by Boris Akunin
Among the bandits, seated facing backward in the saddle, was a Russian officer in a dusty, tattered uniform. His arms were twisted behind his back, an empty saber scabbard hung round his neck, and there was caked blood at the corner of his mouth. Varya bit her lip in order not to cry out. Unable to bear the hopeless despair that she read in the prisoner’s gaze, she lowered her eyes. But even so terror forced a cry, or rather a hysterical sob, from her dry throat, for strapped to the pommel of one of the partisans’ saddles was a light-haired human head with a long mustache. Fandorin squeezed Varya’s elbow hard and said a few short words in Turkish—she could distinguish the words “Yusuf Pasha” and “kaimakam”—but they made no impression on the bandits. One of them, with a pointed beard and an immense crooked nose, pulled back the upper lip of Fandorin’s horse, baring the long, rotten teeth. He spat contemptuously and said something that made the others laugh. Then he lashed the nag on its crupper with his whip and the startled beast shied off, immediately breaking into an uneven trot. Varya struck at the donkey’s bloated sides with her heels and trudged after Fandorin’s horse, afraid to believe the danger was past. The world was swirling around her; that nightmarish head with its eyes closed in suffering and the blood caked in the corners of its mouth tormented her. Cutthroats are people who cut throats—the absurd, delirious phrase kept running round and round in her head.
“No fainting, if you please,” Fandorin said quietly. “They could come back.”
It was tempting fate. A moment later they heard the drumming of hooves approaching from behind.
Erast Fandorin glanced round and whispered: “Do not turn around. F-forward.”
Varya, however, did turn around, although it would have been better if she had not. They had ridden about two hundred paces away from the Bashi-Bazouks, but one of the horsemen—the one with the severed head—was galloping back again and rapidly overtaking them, with that terrible trophy bouncing merrily against the flank of his steed.
Varya glanced despairingly at her companion, but his customary presence of mind seemed to have deserted him. He had thrown back his head and was nervously quaffing water from a large copper canteen.
The accursed donkey plodded along in a melancholy fashion, absolutely refusing to walk any faster. A few moments later, the impetuous horseman drew level with the unarmed travelers and reared up his bay. Leaning down, the Bashi-Bazouk grabbed Varya’s cap from her head and burst into rapacious laughter when her light-brown hair came tumbling down.
“Kadin!” he cried with a gleam of white teeth.
In one swift movement the gloomily preoccupied Erast Fandorin snatched off the bandit’s tall, shaggy hat and swung the heavy canteen hard against back of his shaven head. There was a sickeningly moist thud, the flask glugged, and the Bashi-Bazouk went tumbling into the dust.
“To hell with the donkey! Give me your hand. Into the saddle. Ride for all you’re worth. Don’t look back!” Fandorin rattled out in staccato fashion, once again without any stammer.
He helped the numbed Varya up onto the bay, pulled the rifle out of its saddle holster, and they set off at a gallop.
The bandit’s horse went hurtling forward and Varya pulled her head down into her shoulders, afraid that she wouldn’t be able to keep her seat. The wind whistled in her ears, her left leg slipped out of the overlong stirrup at just the wrong moment, shots rang out behind her, and something heavy thumped painfully against her right hip.
Varya glanced down briefly, saw the mottled, blotchy skin of the severed head jostling up and down, and gave a strangled cry, letting go of the reins, which she should not have done under any circumstance.
The next moment she went flying out of the saddle, describing an arc through the air and landing heavily in something green, yielding, and rustling—a bush at the side of the road.
This was just the right moment for her to slip into unconsciousness, but somehow it didn’t happen. Varya sat there on the grass, holding her scratched cheek, with broken branches swaying around her.
Meanwhile, events were proceeding on the road. Fandorin was lashing the unfortunate nag with the rifle butt and it was giving its all, desperately flinging its large-boned legs forward. It had already almost reached the bush where Varya was sitting, still stunned from her fall, but galloping along in pursuit, in a thunderous hail of rifle fire at a distance of about a hundred paces, was a posse of horsemen, ten of them at least. Suddenly the gray mare faltered, flailing its head piteously to the left and the right, and staggered sideways a little, then a little further, finally collapsing smoothly to the ground and pinning down its rider’s leg. Varya gasped out loud. Fandorin somehow managed to extricate himself from under the horse as it struggled to get to its feet and drew himself erect. He glanced around at Varya, shouldered the rifle, and took aim at the Bashi-Bazouks.
He took his time before firing, taking careful aim, and his pose was so impressive that none of the bandits chose to be the first in line for a bullet—the partisan detachment spilled off the road and scattered across the meadow, forming a semicircle around the fugitives. The shooting subsided, and Varya guessed that the bandits wanted to take them alive.
Fandorin backed along the road, aiming the rifle first at one horseman, then another. Little by little the distance between them was shortening. When the volunteer was almost level with the bush Varya shouted: “Shoot, why don’t you!”
Without turning his head, Erast Fandorin hissed: “This particular partisan’s rifle isn’t loaded.”
Varya looked to her left (the Bashi-Bazouks were there), then to her right (horsemen in tall fur hats loomed into view on that side as well), then she glanced behind her—and through the sparse brush she saw a truly remarkable sight.
There were horsemen galloping across the meadow. At the front, racing along—or rather flying through the air—on a powerful black stallion, his elbows held out jockey-style, was an individual in a wide-brimmed American hat; ambling along in pursuit came a white uniform with gold-trimmed shoulders; then came a tight pack of a dozen or so Kuban Cossacks scurrying along at a fast trot; and bringing up the rear at a considerable distance, bouncing up and down in the saddle, was a perfectly absurd gentleman in a bowler hat and a long redingote.
As Varya gazed, mesmerized, at this bizarre cavalcade, the Cossacks started whistling and hallooing wildly. The Bashi-Bashouks also began making a fearsome din and bunched together into a tight group—the remainder of their number were hurrying to their rescue, led by the ginger-bearded bek. Varya and Fandorin were forgotten now; the terrible men had lost interest in them.
Bloody slaughter was imminent, but Varya forgot all about the danger as she turned her head first one way and then the other to observe the fearsome beauty of the spectacle.
The battle, however, was over before it had even begun. The horseman in the American hat (he was very close now, and Varya could make out his sunburnt face and little tuft of beard à la Louis-Napoleon and his light mustache with the ends curled up) pulled hard on his reins, coming to a total standstill, and out of nowhere a long-barreled pistol appeared in his hand. Bang! Bang! The pistol spewed out two angry little clouds of smoke and the bek in the tattered beshmet swayed in his saddle as if he were drunk and began slumping over to one side. One of the Bashi-Bazouks grabbed hold of him and threw him across the withers of his steed; instead of joining battle, the entire horde galloped away in retreat.
The pursuers streaked past Varya, past the weary Fandorin leaning on his rifle—the magical marksman, the horseman in the snow-white uniform (one general’s gold shoulder-strap glinted brightly), and the Cossacks with their lances bristling.
“They have a Russian officer!” the volunteer shouted after them.
In the meantime the last member of the miraculous cavalcade, the civilian gentleman, had ridden up and halted—he did not appear to be interested in the pursuit.
His bright round eyes peered sympathetically at the rescued couple over the top of his spectacles.
“Chetniks?” the civilian gentleman asked in a strong English accent.
“No, sir,” Fandorin replied in English, adding something else in the same language that Varya did not understand, since in her high school she had studied French and German.
She tugged impatiently at the volunteer’s sleeve, and he explained apologetically: “I s-said that we are not chetniks, but Russians on our way to join our own people.”
“What are chetniks?”
“Bulgarian rebels.”
“Oh, yoor a laydee?” The Englishman’s fleshy, good-natured face mirrored his astonishment. “My, my, what a masquaraid! I didn’t know Russians uses wimmin for aspionage. Yoor a haroin, medam. What is yoor name? This will be veree intrestin for my reedas.”
He pulled a notepad out of his saddlebag, and it was only then that Varya spotted the three-colored armband on his sleeve bearing the number 48 and the word “Correspondent.”
“I am Varvara Andreevna Suvorova, and I am not involved in any kind of espionage. My fiancé is at the general headquarters,” she said with dignity. “And this is my traveling companion, the Serbian volunteer Erast Petrovich Fandorin.”
The correspondent hastily doffed his hat in embarrassment and switched into French.
“I beg your pardon, mademoiselle. Seamus McLaughlin, correspondent of the London newspaper The Daily Post.”
“The same Englishman who wrote about the Turkish atrocities in Bulgaria?” asked Varya, removing her cap and straightening her hair as best she could.
“Irishman,” McLaughlin corrected her sternly. “It’s not the same thing at all.”
“And who are they?” asked Varya with nod in the direction of the swirling dust and rattling gunfire. “Who is the man in the hat?”
“That peerless cowboy is none other than monsieur Paladin, a brilliant stylist, the darling of the French reading public, and the leading light of the Revue Parisienne.”
“The Revue Parisienne?”
“Yes, one of the Paris dailies. With a circulation of a hundred and fifty thousand, which is a quite remarkable figure for France,” the correspondent explained rather offhandedly. “But my Daily Post sells two hundred and forty thousand copies every day. How about that?”
Varya swung her head to and fro to shake her hair into place and began wiping the dust off her face with her sleeve.
“Ah, monsieur, you arrived in the nick of time. Providence itself must have sent you.”
“It was Michel who dragged us out this way,” the Briton, or rather Irishman, said with a shrug. “He has nothing to do here, attached to general HQ, and the idleness drives him wild. This morning the Bashi-Bazouks were getting up to a little mischief in the Russian rear, so Michel set off in pursuit of them himself. Paladin and myself are like his lap dogs—wherever he goes, we go. In the first place, we’re old friends from back in Turkestan, and in the second place, wherever Michel is, there’s always bound to be a good story for an article. . . . Ah, look, they’re coming back. Empty-handed, of course.”
“Why ‘of course’?” Varya asked.
The correspondent smiled condescendingly but said nothing, and Fandorin, who so far had taken almost no part in the conversation, answered for him.
“You must have seen, mademoiselle, that the Bashi-Bazouks’ mounts were fresh, but the pursuers’ horses were exhausted.”
“Precisely so,” McLaughlin agreed with a nod.
Varya gave them both a cross look for conspiring so outrageously to make a woman look like a fool. However, Fandorin immediately earned her forgiveness by taking an amazingly clean handkerchief out of his pocket and applying it to her cheek. Oh, she had forgotten all about the scratch!
The correspondent had been mistaken when he declared that the pursuers were coming back “empty-handed”—Varya was delighted to see that they had managed to recover the captive officer after all: Two Cossacks were carrying the limp body in the black uniform by its arms and legs. But had he—God forbid—been killed?
This time the dandy whom the Briton had called Michel was riding in front. He was a young general with smiling blue eyes and a rather distinctive beard—bushy, carefully tended, and combed over on both sides like a pair of wings.
“They got away, the scoundrels!” he shouted from a distance, and added an expression that Varya did not entirely understand.
“There’s a lady present,” said McLaughlin, wagging his finger. He removed his bowler hat and ran a hand over his pink bald patch.
The general drew himself erect and glanced at Varya, but immediately lost interest, which was natural enough, considering her unwashed hair, scratched face, and absurd costume.
“Major General Sobolev the Second of His Imperial Highness’s retinue,” Michel introduced himself and glanced inquiringly at Fandorin.
But Varya, thoroughly vexed by the general’s indifference, asked: “The second? And who is the first?”
Sobolev was astonished.
“What do you mean? My father, Lieutenant General Dmitry Ivanovich Sobolev, commander of the Caucasian Cossack Division. Surely you must have heard of him?”
“No. Neither of him nor of you,” Varya snapped, but she was lying, because the whole of Russia had heard of Sobolev the Second, the hero of Turkestan, the conqueror of Khiva and Makhram.
People said various things about the general. Some idolized him as a warrior of matchless bravery, a knight without fear or reproach, calling him the next Suvorov or even Bonaparte, while others derided him as an ambitious poseur. The newspapers wrote of how Sobolev had single-handedly beaten off an entire horde of Turkomans, standing his ground even though he was wounded seven times; how he had crossed the lifeless desert with a small detachment of men and crushed the forces of the fearsome Abdurahman-bek, who had a tenfold advantage in numbers; but one of Varya’s acquaintances had relayed rumors of a very different kind—claims that hostages had been executed and the treasury of Kokand had been plundered.
Gazing into the handsome general’s clear blue eyes, Varya could see immediately that the stories about the seven wounds and Abdurahman-bek were perfectly true, but the tales of hostages and the khan’s treasury were obviously absolute nonsense, the inventions of envious slanderers: Especially since Sobolev had now begun paying attention to Varya again, and this time he seemed to have noticed something interesting about her.
“But how on earth, madam, did you come to be here, where the blood flows in streams? And dressed like this? I am intrigued.”
Varya introduced herself and gave a brief account of her adventures, an infallible instinct telling her that Sobolev would not betray her secret and have her despatched to Bucharest under armed escort.
“I envy your fiancé, Varvara Andreevna,” said the general, caressing Varya with his eyes. “You are an extraordinary young woman. However, allow me to introduce my comrades. I believe you have already made the acquaintance of Mr. McLaughlin, and this is my orderly, Sergei Bereshchagin, the brother of the other Bereshchagin, the artist.” (A slender, good-looking youth in a long-waisted Cossack coat bowed awkwardly to Varya.) “By the way, he is an excellent draftsman himself. During a reconnaissance mission on the Danube, he drew a picture of the Turkish positions—it was quite lovely. But where has Paladin got to? Hey, Paladin, come over here, let me introduce you to an interesting lady.”
Varya peered curiously at the Frenchman, who had ridden up last. The Frenchman (the armband on his sleeve said “Correspondent No. 32”) was impressively handsome, no worse in his own way than Sobolev: a slim, aquiline nose, a sandy mustache with the ends curled up, a little imperial beard, intelligent gray eyes. But the expression in those eyes was angry.
“Those villains are a disgrace to the Turkish army!” the journalist exclaimed passionately in French. “They’re good for nothing but slaughtering peaceful civilians, but as soon as they even smell a battle—they’re off into the bushes. If I were Kerim Pasha I’d disarm every one of them and have them hanged.”
“Calm do
wn, my bold chevalier, there’s a lady present,” McLaughlin interrupted him jovially. “You’re in luck; you have made your entrance in the guise of a romantic hero, so make the most of it. See the way she is looking at you.”
Varya blushed and hurled a furious glance at the Irishman, but McLaughlin simply burst into good-natured laughter. Paladin, however, behaved as a genuine Frenchman should: He dismounted and bowed.
“Charles Paladin at your service, mademoiselle.”
“Varvara Suvorova,” she said amiably. “Pleased to make your acquaintance. And thank you all, gentlemen. Your appearance was most timely.”
“And may I know your name?” Paladin asked with an inquisitive glance at Fandorin.
“Erast Fandorin,” replied the volunteer, although he was looking at Sobolev, not the Frenchman. “I have been fighting in Serbia and am now on my way to general headquarters with an important message.”
The general looked Fandorin over from head to toe. He inquired deferentially: “I expect you’ve seen your share of grief? What did you do before Serbia?”
“I was at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. A titular counselor.”
This was a surprise. A diplomat? To be quite honest, all these new impressions had rather undermined the immense (why pretend otherwise?) impact produced on Varya by her taciturn companion, but now she looked at him with newly admiring eyes. A diplomat going off to war as a volunteer—that certainly didn’t happen very often. Yes indeed, all three of them were quite remarkably handsome, each in his own way: Fandorin, Sobolev, and Paladin.
“What message?” Sobolev asked with a frown.
Fandorin hesitated, evidently unwilling to say.
“Come on now, don’t go making a Spanish court secret out of it!” the general shouted at him. “After all’s said and done, that’s simply being impolite to your rescuers.”
The volunteer replied in a low voice that made the correspondents prick up their ears, “I am making my way from Vidin, g-general. Three days ago, Osman Pasha set out for P-Plevna with an army corps.”
