Russian series 03 - The Eagle's Fate (4 page)

Nadya inclined her head to each of them in acknowledgement, managing a tremulous smile, and replied, ‘Nadezhda Igorovna Serova. My brother was in your regiment. He was Maxim Serov—he was killed at Pultusk in 1806. Perhaps you knew him…?’

Captain Valyev’s expression could not be said to change as she spoke, and he did not exactly move, but Nadya sensed a marked withdrawal in him, as if he had actually scowled and turned away. She gave him a puzzled, enquiring look, but his gaze seem to go through and beyond her. There was a perceptible pause, as if she had said something shocking, and then Captain Tuchin said in an earnest, sympathetic tone, “Oh, I certainly recall hearing about him, but I’m not sure that I actually knew him—I only joined the Regiment a few days before the battle, and everything was very confused…Andrei wasn’t with us then.’

Nadya looked at him, disconcerted by the subtly hostile change which she sensed in his friend, and found his plump, good-humoured face had an anxious, embarrassed look. He was looking at Captain Valyev, and his effort to gloss over the awkwardness was only too obvious, so that Nadya knew that it was not just something she had imagined.

‘Is something wrong?’ she blurted, too unsettled by the events of the day to follow the normal social code of pretending nothing was amiss.

‘Well—er—there seems to be a great deal wrong!’ Captain Tuchin recovered his self-possession. ‘However do you come to be in such a situation, Princess? Where is your carriage—your servants?’ His expression was all concern again.

“I have no carriage,’ Nadya replied, realizing that, whatever the trouble with Captain Valyev might be, she was not going to be told at present. “I tried to buy a cart, but I had only fifty roubles, and they were asking five hundred. I have no servants, except…’ Her voice broke and her eyes filled with tears, which she blinked away as best she could. ‘My maid was with me, but she—she was—killed—while we were leaving Moscow…’

‘Killed!’ exclaimed Captain Tuchin in a shocked voice.

‘On the Yauza bridge—there was such a crush—she was pushed—over the side—I think. I didn’t even know until afterwards.’

Captain Tuchin was silent for a moment, the expression on his face showing quite clearly that, having crossed the Yauza bridge himself not so very long after Nadya, the probable course of events was picturing itself in his mind.

‘Then you mean—you’re alone, and on foot? You’ve
walked
all this way?’

Nadya nodded.

“But this is terrible! Where is your family?’

‘All dear, long ago,’ Nadya replied, shaking her head.

Captain Tuchin put his hand to his head in an agitated gesture and pushed his kiver to the back of his head.

‘Where are you going?’

‘To Ryazan. I have a friend who lives near there—Countess Kalinskaya.’

Captain Tuchin’s worried face broke into a smile.’

‘Lev Orlov’s sister?’ He sounded positively relieved. ‘Why, did you hear that, Andrei. She’s a friend of Tatya Petrovna.’

The information apparently made no impression whatsoever on Captain Valyev. He did not seem to have moved a muscle since Nadya had identified herself to them, and the only reply he made now was a slight, impatient movement, as if he found the mention of Tatya irrelevant.

‘You know her?’ Nadya asked abstractedly, wondering why Captain Valyev was behaving like this. He had seemed friendly, courteous and very concerned at first, but now he seemed to be dissociating from the situation.

‘Oh, indeed! Why, every officer of discernment and sense in the Life Guard is her devoted slave!’ Captain Tuchin assured her earnestly. ‘We’d do anything for her, and, of course, for any friend of hers. We’ll see you get safely to Ryazan.’

‘We’re not going to Ryazan,’ Captain Valyev said flatly. It was a simple statement of fact, but it seemed to Nadya very much like a refusal on his part to offer her any further help.

‘You must think me very ill-mannered,’ she said nervously. ‘I’ve not thanked you for coming to my rescue! I’m truly very grateful to you.’

‘It was nothing,’ Captain Valyev replied, making a slight movement as if to turn away, which, together with the total lack of expression in his voice, gave the formal disclaimer a strong undertone of rejection, as if he meant that he wished he had not bothered.

‘Oh, nothing at all!’ Captain Tuchin hurled himself into the breach in an effort to retrieve the situation which was again a little too obvious. ‘Of course we couldn’t ignore a cry for help! And—er—it is true that we’re not actually going as far as Ryazan on this road, but we can certainly take you as far as we’re going, and—er—well, we’ll think of something by then.’

‘We have no spare horse and no lady’s saddle.’ The words were again spoken without any particular inflection, as if Captain Valyev was merely drawing their attention to some minor fact, like the time of day or the number of travellers on the road.

“Oh. Well—I can take the Princess up in front of me, of course. For the time being. We may be able to—to get another mount somewhere…’ Captain Tuchin tailed off, apparently shrugging the problem aside.

Nadya looked at the horses, and realised that all of them had a distinctly jaded look, as if they had been ridden long and hard. Also, considering that the Life Guard cavalry regiments had the pick of all the best horses available to the Emperor—which, in effect, meant all the horses in Russia—they had not been particularly good beasts to start with. Only one of them had anything like the quality one would have expected.

‘Where are you going?’ she asked, feeling she should say something but quite unable to make it the obvious thing—a graceful speech declining an offer of help which was clearly going to put Captain Tuchin, at least, to some trouble.

‘To an estate off to the east of the road between Kolomna and Ryazan,’ he replied. ‘To select and buy remounts. They breed horses for the Army there. We’ve lost an enormous number these past three months, what with the hard going they’ve had, and the weather and the fighting and so on.’

“Yes,’ Nadya replied despondently. It seemed much harder to think of going on alone and on foot after someone had actually offered help, but it was obvious that they could not really take her with them.

‘Do you feel able to start now?’ Captain Tuchin asked tentatively. ‘We were held up a great deal coming through Moscow, and we really ought to travel a bit further before dark…’

The last word struck Nadya like a blow, bringing back her earlier fears of having to try to rest by the roadside through the night, when she would be defenceless against a thief, or—or…

‘Yes, of course.’ She replied, getting to her feet with unexpected difficulty, for she seemed to have become extremely stiff since she sat down. She was glad of Captain Tuchin’s helping hand.

‘We’ll tie your things to one of the baggage mules,’ he said, taking the valise, which she had still been clutching with both hands. She looked about for the bundle of food, and saw that one of the troopers had it, and he was already securing it among the various items on the back of one of the—yes, they were mules! She had not noticed their long ears before. Her reticule was still safely fastened to her wrist.

‘Come, then.’ Captain Tuchin put a hand under her elbow and helped her over the rough grass to the waiting animals. She watched while he tied the valise in place, and then settled her shawl round her shoulders. He lifted her with a hand on either side of her waist, and she got to her place on the front of his saddle, which fortunately had a low head.

As he swung himself up behind her and settled in the saddle, the horse seemed to sag a little, and he said apologetically, ‘I’m a mite heavy for a hussar, I’m afraid. Wouldn’t have been accepted, I expect, if my father hadn’t been in the Regiment before me! Was—er—was your father in Ours too?’

‘No. He was in the Foot Guards—the Preobajenskys, but my brother preferred the cavalry.’ Nadya glanced towards Captain Valyev, who had mounted in silence and now moved alongside, looking straight between his mount’s ears. His was the horse which looked better-bred than the others.

‘Are you ready, Sasha?’ he asked.

‘Yes.’ Captain Tuchin touched his spurs to his mount, but it made no movement until he gave it more of a kick, which jerked it into a forward step, and they all moved out into the traffic, taking and being yielded right of way as a matter of course. They set off along the road at a steady plod, the two officers side-by-side, followed by the troopers, each leading a mule alongside him.

Nadya realised now how utterly weary she was. It was difficult to sit upright, but unthinkable to lean against Captain Tuchin, and her position was uncomfortable, sitting sideways with no horn or bar to support her. She felt that she might fall, despite the Captain’s arms coming round on either side of her to hold his reins, and there was nothing to hold on to except the horse’s mane.

After going some way in silence, she essayed a little conversation by saying, ‘We heard in Moscow that there had been a battle some short distance to the west, and there was a Te Deum for our victory…’ then broke off, not quite knowing how to ask why, if it had been victorious, the Army had continued to retreat,

‘Yes. It was around a village called Boro-something,’

Captain Tuchin began.

‘Borodino,’ supplied Captain Valyev’s expressionless voice. It had a resonant quality which Nadya thought would normally have been very pleasant.

‘I don’t know if it was our victory, though,’ Captain Tuchin went on. ‘To be honest, it was nothing like any battle I’ve experienced before. It went on all day long, in the most incredible uproar of cannon-fire—I didn’t know so many guns existed! There seemed to be a fearful tussle going on over most of the field, yet we were kept in reserve, just setting and waiting all morning till we were dizzy with the noise and frantic with the waiting.

‘When we did move, we seemed to go for miles without even seeing the French at all, and then suddenly…’ He broke off, realizing that his memories were running away with him into a description which was entirely unsuited to Nadya’s ears, even if she had not already been shocked and frightened by her earlier experiences.

‘We lost a lot more mounts. Then we sat and looked at them for nearly two hours, and finally went back to where we started and reformed—what was left of us—and went on waiting. Meanwhile, everyone else seemed to be fighting themselves to a standstill, and when it started to get dark, everything just died away, and everyone who was still on his feet just dropped down exhausted and slept. In the morning, we got up, gathered up our—our belongings.’ Better not say wounded, he thought, which was what he really meant, ‘and moved off eastward again. The French were in about the same state, I think. I don’t know who won. What do you think, Andrei?’

Captain Valyev gave a little shrug and twitched his eyebrows. ‘We didn’t lose, and neither did they. A draw.’

‘And Moscow?’ Nadya asked, feeling immeasurably saddened by the picture her imagination had formed from what Captain Tuchin had left unsaid, and which she was intelligent enough to realise was only a faint shadow of the reality.

‘I don’t know about Moscow,’ Captain Tuchin replied. ‘All we’d heard when we got out orders about the remounts was that Marshal Kutuzov was to hold a Council of War sometime today. The whole Army is virtually in the city, and the French vanguard must be in the Sparrow Hills, only a mile of two behind our rearguard.’

‘People were saying in Moscow that the French would be in the city by tomorrow,’ Nadya said tentatively, longing for an assurance that it could not possibly happen, but neither officer made any reply.

After another spell of silence, she asked: ‘Did you see something of Count Orlov?’

‘Which one? Oh—Lev Petrovich, of course! No. The Chevalier Guards are in Fifth Corps—the Grand Duke Constantin Pavlovich’s—and we’re in General Uvarov’s. They weren’t near us. In any case, I believe Lev Petrovich is serving on General Barclay’s staff.’

‘He was wounded at Smolensk,’ remarked Captain Valyev’s cold detached voice. ‘He was put in charge of a convoy of wounded and sent off to Tula or Kaluga, I believe.’

‘Wounded!’ Nadya gasped, thinking of poor Tatya.

‘Moderately.’ Again, it was a statement of fact, not a reassurance.

‘He means it wasn’t serious.’ Captain Tuchin added the reassurance.

Nadya sighed, partly with relief, partly with sheer weariness. She lapsed into a curious state of semi-consciousness, only vaguely aware of the traffic, the choking dust, her companions and the movement of the horse, even of her own aching feet and back.

When she came to herself again, it was almost dark. The horses had left the road and were moving among clumps of trees and bushes on the bank of a river, which reflected, in an oily-looking fashion, the lights of dozens of little fires, scattered along both banks for some distance on either side of the road. Everywhere were carts, waggons, horses, and knots of people, trying to settle themselves down for the night’s rest. The air was chilly, and seemed filled with the desolate wails of hungry, frightened children.

‘This will do,’ Captain Valyev said in an entirely normal manner, and she wondered if she had imagined his earlier coldness.

Captain Tuchin reined in and dismounted, then caught Nadya as she slid to the ground, steadying her as her legs gave way, then lowering her to a reasonably comfortable seat on the grass.

‘Rest her, Princess,’ he said kindly.

Nadya sat still, and as her eyes became used to the night, she found that there was enough light from all the little fires to see that the troopers were unloading the mules and Captain Tuchin unsaddling the horses. Captain Valyev seemed to have disappeared, but he returned presently with both arms full of wood, and proceeded to build and light a fire.

By the time it was burning well, the baggage and saddles had been stacked, the horses watered at the river and tethered close by, some buckets of water brought, and Captain Tuchin had used one of them to wash his head and hands, taking it back to the river to refill as he toweled his tousled hair with one hand.

He put the refilled bucket by Captain Valyev, who thanked him, and then apparently ignored it, going instead to unpack something from one of the stacked bundles while Captain Tuchin pulled a box over to the fire, opened it, and began to sort out bags of what Nadya realised must be food. She looked longingly at the bucket, thinking how very pleasant it would be to wash off the thickly-caked dust from her face and hands, which felt filthy. If only she could take off her dust-permeated clothes and plunge into the river, then dress in something clean and fresh. There was no possibility of that, of course, but perhaps she might ask presently if she could borrow the bucket and wash herself.