Kuzan 02 - Lovestorm

by Susan Johnson

  "Should we, Sasha, with your parents coming? It wouldn't be very polite."

  "Let's take the Southern Star out, just to get away from all these people for a while. I suppose we can come back in a week. They won't be here before then." He'd have to confront it eventually, might as well get it over with. No one would say a word, of course. Everyone would be too polite. But the prospect galled him nevertheless. Was this what was commonly called one of fate's little ironies? For someone who had all the illegitimate children he could wish for, all disturbingly and unquestionably Kuzans, when he finally had a legitimate heir, the child wasn't even his. A strange feeling of ruffled disquietude appeared in his heart.

  Several days later as they lay under an awning on the Southern Star, letting the light sea breezes wash over them, Zena finished nursing the baby and rose to change into something cooler. The afternoon was becoming warm.

  "Sasha, will you hold Apollo while I go below and change?"

  Their child had been named Apollo not because of Alex's teasing but because Zena had found the name so startling appropriate. Alex had acquiesced to his wife's wishes on the name as he had lightly promised so many months before. To Zena the fair, bright, golden child had seemed the perfect embodiment of the name Apollo—the Sun God.

  "Just put him in his basket, love. He'll be more comfortable in this heat."

  Zena had become disturbingly aware as the days passed that Sasha took very little interest in his son. At first she thought perhaps it was simply normal for a first-time father. Sasha was still young, and maybe the conception of fatherhood sat ill with him. But as time passed, she noted with baffled dismay that it wasn't simply that he took little interest in the child; rather he actually studiously avoided any contact with the baby.

  Zena was correct in her assumption. Alex was very scrupulously avoiding any contact with Apollo. Despite his best efforts every time he saw the light blond child, his stomach tightened in frustrated anger, and a tic would appear high on his cheekbone. If Alex had been less prone to his morbid jealousy and looked closely at the child, he would have noted, as had Zena, that Apollo's eyes slanted upward at a slight angle just like his father's. His faint, downy, dark brows winged aloft, framing those elongated oval eyes exactly like his father's. Instead Alex nursed his miserable suspicions and fell occasionally into his melancholy fits of old.

  This time, Zena thought with asperity, you're not going to dismiss your child so easily. Her temperament was as capable of volatile moodiness as Alex's.

  "You can hold Apollo for a minute while I go below," she insisted peevishly and placed her young son in Alex's lap.

  For the first time since his birth Alex was forced to look closely at this heir of his. Glancing down at the little, chubby form making wordless soft noises as he lay looking serenely up at his father, Alex's indifferent gaze changed suddenly into a startled expression of amazement.

  From under delicate, wispy brows and lacy, fine lashes sparkled golden, tawny eyes caught up in the corners like little cat's eyes, golden cat's eyes, the powerful mark of Kuzan blood through the centuries.

  "Zena!" Alex screamed, arresting her descent below. "Apollo's eyes are gold!"

  Zena had noticed the change beginning days ago as the blue eyes common to all babies at birth had begun lightening with gradually increasing flecks of gold. As she returned to his side at the joyful shout, Alex whispered with great emotion, "A Kuzan without question." The prince gently cradled the little golden-haired baby who was his son, and the harsh-featured face lit with an eager, proud jubilation.

  Bewildered but gladdened by the sudden, elated interest in his child, Zena said teasingly, "Did you ever doubt it?"

  Alex paused for a second as he looked at his beautiful precious wife, and then he grinned effervescently.

  "Never, darling," he lied gallantly, "not for a minute."

  EPILOGUE

  In the following months, while Alex conducted himself like a devoted husband and father, Zena would occasionally chide, "I can't believe this is the same man who firmly declared just short months ago that he wasn't interested in a wife and children."

  Alex would smile ironically and say, "Nor I, madame, nor I."

  Their second child, a daughter named Ninia, was born two years later in a mountain aul, and the family prospered, vastly content with each other.

  They raised their small family essentially outside the society of the world, endless versts from the nearest town. Alex made peace with the old Tartar, his grandfather-in-law, for they had much in common; they were both autocratic, arrogant, proud, and self-willed.

  Over the years, Alex became indistinguishable from his mountain brethren. When he wore the tcherkness and sheepskin papak, rifle slung on his shoulder and kinjal thrust in his belt, a more vivid likeness of a wild mountain tribesman you couldn't conceive.

  The Alexander Kuzans would spend portions of the year at the dacha, briefly visiting St. Petersburg and Nice. The small family much preferred the peace and tranquillity of the high mountain valley, where Alex had built for them a fortress aerie clinging to the harsh granite escarpment like a bird of prey.

  Zena traveled throughout the labyrinthine mountain auls, researching and compiling a definitive study of migration routes through the transcaucasian corridors to Europe. As each volume was completed, Alex had it published, beautifully illustrated with intricate maps, magnificent aquatints by Vrubel, and countless photographs that he as amateur photographer contributed.

  "Luckily," he would tease Zena lightly, "I have a tremendous ego, a notable lack of inclination to excel, prompted no doubt by the idle leisure of my upbringing, and unfathomable love and admiration for my wife. Else I could be quite quelled by the prominent reputation you are developing as historian."

  He was flatteringly kind in his raillery and inexpressibly modest of his own achievements, for not only did he run five large estates efficiently and profitably but in conjunction with his father and brothers oversaw the sprawling, prosperous industrial empire of gold mines, oil wells, and refineries, which was the base and mainstay of the Kuzan fortune.

  As the years passed, father and son became a familiar sight roaming the mountain trails. An incongruous pair at first glance, the son was as light and fair as the father was dark. But the slanting eyes bespoke consanguinity, and the stark cheekbones and straight noses duplicated each other, while the formidable, powerful strength of limb and muscle was already evident in the lean, strapping adolescent who rode at his father's side. Reared to respect the mountain ways, the young boy learned to ride with daring, speak the truth, and never show fear.

  Ibin Iskandar As-saqr As-saghir the lithe, tall, blond stripling was called. Alexander's Boy, The Young Falcon.

  The rumblings of discontent, the growing flames of revolutionary fervor, the violent, chaotic disruptions of society, fed by the winds of peasant despair, were heard but from a great distance. The majestic mountain ranges protected the prince's family from these turbulent discontents. Alex was aware that the floodgates would soon break, and he had made the necessary emergency plans for his family's future. Gold had been sent abroad, and the Southern Star had been moved from Nice to Poti. But he was hopeful that the mountains would continue to protect his family as they had the countless mountain tribes dwelling two thousand years apart from the mainstream of history. Perhaps they could remain in their mountain aerie, aloof from the smoldering disintegration of the thousand-year-old empire that was being torn asunder because of disparate, discordant political schisms and an inept, blundering, intractable tsar.

  Alex hoped to remain apart from the fractious dissent, preferring to nurture his family in peaceful solitude. But if that wasn't possible, an escape route had been readied. His prudent caution was wasted on his son, though. The Young Falcon had different ideas, ideas fostered in years of mountain rearing, where the warrior's life becomes all.

  Despite his father's wariness and worldly counsel, the young boy already had quite different ideas. He had c
hosen with all the idealism of youth; bold, sure, and certain of his reasons. When the conflagration came, he rode off against his parents' wishes to fight for his heritage.

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