Anabaptists. The light catching the pearls around the neck of the ambassador’s wife, the scent of pomade from the hair of her young gentlemen, crisp white cuffs and polished black shoes, and the thick orange velvet covering of the balcony rail; he took pleasure in these details like a scientist examining a slide beneath a microscope, for they were the comforts of the world in which he lived most of his life. But how much keener his appreciation if there was the risk of losing them – a small chance, granted – but enough to give life more edge. In Russia, guilt by association might secure even a well-connected doctor several years in a katorga in Siberia. Excitement, then, and no small satisfaction, in Sunday work the student doctor of his Zurich days would have respected.
The stirring last chords, a polite second’s silence then a crescendo of applause as the heavy curtains swept back to reveal the first of the principals. With moist eyes, Lady Dufferin turned to her party then back to the stage, her gloved hand gripping the edge of the balcony. Hadfield leant forward a little to peer over the countess’s, shoulder, and through the dark forest of hands he could see there were four empty seats. He felt a pang of disappointment: dowdy clothes, her neat little figure, her softly spoken accented Russian, her strange physicality, the frown that hovered between her dark brows – a little too closely set for classical beauty – her arrogantdefiance and yet a certain reticence, and those searing blue eyes – those and more. He was intrigued and pleased, pleased he was now obliged to spend the following Sunday at Miss Kovalenko’s clinic.
6
28 MAY 1879
M ajor Vladimir Barclay did not see the executioner kick the steps away but he heard the gasp of thousands like the sighing wind on the winter steppe. The charged silence that followed was broken only by the priest’s prayers and the lazy creaking of the scaffold. Alexander Soloviev was twitching at the end of the rope. This was what they wanted, the young merchants and the old ladies wrapped in black, the frock-coated civil servants, these were the precious seconds they had waited an hour or more to witness. Kicking and shaking and slowly turning as life was choked from him before their eyes.
What a spectacle! Turning his back on the scaffold, Barclay began pushing through the crowd towards the line of carriages in front of the Semenovsky Barracks. It was not that he felt sympathy for Soloviev – it was only what he deserved – but the business was managed so badly. The hangman was a drunken criminal who emptied a bottle of vodka down his throat before he fumbled through his task.
Barclay’s driver had abandoned his post for a favourable view of the execution and was now lost in the crush of spectators. After a few minutes he came puffing up, red-faced, peaked cap in hand, which he swept before the major as he bowed contritely.
‘Fontanka 16 and smart about it,’ Barclay snapped.
But the entertainment was well and truly over, the crowd drifting away, and for all the driver’s easy cursing, the brandishingof his whip, the carriage crept on to Zagorodny at no more than a walking pace. A file of soldiers was marching along the prospekt to the lazy beat of a drum and the driver was obliged to join the carriages trundling in its wake.
Barclay had spent twenty years in uniform with the army and then the Gendarme Corps. Secret policeman, guardian of the state, he sometimes wondered if his name and background had directed his choice of role, as if he had felt it necessary to prove his loyalty to the empire. The Barclays had made their money in the timber trade; worse still, they were ‘foreigners’ of Scottish descent. Collegiate Councillor Dobrshinsky was the same. He was a member of the hereditary nobility from Kiev, but his family was Polish – they were ‘foreigners’ too. After observing his new superior for a week, Barclay was inclined to the view that this
The stirring last chords, a polite second’s silence then a crescendo of applause as the heavy curtains swept back to reveal the first of the principals. With moist eyes, Lady Dufferin turned to her party then back to the stage, her gloved hand gripping the edge of the balcony. Hadfield leant forward a little to peer over the countess’s, shoulder, and through the dark forest of hands he could see there were four empty seats. He felt a pang of disappointment: dowdy clothes, her neat little figure, her softly spoken accented Russian, her strange physicality, the frown that hovered between her dark brows – a little too closely set for classical beauty – her arrogantdefiance and yet a certain reticence, and those searing blue eyes – those and more. He was intrigued and pleased, pleased he was now obliged to spend the following Sunday at Miss Kovalenko’s clinic.
6
28 MAY 1879
M ajor Vladimir Barclay did not see the executioner kick the steps away but he heard the gasp of thousands like the sighing wind on the winter steppe. The charged silence that followed was broken only by the priest’s prayers and the lazy creaking of the scaffold. Alexander Soloviev was twitching at the end of the rope. This was what they wanted, the young merchants and the old ladies wrapped in black, the frock-coated civil servants, these were the precious seconds they had waited an hour or more to witness. Kicking and shaking and slowly turning as life was choked from him before their eyes.
What a spectacle! Turning his back on the scaffold, Barclay began pushing through the crowd towards the line of carriages in front of the Semenovsky Barracks. It was not that he felt sympathy for Soloviev – it was only what he deserved – but the business was managed so badly. The hangman was a drunken criminal who emptied a bottle of vodka down his throat before he fumbled through his task.
Barclay’s driver had abandoned his post for a favourable view of the execution and was now lost in the crush of spectators. After a few minutes he came puffing up, red-faced, peaked cap in hand, which he swept before the major as he bowed contritely.
‘Fontanka 16 and smart about it,’ Barclay snapped.
But the entertainment was well and truly over, the crowd drifting away, and for all the driver’s easy cursing, the brandishingof his whip, the carriage crept on to Zagorodny at no more than a walking pace. A file of soldiers was marching along the prospekt to the lazy beat of a drum and the driver was obliged to join the carriages trundling in its wake.
Barclay had spent twenty years in uniform with the army and then the Gendarme Corps. Secret policeman, guardian of the state, he sometimes wondered if his name and background had directed his choice of role, as if he had felt it necessary to prove his loyalty to the empire. The Barclays had made their money in the timber trade; worse still, they were ‘foreigners’ of Scottish descent. Collegiate Councillor Dobrshinsky was the same. He was a member of the hereditary nobility from Kiev, but his family was Polish – they were ‘foreigners’ too. After observing his new superior for a week, Barclay was inclined to the view that this
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