by Stacy Gregg
And then the gloom was pierced by a brilliant beam of the light and the voices were calling once more … Valentina, Valentina …
CHAPTER 6
The Academy
The whip cracked like a gunshot, whistling right above Valentina’s head. “Move it!” Sergei shouted at her. “No good! You are too slow!”
The ringmaster flung the lash out again, and this time it struck behind Sasha’s heels. “Faster! Faster!”
Rehearsals were always like this. Sergei had a short fuse, and although Valentina tried her best to keep him calm, her best was never good enough.
Sergei snapped the whip again and this time he caught Sasha across the rump. Reacting as if a tiger had leapt on to his back, Sasha kicked out. He flung up both hind legs and then surged forward. As he did this Valentina lost her grip on the vaulting saddle.
She went down head first, plummeting right beside Sasha’s flying hooves. Any other rider would have been trampled, but Valentina’s reflexes saved her. She tucked her arms and head into a ball before she struck the ground. Doing a lightning-fast tumble roll to get clear of Sasha, she kept her momentum and leapt gracefully to her feet right in front of the ringmaster.
“You could have killed me!” Valentina cried. She could feel her blood pounding at the temples.
“Pah!” Sergei dismissed her anger with an arrogant flick of his head. “You fall. Is not my problem! Now ride the trick again and do not be so slow this time!”
Valentina looked over at Sasha. The pink horse was waiting for her, his sides heaving in and out like bellows. He was lathered in sweat. They had been training like this for over two hours.
“Sergei,” Valentina begged, “we have done enough for today. He is exhausted and so am I! And we have to perform tonight.”
Sergei was unmoved. “You will keep doing it until you get it right.” He jabbed the end of his whip into her chest, prodding her away as if she were one of his tigers. Valentina knew better than to answer back. She turned and walked to her horse.
“Arrogant brat,” Sergei spat after her. “We finish when I say, not before! Stop behaving like snivelling baby, Valentina. Now, show me the new trick.”
Valentina wiped her face, took a deep breath and clucked to her horse.
At her cue, Sasha picked up his stride and began to canter round the arena perimeter. Valentina watched him and synced her body in time with his strides, like a girl waiting her turn to leap into a swinging skipping rope. When Sasha struck his mark Valentina broke into a run, up on her toes with both arms over her head, and then launched into a double cartwheel. She tucked her torso and simultaneously leapt, grabbing hold of Sasha’s saddle with both hands and doing a third cartwheel up into the air. She finished her arc standing upright on the back of the pink horse.
Valentina could feel her arms shaking with exhaustion and Sasha beneath her was lathered with sweat. Surely Sergei would be satisfied with that performance? She turned to the ringmaster and saw his grouper mouth downturned in a customary frown.
“What are you expecting? A gold medal?” Sergei grunted. “Stop wasting time, Valentina. Get back here and do it again!”
***
That evening there was a full house beneath the big top of the Moscow Spectacular. The crowd had cheered for the clowns and the jugglers. They had applauded the tigers, the monkeys riding dogs and the dancing bears. And now, as the music struck up for Valentina, there was the hushed silence that came with an air of expectation. The acrobat and the pink dancing horse – the stars of the circus whose faces featured on the posters, were about to enter the ring.
The music swelled, and the big top was plunged into blackness. Then the spotlights illuminated the ring, their white beams gathering to focus on the platform at the peak of the roof of the circus tent where the trapeze swung … empty.
The spotlight moved around, searching the skies, looking for the performer who should have been swinging a graceful arc across the tent.
“Where is she? Where is Valentina?”
In the wings Sergei was furious. He turned to the nearest of the clowns milling about backstage. “Go get her from her caravan. Tell her she is in big trouble!”
A few moments later the clown was back with Irina at his side.
“What are you doing here?” Sergei asked Irina. “Where is Valentina?”
Irina looked nervous, almost too afraid to speak.
“Valentina is gone,” she said.
“Gone?” Sergei scowled. “What are you talking about?”
“Her clothes are missing,” Irina said. “She must have packed a bag after rehearsals …”
From the circus ring came the sound of clapping, a loud steady pounding as thousands of hands came together in unison. Some of the audience began stamping their feet on the wooden floor and soon more feet joined in until the whole crowd were stomping and clapping, shaking the seats, insisting that the act begin. The spotlight kept circling. Where was the star performer?
“Irina!” Sergei snapped. “Go get your costume. You go on with Sasha instead of Valentina tonight. I will deal with her nonsense later!”
Irina didn’t move.
“Well?” Sergei glared at her. “What are you waiting for?!”
Irina said nothing. It was the clown who spoke up.
“Sergei, she cannot go on.”
“Why not?” Sergei demanded. “It is not that difficult. Valentina is not as irreplaceable as she thinks!”
“Maybe not,” the clown agreed, “but Irina cannot perform without horse.”
Sergei’s face fell.
“Valentina has run away and she has taken Sasha with her.”
***
The tenement blocks looked like the most miserable place on earth, towers of dirty beige apartments with grey curtains, each building the same as the last. Under a streetlamp, Valentina let Sasha graze on the overgrown weeds that sprouted out of the pavements while she watched a group of school kids playing with an old, deflated football.
“Hey!” One of the kids, his hair shaved short, wearing a singlet and no shoes despite the biting cold of the evening, came running up to her. His three friends trailed behind him, probably because he carried the squishy football under his arm. “Are you giving pony rides?”
“No,” Valentina shook her head. She had been walking for hours and she didn’t even know if she was going in the right direction. She couldn’t read the signposts. Valentina took out the piece of paper in her pocket and showed it to the boy.
“This is where I am going,” she said. “It is far?”
The boy held the paper high up under the streetlight. “It is in the city. Too far to walk. You should take the metro.”
Valentina rolled her eyes. “So, what about my horse? He takes the metro too?”
The boy wiped his nose on his arm. “I will show you the way if you give me a ride on him.”
The other kids gathered round as Valentina lifted the boy on to the horse’s back. He looked very small up there, dirty feet dangling at Sasha’s sides.
“Why are you going to this place?”
“It is a famous riding school,” Valentina replied. “I am going to become a dressage rider.”
“That sounds boring,” the boy said.
Valentina cocked an eyebrow at him. “You think so?”
“Yeah,” the boy said. “When I grow up I am going to have an exciting life.”
Valentina looked up at him. “So what are you going to do?”
The boy grinned. “I am going to run away and join the circus.”
***
The wrought-iron gates with the golden sign looked just like they did in the picture that she had treasured for so long. Through the gratings, Valentina could see lights illuminating the stable blocks and the white buildings of the Federation Academy. She gave the gates a shake, but of course they were locked. She thought for a moment of ringing the bell, but what would she say? It was the middle of the night. The whole Academy was shrouded in darkness.
Snow had fallen earlier, and now it was drizzling with an icy rain that made Valentina shiver. She looked at Sasha. The horse was shivering too. Both of them would freeze if they stayed out here all night.
Valentina took a step backwards and looked up. The gates were very high, with piercing metal spikes at the top. Dangerous, but not impossible …
Valentina tied Sasha to the gate by his leadrope and, using his mane to pull herself up, she vaulted easily on to his back. From there, she stood on his rump and raised her hands up above her head. A split second later, she leapt into the air. Her hands hooked expertly through the metal curlicues near the top of the gates and she swung from them like a gymnast. Summoning all her upper body strength, she pushed herself into a pike, doubling herself over so that the soles of her feet were now touching the curlicues, and then she sprang upwards like a cat. She brought her hands down on top of the railing, then flipped up into a handstand. Valentina balanced again before executing a second pike so that her toes came to rest precisely in the slender gaps between the spikes.
With a quick flip she righted herself and was standing on top of the gates. How high above the cobbled courtyard she was! There was a spreading cherry tree in the centre. It was quite a distance from the gates to the boughs, but Valentina had made bigger leaps than that without a safety net. Without hesitation she threw herself off the top of the railing.
As the ground raced up to meet her, she focused on the bough, stretching out until her fingertips managed to wrap round the bare, papery limb of the tree. With a sudden jerk she did a full pike to bring her feet up beside her hands, then flung herself out into mid-air, this time reaching for a lower branch. She swung back, dangled for a moment from the bough, and then dropped lightly to her feet on the cobbles below.
Valentina walked over to the courtyard post and pressed the gate-release buzzer. The wrought-iron gates swung open and she calmly walked Sasha into the compound. “Come on,” she murmured to the pink horse as he walked beside her with his nostrils wide and head aloft. “Do not be nervous. This is going to be our new home.”
***
“Is she dead?”
“I don’t know!”
“Poke her!”
“What? No. You do it!”
Valentina opened her eyes. She was curled up on the straw in one of the loose boxes where she and Sasha had bedded for the night. Peering down at her, faces disturbingly close to her own, were a boy and girl, both with thick mops of dark hair and bright green eyes.
“I told you she wasn’t!” the boy said.
He smiled at Valentina. “I’m Oscar Mueller,” he said. “And this is my sister Molly.”
Years later, when the Mueller twins were grown up, they would fondly recall the strange circumstances in which they first met Valentina, for it was Oscar and Molly who convinced their uncle to give her a chance as a groom. George Mueller, the famous head of the Russian Federation Dressage Team, had taken one look at the runaway circus girl and, as he always did, he went on instinct.
“What I liked about the girl was simple,” he would later say. “When I asked her what she knew about dressage, she told me she knew nothing. How refreshing to find myself with a rider who admitted that they were ignorant! I took her under my wing and I never looked back!”
Valentina had fallen on her feet. The circus girl and her pink stallion were about to be given the ride of their lives.
CHAPTER 7
Son of Smetanka
To Anna’s bleary eyes, the man at her bedside appeared more like an undertaker than a doctor. He was dressed head-to-toe in black and was prodding at her with cold, bony hands. “You must drink this.” He sat her up and forced her to swallow some vile black liquid. “It is a tincture,” he said as she coughed. “Good for the circulation.”
When Count Orlov entered the room the doctor snapped violently to attention, clicking his heels and bowing in a ridiculous fashion.
“How is my daughter?” Count Orlov asked.
“Your Grace, I am prescribing a course of leeches, to be placed upon the pulse points. They may encourage the blood to flow, but whether she will live … I cannot say.” The doctor spoke as if Anna was not in the room. “The girl was in the river a long time. There is nothing more to be done but wait and see.”
Anna lay there, her blonde hair spread like an angel’s halo on her pillow, skin deathly pale, the blood drained from her cheeks. Count Orlov crossed the room and came to her bedside. He leant down, as if to kiss her cheek, but instead of his lips Anna felt the hiss of his whispered words.
“I have just come from the stables,” Count Orlov said. “Smetanka is dead. The frozen river was too much for his Arab blood. But not for you, eh, Anna? The Orlov blood in your veins makes you strong.” Her father’s voice lowered as his face contorted in rage. “That horse was priceless beyond all measure. I curse the day you were born, Anna. I have lost him thanks to you!”
Anna somehow managed to wait until her father left the room before she wept. Katia implored her not to be so upset, and hugged her close, rocking her from side to side. “He does not mean what he said. He is angry now, but he will calm down eventually. You are his daughter and he does love you, despite his temper.”
Anna could not stop sobbing. She clung to Katia and her breath came in faltering gulps. “The tears are not for my father,” she told Katia. It was for Smetanka that she cried. They were tears of sorrow and of regret, for if she had not taken him on to the ice that day, then surely the noble stallion would still be alive.
***
Anna was too ill to attend the funeral service for Smetanka. Count Orlov spared no expense in giving his prized stallion a grand farewell. Much later, Anna couldn’t help but bitterly compare this extravagance with her mother’s quiet burial. The memorial service from which her father had been notably absent.
When the Count was told that the winter ground was too frozen to dig a hole large enough for the horse, he forced his serfs to hack at it with pickaxes for hours on end. Smetanka’s tombstone was carved from the finest marble, and proclaimed the Count’s stallion “the greatest horse in Russia”.
All this time Anna lay limp and exhausted in her bed, with Igor the wolfhound and Boris the tiger maintaining a constant vigil. Boris lay catlike at the foot of her bed while Igor remained always on the floor close to her, whimpering softly, ears cocked and head resting on his paws.
Katia came and went with trays of food, trying to convince Anna to eat. She tried to read to her young patient, to engage her in conversation, but it was useless. Orlov blood was not enough – Anna was fading.
“Today I have brought you a visitor,” Katia announced one morning as she walked in with the breakfast tray.
“Who is it?” Anna asked.
“Vasily Shishkin,” Katia replied. “The young groom from the stables.”
“I am too sick to see him,” Anna said.
“No, my lady,” Katia was firm. “You are not ill, Anna. You are feeling sorry for yourself. That is why I sent for Vasily. He has something to tell you.”
“I said no,” Anna replied.
“Too late,” Katia said. “He is here.”
Anna looked up to see Vasily in the doorway. Dressed in kneeboots and drab work clothes, he looked very wrong in her dainty room with its pretty floral bedspread and duck-egg-blue walls.
“Lady Anna.” Vasily knelt on the floor beside her but Anna turned her face away, not ready to meet his eyes.
“I am so sorry, Vasily,” she murmured.
“For what?” Vasily was confused.
“For taking Smetanka without telling you, for causing all of this.” Anna could not stop her foolish tears. “I think about him every day, Vasily. If he had not got so wet and cold in the river then he would still be alive!”
“Is that what you think?” Vasily shook his head. “Anna, I had told you already how feeble Smetanka had grown. He was a desert horse with a body made for heat and sandstorms, not the taiga with its snow and ice.”<
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Vasily clasped her hand tight. “You are not responsible for his death, Anna. It is the cold Russian winter that took him from us. Even if he had not fallen into the river, Smetanka would never have survived until spring. I know it in my heart.”
Anna met Vasily’s gaze. “Is that true?”
“I believe so,” Vasily said. “His blood had fire in it. He was never destined to be a part of our world.” Vasily was silent for a moment and then he said, “But his son is different. He is a true Russian horse – he loves the snow and ice.”
Anna could not believe what she was hearing. “His son? Smetanka has a son?”
Vasily nodded. “Galina’s colt was born three days ago. He is down at the stables. That is why I have come – to take you to meet him.”
***
The walk to the stable block felt like the longest that Anna had ever attempted in her life. Her legs were so weak that putting one foot in front of another was exhausting. She kept stubbornly trying to do it alone, but in the end her knees buckled and she had no choice but to allow Vasily to carry her. Lying limp in his broad arms it seemed as if he felt her weight no more than he would that of a feather. As they walked on, he told her all about the foal. “He feeds so voraciously he has already grown in just a few days,” Vasily said. “I have never seen a foal so strong, so full of vigour.”
“And what does my father say?” Anna asked. “What does he think of him?”
Vasily took a deep breath. “I have not yet told the Count that the foal has been born.”
“Whyever not?” Anna asked.
“You will understand when you see him,” Vasily replied.
Two of the stalls in the stable blocks were nursing boxes for a mare and foal, and it was into the first of these, with fresh straw and water, that Vasily had placed Galina and her baby.
Anna peered over the stable door, but the foal was hidden behind Galina. She could not see him at all.
