To Kill A Tsar Part 23

5 FEBRUARY 1880.

'It's ready.'

'It's ready?'

'Didn't I say so,' Khalturin snapped at her.

'Then what do we do now?' Anna asked, turning to the figure at her side.

'We wait.' Andrei Zhelyabov's voice shook a little with excitement. He took a deep breath to steady himself. 'You may have to go back with Stepan to the tavern. His friends are expecting his fiancee.'

After weeks of living on his nerves Stepan Khalturin was unable to keep still for a second, treading the snow about them into a hard crust. Anna could not see his face. Both men had pulled their hats low over their eyes and Khalturin was m.u.f.fled in a black woollen scarf. They had met close to the workman's entrance to the Winter Palace and she had watched as they hurried across the square towards her, their heads bent low against the driving snow. It had barely stopped in three days, shaping a new monochrome cityscape with peaks of snow and ice rising from the rivers and ca.n.a.ls, the streets unfamiliar, the smallest journey a trial.

'How long?' Anna asked.

'Five minutes at most,' said Khalturin, his voice strained and unhappy.

'Did anyone see you in there?' Zhelyabov asked, resting a large gloved hand on the carpenter's shoulder.

'There was one man looking for some tools. The rest are in the tavern waiting for me.'

'Calm yourself, my friend, calm yourself,' and Zhelyabov placed his arm about his shoulders. 'We have only a few minutes to wait and then we'll be away.'

They stood in restless silence in the shadows beneath the arch in the General Staff Building, fidgeting with hats and gloves, glancing every few seconds at Zhelyabov's pocket watch. Ministry officials and soldiers scurried past in search of shelter or a cab to take them home. Anna watched the fuzzy glow from the lighted palace windows and tried to imagine the scene in the dining room; the footmen gliding about the table with wine and silver serving dishes, the flutter of excitement at the door as the butler whispered sharp instructions to the servants perhaps there was someone to taste the emperor's food for poison. She blinked, then looked away as another image flitted through her mind the eruption from below, splintering mirrors and the crystal chandelier, tiny stabbing pieces of gla.s.s whirling in a dusty vortex. Would there be children at the tsar's table? She shuddered at the thought. Taking it for nervousness or the cold, Zhelyabov gave her forearm a rea.s.suring squeeze.

'Any minute now, Anna, then we will-'

But before he could finish his sentence there was a sharp orange flash and the palace plunged into darkness. A throaty rumble like thunder split the heavy white silence, rolling across the square towards them.

'Oh G.o.d,' Khalturin muttered. 'Oh G.o.d.'

Seconds only, then silence again. They could see nothing but the silhouette of the building through the snow falling steadily, a soft blanket over all.

'We must leave now,' said Zhelyabov, turning quickly from the palace.

But Anna could not move. She watched, transfixed, as soldiers poured into the square from the barracks buildings close by and began to form a cordon about the commandant's entrance.

'Come on!' Zhelyabov tugged at her arm: 'Come on.'

They walked towards the Nevsky, not daring to glance back again. Police and soldiers hurried past. In the distance they could hear the clanging of fire bells.

'You've done it, my friend, you've done it!' Zhelyabov whispered to the carpenter. 'I congratulate you.'

But Khalturin's face was rigid, his eyes fixed on a point directly ahead. Anna could see he was close to collapse.

'Think what people will say!' Zhelyabov continued. 'We have struck at the evil heart of this empire believe me, my friends, we have shaken the world today.'

What reply could she give her comrade but a polite nod and a smile? If it was a blow for liberty and justice, why did she feel so very sad?

The tsarevich was still at the door of the main guard room when Anton Dobrshinsky arrived twenty minutes after the explosion. The heir to the throne looked like a wraith in the candlelight, his uniform, his face and beard grey with dust.

'Appalling,' he muttered, and taking Dobrshinsky for a medical man, urged him with trembling voice to do what he could for the wounded.

The air was thick with choking smoke and dust and the sulphurous smell of dynamite.

'More light at once!' Dobrshinsky shouted to no one in particular.

It was evident from the coughing and heart-wrenching groans someone was screaming uncontrollably that the guard room was full of injured and dying men. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he could see that the force of the explosion had blown a huge hole in the floor, tossing granite paving slabs to the sides of the room. Chunks of plaster and rubble had collapsed into the cellar below.

Behind him he heard General Gourko, the governor of the city, coaxing the tsarevich to leave for 'the good of the empire'. 'Your Highness, there is nothing you can do here.'

A troop of firemen arrived with a doctor and began to pick their way through the ruins of the room. By the light of their torches, Dobrshinsky could see figures trapped in the debris to judge from their dusty uniforms soldiers of the Finland Regiment. Among the smoking mounds of stone and plaster, arms and legs, the ragged white remains of those blown apart in the explosion. And on the walls, black stains where they had left their b.l.o.o.d.y shadows.

'More light, for G.o.d's sake!' barked the governor. 'Is that you, Dobrshinsky?'

'Yes, Your Excellency,' he said.

'A d.a.m.n mess. A little more dynamite and they would have wiped out the imperial family. This granite floor . . .' the general prodded a broken slab with the toe of his boot, 'saved them this and a little discourtesy. You know the Yellow Dining Room is directly above us?'

'No, Your Excellency.'

The hero of the battle of Plovdiv looked uncommonly fierce in the flickering torchlight: 'What on earth are you chaps at the Third Section doing? This is a disgrace.'

'Regrettably, I'm not responsible for security within these walls, Your Excellency,' the special investigator replied coolly.

'If you'd caught these madmen they wouldn't have been able to carry out an attack,' replied the general, pulling distractedly at his large moustache. He turned back to the chaos of the room, bellowing orders to the rescue party, anger and frustration ringing in his voice. Judging there was nothing to be discovered in the rubble while the wounded were the first concern, Dobrshinsky made his way up the dark marble staircase to the first floor and into the dining room. One of the gas chandeliers was still burning and he could see by its light that the blast had blown open the windows, the draught drawing in flurries of snow and stirring the smoke that hung in a sulphurous yellow layer about the room. The carpets and furniture were covered in dust, and fissures had opened up in the plaster ceiling and walls. China and crystal had been shaken from the table and lay in sad splinters about the floor, but he noticed that none of the chairs had been pulled away, which suggested no one had taken their place for dinner. General Gourko was right: the terrorists had hoped to wipe out the tsar and his immediate family. The bomb must have been planted in the cellar with a timing mechanism, something like a Thomas device. Perhaps a soldier or more likely a workman but how had he managed to smuggle so much explosive into the palace undetected? It was fiendishly clever. If anyone was still foolish enough to underestimate the audacity and skill of these people after the train bomb, this would serve as a rude awakening.

'Can I help Your Excellency?'

A young footman, his uniform and hair thick with dust, had slipped into the room with the silent discretion of the better sort of servant. In answer to Dobrshinsky's question, he confirmed the tsar had not sat for dinner at the appointed hour but had been kept waiting by Prince Alexander of Hesse who had been late arriving at the palace. This impropriety on his brother-in-law's part had probably saved the lives of the emperor and his family.

There would be questions, changes, Dobrshinsky thought as he made his way carefully down the dark stairs. Those who gave thanks to G.o.d for saving their emperor were unlikely to ascribe the failure in security to his hand too. There would be many like General Gourko who would account the Third Section responsible. The clamour for vengeance and arrests would be deafening.

A crowd was gathering beyond the cordon in the square, and some simple souls were singing a hymn of praise to the Virgin, standing in the driving snow with their heads bent in thanks for the deliverance of their tsar. Were these the people the terrorists were acting in the name of? Dobrshinsky wondered. Mikhailov, Figner, Perovskaya what did they know of the will of the people? He elbowed his way roughly through the cordon and walked quickly across the square to where his carriage was waiting in front of the General Staff Building. The driver was shivering on the box, nipping surrept.i.tiously at a bottle of vodka wrapped in brown paper.

'The House of Preliminary Detention, and quick about it,' Dobrshinsky barked.

He would not leave the Jew's cell until he'd squeezed every last drop of advantage from him. Every last drop.

The wounded began arriving at the Nikolaevsky in the hour after the explosion. Sixty casualties, soldiers and palace servants, severed limbs and broken bones, severe blast burns and shock. Frederick Hadfield a.s.sisted as a colleague operated on one of the soldiers no more than nineteen years of age his chest crushed by falling masonry, his right leg attached by only a white sliver of bone. His chances of survival were slim: a tall fair-haired Finnish soldier who would die because he had the misfortune to be on duty at that hour. Had The People's Will given him a thought? Hadfield wondered. No one was sure how many men had died in the guard room or how many would die of their wounds in the days to come. And yet not a hair of the tsar's head had been harmed in the attack. On the hospital wards the wounded could hear the city's bells rejoicing at his escape. For most of the evening, Hadfield was too busy to give it more than a pa.s.sing thought, but there were moments restraining a man with agonising burns over most of his body, and at the bedside of the young Finnish soldier when he found himself trembling with anger and guilt.

At a little before eleven, the superintendent of the hospital visited the ward where most of the injured were being treated with General Gourko. In a stentorian voice he informed them they would be receiving a royal visitor within the hour and no one was to leave the hospital.

'The tsar or tsarevich,' one of Hadfield's colleagues whispered. 'The governor wouldn't be here for anyone else.'

The corridors echoed with shouted orders as guards were posted on the neighbouring wards and at the entrances to the hospital wing. The beds were given fresh covers, porters arrived to scrub the floor, clean uniforms were issued to the nurses and the doctors straightened their ties and brushed their tailcoats. Hadfield could sense the excitement of those wounded men who were conscious enough to be aware of the preparations. What would Anna say if she could see them refusing pain relief or a sleeping draught lest they miss an opportunity to greet their tsar?

A short time later, the regular beat of military steps and the presentation of arms signalled the arrival of the royal entourage. Hadfield stood to attention as the superintendent had bidden them to do for the Emperor of All the Russias. And then the man Anna and her comrades called a tyrant, the despot, the divine villain, stood before them tired and bent, his face drawn and an unhealthy yellow. He cut a lonely figure in the doorway with his staff a respectful step behind, and for a moment he seemed uncertain what he should do. Collecting himself, he turned to speak to the hospital superintendent, then walked with him to the bed of the nearest wounded soldier. After a few minutes he moved on, stopping and talking to each man in turn, regardless of whether they were capable of replying, pressing a small olive wood cross into their hands. And as he moved closer, Hadfield found even his own heart beating a little faster, caught up in the reverence of the room, the mystery of monarchy.

'Your Majesty, may I present Dr Frederick Hadfield?' said the superintendent. 'The nephew of His Excellency, General Glen.'

The emperor acknowledged Hadfield's bow with a weak smile and said in French: 'Can you understand such a thing, Doctor?'

'No, Your Majesty.'

The emperor stared at him for a moment and Hadfield was struck by the softness, melancholy perhaps, in his large brown eyes. Then he turned to the Finnish soldier in the bed beside him. 'Poor fellow. Is he badly injured? Please give him this when he recovers consciousness.' He took one of the crosses from the superintendent and placed it on the cover.

'Your Majesty,' Hadfield said with another bow.

The tsar moved on, pa.s.sing from bed to bed until he stood at the door again. After exchanging a few words with General Gourko, he glanced wearily to the ward for the last time before he turned to leave. Hadfield picked the little wooden cross from the bedcover and placed it on the soldier's pillow. The young man's face was livid and stiff, his body heaving then falling back, air rasping in his throat as he fought for breath. Badly injured? He would never know his emperor had stood at his bedside. By the morning he would be gone.

It was almost two o'clock in the morning when Hadfield left the hospital, and for the first time in days the night was still and clear, the sky frosted with stars. He stood for a few minutes at the entrance, grateful for the sharp air in his lungs and its p.r.i.c.kle on his face. He could hear the m.u.f.fled drumming of hooves in the street, shouted orders and the jingle of cavalry harnesses. The police and army had secured the city's main thoroughfares in a show of strength, just as they had done after the first attempt on the tsar a year ago. The journey home would be painfully slow, with questions to answer at half a dozen checkpoints. But he had no mind to go there anyway. He wanted to walk quickly, hard exercise to free his mind from a confusing fog of thoughts and feelings. Walk, walk away from the hospital and wounded soldiers, the tsar and those who sought to kill him, walk and keep walking.

He was not sure how he found his way to Malaya Italyanskaya Street or quite what drove him there at that late hour, but he was relieved to see the lights still burning in George Dobson's study. They had seen very little of each other in recent weeks. Hadfield had spent most of his evenings either in Anna's company or more usually waiting to hear from her. His friend was in love too or infatuated with a 'graceful creature' called Natalya, a dancer with the Mariinsky Company. Was she with him now? Hadfield was too empty and tired to feel anything but indifferent to the embarra.s.sment he might cause.

Fortunately, Dobson was writing his account of the attack on the palace. He stood at the door in his shirt sleeves, a cigar smoking between inky fingers.

'Goodness gracious, Hadfield, you've heard the news!'

'Yes. May I come in?'

For a moment, he stared at Hadfield distractedly, his eyes glittering with excitement, lost perhaps in a half-written line. Then, 'My dear fellow, of course,' and he stepped aside to let him pa.s.s. 'What on earth are you doing here at this hour?'

'Working late.'

'Ah.'

Dobson ushered him through to the study, sweeping papers from a chair and reaching for a bottle of claret that he confessed he had almost emptied already. Words began to tumble tipsily from him. The tsar almost murdered in his own palace all of Europe would be talking of it in the morning: 'Escaped by the skin of his teeth, old boy. The skin of his teeth. The tsarevich too. And dozens of guards killed.'

'A dozen. But many more injured.'

'Oh? What do you know? By Jove, you've come to give me more of the story,' he said, slipping behind his desk and picking up a pen. 'Good of you. Is this from your uncle?'

'The wounded were brought to the Nikolaevsky.'

'With what sort of injuries?'

Hadfield told him what he wanted to know, of the deaths and the wounded and of the tsar's visit.

'He looked ill, you say? Who wouldn't? He's not even safe in his own home,' said Dobson. 'Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.'

'Isn't that how it should be?'

'Please, Frederick, don't attempt to explain or condone this.' Dobson laid down his pen and leant forward to fix Hadfield with a disapproving look. 'You know they found the body of a student on the Neva yesterday, his throat cut, almost covered in snow. The terrorists said he was an informer and executed him in the name of the people. Tsar, student, soldier no one who stands in the way of these Jacobins is safe. Don't be sentimental. They're murderers.'

'I am not going to defend that sort of terror,' replied Hadfield.

'What puzzles me is how on earth they managed to get away with it.' Dobson shook his head in disbelief. 'My contact told me the police raided one of their apartments two months ago and found a plan of the palace and dynamite. It's criminal negligence. A drop more?'

Rising from his chair, he crossed the room to a gla.s.s-fronted bookcase from which he took another bottle of wine. It was open and Dobson pulled the cork with his teeth.

'He says he's met you, by the way.'

'Who?'

'My contact in the Gendarme Corps.' Dobson stepped forward and leant over Hadfield to pour a little more wine into his gla.s.s. 'His name's Barclay. He's well connected.'

Hadfield must have jumped a little because his gla.s.s clinked against the neck of the bottle.

'Careful,' said Dobson, grabbing his hand to steady the gla.s.s. 'Yes, Barclay said he ran into you by chance in a village. One of these nihilist women was teaching at the school.'

He collapsed into the armchair opposite and stretched his legs towards the embers of the dying fire. For the most part, their conversation had been good-natured and bantering, but Hadfield could sense the atmosphere was subtly changing. Of course it was late, Dobson was tired, impatient for his bed, but there was something else; a different note, an almost imperceptible shift in tone, a slyness, as if Hadfield was no longer just a friend but a subject too. Dobson's bonhomie was of the practised kind, the easy familiarity of the skilful correspondent. He could sense the journalist scrutinising him surrept.i.tiously over the rim of his gla.s.s.

'They didn't catch her.'

'Who?'

'I believe her name was Anna, Anna something. I have a note. Barclay says she worked at a clinic for the poor in Peski.'

Hadfield caught his eye and stared at him belligerently, daring him to say more. But Dobson ignored him and, rising to his feet, picked up the poker and began to stir the fire.

'Yes, George, I did know her. She worked at the clinic. And, yes, I did visit her house. Barclay clearly told you as much.'

Dobson did not reply but kept prodding the ashes. The little of his face Hadfield could see betrayed no emotion. For a few seconds the silence was broken only by the lazy ticking of a clock and the rattle of the poker against the grate. Then, with a casualness that sounded forced even to his own ears, Hadfield said, 'Anna Petrovna was a very capable nurse.'

Dobson held his hand for a moment, the poker hovering above the grate, then he began playing with the glowing splinters once more. Hadfield watched him, embarra.s.sed by his clumsy deception. It was so much harder to tell a half truth to a friend than a bare-faced lie to a policeman. All the more so when he was aching to be completely frank.

With nothing more in the fire to reduce, Dobson lifted the poker on to the stand and slumped back in his chair. But almost at once he sprang forward again, hands together, forearms on his broad knees, an intense frown on his face.

'Look, Frederick. I don't know if you're involved in something you shouldn't be, something illegal . . .' He paused for a few seconds to allow for a denial, but Hadfield offered none. 'As a friend, I'm telling you cut all contact with these people, with the clinic, with her, if she is the only one you know. To do anything else would be madness. After the attack on the palace well, I don't need to tell you. Frederick, are you listening to me?'

'Yes.'

'Are you?' The correspondent was squirming at the edge of his chair, his eyes bright and fixed on Hadfield's face. 'You know your uncle will not lift a finger to help you?'

Hadfield felt weeks of anxiety and doubt rising inside him, a barely suppressed torrent of feelings. He wanted to tell Dobson everything. He wanted to say he loved her with a whole-hearted pa.s.sion that left him powerless to pursue any other course. Feeble-minded, shameful, yes, but, but . . . 'She was an excellent nurse.'

Dobson looked at him scornfully, his lips pursed as if sucking something sour, then he leant back abruptly in his chair in a gesture of resignation. They sat in uncomfortable silence for a while, avoiding eye contact, Dobson spinning the stem of his gla.s.s on the arm of the chair.

'Sleep,' he said at last, rising quickly to douse the lights. 'You know your way to the other bedroom.'

'Yes. Thank you, George,' Hadfield said with quiet emphasis, 'for everything.'

Dobson turned to look at him with a warm smile. Then, with a small shrug of the shoulders, 'Remember what I've said, Frederick that will be thanks enough.'