Dazzle The Complete Unabridged Trilogy (39 page)

She shut the door softly behind her, and frowning stu
diously, moved slowly along the row of beds, shifting her gaze from left to right, left to right, as she searched for Schmarya's
familiar face. She had to step right up to some of the beds in
order to make out the features of the men who seemingly lay
asleep. Many were awake and greeted her arrival hopefully;
then, realizing she had not come to visit them, they would lie
back resignedly once again. She would favour them with a
smile, a kind word or two, and move quickly on.

And then her heart gave a symphonic surge.

There he was, his head turned sideways on the crisp white
pillow, his eyes closed, his mouth slightly open. Sleeping
peacefully.

For what seemed like countless minutes she just stood there
silently, staring down at him. She felt a warm glow radiating
inside her. His skin was sallow from loss of blood, and his face was gaunt and haggard, but she could see he'd been scrubbed
antiseptically clean, and his hair shone golden. Someone had
even gone to the trouble of combing it.

This was more like it, she thought; this was the Schmarya
she loved. Not that broken, filthy, frightened shell of a man she had found at the prison fortress. She quickly dismissed
that terrible scene as a nightmare from which they'd both
awakened happy, so jubilantly happy that he had rejoined the
ranks of the living that she wanted to yell it to the world. He'd
lost one leg, she thought. Well, thousands of other men had
lost theirs and functioned quite well with wooden prostheses. It was remarkable, the inventions the doctors and engineers
had come up with nowadays. All that mattered was that he
was
alive
, that the gangrenous rot had been severed from his otherwise healthy body, and that he was recovering from the ordeal of the operation quite nicely. One leg or two, she loved
him the same.

Senda was so relieved at seeing him that tears shone in her
eyes. Close up, he still looked shockingly bloodless, but she
was thrilled beyond belief that he had recovered this much in three days' time. If she knew Schmarya, he'd be up and about
as soon as he was fitted with an artificial limb.

She looked around for a chair, spied one on the other side
of the room, and tiptoed to get it. When she returned, she
stared down at him again. His eyes were still closed and his
breathing, quiet but regular, indicated a relaxing, convalesc
ing slumber.

Slowly, without taking her eyes off him, she felt for the chair
and lowered herself into it.

Her expression was rapt with tenderness as she watched him
sleep. For the time being, he was going nowhere. He belonged
to her. And she had never felt happier, more relieved, or
fulfilled. She could feel the radiant glow of her love for him
strengthening and burning with a pure white intensity, and
after what she knew he'd been through, she felt a fierce
maternal protectiveness toward him which she had never
before known. She saw him in a different light now, as more
vulnerable and infinitely more human. As precious as life
itself. Now that he was stripped of his forbidding strength and
independence, she felt herself more a part of him than ever
before.

Her love for him was nearly unbearable.

With a jolt she realized that he had opened his eyes and was
staring warily at her.

'Schmarya,' she breathed softly, bending forward and kiss
ing him. She moved her hand to take his, but he moved it
away, slid it under the sheet. Perplexed at this bizarre behaviour, she nevertheless continued smiling and moved the chair closer to the bed. 'You look so
much
better,' she said warmly,
trying to make her voice cheerful.

He grunted something unintelligible.

Undaunted, she quickly continued. 'When I found you, you
were half-dead. It's a miracle that you're recovering so fast.'

He gave an ugly, savage bark of a laugh. 'You want to talk about miracles?' he snarled, his voice weak but intense. 'Let
me tell you about a miracle, something the Okhrana does to
Jews.'

'Please, Schmarya,' she begged, fighting back the tears but
feeling them sliding down her face nonetheless. From the beds
all around came the rustling of linen, the eavesdropping stares
and quick turning of heads. She could feel the piercing scrutiny
surrounding her, and she wished Schmarya would lower his
voice. 'Say what you want,' she said in a low voice, 'but for
heaven's sake, does everyone here have to be party to it?'

'Well, damn it . . . I'll show you!
Then you
tell
me
whether
I should keep quiet or not!'

Stinging under the rebuke, she bit down on her trembling
lip, fighting to hide her private agony from the prying eyes
around her.

'Look . . . closely, if you like . . .' His voice rose shrilly in
the stillness of the ward.

Flustered, she looked away as he grabbed the corner of the
sheet.

'Look, damn it!'

She turned slowly as he flipped the sheet in the air. It
billowed like a soft cloud before settling slowly at his solitary
foot. She could see that he wore only a long striped nightshirt.
He couldn't wear pyjama bottoms because of the thickly ban
daged stump.
The thickly bandaged, even shortened stump.
'Oh, God,' she moaned silently, 'did they really have to cut
off so much?'

He watched her closely as he lifted the tail of his nightshirt.
'Look!' he hissed.

She looked. And the world exploded in a million fragments.
She clapped a hand over her gaping mouth.

His crotch was as heavily bandaged as the stump of his
leg, with only his shrivelled penis exposed for the necessary
ablutions. And as Schmarya and the bed reeled in her vision,
a whirling dervish out of control, the rush of his words
slammed into her:
'
They castrated me, the bastards!' he
sobbed, tears flowing unchecked down his face. They cut off
my goddamn balls so that I'll never be a man again!'

She held her hands pressed against her mouth, her face
white.

He stared at her, his sobs increasing.
'Why didn't you leave
me there to die?'

She crumpled to her knees, one hand still clamped over her
mouth, the other desperately searching under the bed for the chamber pot. Then she closed her eyes and retched. Between
the rushes of lumpy bile she heard the nurse come running,
comforting her, wiping her mouth, pulling her to her feet.

'Please, Madame Bora,' the nurse urged in a whisper.
'You'll only upset everybody . . .'

Senda stared back at Schmarya even as she was gently pulled
out of the room. A hundred faces were turned toward her,
two hundred prying eyes witness to her anguish. Her tears
seemed to boil, searing her eyes.

She wanted to burrow away somewhere, into a dark, warm
void, a womb where she would be sheltered and untroubled
and safe.

But there would be no time for mourning Schmarya's ter
rible loss. Not tonight, at least.

Whether Schmarya liked it or not, the Prince had saved his
life.

And tonight she had to pay the piper.

Like a hidden jewel, the mansion was tucked away behind high stone walls that hid it from prying eyes.

Senda stood at a window, her warm breath making a halo
of fog, burning a perfect circle through the thin frost sheathing
the windowpane. The night was dark, but she could see a rim
of light from the window of the octagonal garden pavilion
below, its sloping roof and steeple mounted with smooth drifts
of new snow, its fretted white gingerbread eaves hanging like perforated icicles. Suspended incongruously inside the bare,
unheated, glassed-in interior were the crystal swags of an
elegant chandelier.

'When I was a child, I would have loved that little folly,' she
murmured wistfully. 'All those glass panes, the chandelier,
the steeple . . . like a tiny play castle of one's own.'

The Prince stood behind her, so close she could feel his
every breath rippling on her bare shoulders. 'You like it still,' he said softly, 'and so do I. Exquisite, isn't it? It brings out the
child in us all.'

She turned slowly. 'I cannot believe there is a child inside
you still.'

'There is one in us all. Only the games we play are different
when we grow up. That, or we forget how to play at all.' He
paused. 'So you like this house?'

She inclined her head. 'Very much.'

'Good.' He smiled. "Then you must move in here, and we
will use your apartment for a meeting place. It is a pity to maintain this large house for only occasional lovemaking.'

She did not reply and he traced a finger lightly along her
profile.

'A beautiful woman,' he said, 'is like a masterpiece in a
museum. She deserves beautiful surroundings to show her
off.'

Senda did not reply, but walked past him to the
lit bateau,
the enormous mahogany-and-ormolu boat bed draped with
heavy blue-and-gold silk hangings. She scooped her cham
pagne glass from the nightstand and sipped.

She knew that it was time. To do what she had come to do.
There was no use delaying it further. The sooner it was over
with, the better.

'Your daughter,' he was saying. 'Perhaps the garden folly
will please her also?'

She would not allow him to use Tamara as a pawn in this game. It was simply another way to get her to owe him even
more. She looked at him over the rim of her glass. 'She would,
but we like where we live now. Besides, you have done more than enough for us already, Vaslav.' She paused. 'I cannot
repay you for all your kindnesses as it is.'