by Stacy Gregg
“Come inside,” Vasily said softly. “I will fetch him for you.”
Anna went into the stall and sank to her knees in the straw while Vasily went behind the mare and coaxed the foal forward.
“He’s a dapple grey, like his father,” Vasily said as he ushered the foal towards Anna for the very first time.
The grey coat was the only similarity between father and son that Anna could see at that moment. Unlike the elegant stallion, the foal was gangly and awkward, ill-proportioned. He had an absolutely huge head, held up by a skinny, giraffe neck. His legs were stilt-like and his body was elongated – he must have inherited his sire’s extra rib. The slopes of his rump and shoulder were so brutal that they made him look desperately malnourished. Any of these features might have been a little odd in a horse’s conformation. The total combination was so blindingly unattractive that Anna found herself almost recoiling.
“He is very ugly.” Her own words surprised her.
“He is,” Vasily agreed.
“And yet,” Anna let her gaze linger on the fuzzy little creature, “such proportions will surely serve him well as a carriage horse!”
Vasily pulled a face. “How so?”
“Those legs!” Anna exclaimed. “Vasily, look at him! They are so long, but the bone is solid, the hooves are broad and the knees are like slabs of rock. He will never go lame and even in the deepest snow or the slipperiest ice he will be surefooted.”
Vasily was not so easily swayed. “His proportions are wrong,” he pointed out.
“Yes,” Anna agreed, “but look, Vasily! His enormous head balances out his narrowness and the long back. These traits will give him even more speed and agility on the ice …”
Her eyes were shining as she turned to the groom.
“Let’s take him out.”
“What? Now?” Vasily asked. “But you have only just got out of bed.”
Anna could not be swayed. “Please, Vasily? I want to see him run. Let us do it now!”
She reached out a hand in the gloom of the stable box, and the foal stepped towards her, velvet muzzle meeting the tips of her fingers. Anna was impressed when he did not flinch. “He is brave, and inquisitive,” she murmured. “A baby horse who greets a human so willingly is very special. Aren’t you, little one?”
They took the foal and Galina out into the yard beside the stables. The colt ran the full length of the field, his strides more powerful than anything Anna could have imagined, striking out with such certainty across the ground. Then he pawed the snow with his front hoof and lay down in the white powder to roll and roll. Standing up again, he shook himself and made flakes fly from his mane like a miniature blizzard. Anna laughed for the first time since that tragic day on the river.
“Did you see that trot? He is faster than any fully-grown carriage horse and he is still just a baby!” Anna was clapping and laughing with tears of joy in her eyes. “He is wonderful!” And then, with genuine bewilderment, she said, “Why have you not told my father of his existence?”
Vasily frowned darkly. “When I saw how deformed he looked, I feared what your father would do. Count Orlov’s breeding methods have no room for failure.”
“What are you talking about? What methods?” Anna asked.
“You really don’t know?” Vasily said.
Anna shook her head vehemently.
Vasily paused and then he said, “Your father is a killer.”
Anna’s blood ran cold. “You cannot speak like that,” she reprimanded Vasily. “It is treason.”
But Anna had heard the rumours. She knew that the serfs whispered about Le Balafre behind his back. And as much as they tried to hush themselves in her presence, she knew that they said that Count Orlov had killed Peter the Third so Catherine could ascend her husband’s throne.
“Even if what they say about my father is true,” Anna hissed at Vasily, “what does it have to do with horses?”
“It has everything to do with horses, and all the animals at Khrenovsky,” Vasily replied. “Empress Catherine gifted your father this grand estate for showing unquestionable loyalty. This is a man who is prepared to take a life if it will get him a reward. And he does so with his animals. Did you ever wonder why his breeds are perfected so quickly? Any creature he considers to be inferior is disposed of!”
Anna thought about her father working his bloodline mastery, perfecting his breeds and doing away with any animal that was not good enough. It made sense, and yet still she couldn’t believe it.
“Vasily!” she said to the groom. “He is my father!”
Vasily met Anna’s eyes with a sorrowful look. “If you do not believe me,” he said, “then ask about his famous nickname: Le Balafre. How is it that he came to get his scar?”
“I know that already!” Anna said. “It was in a fair duel.”
Vasily gave a hollow laugh. “You know what prompted this ‘duel’? All the poor soldier did was walk by Count Orlov and forget to salute him. Your father was sent into such a spiral of rage he demanded that the matter be settled with sabres. He did not realise that the young officer was the best swordsman in Russia. They had barely drawn their blades when the young man struck a blow that split open Count Orlov’s right cheek. Your father had never been marked in a fight before. When the young officer’s back was turned he struck him down mercilessly. And when the young man begged for his life, your father laughed and ordered him to salute. As the officer raised his hand he was struck with the fatal blow.”
Anna clutched at her own throat. “You are making this up!”
Vasily shook his head. “Your father is the Lord Commander of the Black Sea, and the master of pure breed bloodlines. He seeks perfection no matter what cost. Do you think that he will look kindly upon this ugly colt? You are a dreamer!”
Anna could not believe him. She could not believe that her father would fail to see the promise that lay within the foal.
“I am fetching the Count,” she said. “You will see, Vasily. He is not the monster that you think he is.”
***
“Anna! You should not be out of bed, child!” Count Orlov was unimpressed to find his daughter wobbling on her exhausted legs at the doorway of his study.
“I came to get you, Father.” Anna was panting with the effort of her walk, leaning against the door jamb. “I came to show you the foal, Smetanka’s son! He has been born. He is down at the stables.”
*
The closer they got to the yard, the more uneasy Anna felt.
Over the years, she had certainly noticed the strange hush that often fell when she entered a room where the serfs had been talking. She had heard the maids whisper behind their hands about Le Balafre. And she had noticed how litters of puppies would be in the kennels one day and then gone the next. Anna knew that the Count was obsessed with bloodlines. All the same … No! She could not believe that of her own father. And besides, Count Orlov had the best eye for a horse in all of Russia – surely he would see the potential in Smetanka’s son in just the same way as she had done.
At the stables, Vasily greeted the Count and showed him to the stable box. Anna looked for signs of anger in the groom’s face, but all she saw was deep concern.
“I hope I am wrong, Lady Anna, I really do,” the groom whispered to her as they watched her father open the stable door and enter Galina’s stall.
Suddenly the door swung open once more and Count Orlov exited the loose box. His eyes were narrowed in disgust. He growled with barely concealed rage.
“How is it,” he fumed, “that a stallion as beautiful as my Smetanka could have such a feeble sapling for an offspring!”
Count Orlov turned to his daughter. “This is the only foal that Smetanka has bred here and look at him! Worthless! Utterly worthless!”
The Count slammed the door of the stall and summoned Vasily to him.
“This bloodline is to be severed immediately, do you understand?”
“Yes, Count Orlov,” Vasily bowed. “As you
command.”
And without a backward glance, Count Orlov strode off towards the palace, leaving Anna in a sobbing mess on the stable floor.
CHAPTER 8
Hidden Nature
Anna found Vasily in the saddlery room. He had a sabre in his hands and he was working it against the whetstone, grinding the slender curve of the blade with his back to her.
“Lady Anna,” he said without turning round. “Please go home.”
He focused on the sabre, pushing the blade against the stone, then testing the edge on his finger.
“Please, Vasily,” Anna wiped the tears from her face, “you can’t kill him.”
Vasily rose up and walked past her out of the door and down the stable corridor. She ran after him. “He is just a baby! He has only just been born!”
Vasily kept walking. “I have no choice, Lady Anna. It is your father’s order. Do you want me to disobey him?”
“Yes, of course!”
Vasily looked at her in disbelief. “Sometimes, Lady Anna, I think you are the most naïve person I have ever met. Do you not understand what it means to defy Count Orlov?”
“My father would forgive you!” Anna insisted. “You are his best groom.”
Vasily tensed his shoulders. “Remember what happened to the soldier who gave him his scar? If he finds this foal alive by morning …”
Anna’s expression suddenly changed. “Yes, but what if he doesn’t find him?”
“What do you mean?” Vasily said.
“The foal. We could hide him! You have a farm cottage, don’t you? On the edge of the woods?”
Vasily nodded.
“We will keep him there,” Anna said decisively.
Vasily shook his head. “My farm is a pig farm. There are no stables, just sties.”
“He will not know the difference!” Anna said. “Keep him in your pigsty. It will not be forever. Soon Father will go away again to St Petersburg.”
“It is too dangerous, Anna. If Count Orlov knew I had deliberately disobeyed him …”
“He won’t know!” Anna’s face was flushed with excitement. “I swear. It will be our secret.”
“It is a ridiculous plan,” Vasily said, shaking his head. He looked down at the sabre in his hand, and then gave a deep sigh as he returned it to its sheath. “And I am a fool, because I agree to it.”
***
In the months that followed, Anna would often think of the debt she owed Vasily. It was because of his great kindness that she would resist the urge to say “I told you so,” when it came to the colt. For the ugly duckling was quickly becoming a swan. Those giraffe-like legs no longer looked disproportionate. And while the colt’s head was still too large, his broad brow spoke of intelligence. His powerful jaw tapered to a narrow muzzle that gave him an exotic quality.
“He has grown handsome,” Vasily agreed grudgingly. “But you must admit he is still very strange-looking, no? He is more like a dragon than a horse!”
Like a dragon, Vasily said, and Dragon became his name. Spoken in Russian: Drakon.
For the first year of his young life, Drakon was kept in the pigsty. Once she was back to her full strength and with her father attending the Empress at the royal court, Anna visited him every day. She loved walking the long winding forest path through the fir trees to Vasily’s house. It was a relief to be away from the palace and the watchful glares of her brother.
“I do not like that you travel the woods alone,” Vasily would fuss. “It is not safe.”
“I have two very good bodyguards!” Anna would reply.
Boris and Igor were her constant companions on these woodland journeys. The vigilant tiger stuck close to her side, padding silently on his velvet paws, while the wolfhound, still full of puppyish energy, could not resist bounding on ahead, then circling back to rejoin them, pink tongue lolling out of his snowy muzzle, mouth wide open with joy.
Sometimes during these mad dashes through the forest undergrowth, Igor would put up a snow rabbit and give chase. He was without doubt fast enough to catch his prey, but he had no desire to kill. Gentle Igor preferred to simply run alongside the rabbit and then let it go free. Anna knew that despite her father’s best efforts to breed the killing instinct into the borzoi, Igor had no bloodlust in him. It would never have occurred to him that he might try to bring down any of the animals he encountered. His play fights with Boris the tiger were simply exuberance.
When Anna had first taken the cub and the wolfhound with her to visit Drakon she had worried that the colt would be terrified of her tiger. Horses and big cats are mortal enemies by nature. And by now Boris was a sizeable beast. Yet perhaps because both Boris and Drakon had been raised motherless they had had no one to advise them in such matters. At their first meeting, after seeing Anna approach with Boris, the colt walked straight up to the tiger and lowered his muzzle, taking deep husky snorts through his wide nostrils, breathing in the foreign scent of the big cat. Boris made sniffing noises, raising his furry face so that the wide pink tip of his nose touched Drakon’s muzzle. They both started back at the contact and then, tentatively, Drakon reached his neck out again. This time when their noses made contact the horse let out a friendly snort and Boris, feeling the breeze of the horse’s breath on his face, began to purr.
Boris and Igor’s friendship had been cemented from the beginning by their protectiveness towards their mistress. Now Drakon was about to join their ranks.
***
The colt was almost two years old when an unexpected test of devotion took place.
Over the months, the colt and Anna had developed their own special game, a variation of tag. Anna would whistle for Drakon as she came through the gate, and then climb up the railings of the fence and wait for the colt to trot up to her. Drakon would come near, getting so close that she could almost touch his muzzle before swerving away. Then, with a playful flick of his head, he would put on a sudden burst of speed and gallop to the other side of the field.
Anna would whistle again but Drakon would hold his ground, refusing to come back. Finally, muscles quivering with expectation, he would shake his head defiantly, leap forward into a gallop, and swooping across the ground with eager strides, return to her once more.
This game of back and forth would continue until Drakon’s flanks were heaving. He would eventually give in and meekly come to Anna so that she could stroke him and groom him.
This day however, the game changed.
Boris and Igor had already run off to look for Vasily in the pigsties. Anna was unlatching the gate and was about to enter the field when Drakon came charging directly at her. He had his ears flat back against his head and as soon as he was near he began snorting and flinging out his front hooves violently into the air.
“Drakon, niet!” Anna scrambled backwards, climbing up the gate to get away from him. When she tried to step to the ground Drakon flung himself viciously at her, rearing up and stamping down with his front legs.
Shaking with fear, Anna clambered off the gate and ran to the pigsties to fetch Vasily.
“I don’t know what is wrong with him …” she sobbed to Vasily, fighting to control her tears. “He tried to attack me. He has gone crazy. You must come!”
Vasily followed her and they found Drakon standing at the gate perfectly quiet and docile, nickering to them softly.
“But I don’t understand!” Anna said. “He was so different just a moment ago. He would not let me approach. He was pounding the ground with his hooves.”
Vasily stepped forward to take the colt by his halter and then suddenly he leapt back.
“Look!” he said to Anna.
Trampled into the dirt at Drakon’s feet, was a viper. The greenish-grey body had been crushed and hacked by hooves so that it oozed brackish blood.
“That is your reason,” Vasily said. “Drakon knew the snake was there. He drove you back to keep you safe.”
Anna had saved Drakon’s life and now the colt had repaid her in turn. His loyalty
, like that of Boris and Igor, was unquestionable. His talent, burning deep inside him, had yet to be discovered.
***
In the autumn, Drakon turned three and Anna decided he was ready to be ridden. The ice floes had yet to harden into the winter crust on the river, not that this mattered to Anna. She never wanted to risk a horse’s life on the black ice again. They would ride along the riverbank as far as the woods and then loop back. She had saddled Drakon and now she led him through the fields, as Vasily walked alongside her with Boris and Igor.
The tiger had grown to his adult size and he walked with a newfound air of authority. Igor, while also fully grown, was still a pup at heart, and he constantly leapt at Boris, trying to get his friend to play fight with him as they had done in the old days.
As they walked towards the river Boris patiently endured Igor’s leaps on his back, and taunting nips at his jowls. That was until finally he lost his temper and delivered a swat with the open flat of his mighty paw that sent the borzoi sprawling.
“Niet, Boris!” Anna told him off. The tiger gave her a sullen growl and his shoulders slumped, like a child who had been told off unfairly when their sibling was at fault.
“You should have left them both at home, Lady Anna,” Vasily complained. “They will get underfoot.”
Anna laughed. “You are so grumpy today!”
Vasily frowned. “I should be at the stables. I have work to do.”
“I will bring Drakon back to the stables and help you with the work after this,” Anna insisted.
With Count Orlov still absent in St Petersburg and Yuri the head groom with him to care for the Count’s personal steed, Anna and Vasily had decided to risk moving the colt to live at the stables. They had slipped him into a spare stall one night, and when morning came none of the other grooms seemed to care where this new addition had sprung from – so long as they were not the ones who had to clean out his loose box. Drakon seemed quite happy in his new surroundings. Having grown up alone in a pigsty, he relished having other horses for company and would spend all day with his head craned over the stable door, nickering and calling out companionably.
