Golden Paradise

by Susan Johnson

  Nikki had seen the shape or shapes or objects sometime be­fore but hadn't mentioned them, for his primary concern was for Lisaveta. If the storm intensified—a common occurrence in this country—they might not reach the refuge of the caravan­sary; he couldn't take that chance. "We can't wait for them. We've too far yet to go and visibility is decreasing."

  "But they might need help." Even as Lisaveta scanned the area where she'd last seen what might have been two figures, their presence was erased by the blowing snow.

  "I'm sure they'll manage. The natives are experienced with the climate." Every minute counted with the developing storm. Nikki had heard too many stories of lost travelers freezing to death in these blizzards.

  "How long will it take to stop and pick them up?" Lisaveta inquired, reluctant to leave another human being out in this storm. "There!" She glimpsed them again, her eyes straining in the diminishing gray light. "It is two people, Nikki!" And she pulled her horse to a halt, obliging Nikki to follow suit.

  Taking out his binoculars, he focused on the figures. Two native men in black burkahs and fur hats, one apparently helping the other to walk, were making for the military road. Their progress was achingly slow. "They're two native men.

  They know this terrain. They're dressed for winter. They'll be fine." His voice was dismissive. "We should help."

  Nikki looked at her, his black brows drawn together in a frown. How determined was she?

  "The snow's so deep off the road." Lisaveta's statement was in the form of an entreaty, but her voice held an undertone of firmness. "Even if they know the country a storm like this can be dangerous."

  Nikki surveyed her for a moment more, saw he wasn't going to win this discussion and sighed. "Are you warm enough? This will take fifteen minutes or so."

  Lisaveta was wrapped in Stefan's black marten coat, a white fox hat Nikki had purchased in Kars covering her hair. "After days of being cold, another fifteen minutes can't hurt, and we can all rest in the comfort of the caravansary soon,"

  Nikki snapped the case shut on his binoculars and then smiled. "A pleasant thought… if we can find the place in this storm." He was doing this against his better judgment, but the time lost arguing with Lisaveta would probably be comparable to that needed to get these man back on the road. Signaling one of his men to follow, he turned his horse, and pulling his wolf­skin hat down over his forehead, he plunged off the road.

  Even the horses' progress was slow as they struggled through the drifts, and Lisaveta watched Nikki and his partner labori­ously close the distance between themselves and the burkah-wrapped figures on foot. Requesting the use of binoculars from one of Nikki's men, she raised them to her eyes and focused on the horsemen, then moving the glasses upward, she caught the native men in the small perimeters of the lenses.

  The man helping his companion to walk was unusually tall, she thought, and felt her stomach tighten reflexively… an un­conscious reaction she immediately suppressed. The Kurdish tribesmen were often tall, she reminded herself with quelling logic. But still she continued to peer through the binoculars, her heart rate noticeably heightened. The tall man's hands were—

  No! She vehemently denied her sentence's conclusion. She wouldn't allow herself to become irrational. The certainty of disappointment would be brutal. Stefan had burned along with thousands of other bodies at Kars. The rumors were simply that—an indication of his soldiers' desperate wish he were still alive. Like hers.

  Putting the glasses down, she folded her gloved hands over the leather-covered metal. Cautioning herself to prudent thought, she inhaled slowly to still her agitation and thought with a forced calmness how glad she was Nikki was going to the men's aid. The smaller one appeared seriously incapacitated, the larger man supporting his weight as they struggled through the snow.

  No more than a minute passed before prudent caution was cast aside, the glasses were back at her eyes, and she was dreaming impossible dreams even while her rational sensibili­ties were chastising her insanity. She was hopelessly mad, ab­surd, unreasonable; she was a dizzy fool. Tears freeze on your face out here, she reminded herself, so be sensible enough not to knowingly seek misery.

  But the binoculars were still at her eyes and the tall man's shoulders were a certain span and his dark face even in the shadow of his fur cap and burkah hood was aquiline. Like all the Kurdish natives, she coolly prompted her memory.

  But then he brushed one hand over his face in a gesture of fatigue, or perhaps a simple wiping away of the flurry of windswept snow swirling around him, and Lisaveta caught a transient glimpse of luminous green and gold on one finger.

  And she knew the Kurds didn't wear jewelry.

  And Stefan had always worn a gold-and-emerald signet ring. Which hand, which hand? she wondered frantically, but the gesture was past, the jeweled glimmer disappearing into the burkah folds of his companion's robe. She almost cried then of frustration. She was expecting too much, wanting too much She was totally irrational for want of Stefan. But irrational or not, she kept the glasses to her eyes, monitoring through a film of unshed tears the two men's progress. Each step was labori­ous and halting; with sheer physical power the taller man half lifted the smaller man so he could navigate through the deep snow.

  Nikki and his trooper were moving toward the men at a pace far exceeding the walking men's advance, the horses plowing through the snow with all the power and strength mountain-bred ponies possessed. They had covered almost two-thirds of the distance to the native men when the tall man lifted his arm, pushed aside his hood and hat and waved his arm in a sweep­ing arc against the dove-gray sky.

  "Stefan!" Lisaveta screamed, and dropped the binoculars. Hauling on her reins, she dug in her heels and whipped her pony off the road, lashing him into a struggling gallop.

  Stefan hadn't seen her until then; he'd only just distin­guished Nikki, but even faint and faraway and buffeted by the wind, he recognized Lisaveta's voice. Gently lowering the man he'd been helping through the snow, he broke into a stumbling run.

  Nikki, too, had forced his mount into a gallop when he saw Stefan, and they reached each other after what seemed endless minutes. Stefan was breathing in great gasping pants but he managed a smile, said, "Get Haci—he has to be carried," and motioned them past with a wave of his arm. Stefan was so winded the last words were too faint to hear, but Nikki under­stood his message and with a wide smile of acknowledgment swept past him to aid his friend.

  Stefan took two steps more and fell to his knees.

  No, God, no, Lisaveta pleaded, and she bargained her soul in the following seconds as she urged her pony to more speed. Don't let him die… I'll do anything. She offered up every sac­rifice and overture and resolution for the future if the gods would only heed her cry.

  And then Stefan slowly came to his feet.

  "Thank you," she whispered, her throat thick with tears.

  Stefan stood absolutely still and waited, his breathing rag­ged, drawing in great gulps of air to his gasping lungs, not ca­pable at the moment of taking another step. His saber wound on his shoulder had opened again with the effort required to transport Haci through the snow, and he could feel the warm blood seeping through his shirt. But he was smiling. He was gaunt and bone-weary and bearded and weak but smiling, be­cause a miracle had occurred and Lisaveta was here.

  It took nearly five full minutes for Lisaveta to reach him— five motionless minutes, five windswept, snow-gusting min­utes of thankfulness and joy.

  She threw herself off her horse at the end as though she had wings, and crashed through the last short distance of drifted snow in great swooping leaps, despite the weight of Stefan's heavy fur coat.

  Stefan's arms opened in welcome, his black burkah flaring out in dark winged folds, and she fell into his embrace, her hat toppling into the snow, her tears freezing on her cheeks, laughing and crying and wordless against the splendor of her feelings. They held each other in flushed and trembling silence for long moments, afraid to speak lest
they break the spell and the fantasy disappear, wanting only to preserve the spell if it were an illusion.

  They were sweetly warm, engulfed in a heated enchantment as if they alone with their utter joy could melt the snows of Kurdistan. But at last, Stefan tentatively touched Lisaveta's face, felt the corporeal reality of its silky texture, brushed his roughened fingertips across the soft curve of her mouth and dared to say, "You're real."

  Her face was lifted to his, flushed and rosy-cheeked, snow-flakes clinging to her lashes, her golden eyes as sunshine beau­tiful as he'd remembered, her smile more perfect than memory. "I was afraid, too." And her arms tightened around his waist.

  Concealing his wince of pain he smiled back. "I'd dreamed so often the past weeks of precisely this, I thought I'd hallu­cinated."

  "Kiss me, please," Lisaveta whispered, her simple plea un­derscored with fear and uncertainty. Could she be imagining all this in the desperation of her longing? If he kissed her, if she felt the coolness of his lips on hers, could she in safety know he was real?

  "I'll kiss you for a lifetime," Stefan murmured, and touched her lips gently, a sweet aching tenderness filling his heart and soul. The snow blew past them and around them, sparkling crystals falling and melting on their faces, the darkening twi­light of the storm surrounding them, and they were complete and whole.

  "In all the world…" Lisaveta whispered, the reality of their kiss lingering breath-warm on each other's mouth.

  "I was coming home," Stefan answered, his voice husky. He understood her cryptic phrase, knowing that while they both lived, they would have found each other through distance and time and adversity. "But, thank you," he murmured, a small smile creasing his wind-chapped cheek, "for shortening the journey."

  "Nikki let me come," Lisaveta replied, her voice still trem­ulous with emotion.

  "Let?" Stefan teased in familiar mocking irony.

  And she thought how relentlessly strong he was and seem­ingly indomitable, holding her against the buffeting wind, chaffing her with his habitual impudence as though they wer­en't standing knee-deep in the desolate snow-swept landscape of Kurdistan, as if he hadn't been lost to the world for weeks, as though he weren't so debilitated he'd only raised himself from his knees moments ago.

  "You're wounded," she exclaimed, guilt-ridden she'd only considered her own happiness.

  "Not too badly," he casually replied, the blood from his sa­ber cut running down his chest in a sluggish trickle.

  "And I've been thinking only of myself," she apologized. "Let me do something, help you somehow…am I hurting you?" Her arms fell away in self-reproach.

  Stefan grinned. "I'm fine, darling, more than fine now. I could recuperate from sheer joy alone. But Haci, though—" His tone abruptly changed, concern drawing his brows to­gether, his voice deepening. "He needs a doctor. I love you," he went on in another mutation of resonance, "you know that, but—" His arms, too, released their hold and he half turned to gauge the progress in bringing Haci forward. Turning back, he softly said, "He's like a brother to me. He's the only one of my bodyguard to survive." His voice broke briefly as he finished. "He saved my life… and now… I must save his."

  At the road Haci was transferred from Nikki's arms into Stefan's, and they slowly traveled the last few miles to the caravansary. On the way, Stefan related in a neutral voice how he and his bodyguard had stood together in those last desper­ate minutes before they'd been overrun and how one by one they'd fallen. He'd been the last standing and his final mem­ory was the rushing charge of Turks coming in for the kill as he screamed his defiance, his sword raised high. He'd been struck from behind a moment later by a saber blow and blackness en­gulfed him.

  "Haci tells me," Stefan quietly said to Nikki and Lisaveta, who flanked his mount as they rode side by side, "he regained consciousness, found I was still breathing and dragged me away into the cellar of a nearby house until the fighting passed us by. We'd been saved, he said, by two Turkish soldiers falling dead on top of us and protecting us from the next counter-attack."

  Nikki noticed Stefan didn't mention how important that concealment was. It had been a close thing apparently. The Turks routinely bayonetted all enemy wounded. They didn't take prisoners. Their inhumanity extended to their own troops, as well. They brought no ambulances to war, and the handful of surgeons and hospital staff were primarily volunteers from Europe.

  "He found horses after the main assault had moved on and carried me away from what appeared at the time to be a Rus­sian defeat." Stefan's smile was gentle. "Obviously, there was a reversal."

  "Thanks to your charge, the story goes," Nikki said.

  "Thanks to my soldiers," Stefan replied softly.

  "He didn't know the ultimate conclusion of the battle when we left, but there were Turks everywhere, Haci said, so he took me into the mountains. He found a shepherd's hut with enough goat cheese and dried millet stored against next season to sus­tain us. In nursing me back from the grave he endangered his own health. I think he has lung fever…and I didn't know when we started out yesterday whether we were walking into enemy territory or not, but he wouldn't live without medical care so I took the risk. Perhaps we could get to a village at least…. You were a miracle…an answered prayer." He looked suddenly defenseless and vulnerable, as he must have felt knowing Haci needed help or he'd die.

  "Haci must live," he said, exposed and powerless against the angel of death, his voice no more than a whisper. "I pledged him my word."

  They were traveling down one of the deep-slashed ravines, the red sandstone rising like lofty enclosing walls on either side, the wind silenced, the snow falling gently now in the motion­less air.

  "We'll be at Meskoi in less than an hour now, Stefan," Nikki gently said, "and Haci will have help."

  Stefan wrapped his burkah more tightly around his friend, oblivious to his own pain and wounds. "He was raised with me like a brother, we've fought together since we've been six­teen," he murmured, "and I promised him."

  Reaching out, Lisaveta touched Stefan's arm, and when he turned to her, his dark eyes were wet with tears. "Our sons will be friends," he softly whispered. "I promised him."

  "They will be, Stepka," Lisaveta quietly replied, wishing she could bear some of his pain and ease his sorrow. "We're al­most there now. He won't die."

  Chapter Twenty-One

  You are their darling Prince," Lisaveta said on Christmas morning, her golden eyes warm with happiness as she lay be­side Stefan. The heat from the porcelain stove was like sum­mer air, the harmony of church bells mellifluous background to their own blissful pleasure.

  The bells had been ringing in triumph for three full days, their resounding melody echoing sweet joy at Stefan's return. All of Tiflis had turned out to welcome him home.

  The narrow streets of the old quarter had been decorated with garlands of jasmine and laurel, looped from one over­hanging balcony to the next. Every house, rich or poor, had hung out its finest carpets in glowing display. The spacious boulevards had been lined with troops, saluting in the way of the mountain warriors with volleys shot into the air. And over all had sounded the bells, every church pealing its glad tidings that the White General, Prince Bariatinsky, their favorite son, was home. The chimes floated across the misty river, along the steep banks where the bridge built by Alexander the Great still stood, past the Tartar bazaars, where Persian jewelers weighted turquoises by the pound; they reached the dark booths of the Armenian armorers, where the fine gold and silver dama­scened weapons were fashioned. The bells swept past the fret­ted balconies, up the steep hills, through the eucalyptus groves to the palace on the heights and then to the mountains be­yond.

  Stefan lay sprawled at Lisaveta's side, both his arms thrown over his head in peaceful repose, his dark hair and eyes, his entire bronzed body, in stark contrast to the pristine whiteness of the linen sheets. "I know," he said in tranquil surety. "The Orbelianis are well liked." It was a modest statement, consid­ering the ecstasy with which h
is return was being received. "And Papa was admired for his justice and courage."

  Lisaveta marveled briefly at his calm acceptance of the ad­ulation, done without humility or arrogance but rather with a serene grace, both regnant and oddly informal.

  "They're devoted to you," she said, as they would be to a divine ruler, she thought.

  His slender hand reached out to touch the gentle curve of her shoulder. "As I am to you."

  His simple words warmed her. This man whom all of Russia adored and revered loved her. It was heady stuff. But she said softly in the next breath, "I want forever," because she was in her own way imperious. "Am I selfish?" Her question was touched with that dutiful courtesy one learns should supersede egoism.

  Stefan smiled. She always was so much more polite than he. "Don't apologize, dushka. You must always in this world want only the best…" His fingers drifted up her slender throat and traced the perfection of her graceful jaw, sliding upward to end in a silken caress of her gamine brows. "And in all this world I found you," he tenderly said.

  "And I you." He was very beautiful, but more than that, intelligent and kind.

  He grinned. "Thanks to the Bazhis and," he added irrever­ently, "your reckless ignorance."

  "It wasn't my fault they attacked so close to Alexsandropol," she protested, cheerful and unintimidated.

  "Nothing perhaps was your fault except—"

  "Except?" Her pale eyes were amused, although her voice was coolly sardonic.

  "Except for your choices of intellectual pursuit. If not for your research on Hafiz, you would have been safely at home doing whatever women are supposed to do."

  "Supposed to do?" Her sarcasm was a shade less sportive and her expression now demonstrably attentive.

  He enjoyed the small sparks of fire in her eyes, reminded of their first night in Aleksandropol, when they'd amused them­selves with various poems of Hafiz… when he'd first realized a woman could inflame his mind and soul as well as his senses. "Well, you know," he deliberately teased, "play the piano, embroider, drink tea and chatter."