'Stay there,' I whispered to Domnikiia, and I began to edge my way towards the window, keeping my back always to the wall. When I got there, I wasted no time in pulling the curtain to one side and flooding the bedroom with light.
Iuda had not changed his attitude towards offspring. He remained, as he had once told me in that room of rotting corpses, free from the responsibility of long-term consequences. The purpose of the previous night's theatricals had not been to convert Margarita into another vampire who could accompany Iuda across the centuries. It had been purely a charade for my benefit, so that I would believe that Domnikiia had become a vampire and would then, as I so nearly had, kill her. For me to know that she died at my hand would make a vengeance upon me far sweeter than anything that Iuda could have done to her.
But once the performance had been acted out, Iuda had no further need for the bit players. On the bed, Margarita lay naked on her back. Her legs were together and straight and her arms lay limply stretched out on either side of her, in a grim mimicry of our crucified Lord. Her long, dark hair radiated from her head across the pillows like a halo, surrounding a face from which her dead eyes gazed blankly at the ceiling.
To her right side, sheets and pillows were drenched in vivid, red blood, which was also smeared over her stomach, breasts and cheeks. The right side of her throat was ripped open in a style that only a voordalak could achieve.
Domnikiia screamed.
Domnikiia did not stay at the brothel after that. None of them did. The authorities began an investigation. A brief look at my papers was enough to persuade them not to pester either myself or Domnikiia, although I doubt whether it did much to convince them of my innocence. I could have told them to terminate the investigation with all possible haste, but I chose not to. I wanted the nature of Iuda and the other Oprichniki to be known by everyone, but it was something that the police would have to find out for themselves. A simple account of the truth from me would not be believed.
As it was, they showed little interest in the history of one more body amongst the thousands. They were more concerned with identifying those in Moscow who had collaborated with the invaders. If they had chosen to speak with Domnikiia, they might well have perceived a discrepancy between her description of Margarita's body and what they found. An additional wound would have appeared.
After I had guided Domnikiia out of her colleague's room and into her own, but before summoning the police, I had returned to see Margarita once more. Her body was lifeless. Her dead eyes gave no reaction to changes in the light. Her flesh did not burn when it came into contact with the sun. For all anyone could tell, Iuda had caused her death, not begun her transformation. But I recalled another body that I had once seen in a not dissimilar state – the body of a young Russian soldier named Pavel, carried on a wooden cart through the streets of Moscow. He too had seemed dead. He too had been able to lie unaffected under the gaze of the sun. But his body had not decayed, the reason being that he had exchanged blood with a vampire and so had, within days or weeks, become one.
I could not let that happen. It took a single, swift, undebated thrust from my hand to rupture her dead heart with the wooden shaft of my dagger. How much easier it was for me to do that to Margarita than it ever could have been with Domnikiia.
Domnikiia stayed with me at the inn. It was not the best of times in our relationship. Domnikiia may have kept her soul, but her spirit had been dealt a heavy blow by the death of Margarita. Her vitality had faded to almost nothing. She didn't smile; she didn't joke; she didn't even hate. All those reactions were, I was sure, quite natural under the circumstances, and those qualities would return with time, but for now she was not even a shadow of the Domnikiia I had known and had loved. Worse, though, than losing those things I admired in her, I now found her dependency upon me stifling. Again this was no more than a temporary reaction to her shock, but it was a reminder to me that, whatever might happen to us, while we were together she would be my responsibility. I already had responsibilities – Marfa and Dmitry. It was not that I could not cope with another; it was simply that I didn't want to. Domnikiia was supposed to be my irresponsibility – the person with whom I need have no concern for the future or for the world outside. Now, more than ever, that was what I needed. The carnage that I had witnessed in those autumn months of 1812 had left me as an old man. I had lost the three people closest to me; Maks and Vadim by their very lives, Dmitry by the insuperable mistrust that had grown up between us. Dmitry's cowardly retreat from what faced him had turned out to be a wise response, one which now, only a few days later, I followed. The terror that had consumed me in Moscow after the fire had returned. Then safety had seemed to lie in flight, now it lay in immobility. Yet I would have liked Domnikiia – the real Domnikiia – to have been there to distract me from the reality of my inaction; either to fill my days with trivial frivolity or to stand up to me in a way that would either force me to justify my torpor or would shatter it.
Instead, she was simply meek. She could have goaded me into chasing west after either the French or the two surviving Oprichniki, or she could have begged me to stay with her in Moscow. As it was, I stayed, but not because she begged – she hardly spoke at all. The excuse for staying was my wounded arm, but it was well on the mend and I had ridden into battle with worse injuries. The reason for staying was fear.
Margarita's funeral took place three days after her death. She proved to have many friends and acquaintances who had taken the time out of their lives to attend, though few spoke to one another – particularly the men. Of the nine uniformed officers who attended, I was surprised to see that four outranked me. What was truly remarkable was that Margarita should have a funeral at all. The fires in Moscow had not killed many, but subsequent starvation had eradicated thousands, both native and invader. Most were still to be hauled into mass graves. From what I could gather, it was Pyetr Pyetrovich who had paid for the ceremony. His diligence in looking after his property now proved to stretch beyond simple good business.
Most significantly, the funeral marked a turning point in Domnikiia's mood. Having bid a formal farewell to her friend and colleague, some hints of her former charm began to re-emerge. Even so, the memory of her at her lowest always haunted me.
A few days later, as we sat in my rooms at the inn, she made an announcement.
'I'm going to get a job.'
'You have a job – or you will when Pyetr Pyetrovich reopens,' I told her. It sounded odd even as I spoke. Most men in my position would be delighted for their mistress to be giving up such a profession, but I had grown used to it.
'I can't go back there. What happened to Margarita… Well, even if it hadn't been Iuda, it could have been someone else. It could happen to me one day.'
'Will Pyetr Pyetrovich let you leave?' I was not trying to place obstacles in her way, but it must have come across as such.
'If he doesn't, he'll have you to answer to.'
I went over and kissed her cheek. 'He certainly will.' I sat down beside her. 'So what will you do?'
'I could work in a shop, or go into service.'
'I might know people who would take you on as a maid.'
'Here or in Petersburg?'
'Some here; mostly in Petersburg though.'
'I'd prefer Moscow,' she replied. I'd prefer you in Moscow too, I thought, but didn't say it.
'On the other hand,' she asked thoughtfully, 'wouldn't your wife like a new maid?'
A momentary image of the convenience of such an arrangement was quickly banished by the unending riskiness of its reality. A wife in one city and a mistress in another was a comfortable arrangement. To have both in the same city would add spice. To have both in the same household was the stuff of Molière. It could never be. I knew she would understand that in the long run, but in her present mood a blunt refusal could be damaging.