‘Cain’s book said that such a purification might take weeks, even months,’ explained Wylie.

‘But Your Majesty’s use of quinine may have precipitated matters,’ added Tarasov.

‘So I am not at risk of becoming… like Zmyeevich.’ The three men glanced at one another like naughty schoolboys. ‘Well?’ Aleksandr insisted.

‘If you were to die now, we believe you would die a normal death,’ said Danilov. ‘Your corpse would putrefy and rot like any other.’

Aleksandr blanched slightly at the words, then stifled a giggle, then laughed out loud. ‘Was ever a man so pleased to learn of his own mortality?’ he said.

‘Who knows?’ said Aleksei, returning the tsar’s smile. ‘Ask a priest.’

‘I did,’ said the tsar. ‘I asked Father Fyodotov. He was no help at all, which is why I called on the three of you.’

The two doctors both expressed their congratulations on Aleksandr’s recovery, as did Danilov, but the colonel watched the tsar throughout with an eye of concern that was unnerving.

‘Can I get up now and go about my business?’ Aleksandr asked.

‘Not yet, I think, Your Majesty,’ said Wylie, striding over to the bed to ensure that Aleksandr did not attempt to get out. ‘Your body is weakened from fighting its assailant. It has been victorious, but now it needs rest.’

‘Oh, very well,’ said the tsar. He felt he had the energy to go out and run all the way along the perimeter of the town, but he knew the sensation wouldn’t last. ‘Send Volkonsky in, would you?’

Wylie nodded, and the three men turned to leave.

‘And thank you,’ said Aleksandr. ‘All of you.’

‘It must be by his death,’ said Wylie. They were the same words Aleksei had heard uttered months before, and then, as now, their object had been the tsar, but on this occasion they were motivated by an affection that would not have been dreamed of in Prince Obolensky’s house in Petersburg. Aleksei was pleased Wylie’s train of thought was following his own.

They had gone down to the beach, where they felt assured of speaking in privacy. Volkonsky had been summoned to the tsar’s presence, as requested. It was a good thing that, for now, he would not hear their conversation, much as they might need his complicity, when the time came.

‘The question,’ replied Aleksei, ‘is when he dies.’

‘A long time from now, I should hope,’ said Tarasov.

‘I think we need a more precise reply than simply “sooner” or “later”.’

‘When he is free of Zmyeevich’s blood, you mean,’ said Wylie.

‘But he is free of it,’ said Tarasov. ‘I know it’s guesswork, but we’re all agreed.’

‘And that’s why Cain is coming for him,’ Aleksei pointed out. ‘He knows that any dose of Zmyeevich’s blood will wear off eventually. He needs to re-administer it.’

‘But why risk coming here?’ asked Wylie. ‘He could gain access to His Majesty at any time – back in Petersburg even – and slip the blood into his food or drink.’

‘That’s true,’ said Aleksei, ‘but I think Cain will act here and soon.’

‘Why?’

‘For two reasons. The first is simply that that was what he implied when we spoke in Chufut Kalye.’ Aleksei knew that Iuda could lie just as easily as he could tell the truth, but that did not mean he always lied. If he did, then predicting him would be child’s play.

‘And the second?’

‘The second,’ replied Aleksei, ‘is that he is afraid the tsar will die.’

‘Afraid?’ asked Tarasov.

‘Desperately. His Majesty can only die once. If that happens when he is free of Zmyeevich’s blood then all is lost for Cain – and Zmyeevich.’

‘And so he’ll try to get His Majesty to drink more,’ concluded Tarasov.

‘Exactly,’ said Aleksei. ‘And then kill him – as quickly as possible.’

‘But the influence of the blood lasts for weeks,’ said Tarasov. ‘We’ve seen that. Cain would have no need to rush.’

‘He can’t take the risk. Cain hasn’t observed the state of the tsar’s health. And anyway, how do we know that the period during which the outward symptoms manifest themselves has any correlation with susceptibility to becoming a vampire?’

‘We can make a good guess,’ said Tarasov.

‘We can,’ said Aleksei. ‘But that’s not a chance Cain can take. If you ask me, his biggest fear right now is that Aleksandr is so weakened by what he’s suffered he may die anyway.’

‘So what can we do?’ asked Tarasov.

Aleksei hesitated. What he had in mind would be more readily accepted by the tsar himself than by his two loyal doctors. But he knew it could not be executed without them. His reply, when it came, was soldierly.

‘We do what the enemy least wants us to do.’

‘How?’ asked Tarasov.

‘We make sure Cain’s greatest fear becomes a reality.’

Aleksandr reclined on his bed. It was now a day since his recovery. That, at least, was how he saw it, though his doctors seemed less confident. Should they not at least have faith in their own remedies? Perhaps they knew more than they were telling. He certainly did not yet feel well enough to get up, but he felt no worse than yesterday. Better? It was hard to judge. Time would tell.

There was a knock at the door.

‘Come,’ he boomed. There, that proved it. His voice was quite recovered. He had attempted only to raise his voice a fraction above the normal level, but he could not disguise its strength.

Volkonsky entered. ‘Are you able to receive visitors, Your Majesty?’

‘Visitors?’ Aleksandr found himself almost excited at the prospect. ‘Who?’

‘Drs Wylie and Tarasov. And Colonel Danilov.’

Aleksandr tutted. ‘Oh, they’re hardly visitors, are they?’ he said petulantly. ‘Never mind. Send them in. Send them in.’

Volkonsky left. Aleksandr was not entirely sure he wanted to see Danilov, Wylie and Tarasov. They were all intelligent gentlemen – cleverer than he was, he knew that. And so what he’d managed to piece together over the preceding day would surely have occurred to them much more quickly – particularly if they had been working together. Perhaps, with luck, their minds had got beyond the point which his had reached, and found some alternative to his own dark conclusion, some hidden door in the woodwork that would allow him a quick exit from reality. God knew he had sought one.

But his reasoning seemed utterly sound. When he had first told all to Wylie, Tarasov and Danilov, he had told them of his terror of death; not the terror most men have – that fear of the unknown that latches on to every tiny doubt they might have about the goodness of God and the cleanliness of their own record – but a concrete, confident fear that his death would mean his rebirth as a creature that had spewed forth from Hell. If he had died then, his fate would have been inescapable. It had seemed inescapable for all time. He had prayed. ‘Let this cup pass from me,’ had almost been his words to the Lord, but he understood that they would be blasphemous. At the same time he knew that even to have thought them was for God to have heard them. The blasphemy could not be undone.

And yet, it seemed, God had indeed answered his prayers. The cup, or at least the fever, had passed from him. Wylie and Tarasov might feign ignorance, but Aleksandr had known in his very bones that he had recovered. That the vigour of his blood – Romanov blood – had been powerful enough to defeat that which had invaded him. It had taken both time and torment, but in the end he had won.

But the Lord had only taken one cup from his lips so that He might offer him another chalice – one that contained a venom far less appetizing, and yet far less foul. Aleksandr might have lived to fight another day, but if he did fight another day, there was every chance he would lose. He was forty-seven years old. His babushka had survived to sixty-seven. He might well do better. And yet every day of that life he would run the risk of dying – dying with the blood of Zmyeevich, freshly introduced, inside his body. There was only one solution – to die when he was certain that his blood was pure. And that time could only be now.