The Ocean of Time by David Wingrove Page B

river after the boat.
    The youngest doesn’t wait for me to act. Still holding his throat, he throws himself into the water, surfacing a moment later with a spluttering gasp.
    It’s over, and barely a minute has passed. As I turn my back on them, I find a crowd of locals gathered at the top of the jetty, staring at me with a mixture of amusement and awe. It makes me realise that Krylenko must have a reputation for his double-dealing, for there’s nothing but admiration for what I’ve done, and when Katerina emerges from the church, she finds me at the centre of a crowd of townsfolk who want nothing so much as to pat my back and shake my hand and offer to buy me drinks at the dockside inn.
    ‘Otto? What’s going on? Where’s Krylenko?’
    ‘Gone,’ I say, recalling how he and his sons glared at me and shook their fists even as they rowed away.
    ‘You paid them?’
    ‘I paid them.’
    ‘Good. And the boat?’
    I’m about to answer that I haven’t yet hired a boat, when a stranger – a huge, dark-haired man with a long jet-black beard who’s been standing off a little way, watching me – speaks up.
    ‘If it’s the hire of a boat you want, then a boat you have.’
    He steps forward and, leaning down to my level, offers me a hand easily twice the size of my own. A veritable blacksmith’s hand. ‘Bakatin,’ he says. ‘Fyodor Mikhailovich Bakatin, and it’s an honour to meet you, Master …’
    ‘Behr,’ I say and take his hand. ‘
Meister
Otto Behr.’

168
    Fyodor Bakatin proves to be not just a large man, but a man of large appetites. As we sit at a trestle table in the inn, I marvel at the amount of food he manages to eat, and begin to wonder if there is a boat big enough to carry the provisions it would require to feed such a man for the eight days we’ll be travelling.
    The cart is outside, within sight, but to ensure its safety Bakatin has had his sons guard it, in his words, ‘against the thieving fingers of the locals’.
    Bakatin has three sons, though I’d not have guessed they were his, had he not told me so. The eldest is long and lanky with a squint and a wispy beard, the middle son short and heavy, bordering on fat, with long, flaxen-blond hair and pale blue eyes. The youngest, however, is the oddest, with his light, athletic build, his bright red hair and green, cat-like eyes. A smooth-faced, handsome boy. Far too handsome to have come from Bakatin’s loins, or so it seems.
    While we wait for more wine to be brought, I ask him how it is they don’t resemble each other. Bakatin laughs. ‘That comes, I guess, from them having different mothers.’ He grins. ‘I have three wives.’
    Katerina giggles and I nudge her.
    ‘Oh, it annoys the priest, but what of that? I’m a good husband and a good father, and besides, the church does well out of me. Some around here are mealy-mouthed. They give lip-service to the faith, but I –’ he taps his chest expressively ‘– I, Bakatin, give
money
. I understand the
value
of religion.’
    ‘And our journey, Fyodor,’ I say, trying to bring him back to what we were discussing earlier. ‘Are you not afraid of the marshes?’
    ‘
Afraid
?’ Bakatin throws out his great chest proudly. ‘Show me the man of whom Fyodor Mikhailovich Bakatin is afraid and I will show you Satan himself!’
    At which he roars with laughter, then finishes his wine and bellows at the serving girl to move her pretty little arse and get some more wine over to our table at once.
    Beside me, Katerina giggles, enjoying Bakatin’s company, loving his larger-than-life outrageousness, his
Russianness
. She’s captivated, and when I say he has a deal, and that I’m happy to sail with him, she squeezes my right hand under the table and turns her head to grin at me.
    ‘You’ll not regret it,’ Bakatin says, nodding to himself. ‘Though I say it myself, there’s no one knows this stretch of river better than Bakatin. Ask anyone, they’ll tell you. As for Krylenko …’