Turkish Gambit (13 page)

Sobolev excavated his approaches rather ineptly, but Varya was flattered by his attentions - after all, he was a genuine hero, even if he did carry that idiotic bush around on his face. When it was tactfully suggested that the form of his beard might be modified, the general had taken to haggling: he would be willing to make such a sacrifice, but only in exchange for certain guarantees. However, the offering of guarantees did not enter into Varya's plans.

Five days earlier Sobolev had come to her in a happy mood; at long last he had been given his own detachment - two Cossack regiments - and he was to take part in the storming of Plevna, covering the southern flank of the main corps. Varya had wished him a successful new start. Michel had told her he had taken Perepyolkin as his chief of staff, describing the tedious captain as follows: 'He followed me around, whingeing and gazing into my eyes, so I took him. And what do you think, Varvara Andreevna? Eremei Ionovich Perepyolkin may be tedious, but he certainly is sound -he's from the general staff, after all. They know him in the operations section and they provide him with useful information. And then I can see that he is personally devoted to me; he hasn't forgotten who saved him from the Bashi-Bazouks. And, sinner that I am, I prize devotion above all else in my subordinates.'

Sobolev had more than enough on his hands now, but only two days ago his orderly Seryozha Bereshchagin had delivered a sumptuous bouquet of scarlet roses from His Excellency. The roses were still standing as firm as the heroes of the Battle of Borodino, showing no signs of drooping, and the entire tent was permeated with their dense, sensual scent.

The breach created by the general's withdrawal had been promptly filled by Zurov, a firm believer in the cavalry charge. Varya burst out laughing as she recalled how jauntily the captain had carried out his initial reconnaissance . . .

'A veritable bellevue, mademoiselle. Nature!' was what he had said that time when he followed Varya as she went out of the press club to admire the sunset. Then without wasting any time, he had changed the subject. 'Erasmus is a wonderful chap, don't you think? A heart as pure and white as a bed sheet. And a splendid comrade, even if he is a bit sulky.'

Then the hussar had paused and glanced expectantly at Varya with those insolently handsome eyes. Varya had waited to see what would come next.

'A fine, good-looking brunet too. Put him in a hussar's uniform and he'd cut a fine figure altogether,' said Zurov, doggedly pursuing his theme. 'He may go around looking like a bedraggled chicken now, but you should have seen the old Erasmus! An Arabian tornado!'

Varya had gazed at the fibber mistrustfully: she found it absolutely impossible to imagine the titular counsellor in the role of an 'Arabian tornado'.

'What could possibly have brought about such a change?' she had asked, hoping to learn something about Erast Petrovich's mysterious past.

But Zurov had merely shrugged: 'The devil only knows. It's been a year since we last saw each other. It must be a fatal case of love. You think we men are all heartless, insensitive dummies, but in our souls we are ardent and easily wounded.' He lowered his eyes sorrowfully. 'A broken heart can make an old man of you even at twenty.'

Varya had snorted: 'At twenty, indeed! Trying to hide your age does not become you.'

'Why, not me, I meant Fandorin,' the hussar explained. 'He is only twenty-one.'

'Who, Erast Petrovich?' Varya had gasped. 'Oh, come now, even I am twenty-two.'

'That is exactly what I mean,' Zurov had said, brightening up. 'What you need is someone a bit more mature, closer to thirty.'

But she had stopped listening, astounded by what he had told her. Fandorin was only twenty-one? Twenty-one! Incredible! So that was why Kazanzaki had called him a 'wunderkind'. Of course, the titular counsellor had a boyish face, but the way he carried himself, that glance, those greying temples! What chill wind could have frosted your temples so early, Erast Petrovich?

Interpreting her bewilderment in his own way, the hussar had assumed a dignified air and declared: 'What I am leading up to is this: if that rascal Erasmus has beaten me to it, then I withdraw immediately. Whatever his detractors may claim, mademoiselle, Zurov is a man with principles. He will never try to poach anything that belongs to his friend.'

'Are you speaking of me?' Varya had asked in sudden realisation. 'If I am "something that belongs" to Fandorin, you will not try to poach me; but if I am not "something that belongs" to him, you will try. Have I understood you correctly?'

Zurov jiggled his eyebrows diplomatically, but without the slightest sign of embarrassment.

‘I belong and always will belong to nobody but myself, but I do have a fiance,' Varya had reprimanded the insolent lout.

'So I have heard. But I do not count monsieur the detainee among my friends,' the captain had replied in a more cheerful voice, and the reconnaissance was complete.

The full-frontal assault had followed immediately: 'Would you care to wager with me, mademoiselle? If I can guess who will be first to come out of the marquee, you will favour me with a kiss. If I guess wrong, then I shall shave my head, like a Bashi-Bazouk. Make up your mind! Of course, the risk you would be taking is perfectly minimal - there are at least twenty people in the marquee.'

Varya had felt her lips curl into a smile despite herself. 'So who will be first?'

Zurov had pretended to be thinking hard and shaken his head despairingly: 'Aagh, farewell to my curly locks . . . Colonel Sablin. No! McLaughlin. No . . . The bartender Semyon, that's who!'

He had cleared his throat loudly and a second later the bartender had come strolling out of the club, wiping his hands on the hem of his long-waisted silk coat. He had looked up briskly at the sky, muttered: 'Oh, I hope it's not going to rain,' and gone back inside, without even glancing at Zurov.

'It's a miracle, a sign from above!' the count had exclaimed, stroking his moustache as he leaned towards the giggling Varya.

She had expected him to kiss her on the cheek, the way that Petya always did, but Zurov had aimed for her lips and the kiss had proved to be long, quite extraordinary and positively vertiginous.

Eventually, when she felt that she was about to choke, Varya had pushed the impetuous cavalry officer away and clutched at her heart.

'Oh, I'll slap your face so hard,' she had threatened in a feeble voice. 'I was warned by decent people that you don't play fair.'

'For a slap to the face I shall challenge you to a duel. And naturally I shall be vanquished,' the count had purred, goggling at her.

It had been quite impossible to be angry with him . . .

A round face appeared in the door of the tent. It was Lushka, the excitable and muddle-headed girl who performed the duties of maid and cook for the nurses, as well as lending a hand in the hospital when there was a large influx of wounded.

'There's a soldier waiting for you, miss,' Lushka blurted out. 'Dark-haired he is, with a moustache and a bunch of flowers. What shall I tell him?'

Speak of the devil, thought Varya, and smiled to herself again. She found Zurov's siege technology highly amusing.

'Let him wait. I'll be out soon’ she said, throwing off her blanket.

But it was not the hussar strolling up and down beside the hospital tents, where all was in readiness to receive new wounded; it was the fragrantly scented Colonel Lukan, yet another ardent aspirant.

Varya heaved a heavy sigh, but it was too late to withdraw.

'Ravissante comme l'Aurore!' the colonel exclaimed, first dashing to take her hand, then recoiling as he recalled the manners of modern women.

Varya shook her head in rejection of the bouquet, glanced at the gleaming gold braid of the Roumanian ally's uniform and asked coolly: 'What are you doing all decked up in your finery first thing in the morning?'

'I am leaving for Bucharest, for a meeting of His Highness's military council,' the colonel announced grandly. 'I called round to say goodbye and at the same time invite you to breakfast.' He clapped his hands and a foppish barouche hove into view from around the corner. The orderly sitting on the coach box was dressed in a washed-out uniform, but he was wearing white gloves.

'After you,' Lukan said with a bow, and Varya, intrigued despite herself, sat down on the springy seat.

'Where are we going?' she asked. 'To the officers' canteen?'

The Roumanian merely smiled mysteriously in reply, as though he were planning to whisk his companion away to the other side of the world. The colonel had been behaving in a rather mysterious manner just recently. He was still spending night after night without a break at the card table, but whereas during the initial days of his ill-starred acquaintance with Zurov there had been a hounded and downcast air about him, he seemed entirely recovered now, and although he was still throwing away substantial sums of money, he did not seem dispirited in the least.

'How did yesterday's game go?' asked Varya, looking closely at the brown circles under Lukan's eyes.

'Fortune has finally smiled on me,' he replied with a beaming smile of his own. 'Your Zurov's luck has run out. Have you ever heard of the law of large numbers? If you carry on betting large sums day after day, then sooner or later you are bound to win everything back.'

As far as Varya could recall, Petya's exposition of this theory had been rather different, but it was hardly worth arguing about.

'The count has blind luck on his side, but I have mathematical reckoning and a huge fortune on mine. There, look' - he held up his little finger - 'I have won back my family ring. An Indian diamond, eleven carats. Brought back from the Crusades by one of my ancestors.'

'Why, did the Roumanians actually take part in the Crusades?' Varya exclaimed rather too hastily, and had to endure an entire lecture on the colonel's family tree, which proved to go all the way back to the Roman legate Lucian Mauritius Tulla.

Meanwhile the barouche had driven out of the camp and halted in a shady grove. Standing there under an old oak tree was a table covered with a starched white cloth on which such an abundance of tasty things was laid out that Varya immediately began to feel hungry. There were French cheeses, and various fruits, and smoked salmon and pink ham, and crimson crayfish, and reclining elegantly in a little silver bucket was a bottle of Lafite.

It had to be admitted that even Lukan possessed certain positive qualities.

Just as they had raised their first glass, there was a deep rumbling far away in the distance and Varya's heart skipped a beat. How could she have allowed herself to become so distracted? The storming of Plevna had begun! Over there the dead were falling, the wounded were groaning, while she . . .

Guiltily pushing away a bowl of emerald-green early grapes, Varya said: 'My God, for their sake I hope everything goes according to plan.'

The colonel drained his glass in a single swallow and immediately filled it again. Still chewing on something, he observed: 'The plan is, of course, a good one. As His Highness's personal representative I am acquainted with it and was even involved to some extent in drawing it up. The outflanking manoeuvre under cover of a range of hills is particularly original. Shakhovsky's and Veliaminov's columns advance on Plevna from the east. Sobolev's small detachment distracts Osman-pasha's attention in the south. On paper it all looks quite beautiful.' Lukan drained his glass. 'But war, Mademoiselle Varvara, is not fought on paper. And your compatriots will achieve absolutely nothing.'

'But why?' Varya gasped.

The colonel chuckled and tapped the side of his head with one finger. 'I am a strategist, mademoiselle, I see further ahead than your general staff officers.' He nodded towards his map case. 'Over there I have a copy of the report which I forwarded yesterday to Prince Karl. I predict a total fiasco for the Russians and I am certain that His Highness will be adequately appreciative of my perspicacity. Your commanders are too arrogant and self-assured; they overestimate their own soldiers and underestimate the Turks. And also their Roumanian allies. But never mind - after today's lesson the tsar himself will ask for our help, you shall see.'

The colonel broke off a handsome chunk of Roquefort and Varya's mood was finally ruined.

Lukan's gloomy predictions proved correct.

In the evening Varya and Fandorin stood at the edge of the Plevna road as the wagons bearing the wounded drove past them in a never-ending line. The tally of casualties was not yet complete, but at the hospital she had been told that the ranks had been reduced by at least seven thousand men. They had also told her that Sobolev had distinguished himself by drawing the thrust of the Turkish counter-attack - if not for his Cossacks, the rout would have been a hundred times more devastating. Amazement had also been expressed at the satanic precision demonstrated by the Turkish gunners, who had shelled columns while they were still making their approach, before the battalions had even been deployed for the attack.

Varya told all this to Erast Petrovich, but he didn't say a word. Either he knew it all already, or he was in a state of shock - she couldn't tell.

The column ground to a halt: one of the wagons had lost a wheel. Varya had been trying to look at the maimed and injured as little as possible, but now she glanced more closely at the lopsided wagon and gasped; she thought she recognised one wounded officer's face, a patch of dull white in the radiant dusk of summer. She went closer and discovered she was right: it was Colonel Sablin, one of the regular visitors to the club. He was lying there unconscious, covered with a blood-soaked greatcoat. His body seemed strangely short.