We were now beyond the edge of the camp, almost at woodland in which Iuda could easily hide himself. The guard who had been pursuing a little way behind, younger and fitter than I was, had now caught up and overtaken me. Having discharged his musket, he had found no time to reload, and so now had only his bayonet as a weapon. He was within striking distance of Iuda when Iuda stopped and turned. The soldier had no time to stop himself. He had not been aiming his bayonet and so it glided harmlessly past Iuda's side. As he turned, Iuda brought forward his hand and the soldier ran straight on to Iuda's knife. It penetrated just below his breastbone, embedding itself deep behind his ribcage. With the force of the blow, the soldier was lifted off his feet, his back arched in agony and his limbs splayed out limply as life began to retreat from them. With a jerk of his arm, Iuda threw the man off his knife and I heard the tearing, rasping sound of its teeth making the wound even greater on exit than it had been on entry.
Iuda turned and continued to run, but I was already upon him. I launched myself towards him and grabbed him around the waist. We both fell to the ground and my face was filled with snow, blinding me. I knelt up and wiped the snow from my eyes, just in time to see Iuda's hand scything towards me, the toothed blades presented, not to stab but to slash. I flung myself backwards, flicking my head away from him. As I fell, I felt a searing pain in my left cheek where the blades connected. I fell to my back, breathing deeply, and noticed as I breathed that air was coming in through my wounded cheek as well as through my mouth.
I pushed myself up in preparation to avoid Iuda's next blow, but it did not come. A shot rang out from behind me, hitting Iuda in the arm. He turned and fled into the woods, leaving me to live with the misery that he had created for me.
CHAPTER XXXI
THE WOUND TO MY CHEEK WAS NOT AS SERIOUS AS I HAD FIRST thought. The cold weather became a brief friend as it numbed my face while the surgeon closed it up with a suture. I went back to Lieutenant-Colonel Chernyshev to tell him what had happened.
'Escaped?' he thundered.
'I'm afraid so, sir,' I replied.
'I'll have those guards flogged.'
'It's too late for that, sir.'
He glanced up at my face and understood. 'I see,' he said. 'Well, it's only one man, I suppose. All a bit of a waste of time, though.'
'Bonaparte's move south is a ruse, sir. The prisoner told me. The real crossing is to the north, at Studienka.'
'That's something at least. So you'll soon be joining us in action there then?'
'No, sir. I'd like to pursue the prisoner.'
'Is he worth it – just one man?'
'I believe so,' I said.
'Well, I suppose you people know your job. I can't lend you any men.'
'I don't ask for any, sir. Just a French uniform, if you have one.'
'We have dozens. Lieutenant Mironov, see that he gets what he needs.'
Mironov provided a dragoon uniform and a horse and some provisions, and I was soon heading out of what remained of the breaking camp. At first, I had to make my way alongside the advancing Russian troops (fortunately, I had not yet changed into my new uniform), but soon I headed off to the north of their path and the sound of marching faded behind me.
The only trail that Iuda had left was that he had planned to cross the Berezina with Bonaparte at Studienka. It was quite possible that this had been a lie, or that he would now change his mind, but my only option was still to try to intercept him there. I had not had time to properly consider what Iuda had said to me, but now as I rode through the quiet, frozen woods, I began to think.
The less painful matter to deal with was that Iuda was not a vampire. I had already concluded that this made little difference to my opinion of him. If a man chooses to become a vampire so that he may behave like a monster or if he finds himself quite able to behave like a monster anyway, he is still a monster and still happy so to be. Iuda remained a danger to all those he came into contact with. One question that had to be asked was whether any of the other Oprichniki was also not a vampire. Iuda had implied that they all were, but was Iuda to be trusted? The evidence of my own eyes convinced me of most of them – after their deaths I had witnessed their immediate bodily decay. I had not seen what became of Ioann or Filipp once they had perished. The deaths of Simon, Iakov Alfeyinich and Faddei had, if Maks was to be believed, been caused by sunlight. I felt confident that all eleven had indeed been vampires. If not, what was I to care? Just as it did not fundamentally matter with Iuda, neither did it with any of the others.
But what of Domnikiia? The idea of being tricked – of being betrayed – by her of all people was the true nightmare from which I saw no prospect of awakening. When she teased me it revealed her wit and her spirit, but to play games with me like this over such issues showed in her what almost amounted to insanity. 'I'm not surprised Iuda found it so easy to fool you.' Those had been her words. She and Iuda both delighted in playing me for the fool, and I had so far been gullibly eager to oblige them. But I also remembered what Maksim had once said, about the best place to hide a tree being in a forest, the best place to hide a lie being amongst the truth. Why had Iuda allowed himself to be captured?
To speak to me. What was it that he wanted to tell me? Not about Bonaparte's plans. Not about his views on chess. Not even to tell me he wasn't a vampire. It was to put the thought into my head that Domnikiia had chosen to become a vampire. Amongst that forest of truth, that was the single fact that he had wanted to convey. It was not even a fact – it was a piece of information that might be true and might not be. The truth could never be known and so the doubt would haunt me for ever.
Iuda's game, either through planning or through extemporization, had unfolded layer by layer in front of me, like a journey up a mountain when every false peak, once conquered, reveals another higher peak behind it. First I believed he had turned Domnikiia into a vampire. Then I discovered that, even so, I could not kill her. Then I discovered that she was not a vampire and that, had I killed her, it would have been as a mortal woman. This morning he had convinced me that she had all along wanted to be a vampire, even though he could not make her one. He could not go on forever pushing on one side of the scales and then the other and switching my view from one side to the next, but now he did not need to. He had found a perfect balance point. I could never know the truth and so, whatever I chose to do, I would spend half my life regretting. If I abandoned Domnikiia, then I would worry that I had done her wrong, that I had believed Iuda's final lie about her when she had behaved throughout in perfect innocence. If I stayed with her, I would be forever looking at her, wondering what happened between them that night in Moscow.
My perception was so battered by my constantly changing view of the truth – not just over Domnikiia, but over Maksim, over Dmitry, over the Oprichniki and over Iuda himself – that I was no longer able to find certainty in anything. Vadim's advice, I knew, would have been to go back to Petersburg, to go back to Marfa. She was someone in whom I had never had any doubt, nor had I any reason to. With her I would find a safe, content retreat. But then even Vadim's advice became ambiguous. How he would have despised any concept of retreat.