EPILOGUE

FYODOR KUZMICH DIED a happy man, in Tomsk, in Siberia, on 20 January 1864. As he lay on a straw bed, in a wooden shack, he knew that death was coming, but he had lived long enough. He had lived, in fact, three years longer than he needed to, but God had granted him those three years to enjoy seeing the fruits of his nephew’s achievement.

In 1861, Tsar Aleksandr II had at last emancipated the serfs. All men in Russia were free. On Kuzmich’s own accession to the throne, as Aleksandr I, sixty years before, it had been his fondest hope to achieve the same, but it had never come to pass. Bonaparte was to blame, at least at first, and then had come all the trouble with Zmyeevich and Cain and the Romanov Betrayal. They’d found a way out of that, he and Volkonsky, Tarasov, Wylie and Danilov. Only Tarasov was left alive now – and possibly Danilov. Kuzmich knew he had returned west when the Decembrists had been pardoned, but had not heard of him since.

It did not matter. They were all old men, and it was meet for old men to die. If he could die happy in the knowledge that he had left his country in a better state than he had found it, all to the good, even if the credit was to his nephew and not to him.

He heard a voice, but he could not make out the words. It was probably his friend Simeon Khromov, who had looked after him in his final months. He knew full well what the man was asking him – it was always the same. Simeon suspected something about Kuzmich, but his guesses were never close to the truth. Now he would never learn it, but Kuzmich knew that his friend deserved a response.

He lifted his hand weakly, remembering the first time he had died, in Taganrog in 1825. He realized now what a good impersonation of a dying man he had given then. But this was no play-acting. He pointed to his heart and whispered as loudly as he could.

‘Here lies my secret.’

Then his arm fell to his side and he was no more.

Four thousand versts away, Zmyeevich’s eyes flicked open. The connection was broken. He had never been able to read Aleksandr Pavlovich’s mind, but Aleksandr could at times sense his, and thus Aleksandr’s existence was always a presence for Zmyeevich.

And now that presence was no more, and Aleksandr was at last dead. He should have realized in 1825, but he had been fooled. By the time he had understood, Nikolai had been well settled on the throne, and the return of his brother would have been pointless. But Aleksandr Pavlovich’s continued existence had acted to protect his nephew, by attracting whatever influence Zmyeevich could exert over the bloodline. If they could have found him, they would have killed him, but Danilov’s silence had prevented that. Even so, Zmyeevich had known he had only to wait and death would come. Now it had done so.

And so now retribution could begin again and at last, in the fifth generation, the Romanov Betrayal would be avenged.