The Longest Winter

by Mary Jane Staples

  Slowly she withdrew her arms and sat up. She realized then how her body ached, how icy her feet were, how dry and wretched her mouth. And the hem of her petticoat felt coldly damp around her ankles. She stood up. Her knees were stiff. James moved and turned over. His head rested on her handbag. She picked up his woollens and went to the entrance. The light in the east was pale, the dawn still and silent. The sun would soon be up. She slipped off her petticoat and sidled into the open. She laid petticoat and pants out over flat rocks.

  In the east the pale light strengthened and soft colour began to invade the neutral sky.

  Chapter Seven

  A man sat on a stone ledge high in the hills. In his fifties, he was black of beard and immense of girth. A shaggy fur hat was on his head, his dark grey woollen shirt was worn over a cotton one and his black baggy trousers were tucked into his boots. A cartridge belt was around his waist. A rifle, its butt on the ground, rested against the ledge. The man Lazar was talking to him.

  ‘Describe them again, my friend,’ said the bearded man, called Avriarches.

  ‘The women? Again?’

  ‘Again.’

  Lazar described the baronesses. Graphically. Avriarches picked his teeth with a splinter of wood. Occasionally he spat. Sometimes he smiled. Lazar had a talent for describing women. Apart from that he was a rat-faced runt. Or so Avriarches thought.

  ‘But you’ll have to be careful,’ said Lazar, ‘Ferenac thinks they’re aristocrats.’

  ‘So you keep saying. Does it mean something to Ferenac? It means nothing to me. They’re all the same under their petticoats. Except that these, who knows? I might send them back after a month or two and collect a pretty price for them. If I can catch them. If I don’t I’ll break someone’s teeth for wasting my time.’ Avriarches spat. ‘You say they slipped Ferenac? Who is this Ferenac?’

  ‘One of the chosen,’ said Lazar.

  Avriarches showed big teeth in a huge smile. It made Lazar shift uneasily on his feet.

  ‘Chosen?’ Avriarches’ laugh was a gusty bellow. ‘God must have come down in His world to choose a man who can’t even keep a pair of flying petticoats in sight. What is he chosen for?’

  ‘To put an end to the archduke. He must get to Sarajevo this evening to meet others there. He doesn’t want these people to get there before him, he doesn’t want them to get there at all. They know about him, he says.’

  Avriarches, eyes wandering in apparently lazy fashion over the steep, sloping hillsides to the winding river far below, said, ‘Idiots and incompetents, all of you. And what’s one more archduke to worry about? There’s always a dozen to take the place of the one before. Sit down. Don’t move. Some of my men might be here soon. They shoot anything which moves in these hills.’

  ‘I know that,’ said Lazar. He sat, then went on grumblingly, ‘It upsets people at times.’

  ‘Oh, people,’ said Avriarches carelessly. He surveyed the panorama above and below. The early morning sun was softening the bleak ridges. Far beneath them the river seemed a narrow, winding ribbon of shining light. Straggling pinewoods were tiny blotches of green. ‘That is where the women and the man disappeared?’ he said.

  ‘Somewhere there,’ said Lazar, pointing downwards. ‘That’s why Ferenac sent me up here to find you. Yesterday I only saw one of your men.’

  ‘I don’t appear in person for every pipsqueak. But so, last night I received your message. I was to come and collect the women. This morning, here I am, and you tell me they have disappeared, that I am to find them for myself.’

  ‘They’re hiding and if anyone can flush them out it’s you,’ said Lazar. ‘We only ask that you let us have the man. Ferenac wants to silence him and Dobrovic wants to talk to him. You see, he almost killed friend Dobrovic, who has lost some teeth and needs a new nose.’

  ‘Almost?’ Avriarches was disgusted. ‘He’s a weakling, then. I know that Dobrovic, nothing more than another runt. The skinniest of my women could eat him.’ The big Greek spat again. His eyes, as hard and as bleak as the stone, moved in restless search. ‘See here, my friend, I don’t like this. I hope I’m not being foxed. Look, there’s nothing, and it’s well after dawn. They wouldn’t wait as long as this to creep out of their hole. Either they’re not where you think or they’ve slipped your chosen one again. If that’s the case, what am I doing here? My time, pipsqueak, is valuable. I’ll wait only a little longer.’

  He could wait patiently when necessary. It had a way of bringing its rewards in the end. He had learned this and so much else from his father, a man supreme in his trade, God rest his roaring soul. It was his father who had taught him that laws were made by authorities to cripple men. It was the duty of any self-respecting man to reject all laws made for him by governments. Strong men of inviolable self-respect made their own laws and cracked the heads of anyone who did not see eye to eye with them. True, his father had been forced to leave his country, Greece, because of the prejudices and hostility of successive governments, but all the family retained fine, colourful memories of their homeland. What a living they had made, what tigresses of women they had tamed, what a mote in every government’s eye they had been. There you could dance on the top of a hill all day, drawing the fire of sweating lawmakers who couldn’t have hit an ox stuck in a shop doorway.

  Of course, when they had brought the army in to make things a lot more uncomfortable than the police, his father had finally left the country in disgust. But Bosnia had provided good new ground for a man of his ability.

  He, Avriarches, had become chief of the band when his father, as drunk as a fiddler at a gipsy wedding, had fallen off a mountain ledge in the best traditions of his kind. He had not disgraced his father’s memory. He could roar as loudly, rob as rumbustiously and, if necessary, cheat the devil himself.

  It would be something to catch up with the Austrian women whom that pipsqueak Lazar had been on about. Especially if they were aristocrats. It offended the authorities mightily when he abducted any woman of substance. They kicked up the devil of a racket and swore to slit his throat or hang him once and for all. They often sent soldiers when he made this kind of trouble, but it took more than the provincial soldiers of Bosnia to corner Avriarches, son of Old Devilguts, as his father had been called. In any case, he usually returned women of substance after a month or so. Their fathers or husbands were glad to pay and to say nothing. No man liked to shout about the fact that his wife or daughter had spent a single night, let alone a month of nights, with Avriarches.

  Austrian women. Yes, that would panic the Bosnian authorities and turn the Austrian governor red with rage. There would be swarms of police and soldiers. There would be a few fireworks, but they would bargain with him, like they always did, like they always had to when the safety of delicate hostages was in the balance. Well, life had been rather quiet lately. This could be enjoyable. And afterwards, a price for the pretty pair? No, not a price. A ransom.

  Avriarches smiled hugely.

  But that runt Lazar had better be right. If anticipation as pleasurable as this led to disappointment, he’d split the hills with the weasel’s head.

  He watched. He would watch for ten minutes more and then, if there was still no sign, he would call up his men and have them flush the whole valley. But better first to convince himself he could not localize the search.

  James shifted. He winced at the cramping pains. He had slept, after all, and more heavily than he would have believed. The fitful naps had finally lengthened into spells of welcome sleep. Suddenly aware of light, he sat up violently. That was the light of a risen sun. Damn, he thought, they should have been up and away at dawn. And Sophie, for God’s sake, there she was, sitting at the entrance, her back against the wall, her knees drawn up and cradled, her head resting. She was dozing in full view of anyone across the river.

  He rushed at her, pulled her back into shadow. Her head jerked up.

  ‘Sophie, you idiot!’

  Sophie stared bemusedly for a moment. Then
angry pride flushed her face.

  ‘You are speaking as one idiot to another, I presume?’ she said stiffly.

  ‘Why the devil didn’t you wake me?’ He was dark, bristly, scowling. ‘We ought to have been out of this place thirty minutes ago.’

  She could have told him she let him sleep on out of compassion, that she herself had dozed when she did not mean to. Instead she said, ‘I am sorry I am such a disappointment to you, but you will understand of course that I have the natural failings of every idiot.’

  ‘Oh, Sophie.’ He shook his head at her, brought her to her feet. Sophie, hurt and unusually sensitive, kept her face turned away. ‘Sophie, don’t you realize you could have been seen?’

  ‘I’ve said I am sorry.’

  Anne groaned and woke up. James went to help her to her feet. Anne winced at her stiffness. He checked his impatience, smiled at her and rubbed her hands. Sophie, comparing this with his treatment of her, turned her back on them, shocked to feel tears stinging her eyes. Anne winced again, this time at the pain of rushing pins and needles.

  ‘We must go,’ said James.

  ‘Yes,’ said Anne, ‘but I look a dreadful mess, don’t I?’

  ‘We both do,’ said Sophie in a tight voice, ‘and James is a disillusioned man this morning.’

  James looked at them. They were dishevelled, their clothes creased and dusty, their white shoes scratched and stained. But he saw beyond all that. He did not give a tinker’s cuss for their state or care if they ended up looking like scarecrows as long as he delivered them safely to their parents. And the baron would be out again this morning, looking for them, that was certain, just as it was certain that he had been out looking for them last evening.

  ‘Considering everything, you both look very good to me. Sophie, was I a little rough with you? I’m sorry.’ He put an arm around her shoulders as he went to the opening, giving her a squeeze that asked her to forgive him. He felt her quiver. ‘Sophie?’

  ‘Oh, I am sorry too,’ she said huskily.

  ‘We’ll manage,’ said James. He put his head out and looked around. Everything seemed ominously quiet. The sun was on the river, the foam a frothy white around wet boulders. He licked dry lips. A quick dash down over the rocks and he would reach water. And be a clear target. No, they must wait before they ventured to the river, they must edge out of the cave and make their way along the foothills, using the mounds of strewn rock for cover. He glanced to the right and saw his pants and Sophie’s petticoat laid out in the sun. The garments looked dry. A stiff morning breeze suddenly gusted, ruffling his hair and tickling the petticoat. It flirted with the lace hem and lifted it.

  High above them Avriarches rose to his feet. He had been patient long enough. His eyes made their final search. They glinted. Far below, where the hillside rose from the sloping riverbank, he discerned the tiny flutter of something white.

  He smiled.

  ‘Wait here,’ he said to Lazar, ‘and when my men come show them the way I’ve gone. How long you’ll have to wait will depend on how long it takes them to fill their bellies. They don’t breakfast on goat’s milk.’

  He began to make his way down the ridged, precipitous hill. He was light for all his girth. He carried his rifle and hummed a song as he descended. The fluttering white had gone. But he knew where they were now.

  * * *

  James did not bother with his pants. He drowned them in the pool while Sophie put on her petticoat. Then they all emerged quietly and carefully and began to edge their way around the curving face of the hillside. Progress was slow, the jumbled piles of stone and the huge boulders as obstructive as they were protective. Feet scraped, slithered and slipped over layers of broken stone. The light was starkly bright after the darkness of the cave and Anne, heart in her mouth, felt they were as vulnerable as beetles exposed under lifted timber. Sophie was taut with nerves and James full of anxieties. But at least they were no longer cold. At times during the night they had all thought they would never be wholly warm again, but their scrambling urgency in the morning sunshine chased away all chills, and perspiration was soon wet on heated bodies. Gnawing hunger was for the most part strangled by knots of fear, but dry mouths became drier, their thirst made worse by the sight and sound of the river.

  But James would not let them descend to the river, not yet. He could not see the course of the valley in front, for they were negotiating a long, sweeping bend of river and hillside. The vegetation thickened on the far bank. On this side the bank was a mass of fallen stone that spilled into the water. Footholds became precarious as the incline steepened, the girls leaning against the hillside and clamping to it at times. James urged them on. His sense of uneasiness made him sweat. Rocks and boulders lessened as the sloping bank shelved even more sharply. If any of them slipped they would tumble or slide all the way down to the river.

  Anne kept gasping, ‘Oh, dear, oh, dear.’ But she went on and Sophie moved with her, face pale, teeth clenched, her pointed shoes a pain to her feet. Bodies were hot, the morning sun a hard brilliance on smooth stone. As long as they kept close to the hillside they could not be seen from the rear, the curve of the valley hid them. James breathed with relief as the slope became kinder. Spewed boulders again offered solid cover. The curve was straightening out, he could see more of the river ahead, the woodlands widening on the other side. He spotted a point where they might risk going down to the water. And at that point the river was so littered that there was a negotiable causeway of stone. There they could cross and take to the woods again and then, if all went well, climb the far slope up to the road, which lay a little distance back but which roughly paralleled the line of the valley.

  ‘There,’ he said, pointing to where the rock piles were like tumuli and would give them cover, ‘we’ll go down to the river there.’

  ‘Water? Water?’ said Anne, eyes showing dark rings. ‘Oh, lead on, dear James.’

  He took them down the slope between the high tumuli and they reached the river. They knew that at the water’s edge they had no cover, but it was a risk they had to take. Anne and Sophie sank to their knees, cupped their hands and drew the water up to their parched mouths. James lay on his stomach and dipped his mouth in. He knelt up and washed his face clean, taking the dried blood from his forehead. He looked back. He saw the curving line of the ridged hill and the heights above. They were harshly bright. Ledges and shelves were sharp. The briefest flash of reflected light leapt to his eyes as the sun ran along the polished barrel of Avriarches’ rifle. James went cold. There was someone up there on those precipitous slopes. He strained his eyes but the flash did not recur.

  ‘Come along, my pets,’ he said lightly, ‘we don’t want thunder and lightning to strike. This way.’

  Sophie and Anne stared at the causeway of jumbled stone. Foam and spray played around it in places.

  ‘Are you sure, James?’ said Sophie.

  ‘It’s better than getting wet.’

  ‘Well, I still have faith,’ said Sophie, ‘and I promise you I shall not break my neck.’ She smiled at him. ‘I am not such an idiot as that.’

  ‘Sophie, you’re beautiful,’ said James. He mounted the first stone and helped each girl up in turn. He led and they followed. The causeway was broken, uneven and slippery. Sophie took her shoes off, Anne followed suit. James took the shoes, carrying all four by their straps, and they moved from stone to stone. The spray showered skirts, rained around feet. Anne teetered and swayed, the river a foaming, angry rush on either side. Sophie steadied her, James looked back, turned and steadied them both.

  The river wind whipped at them, warm and brisk. It tossed the fair hair of Anne and wound it around her face. It took hold of the rich chestnut tresses of Sophie’s hair and whirled them about her head. They stepped down, they stepped up, their stockinged feet clinging, James leading them the easiest way he could devise, and although their teeth were set and the rushing waters frightening they did not falter. He jumped into the shallows from the last rock.
He carried Anne clear of the water to the bank and returned for Sophie. She let herself down into his arms. She was warm, flushed, and almost exhilarated. She put her arms around his neck.

  ‘James, no one could say this is dull, could they?’ she said.

  ‘No one could say you are,’ he said and carried her to the bank. He set her down. She and Anne slipped their shoes on and James hurried them up the bank into the shelter of the pines.

  If he wondered about that flash of light in the hills, the girls did not. They had not seen it and he made no mention of it. Sophie felt a sense of comparative security in the woods, Anne a simple sense of relief that they could not be seen. They hastened over the carpets of dry needles. James veered to the right, wanting to see if the ascent to the road was negotiable. It was not. The pitted, craggy slope, marked by tufts of dry grass and stunted bush, was far too steep for the girls to climb. They had to go on. They went on. The trees and undergrowth became thick and lush, creating a humidity that made perspiration run. They flew on urgent feet whenever they could and fought their way through hampering undergrowth whenever they had to. Sophie kept losing a shoe, James kept retrieving it. Its heel began to separate from the sole. He hammered it against a tree.

  ‘Thank you, James. I am responsibility enough without a silly shoe making it worse.’

  They stood for a moment, breathing hard. Sophie, seeing how dishevelled Anne was, how the perspiration darkened her fair hair around her forehead and stained her apple-green dress under her arms, felt that she herself must look awful. Her garments were sticking to her body and heat that was clammy had her in its embrace. James would never sketch her again except as an object.