Marianne and the Crown of Fire Read online

  When she opened her eyes again the river bank was deserted so that for a moment she wondered if she had not dreamed it all, but when she looked more closely she could just make out a running figure moving away towards the point where the bank became a cliff. Then she too turned back towards the inn. Her legs were trembling so that she could barely climb the steep wooden stair that led up to the bedrooms and at the top she had to pause for a moment to get back her breath before she dragged herself to her own door and pushed it open.

  'Where have you been?' Jason's voice said curtly.

  He was there, standing in the broad, white swathe of moonlight. She thought that he looked huge and reassuring, like a lighthouse in a storm. Never had she needed him so much and giving a little moan she threw herself into his arms, shaken by a paroxysm of sobbing that swept away all the dreadful fear that had overwhelmed her.

  He let her cry for a little without speaking, only petting her like a child and stroking her tumbled hair with a gentle hand. Then, as the violence abated, he put his hand under her chin and tilted up her tear-stained face.

  'Idiot,' was all he said. 'As if I could want any woman but you.'

  An hour later Marianne was asleep, tired out and lulled by the happy thought that Shankala, having failed, would give up the attempt and must already have made up her mind to part from her travelling companions. She had seen her running off towards the cliff… Perhaps she meant never to return…

  But when, at daybreak, they all gathered by the kibitka, into the shafts of which their new driver was engaged in putting fresh horses, the gipsy was there, as cool and distant as if nothing at all had happened. Without a word she took her place by Gracchus on the box and Marianne, smothering a sigh of disappointment, could only comfort herself with the thought that Shankala had not so much as glanced at Jason as she passed him.

  This was such slender consolation that when they drew up that evening at Darnitsa, in the midst of resin-scented pinewoods, she could not resist taking Gracchus aside. His relations with the gipsy had not notably improved since the village on the Kodyma but at least the extraordinary girl had condescended to exchange a few words with her so-called husband.

  'How long are we to be forced to endure this Shankala?' Marianne asked him. 'Why does she stay with us? It's clear she doesn't do it because she likes us. So why does she persist in staying?'

  'She is not staying with us, Mademoiselle Marianne, or not in the way you mean.'

  'No? Then what is she doing?'

  'She's hunting!'

  'Hunting?'

  'I can't imagine what kind of game – apart from Monsieur Beaufort, of course.' Marianne could not resist that jibe at least.

  She had expected him to agree with her in that, but Gracchus shook his head, frowning.

  'I thought so too, at first, but it's not that. Oh, she'd have got him if she could, of course, combining pleasure with business—'

  'Business? I understand less and less.'

  'You'll soon see. What Shankala is after is revenge. She's not coming with us, she's following the man who cast her off and delivered her up to the hatred of the village women. She has sworn to kill him and I think she hoped, by seducing Captain Beaufort, to make him the instrument of her revenge by persuading him to kill her former husband.'

  Marianne shrugged impatiently. "This is madness. How does she hope to find the man again in a country this size?'

  'That may not be as difficult as you might think. The cossack, whose name, by the way, is Nikita, has gone off to fight the French. We are going the same way, and so she knows. Don't worry, she asks about the cossack troop at every posting house. Not only that, but she knows precisely what her Nikita is after.'

  "And what is he after?'

  'To win the prize. Become rich and famous, noble and powerful—'

  'Gracchus,' Marianne interrupted him with a good deal of impatience, 'if you can't bring yourself to talk more clearly you and I are going to fall out. What is all this nonsense?'

  Then Gracchus embarked on what sounded like the wildest fairytale. He explained how, a short time before, a fantastic story had blazed through steppes and forests like wildfire. Count Platov, the almost legendary Ataman of the Don Cossacks and now the acknowledged leader of all the companies, or sotnias, of other regions, had promised, just as in the chivalrous tales of old, to give his daughter's hand in marriage to any cossack, whoever he might be, who should bring him Napoleon's head.

  At that the fever had mounted in every cossack village, or stanitsa, and every man who did not own a wife had risen up in answer to the great chief's call, and in the hope of winning the fabulous prize. They had polished up their weapons, saddled their horses with the high wooden saddles covered with sheepskins, and pulled on their boots. Some of them in their frenzy had even contrived, more or less discreetly, to do away with wives who had suddenly become an embarrassment.

  'Shankala's husband was one of those,' Gracchus concluded. 'He claims to be certain of winning the Ataman's daughter, but where he gets his certainty, don't ask me. Even Shankala doesn't know.'

  'Out of an even greater conceit than the rest of his fellows!' Marianne exclaimed indignantly. 'These savages have no idea! The Emperor's head indeed! I ask you!' Then, with an abrupt change of tone, she added: 'But Gracchus, does this mean the woman was innocent when they tried to drown her? I must say I find it hard to believe.'

  Evidently Gracchus did too. He pushed back his cap and scratched his red thatch, shifting from foot to foot, then letting his fingers stray to the still visible marks of the gipsy's fingernails.

  'That,' he said, 'is a matter we did not touch on. With a woman like that you never know. All she told me was that once his first passion died down Nikita had neglected her and relegated her to the position of a servant to his mother. All things considered, if that's true and she did deceive him, he'd no one but himself to blame. It seems to me he was a poor enough fellow.'

  'Indeed? Well, that's no reason to go and find out. And if you want us to remain friends, Gracchus-Hannibal Pioche, I'd advise you not to let Shankala use you to obtain her revenge either. Supposing you were to come out of it alive, I wonder how your grandmother, the laundress in the rue de la Revoke, would welcome such a daughter-in-law?'

  'I know well enough. She'd stick out two fingers in the sign against the evil eye and then she'd be off to the cure to sprinkle her with holy water. Then she'd show both of us the door. Don't worry, Mademoiselle Marianne, I've no wish to reduce still further what little chance we have of ever seeing the rue Montorgueil and your house in the rue de Lille again.'

  He touched his cap and was moving away to help the driver unhitch the horses when Marianne, struck by the cynicism of his last words, called him back.

  'Gracchus! Do you really think that in trying to reach the Emperor we are running into serious danger?'

  'It's not so much because we are trying to reach him, it's just that when the Little Corporal goes to war he doesn't do things by halves and we're likely to find ourselves, as they say, caught between the hammer and the anvil. And random shots aren't always as random as all that! But we'll do the best we can, won't we?'

  And, whistling his favourite marching song more furiously out of tune than ever, Gracchus went off cheerfully to attend to his everyday duties as groom, leaving Marianne to her thoughts.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The Duel

  On the eleventh of September they came to the outskirts of Moscow. It was a fine, bright day and the earth basked in the sunshine of late summer. But the warm light and the beauty of the countryside could not dispel the sense of tragedy that loomed in the air.

  The road passed through the pretty, picturesque village of Kolomenskoy, with its old, brightly painted wooden cottages, large pond with several families of ducks upon it and clumps of trees in which the pale trunks of birches mingled with slender, fragrant pines and rowans borne down with great bunches of crimson fruit.

  But farther west the guns were firin
g and there was an endless procession of vehicles of every kind, from tradesmen's carts to gentlemen's carriages, driven by rigid, sleepwalking figures with set faces and haunted eyes. Plants and buildings alike had their freshness smothered in a choking pall of dust.

  In this crowd of refugees the kibitka's progress was like that of a swimmer struggling against the current of a mighty river. For three days they had been unable to obtain a change of horses. All those that could be found were already between the shafts. The stables were empty.

  Jason might fret and fume in his impatience to travel day and night until they had put Moscow behind them but they were still obliged to halt every day at nightfall to rest the horses, although the men took turns to stand guard to prevent them being stolen.

  They had lost their driver. The last man had refused to proceed beyond the posting house at Toula and had run away, helped on by Jason's belt laid about his shoulders for trying to take the horses with him. That night they had been forced to quit the posting house in a hurry and seek refuge in the near-by forest because the man had gone for help to the estate of Prince Volkonski and had returned to his erstwhile employers reinforced by a gang of men armed with staves. The firearms with which Gracchus had prudently provided them had sufficed to hold them off for long enough for the party to make good its escape but they had supped that day off whortleberries and spring water only.

  The crowds they passed were strangely silent, showing no sign of panic. The crested broughams and barouches of the nobility, built in London or Paris, waited patiently among the assortment of Russian conveyances, from the travelling telega to the urban droshky with its driver in his long robe with a brass plate on his back, including kibitkas of every size and even common-or-garden tree trunks slung on four wheels.

  In the midst of all these, old men, women and children trudged uncomplainingly through the dust, their bundles on their backs and their eyes on the road ahead. The only sounds were the shuffle of feet and the creaking of wheels and this silence was the most impressive thing of all for it was heavy with resignation.

  Now and then a priest appeared, accompanied by a deacon or two and sheltering some precious relic under the folds of his black robe, before which the peasants would kneel piously. The gates of the big estates were guarded by karaoulny, old soldiers with white hair who had lost an arm or a leg in Catherine the Great's wars. And all the time, like a knell, the distant menace of the guns.

  No one took any notice of the dusty, travel-worn kibitka forcing its way against the current of refugees. Once or twice someone would glance up indifferently for a moment, too preoccupied with their own troubles to betray much curiosity.

  But when they came to the end of the village, Jason, who had taken over the reins from Gracchus, brought the vehicle to a standstill beside the impressive entrance to a large monastery whose dull blue domes rose close beside an ancient wooden mansion.

  'It's madness to go on,' he said with conviction. "We'll turn back and make a detour round the city to join the road to St Petersburg.'

  Marianne had been dozing against Jolival's shoulder but she sat up at once.

  'Why should we avoid the city? It's not easy, I grant you, but we are making progress. There's no reason to change direction now and risk losing ourselves.'

  'And I'm telling you it's madness,' Jason repeated. 'Can't you see what's happening, all these people running away?'

  'What they are running from holds no terrors for me. The very fact that we can hear the guns means that the French are not far off, especially if the exodus from Moscow has already begun.'

  'Marianne,' he said wearily, 'we are not going over all that again. I've told you time and again that I don't want to meet Napoleon. I thought we had agreed that if we came within reach of the invading army Jolival should take charge of this mysterious warning you want to send to your Emperor and then catch up with us later on the road.'

  'And you thought I'd agree to that?' Marianne cried indignantly. "You talk of sending Jolival to Napoleon as if it were no more than going to post a letter. Well, let me tell you something. Look at all these people round us. The roads must be packed like this in all directions and we have absolutely no idea where to look for the army, or for the Russian army either. If we separate we're lost. Jolival would never find us again. And you know it.'

  Arcadius, alarmed at the angry turn the argument was taking, made an effort to intervene but Marianne silenced him with an imperious gesture. Then, as Jason still sat hunched in his seat, remaining obstinately silent, she snatched up her valise and sprang down into the road.

  'Come, Arcadius,' she said imperatively to her old friend. 'Captain Beaufort would rather part from us than involve himself in any way with the army of a man he so dislikes. He has done with France.'

  'After what I suffered there it would be stranger still if I hadn't. I think I have good cause,' the American said sulkily.

  'Oh yes, most certainly. Very well, then, go and join your good friends the Russians, and your old friends the English – but when all this is over, for all wars have an end, you had better forget all about Madame Veuve Clicquot-Ponsardin and her champagne, and about the bordeaux wines and chambertins in which you once drove such a thriving contraband trade. And you can forget me, too, while you are at it! Because all these things are France!'

  With that Marianne put up her little chin in a gesture of superb defiance and contempt and, still shaking with anger, picked up her valise and tramped off up the dusty road, which here took a slight turn uphill, without looking back. She had thought, after the quarrel at Kiev, that Jason had been finally convinced and she was seething with rage at finding him still fixed in his stubborn resentment. He was nothing but a deceiver, a hypocrite without a heart.

  'Let him go to the Devil!' she muttered through clenched teeth.

  She heard him behind her, swearing and cursing in the approved manner of the coachman whose role he had adopted. But there was another sound too, the creaking of the kibitka getting under way. For an instant she was horribly tempted to look round and see if he were turning back but that would have been an admission of weakness amounting almost to giving in and she would not allow herself even to slacken her pace. A moment later he had caught up with her.

  Tossing the reins to Gracchus, he sprang to the ground and went after her. He caught her by the arm and forced her to stop and face him.

  'Not only are we in a scrape you don't appear to have the least idea of,' he raged, 'but now we have to put up with your tantrums as well!'

  'My tantrums?' she threw back at him indignantly. 'And what about yours? Who is it who won't listen to a word anyone says? Who won't hear of anything but his own selfish obsessions? I won't let Arcadius sacrifice himself, do you hear? I will not! Is that clear?'

  'No one is asking him to sacrifice himself. You have a talent for twisting people's words.'

  'Have I indeed? Well, listen to this, Jason Beaufort. One evening at Humayunabad, when I reproached you for wanting to leave me and go back to your own country to fight, you said to me: "I come of a free people and I must fight with them", or something of the kind. Well, I wish you would remember sometimes that I belong to the French people who have done more than any for the sake of freedom, beginning with the freedom of some others I could name.'

  'That's not true. You're half English.'

  'I can't think why that seems to give you so much pleasure. You must be out of your mind. Whose are the guns that at this very moment may be sending to the bottom any number of ships like your Sea Witch – flying the same flag, at least?'

  He glared at her as if he could have struck her. Then, abruptly, he shrugged and turned away, striving to repress a grin of apology.

  'Touché!' he growled. 'Very well. You win. We'll go on.'

  In an instant all her anger was forgotten. Like a schoolgirl she flung her arms round the American's neck, regardless of what the refugees might think, seeing a woman dressed in such a comparatively ladylike fashion eagerly embr
acing a bearded moujik. He returned her kiss and they might have remained lost to the world around them if Craig O'Flaherty's jovial voice had not come to their ears.

  'Come and see!' he called. 'It's well worth looking at!'

  All the others had climbed down from the wagon and walked over to a terrace terminating in a balustraded wall. Marianne and Jason joined them, hand in hand, and saw Moscow lying at their feet.

  The view which met their eyes was both grand and romantic, and with something fascinating about it also. It took in the whole extent of the great city, enclosed within its red walls, twelve leagues in extent and very ancient. At their feet the Moskva looped itself in snakelike coils round islands studded with palaces and gardens. Most of the houses were built of wood plastered over. Only the public buildings and the huge mansions of the nobility were constructed of brick of a dark, velvety softness. Numerous parks and gardens could be seen, their greenery forming a harmonious background to the buildings.

  The sun shone on a thousand and one church steeples and was reflected brilliantly from their gilded or sky blue domes and from rooftops of metal painted black or green. And in the midst of the city, set upon a raised hillock and ringed about by lofty walls and battlemented towers was a vast citadel, a veritable bouquet of palaces and churches: the Kremlin, the proud symbol of the ancient glory of Holy Russia. While all around it Europe and Asia met and mingled like the warp and weft of some fabulous material.

  'It's beautiful!' Marianne breathed. 'I never saw anything like it!'

  'Nor I,' said Jolival, adding, as he turned to his companions: 'It was certainly worth the journey.'

  Clearly he spoke for all of them, even Shankala who, since Kiev, had seemed to lose all interest in her companions. Occasionally, at the staging posts or when the kibitka slowed down on the road, she would speak to a passing peasant or to a stable lad, always asking the same question. The man would wave his arm and answer her briefly and then the gipsy would return to her place without a word and resume her scrutiny of the road ahead.