Noble's Savior

by Jerry Sacher

  “Get a warm coat. We have to move.” Sergei spoke between heavy breaths. He didn’t give Benjamin time to ask questions, and the urgency in his voice moved Benjamin to obedience. He grabbed his fur coat and hat and the leather portfolio with the tsar’s letters, then followed Sergei outside.

  “Wait here until I come back.”

  “Where are you going?” Benjamin asked, and Sergei could hear the worry in his voice.

  He put a reassuring hand on Benjamin’s shoulder. He was going to tell Benjamin to wait inside until he spoke with the doctor, or anyone, but he never got the chance. The corridor and the entire train plunged into darkness. The marauding soldiers had cut the power. Sergei grabbed Benjamin’s hand and pulled him quickly off the train. All around them shouts and cries rose up as flames raced through one of the boxcars.

  Benjamin’s first reaction was to try to run for the trees that stood out in the darkness along the tracks, but Sergei held him back.

  “I have an idea, so forget what I just said and stand back on the platform.”

  “What are you going to do Sergei?”

  “Just leave it to me. Just get back up there and keep watch.”

  Benjamin obeyed, and climbed back onto the platform.

  As they waited, Sergei wondered about everyone else on the train: doctors, nurses, officers, and patients. What had happened to them? The sound of hoofbeats coming closer interrupted his thoughts, and Sergei peered around the corner of the railroad car.

  His eyes had grown accustomed enough to the dark to see a man in a ragged soldier’s uniform riding toward them. Sergei held his breath and waited in the shadows until the man rode up and was about to pass by. Sergei reached out and smacked the horse on its rear flank. The startled horse bucked, and the man fell off. Sergei was about to grab the reins, but the man got to his feet, and swearing he grabbed Sergei by the collar.

  As they punched each other and struggled in the snow and mud, Sergei tried to ignore the pain in his side. From the corner of his eye, he saw Benjamin grab the horse’s reins and tie the animal to a ladder on the coach, then he, too, leaped into the fray. He pulled Sergei off the soldier and began to wrestle with the man, trying to reach the gun in the soldier’s belt. The man took a swing that landed in Benjamin’s stomach, and Sergei punched the man in the face. The soldier cried out in pain and lunged at Sergei again. This time Benjamin grabbed the gun from the soldier’s belt. Too involved in trying to handle Sergei, the man didn’t notice his missing gun until he reached for it and found his holster empty.

  “My gun,” the soldier growled, spinning toward Benjamin.

  With little time to think, and with his hand trembling, Benjamin pulled the trigger. A loud bang sounded, and the ragged soldier staggered and fell. He lay still in the snow.

  Sergei untethered the horse, and Benjamin helped him climb into the saddle before mounting behind him, his arms around Sergei’s waist. Sergei took the reins and guided the horse toward the forest, a half-mile from the tracks.

  “What were they looking for… a hospital train… the wounded? What about you?” Benjamin finally managed to say between gasps for air.

  “There are a lot of deserters, and they’ll do anything to obtain food… or weapons.”

  “Is it that bad?”

  “Yes—” Sergei was going to say something more, when the sky lit up. The explosion as the train’s steam engine blew up reached them a second later, raining dirt, rocks, wood, and shards of metal. Sergei and Benjamin quickly covered their heads with their coats to shield themselves from being pelted. The glow of the fire remained, but around them it was dark again. Sergei held the reins in one hand, crossed himself with the other, then made Benjamin hold on as he spurred the horse’s flanks, and they rode away. To gain some sense of direction and to keep hidden from the soldiers still on the tracks, Sergei guided the horse through the forest, keeping the railroad tracks in sight.

  Chapter 5

  AT DAWN, they discovered an abandoned manor house in the center of an overgrown field about ten miles from the tracks. The stone road leading up to the house looked undisturbed.

  “The soldiers who attacked the train last night may have already discovered this place,” Sergei said as they observed the building.

  “But the road looks—”

  “Misleading. They could be watching us from inside right now, letting us think the place is abandoned. When we’re inside….” Sergei grasped the reins in one hand again and bumped his fists together to signify a trap.

  Benjamin took a good look at the house as they got closer. The two-story gray stone building with large windows all around looked out of place in the middle of the country. A wide covered porch led the way to double oak doors. The windows looked dusty, with one or two on the second floor broken. Approaching the house, Benjamin saw the first signs of violence. The flower gardens in front of the house had been pulled up, and as he wondered why no trees surrounded the property, he got his answer—on either side of the road, they passed a number of trees that had been cut down and now lay where they had fallen, covered with snow.

  Benjamin jumped off the horse, and then he took the reins and guided the animal to the front porch, where he tethered it to the railing. He helped Sergei down, and together they stood on the bottom step.

  “Hand me the gun.”

  Benjamin pulled it from his pocket and handed it over to Sergei.

  “I want you to stay out here, and if anything happens, you get on that horse and ride like hell.”

  “You can’t go in there alone. I’m going with you,” Benjamin said with surprising confidence.

  “I don’t know what we’re going to find in there, but keep your eyes open if you’re coming with me,” Sergei warned.

  “I will. You don’t need to worry about that.”

  Together they climbed the rest of the stairs, still cautious of who or what waited in ambush inside.

  Benjamin whispered, “The snow in front of the door looks untouched.”

  Sergei wasn’t lulled into such optimism. “They could have gone in through the back of the house.”

  Sergei held the gun close to his side as they crossed the porch, their boots crunching in the snowdrift. He put a hand on the brass knob and turned it. The door swung open on groaning hinges. Sergei held the pistol close to his body as he eased one of the heavy doors open and stepped cautiously inside. He motioned Benjamin to follow and to keep silent.

  The wide hall echoed their footsteps. Prints in the dust on the floor indicated someone had been here, but Benjamin couldn’t tell how long ago. On the walls, rusty nails remained where paintings had once hung, cobwebs covered the great chandelier in the large hall, and bullet holes riddled the walls.

  They split up. Sergei proceeded down the passage toward the back of the building, while Benjamin remained behind. Benjamin explored the room behind the door on his right, which turned out to be a drawing room with broken furniture piled in the center as though someone had wanted to set fire to the whole thing but stopped.

  Sergei joined Benjamin in the library amid piles of books that had been pulled from the shelves. Benjamin held a leather-bound edition of Plato’s writings.

  “They probably had no idea what they were passing up.” Benjamin held out the leather-bound book when Sergei drew near.

  Sergei took the book from him, and set it down, then took Benjamin’s face in his hands and kissed him deeply, holding him close. “I came back to say that I found some food in the kitchen. Are you hungry?”

  Benjamin nodded, his stomach growling for the first time in their adventure.

  Sergei led the way through the house to the kitchens, where he displayed with pride the results of his search: a bit of bacon and some black bread, all that had remained overlooked in the pantry. Sergei pulled some chairs from a corner and set them around a table. He winked at Benjamin and said in a polite butler’s voice, “Have a seat, sir. Breakfast will be ready shortly.”

  Benjamin switched place
s, and told Sergei to sit while he busied himself getting the food ready. A few minutes later, he brought in two plates of bacon and the bread, which was slightly hard but edible. He set them down.

  “It’s not the café at the Hotel Europe, but it’ll have to do.”

  Benjamin hadn’t realized just how hungry he was until he’d taken the first bite. After that, it was manners be damned until they had finished the last morsel.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t find any tea or coffee. That would have been the first thing stolen,” Sergei said, with a note of apology.

  When they were done, Benjamin stood from his chair and walked to the window looking out. He turned back to Sergei.

  “Sergei, where do you suppose we are?”

  “We passed a railway station a few miles back, but I didn’t see any marks on it. At this rate, we’re probably still a few hundred miles from Petrograd, but I’m not sure. I’m going to scout around and see if I can find another horse for you to ride. We’ll spare the horse and move quicker if we ride separately,” Sergei said quietly, and Benjamin told him he understood.

  After breakfast, they worked together to cover any trace of their presence. Using melted snow heated on the stove, they cleaned the dirty dishes and cooking utensils, then opened the windows to rid the kitchen of any trace of cooking odor.

  “It’s better to be safe, and that’s why I hesitated about building a fire. The fire you used to cook breakfast was too small to give us away,” Sergei said.

  “How are you feeling now?” Benjamin hadn’t forgotten Sergei’s wound, but this was the first time in hours he was finally able to ask about it.

  “I checked the bandages earlier, and it looks better. At least the bleeding has stopped, but my head still aches a little. I’ll have myself checked out further when we get to Petrograd.”

  Benjamin noticed Sergei said “when” and not “if.” That optimism cheered him up enough to smile.

  “When you smile, you look like an angel,” Sergei said to him.

  “Go on with you. I’m no angel, not after last night.” Benjamin shuddered at the memory of shooting the soldier.

  Sergei took Benjamin’s face in his hands and kissed him deeply. “Don’t think about that anymore. It’s over and who knows what might have happened. That soldier might have killed me, if you had not saved me.”

  Sergei still held Benjamin’s face, and Benjamin put his hands over Sergei’s, and then he let his hands fall to Sergei’s chest. They leaned toward each other and kissed again, this time more deeply, inhaling each other’s breath.

  Benjamin was breathless after the kiss, and he stood silently facing Sergei, looking into his eyes. He was warm and didn’t even seem to notice that the house was freezing.

  “I’ve never felt like this before…,” Sergei said, backing away from Benjamin slightly.

  “Like what?”

  “Like we feel right now, the only two men in this insane world.” Sergei took another two or three steps back, turned, and stomped toward the door. He paused, then turned around and spoke gruffly. “I’m going outside to hunt for some wood and see if I can’t find a horse.”

  Benjamin stepped forward. “You should really be resting.”

  Sergei shrugged. “I told you that I’m fine. I made it this far.” He went out and slammed the door behind him.

  Benjamin stood in the center of the room. He and Sergei had felt like the only two people in the world, the tenderness of their feelings for each other a bright flame in a war-torn world. Now Sergei seemed to have panicked and fled.

  SERGEI STOMPED through the knee-deep snowdrifts in back of the house and found firewood covered by canvas and buried under a drift a hundred yards from the house. He hesitated about building a fire that could attract other deserters or even the men who had attacked the train last night—who might have used this house as shelter before and might come back. They were in the middle of nowhere and had only one revolver with two bullets left.

  Benjamin…. Sergei wanted to run back to the house and either punch Benjamin for the confusion he felt or kiss him again—the kiss that made him feel alive and a man.

  He remembered Petr in that depressing dormitory in St. Petersburg. That vodka-fueled kiss they had shared lacked feeling. Kissing Benjamin, on the other hand, stirred something inside him that he didn’t understand. Sergei knew of men who loved other men, but others made it sound dirty or evil. The warm feelings he had for Benjamin felt just right. He sighed and resumed his search of the area.

  Sergei found a barn and stables, which looked promising, behind a line of trees, and he came up to them warily. He reached for the gun in his pocket. With only two bullets, he didn’t want to waste any shots. He stepped forward slowly to the barn door, pausing between steps and ready to dive for a snowbank or shoot if it became necessary. Snowdrifts, buried branches, and leaves crunched under his feet, and Sergei trod lightly. Sweat from the tension soaked his shirt by the time he reached the door and slowly edged around it.

  BENJAMIN WATCHED Sergei from the window until he disappeared behind a cluster of trees. He saw the outline of buildings just beyond and figured that was where Sergei headed. Despite his heavy coat, Benjamin shivered, so he decided to explore the rest of the house.

  Now alone, he had time to think, and he thought of Doctor Vysaltseva and the wounded on the train. What had happened to them? He shuddered to consider the possibilities.

  Although sad for them, at the moment he was in a situation himself. Maybe someone had seen them riding away and had followed them to this country house in the center of nowhere.

  The stairs creaked in the heavy silence as Benjamin mounted them one at a time, slowly. On the landing, he paused. Down the hall a thumping noise came from one of the rooms. He went to investigate, again moving slowly, and he held his breath at every creak of the floorboards. He stopped outside a door and listened. The thumping came from behind this half-open door.

  I’m either foolhardy or extremely brave. Well, we’ll see which one it is.

  Benjamin pushed the door open the rest of the way and steeled himself to face what was coming.

  He found the room empty, with one window broken and one end of a curtain rod hanging by a wire suspended from the window frame. The heavy bar swung in the wind, thumping an overturned chest. Benjamin yanked the pole down the rest of the way.

  He left the bedroom and closed the door behind him. Continuing his search, he found another bedroom in a secluded back part of the house. Thieves had overlooked this room, which stood intact. Logs for the fireplace lay stacked in a wooden box by the mantel. Benjamin couldn’t wait to share his discovery with Sergei.

  SERGEI PUSHED the barn door, which groaned on rusted hinges. He cocked the trigger on the gun, ready to fire, but the barn stood empty. Heaving a sigh of relief, he leaned against the barn door. His side hurt, but he didn’t want to go back to the house, yet.

  Maybe I ought to go back and explain to Benjamin about that kiss. “I kissed you because you saved my life? Isn’t that enough, or is there something more between us? God, I want you, angel moy.”

  Sergei breathed out loudly, his breath steaming in the cold air. Instead of going back, he searched the rest of the barn and found nothing but snow, straw, and old animal droppings. Up in the hayloft, he found burlap sacks with faded writing and full of holes—useless. He dropped them and climbed down slowly.

  After taking care of the horse, he jammed his hands into his pockets and walked back toward the house. To his surprise, Benjamin had built a small fire in the kitchen fireplace and sat calmly with a glass of tea and a book.

  “Where did you find tea?”

  “I found a small stash in the cellar. As for the fire, we can give thanks to someone leaving logs stacked by the fireplace in the upstairs bedroom.” Benjamin got up and poured some tea for Sergei.

  “I thought we had agreed not to light any fires?” Sergei said, but Benjamin didn’t seem to hear him.

  “There’s no sugar. I’m
afraid we’ll have to make do without it.”

  Sergei nodded, grateful for the hot liquid that warmed his body—though looking across the table at Benjamin had the exact same effect.

  “I moved the horse around to the stable so no one passing by will see it. I found firewood out in back under some canvas, so at least we won’t freeze.”

  The rest of their conversation was polite small talk that went back and forth for over an hour until Benjamin changed the subject by saying, “We’re being awfully formal, aren’t we?”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “It’s clear that you’re afraid of your feelings for me.”

  “Hold on there—how do you know what I’m feeling? You don’t know me, so don’t pretend to know my feelings.”

  “Your kiss told me how you feel. No one can kiss like you did, and not—”

  “You’re mistaken. Those kisses were a mistake.”

  “A mistake? It didn’t feel like a mistake to me.” Benjamin seemed almost on the verge of tears.

  Sergei stood across from him, torn between the desire to take him in his arms and make love to him right there on the table, or to walk all the way to Petrograd to get away from him—leaving Benjamin the horse.

  “You’re confusing me. I don’t know what is or what isn’t a mistake anymore.” Sergei swept both arms outward in a pleading gesture.

  “Don’t blame me—you were confused before you ever met me. All I know is that what’s taking place between us right now feels right.”

  Sergei had to agree with that. He felt comfortable and warm whenever Benjamin was present, but he, the soldier who had seen the horror of battle, was afraid of his feelings for this man. He pushed the glass aside. Benjamin remained where he was, and they faced each other.