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First published in Great Britain in 1999 by HarperCollinsPublishers

Copyright © Michael Pearce 1999

Michael Pearce asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

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Source ISBN: 9780008259488

Ebook Edition © JUNE 2017 ISBN: 9780008257279

Version: 2017-09-04

Praise for Michael Pearce

‘This series continues to be the most delightful in current detective fiction’

GERALD KAUFMAN, Scotsman

‘Pearce … takes apart ancient history and reassembles it with beguiling wit and colour’

JOHN COLEMAN, Sunday Times

‘Irresistible fun’

Time Out

‘The Mamur Zapt’s sly, irreverent humour continues to refresh the parts others seldom reach’

Observer

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Praise

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Keep Reading

About the Author

Also by Michael Pearce

About the Publisher

1

‘Try the Missing Persons Bureau,’ said Dmitri coldly.

‘Missing Persons?’ said the Father Superior. ‘What’s that got to do with it?’

‘You said someone was missing.’

‘Not some one, some thing! The One-Legged Lady.’ He looked incredulously at Dmitri. ‘You’ve not heard of her? An icon.’

Dmitri knew, at least, what icons were. This was not surprising because nearly every house in Russia had one. It was usually situated in the opposite corner from the door so that you saw it as soon as you entered. The Church said that it was to remind you that you were forever under God’s protection. Dmitri said that since this was Russia and Church and Tsar were hand in glove, it was to remind you that someone was always keeping an eye on you. Anyway, as you went in at the door, there it was opposite you, usually a face under a tin plate, of some saint or other, looking you accusingly in the eye. It always reminded Dmitri of his difficult grandfather.

‘Not just an icon,’ said the Father Superior with emphasis: ‘the icon. The Holy Icon of the One-Legged Lady of Kursk. The most famous icon in the province.’

He looked hopefully at Dmitri. Without luck. To Dmitri, icons and monasteries – and Father Superiors, for that matter – belonged to the Dark Ages.

‘You’d better fill in a form,’ he said unenthusiastically.

The Father Superior stood for a moment looking down at him. Then he said:

‘Is there anyone more senior here? Boris Petrovich, for example?’

Boris Petrovich was the Procurator and Dmitri’s boss.

‘I’m afraid he’s dining at the Governor’s this evening.’

‘Ah, yes,’ said the Father Superior. ‘I’m dining there myself.’

‘This icon of yours,’ said Dmitri, swiftly reviewing his position, ‘it’s gone missing, you say?’

‘Stolen,’ said the Father Superior. ‘From the Monastery last night.’

Dmitri pulled a pad towards him.

‘Value?’

‘It is a holy object,’ said the Father Superior.

‘No value,’ wrote Dmitri.

He had a niggling feeling, however, that something remained to be said.

‘Famous, did you say? What is it famous for?’

‘Performing miracles.’

‘Oh, yes?’

Dmitri put down his pen.

‘What sort of miracles?’ he said sceptically.

‘Well, it’s transformed the finances of the Monastery for a start.’

This, admittedly, was the kind of miracle in which Dmitri could believe.

‘How?’

‘By inducing thousands of people to come and see her. Including,’ said the Father Superior, ‘Mrs Mitkin.’

Mrs Mitkin was the Governor’s wife.

‘Perhaps I had better take a look,’ said Dmitri.

‘Didn’t I tell you,’ said the Father Superior, ‘that it performed miracles?’

The sun came up and turned the snow pink. The ice crystals began to sparkle. Far off towards the horizon there Was another, larger, more continuous sparkle which became a flash of gold.

Gradually, the Monastery came into view. The flash came from a huge gold onion sitting on top of it. All around were subsidiary onions and scaly pineapples. They rose out of a pink-and-blue striped roof, beneath which were walls so white that they seemed an extension of the snow. The gold was very newly golden and the pink and blue so fresh that it almost leaped off the roof at you. The Monastery, thought Dmitri, must have rich patrons.

There was a black smudge in front of the gates which resolved itself, as they approached, into a crowd of people. They held out their hands as the sleigh hissed past them into the Monastery yard.

‘There are a lot of them,’ said Dmitri.

‘Who?’ said the Father Superior, preoccupied.

‘Beggars.’

‘Pilgrims,’ said the Father Superior, pained.

‘Eyeing her all over!’ said the monk.

‘What?’ said Dmitri, startled.

‘You could tell he was no Christian. Didn’t do his respects. Didn’t even cross himself. Just stood there. Eyeing her all over, like I said. Disgusting!’

‘Father Kiril, –’

‘Most of them show a bit of respect. Not him! There he stands, eyeing her all over. Bold as brass! “Show a bit of respect!” I say to him. And do you know what he says? “Bugger off!” That’s what he says.’

‘Father Kiril, –’

Light began to dawn.

‘This was an icon, was it?’ said Dmitri.

‘What did you think it was?’

‘The One-Legged Lady?’

‘Eyeing her all over –’

‘He’s always like this,’ said the Father Superior despairingly.

The Chapel was dark except for a solitary lamp swinging down from overhead and the candles standing in front of the icons. The lamp turned in the draught whenever the door was opened and sent shadows chasing across the walls. Then it swung back again and they reassembled themselves. The candles fluttered and the faces beneath the metal plates seemed to alter their expressions but then the flames steadied and they resumed their normal impassivity. The air was heavy with incense.

A wooden screen, corresponding to the rood-screen in old English churches, stretched right across the Chapel, separating off the chancel. This was the iconostasis. It was covered with icons. From time to time someone would come up, bow before one or another of the icons, cross themselves, mutter a prayer and then shuffle away.

It was from the iconostasis that the Holy Icon of the One-Legged Lady of Kursk had been taken. There was a big, raw gap almost in the centre of the screen. A length of chain dangled down on either side.

‘We had it chained,’ said the Father Superior, ‘but they filed them through.’

Dmitri looked at the thick links.

‘That would have taken some time,’ he said.

‘They had all night. There are no services between midnight and five.’

‘The Chapel is left open?’

‘Yes.’ The Father Superior hesitated. ‘Father Kiril likes to pray,’ he said reluctantly.

‘Did he pray last night?’

The Father Superior sighed.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘He was here all the time.’

‘What?’ said Father Kiril.

‘Last night!’ shouted Dmitri. ‘The One-Legged Lady!’

He made motions desperately with his hands.

‘Disgusting!’ said the old man.

Dmitri looked despairingly at the Father Superior.

‘It’s no good,’ said the Father Superior. ‘We’ve tried everything. He can’t hear a word!’

‘Oh, yes, I can,’ said Father Kiril unexpectedly.

‘Except when he wants to,’ amended the Father Superior.

Dmitri tried again.

‘Last night –’

‘What?’ said Father Kiril.

The Father Superior preceded Dmitri through the door. As Dmitri made to follow him, a monk, emerging suddenly out of the shadows, seized him by the arm.

‘You don’t want to listen to him,’ he said, jerking a thumb in the direction of Father Kiril. ‘He’s past it!’

‘I can see he has difficulties –’

‘Difficulties!’ The monk snarled contemptuously. ‘He doesn’t have difficulties: he’s just past it. Addled. The milk in the bucket’s gone sour.’

‘Yes, well, –’

Dmitri tried to edge past. The monk gripped his arm more tightly.

‘You don’t want to listen to him!’

‘Well, no, probably not, but –’

‘But,’ said the monk, nodding significantly, ‘there are others who know more than they let on.’

‘About the Icon?’

‘Yes.’

The monk released his grip a fraction.

‘Tell me,’ he said. ‘Why was it stolen?’

‘I’ve been wondering that.’

‘Well, why?’

Dmitri shrugged.

‘Its value. I suppose.’

‘Value? What sort of value has an icon got?’

‘Spiritual, I suppose,’ said Dmitri, remembering his exchange with the Father Superior slightly guiltily.

‘Spiritual! Exactly! Well, who would want to steal a thing for its spiritual value?’

‘I can’t imagine that anyone –’

‘Think!’ insisted the monk. ‘Think!’

‘I am thinking. But –’

‘Monks.’

‘Monks? You’re not suggesting that someone here in the Monastery –?’

‘Not here.’ The monk made an impatient gesture.

‘Where, then?’

‘There are plenty of other places that would like to get their hands on the One-Legged Lady.’

‘Another monastery? But –?’

The monk cackled, released his grip and shot away.

‘You ask Father Sergei,’ he called back over his shoulder. ‘He’s one of those that know more than they let on!’

Why would anyone steal an icon? It was a question that Dmitri had been asking himself and which he put to the Father Superior as they were walking across the yard.

‘Not for its intrinsic value,’ said the Father Superior, ‘its value strictly as an object, that is. It contains some silver, certainly, but it would hardly be worth anyone’s while separating it out.’

‘A collector, then?’

‘I don’t think a collector would be interested. It’s too big. Huge! Six feet by four. And then the workmanship is a little crude. For my taste, that is. It’s peasant work, really. I was saying as much to the Governor last night. Not that I would presume to set my taste against his. “There is that rumour that it’s by the Master of Omsk,” he said. “Yes, I know,” I said. “But really –”’

‘The Governor has quite a taste in these matters?’

‘Oh, yes. He’s got quite a good collection of his own. Nothing like Marputin’s, of course, but pretty good.’ He glanced sideways at Dmitri. ‘You know Marputin?’

‘No, I don’t think I do.’

‘Oh, I thought you might. He’s down here quite often. Especially at the moment. He is a friend of the Mitkins’. I think,’ said the Father Superior, ‘that he would like to be more.’

‘More?’

‘Yes. He has his eye on the Mitkin daughter. Of course, he’s much older than she is, but then, that doesn’t matter much, does it, when there are other considerations?’

‘What other considerations?’

‘Well, the Mitkins are a good family. Poor nobility. Noble – on the mother’s side, that is – but poor. Mitkin’s often said to me that getting the Governorship was the saving of him. Marputin, on the other hand, is the son of a serf. Pots of money but no birth at all. So it suits everybody. Except Ludmilla, of course.’

‘Ludmilla?’

‘She’s the daughter.’

The Father Superior was taking Dmitri to the Monastery gates.

They’re closed at night?’

‘Always.’

‘The problem as I see it,’ said Dmitri ‘was not so much taking the One-Legged Lady down – Father Kiril allowed for – as getting her out.’

The black smudge outside the gates had dissolved. A steady stream of pilgrims was crossing the yard and going into the main buildings. A smaller stream was heading for the Chapel: and there was another, countervailing stream going out through the gates.

‘That may well have been the way she went,’ said Dmitri.

‘You don’t think Father Sergei might have noticed,’ asked the Father Superior, ‘if someone had gone out carrying a six-feet by four-feet icon?’

‘Father Sergei?’ said Dmitri.

‘He’s in the gate-house,’ said the Father Superior.

‘Well, I don’t know why he should say that,’ said Father Sergei, surprised. ‘Other than his normal dislike of me.’

‘He spoke of another monastery.’

‘Is he still harping on that?’ Father Sergei shrugged. ‘Well it’s true I came here from somewhere else. But that was fifteen years ago. You would have thought that after all these years –’ He shrugged again. ‘But that is Father Afanesi for you!’

‘What monastery did you come from?’

‘The Kaminski. It’s near Tula.’ Father Sergei smiled. ‘Where the One-Legged Lady originally came from.’

‘Perhaps that’s something to do with it?’

‘Well, it’s true that they would like her back. It was a smart move of Father Grigori – he was Superior here at the time – to snap her up. But the Kaminski needed the money. She was paid for fair and square and, really, they’ve no cause for complaint. In any case, they’d hardly go to the length of stealing –’

The Father Superior had gone back to his room. Dmitri returned, cautiously – he had no wish to run into Father Kiril or Father Afanesi again – to the Chapel. He was looking again at the links when a carpenter came in and dumped a bag of tools down in front of the iconostasis.

‘So she has gone!’ he said, looking at the gap on the screen. ‘Well, I’m not surprised. I reckon she upped and walked away in shock.’

‘Why would she do that?’

‘Because of what they were doing to her.’

‘What were they doing to her?’

‘Making money out of her. Making money left, right and centre. And I don’t reckon she liked it. I mean, it wasn’t what she was used to, was it? I mean, up in Tula it was the other way round. She was on the side of the poor, then, wasn’t she? Well, I tell you this, Barin, she’s not been on the side of the poor down here. She’s been on the side of the bleeding rich!’

‘The pilgrims don’t look very rich to me,’ said Dmitri.

‘Not the pilgrims, although some of them have got more than they let on. No, the Monastery! See, everyone who comes puts a kopeck or two into the box and if you’ve got lots and lots of people coming, in the end it adds up to lots and lots of kopecks. And it doesn’t go back to the poor, either. Do you know what it goes on? That roof. Now, I’m all for a lick of paint. I think it freshens things up; but the amount that’s gone on that roof! And you don’t have to go all the way to Tula, either, to find people who could have done with some of that.’

The bottom of the Icon had rested on a thick ledge which at one end had come away from the iconostasis.

‘Now there was no need to do that, was there?’ grumbled the carpenter. ‘They could have just lifted her down.’

He knelt down and began working.

‘I can do it,’ he said. ‘There’s no problem about that. But what it needs is a proper base. If I’ve told them that once, I’ve told them a thousand times. But will they do anything about it? No, not they!’

He sat back on his heels and looked up at Dmitri.

‘Mean as flint, they are. Do you know what Nikita Pulov was telling me the other day?’

‘Who’s Nikita Pulov?’

‘He’s the carter. Comes in twice a week. Would come in more often if they’d have him. Well, do you know what he was saying? He was saying that the other day when he was here, his horse drops a turd, and the next moment one of the fathers is out there with his shovel. ‘I want that for my garden,’ he says. ‘Your garden’s four feet deep in snow!’ says Nikita. It’ll melt, won’t it?’ says the father. I tell you they’re after the dung even before the horse shits it!’

‘Yes, well, –’ said Dmitri.

‘Do you know what I reckon has happened to the Icon?’

‘No?’

‘I reckon they’ve sold it.’

‘Sold it!’

‘Yes. To fetch a rouble or two. For the Monastery.’

‘But I thought you said it was making them a lot of money?’

‘Yes, but she’s been here a long time. There comes a time when you want something fresh. Now, what I reckon is that they’ve sold her and very soon they’ll start saying: “Oh dear, the Old Lady’s gone for good. We’ll have to start looking around for something to go in her place.” And all the time they’ll have had their eye on something else, another icon maybe, or perhaps a holy relic, and they’ll get it and put it in here, and the pilgrims will start flocking, and they’ll say, “Ah, well, reckon it was for the best, after all.” It’s a business to them, you see, and that’s the way it is with business. Now you and I, Your Honour, may think we know a thing or two about business, but, believe me, we’re like newly hatched chicks compared with them. Sharp as knives and about as much feeling. They’ll have been looking on her as a carter looks on a horse: get what you can out of her and then get rid of her. So that’s what’s happened, I reckon. They’ve gone and sold her. Either that,’ said the carpenter with grim satisfaction, ‘or she’s seen it coming and bloody well walked out on them!’

‘So what are your impressions?’ asked the Father Superior, as they were walking across the yard to the sleigh.

‘Oh, mixed,’ said Dmitri. ‘Mixed.’

‘A monastery is like that,’ said the Father Superior fondly.

One of the pilgrims, a large man in peasant shirt and peasant boots, accosted them.

‘I don’t like it, Father!’ he said.

‘Don’t like what?’

‘This business of the Icon. If you ask me, it’s not accidental.’

‘What do you mean, it’s not accidental?’

‘I reckon it’s deliberate. Taking her away just when she’s needed.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Well, I’ve come here all the way from Tula especially to ask her something and when I get here, she’s not here!’

‘You can ask some other icon, can’t you? We’ve got plenty.’

‘Ah, but she’s a bit different from other icons, isn’t she? She knows what it’s all about. She did something for people, didn’t she? When they were starving. Well, I come from Tula, and we couldn’t half do with her now, I can tell you, because we’re starving again!’

The Father Superior tried to push past.

‘Try some other icon. Or stay here for a day or two. We hope to have her back soon.’

‘I can’t stay here. Not for long, anyway. I’ve got a wife and children at home. My wife’s sick, otherwise she’d have come herself. “I can’t go, Ivan,” she said, “so you’ll have to. I know it’s not your way, but we’ve got to do something and I can’t think of anything else.” So I’ve come, even though it’s not my way. Besides, I thought the Old Girl might listen to me, she knows how it is for people like me. And now I’ve got here, she isn’t here!’

‘We’ll, I’m sorry about that,’ said the Father Superior. ‘We’re doing all we can. This gentleman here –’ he indicated Dmitri – ‘is from the Court House at Kursk and he’s going to look into the matter.’

‘Ah, but is he?’ said the peasant.

‘What do you mean?’ said Dmitri. ‘Am I?’

‘Beg pardon, Your Honour, but you people stick together. It might not be worth your while to look too closely.’

‘Why wouldn’t it be worth my while?’

‘Because they’re all in it together, Tsar, Church, Governor, all of them!’

‘You watch your words, my man!’ warned the Father Superior.

‘They’re not just my words, they’re what everyone is saying.’

The Father Superior turned on him.

‘Enough of that sort of talk! You go and find a Father and tell him I told you to have a few words with him!’

‘Well, I will: but that’s not going to bring me bread, is it?’

‘What you need is not bread but straightening out!’

Dmitri had an unusual feeling as the sleigh approached Kursk; he felt that he was returning to civilization. This was not how he usually felt about Kursk. Dmitri was all for the bright lights of St Petersburg; and light of any sort, in his view, had yet to reach Kursk. Nevertheless, as the sleigh drew up in front of the Court House, he felt a twinge of, well, not quite affection for the city, more the feeling that a sailor has when after long months he returns to the land. Kursk, though on the very edge, was at least on land; whereas the Monastery was very definitely at sea.

‘Oh, that icon business,’ said the Procurator dismissively when Dmitri went in to see him. ‘I wouldn’t spend too much time on that if I were you.’

Which accorded pretty well with Dmitri’s own intentions.

Boris Petrovich pushed a pile of papers towards him.

‘These have just come in,’ he said. ‘Will you take a look at them? I am going out to lunch.’

The Procurator was always going out to lunch.

‘In our position,’ he told Dmitri, ‘it is important to keep a finger on the social pulse.’

Vera Samsonova, the junior doctor at the local hospital, said she knew what that meant and that if Boris Petrovich tried putting his finger on her pulse again, she’d stick a syringe in him.

To Dmitri’s surprise, however, he himself was invited out to lunch. To his even greater surprise, the invitation came from the Governor, whom Dmitri had hitherto supposed to be entirely unaware of his existence.

‘Mr Kameron?’ said the tall dark girl standing beside him. ‘What sort of a name is that?’

‘Scottish,’ said Dmitri. ‘My great-great-grandfather came from Scotland.’

‘But how romantic!’ cried the girl.

‘Kameron?’ said the Governor’s wife. ‘Is that the Kamerons of Gorny Platok?’

‘Why, yes!’ said Dmitri, amazed that anyone had heard of the small farm where his grandfather presently resided. The estate had once been larger but successive generations of spendthrift Kamerons had sold off land until his grandfather had put his foot down and insisted that henceforth male Kamerons should work for a living.

‘Then we have something in common,’ said the Governor’s wife, giving Dmitri her arm and leading the way into lunch. ‘Our side of the family have always been gentlemen.’

‘But Mr Kameron no longer lives on his estate. Mother,’ said the tall dark girl. ‘He is a lawyer.’

‘Well one has to be something. I suppose.’

‘And how do you find the law, Mr Kameron?’ asked the dark girl.

‘It is at an interesting stage in Russia at the moment. Miss Mitkin. It could go either forward or backward. Until recently, as I’m sure you know, the only law we had was what the Tsar decreed.’

‘Well, isn’t that enough?’ said the Governor’s wife.

‘Not always. What if the Tsar himself does something wrong?’

‘But is that likely?’

‘Not the Tsar himself, perhaps; but what about those who serve him?’

‘The Government, you mean?’

‘Possibly.’

‘Governors?’ said the Governor.

‘Well –’

‘These are radical notions, Mr Kameron,’ said the Governor heavily.

‘Mr Kameron is, of course, very young,’ said the Governor’s wife.

‘But in touch with the new tone of the times, don’t you think?’ said her daughter.

‘Ah, the tone of the times!’ said the Governor’s wife, steering the conversation into safer channels.

After lunch the two women retired and the Governor led Dmitri into a pleasant room which seemed to serve as a second sitting room. Its walls were covered with icons.

‘Quite nice, aren’t they?’ said the Governor, seeing, and mistaking, Dmitri’s interest.

‘And some of them are not without value. They’re all domestic icons, of course. Not,’ he smiled, ‘like the Lady whose acquaintance you have recently been making.’

2

‘Dmitri Alexandrovich,’ said the Governor in a fatherly tone, ‘– a little more cognac? – are you religious?’

The question caught Dmitri off guard. The fact was that this was a tricky point in the Kameron family. For generations the Kamerons, as loyal servants of the Tsar, had been members of the Orthodox Russian Church. Then with Dmitri’s grandfather the line had hiccuped. Awkward as always, he had announced that he had become a Freethinker, with the result that he had been dismissed from the Tsar’s service. His son, awkward, too, and determined, as all male Kamerons, to quarrel with his father, had conversely announced his return to the faith; only the faith that he had elected to return to was that of his Scottish ancestors. Since, however, there were no Presbyterian churches in Russia at the time, the genuineness of his return had not been able to be tested and while the Tsar’s officials were working this out he had been allowed to continue in the Tsar’s service and had been still serving at the time of his unfortunately early death. All this had left Dmitri in some difficulty as to his own position.

‘Well –’

‘My advice,’ said the Governor,’– another cognac? – is to leave unto God the things that are God’s and unto man the things that are man’s.’

‘Seems reasonable,’ said Dmitri.

‘That is what it says in the Bible. Or more or less. And I have always found it a sound maxim to follow. At least as far as the Russian Church is concerned.’

‘Good idea,’ said Dmitri. The last cognac had left him rather blurred.

‘I commend the principle to you as a good one to adopt. Especially in the case of the One-Legged Lady.’

‘But that’s just what has not happened!’ cried Dmitri. ‘Man has just walked in and helped himself to –’

‘I was not speaking of others,’ said the Governor, annoyed. ‘I was speaking of you.’

The haze descended again.

‘Of me? Oh, yes, well –’

‘And of the One-Legged Lady.’

The One-Legged Lady? Who the hell was she? It sounded intriguing. He must look her up some time. But, wait a minute –

‘The One-Legged Lady?’

‘Is no business of yours. It will only lead to trouble. You mark my words, Dmitri Alexandrovich, I have a nose for such things. You keep right out of it. Assume a wisdom if you have it not. That’s what the English poet, Shakespeare, says. Or more or less. Wise man, Shakespeare. What he doesn’t know about the Russian Church isn’t worth knowing. You keep right out of it. That’s my advice, Dmitri Alexandrovich. Keep right out of it.’

He had invited a few friends round that evening to celebrate his promotion to Assistant Procurator. Unfortunately, their congratulations fell short of the whole-hearted.

‘You’ve let them buy you off, Dmitri,’ said Vera Samsonova, never one to shrink from telling other people the truth about themselves.

‘The surprise is that you were prepared to let yourself go so cheaply,’ said Igor Stepanovich.

Dmitri fired up.

‘If you tried to sell yourself, you wouldn’t get an offer!’ he retorted.

It had been a hard decision on his return from Siberia whether to stay in state service or to try to pursue an independent career at the St Petersburg Bar.

‘But to agree to work for them!’ said Sonya reproachfully. ‘After all they’ve done!’

Sonya had recently returned from Europe, where she had drunk deep of the liberal notions that the little group of friends liked to meet regularly to discuss.

‘And you’ve said!’ put in Vera Samsonova.

‘If you want to improve them,’ said Dmitri, employing one of the arguments that Prince Dolgorukov had used to persuade him, ‘the best way is from the inside.’

‘If you want to improve your career,’ said Vera Samsonova nastily, ‘the best way is from the inside.’

The thought, it must be admitted, had crossed Dmitri’s own mind. It was all very well for the others to tell him to abandon his career in the State Prosecution Service and work for the greater good of mankind. The trouble was that mankind was unlikely to pay him; and if you were a young lawyer struggling to make your way in Tsarist Russia of the eighteen nineties, that was quite a consideration.

It was not that he was against working for the greater good: it was just that he wanted to eat while he was doing it. So when Prince Dolgorukov had approached him after that little business of the massacre at Tiumen, he had been willing to lend at least a quarter of an ear.

‘You will rise more quickly than most,’ the Prince had assured him. ‘A glittering career awaits you!’

Unfortunately, it appeared to await him at Kursk. Wasn’t that sacrifice enough, thought Dmitri, bridling?

His friends sensed that perhaps they had gone too far.

‘I am sure Dmitri will do his best,’ said Sonya conciliatorily.

‘Yes, but for whom?’ said Vera Samsonova.

‘I do think that’s unkind, Vera,’ said Sonya severely.

‘Yes,’ said Igor Stepanovich. ‘It’s not surprising if Dmitri gets outwitted by someone like Prince Dolgorukov.’

Dmitri bit back his reply. With Dmitri biting his tongue and Vera Samsonova biting hers, the rest of the evening passed off amicably.

Dmitri told them about the One-Legged Lady.

Why on earth, asked Vera, would anyone in their right senses want to steal an icon? And in particular the Holy Icon of the One-Legged Lady of Kursk?

‘Because it is encrusted with diamonds,’ said Igor Stepanovich.

‘Because it has miraculous powers of healing,’ said Sonya, who had clearly imbibed insufficiently of the sceptical currents of the West during her stay in Europe.

Vera frowned. Russian intellectual society was sharply divided between westernizers, who saw in Western liberalism the best hope for the salvation of Russian society, and slavophils, whose views were exactly opposite. The little group of friends were strongly westernizers.

The group fell to discussing the general problem posed by religion for the development in Russia of a truly modern society. Sonya claimed that there was no problem since even Europe was not perfect and what was needed was a marriage of the best of Russia, which was its deep spirituality, with the best of the West, which was its progressive ideas. Vera said that no such marriage was possible because the two were contradictory. And Dmitri, after his fifth glass of vodka, heard himself maintaining that what Russia needed was a Dissolution of the Monasteries on the Scottish model (he had never been quite clear about the difference between Scotland and England).

The consensus was that religion was one of the things that was holding Russia back. As for the One-Legged Lady, the general view – put most forcibly by Vera Samsonova – was that if some old relic that smacked of superstition had gone missing, then so much the better. And what a relatively enlightened person like Dmitri was doing trying to track it down, the group, with a return to its earlier doubts about the genuineness of his commitment to progress, simply failed to see.

Even if Dmitri had been minded to return to the Monastery, he would have been unable to, for the Procurator had bespoken the sleigh for the rest of the week for a round of social visits.

‘But the One-Legged Lady –’

‘That old icon?’ said the Procurator offhandedly, looking up from his newspaper, ‘I’d forget about it if I were you.’

‘But –’

‘In any case, I can’t spare you, I’m afraid,’ said the Procurator.

Dmitri was surprised. The Procurator had always been able to spare him before. Only too readily.

‘Too much going on here.’ The Procurator waved a vague hand.

Since the only work that Dmitri was aware of were the cases that the Procurator had passed on to him, he was even more surprised. They were all of the ‘she-put-a-spell-on-my-cow’ sort. One of the duties of the Procurator’s office was to assess potential charges and decide if they merited further investigation. Dmitri had taken one look at these and decided that they did not.

The Procurator glanced at his watch and put the newspaper down.

‘You’re needed here,’ he said in a voice that brooked no argument. ‘I have to go out. I’m having lunch with Marputin.’

Dmitri shrugged his shoulders and settled down to reading the latest novel from St Petersburg. At lunch time, feeling the need for a breath of fresh air, he went out for a walk and in the main street he met Ludmilla Mitkin. She was dressed in Cossack boots, a long fur coat and a small astrakhan hat and looked absolutely ravishing: a considerable improvement, thought Dmitri, on what usually walked down the main street in Kursk.

‘Hello,’ she said, ‘would you like to give me some legal advice?’

Dmitri thought he would, and they turned into the park, where old women were sweeping the snow from the paths with brooms made of birch twigs. It had frozen hard the previous night after a partial thaw and the trees were heavy with icicles. They sparkled in the sun like chandeliers.

The last thing that Dmitri had expected was that she really would want legal advice. Unfortunately, she did.

‘My mother’s family,’ she said, ‘had an estate up in the north. It was where the family originally started and had been in our possession for nearly three hundred years. When the serfs were freed, we kept the house and a little land but agreed to pass most of it to the local peasants. It was the same kind of settlement as elsewhere. The Government lent them the money to pay for the land and they had to repay it over forty-nine years. Not surprisingly, most of them have been unable to keep up the repayments and now someone is going round offering to take over the repayments for them in return for the land. What I want to know is: is this legal?’

‘In principle, yes; but a lot depends on who has title to the land. If the title was passed to individuals, then the man has every right to purchase it. Usually, however, it was not passed to individuals; ownership was vested in the village community as a whole. If that was the case then it would be much harder for the man to get his hands on it.’

‘Why would it be harder?’

‘Because everyone in the village would have to agree. And there is no way,’ said Dmitri, ‘that everyone in a village, not in a Russian village, at any rate, is going to agree.’

‘Not even if they were all offered money? Lots of it?’

‘The argument would be very persuasive. Even so, there would be someone who wouldn’t agree. If only because he was holding out for more.’

‘There is no legal obstacle, however?’

‘Only that consent has to be found.’

Ludmilla looked cast down.

‘I was hoping there would be,’ she said.

‘I’m afraid not. Why were you hoping?’

She hesitated.

‘The person who is buying up the title has promised to return Yabloki Sad to the family.’

‘Well, that’s very nice,’ said Dmitri.

‘In return for something.’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Dmitri. ‘What?’

‘Me.’

When Dmitri got back to the Court House he found Maximov, the Chief of Police, waiting at the top of the steps. He rushed down to meet him.

‘Dmitri Alexandrovich! Thank God you’re here! Have you any idea where Boris Petrovich is?’

‘Still at lunch, I expect.’

‘When will he be back?’

‘Tomorrow, I would think.’

‘Tomorrow!’ moaned the Chief of Police. He seized Dmitri by the arm. ‘You’ve no idea – I suppose you’ve no idea – who he’s having lunch with?’

‘Marputin, I believe.’

‘Marputin! Then he’ll be at the Metropole. Sasha, you run to the Metropole –’

‘What’s going on?’ asked Dmitri.

‘I need the sleigh. There’s some trouble at the Monastery about an icon –’

‘Mind if I come along?’ said Dmitri.

The smudge in front of the gates was bigger. From far off across the snow Dmitri could see the huge crowd.

‘I’m not going through that lot!’ said the driver.

‘Go round the back!’ instructed Maximov.

‘They always keep the gates locked!’

‘They’ll open them when they see us coming.’

‘I hope they do!’

At the last moment the driver swung off the road and began to head round the side of the Monastery. Some of the small figures, guessing his intention, started running.

The driver whipped the horses.

They were round the back of the buildings now and could see the rear gates. They remained obstinately closed.

A group of dark figures came blundering towards them through the snow.

The gates suddenly swung open.

The sleigh dashed through.

Almost before they had passed the gates, they crashed shut again.

‘So what’s all this about, then. Father?’ asked Maximov.

‘It’s the One-Legged Lady. They don’t like her being missing.’

‘Well, I don’t suppose you like it, either.’

‘They’re blaming us.’

‘Ridiculous!’ snorted Maximov. ‘They need a good kick up the ass, that’s what!’

‘There’s someone whipping them up,’ said the Father Superior.

‘Oh, is there?’ said Maximov.

He marched down to the gates.

‘Now, lads,’ he said through the bars, ‘what’s the trouble? We can’t have this, you know, or else we’ll have to get the Cossacks here. You don’t want that, do you?’

‘They’ve flogged off the Old Lady!’ shouted someone from the back of the crowd.

‘Nonsense! No one’s flogged her off. Someone’s nicked her, that’s all.’

‘Yes, and we know who it was!’

‘No, you don’t. You think you do, but you don’t. Someone’s been whispering a lot of nonsense in your ear.’

‘She’s missing, isn’t she? That’s not nonsense!’

‘And we’re looking for her,’ said Maximov. ‘That’s not nonsense, either.’

‘You’re taking your time about it!’

‘Well, it takes time.’

‘Especially when you’re not looking too hard!’

‘Why are we listening to him?’ said someone contemptuously.

‘You’d do better to listen to me,’ said Maximov, ‘than to listen to some of the people you’ve been listening to!’

But the mood of the crowd was against him. He tried again but could hardly make his words heard in the general uproar.

‘The Cossacks –’

‘Bugger the Cossacks!’

‘Let them come! We’ll bloody show them!’

‘He’s always on about the Cossacks, this one! What about the Old Lady?’

‘We’ll find her, lads!’ shouted Maximov desperately. ‘Just give us time!’

‘You’ve had three days! How much more do you want?’

‘It takes time –’

‘It’d take you time. It’d take you for ever!’

The crowd surged forwards against the bars. Maximov stepped back hurriedly.

‘Listen, lads –’

‘We don’t want to listen to you. It’s a waste of time.’

‘He’s in it with the others!’

A missile hit the gates, and then another. Several people caught hold of the bars and began to shake them.

‘Lads–’

Maximov’s eye fell suddenly on Dmitri.

‘Lads!’ he shouted with sudden inspiration. ‘Lads, you’ve got it wrong. It’s not me!’

‘What do you mean, it’s not you?’

‘It’s not me that’s in charge of looking for the Old Lady.’

‘Who is it, then?’

Maximov pointed at Dmitri.

‘Him,’ he said.

‘Him! What does he know about it?’

‘A bloody schoolboy!’

The shouting started again.

‘Is that all they can manage to send us?’ called out someone derisively. ‘A fat-assed Chief of Police and a pretty Barin so wet behind the ears that he doesn’t know his mother from his girl friend?’

There was a burst of laughter.

‘Now that’s just where you’re wrong!’ shouted Maximov. ‘He may look green but he knows a thing or two. Have any of you heard of the Tiumen Massacre?’

‘We’ve heard of Tiumen.’

Who hadn’t heard of Tiumen? It was the great forwarding prison for convicts on their way to Siberia.

‘Yes, but the Massacre?’

‘I’ve heard of the Massacre,’ said a voice from the back.

‘Right, then. Well, this young Barin was the one who brought it out into the open.’

There was a sudden silence.

‘Is that right?’ someone asked Dmitri directly.

‘Yes.’

There was another silence.

‘Come on, lads,’ said Maximov persuasively, ‘it’s either him or the Cossacks. Now which is it to be? Leave it to him or have the Cossacks here?’

‘We don’t want the bloody Cossacks,’ said someone.

‘No,’ said Maximov, ‘I agree with you. We don’t want the Cossacks. So are you going to leave it to him?’

He paused.

‘We could give him a chance, I suppose,’ said someone reluctantly.

‘Give him a chance? Well, that’s very wise of you. Now, look, lads. I want you all to go home and quieten down. Don’t listen to anyone who tells you anything else. Give him a chance and if it doesn’t work out, well –’

‘And so, your Excellencies,’ said Maximov virtuously, ‘I decided I had to take action.’

‘Quite right,’ said the Governor.

Boris Petrovich nodded approvingly.

‘If you don’t jump on these things right away, I said to myself, they get out of hand.’

‘Well, that’s it.’

‘You’ve got to stamp on them. At once!’

‘Nip them in the bud.’

‘While there’s still time.’

‘Exactly so. Your Honours. Oh, I know there are those who say that these things have got to be handled with kid gloves. But when you’ve had a bit of experience, you know that it doesn’t do to hang around; you’ve got to go in hard!’

‘Absolutely!’ said the Governor.

‘Good man!’ murmured Boris Petrovich.

Maximov swelled.

‘And so. Your Excellencies,’ he said, ‘as soon as I got back I sent for the Cossacks.’

‘You what?’ said Dmitri.

‘Sent for the Cossacks.’

‘The very thing!’ said the Governor.

‘No doubt about it,’ said Boris Petrovich.

‘You sent for the Cossacks?’

‘I did.’

‘But – but – you made a deal with them!’

‘Deal?’ said the Governor.

‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that!’

‘But you did!’ Dmitri insisted. ‘You said that it was either the Cossacks or me and that you wouldn’t run for the Cossacks if –’

‘Pardon me, Your Honour, I don’t think I actually said that. That’s what they may have understood, Your Honour, but that’s a different thing.’

‘A very different thing!’ said the Governor.

‘In any case,’ said Boris Petrovich, ‘if there was an agreement, it was plainly made under duress and that certainly wouldn’t hold up in a court of law. You’re a lawyer yourself, Dmitri Alexandrovich. You must know that.’

‘But it was deception!’ cried Dmitri. ‘A trick!’

‘Justified, I would have thought,’ said the Governor, ‘when you’ve got a riot on your hands.’

‘But –’

‘What else was I to do, Your Excellencies? There was the mob hammering at the gates; missiles were being thrown –’

‘Good heavens!’

‘It was getting out of hand. Now I couldn’t have that, could I? I’m a police officer –’

‘And a very good one!’

‘–I owe a duty to the Tsar –’

‘Absolutely!’

‘Not to say the Church –’

‘The Church, too! Don’t forget that, Dmitri Alexandrovich!’

‘It’s all very well for young people to criticise –’

‘Young people! That’s it!’

‘– but when they’ve had as much experience as I have –’

‘You did your duty, Maxim Maximovich!’

‘No man could do more!’

‘It was a question of trust,’ said Dmitri. ‘They weren’t prepared to trust you. They only quietened down when you told them that it wasn’t you who was in charge of the investigation but me!’

‘Oh, now, come, Dmitri Alexandrovich!’

‘This is vanity!’

‘Your Excellencies –’ Maximov spread his hands in appeal to the Governor’s ceiling.

‘Really, Dmitri Alexandrovich!’

‘We all know how good you are, Dmitri Alexandrovich,’ said Boris Petrovich spitefully, ‘or, at least, how good you think you are –’

‘Because of some trifling success you may have had in the past –’

‘Which has been made far too much of –’

‘But this is outrageous!’

‘Dmitri Alexandrovich is, of course,’ said Maximov smiling, ‘very young, and in matters like this –’

‘No, you can’t have the sleigh,’ said the Procurator, ‘I have important visits to make.’

‘Such as?’

‘Lunch with Viktor Sharmansky, tea with Olga Vishinsky,’ the Procurator ticked off on his fingers, ‘lunch tomorrow with Sasha Radelsky, the next day with Irene Rodzhenitsy –’

‘A theft has been reported,’ said Dmitri doggedly. ‘It is our duty to investigate it.’

‘It is our duty to decide whether to investigate it,’ corrected the Procurator.

‘Are you saying that you have decided not to investigate it?’

‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that. I wouldn’t say that at all!’

‘Then –’

‘It is simply a question of priorities. Naturally we shall investigate it. But with so much coming into the office –’

‘Nothing is coming into the office!’ said Dmitri. ‘I insist on being allowed to investigate the theft of the Icon!’

‘Dmitri Alexandrovich,’ said the Procurator in a tired voice, ‘there is a principle that I have always found helpful in such matters: leave unto God the things that are God’s and unto man the things that are man’s.’

‘I have heard that before,’ said Dmitri.

‘I hope you have. It comes from the Bible. I think.’

‘It comes from the Governor,’ said Dmitri. ‘I think. So you are not going to let me have the sleigh?’

‘When the Cossacks go in,’ said the Procurator, ‘anyone else would be well advised to stay out!’

Dmitri sat in his office, first of all nursing his wrath, and secondly wondering how best he could pursue his inquiries while confined to Kursk. He was still nursing and still wondering when he heard the sleigh draw up outside. The door burst open and the Procurator rushed in.

‘Dmitri Alexandrovich! You must come with me at once!’

He almost manhandled Dmitri into the sleigh.

‘Where are we going?’

‘To the Governor’s.’

‘What about?’

The Procurator seemed deep in thought. Suddenly he stirred.

‘My advice, Dmitri Alexandrovich, is to say nothing!’

‘Certainly. But –’

‘And I will do the same.’

‘But … what are we saying nothing about?’

The Procurator did not reply. He had sunk back into an agony of deep concentration.

‘Why does the Governor want to see us?’

‘It’s not him,’ said the Procurator.

‘Who is it, then?’

‘Volkov.’

3

Who on earth, thought Dmitri, was Volkov? As soon as he entered the Governor’s room, however, and saw the blue tunic and the white gloves, he knew exactly who, or, rather, what, Volkov was. The Corps of Gendarmes was the specialist branch of the Ministry of the Interior which dealt with political offences. But what was a man like that doing here?

‘Most gratifying,’ the Governor was saying, ‘most gratifying! But … a little surprising, also. Over a thing so small!’

‘It may seem small,’ said Volkov, bowing acknowledgement, ‘but the Corps has learned to look behind things.’

‘Yes, yes, I’m sure … but … a mere icon!’

‘In itself it may be small. In what it stands for, however, in what it indicates, it may be much larger.’

‘Well, yes. Yes, of course. No doubt about it. But … exactly what –?’

‘Godlessness,’ the Procurator cut in helpfully. ‘The theft of a holy icon!’ He shook his head. ‘What is the nation coming to?’

‘What indeed?’ said the Governor, catching on. ‘It is a sad state of affairs when –’

But Volkov seemed unmoved.

‘Sacrilege?’ said the Governor hopefully.

‘A blow at the Church?’ offered the Procurator.

There was a slight flicker – or was there? – on the impassive face.

‘A blow at –?’ the Procurator hesitated, searching around. ‘Authority!’ he cried, with sudden inspiration.

This time the flicker was definite.

‘A blow at Authority!’ cried the Procurator, confident now. ‘At – at the Tsar himself!’

‘The Tsar himself!’ echoed the Governor in appalled tones.

Volkov gave an almost imperceptible nod.

‘Or just a simple theft?’ said Dmitri.

The cold eyes dwelled on him for a moment, dwelled and then dismissed him as an insect.

‘Do peasants normally riot about simple thefts?’ asked Volkov.

‘Riot?’ said Dmitri. ‘I don’t think I would go so far as to call it that.’

‘The Chief of Police has asked us to send in Cossacks to put it down.’

‘He is mistaken,’ said Dmitri.

The eyes turned back to him and rested.

‘Mistaken?’

‘The icon was very dear to them. All they were doing was protesting about the lack of progress on the case.’

‘Yes,’ said Volkov, ‘the lack of progress.’

The Procurator swallowed.

‘We have done all we could, Excellency –’ he pleaded.

‘A mere icon,’ said the Governor, ‘a simple theft!’

‘Riot?’ said Volkov. ‘Missiles thrown at the police?’

‘Maximov exaggerates,’ said Dmitri. ‘I was there.’

Volkov looked at him almost with interest.

‘Ah, yes.’ he said. ‘It’s in the report. The young Assistant Procurator who lost his head.’

‘Did he say that?’ demanded Dmitri hotly.

‘Certainly his own feats loomed large in the report,’ said Volkov with a wintry smile. ‘But then, we have learned to look behind that also.’

‘Did he say that he had done a deal with them?’

‘Deal?’

‘That if they would disperse and give me time to complete the investigation, he would not send for the Cossacks?’

‘I don’t believe in doing deals with peasants,’ said Volkov. ‘Especially rebellious ones. Do a deal with them on one thing and they expect you to do a deal on others.’

‘Quite so!’ said the Governor.

‘Absolutely right!’ said the Procurator, looking daggers at Dmitri.

‘So you will be sending in the Cossacks?’

‘Not yet,’ said Volkov, looking at Dmitri with his wintry smile.

‘A glass of vodka after your journey?’ suggested the Father Superior.

‘Tea,’ said Volkov.

The Father Superior went over to the samovar, which stood in a corner of the refectory. It was basically a large urn with a vertical pipe up the middle in which wood was burned to keep the surrounding water at the boil. The teapot stood on top with the tea leaves already in it and a little water, to which boiling water was added from the samovar.

‘Sugar?’ said the Father Superior.

‘Lemon,’ said Volkov.

‘Jam,’ said Dmitri.

The Father Superior brought the glasses back to the table.

‘The peasants, then,’ said Vokov, ‘are unusually pious in your area?’

‘Pious?’ said the Father Superior, startled. ‘No, I don’t think so.’

‘And yet they riot about an icon?’

‘I wouldn’t say riot, exactly.’

‘What would you say?’

‘I would call it an expression of concern. Which got a little out of hand.’

‘Out of hand. Yes. And why was that, do you think? Why were they so concerned?’

‘Well, the Icon was very dear to them –’

‘Aren’t all icons dear to them? What is so special about this one?’

‘Its associations, I suppose.’

‘Ah, yes,’ said Volkov, ‘its associations.’

He swirled the lemon round in his glass and glanced towards the samovar. It was an old one, not made of metal as most of the new ones were, but of some special kind of china, at least on the outside, which was covered with little blue tiles.

‘And what are its associations?’

‘Well, it’s associated with the relief of famine. At any rate, up in Tula, where it comes from.’

‘Ah, yes,’ said Volkov, ‘Tula.’

‘It’s quite an interesting story, in fact. It begins in the last century with a lady conspicuous for her good works. Among them was the relief of famine. She had the habit, whenever there was a famine, of driving around the countryside distributing food. Well, you know how these things get magnified in the popular mind. After her death it was claimed that she had performed miracles. You know, turning stones into bread, or if not that, bad wheat into good. And there was sufficient authentication for the miracles for the Church to agree, after her death, to an icon being commissioned in her name. It was paid for by public subscription.’

‘Public subscription?’

‘Yes. Unusual, that, I know. But she was very popular, you see. And some of that popularity rubbed off on the Icon. Whenever there was famine in the area after that, the Icon was taken out and carried through the fields.’

‘Why?’ said Volkov.

The Father Superior looked at him in surprise.

‘As a focus for their prayers. It was believed that in some way she was able to mediate for them. We are talking of the popular mind here. There was some confusion between the Icon and the original lady. Of course, from the Orthodox point of view –’

‘Ah, yes,’ said Volkov, ‘the Orthodox point of view.’

‘– all this is a little suspect. Theologically, that is. But in rural areas –’

‘And was it a focus for anything else?’ asked Volkov.

‘Anything else?’ said the Father Superior, staring.

‘There was always a lot of peasant unrest around Tula.’

‘I don’t see –’

‘Especially in time of famine. You say that the Icon was carried round the villages?’

‘Well, yes, but –’

‘Which rebelled at that time.’

‘Yes, but –’

‘This is just an icon!’ said Dmitri.

‘It is not what it is,’ said Volkov patiently, ‘but what it means. In the Corps of Gendarmes we learn to look behind things.’

They stood for some time in the Chapel watching the pilgrims coming in. They came in a steady stream. As one group was going out, another would be coming in. Each group would go up to the iconostasis, genuflect and stand for a moment, heads bowed, before an icon. Often, then, they would raise their heads and gaze at the icon, sometimes for several minutes, as if rapt.

‘It is good to see them accepting the disciplines of the Holy Church,’ said Volkov.

‘Well, yes,’ said the Father Superior, pleased.

‘On the other hand it is worrying.’

‘Worrying?’ said the Father Superior.

‘To see how much the icons mean to them.’

He was looking at the large space that had been occupied by the One-Legged Lady. Many of the pilgrims went straight up to it and behaved as if the icon was still there. They bent their heads, their lips moved in prayer and often they would gaze as if they could see it. Some even kissed the ground in front of it.

They went out into the courtyard. It was packed with pilgrims. As they came through the gates they divided into several streams. One headed straight for the Chapel, another, carrying packs, made for the dormitory. Yet another went to the kitchens.

‘Where do they all come from?’ asked Volkov.

‘Oh, everywhere,’ said the Father Superior. ‘And not just the province, either.’

‘Where do you come from, friend?’

Volkov asked one of the pilgrims, a tall, bearded, wasted man.

‘Tula, brother,’ said the man.

‘Ah, Tula?’ said Volkov. ‘And why have you come down here?’

‘To pray, brother. And to look for succour.’

‘Succour?’

‘It’s been a bad year up there. The crops have failed again –’

‘And you, friend?’ he asked another man. ‘Where do you come from?’

‘Galich. It’s near Tula –’

Dmitri detached himself and started making his way across the yard to the gate-house. On his way he passed a group of men squatting down, oblivious to the snow, their backs against a wall, talking. Among them was the big peasant who had accosted the Father Superior on Dmitri’s first visit. The man looked up and saw him.

‘Still here, then?’ said Dmitri.

‘Well, there’s not much point in going back to Tula, is there? With me away, what food there is will go further.’

‘They’ll miss you, Ivan,’ said one of the men squatting beside him.

‘Do you think I don’t know that? But at least if I’m here there’s a chance I could do something. Suppose the Old Lady turns up? I’d be able to get on to her right away.’

‘There’ll be plenty of others doing that.’

‘Yes, but I can’t just sit at home doing nothing. I’m not made like that. I can’t just sit there watching them fade away before my eyes!’

‘You’ve got to practise patience, brother. God will provide.’

‘Yes, but He’s not provided yet, has He? And if He doesn’t start doing it soon, it’s going to be too late. Now, what I reckon is this: He’s a loving God, isn’t He, and if He knew about it, He’d do something about it. So it stands to reason He can’t have heard about it, and that’s very understandable because He’s got the whole world to think about and it’s easy to miss a few corners. But, you see, that’s just where the Old Lady comes in. She’d be there, knock-knock-knocking on the door, nagging away all the time, just like my old woman, and in the end He’d just have to hear, wouldn’t He? And what I reckon is,’ concluded the big peasant, ‘that’s why they’ve taken her away.’

‘You’ve lost me, Ivan,’ said someone beside him, who had been listening hard. ‘If she’s the one who could get through to Him, why would they want to take her away?’

‘Because they don’t want her to get through to Him.’

The whole group was listening.

‘Why wouldn’t they want that, Ivan?’

‘Because they’re mean bastards, that’s why. And because this way they’ve got us where they want us: on our back with their thumbs on our wind-pipe!’

‘They’re not that bloody mean, are they?’

‘They bloody are!’

‘I don’t reckon you ought to talk like that, Ivan,’ said someone uneasily, seeing the blue tunic and while gloves coming across the yard.

‘I’m not afraid of him!’ said Ivan.

‘No,’ said someone who evidently knew the family, ‘but you are afraid of Agafa, aren’t you, and she’ll be up your backside if she hears you’ve got yourself arrested just when she’s sick and needs you!’

‘She certainly will!’ said a deep voice behind them. It was Father Sergei.

‘And they’re quite right: you’re needed at home! So let’s be off with you!’

He bent down and with surprising strength yanked the big peasant to his feet.

‘I can’t go empty-handed!’ protested Ivan.

‘Who’s talking about going home empty-handed? You come with me to the kitchens and I’ll get Father Osip to fill up a sack for you!’

He shepherded the big man dexterously away.

‘Anyway,’ muttered one of the men as they watched them go, ‘I reckon you’re up the creek, Ivan; about them taking the Old Girl, I mean. She’d be far too fly for them. I don’t think they’ve got her at all. I reckon she’s well on her way to Opona by now.’

‘You men,’ said Volkov, ‘where do you come from?’

‘Tula,’ they said.

‘Aren’t there monasteries up there?’

‘There’s the Kaminski,’ said someone.

‘What’s wrong with the Kaminski?’ said Volkov. ‘Why aren’t you going there?’

‘Because the Old Lady is down here,’ said one of the men. ‘Or should be.’

‘She used to be up there,’ another man said. ‘But then she was brought here.’

‘Why was that?’

‘I don’t know,’ said the man. ‘It seems daft to me. Tula is where she belongs.’

‘If she was up there,’ said another man, ‘we wouldn’t be down here. We’d be going to the Kaminski.’

‘And what would you be doing with her?’ said Volkov.

‘Doing with her?’ said the man, surprised. ‘Nothing. We’d be praying to her, I suppose.’

‘It’s what she’d be doing for us,’ said someone, ‘not what we’d be doing with her.’

‘And what would she be doing for you?’

‘Putting a word in,’ said one of the men.

‘You see, Your Excellency,’ someone explained, ‘word’s not getting through at the moment. Not up in Tula, I mean. God doesn’t hear us. There’s terrible famine in the province and –’

‘The Tsar hears you,’ asserted Volkov.

His listeners seemed unconvinced.

Dmitri followed Father Sergei and Ivan to the kitchen. The way was blocked by a massive farm cart. On top of the cart was a large square behind dressed in a faded red skirt. The behind heaved and a shower of cabbages descended into a wicker-work basket that a man was holding beside the cart. They hit the basket like blocks of ice, which they almost were, having been dug out of a snow-covered heap only that morning. The woman straightened and Dmitri saw that her hands and forearms were bare.

‘Cold work. Mother,’ he said

The woman looked down.

‘Not if you keep busy,’ she said. ‘You must try it some time, young Barin!’

She roared with laughter and bent down into the cart again. Another shower of cabbages hit the basket.

‘Is that about it?’ said the man below.

He took the basket away into the kitchens and the woman climbed down on to the ground.

‘Who are you, then?’ she said to Dmitri. ‘You don’t look as if you belong here.’

‘I’m from the Court House at Kursk,’ said Dmitri.

‘Oh, you’re after the One-Legged Lady, are you? Well, you won’t find her here. She’ll be half way to Opona by now. Or else that daft old monk has got her tucked away somewhere and forgotten where he put her!’

The man came back, this time carrying a glass of tea.

‘This’ll warm you up, Grusha,’ he said.

‘It’d warm me up even more if it had a spot of something in it,’ she said.

The man laughed and took the glass away.

‘You’re in here every week, are you?’ said Dmitri.

‘That’s right.’

‘Are there many other carts coming and going?’

‘Not at this time of year. There’s Nikita Pulov bringing logs but apart from that –’ She thought, and shook her head. ‘More in the summer, of course. Sometimes you can’t get into the yard for them. Them and sleighs.’

‘Do you ever get asked to take things out?’ asked Dmitri.

The old woman looked at him shrewdly.

‘I wonder what you’re thinking of?’ she said. Then she laughed. ‘No such luck! If they’d asked me, I’d have jumped at it. You don’t get much for cabbages, you know. Not from this mean lot!’

‘Who’s a mean lot?’ said the man, returning. ‘Does that mean you don’t want this glass, then?’

The old woman grabbed it.

‘That’s better!’

‘I’d hope so. I put two spots in that, Grusha!’

‘You’re all right,’ she said. ‘It’s the fathers I’m talking about.’

‘It’s true they don’t throw their money around,’ the man acknowledged.

‘Except when it comes to tarting the place up,’ said Grusha, looking up at the onions sparkling in the sunlight.

Dmitri found Father Sergei and the big peasant in the kitchen holding a sack.

‘Bread won’t do,’ the peasant was saying. ‘It won’t last.’

‘I was thinking of grain.’

‘Will he go along with that? He is a mean old skinflint.’

‘He’ll go along with it, all right. He’s a country boy like yourself. Comes from Bushenko. He knows what grain means.’

‘Well –’

Father Sergei looked up and saw Dmitri.

‘You go on in there and ask him,’ he said, giving the peasant a push. ‘And then be on your way! Oh, and drop in at the gate-house on your way out. I’ve got a few things I’d like you to deliver. My people come from up there,’ he explained to Dmitri.

Ivan ambled out through the door.

‘Now,’ said Father Sergei, turning to Dmitri. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘Vehicles,’ said Dmitri. ‘Going in and out. Especially out. Even more especially, on the day after the Icon was stolen.’

Dmitri went round to the back of the building, where he found a cart standing beside a log shed. The cart was empty except for a few odd bits of kindling and some wood shavings in the bottom but two or three oblong wooden frames, as for windows, were leaning against it.

A boy came out of the shed.

‘Peter knocks them up for the mill,’ he said, seeing Dmitri looking at the frames, ‘and Nikita takes them back in his cart.’

‘I’m looking for Nikita,’ said Dmitri.

‘They’re in the Chapel,’ said the boy. ‘If you’d like to come with me, Barin –’

He took Dmitri through the shed. Logs, some birch, some pine, were piled high to the ceiling. Drops of gum glistened on the pine like ice and the air was pungent with the smell of resin. At the far end of the shed was a carpenter’s bench. They scuffed through shavings.

They went out of a door and then across a little closed in yard, and then along dark cold corridors until they emerged in the main yard not far from the door of the Chapel.

Dmitri went in with a group of pilgrims.

‘Where’s the Old Lady, then?’ said one man as they went through the door into the darkness and the candle-light.

Someone pointed to the space left by the missing icon. The group went up to it and stood for a moment before it.

‘This won’t do,’ one of them said.

Reluctantly, they divided up and went to the other icons.

‘It’s not the same,’ grumbled one as they went out.

The door closed behind them and the shadows recomposed themselves.

‘It’s not healthy,’ said a voice suddenly.

Dmitri turned. It was Volkov.

‘What isn’t?’

‘This attachment.’ He surveyed the wistful, candle-lit faces on the iconostasis. ‘Maybe it’s a good thing she’s gone missing,’ he said.

Dmitri had thought they were alone in the Chapel but then behind the iconostasis there was the shuffling of feet. A door opened and the carpenter and another man came through dragging a curious wooden structure behind them. They saw Volkov’s uniform and froze.

‘The carpenter,’ said Dmitri. ‘And you’re Nikita?’ he said to the other man.

‘Your Honour,’ managed the man, hardly able to speak.

‘He’s the carter,’ said Dmitri, ‘he brings logs in to the Monastery. And what do you take out?’ he asked the man.

‘Take out. Your Honour?’

‘He doesn’t take out anything,’ said the carpenter.

‘I saw some frames?’

‘Oh, those. It’s a bit of a sideline. Your Honour. When they’ve got a big job on. I sometimes help them out.’

‘What’s this?’ said Dmitri, looking at the contraption they were supporting.

‘It’s for the Old Lady, Your Honour. When she gets back.’

‘The Old Lady?’ said Volkov. ‘The Icon?’

‘That’s right, Your Honour. It’s for when they want to carry her. You see, she’s very big and heavy, and if you tried to lift her up on to your shoulders, so that everyone could get a good look at her, you’d never manage it. She’d be too much for you. So what I’ve done is build a frame, which makes it a bit easier. I’ve put a couple of long struts on the back so that those behind can take a bit of the weight –’

‘One of the struts needs a bit of work on it,’ said the carter, finding his voice. ‘Otherwise we won’t be able to carry her out at Easter.’

‘Out?’ said Volkov.

‘Yes, Your Honour. In the Easter processions, we go round all the villages and –’

‘Out?’ said Volkov. ‘You take her out?’

As they were leaving the Chapel, Father Kiril came towards them, eyes blazing.

‘Keep them in chains, I say,’ he said. ‘Keep them in chains!’

‘Oh, yes?’

‘That’s what you’ve got to do. Otherwise they’re up to no end of tricks. Down in the field, I’ve seen them. At it!’

‘Yes, well, –’

‘They’re all the same. Give them half a chance.’ He nodded towards the space on the iconostasis. ‘She’s no different.’

‘She?’

‘They took the chains off her. That was their mistake. She’s no different from any of the others. Take the chains off them and off they go. Down to the fields.’

‘Ye-es,’ said Volkov, edging away.

There was a sudden commotion at the gates. Old Grusha’s cart, on its way out, had skidded. The wheels had slipped round and into a snowdrift and now the cart was trapped against one of the posts.

‘It’s those damned fools there!’ Old Grusha was shouting, pointing at a group of pilgrims. ‘They wouldn’t get out of the way! You’ve got no more sense than the horse, you haven’t! Do you think it can skip around like you can when it’s pulling a bloody great wagon? You –’

‘Grusha, Grusha!’ chided Father Sergei, running out of the gate-house.

‘I’ll break their bloody necks!’ shouted Grusha, jumping down.

One of the pilgrims caught her.

‘Father –?’ he looked at Father Sergei.

‘Just get her out of the way!’ said another of the pilgrims. ‘We’ll sort this out in a second.’

Father Sergei took hold of the still-raging Grusha and began to pull her towards the gate-house.

‘Come on in here, Grusha, and warm up. There’s a nice bit of a fire in the stove –’

Gradually, he got her to calm down.

‘A spot of tea, Grusha, to warm the inside?’

‘I’d prefer a spot of something else.’

‘You’ve had that already!’ said Father Sergei sternly.

‘Me? Me? The horse, perhaps –’

Dmitri followed them into the gate-house. The old woman stopped, befuddled, in mid-shout, as the warmth hit her.

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