that Dmitry had taken control was what mattered. As he walked away, with the key to Iuda’s dungeon in his pocket, he had been in charge. Later, he might return to release his former mentor, or he might leave him there to rot. In the end he left him, but the decision had been his.
It was only hours afterwards, when it was too late, that he realized what he should have done. He pictured it in his mind. He would still have kicked Iuda into the cell, still locked the door and taken the key, but he would not have left, not right away. He would have bent down to his dying father, so that Aleksei could see him with his failing eyes, and would have whispered the words, ‘Papa, it’s me, Dmitry. And I have become a vampire.’
It would have been the best of all: to take control and then to instigate the climax of Iuda’s plan for himself – and it was a wonderful plan, there was no doubt about it. He would even have told Aleksei how he’d left Marfa, his own mother, locked in there with Iuda, just to extinguish any hope for his humanity that might linger in his father’s mind. But he would not cry over a missed opportunity. He had had many opportunities to live his own life since then, and had rarely declined to take them.
‘What matters is to have a choice,’ he said, staring down at Iuda, flicking his eyes across the bonds that held his arms and legs and head.
‘And you chose to come here?’ replied Iuda. ‘To rescue me?’ Dmitry remained silent, but Iuda did not need to be told that this was no rescue. ‘To fetch me?’
Dmitry was tempted to turn away, but he knew Iuda was just guessing. Any reaction might tell more than was necessary. He’d find out soon enough, anyway.
Iuda continued to goad, his voice heavy with sarcasm. ‘Now who on earth would send his minion to fetch me?’
The answer was obvious, but Iuda was still guessing.
‘Where is it?’ Dmitry asked, tired of wasting time.
‘Where is what?’
‘Ascalon.’ Dmitry whispered the word, afraid to say it in front of so many, even though they would little understand its meaning.
‘And what would you want with that?’
‘That’s no concern of yours.’
‘Nor, I would suspect, of yours. Something else you’ve been sent to fetch?’
‘I know you’ve been searching for it. All that time you spent at Chufut Kalye, and you never spoke to the Karaites about it?’
‘And you think that since I’ve been searching for it, I must have found it? That’s a very flattering estimation of my abilities.’
‘You must know something,’ said Dmitry.
‘I might.’
‘And you’ll tell me.’
‘Why should I?’
‘Because you want your freedom.’ Dmitry was not sure that it was an offer he was empowered to make, but that did not matter; Iuda was unimpressed.
‘Such an exchange would require trust between the participants. You lost my trust years ago, Mitka.’
‘So who would you trust?’
Iuda spoke slowly. ‘I’ve lived a very long time. That’s not achieved by trusting.’
Dmitry paused. He was getting nowhere, just as he’d expected. ‘Perhaps not for much longer,’ he said. It was meant to be a parting shot, but Iuda continued.
‘Your father understood trust, of course,’ he said. ‘Faith, if you like. That’s why I could never quite handle him. But it was his faith that allowed him to choose Dominique over your mother. Perhaps it was only one side of his family that inherited it.’
Such insults meant nothing to Dmitry any more – though they would have cut him deeply when he had been human. But the mention of that side of the family gave Dmitry an opportunity to play one of his few trump cards.
‘You’d trust Luka Miroslavich then?’
‘Who?’ Iuda’s voice was casual, but he kept his face a little too still in repressing his surprise. Or perhaps that was deliberate. It was Iuda who’d brought the conversation to that point. Had he finessed Luka’s name out of Dmitry? It was too late now to go back.
‘My nephew, if you like to call him that,’ Dmitry explained, ‘on the more faithful side of the family. Tamara Valentinovna’s child. She gave him away.’
Iuda stared at him blankly.
‘We know you’ve befriended him … much as you befriended me,’ Dmitry continued.
But Iuda’s focus was not on his relationship with Luka. A gentle smile played across his lips, smug and victorious. He allowed Dmitry a moment to observe it before offering by way of explanation a single,