But for now, it was their best chance. They struck out northwest, where the rail line ran through the thick stands of overgrown pine. Vanya had taken Kolya back and Jamie missed the weight of the baby, for the boy had become both a comfort and a part of him over this last year. He felt so protective that he could not sleep at night unless Kolya was tucked up beside him, his heavy breathing weight the thing that kept Jamie tethered to the planet, traveling along this invisible road leading, he hoped, out of the Soviet Union—hopefully before the wolves shed their reservations about eating them. They walked heads down, for the snow had begun to fall thick and fast, large, wet flakes that clung to their clothes and eyelashes. They walked in silence much of the afternoon and Jamie was considering that it was time to stop and set up whatever sort of camp they could manage when Vanya exclaimed aloud.
“Yasha—look!”
Jamie looked up, wondering what the hell it was now: a tribe of bears, a herd of moose, half the Soviet Army? He cleared the ice from his eyelashes, peering through the thick fall of snow to make out the humped form of something very large ahead… and smiled.
There it was, one of the abandoned rail cars that apparently dotted the countryside, right here with pine trees growing up to the doors and rust coating its sides. Tonight they would sleep soundly and not have to worry about either the wolves or their fire dying down.
The doors were stiff with long disuse and screeched as Jamie and Vanya pried them open, setting off a shower of rust into the pristine snow that coated both the car and the tracks below. Inside it was filthy with time and neglect but it was only a matter of securing a few pine branches and sweeping things down. A tiny stove stood in the corner and a clouded mirror hung askew on one wall. There was a table too, and a chair that had long ago succumbed to the depredations of rot and insects, suggesting that someone had sought sanctuary here for a time and made of this rusty car a home. It begged the question of what had happened to that person, though no one voiced the question aloud, for superstition about their own fate prevented such queries.
Shura took Agrafina with him to find some leaves and shrubbery that she could eat, while Vanya went to forage for more wood. There was a small pile of dry kindling and split birch to start a fire, which Jamie did before changing Kolya and feeding him.
They ate sparingly but well that night. Shura managed to trap a wild hare in the woods and cooked it with some roots, which were bitter, but at least filling. An old tin bucket proved sturdy enough to hold water so they filled it with snow and melted it down enough times for each to have a bit of a wash.
It was Jamie’s turn to take the first watch so Shura and Vanya bedded down right after dinner and were asleep in a matter of minutes.
Jamie sat on an upturned birch log and hoped that he could stay awake until it was Vanya’s turn, for the warmth and relative safety of the train car had a soporific effect. The night breathed out chill vapors but inside the train car it was warm next to the potbellied heater, glowing red with birch logs. Kolya was fed and Agrafina was curled up in a corner sleeping the sleep of a righteous goat. Shura had found her some grass in a relatively snow-free patch under a birch tree. Kolya slept deeply, face gilded soft in the light of the fire. His hair was coming in thickly, a rich, deep red-gold like coins immersed in whiskied honey. His weight was low but should they survive this trip, that could be remedied swiftly enough.
Jamie was too tired to rein in his thoughts completely, though he did manage to hold them back from Violet. His strength was low and he knew he could not endure that just now. The grief was a double-edged axe above his head, ready to drop and obliterate him should he allow it. But home—that he might manage tonight. Home. It seemed a ridiculous notion—a house, warmth, as surreal as the villages they passed by in the dark of night. As if it were only a place he had dreamed once and vaguely recalled. It was enough right now to imagine that he might get there and be able to sleep and eat and drink an entire pot of tea.
He wondered what had changed in his absence. How old would Pamela’s child be? How would Patrick be managing now, with time and distance from Sylvie’s death? How had his businesses fared in Pamela and Robert’s hands?
During his musings, his eyes were drawn over and over again to the corner where the mirror hung. He realized he had not seen his face in some time.
He approached with a certain amount of trepidation. The mirror was dusty and slightly green around its edges and he had to give it a good rub with his coat sleeve before it gave him any sort of reflection. He took a deep breath and looked.
He stumbled back, entire body tingling with shock at the sight of the stranger in the mirror. The man facing him bore little resemblance to the man who had entered that long, low cabin so long ago. His beard was full and incredibly scruffy, a fact for which he was currently grateful as it had shielded his face from the worst of the wind. His hair had grown out unevenly over his ears. He looked a perfect madman, the bit of skin he could see reddened and cracked from the cold and constantly living in the elements. He might have just crawled from the cave, wild and stinking and without a trace of civilization upon him. He sat down on the birch log again, his entire body shaking, wishing suddenly that Shura was awake to distract him with Gregorian chanting or that Vanya would say something sarcastic and take the sting from the reflection he had just seen.
He then made the mistake of looking at the table. They had not sat at it for dinner. Lacking chairs, there seemed little reason to and they were used to merely sitting in a circle and shoving their food in with their fingers. But now he took in what sat upon the table and felt what was left of his defenses crumble.
For there on the blackened wooden top, long wrapped in cobwebs and dust, sat the traditional offering of Russians to strangers: flowers, bread and salt. It was then Jamie cried, cried the tears that he had not cried in all these long months of stone and cold. For though the flowers were long wilted to mere skeletons, and the bread would, at a touch, turn to dust and the salt was clotted with damp, still these were signs of humanity, of a fruitless hospitality for someone who might never come. Yet, it had existed, and still did somewhere in the cold reaches of this godforsaken land.
Chapter Eighty-eight
… Away Homeward With One Star Awake
Awakening after their first night in the train car, it was to find another foot of snow and more still coming down in great drifts, and that the entire car was circled in the large and discomfiting paw prints of wolves. They were still exhausted and knew it would be beyond foolhardy to venture out across the land right now. Wisely, the decision was made to hole up until the weather settled. It gave Jamie a chance to reassess the direction in which they were traveling and re-orient himself within the landscape.
The snow continued to fall for three days. The train car was well hidden and might be entirely shrouded in snow if it didn’t stop soon. It wasn’t likely anyone could track them here but Jamie was seriously considering that there might be a homicide within the car if they didn’t leave soon.
“I swear on my mother’s grave, I’m going to choke him if he doesn’t shut up. Doesn’t he know what country he’s in? He must be a spy,” Vanya said, narrowing his eyes at Shura, who was whistling a jaunty Georgian tune. “No Russian has ever been that happy.”
“No, you won’t choke him because if anyone is going to kill him, it will be me,” Jamie rejoined darkly, adding another chunk of pine to the fire, causing it to spit and hiss.
Vanya grunted as if to say they would see about that, should the moment present itself.
As though he sensed the short string by which his life currently dangled, Shura turned and grinned at them both, the ball of wool on his cap bobbing in a ridiculous manner, his one gold tooth gleaming against the rapidly falling dark.
He had just finished cheerfully regaling them with the umpteenth story of wolves killing humans. The last had been about a wolf that bod
ily lifted a young farm worker by the throat and scaled a meter high fence with her still clenched in its jaws. Pursued by angry peasants, it had still managed to carry poor Anya several hundred meters into the forest before abandoning her lifeless and bleeding corpse. Being that their wolves were still vividly present, Jamie and Vanya felt the stories were in somewhat dubious taste. On top of that, Kolya had been fussing all afternoon and seemed utterly inconsolable.
“Shura, could you sing something?” Jamie asked. “Maybe that will calm him.” While also putting a halt to the lurid lupine tales, Jamie hoped. Vanya breathed a sigh of relief and settled back into his wrappings looking, even after all their time in the wilds, like an exotic and elegant creature, something dreamed of by Diaghilev.
Shura chose a song Jamie himself had taught him months ago. He was shocked that the man still remembered it.
She stepped away from me and she moved through the fair
And fondly I watched her move here and move there
She went away homeward with one star awake
As the swans in the evening move over the lake.
Shura’s voice rode the dark over the softly sibilant movement of the fire, the notes seeming to dance upon the air then fly up the chimney with the sparks toward the star-salted sky. His deep voice melted the lyrics into something unbearably poignant. During the music, Jamie could feel Kolya’s weight shift to that dream-filled landscape of a baby’s sleep.
By unspoken consent, they all bedded down without the usual nightly exchange of words. Jamie took the first shift tending the fire for he didn’t slide as easily and deeply into sleep as Shura and Vanya. He wanted time to sort his thoughts and to plan, as much as one could, for the next day. Tonight though, his thoughts were not ordered and tended toward panic—like a bird with wings that suddenly cannot fly but is stuck firmly to the edge of a cliff, with only one way off it.
He had walked the track that day and found that it ended abruptly some small way up the line. If his calculations were correct they should be near the border, soon to slip out from under the dark penetration of the Empire’s eyes. But if outward signs were any indication, they seemed still to be stumbling through the vast white wasteland of Russia. How easy it was to make a miscalculation, in a country this large, was only too apparent to him and was a thought that had hagridden him since the beginning of their mad flight.
He gave himself a mental shake, knowing he needed to focus so that his worry and panic would not communicate itself to his companions come morning. He had to look like a man with a plan whether he had one or not.
He added more wood to the fire, every cell in his body protesting against leaving the warmth of the furs. It was colder tonight. It was officially winter, Russia’s longest and most merciless face. The train car was warmer than being outside in the elements but it was still very drafty, the rust having eaten almost through the walls and roof in places. Through one such hole he watched as the fire stirred and caught, releasing a rush of sparks in violets and golds, small transitory constellations into the night. He watched them rise until they winked out far above him in the night sky.
He crawled carefully back into the furs. Kolya, small chubby fists clubbed under his chin, did not stir. Already changes were occurring in him—a more stubborn set to the chin, his legs lengthening, his eyes not as dark as at birth, but of a hue that mirrored the skies. Bits of his mother and his father, heartbreakingly present.
Because his mind had been rigorously molded by Jesuits, Jamie had long had the ability to compartmentalize his thoughts, to tuck away grief and yearning and to move forward into the future with his baggage safely stowed. But Russia had stripped him of some of that ability, the camp honing and whittling away at his essence until he was down to his essentials. But without the guards he had previously used to navigate through the shoals and razor sharp reefs of emotion. It was as though he was missing a layer or two of psychic skin, and could not deflect pain and worry, as he had once been able to do. So during his shift of caring for the fire, his thoughts finally found their way to Violet.
He missed the weight and warmth of her beside him at night, missed the security that had been found there, missed the soft half-spoken murmurs as one or both of them slid down into sleep. In their sleep and the mingling of dreams under a billion stars, they had become one, or so he had thought. And now he did not know how to let go of her hand, even though she was gone, far gone and he could not find her no matter how much he might search amongst the snow and the trees and the great cathedral of frosted air that hung there around him.
I dreamt it last night, my true love came in
So softly she came that her feet made no din
As she laid her hand on me and this she did say
It will not be long, love, ‘til our wedding day
The howling of the wolves woke him before dawn. He sat up and checked automatically for Kolya. The baby was there snug by his side and still fast asleep. He had eaten well the night before and should be good for another hour or two before his belly woke him.
Jamie slid out of the furs and pulled his coat on over the layers of sweater and shirts he wore to stay warm at night. The fire was glowing with coals so he loaded it up from the stack of dry pine they had brought in from snags yesterday. Both Vanya and Shura were still soundly asleep, the security of the train car allowing them to dismiss the wolf howls from their dreams.
He wrapped his scarf securely around his mouth, ramming his woollen cap down over his ears so that a minimum of skin would be exposed to the frigid air.
The snow had stopped and the air was incredibly clear, the dawn just nudging its way up along the horizon, a narrow band of pale grey showing through the trees. The air was cold enough that a breath of it sent crackles of pain through his lungs.
The wolf was sitting only twenty feet away, his shadow blending with the colors of the morning and the dark hollows beneath the trees. He was silent. It had to be one of his companions that Jamie had heard howl. He could feel the unwavering, golden eyes alight in the pre-dawn dim. There was no sense of threat, as though the wolf were merely curious, or drawn by some inexplicable force to stand here eye to eye with him. It was the big male with the smoke-blue ruff and white legs and underbelly. The leader. It was odd for him to be away from the main body of the pack, sitting here solitary. The wolves had to be far outside their territory after following them for five days.
A bare flicker in the corner of his eye and he knew it was too late even as he turned to face the black wolf that had used Jamie’s distraction to creep slowly through the trees. Some part of him acknowledged his fate. To die here in the open was not the worst thing that could happen to a man. He had prepared Vanya for this possibility so that he might lead Shura and Kolya out of this land. The border was very close. Jamie knew it with a surety that had eluded him only hours before. The two men could care for Kolya until they reached the sanctuary of his home. This too he had told Vanya. For there was a woman there who had the care of his home and interests, and though he did not tell Vanya this, a part of his soul. She would care for Kolya for the sake of their friendship.
Even as he turned the wolf was at full arc, black body stretched in the moment before the kill. Jamie could see death in the clear amber eyes.
Death did come, with swiftness and brutality as was so often its way in this frozen land. But it was, this time, not calling upon him. The wolf at its apex, teeth bared, dropped to the ground by his feet with an audible thump. An arrow, still trembling, stuck deep into its side.
He saw them then, hidden in the snow and shadow, tribesmen, dressed in reindeer coats and breeches with the soft boots that allowed them to walk in silence across the snow and ice. They emerged like shadow dancers and for a moment he thought they might be a mirage from too many days in the blinding white of this land. Their arrows were nocked and ready for flight, a short trip between their draw hands and his tende
r flesh. He didn’t know what they wanted and did not know how to ask. He put his hands into the air, to show he had no weapons, no defenses against their greater numbers. He thought of Kolya still asleep in the car behind him, of Vanya and Shura still unconscious too. He supposed if they wanted him dead, they could have allowed the wolf to do the job for them and just picked up the remains after.
He stood quiet, allowing them to approach, their arrows still nocked and at the ready. He could feel his heart thudding slowly, his blood chilled and his mind fixed to a calm point like it often was in situations fraught with danger.
They were arguing about what to do with him, he realized. Though their language was unfamiliar the movement of bodies was universal in its speech. One man seemed to favor simply trussing him up and leaving him for whatever wolves might still be lingering. The other reached up, tore Jamie’s woolen cap off and pointed to his hair, saying something sharp. The other man shrugged, then reached up casually and hit Jamie over the head with something hard and heavy.
Chapter Eighty-nine
The Mother
He awoke to the sound of water pouring into tin. He opened his eyes and quickly shut them again as the room swung around him. He opened them more slowly the next time and realized it wasn’t a room at all, at least not one of wood and lathe. He was in a tent—with a pyramid roof, its walls hung with skins that looked like reindeer. Being that his last sight had been of the reindeer-drawn sledge he had been thrown into, this made a cautious sense.
He attempted to sit up and found his head would allow it, though just. A woman in skins was filling a tub with steaming water, the high planes of her amber face glistening with the heat.
But before she cooked him in that tin pot there were things he needed to ascertain. He wasn’t certain where he was, nor just who had kidnapped him. Nor, more specifically, why. He sat up fully, finding himself on a bed of skins and naked as the day he was born.
Flights of Angels (Exit Unicorns Series Book 3) Page 92