‘Are they there?’

‘No. I have to go to Moskva now.’

‘To tell the patriarch.’

‘Yes.’

‘And what makes you think he’ll listen to a single word you say?’

‘He’ll listen,’ said Va. He sat up, his feet still in the hole made by two parts of the shattered capstone. He had to get ready. The journey was going to be long, difficult, painful. ‘He’ll listen to me even if I have to write him a letter in my own blood.’

‘That sounds like fun. If you dictate, I’ll gladly be the scribe.’

‘I need a horse. You still have a horse, don’t you?’

Elenya threw down the iron bar. It clattered off the stonework and came to rest by Va’s side. He looked at it, sensing its weight, judging its length, feeling the motion of it as it spun and twisted in his hands. What an excellent weapon.

‘No,’ he hissed, louder than he intended.

Elenya heard. ‘No, what?’

‘I won’t. I won’t . . .’ He dropped his voice, muttering to himself under his breath. ‘Not in my hands.’ He got up and climbed out of the pit.

‘I won’t give you my horse,’ she said.

He couldn’t just take the animal. If he’d been a different man, he would have done. If he’d been a man who fought. So he had to persuade her instead. ‘This is a matter of the utmost importance. The books must not leave Mother Russia.’

‘All the books are gone, Va. Even the ones that were buried beneath the floor of the scriptorium. The heat would have destroyed them.’

‘They took the books before they set the fire. You said there were two great noises? Black powder, I’d swear on it. And in any event, these books would survive an iron forge.’

She tilted her head just so. ‘Yes, of course they would.’ She started to pick her way out from the ruins.

He called after her. ‘We tried. We tried everything to get rid of them. We burned them. We turned them red-hot and pounded them on an anvil. We scratched at them with diamonds. Nothing. Not a mark. Rather than taking them to sea where there was always the chance of them washing ashore somewhere, they were kept here. Safe. Safe for seven centuries. Now they’ve gone.’ He shouted at her back: ‘Disaster waits for us all.’

She stopped and looked over her shoulder. ‘Va, what the hell are you talking about?’

He clambered over the rubble, his feet slipping on the wet stones in his haste. ‘I can’t tell you. It’s a secret. But we have to get those books back.’

‘We?’ She arched an eyebrow.

‘Stop it. I mean us, the Church, and anyone who’ll help us. Clearly that doesn’t include you because all you do is hang around and wait for me to die. So either give me your horse or leave me alone.’ He sat down on what remained of the scriptorium wall and pressed his palms hard against his temples. ‘Why now? Why not in fifty years’ time when this wouldn’t be my problem?’

‘Because all the people you ever killed are crying out from beyond the grave, and God wants to dispense justice by giving you a really shitty time.’

He sighed. ‘There may be something in that.’

‘And while you’re speaking to the Almighty, you can tell Him we’ve had enough rain. A light shower would have done, but this is beyond a joke.’ Elenya picked up the hem of her coat and wrung it out on the ground in front of Va. The water formed a puddle, where more rain added to it.

‘The Lord is nothing if not bountiful.’

‘Shut up, you sanctimonious shit.’ Her shoulders sagged. ‘I’ll get the horse.’

He raised his head, and the rain dripped off his nose. ‘Thank you.’

She wagged her finger at him. ‘You misunderstand me. You’re going to Moskva. I’m going to Moskva. You can argue all you like, but you know as well as I do that you’re desperate to get there quickly. You’ll have to travel with me.’

‘No. You’ll be travelling with me.’

‘And whose horse is it?’

‘Yours,’ he admitted.

‘So I’ll be letting you come along. Remember that.’ She walked away, through the ruined courtyard and out into the woods beyond.

Va went over to the well to douse himself in bucket after bucket of freezing water, scraping his skin with stones to remove some of the dirt. More water after that. A memory: his baptism in a river, still frozen at the edges, surrounded by awed villagers, held under for longer than necessary by the priest, who needed to know that the sacrament would genuinely take.

‘You look like a rat. A wet rat.’

‘I no longer care what I look like – that’s not how my worth is judged.’

She was leading a horse, a shaggy-haired beast, snorting and stamping. ‘I take it you remember how to ride.’

‘I cannot ride with you.’

‘And you can’t take my horse.’ She wiped her hands on her hips. ‘You’re not leaving my sight, and you’ve run out of options. You have to ride with me, or not at all.’

‘Then,’ said Va, ‘I choose not to ride at all. I can’t share a saddle with you, Elenya. It would be too cruel to you. If you did not love me so, then I would say yes, let us ride, no matter how unseemly it looked, a monk and a woman so close together. But you do. Five years, and you’ve sat outside these walls, with the wolves and the bears and howling wind and biting cold, the snow in winter and the flies in summer.’

‘Don’t flatter yourself.’

‘I don’t. But neither of us is stupid. You stayed, and you still say you love me. I say you’re in the grip of some intractable madness. Whichever: I can’t share a saddle with you because it would send you out of your mind with longing. I haven’t touched you for all this time, praying that your passion for me would die. My prayers are unanswered. I don’t know why.’

‘Perhaps because I’m praying that you’ll throw off your habit and take me, even now. My prayers also remain unanswered. Isn’t God cruel?’ She bit at her lip. ‘So how are you going to get to Moskva? Walk?’

‘No. It would take too long. Those who stole the books would be gone, and the traces of their passing gone as well. It’s a week’s walk. The ice is melting, and boats can’t navigate the rivers.’

‘So?’

‘I’ll run.’ He adjusted his waist cord.

‘All the way?’ She was incredulous. ‘Just because you won’t ride with me?’

‘All the way. It’s kinder for you if I do.’ He turned round and judged the weather, the wind.

‘I’ll be right behind you. On the horse. When you get tired of running, I can give you a lift.’

‘My mind’s made up. Wish me Godspeed.’ He shook his arms out, rolled his neck this way and that. Then he set off, taking an easy pace, hands loose by his side. His bare feet scarcely touched the ground.

‘Men. Stupid, stubborn men. They get one idea in their heads and it’s the only thing they can think of.’ She shouted after him: ‘You haven’t even got any shoes!’

He was gone, out of the gate. There was a track of sorts that led into the forest of close-packed pines. It headed north, towards the city of Moskva. If there had been no track, Va would have made one.

Five years of isolation was over. He was back in the world.

CHAPTER 3

THERE WAS A body floating in the sea. It was caught at the surf line: as the waves broke and rushed in, spilling foam up the white beach, the body turned and dragged itself towards the shore. But as the water sank through the sand and the sea retreated, the pale, bloated corpse slipped away again.

Benzamir watched from the strand line. He held a selection of objects he’d combed from the beach – a shell, a translucent stone of sea-worn glass, a red crab carapace, a worm-bored piece of driftwood – and occasionally glanced down at his treasures, feeling the smoothness of the pebble, the roughness of the wood. He was barefoot, and scrunched the soft, dry sand between his brown toes.

Everything was amazing to Benzamir. The sky was huge, stretching from horizon to horizon, the sea filled his vision, the warmth of the sand and the heat of the sun: he couldn’t stop grinning. He even relished the bead of sweat that was working its way down his spine, the sand flies circumnavigating his ankles, the blinding glitter of sun on sea.