Tempting Fate (8 page)

27 March, 1918

Colonel Alexei Sergeivich Genadov

Ahkno Palace

Nevsky Prospekt, Petrograd

Colonel Genadov:

You have already had the reports of the rest of the company left to guard the prisoners at the Monastery of the Victory at Konstantinovka, and doubtless you agree that the escape of nineteen of the men guarded there was inexcusable. I do not wish to dispute that, because I believe that such a judgment is fair. However, I wish to protest the death sentence given to all the men in the company. Those who were billeted in the village were unaware of what was happening at the monastery and therefore should not be held responsible. Only Acting Captain Yuri Yureivich Garin, Acting Colonel Dmitri Mihialovich Rubashek and I were at the monastery when the escape occurred, and it is only the three of us who ought to bear the responsibility for it.

It is the stated policy of the new government to mete out justice with true impartiality, and if that is the case, then I ask that this sentence be reviewed so that men who were in no way involved with the escape be exonerated. Without doubt the three of us who were there are guilty and deserve the penalty. The rest have no share in it, and it is wrong that they pay the price of our inexcusable neglect.

You yourself have stated that it is the intention of the military court to make an example of our little garrison. If that is in fact what you intend, then make an example of those officers responsible, and do not condemn blameless soldiers to die for the errors of their leaders.

I would also like to take this opportunity to point out that one of the reasons so much of the garrison was in Konstantinovka rather than at the monastery was that our supplies had run so low that if the men had remained at the monastery, there would not have been sufficient food to provide sufficient meals for half of them, let alone for the prisoners. As it is, of those prisoners who did not escape, two froze to death, one died of the fever, and six starved. The supplies promised us were never delivered, and the villagers, after two grantings of food and drink, refused further assistance because of the inadequacy of their own stores. If the prisoners who had escaped had remained at the monastery, many of them would have died, as there would have been no way to feed them.

As you have been informed, of the nineteen prisoners who escaped, sixteen have been accounted for: the other three have probably perished, since the winter storms interfered with our pursuit. Such a hunt should not have been necessary, and it is our fault that it was, but those three men might have got away in the course of moving the prisoners to Petrograd, as was planned.

I beseech you to have the men who were in Konstantinovka attend the execution of Garin, Rubashek, and myself, but spare them. You will have better and more dedicated service from them if you do, and I will not feel that I have unwittingly brought about the deaths of my men.

In gratitude for your attention, I most respectfully sign myself

Nikolai Ivanevich Rozoh

An appended memo in Colonel Alexei Sergeivich Genadov’s hand reads:

Rozoh’s point is well-taken. The firing squad for Garin and Rubashek and the full Parade of Dishonor for Rozoh, all the men of the Monastery of the Victory garrison attending. Rozoh can then be sent to one of the regiments on the Polish border in as menial a capacity as we can contrive. A man willing to do so much for his soldiers should have some recognition. When the hostilities are over, Rozoh can be sent to join the other pioneers at one of the Siberian outposts.

Has there been any more learned about the three prisoners still missing?

4

Frost had hardened the ground, spangling the dried stalks of plants so that they glistened under the moon. Wind sloughed in the branches of the distant trees and fanned the last of the embers into winking red eyes before passing on across the ice-girded lake. Wraiths of smoke slipped out of the ruined stables, fleeing the burned buildings as the horses had done more than twelve hours ago. Spring had made only the most tentative headway here, although April was half over.

Ragoczy rode out of the woods where he had waited since sundown, his dark eyes impassive as he looked at the destruction around him. He had seen a great deal of it in the last five days—ruined bridges, rails twisted like party ribbon, blackened and gutted buildings, barges overturned on the riverbanks like beached fish, always accompanied by carnage. Since he left the dasha with Duchess Irina Andreivna Ohchenov, two weeks ago, he had felt himself condemned to Dantean hell, and the deepest pit not yet reached.

He drew in his horse as he thought of Irina. With any luck she would be in Poland now, in the company of her cousin and his family. He told himself again that it was the wisest course for her; he could not offer her the protection her cousin did. At first Irina had been reluctant to accompany her relatives, insisting that she would be safe at the dasha as long as Ragoczy was with her, but they both knew this was not so. Spring would signal the return of revolutionary forces, and then there would be no protection for any of them. Irina had asked Ragoczy to go with her, but he had explained gently that this was not possible. Kiril Lukovsky might welcome his widowed cousin Irina, but it was unlikely that he would be as generous with her foreign lover. Finally Irina had consented after demanding that Ragoczy make every effort to contact her once he was out of danger. She already knew that her cousin intended to go to Paris, and so she quite optimistically said she could be found there within the year. Whatever his private opinion—and he was inclined to doubt her assurances that the journey would be easy once Russia and her territories were left behind—he gave her his word, kissed her hand and embraced her with passion one last time before they parted. He looked at the smoking wreckage and wondered if the dasha still stood.

More than burning and vengeance had been done here: the stables had been robbed of all but two ancient plows before the fires were started. Only one rickety cart with the characteristic Russian bowed yoke still leaning against the wooden planks of the driver’s seat remained, obviously left behind by the raiding party that had visited the estate. No livestock were left in the pens, and gates standing ajar gave mute testimony to the fate of the missing animals: the revolutionary band was large and the men were hungry. Even the chicken coops, with walls punched out of them to give access to the rabbit hutches on the far side, had not been neglected.

The manor, some little distance from the stable, was a charred hulk now, collapsed on the west side where crude bombs had been hurled through dining-room windows. It had been left to burn, for the revolutionaries were still zealous enough to look with contempt on the gauds of the nobility. That, Ragoczy knew from long experience, would not last. In time, very little time, the insurgents would deck themselves as lavishly as their former overlords had done.

Ragoczy touched his mount’s flanks lightly with his heels, and the chestnut gelding started forward cautiously, his ears pricking, his nostrils distended. He whickered nervously, ready to bolt the moment Ragoczy relinquished his masterful hold on the reins or the firm pressure of his knees.

He was almost past the chicken coops when Ragoczy heard a high, thin wail, piercingly intense but not very loud. The chestnut jerked his head up in alarm, muscles bunching for a sprint. Ragoczy steadied him and looked around, scowling in sudden concentration.

The sound came again, more loudly, in angry gasps, and Ragoczy realized that it was the sound of a child crying.

The chestnut sidled and almost bucked as Ragoczy dismounted. His withers darkened with sweat, but Ragoczy paid little attention. He led the gelding to an iron pole which had once formed part of the support for the block-and-tackle rig to the hayloft. Carefully Ragoczy secured the reins to the pole, knotting them twice. He took time to pat the horse, to blow in his nostrils and calm him before turning toward the chicken coops and the high, hysterical sobs of the child.

As he stepped into the coop, the smell of chickens and blood almost made him dizzy. Ragoczy lifted one arm and steadied himself against the low beam. The mangled bodies of two cocks had been flung against the wall and were now crumpled bundles of feathers in the straw. It was the only evidence of waste that Ragoczy had seen on this estate.

Near the far door, there was a small figure half-covered in straw. At the sound of Ragoczy’s approaching footsteps the child screamed and was echoed by the nervous whinny of the tethered chestnut outside.

Ragoczy stopped. “No, no, child,” he said soothingly, first in Russian, then in Polish. He waited, listening, until the shriek died away. “I will not harm you, child. I won’t hurt you.” He took two cautious steps forward. He could see more clearly now. “You have nothing to fear from me.”

Quite abruptly the child fell silent. A face poked out of the straw and large eyes as brown as Dutch chocolates grew huge with terror. The child whimpered once, then trembling, attempted to burrow into the straw.

This pathetic gesture filled Ragoczy with sorrow. He stood still as he spoke to the youngster. “I have said I will not hurt you.” He repeated his words in Polish, then went back to Russian. “I am alone. I will not hurt you.” He could not say that he was unarmed because there was a knife tucked into the top of his boot and a pistol in his sleeve.

The child scrambled in the straw, huddling closer to the wall of the chicken coop.

“Be still, child,” Ragoczy murmured, and in two swift, silent strides was beside the cringing figure. He went down on one knee. “I will not harm you. You are safe with me. Believe this.” Then, very deliberately, very shyly, he put his hand on the child’s back.

At this the child stopped moving, almost stopped breathing.

“I will not harm you,” Ragoczy said again, making no further movement. Under his long, small fingers he could feel the child’s breath in shallow panting. He realized with some surprise that the child was wearing an ill-fitting dress of ornate brocades. They remained thus—Ragoczy with his hand resting lightly on the child’s back, the child half-hidden in the straw—for more than a quarter of an hour. Then the child turned a filthy, blotched face up to Ragoczy.

“Who are you?” she asked in excellent, aristocratic Russian.

“Franchot Ragoczy, Count of Saint-Germain,” he answered at once.

“You’re not with them?” Her voice quavered and she dragged an embroidered cuff over her upper lip.

“No.”

“Are they still here?”

He shook his head. “They’ve been gone since before sunset.”

“Oh.” She got unsteadily to her knees. “Is anyone left?”

Regretfully he told her the truth. “I didn’t see anyone: I don’t think so.”

This information made very little impression on the girl. She shook her head, frowning. “I ran. Everyone did.” She struggled to her feet, tugging at the brocade dress that did not fit her. It was of fine quality, a light shade of teal, Ragoczy judged, though in this gloom even he could not be sure. There was embroidery on the sleeves, the bodice, and the hem, and the waist and neck were sewn with patterns of seed pearls. It had been made for a girl of twelve or thirteen; the child who wore it was no more than seven. Her feet were bare and badly scraped. There was one jeweled comb in her tangled blonde hair. She stared at the far wall. “I don’t remember…”

“It’s not important now,” Ragoczy said, knowing how many times great shocks were lost to the mind. “What’s your name?”

She looked up at him as if she did not understand the question. “Laisha Vlassevna?”

He heard the uncertainty in her voice. “Is that all?”

She considered a moment, then nodded. “Laisha Vlassevna.”

No last name. It would make finding her family—if any of them remained—quite difficult. He could not leave her here, and if what he had seen was any indication, there were few havens here on the edge of Poland. “Where do you come from, Laisha Vlassevna?”

“Here?” She trembled again.

He decided not to pursue the matter. Perhaps later, when she was less frightened, when she was able to recall more of her identity, he would find out where she lived and whose child she was. “I will have to leave here soon, Laisha Vlassevna. Do you want to come with me?” He could not abandon her, and had already made up his mind that he must take her away from this ruin and the danger that was all around them. Yet he did not want to add to the fright that already overwhelmed her, so he waited while she thought about what he asked her.

More than three minutes later she asked him, “Where are you going?”

“Away from here. Westward.” He had not yet decided which of his houses would be best, though he was fairly certain his château in France, located near Béthincourt in la Forêt du Mort-Homme, had not fared well in the war. It might be wisest to go to his Schloss on the west side of Schliersee: he would not be far from his house in München, and his estate outside Wien would be within reach.

“Is that far?” Her smile was tentative, disoriented.

“A fair distance, yes.” Wherever he went, it would be far away from this place.

“Oh.” She pulled at a long strand of pale hair, humming a little. “I don’t know. If I leave, someone might…” Her face contorted at once and fresh tears spilled from her eyes.

Ragoczy picked her up and held her, saying nothing until the worst was over. He had little experience of children, but the plight of this girl filled him with pity. “Laisha Vlassevna,” he said quietly, hoping that it actually was her name, and not simply a name she remembered out of her past.

She put her hands on his shoulder and pushed away, but when he tried to set her down, she shrieked and clung to the collar of his coat. “No. No! No!”

“Then you must come with me, Laisha Vlassevna.” He began to pick his way across the floor of the chicken coop. As he neared the door, Laisha grabbed him around the neck and squirmed in his grasp. “What is it?” he asked as calmly as he could, stopping while she hid her head against his shoulder.