It was beneath him to dismiss me, but he said nothing more, and so I scurried off in the direction that Foma had gone. The trail was, however, now cold. Foma had been scarcely half a minute ahead of me, but already he would have had a choice of ten or more roads to take. I didn't give up – I'd always play a ten to one shot – but on this occasion it proved to be that he had taken one of the other nine.

I headed back to my stable in Zamoskvorechye and went to sleep.

The following day, I returned to the school. By that time, I looked pretty rough. I hadn't actually been sleeping out of doors, as had some of the people of Moscow, but I was still dirty and dishevelled and smelled of the streets. This struck me as a good pretext for starting a conversation with the two guards who now stood outside the schoolhouse.

'Excuse me, sirs,' I said to them in Russian, 'would you have any food?' They looked at me blankly. 'Some bread, perhaps?' Still they didn't understand. I switched to French. 'Du pain? Du pain?' I pleaded, as if it was the only phrase I knew in French, and trying to speak it with a Russian accent. There were real tears in my eyes and one of the guards went inside, returning moments later with a dirty crust. 'Thank you, sir,' I continued, in French, presuming that most Muscovites would know at least that much.

I crouched down on the pavement with my back to the wall and gnawed hungrily at the stale bread. They showed little inclination to move me on. A third soldier joined the two guards.

'Any news of Albert?' the first guard asked him.

'Still nothing,' he replied.

'I'm certain he came back with us last night,' said the second.

'Oh, he did. His bed was slept in – and bloodstained – but there's no sign of him. Even if he'd been murdered, there'd be a body.'

I immediately recalled to mind the scene days ago near Goryachkino, when the Oprichniki had been so fastidious in removing the bodies of all those soldiers that they had slaughtered outside the farmhouse.

'One of the patrols last night came across a Russian sleeping rough – or pretending to – just over there.' The first guard nodded towards the doorway where I had been found the previous night. 'Maybe he was a look-out.'

'Maybe,' mused the newcomer, then, to give vent to his frustration, he mounted a hefty kick to my leg as he snarled at me, 'Bistro! Bistro!' The accent was almost impenetrable, but it was the only word of Russian that most of the invaders had bothered to learn: 'Quickly! Quickly!' It was used in any circumstances; whether, as now, to send me hurrying on my way, or to clear the path in front of them, or – with, as time went by, greater and greater urgency – to procure themselves a meal. In this case, it was my opportunity to escape. I gladly complied.

I spent the day much as I had the previous one, wandering the streets, picking up scraps of information from both the French occupiers and from those remaining Russians whom they repressed. I avoided Kitay Gorod, which was now almost completely ablaze, though there were few places that I could venture in the city where I would not see flames nearby, or come across the devastation left behind where fire had already exhausted itself. Before the occupation, the main enclave for French émigrés had been in the area round Kutznetsky Bridge, spanning the river Neglinnaya; now diverted from its natural course into a part-covered canal, before acting as a moat beside the western wall of the Kremlin and finally flowing into the Moskva. Though the inferno reached the very borders of this area, it went no further.

Some of the French I spoke to believed that it was the will of God that 'their' part of the city had been saved. The will of Bonaparte also made a contribution; he had ordered that a picket of men should stand around Kutznetsky Bridge, ensuring that if ever the flames did encroach, they would be beaten back.

The fires and stories of how the fires had begun and discussions of when they would end were the main subjects on everyone's lips. Hidden amongst them were tales of other mysterious deaths and disappearances that could not be put down to the conflagration. These, I had little doubt and took some pleasure in knowing, were the work of my friends the Oprichniki. Other news was more political. Bonaparte had abandoned the Kremlin, for fear that the fire would reach it, moving to the Petrovsky Palace on the outskirts of the city. Furthermore, the French were beginning to discuss what Bonaparte's next step would be. The previous day there had been an air of if not euphoria, at least proud achievement in their conquest of a foreign city, but now they were wondering what they were actually going to do with it. Few relished the prospect of marching on to Petersburg, but there would be no safety or comfort in remaining in Moscow over the winter. There was still a general expectation that Tsar Aleksandr would soon give up his pride and begin to negotiate some sort of peace, but that would still leave the Grande Armée isolated and far from home.

That evening, being a Wednesday, we were due to meet on the Stone Bridge, west of the Kremlin. I didn't attend, but watched from well away to the west, on the south bank of the river. My plan was to follow one of the Oprichniki again. If I spoke with Vadim and Dmitry, it might slow me down. I couldn't even be sure that Dmitry wouldn't try to stop me. The moon was high and three-quarters full when I arrived, somewhat earlier than scheduled. Before long I saw a figure walk to the middle of the bridge and gaze down into the river below. It was Dmitry. He was soon joined by Vadim. They spoke for a moment and then walked together to the south side of the bridge. Some five minutes later they returned. Clearly, they didn't want to be seen lingering in one place for too long and were patrolling the bridge so as to encounter any Oprichniki that chose to show up.

I felt an enormous urge to go over there and speak to them. It had been five days since I had exchanged a word with either of them, and in that time I had not had a single, honest, straightforward conversation with anyone. My brief exchange with Foma and Ioann the previous night counted for nothing. I realized that I felt almost homesick, not for a place – I felt Moscow to be my home now far more than Petersburg – but for people; for my friends. Five minutes of conversation with either of them would give me the same relief as plunging into a cool river in sweltering weather. Just as I have in the past been gripped by the eccentric inclination on a hot day in a public place to rip off my clothes and bathe before all in some cooling pond, I felt now the desire to indulge myself in the comforting conversation of my friends. On those occasions, as now, I resisted the temptation. I had a greater task than the alleviation of my own discomforts.

I watched Dmitry and Vadim pacing back and forth with a certain unwholesome pleasure – like the true, unknown father of a child might watch that child as it played with its mother's husband, or as a spurned lover might watch his beloved through her open window – pretending I was there, imagining the conversation as if I were taking part, but unable to step out of the shadows and join in. It was only now, when its relief was so tantalizingly close, that I comprehended the depth of my loneliness. Although I had been pleased to see Foma and Ioann the night before, I had soon become reacquainted with their absolute lack of character. They were not merely sullen; they were simply nothing – soulless portraits of men from a distant land whom I felt I had never met in person.

Vadim and Dmitry were passing across the bridge for the fourth time when they encountered two more figures coming from the opposite direction. One was Varfolomei; the other I could not make out. It was not Iuda, who was easy to recognize by his height alone, if not by his hair and his posture. The two Oprichniki spoke a little with Vadim and Dmitry, but for no longer than five minutes, then my friends departed, both heading north. The Oprichniki waited a short while to be sure that they had gone, and then set off themselves. Varfolomei headed north whilst the other, once he had stepped off the southern end of the bridge, turned right and proceeded along the embankment where I was hiding.