Lord Athelstan kissed her hand again and then she was escorted from the room, while the interpreter scurried away to relate to the Imam exactly what had been said with doubtless some elaborations of his own.
Lord Athelstan would have gone back to his own room but Hadjio, the Steward, came to tell him that a feast had been arranged for his men and he wondered if his Lordship would be interested in seeing the dancing.
“We have few visitors,” Hadjio explained, “and tonight therefore is an occasion for rejoicing amongst our people, who, because they are not fighting men, never leave Dargo-Vedin.”
Lord Athelstan did not say that he could not imagine a worse fate, but he thought it. Wrapping his fur-lined cloak around him, he followed the Steward into one of the outside courtyards.
He knew that Shamyl would not attend such a function, nor would his wives be allowed to do so, but it seemed as if everyone else in Dargo-Vedin was there.
A small space in the centre had been left for the dancers and there were torches of tarred wood, which flared high into the clear mountain air and flickered on dark faces and flashing black eyes beneath black sheepskin papakhs.
It was seldom that Shamyl’s Murids had time for entertainment other than that of fighting and killing and Lord Athelstan could feel an atmosphere of excitement that seemed to throb like the music as they waited for the dancers.
Caucasian music was usually sung to the accompaniment of duduks, which were reeded pipes and a three-stringed cithern, which made a plaintive sound that was somehow in keeping with the mystery of the mountains.
And there was a drumbeat, monotonous and hypnotic, which was, as Lord Athelstan knew, part of the leaping, wild and violent sword dances that would later be performed by the warriors.
Now, as he seated himself in the chair of honour, women sidled shyly into the centre of the courtyard to begin a lesghinka.
The dancers had long flowing sleeves with which to shield their faces besides the inevitable veils.
The lesghinka was a dance of conquest and of mating. It started slowly, the dancers moving almost reluctantly until when the rhythm quickened and the drums began their furious passionate beat, the women were joined by the men.
They circled around them, hemming them in, advancing as they retreated.
It was strange to watch, the light from the torches glinting on the daggers in the belts of the dancers and to see their eyes flashing lustfully and to sense a response in the kohl-encircled eyes revealed above the ever-moving veils.
All folk dances were made to excite, to titillate and to evoke desire. Lord Athelstan, glancing at the intent concentration of the spectators, knew that in this the lesghinka was successful.
He applauded and only when the sword dances began did he return to his room.
There long after he was asleep, the beat of the drum still continued and the sharp cry of the warriors as they grew more excited and more abandoned rang out in the darkness.
Lord Athelstan, however, was tired and he slept well.
*
In the morning he was woken early by Hawkins.
“Did you enjoy yourself last night at the dancing?” Lord Athelstan asked.
“I’ve seen better, my Lord,” Hawkins replied grudgingly.
“Did you learn anything of interest?”
“Only what I told you before, my Lord, that the Imam is losin’ many of his followers. In my opinion it’s only a question of time before them Russians win.”
This only confirmed what Lord Athelstan had thought himself and in a way he could not help feeling sorry.
For over twenty years the incredible Shamyl had held the Russians at bay and had forced them to expend men, guns and energy on the Caucasus – resources which might have been utilised elsewhere to England’s disadvantage.
From the English point of view Shamyl had been an asset, even though they had done nothing to help him.
To the Russians he was a continual thorn in their flesh and Lord Athelstan wondered what mercy they would show him once he was completely defeated.
It was, however, time to go.
He made his formal farewells to the Imam who said that as a great mark of honour he personally would lead them part of the way.
Lord Athelstan knew that the Imam was still hoping almost against hope for help from England, but he accepted the gesture with some well-chosen words.
Then they all repaired to the courtyard where the horses were waiting.
As always, Shamyl was simply dressed in black, but his horse was caparisoned in crimson leather.
The whole Seraglio gathered in the courtyard to see them off and for the first time Lord Athelstan saw the children of Princess Anna and her sister, the little Tchavtchavadzes running around Shamyl, talking to him in some language that they both appeared to understand and making a nuisance of themselves under the horses’ hooves.
The Imam swung himself into the saddle and then, setting his horse at the gate ahead, started off at a gallop.
Lord Athelstan saw that the Great Aôul was surrounded by three separate walls. In each was a low portal barely high enough for a rider to pass through it even when he bent low over his horse’s neck.
The Imam never slackened his pace. As he approached each gate he swung himself low over his horse’s side and at once rose again to stand up in the stirrups, flinging himself down again only a split second before the next gate.
It was the most dashing display of horsemanship Lord Athelstan had ever seen and he watched almost open-mouthed, as did the rest of the people.
Then they rode away encircled by the Murids, their black banners streaming from their lances, their warlike cries being swept away from their lips by the violence of the wind.
Once again after they had left Shamyl, there were the frightening cliffs to descend, the ravines to traverse and the cascades to cross.
It was a repetition of the hardships they had suffered on their way to Dargo-Vedin as they slithered down thousands of feet and climbed again up what appeared an impregnable precipice to reach a path hardly wider than a sheep track winding along the mountain side.
As the day progressed, a faint sun appeared, the wind dropped and it became warmer.
Now they were going South-West and Lord Athelstan thought with pleasure that in Georgia the spring would have come and the snows would have melted.
It was only high in the Caucasus that the winter winds seemed to linger longer than anywhere else and he wondered why the Princesses had not died in their prison with the sheer cold of the dark winter nights.
If Russia was a land of extremes, so was the Caucasus, although it was difficult to compare the two in his mind when he thought of the strange, unpredictable and extravagant land to which the Princesses owed not only their breeding but their courage.
Nothing they had ever known, however, could have prepared them for what they had to endure in Dargo-Vedin.
Just as Russia must have struck the young Djemmal Eddin as a fantastic Fairyland of marvels, so in retrospect to the Princesses it must have seemed a lost Paradise.
Who could describe to Shamyl, who had never left the Caucasus, the beauty of the great Palaces in St. Petersburg or the splendour of the Court balls that had overwhelmed even the most cosmopolitan of Europeans?
Lord Athelstan could remember the gigantic chandeliers lit with a thousand candles in rooms festooned with garlands of hothouse flowers.
He could recall the glitter of the enormous mirrors that lined the walls between marble colonnades of rose, sulphur yellow or deep crimson.
Had Shamyl ever seen anything like the colossal urns of malachite and lapis lazuli or the heavily gilded furniture upholstered in silk?
Could he visualise the Princesses when they had waited on the Czarina in the traditional Court dress of velvet with ermine-trimmed trains, wearing jewels of such value and such splendour they seemed too heavy for the long swanlike necks that were among their most beautiful characteristics?
‘In a short while they wil
l be back in the world they know,’ Lord Athelstan reminded himself, ‘and then they will forget all they have suffered.’
Yet he was certain that anyone with as much character as Princess Anna would bear the scars of what she had undergone for the rest of her life.
And what of the Countess Natasha?
He found himself shying away from the question, unwilling to think of her problem or to try and decide in his own mind what was best for her.
Was it to be a lifetime in the Caucasus with one of the semi-barbarous, handsome but uncivilised Naibs or to be incarcerated in the over-scented luxury of the Sultan’s harem, never again to speak with anyone of intelligence and to live a life of utter stagnation?
It was not the physical terror of what awaited her that would be so hard to endure, but the fact that not only would her body become fat and soft without exercise but her mind also would deteriorate.
All aristocratic Russians were highly educated. It was fashionable to have English Nannies and French Tutors. And being used to their own complicated language, the Russian children found everyone else’s easy to learn.
What was more, all the arts were encouraged and fostered in St. Petersburg.
It was almost impossible for a Russian girl of rank to be brought up as ignorant as her English counterpart was allowed to be.
Everyone from the Czar and Czarina downwards attended the opera and the theatres. Poets, historians, authors, artists were welcomed and lionised.
For the men there was every kind of sport and for the women, clothes and jewels beyond the dreams of even the most extravagant European Court.
The Russian temperament could never do things by halves and that was why, Lord Athelstan told himself, it was possible to swing from the austerity, piety and fanatical dedication of Shamyl to the eccentricities of those who served the Czar.
It was typical that Shamyl had left his distinguished prisoners in the rags in which they arrived and equally typical that the Czarina Elizabeth owned fifteen thousand dresses.
He remembered when he was in St. Petersburg hearing how wealthy nobles sent their bailiffs to Dresden or Sèvres to purchase huge dinner services.
When they had been laboriously brought to Russia by wagon, there would be a gigantic feast and after it the dinner service would be used as a target for a shooting contest.
Who could explain Russia or understand it?
Lord Athelstan recalled that the Countess Saltikov’s favourite hairdresser had been kept in a cage in case he should be tempted to work for anyone else.
The great Russian houses were staffed with an incredible number of servants. Countess Orlov, for instance, had eight hundred and always complained that she could never get any tea when she wanted it.
It was all wildly incredible, just as he thought it would be hard to convince people of the difficulties he had encountered in reaching Dargo-Vedin or the life the great Imam lived as half-warrior, half-Prophet.
They pitched their tents the first night after leaving the Great Aôul in the shelter of some plane trees growing beneath a gigantically high mountain.
A meal was prepared for Lord Athelstan by his own servants and it was very much more appetising than the one he had eaten as a guest of the Imam.
When it was finished, he slept on his own soft mattress filled with goose feathers with its silk-covered cushions and fell asleep instantly.
*
He slept dreamlessly and awoke with the feeling of anticipation of what lay ahead.
Today, although it would be a long march, they would leave the Caucasus and reach the boundaries of Georgia.
He was looking forward to staying with the Viceroy of the Czar in Georgia as had been previously arranged and he knew that when he had time he must set down in a report for the Foreign Office his impressions of Shamyl.
The Kabarda stallions that the Imam had presented to him were a gift Lord Athelstan greatly appreciated – in England he had a fine stable and was considered an excellent judge of horseflesh.
He decided to ride one and told Hawkins to have his saddle transferred from his own horse to his new acquisition.
When he came from his tent, Lord Athelstan found that the Murids were waiting for him, the sun glinting on their silver knives.
As they saluted him, he thought once again how handsome they were. He could understand that a great number of people looked on them as demi-gods.
As they moved off, leaving some of Lord Athelstan’s servants to dismantle his tent, the Murids vied with each other in horsemanship.
They swung under the belly of their mounts, stood up in the saddle, rode with the reins in their teeth and took incredibly dangerous risks although the ground was uneven and it was easy to stumble inadvertently into a crevasse.
But it was all very good-humoured and when the first exuberance had quietened down, Lord Athelstan talked to many of the men, finding out if they enjoyed life that consisted of little except fighting and killing and riding away to fight again the next day.
As he well knew, the pulse of Caucasian life was a battle and, if they had been offered any other sort of life, they would not have appreciated it.
Lord Athelstan stopped briefly to eat and to water the horses and then pushed on again.
It was only when it was growing late in the afternoon and the light was fading that they came round the side of a mountain to see ahead of them the lush rolling plains of Georgia.
There was a distance of about three miles before they actually crossed the frontier and the Murids drew their horses to a standstill.
“This is where we say goodbye, Your Excellency,” the Naib who was in charge said.
“Then I must thank you for your care of me,” Lord Athelstan replied. “I am exceedingly grateful.”
He gave the Naib a small timepiece as a present and a purse of money to be distributed amongst the men, which he knew would be appreciated.
Then, with many exchanges of goodwill, the Caucasians turned and galloped away into the dusk. One moment their black banners were dark against the snow, the next – such was the speed at which they travelled – they were out of sight.
“We will go down into the valley,” Lord Athelstan said to Hawkins, “and camp for the night.”
“Very good, my Lord.”
Hawkins relayed the instructions in a variety of languages to Lord Athelstan’s own staff.
They were men of many different nationalities whom Hawkins had picked up on their travels, choosing them only because they would be loyal, strong and trustworthy and quite regardless of their colour or creed.
Lord Athelstan never questioned Hawkins’ decisions – he had an instinct for choosing the right men.
Never once in all the difficulties Lord Athelstan had found himself in had he ever been let down by his servants.
He rode ahead now, thinking that tomorrow night he would be in Tiflis and sleeping in a comfortable bed.
It never worried him to live rough, but at the same time he did not believe in discomfort for discomfort’s sake, but only as a means to an end.
What was more, he was looking forward to meeting Prince Voronzov, the Viceroy, again, a man for whom he had a great admiration and who lived in enormous state. After the Imperial family, the Voronzovs were the first in Russia.
The last three miles down the hill was hard going, the terrain was rocky and treacherous and the horses were tired.
It had been a very long two days and though Lord Athelstan would not have admitted it, he too was feeling slightly fatigued.
He had enormous strength and great stamina, but the cold winds, which never stopped blowing, were as hard to endure as an incessant noise might have been and at the moment he was feeling hungry.
Finally when they reached the lower land and found the flat plateau on which they could encamp, there was just enough light left for the servants to pitch the tents which had been carried on the back of the pack horses.
Lord Athelstan’s tent was particularly luxurious
. It was made to be almost completely weatherproof. There was a Persian carpet for the floor and because he used it when he was travelling for interviews with personages of every grade of importance, it could be divided into a sitting room and a bedroom.
In the least time possible, Hawkins had a table set for dinner.
There was hot water for Lord Athelstan to wash and a bottle of wine, which had quite unnecessarily been further cooled in a clump of snow, was opened.
He changed as a matter of course from the clothes he had worn all day.
It was part of the self-discipline that he expected not only of himself but of every civilised person with whom he came into contact, that they should wash and change before dinner.
He came from his bedroom into the sitting room.
There were two servants to wait on him, supervised by Hawkins. They too were wearing clean clothes.
It was not a long dinner, but it was an excellent one and, when it was finished, Lord Athelstan lit a cigar.
Sitting back in the collapsible chair that was carried by one of the packhorses, he accepted a glass of brandy and felt at peace with the world.
The servants withdrew to have their own supper and Lord Athelstan sat thinking of what a strange journey it had been and how Shamyl had exceeded his expectations in being even more magnetic a personality than he had anticipated.
‘He is a great man,’ he told himself.
Then, as he extinguished his cigar, he thought the sooner he went to bed the earlier he could rise and be on his way to Tiflis.
He finished his brandy.
Then, as he set down the glass, there was a sudden cry.
“Wolves, my Lord! Wolves!”
It was Hawkins’ voice sounding the alarm.
Lord Athelstan flung on his fur-lined cloak and reached for his pistols.
Chapter Three
It was cold outside, but not the biting ice-cold of Daghestan.
It was dark, but there was a faint light from the stars, which cast a luminous glow on the white snows above them.
As Lord Athelstan reached the little knot of his men who had already taken up their positions facing towards the mountains, he could see, as his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, moving shadows.
As Eagles Fly Page 4