Lisaveta looked toward Militza for support. "We could bring some of the grooms… for added safety."
"I'm sorry, my dear, Nikki's right," Militza replied, regret and apology in her tone. "Stefan wouldn't want you to risk your life."
"I'll keep you informed of my progress," Nikki offered, "and send back reports."
"When will you leave?" Lisaveta inquired politely, as though she weren't determined to accompany him, as though her mind weren't already organizing the provisions she'd require for travel in a war zone, as though her bland expression weren't hiding a tumultuous excitement. If there was the slenderest chance Stefan were alive somewhere between here and Istanbul, between here and hell itself, she intended to find him. In fact, when she'd first heard the startling rumor yesterday of the sightings, she'd smiled, as though the words alone had brought him back to life. Once her initial rush of joy had been mitigated by more logical realities and a flurry of questions to Militza, she'd cautioned herself against treacherous dreams, had reminded herself of the magnitude of the fire sweeping Kars. But her spirit had steadfastly ignored practicality and reason; her spirit had begun to hope. And now Nikki was here like a gift from God. Her guide, as it were, in her search.
"I'm leaving in the morning," Nikki replied in answer to Lisaveta's casual inquiry. "Militza's kindly offered the use of Stefan's stables."
"Cleo's back, you know." Her voice was mild but inside she was giddy with elation. Had Cleo's escape been a sign?
"Yes, I'd heard." Militza had taken him to see Stefan's horse directly after he'd arrived at the palace. Eyewitness accounts reported Cleo had been taken as a trophy when the Turks had overrun Stefan's forward position. She'd been hauled rearing and squealing from the scene only to return to camp three days later. And Nikki had thought on hearing the story, had Cleo known Stefan still lived that day? Animals had an affinity, a closeness to their masters beyond the understanding of man. Had she fought to stay with him and returned to his tent to wait for him? Even now she seemed restless and unquiet; she'd tried to break out of her stall twice, Militza had said. It wasn't the normal despondent behavior of a pet mourning its master's death.
"Stefan's been seen with a companion, I understand." Lisaveta's face was no longer pale but infused with vitality and the flush of health. Not only her wishful dreams were involved now. Nikki's presence here indicated a serious plausibility; he wouldn't have taken on this journey without some credible evidence. "Are the same stories circulating in Saint Petersburg?"
"I only heard of a companion once." Nikki didn't mention that the single fact of Haci's name had brought him south for fear of kindling impossible expectations. "The accounts have generally described him alone, in native dress. No mention's been made of wounds or illness, but surely he had to have been seriously hurt. If" Nikki carefully added, "the rumors have any substance at all."
"Thank you for taking on this… mission of verification," Lisaveta calmly said, sure her heartbeat could be heard pounding clear across the room. She studied Nikki for a cautious moment, fearful he'd noticed her agitation.
But her cousin seemed to accept her statement at face value. "If nothing else," he said quietly, wanting to make his own expectations clear, "the myth of resurrection will be nullified."
"Yes, of course," Lisaveta agreed, congratulating herself on her novice acting abilities, simultaneously deciding her fur coat was a necessity for the highlands' autumn climate. "Militza," she said by way of disassociation, "one of Stefan's coats will fit Nikki, don't you think? Perhaps the black marten." Did that sound suitably acceptant and passive?
"Why, yes, I'm sure it will," Militza said, concealing her relief at Lisaveta's apparent concurrence.
And the day progressed in preparations for Nikki's journey.
Lisaveta and Militza were up early the following morning to wish Nikki and his escort Godspeed. Provisioned for a month, they carried additional warm clothing, for snow had been falling sporadically in the mountainous heights near Kars since September, and November weather could be extremely cold at those altitudes. Nikki promised to telegraph each day so they could follow the direction of his search, and with his clearance from the Tsar, travel in the war zone should not present problems.
Lisaveta pleaded a headache after Nikki's departure, a complaint Militza viewed as reasonable after their busy schedule yesterday. She then retired to her room and swiftly changed into a serviceable leather split skirt and matching jacket made for fall riding. Into a knapsack she'd pulled from Stefan's closet she crammed an astrakhan jacket, one of Stefan's wool sweaters, a scarf, riding gloves, a knit cap, a change of underclothing and an extra blouse. Snapping the clasps shut, Lisaveta tossed the bag on her shoulder, and creeping silently down one of the servants' staircases, she exited the palace through a side door near the kitchen.
The grooms were startled by her request but obeyed without question, and in twenty minutes Lisaveta and two of Stefan's young grooms, hurriedly equipped for travel, were on Nikki's trail.
Chapter Twenty
They overtook his party shortly after midday because Nikki and his men had stopped to lunch and Lisaveta, counting on that eventuality, had pushed on.
"I suppose I'm not surprised," Nikki grumbled, waiting in the middle of the road for her to reach him, his gloved hands braced on his saddle pommel. He'd observed Lisaveta and her escort through his field glasses ten minutes before and, swearing a blue streak, had pulled his horse to a halt.
"I don't imagine I can convince you to turn around and go back to Tiflis," he growled as she cantered up. Each word was a blighting rumble.
"I won't slow you down," Lisaveta declared, full of cheer and unaffected by his annoyance, her cheeks flushed a healthy pink from her ride. "I promise." She was five hours out of Tiflis, perhaps five hours closer to Stefan, or at least, if nothing else, she was accomplishing something other than her aimless walking the past weeks through the great empty corridors of Stefan's palace.
"You might harm the baby," Nikki admonished, his black hair whipped by the wind coming down from the highlands.
"Native women ride until they deliver. I'll be fine."
"If you were a native woman," Nikki sardonically replied, "I wouldn't be concerned."
"I won't go back." Her terse statement was in the style of an imperial edict, and Nikki, married to a woman of singular independence, recognized the tone. Lisaveta's hair was tucked up into a scarlet wool cap and she looked very young in her green leather riding costume despite her air of royal prerogative.
"You will slow us down," he asserted, "if I'm allowed the last word." He was smiling now, very faintly, but smiling. He was familiar with assertive women, and he was damned, he thought, with a small resigned sigh, if he didn't admire her pluck.
"If it makes you smile, cousin Nikki," Lisaveta replied with charming acquiescence, "I'll always allow you the last word."
"Or near to it," he teased.
"Yes," she sweetly replied.
They traveled southwest for a week, climbing steadily out of the more temperate climate of Tiflis into the chill mountainous regions approaching Kars. Four days before they'd changed into their fur coats, and they were stopped more often now so Lisaveta could warm up occasionally at a camp fire and walk a bit to maintain the circulation in her feet. But they also halted often to question the native populace about Stefan.
The Kurdish nomads inhabiting the high plateaus around Kars were well acquainted with the Orbelianis, their liege lords until a scant two decades ago when Russia had nominally replaced the old feudal systems of authority. The individual tribes were still faithful to the Orbeliani interests over and above their employment as irregular cavalry to a variety of paymasters. If Stefan had appeared among them, even had their employer been the devil himself, they would have protected him.
But none of the tribes had seen him, neither as pilgrim nor wounded soldier, although all had heard the stories; not a single new scrap of informati
on was gleaned from the natives on their journey upland. Last week the Turkish army had retreated yet again, they were told, and was moving now toward a last stand at the walled and fortified city of Erzurum, for with the fall of Kars the war had turned decidedly in favor of Russia.
They soon overtook Russian troops bound for the offense on Erzurum and often stood aside to let the ambulance trains pass on their trek back to Aleksandropol. Each time, Nikki spoke to the officer in charge: Had they heard any more rumors? Had anyone of Stefan's description been seen? In the case of the ambulance trains, he'd asked to see any unidentified wounded. He wouldn't allow Lisaveta to view those unknown soldiers for most were a heartrending sight.
But the answers were always no. Everyone was aware of the rumors, but not a single person had any more information than the hearsay they already knew. And each day took them deeper into the unpopulated highland, brought them nearer Kars, left them with an intensifying sense of isolation. With winter almost upon them and the snow increasing, the nomadic tribes had disappeared, moving southward to better grazing land. As the miles passed, the movements of troops and wounded became more infrequent, as though the desolate landscape had swallowed up the tiny specks of humanity traveling across its snow-covered vastness.
Their search for Stefan or some trivial clue to his whereabouts that some soldier or officer or local native might recall seemed at times overwhelmingly impossible, a Herculean task sure to defeat their puny human efforts. Even if Stefan had survived the crematorium blazing across the field of Kars, the land was too large, too harsh and inclement to sustain an injured man, too isolated and bereft of habitation.
The morning of their last day of travel before reaching Kars was bitterly cold. Although their tents had been pitched out of the wind in one of the deep ravines slashing through the snow-drifted plateau, and Lisaveta had slept under fur robes, she was freezing when she woke.
"You shouldn't be here, Lise," Nikki said, wrapping his coat around her and helping her settle near the fire. His dark beard, which had grown out during the passage south, was rimmed with frost, his face reddened by the cold.
"I have to, Nikki," she answered, her eyes burning golden bright. "I'm fine." But her face was without color and he could see the effort it took her to keep from shivering.
"Here, this will take off the chill." He handed her a steaming cup of tea from a small trivet placed near the fire. One more day, he decided; they'd talk to the commander left at Kars, and if he couldn't substantiate the rumors, they'd return to Tiflis. He couldn't further jeopardize Lisaveta's health. "Perhaps today," he said with an encouraging smile, "we may hear something."
Lisaveta smiled over the steaming cup she held to her lips, grateful for Nikki's kindness, forever indebted to him for his determined search for Stefan's remains. She wasn't insensitive to the odds they were facing, and while she dreamed of finding Stefan alive, she knew in her heart the possibility was almost negligible. But this journey was her own private pilgrimage— of hope and need and mourning. Tomorrow she'd grieve her husband's death at the site of his last victory.
The stories of Stefan's rallying charge, the monumental importance of his storming of the western fortifications, his cavalry's heroic stand against the counterattack, which allowed the infantry time to scale the heights, had been related to them every day of their passage south. The recitals had come from officers and enlisted men, from the wounded soldiers returning home and from native warriors who passed them on their travels back to their home villages. All had regarded Lisaveta with the deference due Stefan's widow, calling her "little mother" and kissing her hand, wishing her health and happiness, offering blessings on their child. She'd never realized completely until that journey into the mountains how Stefan had been worshiped and universally loved by all segments of society, by people who had had the good fortune to know him as well as those who only knew of him for his heroic deeds. And each time another person spoke of Stefan with reverence and admiration, she thought how lucky she had been: he had loved her.
Their final day before Kars was silent, conversation difficult when everyone realized their quest had been fruitless, their destination very near and no additional clues unearthed.
"We'll stay the night," Nikki said when the citadel came into sight, an enormous stone fortress spreading across the jagged escarpment, protected on two sides by the hundred-foot drop to the Kars River below. "In the morning we'll talk to the commander, and then if you feel strong enough, we'll start back to Tiflis by midday."
Lisaveta's first impulse was to refuse, but she was aware that Nikki's tolerance had been pressed beyond his or anyone's limit. His voice, both weary and resolved, indicated that any refusal would be useless. "I'd like to see…where Stefan… died," she softly replied, "and then I'll be ready to return." She understood this was the end of her pilgrimage.
Nikki's sigh condensed in the brittle cold air, only to be swept away in the next moment by the strong northwesterly wind. "We'll talk to the commander," he said, "but you know the fires destroyed almost everything."
"I understand— It would help, though, to see the location. I want to know," she said very softly, "where he was last alive." She had come this great distance for confusing and myriad reasons. She longed for hope that Stefan might have survived, but mostly she simply wished to stand in the spot where Stefan last stood and feel him around her; she wanted to breathe the air he last breathed and look out on the scene he saw before he died.
And the next day, after an evening with the commander and a warm bed and the comforts of a well-prepared meal, she and Nikki were taken to the location where Stefan and his bodyguard had stood back-to-back against the Turkish assault. The area had been restored to order, the charred remains removed and buried, the paved square hung with black crepe, a memorial of captured Turkish regimental banners erected in the center of the square. At its base were the farewell offerings of the soldiers Stefan had led to victory. In place of flowers, which were unobtainable in the autumn cold of Kars, his soldiers had left him personal mementos: pictures of their mothers and sweethearts, ribboned medals, small painted icons of patron saints, a favored good-luck charm, a warm jacket or boots, as if Stefan might have need of them, oat straw for Cleo, whom everyone recognized as his favorite charger, jeweled rings of great value. All were offerings from the hearts of the men who would have followed him through the fires of hell itself, and nearly had in the assault on Kars. And nothing had been touched although no guard was posted.
Lisaveta had carried no extraneous baggage with her, so when she wished to leave something for Stefan's memorial, she had nothing of value. Even her wedding ring she'd left behind against the threat of brigands. So her offering was as humble as that of his lowliest soldiers: Slipping off her fur jacket, she pulled Stefan's wool sweater over her head and placed it beneath the Turkish pennants.
"So you'll stay warm," she whispered, kneeling on the frozen ground, tears streaming down her cheeks. "I miss you…so much…." Her breath swirled in wisps on the icy air; her shoulders shook gently with her quiet grief. If only I could hold you and keep you warm, she thought tearfully.
Nikki dared not let her cry, for it was so cold her tears would freeze on her cheeks. Reaching down, he helped Lisaveta up, his gloved hands gentle on her arms. "He'll never be forgotten," he murmured in condolence, slipping her fur jacket back on her shoulders. "The whole nation loved him…." His voice was husky, his own feelings overcome by the poignant evidence of how much Stefan's men adored him.
His death was real, Lisaveta thought sadly, gazing at the benevolent festooned monument of affection. Stefan was truly dead… it was over. Letting Nikki lead her away from the regimental flags and mementos, she faced the stark and merciless truth: the man she loved—the man all Russia idolized and admired—was dead because his courage wasn't shield enough against disastrous odds, and his bravery, ultimately, had only allowed him to die a more gallant death. There was no poi
nt in staying any longer, she knew. Nikki was right. Politely declining the commandant's invitation for lunch, she said she wished to return as soon as possible to Tiflis. Stefan's aunt had been left alone and was worried for their safety.
They were back on the road north within the hour, the sun shining brightly as if it approved their decision and were offering the comfort of its warmth for their journey home. But inside Lisaveta felt only a cold emptiness, merciless as the terrain they traveled through. She had wanted so much for the rumors to be true, just as a child wishes for a cherished fantasy to be real, but the harsh reality of Kars had shattered that dream. Tomorrow, perhaps she could begin to think of her future; tomorrow, perhaps she wouldn't feel such wrenching despair. But today she felt drained and heartbroken and so bleak each breath seemed an enormous effort, every mile endless. And as though the universe at last took notice of her sadness, the sun began to dim, the sky turned milky gray and snow began to fall.
In a very short time the wind picked up. Familiar with the storms of that country, Nikki decided they should make for the caravansary at Meskoi. "We should hurry," he said across the small distance between their ponies, the flakes like a fragile veil before their eyes. "We'll wait this out at Meskoi. Are you able—"
"I'm fine," Lisaveta interjected, hiding the misery she was feeling. "Really…" she added in calming response to Nikki's frowning anxiety. "We can pick up the pace."
A moment later the small troop was cantering down the frost-hardened road, evidence of their passage wiped away behind them by the blowing wind and drifting snow, even the sound of tack and bit and bridle muffled by the squall.
A short distance down the road, some miles yet from the shelter they sought, Lisaveta suddenly reined in and said, "Look." She pointed at what looked like two distant figures, small dark shapes across the great expanse of open plain, lost to sight from second to second by the gusting snow.
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