Some time after midnight, the crescent moon rose in the sky behind us. The light would be of little extra help to us, and might be of great assistance in revealing our presence to the enemy. Luckily, it wasn't long – much sooner, indeed, than I had expected – before we saw the first glimpse of the French campfires. The rumours of how far they had advanced were proving to be true. We dismounted and I watched the camp, about half a verst away, through my spyglass.

'How many do you see?' asked Iuda.

'There's only a dozen or so still awake, but there are several tents,' I replied. 'There could be over a hundred men there in total.'

'Too many, I think,' said Iuda thoughtfully, although to me it seemed he was stating the obvious, until he went on with, 'at least for the first attack of our campaign. Probably better if we just start out by picking off a few stragglers.'

I thought that this was somewhat pointless. While on the one hand, an attack on a camp of a hundred or so was impossible, attacking isolated soldiers in ones and twos would have no impact whatsoever. There were tactical problems too.

'Finding stragglers may not be easy,' I told him. 'They'll all stay close to their-'

I was interrupted by the abrupt French command of 'Stand up!' Looking over my shoulder I saw first a bayonet, then the rifle to which it was attached and, finally, the French infantryman holding the rifle. In all, there were six of them surrounding the four of us. 'Lay down your swords and guns!' continued the officer in charge.

The odds against us weren't insurmountable, but our survival (and, more pertinently, my survival) didn't seem probable if we resisted. 'Do as he says,' I said calmly to the three Oprichniki under my command.

I think that may well have been the first time I attempted to give them a direct order. As orders go, it wasn't particularly successful. As I began to unbuckle my scabbard, Matfei threw himself towards the nearest Frenchman. Two rifles fired at him. Whether they both missed completely or caused some minor wound, I could not see, but he did not flinch and soon had his man on the ground.

Taking our cue from Matfei, Iuda, Foma and I also attacked. The infantryman who was covering me was distracted and it was no problem to knock his bayonet to one side and get in close enough for my sword to be of use in a quick kill. I turned to the next man. He had already fired his musket and had no bayonet fixed, so should have been easy meat.

As I turned, the butt of his gun came into heavy contact with my temple. I slumped to the ground. My last vision before unconsciousness was of the French infantryman again lifting his rifle to deliver a final, fatal blow to my skull and behind him Iuda, his arm raised ready to attack and his mouth wide open in a silent scream.

CHAPTER IV

WHEN I CAME TO, IT WAS DAYLIGHT. I WAS ALONE. I TRIED to recall what had happened, but all that came to me were images of utter savagery. I had seen only seconds of the fight before I was knocked out, although perhaps I may still have been half-conscious as I lay on the ground. The memories that flooded into my mind were not of any ordinary battle, but of something which felt like (and 'felt' is the right word, for I could not recall actually seeing anything) a pack of wolves ripping apart its prey rather than soldiers defeating soldiers. Also blood – I remembered much blood.

I sat up, and feeling an intense pain in my head, lay down again. I put my hand to my temple where I had been hit. It was bruised, but not bleeding and not excessively tender to touch. It was the pain inside my skull that was the real problem. I sat up again, more gently this time, and looked around.

I had been right about the blood. The grass around where we had fought was covered with it. Dmitry had said the Oprichniki were ruthless fighters. Looking at myself, I saw bloodstains on the arm of my coat. I checked my body, but found no wounds to suggest that the blood was mine. There were no bodies lying around – neither of the French nor of the Oprichniki. The immediate question was who had won the battle? If the French had won, then surely I would be dead or at least a prisoner. But if the Oprichniki had won, why would they just leave me here? On the other hand, the Oprichniki hadn't been at all keen in having us along in the first place, so perhaps this encounter had played into their hands. I was alone, and by now, they might be versts away.

I stood up, trying to ignore my headache. The bloodstains and the impressions in the grass gave some indication that the bodies had been dragged away. I followed as far as I could, into a nearby copse, but the bloodstains soon petered out and the drag marks became impossible to distinguish on the rough ground. I returned to where the fight had taken place.

My sword and my spyglass were lying beside a tree trunk. It could not have been where I dropped them, and I could only conclude that someone had placed them there deliberately. Again, this was more likely the behaviour of an Oprichnik than a Frenchman.

I looked towards the camp on which we had been spying the previous night. The remains of the fire still smouldered, but all signs of the French themselves were gone. By now they were probably in Gzatsk.

For me there was only one option; to regroup. With that end in mind, I realized a further problem: my horse had gone. By now, I had pretty much come to the conclusion that it was the Oprichniki who had won the previous night's conflict, so it must have been they who had taken my horse – left my sword, but taken my horse. Sadly, this all seemed to fit. With a sword I could defend myself, but without a horse there was little chance that I could catch up and interfere with them. It was still difficult, however, to fathom why it was they wanted rid of me. Certainly from what I had seen they were immensely capable in close-quarter combat, but I was hardly so useless as to be a hindrance to them. There was something about them that they wanted to keep from us. Some secret way of fighting that was so effective that they had to keep it to themselves. And, as far as I could guess, Dmitry knew what it was.

Even so, there was little to be gained by standing there worrying about it. I had a long journey back east ahead of me, alone and on foot.

The first issue I had to deal with was that our next appointed meeting place (decided on the presumption that the French would still be advancing, which they were) was in Goryachkino, to the north of the main Smolensk to Moscow road – the very road along which Bonaparte and his army were now advancing and which I was currently south of. I had two options. Either I could head east as rapidly as possible and then cut across the road ahead of the French or I could go across the road west of Gzatsk, behind the French, hoping to evade their rearguard, and set off east from there.

Taking a route that would lead me well behind French lines didn't seem the best option for rejoining my compatriots, so I went for the more direct route, heading east, to the south of the Moscow road. This proved to be the right choice. Bonaparte rested his army in Gzatsk for three days and so I was in fact overcautious, keeping well away from the road which was, as yet, not in French hands, and thus delaying my progress.

The first day of my journey was uneventful. Sleeping rough was not too uncomfortable in the still-warm weather of late August. I arose early and carried on eastwards once again, making as good ground as could be expected over the rough, wooded terrain and covering about 25 versts each day.

It was just after sunset on the second day, when I heard a sound way over to my right, that I first began to suspect I was being followed. A single incongruous noise in the forest is not enough to announce the presence of a pursuer – there are natural sounds all around – but I had already heard other noises from that direction. How long ago I had heard the first of them I could not recall, but the fact that they came consistently from the same direction relative to me, even though I was on the move, told me that whoever or whatever was out there was deliberately keeping pace with me. Though the sun had already set, it still cast enough light to see by. The moon had not yet risen, and even when it did, it would be a new moon. Throughout the night there would be total darkness. I made camp and used the remaining twilight to gather some wood for a fire, not for warmth, but to give some light – and with it, some hope – in case my pursuer decided to strike.