The Gods' Gambit Read Online Free PDF

Tsar’s cortege would sail down
the Volga River. The planned climax of the festivities was a liturgy on the
14th of March in the Ipachevsky Monastery to celebrate the date when Russian
nobles first offered the crown to the first Tsar of the Romanov dynasty,
Michael Fedorovich.
    The Tsar intended to make his subjects remember this jubilee
and had ordered his quartermasters not to stint on spending. All food and drink
in the inns and taverns that night had been paid for. Stalls had been set up in
the streets from which everyone could take a free bag of flour and a bottle of
vodka. Patrolling soldiers had been ordered not to disturb celebrating
citizens, only to collect up drunks that had fallen down in the snow before
they froze to death. The Tsar’s presence and generosity had attracted many
peasants from the surrounding areas of Vladimir. They came to watch street
shows, get a free drink or meal and go home with some flour.
    There had been a constant toing and froing in the town the
whole evening, which is why nobody paid much attention to the men who sauntered
casually out of several inns and houses just before daybreak. All of them wore
simple villagers’ clothes, but they rode horses, which were beyond the means of
an ordinary villager. Their white faces and smooth hands were signs that they
were not used to hard labour. If someone had taken the trouble to look at the
men more closely, they would have noticed that they were anything but
villagers.
    They left the town by different routes, but after a while
turned towards one destination – the dark mass of the forest lying several
kilometres away from Vladimir.
    * * *
    At the same time, in the forest about thirty kilometres
away, a little settlement was awakening to its daily routine. One by one, the
chimneys of the wooden houses and huts began belching out smoke. Men and women
then came outdoors to engage in their morning chores. All the men and some of
the women of the settlement were armed with personally chosen weaponry: Berdan
and Mosin-Nagant rifles, different types of revolvers, sabres and knives. This settlement
was situated away from the main road and was surrounded by hills and a dense
forest. As far as the state authorities were concerned, the settlement did not
exist; it could not be found on any map. Its inhabitants and the few who were
acquainted with its location called it ‘Bezimiannoe’ or ‘the village without a
name’. The reason for this anonymity was because it was the winter residence of
the ringleader of the biggest and strongest criminal gang operating in the
Russian Empire. The tentacles of this notorious organisation spread from
Petersburg and Moscow to the eastern borders.
    Around the settlement, strategically placed shooting points
had been set up. There were shooters in positions deep in the forest and in
front of the biggest house in the centre of the settlement. That morning,
inside this house, three men sat at a long wooden table enjoying a breakfast of
tea, black bread, dry fruits and meat. The flimsily dressed and dishevelled
women with whom they had shared their beds the previous night were serving them
in silence. At the head of the table sat a blond man in his late thirties with
a sinewy body and a longish face. His eyes were small, clear blue and slightly
sunken. This was the most wanted man in the Russian Empire. His name was Batka
Ivan, known simply as Batka, meaning ‘Father’. The table companions of this
notorious ringleader were his second and third in command, Big Leonid and
Butcher Stephan.
    When Batka had finished eating, he pushed away a big silver
plate of leftovers. Immediately, one of the women took it away, cleaned the
table in front of him and added tea to his cup.
    “The Tsar’s nobles are having fun in the town, Batka,”
Leonid said. “The festivities have attracted people like iron to a magnet.
There has never been so much movement in the forest before.”
    “Let’s send a detachment closer to the