The Ocean of Time Read Free Page B

own over it. Her eyes are watching me now with such an intensity, such a seriousness, that I wonder how the noise and bustle of the marketplace can continue – how it is that everyone there in that crowded space is not watching us?
    ‘I missed you this morning.’
    ‘Did you?’ she asks. And again, the intensity within those words is almost too much for them to carry. She would die for me, and I for her.
    ‘Your father—’
    ‘Got you drunk last night?’ The smile returns. ‘You
need
help, then?’
    I smile at her teasing. ‘We were celebrating.’
    ‘Celebrating?’
    ‘Us going away.’
    ‘Ah …’ And she looks more thoughtful. ‘You told him, then?’
    I nod.
    ‘And he agreed?’
    ‘He didn’t like it, but he has given us his blessing. I told him that the journey would make us rich. That I would buy an estate when we returned with a thousand serfs.’
    She frowns at that. ‘You want that, Otto?’
    ‘It would make things easier. Our own place.’
    ‘But we have that.’
    ‘Here in town, yes. I meant a place away from here. In the countryside. With just you and I … and our children.’
    Her eyes widen. For a long moment she says nothing, her eyes searching mine, and then she lifts herself up on to her toes and kisses me softly, gently on the lips.
    ‘Ah, my sweet
batiushka
,’ she says, and I feel a small tremor pass down my spine at the words, for it is a kind of private code between us.
Little father
. It is what she always calls me when she wants me to make love to her.
    ‘Natya,’ she says, raising her voice, but never moving, never looking away from me. ‘Take the basket to my father’s house and wait there for instructions.’
    ‘Mistress?’
    ‘Go!’
    And Natya scuttles off, frowning unhappily at having her shopping expedition curtailed. But I don’t spare her a thought. Walking back, my arm about Katerina’s waist, the enticing warmth of her against my side, I am aware of nothing but her.
    We go to bed and stay there until the evening comes. Leaving her there, sleeping on her back, I slip on my robe and go out to use the midden and as I’m there, smiling to myself, remembering the afternoon’s sweet lovemaking, there’s a hammering on the door, and old memories make me frown, recalling how cruelly my happiness has been shattered in the past. But not this time. This time it is Razumovsky, come calling on me, returning Natya and the basket, though that’s not the only reason for his visit. The council of city elders – the
veche
– wish to see me, and so I wash and dress and, leaving a note for Katerina, venture out into the warm evening darkness, Razumovsky at my side.
    He seems excited, yet he will not tell me why. ‘You’ll find out,’ is all he says, his dark eyes shining, a broad grin splitting his thick beard. It’s a beautiful evening, a full moon laying a coat of silver over the town as we climb the hill toward the assembly building.
    I look back at the river, then beyond it to the forest, recalling what Katerina said as we lay there after our first bout of lovemaking.
    ‘Are you afraid?’ I had asked.
    ‘Of the journey? Yes. But I want to go. Nothing matters, as long as I’m with you, Otto. If I were here … it would be awful. Every moment I’d be wondering where you were, worrying that something might have happened.’
    ‘Nothing will happen.’
    ‘Yet if it did …’
    In my mind I see her there, naked beside me, and see again how she turns her face away briefly, a look of pain in her lovely eyes. When she looks at me again, her voice is the merest whisper. ‘If you died, I would die too. I couldn’t live without you, Otto. The times you are not here …’
    She doesn’t have to finish her sentence. I feel that too. To be apart from her is hell. And when did I ever feel that for anyone?
    Razumovsky nudges me, and it’s only then that I realise I have stopped and am staring back towards the house, as if to see her through the solid layers of wood and