“I imagine that too,” Natasha said. “All those women shut up together are bound to result in a great deal of envy, spite and jealousy.”
“One can almost say the same of the eunuchs because they are unnatural. They are ironically known as ‘The Keeper of the Rose’ or ‘The Guardian of Delights’, but that certainly does not prevent them from using their hippopotamus-hide whips!”
His eyes were on Natasha as he spoke.
She was looking out into the darkness.
‘Her profile is perfect,’ he thought.
There was no mistaking the pride in her aristocratic little nose and the curve of her lips, nor the winged eyebrows above dark eyes that held now a look of horror.
“Could you bear,” he asked quietly, “to be shut up day after day, week after week, year after year?”
“I am ready to die.”
“I wonder if that will solve your problems,” he said. “Perhaps you will have to come back to live again the life you have so carelessly expended long before you have paid the accumulated debts from your last existence.”
She turned to look at him and he saw her eyes light up.
“You are talking about reincarnation,” she exclaimed. “Were you interested in it before you went to India?”
“I studied all Eastern religions when I was at Oxford,” Lord Athelstan replied.
“My father had some books about it,” Natasha said. “I have always wanted to know more.”
“All I have is yours!” Lord Athelstan replied with a gesture of his hand.
Natasha gave a little laugh of sheer delight.
“Tell me everything you know!” she said.
“Impossible!” he replied. “If I talked all day and all night I could only begin to touch the tip of the iceberg as far as Buddhism alone is concerned!”
Natasha put her arms on the table and cupped her face in her hands.
“If you only knew,” she said, “how much I have wanted to meet someone who was really interested in the East.”
“Why particularly?” Lord Athelstan enquired.
“The two things I have always wanted to do,” Natasha replied, “are to visit India and China and to live in England.”
“Surely a conflicting aim?”
“Not really,” she replied. “I believe that the East can give solace to my soul and the West – personified in England – all that I need physically, especially being able to think and speak freely.”
“I think before we get too involved in the theoretical possibilities of reincarnation,” Lord Athelstan said, “you must tell me about yourself. I know very little about you.”
‘There is very little to learn,” Natasha replied.
“Because you are very young?”
“Because I have done so little – in this life.”
There was a little pause before the last three words.
“You really believe that you have lived before?” Lord Athelstan asked.
“Of course I have!” she answered. “So have you and so has everyone who is perceptive, intelligent and intuitive. Those qualities could only come with living and living fully with learning, with understanding and with experiencing.”
“I wonder if you are right,” he said.
“Look at it this way – ” Natasha began.
They were still arguing and discussing the subject when suddenly Lord Athelstan realised that the rest of the camp was very quiet.
He looked out to see that while the fire was still burning, the men had long since gone to their tents or rolled themselves up in blankets with their heads on their saddles.
Everyone was asleep. Yet Natasha and he had been so interested in what they had had to say to each other that the hours had gone by unnoticed.
“You must go to bed,” he said almost reluctantly. “We have a hard day’s riding ahead of us tomorrow and I would not want you to be too tired.”
“I will not be tired, my Lord,” Natasha answered. “The way we have been talking tonight has given me a new impetus.”
He looked at her with a smile in his eyes.
It was true, he thought.
She looked more alert and there was something radiant and sparkling about her that he had not noticed before.
“All the same,” he said, “I think you need your sleep.”
Even as he spoke, he knew that she was thinking, as he was, that she would have plenty of time to sleep once she was in the Sultan’s seraglio, which was waiting for her at the end of their journey.
Waiting for her to pass through the four doors, two of wood and two of iron, which led to the harem, through the four doors with four great locks and past the Chief Black Eunuch who held the keys.
“Goodnight, my Lord,” Natasha said.
She rose to her feet and he thought how slender she was and remembered the privations that had caused it. Then to his own surprise suddenly he found himself saying urgently,
“Natasha, do not do this! If Shamyl keeps your brother prisoner, then I will negotiate for his release. It will only be a question of money. However much he requires, I will pay the sum!”
Natasha’s eyes went to his face and he saw that there was an incredulous expression in them.
“You, my Lord? But why should you do that?”
“Because I cannot bear to think of any Christian woman in the power of the Sultan,” Lord Athelstan answered. “You don’t understand and how can I tell you? The humiliations and indignities to which a woman, whether she is termed his wife or his concubine, must submit herself before she is allowed in his presence.”
He paused.
“They are instructed in the ‘Arts of Love’, but they are not the arts known to the West or indeed anything understood by someone like yourself.”
Natasha did not answer and he continued,
“It is not so much what you might suffer at the hands of the Sultan that perturbs me. With the hordes of women he keeps imprisoned, it might be years before he chooses you. It is what you must learn in the meantime that appals me. Nothing you have read or dreamt about could prepare you for that!”
He paused to say.
“A concubine, or a wife, approaches the Sultan on her knees and draws nearer to him, starting at his feet – !”
His voice sharpened.
“Can you not understand the significance of that?”
“I have told you that I will die – by my own hand,” Natasha said firmly.
“I wonder, if when the time comes, you will have the courage,” Lord Athelstan questioned. “You will have no gun that would give a quick clean death. Will you really have the determination or the strength to drive a dagger into the right place in your body so that you will die instantly? It’s not an easy thing to do.”
“I am aware of that,” Natasha said sharply.
“And if you fail,” Lord Athelstan said relentlessly, “you will be sewn alive into a weighted sack and drowned, an operation I understand is ritually performed by the bistangi, or garden boatmen, in the presence of the Black Eunuchs.”
He saw Natasha was trembling and continued ruthlessly,
“It is very Russian to hold life cheap, but what else have any of us of any real worth? Just as a baby will fight to live when it is almost too weak to breathe, so I am asking you to live, Natasha, to fight for your existence.”
“I cannot! Do you not understand? I cannot go back on my word!” Natasha cried.
“A word given to a man who is a trickster and a charlatan when it comes to an exchange of hostages!” Lord Athelstan said harshly.
Then, as Natasha did not speak, he stormed,
“Very well! You have made your decision and I have no right to interfere with it. But let us make one thing quite clear, if, when we reach Batoum or Constantinople, the hostages have not been exchanged for Djemmal Eddin, I will not let you go on with this senseless sacrifice!”
He spoke so violently that Natasha looked at him in surprise.
“I shall take you back and damn th
e consequences!” he went on harshly. “Make no mistake about it, Natasha, I mean what I say!”
Chapter Six
They set off early the next morning as swiftly as was possible, but inevitably hampered by the packhorses, which were heavily laden.
The countryside was mountainous and wooded and the road to Batoum twisted round high-peaked hills and ran beside swift-moving streams.
It was very beautiful, but wild and at times the road, washed by the snows of winter, became little more than a track.
Lord Athelstan and Natasha were ahead of their baggage train when they saw coming towards them in a cloud of dust a rider moving at breakneck speed.
Instinctively they reined in their horses, wondering who the rider could be and aware that something must be amiss for the man to be travelling at such a pace.
He drew nearer and nearer, and now they could see that he was middle-aged, conservatively dressed and, Natasha thought, in fact, that he looked as if he was a clerk or a civil servant.
As he drew nearer, he reined in his horse slightly but obviously did not intend to stop. As he drew alongside he shouted, “Tcherkess! Tcherkess!” and, spurring his horse, galloped on again at his original speed.
Natasha looked at Lord Athelstan apprehensively.
He had already grasped the situation and, turning back, gave a sharp order to Hawkins.
In a very few minutes the whole cavalcade had turned up a slight incline and into the depths of a thick wood.
Looking over his shoulder in the direction from which the man had come, Lord Athelstan said to Natasha as the last of the packhorses disappeared into the shadow of the trees,
“Hurry! We must not be seen!”
She realised even better than he did how dangerous the Tcherkess could be.
Those who journeyed to Georgia by way of the Black Sea were always warned of the threat of marauding bands of Tcherkess.
After the Russian seizure of the coast they had been driven inland, but they still lurked in the wild countryside, a danger to travellers and ships that were not adequately protected.
Submerged rocks, mists and the unpredictable storms in the Black Sea resulted in a number of ships running aground or being split in two on the rocks.
When they were not protected by a Russian Man of War, the Tcherkess looked on them as ‘treasure-trove’.
They watched the whole coast from a chain of inland mountains and were always ready to ride down and snatch what they could from their Russian enemies.
They were a rough, murderous and cut-throat lot who were greatly feared and lived entirely by their wits and the proceeds of plunder.
Inside the wood Natasha dismounted, and one of Lord Athelstan’s servants led her horse away to join the others, which had been taken through the trees to a place where they would be not only unseen but also out of hearing.
Leaving three men to guard them, the rest came back to hide themselves behind the trees at the edge of the wood, their guns in their hands.
Natasha went to stand beside Lord Athelstan and he handed her one of his six-barrelled pistols.
No one spoke, they only waited.
Then in the distance, they saw a great cloud of dust and realised that the Tcherkess were approaching.
Nearly thirty of them, they were all tall well-built men, each with a gun slung on his back and a silver-mounted knife in his belt.
They wore long well-fitted coats and black fur-bordered caps.
There was no doubt that their appearance was dashing, Natasha thought, but the expression on their faces was formidable.
They came nearer, riding swiftly, and Natasha hoped that they would pass by, still in pursuit of the man who had evaded them.
Then, when they reached the incline beneath the wood, they drew their horses to a standstill.
They started to talk and argue amongst themselves, laughing at a joke, but at the same time cruel and resolute in their demeanour.
They were obviously trying to decide whether they would go on or go back. Natasha could not help thinking how pleased they would be if they realised that there was a greater prize and far more loot immediately at hand.
She looked along the line of Lord Athelstan’s men, each standing behind a tree trunk with his gun at the ready.
Their numbers were almost equal, but the Tcherkess had a reputation for being crack shots, incredibly brave and afraid of nobody.
If it came to a battle, it was doubtful who would be the victors. Either way there would doubtless be a great many wounded and perhaps a large number of dead.
Natasha found herself holding her breath.
The Tcherkess were very near.
If they should become suspicious that they were being watched, if there should be the slightest noise to attract their attention, they would spring into action.
It only needed a whinny from a horse, the sound of a bridle being shaken, that a man should cough or even move.
The tension was intolerable.
Suddenly Lord Athelstan found a very cold frightened hand slipped into his.
Just for a moment he was still with surprise. Then his fingers tightened over Natasha’s and felt hers pulsating in his like the movement of a bird that has been caught in a net.
Still they waited, still it was hard to breathe.
Then the Tcherkess made up their minds.
With a shout not unlike a war cry they rode back in the direction they had come.
There was the sound of their horses’ hooves galloping away – then there was only the cloud of dust that gradually disappeared over the horizon.
Natasha drew a deep breath that seemed to come from the very depths of her body.
The Tcherkess had gone and now they were safe – at least for the moment!
“It’s all right!” Lord Athelstan said, smiling at her as he might have done to a child.
“They are savages!” Natasha asserted in a low voice.
“I have heard about them,” Lord Athelstan replied. “We were lucky, very lucky that we were warned in time to hide from them.”
He looked at his watch and found that it was just afternoon. He told Hawkins that they would rest for a short while so that the men could eat.
He walked a little further into the wood until he found a small clearing where he sat down on a fallen tree while Natasha seated herself on the mossy ground.
“Did you not encounter bandits and robbers on your journey through Persia?” she asked.
“I am sure there were many of them lurking in the wilder parts of the country,” Lord Athelstan replied, “but the Shah sent with me a number of soldiers so that I was well protected.”
“As the Viceroy would have done had you not refused his offer.”
Lord Athelstan did not reply and after a moment she added,
“If anything had happened to us, it would have been my fault!”
“I cannot allow you to blame yourself,” Lord Athelstan answered. “I took the responsibility of going alone.”
“Only because you were afraid that I might accidentally betray you,” she said. “Now I feel ashamed.”
“There is really no need for you to feel like that,” he replied, “but I will admit it was a rather hair-raising moment! I was half-afraid that, like us, they would choose to shelter in the trees and then we should have had to fight!”
“I was – terrified!” Natasha exclaimed simply.
He remembered how her fingers had quivered in his and after a moment he remarked with a hint of amusement in his voice,
“I am glad to find that after all you can be feminine when it comes to danger!”
She gave a little laugh.
“Why, like all men, do you resent the fact that a woman should be able to fend for herself?”
“I don’t think I resent it,” Lord Athelstan said slowly. “It is just that I feel it natural that women should be protected and looked after by men. That, after all, is what nature intended. Animals fight for their mates and a cock-bir
d will be on guard while the hen is on her nest.”
Natasha gave a little sigh.
“I suppose really that is what all women want,” she answered. “We have an urge for independence, but we know when it comes to brute force that we must rely on the superior strength of a male.”
“And yet you have refused to allow yourself to be protected!” Lord Athelstan remarked.
She knew that he was querying once again what she had decided to do when they reached Constantinople.
She turned her face towards the wood and said very quietly,
“I must do what I think is right! It would be so easy to allow you to convince me that I am wrong. Please don’t try. I could not sleep last night for remembering what you told me.”
“You asked me for the truth,” Lord Athelstan said.
“Yes, I know and now I am more frightened than I was before!”
Lord Athelstan repressed an impulse to start the argument all over again, but he told himself it was unfair.
She was so young, so vulnerable.
He could only pray that something might happen before they reached Constantinople. Perhaps there would be no exchange of hostages.
It certainly seemed before he left Tiflis that negotiations were breaking down, in which case he would send her back with some plausible explanation as to why she was not with the others.
It all flashed through his mind, but before he could speak again Hawkins arrived with food and drink.
It was only intended to be a picnic luncheon, but even so it was delicious.
There were cold meats, fresh salad, pate that the Viceroy’s chef was famous for, fruit and cheese.
There was also a superlative white wine that had been provided from the Voronzov cellars and which tasted like liquid sunshine.
“That was very good!” Natasha commented as they finished.
“You feel more at peace with the world?” Lord Athelstan asked.
“For the moment I do not feel so apprehensive.”
Then she added,
“Perhaps that is not true! What I really want is for this journey to go on forever – for us never to come to the end of it.”
She thought that he would laugh at her and she added quickly,
As Eagles Fly Page 11