Twelve

She made her way back to the connecting door, finding it increasingly difficult to walk as she trod down the front of her sheet. As she stepped through the doorway, she abandoned it altogether. I caught a glimpse of her naked back and heard the words 'Well, hello again, Colonel…' uttered in a bawdy tone before she closed the door behind her.

'Who's Dmitry?' asked Domnikiia. I didn't answer. Instead I kissed her, pushing her back on to the bed.

A more comradely man than I might have galloped straight off to Desna there and then, but it had been twelve days since I'd seen Domnikiia. It wasn't that I was desperate to make love to her, just that I was desperate to be with her, and making love was what we tended to do when we were together – the only thing we did when we were together. And, to be honest, I think the sight of Margarita's naked back had inflamed my passion, if only slightly.

'Who's Dmitry?' asked Domnikiia afterwards.

'You've been wondering about that all the time?'

'No,' she giggled, 'but when I ask a question I expect an answer – however long it takes.'

'Dmitry Fetyukovich – he's a fellow officer. Maksim and I both work with him. They're not the closest of friends, but they work well together. I trust him.'

'Who? Dmitry?'

'Yes.'

'And Maks?'

'I trust him too.'

'And whom do you trust more, my dear, trusting Lyosha?' she asked, curling her leg around me. It was a tricky question, so I said nothing.

'What did Maks mean by "Dmitry's friends"?' she asked.

Dmitry's friends – the Oprichniki – were what made it a tricky question. Until recently, if push had come to shove, I'd have had to trust Dmitry over Maks, but Dmitry seemed so close to those mysterious, frightening men that I couldn't now say for sure.

'They're just a group of soldiers that Dmitry fought with against the Turks. They've come up here to help us out. They're not regular soldiers – cavalry or infantry – they're more like Cossacks, but even less controllable. We call them Oprichniki.'

Whether or not she knew the original meaning of the term, she didn't ask about it.

'Are they good at what they do?'

I remembered the voice of that lonely French infantryman, shouting to his commanding officer and to his friends in the dark oblivion of the night. I remembered Iuda, Matfei and Foma wandering into a camp of a hundred men without a doubt in their minds that they would be victorious. Although I had not seen them since, there was no doubt in mine that they had been. I spared Domnikiia the details.

'Very good,' I replied.

I ran my hand across her thigh and she smiled at me, but her smile suddenly became a frown as she grabbed my hand and held it up to look at.

'When did this happen?' she asked in alarm.

'What?' I almost laughed, seeing no reason for her sudden anxiety.

She spent a moment searching for what to say. 'Your fingers! When did it happen?'

I'd long ago become accustomed to the absence of the last two fingers of my left hand, lost under torture after I had been captured by the Turks. It was almost surprising how little I had needed them. I wrote with my right hand. I held my sword in my right hand. My aim with a musket was a little less good for having to support the stock with only two fingers, but it had never been my weapon of choice.

'Three years ago,' I replied to Domnikiia's question. 'I'm surprised you hadn't noticed,' I added, pretending to sound hurt, but still genuinely surprised.

'I don't think I really noticed you at all until you left.'

She ran her finger up and down between my thumb and my index finger and middle finger and then over the stumps of the other two.

'Does it hurt?' she asked.

'Not any more.' I let her continue to feel the scarred remains of my fingers. Most people were oversensitive about my hand, either being constantly concerned about it or not mentioning it at all for fear they might upset me. Either way, it was better that they focused on the physical. Only one other person I knew shared Domnikiia's innocent fascination with the messy detail of what remained where my fingers had been, and that was my son, Dmitry. He liked to touch my hand in much the same way as Domnikiia was doing now and, closing my eyes, it was almost as if I was with him again. Marfa at first had told him not to, but it did me no harm, so it was allowed.

'I've never seen a picture of Empress Marie-Louise,' said Domnikiia, intertwining her four fingers with my two. I was glad she had changed the subject.

'Why do you say that?' I asked.

'Apparently you think I look like her.'

'Apparently?'

'Maksim told me.' She spoke as if it was a confession of a sin. But that she and Maks had spoken about me was not a concern to me any more.

'Well, you do look like her.'

'So am I just a cheap substitute because you can't afford yourself a French empress?' she asked lightly.

I laughed. 'She's not French, she's Austrian.'

'That's not an answer.'

'And you're not cheap.'

'Neither's that, though I know it must be a strain on your pocket to pay for a courtesan.' She paused before adding, 'And a wife.' She said the words with a look of petulant envy which I could only regard as a pretence. The idea that Domnikiia was in some way jealous of my marriage, whether the feeling was affected or not, was flattering to me, but I was also irritated that she should attempt to bring reality into our cosy, delusional world.

'Maks again, I suppose,' I said.

She nodded and then added, 'You don't wear a wedding ring.'

'Not a good idea for a spy,' I replied. I absent-mindedly rubbed the base of the ring finger of my right hand, where it should have been. My wedding ring sat, as ever, in a small mother-of-pearl box on Marfa's dressing table. I only ever wore it when I was at home in Petersburg. Marfa said that she understood my reasons.

'Oh, I see,' said Domnikiia. 'What's her name?'

'Whose?' I asked.

'Your wife's.'

'Didn't Maks tell you that?'

'He didn't mean to tell me any of it.'

'She's called Marfa Mihailovna. And we have a son – Dmitry Alekseevich.' I sounded more annoyed than I meant to. I just wanted to get the details over with as quickly as possible so that I at least could forget that I had a wife and child.

'Another Dmitry,' she observed.

'We named him after Dmitry Fetyukovich.'

'Why?'

'Because he saved my life.'

'I see,' she said, cuddling close to me. 'I think I'd like to meet Dmitry.'

'Which one?'

She made no reply, but simply smiled up at me. Unwanted, the memory of Maks interrupted my thoughts. He would have been waiting alone in the discomfort of a woodsman's hut in Desna for two days. I despised myself for lingering.

'I have to go,' I said, beginning to dress. 'I have to see Maks.'

'I understand,' she replied.

For the first time, it didn't occur to me to pay her. It didn't occur to her to ask.

Stepping out into the square, I saw Vadim marching briskly towards me.

'What the hell are you doing in there?' he growled with genuine anger. 'You're supposed to be looking for Maksim Sergeivich.'

'I was looking for him.'

'In there? That may be where you get your entertainment, Aleksei, but it's not the sort of place I'd expect to find Maks. Mind you, I'm learning an awful lot today that I wouldn't have expected from Maks. So was he in there?'

'No, but I found out where he is,' I replied, unable to fathom Vadim's unusually bellicose manner.

'Good, let's go there then.'

'Why the rush, all of a sudden?'

Vadim looked at me as if he thought he was about to break my heart. His tone softened, but only a little.