these conditions. And he knew that in the spring, when the cells flooded knee-deep in water, the dungeons were even worse.
The only light in this stone corridor was an oil lamp carried by the guard, illuminating small wooden doors built into the walls. The guard’s shadow teetered drunkenly ahead of him.
The guard led them to one cell and opened the door. Behind the door was a set of bars which formed a second door, so that those on the outside could see who’d been confined inside without any risk of letting them escape.
When the guard held up the lamp, Pekkala looked through the bars at a man strangely hunched on the ground. Only his knees and elbows and the tips of his toes touched the floor. His head rested in his hands and he appeared to be asleep.
Alexei turned to the guard. “Why is he like that?”
“The prisoner is preserving his body heat, Excellency. That is the only way he will not freeze to death.”
“Tell him to get up,” said the Tsar.
“On your feet!” boomed the guard.
At first, the man did not move. Only when the guard jangled his keys, ready to burst into the cell and haul the man up, did the prisoner finally stand.
Pekkala recognized him now, although just barely. It was the killer Grodek, convicted two months previously for leading an attempt on the life of the Tsar. The trial had been swift and held in secret. After the verdict, Grodek, who was barely older than Alexei himself, had disappeared into the catacombs of the Russian prison system. Pekkala assumed that Grodek had simply been executed. Even though he had failed to assassinate the Tsar, to attempt it, or even to speak of it, was a capital offense. In addition, Grodek had managed to kill several Okhrana agents before Pekkala caught up with him on the Potsuleyev Bridge. It was more than enough to consign this young man to oblivion.
Now only the shape of his face looked familiar to Pekkala. His hair had been shaved off, and scabies sores patched the dome of his scalp. Prison clothing hung in rags from his emaciated body, and his skin bore the gray polished look of filth which was as old as his imprisonment. His sunken eyes, so alert at the trial, stared huge and vacant from their bluish sockets.
Grodek backed against the wall, shivering uncontrollably, his arms crossed over his chest. To Pekkala, it was hard to believe that this was the same person who had shouted defiantly from the witness stand, cursing the monarchy and everything it stood for.
“Who’s there?” Grodek asked, squinting at the light of the oil lamp. “What do you want from me?”
“I have brought someone to see you,” said the guard.
Now the Tsar turned to the guard. “Leave us,” he ordered.
“Yes, Majesty.” The guard set down the lantern and made his way back along the corridor, touching the walls with his hands to find his way.
Now that he was no longer blinded by the lantern light, Grodek could see his visitors. “Mother of God,” he whispered.
The Tsar waited until the sound of the guard’s footsteps had faded away before he spoke to Grodek. “You know me,” he said.
“I do,” replied Grodek.
“And my son, Alexei,” said the Tsar, resting his hands on the young man’s shoulders.
Grodek nodded but said nothing.
“This man,” the Tsar told Alexei, “is guilty of murder, and of attempted murder. He tried to kill me, but he failed.”
“Yes,” said Grodek. “I failed, but I have set something in motion that will end in your death, and the termination of your way of life.”
“You see!” said the Tsar, raising his voice for the first time. “You see how he is still defiant?”
“Yes, Father,” said Alexei.
“And what is to be done with him, Alexei? He is your own blood—a distant relative, but family all the same.”
“I don’t know what should happen,” said the boy. Pekkala heard a tremble in his voice.
“Someday, Alexei,” said the Tsar, “you will have to make decisions about whether men like this live or die.”
Grodek stepped forward to the middle of the cell, where the imprints of his knees and elbows dented the mud beneath his feet. “It may come as a surprise that I have nothing against you or your son,” he said. “My struggle is against what you stand for. You are a symbol of all that is wrong with the world. It is for this reason that I have fought against you.”
“You have also become a symbol,” replied the Tsar, “which I suspect was what you wanted all along. And as for your noble reasons for attempting to shoot me in the back, they are nothing but lies. But I did not come here to gloat over your current situation. I came here because, in a few moments, my son will decide what is to be done with you.”
Alexei turned to look at his father, as confused and frightened as the young man behind the bars.
“But I am to be executed,” said Grodek. “The guards tell me that every day.”
“And that may still happen,” replied the Tsar. “If my son decrees it.”
“I don’t want to kill that man,” said Alexei.
The Tsar patted his son on the shoulder. “You will not kill anyone, Alexei. That is not your task in life.”
“But you are asking me to say if he should die!” protested the boy.
“Yes,” replied the Tsar.
Grodek dropped to his knees, his hands resting palms up on the floor. “Excellency.” He addressed the Tsarevich. “You and I are not so different. In another time and place, we might even have been friends. What separates us is only these bars and the things we have seen in this world.”
“Are you innocent?” Alexei asked. “Did you try to kill my father?”
Grodek was silent.
Water dripped somewhere in the shadows. Pekkala heard waves break against the fortress walls, like thunder in the distance.
“Yes, I did,” said Grodek.
“And what would you do now,” asked the Tsarevich, “if I opened this door and let you out?”
“I would go far away from here,” Grodek promised. “You would never hear from me again.”
Already, the damp of this dungeon had worked its way into Pekkala’s skin. Now he shuddered as it coiled around his bones.
Alexei turned to his father. “Do not execute this man. Keep him here in this cell for the rest of his life.”
“Please, Excellency,” Grodek begged. “I never see the sun. The food they give me is not fit even for a dog. Let me leave! Let me go away. I’ll disappear. I’d rather die than stay any longer in this cell.”
Turning again, Alexei fixed Grodek with a stare. “Then find a way to kill yourself,” he replied. The fear had gone from his eyes.
The Tsar brought his face close to the bars. “How dare you say you are the same as him. You are nothing like my son. Remember this: Alexei will rule my country when I’m gone, and if you live to see that day, it will be because he is merciful to animals like you.”
