The Ocean of Time by David Wingrove Page B

Otto—’
    ‘Fyodor. Do as I say. We’re in danger here. Trust me. I know what I’m talking about. If we stay here, they’ll attack us.’
    Bakatin looks at me as if I’m mad, but he shrugs and, hauling himself up off the bench seat, gives orders to his sons.
    The moon is high and it’s late when finally we moor on an island three hours upstream from Antipino. It’s far enough not to be followed by foot, but there’s always the possibility that they’ll follow us by boat, and so while Bakatin and his sons get some sleep in the bottom of the boat, I sit at the stern, keeping watch.
    I’ve told Katerina to rest, but she wants to sit with me. She’s said nothing thus far, but now that Bakatin and his sons are asleep and snoring, she asks me why we didn’t stay in the village.
    ‘Just a feeling,’ I say. ‘An instinct I had. Those two … they’ve been trailing us for a reason.’
    ‘You don’t think they simply had business in Antipino?’
    ‘Yes, and their business was us.’
    ‘But surely …?’
    I turn and look at her. ‘I made a mistake back there, Katerina. I revealed what I was. Not just to you, but to everyone. And even if they mistake what it is, they know I’m something different, something special. And that’s dangerous. Very dangerous indeed.’
    ‘Then maybe you should have dealt with it back there. Maybe you should have followed them and—’
    ‘Killed them?’ I shake my head and look away. ‘No. I can’t kill people just because I suspect them.’
    ‘But they’d have killed us.’
    ‘Maybe. And maybe not.’
    She’s silent for a time, then, putting her arm about my back, she leans close and whispers to my ear. ‘Otto?’
    ‘Yes, my love?’
    ‘Forget watching for a while. Take me ashore and make love to me.’

181
    It’s two days’ journey to Tatarinka, our last stop on the river, and from the start the weather is awful. We wake to an overcast sky, a solid layer of thick, grey cloud blocking off the sun, and then it begins to rain.
    For the rest of the morning it doesn’t stop, and Katerina and I sit huddled together beneath the makeshift awning as Bakatin and his sons pull against the current.
    The heavy rain has swollen the river, which here cuts through a rougher, less even terrain. We have left the flatlands now and the land to either side rises steeply, fold upon fold towards the distant, rain-obscured hills
    After a while Katerina complains of the cold, and I go to the cart and carefully unpack one of the furs I’ve brought for colder weather, securing the load again before returning to her and wrapping it about her shoulders.
    There is the slightest plumpness to her now – barely anything, yet last night I took care to be gentler than usual with her and she, noticing it, laughed softly and asked me if I didn’t think her made of sterner stuff than that. And maybe she is, yet the thought of her carrying our child fills me with such tenderness for her, such an aching softness, while at the same time …
    At the same time, I would kill anyone who harmed her.
    As we sit there, listening to the rain fall and the birds call forlornly in the trees, to the slush of the oars and the rush of the water past our hull, I am conscious of just how vulnerable she makes me feel. Which, perhaps, should worry me. I am, after all, a time agent, my life a complex, dangerous one. Yet without this …
    She sleeps a while, and when she wakes the rain is still falling, and very little in the landscape seems to have changed. Sometimes the sheer size of this land encroaches on the mind. Great armies have floundered in its vastness. It has been a month and more since we set out from Novgorod and still we seem a long, long way from our goal.
    But I am happy today, despite the rain, despite the thought of all the bad weather to come – for the rainy season is now upon us, and after the rains comes the snow. Happy because, for the first time in some while, I feel at peace. It will be hard,