Requiem in the Snow

by Catrin Collier

  Requiem in the Snow

  The Tsar’s Dragons: Book Three

  Catrin Collier

  None know better than Dr Peter Edwards and his wife Sarah, who worked through the London pandemic of 1866, how quickly cholera can strike. When Countess Beletsky, her daughters and servants, and John’s workers succumb, Peter fights for their lives tirelessly until he too falls victim.

  The only doctor within a hundred miles is Nathan Kharber, a Jew distrusted by the Russians. Nathan knows if he fails to save his Christian patients, the Cossacks will hang him as they have other doctors of his faith for centuries.

  While the immigrants wait to discover if Nathan can save Peter, Glyn, Richard, the Countess, and her daughters, John Hughes and Sarah Edwards both find themselves fighting an ignorance born in thousands of years of superstition on the Russian Steppes.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter One

  Road from Taganrog to Alexandrovka

  The Donbas, September 1870

  Richard woke in broad daylight. He sensed he was moving and squinted up at the sky. By the height of the sun it was mid-afternoon. He turned his head and a stabbing pain shot through his eyes. His mouth was dry, his head hurt, and his stomach churned; nauseated by a barnyard smell, which wasn’t surprising as he was lying on damp, dirty sacks. He heard a bullock low and realised he was in the back of a cart.

  ‘How are you feeling?’

  He tried to focus. The sun had never shone brighter. Something moved to block his vision. He looked up at Alexei.

  ‘Where am I?’

  ‘About two versts outside Taganrog. I carried you back to your room to prove to Mr Edwards and your sister that you were still alive. I packed your belongings but your sister checked I hadn’t left anything behind. I don’t think she approves of me.’

  ‘Right now, I don’t approve of you or me.’ Richard struggled upright.

  ‘Your head hurts?’

  ‘A dozen little men are clog dancing in my brain.’

  ‘Explain clog dancing?’

  ‘Another time.’

  ‘This should make you feel better.’ Alexei dropped the reins of his horse, reached down into his boot, and pulled out a silver flask. He passed it to Richard.

  Richard unscrewed the top and sniffed the contents.

  ‘It’s water, you funny fellow.’

  ‘Just checking it’s not what we were drinking last night.

  ‘I bought a few pails of vodka for the journey. If you join me tonight we can continue our discussion without Misha and the Cossacks.’

  ‘I’m busy.’

  ‘Doing what, in a bullock train?’

  ‘I’ll think of something.’

  ‘Richard, about last night …’

  ‘I don’t remember much.’

  Alexei leaned closer to Richard and lowered his voice. ‘You remember I had a fight with Misha?’

  ‘You shook hands afterwards.’

  ‘Don’t say anything about it to anyone. Or repeat what Misha said about the Jews.’

  ‘I didn’t understand half of what Misha said.’

  ‘Promise you won’t say anything, especially to Mr Edwards or Mr Hughes.’

  Richard almost nodded then decided he’d only make his head ache even more. ‘Where’s my sister?’

  ‘With the driver and Mrs Edwards at the front of this cart.’

  Head pounding, Richard clambered to his knees and climbed over the sacks to the bench seat where Anna was sitting with Mrs Edwards. He moved behind them.

  Sarah greeted him. ‘Good morning – or rather afternoon, Richard.’

  ‘Mrs Edwards. I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s your sister you should apologise to. She thought you’d been kidnapped when you didn’t return to the consulate last night.’

  ‘I was worried about you,’ Anna reproached.

  ‘We tried to convince her Alexei would look after you. It appears he did.’

  ‘I remember him advising me not to drink vodka with a Cossack. As we were both doing just that it seemed a peculiar thing for him to say. I promise you, Mrs Edwards,’ he sat alongside Anna and wrapped his arm around her. ‘I’ll never drink vodka again.’

  ‘Spoken like a man with a hangover who’s feeling sorry for himself. Your good intentions will be forgotten the moment your head clears.’

  ‘I won’t argue with you, Mrs Edwards, but I mean what I say.’

  ‘I’m certain at this moment you do.’

  The convoy crawled slowly forward as far as Richard’s eye could see. At its head he made out the heavily built figures of John Hughes and Glyn Edwards. They’d reined in their horses and were watching the column. He turned. The line of carts behind them was endless as the one in front.

  ‘Two versts behind us, only another ninety-eight to go.’ Alexei was still riding alongside them. He tipped his cap to Sarah and Anna. ‘I have friends who live close by. I’ll ride ahead and see if they can provide accommodation for you ladies tonight.’

  ‘Please don’t trouble yourself, Alexei. I believe Mr Hughes has made provision for people to sleep in the carts.’

  ‘You’d be more comfortable in a house.’

  ‘I’d also miss my husband and Anna her brother.’

  ‘So we all camp, like gypsies?’

  ‘I believe that’s the intention – but thank you for the offer, Alexei.’

  ‘I hope the place we’re going to isn’t like this,’ Anna said.

  ‘In what way?’ Richard asked.

  ‘Flat and empty.’

  ‘Even if it is, it won’t be for long,’ Sarah predicted. ‘A few years of hard work and we’ll build a town as elegant and imposing as Taganrog.’

  ‘First we have to get there.’ Richard’s head was aching unbearably. He longed to stand somewhere still and quiet.

  ‘A few more days. We’re almost at journey’s end.’ Sarah waved to Peter who was walking ahead of the cart.

  ‘Journey’s end,’ Anna repeated. ‘That sounds good.’

  Richard squeezed her hand. He hoped when they were settled in their new home they would regain the close familiarity that had bound them together in the basement house in the court. But for the moment he couldn’t help feeling Anna was slipping away from him.

  As John had warned, and every emigrant in the convoy soon discovered, there were few roads over the steppe and none of any substance between Taganrog and Hughesovka. What John and Glyn hadn’t expected were the substantial tolls every landowner exacted before allowing their carts to cross their estates. Even with Alexei to negotiate, their progress was expensive – and slow.

  Rain began to fall two days after they left the port. The Russians assured them rain at that time of year was rare and the weather would soon turn dry. But the downpour proved relentless. By the fifth day everyone and everything in the column was drenched.

  The blankets they wrapped themselves in and their clothes, even the ones stored in trunks, were sodden. Most people saw no point in changing out of the dripping outfits they were wearing. The cooks did their best to make tea and warm soup under canvas in the back of the carts but as soon as the liquid was served it became so diluted by rainwater it lost all vestige of warmth.

  John instructed the senior members of the party to remain resolutely cheerful, but by the fifth day even Glyn was beginning to show signs of strain. That night the camp was quieter than any evening since they’d left Taganrog. The drivers, too tired to talk let alone sing, huddled on top of the feed carts, sheltering as best they could beneath canvas, sharing their
vodka pails. Glyn and John had taken their brandy flasks and retired early, crawling into a boiler they’d lined with straw and transformed into a temporary bedroom.

  Peter alone braved the glutinous mud, tramping from cart to cart dispensing shots of brandy and cough syrup. By the time he finally struggled back to the cart he and Sarah were sharing with Richard, Anna, and Alexei he felt as though he’d been swimming fully clothed in a river. But there was nothing he could do other than wrap himself in a blanket slightly less sodden than his clothes and lie down next to his wife in the hope that sleep would come.

  Three versts from Hughesovka, the Donbas

  Late afternoon, day six, September 1870

  ‘Looks like this cart, along with a dozen others, will be staying here tonight – and probably, given the quagmire it’s sunk into, even longer, sweetheart.’ Peter squelched from the back of the cart loaded with his and Glyn’s luggage to the front where Sarah sat between Anna and the driver. ‘The axle is glued firm. As fast the men are shovelling out the mud it’s oozing back in.’

  ‘The two largest boilers are stuck.’ Glyn splashed towards them. ‘The drivers say we’ve no chance of shifting them until the ground freezes. Then we might be able pickaxe them out but there’ll only be a small window between the frost and the first snow. Apparently snow causes as much of a problem as mud.’

  ‘In which case I take it we’ll be camping here overnight?’ Sarah tried to sound matter-of-fact. They’d been forced to leave so many carts full of supplies behind that Glyn had lost count, and there was still no sign of civilization on the horizon. ‘Is there a relatively dry spot within wading distance?’ She looked at the black slime that caked Peter’s boots, trousers, and coat.

  Glyn leaned against the cart. ‘Alexei left an hour ago to fetch fresh horses and carriages from his father’s house. Our destination is only three versts ahead. That’s not even two miles.’

  ‘Where?’ Sarah rose from the bench seat and peered all around. ‘I can’t see anything other than rain and a few trees.’

  ‘If our new home isn’t behind a tree I suppose it could be down a rabbit hole.’ Glyn tugged at his knee to heave his right foot out of the mud. He succeeded in freeing his leg, but at the cost of soaking his trousers.

  ‘We’re really almost there?’ Anna asked.

  ‘Home,’ Peter smiled. ‘Not before time, looking at you ladies. Wash and brush ups all round, a hot meal, followed by sleep in a warm, dry, clean bed under a roof …’

  ‘Wash and brush up! Have you looked at yourself in a mirror lately?’ Sarah interrupted.

  ‘I did say “all round”. But unlike you ladies, we men are used to roughing it. You delicate hothouse creatures can’t wait to enjoy the luxury of indoors.’

  ‘After what Mrs Edwards and Anna have been through since Taganrog, I will never call them delicate again,’ John went to inspect the back of the cart.

  ‘I listened to the grumbles around the camp fires last night, and as every one of them came from men. I’d argue we’re no more fragile than you, Peter,’ Sarah rebuked. ‘As for “indoors”, would you prefer to sleep in a wagon than beneath a roof?’

  ‘I wouldn’t turn down a warm bed and hot bath,’ Glyn rubbed his hands together in an effort to warm them.

  ‘I’d prefer not to think of either until I have them in sight.’ Peter stared at the horizon. ‘My eyes are playing tricks. I can’t see any difference between land, air, and water. Thank heavens you arranged for Alexei to meet us, Glyn. This journey would have been unbearable without him to advise us.’

  ‘Neither Mr Hughes nor I arranged anything. The boy met us because he likes working for the New Russia Company and hopes to continue doing so. But I’ve heard his father’s views on industrialisation. Alexei may not be allowed to work for us much longer if the count discovers he’s acted as our guide on this distinctly un-aristocratic trek.’

  ‘Alexei’s father is the count who’s to become our neighbour? The count you wrote to me about?’ Peter asked.

  ‘That’s the one. If he finds out Alexei’s been getting his hands dirty he’ll probably throw him out of the Beletsky ancestral home. He considers aristocrats above manual labour.’ Glyn surveyed the wagons ahead of them. Alf and Richard were helping the stockmen and Cossacks unharness bullocks from the marooned carts. Despite the drivers’ best efforts, several of the animals were too tired to extricate themselves. They’d lost over a hundred beasts. Given the conditions, he suspected they’d lose more despite their proximity to Hughesovka.

  Glyn was pleased with Richard. The boy had made friends of the drivers and stockmen by working harder than any of the hired hands after he recovered from his hangover. With Alexei’s help, he’d also begun to learn the rudiments of Russian as well as ride a horse and drive a bullock cart.

  ‘I wish doctors were above manual labour.’ Peter rubbed his shoulder. ‘I’ve strained a muscle trying to shift this cart.’

  ‘You’re about to strain another one, Dr Edwards,’ John warned. ‘It’s going to take a lot of persuasion to get these animals out on to what passes for dry ground. Here, let’s see what our combined weight can do.’

  Glyn and Peter slid through the puddles of mud to the back board and put their shoulders alongside John’s.

  Ten back-breaking minutes later the cart was sunk even deeper in the mud.

  ‘When Alexei returns with the horses and carriages, you should go on ahead with Mrs Edwards, Anna, and Richard, Dr Edwards, so you can start organising the hospital. A doctor with strained muscles is no use to man or beast.’ John smiled when Sarah leaned over the back of the cart and handed him, Glyn, and Peter tin mugs. ‘You’re an angel.’

  ‘Tea?’ Peter asked.

  ‘And rainwater.’

  ‘Tastes divine.’ John lifted his mug to Sarah.

  ‘You and Glyn going to sleep in the boilers again tonight, Mr Hughes?’

  ‘They’re drier than the carts, and cosy once we’ve wrapped straw around ourselves.’

  ‘I’ll take your word for it, sir.’ Sarah slipped her arm around Anna when the girl joined her.

  Glyn drank his tea and returned the mug to Sarah. ‘Troikas coming. Alexei’s in the leading one. I’ve no idea what breed of horses he’s driving but we should get a herd of them. They don’t seem bothered by the mud.’

  John stood on the nearest firm patch of ground and wiped the rain from his face with the back of his hand. ‘Glyn, go ahead with Peter, Richard, and the ladies. Tell Huw we’ll arrive early tomorrow. Given the conditions we may need the hospital soon. It’ll be a wonder if we don’t have at least one case of pneumonia after this rain.’

  ‘Are you sure, sir?’ Even this close to their destination Glyn was reluctant to leave his boss.

  ‘No one’s indispensable, Glyn. I’ll manage without you for one night. Take Alf with you too, you’ll need his muscle if the troikas get stuck. Alexei can guide you. We’re so close to Hughesovka the drivers will be able to get the rest of us there blindfolded. Warn Huw we’ll need hot food and dry blankets as well as accommodation.’

  ‘I’ll tell Sarah and arrange for our luggage to be transferred into the troikas.’ Peter left.

  Glyn lingered,

  A driver handed John a spade. He waved it in front of Glyn. ‘Even the boss of this bullock train has to work. See you tomorrow, Glyn.’

  Realising he’d been dismissed, Glyn shook John’s hand. ‘See you, sir.’

  ‘In Hughesovka.’

  Glyn walked towards the carriages. Alexei was loading blankets into one of the troikas. Richard and Alf were packing the second troika with their own, Anna’s, and the Edwards’ personal luggage.

  ‘If we leave now, Mr Edwards, we might get to your house before dark.’ Alexei watched Sarah help Anna into the carriage. He’d stopped offering Anna assistance after he’d noticed her trembling every time he went near her.

  Peter joined Sarah and Anna in the back of the troika. Alexei took the driver’s seat.

  �
�I’ll drive this carriage.’ Alexei said to Glyn. ‘You, Richard, and Mr Mahoney need have no worries about the other. The driver’s been working in my father’s stables for years.’

  ‘I remember him from our last visit.’ Glyn waved to the man who waved back.

  Richard and Alf climbed into the carriage, Glyn sat alongside them. Alexei shouted to Vlad and the horses moved, hock deep through the mire.

  Glyn Edwards’ house, Hughesovka

  September 1870

  Alexei’s prediction that they’d arrive at their new home before dark proved optimistic. Darkness fell hours before they drove into the courtyard of the substantial villa that had been Catherine Ignatova’s childhood home,

  The moment the horses’ hooves hit the gravel drive, the front doors opened. Praskovia, Yelena, and Pyotr lined up to greet them. Alexei helped Sarah from the carriage and made the introductions.

  ‘Welcome to your new home, Mrs Edwards,’ Praskovia said in heavily accented English.

  ‘Thank you.’ Sarah stepped inside and looked around in astonishment. ‘You’ve bought this house, Glyn?’

  ‘The company’s renting it, but from what I’ve seen so far it may do nicely. Huw did well to arrange it.’

  ‘It may do! It’s … a palace.’ Sarah checked the condition of her muddy boots and began to unlace them.

  Glyn shook the rain from his cape and Pyotr took it from him.

  ‘Marble floors and walls,’ Peter noted. ‘Just as well they can be easily washed given the state of us.’

  Primed by Alexei, Praskovia said, ‘Everything’s prepared for your arrival, Mr Edwards, Mrs Edwards, Dr Edwards, Mr and Miss Parry, Mr Mahoney, Alexei.’

  ‘You speak English very well, Praskovia.’ Sarah complimented.

  ‘I attended Miss Sonya’s English classes, Madam. Alexei said if I wanted to be your housekeeper I would have to speak your language. My mother and brother do not yet, but I will interpret until they learn. My mother will cook for you, my brother Pyotr will do the heavy work. I hope you will be satisfied with our efforts.’

  ‘I’m sure we will, Praskovia.’ Sarah noticed Pyotr holding out his hand to take her boots. She handed them to him.