‘I’ll need my hands,’ he said, raising his bound wrists and with an expression of humble entreaty upon his face.
‘Tell Dmitry what to do,’ Zmyeevich replied.
‘Very well, but … there are traps.’
Iuda could easily have been bluffing, but it wasn’t worth the risk. Zmyeevich paused for a moment in consideration, then nodded. Dmitry handed him the end of the wire rope to hold while he unlocked the manacles that kept Iuda’s wrists behind his back. The rope still shackled him at the neck. He flexed his fingers, putting on a show. When they had first known each other, and for years afterwards, Dmitry would have been taken in by it all, but not any more.
Iuda reached up and pressed his thumbs against the mosaic tiles, somewhere close to the saint’s big toes. The lock released without a sound. Iuda stepped back and the entire icon swung outwards, revealing a dark, narrow brick passageway, far smaller than the icon that had hidden it, its floor at the level of their chests.
‘Let him go first,’ said Zmyeevich.
Iuda required no second bidding. He pulled himself up the high step into the passageway and disappeared into the darkness. Dmitry felt the rope tighten in his hand and yanked it back, telling Iuda not to go too far ahead, as though he were a disobedient mongrel. The corridor was tight for Dmitry, but he was used to such things. Any fear of enclosed spaces that he had felt in life had vanished the moment he had awoken in his own coffin, deep under the soil. He felt Zmyeevich at his back.
The corridor ran only a few feet before arriving at a descending spiral staircase. They went down, Iuda still leading the way, until the steps ended in another corridor, long and straight. Dmitry felt that they must be below the level of the crypt, but he had lost his sense of direction on the twisting stair; he could not say whether this new passageway led out under Senate Square, or back beneath the cathedral, or in any other direction. All he could do was follow.
At last the tunnel opened out into a chamber. It was a large space, about half as tall again as he was. The arched ceiling was supported by eight brick columns. The place smelt of damp; Dmitry guessed that they must be close to the level of the river.
‘Welcome to my humble abode,’ said Iuda.
Dmitry tugged at his leash again, and he fell silent. Zmyeevich traversed the room, lighting the various lamps and torches that hung from the walls with the candle he had brought from the cathedral. The columns cast a criss-cross of shadows over the brickwork of the floor.
‘You had all this built?’ asked Zmyeevich, with genuine wonder in his voice.
‘No, no,’ admitted Iuda. ‘This has been here since Yekaterina’s time, perhaps longer, but lost for decades. I merely ensured that there was an entrance to it.’
That would make sense. The whole construction had a much rougher, more functional feel to it than had the cathedral.
‘And an exit?’ Zmyeevich asked.
Iuda glanced in the direction from which they had come. The door back to the passageway had been open when they arrived. Zmyeevich strode over and slammed it shut. The key was in place. He turned it and slipped it into his pocket. Dmitry began to look around, still keeping a tight hold on the rope, but moving some way from Iuda. In the middle of the chamber, where a ninth column might have been expected, stood a pool of water, almost like an ornamental fountain, except for the lack of the fountain itself. Its raised stone sides came to waist height, and water filled it almost to the brim. Dmitry had not realized how cold it was in the room, but the water was frozen over. Even here underground, embraced by the warm earth, it was impossible to entirely escape the chill of a Russian winter. But the ice didn’t look particularly thick. Dmitry rapped it firmly with the back of his fist, and a crack spread across the diameter.
‘I suspect this place was once a chapel,’ explained Iuda. He nodded towards the pool. ‘A font?’
‘Where are we?’ asked Zmyeevich.
‘Somewhere beneath Senate Square,’ answered Iuda. ‘I could show you precisely on a map.’ He pointed, upwards and ahead of them. ‘The statue of Pyotr is just there.’
From the walls, on both sides, hung a number of cupboards. They were closed, but had