CHAPTER XXXI

THE WOUND TO MY CHEEK WAS NOT AS SERIOUS AS I HAD FIRST thought. The cold weather became a brief friend as it numbed my face while the surgeon closed it up with a suture. I went back to Lieutenant-Colonel Chernyshev to tell him what had happened.

'Escaped?' he thundered.

'I'm afraid so, sir,' I replied.

'I'll have those guards flogged.'

'It's too late for that, sir.'

He glanced up at my face and understood. 'I see,' he said. 'Well, it's only one man, I suppose. All a bit of a waste of time, though.'

'Bonaparte's move south is a ruse, sir. The prisoner told me. The real crossing is to the north, at Studienka.'

'That's something at least. So you'll soon be joining us in action there then?'

'No, sir. I'd like to pursue the prisoner.'

'Is he worth it – just one man?'

'I believe so,' I said.

'Well, I suppose you people know your job. I can't lend you any men.'

'I don't ask for any, sir. Just a French uniform, if you have one.'

'We have dozens. Lieutenant Mironov, see that he gets what he needs.'

Mironov provided a dragoon uniform and a horse and some provisions, and I was soon heading out of what remained of the breaking camp. At first, I had to make my way alongside the advancing Russian troops (fortunately, I had not yet changed into my new uniform), but soon I headed off to the north of their path and the sound of marching faded behind me.

The only trail that Iuda had left was that he had planned to cross the Berezina with Bonaparte at Studienka. It was quite possible that this had been a lie, or that he would now change his mind, but my only option was still to try to intercept him there. I had not had time to properly consider what Iuda had said to me, but now as I rode through the quiet, frozen woods, I began to think.

The less painful matter to deal with was that Iuda was not a vampire. I had already concluded that this made little difference to my opinion of him. If a man chooses to become a vampire so that he may behave like a monster or if he finds himself quite able to behave like a monster anyway, he is still a monster and still happy so to be. Iuda remained a danger to all those he came into contact with. One question that had to be asked was whether any of the other Oprichniki was also not a vampire. Iuda had implied that they all were, but was Iuda to be trusted? The evidence of my own eyes convinced me of most of them – after their deaths I had witnessed their immediate bodily decay. I had not seen what became of Ioann or Filipp once they had perished. The deaths of Simon, Iakov Alfeyinich and Faddei had, if Maks was to be believed, been caused by sunlight. I felt confident that all eleven had indeed been vampires. If not, what was I to care? Just as it did not fundamentally matter with Iuda, neither did it with any of the others.

But what of Domnikiia? The idea of being tricked – of being betrayed – by her of all people was the true nightmare from which I saw no prospect of awakening. When she teased me it revealed her wit and her spirit, but to play games with me like this over such issues showed in her what almost amounted to insanity. 'I'm not surprised Iuda found it so easy to fool you.' Those had been her words. She and Iuda both delighted in playing me for the fool, and I had so far been gullibly eager to oblige them. But I also remembered what Maksim had once said, about the best place to hide a tree being in a forest, the best place to hide a lie being amongst the truth. Why had Iuda allowed himself to be captured?

To speak to me. What was it that he wanted to tell me? Not about Bonaparte's plans. Not about his views on chess. Not even to tell me he wasn't a vampire. It was to put the thought into my head that Domnikiia had chosen to become a vampire. Amongst that forest of truth, that was the single fact that he had wanted to convey. It was not even a fact – it was a piece of information that might be true and might not be. The truth could never be known and so the doubt would haunt me for ever.

Iuda's game, either through planning or through extemporization, had unfolded layer by layer in front of me, like a journey up a mountain when every false peak, once conquered, reveals another higher peak behind it. First I believed he had turned Domnikiia into a vampire. Then I discovered that, even so, I could not kill her. Then I discovered that she was not a vampire and that, had I killed her, it would have been as a mortal woman. This morning he had convinced me that she had all along wanted to be a vampire, even though he could not make her one. He could not go on forever pushing on one side of the scales and then the other and switching my view from one side to the next, but now he did not need to. He had found a perfect balance point. I could never know the truth and so, whatever I chose to do, I would spend half my life regretting. If I abandoned Domnikiia, then I would worry that I had done her wrong, that I had believed Iuda's final lie about her when she had behaved throughout in perfect innocence. If I stayed with her, I would be forever looking at her, wondering what happened between them that night in Moscow.

My perception was so battered by my constantly changing view of the truth – not just over Domnikiia, but over Maksim, over Dmitry, over the Oprichniki and over Iuda himself – that I was no longer able to find certainty in anything. Vadim's advice, I knew, would have been to go back to Petersburg, to go back to Marfa. She was someone in whom I had never had any doubt, nor had I any reason to. With her I would find a safe, content retreat. But then even Vadim's advice became ambiguous. How he would have despised any concept of retreat.

I was nearing the village of Studienka. I dismounted, tied up my horse and, despite the freezing cold, changed from the outer layers of my clothing into my French uniform. Skirting around the village, hidden by the woods, I made my way to a small hillock that overlooked the river itself. There I lay, concealed almost instantly beneath the falling snow, and observed the tattered remains of the Grande Armée.

Tattered and yet magnificent. There must have been fifty thousand before me; half of them soldiers, half non-combatants, all desperate to get across that river, to get out of Russia and to get home. Bonaparte's great campaign lay in ruins, the conquering ambition of every man transformed into self-preserving terror. None could have dreamed that the largest army ever assembled in the world would be reduced, in scarcely six months, to such a shambles. And yet it had happened, and I was thrilled to witness it.

But for an army slashed to less than a tenth of its former size, beset by the hellish cold of a foreign winter and caught between three Russian armies, each on its own the size of theirs, they had performed a remarkable feat. Two bridges had been built across the river. Even now I could see sappers and pontoniers up to their armpits in the icy water, strengthening and repairing the bridges as thousand upon thousands of men broke step to march across. Every building in the village had been torn down to provide timber. On the high ground on the far side of the river, the advance guard had already set up a defensive position. They were being engaged from the south. Tchitchagov, realizing his error, had travelled back north to the real crossing point. The French deployments already across the river were holding him off and allowing the remainder of the army to slip away to the west unmolested once they had crossed.

On the eastern bank, an innumerable multitude waited to cross along the two narrow, manmade isthmuses – not just soldiers, though of those there were many, but the entire entourage that any army requires to survive, particularly one so far from home. Men and women waited to cross the river, and those whose duties, however vital they might be, did not require them to carry a sword or a musket found themselves reckoned least in the pecking order. Cooks, washerwomen, smiths and armourers were among those who waited to cross and, even amongst them, an order of merit would be established. Would an army in hopeless, frozen retreat favour those who maintained its weapons or those who filled its belly?

My intention of spotting one man amongst the tens of thousands was not as futile as it could have been. Though it would be impossible to scan the crowds of weary-faced troops that milled and bustled on the riverbank, the bridges themselves were narrow and all had to cross by one or the other. Indeed, most crossed by the smaller bridge, the larger being used for guns, wagons and cavalry. When I had last seen him, Iuda had no horse. Whether he had acquired one by now, I could only guess.

Although, with the help of my spyglass, I could inspect the face of each man as he approached the bridge, I was so far away that Iuda would be across the river by the time I could get down to the bank. My only prospect was to get down there amongst the French.

However determined the French were in getting as many men across the river as possible, it was at the expense of every other feature of military discipline. I was not challenged for any password or credentials as I picked my way first through the crowds of casualties and camp followers who would be the last to cross the bridge, if at all, and secondly through the teeming infantry who waited impatiently for their turn to cross. I looked out of place; any idea of uniform had been abandoned by the majority of the Grande Armée, in favour of more practical clothes – any clothes – that might keep out the cold. Even so, nobody paid me any attention.

As I got close to the bridges themselves, I received a few angry shoves from those who thought I was trying to jump my turn, but it was easy to assure them that I was not planning to cross the bridge, but to guard it. I joined the exclusive band of truculent sentries who stood at the entrance to the smaller footbridge.

'What did you do to get posted here?' asked one.

Evidently, this thankless duty was assigned as a punishment, not an honour. 'I misheard an order,' I said.

'Lots of soldiers have been hard of hearing today,' he laughed. We said little more to one another. There was nothing to do but watch the lines of men as they jostled to get on to the bridge, giving them the occasional shove when they got too much out of shape. I inspected every face that went past, as well as trying to keep an eye on the mounted men that crossed by the other bridge, but there was no sign of Iuda. What I would do if I saw him, I was not sure. To kill him there and then – one French soldier killing another, apparently unprovoked – would mean almost certain and instant execution for me. Despite the fact that I had voluntarily walked into the midst of a desperate enemy, I was in no mood for suicide. Iuda's death was now a secondary issue to me. What I needed from him was certainty. If I was lucky, I would have the opportunity to see him die afterwards, but now I had to know, one way or the other, what had happened between him and Domnikiia.

I could think of no other way to determine it. I could ask Domnikiia herself, but I would not believe her answer; at least not if she denied it. I would believe her only if the answer she gave was the one I did not want to hear. I could find the man she claimed she had been with that night, but he would, for the sake of his reputation, instantly deny ever having heard of her. Iuda was the only other person who knew for sure. He had already told me that it had been Domnikiia, but he had previously allowed me to believe that it hadn't. I would go through hell – and this frozen exodus seemed to me a pretty close thing – to get a definitive answer from him.

That afternoon, I was bestowed with an unexpected privilege, if that is the correct word for it. For the first and only time in my life, I saw Bonaparte himself in the flesh. Accompanied by the once mighty Imperial Guard, he made his way across the larger bridge to the west bank of the river. He was not the man I had imagined him to be. My image of him was formed from engravings and paintings and stoked by his reputation. It was no surprise if today he was not at his best. He was both older and fatter than any picture I had seen of him. His nose was not hooked, as is often portrayed, but of normal size and with a slight, hardly noticeable bend. His hair was not black, but of a dark reddish-blond. I wondered if the images I had seen of his empress, Marie-Louise, were as inaccurate and whether Domnikiia in fact looked anything like her. Though he tried to ride upright and erect, he had a tendency to slouch in his saddle. His mouth held the grimace of a man in pain. Despite all this, his blue eyes still burnt with a fury. Was this the look of the intense desire for conquest that had brought the whole of Europe under his heel? Or was it the glazed shield of defiance of a man despairing at his humiliation?

For those tired remnants of the Grande Armée, it was still the former. A cheer – with which I instinctively joined in – went up as he passed by, even from those men still in the water, working to ensure that the bridges would hold up long enough to get not only their emperor, but every one of his subjects across to safety. For at least an hour after his crossing, there remained a stir in the atmosphere, an increase in conversation and a general feeling that all would survive and make it back home. Looking out across the mass of those still waiting to cross, however, I could see that the enthusiasm was not felt universally. But around me, the feelings were genuine. Only when he was long gone did some sense of reality return to the men with whom I stood.

'I'm surprised they're still bothering, now he's across,' said one, his eyes flicking back and forth between the men who continued unendingly to file past.

'He'll get us out,' said another.

'Why so sure?'

'Because it's another two hundred leagues to Warsaw. He needs us till then.'

'But do we need him?'

'Could you have got the bridges built?'

That night, to my astonishment, the horde that had been filing in unbroken procession across the bridges petered away to nothing. Tens of thousands still remained to cross, but they sat around huge campfires, roasting the flesh of fallen horses and waiting to recommence the crossing in the morning. With hindsight of the number that failed to make it across before the full Russian forces fell upon us, this was a ridiculous waste of time, but no one gave the order, and so no one crossed.

The quiet darkness would be a perfect opportunity for Iuda to slip over the bridge, avoiding the crowds, and I tried to stay awake and so prevent him, but I could not. Had Iuda come by that night, I would not have noticed. Had he seen me, he could have killed me with ease. But he did not come that night.

I woke at about seven. I could hear the sound of artillery, closer than it had been the night before, but I do not think it was that which woke me. I looked and saw a solitary figure crossing the river via the smaller bridge. There was no question of it being Iuda, although his hat and clothing completely obscured his face; he was far too short. He was dressed in a bearskin – at least, that was the outermost layer – with a hole cut in it from which his head protruded. It was practical, if inelegant. I could only guess that he was that rarity of a French soldier who had the independence of mind to cross the river when the opportunity was there. I felt sure he would be one of the few that made it safely back to France.

Soon the sun rose, and the crossing of the Berezina resumed en masse. The indolence of the previous night now forced an additional urgency during the day. All had heard rumours that the Russian forces were closing in on our side of the river, and we began to hear to the north and east the sound of battle which was not so far distant when it began, and grew ever nearer as the day went on.

Later in the day, when the first Russian cannonballs began to fall on the riverbank itself, any remaining vestige of orderliness evaporated. The crowds around the entrances to the bridges became more disorderly, and those who failed to angle themselves on to the bridges began to be pushed into the water by the crowds behind them.

Laden with too many horses and too many carts, the larger bridge began to sag in the middle and soon, with a wrenching and creaking of splintering wood, a section of it crumpled into the river. Horses, wagons and men were swept downstream. Those on what remained of the bridge on the far side dashed to safety with an alacrity they had not shown when it was intact. The crowds on the bank at first did not realize what had happened and continued to push on to what they thought was a bridge but was now a jetty. Dozens were forced off the bridge's broken end and into the river – soldiers becoming sailors as they were obliged to walk the plank into which the bridge had been transformed by its collapse – before any order was restored. As people realized what had happened, there was a rush to the other bridge, where I was standing watch. By now all the other guards had abandoned their post, either voluntarily or simply swept away by the crowd. A French marshal – I think it was Lefebvre – stood at the end of the bridge and tried to restore order, but the crowd ignored him and in the end he was forced to cross with them, rather than resist and be trampled underfoot. I retreated behind one of the piles that supported the bridge, my feet lapped by the river water as it scurried over the ice, and continued my vigil.

As darkness fell there was still no sign of Iuda. I had always known it was a long shot, but now I realized that, unclear as I was what I would do if I found him, I had no idea whatsoever of what to do if I didn't. If the evacuation continued then I would soon be swept across the bridge with the rest of the troops. Somehow, I would have to get away from them. Doing so on this side of the Berezina would be preferable, but I could foresee the possibility of having to creep back across this bridge or another, somewhere else along the river, to return to Russian lines.

Whatever plans I might have been able to formulate, I was interrupted by the sound of cannon fire. To the east, the Russian forces were much closer now. The French rearguard, which had been holding off the main body of the Russian army, was beginning to disengage. New swarms of men came down the banks of the river and tried to get on to the bridges. From the far bank, shells from French cannon were now screaming over our heads to rain down on the unseen Russian troops beyond the trees. With the fall of darkness, there was to be no cessation in the flow of people across the river as there had been the previous night.

As more and more soldiers crushed on to the narrow bridge, a sense began to fill the air that the end was coming; that if we did not get across now, then the Russians would be upon us and there would be no further chance to escape. Officers and men all around, who had been maintaining some slight degree of order, abandoned their posts and joined the mêlée that pushed and shoved around the bridges. Others decided to forget about the bridges and risk the river itself.

Close to the bank, the water remained frozen, and men began gingerly to walk out as far as they could. One reached the edge of the ice sheet and leapt into the water. Because of the thaw, the river was full and fast. He was swept away downstream. Others were luckier. I saw two or three who stripped themselves of guns, swords and boots – anything that weighed them down – and who thereby managed to swim across. How much further they would get without boots, I had to wonder, but on either side of the river there was a plentiful supply of dead men who had no further requirement for their footwear. One man who jumped in was again swept away, his head disappearing instantly beneath the turbulent water, only to emerge way, way downstream on the far side of the river and scramble thankfully on to dry land.

Upstream of the bridge, a group of a dozen or so were edging out across the ice. The man at the front turned to the others and began screaming at them, urging them to go back because their weight would break the fragile shelf. The vigour of his gesticulation unbalanced him and he slipped over on the ice. With the impact of his fall I heard a cracking sound as the whole sheet splintered away from the bank. Almost immediately it capsized, tipping the men into the water. The current took them rapidly downstream and dashed them into the side of the bridge. Some began to climb up on to the structure and were kicked back by those already desperately scrambling across it. Others remained in the water, clinging to the piles that supported the bridge until the sheet of ice itself slammed into the bridge, crushing those who clung beneath it and knocking several who were on the bridge into the water.

Memories of Austerlitz and the horrible mass of men drowned at Lake Satschan came rushing to me – memories that I had been fighting off ever since I had arrived at this place, ever since winter had begun to fall. At Austerlitz it had been Russian and Austrian lives, but now the score was evened. This time there had been no need to fire upon the ice to break it, as Bonaparte had at Satschan. That is not to say that there was no Russian cannon fire, only that it killed by more traditional means.

Terror finally overcame my desire to confront Iuda. It was time for me to leave, but even that was not going to be easy. Close to the bridge I was protected from the crowd, which travelled with a single mind and in a single direction. It would have been easier for me simply to get into the crowd and let it carry me across the river, but the bridge was now so swelled with bodies that I doubted whether more than half those who got on to it made it to the other side without falling into the water. I remembered crossing the Moskva Bridge, back when Moscow was being evacuated and when I again had found myself the only person wanting to travel against the flow. That had been an easier bridge to cross than this, but then the French crossing here were a hundred times more certain of their defeat than those Russians had been. I started out away from the river, against the direction that every other man on the bank was heading. They were not concerned or inquisitive about the direction I was going, they did not deliberately try to take me with them, but however much I pressed onward away from the icy water, still I found myself carried closer and closer towards it.

I grabbed men's arms and their coats and tried to push them aside to get past them, climbing against the flow of human bodies.

As I grabbed one man's lapel to throw him out of my way he looked at me with cold, familiar, grey eyes. For once he had not been looking for me, and I had only just then abandoned my search for him, and yet still Iuda and I had found one another.