wars are always good for vermin,' said Chekatilo.
'Aye,' agreed Rejak. 'And ratcatchers, well, except for the poor bastard they pulled from below the Goromadny Prospekt today.'
'What are you talking about?'
'Oh, just something that happened earlier tonight. One of the guild ratcatchers who sometimes feeds me information was hauled off to the Lubjanko screaming that the rats were coming to kill us all. They say he climbed from the sewers like all the daemons of Chaos were after him and started acting like a lunatic. I think he hit some people before the watch came and dragged him away.'
Chekatilo nodded, filing the information away as Rejak wiped his sword on a dark rag before sheathing it and slumping into a chair before the fire. Chekatilo sat opposite his assassin and stared into the fireplace, enjoying the simple act of watching the flames dance and listening to them devour the new wood in the grate. He sipped the kvas, waiting for Rejak to speak.
'Damn, but it's cold out there,' said Rejak, shifting his sword belt and holding his hands out to the fire.
Chekatilo bit back a retort and said, 'What news from the north? What are people saying?'
Rejak shrugged. 'The same as they've been saying for weeks now.'
'Which is?' said Chekatilo darkly. Finally catching his master's mood, Rejak said, 'More people are coming south every day. They say that the armies of the High Zar are getting bigger with every passing week, that each of the northern tribes he defeats he swears to his banner. And that his warriors leave nothing alive behind them.'
Chekatilo nodded. 'I feared as much.'
'What?' said Rejak. 'That the Kurgans are coming south? They've done that before and they'll do it again. Some peasants will get killed and once the fighting season is done, the tribes will return to the north with fat bellies, slaves and some plunder.'
'Not this time, Rejak,' said Chekatilo. 'I can feel it in my bones, and I've not lived this long without trusting them. This time it will be different.'
'What makes you say that?'
'Can't you feel it?' asked Chekatilo. 'I can see it in every desperate face that comes here. They know it too. No, Rejak, the High Zar and his warriors do not come for the plunder or rape, they come for destruction. They mean to wipe us from the face of the world.'
'Sounds like the kind of talk I hear in the gutter grog shops.' said Rejak. 'Old men telling anyone who'll listen that these are the End Times, that the world is a more wicked place than when they were younglings and that there is no strength here any more.'
'Perhaps they are right, Rejak, did you ever think of that?'
'No.' confessed Rejak, placing his hand over his sword's pommel. 'There is still strength in me and no bastard is going to kill me without a fight.'
Chekatilo laughed. 'Ah, the arrogance of youth. Well, perhaps you are right and I am wrong. It is a moot point now anyway.'
'You are still set upon leaving Kislev then?'
'Aye.' nodded Chekatilo, looking around his drab chamber, his eyes fastening upon another mangy rodent feasting upon the bodies of the dead rats in the corner. Rejak was right; these damned rodents were getting bigger.
He put the rats from his mind and said, 'This place will be no more soon, of that I am sure, and I have no desire to end my days spitted on a Kurgan blade. Besides, Kislev bores me now and I feel the need for a change of scenery.'
'Did you have anywhere in particular in mind?'
'I thought Marienburg would be an ideal destination for a man of my talents.'
'A long journey,' pointed out Rejak. 'Dangerous too. A man travelling with wealth would find it hard to reach his destination intact without protection.'
'Yes,' agreed Chekatilo, 'a hundred soldiers or more.'
'So where are you going to get a hundred soldiers? It's not as though the Tzarina is going to let you have a regiment of kossars or her precious Gryphon Legion.'
'I thought I might ask Ambassador von Velten.'
Rejak laughed. 'And you think he'll help you? He hates you.'
Chekatilo smiled, but there was no warmth to it. 'If he knows what's good for him, he will. Thanks to Pavel Korovic, the ambassador owes me a favour, and I am not a man to allow a debt like that to go unanswered.'
CHAPTER TWO
I
Despite the biting chill of the morning and the stiffness in his muscles from two weeks in the saddle and sleeping on the cold ground, Kaspar's spirits were high as he rode through the busy streets of the city. Last night he had enjoyed a long, hot bath to wash off the grime of his adventures in the desolate wilderness of the Kislev oblast, before retiring to bed and falling asleep almost before his head hit the pillow.
Awaking much refreshed, he had dressed and sent word to Anastasia that he would call upon her for an early breakfast. He looked forward to seeing her again, not least because it had been many years since he had been sharing his bed with an attractive woman, but also because she was a tonic for his soul. He found her playfulness and unpredictability fascinating; keeping him forever guessing as to her true thoughts. She was at once familiar and a mystery to him.
He wore his freshly cleaned and dried fur cloak over a long black frock coat with silver thread woven into the wide lapels, and a plain cotton undershirt. A tricorned hat with a silver eagle pinned to it sat atop his head, its design old fashioned, but pleasing to him. Four Knights Panther rode alongside him, clearing a path for the ambassador with their wide-chested steeds.
Word had spread to the people of the city that Kaspar had been instrumental in the apprehension of the Butcherman, and there was much doffing of hats and tugging of forelocks as he passed.
The streets widened as his journey took him into the wealthier parts of the city in the north-eastern quarter, though even here, there was no escaping the depredations of war. Families and scattered groups of Kislevite peasants huddled close to the walls, utilising their meagre possessions to fashion rough leantos and shelters from the worst of the cold winds that whistled through the city. He rode past cold and hungry groups of refugees towards the Magnustrasse and Anastasias house, turning into the wide, cobbled boulevard to find it similarly inhabited.
The stand of poplars opposite Anastasias house was gone, hacked stumps all that remained of them, and as Kaspar rode through the open gateway in the dressed ashlar walls of her home, he saw several hundred people camped within. Anastasia's home was tastefully constructed of a deep red stone, situated at the end of a long paved avenue that was lined with evergreen bushes - though Kaspar noticed that many of these were afflicted with a sickly discolouration of their greenery. Perhaps the cold was too severe even for these normally hardy plants, though the low temperatures did not seem to bother the darting rats that scurried through the undergrowth.
Dressed in a white cloak edged with snow leopard fur and with her long, jet-black hair spilling around her shoulders, Anastasia Vilkova was an unmistakable sight. Kaspar watched as she distributed blankets to those most in need.
She looked up at the sound of horses' hooves and as he drew nearer, Kaspar saw her face flicker before breaking into a smile of welcome.
'Kaspar, you're back,' she said.
'Aye,' nodded Kaspar. 'I promised you I'd come back safely, didn't I?'
'That you did,' agreed Anastasia.
He swung his leg over the saddle and dismounted, saying, 'Though two weeks in the oblast is more than enough for any man.'
Anastasia, still carrying an armful of blankets leaned up to kiss him as he handed Magnus's reins to a green-liveried stable boy.
He returned her kiss fiercely, revelling in the softness of her lips against his own until she pulled back with a wicked sparkle in her eyes.
'You have missed me, haven't you?' she laughed, turning away and handing out the last of the blankets to the people camped within her walls.
'You wouldn't believe how much,' nodded
Kaspar, walking alongside Anastasia as they made their way towards her home. You seem to have a great many guests just now.'
'Yes,I have space within the grounds here, and it seemed to make sense to allow these poor people to make use of it.'
'Always trying to help others,' said Kaspar, impressed.
'Where I can.'
'Regrettably, people like you are rare.'
'I remember saying something similar to you once.'
Kaspar laughed, 'Yes, I remember, the first time I called upon you. Perhaps we are two of a kind then?'
Anastasia nodded, her jade eyes flashing with secret mirth, and said. 'I think you might be more right than you know, Kaspar.'
They reached the black, lacquered door to Anastasia's home and she pushed it open, saying, 'Come inside, it's cold out here, and I want to hear all about your adventures in the north. Was it hard? How silly of me, I suppose it must have been. To catch and kill a monster like Kajetan can't have been easy.'
Kaspar shook his head. 'It was hard, yes, but I didn't kill him.'
'Of course not, I suppose it was one of those brave knights who killed him.'
'No, I mean Sasha is not dead, we were able to take him alive.'
'What?' said Anastasia, her jaw dropping open and her skin turning the colour of a winter sky. 'Sasha Kajetan is still alive?'
'Yes,' said Kaspar, surprised at the sudden chill in Anastasia's tone. 'He's in a cell below the embassy and once our meal is over I shall be taking him to Vladimir Pashenko of the Chekist.'
'You didn't kill him? Kaspar, you promised! You promised you'd keep me safe!'
'I know, and I will,' said Kaspar, confused at the passion of her reaction. 'Sasha Kajetan is a shell of the man he once was, Ana, he won't be hurting anyone. I promised you I wouldn't let anyone hurt you again and I meant that.'
'Kaspar, you promised,' snapped Anastasia, her eyes filling with tears. 'You said you would kill him.'
'No,' said Kaspar firmly. 'I did not. I never said I would kill him. I wouldn't say such a thing.'
'You did, I swear you did,' cried Anastasia. 'I know you did. Oh, Kaspar, how could you fail me?'
'I don't understand,' said Kaspar reaching out to put his arms around her.
Anastasia took a step backwards, folding her arms and said, 'Kaspar, I think you should go, I don't think I can talk to you just now.'
Kaspar started to say that he would still keep her safe, but his words trailed off when he saw the frosty hostility in Anastasia's eyes and felt a flash of anger. What did she want of him? Had he not ridden into the depths of the harshest country imaginable for this woman?
'Very well,' he said, rather more sharply than he had intended. 'I will bid you good day then. Should you wish to see me, you know where to find me.'
Anastasia nodded and Kaspar turned on his heel, snapping his fingers at the stable boy to bring his horse. He would hand Kajetan over to the Chekist and that would be the end of the matter.
II
His breath misted before him, the thin blanket his gaolers had given him doing little to prevent the cold of the cell penetrating him to the marrow. Sasha Kajetan sat on the thin mattress that, save for the night-soil bucket, was the only furnishing within the small cell beneath the embassy. He shivered, the pain of his many wounds dulled by the numbing cold.
His upper body was crisscrossed by freshly stitched scars - wounds taken in battle with Kurgan tribesmen - though his greatest wound was to his thigh, where the ambassador had driven his sword after denying him the death he knew he deserved.
Sasha wished that Ambassador von Velten had killed him. The woman who had slapped him - the woman he had once believed was his beloved matka - had promised him that the ambassador would help him, but she had lied. The ambassador had not helped him to die, but had spared him, prolonging the agony of his existence and he wept bitter tears of frustration, knowing that he was too weak to end his life himself and hearing the mocking laughter of the trueself as a hollow echo in the depths of his mind.
The trueself was still there, lurking like a sickness, though instead of swallowing him whole as it had done for so long, it gnawed and worried at the frayed ends of his sanity. He held his shaking hands out before him, the blackened tips of his fingers raw where exhuming his mothers corpse from the frozen ground and frostbite had claimed them.
There was nothing he could do to atone for what he had done, though he had hoped that the ambassadors blade would grant him the absolution he craved. He knew that the Chekist would hang him for his crimes and, while he welcomed the oblivion the hangman's rope promised, he was tormented by the suspicion that death would not be enough of a punishment. Why the ambassador had not killed him, he did not know. Surely someone he had wronged so terribly should have cut him down like the animal he was?
But he had not and Sasha was consumed with the need to know why.
With a clarity borne of the acceptance of death, Sasha understood that his and the ambassadors fates were still intertwined, that there were dramas yet to unfold between them.
Von Velten had not killed him and as he felt the trueself continue to erode his reason, Sasha Kajetan just hoped that the ambassador did not live to regret that clemency.
III
Pavel Korovic opened his eyes and let out a huge belch, his mouth gummed with dried saliva. Bright spears of light streamed through the high window, stabbing through his eyes, and he groaned as the hammer blows of a crushing headache began to build.
'By Tor, my head...' he mumbled, rubbing the heel of his hand against his forehead. Gingerly, he rose from his bed, grimacing as the headache worsened and he felt his stomach lurch in sympathy.
Pavel smelled the stench of himself, stale sweat and cheap kvas, and saw that he had fallen asleep in his clothes again. He didn't know when he had last bathed and felt the familiar sense of shame and self-loathing wash over him as his memories swam to the surface of his mind through the haze of alcoholic fog. He needed to eat something, though he doubted if he could keep anything down.
He swung his legs from the bed, knocking over a trio of empty bottles of kvas, which shattered on the stone floor. The fire in the grate had long since burned to ash and the cold knifed through his clothing as he pushed himself upright, careful to avoid the pile of broken glass.
Where had he gone last night? He couldn't remember. Some darkened, backstreet drinking den no doubt, where he could lose himself once more in the oblivion of kvas.
The guilt was easier to deal with that way; the guilt of what Vassily Chekatilo had forced him to do - many years ago and recently - did not eat away at him when he could barely remember his own name.
Though it had been six years ago, Pavel could still remember the murder he had committed for Chekatilo. He could still hear the sickening crack as he had brought the iron bar down on Anastasia Vilkova's husband's skull; see the brains that had spilled onto the cobbles and smell the blood that gathered like a red lake around his head.
The killing had shamed him then, and it shamed him still.
But to Pavel, the worst betrayal had been at his own accord when he had knowingly placed Kaspar, his oldest and truest friend, in debt to Chekatilo. He told himself it was to help the ambassador find Sasha Kajetan, but that was only partly true...
By trying to erase one mistake, he had made a greater one and now it wasn't just him who would pay for it.
How could he have let himself sink so low?
The answer came easily enough. He was weak; he lacked the moral fibre that made men such as Kaspar and Bremen such honourable figures. Pavel put his head in his hands, wishing he could undo the pathetic waste of his life.
Despite the vile taste in his mouth, the headache and the roiling sensation in his belly, he wanted a drink more than anything. It was a familiar sensation, one that had seized him every day since he had gone to Chekatilo's brothel and sold what shreds of his dignity and self-respect remained to a man he hated.
He pushed his giant frame fro
m the bed, swaying unsteadily and feeling his legs wobble under him. His grey beard was matted with crumbs and he brushed it clear of the detritus of long ago meals, stumbling over to a polished wooden chest sitting in the corner of the room.
Pavel dropped to his knees before the chest and lifted the lid, hunting through his possessions for the bottle of kvas he knew lay within.
'Looking for this?' said a voice behind him.
Pavel groaned, recognising the icy tones of Sofia Valencik. He turned his head to see her standing beside his open door, an upturned and very empty bottle of kvas held in her hands.
'Damn you, woman, that was my last bottle.'
'No it wasn't, but don't bother looking for the others, I emptied them too.'
Pavel's shoulders slumped and he slammed the lid of the chest down before standing and turning to face the ambassador's physician.
'Now why would you go and do that, you damned harpy?' snapped Pavel.
'Because you are too stupid to see what it is doing to you, Pavel Korovic,' retorted Sofia. 'Have you seen yourself recently? You look worse than the beggars on the Urskoy Prospekt and smell worse than a ratcatcher who's fallen in the sewer.'
Pavel angrily waved her words away and returned to his bed, reaching down to lift his boots from the floor. He sat on the edge of the bed, dragging them on and fighting down the urge to vomit.
'Where are you going now?' asked Sofia.
'What business is it of yours?'
'It is my business because I am a physician, Pavel, and it is not in my nature to stand by while another human being attempts to destroy himself with alcohol, no matter how stubborn and pig-headed he may be.'
'I am not trying to destroy myself,' said Pavel, though he could see that Sofia didn't believe him.